The Tiger Flu

by Larissa Lai

  Kora sits on the damp floor of the cell and contemplates her new pink hand. It must itch fiercely. She scratches so much that its pinkish-blue hue never fades. The hand glows with newborn liveliness. She clenches it, stretches it, marvels at its flexibility. “Why me?” she says. “What did I ever do to you?”

  She wants to do this now? “I saved your life, Kora Ko. No need to gush on about it or anything. We gotta figure out how to get out of here.”

  “You put an alien hand on me.”

  “By Our Mother’s stinky breath! It’s your own hand, growing back, sweet as you please.”

  “You mutilated me. How would you like it if I did something like this to you?”

  “Mine would not grow back,” I explain, too patient. “You have the magic. I don’t.”

  “Did you know it would grow back?”

  “Well … no.”

  “What if I cut off your hand? Or your mama’s hand? What if your mama is alive on Chang but really mangled? You Gristies, you were made to be workers and test subjects. What if they test-lifted her but screwed it up? And her Chang body’s got three eyes and no arms. And no memory of you. That would be just dessert, for what you did to my hand.”

  “I saved you, you little ingrate, you Mother-cursèd Salty. I fixed you, I cured you. You’d be dead of gangrene if not for me.”

  There’s a stinking toilet and a sink in the corner. When I turn the tap, the thinnest stream of water dribbles out.

  She says, “Is that even true?”

  I wash my hands in the thin stream. “You think that without me you’d be living happily ever after at the Cordova School, golden and shining?”

  “Maybe …”

  “I think not. And do you know what your healed hand means?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

  “It means you and me, we’re gene genies. Sisters in blood and struggle. You’re related to me and our original grandmother, Grandma Chan Ling.”

  “What in Our Mother’s damnation are you talking about, dirty Gristie?” says Kora.

  “What am I talking about? I’m talking about you. You are one of us. A dirty Gristie, just like me, except in your case there’s been some intermarriage with the Salty proles. You really think I put that hand on you?”

  Kora nods. “I know you did.” She blinks then, and her gaze wavers. She holds her miraculous pink hand up to the light. Stares at it with pure, unmitigated disgust. “I don’t know what you did to me, but I’m going to get my mother and uncle—I mean, father—back. Old Lennox Ko must have willed Jemini to Kai Wai, not Kai Tak. Because Kai Wai is the oldest, and the kindest. I’ll prove it. Then I really will be Lady of the Flu, just as Myra said. And I will make you pay for what you did to me.”

  “Why you wanna be the Queen of Death?” I say. “I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do. First, we escape this hole. Next, I will help you access whatever weird Salty magic you believe holds your mother and father. And then you will come with me to save the sisters of New Grist Village with your clever genetics. The village will grow and thrive and prosper. And you will recognize your ingratitude and atone for it.”

  “I won’t, and I won’t.”

  I gaze at the big steel door that holds us in.

  “Even if you’re right, you only inherit Jemini through the inheritance rules of men. Our Mother is on the ascendant, and you know it. By her laws, you are a Grist sister, just like me.”

  “I’m not and never will be!”

  “We have a long lonely time together, Lady Kora. A long, long lonely time.”

  NODE: MINOR HEAT

  DAY: 13

  WITHOUT THE LIGHT OF CHANG OR ENG, IT’S HARD TO UNDERSTAND the passing of time. We mark the days by the fish dinners that come through the grate, two each per day. I find a loose pebble in one of the room’s dark corners. I use it to scratch out lines on the wall to count the passing days, one line for every four fish.

  Kora Ko refuses to eat the fish dinners.

  “You have to eat,” I say, digging in. “You need your strength if you’re going to survive this.” It’s not beets, red mustard, or bok choy, but I eat and don’t complain.

  For a week, she refuses to eat the fish. She drinks the muddy water they give us and the hard bread. She sleeps a lot because she has no energy. When she thinks I’m not looking, she stares at me.

  “The fish isn’t bad. Why won’t you eat it?”

