Across the Universe (7 page)

12

ELDER

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

I jump, then grimace. Nothing could have given away my guilt more.

“It’s almost dark,” Doc continues. “Does Eldest know you’re here?”

“Don’t!” I say as Doc reaches for his wi-com button. “Look... I snuck out. I was tired of reading! C’mon,” I add when Doc doesn’t lower his hand. “I just... needed to get out for a bit. Don’t scamp me out. Give me a break.”

Doc’s smirk tells me he’s not happy with me, but at least he doesn’t call for Eldest. I breathe a little easier.

For a moment, we both just stand there, me on the path that leads deeper into the garden behind the Hospital, Doc on the steps. I love this garden. When Eldest sent me to the Ward for that year, I spent a lot of free time here in the garden. Steela, an old woman who lived in the Ward long before I moved there, had made the garden blossom from a grass lawn with hedges around it into a veritable jungle of flowers and vegetables and vines and trees.

“So, looking for inspiration?” Doc nods to the statue in the center of the garden.

The Plague Eldest, his concrete face upturned and his arms spread wide, stands benevolent guard over the garden. Time and scheduled rain has smoothed the face and hands, blurring the details of our greatest ruler.

“Oh! Uh... yeah.” I seize onto his excuse. “You know, Eldest wants me to learn leadership, and I figured, Plague Eldest did it the best....” The Plague Eldest was the first and greatest Eldest. He’s the only person I’ve ever seen my Eldest admire, and he’s more of a leader than either of us ever will be.

“You just came here to look at the statue?”

I heave a sigh. “I wanted to see her.”

“Don’t go getting obsessed, boy. Not good, not good for anyone. She’s frozen, and that’s that.”

“I know, but . . .”

“But nothing. Get her out of your mind.”

A resounding low-pitched alarm fills the air.
Urk. Urk. Urk.
The warning tone that sunset is about to fall. A flash of green catches my eyes. On the other side of the ship, the Shippers are taking the grav tube from the offices and labs on the Shipper Level to the City here on the Feeder Level where they live. From here, they’re tiny blurs of color zipping through the tube: brown, white, black, green. Doc raises his face to the center of the sky. That’s not the sun there, it’s an inertial confinement fusion container, a solar lamp providing both light and warmth to the Feeder Level, as well as the fuel for the ship’s internal function. It flashes once—warning us that night is approaching—and then the tinted shield slides over the container. The world is dark now. We call it sunset, a word leftover from Sol-Earth, but this sunset is nothing more than turning off the light. There is no red-yellow-orange-gold in this sunset.

“Come on, boy,” Doc says as he hangs his arm on my shoulder, pulling me down the garden path. “You need to get back to the grav tube before Eldest notices you’re missing.”

“But...”

“The doors are all locked, even the one on the fourth floor. Come on. There’s no point obsessing.”

I turn away, letting Doc’s words drag me from thoughts of the girl with sunset hair. Eldest taught me about ancient religions that worshipped the sun. I never understood why—it’s just a ball of light and heat. But if the sun of Sol-Earth swirls in colors and lights like that girl’s hair, well, I can see why the ancients would worship that.

The path leading from the Hospital seems ominous in the shadows of dark-time. Doc’s arm tightens around my shoulder, his fingers digging into my arm. “Who is that?” he hisses.

I squint into the darkness. A man walks down the path a few paces ahead of us. When he reaches the steps of the Recorder Hall, he bounds up them with jaunty cheerfulness. A snatch of a whistled tune—an old Sol-Earth nursery rhyme—flitters through the air.

“That’s probably Orion,” I say. Only a Recorder would know songs from Sol-Earth. Doc’s grip on my arm doesn’t relax. “A Recorder.”

“The same Recorder who showed you the blueprints of the ship?”

I jerk my head around. Doc’s still staring at Orion, who’s completely oblivious to us, just standing on the porch of the Recorder Hall. I tear myself from Doc’s tense hold.

“How did you know a Recorder showed me the blueprints?”

Doc snorts, but his gaze doesn’t waver. “You couldn’t have found that on your own.”

“Hello!” the man on the porch calls out as the path takes us closer to the Recorder Hall. His deep voice confirms that it’s Orion.

“Hi!” I call back.

