Pulse Point

by Colleen Nelson

  “I’m sorry,” Gideon said. “You left for nothing.”

  I swallowed back a lump in my throat. “Yeah.” I turned away so he couldn’t see my tears. “We’re taught to fear you,” I said, sniffling.

  He gave a wry smile. “And? Are we terrifying?”

  Yes! screamed in my head, but I didn’t say it out loud. Besides Gideon, the rest of them terrified me.

  On the other side of the trees, the camp settled in for the night. Fires died and conversations ended. “Tell me about the thing in your finger,” Gideon asked. “How does it work?”

  Talking about my pulse point wasn’t what I wanted to do, but it was a distraction. So, I began explaining about ‘Energy In Equals Energy Out’ and the gymnasium. He asked about my family and friends, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about Sari and Lev. Instead I told him about games Lev and I played as children, floating boats on the stream and running from bridge to bridge to see whose had won.

  “Is Lev your brother?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “A friend?” Gideon prodded.

  He had been more than a friend.

  Gideon tilted his head at me. I picked up a small pebble. Worn smooth, it settled comfortably in my hand. I thought about Mae and the pain of losing her. I looked at Gideon. We were nearly the same age, yet his life as a Prim had toughened him. He exuded strength and confidence unlike anyone in the City.

  “I know it didn’t seem like it at first, but you’re safe here,” he said quietly. “I promise.”

  I let his words fill up the empty holes left by Lev and Mae. And Sy, who’d sent me outside unprepared, filled with false hope.

  “Come,” Gideon said, picking up the torch. “It’s quiet.” He was right. He reached his hand out to me. Momentarily dizzy when I stood up, I grabbed it. His grip was firm and reassuring, but unfamiliar. As soon as I was on my feet, I let my hand drop, trying to ignore the lingering warmth of his touch. He let me move ahead of him as the path narrowed, one hand resting on the small of my back, guiding me. My back stiffened at his touch.

  Stumbling into the clearing behind Gideon, I looked at my surroundings. The scent of wood smoke was heavy in the air and a few fires still smoldered. Thirty shelters ringed the open area. By the light of Gideon’s torch, I wondered how buildings made with such a variety of materials stayed standing. Stones stuck together with hardened mud formed the base, and above that, logs and things salvaged from before made the walls.

  Only one fire remained lit. As Gideon walked towards it, I fell back, watching. There were four people sitting around it, perched on logs and rough-hewn chairs. They were shadows, their faces cloaked in darkness, the flame sputtering against their legs.

  “Gideon!” A man, older, ruddy-skinned, with wiry arms and legs, came forward and embraced him.

  I hugged my arms to my chest and stayed hidden in the dark. He came towards me until he stood an arm’s length away. Gideon held his torch up high and I saw the lines carved in his face, around his eyes and along his mouth. Unruly hairs shot out from his eyebrows, some grey, some black. He looked unkempt and slightly mad.

  “What’s your name?”

  My pulse quickened. Their attention made me nervous.

  “Kaia,” I whispered.

  “I am Chief Ezekiel, the leader.” He moved towards me quickly and grabbed my wrist, pulling my hand up to his ear. I tried to yank it away, but his grip was strong, the tendons in his arms taut with the effort. Holding my four fingers down, he raised my index finger to his ear.

  “It’s broken,” I said. But even if it wasn’t, a pulse point wasn’t like a heart. It didn’t make a sound. There was no point in explaining this because he silenced me with a look, his bushy eyebrows furrowing together as he listened.

  “Can they track you?” he asked.

  I shook my head and kept quiet about the overseers in the valley. They’d have made it to the Mountain by now, but finding me would be almost impossible. Even with months of searching, they might never locate the Prim camp tucked away in the trees. I guess I’d been lucky that Gideon and Akrum had found me, otherwise I’d be wandering too.

  He frowned and he sighed. “But, you don’t know. None of the refugees know. You come to us, seeking refuge, but care nothing for the harm that might follow.” While he’d been talking, Gideon moved to my side. I shifted closer to him, wondering if the Chief could sense my dishonesty.

