by Trisha Leigh
Nothing will be the same, regardless.
The levity of the game and the night has evaporated. Everyone picks at the deer meat, charred during Greer’s appearance and the subsequent discussion. We file back into Perkins Hall in silence, getting ready for bed and slipping behind closed doors with a resigned, melancholy air hovering over us all. We’re all feeding it, sharing it, and by the time I sink into Lucas’s chilly embrace I can hardly breathe.
Deshi, Pax, and Leah are silent. I turn toward Lucas, our heads sharing a pillow, eyes locked together. In his I see a reflection of the conflict and sorrow bogging down my insides, along with the spark of anger that’s keeping me from breaking down, that’s keeping my mouth shut about saving our friends and pseudo-families when I know we can’t.
“I am so angry with you, Althea,” he whispers.
In spite of his words and the truth in them, his hand slips under the bottom of my tank top and settles on my hip.
A shiver goes through me and I bite my lip. “We can’t save them, Lucas. He’s either got them at the Underground Core or the Harvest Site, and there’s no way we could ever travel with so many humans, and—”
He squeezes my hip, causing me to fall silent. “Not that. I’m still mad at you for taking that dymium without letting Deshi and me know. I wouldn’t have stopped you, but if Desh and I had been there from the beginning, the risks would have been minimized.”
“Oh.”
“We’re in this together, the four of us, and we don’t go anywhere or do anything important without checking in first, you got it?” He furrows his brow when I don’t respond right away. “This isn’t about me being protective anymore, Althea. We all agreed.”
I reach out and smooth the wrinkle between his eyebrows, then drop my hand until my thumb brushes his mouth. “You don’t want to protect me anymore?”
“Don’t change the subject,” he says, but the hitch in his breath says my touch isn’t ineffective. “Promise me.”
“I promise, Lucas. You’re right. Especially now, if our families are going to die for us. Everyone here has already lost too much, and we can’t miss this chance at the Summer Celebration. It might be the only one we get.” Tears clog my throat, wiping away any playfulness I may have felt a moment before, and Lucas gathers me against him.
“Every piece of me instinctively wants to protect you, you know. I don’t think it will ever stop, even if there’s as good a chance you’ll have to save me instead of the other way around,” he whispers into my ear. “It kills me when you’re hurting.”
Even though we haven’t been together for a week, he doesn’t kiss me. Instead we fall silent, my head under his chin, his arms wrapped around my back, trying our best to become one body instead of two.
***
It’s at least an hour later when sleep finally creeps in to relieve the anxiety of the day. Lucas crashed a long time ago, his chin falling heavy on the top of my head and his strong arms relaxing onto the bed behind me. At the last moment, when I can’t quite tell if it’s a dream or reality, the last article I read in the physics journal earlier today—the one about the magnetocaloric effect—flashes in my mind. It meshes with the memory of Cadi telling Lucas and I about the Others and how their bodies are so naturally cold that they alter a planet’s makeup.
And then I know how we can beat them.
I sit straight up, my heart pounding as though it wants to run for the physics lab without me, and Lucas jerks upright, too. His startled eyes sweep the room, looking for danger, then land on me.
“What? What is it, what happened?”
“I think I figured out how we can use the element against the Others.” I scramble out of bed and pick up the Journal of Applied Physics off the desk where I dropped it this afternoon. “I don’t really understand this, but read it so I can tell you what I think.”
I flip to the article about the magnetocaloric effect and hand it to Lucas, pacing the room while he holds the book in a stream of moonlight and squints at the page. It’s been under our noses this whole time, the one thing about the Others that’s significantly different from humans, and I can’t believe none of us remembered it until now.
After forty minutes Lucas sets the journal down and looks at me. I can almost see the wheels turning in his brain. “Okay, so tell me why you think this is important.”
“You don’t think it is?” It’ll worry me if he thinks it’s nothing.
“No, I have an idea. I want to hear yours first.”
