A Stranger Thing (The Ever-Expanding Universe) (13 page)

“Look,” I say, putting my hand on my hip. “I’m starting to get really annoyed at everyone acting like I have the slightest flipping clue what any of you are talking about. And anyway, there’s something I need to—”

“Man, I totally thought you
knew
.” Bernard settles himself back into his chair. “Okay, what’s the best way to put this?” He rubs the back of his right hand with his left palm. “We’re, like, the coming together of the yin and the yang.”

I roll my eyes. “Not helping,” I tell him.

“The offspring of Almiri and humans,” he clarifies.

“You’re Almiri?” I say skeptically. But I guess you could say I’m . . . intrigued. “Both of you?” That doesn’t make sense.

Bernard shakes his head. “No. See, usually when an Almiri impregnates a human, she gives birth to another Almiri. But sometimes there are”—his eyes drift to Olivia—“anomalies.”

I follow his gaze to the cooing baby in my arms. “She’s not the only one?” I ask, staring at her perfect little face. Her bitty nose, her tiny curving earlobes. The spot on her left cheek where the Almiri starkiss once lay, a perfect constellation of freckles. “This has happened before?”

“Oh yes,” Bernard says. “It’s extremely rare, but it happens.”

“But . . . how?” I ask. “I thought the Almiri could only—”

“Every once in a while,” Zee pipes up, and her voice sounds calmer now, steady. Although there is still more than a trace of fury in it. “A long while, when one of those perfect Almiri males impregnates a human host, the fetus mutates. It keeps many of the genetic markers from the father, but it does something the Almiri find loathsome: it takes on genetic attributes of the host mother as well.”

“Whoa,” I say.

“Right?” Bernard agrees. “Total trip, I know.”

“They call us
Ibrida
,” Zee spits, and I feel her anger rising again. “ ‘Of the sow and the boar.’ A unique genetic species from two distinct ones.
Mules.
The irony, of course,” she adds, with almost a laugh, “is that unlike real mules,
we
can breed freely.”

“Wait, what?” I ask, snapping my eyes up in her direction.
“Really?” Because I may still be learning about these Almiri fellows, but one thing I do know—when an Almiri mates with a human female and produces an Almiri baby, the mother is left infertile. As in, no more kids, ever—Almiri or otherwise. Which means, if the Almiri aren’t super-duper vigilant, they could easily wipe out the human species all together. That’s what happened on their original planet, thousands of years ago. And they were so worried it would happen on Earth that they established the Code. And we all know how well that went down. But if these mules or whatever are different . . .

“So, what you’re saying is, if someone had one of these
anomalous
babies, instead of a regular Almiri, then . . . they wouldn’t be barren afterward?” When Zee nods in the affirmative, I nearly do a little hop ’n’ squeal. “That’s wonderful!” I exclaim.
I’m not barren.
Just knowing that one less thing has been taken away from me, that I still have, like,
options
, is almost as good as discovering that I have a hidden set of wings.

“Wonderful?” Zee’s eyebrows shoot up. “Certainly not the way the Almiri see it.”

“But . . .” I’m confused again. “You’d think they’d be
thrilled
to—”

“They claim we threaten their very existence,” Zee tells me. “Because we can breed with both Almiri and humans—”

“And other hybrids,” Bernard cuts in.

“And other hybrids,” Zee agrees. “But no matter whom a hybrid mates with, the result is more hybrids. Which is why the Almiri believe that we
mules
have the capacity to wipe out both ‘pure’ species. So they lock us up when they get the chance. Or worse.”

“Worse?” I press my hand against Olivia’s back.

“At first, they thought only to cloister the girls. They didn’t realize that some of the boys born had the same genetic mutation. By the time they realized that there were both males and females out there, breeding with the general population, it was too late to effectively control us, so they began taking more extreme measures. They claim to be a morally superior species, so they would never degrade themselves by killing us,” Zee snorts. “They prefer a more gradual form of genocide.”

When I raise a questioning eyebrow, Bernard lifts his bound hands, so that I can see it—on the back of his right hand where he’s always scratching. There is a dark red splotch in the center, like a sunburst. Like a rash you might get from a vaccine.

“Forced sterilization,” Zee finishes.

