Catalyst (6 page)

A
boom
resonates from the ceiling. They’re coming, more of them, from the sound of stomping above us.

“They’ll be on this level in a second. Let’s move now. It’s our only chance,” Marka says.

“We have no weapons! We can’t just toss Caliga at everyone who comes near us,” I say, exasperated. When Caliga stares daggers at me, I hastily add, “I mean, what you did with that officer up there was awesome, but they’ll never let themselves get that close again.”

“I’ve got a couple of kitchen knives. That’s it,” Hex says, producing his supply of cutlery. Marka takes one, and so does Vera. I’m sure I’ll cut off my own ear by accident, so I stay close to Caliga to help her walk.

“It’s time. We need to leave, now,” Marka says, reaching for the door.

For a fraction of a second, I see them all there, poised on the threshold. My family, sewn together with the threadbare illusion of safety. God, I never wanted this. Then again, I never thought I’d lose my father, lose my sister, and find my sister again. Fall in love, know pain worse than I’ve ever felt, then gain the weirdest and most wonderful family I could ever have imagined. And then at the end of it all, I find myself here—on the verge of losing everyone I love, all over again.

I know something terrible is going to happen after we cross that threshold. And I can’t stop it from happening.

Marka opens the door and Hex charges into the empty corridor holding Vera’s hand. The other three pour through after them. Caliga and I bring up the rear from a distance. The library is only one floor down, right below us. After all the thumping we’d heard before, our short journey is unexpectedly quiet. I can’t believe we didn’t get caught.

“That was too easy,” Vera comments as she touches the library door. As she pulls it, Marka sniffs hard, and screams.

“Vera! Don’t!”

Three officers jump forward from inside the library and the center one points a neural gun straight at Vera.

It slugs into her chest, her torso shaking jerkily from the impact. Her lovely hazel eyes roll upward and she falls backward into Hex’s two right arms.

“Where’s the list?” The largest officer yells at us, aiming the gun at Marka’s face. The other officers have them pointed at the rest of us.

“What list?” Marka responds calmly.

“The list of all the freaks you guys made. The codes to all the illegal genes. Don’t play games, we know you have it.”

We all exchange expressions of sheer confusion. Our unrehearsed surprise isn’t lost on the officers. The officers don’t move their guns from us.

One of them says, “They don’t have a clue. Shoot first, interrogate later.”

I squeeze my eyes tight, waiting for the shot.

CHAPTER 5

I
T’S OVER.
I
KNOW IT.

I imagine that neural bullet in my forehead, almost feeling it blazing through my nerves and paralyzing me. When it doesn’t come, I open one eye. Something is wrong with the officers.

Their heads tilt slightly, listening to something. The tips of their blunted guns sway away from us. They cannot hold them straight. One of them crumples to the ground and drops his weapon. Another falls, until there’s only one left standing. As soon as he takes a step toward us, he starts to claw at his ears, yanking off his helmet. His face is bright red, eyes scrunched tightly in pain.

“Stop!” he screams. He can’t point his gun at us because something unseen and vicious is hurting him.

“Ana!” Dyl is crouched over Ana, who is balled up, hands over her head. Her face is carved in agony. And then I understand. She is screaming, a hundred and fifty decibels straight to their eardrums. I have only ever heard the soft sadness of her wakeful dreaming, or the chatter of her usual nothings. I’ve never known Ana’s scream.

The guard is with it enough to understand what’s going on. He takes a giant step toward Ana. Dyl lunges at him but he knocks her aside and punts a well-aimed kick at Ana’s head. She falls backward, almost airborne from the force of the blow. Her thin body hits the ground, blood pouring from the angle of her jaw.

“Take her, Marka!” Hex drops Vera into Marka’s arms and lands a powerful kick across the officer’s face with a sickening crack, and he collapses into a heap of black uniform. Caliga launches out of my protective grasp and plants her hands on the guy’s face. He grabs her wrists, but only for a second before his grip melts limply away.

“Quickly,” Marka says. “We’ll be dead if more officers show up.” She drags Vera into the library, and we follow after I help Caliga get up.

