Catalyst (32 page)

“Here. Wingfield Incorporated. They mined granite, but the pit was abandoned and filled with water seventy years ago.”

No wonder I couldn’t find a town called Wingfield.

We peer into the gloom for signs of human habitation. In the twilight, the water resembles a crude oil spill extending half a mile into the distance. No buildings, no people. Nothing.

“No one’s here,” Caliga says. “It’s a dead end.”

Her voice quavers the tiniest bit, and I can read her emotions, even without scenting them. No safe haven means no Wilbert. It means no end to being on the run. Cy picks up a rough rock, throwing it ruthlessly into the water. We wait for the angry splash, but there is none.

“Hey. Hey! What happened to the rock?” I exclaim.

“I saw it go into the water. Look, there . . .” Cy points at a distance. We see the pinpoint stars reflected in the water, but oddly, some of the points of lights seem firmly fixed and unperturbed by the soft breeze blowing across the surface.

Caliga trembles as she clutches my arm.

“Something is down there,” she says.

CHAPTER 29

“L
OOK.
L
OOK!”
C
ALIGA SAYS, UNABLE TO HIDE
the hunger in her voice. She runs toward the water’s edge, splashing noisily.

I grab for her arm. “Cal, wait!” I yell. But it’s too late. She’s up to her thighs in the water, slapping the surface.

“Wilbert! Wilbert! I’m here!” she cries.

I lunge for her again but Cy pulls me back by the waist.

“No. Wait. Something’s moving down there.”

Under the water, something big and glowing a ghostly blue moves only a few feet away from Caliga. A rounded pillar of translucence breaks the surface; its amorphous shape blurs and shimmers, rearranging atoms into a shell of something vaguely Y-shaped, yet human. And then, like a lens that suddenly drops out of nowhere to fix our vision, the blue thing sharpens into focus.

“Oh my god. Wil?” Caliga whispers, raising a soaking hand to touch the image.

It’s Wilbert. He may be a blue digital image, but it’s him. His second, faceless head bobs quietly between his normal head and his left shoulder. He’s crying.

“Cal. You made it. I can’t believe it.” He extends a hand toward her, and she slips her hand into the image of his. Caliga shivers at his touch. Wilbert blurs again, and refocuses. “Cal, it really is you
.
”

“Are you here? Are you inside this place, somewhere?”

“Yes.”

The water around Caliga’s legs glows with the same eerie light blue. Like a giant amoeba, it starts to crawl up her legs and envelop her, as if she’s being eaten by the reservoir water itself.

“Wait! Wilbert, is it safe? Are you okay?” I shriek at him, but the Wilbert water image won’t respond to me. Caliga, now enveloped in blue shimmering water, lets the Wilbert image pull her into the depths. We all watch, stunned, as their blue lights wink out.

“Well. Count on Wilbert to create a dramatic passcode into this place,” Cy murmurs. “Shall we?” He gestures to the water, and I hesitate. Micah does too. Drowning is not fun, particularly when you’re volunteering to do the deed yourself.

We each gingerly step into the icy cold water. Within a minute, ghostly blue blobs arise from the deep to meet us. The first one to break the surface morphs and merges into the shape of Tegg—the tall guy from Aureus whose skin is thickened like bark. It’s nearly impenetrable, though I managed to stab him in a weak spot when we battled in the underground club Argent. Tegg doesn’t seem to see me or Cy, only Micah and Blink.

“Long time, no see, Kw,” Tegg says. “Let’s go.” He offers a hand to Élodie, saying, “The Queen of Darkness. Welcome.” Blink and Micah both grasp his hands with trepidation. Within seconds, they’ve all sunk beneath the surface of the water.

“I can’t believe Tegg is here,” I whisper, but Cy doesn’t hear me. The blue blob that’s come to welcome him is exactly Ana’s height.

“Cy,” she says in her girlish voice.

Another rises next to her, and it’s tall and willowy. “Hex. Vera.” The blob becomes focused to show Marka’s pixie cut and gentle smile. Hex and Vera splash forward and each grab a hand. They collapse into one another’s arms and the blue rises up from the water to envelop them, as Cy’s and Ana’s forms disappear into the depths.

