Gray had gone to the back of the train to “take care of some business.” Boys had it so easy sometimes.
The hours had passed, and Gray was a pretty interesting character. For the first time, I didn’t have Xavi in front of the questions, volleying them back in true Vagabond form. I held my own, and I think I came across as someone knowledgeable of the Ways.
I shook my hand out of Ono’s and laughed. Our palms were sweaty to the point of uncomfortable. “Thanks for that.” I smiled. “It saved me from all kinds of work later.”
“Huh?”
“By the way, if you’re looking for Rebels, it may be good for you to hook up with Gray.”
“What?”
Ono looked unnaturally confused, and I frowned. “You’re looking for Rebels, right? The Revolution?”
“This boy?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“My bared teeth are broken chains. He was testing us for information.”
Flea’s eyebrows burrowed in on each other. “How do you know this?”
“I’m not a Rebel, for the last time. But I know this is the entrance. There’s more to it, but I don’t know it.”
“My bared teeth are broken chains? What does it mean, anyways? It’s a pretty weird chant, if you ask me.” I said.
“I can only guess,” Xavi replied.
“What have you guessed?”
He skipped a stone over the water. He did this often when he was stumped, or bored, or contemplative. “It’s a riddle. If you’re good with words, you figure it out. The Revolution only wants Rebels smart enough to figure it out. I’ve played with the words a bit out of curiosity but haven’t made much of it.”
“So. Connotations? Denotations? That’s how we find the answer?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, smarty pants.”
I loved riddles, and I loved analyzing linguistics. It reminded me of analyzing genetic sequencing codes in my lab. “Bared teeth,” I mumbled. “Bared. Like an animal bares its teeth?”
Xavi’s eyes grew wide. “I didn’t think of that one. I was thinking of Bars, like being kept behind bars.”
I thought about that. Sometimes, when it came out before executions, depending on the accent, it sounded like ‘barred teeth.’ Maybe it was a little of both. “A caged animal. You only need to cage it, if it’s a danger. You only fear it, if its a danger.” I tried to skip a rock too, but I still hadn’t learned the trick to it. It only plunked into a small, pathetic splash.
“Find a flatter stone,” Xavi corrected. He’d shown me how to throw level rather than arched, even though it went against every instinct I had about throwing things. I reached into the water and let my hands search for another pebble. I pulled up a handful and examined the ones that came up.
“Maybe they’re saying, ‘Even caged animals are something to fear?’ Or ‘’Citizens should fight against the cages they’re in.’”
Xavi laughed. “You’re too smart for your own good. Word games were never my strong suit. It’s one of the things I hate about the Tracks. People can never just say what they mean.”
I found a flat, purple-brown stone and positioned it between my forefinger and thumb. “The ‘broken chains,’ makes sense. Living life out here is breaking the Republic’s chains. Every day out here, we have to grow comfortable with breaking the things that hold the Republic together. We uncage ourselves a little bit with each new thing we learn. We have to bare our teeth to do it… get back to our animalistic roots and trust instinct over the science of people.” I threw the rock. It didn’t skip, but my heart skipped enough for every rock I held in my hand.
Xavi threw again, and five hops came before the plunk. He threw another after. It chased along the water in an attempt to catch the previous one. “Wow. Poetic. I hate poetry.”
I laughed. In Literature classes, I was always able to figure out the mysteries of poetry. It was its own kind of math. Words always added up to mean more than what they said. Implied weights made words heavy or light, and the connotations gave each line a million definitions. It allowed sentence fragments and stanzas to tell a million different stories in one small way. When I’d see a poem, I saw similarities with DNA in all of its tiny power. The way phosphates, sugars, and nitrogen created the nucleotides, and the way the nucleotides created the strands. I could see a million different stories in those small words. How people got blue eyes or bulbous toes. So much of science is reading between, past, over, and around these lines to question the stories we thought we knew.
