by Marita Smith
It was a brilliant plan. Robyn wished she’d come up with it. Terence looked at Catherine as if she’d just announced a cure for cancer, whereas Derek had the face of a sullen teenager who’d been picked last for the sporting team.
“So we can use the blood bank to get a reading on what percentage of the population is genetically preprogrammed to be convergers. Then we need to figure out how to trigger it.” Terence nodded as he spoke.
“Let’s test ourselves,” Derek said, his gaze challenging.
Catherine’s hands fell. “Us?”
Robyn stared at Derek. Her mind felt fuzzy and slow. “It’s pretty unlikely any of us will have the gene sequence.”
“Statistically, it is possible,” said Terence. “We’d be perfect test subjects for the vector, if we manage to create one.”
“I … I guess.” Catherine ran a hand through her hair, glancing sideways at Robyn.
Robyn slid from her stool. “I’ll get the needles.”
Derek held up four vials. Blood always made Robyn feel sick – something about how the viscous crimson liquid stuck to the glass. She looked away as Derek racked and passed them to Catherine. Derek was at her elbow the moment he offloaded the samples.
“Robyn, you okay?”
She nodded. His concern made her feel guilty, though she didn’t have anything to feel guilty about. Maybe she was coming down with something. That would explain everything, right?
“Just tired,” she offered. It sounded lame, even to her.
Derek stepped back. “Okay. Well, I’m going to start on the vector. Terence?”
Terence tipped his head. “Yeah, I’m thinking bacterial plasmid first for petri dish testing, then we fiddle with a viral vector.”
The words washed over Robyn like a foreign language. Accident victims could spontaneously forget their native tongue and start speaking another language. She’d read it somewhere. Maybe that was what was happening to her. Derek threw an anxious look in her direction before he and Terence disappeared into the electrophoresis room.
“Right,” Robyn muttered to herself. She’d never felt like this in the lab before. At the hardware store, supermarket, doctor’s surgery: yes. The environment outside the sterile walls of the lab was alien to her. Doing adult things like booking haircuts and paying bills were nuisances designed to throw her off her game. For the first time Robyn felt overwhelmed within the hallowed halls; the sanctuary of the lab was crushing and dark.
Everything had flipped upside down after one night nestled against Catherine. Catherine had ripped a huge gash into the walls she’d built painstakingly, brick by brick. She’d been safe, content, in that little world. Kara and Kate, her cramped office, her research. Now all that certainty had leaked out, leaving her stranded and unsure of the rules. She craved structure, needed the rules. Without them she didn’t know who she was.
Robyn clapped a hand to her right eye in a vain attempt to stop the throbbing pain there. The mini-centrifuge whirred from one of the glassed rooms, sending its high-pitched wail keening through the lab. In her peripheral vision she saw Catherine stalk toward her. Robyn scrambled backward, her butt hitting the bench as Catherine stopped centimetres from her. She wanted to reach out and shove Catherine away. She was still angry at her but couldn’t trust her hands not to pull Catherine in closer, to crash their lips together. The thought left her reeling. Her eye pulsated with pain as she brought her hand away.
“Thanks for helping me, yesterday.”
Robyn noticed long eyelashes, the sharp angle of her jaw. She replayed the satisfied smirk and gritted her teeth.
“You’re welcome,” Robyn said stiffly, reaching back to the bench to support her quivering legs. The centrifuge pinged and Catherine turned away.
“Who will be eliminated this week?” said Catherine. She paused in the doorway. “Find out after the break.”
Catherine’s dazzling smile before she disappeared brought fumbled, staccato laughter tripping from Robyn’s lips. What the hell is happening to me?
Robyn collapsed onto the lab stool, staring at the pages Catherine had left sprawled on the counter. Dyke. It was what they’d called Lyndsay back in grade nine. One syllable, with the power to draw blood. Travis had called her the same thing when he terminated their not-quite-a-relationship: weeks of kissing on his couch that always ended with Robyn peeling away his roaming hands. It had felt like a physical slap. The make-out sessions ended, and if Robyn was truly honest with herself, she’d been relieved.