  NODE: MAJOR HEAT

  DAY: 5

  KORA KO IS NO MARTYR BY ANY STANDARDS, GRISTIE OR SALTY. ON the eighth day, she eats some fish. And promptly gets sick. Our Mother of flesh and fur! Of all the people I could get stuck down here with it has to be a stinky Cordova girl with a weak stomach. At least she has the courtesy to dash to the shared toilet.

  On the ninth day, she’s a gaunt, grey mess. She drinks more water but won’t eat.

  On the tenth, she has a bite of fish and again is sick.

  On the eleventh, she eats. The fish stays down. Praise be to all the creatures in my long-lost forest. I wouldn’t care if she lived or died, except we need her hand-growing talent. All I want is to go home. But I’ll take New Grist Village, even if all it means is me, Bombyx Mori, Corydalis Ambigua, and their sister litter. And maybe Calyx Kaki. And Kora? I can’t imagine her as part of any Grist sisterhood, new or old.

  NODE: MAJOR HEAT

  DAY: 10

  “STOP STARING AT ME. WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?”

  “You look kinda like me.”

  “Yes, I told you. Does this mean you finally see it?”

  Her hand, in spite of the fact that she starves herself, has grown. It’s not quite full size, and it’s still a little pink, but it is most definitely bigger. She’s eating the fish now but barely enough to keep spirit and body together.

  NODE: MAJOR HEAT

  DAY: 12

  ON THE FIFTEENTH DAY, SHE EATS TWO FISH. SHE STAYS AWAKE LONGER, and she stares and stares at me when I sleep. I know because whenever I wake up, she’s staring at me.

  “Dog damn it, do I have to smack you? Don’t stare at me.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr Gristie.”

  “For the love of all the mothers on this battered earth, please call me Kirilow.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr Kirilow.”

  “Okay. That will do.”

  NODE: AUTUMN BEGINS

  DAY: 4

  HER SHIT STINKS. WE HAVE A DEAL THAT WE TURN OUR BACKS WHEN the other one has to go. Although I’ve worked all my life with living innards, sharing the shit ritual with this disgusting Cordova girl is a Mother-cursèd activity. I would very nearly murder an innocent person if it would mean I could get away from having to crap in the same room with this dirty Kora Ko. Even if it meant I were still in jail.

  NODE: AUTUMN BEGINS

  DAY: 11

  “I AM GOING TO KILL YOU IF YOU DON’T STOP STARING AT ME.”

  She turns away. Eats her fish. Not only does the toilet stink, but so does she. Her hair is growing thick and matted between those filthy, infested scales. One of them pops out while she’s sleeping. When she wakes I point it out to her, just as a large roach crawls over it. She picks it up and plugs it back in. It’s a good thing I have a strong stomach or I’d be sick myself.

  NODE: LIMIT OF HEAT

  DAY: 4

  I’M ASLEEP BUT NOT VERY. THE CONCRETE FLOOR IS COLD AND HARD. I feel her eyes bore into me.

  I leap up. I smack her, hard across the face. Our Mother forgive me. Our only starfish.

  “Ow!” She comes at me, tries to punch me back, but I’m quick on my feet. She chases me around the room, but I weave and bob, avoid her blows. Dodge left! Skirt right! My feet dance fancy. Finally, she gets tired. Goes back to her corner.

  “Why’d you hit me?”

  “I told you to stop staring.”

  We eat our fish in silence.

  NODE: LIMIT OF HEAT

  DAY: 14

  I’M ASLEEP. HER STARE IS LIKE A KNIFE AT MY BACK. I’M PUNCHING her, and I’m
not even awake.

  “Stop fucking staring at me! It’s bad enough being down here with you, and you stink like a dead rat.”

  I drive my fist at her head. She tries to cover it with her hands and turns left, then right, attempting to avoid my blows. Bam! A score. Whap! A miss. Bam! Whap! Bam! Her ear bleeds. Whuff! She boots me in the gut. Didn’t see that coming.

  NODE: WHITE DEW

  DAY: 12

  WE DON’T TALK. WE EAT OUR FISH. WE DO OUR CONSIDERATE TOILET ritual. She stops staring, though, finally.

  NODE: AUTUMN EQUINOX

  DAY: 2

  FIFTY-FOURTH DAY. WHEN THE FISH COME THROUGH THE SLOT, I’M ravenous. I grab mine, crouch in my corner and gulp it down, barely bothering to chew.

