Vagabond (25 page)

“Okay.” He looked relieved to get away from the girl with a temper. I turned and walked lazily out the door, even though I wanted to sprint. I hoped he didn’t realize a headlamp was missing before I got out of the store, but luck stayed on my side.
 

When I got to the rendezvous point where the others waited with our packs, Polo was already there. I couldn’t tell if Xavi looked relieved through the glares he threw at me. Polo had already told the story of how I bamboozled the clerk with my brilliance.
 

“That was stupid, Niko,” Xavi growled. “You put yourself at an unnecessary risk.”
 

“I’m fine,” I promised.
 

“Relax, man. She had it.” Polo stood up. His lopsided smile fell off his face, and he shot Mari an annoyed look. I’d only known them a few days, but I knew they had ways of passing messages through their eyes.
 

“You don’t know her,” Xavi spat.
 

“Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t know her?” Polo retorted.
 

Polo wrapped me into a hug. “Set the headlamp to red. It’ll give you enough light, but won’t be too bright. I’ll call you in to the others. Let them know not to shoot. Get past the Tracks before you turn it on so I have time to radio you in.” He whispered it in my ear so Flea couldn’t hear. “If you run into a Rebel, use the code word ‘Broken Spoke’ to let them know you’re not a danger.” He squeezed me one more time and let me go.
 

“Be safe, Polo,” I whispered.
 

“By the Bond.” He grinned. “Bye Niko.”
 

Chapter Sixteen

I crossed over the tracks, and Ono followed. I heard the crunch-crunch of his boots on the gravel-grass, but that was it. I didn’t speak, and he didn’t speak.
 

I knew I rode a steady fence between being involved with the Revolution and being free. In many ways, I kept learning more than I wanted to, and it made choosing a side impossible. In my heart, I knew Republic wasn’t bad. The G.E.G. was trying to save Humanity in its own way, but the Vagabonds didn’t deserve death for being on the wrong side of what was right.
 

When we reached the rails, I took a deep breath and positioned the headlamp on my head. What if Polo couldn’t get through to the others? What if they shot when they saw the light? Then again, it’d be foolish of the Rebels to shoot at someone so haphazardly when so many of their own people were hidden in the dark already.
 

I clicked the lamp on and waited for what came next.
 

“She’s perfect,” Xavi whispered. The toddler had bouncy blonde curls as if she wore slinkies in her hair. Brown eyes, bigger than any brown I’d ever seen, hovered over sunken cheeks. She was hungry, and she let us know it the entire time.
 

Tangles nodded. The mother wouldn’t give us their names, but her hair was brown and unruly, rat-nesting in places she never brushed. We climbed into their boxcar, but they were planning on switching at the yard while we intended to go beyond it. For the half-day we traveled together, Xavi was fascinated by Curly.
 

“Where’s the father?” he asked.
 

“Drifter,” Tangles said.
 

Worry crossed his face. A mother traveling alone was a dangerous combination, and the Militia wouldn’t care that Curly was just a toddler. She was a threat and could contain mutations that would throw back entire generational lines if she bred. I blushed when I thought of this— when I remembered I still believed this. Here Xavi was, holding this child and cooing about all her perfections, and all I could see was an abomination.
 

When we finally reached the trees, they blotted out the stars. They cut into the sky and stood sentinel over the tracks. It felt ominous to walk into them. However, to know Rebels were hidden a few miles away made me want to move even faster, before the world began to pick up speed and I couldn’t keep up with it.
 

Ono grabbed onto my pack as we entered the trees, and I shook my body to make him let go. “You can go your own way now,” I said. Now that we were far away from the fire and so much else was about to be crawling through these woods like black, shiny ants, I wanted to move fast and alone.
 

“Yeah, right. I’m staying with you.”
 

“Flea—“
 

“Paramonos. My name is Paramonos.”

“Flea. You need to go. I can’t go back to the Colonies. Even if we had ten perfect children together, your father would never accept them. If he was willing to kill my parents, what do you think he’d do with our potential children?”
 

