The Gryphon Project (27 page)

“It’s just better if you don’t know, Phee.”

“And so he won’t tell you.” Polly was back with the tea fixings. “Right, Marlin?”

“Right,” Marlin said.

“But you can trust me, Saul—”

Polly and Marlin frowned at her.

“Marlin. Sorry.” Phee wasn’t sure if they could trust her, but hoped they could. She hoped that she would make the right decisions too, and not reveal this place to anyone, even under the pressure of a Chrysalis lie detector test. “You can trust me.”

MARLIN EXPLAINED
that he’d finally decided to tell Gryphon the truth about his family and where he’d really gone when he’d left for a couple of weeks in Grade 8. He’d died in fact, at home, from meningitis, the same strain that had sent three of the boys’ classmates to the hospital. He couldn’t go, though, as his DNA was not
on record with Chrysalis. So he’d died, where the others had not, and then he’d come here, or to its incarnation at the time, which had been an old mill out by the delta.

“We keep moving the lab,” he said. “Every few months or so.”

“How did they recon you?”

“We have my cord blood,” he replied. “My parents were fugitives long before I was born. They’ve been recon activists since they were in college.”

“But how is it a secret?” Phee wanted to know. “How come you can be identified along with the rest of us, like at the train station and on school registration day?”

“All that’s facial recognition and fingerprints, retina scans. No one except Chrysalis actually checks DNA. We can hack everything else into the various systems.”

Phee hadn’t known that. She’d always assumed that the identity technology was all-encompassing, right down to DNA.

“So there are lots of illegally reconned people out there?”

“A significant number,” Polly broke in. “Yes.”

“And what about now?” Phee aimed her question at Marlin. “Whose DNA do you have now?” She imagined them harvesting DNA from dead people they couldn’t save, or worse.

“My own, still.” Marlin touched his hands to his face. “This is all surface reconning, along with things like fake glasses. Coloured contacts. Practically starving myself,” he added with a laugh. “Lifts in my shoes. And hair dye.”

“Hair dye?” Phee could hardly believe that something you could get at the drugstore was part of such an elaborate disguise.

“We do the least number of medical interventions as possible,” Polly said.

“I see,” Phee said, although she didn’t. But she’d had enough details for the moment, so she changed the subject. “What did Gryph say when you told him the truth?”

“I’d double-dog-dared him not to tell anyone,” Marlin said with a smile. “He never breaks a double-dog dare. He got it. And more
important, he got why he had to keep it a secret. Even from Tariq and Huy.”

“Why’d you tell Gryph in the first place?”

“I didn’t want to be alone with the secret anymore.” He fixed his eyes on Phee now. “And because he’d told me about you.”

“That he pushed me?”

Marlin nodded. “It was eating him up. He wanted to tell you the truth but wasn’t sure if he should.”

“A secret for a secret?”

He nodded again. “A doozy given deserves a doozy in return.”

The two of them smiled, Marlin for his own reasons, and Phee because she could just imagine the two boys swapping deep secrets as if trading hunting knives.

After a long pause, Marlin continued. “At first, he was going to tell your parents. He thought they could help. But I persuaded him not to.”

“But they
could
help. My mom anyway. I’m not sure about my dad. He’s on the Congress.”

“We were going to try to get your mom on board. We only have two doctors right now, so we’d really be able to use her.”

“But?”

Marlin cocked an eyebrow. “But then Gryph died. He’s taking a break from his regularly scheduled programming.”

“It’s not funny.”

“I know, I know.”

It all made sense now, how Gryph had changed. She had to smile at herself, for all those times she’d thought he was using drugs. She’d been so wrong. So very wrong.

“What about Chrysalis?” she asked, coming back to the present.

“He was trying to get out of his contract,” Marlin said. “In the meantime, we were super careful not to give them any reason to be suspicious.”

“But they are,” Phee said. “They know he’s up to something.”

“They’d never guess
this
.” Marlin gestured around them. “They’d
never guess that their top athlete was slumming with a bunch of rogue reconners.”

“And he was okay with all of this?” Phee thought back to the fated trip to the no-per zone. How Gryph had seemed open to it all in a way that Phee wasn’t.

