by Karen Bao
I pull Anka backward to a safer spot. To my great relief, Umbriel follows.
“You lot can’t keep a bargain, can you?” Cressida is shouting. Her violet eyes gleam. “The deal was that if you behave, we won’t use the truncheons.”
With obvious pleasure, Ganymede snaps magnetic handcuffs around the old man’s wrists. “Get up, geezer!”
A few able-bodied Shelter residents advance, their faces furious. “Linus didn’t disrupt fizz!” shouts the girl who held the joint.
In response, five more privates surround the upside-down tub, forming a ring around Ganymede, the corporal, the tall private girl, and the old man, Linus. They point their Electrostuns outward, and the Shelter residents back down. With a chilling smile, Cressida whips out her own Electrostun and shoots Linus. He collapses, screaming, as the electricity sends his arms and legs jerking like puppet limbs.
I squeeze Anka’s hand harder, horrified. Out of instinct, Umbriel brushes my shoulder with his fingers. It’s the first time he’s touched me since we talked about Wes.
Cressida stops electrocuting Linus, puts her foot on his chest, and turns to address us. “This filth is deluding you,” she says. “Asterion Epsilon doesn’t stand a chance against Andromeda Chi. So what if you vote for him—you are nothing. We killed Mira Theta. We threw Sol Eta in the Pen. Your precious Girl Sage abandoned you—and for all we know, her bones are rotting at the bottom of the Atlantic. We will put this Asterion away before you even know it’s happened. You keep throwing people at us? We will keep destroying them.”
I feel Anka’s hand form a fist. Her arm begins to shake.
“Stay calm,” I say in a fierce whisper. The idea of Asterion in Penitentiary—or worse, in an electric chair—makes me tremble. “Don’t let Cressida hurt you again.”
“I hate her!” Anka screams. Thankfully, the crowd’s shouting drowns out her voice. She tries to run forward, but Umbriel grabs her and holds her tight. Anka’s harder to safeguard than the Phaet of old. “She deserves to die!”
Cressida electrocutes Linus again. His body does the same contorted dance atop the tub. This time, the old man doesn’t even have the strength to scream. A plainclothes Dovetail guard leaps to defend him, but Ganymede electrocutes the man with a flick of his trigger. He falls to the ground, limp. After that, nobody tries to help.
Cressida’s going to kill him. Only when I feel liquid dripping from my chin do I realize that I’m crying. What if I ripped her weapon out of her hands and turned it against her? I’m strong and fast enough to do it. But her underlings would kill me in seconds.
Some Girl Sage you are, I scold myself. You’re a coward who’d rather shelter yourself than do what’s right.
Micah River would be disgusted with me. He gave up everything to help my brother, and for what? So that I could hide in the greenhouses and cower in Shelter, making zero progress toward protecting Dovetail and saving Cygnus?
At least I can watch over Anka, make sure she stays out of trouble. . . .
But as I learn a few hours later, she doesn’t stumble into trouble. She creates it.
31
THE WHITE WING STANDS OUT IN bright relief against the filthy Shelter floor. Every feather is visible—even the barbs on each feather. Three Militia troops guard the drawing, which is next to the Psychology tent, and one of them has my sister by the wrist. Umbriel and a majestic older woman stand nearby, talking heatedly.
As I crouch behind the Medical tent, my breaths come fast and heavy. After I overheard some Dovetail teenagers whispering about Anka Theta acting out again, I left my things in the spot where I’d hidden, alone, mulling over Cygnus’s message, and frantically searched out my sister.
“Unacceptable,” the helmeted male corporal says. “This is Anka Theta’s fourth infraction in as many weeks. It’s got to be genetic. Her DNA codes for trouble.”
The Shelter residents’ dinner mush contained millet, making it an off-white color significantly more appetizing than the usual stuff, which comes in varying shades of brown. Maybe someone was trying to appease the population after Linus’s violent death. My sister took that gift and made a painting with it. And what’s more, it was a confrontational, illegal one that all but shouts “We’re still standing!” at the Committee.
