The Soul Continuum (3 page)

I sit cross-legged in the grass with one of them scuttling
across the back of my hand. It tickles, and I laugh. I could probably sit for hours just watching it move back and forth, but it also makes me wonder: why did Mother make them? Why did she go to so much trouble to make Saliel like home? I thought she wanted to cure me of my perpetual happiness because it is killing me, but instead, she is trying to make everything perfect for me. Perhaps she feels the same duality that I do.

“Salomi!”

I recognize Candice's voice—she's a girl I met a week ago—and allow the ladybug to make its way back onto the leaf, even though I know that neither of them is real. With my hand shielding my eyes from the sun, I look at the path fifty paces away and see my new friend waving to me, and I wave back. She has two others with her, both of them wearing knee-length dresses of pink and blue. They look a lot younger than me, twins perhaps, and they are certainly younger than Candice, who will be seventeen next year.

“Come on, lazy,” she shouts, “we've been waiting for you all afternoon. The tide is almost out.”

“Coming,” I shout back and chase after them, just losing sight of them as they run back along the path into the cover of overhanging oaks. I can hear them laughing as they run, and as usual, I feel the same surge of euphoria flood my body as I race to catch up. “Wait!”

It takes about a minute for me to reach the exit of the tree-lined avenue to see the three girls wading into the waves. They laugh hysterically as the water soaks them, and with
my own excitement peaking, I cannot wait to join them. I'm breathless already, but I quicken my pace all the same, feeling the warm itch of sand creep between my toes as I close the gap and splash into the shallows.

To my right, a little over half a mile away on the rocky shore, like an enormous lighthouse (though far taller), the Absorption Tower reaches for wisps of cloud, and its conical shape blurs with each jarring footfall. I would not usually give it a second thought, but as I reach Candice, it looms as a backdrop to my friend for one alarming moment, and its form is perfectly revealed. It is not the tower I have come to recognize since my arrival. It is something terrible. Something abominable. I am not looking directly at it, though. My attention is firmly fixed on Candice as she introduces me to her two new friends.

“Melista, Praynia, this is Salomi, the girl I told you about.”

I smile at them radiantly, filling up with excited energy at the prospect of getting to know even more new friends, but at the same time, there is a creeping fear running cold through my mind, growing every second. I am not looking at the tower. Why? Why am I not looking at it? Why am I acting like there is nothing wrong?

“Hello,” I say to the girls. “When did you get here?”

“Two days ago,” says Melista, the taller of the twins. “Our parents hid us in cargo boxes. Did you have to hide too to get here?”

“Yes,” is all I say as the withdrawing tide runs cold around our ankles. There is a long pause while the girls wait for me to elaborate. It is not my increasing anxiety about the tower stalling words from me, but my fascination with the girls' hair. Deepest black, with a glowing sheen, almost like the feathers of a raven, and I am truly taken by their beauty. The twins are not identical, but they each have features that make them adorable: Melista has a button nose and a twinkle in her eyes; Praynia has the smallest mouth with the lips puckering to one side in a cute smirk. But though I am won over by their sweetness, what I desperately want to do is look at the tower and confirm what it is I thought I saw. There is a part of me willing my eyes to move, almost frantic, wanting me to scream with frustration, but I am still looking at Melista's hair. Why am I doing that? It's like a part of me is trapped.

“I told you she was strange, didn't I?” Candice says, grinning and folding her arms. “She does that a lot. Stare, I mean.”

“Oh, I'm sorry,” I say, “I was just looking at your hair. It's really, really nice. Is it programmed or natural?”

“Natural,” Melista says, proud. “My mummy's hair is this black, too.”

“Is hers natural?” I ask.

“Daddy's hair is black as well,” Praynia adds. “Why are you bald?”

