by Malinda Lo
“How do you know that?” Reese asked.
“There’s a plaque over there that explains it. This place used to be called Camp Reynolds. It was occupied by the US Army in the nineteenth century.” She started walking toward the sign and gestured at the row of whitewashed, boarded-up buildings. “That was called Officers’ Row. I guess they had a lot of officers. They used to have barracks for the ordinary soldiers across the field, but they were torn down in the 1930s.”
“Did they give you a guided tour when you landed here or something?”
“No. But there isn’t much to do here, you know. During the week, I spend a lot of time walking around and reading the signs.”
They turned right at the end of the gravel road, where a sloping path led downhill past Officers’ Row toward the bay. Reese glanced at Amber as they walked toward the water. “I thought you’d have stuff to do. Like, I don’t know, some high-tech spacey stuff or something.”
Amber’s eyebrows rose. “No. Hirin Sagal deals with some stuff like that. I haven’t been trained in that area, so I try to keep out of his way.”
“What does everybody else do?” Reese asked, curiosity pushing aside some of her defensiveness. “I’ve only seen a few of you—where is everybody?”
“Akiya Deyir is working on setting up the United Nations stuff. He has several assistants helping him, and they’re always having conference calls with other nations. My mother and the others from Project Plato are putting together their research. They’re going to release that at the UN, too, and a lot of it has to be translated into, well, human terms. Sometimes I help them figure out how to say things, since I grew up here. I guess I act sort of as a cultural translator.”
They had reached the end of the gravel path, and as Amber stepped onto the grass to continue toward the bay, Reese glanced back at the ship. On top of the triangular tip of the craft, a line of seagulls were perched, white feathers stark against the black ship.
“There’s a little beach out here,” Amber said. “It’s nice. We can sit on the wall.”
Reese was still staring at the gulls. “I never see birds in the city anymore, but I always see them when I come here.”
“That’s probably because we don’t kill them.”
Amber’s words were disconcerting. Reese turned to look at her. She was waiting near the edge of the grass that overlooked the strip of sand, her face expectant. “You want to sit?” The ghost of a grin crossed her face. “At least it’s warm today.”
Reese remembered the last time—the only time—she had gone to a beach with Amber: the cold, brisk wind at Ocean Beach ruffling over the two of them as they lay on a blanket in the shelter of a sand dune. Reese was unexpectedly flustered, and she shoved her hands into her pockets as she stepped onto the grass. “So what else do you do here besides explain the weird customs of my people?” Reese asked. “How much time do you spend e-mailing my best friend?”
The smile on Amber’s face faltered. “He told you.”
“Of course he told me. He’s my best friend.”
Amber lowered herself onto the edge of the wall and gazed out at the bay. It was warm but overcast, and in the distance Reese saw a container ship moving slowly across the water. She began to think that Amber was never going to answer when she finally spoke.
“I only wanted to find out how you were feeling,” Amber said. “Whether you were going to call us with the phone I gave you.”
Reese sat down a couple of feet away from her. The wall was rough beneath her hands. “How did you get his e-mail address?”
“He works at that Bin 42 site. It’s public info.”
“Why didn’t you just ask me directly?”
Amber’s face reddened, but she didn’t look at Reese. “You were so mad at me. I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me. Maybe I shouldn’t have e-mailed him, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had to—” Her voice broke. She took a quick breath. “I had to do it. I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.”
“You could see me here every week. You told me the day of the press conference that we were going to have to see each other, but I haven’t seen you since then. You thought e-mailing Julian would be a better idea?”
Amber turned on her, gray eyes fierce. “When I saw you at the press conference you said we couldn’t be friends. You said you’d never forgive me—”
“I never said that—”
“That’s what it sounded like!”
Amber’s eyes were red-rimmed, and a surge of shame went through Reese, quickly followed by indignation. What did she have to be ashamed of? “Well, maybe you were right,” Reese said angrily. “Why should I forgive you? You might just lie to me again.”
Amber’s face crumpled. She drew her feet up onto the wall and wrapped her arms around her legs, and she looked so small and fragile that Reese almost moved to comfort her. She curled her hands into fists instead.
“Yes, I lied to you,” Amber said in a low voice. “I know I hurt you. I see that I hurt you a lot and I’m so, so sorry. But I thought it was necessary to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
Amber’s eyes gleamed as she looked at the water. “We were trying to keep it a secret—the fact that you and David had this procedure. Your government was suspicious already, and if they knew we were successful, they would try to take you.” Amber turned to Reese. “They did try to take you. I couldn’t tell you because we didn’t want to put you in any more danger.”
“But you guys just released me and David to them. You gave us to those men in black, and they brought us back to San Francisco and we didn’t know anything about what you did to us. Do you know how totally weird it was to be experiencing that adaptation ability without knowing what it was? We thought we were going crazy. How was that protecting us?”
Amber shook her head as if Reese wasn’t getting it. “We had to let you go. Your government suspected that we’d done something to you, but they didn’t know what it was. We told them that you’d just had a car accident and you were treated for those injuries. If we hadn’t released you, they would have suspected much sooner. You would never have gone home, period. You would still be stuck at Project Plato or maybe at Blue Base, being tested by the military. Your parents probably would have thought you died during that gas station explosion in Las Vegas. They would never have found you.”