Pax grunts from the far side of the room. “Why are the two of you up talking in the middle of the night?”
“I’ve been trying to ignore it for ten minutes,” Deshi grouses from the center bed.
Only Leah slumbers undisturbed, but that can’t last. “Wake up Leah. She’s more familiar with the neodymium than we are because of Rita, and I have an idea.”
Pax does what I ask, and once all four of them are awake and attentive, I take a deep breath and try to make sense of the words in my head.
“There’s an article in the journal about something called a magnetocaloric effect. Basically, from what I understand, it’s the same idea that makes our refrigerators run—certain elements with magnetic properties excite isotopes of a different element, and when they shake around, they get cold.” They’re all listening raptly, not interrupting, but it’s hard to tell if any of this penetrates.
“But not cold like the freezer. Cold like absolute zero,” Lucas adds.
I wait for that to sink in for a second. “Cold like the Spritans told us the Others need to survive—that’s why they need the Elements to keep the conquered planets in balance. Without them, the Others’ bodies reduce the atmospheric temperature to an unlivable degree, and then there won’t be any humans to mine more of their element.”
Pax shakes his sleep-tousled hair back into place. “When did Cadi tell you this?”
Lucas answers, his voice tight. “Last autumn, when she first told us about the Others and their true purpose on earth. I can’t believe we didn’t remember that until now.”
“Well, in all fairness, I never would have realized it could be important until someone asked about magnetism in the elements, and then I picked up that journal with an article about magnetic cooling. It’s two and two, but the numbers weren’t on the same page until a few hours ago.”
“Okay, so now we remember. Any chance one of the elements that exhibits this property is neodymium?” Leah asks.
“No,” I shake my head. “But praseodymium is high on the list.”
We mull it over for a moment, then Pax speaks up. “So, maybe they need the substance, the praseodymium they’re mining, to maintain a low body temperature. It reacts with part of their biological input and reduces their body temperature. That’s what you’re thinking?”
I nod. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? And maybe it’s more than simply the temperature. Maybe the magnetocaloric effect allows their cells to replicate, or their bodies to fight infection, or their minds to function—maybe without it, it’s like a human running a fever, or contracting a Breaking disease.”
“If that’s true and we somehow removed the magnetic property in praseodymium, it could increase their body temperatures. Weaken them enough that we could simply lock them up or kill them.” Lucas stands up, pacing toward the window and then toward the door. “There wouldn’t even be a fight.”
Deshi’s been quiet through this whole discussion, and I turn to him now. “What about you? You’ve been with them. Could this work?”
He gives me a small smile, that sadness and tiny bit of regret smudging the edges of his eyes. “It makes sense.”
I take a step toward him and squat so our eyes are even. “What is it? If there’s something wrong with the theory, then we need to know now.”
“No.” Deshi shakes his head, then blows a piece of silky hair out of his eye. “It’s not that. This is good. If they’re weakened significantly then we won’t get hurt. Less bloodshed is good, as f
ar as we’re all concerned, I think.” He pauses, and no one fills the silence; we all realize he’s not done. “Before we hit the Summer Celebration, though, I want us to talk about how we’re going to deal with the Others.”
“What do you mean, ‘how we’re going to deal with’ them?” Pax asks quietly.
I know he’s thinking about Tommy and everyone else at the Harvest Site, about the current fate of the people who’ve raised us all these years. I give him a warning look, trying to communicate as best as I can that we need to remember that Deshi’s experience has not been the same as ours, and we can’t invalidate his feelings. “Let him talk, Pax.”
“I just think… if we’ve got a synthetic that they could create instead of mine, and we’re in a position of power, we shouldn’t kill them all arbitrarily. If we wipe out a race of beings, then we’re no better than them. And they’re not all bad. You guys know that, right? What about Nat?” He pleads with us to understand.