I am taken aback by the sudden question. I had almost forgotten I would look different to them. “My hair fell out when I started taking the Sartixil. That hasn't happened to you?” I look at each of the girls, hoping that my eyes might, just for one moment, focus on the tower behind them, but they don't. None of the girls have lost their hair. Candice has pumpkin-colored hair, short but puffed out in wide swirls around her long face.

“Only a small percentage of patients lose their hair,” Candice says. “Has something to do with genofect glands, I think. We've all got them, so it could happen to any of us.”

“Oh,” I say, “I don't have those. I had an operation when I was two.” I twist my neck and point to a small scar on the back of my head. “They thought it might help speed
up my cure. They said the glands weren't helping because they were talking to the wrong cells in my brain. Turns out they were wrong anyway. So now I don't have any genofect glands.”

“Or hair,” says Praynia.

An unexpected wave breaks across our legs and sends us squealing with delight back across the sand. We stagger a short distance, then drop onto our backs to stare up at the
sky, which is the perfect blue of a joyful summer. In reality, behind the imaging grid, there is a swirling caldron of exploding
gases, and as if to remind me of this fact, a huge arc of lightning leaps across the heavens to strike the Absorption Tower, making my heart gallop into my mouth. The tower is supposed to attract the lightning, so that isn't what sets me on edge; it's that I know it will draw my attention to it, and I will see the statue again.

Sure enough, I look at the tower, but instead of the dull copper walls with its bands of silver that I am used to seeing, a stone colossus stands in its place. A strange and menacing figure dressed in long robes. Despite his height in the clouds, his body is stooped, almost hunchbacked. The many grooves chiseled into his face tell me he is ancient, yet the eyes bulge with malicious vitality, and they are staring directly at me. I do not understand how I am able to feel such terror, especially considering my condition, but the feeling is undeniable, and what is far worse is that, though I have never met this ugly man in my short life, I know him. I even know his name: Keitus Vieta. But this statue should not be here. Either someone is interfering with the imaging system or I am hallucinating. None of the other girls seem to have noticed the change, so it must be an invention of my mind, especially as I seem to know this character's name.

“That was a big one,” I say. “It must be super stormy today.”

Though I can feel a creeping dread, it does not come through in my voice or actions, and in direct contrast, I still feel the heightened pleasure of witnessing the lightning too; I know this to be the real me. I have never experienced side
effects from the Sartixil before, but the fact that I can feel a new and unwelcome swell of emotion, which I assume to be fear and trepidation, means the drug must be starting to work.

“You've given me an idea,” Candice says. “Let's play a game.”

Melista and Praynia are already on their feet, swinging their arms in excitement, begging to know what the game is, and I follow suit, once again experiencing a rush of de
light. I am relieved that I am no longer focused on the tower statue, but the relief dies when Candice offers her suggestion.

“It's a daring game.” A sly smile overtakes her expression
. “Let's go to the tower. The winner is the one who dares to keep both hands on the wall the longest.”

The idea of actually touching this terrible statue is chilling. Part of me fears I might somehow bring it to life so that it can crush me underfoot, and it seems to be a very dangerous thing to do anyway. Nevertheless, without the slightest objection, I follow the three girls to the tower, kicking sand and whooping as if I cannot wait to throw myself at the mercy of the dark figure staring down at me.

W
e arrive at the base of the tower in a little under ten minutes. Thankfully, we are too close for me to see Vieta's gaze boring into me, but the giant folds of his stone robe are a reminder that the tower is not as it should be. I would already be running in panic by now if it weren't for the mysterious fact that my body is not reacting to this fear at all, and now I wonder if the other girls are feeling the same thing as I and also having the same inability to react.

“How do we play?” Melista says.

“It's easy,” Candice replies. “We'll take turns. Right after a bolt of lightning hits the tower, you slap both hands onto the wall and keep them there for as long as you dare.”

Praynia is looking at me when she asks, “Why?”

I focus on Candice as if bouncing the question back to her.

“Because it'll be exciting,” Candice says. She hisses the last word.

Praynia is looking at the tower, pouting. “But why? What's so exciting about that?”

