Astral Tide (The Otherborn Series)

by Silver, Anna

  London shifted under her belts. “What’s all this crap do anyway? Why the straps?”

  “Some of the patients get up, even walk around, while in the grip of the sickness. Don’t want anybody getting hurt. The bed monitors your vitals for us, brainwaves. Let’s us know when your symptoms kick in. As soon as the night pictures start, we’ll know.” He said it with a smile, but London wasn’t soothed.

  Dean leaned down and gave a little tug against the buckle of her chest strap. “There, I loosened it a tad. Better?”

  “Better,” London agreed, though not nearly loose enough.

  MELBOURNE’S SOFT SNORES stirred the air and the only light in the room was the tiny red one indicating the door was locked. London blew at a hair that was tickling her face. She hated not having her hands. The main thing was, she couldn’t dare fall asleep. The last thing she needed was an accidental trip to the Astral. Whatever signals those electrodes were picking up, she doubted anybody else’s in Facility Three would read quite like hers. She didn’t need Dr. Rand figuring out she was Otherborn.

  She could have warped a giant pair of scissors into the room, but without her hands being free, they wouldn’t have done much good. What she needed was to do what Rye had, to project. Maybe if she could project herself out of the room, she could go and find Dr. Rand’s touch-screen without ever leaving her bed. Then she could sneak into Facility Four and find Kim and Tora.

  London closed her eyes and tried to focus. She’d never projected before and she didn’t have Tora, or Hantu, or Elias there with a bundle of nifty instructions to help her out. She was just going to have to manage it on her own. If Rye could do it, she could, too. She was sure of that. But how?

  It wouldn’t be like a warp. In a warp, she shaped what she needed within the Astral and brought it into the physical dimension. No. This was nothing like that. Maybe it was more like a shift, like reflecting. Only, instead of using the Astral to reflect whatever image she wanted, she would be using it to push her own image forward. To sort of lengthen herself, her energetic reach, like a lens. She needed to magnify herself.

  She took deep breaths to relax. If she wasn’t asleep, would the electrodes still record what she was doing? Probably. Dr. Rand would be all over her by morning, poking and prodding at her like something in a petri dish. But she had to take the chance. She just needed to work fast.

  London visualized herself standing right outside the clear panels of her room, cloaked in darkness. She sank deep into herself, curving and thickening the Astral before her, pushing the image of herself, strap free, through it. It took a great and sudden force, a shove, before she felt the slick epoxy under her fingers, a whisper fainter than if she had truly been there, all of her. But within moments, London was looking back through the darkness from the other side of her cell at the red glare shining on her cheek against the pillow of the bed.

  There was a pull, a faint tug to return. Like before, with the shift, her own life force seemed to understand the split was unnatural, and it dragged at her to reunite. But it wasn’t strong enough to restrain her, or even weary her, not yet. It was simply an annoyance, like an incessant itch.

  Turning away from herself, she felt the itch grow a little stronger, but there was a lot of slack in the line between her and her body, and she was determined to use it. Her steps were soundless as she proceeded between the cells, and in the dark, no one could have seen her anyhow. London felt a little thrill of freedom, like a voyeur who could watch unseen from the shadows. She reveled in her own sense of touch, though it felt like having gloves on, knowing it could not be reciprocated. But it was short lived. She needed to get to Kim and Tora, and if she could, she needed to find something that would help her understand what was really going on here at the Ward.

  London felt one of the double doors to the hall she’d entered through sway beneath the pressure of her hand, but she could sense that she had to push a little harder than if she’d actually been there. Projection had its limits. Some things were simply more difficult, but others were sure to be impossible. Beyond the hazard doors, the white hall glowed as if nothing had changed, as if day was eternal. She was completely exposed in the light, but there was no one about at the moment. She needed to move fast and careful, or she’d be seen.

  Darting to the first door, London stretched up on her toes to peek inside the slitted window. A dim, empty room with an examination table was behind it. The next door offered the same, and the one after that. These must be the exam rooms where they administered the drug for Facility Three and did testing. A fourth room proved to be a well-equipped lab. That could be useful, but what London really needed was information: files, documents, something that would tell her what was going on. She could look through a million test tubes and have no clue what she was seeing.

  The fifth door appeared to be a computer room. The brain of Facility Three. She could see the dainty spikes of data as they filled the numerous screens, recording everything that happened in every cell throughout the night for Dr. Rand to look over tomorrow. Against one screen, a green series of dots were blinking, row upon row upon row. Only, one set of dots was moving much more rapidly, winking in and out at a pace that far exceeded the rest. London took a breath and lowered herself, biting at her lip. It was her own row. It had to be.

  She moved to the next door, just outside the main rooms and its kiosks, and peeked in. This room was larger, filled with four or five round tables with chairs, a couple of sofas, two televisions and a long L-shaped counter with cabinets underneath and a sink and appliances on top. It wasn’t the benign furnishings that alarmed her. It was the white, pressed fabric uniforms of the orderlies, chatting at the tables, feet kicked up on the sofas, pulling snacks from the cabinets. A lounge. And it was full.

