by Lydia Kang
“Stop it!” I say, grabbing Julian’s arm. Because it’s Julian again, his pupils large and black, wearing that slippery smile. “What are you doing?”
“Sean disciplines everyone at my command. I will suffer no insubordination. Our lives can’t afford it.” He tilts his head, scrutinizing Micah’s level of excruciating pain, and finally announces, “Enough.”
Micah crumples to the ground, breathing heavily. I want to see if he’s okay, but I’m terrified to touch him. Julian puts his arm out and I finally take it, my hands shaking uncontrollably. The entire table, including Renata and the teens in the water, watches us walk to the transport. Just as it closes, I see Cy stand up. My eyes plead with him.
Please, Cy. Say anything.
But his voice never enters my mind.
The transport door closes. Julian and I are all alone.
• • •
I HOPED FOR A TOUR OF THE gardens on each level. Maybe a peek inside an R&D lab. But this is the last place I ever wanted to see.
Julian’s private quarters.
The doors open up to an octagonal library, decorated with gilt molding and plum-upholstered furniture. A holo picture window takes up one wall, with a view of eighteenth-century London. The rest of the walls are filled with books and a crystal display case at chest level on each wall. Inside are gold watches lying on a bed of black velvet. Some are wristwatches, but most are pocket watches open to show their delicate faces. My heart flubs within my chest from nervousness. I try to breathe a little faster to keep up, wishing my necklace was around my neck right now.
“What do you think of my collection?” Julian walks behind me and hovers a little too close.
“They’re pretty.” It’s an effort to try to sound calm. I peer closer at the dials. None of the second hand sweeps are moving. “Are they broken?”
“No. But it took a long time finding an expert watchmaker who could make them work again. The right touch.” He rests his hand on my shoulder and I quickly take a step away, clearing my throat.
“Are they all yours?”
“They belong to Endall.”
“Endall?” I don’t remember hearing his name at dinner.
“He’s one of my sons. Obsessed with time, I think.”
“You think? Don’t you know?”
“He’s not in Avida, nor is he a child of Renata. Another woman conceived him with my genes, thanks to your father. I tracked him down to Ilmo. He fled and left behind the watches.”
“Why did he run away from you?”
Julian sits on the daybed and crosses his legs. “I didn’t bring you here for an interview.” He pats the mattress next to him but I don’t budge, which is a mistake. Now he knows I’m afraid.
“If it’s any comfort, Sean is awake and listening to our conversation. You have an ally in the room.”
I stiffen. “If Sean is an ally, what does that make you?”
“A business partner.” His face lights with an electric smile. Julian is handsome, there’s no question of that, but it’s a beauty so polished, it makes you wish for the imperfections.
“You mean my trait. I’m not comfortable making it again. After what happened to the senator—”
“Yes. A wild-type DNA can’t handle your gene modifications. Mine could.”
“Doesn’t Sean have a say in this?”
“It’s my body.”
“It’s his too,” I counter.
“In our internal debates, I always win.” He narrows his eyes. “I’d like to commission your skills for something else. Have you heard of suicide seeds?”
I think for a moment. “It’s terminator technology. Genetically modified plants that produce fruit, but the seeds from the fruit can’t grow a viable plant. It forces farmers to purchase viable seeds from the manufacturer every year, so they can’t self-sustain their crops.”
“Correct. Your father placed terminator technology into you,” he says, pointing right at my breasts. Ew. “And every traited child born from Benten’s tinkering. Even the older generation—myself, SunAj, your Marka—we are all suicide seeds. We cannot procreate, not without your father’s key. Only he can unlock our potential.”
“Wait. How can my father have controlled your and Marka’s genes? You’re all the same age.”
“Excellent question.” He stands up and walks to me, staring me down hard. “How indeed. Do you know how old your father is?”
“Yes. He’s . . . he was forty-nine when he died.”
