Last Star Burning

by Caitlin Sangster

  My eyes catch on one familiar face near the bottom. Peishan, my old roommate from the orphanage.

  I select her picture and it fills the whole screen, bringing up an ant’s march of text denoting time spent in the Sanatorium, notes on how often and how much she eats, how often she has bowel movements, and a long list of other statistics and notes. Next to her face reads BULLET RECOVERY TEST SUBJECT: STOMACH. And a date.

  “What is today’s date?” I snap at the screen, at once feeling proud and awkward that I know how to work a telescreen after my time at the Mountain. Black characters crawl across her face like a spider, and I blink. Today’s date is two days before the date next to her picture.

  She’s been here in the Sanatorium since before I left the City, since her outstretched fingers reached for Captain Chen in our Remedial Reform class all those weeks ago. Mantis stopped working for her, but she went quietly once her compulsion was under control. How did Peishan end up with a bullet in her stomach? And if Peishan somehow did get shot, why would Firsts let her sit in the hospital for days with a hunk of metal in her stomach before treating her?

  I scroll through the details of her file, looking for something, anything to explain how someone safe inside the Sanatorium could be nursing a gunshot wound, images of Cale storming through the dimly lit halls blackening the edges of my vision. But there’s nothing. Just a blue box marked SIMULANT with that date two days from now tagged underneath and a short blurb about treatment: SIMULATED FIELD TEST. MEDICS HAVE TEN MINUTES TO STABILIZE SUBJECT AND EXTRACT BULLET.

  Something here doesn’t make sense. I click out of Peishan’s file and scan through the other notes, but there are no other circumstances or problems listed for Peishan. . . . It’s not until I click into a file labeled SECOND FIELD TESTING that I find my answer.

  Red sharpshooters have a test the same day as Peishan’s scheduled bullet removal.

  Horror chokes me as I let this sink in. They’re going to shoot Peishan in two days, and then let the student medics try to sew her up before she dies. Is this always how they train Red medics?

  I press through to the other case files up on the telescreen, recognizing two from my shift at the cannery and four more from the younger kids at the orphanage. People I didn’t even know were infected. Now each one has an expiration date fixed beneath their grainy pictures. June snaps her fingers, jerking my attention away from the telescreen. She’s still hunched against the door, watching the hallway. She points back out, but I hold up a hand, silently asking her to wait.

  I put my head down on the desk to clear my thoughts. How did all these people get SS? All orphans or Thirds. A bright red box on the screen flashes, catching my attention. I click into the boy’s case file, and instead of a blue box marked SIMULANT, this record has a red one with the word PLACEBO noted in large characters.

  I flick back through the other case files, but this is the only one flagged red. The rest are all flashing the blue SIMULANT. Most of the records are labeled FIELD STUDY, but three of the ones I sift through have a black bar cutting the subject’s picture, bold white characters blocking out the word RESEARCH above their foreheads instead. Bone reconstruction research. Heart and lung recovery and reconstruction research. Brain trauma research. I think back to the new pamphlet that came out right before Dr. Yang dragged me underground all those weeks ago. Wasn’t it something about bone remodeling?

  They built this place to house infected that aren’t responding to Mantis. But why would Mantis suddenly stop working? Siyu, that nurse back at the Mountain, seemed to think it was impossible.

  Firsts gave me medicine to make me think I had SS. Why couldn’t they do that to any number of orphans, Thirds, people they don’t care about? Are there drugs to make you think you fell Asleep, too? My throat constricts as I think of my mother in her glass coffin. Of course there are.

  Perhaps they started using SS victims for their experiments, giving them placebos instead of Mantis and then claiming they were resisting the Mantis so they had a healthy number of subjects to cart off to the Sanatorium for research. But now they don’t even have to give real SS to the people they want to experiment on. With their SS “simulants,” Firsts can cause an “outbreak” anytime they need to refill the kennels, but with an added benefit: When Thirds watch their families fall to SS, it keeps them scared, just like the bombs the City drops on itself.