This shut him up, but he re-looped his hand into my pack.

“I don’t want you with me,” I growled.
 

“You don’t mean that.”

A new idea struck. He was supposed to infiltrate the Revolution. If he went back and followed the tracks instead of me, he could complete that mission. Polo practically gift wrapped the code word for me, and once Polo met up with everyone, he’d sniff Flea out. Flea’d be off my back without betraying Polo. “You realize you’re missing your chance,” I said.
 

“Huh?”

“Polo and the others. What do you think they are?”

Xavi flapped the sleeping bag into the air to fluff out the staleness while I sat on a stump to watch the fire. I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen to Curly. He caught the look on my face and smiled before pulling me into a kiss. I was learning his kisses. They were their own language and this one said, “Don’t look so sad.” I must have looked entirely pitiful, because he rarely used that brand of embrace.
 

“You’re thinking about Curly, huh?”
 

I nodded.
 

“Wondering how she can survive out here? How she could even exist since geneticists didn’t have a hand in her creation?”
 

I nodded again. My stomach was in knots. I was afraid of the child, and the realization made me sick. Xavi’d played with her— peek-a-boo— and she just laughed and laughed. The innocent happiness broke my heart in secret places.
 

“Wondering how someone could put a toddler through a life like this?” He continued.
 

“How could they be so ignorant?” I finally broke down. It was the one thing he didn’t think to worry about, but it was the biggest thing that was bothering me. “It’s dangerous. She could collapse an entire line—“
 

“Wait. What? Don’t tell me you still believe that?”

“You don’t?”

“You have to change how you think, or it’ll be the end of you out here. On the Tracks, there is no such thing as the G.E.G.”

I stood up and backed away. I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I couldn’t believe he was actually defending the atrocity we just spent hours with. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” And he didn’t. He hadn’t seen what I’d seen in the labs. He’d spent his life on the Tracks. He couldn’t possibly know.
 

“I do.”
 

“How? You’re just a Track-kid. You’ve never—“

“And you think that makes you smarter than me? You think people on the Tracks are worthless because they don’t contribute to some genetic line? You think I’m worth nothing?”

“I didn’t say that.”
 

“Oh, but you did. You think I’m genetically inferior to you. If you only knew! But you don’t. You know nothing about me! Nothing about my past, and you’ve learned nothing since we’ve met! I thought you were opening your eyes! I thought you were finally seeing!”

Tears grew hot, hot, hot on my face. “I— I—“

“If you really think that way, what’s this?” He waved his hands at the space between us. “What are we? Are you telling me that, when the time was right, if we were ever ready, you wouldn’t want a—“

“A child?” The horror of it shredded my tears away so that only disdain was left. “Out here? A child? What kind of life would this be? We weren’t partnered. We could create a genetic—“

“Abomination?” His voice grew soft and wrapped around the world like he held sharp metal between his teeth. “I used to think as you do, but believe it or not, it was you who taught me to think differently.”
 

“Stop. Just stop. I can’t—“

“Shhhh. Listen.” His ears pulled out the silence until a crack in the brush was louder than our fight. “Who’s there?” Xavi yelled.
 

A boy came out of the trees and grinned. “We come in peace.” There was laughter in his eyes, which were as brown as his skin and as bright as his smile. Another boy and two girls peeked out from around the tree. They had this energy about them that was instantaneously unobtrusive. I knew there was nothing to fear, and I was relieved they cut our fight in half. I didn’t like arguing with Xavi. It was like walking with boots on the wrong feet. Had I known I wouldn’t get the chance to smooth things over with him, maybe I’d have tried to fix our fight right then and there? But the future was something I was never able to see clearly.
 

 
“I’m Grins,” the boy said. “This is Mabel, Maddy, and Sharky. And her over there, she’s new to us.” A girl walked out from behind the others. She was pretty in that weird kind of way, with eyes that were too green and legs that made me jealous. “That’s Annabeth.”
 

