This Vicious Cure

by Emily Suvada

  “I can’t go back,” Ziana says. She clenches her eyes shut, pulling off her goggles. Her hands are shaking. She looks back at the Comox as if she wants to run for it and fly away.

  Anna slides an arm around her shoulders, glaring at me. “I guess being an asshole runs in the family.”

  “I’m trying to be honest with you.”

  “Yeah?” Anna spits. “Well, you should have tried that from the start.”

  “I’m sorry,” I plead, looking between them. Ziana’s face is buried in Anna’s shoulder, and Anna looks furious. Cole is still watching me with an unreadable look in his eyes. I might have ruined this—ruined everything, but they have to understand. All that matters is stopping Agnes from pushing us into a war. She can’t be allowed to finish whatever code she’s working on. Which means I have to find a way to warn Jun Bei.

  “Please,” I say. “If Agnes needs my DNA, then she’ll be going after Jun Bei. I need to warn her, and then I’m going to need your help to stop Agnes. Please stay here. I won’t tell Cartaxus anything. We need to fix this together. It’s the only way. I really am sorry.”

  Cole’s eyes hold mine, hurt and confused, as I tilt my focus into my cuff and jump away.

  CHAPTER 35 JUN BEI

  I FALL TO MY HANDS and knees, gasping, a surge of nausea racing through me. The scorpion lies upturned and still on the concrete, but it’s already too late. The damage is done. Infection detected. The words blaze in scarlet, stamped across my vision. I think I’m going to be sick.

  I scramble to my feet, swaying, one hand clutched to my mouth, and lurch for the lab counter to lean over the sink until the urge passes. The black metal surface is cold against my arms, my hair hanging wild across my face. The Panacea is running in my panel, which means the vaccine is active, and there hasn’t been a single report of infection for weeks. So how the hell did Agnes use a scorpion to hack my panel and infect me with the virus?

  It doesn’t make any sense, but however she did this, it proves that she was right. The code isn’t working. I was wrong about everything. Whatever the scorpion just shot me with shouldn’t have infected me. I have the vaccine running inside me, woven through the Panacea, and now that I’ve added Leoben’s DNA to it, the code is supposed to be strong. I don’t understand how Catarina’s DNA could possibly fix it.

  But clearly, the founder of Cartaxus knows something that I don’t.

  “Agnes!” I shout, running for the door. She just left. I trust her less than ever now, but she knows more than I do. She knew the vaccine would fail; she knew about my code; she knew everything. The last strain of the virus that swept loose was killing its victims within days. I might not have much time to fix this myself.

  “Agnes, wait!” I reach the lab’s steel door. It’s locked, and it takes me precious seconds to hack it and throw it open. My head swims as I run into the stairwell. The steps are still littered with rubble and feathers that slide beneath my boots as I run to a railing that looks out over the park. “Dammit, come back!”

  But there’s no sign of her. No gray hair moving through the crowd. She has to be waiting here, though. This has to be part of her ploy to get me to join her. She’s going to come back and show me how to fix this. She’s going to give me the real vaccine.

  Or maybe she was telling the truth—she wants me to come crawling to her, begging her to save me. I need to figure out where she is.

  I turn up the stairs and run back into the lab, biting back the urge to cry. A roll of heat ripples across my skin, an itch starting up in my shoulder where the scorpion shot me. The infection alert returns, only now it’s warning me that I’m going to have a fever within the next few hours. I’ll be delirious. Soon, even if I figure out where Agnes is, I might not be able to get to her.

  I don’t even know what I’ll do if I find her—let her fix the Panacea and cure me, or stop her from using it to take over the world?

  Footsteps sound in the stairwell. “Jun Bei?” Mato calls.

  Relief swells in my throat. “Mato! I’m here!”

  He appears at the door, his eyes widening as he scans the room—the blood spattered on the cabinets, the dead scorpion lying upturned on the floor.

  “What happened?” he asks, his mask flickering. He’s loaded the scythe, ready to send it out—I know it without checking. “Who did this?”

  “The Viper,” I say. “It’s Agnes—the old woman who shot you.”

