Cassandra remembered that school morning of waking up to a small cardboard box outside their front door with a tiny finger in it, and then the kids she’d known her whole life looking at her like she had two heads. Her sister, her half-sister, was working on the cure from babies. That's what her friends said. That's what everybody said then, and she was angry. And then, later, she was ashamed.
She didn't do anything stupid or dangerous in her angry years. She just kept to herself, picked up smoking, when she could sneak a pack from her mother, but other than that she was functional. Quiet, but functional. She got her period later than most girls in her class, at fourteen, and then she was no longer angry. She was scared and ashamed.
This, being a woman, the conversations she had with her mother about what it all meant, the consequences of these belly aches, that's what Sandra was trying to stop. It felt wrong. Not that she thought even back then of ever having kids. She already knew she didn't want them, but what Sandra was doing, deep down Cassandra knew was wrong.
After her first birthday as a woman, she no longer kept to herself. She went everywhere the older kids went, crashing impromptu parties in old warehouses and abandoned apartments. Somehow the boys could always find enough liquor to keep everyone drunk through the night. Few of these same boys could ever find enough to eat, but the liquor was steal-able, so they stole ample amounts of it every week.
Later, she'd steal it with them, sneaking a bottle of vodka or gin under her winter coat. Her breasts grew enough by then to cover the protruding shapes of the bottles, and her face, still that of a little girl, was the last one anyone would think belonged to a thief. She was okay with it then, the drinking, the boys, the music. She never thought about Sandra in those moments, and that felt good. Until the night Jess called her, in tears.
That night her best friend, Jess, learned she was pregnant. Cassandra had run over to see her at the old ballpark they used to hang out at. She didn't know what to do about this pregnant Jess, but she knew she needed to be there if only to listen to her sob, something she couldn't do over the phone from her house without her parents listening in.
Jess was early with everything. She stopped looking like a little girl long before anyone else in their class. Her body changed over one summer to something fluid, something ill-suited to run in, or swim or climb fences, and Jess seemed awkward in it. She kept hiding her new curves under old boy sweaters she stole from her brother, the one who died in the war, though she always told her she still felt guilty about taking his stuff.
Jess was a genuinely good sort. She blushed at everything dirty, and couldn't bring herself to lie with a straight face, couldn't bring herself to steal liquor either, and no one ever asked her to. But she was always there, tugging along with her to every overnight gathering, so Cassie never had to walk home alone, half-drunk, or rely on some boy to take her.
And now she waited for her to talk her out of feeling helpless and sad, only she didn't know how to do that. Sandra might know or her mom, but she hadn't talked to or seen Sandra in three years and she couldn't tell her mom. Mom, who always fawned over everything Jess did or said. Mom, who spent half her awake time wishing Cassandra would magically turn into Jess by osmosis, by being around her all the time; that she'd pick up all the Jess goodness, like a virus, and then mom would have at least one child she could be proud of.
She saw her before she could think of anything to say, and far too late to fall back into the shadows of the trees. Jess looked flushed. She was sitting, primly enough, on a wooden bench in the old bleachers, legs crossed, hair flowing just right. It always did that, even at their sleepovers, falling in these soft, light brown waves around her face. Nothing stuck out any which way, like Cassandra's.
"Hey Cassie," a sob. "I think I'm going to kill myself...." Jess whispered and smiled at her, but her eyes were wet and reddish at the rims. She'd been crying, there was no mistaking it. She meant the kill herself part, too. Jess never joked about serious stuff, and this was definitely serious.
Cassandra hugged her close, smelling her shampoo, rose petals, and lavender, wiping the tears from her face, holding her for as long as she could without having to say something.
She hugged her for so long that night that all the stars changed their places, and all the birds, even the nocturnal ones, stopped making their racket, and then she let go. She didn't know what one could do if they were pregnant to suddenly not be pregnant anymore. There was no cure for that.
