This Vicious Cure

by Emily Suvada

  “You told me once that you’d prefer to live without gentech,” I say carefully. “I hope you meant it.”

  He tightens his grip on the wheel, staring at the road ahead of us, but doesn’t reply.

  “Jun Bei has given you hypergenesis,” I continue. “It’s an allergy to gentech’s most commonly used nanites, and I don’t know how to reverse it. You might not be able to use standard tech for a while. Maybe never again. But it looks like you can still run hypergenesis-friendly apps. They’re pretty basic, but they’re better than nothing. You won’t be able to replace most of the code that was in your panel, though.”

  He turns, his piercing blue eyes meeting mine. “What will I lose?”

  “All of your black-out tech. Anything experimental or advanced. There isn’t much hypergenesis-friendly code out there—there’s basic healing, sensory, a comm-link.…”

  “Ocular tech?”

  “Only a simple version.” My eyes drop. I was never able to run virtual reality simulations in my old panel. I don’t know if that’s because Lachlan was holding me back, trying to stop me from finding out the truth about who I was, or simply because a hypergenesis-friendly version of the code didn’t exist. “Your sensory tech is already degrading. It’ll keep glitching and breaking down over the next few days. It could go out at any time, really. I can’t predict it.”

  “Will I still be able to see you?”

  “I don’t think so.” Not that it will matter. The pulse in the base of my skull has been growing steadily stronger overnight. The implant is breaking down, like Dax predicted. Whether Cole’s tech degrades, or the implant does, the two of us don’t have much time left together, but the tone in his voice that tells me he wants to see me makes my chest tighten.

  If we can find Ziana at the cabin, maybe we still have a chance. Maybe Lachlan will honor his promise to give me a new body, and Jun Bei will agree to let him. Maybe Cole will forgive me for lying to all of them. Maybe we can stop this war and rebuild the world.

  It sounds like a naive, ridiculous dream when I let myself think about it.

  Cole turns back to stare through the windshield. The landscape outside is a blur of fields and trees. “I keep getting warnings saying I’m infected with the virus,” he says.

  “I see them,” I say. “But don’t worry—you’re not infected. I think your tech is just glitching. I don’t know if anybody has ever lost as much tech as quickly as you have, and it’s going to be messing with these scans. They say you have the virus in your system, but you don’t—it’ll just be something that’s acting like it and triggering the alerts. It’s probably a gentech vector.”

  He cocks an eyebrow. “A vector?”

  “They’re one of the building blocks of gentech,” I say. “Gentech code creates synthetic DNA that wraps around a person’s genes to change the way they act, right? Well, DNA lives inside cells, which means you need to get that synthetic DNA into their cells so it can work. That isn’t easy, though. Cells are fortresses. They don’t like to be invaded by anything they don’t recognize.”

  “But viruses do that,” Cole says. “They invade cells.”

  “Exactly,” I say. “That’s what a virus is—it’s a tool that invades cells and injects them with its own DNA. So if you want to transport something into a cell…”

  “You could use a virus.”

  I nod, leaning back in my seat. “That’s right. You’d need to alter the virus so it wasn’t infectious anymore, or maybe you’d just use part of its DNA, but that’s basically what we do. A vector is a modified virus that carries synthetic DNA into your cells, and they’re the core of all gentech code.”

  “So gentech is based on viruses?” Cole asks, frowning.

  “Of course it is,” I say. “What’s a better way to get into cells than use something that’s perfectly evolved to do it? Early forms of gentech were based on real viruses, like HIV, but modern vectors are designed in labs. They’ll swarm through your body, invading your cells, but they won’t make you sick. They’re just a tool. I think your panel is glitching out, and it’s decided you’re infected with a virus when it’s just picking up on one of your vectors instead.”

  Cole tilts his head, drumming his fingers on the wheel. “But I’m getting warnings saying I’m infected with Hydra, specifically. Could one of my apps be based on it?”

