Origin (34 page)

Those words—
another kitten
—are what snap the thin thread still tying me to Uncle Paolo and his damned
destiny
.

“She is
not
an animal,” I hiss. Shock transforms Uncle Paolo’s face. “She is a
child
! A human being!
Not
a lab experiment!”

“Pia!” Shock turns into anger. He steps forward. I step back. Behind me, equally surprised scientists move out of my way. Whatever they expected from me, I doubt they expected this.

But my blood is flowing again, hot and wild and reckless and enraged to the point of madness. The sorrow, the guilt, the confusion, the horror, all of the emotions that have rioted in me for the last few days are simply fuel to feed the fire that rages now into an inferno. It consumes and fills me, and I overflow.

“You
monster
! All of you!” I whirl on the others. “How can you do this? How can you—” I choke on my own voice. “Mother! How could you?”

“Pia, calm down,” Uncle Paolo intervenes. He’s using his soothing voice, sweet and liquid as honey. “Just calm down a minute. You don’t have to do it. You’re not ready, I see that now. It’s too soon—”

“Too soon? Not soon enough! Not soon enough for you to finally give me the truth!”

He starts toward me. I dart behind a table, keeping it between us. “Pia,
listen
to me, will you? You’re losing your self-control.”

“Monsters in the closet,” I say, remembering something Aunt Nénine said once, long, long ago. Inanely, I begin to giggle and tremble all at once.
“Monsters in the closet.”

“Pia…” A worried look comes into his eyes. He thinks I’ve lost my mind.

Maybe I have.

“Give me the syringe,” he orders. The others begin to edge around the walls, getting between me and the door.

“No.” I grasp it tightly to my chest. “Not so you can inject her. No. Let her go.”

“Pia, you know that’s not possible. Damn it, Pia, we’ve come all this way! You were so close. This is
why
you were
created, don’t you see that? This is your purpose! This is
how
you were created! Quitting now means quitting on your own existence. You owe your life—your endless life—to what goes on in this room.”

“Murder?”

“It’s not murder, Pia, not really. Think of it not as murder, not as evil, but as the—”

“Greatest form of compassion, I know. You’ve said it before.” I relax, hands lowering a little.

“Good, yes!” He relaxes too.

“The greater good,” I say, nodding slowly. “The perfecting of mankind.”

“Yes.” A smile, small and encouraging, brightens his face.

I hold up the syringe of elysia. “And this is the way.”

He nods, watching me carefully, but I see triumph in his eyes.

I nod thoughtfully, studying the crystal liquid. “You know what I say?”

“What, Pia? Tell me.”

“I say
screw it
.” I throw the syringe to the tile floor, where it shatters and splatters elysia all over our shoes.

Our eyes meet, his shocked and wide, mine wild and blazing.

“I’m through with you,
Dr.
Paolo Domingo Alvez. Through with all of you. Through with Little Cam, and Dr. Falk, and elysia, and my damn destiny!” I step on the broken glass, grind it with my heel. “And you know what? I
choose
chaos. I choose to regress. I choose
de
volution and extinction and weakness and emotion and my heart, all of it! Because if
this
”—I point at Ami—“is what it means to be truly human,
then I don’t
want
to be human. And I sure as hell don’t want to be one forever. Screw your immortality. Screw your damn ideals and destiny. And screw
you
.”

Shaking with rage, I turn and run for Ami, intending to rip the tube out of her arm and carry her all the way back to Ai’oa.

But I only make it three steps, and suddenly Uncle Jakob and Uncle Haruto have me by the arms, holding me still, and Uncle Sergei holds my head from behind so I can’t bite them. I struggle, but it’s no use. I have unbreakable skin, the sensory perceptions of a hawk, and I will never die—but I am betrayed by my lack of strength. I want to scream with frustration.

Uncle Paolo shakes his head and sighs, long and deep. “I’m sorry, Pia. I’m sorry we failed with you. I’m sorry that after all our hopes and best intentions, you still resorted to the same stupidity and blindness of humans far, far beneath your level.”

He reaches into the pocket of his lab coat and pulls out a syringe, the twin to the one I shattered. Horrified, I feel my heart slow and sicken.

“I hoped it wouldn’t work out this way, but a good scientist is always prepared.” He presses the syringe, squirting a few drops of elysia into the sink.

