Catalyst

by Lydia Kang

  “I can’t believe you’re here. I thought Julian would keep you locked in your room for ages.”

  “I did too,” I say. “I think he let me come to dinner for a reason.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Micah comments.

  “Listen,” I whisper. “We need another plan to get out of here. Just in case things don’t work out with Sean.”

  “You think Sean is going to turn on us?” Micah asks.

  “I don’t know. But really, who’s spent enough time with him to know what he’s really like? Or even how he’ll act when Julian’s no longer around? I don’t want to find out the wrong way that we’ve risked our lives for nothing.”

  “But there’s no other way out of here,” Cy says.

  “There’s one way out, but we can’t do it without scuba gear.” I grimace. “The underground river. Only the water kids have used it. Tennie told me. He said that they go deep underground. But they can’t survive outside, so they’ve never left.”

  Cy holds my hand tightly. “Maybe we can swim out of here.”

  “How?”

  He lifts his sleeve. His forearm is now covered in slick blobs. I touch one. It’s got that rubbery feel, like Ryba’s skin. The skin flakes!

  “But how do we know they’ll work on our skin? How will we get enough to cover ourselves? All of us?” I ask, worried but excited.

  “I can ask Cela if there are any more flakes from when Ryba first arrived,” Cy says.

  We jump to attention when the transport doors open. A few more kids arrive for dinner, but no Julian yet. We only have a minute more to talk.

  Micah leans in closer. “Are the water kids going to lead us out? What if they want to come with us?”

  “They can’t survive on land without a dousing every few minutes,” I say.

  Everyone has the same panicked look as I do. There are too many cracks in a plan that isn’t even whole yet.

  The door to the transport opens and Julian enters with Renata trailing behind like a trained dog. We all scatter to our seats and concentrate on our food. No one talks about Victoria or the sick kids.

  No one fights here anymore. No one is even brave enough to mourn Victoria.

  For a few minutes, we all eat, or pretend to eat, pushing the soft dabs of purple potatoes around on our gilded plates. The transport doors open, and everyone turns to see who’s bold enough to be late to dinner.

  Caliga enters. She wears no makeup, and her white hair is messily tied in a knot. A simple day dress of crumpled linen hangs from her delicate shoulders. No gown, no jewels. Julian stands up at her entrance, and everyone braces for something—an acid comment about tardiness and hygiene, perhaps. Instead, he meets her as she approaches the table and extends his hand.

  I hold my breath. No; we all hold our breath. Caliga flushes bright red. She hesitates, then tentatively touches her fingertips to his palm. When Julian’s only reaction is to smile, then we all know. Caliga’s vaccine worked.

  Julian walks her to the table and sits right next to her. The other kids stare shamelessly. As the dinner goes on, Caliga doesn’t eat a single bite. Renata is living misery in her orange silk muumuu, and Julian oozes contentment as he heartily shovels the synthetic filet mignon into his mouth. I haven’t spoken to Sean in so long that I wonder if he’s still inside that man.

  Cy won’t look at me at all during dinner. In fact, he spends the whole time staring at Caliga, as if he’s angry with her for some reason. Finally, she stands up.

  “I’m tired, Julian. I’d like to retire.”

  He nods and excuses himself, following her. As Caliga walks by us, she drops her napkin and Cy quickly reaches for it at the same time she does. He hands it back to her, but she says, “Thanks. Don’t wait up.”

  Ugh. Such a flippant thing to say, considering. Everyone watches as Julian and Caliga retreat to the transport. I can’t help myself.

  I run to her, nearly knocking my chair over, only to see her frightened blue eyes swallowed by the closing doors.

  Micah comes to me. “C’mon. Get back to your room and pack. Cy and I are going to stay here to try to work on plan B.” I nod and enter the transport with several other kids, including Xiulan.

  “We know you’re trying to leave,” Xiulan whispers in my ear.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to lie. I tried to leave too, when I got here.”

  I don’t know what to say.

