Exile

by S. M. Wilson

  “You don’t know where they want me to go,” she groaned.

  Arta leaned forward and smiled. “It has to be the lab,” she said confidently. “They’re sending everyone to the lab right now. It’s so busy there.”

  The irony almost killed Storm. Before winning her Trial she’d rebelled: tried to destroy the eggs, and told the Stipulators to leave Piloria alone. She was lucky the baying crowd hadn’t been able to get to her – they would have killed Storm for her unpopular views. “There’s no way they’d put me in the lab,” she said. “I’m too big a risk.” She raised her eyebrows. “Think of the harm I might do.”

  Arta frowned for a second. “So where are you going then?”

  “Parliament.”

  “What?” Arta’s eyes practically stuck out from her head. She said the word again, as if she didn’t quite believe it. “Parliament?”

  Storm was still in shock too. She felt sick just thinking about it.

  “What will you do there?” asked Arta.

  “I have no idea. What am I qualified to do? Nothing really. Unless anyone wants to ask me questions about Piloria. But then, no one really wants to know about Piloria. All people want to know about is how to kill the dinosaurs.”

  Arta looked at Storm carefully. She tilted her head to one side and said, “Lincoln talks about Piloria.”

  Storm tried to hide the smile that threatened to appear on her lips. This was the second time Arta had mentioned Lincoln. She wasn’t very subtle.

  “Does he?”

  Arta tilted her head further. “Yes, he does.” She frowned again as if she was thinking hard. “Sometimes he tells me things about the land. The trees. The flowers. The colours.” Arta squeezed her eyes closed for a second. “I wish I could have seen the colours.”

  Arta on Piloria? Her stomach clenched as a wave of protectiveness swept over her. Storm couldn’t bear the thought of this pale girl being exposed to the creatures there. She had barely made it out alive; someone as fragile as Arta wouldn’t last a day.

  But she’d only just been dreaming about the colours on Piloria herself. It was odd. She’d been so relieved to finally leave the dinosaur continent, but now? Now, the shades of grey on Earthasia seemed even bleaker than before. She didn’t doubt Arta would love the beauty of the place. But the colours and landscape couldn’t mask the danger of the continent.

  Arta hadn’t picked up on Storm’s reaction, however. Her expression changed and the tone of her voice softened. She looked at Storm with sadness. “Then he clams up. He won’t talk about the dinosaurs. He won’t talk about his scars. And he won’t talk about the others.”

  The others.

  Rune and Kronar.

  Her teammates, maybe even her friends, who had died on Piloria. Died on a mission it turned out she didn’t believe in.

  Storm stared at the white wall. “Sometimes it’s better not to talk about things. Sometimes it’s better just to forget.” She didn’t want to talk about what had happened to Rune or Kronar either. Her mind spun in circles every night as sleep evaded her and a thousand different outcomes taunted her.

  Them crossing the lake safely. Kronar not being sick and alerting the deinosuchus to their presence. The T-rex not appearing at the lake. Kronar standing in a different spot – one which meant the T-rex’s powerful tail couldn’t send him flying through the air.

  Her nightmares were frequent, leaving her thrashing around her bed and waking up slick with sweat, her heart hammering in her chest. But in the little period of time just before she fell asleep, Storm’s mind always drifted off to the vibrant colours, smells and happier memories of Piloria. The shades of green she’d never seen before. The pops of orange or red in bushes around her. The diplodocuses drinking in one of the shallow pools of water, flicking water over their young with their tails.

  Things that she might never see again. Things Arta would never see.

  Arta gave her a pointed look. “But talk is all I can do.”

  The sentence was short but Storm felt the impact. Arta could barely move her arms or legs without pain. What must it be like to be stuck in here all day staring at white walls?

  Storm glanced across the room. There was an older lady in the bed opposite who seemed to be permanently sleeping. She nodded towards her. “Does she ever wake up?”

  Arta gave a shrug. “Rarely. And only to moan and ask for something for the pain.”

