Regenerate

  I carefully help him place Jo in the cart. She’s also tattered and covered in soot. A cloth that I think is one of her aprons has been wrapped around her head like a bandage.

  “What happened?” I breathe. I can’t contain my shock at their tattered state.

  He’s gently adjusting Jo’s position in the cart as he answers, so I can’t see his face. “I got her out seconds before the bombs went off. Shrapnel from her house hit us like a shockwave and threw us across the yard. It was a miracle we weren’t both killed or sliced to shreds. Jo hit her head on a rock when she landed and has been in and out of coherency ever since.” He straightens and shifts his shoulder pack.

  I throw my arms around him. “Lander. I was so worried! I thought the two of you were dead for sure.”

  My salty tears mix with the sweat of his neck. He places his hands on my waist and holds me against his strong frame. But something seems off. His hands tremble, and I feel the shudder of it move through his whole body. I pull back.

  “Are you all right? Did you break anything?”

  His eyes glance down at Jo for a moment and his response is just a note too slow. “No. No, I didn’t break anything. I’m fine. Did you save your mom?”

  I study him carefully, but nod. “Yes. She’s safe.”

  “Good.” He gives a small, tired smile and wipes at the back of his neck. “Averi, stop looking at me like that; I told you, I’m all right. We need to get Jo off of here and stabilized.”

  “Ok,” I say. “Let’s do it.” He’s lying; he is not fine. But what isn’t he telling me?

  First thing in the morning, we tend to the injured as best we can and clean everyone up. We’re all a pretty sorry sight, covered in rubble, smoke, cuts, bruises and blood. Lander and Jo are by far the worst though.

  The gymnasium, which has become our temporary residence, rings with a constant disorderly din that can be heard from several yards away. The Lost wail and moan over their missing tech and physical discomforts. Without their devices they’ve been left with nothing to distract them from their deteriorated physical conditions.

  We four GAPs and the surviving Grands decide to scour each of the buildings left standing, to collect all the food and do a final check for survivors. Lander and I head over to search the school’s food-prep center next to the gymnasium. To get there, we have to pass through tuber hall.

  The long corridor is void of people, and the squeaking sound of our shoes echoes off the azure brick walls. There’s a heaviness between us, but Lander doesn’t say anything.

  “This is the first time I’ve ever been in tuber hall,” I say, glancing around at the various charts and forms plastered to message boards. “We all avoided it like the plague. But this isn’t as dingy or messy as I’d thought it would be.”

  Lander says nothing, but his shoulders are tucked up and his fisted hands are buried in his pockets.

  My steps feel suddenly weighted. I look him over once and blink. “Did they have a tuber hall where you grew up?” I ask.

  His mouth hardly moves as he answers. “Yeah. They did.”

  We reach the prep room doors and he pushes one open, holding it for me with a sweeping gesture. The motion and his smile look strained. “After you, Miss Gouch,” he says, the hint of his smooth façade present.

  We work in total, deafening silence, filling two baskets we scrounged with all the food packets we can find.

  I peek over at him. His jaw is set and he works so fast I’d think he was racing someone. He always gets upset at the mention of tubers. Why?

  As we close the last cabinet, I turn on him. “Lander, why are you edgy about Artificials? Did your Grand help create them? Or were you somehow friends with one?”

  Lander crosses his arms and his fiery blue eyes watch me. He sets his teeth askew and shakes his head. “I can’t slip anything by you, can I?”

  I cross my arms too, my brow raised and my fingers drumming a rhythm on my arm.

  He drops his chin to his chest and sighs. “This really isn’t a conversation to have right now.” Head still down, he squints up at me. “You’ve been through a lot these last few days.”

  I raise my arms and drop them. “I don’t care.”

  “You will.” He sighs again and tilts his chin up to the sky. His heel bounces on the ground like it’s spring-loaded. “You’re not going to like it.”

  I laugh. “You begin a lot of our conversations that way.”

