by Mary Fan
“That’s also why they hold social events for us.” Cara rests her elbows on her knees. “Not just to train us for similar events on Adrye, but also to encourage us to pair up and pass our talents down to the next generation. The pill they give girls doesn’t actually prevent pregnancies. The ninety-five percent stat is bullshit—they made it up so people wouldn’t get suspicious when the odd ‘accidental’ pregnancy happens. The pill contains nanobots that play watchdog over a girl’s uterus. The moment she conceives, they scan the embryo and project how a child will develop before she even knows she has one inside her. If the kid doesn’t have the physical traits TalentCorp wants… bye, bye, baby.”
I glimpse my hands, with their freakish flexibility and long fingers, and realize they’re probably the only reason I was born. This is all too much. Even the Semiannual Balls, which I thought were wonderful gifts from Papilio, were designed to serve a purpose. And everyone in Dogwood belongs to TalentCorp.
“They keep people poor so they can’t try to contact those on Adrye,” I muse. “Parents of Ka’risil won’t find it strange that they never hear from their children.”
“That’s right,” Cara says. “Same goes for spouses who age out.”
Like Alfred Winters. The memory of the day he left pierces my heart. Caroline can’t keep her promise to take care of him. If she’s hired, she won’t remember he exists. Everything we were told about alums supporting families on Earth must have been a lie.
Something about the recollection nudges my heart, telling me I had a personal reason to find their story so tragic. Was it tied to the Papilio alum I can’t remember? I replay the scene in my head, searching for a clue. Caroline was crying… Alfred put his hand on her stomach… she was pregnant…
My parents. My family. This could have been us.
I look up with a start. My parents—where are my parents? Who are they? Erayet must have erased them. She must have erased my ability to wonder about them as well because until now, it didn’t even strike me as strange that I don’t know my own parents’ names.
Cara knits her brows. “Something wrong?”
“I can’t remember my parents.” I dig my fingers into my hair. “They could be here too, and I wouldn’t recognize them if I saw them.”
“Yeah, it’s awful.” Cara twists her mouth. “At least you came to that revelation yourself. Until Alan told me about all this, the very idea of having parents never occurred to me. Like I said, Adryil telepathy is a powerful thing. I was born at Sinfonia, so I probably wouldn’t have remembered them anyway, but it’s still weird not knowing who they are.”
Tears prick my eyes, and I squeeze them shut. I have parents out there somewhere. I used to love them. The Papilian I was hoping to find—that must have been one of them. And the other must have aged out like Alfred did—but which one?
“I used to know.” I glance at Cara. “I think I was hoping to reunite with them. Maybe if I’d thought of this earlier, I could have recovered the memories, but now… there’s nothing.”
“Well, even if you remembered them, finding them would be impossible.” Though Cara maintains her matter-of-fact tone, a strange look clouds her eyes—maybe regret, or maybe guilt. “It’s not like there’s a central database of Ka’risil we can search. And they wouldn’t remember us either.”
My parents were taken from me, and I from them. And TalentCorp tried to take Milo from me too.
I bite my lip. I asked Milo to stay with the Ballet because I thought a bleak future awaited him otherwise. Now, I’m not sure staying would be any better. I remembered him because Dámiul showed me what telepathy feels like. The same won’t be true for Milo. If I find him on Adrye someday, he won’t know who I am. If only I could warn him! If only I could warn them all—Caroline, Sabina, Estelle… She’s not someone I care for, but she’s still someone. Nobody has the right to take her very self away from her.
Knowing that stirs my anger. “No one should have to go through this.”
“I agree.” Atikéa’s voice is low.
“Is there some way to contact the Papilians from here?”
“I’m afraid not. If there were, our mission would be considerably easier. I’ve opposed Ka’risil slavery for years, but no one listened to my petitions. They claimed it wasn’t even slavery, since you willingly sign the contracts. So I started something else.” Atikéa straightens. “The Abolition movement seeks to inform the Ka’risil of the truth. We’re targeting the younger ones, since they haven’t been mind-controlled as long as the others, so their memories have a better chance at being recovered.”