“Are you sure?” He crinkles his eyes. “I have no way to really question this. I’ve researched him and found nothing to support my hypothesis. But I know that I’m sterile. I know that SunAj was too. I also don’t know why there aren’t more in our generation. From what I know, your father is the only person who could manipulate our genes to create children. Even SunAj didn’t know how he did it. My own birth history is a mystery. Dr. Benten has answers he’s never told me.”
“Yeah, well. Get in line,” I say bitterly.
“So. I believe the key to unlocking our fertility is hidden in something valuable. Something he held more dear than anything else.” He reaches out and envelops my hands in his. It’s everything I can do to keep from jerking them away. “I think he put the key in you. Will you help me find it?”
“No.”
“That’s very selfish of you.”
“This isn’t about sharing candy or something,” I growl. “I am not a commodity.” I pull my hands away and cross my arms.
“You know that we are genetically and biologically distinct from normal humans. We’ll die out if we can’t procreate. Would you commit our species to extinction?”
“Maybe it’s meant to be that way.”
“I am surprised, Zelia, that you would foster such primitive opinions. This is the same thoughtfulness that brought about HGM 2098. According to your argument, you should be dead.”
I bite my tongue.
Julian steps away. “This has been quite entertaining. But a moot discussion, nonetheless. I will have my bots work on your sample as soon as possible, for both projects.”
“But I didn’t give you a sample,” I say warily.
“We have it from your blood test on the magtrain. And Zelia?” He pulls out my necklace from his shirt pocket and dangles it in front of my face, the black cube pendant catching the light. My eyes must show how desperate I feel. “Don’t try to interfere with me. You will regret it.” He wiggles the pendant and I quickly snatch it away. “Come. Our tour isn’t finished.”
Julian walks me to the door, but the irresistible glint of rich gold in the nearby display makes me pause. I take a last glance at the exquisite watch nearby.
“It’s a Hamilton 950b. An historic piece.” He taps the case. “We are much the same as these watches, you know. A collection of unique qualities.”
“You say that like we’re things to be hoarded.”
“There is nothing wrong with protecting what is precious. Just like your father kept the code for our genetic makeups. His recipes, so to speak.”
“If you’re asking about the list, I don’t have it.”
Julian smiles, like a sunrise after dawn. It’s beauty, surrounded by darkness. “I’ll bet you do. You just don’t realize it.”
• • •
JULIAN LEADS ME THROUGH EACH LEVEL’S LUSH, green center. An English rose garden, a Korean water garden with pagoda, the meadow, and a hedge maze. I’m barely listening to him brag about his non-poisonous flora (“So no one can intentionally kill themselves,” he boasts).
All I can think of now is that damn list. My father never gave me anything on his deathbed, or before, that screamed “Guard this with your life!” Except my necklace, of course. But Avida scanned it before Julian gave it back. It can’t be in there.
Dad’s body barely made it through the
wreckage. All we had left when it was over was his ring.
“Oh!” I say loudly. Julian stops abruptly beneath the pagoda in the Asian garden, staring at me.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Stubbed my toe,” I say meekly, before walking on. As Julian takes me to the lowest level, my mind is whirring furiously.
Dad’s ring. It has to be. He wore it everywhere, never took it off. It was a symbol of his marriage to a wife that, now, maybe still exists. Maybe this mysterious mother has the list. But knowing Dad, he probably kept his secrets even from her. He could have easily hidden nanochips inside that ring, and now it’s hanging around Dyl’s neck somewhere out there. I can’t let anyone know. It’s worth everything right now. Anyone holding that information could know the name and trait of every person my dad helped to create, and how he did it.
By now, Julian’s taken me to the entrance to the laboratory. He says the lab takes up a whole floor. I’m dying to see what kind of equipment they have.
“Can we go in and take a look?” I ask, trying not to sound too eager.
“Ah. You’re like a kid in a candy shop. Or should I say, a hunter in a weapons convention?”
