SWAB (A Young Adult Dystopian Novel) (14 page)

“What do you do here?” Mrs. Weatherstone asked, peering at a moth with blue and silver wings pinned to a piece of paper. Travis made a face at a dissected grasshopper.

“Well, it’s a bit complicated, but basically, I research our genesis,” Saki said with pride. “Come, let me show you.” She led us around the tables back to the lighted glass containers. They looked like the kind of tanks that would have held fish or snakes when humans used to keep such pets. I felt the pull of energy increase as we got closer. Nathan and I stepped up to the glass. Derrick looked over my shoulder.

“Easy now,” Saki said quietly and with deep veneration. “We don’t want to startle him.”

Peering into the glass, I saw nothing at first: some sand, a tiny bowl of water, bits of dried wood and a few blades of grass.

“There he is,” Saki whispered, pointing to the top blade of grass. I followed her finger and a single red beetle just like the one I found in the dome. It had a black outline and antennas and was no bigger than a common ladybug, but as I looked at it, I knew that this tiny insect
was the source of the great energy I had felt when we entered the room.

For a while, no one spoke. All eyes were on the little bug. I watched as it alternated each of its six legs, moving carefully across the blade. When it found a tiny bit of pollen on the end of the grass, its antenna seemed to quiver with excitement. Nathan, and even Gray, chuckled with amusement as we watched it gingerly put small chunks of the pollen into its mouth. I was smiling, too.
What’s happened to make us all so giddy like this?
But there was an undeniable link between us and the insect.

“What is it?” Nathan asked softly.

“It’s the Origin,” Saki answered. “It is how all of us were Born.”

I frowned at the little red beetle.
“So, we became scarb because of this bug?”

Saki brushed back a strand of her blue hair. “Yes. Isn’t that beautiful?”Beautiful wasn’t exactly the word I would use for it, but she went on. “And it’s not just how
we became scarb but how all scarb are Born.”

I looked again at the insect now crawling upside down on the blade of grass. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
How could something so small, so harmless, be capable of destroying almost the entire human race?

“We have studied the Origin extensively here in our labs,” Saki continued. “What we have discovered is that this insect produces certain spores into the atmosphere. When these spores make contact with our lungs, they bind to our red blood cells and cause our genes to mutate, turning us into scarb. Scarb are really nothing more than a sub-species of the Origin.”

No one spoke for a moment, each of us trying to digest that information. “Where does it come from?” Derrick asked from behind me.
Was that a hint of skepticism in his voice?

“The Origin planet,” Saki answered. “We can all feel the connection. The connection extends beyond this colony, beyond this world, to planets far beyond. We have been blessed to become part of the great web.”

I didn’t like the way she said
blessed.
Becoming scarb was shocking at first; I had become the very thing I’d fought to destroy. I could appreciate the wonders of it, now—I’d even started to accept my new body—but I wouldn’t call the change a blessing.
Destroying an entire race of innocent beings would never feel right to me.

“Did the beetles come here to annihilate humans?” I asked Saki sharply.

She gave a little laugh. “Look at him for yourself. Does he seem like a killer?”I watched the red beetle clean one of its back legs. The insect seemed innocent enough, just like any other bug I’d seen before.

“No,” I finally answered. “It doesn’t.”

“Origin is not much more dangerous than your typical insect,” Saki explained. “They are extraordinary in several ways, however. First, their ability to travel through impossible conditions. We are currently studying their skeletal and internal structures to understand how their bodies make space travel possible. And second,” Saki bent down so her face was level with the insect, “their ability to communicate telepathically.” Her ears started twitching, and I watched as the beetle stopped cleaning himself, stood up on his back legs, and turned toward Saki. His antennae trembled.

“Are they really talking?” Nathan asked, jaw open.

Thirty seconds later Saki straightened. “He says he is warm and comfortable but feeling a little dry. I’ll turn his humidifier up,” she said, turning a little knob on the top of the tank. A gentle mist poured over the sand and grass.

“Incredible,” Nathan breathed.