Reese rubbed a hand over her face, trying to puzzle out the details of what Amber was saying. “That’s all hypothetical, but fine. Maybe it’s good you gave us to the men in black, but once we were home, why did you show up? You said you were supposed to make sure I was okay. Wouldn’t the government get suspicious when they saw you? Obviously they were following me.”
Amber sighed. “They didn’t know about me. I wasn’t part of Project Plato. I was a secret. So really, when it came down to it, I was the only one who could keep an eye on you in San Francisco. And I was told to not tell you what happened, because we were still trying to work out how much the government suspected. We also weren’t totally sure that the procedure had worked, so we didn’t think there was any use telling you until we were sure. Besides, what if I had told you who I was? Would you even have believed me? You would have thought I was insane.”
Reese sat in silence for a moment, absorbing Amber’s words. “Even if I had thought that, didn’t it ever occur to you that I deserved to know? What you guys did to me and David—it changed us in ways we still don’t understand. How could you justify keeping that a secret? The adaptation procedure might have saved our lives, but it also put us in the middle of some crazy chess game between the Imria and the government, and David and I aren’t pawns to be moved around whenever one of you changes your mind. We’re people, not test subjects. Even if it might have made sense to keep some of this a secret at the beginning, I can’t understand why you didn’t tell me once you started—once we started—” She still didn’t know what to call it, and she made a frustrated sound. “If you really liked me, why did
n’t you tell me the truth?”
Amber looked miserable. “Maybe I was being selfish.”
Reese’s forehead furrowed. “What?”
“You have to understand: Nothing happened the way I expected. I thought it would be, I don’t know, straightforward. Like I’d meet you and we’d hang out and I’d get a feel for whether you were having any symptoms of the adaptation, and that would be it. But…” She raised her gaze to Reese. “I didn’t expect you. The first time we met, I knew right away that I wanted to kiss you.” A faint blush colored Amber’s cheeks, and despite her defensiveness, Reese felt her own face warming up in response. “I let myself get carried away by my feelings. It was so much more fun—it made me feel so much more alive—to forget about who I really was and what I was supposed to be doing. I wanted to be with you and pretend like it was totally normal. I wanted to be an ordinary human girl who met another girl, and we liked each other and that was it. No complicated backstory to mess it all up.”
Amber paused, and all Reese could hear was the soft rush of waves upon the shore. “I shouldn’t have given in to what I wanted,” Amber continued. “What I did was wrong. I know that now, and I’m so, so sorry that I hurt you. You don’t know how sorry I am. But I’m not sorry that I fell in love with you.”
Reese froze. She stopped breathing; she didn’t blink. The only motion inside her was the suddenly rapid pounding of her heart. Amber’s eyes were shining, her expression strangely defiant, as if she wanted Reese to dare her to say it again.
“Why do you like me?” Reese finally asked. “You barely knew me. You still barely know me.”
Amber uncoiled from where she was sitting. She turned to face Reese, one leg hanging over the edge of the wall, the other bent so that her sneakered foot rested against the inside of her thigh. “Because there’s something in you that speaks to me,” she said. “If you want me to list the top ten reasons, I can’t. I only need one reason, and that reason is that you and I work together. We work. I could feel it the first time I touched you, and I didn’t need to read your mind to know it.” Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I meant it when I told you I’ve never felt that way about anyone else before. I never have. I’ve been with girls I liked, you know? I was attracted to them. They were fun. But you—when I was with you I felt free. I felt… human.”
Amber’s eyelashes were dark and wet. Her mouth was slightly open, her bare lips the color of coral, and the smudge of pink on her cheeks looked like someone had swept their thumbs over her skin before cupping her face in their hands. There was something ethereal about her at that moment, something fragile and unearthly, and for the first time, Reese saw another world in Amber’s face.
“If I could go back and tell you everything at the beginning, I would. I hope that someday you’ll forgive me. I just—” Amber’s voice broke, and she took a quick, deep breath. “I miss you. I miss you so much.” She reached for Reese’s hand, and Reese was so stunned that she let Amber take it. Her fingers were soft and warm, and Reese felt Amber open up, as if she were making an offering of herself with no strings attached.
It was impossible for her not to look.
It was like gazing into a spiral shell, pearlescent and luminous. As Reese’s resistance slowly disintegrated, she began to sense Amber’s emotions rippling one into another. First there was fear: fear that made Amber’s internal landscape hum with tension; fear that Reese would push her away. But as they remained connected, their fingers interlaced, Amber’s fear began to recede, and gradually Reese sensed something else. It was like the sun rising over the ocean, at first only a dim glow on the horizon, then a wash of pink over the blue-gray sky, until at last a golden eye blinked open on the edge of the sea. Hope, weighted with all of Amber’s mistakes and regrets and desires. Hope that Reese would forgive her, that she would let Amber in again.