  She takes hers. Eats it standing, with anxious revulsion.

  When I’m done, she says, “I was staring at you because I think I saw them.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “All Gristies look alike, right? And you lost all your sisters?”

  Our Mother save me.

  “That night, the night of the revel, when I almost got uploaded—I saw … some women. Go up as people, come down as fish and roses. They all looked like you. Not exactly, but, I mean, really, really close. Creepy close.”

  My turn to stare.

  Our Mother of fish and roses

  Our Mother of flames

  Kora watches me, unsure whether to continue.

  Did Grandma Chan Ling foresee me here? In this filthy dungeon with this dreadful girl?

  “This fish we’ve been eating—”

  I look at the floor.

  “I think it might be—”

  I don’t want to know what she knows. “Please don’t—”

  She falls silent.

  I look up at her. My heart doesn’t give permission, but my eyes do.

  “—your sisters—”

  Now I really do want to be sick. But my body has absorbed its food. I dry retch. I heave until I can’t breathe. Then a huge, rasping inhale. “You’re lying.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “Liar, liar, liar!” I scream. I know she’s right. With sharp nails, I tear at my own cannibal flesh. I’d pull it from the bones if I could. Dearest ones, now you are many times flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. Our Mother forgive me, I knew not what I did. I tear, I shudder, I shake. I can’t stop. My body convulses as though it’s no longer my own.

  She’s on me then, but not to hurt me. She grips me in a bear hug, surprisingly strong. Holds me until the thrashing finally stops.

  “It’s fish now,” she says. “So it’s not them anymore.”

  She reeks like a stale and putrid ocean with dead things floating in it. It doesn’t matter. I lean into her and burst into tears.

  35

  LOYALTIES SHIFT

  KORA KO // SALTWATER FLATS

  NODE: AUTUMN EQUINOX

  DAY: 8

  THE BLUE DRESS THAT KAI TAK SENT HER IS TORN AND FILTHY. THERE’S a corner missing too—the corner she used to clean K2’s wound the day she rescued him from wild dogs. She loved this dress when she first received it. Now she hates it. To think that Kai Tak and big brother Everest were living high on the hog while she, Charlotte, Kai Wai, and K2 shivered in the damp cold and ate rotten potatoes and pet goat. Her tender heart aches for poor Delphine. She curses this stupid dress. Kai Tak is not even her father! She wishes she had worn the brown bamboo-fibre dress that Uncle—no, Papa—Wai gave her instead. What horrors are he and Charlotte living through now? She shudders.

  Kora eats her fish, knowing full well what it is but at last beyond caring. The Gristie doctor lies asleep in the corner. She hears a key in the lock. Miraculously, the heavy iron door creaks open, and there stands another Grist sister, one who looks just like Kirilow, only younger and rounder.

  The doctor wakes up. “Calyx Kaki?”

  “At your service, Groom Kirilow.”

  Behind her, there’s an armed guard of tiger men uniformed in midnight blue.

  “How did you … You’re alive … and well fed …”

  The doctor stares at the young woman’s belly.

  “Come, most respected groom,” says Calyx. “I know you’ve been here a long time, but we don’t want to upset these helpful men.”

  The doctor doesn’t move. “My bride was a starfish, not a doubler, so forgive me if I’m wrong, but … are you pregnant?”

  “I’m going to pop a puppy.” Calyx beams. Her face grows dark then, as though she’s remembering something.

  Kirilow’s eyes rise to Calyx’s throat. “You can’t be a doubler. You don’t have the partho marks.”

  “Come on, we have to go.”

  One of the guards says, “Your young friend is now the consort of Godwin Austen ‘K2’ Ko. And our mistress.”

  It’s the Gristie doctor’s turn to go all bug-eyed.

  Kora says, “Come on, Dr Kirilow. Let’s get out of here.”