“Wilbert,” she gasps, looking at the holo shelves of fake books. We all look around, waiting for something. Anything. But there’s nothing but silence.

“Maybe the program isn’t working anymore?” Hex says.

“Dad,” I shout, barely able to form the words with my dry mouth. “Professor Benten!”

Dad shimmers into existence at my elbow. As always, his holo image is crisp, clean, and startlingly unperturbed. It never fails to shock me. His expression is sterile.

“Greetings. I’m Dr. Benten. I teach—”

“Okay, okay, it works. Try again!” I yell.

“Wilbert,” Caliga whispers to the bookshelves. “Love. I need help. We need help. Please.”

In a frenzy of glowing green particles, Wilbert appears. We all exhale in relief, except for Caliga. She reaches for the sparkling hologram, gasping as it shimmers from her touch.

“All you had to do was say the magic word, Cal.” Wilbert smiles and Caliga beams at him through her tears. As if a boy with an extra, faceless head were the most stunning thing in the universe to behold. He points to the bookshelf on the far wall to the left. “There. It will only read your neural signature.”

Caliga walks to the shelf and touches a few different books. They’re not real, like the holoprofs. Her fingers graze the fake Brontës and Wildes when the holo image of bookshelves snaps, as if the whole wall got a rubber-band jolt. A crack opens in the image, unzipping it top to bottom to reveal a small door, only about four feet high.

Dyl hoots. “Okay, if there’s a white rabbit involved in this scenario, I’m gonna—”

“Come on.” Hex cuts her off, picking Vera up gently, and motions to us.

Caliga waves her hand and the door opens to a dark space within the building’s infrastructure. There’s a crude metal elevator that looks like it will hold two people. We look up the shaft and see that there are more waiting. It looks like an ancient service transport, but Wilbert must have tweaked it to work.

Hex and his verdant, sleeping Vera go in first. They zoom down, the darkness swallowing them. Ana, Dyl, and Marka squeeze into the next one.

When the third lift shows up, I stop. “Wait a second.” I turn to my holo-dad. “I didn’t think about downloading you. I can’t take you with me.”

“I am not a portable program. I must stay here.”

He’s not Dad. He’s just a holoprof. I’m desperate for more of him, the real him. “There’s no time. I’m leaving and I’m not coming back.”

Holo-Dad crackles with electricity, and the sterile expression is replaced with an uneven smile. My heart falters and I gulp a gallon of air. It’s
him
.

“When lost, I find my way to Wingfield,” he says kindly. “Find your north there. I always do.”

I shake my head, full of frustration and anger. “Wingfield? What is that? Why should I believe you? You never tell me enough of anything, when I—”

“What I didn’t tell you, she can tell you now. It’s time. She’s ready, and you’re ready.”

“Who, Marka?”

“Not Marka. Your mother.”

“What?”

Dad told me my mother died after Dyl was born. She’s dead.
She’s supposed to be dead.

The floor shakes, and shouts issue from down the hallway, outside the library.

“Oh no.” I glance over to Caliga, who’s saying good-bye to her Wilbert holo. Wilbert disappears suddenly, and Caliga covers her mouth. I grab her wrist and cram myself into the lift. Holo-Dad waves politely.

“Thank you. I look forward to seeing you at our next lesson.”

My eyes blur with stinging moisture. I hate him. Still playing these games with my life. I wish with all my heart that I could slap him, but there’s no part of him that’s real anymore. And Wingfield?
My mother
? What the hell?

“Come on!” Caliga pulls my hands inside the elevator, which is disturbingly like a vertical metal coffin. Inside, there are no buttons, just bumpy, rusted metal. We hold on to the walls as it plummets down at a stomach-churning speed.

“Wilbert, tell me you put brakes on this thing,” Caliga moans. Suddenly, the lift jolts to a stop, and Caliga and I knock heads.

We chorus in pain. “Ow!”

