Astral Tide (The Otherborn Series)

by Silver, Anna

  “Facility three? What’s that?” London asked. “Is that the same one I just pointed at?”

  The man ignored her. “You will be escorted.”

  London slammed a hand on his counter, sending the picture on the screen skittering. “Hey! Answer me! Is that the same facility my friend went into?”

  The man jumped back and gestured hurriedly at an approaching guard. “Three,” he told the guard, who was already shouting for reinforcements.

  The first guard took London by the elbow and she slammed her heel into his foot hard. He grunted but didn’t let go. The next guard caught her from the other side and together they wrangled her away from the counter and towards a pair of doors that were one away from those Kim went into. Not the same facility.

  London was prepared to make a big enough scene that she might be able to get away and scrabble down Kim’s hall. Then, she could shift and they’d never find her since they’d be looking for a redhead. That is, until she looked down and saw Melbourne waiting in the group for Facility Three, his sad pajamas hanging off him and his blue eyes wide with fear.

  She stilled in the guards’ grip. “Okay. Okay! I’m calm. Just let me go.”

  Cautiously, they loosened their hold on her, until it was obvious she wasn’t going to bolt or fight anymore.

  London jerked away and scooted to Melbourne’s side. She took his hand in hers. “I’m fine,” she insisted and the guards stepped back, but they remained close, watching her warily until the doors to Facility Three opened wide to admit them.

  Chapter 30

  * * *

  The Ward

  ANOTHER LONG STERILE hall awaited, this one made of real walls and not fabric. Overhead, circular lights beamed down from inside the ceiling tiles, bathing every inch in fluorescence. It was almost painful for London to look at. A set of doors opposite them swung on their hinges where someone had passed through not long ago, three dim green crescent moons interlocked on each one in paint. She’d seen that symbol already, in white on the side of the pale green quarantine truck that had picked her and Melbourne up. It must represent the hazard of the sleeping sickness.

  Single doors to either side were set into each wall, slitted windows fitted high into the panel, just like on the truck. London was desperate to get a look inside the rooms they concealed, but didn’t want to fall behind or get manhandled by the guards again, so she simply passed by with a glance. With Melbourne clinging tightly to her and the overhead lights revealing every detail of the hallway and her ill-fated companions, she didn’t dare attempt the shift back. Not yet. But she was growing increasingly worried about holding it.

  Unlike warping, where she pulled something through the Astral into the physical dimension and it remained of its own accord, shifting required a sustained attention and energy to hold the image in place over one’s true form. It was what she had done to their truck when they were fleeing the Ag district, without ever realizing it. Pulling the Astral through and holding it up like a mask of reality. Different than the stairs she’d made outside Elias’s hive, or the water, in that those she simply grabbed and tossed out, where they were held by the force of their own being.

  It was the difference between knitting the energy around her into something new, as one can take string and yarn and needle and fabricate these materials into a whole new item, and reflecting it as something unique, wherein the reflection cannot exist without the constant presence of the item being reflected. Once done, the blanket or shawl required no further effort on the part of its maker to exist. But a reflection fades as soon as the original image drifts away. It can exist only so long as the original holds it there, by strength of force to hold itself before the point of refraction. In this case, she had to hold both herself and the Astral, the mirror as it were, steadily in place, and the effort was draining.

  Shifting the truck had been so much easier. The truck was lifeless, it put up no fight or fuss. But it seemed her life force, the very thing which separated her from the truck, was betraying her, consistently struggling to rearrange itself as it knew it should be. And the effort to hold it against its will was weakening her resolve. In response, the Astral grew in strength, in order to hold the façade. She could feel the pressure of these warring energies building behind her effort, the image becoming more tenuous with every passing moment, the Astral more fierce. She needed to release the shift before it released her, carrying her soul on the rebound.

