Control

CHAPTER 24

TOMORROW IS THE LAST DAY. WHICH MEANS this is my last night with Cy.

Late in the evening, I use precious minutes to curl up in his arms until he falls asleep. I wish I could stay the night, but I can’t. I burn through the deepest hours of the night working away at my bench, and trying desperately to ignore the dreams that haunt my waking hours.

At dawn, the early light through the lab windows chases me back to his room. I creep under his sweet, heavy limbs and feel, in those few moments, that I’m not living a lie. It’s bliss under a film of bitterness. As soon as he wakes up, the not-me switches on again at full power.

“Did you sleep okay?” he croaks in his morning voice.

“I think so.”

He nuzzles into my neck and I lose my sense of direction for a little while, but then push him off.

“I’m hungry. Breakfast?”

Cy nods, his smile disintegrating. It crushes me to see him react so. I pull him out of bed, wrapping his arms around me. As we stumble forward, my hip bumps into the table where the multiple holoboards are set up. One winks awake, showing a list of neural transfer articles.

I let go of Cy’s hands to touch the screen, scanning the list. “What’s this?”

“Nothing.” He leans over with a long arm and shuts the screens off. I spin around and stare at him with exaggerated, buggy eyes. A puff of mirth escapes his mouth as he cracks a tiny smile. “You’re going to make me tell you, right?”

“Yep. I’m aggravating like that.”

To my surprise, Cy drops to the floor. After three breaths (his, not mine), he lowers his arms to rest on his knees. “I’ve been trying to . . . fix Ana.”

“With neural transfers?” I turn the screen back on with a touch and scan the articles. They’re all negative studies. No good outcomes.

“Yes. Based on my healing traits, I’ve sent data on synthetic regeneration bioagents to the NIH and different labs around the country.” At my look of alarm, he adds, “It’s anonymous. They think I’m some half-crazy garage-scientist with too much time on my hands.”

“Which you are,” I tease, and Cy swipes at my leg in retaliation. “I’m sorry. Go on.”

“Well, based on the studies that have come out, they’ve taken plenty of my data and run with it. Reversing brain damage would be a huge breakthrough, right? Except none of my treatments are working on people. They work great in the lab, but not in people.”

I crouch down behind him, wrapping my arms around his neck. He rests his chin there, huffing a sigh. The lab is calling to me, but it has to wait for one more moment.

“Ana is lucky to have you,” I whisper. “But it isn’t your responsibility to undo what’s already happened.”

“Yes, it is. You of all people should understand that.”

This time I sigh deeply. I want to tell him the truth, but I can’t. “I have to go back to the lab,” I say. Cy doesn’t stop me. I leave him staring at the screen of failures, in a room full of darkness, ink, and needles. I shouldn’t leave him there alone, but I must.

I think of Dyl.

I think of Ana.

I cannot fail.

I FINALLY FINISH THE LAST CLASP, but no one knows this. They think I’m still in the infancy of progress toward a whole set. I pretend I need a break from work and help Cy make a batch of bio-accelerant based on his own DNA.

“You know, you should consider trying changing your neural elixir,” I say, staring at the data. “Maybe it’ll work better without the bio-accelerant component. Brain tissue hardly grows in an adult. Our skin turns over a million times faster, in comparison. Could your elixir have been too fast for a mature brain?”

“Huh.” Cy squints at the data, but he’s thinking of my idea. “Huh.” He starts poring through the muscle-regeneration data he’d done months ago, comparing the samples with the skin and hair serums.

I smile at his enthusiasm, but I’m despondent inside. I wish I could stay by his side to figure it out with him.

THAT NIGHT, I OFFER THE IDEA OF a group dinner to everyone, and it’s welcomed happily. Ever since the post-Argent breakfast, family meals have been more acceptable. For a change, we eat al fresco on the agriplane. I guess Marka doesn’t mind me being up there when I’m surrounded by all my housemates. To my disappointment, none of the restrictions on my access have eased up since we talked.

