Vagabond (18 page)

“Release.”
 

I pressed the button, and all three mice entered their specific maze. Mine reached the exit first. “Twenty-six seconds.” I watched Aeschylus’ come next. “Thirty-nine seconds.” The control still fiddled about in the maze. We waited, knowing it’d take it a minute or two longer.
 

“I need to just throw in the towel and give up already. Want to teach class tomorrow?” He sat down on the stool. “I thought for sure I had you.”
 

“Nope.” The control mouse had barely figured out he needed to swim through the water.
 

Aeschylus sighed. “By the way, Niko. Your research grant… I tried. I really tried. But the G.E.G. wants someone more experienced. They hoped you’d try again next year.”
 

I knew the news was coming. If I’d gotten it, he would have told me before the experiment. Aeschylus always saved bad news for the end of our sessions. “I really thought I had it,” I whispered as the control mouse found the exit. “One-minute-twenty-two-seconds.” I typed the numbers on the chart with a little less gusto.
 

“I think you should have. Age is sometimes a horrible setback. Just think, one day… One day, age won’t stand in your way.”
 

“But being flagged will.” I frowned. I knew the truth of it. No matter how great my ideas were, being flagged would trump it all. I’d have to work harder for what I knew, because what I knew could lead us beyond. I had this dream brewing in my head— a way to enter genetic spellings into the DNA before birth. With the right support, I could write DNA. I just knew it! The sad thing was, no one else believed I could. No one else could see what I saw. “I won’t give up,” I whispered.
 

“Good. That’s the only way it’ll get done. Let’s work together to refine the hypothesis you submitted. Perhaps we can do a bit of pre-experiments with pigs and cows. Up for the challenge?” Aeschylus put the control mouse back in Sector C. It clambered over the other tagged rodents and moved its whiskers in all kinds of creepy directions.
 

“Anything to be done with mice. I’m kind of tired of their pinked up feet and their searching noses.”
 

Chapter Twelve
 

The train slowed just enough, and I let go of the metal. My goodbye to Ono was band-aid quick, but as my feet hit the ground and ran out the momentum on the gravel, I felt a small tear slide down my cheek. I didn’t know why my eyes began to water. I couldn’t place the when or the how, but I had started to like the boy, even if he was a pain in the rear.
 

I stood steady and watched the train move on. The cars traveled behind and ahead of me, but I could still latch on and climb back. Gray was interested in traveling along with me for a ways, but I said I wanted to hoof it alone for a bit. I needed the space and the air. It was the Bond of the Vagabond to accept that, and he did. He seemed trustworthy enough to take Ono on, and he agreed to travel with the boy a bit longer.

Time was running out on me. The end of the train was near, and I still didn’t know what I wanted. Once it was gone, I’d be alone for the second time in my entire life. My first time lasted just a few hours before Flea came crashing in. This time would be more prolonged.
 

But it wasn’t loneliness that made me want to latch back on and climb up to the boys. It was the goodbye I didn’t expect to hurt.
 

I reached back up to grab one of the last ladders as it zipped by. I ran along with outstretched fingers, when something else caught my eye. Ono landed and stumbled, then jogged my way.
 

“What are you doing?” I laughed.
 

“You can’t get rid of me that easy. I’m a pest, remember?”
 

Celeste whooped. “You still haven’t spent a night under the tracks? Xavi! What have you been teaching this girl?”
 

He rolled his eyes. He seemed to roll his eyes more often than not lately. “I don’t like it. You’re trapped if they find you. If they inspect the bridge for anything at all, you can’t get out.”
 

“Dude. When have you ever seen them inspect a bridge so thoroughly in the last few years? The Rebels stopped blowing up the bridges. The Republic has given them no reason to, since they slow at every bridge still. It’s now one of the safest places to camp.”
 

“I still don’t like it.”
 

“You don’t have to. Me and your girl here are sleeping under the bridge tonight. You can join us if you like or you can mope in the woods by yourself.”
 