  He looks around, his mask flashing as he sends out a pulse. “She can’t have gone far.”

  “She’s gone. We have more to worry about, Mato. I was wrong—the Panacea isn’t ready yet, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

  He turns back to me, stepping across the room. “How do you know?”

  “Because that scorpion shot me with a nanite solution that hacked my tech, and now I’m infected.”

  My words hang in the air, frozen between us. Mato stares down at me, his face going white. “No,” he whispers.

  “I’m sorry. I thought Leoben was the key, but I was wrong.”

  “Do you know how to fix it?”

  I shake my head. “I have no idea—Agnes said that we need Catarina’s DNA.”

  He reaches for my shoulder. “We’ll figure it out. You still have her DNA. We can fix this.”

  “But I don’t have much longer. I don’t know where to start, and I’m already feeling the first stage of the infection. Once the fever hits, I won’t be able to think.”

  “I’ll think for you,” Mato says. “We’ll get this done. Why don’t you send me the source code?”

  “I don’t know if we have time to figure it out,” I say. “She’s going to use the Panacea to control people’s minds. We have to stop her. She’s turning it into a weapon.”

  “Then we just have to strike first,” Mato says, “and we need to do it fast. I’ve prepared the networks. I think it’s time to release this code. Send it to me—I can do it for you.”

  A flicker of doubt rises through me. Mato has asked for the Panacea’s source code twice now. I shift uneasily, searching his face, but he turns away from me as voices echo from outside. Ruse runs up the stairs, his silver-streaked features furious. He must have escaped from Cartaxus with Rhine and the others. He pushes into the lab, and his eyes cut straight to me. “You have a lot of nerve coming back to this city after what you’ve done, Jun Bei.”

  “Get out of here,” Mato says, stepping in front of me, his voice like ice. His mask flickers again. “This isn’t the time, Ruse.”

  “Mato, stop!” I say, pulling at his arm, but he ignores me.

  “This isn’t your home anymore, Mato,” Ruse snaps. “The two of you are exiled. I don’t ever want to see either of you again.”

  “You can’t throw us out,” Mato say. He steps toward Ruse. “You don’t own this city.”

  “Nobody owns this city,” Ruse says. “That’s what you never seemed to understand. We’re not here to control people or change them—we’re here to build a community. Regina didn’t rule us—she was just a caretaker. If the two of you are so obsessed with changing the world, then you both should have stayed at Cartaxus. You have to leave, now. I don’t care if it means throwing you out in the middle of an attack.”

  “An attack?” I ask.

  “Cartaxus’s troops are surrounding the city,” Ruse says. “They just breached the border’s main checkpoint. This is retaliation for what we did, Jun Bei. I should never have listened to your plan. Now the entire city is at risk.”

  “You can’t talk to us like that,” Mato says. His voice is low, his mask flickering. Ruse backs away as though suddenly sensing the danger he’s in.

  “Mato, don’t kill him,” I say.

  “I’m not going to kill him,” Mato says. “Now that you’ve finished the Panacea, we don’t need to kill people anymore. We can just change their minds. Maybe I’ll make Ruse want to beg for your forgiveness. Maybe I’ll make him afraid of us. Send me the code, Jun Bei. Whatever I do, I’ll make sure he’s s
orry for speaking to you like that.”

  My stomach clenches. “The Panacea isn’t a toy, Mato. It’s not something to use against people you don’t like. I’m not going to give you the code so you can use it against Ruse.”

  “I know you aren’t comfortable with this,” Mato says, his eyes locked on Ruse, “and that’s okay. You will be soon. You’ll remember the girl you were before. You don’t need people like Ruse around you. They’re a waste of time—I’ve always tried to explain that to you. You didn’t need the others from the lab, and you don’t need anyone here in this city. They should all be answering to you. They don’t understand just how special you are.”

  I push myself unsteadily to my feet. “What do you mean—you’ve always tried to explain that to me?”

  Mato’s eyes cut to me. “You always thought you needed other people. The other children, Lachlan, Regina. It’s your one weakness, Jun Bei. I tried to help you move past it, but you’re still defending this man when he’s trying to throw you out of the city that should be yours.” He turns to me. “We’re on the brink of a new world, Jun Bei, and I’m ready to embrace it. Why can’t you step into the role that’s been waiting for you?”