  London ducked down and sprinted across the hall. This was the last room to check. The farther she moved from her own body, the more the tug to return pulled at her, but she still felt like she had a ways to go before the pull got so strong she risked being jerked back or breaking with herself.

  The window revealed an empty office with a single desk lamp on. Surely, this was Dr. Rand’s personal headquarters. A papery hat was wadded on the desk beside an open drink canister. But more importantly, the doctor’s touch-screen lay lifeless and waiting on the desktop. London tried the knob, turning it slowly and with a little more effort than she was used to. She felt the door give as she pressed it inward, slipping into the office, letting the door drift back on its hinges behind her.

  She made her way to the desk and tapped the touch-screen. It flared to life under her projected fingertips. The opening screen read, Facility Three Passcode:_________.

  London deflated. Of course there would be a passcode. Orderly Dean said the four facilities were practically in competition with one another. No doubt the prized new house was situated comfortably among the sparkling gardens of New Eden.

  She sighed and tried to think. What would beady-eyed Dr. Rand keep as her passcode? London typed in vaccine, immunization, and serum. She tried sleeping sickness as one word and two words. She typed hazard, dreams, and even plague. Nothing. Finally, out of desperation, she typed facility three. That too was a bust.

  She sifted through a desk drawer to look for something personal of Dr. Rand’s. Something that might allude to her passcode. She found her first name on an envelope and tried that: Theresa. No luck. She didn’t remember a wedding ring on the doctor’s finger, so that would mean no spouse and no kids, whose names always made good passcodes.

  London fell into the thick padding of the chair and sighed. Must be nice to be Dr. Rand. Your own clean office, a perfectly sterile life. She had to have been born well to get a doctor’s assignment. And she must have performed well wherever she was stationed before to get the privilege of working on top secret stuff at the Ward. She had to be someone they felt they could trust. All the doctors must be. But also, someone for whom the prize of cushy New Eden living would appeal. Someone a lot like Avery had bee
n—spoiled, greedy, ambitious. A sellout. Someone Avery would have personally chosen, if she really was managing this little experiment for the Tycoons.

  Suddenly, London’s mind flickered with understanding. She jumped up and grabbed the touch-screen, punching in A-v-e-r-y. The screen faded and brightened again, the glow of a techy welcome emitting through the room. All of Dr. Rand’s files, notes, tests, and research were laid out before her.

  London tapped Patient Data and typed in the name Kitty Moon. Dr. Rand’s scrawlings popped up on screen along with Jasper’s entry form and a connection to the sleep reports being gathered right now. London tapped Notes and began reading with great interest, taking a sip of Theresa’s orange juice from the open drink canister. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had real juice.

  Patient displays characteristics of defiance, hostility, and suspicion.

  Well, she could certainly say that again. London kept reading.

  Refuses to change into patient wear. Appears younger than recorded age of eighteen and is not cohesive with Jasper’s physical assessments. Dark hair, dark eyes, slim build. Unusual facial features…angled eyes, prominent cheekbones, long nose. Exotic.

  Wow. Exotic, huh? That could work. Of course, London knew all of that was courtesy of Si’dah’s features warping into her own. She read on.

  Possible foreign influence? Descendant of the Algerian Floaters suspected of illegally immigrating to the East Coast a couple decades back? Or maybe the great-granddaughter of one of the refugees from Old Cuba who fled in the Tycoon island takeovers?

  Dr. Rand was going to have to think a little farther out than Old Cuba.

  Dress is unexpected. Casual but worn, as though traveling. I suspect she is not an original resident of Mesa City, though Jasper records she came in on a Mesa City bus.

  Bingo. One for Dr. Rand.

  May even be using an alias. Requesting documentation from Mesa City intranet on Kitty Moon, or anyone registered for schooling, assignment, or rations under the surname Moon.

  Two for Dr. Rand. London decided this was beginning to suck.

  Keeping all records filed under ‘private’.

  Come again? Why would Dr. Rand go to the trouble to look all that up if she wasn’t going to turn Kitty in for lying?

  Patient will make an excellent test subject. Oppositional personality and behavior is a strong indicator of longtime immunity. Could be one of the first to develop the trait, or possibly even a second-generation immune, since still young, inherited through a turned parent. If any other Moons can be found in the system, will have them picked up and brought in for additional testing of the generational theory.

  London nearly choked on her juice. Immune? Not sick. Not infected. Immune. To what?

  Sedative Serum Three testing to commence immediately.

  London sat the drink canister down. Sedatives? Not vaccines. Not immunizations. Of course. How could she be so stupid as to not have seen it already? The Tycoons weren’t looking for cures or vaccines because this wasn’t an illness and they knew it. And they weren’t literally reprocessing people, though she could see how the rumor would have started. They were looking for new sedatives to repress the population. Just like in the past, when they would have been settling on their original formula.

  Whether the Otherborn were responsible, or merely well timed, London couldn’t say. What she did know, thanks to Dr. Rand’s notes, was that a sedative immunity was developing in the population. Was it a spontaneous mutation or a longstanding evolution? Did it matter? Either way, the Tycoons were hot to create a new drug to suppress the soul along with the parts of the brain responsible for dreaming, creating, independence and willfulness. Everything in contact with the Astral.