“And you’re going to free them?”
“Believe me, I want to. But if I did, where would they go? Here?” She gestures at the stained wall. “Technically, you and Cara are both free right now. You don’t have to go back to the Ydayas, and if you want to stay, you’re more than welcome. But you would be branded a fugitive, and if you were ever caught, your mind would be wiped.”
“I see.” I slump in my chair.
Cara puts her chin in her hand. “We’ve considered sending people back to Earth. The problem is, not only would that involve hijacking a starship, but we’d be in the same bind. Where do you send a bunch of people who only know how to sing or dance or something? Especially since Earth’s government is in on all this. They’d send us right back to TalentCorp.” She twists her mouth. “We’re kind of stuck on the freedom front.”
Atikéa leans back with a contemplative expression. “Also, most of the Ka’risil we’ve talked to don’t want to leave. They enjoy their present lives, where they’re taken care of and spend their days doing something they love. They don’t remember anything worth going back to. So all I can do for the time being is quietly inform them of what their lives really are.” Her gaze turns distant. “Dámiul thought I was being too cautious. Maybe he’s right.”
“Caution’s a luxury I can’t afford anymore.” Jaerin’s voice comes from the door, and I turn to face him. He stands by the doorframe with a stormy expression.
Atikéa gets up. “En ganza ato sui clogamo navar?”
All I understand from that question are the words “help him.”
“I have no choice.” Jaerin holds up a gleaming disc. “I know you don’t believe me, but you’ll change your mind once you see this.” He turns to me. “You’re the Earthling Dámiul ran into at Papilio.”
“Yes, that’s me.” I stand, eager for more information. “What was he doing on Earth? Is he an Abolitionist like you?”
“In a way.” Jaerin approaches the table. “I tried to keep him out of it. ‘You’re too young for this,’ I told him, but he said justice couldn’t wait for him to grow up. I hoped if I fought on his behalf, he could stay away. But he wouldn’t listen.” He glances at Atikéa. “Did you tell her about Ximena?”
“I thought it’d be better coming from you,” Atikéa says.
I cock my head. “Who’s Ximena?”
“I apologize, Iris.” Atikéa tilts her brows. “There is one Ka’risil who was freed. Just not by us.”
“She’s a Ka’risil Dámiul encountered.” Jaerin’s eyes grow distant. “She managed to recover the memory of her older sister, who had aged out and was working in a TalentCorp factory back on Earth. She wanted nothing more than to return. Dámiul brought her here hoping the Abolition could help, but I told him sending her back would be too dangerous for everybody. I thought we’d never succeed, and we’d expose the entire movement in our failed attempt. He said if he could free even one of the wrongfully enslaved, then his life would have been worth living.”
I smile to myself. That definitely sounds like Dámiul.
“I agreed with Jaerin.” Atikéa sighs. “All starships are closely inspected before takeoff and monitored during flight. I didn’t think we could get Ximena on board one. Or get her sister out of the TalentCorp-controlled town she lived in.”
“Yet my brother found a way.” Jaerin’s tone conveys fondness and disbelief. “He convinced our fa
ther to send him to Charlotte to attend a business meeting on his behalf. Vabeth was so excited about Dámiul finally taking an interest in the company that he agreed. I don’t know how my brother smuggled Ximena over with him, how he got in contact with her sister, or where he sent them. But somehow, he succeeded.”
I knew Dámiul had a purpose beyond what he told me. The thought of him risking himself to free one of my kind—to take one step, however small, toward righting the world—makes my heart swell. This must have been what he meant when he said he was defying his father—not the part about breaking into Papilio. I wish he’d told me.
“He wasn’t finished, though,” Jaerin continues. “I don’t think this was part of his original plan, but he broke into the Papilio School to alert the students to what the employment contracts actually say.”
So why didn’t he? Confused, I sink back into my chair. “He never told me anything, no matter how I asked.” A question flutters through my head, and I hesitate, wondering how to phrase it. “Jaerin… If your father owns TalentCorp, why are you and Dámiul fighting it?”
