by Lydia Kang
“Zelia!” Dyl cries out behind me.
I turn, but not fast enough. Dyl crumples to the ground, her eyes seeing nothing. Marka and I grab her under her arms and drag her ten feet away. She’s not talking or moving, but only for a few seconds. Her mouth moves strangely as she tries to talk, but her words are too slurred to comprehend.
“I thought it was working. How could that be?” Caliga says, standing up.
“Get away! Don’t go near her!” I practically spit at her. Caliga stares at us, shocked.
“Dylia. Dyl!” I whisper. She blinks and stares right through me.
“Gonna be sick,” she slurs. We turn her over, but mercifully she holds it down.
“I don’t understand,” I say to Marka. I can’t even look at Caliga, not after seeing Dyl like this. “Those were identical doses.”
“Yes, but you aren’t identical people,” Marka says. “Maybe it only works on those with traits.”
Caliga rubs her hands together. “No. It should on everyone.”
“Well, you were wrong!” I say it with a viciousness that makes Caliga recoil farther away.
“You know,” I say to Marka, “Dyl told me Wilbert’s ForEverDay didn’t work on her either. I don’t get it.”
“Maybe we can try it again,” Marka says, ever the peacemaker. “We have time.”
Hex and Vera burst in through the door. At first I assume it’s just another fight, until I see Hex’s face. His eyes are wide with a ferocity I’ve never, ever seen. It’s terrifying.
“We gotta go. Now!” Hex yells.
We all stare at him. We have a millisecond to register what he’s saying, when the explosions throw everyone to the floor.
CHAPTER 4
THE FLOOR BENEATH US SHAKES.
I use my body to smother Dyl, trying to shield her from I don’t know what. It feels as if a mighty giant is wrenching the building’s foundation from the ground. Marka tries to stand but loses her balance when another explosion hits.
“Where are they?” Marka shouts.
“They’re coming down through the agriplane,” Vera says quickly, helping me lift up Dyl. “Come on!”
“Who is it?” I yell, trying to hook Dyl’s arm around my neck.
“Does it really matter?” Hex roars. He pushes Vera aside and scoops up Dyl’s limp form with his lower arms like she weighs nothing. “We have to get to the stairs. The transports are toast.”
Overhead, the noise of thumps and shouts follows us as we head for the stairs down the hallway.
“Where’s Ana?” I scream. I turn around, but Marka already has her by the waist. Ana is scrunching her face in terror, her hands clapped over her ears. Marka has to practically drag her along.
“Wait!” Caliga. We forgot all about her.
Plaster is raining down from the ceiling. By the time I retrieve Caliga, they’ll be here. It will be too late.
“Please!” she cries. “Please!”
I stop at the top of the stairs, watching Vera fly down ahead of me. Caliga could be killed if I leave her. And there’s no one else who can touch her now.
“Dammit!” I spin around and gallop back to the lab. Caliga’s on the floor, her bad leg twisted in the bent rungs of her chair that’s fallen over. Her eyes are fierce and desperate at the same time.
“I can’t . . . I can’t get it loose. I can’t . . .” Her hand scrabbles at her leg, trying to pull the metal loose. I tug on it, but it won’t budge. I search around frantically. Where’s a freaking crowbar when you need it?
A few feet away, the cane is partially covered by debris. I pull it out, and shove it between the two rungs that catch her ankle in a vise. My whole body weight pushes down and the wood creaks under the pressure. Caliga grabs her leg and tugs. I live a million years in a few seconds as she pulls it free.
“Come on, let’s go!” I wrap my arm around her bony waist. She puts her arm over my shoulder and we exit the lab like we’re in a three-legged race for our lives. The stairwell is only ten feet away, but a galloping rumble comes from our left.
“Stop! Everyone in this place is under arrest. Hands on the wall.”
There are two uniformed police, and they’re as tall as Hex.
One of them has bio-armor covering his skin—Teggwear, courtesy of Aureus’s SkinGuard. They’re both wearing helmets with dark shields covering their faces. Each is armed with a stumpy black stick. Neural guns. Caliga unwraps her hand from my shoulder. She takes a shaky, hobbling step forward.
