Control (11 page)

I wish he’d come back. Some soft, squishy part of me feels guilty for not saying anything when he was upset. I know what I
wouldn’t
say. Crap like “It’s going to be all right.” The biggest lie in Holo-Hallmark history.

Late into the night, I reach the final stage of making multiple copies of Dyl’s DNA. I was thrilled up to the part when I trashed the entire batch by pouring the wrong buffer into the replicator.

I have exactly one strand of Dyl’s hair left. One chance. I’ll make it happen. Even if I don’t, something else buoys my hope and quells the panic that Dyl is slipping out of my grasp.

Q’s voice continues to haunt me. The clock on one of the screens flashes 1:45 a.m. I head out the door for answers of a different sort.

In the hallway, I ask, “Where’s Wilbert?”

“Down the hallway, take the left transport to level one.”

If only the walls could tell me what I really wanted to know. What Dyl’s trait is, and how Q knows her. If Dyl knows how much I love her. Why Cy’s heart is as broken as mine. The secrets of the universe. The usual.

As I head for the transport, I figure it doesn’t hurt to ask. “Do you know who Q is?”

“Q is a letter of the alphabet,” the wall answers tonelessly.

Great, thanks.

“Okay then. What’s the meaning of life?”

“I have been programmed by Hexus to reply ‘meatballs,’” it says.

Oh lord. Serves me right for asking.

Before long, I find Wilbert’s workroom. A couch and coffee table sit in the center of the room, a cozy contrast to the mess of hardware everywhere else. Instead of rows of lab tables (or the naked women in his bedroom), computer screens cover each wall. Broken machines with their guts spilling out—hair-thin photon wires and internal gel circuits—lie on every inch of available floor space.

“Wilbert?” I carefully step over the broken chunky machines, making my way to the sofa, upholstered in a vomitous tan plaid.

“Yee-ah.” Behind the largest pile of junk, a hand waves, followed by one of Wilbert’s heads. “Be right out.”

“Is this all for your doctorate?” I say, poking the innards of what looks like a titanium espresso machine. Part of the gel circuit sticks to my hand, and I try to wipe it on my shirt. It stays aggressively attached to my finger, like a bit of gummy candy with glue-like aspirations.

“Oh, that’s not good. Here.” He emerges from his mountain and hands me a tiny spray bottle. “Use that.”

I spray the goop on my finger, and it dissolves enough for me to wipe it off on my sleeve.

“Can you believe that drop of gel held enough storage space for one million books?” His eyes are wide open and eager with a geektastic expression I know so well. I’ve doled it out enough times myself. “Want something to drink?”

“Sure. Got any of that mushroom tea of Vera’s?”

“Ugh. You like that stuff?” Wilbert makes a face at me and punches in an order.

“It’s growing on me.”

“Fungus has that effect on people,” he chortles. After handing me the steaming cup, something small, brown, and very rodent-like emerges from his shirt and squeals at me.

“What the eff is that?” I shriek, spilling hot tea on my pants. I pull my legs up onto the couch.

“Callie! Bad girl!” He scoops up the hairy thing and puts it on the floor. Now I can see that it’s the size of a tiny dog. A shiny pink, coin-shaped nose wiggles in delight. Dark, glistening eyes dart back and forth between us. “This is Callie. She’s a recombinant pig.” It’s the weirdest, furriest pig I’ve ever seen. Even the curly tail is covered in brown fuzz and is more pom-pom than tail.

“So how’s the lab work going?” he says, scratching Callie’s rump.

I answer him with an expression of disgust, and wisely, he doesn’t pursue it. Callie, however, isn’t as polite. She makes a super-pig jump onto the couch, pounces on my chest, and licks my ear with vigor.

“Ew, ew, EWWWW!” I shake my hands, and poor Wilbert scrambles to grab Callie off me. With a grunt and squeal, Callie goes back into his shirt. I wipe away the pig spit and pop out my slime-covered holo stud.

“There’s a sink over there. I’m so sorry. Callie isn’t usually so frisky with strangers. She must really like you.”