That’s when I notice the metal cart by my left elbow. It’s got three trays, and each one is filled with glass beakers.

“I think I taught you that years ago,” Uncle Paolo is saying. “Do you remember? Of course you do. Your memory, unlike your decision here today, is perfect.”

He walks to the far side of Ami so that he can still see me over her body. His eyes are fixed on me, so he doesn’t notice her eyelashes flutter and open, her head turn. Her gaze falls
on me, and though confusion clouds her face, she still recognizes me.

“Pia?” she whispers.

I hook my foot around the leg of the cart and jerk it sideways. Glass beakers fly everywhere, smashing into the walls and floor. Everyone ducks, and Uncle Haruto yells. I think a shard of glass landed in his eye. He falls forward and collides with the exam table. His flailing hand catches the tube in Ami’s arm, and it comes loose. Blood drains from her like syrup from a bottle, splashing onto the floor. Uncle Haruto slips in it and falls to the tile.

For a moment, everything is chaos, just long enough for me to break free and grab the syringe from Uncle Paolo’s hands. I move as swiftly as the lightning outside, pulling Ami off the gurney and dragging her to the door, and I spare a split second to grab my necklace off the counter. When Jakob and Haruto grab me from behind, I stab blindly with the syringe, and they immediately back away from the needle. I keep it raised threateningly and pull Ami with one arm. My shoes track scarlet across the shining white tile.

“Stop, Pia!” orders Paolo as he crashes into the fallen metal cart and steps on the shattered beakers. He shouts and hops sideways, and I hope they’ve punctured the soles of his shoes. Ami is coming to; we’re almost at the door.

I throw it open and pull her into the hallway, slamming the door behind us. Ami is still unconscious, but a small moan slips from her mouth. I shake her, but she doesn’t rouse. I let her sink to the floor and look around.

There’s a shelf against the wall holding sheets and lab coats, and I grab it with both hands and heave. It crashes to
the floor with a loud clatter as an enormous boom of thunder rattles the building and, one by one, the fluorescent lights above us flicker out.

The generators have been hit. It’ll take Clarence at least five minutes to get the electricity back on.
Come on, Pia, don’t waste this chance
.…I shove the shelf against the door. It won’t hold them for long, but maybe long enough.

Ami is slumped against the wall, eyes shut and skin pale. Her arm is still bleeding. When Uncle Haruto tore the tube from Ami’s arm, it ripped the cut wider, and my dragging her across the floor only made it worse. In the darkness, I can just make out a sticky trail of blood leading from under the lab door. How much has she lost?

I dig through the supplies that fell from the shelf when I overturned it and find gauze and tape. Just when I start to turn back to Ami, my fingers brush something glass, and it rolls across the floor. I snatch it up, hoping it’s some kind of antibiotic I can put on the cut. Eyes straining to read the label in the dark, I reach out and grip Ami’s upper arm, trying to lessen the flow of blood. From some open window down the hall, lightning flashes, and my eyes catch the label on the vial.

E13.

E13.
I remember the bird in the electric cage, its energy spent, the serum kicking in.…

A loud crash makes me look up. The scientists must be using something heavy to batter at the door.

Hurry, Pia!

I pop the lid off the glass vial with my teeth; there’s nothing to inject it with, and I have no idea how much it will take, but there’s no time. I push the vial between her lips and empty
half of the contents down her throat, exhaling in relief when she swallows. Then I press the gauze to her arm and wrap tape around it three, four, five times.

Ami’s eyes snap open. Another flash of lightning, and I see her pupils are constricted to tiny pinpoints.

“Pia!” She sits up, her entire body trembling. “What happened? Where am I? Why’s it so dark?”

“Just hold my hand. I know you’re scared, but you have to run!”

Before I even finish speaking, she’s on her feet and zipping down the hall, pulling me along behind her. Her movements are jerky and rapid, just like the bird’s when it was running on the E13.
Congratulations, Uncle Paolo. Your serum works perfectly.

Outside, people are yelling and running everywhere, trying to get the lights back on. It’ll be only minutes before Clarence has the backup generators on, and then we’ll never be able to escape.