“It’s a bit cold out tonight, isn’t it?” Orion says, but I’m not sure why he’d point that out. Usually, the temperature is lowered by ten degrees after dark-time starts, but it’s still too soon to feel it.

Doc, however, has stopped in his tracks, his face whitewashed. “Are you
sure
that’s just a Recorder?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Orion.”

Doc sags in relief. “His voice reminds me of someone I used to know. I can’t even remember the last time I was in the Recorder Hall. Hey, Orion!” Doc calls. “Think you could let us into the Hall?”

But Orion doesn’t step out of the shadows.

Aroo! Aroo!

“The cryo level alarm,” Doc mutters, spinning around toward the Hospital, from which a deep siren is screaming its warning into the dark. “Something’s wrong!”

I tear down the path as if the void of space is at my heels, skidding on the plastic mulch that paves the trail. A pounding sound punctuated by cursing tells me that Doc is following close behind. The nurses in the lobby are looking around, panicked, unsure of where the siren is coming from, but Doc and I both ignore their shouted questions and dive for the elevator.

Doc wheezes as the elevator rises slowly. As it dings past the third floor, Doc raises his hand to his left ear.

“Wait,” I say, pulling his hand away from his wi-com button. “Let’s see what’s going on before we com Eldest. Maybe it’s nothing serious.”

In the silence that greets my statement, I can still hear the muffled sounds of the alarm growing louder as we rise.

Doc shakes my hand away. The elevator dings, and the doors slide apart.

The door at the end of the hall is hanging open.

Doc breaks into a run down the hall, barreling into the room and going straight to the desk. He rolls his thumb over the biometric scanner on the metal box in the center of the desk. Nothing happens.

“Frex,” he growls. “Scan in,” he tells me, pushing the metal box toward me.

“But—”

“That box will only open with an Elder or Eldest security clearance. If the alarm’s not turned off, the Hospital will go into lockdown. Scan. In.”

I roll my thumb over the biometric scanner. The top of the box lifts and folds in on itself, revealing a control panel with a series of numbered buttons and a blinking red light. Doc punches in a code, and the
aroo! aroo!
fades into silence.

Doc turns to the elevator, scans in his access, rushes inside, and pushes the button for the cryo level before I even get all the way into the elevator. He’s out of breath and tapping the floor of the elevator with his foot as we sink down, down. Doc doesn’t talk the entire time we’re descending. He clenches and unclenches his fists, as if he’s keeping time with his heart. His face is tense.

The elevator stops, bouncing a bit as it rests on the cryo level floor. The doors slide open. We both stay in the elevator a moment, waiting to see who or what is on the other side.

The lights are all on. Doc steps out of the elevator, wary. His hands ball into fists.

“Nono
no
,” Doc says all in a rush. He takes one step, pauses, then bursts into a run. I chase after him. Doc skids to a halt at the row of numbered doors in the forties.

Number 42 has been pulled out of her freezer in the wall; her glass box lies on the table in the center of the aisle.

The girl with sunset hair is inside. Her eyes are open—pale, bright green like blades of new grass—and panicked. She is thrashing in the water flecked with blue crystals. The box is too small for her now that she is awake and moving; her knees and elbows are beating against the glass. Her body bucks up—her stomach flattens against the top of the box; her head and feet slam to the bottom. She brings her hands to her face, and, for a moment, I think she is clawing at herself, but then I see she is yanking the tubes from her mouth, gagging and choking on them as she goes.

“Hurry up!” Doc shouts. “We’ve got to get the lid off before she pulls the tubes out!”

I don’t bother asking why; I just rush to the other side of the box and help lift the heavy glass lid up. Inside, the tubes from the girl’s throat encircle her head and neck, but she’s still pulling at them; there’s still more down her throat. She gags, and yellow bile mixed with pale red blood clouds the water around her face.

With a final heave, Doc and I lift the lid off the top of the box. Doc jerks back, yanking the lid from my grasp, and he half-throws, half-drops the glass lid to the cement floor. It breaks into two uneven pieces on the ground, too thick and heavy to shatter.

Under the blue-crystal-flecked water, the girl finally jerks out the last of the tubes, and I see little electronic devices attached to the ends. The girl’s eyes are wide open, and she’s staring straight up at us. Her mouth is open in a perfect circle, sucking in the water.