  I blink, shuddering at the thought. On one level, it makes perfect sense. Nothing is as good as Hydra at entering every cell in the human body. Its victims’ eyes, bones, and even their brains are invaded within a matter of hours—Hydra’s victims don’t blow into chunks; they blow into mist. No other virus in the world can do that. I have no doubt that people would want to use Hydra as a vector, but that would be wildly dangerous. We don’t understand the virus enough to create a cure for it—let alone base a gentech vector on it. It would be too easy to make a mistake and end up infecting people instead.

  But it wouldn’t surprise me if one of Cole’s black-out apps was based on it.

  “I can run a scan to check,” I say, pulling together a script, using the computer in the jeep to kick it off in Cole’s panel. “It might take a while. I think you’re fine, though. Don’t worry.”

  He nods, pressing his lips together. “So are you going to tell me why I have a drawing of you in my pocket?”

  A rush of heat prickles at my cheeks. I shoot a glance at him—at his dark hair, the light playing on his lips, and stare back out the window. “We spent a lot of time together.”

  He nods, his eyes still fixed ahead. “Were we… a couple?”

  I open my mouth, not knowing what to say. The road dives into a valley thick with trees, sending shadows racing over the jeep’s hood. I close my eyes, remembering his lips on mine, his hands around my waist. The way he held me and told me that he wanted to run away with me one day.

  “Yes, we were together,” I say, my eyes still closed. Patterns of heat are shifting across my skin. I told myself that my feelings for Cole were under control—that I’d locked them into a cage inside my heart, but the thought feels ridiculous now, like trying to lock away the sun. It takes me a moment to realize my hands are balled into fists, my fingernails digging into my palms.

  When I open my eyes, Cole’s knuckles are white on the wheel.

  “I don’t remember,” he says slowly, “but I can feel it. It’s hard to explain, but I knew as soon as I saw you. I trusted you somehow—like we’d shared a past life.”

  I let out an awkward breath of laughter. “That’s a good way of putting it.”

  His face softens. “Only, it wasn’t a past life for you, was it? You still remember everything. It never ended for you.”

  “It’s okay,” I say quickly. “I don’t expect anything of you, Cole. You and I, we… we were complicated. There was so much going on, and we were thrown together in this mission of trying to release the vaccine, but it got messy.”

  “Messy how?”

  I look down, remembering the night I ran to his room in Sunnyvale and kissed him. I’d just fought with Dax, and Cole was still searching for Jun Bei. I thought I was going to die, and I needed him to stop me falling apart. Then everything went wrong with the vaccine, and I remembered the truth, and my life turned upside down.

  “It happened fast,” I say, “and I don’t know if it happened for the right reasons. I didn’t really know who I was, and you still had feelings for Jun Bei.”

  He looks away, something changing in his expression at the mention of her name. “I was so obsessed with finding her before the wipe, but when I went into Entropia and saw her, it was different. I was different. That’s when I realized there’d been something between you and me. I felt like I’d already moved on, but I couldn’t remember it. I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to hear about me talking to her.”

  “No, I do,” I say. He’s right that it hurts, but the pain is outweighed by what feels like a thread of truth stitching something new between us. “You and I never got to know each ot
her before—not really. We needed each other, but it wasn’t always healthy for either of us. I—I’d like to get to know you now, though.”

  His eyes meet mine again, the morning light catching his eyelashes. “I think I’d like that too.”

  The moment stretches between us, thrumming in the air until I don’t know how to sit, how to breathe, how to be close to him anymore. I look away, chewing my lip, and jump as a comm pops up in my vision.

  “What is it?” Cole asks.

  “Nothing,” I say, staring at the incoming request. It’s from Dax. He’s trying to call me, probably wanting to know what I’m doing. I don’t know if he can track me through Veritas, but he can probably track Anna, and he’ll be able to see we’re on our way to the cabin.

  I decline the call, glancing nervously at Cole. I know he can’t see who’s calling me, but I still feel exposed. A rush of guilt creeps up my neck. I don’t know if I can keep lying to Cole and Anna about why I really came to them, or if I’m going to be able to turn them over to Cartaxus. It seemed like the only choice before, but now there’s a bigger threat. Ziana might be able to help us stop whoever’s orchestrating this war. But if I tell Anna and Cole the truth about why I’m here, they’ll turn against me. Whatever fragile new bond there is between Cole and me will be lost.