  And the medical discoveries kept us convinced as to how wise and powerful Firsts are. That maybe, someday, they would find the cure to SS. That their place above us was right. How many dead bodies are attached to each discovery? The Sanatorium is just one big operating table, allowing Firsts to play without anyone being able to complain. Or even realize what is going on.

  Contagious SS, this new strain they gave to Cale and Kasim . . . did Firsts invent it in the Sanatorium? Disgust balloons up from my stomach, my throat tightening around the acid boiling up in my esophagus. If they use SS to control the City, are they even trying to find a cure? I doubt it.

  I flip through pictures, faster and faster until I can’t even see the faces, just looking for the red and blue SIMULANT and PLACEBO boxes. About half are red, most of those who are actually infected with floor designations in the wet, dark halls I just came from below. They were all denied Mantis, so who knows how many have lost control of their minds from compulsions or solitary confinement? And the rest of the people here, blue SIMULANT boxes blinking over their pictures, are all unknowing, unwilling volunteers in a City-wide medical experiment when there’s nothing wrong with them.

  At least Howl wasn’t lying about everything. The Sanatorium really is full of gruesome medical experiments. The thought pops up, a spot of hope in a gaping abyss, but I push it away. Howl doesn’t get any points for telling the truth about one or two things when he lied about literally everything else.

  Sitting up, I motion June over, pointing to the picture in front of me of a girl with a prim little smile. “They’re going to kill her. They told her she has SS to force her into the Sanatorium, and now they are going to kill her.”

  June scans the rest of the screen with an appraising air, shrugging one shoulder. “Are they running out of Mantis?”

  “No. They’re reading all the old medical journals and trying to regain some of what doctors were able to do Before. This girl is a lab rat—a lab rat who allows Firsts to stay in control here.” I slap the table. “How do we fix this?” The same feeling of helplessness that I’ve always felt facing down the Sanatorium makes me feel glued to the table. Paralyzed.

  June glances back out into the hall. “How about we get out of here before trying to solve any other problems? You can’t help anyone if Firsts catch us in here.”

  The hallway outside is bare once again. Artificial lights glare down on the shirt underneath my jerkin, brown and slippery with sewer sludge, raggedy hair hanging in an uneven mess across my shoulders. June looks equally bedraggled, her gas mask and hood making her look as if she belongs here. Just another terrible science experiment.

  Kneeling by the next pull-handle alarm we come across, I stuff my feet back into my boots, pulling the clasps tight against my calves. Next, the gas mask goes on, my face hidden behind its metal screen.

  Now the alarm. I rip the glass door open and pull the handle from the wall. The high wail of a siren starts to keen through the building, and the hallway floods with confused Firsts calling to one another to ask what is going on. Three members of the Watch elbow their way up the hall, eyes falling to the broken handle chafing in my hand. I yell to them before they get close, my gas mask distorting my words. “Breakout on four! They’re newly infected!”

  The lead Watchman swears and pulls a mask over his face. “How did they get down there? Testing is supposed to be restricted to ten. Actively compulsing?”

  I pull at my torn Watch jerkin and muddy clothes. “I wouldn’t say they were friendly.”

  “You alert Captain Zhao on two; I’ll set up a block.”

  I nod as tho
ugh I know what he’s talking about and catch June’s arm, the two of us riding the flow of confused uniforms up toward the ground floor and the exit. After a confused shuffle up a few flights of stairs, natural light pours into the cement stairwell. Pushing our way out, June and I run down the hallway, large windows that look out into a courtyard flowered in pinks and reds set into the walls every few feet. A knot of threadbare children stand out in the garden under the outstretched hands of a statue of Yuan Zhiwei. The stone’s red veins look like streams of blood all over his hands and face.

  Their heads follow the tide of the panicked Firsts, eyes wide with alarm. An older girl bends down in front of them, wiping away tears. A girl I know.

  I slam through the doors and the kids scatter like cockroaches under a light, leaving Peishan alone under Yuan’s hands. She faces me with firm resolution, only a hint of fear in the line of her jaw. Her hair is stubbly and short, different from the sleek locks I remember.

  “You need to get out of here.” My monster voice makes her cringe away as it leaks through the gas mask. “Now. Come with me.”