“What’s she trying to do, drink it all up?” Doc asks, reaching into the watery mess for the girl.

I stand back, horrified. “No,” I whisper. “She’s screaming.”

13

AMY

PAIN.

Cold so cold it burns, but not with a burning that cauterizes, no, a burning that razes, decimates.

Pain.

My stomach muscles seize. Can’t vomit empty.

Eyes see only blobs. Some bright. Some not. No focus.

Mucus slips down my nostrils, down the back of my throat. Choke. Gag. Cough.

Water sloshes in my ears, muffling the intonations of deep, male-voiced speech around me.

Hands lift me from the slush of my glass coffin, and it feels as if they are rescuing me from quicksand. The cryo liquid clings to me, pulling me back into my watery grave, dragging cold fingers across my skin.

They lay me on something cold, hard, and flat. A funnel-like mask is fitted over my nose, and air so warm it hurts blows into my nostrils, reminding my lungs to work. Hands press something sticky onto my skin, and shortly thereafter, my muscles cramp painfully.

Two gentle hands hold the sides of my head still, while two rough fingers rip open my eyelids.
No
, I think,
I don’t want more eyedrops.
But
plop! plop!
The cold liquid falls onto my eyes. I blink painfully, my tears mixing with the goo they’ve put there.

The rough hands go for my mouth next. At first, I don’t know what’s happening, and I let my lips part easily. Then I realize that the person is doing
something
, and cold liquid drips down my throat, but I don’t know what it is, so I clench my teeth and shake my head, but my neck isn’t used to moving, so my head just sort of rolls around for a bit.

The gentle hands steady my head again. A face peers into mine. A boy—about Jason’s age, but taller and broader and more muscly than Jason had been. Dark olive skin; milk-chocolate eyes with flecks of cinnamon that are narrow at the ends, almond-shaped. It’s a handsome face, one I want to trust. As I stare at him, a sharp pain pierces my head; I am not used to focusing my eyes on anything.

The boy speaks, and while my ears are still too blocked to hear anything clearly, his tone is kind and reassuring as he taps my jaw. I let my chin drop—a nod, yes—and then part my lips for him. A warm, viscous syrup that tastes almost like peaches, but with an alcoholic bite, drips down my tongue, coating my throat. Some of the soreness fades.

The boy peers down into my face.

“Mmgnna gedyup,” he says. I find that I can’t understand him. He nods at me, like he’s trying to tell me it’ll all be okay, but that’s not true—it won’t be okay, how could anything ever be okay again?

The boy grabs my right hand; the rough hands grab my left. And before I can make my neck move—no!—they jerk me up into a sitting position.

I feel as if I am breaking in half.

Once, I was ice.

Now, I am pain.

14

ELDER

“MOMMA?” THE GIRL WHIMPERS IN A RASPY, UNUSED VOICE. “Daddy?”

Her brilliant green eyes are shut again; her sunset hair sprawls across the metal examination table in a matted, wet mess.

“How long will she be like this?” I ask Doc.

“A day. Maybe more. She wasn’t reanimated correctly. They are supposed to be removed from their cryogenic containment boxes before the process begins, and then they are supposed to be warmed in a reanimation bath, not left out on the table to melt. It’s a miracle she’s alive.”

I swallow, hard. It feels as if a rock is moving down my throat.

Doc picks up the end of the box connected to the tubes that had been down the girl’s throat. “Someone pushed the button,” he says. “It’s not supposed to be pushed until
after
the body’s prepped for reanimation. This disconnects the power.” He looks up at me. “She was unplugged. If we hadn’t gotten here in time...” He glances at the girl now. “She would have died.”

Shite. My stomach sinks to my shoes and stays there. “Just like that? Dead?”

Doc nods. “I have to com Eldest.”

“No, but—”

“You won’t be in trouble. You didn’t do this. In fact, I’m glad you’re here. Eldest told me you’ve begun learning about strong central leadership. This is the sort of thing that will teach you leadership.”

The girl’s chest moves up and down, but that is the only sign of life she’s willing to give me. Funny how different her body looks outside the ice. She seems smaller, weaker, more vulnerable. The ice was her armor. I want to protect her now, cover her curves instead of run my fingers over them.