The majestic woman, who wears her white hair in a braid, puts one hand over her Psychology badge. This must be Biela Upsilon, Lazarus’s boss. “I apologize sincerely,” she says, her tone soft but reassuring. “Please understand, my assistant and I have collected enough data to know that the imprisonment or killing of a child, especially one as well known as Anka, will only lead to greater disorder in Shelter.”
“I’m not a child.” My sister’s voice rings with vitality, and it’s all I can do not to break cover and hug her. “Children will believe anything people tell them. Haven’t you noticed how none of the Committee’s lies stick to me? If you want to compare us, Ms. Biela, I’d say I’m more grown up than this corporal here.”
“Shut up,” snaps the corporal. He turns back to Biela, who’s regarding Anka with astonishment. “I’m sending a message to my superiors.”
Anka crosses her arms. Umbriel, who hovers behind my sister like a bodyguard, advances—then halts abruptly. Heads turn at the clack of another pair of boots approaching.
“Dr. Biela will address this, Anka.” Lazarus’s voice seems to pass through my sister like warm wind, and her posture relaxes.
“On your knees, girl,” Biela Upsilon says.
Anka complies.
“Tidy up this mess.” Biela raises her eyes, regarding the others with indifference. “That will be all. Leave us.”
Anka’s hands push the mush back into the bowl. Her face shows no hint of disgust—only sadness. She’s squeezing that beautiful white wing out of existence.
When everybody but Umbriel has departed, I approach my sister at last. Silently, I fall to my knees beside her and hold out my arms. She collapses forward, clings to me. Her chest heaves, but her cheeks remain dry.
I’d rather she cry—I have no experience with this new Anka, who speaks her beliefs without flinching and sheds no tears for the consequences. She’s gone from crying when bullies insulted her math skills to eloquently contradicting base professionals. It makes me proud—and scared.
She puts her left hand in her pocket to prevent eavesdropping, which relieves me just a bit. “I’m sorry I got in trouble again. I was so angry. You saw what Cressida did. She killed that old man! And she said such horrible things!”
“We shouldn’t let words hurt us,” I say.
“We shouldn’t let anything they do hurt us,” my sister says.
Umbriel reaches for Anka’s hand, and she squeezes his fingers until the tendons of her forearm stick out.
When my arm brushes Umbriel’s, his dark eyes find mine, and he gazes down at me with a neutral expression. Not happy, but not angry either. I wasn’t expecting anything more.
“What kind of election are they running, anyway?” Anka asks. “Why take out Linus? He didn’t say anything bad about Andromeda. He only said good stuff about Asterion Epsilon.”
I tighten my arms around Anka. The Committee has outdone itself. Last year, it promised free and fair elections; less than twelve months later, its representatives are committing murder to win, again. I imagine taking all the suffering they’ve caused and feeding it back to them; they’d probably burst.
“If Linus can’t give speeches anymore,” Anka says, “I will. Mom would want it.”
“What if I don’t?” I whisper. I can’t lose you too.
“I can’t just keep sitting around with Umbriel.” She glances sideways at him, and then puts her lips near my ear. “At least I’m never lonely, but he can be so annoying. He treats me like I’m you, and won’t let me go anywhere alone.”
It takes all my restraint not to give Umbriel an apologetic g
lance. I didn’t know he missed me that much—enough to try and replace me with my sister.
At normal volume, Anka says, “I have a voice, and I want to use it.”
Pulling back from her, I marvel at the defiance in her shrunken face. Unlike me, my sister says what she thinks and shows what she feels. Her heart influences her mind, rather than the other way around. There’s something heroic about her—and something persuasive too. She’s inherited Mom’s willingness to look evil in the face, no matter how unlikely it is that she’ll win.
Anka and Umbriel head back to their “campsite,” and I crouch behind another family to avoid revealing myself. I’ll need to head back underground soon. . . .
Three more minutes, and then I’ll leave them.
From a distance, I watch as Anka lies down, tosses left and right on the hard ground. She can only fall asleep on her side, just like me, which I know from ten years of sharing a bedroom with her. Those days are no more. Does she miss them too?