I do get it, and Nat at least made me question my assumption that they’re all drones blindly following the leader. But we all have to be in agreement, and as much as I want to help Deshi be okay with all of this, I doubt Pax and Lucas are going to understand without Deshi explaining his feelings a little better. I haven’t said anything about Zakej and Deshi to either of them—it’s not my secret to tell.
As long as it doesn’t interfere with our rebellion, at least.
I figured Deshi would find a way to deal with his feelings for the Prime’s family, if he hadn’t sorted it out before he decided to join us. It was silly of me, I realize now, to think feelings go away that easily when I know as well as anyone that they don’t.
“Earlier tonight, I was freaking out about the same thing. About how it’s not fair that we should be in this position—that any person should be in this position—of deciding who lives and who dies. But Pax, Lucas, and I discussed it at the Harvest Site when we were alone.” I double-check with the two of them that it’s okay to bring Deshi into the loop. It has to be, but I verify out of habit. “It took a while for me to come to terms with it, but we aren’t deciding who’s good and bad. We’re simply doing what you said earlier; we’re picking a side to defend. Whatever that means.”
Deshi follows my gaze, making eye contact with both Pax and Lucas before returning to me. “What do you mean, ‘whatever that means’?”
I swallow hard. “It means we choose the humans, no matter what. And if we can’t save them, we choose to…” I glance at Leah. “Take ourselves out of the equation. Maybe save the next planet, if we can’t save this one.”
Deshi squeezes his eyes shut, and none of us speaks for several minutes. Leah squeaked at hearing my words, but now she’s holding Pax’s hand in silence, a bright sheen in her eyes.
“Okay,” Deshi rasps, his eyes open again. “Okay. I’m in. But it’s a last resort, and I think eliminating every last Other should be, too.”
I reach out and squeeze his hand. “We’ll promise to think about it.” I glance back at Lucas, then over at Pax, who both nod. “And the four of us will sit down and hash out a plan for getting rid of the Others, one way or another, before next week, okay?”
Deshi nods his agreement. I stand up, knees popping, and glance at Leah. “What kind of time frame are we talking, to figure out how to extract the magnetic properties?”
“You know, it’s mostly done. The substance they’re using is already broken down to sub-atomic particles. All that’s left is to figure out which particles cause the magnetism and how to pull them out without altering appearance of the finished substance. We have six days, so I guess that’ll have to be enough time,” she finished with a shrug.
“I hate to wake Mark and Brittany.” I chew on my lower lip, recalling how tired their faces were this afternoon. “A few hours isn’t going to make a difference. What time is it?”
“It’s two,” Lucas answers, rubbing his eyes.
“Let’s sleep until six, then get them up to start working.” I climb back into bed and slide toward the wall, and everyone else follows suit. At first I think it’ll take forever to calm down enough to sleep, but it doesn’t.
Chapter 33.
It doesn’t take us six days to rebuild the praseodymium mixture to remove the magnetic properties. It takes three, with shifts working overnight the entire time to make it happen.
The four of us have had our fingers pricked and donated several drops of blood to be studied; Griffin and Greer have given some, too. We’ve searched under microscopes for any shared qualities between theirs and ours, and also compared our blood to plain human blood.
I almost want to thank the Others for the practice, since we started examining our own blood samples for types, abnormalities, and all sorts of other things in Intermediate Cell, including dividing out the components. Under a microscope, blood can be separated into cells, platelets, vitamins, nutrients, and metallic contents like iron. Thanks to the fancy equipment and Rita’s help deciphering how to use it all, we can now separate and identify each component.
Which means we’ve found that our blood and the Sidhe’s present a higher nickel count than pure human blood. We’re pretty sure that’s what gets shaken up by the praseodymium to create the intense magentocaloric—cooling—reaction. Finding the common denominator convinced everyone that this was indeed the answer, and that altering that particular aspect could have a devastating effect on the Others.
