Toxic

by Lydia Kang

  Against my head, I can tell he is frowning. “Because my story is forgettable.”

  “I’m forgettable, too.”

  “No, you’re not. But I am.”

  He pulls away from me, and I see his face in full. His brown eyes are full of knowing, his arms hanging limply at his side.

  He’s giving up. I don’t know what that feels like. I see him and myself on this decaying ship and think, We are such a terrible, beautiful mess. I do something completely strange and alien to me, and incredibly foolish, because I can’t stand the idea of Fennec no longer dancing.

  I can’t stand the idea of Fennec no longer being.

  I can’t stand the idea of Fennec no longer being with me.

  I reach forward, slip my hands up to clasp his face, and pull him toward me in a kiss.

  Chapter Twenty

  FENN

  I have music in my ears, and a beautiful girl before me, and she’s kissing me.

  She’s kissing me.

  I hardly know what to do, what happened, how I got here. Whether Cyclo has stopped rotating, if I’ve flown off into space, if I’m dreaming.

  What I do know is that her lips are soft, and trembling slightly, and if I don’t unfreeze and react in some way she’s going to run away forever, and that will be a tragedy to end all tragedies. And just when I think, Yes, I’d better start kissing her back, she breaks the contact between us, eyelids fluttering, inhaling because she’s been holding her breath. Her hands fall from my face and hang limply at her sides.

  The music is sweet and aching, and it makes everything incandescently astonishing.

  Her eyes find mine, and she frowns. I must still look a little surprised and shocked. I’m still frozen, and now she’s recoiling, as if her kiss was a crime or a mistake, whichever is worse, and God, Fenn, do something. Do something.

  Live, for God’s sake.

  If Hana’s taught me anything, it’s this.

  Live, while there is life.

  Hana sways away from me and bolts for the door. I wake up just in time and take two huge steps toward her to grab her wrist.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she says, and before one more apology leaves her mouth, I spin her around and crush her in my arms, our mutual gravities finding each other with inevitability.

  My hands clasp her back and waist against me, and I find her mouth with my own and kiss her like there will never, ever be another kiss for the rest of time. Her lips part, and we taste each other. Her hands thread into my hair, and my arms tighten on her so firmly I nearly lift her off the floor.

  Vaguely, in the side of my vision, there are flashing colors. Hana breaks the kiss, allowing me the opportunity to nuzzle her silken neck. Her hands find the hem of my shirt, and one hand slides up the center of my back, pressing me ever closer.

  “Cyclo,” she murmurs in my hair.

  “Mmm?”

  Hana laughs softly. “Cyclo is telling us to stop.”

  I stop kissing her neck to look sideways. The lights flashing around us are a zigzagging array of what must mean distress—yellow, iridescence, and silver.

  “So this is what the ship looks like when her truant daughter is caught kissing a bad boy.”

  Hana laughs, and at this, two long blobs start emerging from the walls, reaching toward us as if to stop us. Hana pulls me toward her, and the door is starting to pucker closed, too.

  “And this is what it looks like when the truant daughter is tired of being safe. Let’s go!” she whispers, and pulls me through before it can shut over my leaping feet. Hana runs down the hallway, laughing, lights still flashing in the walls.

  “Where are we going?” I say. She’s pretty quick, which is such a nice change from when she could barely keep up. Now I’ve got to keep up with her.

  “Somewhere Cyclo can’t watch us. Isn’t there a section of the third ring where Cyclo isn’t responsive to voice commands at all?”

  “Yes. This way.” I turn on my holofeed and head for the sections that Gammand had marked as inert, yet safe.

  We run, hand in hand, like little children on the first day of solstice break. If there were eclipses and supernovas outside of the ship, begging for our attention, we wouldn’t pause a second. I pull Hana into my arms every few minutes for another kiss, and she laughs after we break each kiss, as if some new, gorgeous secret has been revealed, as if there might not be another kiss for the rest of our short lives. Knowing this is true makes each one sadder and more lucent than the last.

