by Linsey, Tam
She didn’t wait to hear any more. Turning on her heel, she fled toward the Garden.
If the children had left the protective nuvoplast of the classrooms, they could be unconscious or dead from the UV exposure. The high from her afternoon sunbathing disappeared in a rush of adrenaline. She ran six blocks to the Garden, her eyes scanning every mirrored alleyway for signs of the missing children.
When she reached the building, Albert was conducting lessons as usual. She gulped air and rested her hands on her knees as the group of wide-eyed children stared at her.
Albert didn’t need her to ask. He nodded toward the glass walls at the desert outside. “Burn Ops has lookouts scouring the fences.”
A strangled sob escaped Tula’s lips.
Rising from his desk, he directed the students to read from their gamma pads and cupped Tula’s arm to lead her aside. “I’m sorry, Tula. I had no idea they were conspiring to escape. The girls developed an obvious crush on Jobie from the start. They seemed content in each other’s company. I thought there were no issues.”
“Didn’t you get the transfer request? He wasn’t supposed to be in this class anymore.”
“He was to be moved today. That’s probably why they ran away.”
“I should have spent more time here on their Integration.” She paced a few steps away, wrapping her arms around herself.
“Let Burn Ops find them, then we’ll assess the damage.”
Tears blurred Tula’s vision. “I can’t stand around and do nothing.” She barely saw the door as she exited the building with Albert calling after her.
The multiple classrooms didn’t have privacy screens, so she could see inside at every angle. Where would three cannibal children think was safe? The Garden was in the center of the city, surrounded by a maze of mirrored walls. A skimmer whooshed past, the woman driving staring intently out the side, into the transparent walls of the classrooms.
Glancing down the paved street, Tula saw the front edge of the skimmer yard several blocks away. The skimmer equipment rose in hulking, solid forms, perfect to hide among. She stumbled that direction, aware of every ray of energy penetrating her skin. The children must be beside themselves by now.
She reached the yard and the attendant smiled at her, checking his gamma pad. “Another Burn emergency, Dr. Macoby? Heard the last one was a doozy. Sorry again about that skimmer pooping out on you.”
“Have you seen any strange things around the yard today? Any signs of things not where they should be?”
“Uh, I just came on duty. You’d have to ask Koil. Over there.” The attendant pointed to a skimmer underneath a metal frame of wires and tubes.
She spotted the man bent over a console at the far side of the structure. “Excuse me! Koil? Some youngsters left the Garden. Have you seen any signs of them?”
He looked up and scratched his shock of black hair. “Not that I’ve noticed. You’re welcome to look around.”
Stumbling, she scoured the yard for any clues. She looked underneath each vehicle in the rows. Jo Boy would have led the girls here, she was sure. He’d been infatuated with the moving cars. Maybe they were inside one of the skimmers, protected from the onslaught of UV, smart enough to wait for nightfall to journey wherever they thought they were going. God, she hoped!
No sign of the children. Her heart fell and her head spun. She couldn’t think straight with all this UV. What else might they look for?
Food.
Of course, food. Through the walls of the electronics store next door to the skimmer lot, she sighted a picture of the distinctive striped ribbon of candy she gave her patients. The Candy Maker’s shop.
Head spinning, she forced herself to continue her search. Koil was looking mighty adorable with his mussed hair and smooth buttocks as he leaned inside a skimmer. Blinking hard and reminding herself it was just the sunlight, she flicked him a flirty little wave and purposefully strode toward the candy shop.
The walls of the shop were privacy screened, and the only advertisement of wares was the picture on the sign above the door. The pungent, green scent of boiling syrup wafted from the open door.
Mr. Schumaker wasn’t at the counter when Tula entered, so she took the liberty of looking around. They weren’t up front. Another set of privacy screens hid the rear portion of the store. “Mr. Schumaker?” she called.
The plump and glistening candy maker appeared from the curtain covering the door to the back room. Through his chloroplasts, his face was flushed from working over the hot syrup. “Tula! How are you? Out of candy so soon?”
