by Malinda Lo
“No.” He blew out the smoke in a long stream. “I have to meet Bri. We’re planning the first GSA meeting of the year.”
“Oh.” It was like the ground had split open between her and Julian, and she didn’t know how to cross the gap.
“I’d invite you to the meeting but I don’t get the impression you want to be associated with the GSA this year.”
His words stung. “Why would you think that?”
He did look at her then, and his dark brown eyes were full of anger. “Why? Why don’t you come out? What are you afraid of?”
Her face burned. “I’m not afraid of anything. It’s not relevant!”
He took another drag on his cigarette and looked past her at the soccer field. “Your boyfriend’s back.”
She felt as if he had slapped her across the face. She hoisted her backpack over her shoulders and made herself walk away before she said something she would really regret. As she crossed the edge of the soccer field she saw the boys’ team running sprints. One of them slowed down, looking in her direction, and she heard the coach shouting at him to get back in line. She knew it was David, but she didn’t stop.
CHAPTER 17
Every day, reporters, photographers, and demonstrators lingered outside Kennedy High School, shouting questions at Reese each time she went in or out. On Tuesday, the police set up barricades and forced most of the demonstrators across the street, where they lined the edge of Dolores Park with their signs. On Wednesday after school, Reese could see them through the library window, several dozen protesters and press crowded together behind waist-high metal railings. She was supposed to be doing her Principles of Democracy homework while she waited for David to finish soccer practice, but she kept glancing up to take stock of the signage. There were a lot of STOP COLONIZATION signs today.
She turned back to her laptop. Alex Hernandez had assigned the class what he termed a “fun” project; he wanted them to write five-hundred-word essays on the First Amendment, discussing how it was being used in the demonstrations across the street. In the past hour, Reese hadn’t gotten very far. She felt as though Hernandez was mocking her and David with the assignment. The protesters outside might be able to vocalize their beliefs, but she wasn’t allowed to tell the truth about what had happened to her. She scowled at her keyboard and typed, “The First Amendment should apply to all United States citizens, but in reality, it can be easily revoked by the government when it wants to hide the truth from the public.”
She started when someone dropped a backpack onto the table across from her. She looked up to see David wearing an old KENNEDY SOCCER T-shirt, the letters faded from too many washings. “Hey,” he said, bending over to kiss her lightly. A warm pulse went through her, and she pulled back self-consciously.
“Hi,” she said. A couple of sophomores at the table nearby were watching them.
His hair was still damp from his post-practice shower. “What are you working on?” he asked.
“That stupid essay for Hernandez.” He leaned over her shoulder to read the first line she had written, and she smelled something tangy and sharp, a scent she was beginning to identify with him. She scooted a little closer, her hair brushing against his cheek.
He laughed. “You’re starting off with that?”
She blew out her breath in frustration. “No. I just can’t figure out what to say.” She began to delete the sentence. “So you’re finished with practice? You’re ready to go?”
“Yep.”
“Cool.” She closed her laptop and grabbed her backpack so that she could put her things away. Her parents had insisted on picking her up from school every day, making her feel like a little kid, but today they had agreed that she could go over to David’s house for dinner. He had even driven to school so they wouldn’t have to deal with the Muni and the paparazzi, which seemed to come out in full force when they were together.
“I’m parked up on Twentieth Street,” David said. “We’re going to have to walk past the reporters.”
“I’m sure we’ll have our little MIB escorts to protect us.”
Outside, the late afternoon sun slanted brightly down from the west, crowning the green lawn of Dolores Park in a wash of gold light. They were forced to cross the street toward the protesters and photographers, and as they stepped into the crosswalk, David reached for her hand. The tide of the crowd’s mental assault lessened as she focused on David at her fingertips. She knew that photos of the two of them hand in hand would be splashed all over the Hub within minutes, but for once she didn’t care. She hadn’t been without adult supervision since her date with David on Friday night, and she felt a little reckless now, walking free and unchaperoned across the pockmarked grass of Dolores Park.
When she and David reached the broad meadow below the children’s playground, she thought: I’ll race you to the hill. He didn’t expect it, and she took off, tightening the straps of her backpack as she began to run. The air was fresh and cool and smelled of summer, and she laughed out loud.
Reese and David spread their books and laptops open across the blue shag carpet. They were downstairs in what used to be an in-law unit; it had been converted to a large open space with a comfortable rug and slouchy sofa, a boxy old television on a stand in the corner. Reese lay on her stomach on the floor, surfing for news about the protesters on her computer and still trying to find an angle on her essay for Principles of Democracy, while David worked through a calculus problem set.
“Have you thought about what you’re going to write yet?” she asked him, clicking through photos from the ferry protest.
“No. I’ll do it tomorrow. This is due first.”