  “Xiulan—”

  “It’s okay.” She forces a smile, a single curved line of disappointment. When the doors open to our floor, we walk together and I stop in front of her room.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her. For what my dad did, for being here, for everything.

  “Don’t be. Nothing that’s happened is your fault.”

  She’s the only person to say this since I arrived. Her words make me feel light and airy, as if it were possible to unhitch myself from the earth itself. Because she’s right. None of this is my fault. But I can take responsibility for what I can and will do going forward. The sooner I get out of here, the sooner I can help the rest of them get out.

  “Good-bye, Zelia. Don’t forget us.” She kisses my cheek and afterward, flashes optimistic spots of blue and yellow. “And good luck.”

  When I get to my room, I quickly change into the sturdiest clothes I can find. I order my bots to leave me alone, and they recede into their wall units so I can pack in peace. I put a change of clothes into a bundle, add some scavenged toiletries, and Ana’s carefully wrapped glass unicorn. And then I wait.

  My crimson bracelet has become a second thought lately, but now I stare at it with an intensity that would burn holes. When it falls off, we’ll be on our way out of here. Anticipation tingles in my fingertips. I can’t wait.

  Five minutes go by. Then half an hour.

  It should have fallen off by now. If Julian hasn’t succumbed to the sedative, then Sean can’t help us. And Caliga no longer has her trait to protect her.

  I jump off the bed. I have to help her. Julian’s a foot taller than Caliga and she’s been so fragile lately. She’ll never be able to fight him off. I touch my bracelet to the scanner on the wall and it bleeps at me.

  Fifty-five minutes to curfew.

  I close my eyes in thankfulness. I open the door and hear footsteps approaching. It’s Micah, running straight to me.

  “We’ve got to go. Now.”

  I grab my bundle and Micah practically pushes me to the transport.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. Caliga said that by eight o’clock, the deed would be done. And if it didn’t work, to go on without her.”

  “What?” I stop moving so abruptly, my feet skid on the floor. “No. We have to get her!”

  Micah grabs my hand again, buzzing my skin from anxiousness. “She’s our only chance now! During dinner, Cy told her there was another way, to say the word and we’d abandon everything and come get her. But you heard what she said after dinner, didn’t you? ‘Don’t wait up.’ She wants to be the bait. She’s trying to help us. Cy thinks we can actually escape from the underwater river. He talked to Cela and everything after dinner.”

  Before I can ask more questions, Micah drags me into the transport and we zoom down to the lowest level.

  The doors open to the damp air of the water cavern. At the water’s edge, Tabitha, Cy, and Élodie talk heatedly with Ryba, Cela, and another water person I remember seeing at one of the meals, a guy who looks twenty. Tabitha’s skin is still fur free. She must need to be shaved at least twice a day to keep it that close to her skin. Her grooming bot must be exhausted.

  “How do you know we won’t need more?” Tabitha asks Cy, extending an arm.

  “We won’t know until we try.” Cy picks up a container and opens it, showing a huge pile of opalescent,
glass-like flakes. “Ryba’s skin. Cela kept the pieces that fell off her when she was sick. They still exchange oxygen when reconstituted. Okay. Ready?”

  “Yes.” Tabitha picks up a flake the size of her palm. “Here goes nothing.” She dips the crystalline flake in the water, and it immediately turns into a gel-like thing, translucent as milk glass. Tabitha lays it on her fuzz-free arm and Ryba’s skin molds over hers, the way it did on me when I put it on.

  “How does it feel?” Cy asks.

  “Like I’m being kissed by a jellyfish,” she laughs. Ryba’s not as thrilled with the comments, and recedes into the water to glare at us all. With Cy’s help, they apply the rest of the skin pieces, focusing on her cheeks and forehead, her neck and upper chest. “We need to put in on the places with the richest capillary network. The places where you flush.”

  After they’re done, Tabitha lowers herself, shivering, into the water. “I wish I had my fur back,” she says. As she slips under the surface of the water, Ryba holds her hands and stares in her eyes as bubbles issue out of Tabitha’s nose. A minute goes by, then another. Maybe this will work after all.

