“Well, this is rather familiar.”
The Variable stood at the foot of Zanna’s bed. A luminescence that came from nowhere filled the room, bright enough for her to see that the Variable didn’t have a scratch on her. Her hair was a little windswept, and her cheeks were flushed red with the cold of a Canadian winter, but other than that, she was immaculate, her outfit perfectly composed, as if she had just finished fixing herself up in the bathroom.
Every muscle in Zanna’s body tensed, and a blinding flash of pain burned across her chest. The thermometer seemed like a twig in her hand, a twig she was waving at an approaching tank. The woman tried not to let it show in her voice, but Zanna could tell by her eyes and the way she breathed. She was furious.
“How’d you find me?” Zanna asked. The Variable hadn’t snatched her up at once—she hadn’t even brought out her Iron. That meant she wanted to talk first, and Zanna obliged. Every second she could give the Primers counted.
“I had my pick of ways,” the Variable replied. “Things don’t lose their primelock just because you take them out of my house. That bedsheet stuck out like a sore thumb.” Her eyes drifted down to Zanna’s chest, and Zanna felt the need to draw the covers up a little higher. “I see you’ve made quite a mess of yourself. How fast did you hit that tree?”
“Pretty fast,” Zanna said. The woman shuffled a little bit, adjusting her stance, and Zanna hurried to think of another question, one that would draw out the encounter and give the Primers even more time to come to her rescue. She wouldn’t stop to consider that she was on her own. That her hurriedly constructed derivative was all she had. “Don’t you want to know how I escaped?”
A smile crept across the woman’s face that almost might have been pride. Pride in a daughter who had done something rather clever. Pride in her younger self. “By exploiting the pathfinding functions of my serving tray. Nicely done, I admit. I’ll have to fix that when we get back to the mansion.”
“If we get back.”
A laugh slipped from the Variable’s lips. “I still mean what I told you before. There’s no reason why we have to be enemies. If you want to be difficult, I’ll take you back by force, but I’d really rather you came back of your own free will.”
Zanna settled back in her pillow and tried to look like she was seriously considering the woman’s offer, hiding the goosebumps breaking out over her arms. “Maybe if you told me why. I don’t like agreeing to things I don’t understand.”
“No, you don’t,” the Variable murmured, with an air of remembrance that made Zanna’s skin crawl. The woman chewed on her tongue as her pretty alien face screwed up in thought.
Zanna’s guts heaved. She recognized the look far too well. Then the Variable was back, her eyes that blue genius again, her face composed. When she spoke, it was serious and deathly cold, each word considered. “We want the same thing, Zanna. For everyone to get along. For everyone to live. But the only way that happens is if you’re with me. Otherwise—Nora, Beatrice, Libby, Owin, Cedwick, even Pops. They are going to die.”
It wasn’t a threat—it didn’t have the right malevolence for that. No, the woman’s statement was something else. It was a prediction, but not the fluffy, hand-waving kind doled out by fortune cookies. It was a fact. She had seen it happen.
No, Zanna told herself, the Variable was a liar who would say anything to get her back into that tower room. The Variable knew nothing of what might happen in the future. So Zanna moved, as if action could wipe the woman’s dire words from her mind, and grabbed the thermometer. In the mercury, she thumbed the derivative hard, spinning it up into some enormous number and hoping that she hadn’t messed up the units of measurement or something else silly. But it worked beautifully. A roar shook the hospital room, a singular upheaval of air as a five-foot square of nitrogen in front of Zanna rammed forward like an angry bull, knocking the curtains and the cabinets and the Variable back in a torrential gale. Bandages swirled and kicked around. A tissue box struck the wall and burst open, spilling a thousand fluttering pink squares into the wind. The fire alarm kicked on.
