Lotus and Thorn

by Sara Wilson Etienne

  “I think you mean they had to think of themselves.” I imagined what it would’ve been like to grow up inside this Dome instead of the desert of Pleiades. Taschen, my parents, Suji . . . they’d all still be alive.

  “Think of it this way. What if the Curadores had let your ancestors in? And what if, because of that, the only remaining people who knew how to run this place had been infected with Red Death and died? There’d be no uncontaminated food. No power. No clean water. Then nobody would’ve survived.”

  “I can play the ‘what if’ game too. What if there’d been engineers and scientists in that group of Citizens? What if the Curadores had let them in and those Citizens had known how the main computer functioned? And what if the understanding of this technology had never been lost?” All I could think about was Lotus and the Indignos’ accusations—that the Curadores had been deliberately keeping the Citizens of Pleiades weak. “The Curadores have no right to make the decisions about who lives and who dies.”

  When Edison finally spoke, his voice had a frantic edge to it. “What do you want me to say? That you’re right and I’m wrong? Even if you are right, I can’t undo the past. And it’s not only Citizens who suffered from that decision.”

  We stopped in front of a sealed door, but Edison didn’t open it. Instead he looked like he was getting up the courage to say something.

  “At first, the Curadores used the egg and sperm banks simply as a way to maintain diversity. Your immunity is passed down over the generations, but so are other things. Genetic anomalies that stay hidden for decades only to pop up again.” He kissed my extra fingers. “The DNA bank solved that problem. But then, the Curadores started getting picky . . . deliberately cultivating the population by only using the best samples.

  “Mostly size and intelligence. When a particularly good pairing was made, that person’s DNA samples were added to the banks. And with every new match, the computer made sure there were no issues of interbreeding. Over time, we became taller, stronger, smarter. But none of that mattered, because our world was still disintegrating around us.

  “Finally, twenty-two years ago, Jenner decided selective breeding wasn’t enough. That if we were going to find a way to save ourselves, we’d need someone who had talents beyond the ordinary. Not just combining choice specimens, but cutting out all the best pieces of DNA from the whole genetic bank and stitching them together.”

  Edison had said he was different, like me. I thought about how everyone looked at him as if he were a god. About Jenner calling him my boy.

  “You.”

  “Yes. Me. Nikola and I are the first generation of Jenner’s grand experiment. All the best genes spliced together and tweaked and tinkered with just so. A DNA cocktail served up inside an unfertilized ovum. The Dome’s hope for the future!” His voice had a manic edge to it.

  “As children, we spent hours shut inside one of these rooms. Being prodded and tested and analyzed, all for the good of Ad Astra. I hated this place . . . couldn’t wait to get out. And yet here I am, doing the same thing.” Edison wore a hard, closed-off look. I reached out to him and his anger fell away, leaving behind a kind of desperation. It looked wrong on his usually confident face.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dump all this on you, it’s just . . . when Jenner asked me to bring you here, I was glad. I knew I’d have to take you past all of this, and I hoped if you saw the place, if I told you about how I was manufactured . . . then maybe you’d understand me.”

  And he was right. I did understand him, because in many ways, we were the same. I pulled him to me so I could kiss him.

  He put his hand on the back of my neck, threading his fingers through my hair. “It’s just that everyone inside this Dome wants to use me for something. Power. Influence. Salvation. A few years ago, I got it into my head that maybe if I found someone different enough, someone who knew what it was like to be separate from everyone else, then that person would know me.”

  “Your Kisaengs.” The knot of anger still sat tight in my chest.

  “Yes. I know I should have told you. I’m so sorry.” And I was surprised to see the shame on his face. He wouldn’t even meet my eye. “I didn’t know how to say the words to you . . . I couldn’t.” Now he forced himself to look at me. “I was a coward.”

  The truth of it was in his eyes. And I remembered not being able to face Sarika—how I’d had to wait almost two years to get another chance to say I was sorry. I understood what it meant to regret your silence.

  “I hope that you can forgive me. Because I know something now . . . I know that I was right. That what I was searching for . . . that whole time . . . was you.”

  Edison pressed a button on the panel and the door in front of us slid open. He pulled me inside and the lights flickered on. The room was crammed full of shuttle parts and in the middle sat a table covered with wires and speakers and other various components.

  “The radio.” That voice from Earth seemed so long ago. That I thought it would be the key to getting back home to Pleiades seemed impossible—impossible that I’d ever believed there was a home to go back to.

  Edison smiled. “My way of saying thank you.”

  But I couldn’t return his smile. In my head, I saw Lotus standing in the shadows that night in the Indigno camp. I thought about my real reason for coming here. And I realized I was a coward in my own right—Edison just hadn’t found out about my secret yet.

  I was a trap Edison didn’t even know he’d walked into.

  So I decided not to wait until he inevitably stumbled over the truth. “The Indignos wanted me to come here with you. They wanted you to steal the radio.”

  “What?” Edison looked confused. “Why?”

  I didn’t need to be specific in order to be honest—there was no need for me to put other people at risk. “They think something wrong is going on inside the Dome, that somehow the Curadores are making the Citizens sick, and they wanted me to use you to get inside. To spy on the Curadores.” I didn’t mention Tasch or Lotus.