“Oh god, you’ve come! They kept us prisoner here. They’ve been hurting us. Thank you!” Her voice quivers with gratitude. I almost scream at her for being the worst turncoat ever, when her hand makes a tiny gesture behind her back. She flattens her palm and stiffens her fingers, paddling the air between us.
She’s telling me to wait, and keep calm.
“My leg. I can’t—” Caliga crumples to the ground. Her face scrunches in pain. Fine, I’ll play along. It’s this or get fried with their guns. I crouch over her, feigning concern and make a show of touching her leg, covered in bandages.
I gesture to the nearer officer. “She’s hurt. Please. We need help.”
The far guard speaks into his helmet. “We need medics up here.” He turns to us. “Keep your hands where we can see them, and we’ll get help.”
“They were awful. They’re monsters.” Caliga starts to cry, and I’m amazed to see real tears. The nearest guard holsters his gun and kneels forward to put a hand on her shoulder.
Excellent.
Caliga grabs his hand, and pulls him into a bear hug. “Oh thank you!”
Only I can see what the other guard can’t—that her victim is now drooling, unable to speak, unable to see. Soon, he crumples over and I grab the gun from his holster. I aim, but it doesn’t fire.
“Put the weapon down!” the other officer shouts. “I need backup on floor ninety-eight. Now! We have an officer down!” He takes several steps back and fires at us. A sizzling noise flies over our head and hits the wall.
“Holy sh—” I start to yell, when Caliga hisses at me.
“The gun! It’s F-TID activated. Put his hand on it!”
Another neural bullet hits the guard draped over Caliga. His body is so numbed up now, he’s barely breathing. He didn’t even jerk when the shot hit his bare neck, one inch below Caliga’s face. I grab his hand and press his fingertip to the trigger.
I’m not aiming, but the effect of shooting crackling neural bullets has the right effect. The officer balks as a shot bounces off his Tegg-enforced skin. He curses and backs away, still shooting at us, still hitting his comrade, three, four times.
I manage to hit him in the back of his knee, by sheer luck. He goes down like a fallen tree, helmet bouncing on the floor.
“Come on, get this guy off me.” We push two hundred and fifty pounds of dead weight off Caliga’s body and cling to each other as we take to the stairs. I let go of her suddenly.
“Wait!” I run back up, tugging the helmet off the officer and putting it on. Inside the helmet, I see a flash of listing red words, floor plans of Carus with a dozen moving, labeled dots. Suddenly, it goes blank, and the darkness is replaced by flashing, angry red letters.
Error: R-ID mismatch
I tug the helmet off and toss it. Doesn’t matter. I got what I needed. Caliga and I stumble downstairs and careen down the hallway to the medical room. I pound on the door.
“It’s Zelia! Let us in!”
The door flashes open and we’re inside with everyone.
“Oh my god, Zel! You’re okay!” Dyl exhales, taking me into a hug.
“Okay is a relative term,” I say, panting hard, beyond relieved that she’s recovered from Caliga’s effect.
She cracks a smile.
Hex has a huge backpack on him, and he’s fitting Vera with one too. We all have one,
for our escape plan. The plan that is now an emergency plan.
“They have neural guns,” I say.
“We know. My shoulder got nicked,” Hex says. His left arm hangs uselessly at his side.
I close my eyes, remembering the images from inside the officer’s helmet. “There’s half a dozen guards upstairs, on the agriplane. More outside the building, and four inside trying to find us now.”
Marka’s eyes darken. “The agriplane was our way out. It’s that or somehow get into the transport shafts.”
Vera shakes her head. “There are other transports working in the shafts. We’ll get crushed along the way.”
“We’ll go out the front door,” Hex says, nursing his arm.
“That’s suicide,” Vera moans.
“There’s one other place we haven’t tried,” Caliga says. We all spin around to stare at her, where she’s crammed herself into the corner. She’s only been here a few days; how would she know anything? “Wilbert’s room. He’s always made a secret exit in his closet. He’s done that since he was a kid, in every place he’s lived in. That’s how he used to visit me at night.”
