Lotus and Thorn

by Sara Wilson Etienne

  I could almost imagine the miniature versions of the two of them. Maybe a Nik who was not quite so sad and an Edison who wasn’t so charismatic. “And you ended up in the Salvage Hall?”

  “Yep. We found an intake conduit near the Meat Brewery leading down into the tunnels. We were happily scrounging for parts when the flys spotted us. So we just picked a direction and ran. Ten minutes later, we were completely lost in a maze of passageways.”

  It sounded a little like scouting in the Reclamation Fields. “Were you scared?”

  Edison thought for a moment. “Mostly I remember feeling elated . . . knowing that if we couldn’t find ourselves, then probably no one else could either. That was the day we found the crate of wine. I was sick for two days.”

  I let myself crack a smile. “You didn’t drink the whole crate!”

  Edison smiled ruefully. “Nah . . . but a couple bottles at least. Though if I remember right, a lot of it got spilled. I don’t think we even liked the stuff, but we drank it anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause we weren’t supposed to, of course!” Edison’s amber eyes glowed with the memory. “It wasn’t long after, that Nikola . . .” Then Edison paused, looking a little lost. “He changed, Leica. He became a stranger. Hiding away with his experiments. Some of the things he did . . . well, they scared me.”

  I wanted to ask more about Nik, but I didn’t dare. After all, to bring up Nik would be to bring up Grimm and the fact that Edison had pretended that he knew nothing about me when we first met. This was not a conversation I wanted to have right now. Not until I was sure if I could trust either brother. Just one more shadow in this dark Dome—and it wasn’t the one I was after.

  What I wanted to know about was the Mothers. If I was going to ask about what had happened in the Salvage Hall, I wanted Edison relaxed. I needed to see his reaction.

  Edison took another slice of orange and this time he fed it to me. But as his fingers brushed against my lips, my body betrayed me. My skin transformed into a network of nerves—all singing out at once.

  Before I even knew what was happening, Edison’s lips were on mine. And I was pulled under—my mind awash with wanting.

  His hands. His closeness. The taste of him filling me as I pressed my body against his.

  But Edison was already pulling away, turning back to the radio—as if his world hadn’t just spun out of control. Then Edison must’ve found the right setting, because static crackled through the speakers.

  “Finally!” he grinned.

  But I was still locked inside that moment, trying catch up. Trying to breathe. Trying to figure out what’d just happened.

  I’d thought I was so clever—playing the game, like Marisol had said. But it was obvious that I had just lost. Now I tried to get a grip on myself again. On that treacherous hunger. I concentrated on the simple—the ordinary—around me.

  The shush of static on the radio.

  The flicker of power lights.

  The fruit cool in my hand.

  I ate another slice of orange and cleared my throat. Trying to refocus on the information I’d been after. “All the stuff from the reclamation pits comes in through the Salvage Hall, right?”

  “Sure.” He scanned through the channels, but there was still no signal. Then he picked up the microphone, testing it—interrupting the static as he switched it on and off. On and off.

  “Is any of it of particular value?”

  He glanced over at me. “You found something, didn’t you?” Then he grinned again. “I knew you would!”

  “The Mothers,” I said, keeping my voice even. I didn’t want it to sound like I was blaming anyone. “One of them was looking through the scrap piles and she . . .”

  “The Mothers were down in the Salvage Hall?” His tone was relaxed, but his shoulders tensed again. “I heard about the incident . . . but nothing about the Mothers.”

  “I think I was the only one who noticed her. She seemed to have some sort of device in her hand and . . .” Then I hesitated, not sure how to phrase my question without making it an accusation. “Could they be responsible for the other things going wrong?”

  Edison didn’t say anything. The lights of the radio outlined the stark angles of his face—all deep purples and yellows—making it unreadable.

  After a moment, he answered. And there was a blade of anger running though his words. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

  He turned back to the radio, killing the power. I’d missed something—something left unsaid—but it was clear the discussion was over. And as I watched him pry a tiny circuit board out of the microphone, I had a very disconcerting thought.

