Rebels (38 page)

Yes. You?

Yes.

Now?

Now.

Then we close our eyes.

A bright room, a woman sitting alone, back turned toward us. Her hands flutter through the air, releasing waves of color and music. The colors are dark, the song sad.

I move toward her.

“Stop,” says Roscoe. “Any closer and we will be flung.”

“Is she . . .” I can barely say the word.

“Our mother,” says Livia. “At her air harp.”

A man enters. Armand Cosmo, our father. Handsome as his portrait. He moves to our mother and puts a hand on her shoulder. At his touch, she slumps. The music stops and the colors dissipate. As he begins speaking, she stares into the colorless void.

“Why can't we hear them?” I ask.

“Perhaps your father extracted the voices,” says Roscoe. “Perhaps this memory is too painful and he blocked out some of the details to preserve its integrity. The science is tricky.”

“But how will we know what they are saying? How will we know when they—”

I stop suddenly. The woman looks up, and I see her face for the first time.

Even through the tears, she is beautiful.

“You have her eyes,” says Livia.

“I was about to say the same about you.”

Then everything fades.

Darkness.

We are somewhere new, and our mother is gone.

I had her for a few seconds, but now she has disappeared once more. There is a hollow ache in my chest, an empty spot, and I realize it has been there as long as I can remember.

I have never allowed myself to feel it before now. I do not have to look at Livia to know she feels something similar.

We are in some sort of lab, though it's small and a bit cramped. The place is cluttered with machines and monitors, a table of glass tubes swirling with liquid. Holocharts line the walls and a pair of men's shoes are carelessly left in the middle of the floor.

“Our hideout,” says Roscoe, his voice sweet with nostalgia. “We built this when we were children.”

“You knew each other as children?” I ask.

“Our whole life,” he says. “From neighboring islands. This is where we did our early experiments. Armand's parents, your grandparents, encouraged us, when they weren't perturbed by our occasionally explosive results.” He chuckles to himself. “We both ended up geneticists, but Armand was always the brilliant one. And this is where he escaped to do his most important work. A lab we built beneath the ground, with their permission. After the EX2, the High Council would've funded his every whim, a new lab with a view of the gardens was only the beginning, but he was cautious not to become indebted to them.”

“And you?” asks Livia.

“I found minor success in enhancements to keep my skills relevant, pictograms and the like.”

“Designer birthmarks?” Livia asks. “That was you?”

“ ‘Express your Individuality,' ” he recites bitterly. “ ‘The only genetic flaw you will actually want!' Until they were outlawed, of course.”

“Fascinating,” I say dryly, circling the room for the fifteenth time.

“Your father evolved the field and pushed the boundaries beyond
what anyone thought possible. But still he had time for me and a few others, to discuss our endeavors and help us, of course. It was only luck that granted me such a genius for a best friend and mentor.”

“And where is he now, exactly?” she says.

“Look,” says Roscoe calmly, “and you will see for yourself.”

Our father has entered with long, confident strides.

“This is much earlier,” says Roscoe, “before your mother and the air harp.”

“How can you tell?” asks Livia.

Roscoe laughs. “His hair. He wore it like that when he was young. One of his proudest possessions. He could've grown rich just by enhancing the heads of others, myself included.”

As though my father has heard, he runs his hand through the strands distractedly. He does have nice hair. Thick and shiny and dark, just like Livia and me. Only his is wild and untamed like mine.

Our father moves about like the ruler of a kingdom, like a man with answers. He checks a chart and adds a few notations. His penmanship is horrid. He catches his reflection in a beaker and quickly runs a hand through his shiny mop, smiling.

“I speak the truth,” says Roscoe. “The women loved it, too. In fact, they loved everything about him.” Father removes a test tube from a rack and sets it in a machine that, when powered on, spins wildly. When it stops, the liquid in the tube has been separated into two distinct colors. “He was invited to every Emergence Ball in Upper Indra. He teased the girls. Flirted. Made them fall in love. Yet ultimately, they bored him.”

He carefully pours the top layer into a funnel, where it flows
through piping into a small analyzer. It beeps and he checks the monitor. Unsatisfied with what he has seen, he bites his bottom lip and paces the room.

“Until, of course, he met Delphia. Your mother.”

Father looks up with gleaming eyes and races to a chart and crosses out his newest notations. He scribbles around their edges and, upon observing his work, grants himself a self-satisfied smile.

“One look at Delphia and he was finished. The other Proper Young Women became as interesting to your father as the air his island floated upon.”

Darkness.

We are in a dressing parlor, our mother clicking a device. The soft surface beneath our feet goes from red to gold. Another click and we are standing on intricate tiles.

This is an important night, I can tell, and everything must be
just right
.

She strokes a blue garment, and it shimmers beneath her hand. Now she's at her floating vanity, running a colorizer across her lips. They turn bright blue and she wrinkles her nose at the reflection. Changes them back to their natural rosy hue.

“Never one for fads, Delphia,” says Roscoe. “Not even minor enhancements.”

Another face appears in the reflection, startling her.

Our father, a devilish grin across his face. She swats him hard, laughing, and takes the colorizer to his lips. Instantly, they are a neon orange. He swipes the instrument from her and turns them back, though he's also laughing.

She pins up her hair and he watches, mesmerized.

“He adored her,” says Roscoe, a longing just under his words. Armand was probably not the only one.

Our mother turns her face to our father and waits to be kissed.

Darkness.

A massive ballroom, and we are at the center of its polished dance floor. “Their New Cohabitation Gala,” says Roscoe. He is staring at someone and I follow his gaze.

Young Roscoe, captivated by the presence in the room, perhaps more than everyone else. We are momentarily blinded by a swirl of enchanting blue. Our father has whirled our mother past us.