“Three children ran away from the Garden this morning. Have you seen anything unusual around your store?”
He mopped his forehead with a cloth behind the counter. “Now that you mention it, one of the crates I keep spent pines in was open this afternoon. I sealed it back up, of course.”
Tula grasped his arm. “Take me there. Now.”
He led her through the curtain, past a huge stove with three boiling kettles, and out the back door to a dusty yard. Several nuvoplast boxes as tall as her chest rested in one corner. “It was this one.” He pried the lid off and the scent of rotting agave struck her nostrils.
She leaned over and peered into the crate, her eyes watering. Underneath a layer of fibrous waste, she saw the smooth line of a child’s thigh. “Rhomy?” She pulled aside the contents of the box to find Rhomy and Nika curled together beneath the vegetation. Mr. Shumaker gasped. Tula didn’t look at him as she ordered, “Call Medical. Now.”
Levi’s heart lurched at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He remained on the cot, body tensed. In his mind, he’d run through possible scenarios a dozen times. They all felt horrible.
He had to do this.
But it wasn’t Tula. The sickly-green man Tula argued with sauntered straight to Levi’s cage. Levi’s heart picked up double time. Did they somehow discern his plans? The muscle in his jaw twitched as the man paced a full circle around the enclosure in silence. The man scowled and gloated at the same time, and a kernel of worry for Tula took root in Levi’s heart.
“Tula?” His voice scratched from his throat.
A malicious smile crept over the green face. The man smoothed the beads hanging from his neck and stepped closer. He said something Levi couldn’t understand.
Levi grew truly concerned. All the Haldanian words he’d learned fled his mind. He rose, edging toward the bars. “Where is Tula?”
Again the man spoke, his nostrils flaring. Then he laughed and pointed at the gamma pad on the floor of the cell.
Levi picked up the pad. He offered it to the man.
Again the man laughed. Taking the pad between thumb and forefinger, he disappeared up the stairs without another word.
Minutes after Tula found the girls, Burn Operatives had located Jo Boy stumbling drunkenly across the Burn. He had refused to come peaceably. The Ops had followed procedure and taken him down.
Sitting numbly by the hospital beds where Rhomy and Nika lay unconscious, Tula kept picturing the blackened body in Bats’s arms. Jo Boy hadn’t even had someone to hold him in his last moments. The hollowness in the pit of her stomach threatened to consume her.
Luckily, the girls were alive. Barely. Between the UV exposure and being surrounded in plant matter, their systems overflowed with alkaloids. They’d strapped each girl to a gurney. Tubes and monitors snaked every which way around them — but not the most important tube.
“They’ll die without treatment,” Tula argued.
The Medical Operative in charge nodded. “Policy on Reversions is no excess resources. Telomerase treatments are out of the question.”
“So, you’re saying if these were native Haldanians, you’d help them.”
“Of course. Their parents could foot the bill. The Conversion Department is very strict with funding.”
Tula rubbed her face with trembling hands. She could not bear any more death. “I’ll pay the bill, then. How much?”
The Med Op twisted one side of hi
s mouth and shook his head. “You don’t want to know, Dr. Macoby. One of them, maybe you could afford. With two year’s salary. Both? We couldn’t allow it.”
“You can’t let them die!” Rhomy had already been through a bout of seizures, and her brain waves were erratic.
“Even if I were to treat them, at this point they likely have irreversible brain damage. They’d be a drain on Protectorate resources for the rest of their lives.”
Tula’s voice trembled. “They might survive without telomerase therapy.”
The man’s eyes shifted away. “That’s a matter for the Conversion Department.”
She knew what he meant. Euthanization. She stroked Nika’s tiny green hand. Blisters from the plants dotted the once smooth surface of her clammy skin. “I’ll pay for Nika. I want to save at least one.”
“This is highly unusual,” the Med Op sputtered.
“Just do it!” Tula spun and glared at him. His gaze drifted to her scar and his lips clamped shut, but he nodded. Tula could barely breathe over the tightness in her chest. “Yes, I’m a convert, too. It doesn’t make me less Haldanian.”