  Edison claimed that he hadn’t worked on the radio while I’d been in quarantine because he’d needed my help. But if Edison helped build Grimm—inventing new technology and figuring out how to embed it in a living organism—then surely he could fix a radio.

  So then, why didn’t he? And Edison’s earlier comment echoed back to me. Now you’re asking the right question.

  • • •

  So the next morning, I woke early. I carefully picked out a purple dress, spiked my hair, shimmered my hands, and made my own way through the streets of the Dome. The magflys were running, but I walked.

  After Edison’s reaction to my question yesterday, I wanted to get a closer look at the Mothers’ compound. I heard children’s voices, but couldn’t see them over the stone wall. I strolled around the whole perimeter, but didn’t glimpse anything beyond a gravel path on the other side of a tall gate—the words Education Complex spelled out in wrought iron in an arch above it.

  When I got to the Sanctum, Riya was waiting for me. As soon as she saw me enter the courtyard, she stood up with that flutter of hers. Oksun came to stand beside her and there was a group of fifteen Kisaengs at their backs. Several of them had hacked off their hair since yesterday’s trip to the Salvage Hall so their uneven manes barely covered their ears. Evidently, I was quite the trendsetter.

  And I remembered Olivia’s hair had been painfully short too. Had she cut hers that first night, like Riya?

  “I’ve been teaching the others . . .” And Riya made the arm-twisting maneuver, letting that movement finish her sentence. “But they have a few questions.”

  I spotted June by the creek, pretending she wasn’t watching us. She was plucking little white flowers out of the grass and dropping them into the current, one by one. They made a little parade of blossoms, meandering along, until they dropped over a tiny waterfall and were swallowed down the drain.

  Marisol must have been watching too because there she was, crossing the bridge to join us. And I could sense the storm coming.

  Riya must’ve felt it too, because she spoke fast. “Can you show us the move again?”

  Marisol casually swept in between us—a trick she was good at. “Don’t be ridiculous. Leica has better things to do with her time.”

  “That’s right.” Oksun stepped up, provoking Marisol. Either she was hoping to protect Riya or she was a glutton for punishment. “Keep pretending you’re still ruling this place . . . like you have any say in what’s going on.”

  “Leica, you don’t have to listen to this drudge. The only way she gets a man into her bed is if she bores him to sleep. Come on, sisters.” Marisol flicked her head at her fellow Kisaengs who’d followed her over the bridge and offered me her arm. I didn’t move and Marisol made the mistake of grabbing me anyway and pulling me along with her.

  That was the moment—the one I’d hoped I could avoid, but knew I couldn’t.

  Technically, as Edison’s favorite I was now the de facto leader of the Kisaengs, but I hadn’t really been acting like it. Up until then, I’d been trying to figure out whether Marisol was less dangerous as an ally or an enemy. But when Marisol grabbed me, I had my answer.

  One of the most
important things my dad had taught me was what kind of damage to inflict in any confrontation. If someone was truly dangerous, you went for lasting pain—a reminder of what you could do. Bruised ribs that hurt every time you took a breath. A dislocated shoulder.

  But most of the time, you wanted to go for drama rather than injury. A bloody nose. A kick to the crotch. Shaking up your opponent was more important that hurting them. Whatever I did to Marisol didn’t have to be painful, but it did have to be public. I had to make it clear that she no longer called the shots.

  So I settled on another quick-twist maneuver—jerking my wrist in, flicking my elbow out. Instantly breaking her grip on my arm. Marisol was jostled by the movement and she stumbled back against her group of Kisaengs.

  “I am not your sister.” I let my voice carry across the Sanctum. My words ringing out in the silence. “Do not make that mistake again.”

  Marisol’s face was unreadable. She said nothing, simply stood there surrounded by her Kisaengs, but I doubted this was over. Marisol was a fighter. A schemer. Even as I turned my back on her—letting everyone see I didn’t view her as a threat—I worried what her next move would be.

