This Mortal Coil

by Emily Suvada

  I drop the letter back in the pile, staring out the window as we drive up the side of the mountain. “My father wouldn’t let me go. I’d just gotten out of boarding school. I think he wanted me here for a while longer.”

  “Boarding school?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Saint Lucia’s, up in Canada. It was awful. Everyone spent all their time in VR, so I didn’t have any friends. Gave me plenty of time to learn to code, though. What about you? Where did you go to school?”

  Something passes across Cole’s face—a wall coming down. “Military academy.”

  Of course. I should have guessed. There’s a precision to Cole’s movements, a calculated alertness in his eyes that tells me he isn’t a new recruit. Most of the Cartaxus troops I’ve seen rely heavily on their tech and weapons, but Cole seems to have been trained for years.

  “What about college?” I point to the Cambridge letter. “What were you going to study before the world ended?”

  His eyes go distant for a moment, and then he shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t know. I never really thought about it.”

  “There must have been something.”

  He shakes his head. “It’s not worth thinking about.”

  “If you don’t tell me, I’m going to start guessing. Right now, I’m thinking professional clown.”

  He sighs, slowing the jeep to pull us around a bend. “I wanted to study art.”

  “Oh.” Of course. I’ve seen his sketches, but I didn’t think about it. It’s hard to reconcile the leylined soldier with the boy who wanted to draw. “Why art?”

  “Why biomath?” he asks sarcastically.

  I roll my eyes. “I’m just trying to get to know you. We’re going to be stuck in this jeep all the way to Canada.”

  He spots the base of the hiking trail that leads to the mine’s entrance before I can point it out and pulls us off the gravel road. The jeep crunches to a stop, its dash dimming. He opens his door to get out but pauses and turns to me instead. His hand picks nervously at the fabric of his pants. He doesn’t look nervous, but that same energy I’ve glimpsed before is rolling off him, changing the pitch and the feel of the air. He meets my gaze and holds it so long I have to fight the urge to look away.

  For the first time, I feel like I’m really seeing him instead of the Cartaxus soldier. He’s younger than I thought, probably my age. His ice-blue eyes catch the morning light. There are a handful of tiny freckles scattered across his nose.

  “You’re the coder,” he says finally. “What genes make someone an artist?”

  I raise an eyebrow. That’s a trick question, and he knows it. Most of human behavior and its relationship to DNA is still undiscovered territory. We know what genes make rats afraid of eagles, and we know why birds fly south in the winter, but the complexities of human nature are still a mystery to science.

  “There’s no gene for art,” I say. “At least, not that anyone’s been able to find so far.”

  He nods, with what almost looks like pain in his eyes. “That’s why I wanted to be an artist.”

  He slides from his seat before I can reply and shuts the door behind him, leaving me alone in the jeep’s airlocked silence with the lingering scent of his aftershave.

  CHAPTER 12

  WHEN I GET OUT OF the jeep, Cole is striding back up the road we just came down, his arm held aloft as if trying to get reception. The landscape is rocky, the trees scraggly and sparse, and from here the trail to the mine’s entrance is so narrow and winding it needs to be hiked on foot.

  “Should have guessed,” he says, walking to the jeep. “Come on, let’s make this quick.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m running blind, that’s what’s wrong. I’ve been setting off scans ever since we started driving, but they’re all coming back glitched. I think it’s the same thing that was giving me those strange readings in the cabin. There’s something in this mountain that’s throwing off my tech.”

  “What, like mineral deposits?”

  “No, like top-secret Cartaxus tech that shouldn’t be here. Lachlan must have stolen it when he left.”

  “Oh. Yeah, that sounds familiar. He wired up something in the mines to keep the bats out of the main cavern, some kind of ultrasonic . . . thing. . . .”

  “It’s called a black dome.” Cole knocks on the jeep’s rear doors. They open with a hiss, and he climbs in, rummaging through the back. “It creates a dead zone for transmissions.”

  “Well, it works on bats, too.”

  “Great. I’ll be sure to tell Cartaxus.”