“Splendid.” Oh, it’s
so
nice to know I attract pigs. I head for the sink at the corner of his room. After a warm blitz in the sink, the slime is vaporized into smoke and sucked into a hole at the bottom. My holo stud sparkles.

“So, Wilbert.”

“Mmm?” The mini pork rind is nestled between Wilbert’s two heads in what can only be described as true pet devotion.

“Can you trace transmissions? Like where they come from?” I wiggle my holo stud up in the air.

“Sure. Should be easy enough.” He ambles over to me. “Turn it on.”

I slide it back into my earlobe and pinch it. Again, the static.

“Tell it to list transmissions.”

“Okay.” After my command, a list of calls shows up on a blue background. The list proves that I rarely get calls. It’s so pathetic. Dyl’s would probably have at least fifty calls a day. I have like, ten in the last two weeks. At the top of the list is one from Dyl, the day before we moved. There are scattered ones from my last lab, when they asked me to work overtime hours. There’s a rare transmission from Dad, when he’s bothered to tell me the obvious—that he’ll miss dinner again. But no calls resemble any permutation of a Q-sounding name. I turn to Wilbert, whose patient face appears on the other side of the transparent blue holo screen.

“Hold on. I know I got two transmissions in the last week, and they aren’t on here.”

“A challenge! Well.” He cracks his knuckles, and Callie wakes up, irritated. She snuffles his left ear and falls asleep again. He proceeds in a whisper. “Try looking at your sent transmissions.”

I request those, and a few show up. Similar to my received list. Still no Q, which makes sense, since I didn’t send any.

“But I didn’t—”

“Trust me. Now search deleted sent transmissions.”

I order this command, not understanding, but surprisingly two show up from the days since I arrived at Carus House. Ones I’ve sent. Except I haven’t.

“Ask for the destination.”

Now two lines show up on my screen. They say the same thing.

Error@hub5001S36

“What is that?” I squint at the numbers.

“It’s a scrambling hub. One of the towers masked a transmission. See, someone contacts you via a scrambling hub, and instead of leaving an imprint of its history, it turns around and pings backward, as if you sent the message, back to the origin. Kind of to erase its steps.”

“So can I find out who sent it?”

“No. The scrambling hub is all the data you’ll get. But most of the time, the hub is close to the origin of the call.”

“Do you know where that hub is?”

“Sure. 5001S36 is an address. 5001 South Thirty-sixth Street. That’s by the river at the edge of the southern district. You know, where all the old slaughterhouses used to be? It’s pretty run-down now.”

“Oh.” I’m bursting with unanswered questions. I’m happy I didn’t just imagine those calls, but still. Why would someone hanging around old slaughterhouses know about Dyl? Then again, the idea of Dyl and slaughterhouses living in the same thought nauseates me.

“You all right?” Wilbert asks.

I must have some sort of awful expression on my face. I try to hide it with a gigantic, fake yawn. “Yeah, just tired. I’d better go. Thanks, Wilbert.”

“No problem.” Callie is now snoring between his two heads, and Wilbert picks up the pig’s foreleg and waves it at me.

That pig officially creeps me out.

Exhaustion creeps up on me, limb by limb. Somewhere in this place is my room. I’ve been here just long enough to assume I know my way back from Wilbert’s room, so I take a set of winding stairs down into a dark, twisting corridor.

Crap. This can’t be right. I can hardly see my feet and none of the doors have the familiar glowing oval of the other Carus doors.

“How do I get to my room?” I say.

Two voices answer me. Simultaneously, I hear “This way, come here” and “Left turn in ten feet.” I’m confused. What’s wrong with the direction voice lady?

Then I hear it again.

“Come here.” The voice is low in pitch, beckoning innocently. My fingers feel along the wall, toward the end of the hallway. Weird voice or no, I’m getting out of here. I decide to trust the voice that said to turn left.

My finger touches the seam of a door. In a blink, it opens to reveal a large room lit with a low, violet-colored glow emanating from the edges of the floor. I don’t want to go in, but something makes me catch my breath.