Five hours until my deadline. The urgency bites deeply into my thoughts as each minute passes. I sit on my corner of blanket, dodging Cy’s surreptitious glances from across the meal. White bats constantly swoop in to nab the flies hovering above our food. They look like spidery webs of tissue fluttering by.

“Are these ever going to go away?” I say, swatting at the bats.

“They’re engineered to eat pests during the daylight,” Wilbert informs me.

“He means no,” Vera says, munching on a forkful of salad. “So like I was saying, no one in Neia is going to vote for a governor with those ideals. If people want the women spewing out babies at the speed of light and covered from head to toe, they can move to Inky.”

Over the din of the ensuing discussion, Hex bumps me with his elbow, which hurts way more than he intended. “Where are you disappearing off to?” he whispers out of the side of his mouth.

The tiny morsel of micro-veggie salad gets caught in my throat. I chase it down with some water, but Hex’s eyes don’t waver after my coughing fit.

“Disappearing?” I say, between hacks.

He waves his fork at me. “You’re so pale. You getting enough sleep?”

You have no idea, I think. I’d just spent the last hour with Cy, trying to ignore a dream of Vera eating her way through a huge rack of Kansas City barbecue ribs. Totally disturbing. I shrug at Hex and try to look enthusiastic. “I guess I love lab work. It’s distracting.”

“You are a strange, strange girl.” Hex shakes his head and stuffs half a baked potato into his mouth. Throughout dinner, he doesn’t say anything else about it. But I catch him looking at me funny, especially when I get distracted by another dream where Cy is kissing me and we are once again interrupted by Dyl.

After dinner is cleared away, I give Hex a pat on the back.

“I’m okay, you know.”

“You’re sure?” He stares down at me critically. Standing next to all those arms, I’m still sometimes at a loss for words seeing his trait.

“Yeah.” I turn to head back to the lab, but Hex swings an arm at me and catches me in a full-on, four-armed hug. I stay stiff for a few moments, but soon relax. He really is a world class, gold medal hugger. Two tears squeeze out of my eyes and blot onto his shirt. Good. I don’t want him to see them on my eyelashes.

“Thank, Hex. See ya.”

He points at me with two sets of hands. “Catch ya later.”

I force a hearty laugh as I walk away.

“Wait, wait. Time for dessert!” Marka announces. She and Cy break up their discussion hastily, as if triggered by my retreat to the tower. She picks up a round chocolate babka on an orange porcelain platter and a knife. The babka immediately has everyone’s attention. All the inhabitants of Carus have a wicked sweet tooth.

In a second, I see salvation in swirls of flaky, sweet chocolate bread and the shining blade. It’s my ticket out of here. There’s no other way.

“I’ll cut it!” I say, a little overenthusiastically, and rush forward.

“It’s no prob— Watch it!” Marka yells.

I drag my foot heavily on the edge of the picnic blanket and pitch forward toward Marka’s outstretched offering. I splay my fingers to catch my fall, a net of two hands filtering everything before me, the babka and air and the knife, all at the same time. Bingo. With a slapping sound, my palms smack the platter and the knife. The babka flies in the air, and in seconds the agriplane solidly finds my face and chest. It is hard and unsympathetic, even to my cause.

“Oh, ffrrr.” It’s all I can say for a second. The pain shoots through my left palm, and a warm stickiness trickles down my wrist. Excellent.

“I guess she really wanted that babka,” Hex says, leaning over to pluck me off the ground. Cy’s feet come into view as he takes over Hex’s position. His hands go to my shoulders, lifting me.

“What was that about?” Cy says, immediately examining my hand. “You’re bleeding.”

“On my babka!” Wilbert blurts.

“It wasn’t yours,” Vera snaps. “Well, it’s nobody’s now. Blood and babka don’t go together.” She sniffs. “Anyway, it wasn’t vegan.”