  Anna stirs as we drive into the Black Hills. She sits up in the back, stretching. “We close?”

  “We’re almost there,” Cole calls back. “This place got hit pretty hard.”

  I look out the window. He’s right—the hills are covered with broken trees and branches. The roads out here have always been bad, but they haven’t looked like this. Blackened scars are gouged into the asphalt. The nanite clouds Cartaxus launched in flood protocol must have swept through here, hunting down survivors. It’s a strange place for them to focus on, though. Those first attacks were supposed to be centered on the more densely populated areas, and there weren’t many people left around here.

  “My friend’s place is just ahead,” I say, looking out the window as we drive down a hill. The road we’re following to the cabin passes right by Agnes’s home. “Do you think we could stop for a minute and see if there’s any sign of her? I haven’t been able to get in touch with her for a while.”

  “Sure,” Cole says. He slows the jeep, following my eyes as we approach. I’ve ridden my bike down these roads dozens of times and trudged along them on foot, hauling bags of food and tech scrounged from empty houses. Agnes always offered to go searching with me in case I ran into Lurkers or trigger-happy survivors, but I worried she’d get hurt, so I never told her when I was going. I would just drop by her place to share what I’d found. Anything that needed cooking—flour, spices, beans—went to her, and she’d bring over meals in return.

  The road swings past a copse of cedars, nearing her driveway. I turn in my seat, staring through the window, and freeze. What was once a charming wooden cottage with a vegetable garden and flowers is now a cratered stretch of blackened earth.

  Cole slows the jeep to a crawl. “Is that your friend’s place?”

  I nod, my chest tightening. There’s no reason for us to stop and look for Agnes. The entire house is just gone. There isn’t even any rubble. Two years of memories, of days spent making lavender soap, teasing Agnes about her cooking—gone. Even the trees are broken, splayed out in a circle around the empty, blackened earth.

  “Was she…,” Cole starts, his voice soft.

  “Home?” I ask. The thought makes my blood chill, until I remember. “No—this would have happened during flood protocol. She wasn’t here. She was in Entropia.”

  “That doesn’t look like damage from the triphase clouds Cartaxus used,” Cole says. “What do you think, Anna?”

  She sits up straighter, looking out. “Drone strike, quad formation. Always leaves a hole like that.”

  I lean back into my seat. “Really? Were they bombing all the houses?”

  Anna snorts. “No way. Even Cartaxus doesn’t have enough explosives for that. Must have targeted this place for some reason. Come on, let’s get to the cabin. Nothing to see here.”

  Cole looks to me for confirmation, and I nod for us to keep driving. I glance back down the road as we pull away, frowning. It’s strange enough that Cartaxus sent nanite clouds into these hills—let alone ordered a drone strike on Agnes’s house. There’s no obvious reason Cartaxus would have targeted it, except that Agnes was a senior member of the Skies. But if they knew where Skies members were, that also means they’d know where I was living.

  Agnes’s house might not be the only place they bombed.

  “Cabin’s down this road,” I say as we near the turnoff for the trail that leads to the driveway. Cole spins the wheel, pulling the jeep off the highway. I don’t know what we’ll find when we get there. The cabin might be intact, or it could be another pile of ash. Ziana might not risk meeting us if it’s destroyed. This whole mission could be ruined. I hold my breath as we pull around the edge of the mountain that rises up from the lake. The road winds down through thick pine forest and into the valley. Through the trees, I make out the flash of the lake’s surface, the waving grass around the shore, and the glint of the cabin’s solars.

  It’s still there.

  A tightness in my chest releases at the sight of the cabin’s leaf-strewn roof, its slumping wooden porch. The lake glitters in the morning sun, framed by a fringe of pines, nestled between steep mountain slopes. There’s no sign of damage—no craters, no scorch marks burned into the ground. Whatever targeting algorithm sent Cartaxus’s drones to Agnes’s place left the cabin unscathed. We roll down the driveway, pulling in beside the porch, and a strange look flits across Cole’s face as he switches off the engine and swings open his door.

