Adaptation

by Malinda Lo

  “When does it happen?”

  “Sometimes when I’m touching someone else, but sometimes… not.” She thought it had happened that night when David came over and examined her hands in the living room. But she didn’t think it had ever happened with Amber. It made no logical sense, and it frustrated her. “Maybe it’s just as random as you hearing voices.”

  He shifted in the seat next to her. “Has anything else weird been happening to you?”

  “Well, I keep having this dream.” She told him about the yellow room.

  “What do you think it means?”

  “I think it’s a memory of what happened after the accident.”

  “You were in a yellow room?”

  “Yes. But it’s not a room with four walls and a door. It’s like a bubble. It’s like—” She hesitated. “This sounds ridiculous, but if you could imagine being in an incubator, except one made of some kind of living material, that’s what I think it felt like.”

  David stared at her. She could sense the sudden increase in tension between them as clearly as if he had reached out and touched her. “The walls,” he said in a low voice. “Are they bleeding?”

  Her mouth went dry. “Yes. You remember it too.”

  The dome light went off, plunging them into darkness. The streetlamp outside the garage barely penetrated the blackness. Reese almost leaped out of her skin when David’s hand brushed hers. “Reese,” he said.

  “Wh-what?” The air in the car seemed to move as if it were a pile of metal filings, all pointing at her.

  His jacket rustled as he shifted in the passenger seat. “We’re different. Since the accident. You and me.” His words hung in the charged air. His fingers laced through hers.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  “Is it happening to you now?” he asked.

  His pulse was strong in her hand, echoing the pace of her own. And then, as if that third eye had blinked open in her again, she could see him from the inside out.

  It terrified her. With her mom, there had been nothing to be afraid of. She trusted her mom; she loved her. But she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know David like that. It was much too intimate. All her defensive walls snapped up, pushing back against him. Cold sweat broke out on her skin, and she pulled her hand away.

  In a dizzying rush, she was just herself again: backed up against the car door, her body trembling. “No. I don’t know,” she said. “It’s getting really late. I should go upstairs.” She pushed the door open awkwardly. The dome light came on again, and David was a shadow turned toward her.

  “All right,” he said.

  She couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or confused. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  She climbed out of the car on rubbery legs, and as she was about to shut the door she saw a lump on the backseat. Startled, she ducked back into the car; it was Julian’s jacket. She pulled it out and inspected the rest of the car, making sure nothing else had been left behind for her mother to discover. David was waiting outside in the chilly night. She entered the code on the number pad to close the door, wrapping her arms around herself against the misty air.

  “We have to talk about this,” David said.

  She clutched Julian’s jacket to her chest. “I know.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Okay,” she said again, backing away.

  “Bye.”

  “Bye.” She turned stiffly and climbed the steps to the front door.

  CHAPTER 27

  Reese couldn’t sleep. David’s words rang in her. memory We’re different. She knew it was true. She ran a hand along the side of her body, tracing the phantom scar that had once slashed across her ribs to her belly button. They had cut her open, and when they sewed her back together, something fundamental had changed.

  She didn’t know how to deal with it or even how to understand it. The more she thought about it, trying to puzzle out why or how her strange new ability worked, the more frustrated she became.

  Restless, she flipped onto her side and pillowed her head on her arm. Julian’s jacket was flung over the back of her desk chair. The early morning light was seeping through the blinds. She could just make out the red and yellow paint on the wall, now completely dry. She sat up, remembering the last part of the project. She threw off the blanket and picked up the roll of plastic wrap, turning on the overhead light. She found scissors and clear tape and began to stretch the plastic over the center of the wall in the shape of a rough star.

  When she was finished, she stepped back to look at the entire wall, with the glistening plastic center layered over bittersweet root, morning sunrise, and downy gold. She remembered watching the birth of a calf, once, in biology class. The furry head, damp and frighteningly large, emerging from the cow’s birth canal. The ears and neck and shoulders slipping out of the wet, glistening caul.