One final glowing body rises up to meet me. Rounded soft lips form, then eyes—wide and beautiful, and unsure. Long, straight hair swishes like optical fibers behind the shoulders, and slender arms detach from the body to reach for me.

“Zel,” it whispers.

I weep, and the scent of salty tears invades my thoughts. This is the scent of happiness, and fear, and relief, and yes, hope come to fruition.

“Dyl,” I cry, and collapse into her ghostly blue arms. I know it isn’t really Dyl, and that this apparition isn’t really water. She’s probably full of emulsified nanocircuits made by Wilbert.

I think these things to try to keep from completely losing it.

Blue phosphorescent water snakes up my legs, covering me like a wet, impenetrable skin. As it slithers over my chest, under my armpits, and twines up my neck, I take a huge breath.

“Relax,” Dyl’s apparition says. “It’ll be over soon.”

I grasp the mirage of Dyl as hard as I can, but she dissolves in my embrace. Just when I can’t hold my breath any longer, a solid floor gathers beneath my feet. The liquid encasing my body breaks apart and fizzles into the air, dissipating like boiled water.

I’m in a painfully bright white room, spacious and plain. A lone holo panel with digital readings and numbers I don’t understand blinks on one wall. The ceiling is waves of quarry water, somehow held back by an invisible barrier. Micah, Cy, Élodie, Vera, Hex, and I all stand in the room alone, not a smidge wet from the quarry water, just blinking confusedly in the bright light.

A door opens, and I nearly scream with joy at the person entering.

“Marka!” I rush straight into her open arms, followed by Cy, Vera, and Hex crushing us into a ball of Carus welcomes. Her laughs rings out, rich and full.

“You made it! God, I can finally draw a breath!” she says, and her eyes twinkle at me. “These last two weeks have felt like ten years!” We separate and Micah coughs uncomfortably behind us.

“Hi,” he says to Marka, his face hung with shame and misery.

“Hello, Micah.”

Micah doesn’t make a move forward. Marka’s eyes water. Micah lived at Carus before I got there, before he betrayed them and went to Aureus. Marka raises a hand to touch his shoulder, but hesitates. Fury and hurt and empathy flash across the features of her face, warring for precedence. Finally, she touches his shoulder and Micah’s eyes squeeze shut. She pulls him into her arms.

He weeps.

More people crowd into the room, diluting the uncomfortable silence. Ana embraces Cy like she might never let go. Tegg enters and smirks, but welcomes no one. Caliga presses herself into the corner until she sees Wilbert enter.

“Wil!” she yells, and he runs straight to her, wrapping his arms around her rib cage and spinning her around and around like a carnival ride.

They’re touching. And Wilbert isn’t getting sick.

“Oh my god, oh my god! How? Wilbert!” she cries and blubbers. “How?”

“I made a vaccine according to your protocol as soon as I got here a month ago.”

They’re both crying so hard, I don’t want to witness their impending very wet, very snotty kiss. I turn away when something smashes straight into me.

“Zel!”

Dyl sweeps me into a powerful hug. Relief unleashes within me like a living thing, too big to be contained. I burst out in tears, hugging her so hard, it hurts. We finally let go enough to laugh and look at each other, searching for signs that this is real and we’re not dreaming, when Dyl freezes in my arms.

“What is he doing here?” She looks beyond me and I twist to see Micah watching us from ten feet away, where Marka’s released him. He looks to Marka, but she keeps her distance, as if to say, “
No, Micah. I can’t protect you from the consequences of your decisions.
”

“Dyl.” I want to explain everything, my own worries and fears and everything he’s told me, but she pulls out of my arms and marches straight up to him.

“I’ve waited too long for this,” she seethes. Micah’s face is so white, I think he might have just lost a pint of blood from her withering stare alone.

“Wait,” Micah says, raising his hands slowly, but it’s too late. Dyl slaps him hard across the face.