But now, she was freaking out.
26
Lab Rats
Ariana hovered in the deep, turquoise water; she could see light shimmering far above her head. The pod of dolphins had nudged her offshore, and now she loomed over the edge of the continental shelf – an underwater cliff disappearing into a dark abyss. Ariana shivered, despite her wetsuit. Even the glow from Jericho’s scales didn’t penetrate more than a few metres into the gloom. The dragon snaked through the water in a figure of eight around her waist. Ariana held out a hand to his flank and emptied her thoughts, staring through the dark water. A shadow moved in the depths, and Ariana jerked backward before she registered the familiar mind.
You know what is coming. It is time for you to learn, walker. You must earn your scales.
The water resonated with the thrum of sound. Ariana relaxed into it, letting it wash over her. The hypnotic humming noise echoed how she felt when she crossed over to the spirit world. The whale’s mind was huge, encompassing her very being and flooding her senses as if she’d dived straight into the murky depths before them. The blue aura enveloped her, and memories began flashing before her eyes – a tropical beach lined with rough-hewn canoes, a jagged spurt of a foreign language, bright luminous coral. Ariana inhaled, a stream of bubbles escaping her mouth. Her gills flared. It all felt familiar.
The enormous whale raised her eye to Ariana’s face. Ariana swore she could see the entire universe in the galaxy of her retinas.
I am ready.
Kara hunched underneath a blanket on the sand, looking murderous. “It’s been hours,” she moaned. “It’s freezing out here.” Wind whipped along the dune and Ariana shivered as she cleared the water. Kara threw her a thick towel.
“Thanks,” Ariana said, cocooning herself in it. She sank down onto the sand and rummaged in the backpack. Terence had made her favourite – spinach and peanut butter. The spread oozed out the side as she bit into the sandwich. Kara made a face.
“I already ate mine.” Kara waved a hand as Ariana made to dig into the bag again. “Just peanut butter, thank God. How can you eat that stuff?”
Ariana shrugged. It’d always been her favourite. “I need to spend some more time in the sea,” she said between bites.
“Not this afternoon. I’m heading home before I catch pneumonia,” said Kara, rubbing her toes.
Ariana shook her head. “Weeks, maybe months. There’s a lot I need to learn.”
“Let me get this straight. This sea spirit, embodied in a ginormous blue whale, wants you to take an ocean vacation? To what, learn sea magic?” Kara flopped back on the sand.
“Kind of,” said Ariana. “Atlantis chose to live fully in our world and left the spirit realm behind eons ago. She’s taught all the sea walkers.”
“That’s heavy, man,” murmured Kara, bringing her arms across her face. “I guess it makes sense, with your spirit energy aura. You must be able to do things we can’t.”
Ariana folded the empty brown paper bag into a neat square. “There hasn’t been a walker in centuries. There’s a lot that needs to be done. We’ve screwed up the seas more in the last few hundred years than ever before. If I’m going to be helpful when it all happens –” Ariana waved a hand weakly in front of her. “Then I’ve got to get ready.”
Kara propped herself up on her elbows. “Yeah, Robyn made me watch a documen
tary last year. I cried,” she admitted. “Though I’ll deny it if you tell anyone.” Kara sighed. “This end-of-the-world stuff is pretty depressing.”
Ariana stared into the surf. It was calming, the predictable rush and suck of the foaming waves. In and out, like breathing. It was hard to imagine everything crashing to a stop. Even harder to imagine she could do anything to change it.
“I don’t know if your brother is going to like the idea of you gallivanting around the oceans with a whale for an unspecified amount of time,” said Kara.
“That’s why you’ll help me convince him,” said Ariana, getting to her feet and dusting off her hands. “Come on.”
Bowls clattered as Catherine ladled soup. Robyn inhaled. Pumpkin wafted from the other end of the counter. Her new strategy was a cunning one: maintaining distance from Catherine and Derek. Kara would label it juvenile, which was why Robyn didn’t plan on telling her. Did that make it doubly juvenile?