  The men lead Kora and Kirilow up through the levels. The whole parkade reeks of fish, but it is not the wet, dark ruin that it was—far from it. It is lit with a warm yellow light. The floors are tiled in fish and rose vine mosaic. Tapestry tigers cavort on the walls, and a thousand beaming revellers drink from earthen vessels and frolic among intricate tapestry trees. Kora and Kirilow slow their pace involuntarily, so astonished are they by the parkade’s transformation. They become aware of a strange cacophony of coughs and laughter, which grows louder and more peculiar as they ascend.

  They reach ground level. Daylight pours in through the entrance so bright it burns their eyes. It’s been five solar nodes since they’ve been exposed to sunlight. From the mouth of the entrance sculpture, extends an orderly line of flu-sick men and their families, docile as sheep offering themselves for the tin-can tiger’s dining pleasure.

  Still up and farther up the spiralling levels they go. Through the open spaces between the levels they can see Saltwater Flats spread out before them, vast, damp, and rampant with flu. At the very top is a door. Calyx knocks.

  “Enter,” says a deep, rumbling voice.

  Guards lead the prisoners into a large room with high ceilings and stained-glass windows. At an oak desk of mammoth proportions, sits a man of even greater proportions, all muscle, hair, and scale. Tendrils wave about him like the cilia of a giant anemone. Kora recognizes Marcus Traskin.

  “Thank you, Calyx. Thank you, men. You may go.” Above him, rich golden sunlight pours in through a panel that depicts cavorting tigers. “Here she is, Kora Ko of the new world order.”

  “Please,” Kora says in the smallest and softest of voices. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He laughs, a jolly rumbling laugh tinged with something else, a bit dark, a bit sinister. “Of course you know. Have a seat.”

  There is a large plush leather couch from the time before facing the desk. And in front of it a heavy coffee table of the same wood as the desk. There’s a beautiful rug knotted with birds and flowers beneath it. Kora hesitates.

  “Go on, sit. Your friend too.”

  Kora and Kirilow sit. An attendant brings them each a glass of tiger wine. Kora doesn’t touch hers, but Kirilow picks up the glass. Kora casts her a quick glance that says, Don’t! Kirilow puts the glass down.

  Marcus Traskin laughs. “Afraid of your family’s best and most famous product, Kora Ko?”

  “Not afraid,” Kora lies. “Just not thirsty.”

  “Your loving companion is thirsty.”

  “She doesn’t love me, and she’s not thirsty.” These words come from bravado, not real strength, but Kora is happy to have what she’s got.

  “That’s better. Find yourself a little pride, girl.” The floor shakes with Traskin’s laughter. “Don’t you know you are the heir to the Jemini fortune? The usurper Kai Tak Ko is dead of the flu.”

  “I never knew him.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He no longer stands between you and what’s yours.”

  “That’s nonsense. My brother K
2 is the heir. Besides, I don’t want it.”

  “Wrong,” rumbles Traskin. “On all three counts. It’s not nonsense. Your brother is not the heir. And you do want it.”

  He’s managed to rile her now. “You can’t know what I want!”

  “Aha. So you admit it. It doesn’t matter if you think you are or not. I have Kai Tak Ko’s last will and testament.”

  Kora glares at him.

  “I think you know the truth. You know your brother lied to you. And that Kai Tak wrested Jemini illegally from Kai Wai, who didn’t fight back because he was wracked with guilt for taking his brother’s wife. You know this, and you have always known it. You just can’t face it, because you are the product of Kai Wai’s dirty, nasty wife-stealing. The love child of his filthy adultery.”

  “Don’t you dare talk about Kai Wai that way. You know nothing about him. You know nothing about me either. How dare you presume?”

  He laughs an even deeper laugh of righteous satisfaction. The floor shakes tectonic. “I knew it. I knew it!” He tries to control his laughter, but a deep, unpleasant chuckle continues to roll out of him. “Are you going to let your little shit of a brother keep you in prison while he owns and runs what’s yours?”

  Speech leaves her. Her gaze bores right through the flesh of the massive tiger man. She’s so furious at his attempt to humiliate her that she’s ceased to be intimidated.

  “If you don’t want it, I’d be happy to take it off your hands.”

  “If I didn’t want it, why would I give it to you and not my brother?”

  “Because!” he roars. “Because your brother is so terrified of your usurpation that he wants to kill you.”