  “And what did you want?” Edison’s words were careful. Cold. His eyes staring at the floor.

  I knew that whatever I said next would determine whether I had just made an enemy or an ally. “I wanted to come with you. I’ve wanted to know what was inside the Dome my whole life. And I wanted to start a new life . . . to look for a new world.” I gestured to the radio. And now Edison was looking at me again, his eyes searching mine, wanting to see the whole truth there. So I showed it to him. “And I also wanted to know if their suspicions were right.”

  “And? Do you think they are?”

  “I think the Dome is in trouble. And I think that Jenner has the capacity and the technology to hurt Pleiades.”

  “If you think the Indignos are right, then why even risk telling me?”

  I locked onto his eyes. “Because I refuse to be one more person using you to get what they want.”

  Edison held my gaze and whatever he saw there must have been enough. “What will you do if you find something?”

  Neither Lotus nor Jaesun had spoken about what I should do if I discovered evidence that the Curadores were infecting the Citizens. But the understanding had been clear. The steel of my knife was in my words. “When I find out who is hurting the Citizens and how, I will stop them.”

  Edison nodded again, understanding my full meaning, and said, “What can I do to help?”

  CHAPTER 21

  WE CAME UP with a plan. Edison would look for evidence inside the Genetics Lab that pointed toward Citizen sabotage, while I kept a lookout around the Dome. We’d meet back in the radio room the next day and report anything we’d found. On the off chance he might get a peek at Jenner’s files, Edison skipped dinner. And I wished I’d thought to do the same.

  I was mobbed the second I entered the Pavilion—smiling Kisaengs and solicitous Curadores asking me how my day was. The El
las insisted I try the cream puffs. Sagan handed me a glass of champagne, nervously running his fingers through his curly hair. I braved the crowd in order to grab some fruit and cheese from the mounds of food, and Marisol spotted me.

  She had a determined smile on her face as she headed toward me, and I pretended not to see her, dodging around Sagan and losing myself in the crowd. I finally found a tall stool in the corner, slightly hidden behind the singing Riya. Safe in the shadows, I munched on a slab of cheese, thinking through what it was going to take to fix the radio.

  The equipment was a little worse for wear after its trip across the desert. Wires had frayed and come loose. Dozens of chips had fallen out of their sockets and needed to be replaced who knows where. Plus there was about a kilogram of sand everywhere. When I’d asked Edison why he hadn’t started work while I was in isolation, he’d said, “It didn’t seem right . . . working on it without you. After all, you’re the one that found it.”

  Even if it meant contacting Earth? Even if it saved us? Edison must’ve seen on my face that I wasn’t convinced.

  Then he threw up his hands. “Okay, you got me. I didn’t have the benefit of seeing how all this was originally put together in the shuttle. I had no idea where to even start with the thing. I needed your help.”

  I smiled a little now, thinking about it. It felt good to be needed. And, after the last couple days, it felt good to be working again too, splicing wires and testing circuits. I was thankful my dress was the same color as the sand, because I was covered with dust. Edison and I had opened everything up in order to clear it out and make sense of it. The table had been strewn with chips—looking like a horde of black rectangular bugs standing up on two rows of straight metal legs. The tiny codes stamped on their backs meant nothing to us and we had no way of know where any of them were supposed to go. So we’d cleaned off the chips’ delicate legs—making sure not to bend or break off the connector pins—and tried plugging them into sockets. But we hadn’t gotten so much as a power light. It was going to take a long time to find just the right combination.

  Still, I felt more like myself with tools in my hands. And the Curadores had tools—not just dull knives and rusty screwdrivers, but wire strippers, pliers of every shape and size, insulated gloves. I missed my calluses, though. My fingertips were red and sore as I tried to peel an orange.

  “Here. Let me.” And Oksun was beside me, taking the fruit out of my hand, planting herself on a neighboring stool. She dug her nails in and pulled the rind from the flesh, as if she blamed it for something.

  “Do they do this every night?” After seeing the magfly accident this morning and the work they were trying to do in the Lab, it seemed incongruous to see everyone flirting and laughing.

  “What? Eat and drink and screw like the Dome isn’t falling apart around them?”

  I choked on the champagne I was holding, bubbles stinging my nose as they went up instead of down.

  “That’s exactly why they’re doing it.” Oksun pulled the orange apart and handed me half. “They can’t fix it, so they just try not to look too closely. Like today with the accident, most of the Curadores and Kisaengs will just wait around till someone tells them what to do.”

  I thought of Jenner’s description of the beehive . . . the workers and the queen bee.

  “Thank you, by the way, for helping.” Oksun looked at me, and the guarded look was gone from her face. She seemed almost friendly.

  “Do you know if Olivia is okay? Or the other girl?” I didn’t even want to think about what they’d have to do to get her out.

  The distant look came back to Oksun’s face. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen them.”

  “Surely Olivia’s injury wasn’t that bad? I thought maybe she’d be here tonight.”

  “Don’t expect to see her anytime soon.” Oksun’s mouth made a thin, tight line across her face. The conversation was over.