I stare at him curiously, until I understand what he’s trying to say. My mind and a lab are my weapons. “How did you know? About me?”
“Your father bragged about your skills in the lab. Working at post-doc levels at only sixteen? Impressive. But you’re not getting into this lab.”
I move to protest, but he interrupts me.
“Not until you earn your way in. It would be like handing you a gun, wouldn’t it? Dangerous. Besides, there are other skills you’ll need to learn that are far more deadly.”
“Like what?”
“The fine art of prevarication,” he says, grinning.
I give him a blank look, and he laughs, holds my hand up to twirl me in an awkward circle. “Politics, my dear! You’re famous, you know. Our very own celebrity, the daughter of the famed Dr. Benten, and now the States’ Most Wanted! You’re the face of the traited everywhere, whether you like it or not. You’ll get your first lesson soon.”
I freeze as soon as I’m done spinning from under his arm. One of the last things Dad said before he died was that he’d wanted me to stop my lab work.
Life isn’t about plasmid vectors and bio-accelerants. It’s about dealing with people.
He’d wanted me to take political science courses and history. He was trying to tell me something. To prepare me for something he wasn’t ready to reveal.
“I don’t want to be anyone’s spokesperson,” I mumble.
“It’s the legacy your father bequeathed.”
“I don’t want it!” I sound like a petulant child, but I don’t care. All I want is to get out of here. Go back to my family. Figure out what’s going on with Cy.
“Well. Perhaps it’s been a long day. Sean, will you lead her back? She’s exhausted me.”
Under the cover of the pagoda, Julian’s shoulders sag and the dark expanse of his pupils shrinks again. His eyes are a clear, pale blue now, and his face looks somehow faded. A shadow of himself. I immediately feel safer. That predatory aura of Julian’s is completely extinguished.
Sean has no scent around him, though I concentrate hard. I realize that Julian didn’t either. Maybe Julian is good at keeping his emotions under control, or maybe together they’re too unhuman to give off a signature.
“I’ll take you back to your room,” he offers.
“I’m okay. I think I know what floor I’m on.”
“I understand. I’m not as interesting as Julian.” He smiles and shrugs. He looks like the last kid picked for holo kickball at school. “You must be tired too. I’ll tell him you went straight to your room.”
I feel so sorry for this guy. He’s not frightening at all. I could probably knock him out with a withering stare. “It’s all right. Actually, you can walk me back,” I say. “So . . . won’t he know?” I ask, curious. “Doesn’t he remember what happens while you’re the dominant consciousness?”
“Not when he’s fallen asleep. And he falls asleep quickly. Julian burns brightly, and it exhausts us both, to share this one body. But he always asks me what’s happened, and he knows when I’m lying.” He steps into the transport and holds his bracelet to the black scanner. “Level four.” It starts speeding upward.
I raise an eyebrow. “Can you tell when he’s lying?”
“Julian is a living lie. He lets you see what he wants you to see. He has his plans and he doesn’t share them with me.” The transport stops and he walks me to my door.
“Sounds . . . lonely,” I comment.
“I manage.” He grins, but it’s a watery version of Julian’s megawatt smile. “I am glad you’re here, Zelia. You seem like a nice girl. It’s good to have some allies.”
I open my door and close it, listening to Sean sigh on the other side and walk away. He’s constantly bullied by the one person he can’t ever escape.
I put on my necklace, hoping it still works. My chest wall automatically expands and contracts, and my head clears ever so slightly, a sign that I haven’t been breathing as deeply as I should.
The bots waggle at my feet, and I sit on the edge of the bed and nod at them. Soon they’re all over me, buffing off my makeup and releasing my hair from its ceramic stylings. After I put on a set of silk pajamas (it’s that or a lace nightie, which I kick to the corner of the closet), I dive beneath the thick comforter.
As one bot gathers up my discarded clothes, the other one pounces onto the bed next to me and tucks the blankets around my shoulders.