  “I remember this,” he murmurs.

  My chest tightens. “You were here for a few days. I was unconscious—you were taking care of me.”

  He stares at the cabin’s shuttered windows, his eyes darting back and forth across the valley and the lake. My stomach clenches at the thought of him remembering—truly remembering—but he shakes his head, sliding out of the jeep.

  “I don’t remember much,” he says. “I just know I was here.”

  Anna climbs out through the jeep’s rear door, marching up the creaking wooden stairs to the porch, her rifle in her hands. She looks down at the chunks of wood missing from the side of the doorway. That’s where one of my old traps was hidden, before Cole ripped it out. She lifts an eyebrow, looking back at me. “The house is empty. I don’t think Ziana’s here. I’m gonna take a look inside.”

  Cole follows her in, and I trail behind them, stepping back into the place where I’ve spent almost the entirety of my existence. I didn’t know if I’d ever come back here. Part of me wishes I hadn’t—the wave of emotions hitting me at the sight of the couch, the kitchen, and the lake outside is strong enough to make my hands shake.

  The days I spent here weren’t all happy, but they weren’t the hell of the last few months, either. When I was here, I was struggling to survive, living on frozen doses and hiding from blowers, but I knew who I was. I thought I did, at least. I was proud to be Lachlan’s daughter, comforted by the knowledge that he loved me, and that he’d come home one day.

  Now I know those years were just a lie. I wasn’t his cherished, protected child. I was a placeholder, left to suffer through the outbreak until Jun Bei could be awakened again. He never cared about me, not beyond making sure I stayed alive. He never let himself care—not when he knew he’d erase me one day to bring his true daughter back.

  “You okay?” Cole asks, pausing to look back at me.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” I swallow, driving the fingernails of my left hand into my palm, and force myself to step inside.

  The living room is just how I left it. I cleaned it up with Cole before we left—folding my old, worn blankets, stacking the last of my nutriBars in a pile in the center of the room for anyone who came by. The bars are still all there, un
touched. My dirty clothes are still heaped in the corner, and the photograph of Lachlan and the woman I once thought was my mother is still hanging on the wall. I walk across the room to it, my stomach clenching. She’s wearing a summer dress, smiling at Lachlan. I must have looked at this picture a thousand times, staring at her hair, her lips, her sparkling eyes, trying to see my own features in them. There’s a curve to her jaw, a slight tilt in her eyebrows that I’m sure is in my own face too, but now I can’t tell if it’s just my imagination. Maybe the photograph is a fake that Lachlan pinned up here to convince me I had a past.

  Not that it matters anymore. I don’t have a face, or features, or a body. The only way to get them back is by betraying Cole and Anna and walking away from figuring out the truth about who’s behind these Lurker attacks. I don’t know if I can do that anymore.

  “There’s no sign Ziana’s been here,” Anna calls from the hallway. “I’m gonna check upstairs.”

  “There’s a lab in the basement,” I say. Cole is standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking at the table, his brow creased. That’s where we had dinner and argued about Cartaxus. He was trying to tell me that Lachlan wasn’t the perfect father I thought he was, but I didn’t want to hear it. The thought almost makes me laugh. I walk to the basement stairs, pausing on the landing until Cole looks up and follows me.

  “String on your left for the light,” I say, jogging down into the basement lab. Anna’s footsteps creak along the hallway behind us. The basement’s lights flicker on, casting a yellow glow over the concrete walls and floor, the glossy lab counters.

  This definitely isn’t the way I left it.

  “Someone’s been here,” I say, looking around. This room was a mess when Cole and I were here. There were piles of trash on the floor, broken equipment in the corner, and about a hundred out-of-date nanite jars, but they’re all gone. The whole place has been cleaned, and there are unfamiliar cardboard filing boxes stacked against the wall.

  “Upstairs is empty,” Anna says, coming down the stairs. “Looks like someone blew in one of the bedrooms. Half the wall is missing.”