She walked Jess home the long way that night, by the canal, and then through the bad part of town, almost hoping to run into a group of thugs to take her mind off the thing making her friend so unbearably sad, but all was quiet. She waited for her to go inside, and stood by her front door until she saw the light go on in her small upstairs bedroom, one she used to share with the now-dead brother. She threw a tiny nothing of a pebble at her window, and waved at the dark silhouette, and then walked home, slowly, thinking of something to say to her at school tomorrow.
She almost had it, that something, when she opened the door to her small house. She could help Jess fix this. And then she saw her mother hovering over a teapot on the stove. Her mother was making bloody tea at four twenty-two in the morning if the clock on the stove was right. Her mother, who hardly ever made tea anymore, was scalding the pot and carefully measuring out two teaspoons of dark leaves, and putting her hands around the now brewing pot in that way she had as if the heat didn't bother her at all.
She knew something was wrong, her mother did. She also knew that she couldn't make Cassie tell her. She made tea and set out two cups, remnants of their old life when teacups were still more pretty than useful, and they sat there quietly sipping their tea out of tiny, easily breakable porcelain cups until the pot was drained.
Cassie wanted to tell her about Jess, but it wasn't her secret to tell. And maybe she didn't need to. She almost thought of a way to fix it anyway. It just had to wait until tomorrow, and maybe, maybe all of this would be okay, and she'd have her not-crying-Jess back, the easy-to-make-laugh, gullible Jess, the knew-all-her-secrets Jess.
When she walked into class the next day she could feel it. The kids weren't looking at her. No taunts about her too-big-on-her shirt, no jabs in her back with a pen. And then she knew what it was. Jess was gone. She could feel it in all the eyes that avoided hers. She grabbed her bag and ran, ran to where she'd dropped her off just a few hours ago, ran up the stairs to the door, and kicked it hard as if she needed to make a lot of noise to be heard.
Jess's mom stood in the doorway, looking at her all bleary-eyed, holding a wad of tissue in her surprisingly delicate hand. "She is gone, Cassie. She is gone...."
She startled out of her reverie, still staring at the ad on the door. She had to see Sandra. She had to tell her that she understood. That she wasn't wrong. That she needed her sister. She walked to the hospital where the lab was, and for the first time, went through the double glass doors.
The place looked immense. She had no idea where the lab was. The youngish girl in a white coat at the reception beckoned her.
"I'm looking for Doctor Sandra Groning. It's important. No, I don't have an appointment, but I have to see her. Look, lady, I am one of her new test subjects and something is wrong...."
At that the woman, girl really, poked a few buttons on her screen and handed Cassandra a key card. "You need to take the lift up to the 8th floor. You'll have to put the card into the slot in the lift for it to go up that high. Dr. Groning will be waiting for you at the office right next to her lab. It'll be to your right, all the way down the hallway. You can't miss it.”
She smiled at the girl, not unkindly, and almost ran for the lift, but checked herself.
She was this close now. She could give this a few more minutes if she had to. The ride was slower than she expected, but then it was an older building, so the lifts still traveled at the speed they did a century ago. She was amazed it still worked.
The hallway was long, but she could
tell where the offices were from here. The sign "Dr. Groning" on the door surprised her. She had known that Sandra was a doctor for all these years, but somehow seeing that sign made it real to her for the first time. She wasn't playing a scientist, experimenting on monkeys, and people, and babies. She was a doctor, one who could fix someone if they were broken.
She took a deep breath and knocked the knock she hadn't used since she was a little kid, back when they lived in a much larger house in the country, and Sandra would hide in the treehouse for hours on end. She'd go up there and then pull the rope ladder inside, so no one knew she was up there, and even if they did, they couldn't get to her. Only Cassandra always knew, and she'd climb the inside of the oak tree, and very carefully walk around the tiny ledge of the treehouse to where the improvised door was, and she'd knock in that way she did now: five beats, a pause, and another two beats.
She waited for what seemed far too long for someone to open the door. She was almost ready to turn around and run, go back to her uncomplicated if unpleasant life, as the door swung open. She could tell from the way Sandra was looking at her that she knew who she was, that she recognized the knock.