“That’s enough, Dyl.” Marka pulls her away and tucks her under a protective arm. “Everyone will have a chance to settle in. We’ve a lot to talk about. A lifetime’s worth.” The door opens again and an amber-skinned girl with lush, curly black hair steps inside.

“The exam room is ready,” she tells Marka.

“Can’t we put that off? They just got here, Jess.”

“Which is why we can’t hold off.”

Everyone stops hugging everyone else. Funny how check-ins can break up a welcoming party.

“Very well. I’ll see you all after you get cleaned up,” Marka says brightly.

“Zel, let’s start with you.” The girl, Jess, leads us down the hallway and I wave a reluctant good-bye.

“I kept your unicorn,” I tell Ana, patting the pack hanging from my shoulder. “She wasn’t lonesome.”

Ana pokes my elbow from afar and whispers in my head.

I knew you’d take care of her.

“We’ll talk later, Ana. I promise,” I call to her. I look back at Cy, and he shrugs.
What’s the worst that could happen? Marka is here. Right?

His words aren’t confident. I mean, we should be safe now. But I can’t dismiss my worry anyway. Because I know that even here, we’re hiding. I wonder if we will ever be able to stop being afraid.

I’ll see you soon,
Cy says, and a whispery kiss touches my cheek.

The corridor ahead is bland and white. But around a curve, a veritable tree is embedded in one of the walls. Its branches curve and twist up to the ceiling, spreading out over another window where the quarry water shows darkly above us. The pale green leaves are nearly plastered against the invisible barrier, as if waiting to drink in the morning sun.

Jess waves me forward and leads me to a door with a thin willow tree arching over the top.

I part the drooping willow branches and enter. Inside is a medical room, not unlike the one from Carus House. There’s a white table, surrounded by walls of locked drawers and strange medical equipment I’ve never seen before. Everything is white and silver, cold and clean. Memories of my first day at Carus flood me—running away from Hex on the agriplane, having the shards of glass embedded in my skin removed by Cy, and his unexplained hostility toward me.

Jess walks in the door and sweeps by, turning on a holo screen.

“Hi Zelia. This will go by really fast. Hold out your hand.” I extend my hand and she sees my bracelet. “Oh. That’s from your stay in Inky?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we’ll have to see if someone can remove that without the explosive going off. And it’s not going to be me,” she says with a definitive nod. She takes my other hand and curls a silver band around my wrist. “This is a physiosensor. It’s from a CompuDoc, but we changed the programming.”

The holo screen immediately lights up with a huge list of blinking red statements. Jess peers at them, blocking my view.

“Hmm. Tox levels are moderate. We can chelate those out easily. Yep, demodex infestation. And a minor nematode infection.” My skin crawls with itchiness at her comment. “Malnourishment levels aren’t too bad. Hmm. Estrogen levels are normal, but you’re anovulatory.”

Hooray. It never gets easier to hear how unnatural I am sometimes.

Jess touches her holo a few times, and then proceeds to clean off my upper arm with a green liquid. Something beeps behind her and she removes a large patch, peeling the backing away.

“Wait, what’s that?” I ask.

“I’ve infused it with the chelators and a few antiparasitic meds and vitamins.”

I let her press it firmly to my arm. The microneedles attach to me, like a million ants nibbling all at once. It stops itching after a few seconds.

“Is that it?”

“Almost. Can you lie down for a second?” she asks.

“Why?” I say, reclining on the examining table.

“Because you’re going to get dizzy. You need to sleep, and I’d rather you lie down than smack your head on the floor.”

As soon as she says it, I feel the wooziness in my head. It’s strong and sudden, and I have no pacer anymore. No watch, no necklace. And Jess doesn’t know.

“Wait, wait,” I say, realizing that my speech is already slurred. Or maybe my hearing is screwed up. I reach for the patch to tear it off, and Jess holds my wrist down.

“It’s okay. She said it was okay.”

“Who? Marka?” I say thickly.

“No. Your mother,” she responds, looking at me like I’m stupid. She lets go of my arm, but it seems to weigh a thousand pounds and it falls limply by my side. I hear tubing and metal things banging against one another. A mask goes over my face, forcing air into my lungs.