  Reese could almost remember how it felt: like an amphibian heaving itself out of the primordial goo of the sea, crawling onto the shore. Damp, new, exhilarating.

  Rebirth, Amber had said.

  It was just before seven o’clock in the morning. Her body hummed with alertness. She couldn’t go back to sleep now. She decided to go to Amber’s house and surprise her and then take Julian’s jacket back to him. She wrote a note for her mom so she wouldn’t worry when she woke up to find an empty house, then grabbed her keys and left.

  Outside, the fog hadn’t burned off yet. The mist still curled over Twin Peaks, and the radio tower was obscured by damp white clouds. She wrapped her scarf around her neck and pulled Julian’s jean jacket over her hoodie for added warmth.

  Along the way she remembered that Amber had said her mother was in town for a few days, and Reese realized she hadn’t asked about the logistics of that. Was Amber’s mom staying in the flat with her? She should probably call her when she got there, instead of just ringing the doorbell. She wished she had a key, so she could sneak upstairs into Amber’s room and kiss her awake. The thought of it pulled deliciously at her belly, and she turned onto Amber’s street with her phone in her hand, ready to dial.

  As she glanced in the direction of Amber’s house, she saw someone emerging from the building’s front door. It was an older woman dressed in a gray skirt suit, her dark hair cut in a bob.

  It was Dr. Brand.

  Reese halted. What is she doing here?

  But the jolt of recognizing Dr. Brand was nothing compared to what Reese felt when she saw Amber come out of the house and hand the woman a manila envelope.

  Reese instinctively ducked behind the hedge that bordered the steep front steps of the house next door, her heart slamming against her chest. All her anticipation for seeing Amber vanished, smothered by the shock of discovering that Amber somehow knew Dr. Brand. Reese twisted around so that she could look in the direction of Amber’s house, but the foliage was too dense. She stiffened as she heard footsteps heading toward her, and then Dr. Brand spoke.

  “That’s all? You only saw the painted wall, right? There was no other evidence of the adaptation chamber anywhere?”

  “No, that was all,” Amber said. “I think she’s starting to remember, but I don’t think she really knows what it means yet.”

  Their voices grew closer, and Reese was afraid that they would walk right past her and see her crouched on the steps, but at the last minute they stopped. A car alarm beeped, and someone opened a car door.

  “When are you coming back?” Amber asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Dr. Brand answered. “I’ll take this photo with me and consult with the others. I didn’t think she would remember so quickly.”

  “What do you want me to do in the meantime?” Amber asked.

  There was a pause, and Reese held her breath. She realized that Amber was only a few feet away, and if she walked any farther to the right she might see her.

  “You’ve done an excellent job so far,” Dr. Brand said. “I think you should just continue with your assignment. Let me know if anything else c
omes up.”

  “All right,” Amber said. “Have a safe flight.”

  The door closed, and a moment later the engine turned on and the car drove away. Reese waited until she heard Amber’s footsteps return to the house. After the front door opened and closed, Reese pushed herself up and walked blindly down the hill toward the park. She didn’t look back.

  Reese felt like she was going to throw up. If Amber knew Dr. Brand, and Dr. Brand knew Amber, that meant—

  Reese didn’t want to think about it, but she had to. Was Amber a spy? Had she been lying to her the entire time? Her stomach heaved. Dr. Brand’s words echoed in her mind: You’ve done an excellent job… you should just continue with your assignment.

  She inhaled raggedly as tears came to her eyes. She smelled exhaust on the wind, oil that turned her stomach. When she hit Church Street she crossed over to the park and headed to a bench on the 20th Street rim. She sat down and stared at the city. Everything looked blurry, as if she were gazing through rain. She realized it was because the tears she had held back were running free now.

