Catalyst (22 page)

“But the negotiations aren’t done yet.” I put my glass down and exchange nods with Cy.

“What negotiations?”

“We made a lot of promises today. We’ve done our part. Now it’s your turn,” Cy explains.

“What makes you think I need to negotiate with you?” he says, with an expression of surprise. As if we were three-year-olds demanding a billion dollars.

“Because of fear. Avida will be destroyed if you don’t deliver what we’ve just promised the senators. And greed, because it will give you more power in Inky than you’ve ever had.”

“What happened to sympathy?” He almost sneers at me.

“Sympathy is for children. They’re for the masses, aren’t they? Not for people like us.”

He touches his red bracelet, considering this. We both watch his movements, and Cy says, “Of course, you could just torture us into doing what you want, but that would be the messy, slow way.”

“Very true. So what is your request?”

“Zelia needs full access to the labs,” Cy starts.

“Oh, that. Consider it done. But I expect progress reports.”

“Of course,” I agree, smiling. “We need our schedules relaxed and my door access throughout Avida relaxed as well. I work best when I’m on my own clock. Cy is going to help me work out the kinks.”

Julian puts his empty glass down and laughs out loud. “You don’t fool me for a minute, but very well. I’ll grant you access.”

“And one last thing. About the children in the locked infirmary,” I begin.

Julian hoots. “I thought you said that sympathy was for the masses! Who told you, Renata?”

“We found out ourselves,” I say quickly. I don’t want Renata to get into more trouble than she already has. “Why are they sick? I have a stake in Avida now. I need to know what’s going on, in case it affects my research,” I say, walking up to him.

“That is not your business,” he says.

“It’s all my business, Julian!” I say firmly. He blinks hard at me, as if seeing me for the first time. “You’ve made it my business by bringing me here today. I need to
know.
”

The train comes to a stop and the doors begin to open. As we exit to head for the magpod, he waves Cy ahead and pulls me back so we can walk alone.

“I don’t want people to panic,” he tells me in a low voice. “But it’s complicated.”

“I can handle complicated,” I said. “Why are they sick, Julian?”

He inhales a huge breath, holding it for far too long before he lets it out. “They’re dying, Zelia.”

“Why?”

“Maybe you should have asked your father when you had the chance.”

“Because he could have helped them?”

“Or not. Did it occur to you that some of Benten’s creations had a kill switch built into them?”

“That makes zero sense. Why create something that’s destined to die too early?”

Julian stops walking and stands close to me. Too close. His hand reaches out to grasp my black box pendant between his fingers. “Why do you have your Ondine’s curse? Why would your father make you, knowing you were so . . . breakable?”

“It was a mistake,” I explain, pulling back until my pendant pops out of his fingers and nestles back against my throat. “The PHOX2B gene damage was an accident. My chromosomes had to lose some DNA to be made into those loops.”

“Are you so sure, Zelia, that your father ever made mistakes?”

He waves me inside the magpod and gets into a different compartment. Only after the doors shut do I realize—Julian didn’t answer my question. He just created a hell of a lot more.

• • •

T
HAT AFTERNOON,
C
Y AND
I
TOUR THE
labs after a dizzying ride through the transport. The rooms in every direction around us are visible through the plasticleer walls. The machines lining the walls are pristine, made of shiny composites that don’t age or break.

It’s the most beautiful lab I’ve ever seen. I might as well have micropore filters stuffed into my mouth, because I’m speechless. Cy is less impressed.

Bots float about doing their work. They’re headless and legless, but one in particular bobs forward as if expecting us. Like the other lab bots, he’s headless, but there’s a half spoon, half fork sticking comically out of his torso. Some Avida child has scrawled the crooked letters
SPORK
on his torso.

“Welcome. I will assist the supreme in this lab. Happy to come orientate with me.”

“Uh. Okay.”

“Happy to come orientate with me.”

He starts to lead us to a new room, when I ask, “Um, Spork? Why are you talking so weirdly?”