“I’ll get a gene tech in here immediately.” He scurried away without making eye contact.
Taking Rhomy’s hand, she shuddered with repressed tears. After a few controlled inhalations, she put her fingertips to Rhomy’s tiny, naked chest. The girl’s heartbeat fluttered under her breastbone, and her breathing rose and fell almost as quickly. “I’m sorry, Rhomy.”
Unstoppable tears ran down her cheeks. Letting Rhomy go hurt so much. But Nika was the more stable patient, the better choice to save. Tula would have given her own life to save them both.
A female tech arrived and began setting up the telomerase cocktail. She looked between the girls and then at Tula. “Which one?”
Tula hesitated, then lifted a trembling finger toward Nika.
Levi normally marked the passage of time by the arrival of his food canisters. The supply so far had barely been enough to keep away his hunger, but now his stomach growled in full complaint. The usual feeding time came and went, and still no Tula. The horrible man who’d confiscated his gamma pad had not reappeared, either, and Levi’s concern for Tula grew.
With no gamma pad, no food, and nothing to do but pace, he curled up on the too-small cot and closed his eyes.
He woke from a dream of chewing sweet blades of spring hay while basking in the sunlight with Tula. At the foot of his cot, she sat with her hands in her lap and her head bowed.
“Tula!” All escape plans forgotten, he lurched upright and threw his arms around her in a relieved hug.
Her arms slid around him in return. The warm scent of her hair, the silky texture of her skin beneath his fingers stirred him as if he were still dreaming. Her shuddering breaths against his bared shoulder smelled lightly like evergreen, reminding him who and what she was.
Jerking away, he adjusted the blanket to hide the obvious rise in his lap. Self-disgust overrode his concern for her. He was afraid to touch her. To go through with his plan. You have to do it.
She didn’t move from her spot. Her shoulders sagged as if in defeat, and again his compassion threatened his resolve.
He counted his breathing. In. Out. In. Think of Josef. His courage strengthened. But not enough to act.
“Where is your gamma pad, Levi?” Tula looked around the cell, her eyes listless.
His head nodded toward the stairway. “Man.”
She frowned. A sad frown. “Vitus.” Looking at her hands folded in her lap, she fell silent.
Why are you hesitating? Now was the perfect time to act. Josef needed him. But Tula already looked wounded. Betraying her now might break his heart.
He cleared his throat. “Vitus? Cannibal?” He didn’t know the word for bad.
Tula barked a laugh. The sound drummed against his heart, weakening his growing determination. “Yes. Bad.” She reached over and covered Levi’s hands with hers, her eyes sincere.
His entire body tightened for action, but he couldn’t move.
She tightened her fingers around his. “Vitus wants Levi…”
The rest of the words were foreign, but her face gave away her meaning. The green man intended to harm him. But he’d already figured that. All the Blattvolk wanted to harm him.
With that thought, he twisted his hand to grasp both of hers in a vice and yanked her close, his other arm around her throat. She choked off a gasp. For a split second he loosened a bit, worried he was hurting her. Then his resolve tightened along with his arm. “Let me free,” he growled in her ear.
Rising, he pulled her length against him. Her toes skittered across the cement floor as he all but carried her to the door. With his arm still wrapped around Tula’s neck, he released her left hand and pushed the right through the bars toward the locking pad. Her free hand scrabbled against his bicep as she struggled. “Levi, no. Levi —” she gasped, then went limp. He pressed her hand to the pad and heard the familiar click of the lock releasing.
In awe of his own force, he stood motionless a few heartbeats, her hand hovering over the lock, palm open. His fingers almost completely covered the pink mark on her forearm. The bones beneath his fingertips were fragile in his grasp. Trembling so hard his legs barely supported him, he could barely support her weight sagging against him.
Lowering Tula until her feet connected with the floor, he let her arm go and jerked the cell door open.