  Her phone buzzed. Automatically she tugged it out of her jeans pocket. It was a message from Julian, but she didn’t feel up to reading it. She shoved it into the jacket pocket. Her fingers brushed against crinkly plastic. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes and remembered that the jacket was Julian’s. She rubbed away the tears on her face, feeling disoriented. Nothing made sense.

  With trembling fingers, she pulled a cigarette out and stuck it in between her lips. She found the matchbook Julian had tucked inside the box. She struck a match and it died in a breath of wind. She tried again. Five matches later, she was disgusted with herself for failing to light the cigarette and vaguely nauseous at the idea of smoking, period. But she was nothing if not stubborn, and halfway through the matchbook she lit a flame that caught. The end of the cigarette glowed as she inhaled.

  She coughed. The taste of it was acrid. A fleck of tobacco clung to her lip, and she brushed it off. She exhaled a plume of gray smoke. A guy in a blue jacket passed her and stopped, turning back. “Hey, can I bum a smoke?” he asked.

  She held out the pack.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  She was barely half-finished with the cigarette, and already her head was feeling hazy from the nicotine. All she could smell was tar and ash. She was about to grind out the end of it on the ground when her phone rang again. This time when she pulled it out to check, the call was from Amber.

  Her stomach fell. She put the phone down on the bench beside her, staring at the photo of Amber that had come onto the screen. Reese had taken it the day they went to the beach, and Amber was lying on the blanket and looking up at her, a half smile on her face. The lip gloss on her mouth was smudged.

  Feeling woozy, Reese pulled out another cigarette, lighting it from the glowing end of the first. The phone stopped ringing, and nausea twisted through her. She wasn’t used to smoking, and it was beginning to make her sick. But she couldn’t seem to stop. There was something soothing and yet simultaneously self-destructive about it. It gave her something to do. People came to the park and smoked all the time. She was totally normal. She hadn’t just discovered that her girlfriend—and she realized, in a horrified, heartbroken way, that she had begun to think of Amber that way—had been assigned to her by some kind of covert government agency. The very thought of it was ridiculous. Her hand visibly shook as she tapped ash from the cigarette onto the ground.

  Her phone buzzed: the sound of a voice-mail message arriving.

  She couldn’t resist. She picked up the phone and touched the message icon on the screen. “Hey, it’s Amber. I hope your mom wasn’t too upset yesterday! I wanted to call and see if we could get together today. I miss you. Call me back.”

  Heat bit at Reese’s fingers, and she yelped. The cigarette had burned down to the filter. She dropped it on the ground, rubbing it into the dirt with her shoe. It lay there like a gray slug, broken and blackened at the tip, and for a moment she thought she really was about to throw up. She bent over, her head between her knees, the phone clutched in her left hand, and took several shallow breaths. Sweat rose on her skin as her stomach churned.

  She saw the shoes of pedestrians pause slightly as they walked past her. She could practically feel them sizing her up, hesitant about asking if she needed help. A girl bent over on a park bench, apparently sick. They must think she was homeless. Or drunk. She laughed bitterly to herself, knowing that the hysterical sounds coming from her must only further confirm the strangers’ opinions of her.

  When her stomach no longer felt like it might flip over, she slowly straightened and put her phone and the cigarettes back into the jacket pocket. Below her, the bowl of Dolores Park was mostly empty; it was still pretty early in the day. But joggers were circling the perimeter, and commuters were walking briskly toward the Muni stop nearby.

  A small beige van had pulled up on the paved road that ran into the park behind the playground below her. Two men in matching yellow biohazard suits climbed out. They each held a plastic sack and a long pole with an apparatus at the end like a pair of tongs. She watched in growing apprehension as they approached a couple of dark lumps on the ground, piled behind the big green trash Dumpsters. When the men plucked the lumps from the ground with their devices, Reese gasped.

  They were birds.

  Their wings unfurled limply toward the ground as the men deposited them into the bags one after another.