The rust and graffiti on the bridge blended together like laced fingers. Ono reached out for my hand, and I let him. I don’t know why I did. It made no sense, but it felt honest and right. He held on to my hand as if doing so held him together.
 

When we got to the bridge, he looked uncertain. “It’s easy, really. We just walk out onto it, then climb down where the pillar holds it up. Under it is a concrete bed. It’s a great place to camp.”
 

“Isn’t it dangerous?”
 

“What isn’t?” I dropped his hand so I could keep my balance. “Just follow me, okay? And if you get nervous, don’t look down. Just keep looking forward, but pay attention to where you land your step.”
 

I stepped out onto the rails and left the ground. In between each plank, open air and what lay beneath could be seen in bright lines. It was a strange feeling to look down on the sky, and the tops of trees eventually transitioned into water. Everything was below us, like we were giant birds getting snips and snaps of a view between the boards. When I got to the first pillar, I kept going. The center was where I wanted to be, and when I got to that pillar, I braced myself against the rusted frame. I went hand over foot down into the shadow of the cement cave under the tracks, where there was about four feet of space between the floor of the pillar and the rails above.
 

“Celeste!”
 

“Don’t worry. I won’t fall.” There was a little ledge that jutted out over the bridge-cave (as I’d started to call it), and she sat on it with her feet dangling over. One wrong move, and she’d plummet to her death. Just thinking of it made my breath stop, and I couldn’t bring myself to go near where she was.
 

I leaned back against the rusted metal that connected to the pillar, like it would hold me up in case I began to fall. Xavi was inside the bridge-cave, spreading out sleeping bags. It was shaping up to be a colder night than normal, and we needed to prepare for a cuddle-puddle (a concept I was no longer terrified of). I knew I’d be curled up like parenthesis stacked inside of each other between Celeste and Xavi, and the only thought that came to mind was an appreciation for shared warmth.
 

Celeste yanked on the jerky hanging from her mouth and chewed deliberately. “Come on. Join me. Don’t be a ninny-pants.” She always had the most interesting insults, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. “Fear, you know, is a funny, funny thing. Think about this. You’ll leap onto and off of a moving train, but you won’t sit on this ledge that’s stationary and solid? You choose the things you’re afraid of, Niko, or they will choose you. Now. Come on over.” She pat the open cement next to her.
 

She had a point. I’d been living my entire life afraid of doing the wrong things. I strove to be perfect, but lived in all kinds of fears. Heights? I’d been playing around with them every time I climbed a rock wall. I told myself that was different. There was always another hold to grab onto if I lost one. On this ledge, there was nothing to hold onto if I slipped except open air.
 

I tip-toed closer and tried to push the fear away. Before I got to the ledge, I slid down to my butt and inched my way closer to Celeste until my feet dangled like hers. She was taller, so her legs dipped deeper into the open air than mine. They kicked nonchalantly. They kicked like freedom.
 

I couldn’t help but grin and kick the back of my heels against the pillar. I kicked hard, knowing that not even I could knock it down.
 

And we sat there, feet kicking, chewing on jerky. We giggled while the sun set down lower and lower and lower until it was gone and there was nothing left but the stars and our laughter.
 

I sat on the ledge with my feet tangled up in dangles. To look down gave me dizzy spells, but I did it anyways. Being so far up was still terrifying, and even just sitting there made my heart climb higher than I was— through my esophagus, between my teeth, and out into the clouds. It raced and raced to the point that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to catch it again.
 

“Are you crazy?” Ono asked, and it only made me miss Celeste and all the things she made me face. I hated that she was gone, and I wondered if I’d ever see her again. Gray’s expression when he talked about her was full of the same reverence, and I wished we’d had more time to dig into his stories about her. It was comforting, how I carried people with me through the memories I had of them— how they existed in my mind whenever I shared those stories with others.