They are what everyone is watching, and the reason is obvious: they are beautiful together.

Her head is thrown back in pleasure, her gown swirling around them like an aqua cloud.

I want to look at her forever.

Darkness.

“Slow it down!” I say frantically.

“I wish I could,” says Roscoe.

Mother and Father sit in a garden, framed by blooming lemon trees. They have been newly programmed by the gardeners, I can tell, the fruit plentiful, their fragrance sharp and sweet.

I know their location, a spot deep within the orchards, a place where I spent many hours hiding from the demands of Governess.

Mother and Father have aged quickly, or perhaps it is just the dimness in their eyes.

Mother is crying. Father holds her hands, but she won't listen. She turns from his touch with a violent shake of her head.

“Please, Armand!” she says.

Lex and I look at each other, stunned. Her voice enhances and defies her delicacy. Lilting and powerful at the very same moment. It's mannered like mine, with all the anger of Lex's.

“Armand. Listen to me. I do not ask for much, and this is the only thing I want in the entire world. Nothing else matters.”

“If they find out—”

“They will not find out,” she says firmly

“We will lose everything,” he finishes. My mother has tears in her
eyes, but she is too strong to release them. My father holds her in his arms.

“I would do anything for you, Delphia. You know that. But you must know the consequences.”

She removes herself from his touch. “I do not care about
consequences
! Everything in Indra has consequences. The IHC would punish you for breathing incorrectly if they ‘Deemed It Inappropriate'!”

“They will take the things you love most if they find out,” he says. “Helix. Veda. They will take
me
, Delphia. Everything.”

“They will not find out. We will make sure of it.”

“The highest crime is blatant disobedience against the IHC.”

“The highest crime will be if I cannot have a child.”

She draws farther away, the space between them growing larger.

“You blame me,” he says quietly. “You blame me for creating the EX2. You believe I did this to you. That it made you unable to conceive. But that is not the cause of this. I promise you. I would never create anything that did harm. This happened . . . for some other reason. A reason I have yet to understand. Please do not blame me. I only want to make you happy.”

“It does not matter who I blame,” she says. “The only thing that matters is who fixes it.”

She takes his hands, and I see that she has the power to make the smartest man in Indra doubt his judgment.

“Please say yes, Armand. Please, my love.”

Darkness.

Wait
, I want to say.
I don't understand!

No time to speak, for we are back in the lab, only it has changed. The charts are illegible, overrun with his scrawl. The water baths are overflowing with contaminated beakers and plates with half-eaten rations or aborted experiments, it's too hard to determine which.

Our father circles the room. He's changed as well: attire wrinkled, hair growing on his face, his smug smile replaced with defeat.

“What happened?” I ask. Roscoe doesn't answer. Lex watches our father with deep concentration.

“He is doing this for her,” she says.

“But why?”

“A child,” Roscoe says. “That was all she ever dreamed of. And somehow, it would not happen. A genetic flaw, perhaps.”

Father sits in his chair and rolls up his left sleeve. He ties a length of rubber tubing around his biceps and punctures a vein with a needle. Bloods flows through some piping into one vial, then another. All the while he puzzles over formulae on his tablet. Another vial fills and another. That is where he hopes to find his answer. Within himself.

“He will not stop,” says Roscoe, “until he finds a solution. A genetic enhancement that will allow her to conceive.”

Darkness.

A dim room, our mother sitting motionless, eyes screwed tight with concentration. To her left, our father holds a syringe full of thick liquid.

She is not concentrating
, I think.
She is praying
.

He injects her.

Darkness.

Everything is moving too quickly. The memories are hurtling straight for us, becoming more agitated and frantic by the second. Melting into each other so fast there is no darkness or light, just a faint grayish overcast.

Our mother, face glowing, with a hand on her belly. The hand belongs to our father, and he smiles as wide as she does.

Darkness.

Our father at his monitor, projections of the two fetuses growing within her womb.

Darkness.

Our mother at her air harp, belly enormous on her slender frame. The melody soft and lovely, her hands releasing crystalline shades of rose, the pinks punctuated by sudden bursts of crimson. Her eyes are closed, her smile blissful.

Darkness.

A curtain divides the lab. My father pours water on a white towel. He hurries behind the curtain where our mother, I strongly suspect, breathes sharply. It's punctuated by cries of pain.

The cries become screams. Livia and I are causing her pain. This is our birth.

Darkness.

We're still in the lab. Young Roscoe stands patiently on the other side of the curtain.

Roscoe observes his younger self, their expressions equally pained. Men who have no reason to celebrate.

Our father slips through the curtains, removing his wrinkled and stained gown. His skin is colorless, his eyes ringed with exhaustion. Our father doesn't look like a man who has achieved the impossible.

“Are they healthy?” Roscoe asks.

He nods. “And beautiful.”

Darkness.

A baby cries, woken from its sleep.

“She knows it's time,” he tells Roscoe. “The imprint and then you must go.”

Father pulls back the curtain. Mother is huddled on a sleeper, a baby clutched in each arm. It can only have been days, their flesh still pink. They've only had days as a family.

Father bends down and takes a baby, which my mother kisses
before she lets go of it forever. “We have to hurry,” he says, “or it will be too late.”

Father passes the child to Roscoe.
That's me
.
Little Lex
. I gurgle in Roscoe's arms. This was the end of our only time together. Mother clutches the other baby tighter. She rests her chin against the small head, tears falling on tufts of brown hair.

My father unwraps her arm and carefully takes Livia as well. Now her arms are empty. My mother buries her face in the sleeper to muffle her heartbreak. Father closes the curtain, leaving her to her privacy.