“Look.” Caliga points to the door, which opens to a dark room. It smells of water and concrete, but there’s definitely an organic whiff of rosemary and Hex sweat. Dyl’s voice splinters the quiet.

“Here! We’re over here!”

Caliga and I gallop into the darkness. A light breaks ahead of us, and we turn in to one of the holding spots for the big char, the one we took to the Argent nightclub over a year ago. Dyl’s face is smudged and dirty on one side. She keeps her distance from us because Caliga is still with me. I let go of Caliga and run over.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, my face kind of hit the lift on the way down. It’s quiet as a tomb here. No sign of the police or anything.”

I snort. “Please don’t use the word
tomb
today.”

“Right. Good point.” She pushes her messy hair out of her face, the way she used to when she was a toddler. Marka and Ana, who’s acting more herself, walk in.

“Good. We’re all here. All three chars are ready to go. We’ll have to split up.”

As soon as she says it, I grab Dyl’s hand and squeeze. Marka’s eyes fall to our clasped hands, and she frowns, turning to Caliga.

“Caliga, do you know how to drive one of these things?”

She shakes her head.

Oh
. Oh no.

“But. Can’t we . . . Can I . . .” My words can’t keep pace with what’s going on in my head, and my heart is already breaking. No, no, no. I can’t be separated from Dyl again! Not from Hex, and Vera, and Ana and . . . no. I won’t. Tears pool in my eyes.

Marka speaks quietly. “We can’t all fit together, not with our supplies. Dyl will go with me. You can drive Caliga. Vera, Hex, and Ana will go together. We’ll meet at the safe house in Chicago in twelve days.”

“Twelve days?” I squawk. Marka and I proceed to heatedly discuss the separation plan, when Caliga pipes in.

“I can’t go to Chicago.”

“What do you mean?” Marka asks.

“It’s time for me to find Wilbert.”

“Where are you going to go?” Marka reasons. “We can’t leave you here. You don’t know where to go. And we’re not just going to drop you off in the middle of nowhere.” I peep out a sound and Marka shoots me a look that says
You are NOT going to drop her in the middle of nowhere!

“I’ll manage,” Caliga says, standing on her good leg.

“How? In the sewer pipes again? Your wound will get worse before it gets better without Zelia’s help, at least for another week. You can barely walk with that bone infection. You’ll snap your leg in half.”

I sigh. She’s so right, and everyone knows it.

“Okay, Chicago.” Hex hands out holo studs for everyone to put in their earlobes. It’s been so long since I wore one of the thick, barbell-like earrings that projects a holographic screen. Normally, it would have communication ability, access to every piece of information you’d ever want, but ours are sorely limited because we’re illegal.

“Access to the address is voice activated,” Hex tells us. “And here are your F-TIDs. We matched them with unclaimed IDs we bought a year ago. Active accounts, but very inactive humans, so—”

“You mean dead?” Dyl asks.

“Not quite. They’re all in care facilities.”

I make a face. “You stole F-TIDs from sick geriatric patients?”

“Just borrowing them! Anyway, your artificial F-TIDs should work two or three times before the account holders realize they’ve been compromised. Here.”

He squashes a small, warm bundle into my hand. I should be prepared for this, but still. There are a pair of separate fingers, each with a soft fringe of skin hanging from the base, like a skirt. The fingers are warm and pink, and pulsate slightly.

“One for you, and one for Caliga. Take this too.” He hands me a packet of white powder. “Soak them in this solution every twelve hours, for nutrients. The digits have self-contained vascular systems, so they should stay alive for a while. Oh, and they sort of pee, so watch out.”

One of the fingers twitches and tickles my palm. Oh lord. This is going to freak me out forever. I stuff them into my backpack, which is crammed full of food, clothes, and medical supplies, along with my e-tablet with all my research on tracking Cy down. Thank goodness Hex nagged us into keeping them at the ready. Before I can finish zipping it up, Hex has me in a two-armed hug, which is so sad and incomplete that my eyes sting. I choke down a sob.

“Zel, we’re all going in different directions, just in case. We’ll go west, Marka north, and you should go east. See you soon.”