  “Do you know who she is yet?”

  Arta frowned. “I think she’s related to one of the Stipulators. He’s come in a few times to visit.” She shifted uncomfortably. “He always looks at me as though I shouldn’t be here.”

  Storm straightened in her chair, her anger flaring. “Well, you should be. Has he faced a T-rex? Has he had to climb a tree to escape raptors? Who is he to look at you, anyway?”

  Arta shifted uncomfortably again. Storm wasn’t sure if it was because of what she’d said or because of the pain.

  “Are you feeling any better?”

  When Storm had seen the frail figure of Arta near the stage and claimed she was her sister, she’d imagined that a few weeks in the medico care centre would make her magically better. How foolish was that?

  Everyone knew this was a progressive disease. She’d seen enough kids in school with it to know better. Kids whose skin peeled and blistered until it became bleeding and infected. Kids whose chests started to rattle and wheeze. Kids who started to cough up blood. Kids who eventually never came back.

  Kids like Arta.

  Arta gave a tight smile then her eyes brightened slightly. “Actually, I am. Or at least one part of me is.”

  Arta uncrooked one arm and rubbed at the thin patch of green slime covering her skin there. Storm frowned and stood up, leaning over the bed and putting her face closer. The smell was instantly recognizable.

  “What?” Storm looked around, as if some creature from Piloria were about to jump out at her from the perfect white walls. It was a jolt. A vivid reminder of where they’d been and what they’d discovered.

  She reached out to touch the green substance, as if to confirm it really was what she thought it was. “Where did you get this?”

  “Lincoln,” said Arta simply. “He found it in his backpack when he emptied it.” She laughed. “One month, and he’s only just emptied his backpack. Apparently it was once a proper leaf with the ointment inside, now it’s just a pile of mush. Granted, it does smell rotten. I didn’t want to try it, but he made me promise to put it on one tiny spot.” She smiled as she admired that small patch of skin. “And I have. The skin isn’t bleeding any more. For me, that’s better.”

  “Can I?” Storm’s finger was poised just above the patch. Arta nodded, and Storm gently rubbed a little of the green away. Sure enough, the skin wasn’t at all perfect. But it wasn’t cracked, blistered and bleeding in the angry way that the rest of Arta’s skin seemed to be. Storm had walked in one day before when Arta’s bandages were being reapplied. She’d seen what lay beneath the cream-coloured wraps. It wasn’t pretty.

  Storm shook her head and sat back down. “He used that stuff on the T-rex bite, didn’t he?”

  Arta nodded. “And the pterosaur-claw wound. He said it healed both.”

  Storm was stunned. But maybe she shouldn’t have been. Maybe she just hadn’t been paying attention. Blaine had given her that ointment for her bleeding feet. At the time he’d said something about hiding the smell of the blood, but her toes had healed within a few days.

  Hadn’t he also told them about using the same leaves on a wound of his own that should never have healed?

  “How much do you have left?” she asked. She tried to remember how much they’d been given… Blaine had put some ointment into a large leaf and made a kind of pouch for Lincoln.

  Arta’s voice wavered. “Not too much. But I’m only using a tiny bit at a time. If I used any more I’m sure the staff would smell it. I’m not too sure that they want to find a cure for this disease. At least, not one they’d want th
e rest of Earthasia to know about. I’ve heard them having conversations about it. So I wipe this off when I know they are due to come and change my bandages.”

  Storm let out a breath. Arta was so much wiser than her years. “But they’ll notice. They’ll notice that one tiny patch of skin is healing better than any other.”

  “Then they’ll think that one of the five other creams they’re using on me is finally working.” She glanced towards the door. “Anyway, they’re far too busy right now to notice what’s happening to me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Someone else came in. A girl. She must be someone important, because all the staff went rushing to her room. She’s across the corridor.”

  Now Storm was curious. “Who do you think it is?”