“No,” I say. I don’t believe it. I just don’t. Sure, Byron said Olivia was “dangerous.” Sure, he sent her here, and all of us with her, just for knowing about her. But he assured me that was only temporary. “They wouldn’t.”

But even as the words come out of my mouth, I have to wonder. How much faith do I have in the Almiri? Am I willing to risk my daughter’s future on it?

Zee gives me the most contemptuous glare I have ever seen produced by someone other than Britta McVicker. “It’s too late for this one, Bernard,” she says, still staring at me as she speaks. “We don’t have time to open her eyes to the truth. I say we take her hostage, see if we can use her as leverage.”

“Dude, I’m
right here
,” I say, snapping out of my daze. This is not really turning into the happy family reunion I was hoping for. “Maybe just cool the hostage talk.”

Zee—my mother—shrugs. “If you’re not with us,” she replies, “you’re against us. And if you’re against us—”

“Then it’s totally fine if I shoot your ass?” I say.

I have Oates’s popgun trained right at her forehead. I’ve got a baby in one hand, a gun in the other, and I’m staring down my mother from the end of the barrel. So basically your typical Tuesday.

She just rolls her eyes. “Please stop wasting my time with that toy.” So, at least we know she’s smarter than Alan. “But nice attempt at making me think you’d ever have the steel to shoot somebody.”

“For your information,” I spit back, “I
have
shot somebody before. A Jin’Kai that was in my way up on the
Echidna
.”

RANDOM TV INTERVIEWER: Elvie Nara, if there was one thing you’d like your deceased mother to know about you, what would it be?

WIDE-EYED, SINCERE ME: What a great question, Stew. Well, I guess if I thought about it really hard, I’d have to say that I’d want her to know that I’ve shot somebody.

Zee stares at me blankly. “Jin-what?” she says, for the second time that morning.

“Guys, guys, guys,” Bernard says, rising again to stand between us. “We’re really getting off on the wrong foot here. This is not how I wanted you to meet my lady love, Elvie.”

At that, my mom’s face goes suddenly taut.

“Elvie?” she whispers.

My face is just as strained.
“Lady love?”
I squeak.

She’s gazing at me, finally really taking me in. And it’s
the first time that I’ve seen her look like anything other than a butt-kicking rescue ops leader all day.

Well, ever, actually.

“Holy shit,” she whispers. “Elvan, is that
you
?”

“Uh,” I say, suddenly feeling superuncomfortable, like I should straighten out my top or stand with my shoulders back or something. Man, I really do have terrible posture. “I go by Elvie now,” I tell her. “But, yeah, it’s me.”

And I wait for her to hug me. Well, try to hug me with her hands shackled. To jump up and down and screech and holler and cry and gush and ask me how I’m doing, how old I was when I lost my first tooth, how the sophomore sock hop was, how I like my pizza.

She does none of those things.

“I can’t believe my daughter turned into an Almiri sympathizer,” she says simply.

“Zee?” Bernard asks. He’s looking utterly confused. Which is not a new state for him, although given the current situation, it seems totally warranted. “Er, do you still want to take her hostage?”

And all of a sudden it hits me, like some sort of totally obvious boulder to the noggin: if my mother is a hybrid, and my daughter is a hybrid . . .

“I’m a
mule
?” I ask. I’m loud enough that Olivia begins to stir, squirming and writhing, clearly getting hungry, but she’s just going to have to wait.

“Don’t you ever use that word,” my mother scolds. “That’s what
they
call us.” She sits up a little straighter. “We are
Enosi
. ‘The Union.’ And you should be proud.”

“Enosi?” I work the word over in my mouth.

“I know, right?” Bernard chips in jovially. “ ‘Enosi,’ ‘Almiri’—all these far-out names that end in
i
, it’s so old-school sci-fi.”

I shake my head. No way is this happening. There must be some mistake. I’m just a regular teenage girl.

You know, except for the whole alien boyfriend thing, and the half-human child.

“But I’m not like an Almiri at all,” I say. “I don’t have, like, superpowers or anything.”

“No, Elvan, in most ways you are just like any other human girl,” she replies. “But you’re
not
a human girl. Because for one thing, your biochemistry is incredibly adaptable to environmental conditions. Haven’t you ever noticed that you don’t get as hot as other people, or as cold, or as sick?”

