Evolution

by Teri Terry

  A dark and silent stillness. It somehow shields part of me, but from what? Is it antimatter? Antimatter can still be detected in survivors, but it doesn’t make them sick, and they’re not contagious either, so something must be stopping it from mixing with ourselves and others.

  There is nothing known in our matter-based universe that can do this.

  Is it something I made myself when I was ill, or something that was always there? Does everyone have it, but not everyone works out how to use it to save themselves?

  How long I’m like this, reaching and focusing on places inside, I can’t tell. But when I’ve finally had enough and come back to here and now, my body is stiff and aching. Chamberlain is sitting next to me, eyes wide open and looking fairly annoyed. Have I been ignoring his pleas for attention? When I’m reaching like that, I can’t see, hear, or feel anything in the usual way.

  “Bedtime, I think?” I say, and scratch behind his ears, but he’s wide-awake. He looks at me, walks to the door, and looks back again.

  Interesting. I reach out lightly to join with him. He’s agitated about something out there in the night, but I can’t work out what—his feline mind and memories don’t work enough like mine for me to see what it is.

  But he wants to show me something—of that I’m sure.

  So much for sleep. Maybe a walk will do my stiff muscles some good. I stretch, go through my bedroom door, then open the one to the outside, wondering as I do if someone from Community will instantly appear to walk with me like they did during the day, but no. I think everyone here sleeps soundly after joining.

  Chamberlain leads through the trees, and I sense he’s impatient. I follow along more quickly, and he starts to run, then waits while I catch up.

  This isn’t an ordered path he’s following, and it takes me longer than him to find my way through undergrowth and trees. There’s a slope up—a small hill. And around the other side of the hill, surrounded by trees that nearly hide it from view, is a house. It’s built like the houses of Community, but it’s not part of it; it wasn’t on the tour we had of the place either.

  Curiouser and curiouser. What have you found, puss?

  Chamberlain leads me to a window. There’s a middling moon tonight, just enough light cast through the window to see a sleeping form in a single bed.

  A girl. A girl with long dark hair.

  Could it be Callie?

  She’s turned away so I can’t see her face, can’t be sure.

  Earlier I showed Chamberlain what Callie looked like. Has he found her, led me to her?

  Wow.

  Clever cat, you are. I bend, stroke him, then walk around until I find the door. I hope this will be like all Community houses, even though it is set apart, and be unlocked. The handle turns.

  I cross the front room in darkness and find the bedroom door. It’s open. I don’t want to scare her; I knock lightly against the door, but she doesn’t stir.

  I step into the room, study her face, and now I know it: I have no doubt. It is her.

  “Callie?” I say softly.

  Nothing.

  I reach out lightly to her aura; she’s in a deep sleep, so deep it doesn’t feel right somehow. I adjust her consciousness a little, nudge her toward wakefulness.

  She stirs; her head moves.

  “Hello?” I say. “Don’t be scared.”

  She sits up, wincing as she does so. And she looks at me with eyes that even in moonlight I can see are the blue of our father’s.

  “It really is you!” I smile. “So many people have been looking for you.”

  Her eyes are wide. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Shay.”

  “Why would anybody be looking for me? Who are they?” Her voice is puzzled.

  I step closer to her. “Your mother, of course! And your brother—Kai. And me too. I’m your sister—your half sister, that is—though we haven’t met properly before.”

  Her eyes on mine are blank, and even though I’m sure it’s her, I’m starting to doubt myself. “It is you, isn’t it? Callie?”

  She draws breath in sharply, pulls her knees up against her chest. She’s shaking her head hard, side to side.

  “Is something wrong?” I say, and move toward her. “Callie?” I say her name again, and she starts to scream.

  PART 2

  MACRO-EVOLUTION

  If all life on Earth—plant, animal, human—evolved from a common ancestor, life must be able to evolve from completely different forms. Why would—why should—this process have stopped now? Change is the most constant force in the universe.

  —Xander, Multiverse Manifesto

  CHAPTER 1

  FREJA

  THE STORMS HAVE GONE, and the morning is beautiful.

  Kai still sleeps.

  We’d driven for hours in the rain, as fast as we could, to get away from that airfield and SAR. But finally we had to rest, and we found a deserted cabin high on a road with the winding approach visible below us.

  And now I’ve slipped outside to face the dawn.

  To face myself.

  I know Kai can’t read my mind the way survivors can, yet there is something he has, some way of seeing things in me that I don’t see myself. I need to think without an audience—telepathic or otherwise.

  The sun touches my skin, but still I shiver. I hold my hands out to it and will the slight warmth to magnify, to travel through my body. A flush starts deep within me and grows until I’m glowing with its heat, but I still feel cold inside.

  So, Freja: what have you done this time?

  Looking too closely at myself makes me uneasy, but it must be done now, while I’m alone.