  We finally find a small control room in the south beta, only a mere hundred feet away from the whole sectioned-off area infused with the exploded contents of Cyclo’s vacuole. In the distance, we can see the spiky white, waxy wall keeping death at bay. Hana pulls me into the room, and it’s got a center console used for holo work, but now the console is a blank, round dais. I lift her onto it, and she wraps her legs around my waist as she pulls my face to hers.

  My body rises against hers, and all I want is the oblivion that Hana provides, right now, only now. She lifts my shirt off, and after exploring my back and chest with her hands, she pulls her own tunic off and melds herself against me, nuzzling my neck.

  I push her away for a second. “Hana,” I say. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

  “I’ve read the archives,” she whispers, nibbling my ear, which sends ringlets of electricity down my neck and torso. “All of them.”

  “But—”

  “Fenn. I may not know my English idioms well, but I’m very well educated about certain things. I’ve just not…practiced in real life. Not yet.”

  “But what if—we make a—I mean, God, it’s not like it matters—”

  I stare at her belly as I stutter. It’s ridiculous that I’m worried about her getting pregnant. As if we had time and lives for such a luxurious biological event. But if we did, God, I don’t even think my mind could handle such an idea right now.

  Hana smiles sadly. “I’m sterile, Fenn. Mother told me this a long time ago. I can’t have babies. None of the bioengineered can.”

  I don’t know whether to be relieved or to cry. Luckily, we don’t have to worry about all those infections from last century, which were eradicated before we were born. I look back at the door, which is still open. “But what if someone—”

  “Everyone is asleep. Fenn. I don’t care. Nothing matters. Just you, just me. Just now. Kiss me, Fenn.”

  I shut up and let her pull me closer. Somewhere outside of Cyclo, stars are colliding, black holes are collapsing, and galaxies are being born. People are dying, and people are opening their eyes for the first time in their lives. But right now, Hana is the only thing in my universe.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  HANA

  Human behavior is so very odd.

  I should know; I am one of them. But I was created with the precision of an interplanetary missile. Crafted and sewn together like a tailored stuffed plaything built to suit one person—Mother, and what she thought I should be. I am so very unnatural.

  But right now, in the tangle of Fenn’s arms, under the delicious pressure of his lips, I can hardly process what I’m feeling and thinking, except to say, Oh Hana. How very human you have become.

  Fenn and I can hardly bear to part with each other for a few hours. We are a cliché, we are inevitable, we are wonderful and strange and sad.

  We are.

  Somewhere in the aftermath of those hours, we doze in each other’s arms, not even content to withdraw into unconsciousness without each other. My eyelids flutter to stillness, and in my sleep, I dream of Fenn leaving, of Fenn falling into space outside of Cyclo. In a panic, I wake up, only to find myself resting my head on his bicep, my body curled against him. It’s a shock, to have dreams that bring worry and mayhem. They are nothing like the dreams that Cyclo gave me, where there was never an inkling of bad
feeling—only beauty and discovery. But I’m finding that even the worry in dreams means that something in my heart has changed to make me feel in such a way. To worry, to want. And I like it. There is something extremely dissatisfying about perfection.

  Fenn does the same, walking for brief moments of lucidness to touch me, bring me closer. He nuzzles against my neck, and I wonder at some point if Mother engineered my genes to enjoy nuzzling.

  Finally, we awaken slowly at the same time, but it’s not the sweetness of Maia’s starlight rising through the window that rouses us.

  It’s a shout.

  It’s close by. Because Cyclo is not consciously present here in this part of the ship, and thus the door has stayed open all this time, the voice is very apparent. It’s a deep voice, yelling with distress that rises as it gets closer.

  It sounds like Portia. Fenn and I lift our heads from the dais we’ve been sleeping on and see a blur of a tall Prinniad whoosh past our door.

  “What is she running after?” I say.