“Not at first. He was as confused as you are.” Phee didn’t deny it, so Polly carried on. “But then he really started to make up his own mind about the way things are. How they should be. And what he could do about it. Like the rest of us here, he came to believe that everyone should have the same access to the same number of recons in a lifetime.”

Marlin nodded. “Equal rights, equal recons.”

“What was he doing about it?” Phee asked. “What was he doing here?”

“Making a difference.”

“But how?” Phee imagined him in a lab coat, handling stem cells and test tubes of accelerator. That was ridiculous, though. He was just a teenager, not a scientist at all. So she wasn’t surprised when Marlin set her straight.

“Nothing glamorous,” he said. “Bringing food from your garden, cleaning up. He helped move the lab to this location. Brought clothes for people to leave in. Biggest help was physiotherapy, or sort of. He’d help the patients get back onto their feet, get healthy before they left. He taught them stretches, exercises.”

“He even played basketball with them.” Polly smiled, remembering. “He brought one of those nets, you know? The ones you fill at the base with sand so it doesn’t topple over. He tried to get me to play, of all things.”

Phee listened, her cup of tea balanced on one knee cooling as she rolled this new information about her brother around in her head, trying to make it fit with her idea of who her brother was.
Is
.

“That explains why he was acting different about Chrysalis,” Phee said. “They used to be so important to him.”

“True.” Marlin nodded. “And he was trying to break free from Chrysalis.”

“Maybe he should’ve started genuinely losing every once in a while.” Phee laughed. “But he wouldn’t do that, would he? He might be able to give up first place, but not second.”

Marlin grinned. “He was victim to his ego—that never changed.”

“Just his ideas about right and wrong when it comes to reconning.”

“Right and wrong on a much bigger scale, Phoenix.”

“Indeed.” Polly took Phee’s empty teacup. “Your brother has strong convictions. He is a born activist. He’s willing to take risks where others won’t. He does valuable work here. And he will again, when he comes back.”

“
If
he comes back.”

“He will.” Polly put a reassuring hand on Phee’s arm. “He will come back.”

Phee raised her eyes to fix Marlin with a dark look. “Tell me how he died.”

“Not yet, Phee.”

“But you will?” Phee was too tired to protest. “You promise you will?”

Marlin nodded. He reached out a hand. She took it and he helped her up. “I’ll give you a tour and then make sure you get home without falling asleep in the middle of the street, okay?”

HE SHOWED HER
the door that led to the wing of small rooms housing the newly reconned, giving them time to get their heads around their new appearance, and to settle in to the logistics of a new identity.

“Everyone’s sleeping,” he said, leading her away. “And I wouldn’t introduce you to anyone anyway, for obvious reasons.”

He pushed open a heavy door that separated the actual lab from the rest of the building. The lights came on, casting a harsh, surgical light onto the gleaming stainless-steel surfaces and the
polished tile floor. Everything glinted with cleanliness, much to Phee’s relief. The same sort of track that she’d seen at Chrysalis crossed the room on the far wall. Marlin saw her notice it.

“We use the same equipment. You saw the capsules. We use the same vitrification fluids, the same molecular compounds.”

“Aren’t you the scientist,” Phee joked, although she felt nothing but unease at this clandestine set-up.

“Not at all,” Marlin replied. “But I can sound smart. We have insiders working for us. Chrysalis agents who siphon from the main tanks. Just a few ounces at a time. Shipping agents who fudge the inventory. It’s a big movement, Phee.”

“Apparently.” Phoenix spun on her heel so she was face to face with Marlin. “And will this
big movement
be able to do anything to bring Gryph back?”

“Maybe.”

“How?”

“If the appeal fails, and we can get into Chrysalis and retrieve his stasis pod—”

“
Steal
him?” Phee laughed again—the notion was so absurd. “Have you ever even been to Chrysalis? You couldn’t steal a ballpoint pen from there, let alone the body of one of their celebrities!”

“You weren’t listening. We steal stuff from them all the time.”

“But people? Have you ever actually stolen a whole, entire person?”

“Obviously, we’re hoping we won’t have to consider it.” Marlin’s eyes darkened. “But if it comes down to it, I’ll try. He’s my best friend, Phee. And I’ve got nothing left to lose. My parents are in hiding on the other side of the continent because my father’s role in this lab was about to be exposed—we had to relocate the entire operation because of him, or else the whole operation would’ve been compromised—and I’m as good as dead to everyone else.”