“Because of the lighteny-ing, silly,” says Melista. “If you don't take your hands away in time”—she turns her hands into claws—“bzzzzzt!”

“I'll go first,” Candice says.

“Why do you get to go first?” Praynia asks.

“Because I'm the darer. Why do you have to ask why all the time?”

“Why do you want to know?” Praynia grins back.

Candice rolls her eyes, and just then, another jagged spear of lightning slams into the tower, making me jump and giggle at the same time. Candice's face lights up as
white as the moon for the space of two full seconds as the electricity dances like fireworks above our heads, and the scent
of raw electricity fills my nose.

“Now! Now!” Melista cries, and Candice not only smacks her palms against the cold stone; she embraces it. Her left cheek is planted firmly against the wall as she stares back at me—and only me—eyes wide and glittering with crazed intensity, and I am trying to work out whether she is bracing herself for electrocution or getting ready to spring away from the wall a split second before the next strike.

“. . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . .” Melista and Praynia are chanting together.

Candice is blinking hard and fast as if expecting the strike before they reach ten. I see her glance once or twice at her arm, and I wonder if she is checking the fine hairs on her skin. She might see them rise an instant before the hit and know to push away that very instant.

“. . . ten . . . eleven . . . twelve . . . thirteen . . . fourteen . . .”

Praynia breaks off her counting with uncontrolled giggling and Melista nudges her. Candice is still watching me, now gritting her teeth, breathing hard and fast. Though I am certain she has given this performance before and knows exactly when to jump away, every part of me wants to tell her not to be so stupid and just stop this, but I can feel myself smiling and loving every second.

“. . . eighteen . . . nineteen . . . twen—”

Another streak bursts out of the summer sky to crackle angrily around the peak of the tower, and I find myself taking several steps back to look up. Keitus Vieta is still watching me, the eyes drilling down and hating me. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I notice the shuddering and trembling of a body. The two raven-haired girls scream, but I am simply watching, enjoying the convulsions of my friend Candice as her arms and legs twitch and dance like puppet limbs with tangled strings. I even laugh when I see the slow crawl of saliva ebb from lip to ear, her panicked eyes pleading with me for help. Now I know exactly why my mother
wants to cure me of this disease. I am a monster. If I have any conscience at all, it is powerless—a feeble thing imprisoned within this heartless little girl—and only now, I can see it.

The twins have already started running away, both in different directions, so I doubt they are going to get help. My instinct is to rush forward, but I saunter slowly toward Candice, disgusted at my own sense of fascination at her trauma, and kneel over her.

“Candice? What are you doing?” I ask her. “Was it the lightning?”

For an instant, her eyes focus on mine, and then she stares past me blankly. Her body is still.

“Candice?” There is not a jot of concern in my tone. “Should I go to get help?”

“Why bother? Clearly I'd be long past help before anybody got here.” She's sitting up now, elbows in the muddy sand, her eyes scolding me with incredulous skepticism. “You really don't feel any fear at all, do you?”

“No, I—”

“Melista, Praynia!” she shouts. “Where are you? You'd better get back here, right now.”

“Are you hurt?” I ask.

Candice huffs a laugh. “You think they wouldn't put protective shielding around the tower? Of course I'm not hurt.”

“Then . . . ?”

“You ran away?” Candice is ignoring me now, chastising
the twins with her eyes. Melista and Praynia have drawn up tentatively beside me to regard Candice with wide-eyed apology. “You actually ran away.”

“You frightened us,” Melista chided her back.

“So you're not hurt at all?” I ask.

“No, I was pretending.”

“Why?” Praynia asks.

Candice observes her for a few seconds. “Can't you work it out?”

“I'm only six,” the twin says.

“And cleverer than you'd have everyone believe.” Candice
smiles slyly and gets to her feet. She brushes sand from her dress. “I wanted to show you just how strange Salomi is,” she says, “but you ran off!”