  A jolt of horror runs through me. I suddenly understand why I’ve wanted to be with Mato and to pull away at the same time. I know why I’ve felt drawn to him like a moth to a flame, and why he has still horrified me. “You said I was too scared to go back to the lab and save the others,” I say. “You said I created the Panacea to make myself more vicious. But that isn’t true, is it? You didn’t want me to go back. You moved into that house with me and told me I didn’t need them.”

  “If you think I’m capable of manipulating you—”

  “Of course you were!” I spit. “I’d just escaped from the place where I’d been tortured for my entire life. I was fifteen, Mato! But I was talented, and you saw a way to use that. You keep telling me I’m special, that I should be in control—”

  “You should,” he says, his eyes flaring. “You’re smarter than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “I needed to be loved, Mato. I needed to heal.”

  “I do love you—how can you not see that? I’ve killed for you, Jun Bei. I’ll force this entire planet to its knees for you.”

  I shake my head, stepping back. “You’re just in love with what I can do for you. You want the Panacea for yourself. I’m not going to give you the source code, Mato. I don’t think anyone should have it. We’re not ready for immortality—we can’t even stop fighting each other over nothing. I’m going to delete the code. It’s the only way to stop it being used for evil.

  His face grows dark. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

  “Yes I am.” I pull up the Panacea’s files in my panel to delete them.

  “Jun Bei, wait! You’re infected, and you’re exhausted. You can’t make a decision like this right now. Let me help you stop this war.”

  I pause, hesitating. I’m about to delete years of work and our best chance at immortality. I’ve given up everything to finish this code. It was supposed to be a gift, not a weapon. Maybe it really can save us.

  “Don’t listen to him, Jun Bei,” Ruse says. “Listen to your heart.”

  I meet Ruse’s silver eyes across the room, my breath catching.

  “Listen to your heart?” Mato sneers. “How can this man be running Entropia instead of you?”

  “Because I love this city,” Ruse says. “That’s what matters. You can’t save the world with code, Jun Bei. You know that. You can only save it with your heart.”

  I stand silently, torn, looking between Mato and Ruse with the Panacea’s code spinning in my mind. I could delete it right now and give up everything to make sure it’s never used as a weapon. Or I could give it to Mato and bring about a new and bolder world.

  “I can’t believe you’re listening to this,” Mato says. “You need my help more than I thought.” His mask flickers, and it hits me like a knife. He’s going to use the scythe. He’s going to kill Ruse. I see a sudden flash of the soldiers he killed at Novak’s base and the dead guards at Cartaxus. Before I know what I’m doing, I’ve tilted my focus into my cuff.

  Mato’s mask fades to black. He falls to his knees, slumping to his side on the floor. Ruse turns, confused, and I freeze, staring down at Mato, a roaring in my ears. The panel on his arm is blinking out, his mask opaque. The floor feels like it’s opening up, threatening to swallow me whole. Mato’s dark hair spills across the concrete, his head rolling back lifelessly.

  I just killed him.

  Ruse’s eyes flare. He drops down beside Mato. “What did you do?”

  “H-he was going to kill you,” I breathe. “I had to stop him.”

  Ruse rolls Mato to his back, checking his pulse. His silver eyes glaze. He presses his hands to Mato’s chest, compressing his heart. I cover my mouth, shaking, not wanting to believe what I’m seeing. But deep down, I already know. The scythe is still spinning in my mind.

  Mato is dead.

  I double over, a storm rising inside me. I blink, gagging, and see a flash of Leoben’s blood-smeared body. I see the horror on Cole’s face when I pushed him out of the Comox.

  I see Catarina trying to kill herself to stop me from running the wipe.

  “Sit down,” Ruse says, reaching for my arm. “Jun Bei, it’s okay. Come on, sit down.”

