Idiosyncratic

  “They are right over here,” I said, spinning on my heels.

  Dr. Upton seized the fabric of my shirt, and I was whipped back around. His eyes were wide with bewilderment. My breath caught in my throat as I waited for his menacing smile and threatening words, the torture he was going to inflict upon me for the cataclysm I’d become to his family.

  “They?” he questioned instead.

  “The two Astronauts?” I squeaked out.

  “Show me,” he said, then quietly added in a whisper, “please.”

  The way he said it was almost a plea rather than a command. It took me a few seconds to grapple with his request; with the fact that he was asking instead of demanding; with the fact that he wasn’t pulling out his electric dagger and wielding it against me. There was more going on here than my theories could ever explain. But how much further did I want to entangle myself?

  “This way,” I said.

  I turned toward the spaceship, and this time he let me. Dr. Upton followed me to the crash site, rushing over to Meteoroid. He knocked a rhythmic pattern against his helmet, rousing him. Meteoroid rolled onto his side, trying to get up.

  “Help him. He should be conscious enough to walk,” Dr. Upton said, rushing over to Satellite.

  I grabbed Meteoroid’s arm, slung it across my shoulders, and hoisted him up. He wobbled to his feet, nearly taking me down with him. We made awkward strides as I pulled him along.

  Dr. Upton was carrying—more like dragging—Satellite through the terrain. Their suits alone had to be a hefty weight. I followed Dr. Upton back into his house, into the cage capsule of the elevator, and plunged again into his laboratory.

  Dr. Upton unclasped the latches around Satellite’s shattered helmet, twisting it and pulling it away. The creases in his face deepened with concern.

  “So you are secretly working with the Astronauts,” I said.

  His eyes shot to mine. He stretched his lips into that smile I had been dreading, the one that made fresh fear shoot ice down my spine, but his reply was far more chilling.

  “No.”

  |Twenty Two|

  DID I JUST HELP HIM capture two new specimens? Am I working for the depravity of this world? Have I become everything No’ll was so sure I’m not? Am I helping feed the darkness so it can consume the innocent like Hattie?

  I lugged Meteoroid into another one of Dr. Upton’s examination room. My body moved perfunctorily. Numbness had separated me from my appendages.

  Dr. Upton deposited Satellite onto the table, pointing at the ground for the other Astronaut. I lowered Meteoroid to the ground, and he half-fell out of my arms.

  “What are you going to do to them?” I asked.

  Silly, silly girl, don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.

  But I did want to know.

  No, you don’t!

  I had already sunk under, immersed in whatever sick ploy this was. I had slipped deeper with every passing day, every executed errand. I hadn’t even realized I’d submerged into this world until it had already happened. And the most dangerous part of my sinking was I didn’t even know what or whom I was truly helping. The lines were always blurred, and my greedy need for self-preservation kept me from trying to figure it out.

  “My, you’ve changed,” Dr. Upton clipped.

  “Isn’t that the dictum of life?”

  “Not to most.”

  “What does the Federation want with them?”

  Dr. Upton grabbed a beaker labeled H2O, and poured the contents over Satellite’s face. The water sank into the porous stone of the creature’s skin.

  “What makes you think I’m helping the Federation?” he countered.

  My annoyance was starting to smother my fear of Dr. Upton. Not enough to actually force the information out of him, but enough to keep pressing.

  “You’re one of their scientists. The Federation funds and monitors everything you do,” I said.

  “Which was why I needed you,” Dr. Upton replied. His voice didn’t ooze with any of his sinister nature; it was rather matter-of-fact. His attention was fully on the creature in front of him, not leaving any time or energy to frighten me into cooperation.

  Pressing his fingers hard into the Astronaut’s face, Dr. Upton kneaded the water further into his skin. Did these creatures come from the ocean? There was little reported on the vast waters of this world.

  Meteoroid’s hands suddenly flew to his helmet, trying to grip the latches, but his fingers were too thickly gloved. He couldn’t grip the tiny clasps. I took over, yanking up each metallic fastener.