But Zanna had no time to congratulate herself. Even before she had released the derivative, she was moving, rolling out of bed with one hand clamped over her mouth so she didn’t asphyxiate herself on the nitrogen. The IV drip was still in her arm, and with a silent thanks for painkillers, she grabbed the wheeled stand as she headed toward the door. From out of the mess of curtains and nitrogen and bandages at the other end of the room, a streak of the woman’s Iron lanced out. Zanna swung the IV pole in a blind and furious panic, miraculously not tearing the needle out of her arm and connecting in a solid parry. The lance deflected off to the left, the grasping hand of tendrils meant for her wrapping themselves around an innocent chair instead.
Zanna skidded out into the hallway, accompanied by a whipping of air and scented tissues. Her ribs screamed in pain—medication only went so far—but at least she had the strength in her legs back. Nurses and orderlies were running down the hall toward her, and Zanna took off in the other direction, her bare feet scrambling on the tile floor. She saw a sign pointing toward the stairs and took the corner at speed, slamming the door to the stairwell open with an impact that made her vision dance. Her IV rattled its wheels as she took the steps two at a time.
As she came out of the stairwell, she spotted another sign pointing toward the atrium and the exit, but more hospital staff were heading toward her, with no way around them. With an apology, she gathered a block of nitrogen ahead of her as she ran and rammed it right through, knocking them over like pins. She could still hear the roar of her thermometer above her, like someone had left the window open in the middle of a tornado, and she hoped it was still holding the Variable at bay.
The atrium was empty when she reached it, save for a couple of fake tropical plants. She paused to catch her breath, put a hand to her aching ribs, and looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was following her.
Then the ceiling split apart.
It reminded Zanna of those times when Pops got whole fish from the wharf, and she would watch him clean and fillet them in the kitchen. First, there was a single clean stroke through the yellowed tiles and fluorescent lights, then a few drips of white sparks, and then it widened and peeled back, and she could see all the struts and pipes and the electrical guts of the building.
And the Variable dropped down through the opening.
Zanna took off at once, but she smashed into something invisible before she made it to the door. A wall of air pressure blocked her only exit, and she turned back, taking up her IV in both hands like a polearm. The woman had stepped over the nurses, doing something with the air to keep them on the ground, and stood at the other end of the atrium. She gestured, and the front desk slid back several feet, flattening like a frightened passerby against the wall. Another gesture, and the rest of the furniture and fake plants slid back, as well, so there was nothing between her and Zanna except for a few stray tissues, still floating on the various winds.
The Variable’s gaze fell on the IV pole Zanna brandished. “Being difficult, then. You’re not seriously going to fight me with that, are you?”
“I don’t see why not,” Zanna replied. She had to hunch over due to the pain in her ribs, which was back with a vengeance. At least her voice had come out fairly defiant, instead of the cracked and wounded voice she felt inside her chest.
The Variable sighed, and suddenly, Zanna’s IV pole slipped from her fingers like a bunch of wet noodles, wriggling snakelike across the atrium to the woman’s outstretched hand. Unsupported, the plastic medicine drip-bag fell and split over the tile floor of the atrium. Zanna let out a squeal of gut-
clenching pain as the IV needle moved inside her arm.
“That’s why,” the Variable said, as if she had already explained this a hundred times. “You haven’t even learned basic metals yet.” From her sleeves, the tendril
s of her Iron began to emerge. It didn’t reach for Zanna just yet, but the way it bobbed like a raised cobra said it just needed the word. “Now. Come back with me.”
“Not until you tell me why.” If the Primers were nearby, they must have noticed the commotion in the hospital. She needed more time. If only she had drawn out their conversation upstairs longer. Zanna ground her teeth in frustration. She had played her ace too soon.
“I’ve told you enough.” The Iron crept out another inch. “Are you going to be difficult about this?”
Zanna stuck out her jaw. “Always.”
The woman’s Iron shot out, and the entire hospital stuttered.