Poetry. That was just good practice. I told Xavi this. “It makes sense for the Rebels. You have to earn the answers, like you have to earn their trust?” I threw the next pebble. It skipped twice, and I grinned.
“I have no clue what it means,” I lied. No good could come out of me sharing. He wouldn’t understand it until he had more time on the Tracks anyways.
There were expressions racing across Ono’s face that I couldn’t decipher. He had a choice to make, but, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why it was a difficult one for him. Gray was who he was looking for.
“So. This’ll be goodbye, then,” I said. It surprised me to find a little bit of sadness at the thought. Ono—Flea was growing on me.
“Goodbye?”
I nodded. “I’m getting off in about an hour. There’s this bridge I like to camp at, and I need some more supplies.”
“A bridge?” Questions. They were everywhere on his face. I couldn’t understand why the idea of going our separate ways could be so confusing to him.
I nodded again as Gray returned. “Whew! This weather is amazing. I love this time of the year.”
I smiled. “I know.”
“So, want to play the Roll Call?” Gray grinned.
“Yup!”
“You first?”
“Celeste.”
Gray laughed. “You know Celeste?”
“Yeah. Have you run into her?”
He shook his head, and dirty brown hair littered his eyebrows. “Haven’t seen her all year, but I’ll pass along a message if I do.”
“Tell her I stole a water-filter. Distracted a clerk enough that he didn’t even see us take it right in front of him! Tell her thank you for the ‘Way.’ Won’t know me as Knucs though. Tell her N. Tell her the girl she taught to surf.”
“Surf, huh? You any good?”
“I can hang.” And I could. I could walk and run and dance on the top of the fastest moving train out there. I could, now at least.
He reached into his pack to pull out some jerky. “If you see her first, tell her Gray has a secret. Have you run into anyone named Muna? She goes by Yuck, too.”
“Sorry. Doesn’t ring a bell.” Roll Call was a hard game to play. People changed their names so often out on the Tracks, that I never knew for certain if I actually did run into someone or not. The more names you had on someone, the more likely you’d figure out how they were doing. I didn’t recognize the names he gave though. “Have you run into a Xavi?”
“Nope.” His jaw did a jerk-stop motion as he gnawed on his jerky. I tried not to let that answer hurt my heart, but it did. I wanted to— no, needed to— know if he was alive still. “A boy named M.P.?”
“No. Haven’t run across an M.P.” The game continued until it got old, and we moved to a different topic. The topic of what was next. The segue was there. The moment had come. I had to let my new friend go. “Flea and I are about to part ways. Mind if he joins you?”
Aeschylus hovered the rodent over the entrance of the water maze. “Trial twelve. Mark it, Nikomedes.”
I typed the trial into the proper box.
“Generation from Sector A?” he asked.
“Nine. Subject A-5425”
“Generation from Sector B?”
“Nine. Subject B-5425.” I grinned. I knew my sector had this. My mice were outperforming Aeschylus’ in everything. Between the slight modifications on their DNA and their genetic pairings, mine were
becoming stronger, faster, and smarter than his. I tried not to pat myself on the back too much, but I could nearly see myself wearing the shiny white robes of the G.E.G.
“Attempt with the same test group?”
“Twelve.”
“Genetic test?”
“NPTN. Neuroplastin.”
“Breeding path?”
“NPTN fifteen.”
“Layman’s term?”
I laughed. “Intelligence test.”
We had a shorthand way of talking in the lab. In three years, he moved me along from plants and animals to theoretical human experiments in the simulators. I ended up having a knack for selective breeding. Sector B even had fewer naturally occurring mutations than the sectors the other students were working with.
“Control?”
“Subject C-5425. Ready to release.” I always felt bad for the control mice. They lived their entire existence with haphazard breeding. Every once in a while, a mutation naturally occurred, but even those had a way of being detrimental.
“Release.”
I pressed the button, and all three mice entered their specific maze. Mine reached the exit first. “Twenty-six seconds.” I watched Aeschylus’ come next. “Thirty-nine seconds.” The control still fiddled about in the maze. We waited, knowing it’d take it a minute or two longer.