“The children alter my language chips. Pig Latin last week. This week, blessed normal!”

It’s so not normal, but I don’t have the energy to tell Spork the truth. We follow him around as he points out the different rooms, the sequence analyzers, replicators, and chemical storerooms.

“What’s this?” Cy asks. There’s a wall of holo boards in one room, and at the bottom, we recognize one name.

Jakobsen, C.

“The protocol for shiny Jakobsen C vaccine,” Spork says emotionlessly.

“Is it correct?” Cy asks me.

My eyes scan the information. “It looks pretty correct. I wonder if they’re done making it.”

“Not possible. If Julian could have showed off his ability to touch Caliga today, you know he would have already.”

“How many people can you treat with this vaccine?” I point to Caliga’s protocol.

Spork answers, “Lonely single human dose.”

“Why so few?” I say, starting to get used to Spork’s odd way of speaking.

“Only uno requested,” he responds.

One dose. What a sicko. He doesn’t want anyone else to have Caliga, and meanwhile he can still use her as a weapon.

“Onward! Tissue bank arrives on our marvelous agenda.” Spork whizzes to another room.

Long white storage tables line both sides, and a holo screen shows names listed on a central square.

“Please to squeeze one,” Spork tells me. I touch Cela’s name, and immediately a row of choices light up next to her name. Saliva. Urine. Hair. Plasma. Whole blood. Skin. Ova.

I touch the square labeled
SKIN
and the table hums. A clear window slides open on the surface to reveal several boxy containers filled with flakes of skin, like slices of opalescent glass.

“Oh, I just remembered.” I lift up my sleeve and show Cy the blob of gelled skin that I attached there early this morning. “It’s Ryba’s. It rehydrated in a snap and stuck on like glue.”

“Like this?” Cy pulls up his sleeve and he’s got a blob attached too. “Great minds think alike.” He gifts me with one of his rare smiles, and my heart flutters like he’s just kissed me. “Cela’s and Ryba’s skin must pull oxygen directly out of the water to their tissues.”

I turn to Spork, getting tired of the tour. “Listen. Julian says he’s working on finding the key to the terminator technology in our genes. The thing that makes us all suicide seeds. Do you know how far the research has gone?”

Spork hovers by the holo screen. A few lights flicker on his torso, beneath the scrawled
SPORK
. “Benten Z juicy extracts have not resulted in viable embryos.”

Phew. Well, that’s what I assumed.

“Uh, Spork. You’re going to assist us, right?” Cy says, clearing his throat.

“Amen,” he bleeps at us.

I try not to choke on a laugh. “Um, we need neural maps of the members of Avida. To test my elixir on, for brain function purposes,” I add hastily.

Cy adds, “Oh, and an ionizing gun. A big one. To denature some DNA.”

“Will start now, perky immediately.” Spork spins around and retreats to work on our commands.

Perky indeed.

I hope that Julian isn’t well versed in lab techniques, because everything we just said is molecular hooey.

CHAPTER 20

D
INNER IS INSUFFERABLE.
F
ORGET MY LONGEVITY GENE;
my life may be cut short by the tight, unforgiving gowns every night. The only thing that buoys my mood is my new, full access all over Avida.

Which means, for the first time in a year, I can spend the night with Cy again.

At dinner, he’s much quieter than usual and we’re separated by Élodie, who asks for updates on all the day’s activities. After dessert, Cy leaves with Élodie so abruptly that the transport door closes before I catch up with them.

“In a hurry?” Micah says from behind me.

I try to extinguish my disappointment before I face him. “Not really.”

“I heard that you and Cy are . . . working on something.” He pauses for a long time, but I don’t give him an inch.

“I’m tired, Micah. It’s been a long day.”

“If you try to leave, you have to take me with you.”

I give him the rudest stare. “I don’t owe you anything.”