Eventually, Anka projects her old three-dimensional star map from her handscreen into the air above her, tracing the lines of the constellations with her forefinger. She lingers on Cygnus, the Swan, and Mira, a star in the constellation of Cetus, the Whale.
In another part of the night sky is the Phoenix constellation, a diamond and a triangle that roughly resemble wings, with the star Anka glowing on its right-hand side. Each star is labeled with both its proper name and an astronomical abbreviation consisting of a Greek letter and the first three letters of the constellation’s name.
Lying there, looking at her, I come upon the truth: Anka—not me—is Mom’s true heir, a girl who’ll fight for justice with all the fury of her firebird namesake. Meanwhile, I’ve hidden in the bowels of the base and the tangles of Greenhouse 17. If I can keep my sister alive until she’s no longer a child, she’ll become the young woman the rebels need. But that’s no small feat.
Why was I born without her courage? Was it a matter of chance, which sister came into the world meek, and which inherited her mother’s strength? I wonder if Mom ever considered naming her rebel group Operation Phoenix instead of Operation Dovetail.
If only Cygnus were here to see the person our sister has become.
Cygnus. T2A1G3.
Her DNA codes for trouble, the Corporal said.
DNA contains four nucleotides: adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine, which are commonly abbreviated as A, T, G, and C.
T2A1G3 . . . TTAGGG.
In a frenzy of hope, I recite the pieces of Cygnus’s message to myself; simultaneously, I rake my eyes over Anka’s star map.
Alpha P-H-E: Phoenix. Omicron C-E-T: Mira. Alpha C-O-L: Phaet, the Dove.
32
“GOT IT!” I BLURT AS SOON as Lazarus opens the door to the examination room.
His jaw drops practically to his collarbone. After a few seconds, he seems to realize how absurd he looks. His teeth clack when he closes his mouth again.
“T2A1G3,” I whisper as he shuts the door. “Two thymines, one adenine, three guanines.”
Lazarus tilts his head to the side, puzzled.
“The repeating nucleotide sequence in vertebrate telomeres.”
“Pardon me?”
How could Lazarus not know what I’m saying? This is basic science, the biology I studied in Primary. I suppose that as a Psychologist, Lazarus’s research deals with behavior and cognition, not molecular biology.
“Telomeres cap DNA strands,” I recite from memory. “They don’t code for proteins. They protect the strand from damage during multiple cell divisions, and they shorten as we age.”
“Enlightening,” Lazarus says, smiling faintly. “But how will we mobilize this revelation to decode Cygnus’s message?”
“We won’t.” I grin. “T2A1G3 begins and ends the message like telomeres begin and end a strand of DNA. They encode for nothing and protect what’s between them. Cygnus said ‘T2A1G3’ to throw people off.”
My brother must have ruminated for days about this message, knowing that at some point he’d be filmed in an attempt to draw out Dovetail—and me. He knows how I think, and he created a code that only I could break.
“The real message is made up of stars.” I bounce on the balls of my feet. “Omicron C-E-T is shorthand for Omicron Ceti, or Mira. Alpha C-O-L is Alpha Columbae: Phaet. And Alpha P-H-E is Alpha Phoenicis: Anka. So Cygnus’s password has to do with Mom, me, and Anka.”
A genuine smile breaks across Lazarus Penny’s face. He walks closer to me and, when he’s only a meter away, shifts his weight to one hip and crosses his arms. “Impressive, and yet—not a surprise, given his affection for the three of you. Do you also know what dodeca-chordata could mean?”
“I can guess.”
Lazarus types furiously on his handscreen. Reading upside down, I see: Dear Yinha, an emergency of the most pleasant variety has arisen. Please notify other relevant parties and find me immediately.
“Before the arrival of our audience, I am impelled to discuss the proceedings against me on Battery Bay.” Lazarus leans in, entering my personal space, but my back is pressed up against a wall, leaving me nowhere to go. “Every hour, they are moving closer to my expulsion not only from the Sanctuarist force, but from the citizenry of Saint Oda. To Wesley and his father, you are now a heroine, one of the city’s saviors. Your word carries clout with the Sanctuarists. I have legitimately contributed to the attempt to extricate your brother from danger, so, in the name of equity, I beg you to vouch for my character. Please, Miss Phaet—”
“Not now,” I blurt. I like him, and we did make a deal, but if I do as he asks, I could lose my good standing with the other Sanctuarists. “It’s too soon. I’ll speak to Wesley Sr. after Cygnus is safe.”