Jaerin’s expression darkens. “Vabeth told me that TalentCorp is ultimately good for the Earthlings, and for most of my life, I was foolish enough to believe him. But Dámiul was never as blind. The first time he tried to free a Ka’risil, I thought he’d gone mad. Still, I began to question, and I came to realize that the Ka’risil are people like us. Dámiul made his views known, and our parents nearly disowned him for it. But I kept mine a secret. Vabeth still expects me to take over the company someday. If that happens, I could change everything. But in the decades in between now and then, thousands of Ka’risil will remain enslaved and lose their selves to Adryil memory wipes. And so I live a double life, pretending to be the good son while doing what I can for the Abolition.” He knits his black eyebrows. “Joth’en, Dámiul!” He slams the table. “He already had four strikes—he knew what a fifth would do, and still, he went so far beyond that!”
Strikes? “What does that mean?”
“Because of his fight for the Ka’risil, he’s been in and out of disciplinary centers since he was thirteen. No matter what I said, he wouldn’t stop, and now…” Jaerin trails off. “Smuggling Ximena back to Earth killed any chance he had for clemency. He’s been locked up ever since they caught him at Papilio, and I don’t know how much of him is left.”
“What?” I think back to all the times I met with Dámiul. He was in prison the entire time—is that why he was so vague about himself? And when he appeared worn out at the Spectacle—was that because of what they did to him?
I stare at the ground. No matter how dangerous the truth was, I would rather have known.
Atikéa leans over Jaerin’s shoulder and says something in a quiet voice. I can’t make out her words, but her tone is harsh.
Jaerin grabs her hand. “Please, Kéa, I need your help.” His tone speaks of desperation. He turns to me. “They say the reeducation centers are meant to rehabilitate criminals. In truth, they wipe the minds of the prisoners and attempt to mold them into someone else.”
Atikéa takes a seat beside Jaerin. “I understand that you’re worried about your brother, but committing the kinds of crimes you proposed can’t be the solution.”
Jaerin presses the disc into the edge of the table; there must be a slot there. “I knew you’d say that. That’s why I brought this. It’s a record of what they’re doing to him. They say his crime was so severe, it warrants extreme methods.”
A horrible feeling grips my gut. Soft humming emits from the table. Seconds later, a hologram of Dámiul appears. He’s sitting at a narrow metal table across from a white-haired man in gray whose back is to me. His hands are bound to the table before him, and he glares defiantly ahead.
I bite my lip as I recognize the black outfit he always wore, the one I thought meant he was in the military.
It’s a uniform, yes. A prison uniform.
CHAPTER 27
DÁMIUL, WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL me? I thought I knew him, but he let me believe so many things that turned out to be deceptions. Why would he lie when his mission was to spread the truth? Wouldn’t telling me and letting me help in his cause have been worth the risk?
In the holovid, Dámiul remains motionless. The white-haired man speaks sharply in Adryil. His words run together, and I can’t make out a single one.
“What’s he saying?” I ask.
Jaerin reaches under the table and presses something. Subtitles appear along the bottom of the holovid: “…and I’ve had enough. I told you yesterday was your last chance, and now, you leave me no choice.”
The man gets up and marches over to Dámiul. I notice a metal crown ringing the man’s head, gold lights glowing along its edges. With his clinical white outfit, his gleaming yellow eyes are the only sign of color on him other than the crown’s luminosity spilling onto his locks.
Dámiul stares ahead, ignoring the man. The man holds up a metal crown, identical to his own except with blue lights, and wedges it onto Dámiul’s head. He pulls a small, rectangular device out of his pocket and presses it. The device whirs. Dámiul flinches slightly, but otherwise remains still.
I start to ask what that thing is, but Cara beats me to the question.
“It amplifies the telepathic effects of one person on another.” Jaerin answers through clenched teeth. “The brighter the lights glow, the more power he’s using.”