Bowls were passed down the chain with hunks of sourdough balanced on their rims. A pot plant sat in the middle of the counter. Bright yellow gerberas. Poppy was having a field day.
Terence feigned a drooling fit as he dunked bread into his bowl. “Divine. Thank you, Catherine.” He patted the empty stool by his side. “Sit next to me, master chef.” Yes, stay on the other side of the counter, Robyn thought.
Catherine grinned as she settled in next to Terence. Robyn turned her attention to her own dinner. The soup was earthy and sweet, spiked with cumin and paprika. She forced herself to eat, even though she wasn’t hungry. The thudding behind her temples had raged into a full-blown headache as she’d tried not to get underfoot in the lab. After she dropped the second vial of denatured DNA, Terence had relegated her to the computer where she could do less damage. Catherine had locked herself away with their blood samples. The Next Top Model reveal would probably come later. Robyn was too tired to even care about the screening results.
To her left, Eli slurped his soup straight from the bowl, ignoring his spoon altogether. Sara sniggered playfully.
Eli shrugged. “What?” he said. “It’s really good.”
Robyn rubbed her temples and stared through her soup. The doors swung open with a clang as Kate staggered in under the weight of something that looked like a medieval catapult.
“Trebuchet. Pimped out thanks to yours truly,” said Kate as she heaved it into a corner. Robyn realised she’d been staring.
“Wow,” Robyn muttered. The smell of untreated pine lingered in the air as Kate dusted off her hands.
Eli put down his bowl and wiped his chin on his sleeve. “It was great. Una loved it.”
Robyn tried to imagine the osprey seizing clay discs from the air. She would have loved to have seen it. Robyn jabbed her soup with her spoon. Nobody would miss her if she disappeared. Terence and Derek had been doing fine without her, and Catherine had somehow managed to cook dinner and simultaneously run the blood samples. Great, functioning adults through and through.
She was about to excuse herself when the doors flew open again. Ariana padded in on bare feet, accompanied by Kara.
“Yes, we made it back in time for dinner,” hissed Kara. “I’m starving,” she added, flopping theatrically onto a vacant stool. “Just inject it straight into my veins.”
Everyone at the table froze.
Kara blinked. “Oh, sorry, that’s not what I meant.”
Sara paled and pushed her bowl away. Jacob pulled it toward him and swiped a hunk of sourdough around the sides.
“I need to go train with Atlantis,” blurted Ariana into the silence.
Kara groaned. “Ariana, we talked about this. It’s called subtlety.”
“This is really happening. If I can become a better walker, I have to try. If there’s anything I can do, anything at all – you’ve got to understand. I have to try.”
Kara held up a hand. “Ariana will have a radio, so she’s always got us on speed dial. Not to mention spirit world hi-fi. She needs to do this, guys.”
Terence toyed with his fringe. “I was wondering when this would happen. That first morning, when you got your gills – I knew it would only be a matter of time.”
“Is that a yes?”
“We still have a lot of work to do here before we’re going to be remotely helpful. You’d be bored out of your brain hanging around here. I know you’d hate me if I stood in your way.”
Relief flooded Ariana’s face. “Thank you.”
“Ariana’s right. We have separate tasks in our common goal. I really do think you are destined to bring humanity back from the brink.” Terence tipped his head toward Ariana. “Just like we’re trying to restore the forgotten links between living creatures. And now we have a deadline.”
Robyn raised her head. A terrifying deadline. She wasn’t sure how humanity could bounce back from a total loss of technology. If it was even possible.
Derek stood up, pushing his stool away. “You’re going to entrust your sister’s safety to a whale? You’re freaking kidding me.”
Anger flared across Ariana’s face. “She’s not just a whale. She’s the water spirit, and she can help us, Derek.”
Terence sighed. “I trust Ariana, and by extension, Atlantis.”
Derek glowered.
“What about me? And Eli?” said Fletcher.
Sara humphed under her breath.
“Forgetting anyone, chief?” Jacob snorted.