“Wilbert doesn’t have a room anymore. It’s the library now. We redesigned it after he . . .” I nearly say screwed us over, but I refrain, just in time. “After he left. I saw every square inch of those walls. We popped holes all over them, installing the new holo screens and shelves. There was no door, no exit.”
Caliga’s face wilts with disappointment. “I wish I could ask him where it is. It’s got to be here somewhere.”
That somewhere is our only hope. And we have no Wilbert to ask. Unless . . .
“Maybe we can try to ask Wilbert.” Everyone stares at me like I’m nuts. “The library. The old one, with the holo teachers. It’s worth a try.”
A boom resonates from the ceiling. They’re coming, more of them, from the sound of stomping above us.
“They’ll be on this level in a second. Let’s move now. It’s our only chance,” Marka says.
“We have no weapons! We can’t just toss Caliga at everyone who comes near us,” I say, exasperated. When Caliga stares daggers at me, I hastily add, “I mean, what you did with that officer up there was awesome, but they’ll never let themselves get that close again.”
“I’ve got a couple of kitchen knives. That’s it,” Hex says, producing his supply of cutlery. Marka takes one, and so does Vera. I’m sure I’ll cut off my own ear by accident, so I stay close to Caliga to help her walk.
“It’s time. We need to leave, now,” Marka says, reaching for the door.
For a fraction of a second, I see them all there, poised on the threshold. My family, sewn together with the threadbare illusion of safety. God, I never wanted this. Then again, I never thought I’d lose my father, lose my sister, and find my sister again. Fall in love, know pain worse than I’ve ever felt, then gain the weirdest and most wonderful family I could ever have imagined. And then at the end of it all, I find myself here—on the verge of losing everyone I love, all over again.
I know something terrible is going to happen after we cross that threshold. And I can’t stop it from happening.
Marka opens the door and Hex charges into the empty corridor holding Vera’s hand. The other three pour through after them. Caliga and I bring up the rear from a distance. The library is only one floor down, right below us. After all the thumping we’d heard before, our short journey is unexpectedly quiet. I can’t believe we didn’t get caught.
“That was too easy,” Vera comments as she touches the library door. As she pulls it, Marka sniffs hard, and screams.
“Vera! Don’t!”
Three officers jump forward from inside the library and the center one points a neural gun straight at Vera.
It slugs into her chest, her torso shaking jerkily from the impact. Her lovely hazel eyes roll upward and she falls backward into Hex’s two right arms.
“Where’s the list?” The largest officer yells at us, aiming the gun at Marka’s face. The other officers have them pointed at the rest of us.
“What list?” Marka responds calmly.
“The list of all the freaks you guys made. The codes to all the illegal genes. Don’t play games, we know you have it.”
We all exchange expressions of sheer confusion. Our unrehearsed surprise isn’t lost on the officers. The officers don’t move their guns from us.
One of them says, “They don’t have a clue. Shoot first, interrogate later.”
I squeeze my eyes tight, waiting for the shot.
CHAPTER 5
IT’S OVER. I KNOW IT.
I imagine that neural bullet in my forehead, almost feeling it blazing through my nerves and paralyzing me. When it doesn’t come, I open one eye. Something is wrong with the officers.
Their heads tilt slightly, listening to something. The tips of their blunted guns sway away from us. They cannot hold them straight. One of them crumples to the ground and drops his weapon. Another falls, until there’s only one left standing. As soon as he takes a step toward us, he starts to claw at his ears, yanking off his helmet. His face is bright red, eyes scrunched tightly in pain.
“Stop!” he screams. He can’t point his gun at us because something unseen and vicious is hurting him.
“Ana!” Dyl is crouched over Ana, who is balled up, hands over her head. Her face is carved in agony. And then I understand. She is screaming, a hundred and fifty decibels straight to their eardrums. I have only ever heard the soft sadness of her wakeful dreaming, or the chatter of her usual nothings. I’ve never known Ana’s scream.