David sat with his back against the couch, math book propped open beside him as he scribbled numbers and symbols onto a pad of paper. He seemed fairly engrossed in his homework so Reese turned back to the Internet. She was beginning to recognize the various theories behind the signs. The STOP COLONIZATION protesters believed that the Imria were here to take over Earth via the adaptation procedure, which would turn all humans into Imrian slaves. Signs such as ABDUCTEES FOR DISCLOSURE came from groups of people who believed they had been abducted by aliens in the past. Some of these individuals claimed they recognized the Imria from their abduction experiments, while others merely wanted recognition of their traumatic experiences—along with financial remuneration. Lastly, there was a pro-Imria faction that was so enamored of the extraterrestrials that they held signs proclaiming I VOLUNTEER, in reference to the Imrian plan to seek out test subjects for the adaptation procedure. Reese wondered if Julian was going to show up at one of the demonstrations carrying a sign like that.
Thinking about their fight made her uncomfortable. He had been distant from her at school since Monday, and their friends had noticed. When they asked her what was wrong, she brushed it off as nothing important, but she was worried. Maybe she should call him, try to work things out. His last words kept ringing in her memory: Why don’t you come out? What are you afraid of? She remembered him looking at her with a combination of disappointment and betrayal—as if she wasn’t the person he thought she was.
She closed the window showing the pro-Imria protesters as if that would erase the guilty feelings simmering inside her. The window beneath it was open to a general news site, and the top headline read Biologists Believe Imria Have Modified Their Appearances to Look Human. She clicked on it.
LONDON—In a speech at the Royal Society for Anthropology and Archaeology, Oxford University anthropologist Daniel Green theorized that the Imria’s humanlike appearance is due to calculation, not accident, as Imrian ambassador Akiya Deyir suggested earlier this month.
“Statistically speaking, it is close to impossible that life could have arisen on a different planet and produced an intelligent species that looks exactly like us,” Dr. Green said. “Because they are such an advanced civilization, however, it is possible that they have changed themselves—either through plastic surgery or other means—to resemble us.”
When asked to theorize why the Imria might have done this, Dr. Green said, “I’m speculating here, but if you were an advanced civilization making contact with a much less advanced one—and we’re the less advanced civilization here—wouldn’t you make every effort to present yourself in a way that made the less advanced people comfortable?”
“Hey, what are you reading?” David asked, nudging her leg with his foot.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “This anthropologist thinks the Imria are changing themselves to look like us.”
He put down his math homework and lay on his stomach beside her, reading over her shoulder. He wasn’t touching her, but she felt the warmth from his body all along her side.
“I guess that’s a possibility,” he said skeptically.
She remembered what Amber had told her when they talked after the tour of the spaceship. She wasn’t sure if she should mention Amber at all, but what she had said now seemed important. “Amber told me the Imria purposely dress like human men and women.”
A muscle in David’s jaw twitched. “When did she tell you that?”
“When we walked down to the cove together after the press conference.” Reese looked at him, but his face was unreadable. “We were talking about Eres Tilhar, because I didn’t know if Eres was male or female. Amber said Eres is a teacher, and gender is irrelevant for them. Then she said that the Imria dress like men or women here on Earth, because they fit in better that way.”
“Interesting. What’s this at the bottom?” He pointed to a link that read Are the Imria Ancient Aliens? He reached for her computer and clicked on the link, which led to an article with images of the Egyptian pyramids, Mayan paintings, and pictures of giant lines carved into the ground. He skimmed the article. “Some people think aliens have been visiting Earth for thousands of years and helped the ancient Egyptians build their pyramids? That’s crazy.”
She forced herself to accept the change of subject. She didn’t really want to talk about Amber, either. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it before. I’m not a big fan of the theory.”
“Because it makes it seem as if ancient civilizations were too stupid to figure these things out on their own?”
“Exactly. Julian’s kind of into it, but even he doesn’t buy some of the ancient alien theories. He does think some of it can’t be explained without alien intervention, though.” She pointed at the photo of the lines carved into the mountains. “Like this. These are in Peru, and they were made a long time ago.”
“ ‘The Nazca lines,’ ” David read from the caption. “ ‘Some experts believe that these lines, created in the fifth century AD, were ancient runways used by a visiting alien civilization. Could it have been the Imria?’ ” He scrolled down. “This article thinks the Imria are lying about when they first came to Earth. It says that sightings of spaceships began a long time before Roswell.”
“That part’s true. People have seen UFOs forever.”
“Does Julian think the Imria got here before 1947?”
“I don’t know.” She rolled onto her back, moving away from David and the laptop.
He glanced at her. “Is something going on with you two?”
She stared at the overhead light fixture. “We had a fight.”
“About what?”
She couldn’t tell him that Julian had basically accused her of wanting to stay closeted. That was not a discussion she wanted to have with David, who clearly had issues with Amber. Instead she said, “He wants to be adapted.”
“Seriously?”
She shifted onto her side, propping her head in her hand. “Yeah. He says he wants to volunteer to be a test subject. I told him he’s crazy.”
“Why does he want to volunteer?”
She ran her fingers through the shag carpeting. “He thinks the adaptation procedure is this big huge thing that will change humanity for the better. He wants to be part of it. I think he’s romanticizing it.”
David closed her laptop and pushed it aside, turning to face her. “He’s got a point.”
“What do you mean?”
“It will change humanity. If the Imria do what they say they’re going to do, everything is going to change.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you think they’re some kind of savior?”