  “Get away from me!” I shout, my voice cracking. I stand, wrenching my arm from Ruse’s grasp. I don’t know what I’m doing—I’m not in control of myself, and I shouldn’t be in control of anyone else. I wrote the Panacea to help people, and now it’s nothing but a weapon, and Agnes is going to use it to take over the world. Everything I touch leads to death. I’ve turned everyone I love against me. I need to run, to flee, to hide. I push past Ruse to the door, bolting out into the stairwell.

  “Jun Bei!” Ruse calls after me, but I can barely hear him over the hurricane inside me. I race down the stairs and into one of the hallways that leads to the tunnels cutting through the mountain. I killed him. I killed Mato. I stumble against the wall, gripped by fever, by horror, and by the imprinted sight of Mato lying lifeless on the floor.

  I was right. The Panacea is too dangerous. It doesn’t need to be used as a weapon—people are already killing one another to control it. I run a command to delete the files, tears swimming in my eyes.

  A boom sounds in the distance, but I barely register it until a troop of soldiers appears through a doorway ahead of me. Ruse said Cartaxus’s troops were here. They’re coming for the genehackers. The war I started has made its way right to me. And I have nothing left to offer the world to stop it now.

  The soldiers turn in my direction, shouting orders to grab me. They’re spilling in through the tunnel, splitting up, swarming down the bunker’s hallways. I turn, trying to run, but my muscles are already weak, and it only takes a few paces until they catch up. One of them grabs my wrist, another looping an arm around my waist. I kick and thrash, letting out a scream, trying desperately to get away, even though I don’t know where to go. I don’t know anything anymore.

  The world is at war, and Leoben’s blood is still crusted on my hands, and maybe it’s right that Cartaxus’s troops are going to drag me away.

  The soldier holding my wrist presses a hissing vial to my neck and everything goes black.

  CHAPTER 36 CATARINA

  AN ACHE IN THE BASE of my skull drags me from my sleep. There’s a light in my eyes and a hard, cool surface beneath me. I roll to my side and lift my hand to rub my face, but my vision stays blurry.

  I don’t know where I am, and I don’t remember how I fell asleep.

  I force myself to sit up, drawing in a shaking breath. I’m sprawled on a polished concrete floor in a room lit by a row of barred windows. There are three wooden bunk beds bolted to the walls, each holding two small mattresses with gray blankets folded neatly on their pillows. Outside, three mountains rise in the distance, draped in crisp green cedars. This is the dormitory of
the Zarathustra lab. I’m back in Jun Bei’s simulation. I was near the cabin with Anna and Cole. Ziana and I were talking, but then I went to find Jun Bei.… And then I woke up here.

  “No, no,” I whisper, my stomach tightening. I need to get back into the real world. Agnes is coming for Jun Bei—I have to warn her. I push myself to my feet, but the pain in my skull flares, making me double over. It still hasn’t faded—it’s a steady, pulsing drumbeat that’s spreading down my neck. Something here is wrong.

  I look around, breathing through the pain. The lab was always cold when I was here before, but now the air feels different—like it isn’t really there at all. The walls aren’t shaking either, and I can’t hear the children playing in the halls. Outside, the mountains are still, with no sign of birds swooping through the trees. There aren’t any clouds drifting across their peaks, or even a hint of a breeze. Everything is frozen and static. It’s like the entire simulation has just been put on pause.

  I stagger through the dormitory, heading for the hallway. There’s no sign that I’ve been living here—I ransacked this room and took the blankets a few days after waking. The simulation must have reset. I step out of the dormitory and down the hall, peering cautiously into the rooms.

  My heart rate rises with every empty room I pass. Some don’t even have any furniture. Every single light is off. The entire lab is empty, echoing with my footsteps and the rising sound of my breathing. I reach the stairs and jog down them, heading for the lab with the wall of windows.

  That’s where Leoben jacked me in to get me out of here. Maybe I can use the same genkit to escape again. The downstairs hallway is empty, but the door to the main lab is open, a faint glow coming from within. I reach the entrance and slow, steeling myself in case it’s the avatar of Lachlan. But it’s Jun Bei.

  She’s kneeling on the floor with her head dropped, her arms held tight around her chest. I step into the room, holding my breath, trying to figure out if she’s another simulated avatar like Lachlan and the children.