  “You’re sure that our bracelets won’t explode, swimming out of here?”

  “Positive. The lowest caverns go well below the boundaries of the perimeters of Avida and Inky,” Cela says.

  “I still can’t believe you didn’t leave already,” Micah says.

  “We couldn’t. Without another body of water nearby, or intermittent rain, our skin would dry out. We tried to leave for a few hours once, but we could barely handle it.”

  “Which is why I’m coming,” Tennie says, walking up behind me. He already has his pack ready to leave, and is wearing nothing but swim shorts. The stump on his right hand waves cheerfully at me. “I can ionize the air around them every few minutes to keep them from drying out. Long enough to get to Lake Michigan.”

  “And you didn’t think of this before?” My eyes are huge with disbelief.

  “Well. We haven’t actually spoken since—” Tennie touches his stump. He and Cela give each other measured glances. There is some sort of truce going on here that I’m not privy to. “And anyway, I can’t hold my breath worth a damn. We had no idea this skin thing would work.”

  “So it’s all worked out? What about Caliga?” I add.

  Micah touches my hand. “Zel. We already talked about this. It’s a done deal.”

  Cy bristles at Micah’s words. I open my mouth to argue, when I realize that won’t accomplish anything. Words aren’t going to save Caliga, but something else might.

  Me.

  Suddenly, Tabitha bursts out of the water, blue-lipped and air-hungry. She coughs and sputters, panting hard. Ryba is right next to her, frantic with worry.

  “What happened? You were fine for the first few minutes!”

  “I don’t know. I got so cold, and then it just stopped working. I got short of breath.” She’s still breathing hard, and she pulls herself out of the water. She shivers and I touch her skin, which is cool to my fingertips.

  “It’s her skin temperature,” I say. “The blood vessels in her skin are all constricted, and she’s not absorbing enough oxygen. The water kids must already be adapted to the temperatures and have their own vascular network built for this. The only way this will work is if we make our skin flush like crazy.” I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to remember my pharmacology holo lessons from Carus, several months ago. I turn to Cy. “What could we use?”

  “Maybe a niacin analog, or a nitric oxide producer. I’ll find something, and get the extra skin samples from the lab.” He runs to the transport, and I go after him.

  “You can’t go. Stay here,” Cy says.

  “I know.” I lean into him and kiss him on the lips. I wish I could kiss him for an hour. Maybe a whole day, but there’s no time. So I thread my fingers into his hair, as if all future kisses were bundled into this one moment. Every night we won’t spend together, every happy and sad moment. Just in case.

  “What was that for?” Cy says, when he recovers from my embrace.

  “For luck.” I try to keep my tears back. “You know everyone has to leave before the top of the hour,” I warn. “Our bracelets will start torturing us if we’re still in Avida. We’ll have to go, no matter what.”

  “I know,” he reassures me. “I’ll be right back.”

  After he leaves, Micah finds me staring at the closed transport doors. I wave my bracelet, and an empty one opens up. He grabs my arm.

  “Hey. Where are you going?”

  I turn around to face him. “I forgot something. Something important,” I whisper. “If I’m not back in time, then leave without me.”

  “What are you doing?” he whispers back. We look over his shoulder, but everyone’s still discussing the plan, not paying attention to us. “We’re this close to leaving. You’ll be able to see Dyl again. Don’t screw things up for yourself!”

  “You mean for you?”

  “No.” He looks at me with more honesty in his face than I’ve ever seen. “The best thing I could do to make things up to Dyl is to bring her you. You’re seriously ruining my apology plans.”

  I smile. “Dyl’s not my only sister anymore.” I shake my head. “Just promise me this. Leave if I’m not back in time. Tell Cy I said so. You owe me.”

  Micah nods, face distraught with helplessness, as I step into the transport.

  CHAPTER 25

  MICAH IS SMART TO NOT ACCOMPANY ME. It’s a suicide run, and he knows it. It’s obvious who inherited a self-preservation gene between the two of us.

  When I reach Julian’s quarters, the doors are locked.

  “Julian,” I say. “Let me in.”