  I glance at the mine’s entrance, invoking my comm-link. There are so many places on the property without reception that I hadn’t noticed it was bad near the mines. I try to load my message bank, hoping for something from Agnes, but all I get is a spinning icon. Still no calls or texts. The only thing I can think of is that she figured out that Cole was carrying the vaccine. He said the freezepaks split when they were keeping me in the ice bath, so he would have lost skin and blood. Maybe she grabbed a sample and drove straight to the Skies.

  Cole shuffles out of the jeep with a backpack in his hands. He tosses it to me, and I catch it warily, stumbling with the weight. It’s nanoweave, flexible but bulletproof, with the white Cartaxus antlers stitched on the back.

  I look up. “What’s this for?”

  “It’s got a medkit, a water filter, and an emergency beacon in it. I need you to wear it everywhere you go.”

  I roll my eyes but swing the backpack on. “Where’s my gun?”

  “You’re not getting one.”

  “You’re kidding, right? I thought we were working together.”

  “We are, but you’re still not getting a gun. It’s too dangerous. Let me handle the security.”

  “This is bullshit,” I mutter, buckling the hip strap, shifting the backpack’s weight. “I should have a gun, and this pack might be the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever worn.”

  “Let me do it.” He grabs the strap from me and slides one hand around the side of my waist, then holds me in place while he yanks the strap until it’s snug around my hips. “How’s that?”

  I look up. He’s suddenly right next to me, the light catching his eyelashes, his scent wafting in the morning air. I meet his eyes for a moment, and something wordless passes between us, until I realize that his hand is still curled around my waist.

  He realizes it at the same moment and pulls it back, stepping away from me. A guilty look flashes across his face.

  Oh, no. Absolutely not. He did not just let his hand linger on my waist. I’m not sleeping in the same car as some muscle-bound jerk who thinks he can put his hands on me whenever he wants.

  “Hands off, soldier,” I snap, “or I’ll break your fingers.”

  I expect him to recoil, to bluster excuses and tell me I’m overreacting, but he drops his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I just . . .”

  “Just what?” I cross my arms.

  He scratches his head, embarrassed. “I just can’t stop thinking about Jun Bei. You remind me a bit of her, so whenever I talk to you, I can’t help but imagine how it’ll feel to talk to her.” He pauses. “Sorry, this is probably making you more uncomfortable. . . .”

  I watch him, keeping the hardness in my gaze until I’m sure he’s not just making up an excuse, then blow out a sigh. He isn’t trying to make a move—he’s just lovesick. I can’t imagine how he feels, finding out his girlfriend is alive after so long. He must be a wreck.

  “No,” I say. “I get it. I just thought you were a creep.”

  “I know it’s crazy to still care about her. She hasn’t contacted me in years. You must think I’m an idiot.”

  “If you’re an idiot, then so am I. I haven’t heard from Dax since the outbreak, and I still think about him every day.”

  “Dax?” Cole looks up, stunned. “You’re in love with Crick?”

  He looks so shocked it makes my shoulders tighten. “We were, sort of . . . Why, is he
dating someone else?”

  It’s been years. Of course he’s moved on. I’ve told myself a hundred times that he would, but some stupid part of myself still pictured us getting back together when this was over.

  An unreadable expression passes across Cole’s face. “No, he’s not. I just . . . I didn’t think you’d be his type. But Jesus, that’s perfect. Agatta and Crick. What a couple you two would make. You must have the combined IQ of a small planet.”

  The tension in my shoulders releases. “A medium-size planet, surely.”

  A beat passes, and then Cole’s lips curl. “Fine, then. Medium-size.”

  I grin, shifting the backpack, starting up the hiking trail. “I meant what I said, just so you know. I’ll break your fingers if you touch me.”

  He laughs, following me up the trail. “Yeah, so would Jun Bei.”

  “Oh, I like this girl. Tell me more.”

  He chuckles. “Well, she’s tough. She could beat me up any day of the week.”

  I glance back, clambering over a boulder. “Really? She must be strong.”