  But I made my face confident as I looked to Riya, Oksun, and their friends. “Now. Who thinks they can replicate the move I just demonstrated?”

  CHAPTER 25

  WHEN RIYA FOUGHT, she became a different person. She had an untethered quality about her that reminded me of Lotus. As she faced off with a much sturdier Oksun, Riya repeated my techniques—but in her hands, they became something new. She moved differently than anyone I’d ever known—like she was hearing a rhythm that no one else could. And it made her fun to watch, unskilled but innovative. You had no idea where she’d come from next.

  She finally got the best of Oksun, with a surprise dodge followed by a mimed kick to the knees.

  “Excellent!” I applauded and the girls around me joined in.

  “Will you show us more?” Riya’s dark eyes gleamed as she landed a kick high in the air. As if she was trying out her body for the first time.

  “Of course. This sort of thing is best when you practice consistently.” As I said the words I realized how much I’d missed my own daily ritual—that focused space during the day that returned you to yourself. “I’d get up before dawn in Tierra Muerta and watch the sun rise while I went through my practice. Sometimes it was the only bit of peace I’d get . . .” But everyone was suddenly staring at me and I realized that I’d slipped up.

  “You’re an exile?” Oksun leaned in and her severe, shoulder-length hair fell across her face.

  I nodded, looking around at the group of uncertain faces. We weren’t Citizens anymore, but the lessons of the Rememberings seeped into your bones—it took more than a pretty dress to change what you believed. Maybe Marisol wasn’t the only Kisaeng I needed to worry about hating me.

  “And you survived,” Riya said.

  I nodded, even though it’d been a statement rather than a question. I wasn’t sure what else to do.

  “Impressive. Knocking Salk on his ass your very first night makes a little more sense now.” Oksun barked out a laugh.

  Relief washed over me. Marisol had said this wasn’t the same as Pleiades, but I wasn’t sure a criminal would be welcome.

  And Riya had a different expression on her face. Not just respectful anymore, but almost protective. “That settles it, then. We’ll meet here tomorrow, at dawn.”

  As the morning wore on, I watched the girls spar and laugh and show off. It was strange to see them fighting in dresses—it made it harder to move, but also harder to see what your opponent was about to do. A different kind of challenge. And as I watched, I noticed something else as well.

  Every single one of them was young and strong and energetic. In fact, now that I thought about it, all the Kisaengs were. Though the Curadores were a mix of old and young—from Edison’s age to Jenner’s—there couldn’t have been a Kisaeng over thirty. Not a single grey hair or crow’s-feet among them.

  I managed to get Oksun alone, sparring with her as an excuse to talk. “Where are the older Kisaengs? Do they live in a different part of the Dome?”

  Oksun was only a few inches taller than me, but she was much bigger. Her shoulders were broad, her arms and legs thick with muscles. And she didn’t hold back as she threw a punch. “When they’re no longer desirable, Kisaengs just disappear.”

  I blocked her blow, but the force of it still rang through my forearm. “Like Olivia has?”

  Oksun nodded, throwing another. “One day they’re just gone. And no one knows what happens. Why do you think we spend so much time making ourselves beautiful? Why do you think we want to learn to defend ourselves?”

  I dodged and threw a punch of my own, but it was clumsy. I was barely paying attention anymore. “What do the Curadores say when you ask what’s happened to the others?”

  Oksun caught my arm, gripping hard as she jerked upward—her black eyes holding mine. “No one asks.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we don’t want to disappear too.”

  • • •

  I made sure no one was watching as I slipped into the forest that afternoon. I had an idea about the Kisaengs and the computer system and Grimm. As if my thought had summoned him, Grimm glided down from the trees. He let out a soft awwrawk, and we made our way to Nik’s house together.

  It looked completely different under the bright sun. The walls were simply a web of tree roots, which meant light poured into the house. More that than, Nik had hung bits of tinted plastic and glass from the living framework, scattering the floor with colored sunlight.