I put my hand on her shoulder, marveling at the differences in our skin tones. She opens her eyes.

“Cold,” she whispers.

Doc stares down at the girl. “This is a frexing nightmare.”

I want to say, how can this be a nightmare, with
her
here? But then she whimpers, a soft pathetic bleat like the lamb I once had as a pet, and the rock is back in my throat.

Doc gets the girl a hospital gown, the kind with no back, but she cries when we lift her arms through the sleeve holes. Then he covers her with a blanket. She keeps her eyes shut, and at first I think she’s sleeping, but her breathing is rough, uneven, and I know she’s keeping herself awake, listening to us.

We don’t say much.

When Eldest storms into the cryo level, he brings all the fear back with him. He looks at her, he looks at me, and then he looks at Doc.

“Was it him?”

“No!” I protest immediately.

“Of course not,” Doc says. Then, to me, “He’s not talking about you.” He turns back to Eldest. “It’s impossible, and you know it. You’re being paranoid.”

“Who are you—” I start, but they both ignore me.

“It was a malfunction,” Doc says. “The power glitched on her box.” He holds up the electrical black box that had been on the top of Number 42’s cryo container. Its light still faintly blinks red.

“You’re sure of that?” Eldest asks.

Doc nods. “Of course I’m sure. Who would come down here, unplug a random girl, and leave? It was just a malfunction. The machinery’s old. I’m constantly having to repair it. She got unlucky, slipped through the cracks.”

More lies. I wonder how much of anything Doc says is true. After all, he had been checking her cryo chamber earlier today. And he was a lot more freaked out before Eldest showed up, when he told me someone pushed the button to unplug her.

The girl on the table moans.

“Who is she?” Eldest asks, his attention diverting to the girl.

“Number 42.”

“Was she—?”

“Nonessential.”

“Amy,” the girl croaks.

“What?” I kneel beside her, close to her cracked lips.

“My name is Amy.”

Eldest looks down at her. Amy opens her eyes—a flash of new-grass green—but shuts them again, flinching at the fluorescent light.

“Your name is immaterial, girl.” Eldest turns to Doc. “We need to figure out who reanimated her.”

“Where are my parents?” Her voice is a whisper, choked with pain. The others don’t even notice her.

“Can we put her back in?” Eldest asks Doc. Doc shakes his head no. His eyes are sorrowful.

“Don’t freeze me again!” Amy says, panic edging her voice. Her voice cracks from disuse, and she coughs.

“We couldn’t if we wanted to,” Doc tells Eldest.

“Why not? We have more freezing chambers.” He looks past Doc’s shoulder to a door on the other side of the room. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I log it away in my memory, to explore later.

“Regenerative abilities deteriorate greatly across multiple freezings, especially when reanimation hasn’t been done properly. If we put her in another cryo chamber, she might not ever wake up.”

“I want Daddy,” she whimpers, and even though I know that she is more woman than girl, she seems very much like a child now.

“Time to go to sleep,” Doc says. He pulls a med patch from his pockets and rips it open.

Amy’s eyes fly open. “NO!” she shouts, her voice cracking on the word.

Doc approaches her, and she flings her arm up gracelessly like a club, crashing into his elbow. The med patch falls to the ground. Doc picks it up and tosses it into the bin, then opens a drawer and pulls out another med patch. “It will make you feel better,” he explains to the girl as he tears this one open.

“Don’t want it.” Her eyes are pinpricks of black in pale green circles.

“Hold her down,” Doc tells me. I just stand there, looking at her. Eldest shoves me aside and pushes his weight against her shoulders.

“Don’t want it!” the girl screams, but Doc has already slapped her arm with the patch, and the tiny needles prick her skin like sharp sandpaper, sending meds into her system.

“Don’t
wanna
gosleepagain.” Her words slur together and are hard to understand. “Don’ wan... na,” she says, her voice dropping. A few small tears mixed with eyedrops linger on her lashes. “Not... sleep,” she says, even quieter and slower. “No... no more... sleep.” And her eyes roll back into her head, and her head sinks down amidst her sunset hair, and she loses all consciousness.

I stare at her, and even though her chest is moving up and down in steady breaths, she looks more dead now than she did in the ice.

I wonder if she dreams.