  “Yeah, but she’s mostly fast, and kind of vicious. She isn’t above biting people, or poking them in the eye.”

  “Okay, I definitely like her.” I grab a branch, pulling myself up a steep, rocky scramble and pause at the top to watch Cole climb up. He moves across the rocks with a mixture of grace and strength that makes me think of a lion.

  “So did you two get separated in the outbreak?” I ask.

  His smile freezes. “No, it was before that.”

  “Oh.” I straighten. Before the outbreak. For some reason I assumed Cole and Jun Bei were at Cartaxus together, but that doesn’t make sense. They would have been sixteen during the outbreak, and Cartaxus doesn’t recruit minors. “So how did you two meet?”

  He wipes a trickle of sweat from his forehead. “We were friends since we were kids.”

  “But how did my father know you? You said he knew Jun Bei, too. He must have met you both before the outbreak.”

  Something flashes across his face. A look that reminds me of the scars on his chest, of how he begged me to jack out of his panel. It lasts only a heartbeat, before a wall slams down and his eyes go flat. “Let’s talk about this later,” he says. “Like I said, I’m running blind without my tech. We need to find these notes and get out of here.”

  He heads up the trail, leaving me behind him with my intuition buzzing. I don’t know what I just hit on, but something tells me it’s not good. Some link between Cole, my father, and Jun Bei. Something from before the plague. I shift the backpack again and follow him up the trail, a growing sense of unease prickling inside me.

  We don’t speak again until we reach the entrance to the mine—a square, fortified slice of blackness cut into the mountain’s side. Cole pauses at the edge of the darkness and pulls two headlamps from his pocket. Inch-wide FIPEL strips on black elastic, gold-stamped with the Cartaxus antlers. He tosses one to me, and I slip my braid through, flicking it on. The steel rails set into the rocky floor catch the light as I step into the mine. The temperature drops instantly, and my nostrils burn with a hit of ammonia and decay.

  “Oh man,” I whisper, choking. The bare granite walls are spotted with a thick layer of bat guano. The floor is coated with sawdust to soak up the worst of it, but it doesn’t stop the smell. “You’re lucky it’s early. This place is unbearable in the heat.”

  Overhead, countless brown-furred bats squeak and jostle as we enter. Cole swings his headlamp up, but I motion for him to kill it. The flash of light makes the bats scatter, their chittering rising into a roar.

  “Keep quiet unless you want a thousand of them in your face,” I say. “Come on, the main storeroom is along that shaft. There aren’t any bats up there, so it doesn’t smell so bad.”

  We hurry down a narrow, sawdust-coated shaft with boxes of broken tech lining one side. My father used these mines the way most people use their garage—to store old, dusty equipment and crates of junk. The shaft climbs into the mountain until it reaches a giant, natural cave the miners must have stumbled on. White cardboard boxes are stacked on one side, and a network of shadowy, smaller caves branches off from the other. I point the boxes out to Cole, catching my breath.

  “Those are his notes. There might be some in the smaller rooms, though. We should check.”

  Cole’s eyes drift to the far wall, which is split by a foot-wide crack in the rock. “Is there a cave through that gap?”

  I nod. “Yeah, a little alcove. I stored some things there. I thought it would be a good place to hide out if I ever had to leave the cabin.”

  “When were you last here?” Cole slings his rifle over his shoulder, walking to the edge of the cavern, glancing through the crack.

  I drop my backpack on the floor. “I stayed up here for a few nights last winter. Why?”

  He pulls a handful of yellow glow sticks from his pocket, cracking them to fill the room with light, and gestures to a pile of ash on the floor. “There was a fire here. Can’t have been more than a few days ago.”

  I peer at the remains of the fire. A few charred sticks and pine needles are scattered around it. Half buried in the ash, a slender, blackened bone juts out.

  It’s a human fibula.

  “Lurkers,” I breathe. “You’re right. They’ve been here.”

  Cole stares at the remains of the fire, his shoulders tensing. “Okay, let’s find these notes and get out of here. I don’t like this at all.”