“You can talk to him, too,” Saki said, “if you want to.”

I wasn’t sure I was up to talking to a bug just yet, despite the connection I felt, but Nathan piped up. “Sure.”

“All right,” Saki smiled.

Nathan bent down to the glass. The beetle immediately scurried down the blade of grass and came right over to the glass where Nathan was. After a moment, Nathan stood back up, a fat grin on his face.

I put my hands on my hips. “What did you say?” I asked.

“I asked him if he likes Led Zeppelin,” Nathan smirked.

“Music? Seriously?” I huffed.

“He brought it up actually,” Nathan replied.

“Well, what did he say? Does he like Led Zeppelin?”

The knowing smile didn’t leave Nathan’s face. “Ask him yourself,” he said with a hint of challenge in his voice.

Me ask him?
The beetle rubbed the glass with both of his antennae.
Is he really looking up at me with those two tiny black eyes?

I felt the connection in my chest burn a little more. “This is so weird,” I said in my mind as if under my breath, but I bent down so that my eyes were level with the little bug. “Okay.”

The beetle slowed the movement of his antennae, as if waiting for me. Separated by only a sliver of glass, I saw him in much greater detail now: the barbs around his jaw, the specks of gold on his checks and at the tips of each of his joints, the dozens of irises in his black eyes. He cocked his head a little to the right, and I was certain he was looking right at me. “All right, little bug.”I cleared my mind and tried to focus on a single thought.
Music.
I directed it at him. “What do you know about music?”

His voice—a strange mixture of pitches and clicks—came clearly into my mind. “We know a great deal about music, actually. As I told your brother, I am only recently acquainted with Led Zeppelin, and while it suits me fine, I am fonder of the music back at my home world.”

His highly articulate response startled me.

The beetle must have heard my thought. “No, the insects of your world are about as smart as a piece of dung.”

“Oh.”I thought about that. I imagined what it must be like to arrive on a planet surrounded by unintelligent beings. “But you have music where you’re from?”
What kind of music do beetles like?

“Yes. It echoes the wind in the leaves and the fall of rocks in the canyons. Come to Origin sometime,” the beetle replied, “and you will hear it for yourself.” With that, the beetle crawled back over to the shade under his grass.
I guess the conversation is over.

I straightened.

Nathan looked at me with eyebrows raised high. “Pretty awesome, huh?”

“Yeah,” was all I could say back.

“This one,” Saki said, “is a scout. In fact, all of the Origin we have found are scouts. From what we’ve learned, the Origin planet sends them out to other worlds to expand the Great Colony. If they are successful, as they have been on Earth, the spores the Origin carries will bind themselves with the native population, creating a new branch for the colony.”

This reminded me of all the alien movies I’d seen as a kid, about tall green beings seeking universal domination. And now I was one of them. They’d sucked me into it.

I turned to Saki. “So how did
you
become scarb? Did someone stick you in a chamber full of these things and wait until you changed?”

Saki blinked. “No. Actually, you are the first new hatchlings we’ve had.” She looked around at us like we were precious babies. “I became scarb in Chicago seven years ago, shortly after the city was infected. Things were quite a mess, then, since colonies hadn’t really been organized. Emerald found me and took me in. I followed her
here to set up a colony of our own.” She put the tips of her fingers against the glass. “Nearly all scarb are made that way, exposure to wherever the beetles are.”

I thought about this. “I was in Kansas when the infection hit. Why didn’t I turn into scarb then?”

“Good question,” she applauded. “We’ve found that, just like in your case, it takes some humans longer to respond to the spores. Some never do. That’s why there were so many human casualties. Most of the ones who Changed more quickly or were exposed to more spores killed humans ignorantly.” She put a hand on the glass of the tank. “It isn’t in our nature to allow competition to live at the cost of our own safety and the protection of our resources. There can only be one dominate species on a planet at a time. Humans who didn’t turn scarb quick enough were unfortunately lost.”

I hissed at her hollow-sounding remorse.