It was the exact same stutter Zanna had felt before in her bedroom. A Weierstrass transformation that chopped reality and the manipulations of the Variable into disconnected points. The furniture the woman had pushed out of the way hurried back to its natural places. The snakelike IV pole clattered to the floor, back in its solid form. The air-pressure barrier she had built around the atrium broke. It took only a second, and then the hospital returned to its smooth operation, the strobe effect gone. Only now there was an imposing man with dark skin, a broad-rimmed hat, and a silver cane standing in front of Zanna, and he crackled with a function of speed and momentum.
The next moment, a sheet of silver metal scooped Zanna up, and she realized that the man had wrapped his cane around her as if she was a newborn chick in its egg. Fingertips of iron glanced harmlessly off the shell, and Zanna heard a terrifying baritone roar out, “Your fight is with me!” Glass shattered as her egg broke through the front windows of the hospital and went skidding across the parking lot, smashing through cars and trucks and lampposts. Then, just as quickly as it had wrapped around her, the silver cane let her go, flying back across the road and through the broken hospital wall to rejoin its owner in battle.
Zanna gasped at the contact with the air—it was freezing, and she was still barefoot. There was an obvious trail of destruction across the parking lot—she had smashed right through a box truck—and she wondered for a moment how they were going to explain all of this to the CGs.
“Got her.”
Another man, younger than the one who was fighting the Variable but still old enough to be her father, appeared beside her. He knelt and put a heavy mariner’s coat around Zanna’s shoulders, instantly shutting out the cold and wrapping her in the scent of the sea. Something glimmered on the inside of his left arm—a polished letter opener strapped against his dark sweater.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Zanna struggled to talk. The IV bag had been ripped from her arm in the commotion, and she felt the absence of painkillers acutely. “My ribs—”
He squinted at her chest and frowned. “Yup, that’s never a good thing. Hang on.”
The letter opener stretched and rolled until it was a thin, flat sheet. It slipped under Zanna and lifted her up, cradling her so gently it felt as if she was floating.
“Don’t go too high,” Zanna muttered, the exhaustion she had been staving off all day beginning to finally catch up with her. “I . . . don’t like heights.”
“As you wish,” the man said, though his attention was directed across the parking lot to where the fight was still going on.
Zanna couldn’t see anything, but she heard plenty. Metal on metal, booms of air pressure, and the occasional sizzle of loose electricity. Then she saw what the man had been looking for—his reinforcements. Six more figures had appeared in the night sky and swooped in toward the hospital.
“I’ll take her, Henry.”
She knew that voice. Lord Hemmington touched down next to them, his badge glinting lamplight as it trickled out of his hand and reformed on his chest. Henry chuckled gruffly and made a casual salute.
“She’s broken five ribs, sir. Mighty banged up, to boot.”
Lord Hemmington took a glance down at Zanna. “So I see.”
He turned his badge into a makeshift stretcher, and Henry transferred Zanna over to him, taking care not to aggravate her ribs any more. “Do not come back to headquarters until that criminal is in custody,” Lord Hemmington said with a nod toward the hospital. A solitary figure rocketed up from the building, pursued by seven others, and Lord Hemmington’s frown deepened as he looked over the broken walls and parked cars Zanna had smashed through. “I assume this is Xavier’s doing?”
Henry said nothing, but that was enough for Lord Hemmington.
“I will have a word with him,” the Head Primer said. “See to this mess, Henry. You have the command.”
“Sir,” Henry nodded. He looked to the parking lot and began repairing the cars Zanna had smashed through, all the scattered parts quickly flying back to their proper places. It was so effortless that Zanna could only stare open-mouthed, even as her body drifted toward sleep. And then she and Lord Hemmington were in the air, flying in the opposite direction toward safety and, she hoped, home.
Chapter Seventeen
She slept as she never had before. Her dreams doubled back in mathematical oddities, counting and miscounting her time in captivity. They spilled over a vast landscape and dribbled around the edges to the underside, where silver trays talked, nitrogen shaped itself like all her friends, and functions gushed out of her chest like a fountainhead.
When she opened her eyes, she was in a familiar hospital room. Not the one in Canada but a warm and cozy place, with the smell of fresh flowers and cedar and playful cats in the air. It was one of the rooms in the nurse’s cottage at St. Pommeroy’s, and it was like something out of a nursery tale.