  I nod quickly. “I’ll look in the smaller caverns.”

  A narrow, twisting passageway takes me to a cavern with a towering, stalactite-covered ceiling. It’s empty except for a box of unused flares leaning against an orange kayak. Cole follows me in with his rifle in his hands, his eyes flitting over the dark corners of the room, checking for Lurkers.

  “Just a kayak,” I say. “I have no idea why it’s here.”

  He nods. “Check it out. I’m going to start carrying these boxes down to the jeep.”

  The kayak is coated in a layer of dust. I’ve seen it here before but don’t remember using it. We had a canoe for a while at the lake, but I have no memories of anything else. I hoist it to the floor and spot a hint of something buried deeper in the cavern’s wall. A cardboard box is stuffed in a narrow crevice behind the kayak.

  “I found another one,” I yell, dragging the box from the crevice. The cardboard is old and water stained, with only a few moldy manila folders stashed inside. I squat down and slide one out. The pages have Cartaxus letterheads and are dated from a few years after I was born.

  “This is from years ago,” I call out. “It’s from when he was working with Cartaxus.”

  “Bring it,” Cole shouts back, his voice echoing through the caves. “Bring anything you think might help. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  I flip through the file, frowning. This isn’t gentech research. It seems to be a diary of psychological experiments. I flip the pages, trying to understand what my father was working on, when the file falls open to a black-and-white photograph of a little boy.

  He’s shirtless and skinny, his arms hanging limp beside a bandaged torso, a purple-black bruise creeping down the side of his face. An IV tube is taped into his neck, and his hair has been shaved down to the skin, where a circle of stitches winds around his head.

  I drop the file in the dust, choking back a cry.

  The name printed across the bottom reads Subject 5, Cole Franklin.

  CHAPTER 13

  “OH SHIT,” I WHISPER, SINKING to my knees, staring at the photograph. I can see Cole’s features so clearly in the little boy’s face. He can’t be more than five, with dark scars peeking out from the bandages across his chest, and he looks desperately unhappy. A medical report tagged behind the photograph lists his injuries: broken fingers, contusions, a detached cornea, and a pierced lung. Selective mutism, tendencies to violence, chronic insomnia.

  Dozens of notes are scrawled in the margins of his DNA profile,
and every single comment is in my father’s handwriting. It takes me a long, sickening moment to realize what that means.

  My father was experimenting on Cole when he was just a boy. The scars on his chest, the experimental code . . .

  My father did that to a child.

  I flip through the rest of the file, trying to find something that could have justified this work, but there’s nothing. I can’t imagine any excuse for doing this kind of research on children. It’s totally unethical, highly illegal. Another photograph of Cole is stapled to a sequencing report in the back, along with a single scrawled comment from my father.

  No pain response while beta-6 is triggered! Tolerance off the charts!

  “Catarina?” Cole appears over my shoulder, wiping his forehead with a cloth.

  I slam the file shut, burying it in the box. “I’m fine. I was just seeing what was in here.”

  “I’ll take it out to the jeep, then we can go. This place is creeping me out.”

  “I’ll take it,” I blurt out, picking up the box.

  “Wait a second.”

  I freeze, expecting Cole to grab the box and pull his file out, to explain that this is how he knew my father from before the plague. I want the truth, but I’m not ready to hear it. My hands are shaking. Every time I blink, I see a flash of Cole’s scarred, bandaged chest.

  He lifts up my backpack. “Can you put this on? I mean it when I say I need you to wear this all the time.”

  “Oh,” I say quietly. I set the box down and sling on the backpack, not bothering to buckle the hip strap. I grab the box and shuffle along the passageway, clutching the moldy cardboard to my chest. The bats screech as I hurry through the entrance and down the trail, my feet somehow finding each step on autopilot.

  No pain response, the file said. Tolerance off the charts!

  What was my father doing measuring a little boy’s response to pain?

  The back of the jeep is open, and I push the moldy box in, pausing to yank out Cole’s file and flip it open again. The little boy stares up at me, gaunt and terrified.