It’s a painting of a dismembered hand, fingers stretching to extremes, but cut off at the wrist, leaning against the wall. The one next to it shows a long bone, still smeared with blood, floating in the same pale blue void the hand is in.

Another painting lying on the floor is huge, the size of a king-size bed. Thumb-size naked babies are painted in row after row, crammed into every corner. Each infant face has innocent, cherry-red cheeks and vacant eyes messily dabbed on in smudged colors. I think of the doll heads in my room, and my heart begins to pound behind my eardrums.

Next to the painting, a chair sits disemboweled, the stuffing scattered over a large area. The walls have smears of suspicious dark streaks. I’m praying that it’s not blood.

On the wall, a small screen is shut off, covered by an inch-thick transparent shield. I listen carefully, but there isn’t a sound. No voice, no nothing. I inch forward to the screen.

“On,” I say. It comes alive, in green. Soon it’s replaced by a dark image, a head with mussed-up hair that groans.

“I’m so tired, Ana. Can’t it wait till tomorrow?” the head speaks. Then it looks up and stares me in the face.

It’s Cy. His face is pristine and beautiful, untouched by ink or piercings. He gives me the coldest look of fury.

“Get out. Now.” His words are cutting and meant to bite.

I back away from the screen, and Cy’s entire face fills the rectangle. Off to my left, a muffled laugh sounds. It’s not a good, happy laugh, but one of malice and discontent.

At that moment, I feel a cool hand clasp my wrist. I jerk back, but there’s no hand around my arm, no person nearby. But I can still feel fingers pressing against my skin. It starts to squeeze harder, hurting me. My hands start to shake. What have I walked into?

“Get OUT, Zelia!” Cy roars.

I spin around to run, crashing against the walls when I slip on loose paper on the floor. I veer toward the door and take that left turn I’d missed before I’d found the Chamber of Horrors. Behind me, something solid thuds against the wall and there’s a tinkle of glass breaking. A quiet noise of rhythmic, padded taps follow me, like bare feet on the hard floor.

I glance back but can’t see anything in the darkness of the hallway. The padding feet come faster, closer. That same non-corporeal hand slips through the hair on my forehead. I bat it away, frantic.

Unstable laughter echoes against the curving walls. My stupid short legs can’t go any faster. They windmill under me as I run straight into the transport’s open door with so much momentum that my body thuds against the corner.

“Up! Out! Anywhere! My room!” I screech. The transport door shuts before me. I hear a small
thwack,
like a palm hitting the outer door, as it begins to zoom upward. Finally, there is no laughter anymore. Just one sound—me, hyperventilating in my own little capsule of confusion.

THE NEXT MORNING, I’M EXHAUSTED
and zombified. I woke up multiple times to check that my door was locked.

“Where’s Marka?” I ask the walls.

“Marka is in the kitchen, along with Cyrad.”

Well. This will be fun. At least he can’t go totally ballistic with Marka there. When I finally make it to the kitchen, it’s empty. I push the doors to the common room to find Cy alone at the big dining table drinking coffee and eating a bagel.

I scan the table for sharp objects. Phew. No butter knives either. It wouldn’t be pleasant being butter-knifed to death. As soon as he sees it’s me, he moves to leave. Hex opens the door from the kitchen, holding three bowls of cereal and two spoons.

“Wait,” I say. I decide to blast the elephant completely out of the room, maybe to the moon. I have no idea where my courage comes from. Oh yes. From not wanting to be murdered in my sleep, that’s where. “So who’s Ana?”

Hex stiffens at the mention of her name.

“Don’t talk about Ana.” Cy squeezes his fist.

“Why?”

“Hey, Zel,” Hex butts in. “I think you have a trait too. You’re a hermaphrodite. Because girl, you’ve got balls.” Cy glares at him, but Hex doesn’t budge from the doorjamb. I get the distinct feeling he’s making sure nothing happens to me. It’s such a brotherly gesture. I think I owe him two hugs for that.

“Ana is none of your concern,” Cy warns. “Stay out of her room. Stay out of my room. And keep your damn research inside the lab.”