I don’t bother with hiding. The rain and confusion is cover enough. We head for the nearest portion of fence, and when I look back, I see that Paolo and the others have made it out. They spot us much too quickly.

“Go,” I hiss. “Run as fast as you can, Ami, toward the fence!”

“Pia, I brought your necklace,” she says. “You dropped it.”

“It’s okay, Ami! I have it.”

“Good. Because it means something special,” she yells over her shoulder, “and if you lost it, it would be terrible. Pia…” She stops running and looks back. “They’re chasing us. Why are they chasing us?”

I take her hand and run along the fence, trying to keep distance between the scientists and us. I have to keep her talking to distract her from our pursuers.

“What’s special about the necklace, Ami? Tell me.” They’re fifty yards behind us and gaining. I try to run faster, but even with the serum spurring her on, Ami’s short legs can’t keep up.

“It’s an Ai’oan symbol,” she says. “When an Ai’oan boy gives it to a girl from another tribe, it means she belongs to him and to Ai’oa as long as she wears it.”

“Try to keep up, Ami!” We’re behind the menagerie now. I glance back and see Uncle Paolo leading the others. Forty yards.

“I couldn’t let you lose it,” Ami goes on. She hugs my waist. “Because you’re one of us.”

“Ami, listen to me! You have to run! Run home and tell everyone—” There’s no time. I point up. “See that space where the chain link ends? Right under that bar?”

She nods, squinting uncertainly through the rain.

“
Climb
, Ami, and whatever you do, don’t stop. As soon as they get the power back on, the fence will be pumping with electricity. You
cannot stop
.”

“But what about you?”

“I’ll be right behind you! Go!”

She starts climbing with alacrity to rival her monkey’s, and I’m close on her heels. She reaches the top and starts navigating over the uppermost bar securing the chain link.

Suddenly a hand grabs my ankle, and I start to fall.

“Pia!” Ami screams, reaching down and grabbing my hand.

“Stop! Let go!” I yank away from her. “Go, Ami,
go
!”

“Not without you!”

I look down. Sergei has both my ankles, and Paolo has the hem of my lab coat. Looking back up at Ami, I’m forced to make a decision. I let go with both hands, giving me the split moment I need to shove her through the gap. She screams and falls to the ground on the other side, and I fall backward into the arms of the scientists.

I yell for her to run, and she shoots a terrified look at me before racing into the trees. Relieved, I sag limply and let them drag me away.

T
hey lock me in my glass room, and I run to the bathroom and throw myself on my knees in front of the toilet, retching. I haven’t eaten anything today, so all that comes up is stomach acid, but it makes my throat burn.

When I can’t choke up any more, I lean back on my heels, gasping and coughing. I notice that there’s scarlet streaked on the toilet seat, and I lift up my hands.

They’re covered in Ami’s blood.

I vomit again, then stumble to the sink, where I wash my hands in scalding-hot water, over and over. Tears fall from my eyes onto my hands, then, stained scarlet with blood, they drip onto the white porcelain. I scrub faster and faster, my entire body shaking.

When the water starts to run cold and my hands are raw, I drag myself back into my room and fall onto my bed, listless and dazed. My throat is on fire from retching, and my hands
feel numb. I tuck them against my chest, feel my heart like a sledgehammer against my ribs.

Uncle Paolo and Uncle Timothy stand outside my door for several minutes, discussing security measures. There’s a lot of talk of ankle monitors, cameras, and moving me into the abandoned wing of B Labs. Finally I hear their footsteps retreating and the front door closing behind them, but they’ve left someone behind to guard the door. I can hear him breathing.

I turn to face the jungle and hold my wrists in front of my face, eyes tracing the fine blue lines beneath the skin.
My blood is not my own
. It belongs to Ai’oa, to the many who died that I might be born.

I trace one blue vein with my fingernail, then start pressing down. The skin holds firm, as it always does. My tears sting like acid as I scratch harder and harder at my wrists, but nothing happens.
Not my blood! Not my blood!
My brain screams at me. I can’t stop the horrific mantra, can’t stop tearing at my wrists. Nothing happens. They’ve filled my veins with someone else’s blood, and I have no way to rid myself of it.

Finally I give up and let my hands collapse to the bed. My wrists are red and sore, but the pain fades too quickly, and once again they are smooth, white, and perfect.