“I need to just throw in the towel and give up already. Want to teach class tomorrow?” He sat down on the stool. “I thought for sure I had you.”
“Nope.” The control mouse had barely figured out he needed to swim through the water.
Aeschylus sighed. “By the way, Niko. Your research grant… I tried. I really tried. But the G.E.G. wants someone more experienced. They hoped you’d try again next year.”
I knew the news was coming. If I’d gotten it, he would have told me before the experiment. Aeschylus always saved bad news for the end of our sessions. “I really thought I had it,” I whispered as the control mouse found the exit. “One-minute-twenty-two-seconds.” I typed the numbers on the chart with a little less gusto.
“I think you should have. Age is sometimes a horrible setback. Just think, one day… One day, age won’t stand in your way.”
“But being flagged will.” I frowned. I knew the truth of it. No matter how great my ideas were, being flagged would trump it all. I’d have to work harder for what I knew, because what I knew could lead us beyond. I had this dream brewing in my head— a way to enter genetic spellings into the DNA before birth. With the right support, I could write DNA. I just knew it! The sad thing was, no one else believed I could. No one else could see what I saw. “I won’t give up,” I whispered.
“Good. That’s the only way it’ll get done. Let’s work together to refine the hypothesis you submitted. Perhaps we can do a bit of pre-experiments with pigs and cows. Up for the challenge?” Aeschylus put the control mouse back in Sector C. It clambered over the other tagged rodents and moved its whiskers in all kinds of creepy directions.
“Anything to be done with mice. I’m kind of tired of their pinked up feet and their searching noses.”
Chapter Twelve
The train slowed just enough, and I let go of the metal. My goodbye to Ono was band-aid quick, but as my feet hit the ground and ran out the momentum on the gravel, I felt a small tear slide down my cheek. I didn’t know why my eyes began to water. I couldn’t place the when or the how, but I had started to like the boy, even if he was a pain in the rear.
I stood steady and watched the train move on. The cars traveled behind and ahead of me, but I could still latch on and climb back. Gray was interested in traveling along with me for a ways, but I said I wanted to hoof it alone for a bit. I needed the space and the air. It was the Bond of the Vagabond to accept that, and he did. He seemed trustworthy enough to take Ono on, and he agreed to travel with the boy a bit longer.
Time was running out on me. The end of the train was near, and I still didn’t know what I wanted. Once it was gone, I’d be alone for the second time in my entire life. My first time lasted just a few hours before Flea came crashing in. This time would be more prolonged.
But it wasn’t loneliness that made me want to latch back on and climb up to the boys. It was the goodbye I didn’t expect to hurt.
I reached back up to grab one of the last ladders as it zipped by. I ran along with outstretched fingers, when something else caught my eye. Ono landed and stumbled, then jogged my way.
“What are you doing?” I laughed.
“You can’t get rid of me that easy. I’m a pest, remember?”
Celeste whooped. “You still haven’t spent a night under the tracks? Xavi! What have you been teaching this girl?”
He rolled his eyes. He seemed to roll his eyes more often than not lately. “I don’t like it. You’re trapped if they find you. If they inspect the bridge for anything at all, you can’t get out.”
“Dude. When have you ever seen them inspect a bridge so thoroughly in the last few years? The Rebels stopped blowing up the bridges. The Republic has given them no reason to, since they slow at every bridge still. It’s now one of the safest places to camp.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to. Me and your girl here are sleeping under the bridge tonight. You can join us if you like or you can mope in the woods by yourself.”
The rust and graffiti on the bridge blended together like laced fingers. Ono reached out for my hand, and I let him. I don’t know why I did. It made no sense, but it felt honest and right. He held on to my hand as if doing so held him together.
When we got to the bridge, he looked uncertain. “It’s easy, really. We just walk out onto it, then climb down where the pillar holds it up. Under it is a concrete bed. It’s a great place to camp.”