There, there, it seems to say. Let us take care of your squishy outsides.
I think of Caliga in her room, unable to touch the one person she loves, unable to numb herself of her own pain. Of how a beautiful sunrise would agonize Blink, and how Cy used to tattoo himself daily, only to wake up to a new canvas ready for punishment. Even Micah isn’t immune to the very electrical pain he produces.
And someday, with my longevity trait, I will outlive every person I’ve ever held dear to my heart.
What’s the point of being created to be special when you’ve also been given a unique way to be tortured too?
“Thanks, Dad,” I whisper into the gloom.
Despite how exhausted I am, it takes a long, lonely time to fall asleep.
CHAPTER 15
I TOSS AND TURN ALL NIGHT LONG, until my bracelet buzzes. I withdraw my wrist from the covers and a holo screen pops up.
“Good morning,” it chirps.
“Not really.”
“Your duty roster is as follows. Please arrive when prompted or you will be issued warnings.”
Warnings. Ha. Why don’t they just say that they’ll zap us like cattle?
BREAKFAST: Rose Garden
MORNING and AFTERNOON ASSIGNMENT: Childcare Duty Group 2
LUNCH: Childcare Duty Meal Supervision
DINNER: Roof Gazebo
FREE PLAY TIME: One hour
CURFEW
After washing up and dressing in a slim purple tunic presented by the bots, I leave my room. The hair bot mercifully leaves my head alone, but the makeup bot sulks until I let it apply lip balm and moisturizer. When I leave, others kids are yawning and heading for the transport.
Out of curiosity, I try to explore a corridor behind the meadow. My bracelet buzzes uncomfortably, and a holo warning pops up.
Area not authorized.
I take a few more steps in the wrong direction and my wrist buzzes with very real, very electric pain.
“Ow! Okay, okay. I get it. Bracelet equals dog collar.” I quickly walk back toward the transport doors. Caliga emerges from her room wearing a similar outfit but in dusky pink. The medicines for her leg must be working well, because she’s not using the cane today, althou
gh she’s still tottering a little. After hesitating, I give her my arm to lean on and she takes it.
“Where are you assigned to this morning?” I ask, yawning.
“The medic office. I’m supposed to help numb up any boo-boos that come my way.”
“Well, that’s a nice change,” I joke.
“What, is it so hard to believe that Aureus members aren’t pure evil?” Her eyes are bitter and angry, like when she first arrived at Carus. “When are you going to understand that you and your sister were a job that had to be taken care of. It was survival, and I wasn’t ready to die. I’m still not ready to die.”
I tear her hand off me and she winces at the violence of it. “So after we saved your ass, you’d still sell us out to whoever will save you the next time around?”
“I didn’t say that!”
I wipe my hand across my mouth. “Get your story straight, Caliga. You either sell your soul to the highest bidder, or you don’t.”
Caliga turns awkwardly to limp to the transport. Our angry words hang heavy in the air, thicker and denser than the scent of the meadow flowers. As I stand there by the undulating grasses, I wonder. Is a stab wound such a bad thing, if the hand holding the knife is sorry?
I take the next transport down. The scent of blossoms is overwhelming when the door opens. The garden is covered in manicured shrubbery and artfully placed rosebushes of countless varieties. Clusters of cast-iron tables are grouped together and most of the Avida members are already halfway through their coffee, tea, and pastries.
None of them talk to each other. Caliga’s again eating alone at a table. Correction: sitting alone. She’s not eating a single crumb. Everyone else stares dully past each other at the too-perfect roses, chewing mechanically. It’s nothing like the chaotic meals at Carus, when Hex would try to steal bites from everyone’s plate, and we’d all pretend we didn’t see while surreptitiously refilling our plates with his favorite foods. Ana and Dyl would have secret conversations over their latest poetry holo lessons and Marka would chide me for getting three new dreads in my hair because I’d forgotten to brush it.