“Come on, Flea.” Flea. I found myself going in and out of his two names. They both kept growing on top of each other, meaning something new each time I said them. Flea was such a small name that shared the big story of how we met. It was a story that almost came to a pause for me earlier that day. I had to admit I was giddy that he was still with me. “Choose what you fear, or it’ll choose you! Live a little.” The words were never mine to begin with, but they were starting to fit me. They cocooned me with desire, and I suddenly felt that there was too much life to live. That I’d never be able to live it all if I didn’t satiate every impulse I had in every moment.
 

“You’ll fall.”
 

“Nope. Not in the cards for me, mister. Come on. It’s not so bad once you sit down.” I looked back and saw who I used to be— fear leaning against the pillar with eyes darting back and forth to take in the height of everything around us. I was so much bigger than all of that height now. It felt brave to be in Celeste’s eyes, knowing that she had seen the same fear inside of me, and she had talked me through it.
 

I looked at Ono, and, not for the first time that day, was thankful he’d stuck around. It terrified me, because I’d had this feeling before. I’d already stitched myself to another, and I didn’t want it to happen again. Ono and I were being sewn together in this patchwork quilt life, and he only added pieces that were missing before I met him. He was making things more colorful rather than painful.
 

I gripped one of my hands with the other. I rubbed out all the knots on my palms, like I was rubbing out arthritic needs deep within me, loosening the locks that fear had caged me in.
 

I kept having dreams about Polo. Even though Xavi and I’d grown closer, Polo invaded what I saw when I closed my eyes. I could see him with his head out of a boxcar, his black hair torpedoing in every direction on his head as he laid on his stomach. I could hear his laugh that drew out stories, and how each laugh said something different about what kind of happiness he was feeling.

I woke up sweating against Xavi’s arms. He wasn’t much of a snorer, and he smelled of heat and safety. There was no space between us, but sometimes, it felt like there were things I could never undress about us. Like clothing and secrets. I kept thinking there was something missing under each kiss, like he couldn’t shake his own fears about what we were doing. To be fair, I couldn’t shake the fears either. We both held back so much, and sometimes, we wore the guilt of it all like an old sweater.
 

For him, it went deeper. Sometimes, as we kissed, it felt so heavy, as if kissing me was being disloyal to someone or something else. Kissing me killed him. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I couldn’t figure it out. But I kept getting this sneaky suspicion that he was never mine to keep, although I wanted to keep him so badly.
 

I lifted my chin away from his chest and found his lips in the darkness. They had been becoming more familiar than even my own, but this kiss felt new. It was so dark I couldn’t see, and the kiss kept picking up speed. Slow to start, like a new train leaving the yard, until it was so fast everything felt a blur. Hands that had been so good began exploring places that I thought he understood were off limits.
 

I didn’t think to stop him as his shirt came off, because the gap between our lips was only there for a brief moment, and all I could think of was how to get his mouth back on mine. I didn’t notice the buttons of my shirt popping open bit by bit by his fumbling hands.
 

But then, his calluses met the soft parts of my skin, and I pulled back. “Wait,” I whispered, but he ate that word up too— swallowed it whole with another kiss.
 
 

 
Ono held up the bottle. The brown liquid held a honey-hued glow through the glass. Roderigo’s whiskey. “Have you ever tasted it before?”

“Once, with my friend Polo.”
 

Ono’s legs dipped into the air next to mine and he grinned. He became brave with less coaxing than I had needed. “Not with Xavi?”

“No. Never with Xavi. Have you ever had it before?”
 

“Yes.”
 

I raised my eyebrows. In the 18
^th
, whiskey was rationed in small-bottled servings, affordable to the higher Castes in our Colony. My father got it sometimes, but I never had it. It wasn’t the first time Ono’d admitted to having access to things I never did. “What were you?”
 

He took a swallow from the bottle. He didn’t even cough or sputter or make a sour face. “I used to think I was someone with a bigger destiny. Then, I learned I wasn’t all that important after all… There are things much more important than all of us.”