  “I don’t know, but we better see what the hell is going on.” Fenn pulls on his clothes, and I do the same, but I’m dissatisfied by the end to our night together, how abrupt and bitter reality is. As I head for the door, Fenn catches my hand. He kisses it, the way a man kisses a lady in a storybook from centuries ago, and I love that such a simple gesture is older than anything we’ve ever known. He’s certainly no prince, and I’m no princess, but it pleases me just the same.

  “For last night,” he says, shyly.

  I want to smile because last night was lovely and anything but perfect, but for me, it was everything. I kiss him gently on the lips.

  “For ever,” I say. “Even if we don’t have forever.”

  It’s a clumsy way to say what I feel—that there are infinite spaces in every moment we have. Ones that last for the ages.

  He smiles, then squeezes my hand. “Let’s go.”

  We run down the hallways, and Fenn’s holofeed blinks on, and a voice shouts at him. It’s Portia.

  “Something is wrong in the south beta ring. Really wrong. It’s not like the other vacuole breach—this has to do with the hull.” She hesitates. “Part of the ring has evacuated into space, and Cyclo hasn’t done anything to fix it. Built-in plastrix barriers are still holding for now. But they’re not terribly thick, and they can’t possibly hold for long. Meet me and Gammand in northwest alpha. It seems to be the most stable right now.”

  “Got it.” Fenn looks at me, but I’m keeping up.

  “And there’s something else.” She pauses, and I realize she’s breathing pretty hard. “Someone attacked Gammand last night.”

  “WHAT?” Fenn yells. “Who?”

  “I don’t know. He couldn’t turn on his visor. The attack came from behind, but his inherited Gragorian nervous system has an electrical defense mechanism—it shocks attackers. Someone grabbed his neck. Hard. And his body reacted and survived.”

  “Who was it? Did he see?” Fenn asks.

  “No.” She looks at me hard. “Let me see your hands, Hana.”

  I raise them so she can see them in Fenn’s holofeed. “Portia, it wasn’t me.”

  Portia narrows her eyes, looking hard at my palms. “No. It couldn’t have been you. You’d have burn marks on your hands. Unless they were healed since then.”

  “I’ve been with her this whole time,” Fenn says.

  “Awake? Or asleep?”

  Something in between, I can’t say aloud, but it’s the truth. Fenn blushes, and says, “Asleep, I guess.”

  “Then you don’t know it wasn’t her.” She stares at me. “I want you away from Fenn. I’ll keep an eye on you. I can’t imagine a human can take down someone Gammand’s size in hand-to-hand combat, but if I can watch you, then I will.”

  “It wasn’t me,” I say. “You have to believe me. I wouldn’t hurt him, Portia!”

  “Well, if it wasn’t you, then someone on this ship is trying to hurt us. I can’t get the monitors to do a count of living organisms. If someone is hiding on this ship, we can’t know who it is.”

  “It can’t be me or Portia,” Fenn says. “What about someone from the crew of the Calathus. Someone who stayed behind.”

  “Why would anyone stay behind? Unless they had something to protect…oh.”

  As soon as I say it, my stomach twists. Mother? On board, and hurting people? No. Mother is dead.

  “Well, are you sure she never told anyone about you? It’s possible someone else knew. Someone who wanted you to be here with them and the Selkirk crew ruined the party,” Fenn says.

  “I wouldn’t know,” I say. It’s all so much to consider.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Not yet.” Portia sighs and shakes her head. “Also, there’s more bad news.”

  Ugh, as if I can handle more bad news.

  “The loss of the quadrant ring just decreased Cyclo’s life-span by at least two days. That part of her nervous system was responsible for recycling oxygen residues.”

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Fenn shouts.

  “Come on. We need to find Gammand and redistribute our work again.”

  Fenn abruptly stops running.

  “I can’t take this. Losing more days. More work. I can’t do this,” Fenn says, hyperventilating, his hand resting on his knees as he leans over.

  “You have to. We have to,” I say. “Let’s find out what happened. We have to figure out how to protect ourselves.” I sound so confident, I hardly recognize my own voice. But with every bit of bad news pushing at me, this new instinct in me is to shove back. Hard.