I don’t respond. I’m too angry. I have a right to know why baby heads are showing up in my room and deranged people are living in my new home. I march toward the kitchen door, where Hex wears a bemused grin.

“Did you hear what I said?” Cy yells.

I spin around at the door. “I’m short, not deaf, asshole.”

• • •

HEX REFUSES TO TELL ME ABOUT ANA,
citing the safety of his balls, and Marka promises to talk more at dinner about the whole Ana situation. The answers will have to wait, but at least I’ll be getting some soon.

It takes every gram of brain matter to concentrate when I get to the lab. Digging into Dyl’s purse, I pull out the last strand of hair from her brush. This one has to count. If only I’d had three chances for so many other things. But there’s only one of me, and I can’t undo my mistakes. From here on out, I have to be better than . . . me.

All day, I quadruple-check every step. By early evening, I know I’ve done it right. I can feel it in my neurons.

Marka calls me to dinner, so I take a break and head for the common room. It’s empty except for Vera, who’s drinking a bowl of weedy-looking soup. Marka enters a minute after me, smiling.

“Zelia, perfect timing.” She looks over at Vera. “Where’s everyone else? I told them to come.”

The door opens and Hex and Wilbert enter. They pick chairs far apart from each other. Just when Marka’s about to call out to the wall-com, Cy enters. Repelled by the unusually full room, he stays close to the door.

“I wanted to tell you all that I’m going to Kansas City tonight,” Marka says. “There’s a child we may need to take in. The magpod is picking me up in ten minutes.”

I can feel Cy’s eyes on me, but I ignore him. “But Marka . . . I thought we were going to talk.”

“This trip trumps our conversation. But it will happen,” she says. Cy looks away, as if she’s utterly let him down. “I’ll be back in a day or so. Don’t worry, Zelia. I’ve had a chat with Wilbert and Cy about our nighttime door access. You’re in good hands.” As if to reinforce her dubious assertion, she glares at everyone in the flavor of
Behave or I’ll kill you.

Everyone murmurs a good-bye, and Marka walks to the door. I head for the kitchen, grabbing a synthetic chicken salad sandwich out of the efferent. Hex’s and Vera’s voice start rising in the next room. I wonder if they’re arguing over Ana, so I pop my head back in.

Hex is standing up, hollering. “Marka? Maaaaaaarka!” he chants, musically. When there’s still no answer, he pushes away from the table and whistles. “Okay, troops. We’re outta here.”

“What?” I gape.

“C’mon. It’s been ages since we snuck out.”

“No.” Cy gives Hex a hard stare. “Don’t be stupid. It’s not safe.”

“Of course it’s not safe. Life isn’t safe. And what we do here isn’t living. Let’s live a little, eh?”

“I’m in,” Vera hoots. “Anything to get away from you freaks for a while.”

“Wilbert?” Hex asks.

“Well . . .” He scratches his faceless head.

“Ha. You’d rather hang out with your girlfriend, Callie, wouldn’t you?” Vera taunts.

“No! Okay, I’m in. I’ll go get my buttons.” He shuffles out the door.

Vera practically sings, “I’m gonna get my makeup on.” She skips out of the room in a flash of green. I’ve never seen her so happy.

“I thought Marka said I was in good hands.” I squint at Hex.

“She did. These hands.” He waves his lower pair of hands. “But these”—he waves his upper pair—“are all naughty, all the time.”

I put my sandwich down on the table, my appetite gone. I’m no rule breaker. Dad was sure to pound that one into my brain. If Marka were here, she’d say I stink of fear.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I thought we could be killed if we leave.”

“There’s a bunch of clubs in the southern district,” Hex reasons. “No fingertip IDs or anything. Dark as can be. We’ll hide ourselves well. It’ll be perfect.” He picks up my discarded sandwich and mashes it into his mouth in one bite. Gross.

“It’s dangerous, and you know it.” Cy crosses his arms, moving to stand closer to me. Cy’s like a shadow of support for my worry. I’m no good to Dyl if I get caught.