  “Hello?” If it was possible, it seemed even more crowded in the daylight. Plants were everywhere. Blooming under glass jars. Hanging from pots on the walls. Vining across the ceilings. And everywhere there weren’t plants, there were gadgets that performed complicated, unimaginable tasks. Bits of motors. Bright green circuit boards. Tangles of wire.

  “Back here,” Nik called.

  Grimm flew around me in dizzying circles as we navigated our way through the house. Until I finally thought to offer him my arm. “Did you program Grimm to like me?”

  I stroked Grimm as he settled on my wrist—brilliant blue wings, mottled with grey. But a closer look showed not grey feathers, but silver strands of wire—each one thinner than a single hair. They glistened as Grimm moved, making his plumage beautiful and intricate.

  “It’s not like that.” Nik looked up from a jar he was packing with dirt. The curtain of thin dreadlocks that hid him from the world was tied back in a thick ponytail, leaving Nik’s face exposed and open as he talked about his friend. “Grimm was programmed with his own personality. He likes you because you’re you and he’s him.”

  “How does it work? The other night, one second I was wishing we could fly higher and next we were skimming the Dome. Did I make him do that?”

  “Sort of. If I have the combud in, I can think, ‘I want to find Leica,’ and if he wants to, Grimm will go find you. But I don’t tell him where to find you. Or how to act when he gets there.”

  “So how does he do it, then?”

  “He might use the filaments in his feathers to intercept signals from the flys’ visual feed and find you that way. Or, if their feed is on the fritz . . . as it is more often than not these days, he might go somewhere he’s found you before. He learns your behavior patterns as he gets to know you. And he’s known you for a long time.”

  I thought again of the strange history I had with Grimm and these brothers. And it felt a little like the scar on my belly—a piece of me that wasn’t fully my own. “The reason I’m asking is . . . I had an idea about Grimm and the Kisaengs who are missing.”

  Nik gave me a confused look and I wondered how isolated he really was. How much did he know about what was going in the rest of the Dome? To be safe, I started
with the disappearing Kisaengs. Then I told him about the magfly accident and Olivia being taken away. But I stopped there. There was no reason for Nik to know that I was afraid that Jenner was harming the Citizens as well.

  “I’m sorry about your friend, I’ll do whatever I can to help . . .” Nik’s face was rigid with anger. “But what’s any of this got to do with Grimm?” Nik’s voice was wary—rightfully protective of his friend.

  “Well, when I was in the Genetics Lab, I saw that Jenner had files on all the Kisaengs, dating back to when we were brought in from Pleiades. And I thought maybe Olivia’s file might give us a clue about what’s happened to her. And the others.” And me. But I didn’t say that part out loud. “It occurred to me that maybe Grimm could talk with the main computer or the flys or whatever and get us a look at the files?”

  But Nik was already shaking his head. “Grimm works on an entirely different system. It was much easier to invent a whole new communication protocol than to reverse engineer the Dome’s technology. The flys, the magflys, the Lab, they’re all part of the Colony’s integrated computer system, which is hugely complex. Over the years, we figured out a way to let Grimm listen in or even jam some of the signals broadcast between the components, but he can’t control any of them.”

  I thought I understood what Nik was saying. “So basically, Grimm can eavesdrop on the flys, but he can’t ‘talk’ to them.”

  “Right, he speaks a totally different language. Actually no one can really talk to the computer or flys. Not only can we not speak their language, we don’t even know what language they speak. Everything’s locked up and coded. The Curadores can use the computer, ask it to do stuff for us, but we can’t change anything about the way the computer does those things.

  “That’s what’s so insane about Jenner’s plan to fix the Dome. He just keeps trying to make smarter and smarter versions of Edison and me—hoping that eventually one of them will magically beat the system. It’s like Jenner keeps making copies of the wrong key, but still expects one of them to open the door.”