“They don’t have to be saviors to change everything. You have to admit, this adaptation thing is pretty intense. Think about what the world would be like if everyone had it.”
She flopped onto her back again, avoiding his gaze. She thought about what Julian had said—that if humans had the ability to share their consciousness with others, they wouldn’t be so quick to hate—and she wondered if he was being hopelessly naive. “I don’t want Julian to put himself at risk. You and I didn’t have any choice in the matter—what’s been done to us is done. We have to deal with the consequences. But Julian doesn’t need to get involved.”
“You make it sound so grim.”
She shot him a surprised glance. “It’s not exactly a picnic. Being followed everywhere, being lied to, everybody talking shit about us on the Internet.”
“That’s the public part. But think about what the adaptation has really done to us.” David reached out and touched her arm with one finger. His presence wavered into her consciousness as his finger stroked her skin. “It’s pretty amazing. Remember when we met with Eres Tilhar? I don’t know what you felt, but I felt like this was the answer to everything. Eres—whether she’s a woman or a man, who cares—Eres was bigger than life.”
She felt David’s heartbeat quickening as he spoke. His chest tightened as he remembered what Eres had shown him. He rested his hand on her arm, and her pulse leaped in response.
“I feel like this happened to us for a reason. I know that sounds crazy, and I’m not really religious, but…”
“What?” she said softly. “You can tell me.”
He gave her a quick smile. “Karma. I think about karma, right? I don’t really understand it, but I feel like there’s something bigger than us. Like we pay into a central pot of goodwill or something, and we get back what we put in. That day with Eres Tilhar—that was the first time I felt like I was connected to that pot of karma.”
She grinned in spite of herself and reached for his hand. “A pot of karma? Do you know how much I want to make jokes about Buddhist leprechauns right now?”
David’s mouth curved up. “It’s a good thing I like you or I might be offended.”
“That is a good thing,” she agreed, pulling him closer.
He propped his head on his right hand as the fingers of his left laced through hers. “What did you feel with Eres?” he asked.
She thought back to the moment in the ship with Eres Tilhar. “It felt… big. Like I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. It felt scary.” His body was pressed against her side now, and the warmth of him spread through her limbs. He wanted to touch her, but his hand was motionless in hers. He was holding himself back, and sensing that made her skin flush. This feels scary too, she thought.
She raised her right hand to his waist, where his T-shirt had pulled up. Her fingers ran over the smooth skin of his obliques, and she felt him feel it, a ripple traveling through his body. He let go of her left hand and touched the side of her face, his thumb trailing over her mouth.
Do you want me to stop? he asked. They were both nervous, remembering the overwhelming experience in the shed at the party, how frighteningly easy it was to slip over the edge. Reese told herself to focus on David. She looked up at him: his dark, half-hooded eyes; the sharp strands of his black hair angling over his forehead; the shape of his mouth, slightly open.
No, she told him. I don’t want you to stop. He bent his head and brushed his lips against hers. Her fingers tightened around his waist, pulling him down. His leg slid over hers.
A startled shriek came from the stairs. David jerked his head up and Reese rolled away. Chloe was halfway down the stairs into the family room, her face pink. “Dinne
r?” she squeaked, and then fled.
Reese sat up, her face red, and when she caught the embarrassed expression on David’s face she burst into laughter. He rubbed a hand over his eyes before scrambling to his feet. “Come on. Better my sister than my parents.”
CHAPTER 18
Their first lesson with Eres Tilhar was on Saturday. Their parents had agreed to take turns escorting them to Angel Island, and this week David’s father was driving. When he picked up Reese at her house, he told her that he had arranged for them to go to UCSF Medical Center on Sunday afternoon. “We have a preliminary team of geneticists assembled, and they need to take some samples—just blood and a buccal swab,” Winston Li said. “Are you all right with that?”
“What are they going to do with it?” she asked.
“They’ll sequence your DNA—and David’s. We want to find out where your DNA differs, post-adaptation, from normal human DNA.”
Reese, seated in the backseat, touched David’s shoulder in the front passenger seat. So we’re doing this? she thought.
He turned to look at her, nodding. I think it’ll be fine. My dad knows the team.
“Okay,” she said out loud. “Tomorrow it is.”
Dr. Brand had promised there would be guards at the ferry dock, and as they approached Reese saw hired security in black jumpsuits with guns at their hips. The protesters were still there, blockaded behind a metal barricade, and Reese eyed their signs as she and David hurried through the turnstile to the empty ferry. UNITE AGAINST THE NEW WORLD ORDER, one sign declared. Another had an alien head on it—gray skin and giant black eyes—with a circle and a diagonal slash across it.
At Angel Island, a light-skinned Imrian man with black hair met them at the dock. He introduced himself as Nura Halba and said he would be their primary liaison going forward. He looked partially Asian, and Reese wondered whether the Imria had chosen their race as well as their gender in order to be intelligible to humans. She didn’t know what to think of that possibility, and she surreptitiously studied the Imrian as he drove the SUV away from the dock toward the ship. He caught a glimpse of her in the rearview mirror and asked, “Is anything wrong?”