“I’m sorry. I owe you guys a dessert.” I wince at the pain, wiping my other cake-crusted hand on my shirt. The smushed babka on the ground is smeared with blood, and the chocolate and rusty smell combine to form a scent only a chocoholic vampire would love. I release my hand from Cy’s, studying the jagged gash encrusted with sugar crystals and dirt. I don’t know if it was the knife or the broken platter that did the deed. I’m just glad something split me open.

Marka pats me on the back. “Cy, will you take her to the infirmary?” I watch her watch me, her nose smelling who knows what—deceit drenched in blood and chocolate bread. She’s calm, as usual, but for the first time I recognize the tired fear, relentless as the tides. I’m still watching her when Cy tugs on my arm.

“C’mon.”

Right. Time to get out of here. I want to celebrate my success, but for now I’ll hide it in a face distraught about my injured hand.

The same hand that just bought me a ticket to freedom.

“THINGS WERE A LOT DIFFERENT THE LAST time we were in this room together.”

“Don’t remind me.” Cy leans into me, pushing my head out of the way with his cheek so he can see my wound better. It doesn’t take long to clean out the debris from my hand. Over my shoulder, I see the drawers filled with medicines. All the locks went from flashing red to green as soon as Cy opened the door. The infirmary door was the only one that didn’t automatically open when I first arrived at Carus.

“Aren’t you going to use your brew on me?”

“It’s just a small cut.”

“I wasn’t really watching last time. I’d love to see it in action.”

He stands up straight to blow his hair out of his face. “I need it for emergencies. There’s only two vials left, after the one I used on Callie.”

“Just a tiny bit. I promise I won’t attack any more desserts this week.”

Cy hesitates, wondering if my little cut is worth weeks of work. Wondering if I’m worth it. Inside, I’m burning to tell him the truth.

Don’t do it. Don’t give in to me. I’m not playing fair.

I hover closer, so he can sense the deceit hiding behind my eyes. Cy meets me halfway, and his lips seal the half-uttered don’t that I bite between my teeth. He rises up to meet me and the kiss is more fierce than I intended. I put sorry and good-bye and forgive me and I’ll explain later into it. When it’s too much, I put a firm hand on his chest.

“Why do you keep pushing me away?” he gasps into my ear as we both recover.

“I need to breathe.” My chest sucks in the air around us. Maybe I can take in some of the molecules from Cy’s soft exhalation of disappointment, hold them in my bloodstream for a little while. An intravenous caress.

“So,” I remind him. “Can I use just a little? Please? It’ll help me get my work done.”

He nods into my hair and pushes away from the table. “I’ll get a few cc’s. It’s all you need.” And he leaves. I wish I had a year to recover from that one minute with him, but I don’t. The green lights are still on the drawers when I jump off the table. A half second before the door shuts, I thrust a metal box of gauze to prevent it from clicking closed. It works; the drawer lights stay green.

I scan through the neat labels on them, yanking open the one marked SEDATIVES. Intravenous, sublingual, pills. Ah, perfect. Transdermal. I grab three vials of fentocaine, reading the labels and quickly doing the mental math. I’ve got enough to knock out an elephant or two if it makes contact with skin. They disappear neatly into the waistband of my pants. I yank away the box holding the door open, and the door shuts.

Two minutes later, Cy’s back. We both lighten the discussion to alternative dessert picks and those least likely to injure me. Cy adds three drops of his purple brew to my hand, and I feel the tissues stitching themselves together. A few blinks later, there is no cut, but the redness is still there. While he studies the healing cut, he finds the black dot tattooed on my fingertip.

“Here, I can get rid of that,” he says, grabbing the bottle from the countertop. I jerk my hand away.

“No.” I hold my hand protectively away from him. “I want to keep it.” When Cy looks at me confused, I add, “It’s a souvenir. You know, of our first kiss.”

He places my hand on his chest. “But you have me.”

I stare at my knees, not wanting him to see the truth in my eyes. This dot may be all I have to remember him by. “I know I’m being silly.”