  Arta sighed. “I have no idea. I heard a name – Tarin – but that’s all. She looked about the same age as me as they wheeled her past.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  Arta lay back against her pillows. “What’s wrong with anyone they bring in here?”

  Storm looked over at Arta’s closed door. Another person with the blistering plague. She opened her mouth to answer, just as a commotion started outside. She couldn’t help herself. “What’s going on?” she murmured as she walked over, cracked open the door and peered out.

  The sight stopped her dead. Lorcan Field was in the room across the corridor. He was ranting and shouting, pointing to a young woman in the bed. The room was full of people – several of whom were Stipulators.

  Somehow, the care centre was the last place Storm had expected to see the head scientist. He barely ever left the lab. Word had it that he even slept there.

  But if she was surprised to see Lorcan Field, it was nothing to her shock at seeing the man who glared at her as he slammed the door shut.

  Someone she hadn’t seen for the last month – not since the final Trial.

  Her father.

  Something had changed.

  The atmosphere in the crowded lab had been frenetic since the T-rex DNA had arrived. But this morning, it was like walking into a completely different place. Lincoln’s footsteps faltered.

  He’d never experienced silence in the lab before.

  A number of the senior scientists were standing near the main doors. They waited for everyone to shuffle in, gesturing for the squashed lab workers to move over and create more space.

  After a few seconds of everyone staring at each other in puzzled silence, Lorcan Field walked into the room.

  Lincoln swallowed. He hadn’t told anyone what he’d heard yesterday. It didn’t seem wise to indulge in idle gossip about a sick child – he knew that better than anyone.

  Lorcan addressed the room. “There’s been a change of plan. We’ve had some success with the dinosaur DNA. We understand enough about it to try to develop a virus that could be effective.”

  Lincoln shifted on his feet. This didn’t sound like Lorcan. Normally he bubbled with enthusiasm. “Could be effective” didn’t sound like a phrase he would normally use.

  Lorcan continued, his voice picking up speed. “But that will be another laboratory’s job from this point forward. We will be looking at something new.”

  He unrolled a large piece of paper. “We” – he gestured to the scientist next to him to hold the other side – “will be looking at human DNA. DNA, genomes and chromosomes. We already know the basics. This time we will be looking at the abnormalities in genes that cause the disease that is ravaging our population – the blistering plague.”

  He ignored the stunned faces. “More specifically, we’ll be examining the genes that affect the skin. We need to discover if this disease is a discrete mutation in a single base in the DNA of a single gene, or a gross chromosome abnormality involving the addition or subtraction of an entire chromosome or set of chromosomes.”

  Lincoln had no idea what Lorcan had just said. But several of the senior scientists looked stunned.

  Lorcan kept talking. “We need to find out if the condition is hereditary. If it’s an immune disorder. We need to find out if it will always develop, or if it’s triggered.” He stopped talking and took a deep breath. “And then, we need to find out if we can cure it.”

  Lincoln could swear that if a grain of sand dropped on the floor in that moment he would have heard it.

  No one had ever taken any interest in the blistering plague. No one had ever looked for any kind of cure. The health care that Arta was getting was reserved for very few people, and even then, it was just thought of as a treatment, not a cure.

  There were murmurs among the stunned crowd. The guy next to Lincoln leaned across and whispered in his ear: “Has he lost his mind? The Stipulators will go nuts if we try and stop the plague. We don’t have enough resources for everyone as it is.”

  Every hair on Lincoln’s neck bristled. He knew why Lorcan was doing this. He understood.

  Lorcan was doing this for selfish reasons. He only wanted to help one person. He only wanted to help his daughter, Tarin.

  Just like Lincoln only wanted to help his sister, Arta.

  He didn’t understand the science of any of this. But he did understand the desperation.

  And if there was any chance of Lorcan finding a cure, Lincoln was going to be right by his side.

  As she walked up the platform towards the parliament building, her stomach rolled and she almost vomited the eggs she’d eaten for breakfast all over her smart new shoes.

