Free Contain by Saul Tanpepper

But what
if he's right?
    “ You ever bring her down
there?”
    I sigh and nod. “Yeah.
Sometimes.”
    “ You dog!” He slaps me on
the arm.
    “ It's not like that. Bren
helps me out is all. She keeps me company. And, okay, maybe we've
made out on occasion.”
    “ Gah! Stop it! I'll never be able to eat dinner again without
picturing you two making mashed potatoes all over the—”
    “ Bix! Be
serious.”
    “ La la
la! ” he says, loud enough to drown me out.
He cups his hands over his ears. “I don't want the gory details!
Okay, maybe I do.”
    Bix!”
    “ No, no, you’re right.
It’ll just give me nightmares thinking about a bunch of little
Brennians running around in this place.”
    “ Brennians?”
    “ Yeah, you know: Bren and
Finnian. Like famous celebrity couples.” He waves his hands about
as he tries to come up with an example. Then he snaps his fingers.
“Like Brangelina! ”
    “ Who?”
    “ Kimye ?” He rolls his eyes and groans. “You're killing me here,
Finn.”
    “ It would be a justifiable
homicide.”
    “ Oh, did the Finn-meister
just make a joke?”
    “ No, I was totally
serious.”
    “ I'm just saying, Finn,
Bren's got to know the code. Kind of strange that she's suddenly
hanging out with Jerkasaurus
rex .”
    “ She
wouldn't . . . .”
    My thoughts darken further
as I contemplate the possibilities. I can feel my blood beginning
to boil. Would she?
    I thought she loved me. Maybe she was
just using me. Or maybe Jonah was using her. But if that was the
case, why wouldn't he just swipe food from the working larder? A
cupful of rice here and there over time could really add up. A
package of dehydrated fruit. Surely no one would notice that. In
fact, it seems more likely than sneaking into the big
storage.
    Not unless he wanted the
blame to fall squarely on me.
    “ Ground control to Major
Tom?” Bix says, snapping his fingers in my face.
“Hello?”
    I bat his hand away. I don't want to
think about any of that right now. Right now I need to tell my
father about Jonah. I need to protect us from any ideas he might
have of splitting our group apart. It's become imperative that Dad
not lose that vote.
    He's not in his cot when we return. I
glance at the clock on the wall and am startled by how late it is.
He's already risen and begun his daily duties, just like the rest
of the bunker.
    Bix notices the time, too, and excuses
himself. “Dad'll be wondering about me. See you at
lunch?”
    I nod distractedly. I have my other
assigned chores to do as well, but I need to find my
father.
    I run into Kari Mueller, and she tells
me she saw him with Doc Cavanaugh heading down to the med bay, but
when I get down there and peek into Eddie's room, I don't see
them.
    Hannah shows up a moment later. When
she sees me, she stops and starts to turn around, but then changes
her mind.
    “ I can explain,” she starts
to say. But I scowl at her and tell her I don't want to know. It's
none of my business what she does with her time, or who she hangs
out with. If she wants to spend it with Jonah, so be it. I'm not
her father.
    No, her father's lying in a bed just
on the other side of this door. He's barely clinging to life
because I didn't stop him from going inside that room. He'll never
be the same now, even if he does manage to survive the
infections.
    I hurry up the hallway to Doc
Cavanaugh's office. Or lab. That's what she calls it, even though
she has very little equipment to speak of inside. She and a few
others have done their best to scrape together bits and pieces from
around the bunker. They've managed to make a stethoscope. And using
parts from one of the security cameras, she's been able to make a
fairly decent ophthalmoscope.
    There had been some hope early on,
given that we were lucky to be assigned someone with medical
training, that we'd be able to combine her knowledge and others'
skills to learn about the Flense. But it's a lot harder when you
have no blood machines, no analytical