  They neared the double doors and passed through in silence. Her group, about twenty or so, many of whom must have arrived on different trucks, simply shuffled steadily forward, looking about mutely, their shame and fear staying them like shackles. This hall T’ed the other one and the guards on either side directed them to the left. The stark white walls they’d just seen fell away and were replaced by a thick glass-like material. Maybe an epoxy of some kind. London couldn’t tell for sure. It had all the clear perfection of glass with none of the obvious fragility. Behind it were rooms, or cells more like, holding victims of the disease like themselves. Their own clothes were stripped and replaced with facility-issue garb, a pale green reprocessed material, stamped across the chest in white with the three interlocking moons.

  Many watched them pass with dull eyes and no motion, apathetic and resigned to their fate. But a few others actually got up and moved to the panels, pressing their faces and fingers against the material, no doubt searching for the familiar features of friends or family among the new recruits. One desperate woman even pounded her fist against the glasslike wall, her mouth open and moving as she yelled, but from where they were only inches away, not a sound could be heard.

  They stopped momentarily for the guard in front to open a door. He ushered the first few men in line inside, a total of four, and closed the door behind them. London noticed the clicking sound as it locked of its own accord, obviously programmed to do so each time it closed. The doors were set into slender opaque panels, frosty white, so that their mechanisms and circuitry were not displayed. Across from each one, against the far wall, a molded toilet and sink were exposed, little sliding curtains the only privacy afforded for dressing or going to the bathroom.

  They passed another cell adjacent to this one, occupied by two bright blond heads that glowed under the ceiling lights. London almost faltered as she saw their faces, so close to one another at the wall, peering out at her. She knew those faces, remembered them, and her heart broke to see them here. Kayla and Crow, from Ag. Had she done this? Had her presence somehow tainted them? With so many regiments stationed in and around their home, it wouldn’t have taken long for word of their dreaming to reach the proper authorities.

  London smiled wanly at the little faces, all alone in their cell, and almost gasped when Kayla raised a hand to wave at her. Surely the little girl didn’t recognize her? Not while she was shifted. London convinced herself it was only a friendly wave to a new crop of strangers being inducted into Facility Three, but something in her still shivered at the smile on the girl’s receding face.

  They made four more stops before coming to what was to be her cell. London had carefully tugged on Melbourne’s hand to draw him to the very back of their crowd, hoping for a chance to release her shift, though one never came in this prison of glass. Eyes were on them through their whole long procession. But it seemed her effort had not been in vain, for when they reached the final door, there was only she and Melbourne left to enter it. The guards slid the door open for them and they passed through the slender doorway one at a time. London was relieved to see there was no one else waiting inside. Melbourne was her sole roommate…for now.

  The door slid back and clicked tight, a tiny red light set in the opaque panel indicating it was locked. London stood at the corner just behind the doorway and held her breath. When the last guard was out of sight, she bolted for the toilet and pulled the curtain, letting the red hair and blue eyes fall away with relief.

  Pushing the curtain back, she stared out at Melbourne, who sat on on
e of the narrow beds across the little room and watched her. The people in the adjoining cell didn’t seem to notice her or Melbourne and were busily tossing aside their own clothes for the garments supplied on the bed.

  London approached her bed and fingered the green patient garb, tightly woven of pressed reprocessed fiber. There wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to put that on.

  “How do you do that?” Melbourne asked, stripping off his shirt and donning the new one, rolling up the too-long sleeves.

  London looked past him anxiously to the people in the adjoining room, but the walls were soundproof, she knew that much. “Just a little trick I learned…from dreaming.”

  “Wow,” Melbourne said and smiled. “Could I learn that too?”

  London grinned at him. “Maybe. It takes a lot of practice.” She knew it was impossible for Melbourne to shift, since he wasn’t Otherborn, but she liked the idea of giving him something positive to hold onto about dreaming. “But you can’t tell anyone,” she added. “Or it won’t work.”

  Melbourne nodded. “I won’t.” He cuffed his facility-issue pants neatly and laid his old pajamas in a heap at the foot of his bed. “Aren’t you going to change?” he asked her. “I won’t look. You can even go behind the curtain.”