  For a moment the two of us sat there, listening to the music. The song was intricate, Riya’s fingers picking out a complex, melancholy tune, her muscular arm tense as she gripped the neck of her guitar.

  “Why is Riya so intent on learning to fight?”

  Oksun was quiet for a moment, then she said, “They see something in her . . .”

  “Who does? The Curadores?”

  “The Curadores, the Kisaengs, they see something unique and enigmatic. You’d think they’d want to understand it, but no. They either want to own it or crush it.”

  Oksun’s face was calm, but there was rage under the surface. It ran through every muscle of her body. Without saying another word, she walked away.

  June drifted up beside me. “Don’t take it personally. It’s impressive that she even spoke to you in the first place.”

  “I won’t.” As I watched Oksun leave the tent, something caught my eye. Something I’d been watching for without even knowing it—a bird landing on a branch just outside the opening.

  “Sorry.” I handed my glass of champagne to June. “Will you hold this? I’ll be right back.”

  “Sure you will.” June raised her eyebrow, but her smile was friendly—like we were coconspirators. Did she think I was going to meet Edison again? Fine by me.

  I dodged the last of the well-wishers and slipped out of the tent into the dark. The bird fluttered down to a lower branch so we were face-to-face.

  “Well, Grimm,” I said, trying out the name I’d given him. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

  He simply stared at me with his glowing eyes. But he made the vaguest humming noise—a noise that I’d started to associate with the flys.

  “Do you talk to the main computer too?” I was half thinking out loud, half asking. “But if you’re just a more complicated version of a fly, why in the world are you following me?”

  By way of an answer, the bird flew to a branch a few feet away, then looked back at me, expectant like a little kid. I tried to step closer to him again, but he flew to the edge of the Gardens—waiting just inside the line of trees. The glow of his eyes made him stand out against the dark.

  “Fine.” I was eager for an excuse to venture into the woods. After all, there had to be a reason it was off-limits and I had yet to find much of anything to explain Taschen’s death. “It’s only fair I follow you for a change.”

  Grimm ruffled his feathers importantly and flew to the next branch, then the next. I followed him deeper into the Gardens and it was just like I’d imagined it—the forest from the fairy tale. Branches crisscrossed in an arc above my head. Layers upon layers of leaves blocked out the sky and I could almost pretend I wasn’t inside a glass bubble. It was like discovering that a hidden place inside of you actually existed.

  Grimm never went too far ahead of me, but he was hard to keep track of in the monotony of trees. Every so often I’d think I’d lost him, but he would always come circling back.

  Those moments alone were off-putting, though. Not because I was afraid of getting lost—even without mountains or stars, I still knew which way I’d come from. Besides, if these “gardens” really were a circle, I’d eventually come out the other side. No, it was my book that was bothering me.

  Practically every single fairy tale ever had a girl going off into the woods and getting eaten by a wolf or a witch. Or getting cursed. Or hunted. The woods are where stupid, helpless girls went to die. Well, I wasn’t helpless. But I was afraid I was being a little stupid.

  I looked around for low-hanging branches. Grimm circled back and landed a few meters off and his eyes cast just enough light for me to see what I was doing.

  I spotted a perfect branch and broke it off—making it about as long as my forearm. When Grimm saw what I was doing, he blinked and his eyes got brighter. I almost dropped the branch in surprise. He blinked again and they got brighter still. Now I was standing in a little circle of light.

  “You couldn’t have done that
in the first place?” I said, breaking off another branch—arming myself with a pair of makeshift fighting sticks. And when the bird looked strangely chastised, I added, “Thanks.”

  From then on, Grimm flew ahead and lit up my path while he waited for me to catch up.

  The trees got bigger the farther I went in. Trunks so huge I wouldn’t have been able to get my arms all the way around them. Big enough that all three Ellas wouldn’t have been able to either. I touched the orangey-red bark of one of the giants—it was shaggy and rough in places, in others, worn smooth. How old was it? Was it brought from Earth as a seed when the Colony was first built? That would mean that it’d seen the very first settlers, the plague, the destruction of the city, and the survival of Pleiades. And watched over everything that’d happened in Ad Astra.

  I followed Grimm farther into the forest until I was sure I must be close to the middle of the Dome. Then he flew ahead and landed again, but this time it wasn’t on a branch. Grimm perched on top of a roof. At least I think it was a roof.

  There was a house shape to the thing, but there was no house. Instead, curtains of tree roots tangled and knitted together, draping themselves in the rectangular shape of a building. And up high, where the peak of a roof should be, the roots all gathered together and became a vast, leafy canopy that stretched wide over the clearing. The whole thing was strange and beautiful, like a waterfall of tree.

  The only sign that there had once been a real structure here was the porch. Two columns were embraced by a mesh of roots, spiraling around and around the concrete pillars.

  Grimm swooped off his perch and in through what looked like an open door. I climbed the steps to the porch, then hesitated.

  “Hello?”

  I swore I heard something inside, but there was no answer.

  “Hello?”

  Nothing. A prickle of irritation grazed my skin. Grimm had clearly brought me to this place for a reason, but there was no way I was walking into an enclosed space blind with who knows what waiting for me.