  Fenn shuts his eyes for a second as if trying to reboot. “Dammit. Okay. Let’s go.”

  We take a passageway down to the alpha ring and keep running, with me in front of us so Portia can keep an eye on me from Fenn’s holofeed. They have to believe I’m not responsible for these attacks. I was in Fenn’s arms all night long! It can’t be.

  I orient myself as we keep going forward, remembering the hallways we are in. I walked by them sometime in that first day I’d left my room, but didn’t really understand what they were. The side section of the wall has scooped-out, fractured areas, fifteen feet across. Jagged edges have been repaired by Cyclo, but the fragments that show where the evacuation pods broke off are still visible. There had been a large ship, the Hummingbird, that was scheduled to pick up the crew, but in their haste to leave, they used the escape pods. Like Doran said, this was no quiet, organized exodus. It was panic.

  “When was the crew originally scheduled to evacuate?” I ask.

  Portia checks her own holofeed for a moment. “The crew evacuated a full three weeks before they were scheduled to depart. It’s why they took the escape pods, not the Hummingbird.”

  We round a corner, and by the last few empty pod bays, we see Gammand standing there, chest heaving in breathlessness. He must have just gotten there before us.

  “God, Gammand! It’s good to see you, man,” Fenn says between gasps. “You scared me.” We quickly come to his side, but he gives me a lethal grimace.

  “Get her away from me,” he says.

  I hang back, my hands up to show I mean no harm.

  Gammand looks at Portia’s image. “I was only fifty feet from that section when part of the alpha ring just blew up and broke off,” he says. His eyes are large and frightened.

  “Has anyone spoken to Doran?” Fenn asks.

  “We can’t get through to him. It’s so maddening. As soon as Portia told him about the explosion, he cut out. Like he’s making it harder on us to get this work done. I thought he was a good guy, but damn it. They’re all the same. All of them.”

  We reconvene at the bridge, but our group feels hopelessly small. Fenn and I can’t stay too close—Portia is watching me carefully. Portia and Gammand look through our equipment, trying to fig
ure out how the smaller experiments they were supposed to launch today can also handle getting all the info that ReCOR wants. Everyone’s expression is closed and stony.

  All the while, Portia and Gammand glance behind them, around corners before they walk. As if there’s a ghost onboard, trying to stalk them. And they look at me, too, once in a while, as if some hidden part of me might leap up and tear out their throats.

  I don’t say this aloud, but what if I really have hurt people in my sleep? Mother gave me UV spectrum vision. She tried to weave history and culture into me by making me look like her Korean ancestors. But it makes me wonder. Am I only as important as the pieces that Mother mixed into me? If maybe, just maybe, there never has been a Hana. My name means “one,” like the Korean word for the number, but my history isn’t nearly as clear or simple. Maybe all I ever have been is pieces of a whole. And maybe I’m not even aware of the fact that Mother made part of me a killer. A killer so gifted that she keeps secrets even from me.

  “I have an idea,” I say. “Miki’s biomonitor. We still have it. I think I should wear it.”

  Fenn raises a hand. “Hana, you don’t have to—”

  “I want to.”

  Gammand rummages around and picks up Miki’s biomonitor. The one that’s broken. “I can make this work as a tracker, but only that. It won’t have anything on her biometrics. I’ll get it cleaned up and reregister the device for her.”

  Portia nods, as does Fenn. I’m not thrilled to have this thing in me, but if it gets us some answers, I’m willing. To find the truth.

  “After this, we’ll stay grouped,” Portia says. “Hana, you’ll stay with me. Fenn and Gammand will stay together.”

  At this announcement, Fenn’s shoulders drop. It means we can no longer be together, alone. Gammand notices; he points to Fenn.

  “This trip isn’t about living out your last hopes for romance, Fennec. Deal with it.”

  “Shut up. That has nothing to do with anything. Hana isn’t the killer. I know it.”

  “And you have evidence how?”

  He doesn’t. I know he doesn’t. He looks at me helplessly, but we can’t even speak of us as a unit until we figure out what is going on with the attacks.