  “She’s hurt,” Gideon said.

  The Chief’s eyes flickered over to him. “Akrum told me.” He bent down to examine my knee. He motioned for the torch to be lowered and held it so close to my tunic that I worried it would catch fire. The flame licked and twisted. And then his hands were on my leg, warm and rough, like dried leaves, turning it to get a better view. I held my jaw tight with distaste, wishing he’d get his filthy hands off me.

  By the light of the fire, the three Prims with him surveyed me. What did I look like to them? Blistered red by the sun, my own clothing ripped and dirty, a bloody gash on my knee, my short curly hair standing on end.

  “The healer left this morning. Gone to collect supplies on the other side of the Mountain. When she returns, she can look at the wound. See what can be done.”

  “And until then?” Gideon asked.

  Ezekiel went inside his hut and returned a moment later with a jar. “This paste will help. Rub it on the wound. Perhaps we can give her a few more days.”

  A few more days.

  “She will need a place to sleep,” Ezekiel pointed out.

  “She can stay with me. I will sleep outside,” Gideon added quickly.

  Ezekiel nodded. “Sleep well,” he said. Was it a touch of sarcasm in his voice?

  Gideon nodded and bowed his head, respectfully. “Follow me,” he said.

  At one end of the camp, a cave mouth yawned wide and dark. A tower of stones, stacked to look like a body, sat outside guarding the entrance. “That’s where you go if there’s trouble,” he told me. “And that’s my shelter, over there.” He pointed to a small hut. “It’s just me, so it’s small. But I can add on to it later, when I have a family.” Gideon gave me a sidelong glance. I could feel his eyes running up and down my face. “Are you disappointed?”

  I turned to him, not sure what he meant.

  “In our camp. Is this what you thought it would be like?”

  Up until yesterday, I hadn’t given a Prim camp much thought. Even now, I was too overwhelmed to make sense of where I was. “It’s dirty,” I said. It was the first word that came to my mind. The clinical cleanliness of the City, the white light the City was bathed in, didn’t exist here. “And dark.”

  “It looks different in daylight,” Gideon said. He held open the door to his hut and stuck the torch in the ground outside. Firelight glowed through a square of glass. I could make out a small cot, a table and one chair. “It’s simple, but it’s home.”

  I took a step closer to the bed and stifled a scream. “What is that?” Lying on the bed was a mass of hair.

  “What?” he asked.

  “That!” I pointed.

  “This? Fur. It keeps us warm.”

  I shuddered, disgusted.

  “It’s from animals we trap. We sew their hides together.”

  “I’d rather freeze than have that thing on me.”

  Gideon laughed. “You’ll change your mind in winter.”

  There was an awkward moment as we both realized I wouldn’t make it that long.

  “I’ll get you a different blanket and use the fur outside.”

  I nodded, weak with fatigue. As soon as Gideon pulled the fur from the bed, I collapsed on it. Ignoring the musky Prim odour, I shut my eyes and let sleep take me away.

  Lev

  Kaia was half-Prim? Was it possible?

  Raf refused to let me rest, berating me if I sl
owed my pace. Maddeningly, he wouldn’t tell me anything else about the experiment, claiming he didn’t know. Could I believe him? In the back of my mind, I wondered if what he’d told me was a lie, some elaborate story invented by Tar.

  “You’re quiet,” Raf said. He’d turned us back towards the stream after finding no more signs of Kaia deeper in the forest. He kept muttering that she couldn’t be far. Twigs and branches snapped under our feet and unfamiliar bird calls filled the forest. My suit was muddy, dirt smudges covered the arms and legs. I’d taken off the face mask and pushed the hood back to hear and see better, no longer worried about exposure to the sun under the dense forest.

  “I’m thinking.”

  “About Kaia,” he guessed.

  She was all I could think about. “Maybe she left because she found out.”

  Raf shook his head. “About being a half-breed? Doubt it. The information is secret, only the female who birthed her and a couple of overseers who were guarding the Prims knew. None of them would have told her.”

  “What about Sy? He must have known.”

  “The project leader knew what would happen if she told anyone.”