“I get hot,” I tell her. I do not want to be a weird alien freakazoid. I’m just a girl, dammit. “And I get sick plenty.”

“But not for long, I’ll wager. Think, when was the last time you were sick for more than twenty-four hours?”

I think hard on that. And I can’t think of an instance. Even when I was four and Dad thought I was getting the chicken pox, I only got a few welts and then they disappeared the next morning. Dad thought it was just a false alarm, an allergic reaction or something. Could it be that I beat the bug that quickly?

“How long have you been here, Elvan?” Zee asks me.

“Almost two weeks,” I say. “They moved us right after—”

“It’s very cold down here. You and the baby must be freezing.”

“Well . . . ,” I say, realizing what she’s getting at. “We were at first . . .”

“But not anymore,” she says. “Because your body is adapting.”

So maybe
that’s
why I’ve been noticing the hair on my forearms and legs getting thicker. I thought it was some sort of awful post-baby hormonal thing.

“We might not be as strong as them, Elvan, or as fast, or as brilliant, or as beautiful, as they all claim to be,” Zee continues. “But we’ve got something they lack. Flexibility. We don’t need to change the world around us to fit our needs. Where they stand still, we
move
.”

That which remains still cannot survive.

I don’t want to believe it. I do not. But the baby in my arms is proof in more ways than one. I shouldn’t have been able to feed her that first time, not after so many days without breastfeeding. A normal human wouldn’t have been able to.

But my body adapted.

“Do you understand now, Elvan?” my mother says. “Do you see why they hate us, why they’ve persecuted us for years? Do you see why it’s ridiculous to assume you can trust any of the—”

“No.” I cut her off again. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to waltz in here after sixteen years, and find out you’re my mother, and then tell me how to think.” I do my best to wrangle the squirmy little creature in my arms. The kid is getting
hungry
. “I have a brain,” I tell her. “And I can use it myself.”

“Let me know when you decide to do so.”

I must’ve imagined it a million times, what it would be like to have a mother. Someone to tuck me in bed at night when my dad had to work late. Someone to chaperone my school field trips to Amish Country. Someone to yell at me when she caught me sneaking out late to watch flat pics with Ducky.

But I never pictured this.

“They fear you, Elvan. That must be why you’re here, in this place. Your very existence is the greatest threat they have to their grip on this planet. You’re Enosi, and there’s nothing these monsters wouldn’t do to destroy you.”

Suddenly I’m having a total lightbulb moment. Everything that’s happened in the last few months—everything that, at the time, seemed pretty random—is beginning to come into a dim sort of focus. When I was at the Hanover School, didn’t Dr. Marsden always say I was “special”? And he lied to his superiors about me too. And when he had the chance to kill me, he didn’t. Because he
knew
. Somehow Dr. Marsden knew about me.

And he was up to something.

“The Almiri didn’t put me here to destroy me,” I say, realizing the truth as the words tumble out of my mouth. “They’re protecting me. Or, at the very least, protecting themselves.”

“Why would they protect you?” Zee asks. “What, other than you and your child there, would they need protection from?”

“A shift in the balance,” I say.

“Sorry, Elvie,” Bernard says. “I’m afraid I don’t get what you’re talking about.”

“Well, isn’t that a nice turn of events?” I say. But I don’t really have time for smug amusement. Because, yes, the more I think about it, the more it becomes clear to me that if Dr. Marsden knew about my being a hybrid—or Enosi, or whatever—he must have been planning on using that to his advantage. And if his other allies, like the construction worker phonies who tried to capture me during my labor, know what he knew . . . well, that could be dangerous for a lot more folks than just me.

“I think it’s time we got Oates back in here,” I say. “Oh, and by the way, you could’ve at least mentioned how cute your granddaughter is. That’s sort of the polite thing to do.” I shift so my mother has a better view of my now-screaming baby. “Olivia Colette,” I tell her as she studies me coolly. “I named her after you.”

•  •  •

“So that’s pretty much the scoop,” I sum up, reaching around the feeding infant at my chest to take a swig of Oates’s chamomile tea. I gotta say, having a baby is a surefire cure to helping any girl get over exposing-yourself-aphobia. Because, hell, a tiny thing like Fear of Nip Slip is
nothing
compared to the excruciating screams of a hungry infant.