  She holds her ground, brow furrowing. “Sevvy?”

  Surprised that she recognized my voice, I pull the mask down around my neck, and her face goes grim, more disturbed by me than by the gaping mouth of the mask. “Get away from me, Fourth.” Her eyes run over June, catching on to a blond snarl escaping from June’s hood like a fish on a hook.

  “Fourth? Suddenly you care?” The children regroup in the corner farthest from me, eyes wide with tears forgotten in the presence of this new enemy. I can’t leave them here. Not to target practice and dirty syringes. “Come on!” I grab for her hand. “We need to get you all out of here.”

  “Why don’t you just shoot me now?” she spits. “I’m not joining Kamar. Murderer.” She twists away, running to stand between me and the kids.

  My heart stops. “What are you talking about?”

  “What’s the count now, traitor? The people on the bridge. The guards you took out when you escaped. There’s even a body-cam video of you braining one of the soldiers Outside with a tree branch. And Sun Yi-lai . . .”

  “I did not kill Sun Yi-lai.” His name rips through me like a rusty scalpel. Sun Yi-lai? Shouldn’t the real Sun Yi-lai be living in some laboratory up on the Steppe, unaware that a rebel used his name to seduce me away from this place? “But I do know that if you don’t get out of here, you will all die.”

  Fear and anger war across her face. “We might as well be dead already. We are all infected, thanks to you and your friends in Kamar. Half of the orphanage stopped responding to Mantis after you left.”

  Peishan’s file was marked SIMULANT. All those nights in our room when she whispered how afraid she was of the darkness lurking inside herself, and Peishan was never even really infected. The City just wanted that fear to keep her in line. “Peishan, please—” I start.

  “You didn’t even stay to tell your pal Sister Shang good-bye.”

  My breath catches in my throat. Sister Shang was the last one to see me at the orphanage, right after Tai-ge left. Did the First Circle think she helped me escape? All she did was give me my fake Mantis dosage and a comforting pat on the head. “What did they do to her?”

  “Same thing that happens to all traitors.” Peishan’s voice is acid. “Same thing they are going to do to you.”

  My attention strays down to a little boy peeking out from behind Peishan’s legs, tears streaming down his cheeks as his eyes dart between me and the lights flashing in time with the alarm sirens. I recognize his face. Corneal transplant. That’s what his file said.

  Even if I can get them to come with me, will it help? I look at June, still hanging back by the door, one eye on the streams of people as they rush by. I would never have left her to be hurt by Cas and Parhat. How are these kids—or any of the people here being hurt by the City—any different? They don’t deserve to be left here any more than June did.

  Any more than I did.

  The Menghu are going to attack. Even if they weren’t, the City is going to destroy this little boy’s eyes. Make him blind. The City took so much from me. Dr. Yang and Howl did too, with their lies and their plans. . . .

  Pain throbs deep down in my chest. For the first time, I can do something. I won’t let the City hurt this boy. Not any of these children. I don’t know who is infected and who is not in this little group, but if there is a cure to SS, then life doesn’t have to be this unfair. I can’t let the City or the Mountain do this to anyone else. Not when I can help. I won’t let myself fail as I did with Aya.

  It’s time to be what Peishan wants. What the City taught me I was.

  Time to be a monster.

  “Look,” I growl, pulling out my sharpened stars. “You are coming with me whether you like it or not.”

  CHAPTER 40

  IN THE GENERAL RUSH TO get out of the Sanatorium, we manage to sneak into the Third Quarter. Dr. Yang’s entrance to the old City takes a few minutes to relocate, but the tired Third workers, ruffled by the sounds of sirens coming from the Sanatorium, don’t pay us much mind. I leave Peishan tethered to a pipe at the bottom of Dr. Yang’s ladder with Sole’s borrowed pack, the younger children hiding under June’s open wings. June agrees to wait for me down in the dark, this particular mission better done alone. The Second Quarter is easy to reach from here, a ladder leading up only a few houses away from my destination.