  I frowned at Raf’s back as he walked ahead of me. “Kaia’s birth elder died years ago,” I said. “Kaia had never said how. Do you think—”

  Raf held up his hand, cutting me off, and froze mid-step. A branch cracked in the forest. We waited for another noise, but when none came, we kept moving. I glanced over my shoulder. The feeling of being watched hadn’t left me.

  “It explains why Tar wouldn’t let me match her,” I said, more to myself than to Raf. But he made a noise of agreement in his throat anyway.

  “And now you’re out here, chasing her,” he said, his voice a grim reminder of the irony.

  “What will happen to Kaia when she’s back in the City?”

  Raf didn’t answer right away. “They’ll do experiments. Breed her. Harvest her blood for its antibodies, or whatever she has that makes her able to survive out here.”

  If she survived out here, I thought and a sick swell rose up my stomach.

  “If we find her alive, she’ll already have proven the most important thing: that interbreeding can make a better specimen.”

  “She’s not a specimen. She’s a Citizen,” I muttered.

  Raf stopped short and turned. “She’s a half-breed.”

  I could have backed down. It wasn’t worth arguing with him. He didn’t know Kaia, but something about the disdain in his voice got my back up. “She was raised in the City. She has a pulse point.”

  He scoffed. “Her blood’s not pure. That’s why Tar wouldn’t let you match with her.”

  “Yet, as you pointed out, we’re out here searching for her.”

  “Only because we need her. We need to know what it is in their blood that makes them stronger than us,” he growled.

  “She is ‘us’!” I yelled back.

  Raf took a deep breath and closed his eyes, “Stay calm,” he muttered. He opened his eyes and looked at me. “The hormone surges are making our tempers flare.”

  I glared at him, still angry. “The what?”

  “In the City, our pulse points control our hormones. It’s the only way to ensure we aren’t ruled by emotions, keeps aggression to a minimum. Now that our connection with the City is broken, emotions are taking over. We’re untethered. It explains the dizzy spells I’m getting. You’re a bit younger than me. Maybe they won’t affect you the same way.”

  I watched Raf hike a few paces ahead of me. He had disappeared into the trees and a minute later I was alone. Truly alone. What if I left Raf and followed another path? I could find Kaia, tell her the real reason we were tracking her. And then what? Make sure she never returned to the City? No! Prim blood or not, she belonged with me. I wasn’t like Raf, repulsed by the idea of who her real birth elder was. How could I be? I’d known her my whole life. The truth about her progenitor didn’t change how I felt about her.

  But what if Raf was right? How could I bring her back knowing what lay in store for her?

  Unless…I thought of Tar’s desire for me to be a leader. As a leader, I could keep Kaia safe. The possibilities clashed against each other until my head spun.

  Behind me, the trees rustled. That bird called again, its voice cutting through the silence, and a branch snapped. My heart pounded. What was I thinking? I couldn’t survive out here. And neither could Kaia. “Raf!” I shouted. “Wait!” I barged through the trees until his white survival suit was within reach.

  “Keep up,” he grunted.

  ⌓

  The day had dragged on with no more clues. I kept my eyes on the ground along the stream hoping for a footprint, something to tell me we were on the right track. Raf had finally agreed to a break. We’d taken turns sleeping on the damp ground while the other one kept watch. He’d let me go first and I drifted off seconds after putting my head down, not caring about the cold that seeped through the suit or the stones that dug into my back.

  But when it had been my turn to keep watch, I’d counted the seconds until I could wake Raf. I jumped at every noise. Sitting still left me vulnerable and too aware of the alien forest. I regretted all the times I’d cursed the boredom of overseeing. What would I give to be back on the balcony, looking out over the gymnasium floor? My thoughts kept straying to Kaia. Where was she? Had it been Mae’s balancing and my match with Sari that had pushed her to leave? Or something else? Had she learned the truth about who she was?

  A growl deep in the forest made me nudge Raf awake with my foot. “Raf, get up.” Raf’s eyes flew open. He stretched and sat up, but looked as exhausted as he had before the nap.