“I know. You have no reason to believe me, to trust me. Nothing. But I have to get away from Sean and Julian.” He rubs his still-raw wrist. The bracelet is so tight that the skin beneath hasn’t yet healed, and along the edges are red skin and scars in different stages of healing.

Cy’s floor comes up and we both exit, but I plant my feet. I can’t seem to leave Micah behind. I feel sorry for him, though my anger still simmers beneath it all.

“What are you proposing?” I ask him, arms crossed.

“I know you and Cy have ideas. I do too. And I know Avida much better than you do. I can tell you what won’t work, what’s already been tried. And I know Sean and Julian better too. You’re playing Julian really well, but it won’t last much longer.”

This may be a huge mistake, but . . . “I’ll talk to Cy about it,” I tell him.

Micah closes his eyes, exhaling. “Thanks, Zelia.”

I leave Micah behind and find Cy’s room, pausing outside, wondering exactly what he’ll think of Micah’s proposal. From behind the door, I hear a grunt, and a sigh of release. Is Élodie in there? I could walk right in, but I’m worried. Should I go in, or not?

This is Cy. Your Cy. You’ve risked your lives for each other. Open the freaking door.

I knock anyway.

“Élodie, I said I’d see you in the morning,” he answers, irritated.

I smile with relief. He’s alone after all! I wave my bracelet over the scanner embedded by the door, and it swishes neatly open.

“Cy! It’s me. I tried to catch up—”

My breath catches painfully in my throat. Cy is on the bed, hunched over and stiff. Rivulets of scarlet blood snake down his forearm, the drips caught on a white towel on the floor, like poppies on snow. He starts in alarm, and a small knife bounces on the carpet. Its sharp edge is blurry with blood.

“Oh my god!” I shriek.

Cy doesn’t answer me. He snatches the towel from the floor and hastily wipes off his arms. His skin smears with pink before the towel absorbs the evidence. Cy used to tattoo himself as punishment for what happened to Ana, as if he were responsible. But it didn’t occur to me that his habits hadn’t stopped, just taken another form. He hid this from me. Vaguely, I remember seeing faint pink lines on his skin before. How he’d rolled down his sleeves, hiding the last traces of his cutting.

“
Why?
Why are you doing this?”

“Come here,” he says, and offers me a hand. I take it, letting his fingers envelop mine. Cy’s other hand guides my waist so that I’m sitting on his lap. “Look at me. No, don’t turn away,” he commands, weaving gentleness and strength together irresistibly, something I haven’t witnessed since he told me that sacrificing himself was the only way to save Dyl. “I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

“But I could have helped you. You should have told—” My voice cracks and I swallow the rest of my words.

Cy sighs so deeply, I rock on his lap, almost tipping over. He catches me and we both fall sideways onto the bed, cradling each other. For a few minutes, we say nothing. He lets me cry. So this is what happens when you blend horrible and wonderful together.

Finally, the tears stop. I trace the rapidly fading marks on his arms, asking through my stuffy nose, “It hurts, doesn’t it?”

Cy says nothing, only nods into my hair. He begins to murmur into my ear, as if no one else in the world is allowed to hear.

“When I was in Aureus, they had me working constantly. Micah and Tegg took turns disciplining me, and it was . . . hard to keep it together. I missed you so much, I couldn’t handle it.

“Some people in Aureus seemed to be laughing at me at times, but I had no idea why until Élodie told me I was transmitting my thoughts to everyone—my most private thoughts. I tried to stop, but I had no idea how. And then once, I almost killed Tegg.”

“How?”

“I don’t know how. He was beating the crap out of me, and I just . . . I wanted to push him and hit him, but I could barely lift my arms. And then . . . he passed out. And Renn, and Wilbert. Their bodies went white, as if their circulation had been cut off everywhere. It was like Ana’s trait, but instead of tricking people’s nerves into feeling a soft touch, I tricked their bodies into massive vasocontriction. No blood supply to anything. Micah found us and managed to rush in to zap me. If he hadn’t, they would have died.”