  Shay reached out to me with her mind—explained why she was leaving—and she asked me to tell Kai. I withdrew from her touch and thought about what she said. I knew she was being honest and open. I knew she truly thought it was right to leave Kai and break his heart—again. To go with Xander and try to find Kai’s sister, if she can even be found.

  And then I went back to Shay’s mind and told her I’d pass on her message.

  But I didn’t.

  I didn’t tell Kai. I didn’t give him hope that his broken heart might be healed again.

  Why?

  There are reasons wrapped around excuses that I don’t want to face, but I make myself.

  Is it because I want him for myself?

  No. Maybe that is true also, but I did this for him. There is one thing I know above all others: false hope is worse than none. Shay has hurt him like this before; she’s done it again now. Given a chance, she’d do it again in the future. Of this I have no doubt.

  Kai makes me feel…protective. In a fierce way, like how a cat will face any threat for her kitten. He is a broken thing that needs to be mended. Shay will not do this for him; she hurts him again and again. I feel it deep in my gut.

  I will mend him.

  I will be what he needs. And right now? He needs a friend, most of all.

  “Freja?”

  I spin around, feeling weirdly like I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t. Kai stands in the doorway behind me, hair mussed, clothes creased. Still gorgeous. And the sadness in his eyes and aura somehow makes him even more so—makes me ache to reach out and hold him.

  Instead I smile. “Good morning,” I say. “Did you sleep?”

  “Surprised myself, but yes.”

  “You were worn out. I’m surprised you woke up this early.”

  “I thought I heard something.”

  “Sorry, I tried to be quiet—” I start to say, but then I stop speaking when he holds up a hand and turns his head to the side. Listening. And that is when I hear it too.

  CHAPTER 2

  KAI

  THIS ROAD WOUND UP AND UP LAST NIGHT—the extended view of it below us was part of the reaso
n we picked here to stop. And just now on the road, perhaps a few minutes away? Jeeps, two of them, and a truck. Army. Heading this way very fast. I curse under my breath. There was no sign of anyone following us last night. We should have taken turns staying awake, keeping watch, but we were both so tired.

  “Maybe they have nothing to do with us,” Freja says.

  But neither of us believes it. We race for the car.

  We watch, wait until they disappear down a dip so they won’t see us, then accelerate up the road. We’re climbing; the road rises ahead of us still.

  Freja turns in her seat. “I can see them again now,” she says.

  If we can see them, they can see us.

  The road twists; there is a drop-off to the left side, one that gradually steepens.

  “How about we fake an accident, then run and hide?” I say.

  “I always wanted to be a stunt double.”

  We go on until there are some woods that climb to the right. I turn the car to the cliff.

  We get out, and I reach back to wedge a map book on the accelerator before releasing the brake. The car lurches forward, catches my arm, and almost sends me flying along with it.

  It catapults over the edge, bounces down the steep slope. Crashes.

  I stand still, watching it fall, but they are getting closer, and Freja pulls on my arm. We run into the cover of trees off to the right just as there is a loud explosion below us.

  We scamper farther up rocks and sparse trees, crouch down to hide just as the jeeps speed around the corner. Smoke and flames are rising from below, and they screech to a stop.

  Figures in biohazard suits get out, peer over the edge, shake their heads. Is it working? Do they think we died in that wreck?

  But then the truck that was farther behind pulls in. Another suited figure gets out, speaks to the others. Then he turns, looks around, then up at the woods—straight to where we’re hiding. He speaks, gestures to the others, and they start up the slope toward us.

  Some of them circle to our left, some to our right, and some straight toward the woods.

  Run!

  We dodge between rocks and trees, trying to stay out of sight, but then there is a shout—we’ve been seen—so now we just run, full tilt, uphill, clambering over rocks.

  “Stop or we’ll shoot,” a voice calls out.

  A bullet rips into the dirt above us.

  We stop. Turn and raise our hands, with no certainty that they won’t just shoot us now anyway.

  For myself I almost don’t care. Whatever happens, I feel half-dead inside already. But Freja trembles at my side; she wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.

  I wind my right hand around her left one, as they are, over our heads. Sorry I got you into this mess, I say silently and hope she’ll hear.

  Soldiers, breathing hard, reach us a few at a time. The first few train guns on us until the rest arrive and surround us. But they don’t seem to plan to shoot us—at least, not yet.

  “Move!” one says, and they push us back the way we came, down the slope through the trees.

  When we get to the road, there stands Lieutenant Kirkland-Smith.

  CHAPTER 3

  FREJA

  I’M SICK WITH FEAR. These people—I know what they do to survivors. And I know there is something I could do to strike out right now into their auras—to kill, the way Shay and Xander have done before. But I can’t bring myself to do that. I just can’t.

  I can’t hurt anyone. I’m sorry, I whisper to Kai inside his head, and his grip on my hand tightens.

  “Kai, isn’t it?” one of them says, the one who told the others what to do. “But your friend I don’t know.”

  He nods at one of the soldiers, who then grabs my arm, starts to pull me away from Kai.