Lazy sunlight streamed through the blinds, falling over a large cushioned chair with books stacked on either side. Her bedsheets were lilac and patterned with cartoon kittens, with a crocheted blanket over her legs that was just warm enough but not so hot that she started sweating. Zanna half-expected a trio of field mice to come in at any moment, carrying a plate of scones and clotted cream between them. She didn’t see any mice as she looked around, but there was a cat with enormous blue eyes on the table beside her bed. It stared unblinkingly at her, and Zanna stared back. There was something odd about it, but Zanna couldn’t quite put her finger on it until the cat yawned and began to talk.
“You’re awake!” The cat’s voice was quaint and countryside English, which only added to the fairytale. “Your grandfather will be so pleased to hear that. He just popped off to the cafeteria for lunch. He’s been at your side for days, you know.”
“Days?” Zanna asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Four. It’s Tuesday, my dear.”
Zanna looked at the armchair again, and this time she recognized some of the books stacked around it. Pops must have brought along his collection of puzzle books to pass the time. Guilt flooded through her at the thought of him sitting there day after day, waiting for her to wake up, and her lips quivered. “Four days?”
The cat nodded. “Yes, you were quite out of it. But you’re awake now, and that’s all that matters!” Suddenly, the cat froze, its speech cut short by something on the other end. Zanna squinted at it, as if it was a phone gone dead, and was about to tap it to see if that would bring it back when she heard footsteps coming down the hall—the short, hurried footsteps of an old man who really shouldn’t be running. The door flew open, and Pops was there, cheeks beet-red and mouth smiling so wide that Zanna thought his face would break.
“My darling!” he said, rushing to scoop her up and hold her tight. “I thought I would never see you again.”
Zanna put her arms around him, not minding his scratchy whiskers for once. “I’m sorry, Pops,” she muttered. She buried her face in his shoulder, wordlessly promising to never leave him again. Pops just kept stroking her hair and crying. “I’m so sorry,” Zanna whispered.
“No, no, you don’t apologize for anything,” he whispered back through his sobbing. “You brilliant girl, you don’t apologize
for anything.”
Zanna wanted to hold him forever. Eventually, though, she had to let go. Pops went to his armchair and pulled an old handkerchief out of his back pocket, blowing his nose with a blast like an ill-tuned trumpet. He used it to gesture at her ribs. “Did Cecelia give you a rundown of everything you busted?”
Zanna shook her head. “I’m guessing it’s pretty extensive.”
“Not anything I can’t manage,” the cat said, making Zanna start a little. She had completely forgotten it was still there. “The ribs will take the longest—I’m afraid you will have to stay in bed for at least the next month.”
“A month?” Zanna repeated incredulously. “Can’t you manipulate them back together or something? I thought that’s what you did.”
The cat smiled softly, and the eerie human expression on its animal face made Zanna’s neck prickle. “If only it were that simple. But your bones are under the protection of your Self function. I’d have better luck trying to mend your Iron!”
“My Iron,” Zanna muttered. She hadn’t thought about picking her Iron in months, but now that she was back at St. Pommeroy’s, it came flooding back to her. A long, tired exhale escaped her lips.
“Don’t worry,” the cat said. “Rest and recuperation are better healers than any science. You’ll be up and about in no time.”
But rest and recuperation were nowhere to be found those first few days after Zanna woke up. It seemed like everyone at St. Pommeroy’s wanted to come down to visit her, and the small cottage room turned into a parade of teachers, reporters, and general well-wishers. Some of them were simple and pleasant, like Mr. Gunney, who surprised Zanna by embracing her grandfather like they were old companions. “Dennis was my eyes and ears,” Pops explained when he saw the confused expression on Zanna’s face. “Let me borrow his copy of The Constant so I could check for any news about you. Clever little thingamajiggy, that newspaper.”
The Zanna Function Page 21