Instead of agreeing with me as he should, Cy kisses the dot on my fingertip and smiles. I curl my hand closed, feeling the warm tingle of healing flesh under my fingertips. When I open them, I can barely find the cut anymore.

“You’re amazing,” I say.

“I didn’t earn that trait.” He cleans up the room and shuts the lights off with a wave of his hand. “It’s like being born pretty. You don’t earn that either. It’s a shame people get better things in life because of something so random.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I say blithely. As we walk down the hallway, Cy pulls my newly healed hand and looks at me quizzically.

“You should. You’re beautiful.”

My lips flatten into a hard line. “By all objective definitions, I’m not.”

“Are we going to fight over this?”

“Absolutely not. I appreciate your delusional conviction. Come on.” I tug him forward when Wilbert rounds the bend holding a groaning Callie.

“She looks bad,” I say. “I guess Cy’s stuff didn’t work?”

Wilbert shifts her in his arms gently, but Callie still squeals in discomfort. “It did. Her joints are better, but everything else is going to pot.” He gives me a desperate look that only I understand. My elixir of DNA scissors and clasps are done, neatly hidden in a back shelf of the lab. There are two full batches. I still haven’t fulfilled my end of the bargain.

Marka’s voice enters the hallway. “Cy?”

“I’m here with her.”

Her. They talk behind my back so much, they don’t even need to use my name.

“I know. Can you bring your last formula copy to me? I’m having problems accessing your files.”

“Sure. Zelia and I will be by.”

“No, no. You go ahead,” I say. “Wilbert wanted me to explain my whole DNA clasp thing again, right?” Wilbert tries not to act surprised and confused, but luckily Callie starts squeal/whining, taking everyone’s attention away.

“Okay. I’ll be back soon,” Cy says. He’s gone in a second, but they could be listening, so I keep my voice low.

“Wilbert,” I whisper. “You ready to try some elixir on Callie?”

“You’re done?” His eyes pull together with disbelief. “I thought you had a while to go.”

“I’ve a ton of more cycles to go, but I’ve enough that it’s worth a try now,” I say, keeping a casual tone.

To my relief, he buys it. We bring Callie down the hallway to my lab for the shot. One pig-wrestling hold later, we’re ready to go.

“One small step for pig-kind,” he jokes nervously.

I grab one of her little split-hoofed feet, only a bit bigger than my finger, and inject a syringe filled with the concentrated liquid of enzymes and DNA clasps. It’s not enough for a grown human, but maybe for this little porker. She hardly fights it this time, and afterward Wilbert puts her down and Callie walks away, oblivious to the bioengineered drug inside her.

“She might need several treatments to get to each and every cell,” I caution. We both watch her schlump over with exhaustion, as if the weight of the small-pig world is on her body. “Huh. I wish we could make it work faster.”

Oh. The bio-accelerant. It could work. I know what concentrations they had used on lab animals at my last job.

“Wait here, I have an idea.” I pull open one of the refrigerators and draw up a small syringe of the accelerant that Cy had finished that morning. Wilbert is reluctant to give Callie a second injection until I explain what it is. After it’s all over, we observe her closely.

“I hope it works,” he says. “She’s been acting kind of senile lately.” On cue, Callie starts licking the wall. Well, maybe the accelerant is a dud after all.

I put a hand on Wilbert’s arm. “Listen, don’t tell anyone about Callie. I want it to be a surprise next week. You know? The experiment on Callie will be icing on the cake.”

“Of course. Hey, look.” He points. Callie is trotting around the room with her curly tail up and possessing more energy than I’ve seen in a while. Wow, maybe the combination of treatments is working after all. I wish I could find out, but my internal clock says I don’t have time.

“Wait! Where are you going?” Wilbert yelps. “The doors are all locked, you know.”

“Wilbert.” I force a smile. “I’m going to get dessert.”

“Oh. I’ll go with you.”

Of course you will. The babysitting continues. But not for long.