“Isn’t it dangerous?”
“What isn’t?” I dropped his hand so I could keep my balance. “Just follow me, okay? And if you get nervous, don’t look down. Just keep looking forward, but pay attention to where you land your step.”
I stepped out onto the rails and left the ground. In between each plank, open air and what lay beneath could be seen in bright lines. It was a strange feeling to look down on the sky, and the tops of trees eventually transitioned into water. Everything was below us, like we were giant birds getting snips and snaps of a view between the boards. When I got to the first pillar, I kept going. The center was where I wanted to be, and when I got to that pillar, I braced myself against the rusted frame. I went hand over foot down into the shadow of the cement cave under the tracks, where there was about four feet of space between the floor of the pillar and the rails above.
“Celeste!”
“Don’t worry. I won’t fall.” There was a little ledge that jutted out over the bridge-cave (as I’d started to call it), and she sat on it with her feet dangling over. One wrong move, and she’d plummet to her death. Just thinking of it made my breath stop, and I couldn’t bring myself to go near where she was.
I leaned back against the rusted metal that connected to the pillar, like it would hold me up in case I began to fall. Xavi was inside the bridge-cave, spreading out sleeping bags. It was shaping up to be a colder night than normal, and we needed to prepare for a cuddle-puddle (a concept I was no longer terrified of). I knew I’d be curled up like parenthesis stacked inside of each other between Celeste and Xavi, and the only thought that came to mind was an appreciation for shared warmth.
Celeste yanked on the jerky hanging from her mouth and chewed deliberately. “Come on. Join me. Don’t be a ninny-pants.” She always had the most interesting insults, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. “Fear, you know, is a funny, funny thing. Think about this. You’ll leap onto and off of a moving train, but you won’t sit on this ledge that’s stationary and solid? You choose the things you’re afraid of, Niko, or they will choose you. Now. Come on over.” She pat the open cement next to her.
She had a point. I’d been living my entire life afraid of doing the wrong things.
I strove to be perfect, but lived in all kinds of fears. Heights? I’d been playing around with them every time I climbed a rock wall. I told myself that was different. There was always another hold to grab onto if I lost one. On this ledge, there was nothing to hold onto if I slipped except open air.
I tip-toed closer and tried to push the fear away. Before I got to the ledge, I slid down to my butt and inched my way closer to Celeste until my feet dangled like hers. She was taller, so her legs dipped deeper into the open air than mine. They kicked nonchalantly. They kicked like freedom.
I couldn’t help but grin and kick the back of my heels against the pillar. I kicked hard, knowing that not even I could knock it down.
And we sat there, feet kicking, chewing on jerky. We giggled while the sun set down lower and lower and lower until it was gone and there was nothing left but the stars and our laughter.
I sat on the ledge with my feet tangled up in dangles. To look down gave me dizzy spells, but I did it anyways. Being so far up was still terrifying, and even just sitting there made my heart climb higher than I was— through my esophagus, between my teeth, and out into the clouds. It raced and raced to the point that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to catch it again.
“Are you crazy?” Ono asked, and it only made me miss Celeste and all the things she made me face. I hated that she was gone, and I wondered if I’d ever see her again. Gray’s expression when he talked about her was full of the same reverence, and I wished we’d had more time to dig into his stories about her. It was comforting, how I carried people with me through the memories I had of them— how they existed in my mind whenever I shared those stories with others.
“Come on, Flea.” Flea. I found myself going in and out of his two names. They both kept growing on top of each other, meaning something new each time I said them. Flea was such a small name that shared the big story of how we met. It was a story that almost came to a pause for me earlier that day. I had to admit I was giddy that he was still with me. “Choose what you fear, or it’ll choose you! Live a little.” The words were never mine to begin with, but they were starting to fit me. They cocooned me with desire, and I suddenly felt that there was too much life to live. That I’d never be able to live it all if I didn’t satiate every impulse I had in every moment.
Vagabond Page 13