“All of us,” amended Fletcher with a guilty look.
“Atlantis is the only spirit we know of,” Robyn said. But there were others. She frowned, hitting the solid mind-block again. “There’s no point in the rest of you splitting up. We need to lay low, at least for a while. Maybe together you can find some answers.”
“I don’t think Robyn is suggesting we write a bunch of letters to politicians,” said Jacob as Fletcher opened his mouth to protest. “She’s right. As shitty as Beijing was, maybe this has all happened for a reason. You guys –” he pointed to Fletcher, Eli and Ariana – “are special. I’ve seen it. You can do things no human should be able to do.”
A timer dinged by the stove and Robyn’s stomach clenched. Please, no dessert. She didn’t think she could manage it right now, not when her stomach felt like it was wrestling her appendix. She just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep. Catherine jumped up and stopped the shrill sound.
In her own bed, wrapped in a fort of blankets, Robyn amended. Very much alone.
“Elimination time,” Catherine announced. Robyn stared for a long second before it clicked. The screening test. Next Top Model.
Catherine twitched an eager hand in front of the printer.
“I mean, the odds are none of us will have the genes, right?” Robyn said. Her headache was being held at bay by ibuprofen and sheer willpower. She suspected the painkillers were doing the lion’s share.
Derek leaned against the bench, arms folded. He was wearing one of those gaping singlets that gym junkies wore. He must have changed after dinner. Robyn felt like she would have noticed. Maybe the distance thing is working.
“Oh my God,” said Catherine, clutching the printed pages to her face. “Two positives.”
Catherine locked panicked eyes with Robyn, then her gaze skated over to Terence. Robyn’s stomach resumed kick-boxing her appendix.
“Robyn and Terence.”
Robyn blinked stupidly up at Catherine. She’d never thought it would be her. Sara’s pale face flashed before her eyes. If they managed to figure out how to trigger this, she’d be like Sara or Jacob. Robyn had never even had a proper pet before. Racing snails didn’t count, even if they’d blitzed the Cobalt Valley Show when she was eleven. God, what if she bonded with a gastropod? It’d be dead within a week, crushed under somebody’s shoe.
“Jesus Christ,” echoed Terence, as if reading her mind. “I need a drink.”
; Terence leaned back against the counter, cradling a glass of whisky. Robyn swallowed a gulp of the burning liquid and winced as it hit her stomach. It was probably unlikely she’d bond with a snail, she rationalised. Alternatives kept flashing through her mind. One of those yappy rat-dogs, like a Chihuahua. Or worse, an actual rat.
“Okay, so we’ve got our lab rats,” Robyn said, trying to keep the note of fear from her voice as she gestured to herself and Terence. “I guess all we need now is to perfect a delivery vector.” What if it is marine? Robyn choked on her next sip of liquor. She had to stop every fifty metres when she did laps, clutching the side of the pool like a life raft. I’m going to be a terrible converger.
Derek nodded, draining his own glass. “We’ve figured out a suitable bacterial plasmid for basic trials. We’ll need to do some culturing studies, then it’s going to take time to scale it up to a viral vector.”
Terence rubbed his glasses on the hem of his shirt. “This sort of stuff takes years to get approved. We only have months.”
Derek poured himself another glass of whisky. “Then we need a mass inoculation system. Fake vaccination program, maybe. Or aerosol delivery over cities.”
Terence blanched. “We’d be playing God on a massive scale,” he whispered.
“We have to,” Derek frowned.
“No.” Robyn’s voice came out louder than she’d intended. “There has to be another way. If we can find these people, like I found Fletcher, maybe we can just, well, ask them. Tell them everything and let them decide if they want to activate the convergence genes or not.”
“We can’t take that risk,” replied Derek, hands curling into fists by his side. “What if the MRI finds them first?”
Catherine surprised Robyn by stepping in. “We’re not Fang. We don’t make decisions for other people. We’re not going to mess with the biochemistry of innocent people when our treatment is so untested. It doesn’t even exist yet.”