  He doesn’t laugh with me. Instead he works his jaw side to side and levels a steely gaze with mine. “Yeah, but this one, you really won’t like. As a matter of fact, I think you’ll hate me afterwards.”

  My throat goes dry and my insides feel shaky. “What? Are you married?”

  He bursts out laughing, and that bright smile of his melts the growing chill in my bones. I take a deep breath.

  He meanders to the wall next to me and braces his arm over his head against it. Holy crap. He looks like one of those hot, digital models on the fashion site.

  His laughter dies down to a chuckle then fades into a slight smile. “If only.”

  My smile fades altogether. I wrap my arms tightly around myself and try to swallow but it sticks. “Then what is it?”

  He wets his lips and meets my eyes with that squinted, searching gaze. “I’m not a GAP, Averi. I’m an Artificial.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I think the wind just got knocked out of me. “You’re a—a tuber?”

  Color rushes his face. He frowns and straightens, placing his hands on his hips. “That’s what your kind like to call us.”

  I hold up my hand for him to stop a minute while I find something to lean against. The counter will have to do. I press my palms against my forehead. “Run that by me again. You’re a test-tube child? As in: no biological parents?”

  He blinks and stares at me flatly. “Correct.”

  He’s lying. He’s got to be. “But, they all died or were severely mentally impaired. How—”

  “How can I be what I am and function normally?” he interrupts, an edge to his tone.

  I just nod.

  A warped smirk flickers across his lips. “You in the colonies were only informed of preliminary trials, that’s how. Did you really think they’d stop trying just because they ruined a few thousand children’s lives? No. They initiated the GAP program to buy them time so they could work out the kinks of the Lazarus project.”

  My hands fall limply to my sides. “Lander Lazarus Finch,” I murmur. “That’s why Jo recognized your name.”

  Lander is pacing. I hate the cool indifference radiating from him. “She’s a lot quicker than the rest of you—and a lot less prejudiced, I might add. Too bad you didn’t inherit that from her.”

  I flare and jump up from my perch against the counter. “Shut up! What do you know about inheriting anything from family?”

  “Nothing.” He turns on me and stomps closer. “That’s my point. You have a whole lineage, legacies to shape and guide you, and yet you barely know them. I would’ve died for even just one. Instead I have a file of serial numbers recording the terminated lifeforms that suffered so I could exist. And there’s nothing I can do about it.” He pauses and runs a shaking hand over his mouth, his eyes glossier than before. “I live each day seeing some of those who are the closest thing to siblings I could ever have being treated like dumb beasts, and I have no way of helping them become more. I could’ve just as easily been one of them, were it not for my placement in the lineup of specimens.” The word hisses through his teeth.

  A hard lump rises in my throat at the sorrow and bitterness in his voice. I reach out and touch his shoulder with the tips of my fingers. “I’m sorry you don’t have a real family, Lander. I had no idea. I didn’t know anyone like you was even possible. Honest.”

  His face twists with pain, yet his eyes soften, taking me in. He backs away and starts pacing again. “No. It’s not your fault. I know. I’m sorry. I really wanted to help you find your family. I wanted
you to have the reunion I never can.”

  Emotion is stinging in my eyes. I walk towards him until I stand in his path on the smooth, polymer floor. He stops a foot or two in front of me.

  The morning sun shimmers through the window and backlights him with red and orange hues. I take in the masculine lines of his form. He looks perfect—flawless even in this upset, ragged condition. I don’t think I’ll ever be such a picturesque being. There’s nothing wrong with him. He is every bit a person as the rest of us. I recall the sight of him carrying Jo for miles, a woman he barely knows, for a girl he believes dislikes his kind. In many ways I think he is more human than the rest of us.

  I slip my arms around him and hug his body to mine. His heartbeat is hammering in his chest as I press my cheek against him. “Lander, you may not have a bio-family, but you’re as real a person as anybody. And you’re someone that means the world to me.”