  London laughed softly. “I don’t intend on staying long.”

  * * *

  DR. RAND HAD a swath of reddish hair pulled tight into her papery hat, where it was neatly covered. Her small eyes were set a little too close for London’s taste, but she refrained from saying anything about it.

  “So, Kitty and Melbourne, hello,” she greeted them cheerily. “I’m Dr. Rand. I’m just popping by to greet all our new patients and give you a little rundown of what’s expected here at Facility Three.”

  Melbourne smiled and London lay back on her bed, crossing her feet at the ankles.

  Dr. Rand continued. “You’re going to need to change into your patient wear while you’re here. I’ll take all your other clothing items with me.” She smiled at Melbourne, then frowned at London. “I see you haven’t changed yet, Ms. Moon. Is there some problem with your patient wear?”

  “Not that I know of,” London replied, stroking her dark waves casually. Dr. Rand had popped up so unexpectedly that she hadn’t the time to pull a shift, but it was probably just as well. She couldn’t conceive of trying to hold that face to her own every time the doctor was present and as it was, Dr. Rand didn’t seem to know anything about her. Otherwise, she would have recognized London right away.

  “Right,” Dr. Rand said. “Well then, maybe you can change after I leave and I’ll pick your other things up later,” she said, her lip raising slightly as she eyed London’s present state, black fitted reprocessed pants and an oversized blue button-down over a white tank to hide her scars. Punctuated by her thick-treaded, black lace-up boots. All were pretty worse for the wear.

  London just smiled.

  Dr. Rand went on. “It is important for you each to pick a bed and stay in it at night. We have orderlies who’ll be coming by to make sure everyone’s well secured and strapped in for sleep.”

  “Strapped in?” London asked.

  Dr. Rand cleared her throat. “We like to monitor signs of the sickness at night. It helps us determine which serums may be effective as well as how the disease progresses.”

  London studied Dr. Rand. Her white coat fell to mid-calf and buttoned down the front with three, large green buttons. In her arms, she carried a touch-screen, more advanced than the butterfly-hinged netbook London had waited so long to obtain, its faint green glow lighting her pointed chin and dimpled cheeks. “Are you going to feed us?”

  Dr. Rand laughed. “Of course, Kitty. I assure you, this is a state of the art facility designed to keep our patients comfortable while they undergo monitoring and…treatment.”

  “You mean testing,” London corrected, sitting up. Or reprocessing. “Because, as I understand it, you don’t have a treatment yet.”

  Dr. Rand’s impish eyes narrowed. “Like I said, we have several promising serums in rotation. Facility Three is currently dosing the most compelling formula of these. I’m sure we’ll have something definite very soon.”

  “What about Facility Four?” London asked, taking a gander that it was that facility where Kim had been placed, since his doors had been next to hers.

  Dr. Rand was positively squinting with irritation. “Facility Four is none of your business. As I said, all our facilities are delivering promising serums to our patients. We are on the verge of creating an effective vaccine.”

  “What about a cure?” London asked. “We already have it so…what can your vaccine do for us? Are you testing cures as well?” They’d come all this way, London wanted some answers before leaving.

  “Ms. Moon,” Dr. Rand said, taking a step forward. “I understand your concerns and I can assure you we are addressing all these and more here at the Ward, but you will have to desist with your questioning as there is little more I can tell you at this time. Now, if you will please change, I will have the orderlies gather your old clothes when they come by to deliver your dinner before lights out.”

  So that’s where they were, the Ward. A reprocessing plant for human beings. This was the building Rye alluded to, the one being used ‘behind the scenes’. The one near New Eden. Whatever they were doing, they’d done it before. Pauly had said so. Used to happen all the time. Probably when they were just getting people situated behind the walls. And now, with a rash of new dreamers, new defectors, they were scrambling to update their facilities, thus the new construction Rye talked about.