I’m on the verge of refusing, when I find myself asking, “So, where is it exactly?”

“South Thirty-sixth Street. You know, near the old—”

“Slaughterhouses?” I chime in. The scrambler hub. It’ll be near there. Which means it’ll be near Q. I know Dad made me promise to take care of myself, but I have to take care of Dyl too. I can’t do one without the other. I have to take this chance.

I raise my hand to high-five one of Hex’s chicken-salad-smeared, misbehaving hands.

“I’m in.”

“We’ll meet back here in ten minutes,” Hex hollers at everyone.

I head to my room so I can put Dyl’s purse safely away. At the transport door, I glance at my outfit. I’m wearing my usual shapeless Cy shirt and amorphous dark skirt. Should I change for the occasion? It takes me a millisecond to decide.
Nah.

“Stop.”

I turn around to see Cy, surprised that the word was more a request than a command. He catches up to me, walking two inches too far into my personal space, but I don’t fall back. Maybe I’m standing my ground or simply being weak for enjoying his faint warmth. Cy shoves his hands in his pockets.

“You’re not really going, are you?”

“I am.” It’s hard to look him in the eye, the way he towers above me.

“You get caught, and you’re no better than dead. It’s not worth it. I thought you wanted to try to get your sister back.”

“I
am
trying.”

“Dancing in an illegal club isn’t exactly constructive.” Cy’s fists are hard knots. Seems like he needs to relax even more than I do.

“Hey, why don’t you come with us?” I offer. “We could dance, and—”

“I don’t dance,” he blurts. The words are heavy in the air, hiding more than he lets on. As if he meant to say
“I don’t dance with girls like you.”

“Fine. To each his own.” I try to sound as if I don’t care, even if the rejection bites like a paper cut. I head for the stairs, leaving Cy and his refusal behind. Just as I hit the next level, I hear him call one last time. It’s so faint, it might as well be my imagination. It sounded like
“Please don’t go.”

That’s when I know it’s my imagination. Because Cy would never say “please” when it comes to me.

• • •

I RUN THE REST OF THE WAY TO
MY ROOM, tuck Dylia’s purse beneath the mattress of my bed, and then jog back to the hallway, where I violently collide with Vera. She may resemble a vegetable in yoga wear, but she’s hard as a rock. Ow.

“Man, I knew it. Look at you. Tell me you aren’t going like that,” she says, pointing rudely with her index finger.

“I am. It’s fine, really. I don’t mind.”

“Oh, hell no. We won’t get into the club with you looking like some sort of she-goblin on a bad hair day.”

“Ouch, Vera! Even goblins have feelings.”

“C’mon.” She drags me all the way to her grow-light room and pushes me into her closet. Soon, a tight, scoop-necked midnight-blue top is exchanged for Cy’s T-shirt. Vera hands me an unevenly hemmed, bruise-colored skirt that occasionally dips high on the thigh. It’s got random soft points sticking out like some exotic prickly fruit. She tosses me a pair of black boots.

“How the heck do you get clothes when you’re off the grid?” I ask, tugging the boots on. “Does Marka get them?”

“She used to, but I like buying my own stuff. I’ve a little black-market business with the junkyard guys,” she says, rummaging through a drawer filled with makeup. On her bathroom countertop is a laser spray-painting machine. I’m praying she’s not going to use it on me.

I raise my left eyebrow. “What kind of business?”

“Organic libido serum, detoxifying supplements, and plant-grown testosterone from my recombinant herbs. It’s all natural.”

“You mean illegal?”

She shrugs. “I say tomato, you say tomahto.”

After wrestling my hair into a sleek knot atop my head, I discover that I do, in fact, have a neck underneath all the frizz. Vera swipes some wine-colored gloss on my lips and draws a thick black line straight from one temple to another, tracking over my eyelids and the bridge of my nose. It’s trendy and totally not me, but it’s the nicest thing Vera has voluntarily done since I got here, so I don’t say a word.