  When she’d got home from the care centre yesterday there had been a pile of pale-blue folded clothes waiting for her, along with the shoes. Parliament uniform. It had made her blood run cold.

  Storm had seen people wearing these clothes. She’d recognized an intelligent guy who’d been a few years older than her at school when she’d visited the parliament building once before. But all he’d seemed to do was follow a Stipulator around and whisper in his ear. It didn’t seem like much of a job.

  She hadn’t been quite sure what to do with her hair. When she’d flung hay bales, her hair had always been tied in a knot on the top of her head. It was probably expected that she’d look smart for whatever her new role was. But that tiny little edge of resistance was still present in her. So she’d washed her hair and left it down. She could feel it swinging from side to side as she walked. She gave a little smile and wondered how long it would take someone to tell her to tie it up.

  As she walked up the steep slope towards the parliament building her stomach flip-flopped over and over. The building looked like it had actually grown from the trees. It was set high up in thousand-year-old branches. Somewhere, there was an ancient law that banned the destruction or removal of these trees. She had no idea why. With space at such a premium, every other tree had been removed for the creation of farmland or housing.

  But these ones had been saved. The red-brown brick colour of the parliament building blended with the thick trunks, and over the years dark green vines had threaded their way around the structure, almost like a spider’s web. The building had a haunted look, an imposing look, as if the only wild trees and plant life left on Earthasia were actually fighting back and trying to pull the building down into the ground. She only hoped she wouldn’t be in there when it happened.

  Like everyone entering the parliament building, Storm had to go through security checks. Then she presented herself at the main reception point.

  A sharp-faced woman scowled at her. “Yes?”

  “I’ve been assigned here.”

  “Name?”

  “Stormchaser Knux.”

  Something flickered in the woman’s eyes. Then her face curled into a smile, similar to the school instructor’s. “Ah, yes, I remember who you are.” She pointed to a door across the atrium. “You’re to report to Octavius Arange.”

  Storm blinked and turned around. There were black cloaks everywhere. Parliament was where the Chief Stipulators for all four hundred zones met. Scattered among the black cloaks were people dressed in the same
uniform as her. But no one looked like her. No one else looked as if they were about to jump out of their skin.

  No, they were all calm. Most appeared ruthlessly efficient, talking into a Stipulator’s ear, or giving instructions to one of the other staff. Who had honestly decided that this would be the best place for her?

  Storm threaded her way through the crowded atrium, arriving at the door that the receptionist had indicated. There was no sign. No designation.

  Everything about this seemed so odd. She’d been given a name she didn’t recognize. Octavius Arange? She didn’t exactly trust the woman at the reception point. Her father was the Chief Stipulator for this zone, and worked in this very building. Could he be behind this? Please don’t let this be Reban Don’s room.

  Yesterday was the only time she’d seen him since she had completed the final Trial and been declared the winner. He hadn’t spoken to her, contacted her or looked in her direction since they’d stood on the stage together. What kind of a person did that? Storm hadn’t known whether to be relieved, disappointed, or both.

  Her hand trembled as she raised it to knock on the door. She pulled it back, wiping her clammy palms on her trousers, straightening her shoulders and tilting her chin. She wouldn’t let herself be intimidated. It didn’t matter how daunting this place was. It didn’t matter how many black cloaks there were around her. None of these people had been on Piloria. None of these people had survived what she had.

  She lifted her hand again and knocked on the door sharply. There was a muffled reply.

  She pushed open the door gingerly, wary of what would meet her inside.

  “Hurry up!” This time the voice seemed to boom, filling the office space. “And close that door behind you. It’s too noisy out there.”

  She tried not to let her jaw hit the floor. There, sitting on a strangely shaped chair and hunched over a high desk, was the oldest man she’d ever seen. Small and wizened, he had saggy and transparent skin. His hair was snow-white and pulled back from his face. She’d seen this man before, when she and Dell had delivered a parcel here from the lab, but she’d no idea what his role was.