The guard is with it enough to understand what’s going on. He takes a giant step toward Ana. Dyl lunges at him but he knocks her aside and punts a well-aimed kick at Ana’s head. She falls backward, almost airborne from the force of the blow. Her thin body hits the ground, blood pouring from the angle of her jaw.
“Take her, Marka!” Hex drops Vera into Marka’s arms and lands a powerful kick across the officer’s face with a sickening crack, and he collapses into a heap of black uniform. Caliga launches out of my protective grasp and plants her hands on the guy’s face. He grabs her wrists, but only for a second before his grip melts limply away.
“Quickly,” Marka says. “We’ll be dead if more officers show up.” She drags Vera into the library, and we follow after I help Caliga get up.
“Wilbert,” she gasps, looking at the holo shelves of fake books. We all look around, waiting for something. Anything. But there’s nothing but silence.
“Maybe the program isn’t working anymore?” Hex says.
“Dad,” I shout, barely able to form the words with my dry mouth. “Professor Benten!”
Dad shimmers into existence at my elbow. As always, his holo image is crisp, clean, and startlingly unperturbed. It never fails to shock me. His expression is sterile.
“Greetings. I’m Dr. Benten. I teach—”
“Okay, okay, it works. Try again!” I yell.
“Wilbert,” Caliga whispers to the bookshelves. “Love. I need help. We need help. Please.”
In a frenzy of glowing green particles, Wilbert appears. We all exhale in relief, except for Caliga. She reaches for the sparkling hologram, gasping as it shimmers from her touch.
“All you had to do was say the magic word, Cal.” Wilbert smiles and Caliga beams at him through her tears. As if a boy with an extra, faceless head were the most stunning thing in the universe to behold. He points to the bookshelf on the far wall to the left. “There. It will only read your neural signature.”
Caliga walks to the shelf and touches a few different books. They’re not real, like the holoprofs. Her fingers graze the fake Brontës and Wildes when the holo image of bookshelves snaps, as if the whole wall got a rubber-band jolt. A crack opens in the image, unzipping it top to bottom to reveal a small door, only about four feet high.
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Dyl hoots. “Okay, if there’s a white rabbit involved in this scenario, I’m gonna—”
“Come on.” Hex cuts her off, picking Vera up gently, and motions to us.
Caliga waves her hand and the door opens to a dark space within the building’s infrastructure. There’s a crude metal elevator that looks like it will hold two people. We look up the shaft and see that there are more waiting. It looks like an ancient service transport, but Wilbert must have tweaked it to work.
Hex and his verdant, sleeping Vera go in first. They zoom down, the darkness swallowing them. Ana, Dyl, and Marka squeeze into the next one.
When the third lift shows up, I stop. “Wait a second.” I turn to my holo-dad. “I didn’t think about downloading you. I can’t take you with me.”
“I am not a portable program. I must stay here.”
He’s not Dad. He’s just a holoprof. I’m desperate for more of him, the real him. “There’s no time. I’m leaving and I’m not coming back.”
Holo-Dad crackles with electricity, and the sterile expression is replaced with an uneven smile. My heart falters and I gulp a gallon of air. It’s him.
“When lost, I find my way to Wingfield,” he says kindly. “Find your north there. I always do.”
I shake my head, full of frustration and anger. “Wingfield? What is that? Why should I believe you? You never tell me enough of anything, when I—”
“What I didn’t tell you, she can tell you now. It’s time. She’s ready, and you’re ready.”
“Who, Marka?”
“Not Marka. Your mother.”
“What?”
Dad told me my mother died after Dyl was born. She’s dead. She’s supposed to be dead.
The floor shakes, and shouts issue from down the hallway, outside the library.
“Oh no.” I glance over to Caliga, who’s saying good-bye to her Wilbert holo. Wilbert disappears suddenly, and Caliga covers her mouth. I grab her wrist and cram myself into the lift. Holo-Dad waves politely.
“Thank you. I look forward to seeing you at our next lesson.”