With both hands free, she didn’t fight back. She stood and sobbed convulsively. Her head fell back against his chest, soft hair catching in the stubble on his chin. “Stop crying.” His voice was a raw, low growl in his throat.
Why did this feel all wrong? He should be striding up the stairs, right now. But his feet remained frozen in place. “Move.”
“Levi,” she whispered. “Levi, no. Vitus will kill you.” The same words as before. Now, he knew the meaning.
He hadn’t realized, but he’d loosened his grip around her neck. She twisted to face him, not trying to break free. She looked up into his face with red-rimmed blue eyes and pleaded with her soul. “Please.” Her hands slid up his chest to cup his cheeks. “You are not cannibal.”
She was right. He wasn’t this person. Swallowing, Levi let his arm drop. His breathing barely kept up with his need for air.
He stepped backward into the cage.
Even after three successive Reversions on her record, the Board declined Vitus’s recommendation to remove Tula from her position. She was the best interpreter in the department. With the lure of more converts from the mongrel village dangling before them, the Board only issued a formal reprimand to go on her record.
Vitus snapped his favorite set of beads in frustration and flung the gamma pad with the report across his desk.
She’d thwarted him too many times. He wanted to see her suffer. The only way to get to her was through the prisoner downstairs. But after his last visit, the man seemed leery of any interaction. The weedy bitch had poisoned the captive against him.
Well, he had her, now. The attack footage on the prison tapes was all he needed for the prisoner’s immediate extermination. This didn’t require Board approval. But just to cover his ass — and rub it in Arnica’s face — he’d make sure the Board issued the order for euthanization.
He watched the video again as the man grabbed Tula around the neck and nearly lifted her off the floor. Vitus imagined his own arm around her neck, how hard he could squeeze while she pleaded for mercy. The prisoner had relented. But Vitus wouldn’t let her off. That bitch’s life would be living hell from here on out.
Torn between abandoning his escape and his unaccustomed bout of violence, Levi could not sleep. The latest food canister brought a little while ago sat untouched at the edge of his cage.
He paced, both yearning for Tula’s return and dreading it. Surely, she had bewitched him in some way. He should pray for guidance, but his knees refused to bend. Mixed messages from God were not something he could handle today
.
The sound of movement on the stairs drew his attention. Two Blattvolk hauled in a bald, naked child and placed him in a cell at the far end of the room. They glanced Levi’s way, murmured to each other, then retreated up the stairs. The child stood in the center of his cell and stared at the bars. Then he started crying.
“Little boy.” Levi called softly. “Little boy. Shhh. It’s okay.” It wasn’t okay. No one in this prison was okay.
The boy sniffled and halted his sobs. He stared, dark eyed, in Levi’s direction. Levi struggled for basic words the boy might understand. If only he could give the little boy his canister. Food always made Awnia more content. Levi flinched at the memory. He hadn’t thought of Awnia in days.
More footsteps on the stairs made him hopeful someone was bringing the child food. But instead, an entourage of Blattvolk marched down the path between the cells without a glance at the boy. At the head of the group, the bald man, Vitus, palmed the lock on Levi’s cage. In his other hand, he held the device he’d used to subdue Awnia.
This didn’t look good.
Two other Blattvolk entered, larger than most, but still several inches shorter than Levi. They held a set of chains between them. Levi backed against the cell wall.
They’d finally come for him. He’d lost his chance at escape forever. Should he fight them? Being transformed with the Mark would be the worst possible fate.
The Blattvolk jabbered too fast for Levi to understand. But he caught one word — the same word they’d used with Awnia.
Euthanize.
Relief flooded through him so quickly he nearly dropped to his knees. They were going to kill him. Not turn him into a monster.
“Thank you. Thank you.” He held out his wrists without a struggle. The two Blattvolk approached warily, flicking glances at Vitus, who only scowled more deeply. They expected him to fight back. Tula must have told them about his earlier attack.
A tiny niggle of betrayal squeezed him. He’d done as she asked and retreated back into the cell. How could she turn him in?