  “Already?” he groaned.

  I didn’t tell him that my rattled nerves had cheated him out of equal sleeping time. He stood, shaking out his limbs, and grabbed his canteen. He drained it and went to the stream. Squatting on his haunches, he filled the canteen with water and peered up and down the opposite shore. “The stream’s narrow here. Maybe we should walk on the other side for a while.” He didn’t wait for me to reply as he crossed.

  “I thought we’d have caught up to her by now,” Raf said. I gritted my teeth in annoyance. It was the hundredth time he’d said that since we’d got to the Mountain. “We’ll search until midday tomorrow. If we haven’t found her by then, we’ll have to go back.”

  “And leave her here?”

  Raf set his mouth in a grim line and turned to me. Over the gurgle of the stream, he said, “Every minute we’re on the Mountain puts us in danger. The Prims could have her hidden at one of their camps. Or maybe the beasts found her. We could be risking our lives searching for someone who’s already dead.”

  I opened my mouth to argue but the words froze on my tongue. Behind him a pair of yellow eyes glowed from the bushes. “Raf!” I screamed. My warning came too late. Five beasts leapt out of the forest and surrounded Raf. They were enormous, shaggy-haired creatures, with humped backs and thick muscular hind legs. Raf crouched down, hands up, ready for combat as the animals circled him. One, the largest, bared his teeth, snarling. The others followed his lead.

  I stayed where I was, watching, racking my brain for a way to help. Raf didn’t look at me. His eyes were fixed on the biggest beast. The alpha flicked his head and a smaller beast leaped at Raf, knocking him to the ground. The others held their position, ears back, hackles raised, watching.

  Raf kicked the beast off and rolled away, but it lunged at him again. This time, Raf pounded it on the snout. With a yelp, the animal backed off. The others jeered at him. Was that possible? That these beasts could laugh at each other? The attacker silenced them with a snarl and lunged again.

  On the other side of the stream, I was ignored, all their energy was focused on Raf. They circled him, teeth gnashing, moving in closer. “My stick!” he yelled at me.

  It was lying by
his pack. I grabbed it and tossed it to him, but it landed on the ground too far to do any good. I picked up some rocks and hurled them at the animals’ flanks, but missed. I ran closer, splashing through the shallow water. As soon as I was on the other side of the stream, the alpha turned and barked, his yellow eyes now trained on me. With a slow, menacing stalk, one of the other beasts came towards me, shoulder blades jutting out of its coat as it approached, and let out a low, bone-chilling growl.

  “Raf!” I yelled. I threw a rock, but my hands shook and I missed. The animal’s eyes narrowed, teeth bared. A trickle of warm pee ran down my leg.

  I looked at Raf. He kicked at a beast and dove for the walking stick, dragging it to him. Swinging his weapon, he kept his back to the stream and walked towards me. Each time a beast got close, he whacked it. The beasts were growing frustrated, their snarls more harried. “Raf!” I yelled again. I was defenceless. Stupidly, I’d left my knife in my pack and I didn’t have a stick to swing at them. Raf kicked at one of his attackers, making contact with its soft underbelly. The animal yelped and Raf kicked it again, so hard it flew backwards, and then it scampered up and hobbled into the trees.

  Before the alpha could bark another command, Raf went after him, the walking stick spinning like a wind turbine, and he hit it on the snout, then kicked its jaw. The stunned animal retreated, slinking down towards the forest but never taking its eyes off Raf.

  The beast coming for me slunk closer, a low growl deep in its belly. When it opened its mouth to bark, I jumped. I could taste my fear, cloying and bitter, it rose off me like a stink. I scrambled across the stream, trying to get to my feet before it came at me. But it stayed where it was, like the stream was an invisible wall.

  A spear cut through the air and hit the animal. With a shriek of pain, it spun around. Raf’s walking stick was lodged in its hindquarters. Raf raised his arms and let loose a deep, primal scream. He stomped through the water, ripped the walking stick out of the wounded creature, and beat it. The animal howled in pain and fell on its side. The alpha barked and the others retreated to the forest, scurrying through the underbrush.