This Mortal Coil

by Emily Suvada

I stiffen as soon as the word leaves my lips, and Cole’s ice-blue eyes blink open, meeting mine in confusion. I don’t know if he heard me, but his arms slide away and he rolls to his back, rubbing his face as though dragging himself from a dream.

  This is not good.

  I scramble to sit up, pushing the hair from my face, kicking my way out of the sleeping bag covering us. I’m still in my bra. My tank top is wedged under a box, and I yank it out, pulling it on clumsily. My heartbeat is a drum.

  Cole must hear it. He can surely read the flush of heat on my cheeks and the goose bumps on my neck. I straighten my top, angling myself away from him, trying to hide behind the dark curtain of my hair.

  Outside, the morning light is pale. The jeep’s tinted windows show me a landscape of flat, grassy plains all the way to the horizon. My brain is finally starting to adjust to seeing the world without my tech, and it’s almost pleasing to let my focus dance across the land outside. There are no houses in sight, no craters or rusted cars, no sign that anyone lived here even before the plague. The dark curve of the highway stretches for miles, empty and black, until my nonenhanced eyes can’t track it anymore.

  “I shouldn’t have parked here overnight,” I say. “It’s not safe to stay near the highways. Lurkers drive along them, hunting people. I should have driven us into cover.”

  Cole just grunts, sitting up slowly, leaning against the side of the jeep. The bandage over his stomach is dark with blood, and there are rings beneath his eyes, but he looks better than he did last night. His eyes run over me, from the dirty boots I slept in, to the tangled mess of hair puffed out around my face. I brace myself for questions about what just happened—how I ended up in his arms, why I said his name—but he just nods at my wrist.

  “How’s your arm?”

  I look down, surprised. “My arm? It’s fine. How are you? You’re the one who got shot. You took a bullet for me, remember?”

  A smile tugs at his lips. “It sounds pretty heroic when you say it like that.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s try to keep the heroics to a minimum from now on. You nearly died on me. You probably shouldn’t be moving around.”

  “I’m fine.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Sure you are, soldier.”

  He shrugs, pulling at the bandage taped over his stomach. “See for yourself.”

  “Cole, don’t . . . ,” I start as he peels back the tape, but I trail off as the gauze folds down, falling away from his wound.

  It’s silver.

  The skin around the gunshot has healed over seamlessly, but an inch-wide patch on his stomach now looks like it’s made of metal. Iridescent silver streaks that branch like veins stretch across his abdomen, fading as they spread away from the wound. At their center, a glistening patch of pure, reflective silver lies where hours ago all I could see was pulped and bloodied flesh.

  It’s nanomesh. A myth. An app whispered about in Skies forums, rumored to exist in just a handful of prototypes. A nanoscale mesh capable of being built throughout a person’s body, then warped and grown with a single command. The patch on Cole’s stomach isn’t flesh—it’s a lattice that’s grown overnight that his own cells will migrate through and fill. The silver will shrink down to a speck, until the patch is made completely of living, breathing tissue.

  It’ll heal Cole’s wound perfectly, but nanomesh isn’t just for healing. It could be used for regrowing limbs or adding entirely new ones. With this tech Cole could grow an exoskeleton, or eyes in the back of his head. With the right code, he could grow himself wings.

  “You have nanomesh?” I breathe. “What the hell are you, Cole?”

  He looks down at the wound. “I’m a very expensive weapon.”

  Something in his voice makes me pause. A note of pain—but it has nothing to do with the gleaming wound on his stomach. It’s the way he says the word “weapon,” like he’s a thing. A mindless tool instead of a person with his own thoughts and dreams. When we were at the cabin, he said Cartaxus turned him into this, but now I’m not so sure.

  I can’t help but remember the words my father chose in the message he left for me: He is a weapon of considerable power.

  What if it was my father who turned him into one?