  It feels like years since the night we played that last game of weiqi, though it’s only been a couple of months. I climb through the window into his room, the same bloody redness overwhelming the place as if the murderous hand of the City has pawed through all of my friend’s things.

  The first hour prickles with anticipation as I wait for the door to swing open. I smooth down the uneven remains of my hair, one side curling up by my cheek, the other brushing my shoulder. He’ll give me a hug and tell me how glad he is to see me and then we’ll run to tell his father about the invasion. The second hour of waiting is harder, wondering what will happen if it’s someone else, his mother or father who finds me. The third hour I spend lying with my face on the carpet, smoothing my hand back and forth to make designs in the short fibers. Wondering if Tai-ge even lives here anymore, if he’s even alive. When the door finally clicks open, my stomach flutters with nerves, my head light with exhaustion.

  When Tai-ge’s tired eyes light on me, he stiffens, his mouth hanging open. But he doesn’t rush forward, doesn’t hug me or even say my name. His brow drops, anger curling through his handsome face like a plague. He glances out into the hall, softly clicking the door shut. Back against the door, he focuses on the floor. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t just shoot you.”

  I guess disappearing with an execution order on your head says something about your guilt. But he isn’t calling for help, either. “Because I am here to save you,” I say. I can’t put it any more simply than that.

  His hair is longer than I remember, full mouth tightened like a vise against his jaw in a skull-tight stretch. “From what? Another bomb?” He lowers himself down into a chair, eyes finally meeting mine.

  “They are going to attack. I don’t want you to die. Please come.”

  “So you are one of them,” he says. The pain in his face strikes me like a physical slap.

  I shake my head. “No, I . . .”

  Tai-ge stands back up, cutting me off. “I thought it was a propaganda campaign to stop complaints down in the Third Quarter. Send Fourths Outside where they belong to do hard labor. Traitors can never be rehabilitated. Leave honest work to the Thirds, fighting to the Seconds, and let the Firsts take care of us all.” He laughs without a speck of humor. “I tore the Hole apart, accused the First Circle of kidnapping you.” His fists hit the wall in frustration, voice dripping with pain. “I attacked the head Watchman over in the Sanatorium when he wouldn’t let me in.” He turns around, grabbing my arm in a bruising clutch. “And here you are. Alive and well.”

  I don
’t move away, grabbing his shirt to pull him in close. His shirt is creased and smells of stale coffee and a tinge of something harder. His muscles tense, and it’s as if I’m hugging a statue, an unforgiving boulder. I look up into his face, but the soft, serious Tai-ge I know is lost in granite. “I didn’t have anything to do with the bomb on the bridge that night. Howl . . .” I choke on his name. “Chairman Sun’s son . . .”

  “It’s easy to blame the dead.”

  I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly to soothe the pricks of anger threatening to rip through my blanket of calm. “You don’t truly believe I’m guilty or you wouldn’t still be talking to me. You were with me when the bomb hit. It fell from a plane.”

  “A rebel plane.” He angrily pushes me away, and I trip over the carpet and fall into his desk chair.

  A rebel plane? I clench the chair’s armrests, my fingers turning white, breath trapped in my chest. “You know the war is a front. You know Kamar isn’t real.” When he doesn’t answer, the air presses in on me, panic brewing deep in my chest. Tai-ge lied to me. At this point, is there anyone left who hasn’t lied to me? “You know about the Mountain. And the defectors. And reeducation camps all around the City for traitors like me and Outsiders that the City manages to pick up. All this time, you knew, and yet you let me believe my mother sold us to some foreign invading army?”

  “It isn’t that different, Sev. What happened to her was just. The camps, all of it, are the way we keep this place safe.”

  It is different. I want to yell it at him, but I ask a question instead. “What about me? How is condemning an eight-year-old to half a life for something her mother did justice?” The words burn off my tongue in rapid succession. “I met a girl in the Mountain who had been in a labor camp since she was two. How is that just? You tried to beat your way into the Sanatorium—do you even know what they do there? The City isn’t about safety, it’s about cheap labor, about thousands of lives at First disposal. That’s why there are people out there fighting the City, Tai-ge. They want something better than this.”