“Huh. You actually look decent when you aren’t sporting the unkempt, suicidal teenager look.” She sticks out her bottom lip. “Wait a sec.” Without so much as a warning, Vera shoves her hand into my bra and rearranges what chest mass I have.

“What are you doing?” I shriek.

“Working on your produce display,” Vera grunts. It’s like she’s looking for spare change, and there ain’t none.

“I don’t have produce!”

Vera stops rearranging and steps back. I look down. Somehow she’s managed to conjure cleavage out of thin air.

“Oh, you’ve got it. But you can’t sell what you can’t see.”

Before I can complain about being compared to celery, Vera shoos me out of her room so she can get dressed. Back in the common room, everyone but Cy is gathered. I’m disappointed he’s not here, even if all evidence pointed to him not coming. Hex is sporting a long, draping coat in greenish gray. His shoulders look large and my eyes open wide when I only count two arms.

“Where . . .” I begin.

Hex makes the back of his trench coat wiggle. “Just holding them behind me. It’s uncomfortable, but I can deal.”

Ten minutes later, Vera walks in wearing a skin-tight bodysuit made of a black, shiny material. Black leather gloves cover her hands up to the elbows, and she minces over to me in her matching high-heeled boots. I’m not shocked by the fact she’s wearing the latest fashion from Hookers-R-Us. It’s her face. Except for her lips, which remain green, the rest of her face sports a flawless, ivory complexion straight out of a cosmetics ad.

“Whaddya think?” She smiles.

“You look great.” I take a step closer and examine the makeup. It’s really perfect, even down to the misty plum blush. Her full green lips are coated in a clear gloss. “Didn’t you forget lipstick?”

“Uh-uh. No way. If I’m going to be swapping spit with someone, I don’t want my
lipstick
smudging, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t know, Vera. Dressed like that, I doubt any guys will be thinking about just kissing.”

“Excellent.” She grins at me.

“Where’s Wilbert?” I ask, looking around.

“Here.” He comes up from behind me. When he sees me in my club outfit and makeup, his mouth drops. “Wow!” Then he sees Vera. “Holy moly. Is that outfit legal?”

Hex scowls at her as she twirls around. Wilbert has managed to spike up his light brown hair and wears a shapeless black shirt over a pair of dark jeans.

I point at him, forgetting it’s rude. “Wilbert! You lost your head!”

Wilbert beams with pride, and he spins around for me to get a good view of him. His other head is gone. He’s got a normal pair of shoulders, and except for holding his head a little to the right, as he always does, I can’t see his spare, faceless skull.

“How did you do that?” I ask, still staring.

“It’s easy. Just an optical illusion. I have a transmitter here, and here.” He points to a tiny silver button on his shoulder tip and another on his left earlobe. “They throw reflected ambient light back and forth so people who look in that area see a void.”

I don’t really get it, but on closer inspection, there’s a jagged fuzzy area over his shoulder. I raise my hand and tentatively enter the space where his extra skull usually sits. My fingertips blur and disappear as I feel his warm, furry scalp.

“Wow,” I say, really impressed.

“The illusion doesn’t hold up to bright daylight. But since it’ll be dark in the club, it’ll be pretty seamless.”

“You’re brilliant, Wilbert. But I guess you knew that.”

Wilbert gives me a little bow of acknowledgment, then ducks into the kitchen.

“Okay. Well, shall we?” Hex puffs out his chest and heads for the door.

“Uh, how are we going to get there? Dig a tunnel?” I joke.

“No, but you’ll wish you had,” Vera warns.

“We can’t use a magpod, can we?” I ask.

“Nope, we’re going vintage,” Hex says. “Wilbert, did you grab the booze?”

Wilbert returns from the kitchen lugging two huge multi-gallon jugs of ethanol from Cy’s lab. Oh cripes. Are we going to drink that?

“Ugh, yeah. Dude, you have the muscles, why do I have to carry this?”

“Because they don’t go with my outfit,” Hex says, flexing his visible arms.

“Really?”
Wilbert groans.

“Naw. Just kidding.” Hex leans over, lifts the two containers easily, and glances over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”