  All those patients whose glossy eyes had followed her as she came in today, never getting off their beds, resigned—it seemed—to this new lifestyle in the Tycoons’ lap. They weren’t depressed, or sad, or ill. They were sedated. They were doped up on Sedative Serum Three. They’d probably only been dreaming a week or two. They were the weakest links in the Astral chain, easily suppressed and returned to their docile, dormant state. But London was just what Dr. Rand needed to prove her serum was the strongest. If she could suppress Kitty, the defiant longtime dreamer with a possible family history of immunity, then she could really get the Tycoons’ attention. Here London thought she’d been making the good doctor’s life a little harder. In fact, she was just what the doctor ordered.

  London closed the notes and returned to the previous screen. She tapped Sleep Data and watched the same series of dots and angles and numbers pop up on screen as she’d seen in the computer room, recording in real time. She didn’t need Dr. Rand getting a peep at that and coming up with any more brilliant ideas for her model patient.

  She pressed Options in the top right corner and selected Erase from the drop-down menu. When prompted, she reentered the command and then chose Disconnect to turn off her electrodes. Let Dr. Rand figure this one out.

  She was just about to set the touch-screen down with a victorious smirk when the office door swung open and light from the hall flooded over the threshold. Without thinking, she acted. Against the pull of her own body, and the curve of the Astral, she simply did it, never taking the time to even ponder if it were possible. But the pressure…the pressure of it practically caused her to fold in on herself.

  “Dr. Rand?” Dean said, looking right at her. “I saw the door wasn’t closed all the way and a light was on. I just wanted to check. Is everything alright?”

  London held the image, but could feel the outer edges of it beginning to flicker. She couldn’t do this long. “Fine, Dean. Just checking in on some of the new patients.”

  The orderly smiled and London wanted to reach out and slap his piggy face, but she couldn’t, seeing as Dr. Rand would slide right off her features with the slightest movement.

  “Alright then. Let me know if you need anything. I was just about to go and do rounds, make sure everyone is tucked away safe and still hooked up.”

  “No need,” London said, a little too fast. But Dean didn’t seem to notice. “Already did it. There’s, uh, some promising newbies in there.”

  “Newbies?” he repeated, tensing.

  Go away, Dean!

  “New patients. That’s all. Anyway, everyone should be good until morning. If you would, make sure Kitty Moon gets changed at breakfast.”

  Dean grinned and his shoulders relaxed. “Yes, doctor. I’ll be sure.”

  Finally, he let the door click closed as he shuffled back across the hall to the lounge. London dropped the shift and crumpled. Her breathing felt irregular and her heart was racing. She didn’t want to push herself anymore, but she needed to find Kim and Tora in Facility Four.

  She got up and checked out the window. Coast was all clear. Slipping into the hall, London felt her body begging her to return, the tug much stronger now after laying the shift over her projection. It would be so simple to let go, to float back, and settle into a deep sleep. But simple was never really her thing.

  London turned away from herself and pushed the door open into the main room, feeling the effort increase after tapping her energy on the shift. She glanced at the empty kiosks as she passed, breezing by like a ghost. One hall over, the doors to Facility Four were waiting.

  Chapter 32

  * * *

  Escape

  HER EYES SEARCHING the kiosks in the dark, London never even saw the person coming. She tripped into someone, head turned over her shoulder, and felt all the air spill out of her lungs as she stumbled back, but they simply passed through, as though she wasn’t even there.

  “Watch it,” she hissed on impulse as she reached for the features of Dr. Rand to cover herself, but this time, she was too weak. Busted.

  “London?”

  She peered up and barely made out the recognizable slant to the eyes, and the slick black hair framing the smile full of perfect teeth. “Kim?”

  A rustle next to
her, the sound of rubber soles squeaking against a hard floor as they turned, and the scent of dry leaves in autumn, told her Tora was nearby. “Tora? Is that you?”

  “We were just coming to find you! You must have bumped into Tora,” Kim whispered. “I can’t believe you’re already here. This is perfect.”

  “I didn’t hit anyone,” Tora murmured.

  London started to speak as Kim moved toward the doors to the makeshift tunnel-way outside.

  “Come on,” he said before she could get a word out.

  “No, Kim—I can’t.”

  Kim spun around. “What do you mean you can’t? We have to get the hell out of this place. I don’t know what they’re up to here but it doesn’t bode well. Zen and Rye can’t be far. We can find them and hit the road again. Tora’s staying invisible, just in case.”

  London could see now that Kim had complied like a good little patient, his pale green patient wear faint in the darkness of the unlit main room, where the only light now was what poured through the square windows of the facility doors. “You don’t understand. I can’t come because…well, because—”

  “Spit it out,” Kim demanded. “There isn’t time for all this.”

  “I’m not really here,” London confessed.

  Suddenly, Tora popped into view. She passed the marble back to Kim. “What the hell are you talking about? We’re looking right at you,” she said, taking a step closer to London.

  To demonstrate, London held out her hand. Tora reached for it, but her fingers never made contact.

  “You see?” London said. “I’m a projection. The real me is still back in my bed in Facility Three.”