Read The In-Betweener (Between Life and Death) (S) for Free Online Page B

fence and his arms locked straight, like he’s trying to force himself not to start licking the tempting metal in front of him. And it is very tempting. There’s metal everywhere, but good old iron is a favorite of theirs. Maybe they feel about iron the way I feel about cheese curls. They haunt my dreams sometimes. Bags and bags of them just out of reach. I could tear up some cheese curls right about now, two years past the expiration date or not.
    Enough dreaming about the cheese curls. Thinking about that is just torture and I’m avoiding the fact that I know what he’s trying so hard to communicate to me. I do that sometimes, avoid thinking about hard stuff by dreaming of something else. It’s a bad habit. I take a deep breath and grip my rifle tightly in my suddenly sweaty fists.
    “You have kids somewhere that need help. Is that what you’re saying?” I call out and hear a relieved groan in response.
    “Are they human?” I ask, then cringe when I realize what I’m asking and to whom I’m asking the question.
    He doesn’t react to that in a negative way at all, but rather he bounces on his knees, as if excited by my question. “Yah!”
    “Bring them here,” I call out. I’m not leaving this compound, but kids, especially waist-high ones, make it impossible for me to simply walk away.
    He shakes his head violently and mumbles something I can’t understand.
    “Are there more of you? Is that why you can’t?” I ask.
    The bouncing knees commence again and I understand suddenly that this is his way of nodding. And I understand what the problem is. If there is some part of him that wants to save those kids, then that part also knows he can’t herd kids in his state. Perhaps he realizes that he can’t be trusted with them.
    I have to think about this. My only goals for today were to walk the perimeter and clear off any deaders, grab some food from the distribution warehouse inside the complex, and get a little sunshine to stave off depression. That’s it.
    I don’t leave the complex except to dispatch my fence deaders, and even then I rarely go more than a hundred feet from the fence. The last time I truly left was more than a year ago, before my mom died and was reborn, the fever that killed her leaving her red-faced and puffy, the nanites that restarted her heart leaving her brain-damaged and dangerous. Then, I’d left seeking medicine and hadn’t found anything useful. There’s no reason to leave now.
    Except, maybe there is.
    “Shit,” I say softly to the bumper of the truck.
     

Five Years Ago - Magic Beans for Everyone
    On the screen, a man is wheeled out in a wheelchair. At his appearance, flashbulbs pop from somewhere off camera in a rapid, dizzying fire. He sends a nervous glance toward the camera, but seems to collect himself as the woman pushing his chair brings it to a stop and locks its wheels.
    He must be getting cues from someone off screen, because he nods at somebody, grits his teeth, and then awkwardly stands up from his wheelchair. Under normal circumstances, a man rising from a chair wouldn’t be significant, but when he does it, a round of applause greets him. It’s so intense that the TV has to adjust the sound down to avoid exceeding our maximum comfortable set point.
    The row of doctors sitting at the press conference table stand as well, their applause for the man who is standing rather than for themselves, but it is they who have created the miracle. The man is unsteady and his smiling attendant holds his elbow firmly to keep him from losing his balance.
    One of those doctors is Blue Cami. His name is Doctor Reed, but he lets me call him by the name I used when I had trouble remembering names at all, sometimes even my own. He calls me Rat in return. I earned that name. I used to accuse him of using me as a lab rat when he was working to cure me with his brand-new nanites. And he did cure me.
    Now he’s working on yet another set of neurological nanomachines. That’s his