She bristled a little. “Scarb killed scarb, too. So many lives were lost in the chaos of the Early Days. Colonies give us structure and safety.” She addressed the entire group, but then she turned to me. I wondered if I was the only one who heard her next words, “I hope that the longer you are here, the more you will see how wonderful life as a scarb can be.”

Chapter Fourteen

Nectar and Divish

While Saki showed us more her lab, Nathan’s stomach gave a loud rumble.

“Oh, dear,” Saki exclaimed, putting down the double-headed dragonfly she showed us. “Here I am jabbering away, and you are all hungry. Let me get you some food at the storage facility.”

Everyone else seemed to sigh with relief. “What do we eat?” I tried to whisper to only Nathan.

“Honey nectar,” he chimed, like he’d just laid out a five-course meal for us. I scrunched up my face at the memory of the honey nectar. “Don’t worry,” he added. “It actually tastes pretty good now.”

The others filed out after Saki, but I stayed behind just a moment to get one last look at the Origin beetle. He was now sleeping, upside-down under a rock.

“So much fuss over such a little thing,” Derrick said behind me. Even with the change, he hadn’t lost his southern accent.

“Yeah,” I agreed and moved over so he could have a look, too. All of the others had left the room.

“Do you really believe all that stuff about coming from another world and everything?” he asked me.

I thought about it. “It makes as much sense to me as anything. With everything that’s happened, what can you believe anymore?”

Derrick moved a little closer to me. “Do you still believe Ray is here?”

Ray.
My heart gave a little twitch. “I don’t know,” I answered. “I’ve got to find that red-haired flier.”

Derrick nodded his head, the tips of his ears gleaming like wet oil in the light from the tanks. “I’ll help you keep an eye out.”

“Thanks,” I said. It felt good to know he was still on my side.

He shifted his weight a bit, and then said more softly into my thoughts. “Most of the others seem pretty convinced by this Saki girl and the others. It seems like some of them are already fully embracing being scarb.”I thought about Nathan. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t really trust all this ‘colony’ stuff. For years, scarb have only wanted to kill humans. Why are they trying to recruit them now?”

I wanted to talk to him more, but Nathan’s head appeared back in the doorway. “You comin’, sis? Food’s a-waitin’.”

I wondered if all Nathan cared about was his stomach. I looked back at Derrick, but he was already walking out the door. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

As we followed Saki and the others through the vast halls of the colony, Nathan chatted about how great all the people were here, how Mrs. Weatherstone was training for a position in the infirmary and how Officer Reynolds considered becoming a leaf-tender. My thoughts were still on what Derrick had said.
Why would they want to make us scarb now?

“Hey, Nate,” I interrupted him, “have you ever seen that red-haired flier scarb who captured me from the battle?”

He paused and scratched one of his neon-orange horns. “No, I haven’t, but Saki said I’m going to be introduced to the other fliers tomorrow. I can look for her then. They want to train me. Cool, huh?”He looked like he’d been the first pick on a kid’s soccer team.

I didn’t want to crush his happiness. It had been so long since we’d been happy, but what if it wasn’t real? “Just… be careful, okay?”

Nathan gave me a weird look. “What? Why? Are you afraid of me flying or something? Jack told me it will be at least a month or two before my wings are strong enough.”

“It’s not that,” I said slowly, trying to keep my thoughts directed at only him so that no one else would hear. More and more scarb were filling the halls as they sloped downward. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. Be careful about trusting them.”

“‘Them’?” he repeated. “Sis, there is no ‘us’ and ‘them
’ now. We
are
them. There’s no more fighting. No more little island to protect. None of that. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to us, Cat.”He gave my arm a little punch. “Lighten up.”

Apparently bored with my attitude, he went over to Gray. They whistled at a long-legged female scarb in a mini-skirt. She carried a silver tray filled with tiny pastries and two glasses of golden liquid out of an alabaster doorway.

“This is the storage facility,” Saki told me.

“A.K.A., food!” Gray and Nathan yelled and craned their necks back like a pair of famished wolves.