  Slowly, his arms slide around me too. “Thank you, Averi.” He swallows, and when he speaks it’s much softer now. “Most Artificials in my series tested low in their ability to form healthy human connections. I was in a very small percentile. Even so, I doubted myself. But with you, I don’t feel that way anymore. Connecting with you isn’t any effort at all. And that scares the crap out of me.” He chuckles.

  I chuckle too. “I think I can relate. Caring about somebody means you can get hurt.”

  He presses a hand against my head, holding me tight and his voice pitches a little. “Yeah. Exactly.”

  I shut my eyes and breathe him in. He smells musky and masculine, better than any cologne I’ve smelt. It makes my pulse thick in my veins and my head cloudy. Can I just stay here forever? My heart feels so full. As strange as it seems, I get him. I understand who he is, at least mostly.

  After a long, quiet moment, we pull back. As his hands slide over my shoulders and down my arms, I feel them tremor again.

  “Lander, what’s with your shaking? Is something wrong? I’ve never seen you do that before now.” I bite my lip and wait for his answer.

  He smiles and pats my cheek, then steps back, a wisp of sorrow in his gaze. He opens his mouth to speak, but changes his words just before they come out. “It’s nothing, Averi. I’m just a little chilled this morning.” He swallows, but it takes extra effort. His eyes dart away and he clears his throat. “I’ll be fine if I keep moving and warm up. Let’s get these supplies to the stockpile.”

  He lifts the basket, turns on his heel, and is out the door before I can see or say anything more.

  He’s still hiding something.

  I rub at the sudden sharp pain in my chest, then pick up my basket and follow. Whatever else he didn’t say, I can’t even begin to guess. Lander is an Artificial. If he could keep that a secret till now, he could be hiding anything. But why would he still hide it from me?

  Our day is filled with administering medicine and trying to bring some order to all this chaos. Since the hydro towers are out of service, we collected all the food from them and added it to our stock. That was Jett’s idea.

  Lander’s avoiding me again and it’s killing me. Not only am I trying to wrap my head around him being an Artificial, but for most of the day yesterday, I thought he and Jo were dead. All that agony only to find that they survived, but Jo is badly hurt and Lander, once again, is keeping secrets and doesn’t want to be around me. What gives?

  I thought that Lander’s revelation about his lineage would resolve him always pushing me away, but it seems to have done the opposite. Is he mad at me now?

  As much as I can, I spend my time with Jo, administering her tinctures and sitting by her side, holding her hand. I shove down the sinking worry that she won’t pull through. Jo’s a fighter. She’ll be ok.

  Before Jo lost all consciousness, she told Lander where a stash of tinctures was buried, and which ones to give her: black walnut for bleeding, desert barberry root for infections, desert lavender and mugwart for swelling. Every hour or so, I drip those in her mouth and rub them on her feet. Lander is helping me this time, changing out the dressing on her head wound with fresh bandages we found in the health offices.

  “You’re doing it again, Lander,” I say, dripping tincture onto my palm and rubbing it over the soles of Jo’s feet.

  “Doing what?” he asks. “This?” He indicates the bandages in is hands.

  “No. Avoiding me. Are you mad at me? I mean, when I asked about why you get edgy, I had no idea that reason was—you know. Cause if I’d known, I never would have dreamed of prying like that. But I just thought it would help, because I always seem to be offending you and I couldn’t figure out why. But I totally get it if you’re—”

  His smile and the sideways glance he gives me, makes me pause.

  “You really are cute when you do that,” he says. “It’s like the landscape of your thoughts stretches out perfectly for me to see.”

  I shut my mouth and look away. I personally find it annoying that I do that babble thing. “Sorry,” I say.

  His brow furrows. “Why are you sorry? I just said I enjoy it.”

  I turn my scowl on him. “Why are you avoiding me again?”

  His hands shake a little as he starts wrapping the next bandage. He’s still not warmed up? Maybe he just strained all his muscles yesterday. It would make sense. He carried Jo in his arms for miles.

  “I’m sorry I do that,” he says. “I can see how much distress I put you through, when you thought I was dead or dying, and I don’t want to keep hurting you like that.”