  Reese glanced around the park, shocked that nobody else had noticed. The men walked back to their yellow truck with the dead birds swinging in the plastic bags. They put the bags inside the van and climbed in. The sound of the engine turning on was distant and small, and nobody noticed that either, and for the first time Reese understood how the government might be able to pull off any number of conspiracies.

  It was easy when most people simply didn’t pay any attention.

  Reese walked home slowly. Her stomach was gradually settling down, but her legs were shaky. When she arrived, the house was silent. There was a note on the hall table.

  Reese,

  Call me if you know what you want for dinner. And don’t forget to call SF Radar. I know you’ve been avoiding it.

  Love, Mom

  She trudged upstairs to the bathroom and turned on the tap, cupping her hand in the stream and rinsing her mouth several times. The taste of the cigarettes lingered, stale and gritty. Feeling as if she were in a trance, she crossed the hall to her bedroom, pausing in the doorway as she saw the painted wall. The wall that Amber had photographed and then shown to Dr. Brand.

  A snippet of Dr. Brand’s words floated back to her: no other evidence of the adaptation chamber. What did that mean? Reese entered her room, her gaze sweeping over the plastic affixed to the wall, the open electrical outlet, the bulletin board propped against her desk—where she saw the vase of daisies that Amber had given her.

  The sight of the flowers stabbed at her.

  All those hours with Amber. Discovering how to kiss her. Their date at the restaurant, where Amber had said, You’re my close-up. That didn’t even make any sense. Had she been lying the whole time?

  Reese went to the desk, picked up the vase in trembling hands, and carried it down to the kitchen. She pulled the flowers out and savagely stuffed them into the trash can as tears splattered onto her hands.

  CHAPTER 28

  Reese spent the day in bed. When her phone rang, she pulled the blankets over her head to muffle the sound. When her mom came home from work, Reese heard her calling her name, but she didn’t answer. Eventually her mom came upstairs and opened the door to her room. “There you are. Are you all right, honey?” She sat on the edge of Reese’s bed and put a hand on her forehead. “You’re burning up.” She forced Reese to take two ibuprofen and drink some water. Reese lay back down after swallowing the pills and blinked at her mother. Nothing felt real. Her mother looked anxious. “I’ll get you some soup for dinner. I think you’re coming down
with something.”

  Reese turned over, facing the wall. Her whole body ached as if she had been pummeled in a fight. She curled her legs up, tucking her hands close to her chest. Her mother stood and left the room.

  She must have dozed off, because the sound of her door opening woke her up, and she blinked her eyes against the lamplight. Her mom entered with a tray on which a bowl of soup steamed. It smelled of ginger and lime, and her mom said, “I got you tom yum soup.” Reese sat up and drank the soup, spoonful by spoonful, until the salty, tangy warmth seeped into her body, erasing the unsettling feeling that she wasn’t all there anymore.

  After that, her mom turned off the lamp, and Reese sank into sleep. Dreams rose up and faded away, as if her brain were sorting through a series of movies and trying to select one for her to focus on. She felt as if she were on a merry-go-round, dream slipping into memory and memory slipping into dream.

  She saw Amber in her bedroom, sliding out of her own red dress, her skin glowing as if she were made of light. And then David opened the door, and behind him was an endless marble corridor of memorial plaques. He was speaking to her, but she couldn’t make out the words. The walls around David slipped and slid, and then she was no longer in the mausoleum but in the yellow room, where she floated, hands folded over her chest. Safe. The sonorous tone of the bell rang underwater, echoing the beating of her heart.

  Reese opened her eyes in the dark. It was the middle of the night. Amber was a liar.

  She felt like a fool.

  Reese woke up to the sound of the coffee grinder downstairs. Her stomach growled, and as she rolled over she felt as if the entire center of her body had been hollowed out by hunger. She threw the covers back and stood too quickly. Dizziness made her sit down again on the edge of the mattress, one hand to her head. She took a deep breath and tried again, moving more slowly this time.