  A few seconds go by. Julian coms my bracelet, sounding very far away. “Not now. Come back later.”

  “I have something that you want.”

  “It can wait.”

  “I’m talking about the list. Where all the traited kids are, and how my dad made them. I know where it is.”

  There is a pause in the air. It ends with the door sliding open, like a mouth inhaling. The octagonal library is lit with a golden haze that shines over the beautiful, glistening watches, all frozen in time. The door to his inner bedroom is open. I see Caliga sitting on an armchair, wearing her frumpy dress. Her bottom lip is swollen and split, and blood dots her dress. Her face is white with fear and she shakes her head at me.

  She wants me to leave.

  “Where is the list?” Julian says, mussing his hair, then folding his arms. He then quickly unfolds them to plunge his hands into the pockets of his pants. Oddly, he looks nervous. As if I’m the intimidating one.

  I swallow. Caliga catches my eye and then looks pointedly at a huge grandfather clock ticking regularly to my right. Fifteen minutes until curfew. That’s all I have.

  “I want to speak to Sean,” I say.

  Julian walks over to the polished cherry table by the door. He withdraws one hand to touch an empty glass tumbler. The other hand stays in his pocket. He lifts up the glass and turns it over. Not a single drop left. “Zelia, the sedative worked.”

  I gasp. “You . . . you knew what that was for?”

  “Zelia.” Julian sets down the tumbler and takes a step closer to me, his face as puzzled as mine. “Who do you think I am?”

  Caliga stifles a sob from behind him. I take a step forward, peering into his eyes. They’re normal. No longer dilated, no longer pinpoint.

  My eyes squint harder. “I don’t understand . . .”

  “It’s me. It’s Sean. The sedative worked. I tweaked it, though. I linked it to a selective neurotoxin. All of the Julian-specific areas have been targeted. Julian is dead.”

  My eyes travel from Sean to Caliga, trying to understand and failing spectacularly. Caliga sits filled with terror. Sean is in the room, not Julian. All of our bracelets are st
ill on tightly, none of them disengaged as promised. Nothing makes sense. I pretend to smile a little, and clear my throat.

  “So . . . um. That’s great. Now you can take off our bracelets, right? Like you promised?”

  “Julian’s left me this mess . . . I have to look through his files first. See who wants to stay, and who wants to leave.”

  “But that’s not what you promised,” I say gently. “Micah said—”

  “I know what I promised!” Sean shrieks, so freakishly loud that Caliga and I jump. Sean reaches out and then immediately slaps his hand against his leg, as if he’s having a problem controlling his own body. “It’s a mess. You left me this mess,” he says, but he doesn’t seem to be talking to me anymore. He starts crying silently.

  It never occurred to me to consider the effects of separating Sean and Julian. It was never meant to be permanent. Maybe Sean can’t exist normally without Julian? Maybe they needed each other as a means to keep each other balanced, especially after a lifetime linked together. I back up against the door, but my bracelet doesn’t signal it to open. I’m trapped, and so is Caliga. I look at the grandfather clock. They’ll all be leaving without us soon. As if to mock me, my bracelet buzzes a warning.

  Ten minutes to curfew. Please move to a sanctioned area.

  Caliga’s eyes travel back to the grandfather clock again, as if it’s her salvation. She must know that in ten minutes, we’re all trapped here forever.

  “Caliga and I should leave you alone.” I use a nurturing, soft voice and soften the frown I’m wearing. “You need some rest, Sean.”

  “She’s mine. Julian promised. It was a gift. It was his last gift,” he says, and sits down next to Caliga. He rubs her shoulder, like a child petting a dog. Roughly, artlessly. Caliga winces and shuts her eyes. Sean’s eyes open wide, as if remembering something. “You said you knew where the list was. Where?”

  Say something, Zelia. Anything. “I know where it is, but it’s not in Avida. It’s in . . . Okks.”

  It’s hard to concentrate on my words. My bracelet buzzes with increasing intensity. I clutch at it, digging my fingertips against the edge to rub the irritated skin.