It was one of the most seductive things Reese had ever felt. She couldn’t help but be swayed by it, like a hummingbird drawn to the deep pink bloom of a fuchsia flower on a warm summer day. The hard-edged ache that had been buried deep within her ever since she discovered Amber had lied to her began to soften, and her eyes grew hot.
This was why Eres wanted her to talk to Amber, of course. To face this ache. Reese felt so stupid. She could never connect with another person if she didn’t acknowledge this part of herself, this bruised heart. Ignoring it wouldn’t make it heal, and imprisoning it behind a wall of defensiveness only served to suffocate herself. She drew in a trembling breath.
Please, Amber thought. Please give me another chance.
Amber reached out with her free hand and touched Reese’s cheek, her fingers trailing sparks over Reese’s skin. All of gravity seemed to bend toward Amber, and Reese leaned in. She was so close she could almost feel the breath from Amber’s lips on hers. If she moved one more centimeter, they would be kissing.
David.
The memory of him dragged her away from Amber with a jolt. She jerked away from Amber’s hand and scrambled to her feet to put distance between them.
Amber looked shocked by the sudden cessation of contact. “What’s wrong?”
Reese was horrified at herself. How could she be pulled right back in like that? “I can’t be with you,” she said, her words sounding all choked up. “I can’t.”
Hurt, plain and simple, came over Amber’s face, and Reese wanted to go to her and hug her, but she didn’t allow herself to move.
“Because of David,” Amber said, her voice so low that Reese almost didn’t hear it.
“Yes.” Reese felt sick at what she had almost done.
Amber stood as well, but she didn’t close the space between them. She looked nervous as she opened her mouth to speak, but Reese interrupted her.
“Don’t say anything, please.” Reese didn’t think she could resist any more of Amber’s persuasion. “I have to go back. I can’t—I can’t be with you. That’s all.”
She turned away and started to head back up the path toward the ship. She heard Amber call her name, but she ignored it and kept walking, her legs trembling with each step. All she knew was that she had to put distance between the two of them, as much distance as possible, because she certainly didn’t trust herself.
CHAPTER 24
Reese didn’t go back to the ship. She couldn’t face David right now, not with Amber’s words still echoing in her mind. She wound up walking all the way back to the ferry, passing several armed National Guard troops on the way. She heard their walkie-talkies scratch to life behind her as they reported her whereabouts to whoever was in charge. At the harbor, two soldiers paced back and forth in front of the dock. She ignored them and sat on the bench outside the closed information booth, staring at the harbor. She kept remembering the look on Amber’s face when she said she wasn’t sorry she had fallen in love with Reese. The word love was so big, so grand. Reese didn’t know if she should believe Amber. On the one hand, it would be easier if she didn’t. Then she could ignore the L word and concentrate on being angry. On the other hand, part of Reese did want to believe her. Amber had said everything Reese had ever secretly wanted to hear, and even if the word love frightened Reese, she couldn’t deny its allure.
But what about David? Thinking about him made a new, awful ache grow inside her, one she had never felt before. She had liked him long before she had ever met Amber. She trusted him. The way he made her feel was so different from the way Amber made her feel. With David, there was a warmth and solidity and clarity that there wasn’t with Amber. David made her feel safe and respected and happy. Amber made her feel tormented and hungry. There shouldn’t be any competition. But there was.
Half an hour later, an SUV drove up to the ferry landing and David and her father climbed out. Her dad came toward her, looking upset. “Are you all right? Why didn’t you tell us where you were going? You can’t just run off like that.”
“I needed some space,” she answered, avoiding David’s gaze.
“Reese, you need to tell m
e where you’re going,” her dad admonished her.
“It’s not like nobody knew. I’ve been watched by the National Guard the whole time.”
Her dad sat beside her, shaking his head. “That’s not the point.”
Reese surreptitiously watched David as he turned away from them to look at the harbor. “Fine. I’m sorry,” she said. Her dad sighed, but he didn’t chide her further.
On the ferry, Reese climbed the steep steps to the deck, hoping to continue avoiding David, but he followed her up. She leaned against the railing as the boat motored away from the slip, watching as the island receded.
“Reese.”
She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. He was standing a foot away, and she noticed that he hadn’t attempted to touch her. She didn’t know what she would do if he did. She knew she could shut him out, but even the idea of it felt like a betrayal.
“Dr. Brand invited us to go with them to the UN in New York,” he said.
“She did?”
“Yeah. They want us to travel with them. They’re taking the ship.”
Somehow the invitation didn’t surprise her. “Do you want to go?”
“Yeah, I do. I think it’s our chance to speak to both sides. They need us.”
She didn’t answer. She knew she should say something, but all she could do was think to herself: You’re about to fuck this up, aren’t you? There was a strained silence. In the distance Reese heard the sound of a motorboat zipping across the water.
Finally David came to stand beside her. “Are you going to tell me what happened with Amber?”
Reese lowered her gaze to stare at the water coursing past the ferry. “We just… talked.”
“Then why are you acting so guilty?”
Her face burned. “She’s hard to deal with, okay?” Reese straightened up, shoving her hands into her pockets as she looked at him.