  London pursed her lips and eyed Dr. Rand’s portable touch-screen. If the good doctor wasn’t going to tell her anything, then that’s what she needed to get her hands on. She glanced back at the white headboard, outfitted with a dozen wires and electrodes. She also noticed the thick straps hanging from the bed frame. Sneaking out at night may prove more difficult than she’d first imagined.

  Dr. Rand turned to go, vigorously scrawling notes on the screen with a slender metal stylus. “It’s funny,” she said, turning back. “Jasper put you down as a redhead, but you don’t have red hair at all.”

  London swallowed, her heart rate quickening. “If by Jasper, you mean Mr. Spectacles at the kiosk out there, then I’m not surprised. I would have thought him totally blind if he hadn’t been ogling my boobs so much. Sorry, Melbourne.”

  Melbourne shrugged and Dr. Rand looked surprised.

  “You might want to think about replacing him,” London added. “Aside from having the eyesight of a mole, the man’s kind of a perv.”

  “I will, uh, make your complaints known to our supervisors,” Dr. Rand assured them as she stumbled out of the room.

  London turned to Melbourne. “Don’t get too comfortable, kid. We’re not sticking around to find out what’s in those serums.”

  Chapter 31

  * * *

  Immune

  THE STRAPS PRESSED deep into her arms, cutting across her chest in a way that made it difficult to take deep breaths. London squirmed and scowled at the orderly. “It’s too tight, dumb ass.”

  The orderly straightened and tugged at a strap. “Feels okay to me. Dr. Rand warned me about you. We haven’t had a feisty charge since the creepy twins showed up a couple weeks ago.”

  Across the room, Melbourne was quietly settled in his bed as his orderly plastered suction cups across his skull.

  London glanced at her orderly’s name tag and decided to try a new approach. “Look, Dean, is it? Look, Dean, I’m sorry I didn’t put on the sick wear. I know you told me twice and all. It’s just, have you seen it? It’s not really my shade of green. My skin is very pale and I don’t do pastels.”

  A smirk appeared on Dean’s pudgy face, just beneath the pencil thin mustache that dirtied his upper lip. “This is the Ward, not a fashion boutique.”

  London looked at Dean’s own white attire. Identical to the patient wear, but without the color and th
e hazard symbol. “Hey,” she said, perking up. “Maybe you could get me a set like yours? I can do white. It looks good with my dark hair.”

  Dean laughed. “No can do, Ms. Moon.”

  London sighed. “Call me, Kit. Please.”

  Dean sat on the edge of her bed and began sticking electrodes to her head. “Listen, Kit. Let me break it down for you,” he said in a low voice so the other orderly wouldn’t hear. “If you don’t have that patient wear on by morning, Dr. Rand is going to march down here with an army of orderlies and guards to restrain you and put it on for you.”

  “And if I fight?” London asked.

  Dean sighed. “The woman’s got a fry stick the length of my arm. You don’t want to do that.”

  “A fry stick? What the hell is that?” London was beginning to feel even more uncomfortable.

  “Electro-wand. 700,000 volts, up to half an amp. Enough power to bring you to your knees in a flash, incapacitate you, and render you unconscious if she so chooses. It’s a hell of a way to get dressed if you ask me. Plus, you’ll probably piss your new pants.”

  London swallowed as her throat tightened. She needed to get out of this place by morning, but that wasn’t going to be so easy with every inch of her strapped down to her mattress. “God. Why don’t they just sedate us? What’s with the shock option?”

  Dean cuffed something around her arm and sighed. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but truth is, Dr. Rand says medications interfere with the serums. Something about over-sedating? I don’t know. She prefers the fry stick method.”

  London arched her brows. “She’s a bigger sadist than I thought, then.”

  Dean chuckled. “Dr. Rand just doesn’t like disorder. Do what she says and you’ll be fine. Look at it this way, you’re in the most promising facility. There’s practically a race to secure a vaccine. All the facilities are in competition with each other. Rand’s formula is closest, or so everyone thinks. If she pulls it off, you might be out of here in no time and she’ll be off to live in that fancy, new house the Tycoons have been promising to the lead doctor.”