Working in shifts nonstop around the clock makes me almost too tired to remember the Goblert. Dax waits on the path between the science building and Perkins Hall, the same way he does every day at dawn. He’s gray and quaking from head to toe, the sight of him punching me harder than Zakej’s fist.
Since he can’t talk, the Prime—or maybe Zakej or Kendaja—carves the names of the four dead into his skin.
It’s been three days.
Eight people have already died, and today Dax’s skin has faded to a grayer tone as blood drips around his torn flesh. He’s running out of room, and today’s names collide with the barely healed wounds from yesterday. We’ve tried to convince him not to go back, but he won’t hear it.
Blood crusts around the four newest names, one on each forearm and two slashed across his concave belly. The dark flush pools in the etchings, blurring the names and thrumming sickening guilt in my veins.
Adam and Greta Schenkler. Joan and Rudy Gonzalez.
A gut-wrenching gurgle crawls from Pax’s throat. He stares in horror as the Goblert wavers and falls onto his back. “My Atlanta parents.”
“And mine,” Deshi whispers. Tears wet his golden cheeks and one hand pulls hard on his hair.
I kneel by the Goblert and help him to his unsteady feet. Yesterday the names were Lucas’s and my Portland families. The people who have died—twelve now—burrow into my heart. The horror of Dax’s daily torture combines with their suffering and screams inside my mind. All of it breeds anger and impatience, and a growing desire to take action. I wish I were paying the price for this costly endeavor, not Dax. Not innocent people held captive, awaiting their executions.
No matter what happens now, we’ve sacrificed people. Humans who helped us, who trusted us. Emmy and Reese. Wes. One of Deshi’s parents. They were the first names, now angry red welts on Dax’s back.
My throat burns and I turn away from Lucas, hiding my tears. When I look back, the Goblert has disappeared.
***
It’s almost midnight when we crawl into bed later that night, the minute hand ticking toward the inevitable death of four more human beings. We wait in silence, closing our eyes as it winds toward 12:01, then return to our conversation. I don’t know what the boys do with that minute, but I use it to silently apologize for the blood on my hands and to hope that the people who just died didn’t suffer.
Pax looks like he’s going to throw up every time the Goblert arrives, and I know he’s waiting for Tommy’s name to appear, carved from gray flesh and bright red blood. If they’ve somehow found Jas, if
her name ends up slashed on Dax’s back or stomach, I don’t know what will happen to me. I know it will cement the fate of the Prime family in my mind, regardless of my promise to Deshi to discuss the fate of the Others. I know a piece of me will break away and I’ll never find it again.
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “Deshi, you left the x for Greer and Griffin?”
“This morning. They should be here soon,” he replies.
As though we summoned the Sidhe, a blobby hole appears by the windows in our shared bedroom, and the brother and sister step into our space. They’re barefoot and gorgeous as always, Griffin in brown pants and a green T-shirt and Greer looking unhappy in a knee-length mint-colored dress.
Worry tightens her gaze as it rakes our sad faces. “Are you guys okay?”
“We’re fine. We think we’re done with the substance,” Leah tells her.
“So why are we here?” Griffin asks.
A few months ago it would have been an irritated question, as though we aren’t worthy of bothering him with our problems, but ever since Nat died and Greer nearly lost it, Griffin’s been more invested. He wants the Others off this planet as badly as we do, and for his sister to be able to heal in peace.
“Because we need to test it on Others. We were hoping you might have an idea how we can do that.” I gauge their reaction but get nothing but thoughtful stares.
We sit in silence for several minutes, a growing wind whipping through the room and cooling the summer heat a few degrees. Clouds were gathering on the horizon as we walked home from the labs earlier, signaling the arrival of a thunderstorm.
I’ve never enjoyed storms in the other seasons, but this is the second one we’ve had this summer and I love everything about them. The way the air feels electric and the smell of the warm water soaking into the rich soil, dripping off blooming flowers and rustling trees. Like a promise that the following days will bring beauty.