  Meteoroid twisted his helmet and pushed it away. It rolled across the laboratory floor, bounced off the wall, and then settled upright. Meteoroid’s hands moved in fear, and he pressed his palms to his chest.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  “He’s suffocating,” Dr. Upton said.

  There was clearly only one of Dr. Upton, and he was occupied with Satellite. My heart raced as I scanned the containers on the counter behind me. Gripping the one marked H2O, I dumped the liquid onto Meteoroid and began working it in just like Dr. Upton was doing with Satellite. Meteroid pulled at my arms, panic causing him to flail. I swatted his hands away and gripped his wrists, pressing them into the ground when they interfered too much.

  When his body stilled, I thought it meant he understood I was helping him, but then cracks flared out from under my fingertips.

  He’s dying! my mind howled.

  I couldn’t witness another death. My fingers worked faster, but his skin fractured more. A scream caught in my throat when his cheek broke away in my palm.

  He is going to crumble and die right in front of me!

  But then I noticed something strange, more bizarre than having a rock-like creature on the ground in front of me. The hole in his cheek revealed dark ebony skin.

  I heard the patter of rubble raining off the table. Dr. Upton wasn’t waking Satellite up; he was digging him out.

  I pressed on the stone harder, and it crumbled under my fingertips. A face with dimension and indentations started to develop. A young man emerged under my palms, the stone leaving smears of gray ash across his nose and chin. Crumbles of rock stuck to a small metal box attached to his forehead by an orange strap.

  “He has no scales,” I breathed.

  I stared at his smooth, dark skin. Not even a shimmer of green brushed across it. I had heard whispers about people like this. I’d read articles in discarded tabloids of legends and fables about creatures that looked like us but were different.

  Humans are a legend—a lie.

  Meteoroid started to convulse, his chest contracting as if... My fingers pried open his mouth, and I was greeted by that same porous stone. I grabbed at it, but it melted to mush in my hand. I scooped it out, making grayish mud dribble down his cheeks and jaw. His fingers wrapped around the wrist of my free hand, and I let him keep them there.

  I kept working, tossing the slop to the ground. I wasn’t going to be responsible for another person’s death. I hesitated for a split second as a vacuous sound echoed from where Dr. Upton worked. I scraped out another handful, hearing a wet, choking breath coming from Meteoroid. His lips moved like he was trying to speak, but no sound came out. It looked like he was repeating the same word over and over.

  My fingers reached for his mouth again, but the tight grip on my wrist made me pull them back. His eyes were squeezed shut as he tried to get me to understand.

  -ol

  -fa

  -do

  -ce

  -lfa

  “Ollfac. Facdo,” I said, testing it out on my tongue.

  His hand squeezed tighter as harsh liquid gasps began pushing and pulling out of him. Why is this so important when he is about to die?

  A knife stabbed through my heart when I could finally read not the word, but the words on his lips.

  “Doll...face,” I breathed.

  His fingers loosened and then dropped from my wrist. H
is eyes smoothed out, the struggle gone.

  He knows what’s happened to No’ll! He can tell me if he’s alive!

  I thrust my hand into his mouth, but I couldn’t scrape anything out. I stared at my fingers, knowing there was nothing left that they could retrieve.

  I took a determined breath, slamming my hand down against the ground. For No’ll, I lowered my lips to his, drawing up the slop lodged in his throat. The liquid had the texture of mud as I extracted it out of Meteoroid and into my mouth. The thick goop slid across my taste buds, warm and bitter. Pulling away, I spat it out, scooping what I could before extracting more.

  I thought adrenaline and panic would make my mind gloss over the fact that my lips were pressed against a young man’s, but I was painfully aware of them. They were cold and lifeless, a step away from being a corpse, a step away from kissing a stranger.

  The mud dripped from my chin as I deposited the contents of my mouth onto the ground again. I cleaned my face with the sleeve of my navy sweater. Before my lips connected with his for another draw, I secretly wished for a second that he was No’ll, which would have obviously alarmed me expect for the fact that Meteoroid was dying.