  His words make me blink and shake my head. I put the next tincture on my hands and apply it to Jo’s feet. “Keep hurting me?” I say. “How would staying away make it so you don’t hurt me?”

  His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, and his stiffened posture tells me he is deliberately not looking at me. “Nothing. I just seem to put you in distress all the time. Even now, for example. I sometimes wonder if you’d be better off loathing me.” He finishes wrapping the bandage, and then his shoulders give a slight tremor.

  I feel slapped in the face by what he just said. “That is the dumbest line of thinking ever. Don’t push me away in the name of protecting me. The whole point of me not going with the evacuation was so I could have a choice. That means not even you get to choose for me. If my choice in who I care about brings me distress, then it brings me distress. That’s part of the deal that comes with choosing, isn’t it?”

  His tongue bulges into the bottom of his lip and his gaze is distant. Then his expression smooths. He turns and looks at me with a smile, but the pinch at the corner of his eyes looks like the gesture is forced. “Thanks, Averi,” Lander says. “I’m glad you see it that way.” Then he rises abruptly and leaves.

  At the end of the day, we GAPs sit down for our evening meal. I struggle to look past the ocean of Lost spread out around us, vocalizing their discomforts.

  “How are we ever going to feed and take care of all thirty-one Lost we pulled out?” I say, more to myself than anyone.

  “One day at a time, Averi,” says Lander. He tries to give me a reassuring nod, but his head pitches to the side a little in a movement that doesn’t look natural. He turns away from me quickly and absorbs his focus into eating.

  Jett speaks up between shoveling bites of food into his mouth. “As soon as this foot of mine heals up, I’ve got to take off to find Kachina. She’s going to be so freaked out and ticked. Greg, the security officer, said he can draw me a map of how to get there.”

  My stomach feels hollow but no longer hungry at the change in topic.

  “Are you planning on us walking the whole way?” asks Rax.

  Jett dishes more rice onto his plate from the pot. “Heck no. Do you have any idea how far it is? I figure I’ll take the electr-o charger off the bi-ped and use my own strength to peddle it. Then I can ride the tram’s tracks all the way.”

  “Sounds like an old-school bike to me,” I say. “I saw one of those at Jo’s place.”

  Jett’s chewing slows as h
e considers the comparison. “Yeah. I guess it will be, except for the chain. These things are magnetically propelled.”

  “Great idea, Jett,” says Rax, his voice subdued. He’s hunched over his bowl and doesn’t look at any of us. “I’ll help you so we can get on the road as soon as possible.” Mechanically, he stirs his food. His eyes raise barely enough to meet mine, then he looks back down and keeps stirring.

  Lander chimes in. His speech is more rushed than usual, and almost slurred. “You need to be careful if you’re taking the tram tracks. Marauders will be watching it for travelers to rob.”

  “Good point,” says Jett. “Thanks.”

  Lander’s shoulder and head twitch a little. It’s like a nervous tic I once saw a cleaning tuber at school have. Lander’s hands are trembling as he tries to scoop his next bite. He catches my stare and sets down his fork and quickly folds his arms, hiding the tremor.

  “Lander, are you ok?” I ask.

  A shiver runs through his whole body and he fidgets uncomfortably. “Yes. I’m fine. Stop n-nagging me.” His blue eyes are unusually stormy and his posture is like a brawl waiting to erupt.

  I pull back, my nose suddenly stinging.

  “Hey, don’t talk to her like that,” Rax snaps. His teeth lock together, and he tosses his chin my direction. “She’s just asking how you are. What’s your problem?”

  “Y-you’re my problem. All of you are!” Lander says. He flings his bowl on the ground, spilling half his rice, and stomps away from our circle.

  We all stop eating and watch him go. Jett scratches his head, while Raxin’s fist curls into white knuckles around his spoon.

  I hurry and finish eating then run out to find Lander.

  The stench of ashes and burning remains hits me as I step through the doors, carried on the cold wind. I wonder how long that smell will linger in the village. It’s a horrific reminder of yesterday’s scene and today’s reality.