“Not to Nadia.”

His eyes brimmed immediately. “I don’t want to talk about her.”

“She’s desperate to know what happened to you. She doesn’t know what to think. That you’re hurt, or ran away, or are in trouble. Or just plain left her.”

He turned away, hiding real tears. “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

Phee let it go for now. She couldn’t imagine what Nadia would think about all of this. Nadia, like Phee until recently, had never had reason to adjust her ideas about reconning. But Nadia—unlike Phee—was someone who rarely shifted her thoughts on anything. Nadia liked being a three-per and what it meant in relation to people with fewer recons. She liked her status just as much as she liked jackets with real rabbit trim, and tubes of mascara that cost more than most one-pers made in a week. Phee understood that, but whereas she was willing to rethink things, she couldn’t imagine Nadia doing the same. Maybe, if Phee could explain everything, just maybe Nadia would come around. Phee doubted it, though, and by the look on Marlin’s face, so did he.

If none of the guys would talk, there was only one other person Phee could think of who might be able to shed some light on how Gryph died.

After church, Phoenix arranged to meet Clea at Seaside Park, where she worked as a lifeguard at the water park built at the ocean’s edge. Phee took Fawn with her, feeling guilty for not hanging out with her more, and wanting to give the rest of her family a break from the six-year-old’s relentless energy.

“The water park!” Fawn skipped ahead of her as she exited the train at the stop nearest the park’s pool. “Gryph brought me here. You can swim in the real ocean, but the water park is way funner.”

“I know, Fawn. We’ve been here before together, remember?”

“It’s really cool.” Fawn wasn’t listening. “There’s a waterslide and a tube river and everything. Gryph bought me two ice-cream cones last time. He’s a better brother than you are.”

“I’m your sister.”

“You know what I mean,” Fawn said with a sneer. “He’s nicer to me than you are.”

“Shows how much you know …” Phee couldn’t resist a jab in response to Fawn’s hurtful words. “He only brought you here
because he wanted to see Clea, and girls love boys who act all nicey-nice to their little sisters, so he was only bringing you as an accessory.”

Fawn blinked. “Huh?”

It had all sailed right over her head thankfully, because Phee was already sorry she’d said it. She didn’t mean to hurt Fawn. Phee was just tired and sad and frustrated. And entirely overwhelmed by recent events. “I said I’d buy you as many ice creams as you want, but if you throw up you’re on your own.”

The sunshine made her feel a little better. She adjusted her sunglasses and bullied Fawn into putting on her sun hat before finding them a place to set out their blanket. There was a grassy knoll behind the big slide, which suited Phee just fine. She could see Clea perched atop her lifeguard stand, looking tanned and beautiful, and not at all grief-stricken.

That was from afar, though, because as she and Fawn approached, and Clea took off her shades and climbed down to give Fawn a big hug, Phee noticed dark circles under her eyes and an uncharacteristic sloppiness to her ponytail. And she wasn’t wearing so much as a smidgeon of makeup. Phee reeled in her assumptions, deciding she’d better clear the slate for once.

“Hey, Clea.”

“Phoenix. Hi.”

Clea held Fawn to her for another long moment before letting her go with an affectionate shove. “And you, little miss mischief, you stay where I can see you.”

“I will.”

“And where you can see us, okay?”

“Promise.” With that, Fawn headed for the shallow end of the pool. “So”—she turned her attention to Phee—“I wondered if I’d ever hear from you.”

Phoenix considered telling Clea that she’d thought about calling her, seeing how she was doing. But the truth was, it had never occurred to her to inquire about how Clea was holding
up with having lost Gryph too. She just wanted to know what Clea knew.

“Sorry not to be in touch sooner.”

“That’s okay.” Clea shrugged. “I know you don’t like me. And I’ve been keeping up with the news, so I have an idea about what’s going on. The appeal, for example.”

“I’m sorry if I offended—”

“No, you’re not.” Clea narrowed her eyes. “You’re not sorry. So skip it, and get to the real reason you’re here.” She fingered the whistle on a cord around her neck, eyes scanning her waterlogged charges.