“If you want to make your Daddy proud, it’s your big chance. Why do you think I have to bounce so quick? They’re about to raid one of your precious trains.”
   

“You think I didn’t figure that out already?” Ono laughed. “You weren’t as subtle as you thought.”

I turned to keep walking. I pushed a tree branch out of my way, and I knew by the sound of the thwack that it hit him in the face. He still didn’t let go of my pack.
 

“Nikomedes. Please.”
 

“Get it through your head, and get it there fast. I. OWE. YOU. NOTHING. I won’t go back to that life. I can’t. So you might as well go fight your war. I’m not some trinket you can parade back to your Daddy.”
 

“Do you love him?”
 

I sighed. “Polo’s a friend.”
 

“I knew that part, of you wouldn’t have left him. But there’s a different reason you don’t think you can come with me. Do you love Xavi?”
 

“You already know the answer to that, but it doesn’t matter, does it? Xavi isn’t here.”
 

“But I’m here. I won’t do what he did. I won’t leave you.”
 

“Paramonos, eh?” Daddy grinned at the name. He’d been bringing up the boy’s name as the weeks went by. One year was all I was given for my goodbyes. It wasn’t a word that sunk in yet.
 

Goodbye.
 

How was I supposed to say it?
 

Travel wasn’t easy between Colonies, and my children would never be close to their grandparents— at least not on my side of the family. It didn’t seem fair. “He’s pretty important, from what I understand. You’re moving up so many Castes with this match, my little genius girl!” We sat on our porch and took in the night.
 

Next to Daddy, I saw the year I had left with him disappear. One year? It’d go too fast. The thought of leaving home became too much. “I don’t want to go,” I whispered. “I want to stay with you. With Mama.”
 

The porch light screamed in shadows, and it only made Daddy look older. He was growing into an antique face, and I knew I got my eyes from him. I got other things from him too. Because of him, my heart was solid and steadfast, I knew right from wrong, and I knew what it meant to love in all the right ways.
 

“I know, but you have to go,” Daddy answered. “You could still refuse, but you’re too stoic for that. You’ll do the right thing. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but I’m putting in for a transfer. Since your mother and I are already matched and willing to agree to sterilization, we have a good chance of coming with you. We’re willing to do it— for you.”
 

The news caused me to hope anyways. Genetic lines were a currency in the Republic, and my parents still dreamed of having another kid. They petitioned every year and never lost hope with every rejection, even though the reason for it sat at their dinner table every night— me. To give up that possibility completely was too big of a sacrifice. “Daddy. You don’t have to—“

“It’s not a sacrifice. You being partnered up so many Castes is an honor. It’ll be worth giving up our chances to witness yours— see where it all goes. All these years, we thought there was something wrong with us, and now we discover… You have no idea how wonderful it is to have others see your child as you do. You’ve always been the world to me. You’ve always been special to me. But now, you’re special to the Republic.” Daddy hugged me with all the tenderness he could muster. “I’m so proud of you. We want to come with you.”
 

“Guys! I’m home!” Mama yelled as she closed the door behind her. “What’s for dinner?”
 

Daddy smiled. There was something he loved deeply about her, and it didn’t make sense to me. I knew people always ended up loving their partner, since chemistry never lies, but Daddy and Mama seemed on a different plane. Other couples never seemed to have knowing looks and inside jokes to their degree. Even the way Daddy lit up when Mama came home was different, like he was getting a surprise each time.
 

He patted my shoulder before going inside to greet her, and I was left to stare at the night that was too yellow under the lights of the Colony.
 

He was too earnest to be lying, and if he was after the Rebels, they were right there at his fingertips. He was willing to ignore it all to prove his story, but every kind word or gesture would never bring my parents back. It was a wrong he could never right. I knew it wasn’t his fault. I knew he wasn’t to blame. But I would never be able to face the Chancellor without denying the urge to cut his stupid, selfish throat out.