  “Leave her alone!” Despite the guns still trained on us, Kai strikes at the soldier who grabbed me. But two more are there, and one hits Kai. I scream, struggle. He falls to the ground.

  One of them holds me while another grabs my left hand. He holds it out to the one calling the shots for inspection.

  “No immune tattoo, I see,” he says. “What is your name?”

  “Freja. Freja Eriksen,” I say, so scared I give my real name without stopping to think to give a false one.

  “Freja, it is a pleasure to meet you, even under such circumstances. I’m Lieutenant Kirkland-Smith. Now. Would you care to explain why you are inside the zone, alive, but without a tattoo or a suit?”

  I stare back at him, silent, mind racing. They don’t know what I am. But what do I say?

  “Well, I’ll tell you what I know, and perhaps you can fill in the missing details.” He gestures to another soldier, who pulls Kai to his feet and holds him with an arm around his neck. Kai groans, his eyes only half-open. Another soldier holds a gun to Kai’s head—and in that moment, I almost think I could do it: I could strike out at them to stop them from hurting Kai any more.

  But wait. Are they trying to provoke that reaction? Is this a test?

  Instead, I let the fear show on my face, and a tear trickles down my cheek. “Please don’t hurt him, please…”

  “That is up to you, Freja. Now listen. This is what I know. We were at Alexander Cross’s house when you and Kai arrived. There were a number of survivors there; there were a few…altercations. Some of them got away. We followed, but they took off in a plane in a heavy storm. We tracked you from that airfield and find ourselves at this moment. Is that correct so far?”

  I swallow, find my voice. “Yes.”

  “Why were you there with Kai?”

  My eyes move to Kai; his are drooping closed. Does he hear what I say? “Kai was looking for his girlfriend.”

  “Shay McAllister; a survivor.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she there?”

  Should I answer? They must know she was there: it’s another test.

  I nod. “She chose to leave with the others and Xander. Alexander Cross, I mean.”

  “And why didn’t the two of you go with them? Wouldn’t it have been easier to get away in the plane?”

  “Maybe. Xander used to be Kai’s stepfather; they don’t get along. We didn’t want to go with them.”

  “I see. And where did they go?”

  “They didn’t tell us.”

  He stares back at me in silence, and I resist the urge to say anything else.

  “Are you immune?” he asks, finally.

  “I must be,” I lie. “I haven’t caught it.”

  He’s looking back at me, considering what I said. Finally he nods at the soldier with the gun to Kai’s head, and my heart almost stops—but then the soldier moves it away from Kai.

  “That’ll do. For now. But know this: we will take you back to the old zone boundary where we can test you to find out if you are a survivor. So, Freja, is there anything else you want to tell me now?”

  My stomach lurches with fear when he mentions being tested: have they got the scan that detects survivors? I struggle to keep it from my face. I shake my head. “No. Let us go. We haven’t done anything!”

  “Oh? Survivors are a threat to public health and must be reported to the authorities. Did you attempt to report them?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “And the man you call Xander—well, let’s just say he has a lot to answer for regarding the start of the epidemic. I ask you again. Do you know where they went?”

  “They never said! I told you: he and Kai hate each other. He was hardly going to tell us where they were going.”

  “You say you haven’t done anything. Yet when we followed to ask you these reasonable questions, you ran away. You crashed your car down a cliff to try to evade us. These are not the actions of the innocent.”

  They take us to the back of the truck and lock us inside.

  CHAPTER 4

  KAI
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  FREJA GENTLY TOUCHES the spreading bruise above my eye, and I sense what she is about to do and shake my head. If she heals me, they’ll know what she is.

  Let me take the pain away; I’ll leave the surface abrasion and bruise as they are. They won’t be able to see what I’ve done. A gentle warmth inside me spreads, and the headache that jars with each bump on the road is soon gone. My thoughts start to feel clearer.

  Thank you.

  Anyway, if they scan me, they’ll know what I am soon enough, she adds, and there is dark fear twisting inside her.

  I put my arm around her shoulders and draw her close. She snugs her face in against my chest, and even though she’s almost as tall as I am, she feels slight, fragile. Her heart beats fast. I don’t think they truly believe you are a survivor, or they wouldn’t have brought you along, I say, leaving unsaid what the alternative may have been. Maybe mentioning testing you was a bluff to make you react? These guys are SAR, not regular army. I’m not sure they’ve even got access to things like scans.

  Then why not just let us go?

  I’ve got no answer for that.

  I should have used another name. I’m wanted for murder in London. And if they find any of my It’s All Lies vlog posts about being a survivor and not being contagious, they’ll know anyway.

  Didn’t those posts get taken down by the police almost as soon as they went up? Look, you did the best you could. Let’s hope they don’t work it all out.

  We bounce along in the back of the truck for what feels like hours. Freja finally falls asleep in my arms, and her lashes, so blond, curl on her cheek. The red dye in her hair is half grown out to blond now, but the crazy look suits her.