The man sits down across from Dámiul and speaks in a precise, formal manner. According to the subtitles, he says, “Stage One. I am going to remove the criminal’s memories of his most recent crime: illegally entering a TalentCorp facility. In addition, I will excise any memories of what followed in order to set him back to the state of mind he was in prior to that particular crime. Following that, I shall work backward to erase all recollections of any illicit activities he has been involved in.”
I gasp. This recording is from the past. If he succeeded, that means he forced Dámiul to forget me. Is that why Dámiul vanished? Is that what he meant when he said he wouldn’t be here by the time I arrived?
The lights on the man’s crown glow so bright, they make his white hair appear bright yellow. The blue lights on Dámiul’s crown blaze. Dámiul doesn’t say a word, but in his eyes, I see the same vulnerability as when he stood in the Hall of Justice. A fear he refuses to show, but that is nevertheless present.
Seconds stretch into minutes. I can’t take my eyes off Dámiul. Whatever the man’s doing, it’s hurting him, and I wish I could reach through the hologram and snatch the device away.
The lights on both crowns dim.
“Gorxit sthanga!” The white-haired man collapses forward, leaning on his hands. The subtitles say: “Worthless criminal!” From the way his back rises and falls, he must be panting.
Dámiul lifts the corner of his mouth in a triumphant half-smile. Despite his cool façade, his deliberate breaths and the sweat on his forehead betray the effort he must have exerted. “Ona sui botsel nur,” he whispers. The subtitles say: “I won’t forget.”
The man looks up and spews venomous words. “Yes, you will.”
He gets up, reaches behind him, and leans over the table. He grabs Dámiul’s hair and yanks his head to the side. I gasp, clenching my fist over my mouth. The man plunges a thick metal syringe into Dámiul’s neck.
Dámiul’s expression contorts with pain for a split second, then returns to his composed mask. The man yanks the syringe out, and he curls his mouth into a sneer.
Dámiul’s head droops, and his eyes glaze over. Whatever drug the man injected him with must be taking effect.
My eyes tingle. The whole time I knew him—is this where he went when he disappeared? Looking back, I remember anger, fierceness, and a touch of melancholy, but never anything that made me suspect he was in so much distress.
The gold lights on the white-haired man’s crown glow again. So do the blue lights around Dámiul’s head. Dámiul lifts his chin, but I can see the pain behind his eye
s, and his breathing grows increasingly labored.
Dámiul’s hands shake. He clenches his fists, but the spasms move up his arms. The white-haired man’s face contorts. Even though his back is mostly to me, I can make out the sliver of a smile.
I grip the edge of the table, reminding myself that I’m watching a recording.
Dámiul blinks rapidly, and a horrible shudder runs through his body. The lights glow brighter, and red blood trickles down the side of his face from under the crown.
His eyes close, and he slumps forward.
“Dámiul!” I clap my hands over my mouth.
In the holovid, Dámiul convulses against the table, breathing in audible gasps. More blood seeps from beneath the crown, and a line of red escapes the side of his mouth.
The lights on both crowns dim again. The white-haired man watches unsympathetically as Dámiul continues shaking. I want to reach through the holovid and scream at him.
The convulsions stop, and Dámiul lies limp against the table, gasping for air. The white-haired man leans toward him and speaks with a satisfied lilt. “Tell me, Dámiul, have you met any Earthlings other than the Ka’risil on Adrye?”
Dámiul’s breath steadies. His eyes remain shut, and I wonder if the white-haired man really expects him to answer when he’s unconscious. The man grabs Dámiul’s shoulder and shakes him. He lets out a harsh exclamation. “Answer me!”
Dámiul’s eyelids flutter, and he whispers, as though too weak to voice his words. “What did you say?”
The man repeats his question.
Dámiul slowly lifts his head and meets the man’s gaze. His eyes blaze with determination, and a defiant smile lifts his lips. “Zeth atiyil Iris Lei.”
My heart skips a beat. I don’t need the subtitles to understand: Her name is Iris Lei. Unexpected joy rushes through me—he hasn’t forgotten me.
“Contuk en!” The man’s curse is almost a scream.