  As I extracted another mouthful, his lips started to move against mine. His fingers came to life, brushing his tips against my hand. When I pulled away, Meteoroid coughed and finally took a solid breath of air.

  “Put this on him immediately,” Dr. Upton ordered, kicking out a cylinder from under his table. It clattered loudly against the iron floor, dragging a gas mask with it as it rolled into Meteoroid’s arm. I quickly placed the mask over his face.

  “Turn the valve clockwise twice,” Dr. Upton instructed.

  I did as he said, and gas hissed through the tube into the mask.

  “Good job. You just saved his life.”

  The way Dr. Upton said it, I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. I gazed over at him to try to gain some sort of context, but his focus was still on Satellite.

  “I don’t think his friend is going to make it,” Dr. Upton said.

  HE DIDN’T. SATELLITE died an hour later.

  |Twenty Three|

  I STARED WIDE-EYED at Satellite, whose body lay still on Dr. Upton’s table. His skin bore no scales, just like his companion’s, except it was a pale white and his hair was ginger. I glanced from Satellite down to Meteoroid, both legends come to life.

  “What—” I gulped. “What just happened?”

  Dr. Upton was casually tidying up his examination room as if a life-or-death—rather a life-and-death—situation hadn’t just unfolded. He grabbed the small metal box from Satellite’s head, wriggling it loose until the strap slipped off.

  “So this is how they tap into the Idiosyncratic frequency,” Dr. Upton muttered, turning the device over in his hand.

  “Please tell me,” I begged.

  “If you think you have nightmares now believing the propaganda they feed you,” he said, keeping his eyes on the metal device he was inspecting, “then the truth will surely traumatize you.”

  “I want to know,” I said.

  Dr. Upton turned his gaze to mine. His face was neither evil nor dangerous, but somewhere in between. Serious, fierce, something like those. Just more...terrifying.

  “They always say that, until they do,” he said.

  Dr. Upton retrieved a piece of tech-paper from his lab coat and held it out to me. I gripped it, not believing the official type and blinking Federation emblem.

  The Federation Recognizes

  Les’ette Upton

  as an Emancipated Adult

  “I’ll file it when you become of age,” Dr. Upton said, pulling out a small, velvet bag. He tossed it at me, and I struggled to catch it before it landed on Satellite’s chest. “There are enough tributes to survive until you can work. You’re free. Now go.”

  I stared down at the certificate and money, everything I’d ever wanted. My eyes shifted to Meteoroid’s fingertips beside my feet. His palms rested unmoving against the ground. Meteoroid had passed out from his ordeal.

  “I need to speak to him,” I said, gesturing toward him with my head.

  “He is none of your concern now. You already know too much, but I’m done being a monster for today.”

  Dr. Upton was giving me the chance to start over, to take control of my life, to make my own decisions. All I had to do was walk away from everything and everyone like I had always planned on doing anyway.

  I pressed the certificate and tributes against my chest, taking a step away from the table.

  It’s easy to walk away, Les’ette. No’ll’s words echoed the doubt in my mind. I took two more steps, but stopped. My heart rate picked up, thrumming inside my chest. My jaw clenched as I stared at the open door.

  “What if...” I hated hearing the quiver in my voice and the pounding of my heart in my ears. My body was warning me of the danger I was about to throw myself into, warning me that I was going against everything I’d fought so hard to get. “What if I stayed?”

  Silly, silly girl, your heart will be annihilated.

  Dr. Upton started to laugh. It was a deep, hysterical cackle that reminded me of Vlady’mir’s. I turned around to face his amusement.

  “What makes you think you have a choice?” He chuckled.

  The little I knew about people was that those who thought they were monsters usually weren’t. I cleared my throat, trying to hide how scared I was.

  “Because you need me,” I whispered.