What could she possibly say to her now after so many years of silence? After blaming her for Jess, for not being fast enough with her research to save her, and for Mother's turning to drink, and then, finally, slowly, dying in that way nobody should ever have to die and nobody should ever watch someone die....?
Sandra wasn't there for any of it, not even the funeral. She’d sent flowers and paid for the arrangements, but she didn't come. There was a card, courier-delivered, with apologies in her handwriting. Some urgent business in Sweden or Switzerland or Somalia, or some other S country. Nothing she cared about or would ever travel to. She still couldn't forgive her for that. For not protecting her from so many sad faces boring into her eyes, looking at her in that way one looks at a starving puppy, kicked too many times to bark.
Some of what was running through her head must have shown on her face, for Sandra walked up to her, and took her by her face, almost roughly, and pulled her to her, and finally, inside her office, and then held her to her chest letting her breathe and then letting her cry into her white coat. She held her tighter than Mother ever dared, tighter than she ever remembered being held by anyone who didn't pay money to hold her however they wanted.
And cry she did. For Jess, and for her mom, and for the stupid porcelain teacups that she sold when she had no money left to buy food, and for her sister's face in the news as someone dangerous, someone who deserved all the death threats she got. She let it all out in long, painful sobs, and then finally looked her over - the still familiar gray eyes, with just a few tiny lines in the corners. Sandra never really laughed much, so that wasn't surprising. She looked tired, this much Cassie could see, and far too thin for someone who still had access to whatever food was available. And most surprisingly, she looked sad. Too sad for someone who finally solved a puzzle that cost them almost two decades of their life, and so much more.
"I had to see you. I needed to tell you about Jess, and the others I knew later on. How it is to feel so hopeless, so unfixable," she whispered, just loud enough for Sandra to hear her.
Letting go of her, Sandra walked her to the only chair in the room, perched on a stool facing her, and waited.
"I think I'm going to need a drink...."
Sandra just shook her head at her softly.
It didn't matter. She knew a drink wouldn't help her any. She just wanted to collect her thoughts so she didn't sound like a blabbering fool. And she needed to decide if she could tell her about herself, if she wanted her to know, and if Sandra would pity her for it. That she didn't want. "I saw your ad."
Sandra's eyebrows shot up in surprise. She must have known that the only places the ads were posted were escort services, and whorehouses, and the like.
"I work in one. Lexi's, just a few blocks away from here, on Fromer. If it wasn't for my inability to get pregnant, I'd qualify as one of your test subjects." She wanted to giggle at that, at the incongruity of it all.
Sandra stared at her with almost maternal concern.
"I don't mind it, really. I'm in control of what I do and who I do it with, and most of the boys have been good to me. When mom died, I sold what I could, none of it for very much, and when that ran out... Well, when that all ran out, I wanted to come find you, but I was so, so angry at you for not coming to the funeral, I just couldn't do it. Eventually, everyone I knew had died or moved to one big place or another, but I just couldn't leave. I wanted to stay close to Jess and to mom. I went to see them at that tiny cemetery every day for years…. At times, when things started to get really bad I felt they were the lucky ones, gone when the world was still a little bit okay, you know? But then I just couldn't stay there, and someone took over the house. I let them have it for a way out to Manchester and a few winter coats. My old ones were no longer serviceable by then.
“And when I got here, the first person who was nice to me was Anika. She bought me something to eat, and took me to her place, a tiny room on the top of one of these old buildings nobody lives in anymore, but she made it livable, cheerful almost. She made it by doing what I do now... I was scared and so ashamed at first, but it wasn't so bad. And the girls are decent, you know? Jess kind of deep down decent.
“Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I think you were right this whole time, the thing you did, what you were trying to fix. I think if this works, you'll save a lot of lives, and not just of babies, but girls... So many girls dying from it. They try to fix it themselves, you know, but they can't, and there is nobody that wants to help them. They don't really matter to anyone, and nobody ever misses them when they're gone. It's like they never really were at all. The boys, they just go on to the next one. The still rich ones especially... “ She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, feeling calmer now. “Anyway. You’re not a monster, Sandra." She looked up at her sister then. There was so much sadness in her face, she felt almost guilty for saying so much, for spilling everything, but selfishly, she felt relieved.
And looking at Sandra now, she knew she'd never lose her again, not to anything. She couldn't stand to lose anyone ever again.
9
Ghosts
Laurel, March 28, 2236, The Compound
Ams was a horrible liar. She really needed to work on that. Laurel knew there was not even the slightest point in going to the old library to look for her, that she wouldn't be there. Something happened last night, that much was clear. She could almost hear her friend's brain working at breakfast. And she wasn't due for her period for another week or so yet. Theirs were always at the same time.
Laurel walked to the edge of the lawn and sat down on the solitary big rock that had been there for as long as she could remember. It was odd for it to be there. No other rocks anywhere near, and yet, there it was, just flat enough on the top to sit comfortably on. She had to find a way of talking to Ams without scaring her. She needed her to at least know what she was planning, even if she couldn't talk her into going with her. And she had to tell her about all the things that didn’t add up for her. Ams deserved to know.
Laurel remembered the first time things stopped adding up. She was walking through the garden, looking for caterpillars to put into a jar to scare Ams with, and she saw this maid staring at her. She didn't look away from her like most mutes did. She was looking at her, dead on, as if reading inside of her brain.
And then she looked around, and nobody else was in the garden, walked right up to her, and said, "Be careful with the purple ones. They’re poisonous. They'll make your skin itch something awful, and nothing can fix it but time. You'll scratch yourself bloody, little girl." She must have looked twenty shades of dumb, for the woman gently put her hand on her shoulder. "Not all of us are mutes, though they think we are. Some of us they can't talk the voice out of. I don't know why that is or how, but it happens. I'm one of those non-mute mutes. My name is Kaia." The woma
n smiled at her. She had a very pretty smile, her whole face was aglow with it.
That was the-not-adding-up. She seemed nice, and she knew things about caterpillars that her implant didn't know. It didn't make sense. Laurel sought her out from then on every chance she had to be alone, but she was never in the garden again or anywhere else Laurel could go to freely. She wanted to ask her about what Zoriners were really like, and why they weren't supposed to talk to them, and tell her that she didn't think they were bad, or broken or dumb, but she didn't get to say any of it.
And then finally, after many months of trying, she saw her by that rock and Kaia ran up to her and just said, "Run, get out of here if you can. You’re not safe here, little girl. You’ll ask too many of the wrong questions and they’ll kill you. The Alliance will." And she wasn’t smiling at her when she said it, and then she was gone. And a few days after that, she learned from the other mutes that Kaia had been sent away for good.
She was very careful not to ask anybody anything after that, not even Ams, or Stella. She paid a lot more attention to the maids too, and later, to Drake, when he was brought to the compound. She memorized their habits, their faces, their smiles, and those were rare and easy to remember because of it. She learned, by chance, that Drake was a non-mute mute. She heard him humming to himself one early morning as he was coming up the back stairs from the slave kitchen, a very soft hum, but that was enough for her to know. He saw her and nodded to her, eyes scared into growing large. "It's okay, Drake. I won't tell anyone," she’d said to him then. She hoped he believed her. If she was going to run she'd need a friend and a gate guard would be a very good friend to have.
She made it a habit to sneak past the slave kitchen, and peek in, and once, she saw Drake putting what looked like a few leaves of sage into his tea. At least she hoped it was sage. From then on, she'd pluck unnoticeable amounts of it from the garden whenever she could, and put the leaves in a little bag for him, and hand it to one of the maids to take to the kitchen. She didn't know if he ever got them or not until she ran into him on the lawn one day, and she could smell it on his breath, and he nodded to her and smiled. So it was sage. And he did know. It made her smile inside, his knowing.
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