“But the Sanctuarists will likely have expelled me by then.” Looking down, Lazarus plays with his left sleeve, rolling and unrolling it with his long fingers. “This cannot wait for a more opportune time—the only time is now! I cannot continue to help you if we do not clear my name together.”
“You’ve helped me so much,” I say. “But I hardly know you.”
His nostrils flare, and then his mouth curves into a one-sided smirk. “Then do you consider me a scoundrel—at best, a reformed scoundrel—as the other Odans do?”
My knees begin to wobble, and it’s all I can do to stand my ground.
“As you have noted, Sage, we hardly know each other. But that can change.” Like a house cat, he straightens and takes a step toward me. But some unidentifiable feeling—fear or nervousness?—liquefies my legs, making them numb and useless. I stumble on one of the low chairs, and his hand catches my wrist.
Up close, I see faint creases around his nose, his eyes. The patience in them has disappeared; they’re all too eager now, and magnetic. Since I met Lazarus, I’ve admired him the way one would a distant star, never expecting or wanting to travel all the way there. But now he’s right here, and the nearness is blinding.
The instep of his right foot brushes against mine, and the contact seems to burn me.
I leap back, twisting around in midair. An overreaction to contrast with his smoothness. “Got to go.”
“Wait! Don’t leave.”
Lazarus comes into a kneeling position two meters from my feet. I’d thought him incapable of blushing, but the red blood has flown to his cheeks. Now I almost regret fleeing from him—but he advanced too quickly, and all at once. What I thought was a distant star turned out to be a comet hurtling directly at me.
“I apologize, Sage,” he says. “I had hoped you would see something, anything, in me, just as I saw wisdom and a beautiful sort of . . . of resilience in you.”
What?
“Since Marina, I have not encountered another girl so . . . inspiring. The ordeals you have endured bring out the best in me and draw me to you. But believe me when I say that if such advances are unwelc
ome, I will not make them again. I am truly sorry.”
Maybe he’s telling the truth. His eyes droop at the corners. I pity this man, who seems to need a younger, “damaged” girl in his life to make it worthwhile. To make him feel like a savior.
But I don’t need him to carry on with my existence. I don’t need anyone.
“Please,” he adds. “Forgive me?”
My anger ebbs away. As a reward for his earnestness, I give him more than my customary silence.
“Apology accepted. Now, let’s pretend this never happened. Yinha’s coming soon.”
* * *
Lazarus’s office was not built to hold five people. I can almost feel everyone’s pulse through the parts of my body that touch theirs. And I can detect Lazarus’s discomfort, even though his face is guarded. He’s apologized several more times, and I’ve assured him that I’m not angry, but I can still feel my skin puckering into goose pimples where he touched me.
He and Yinha hide their handscreens in pockets or under crossed arms; in their company, it feels odd to leave my left hand dangling by my side.
While we were waiting, Lazarus programmed the sign on the door to read, KEEP OUT—PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS. The speaker on the outside wall is playing Anka’s fake screams to further discourage intruders. The room’s soundproofing makes conversation possible, despite the alleged torture proceeding within.
We’ve tried several passwords to unlock the attachment to the video, but each has been denied. Cygnus wouldn’t have chosen something as obvious as MiraPhaetAnka or our favorite colors.
“We can figure this out tonight,” Anka says. “I know it.”
Yinha sips fragrant matcha from a metal thermo-proofed mug in her right hand. She stands between Lazarus and me as if she has some idea of what transpired before her arrival. “Remember what your mom used to password-protect her ‘Grievances’?” Yinha says. “Your birthdays.”
“Too easy,” I say. Caeli guessed right away, and that guess led to Mom’s capture. Besides, we’ve already tried it.