  A startled jolt silenced his laughter. His face twisted into that terrifying expression again. His brows furrowed, lips a thin line, cheek scales trembling, and a hollow void in the center of his eyes. I realized then that people were not crumbled edifices, shattered vases, or crushed light bulbs. It’s never that apparent when we’ve been broken.

  “I don’t think you’re a monster,” I said.

  “And what makes you think I’m not?”

  “Oh’pol,” I said, remembering the way she’d reached for him.

  He marched toward me, his lips slicking into that eerie smile. He grabbed my arm and pressed his other hand against my upper back, forcing me along with him. Hauling me out of the room and through the workstation, he thrust me down the hallway of tanks.

  “If you stay, this is where you’ll end up. Trapped,” he barked. “This is what happens when half-truths monopolize the world. This is what happens when people hold tight to the wrong half.”

  “So ignorance is my freedom?”

  He jerked around, facing me, his expression a crazed madman’s; his right eye twitched.

  “Truth comes with a price,” he said.

  “And what sort of price is that?”

  “Ph’loyd!” Eye’vee yelled.

  Dr. Upton froze, his right eye twitching more fervently.

  “I know that’s your wife. What happened?” I asked.

  “Ph’loyd, show her,” she said.

  I could hear the sadness in her voice, tears so close to choking off her words.

  “I know the legends around humans are real, but what parts are true?” I asked.

  “Please,” Eye’vee whimpered.

  Dr. Upton’s hands loosened and then slipped away from me. That broken expression filled his features. He slowly stepped down the hall, faltering in his strides. I shadowed him as he stopped in front of Eye’vee’s tank. She still wore that HAZMAT suit, and her bright eyes were just as vibrant. Eye’vee pressed her hand against the cage.

  “You need to show her, dearest. We need her to stay,” she cooed.

  He pressed his palm to hers, nodding.

  “The price,” Dr. Upton whispered, “is the death of the Federation’s fantasy.”

  |Twenty Four|

  DR. UPTON LOCKED THE copper framework around us and then pressed the -5 button. Eye’vee was a blurred figure in the distance as she watched with palms pressed against her tank. I stared at her until the elevator doors closed.

  I gripped one of the iron rods as we rock
eted down into the confidential depths of the city. I wobbled on my feet but found a sturdy stance.

  Dr. Upton reached behind me, pulling off one of the gasmasks and depositing it into my hands. He grabbed one from the opposite side for himself, putting it on and tightening the straps against his skull. The gasmask was heavy as it clung tight to the edges of my face. The air pumping through the tubing was stale and dry. My palms and pits were clammy as an unfamiliar form of fear settled inside me.

  “The way we live isn’t normal.” His voice was muffled by his mask, but he was able to make his words carry. It seemed like a practiced skill.

  I heard the glugging sound moments before the water skimmed across my boots. It was icy cold, causing goose bumps to break out across my skin. My eyes fired to Dr. Upton’s, but he seemed unconcerned.

  The light overhead crackled, flickering on and off. The water churned faster around my legs, lapping at my knees. Dr. Upton gripped a rod at the top and side of the capsule.

  “You’d better hold onto something,” he said.

  As the capsule opened, I was thrown against the iron rods by a wall of water. The current thrust me forward, but before I collided with the cage my arm was seized. Dr. Upton swung me to the side, releasing me when I gained a solid grip. The water swirled up my torso, splashing against the walls and sprinkling my gas mask. The capsule shook as it settled onto the level. The water swayed back and forth, stopping just above my chin.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  Dr. Upton reached up, using the framework to pull himself to the flickering luminary. He yanked the silver wire out of its base, plunging us into dark black waters. I gripped the iron rod tighter, blinking my eyes to try to adjust them faster.

  “Take a look under the water,” Dr. Upton said.

  I slowly lowered myself until I was completely submerged. If I hadn’t been wearing the mask, I certainly would have choked on water.

  Massive machines with iron pipes protruding and winding around each other lay on the ground. Bright green bubbles were pushed out of vents, giving the scene an effervescent halo. The machines went on endlessly.