  I lean back against the side of the jeep, running one hand through my hair, teasing out the knots with my fingers. The photograph from Cole’s file flits through my mind. It’s one thing to turn yourself into a black-out agent, but it’s another to have it forced on you as a child.

  “The nanomesh,” I say. “My father gave that to you, didn’t he?”

  Cole meets my eyes. He doesn’t nod, but I already know the answer. It’s not even really a question. There’s only one geneticist in modern history with the skills to pull off something like this. Maybe another team could have developed it with decades of testing, but Cole’s seamless, perfect version is certainly my father’s work. It’s not that my father was a genius—he was, but there were countless geniuses working on gentech code before the outbreak. His strength lay in the way he thought about DNA, as though it were a language he’d been raised to speak, and everyone else had learned it at school. He knew the subtleties, the hidden rules that even the most sophisticated coding algorithms tended to miss.

  That’s why my head is spinning, staring at the silver patch on Cole’s stomach and the network of scars slashed across his chest. I can’t understand what my father could have gained by carrying out painful, intrusive research on a five-year-old boy.

  My eyes stray to my backpack, where I’ve stashed the files I found in the mines. I start to reach for it, but Cole lets out a growl of frustration.

  I pause. “Are you okay?”

  He covers his face with his hands. “No, I’m not okay. I’m hungry and tired, and I’m still in a lot of pain, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t punch me.”

  “Why would I punch you?”

  He drops his hands, a look of guilt flashing across his face. “Because I think Cartaxus might know we’re here.”

  A long beat passes. “What?”

  He slumps. “I’ve been blocking my panel from them, but when I was crashing last night, my tech might have sent out a beacon. I told you—I’m an expensive weapon, and Cartaxus protects its investments. I think they’ve sent someone out to find us.”

  I stiffen, looking out the window. If Cartaxus finds us now, they’ll drag us into a bunker and seize my father’s files. They’ll figure out how to decrypt the vaccine, but they’ll have complete control over it, which means they won’t give it to people on the surface. Millions of people, left to die. Families like Marcus’s. My father’s plan for us will be ruined.

  “How much time do we have?” I pull my hair back into a ponytail, looking along the curve of the highway. We’re low on fuel, and we have no solars. We’re still a day’s drive from the lab my father wanted us to go to, but there might be hope yet. I scan the back of the jeep. Maybe we can make it to a town and find another vehicle, but it might not have room to carry the boxes of my father’s notes. I haven’t even opened them to see if they have any hints for unlocking the vaccine, and we don’t have time to sort through them now.

  But maybe I don’t need them.

  I glance at Cole. My father left a note in his arm, then I found a file from when Cole was a little boy. It can’t be a coincidence. Those musty files I found behind the kayak are the ones my father wanted me to use—somehow I’m sure of it.

  “How much time, Cole?” I haul my backpack up from the floor and peer in at the folders. Five mold-spotted sheaths of paper, tucked beside my genkit. “Cole, how long? Are you even listening?”

  But he isn’t. His eyes are glazed over, his head tilted, one hand pressed to the side of the jeep. He’s listening to something I can’t hear, not without my implants.

  My stomach tightens. “They’re here, aren’t they?”

  He nods slowly, blinking out of his session. “A Comox flew past about half an hour ago. Their scan went right over us, so I
didn’t think they’d noticed the jeep, but now they’re circling back. I can’t tell who it’s carrying, but it could be a whole platoon.”

  I chew my thumbnail, staring out the window. We can’t run. We can’t hide.

  “Wait, did you say half an hour ago?”

  A hint of color bleeds into Cole’s cheeks. “Yeah.”

  I blink. That was when I was still asleep, still curled into his chest. I thought we were both asleep. He had his hand on the back of my neck. . . .

  “You were awake?”

  The color on his cheeks grows deeper, then he freezes, tilting his head again. This time I hear it too. The low, thumping sound of a Comox, racing toward us.

  Cartaxus is here.

  “Stay inside,” Cole says, rolling to his knees.

  I yank on my backpack, shaking my head. “I’m coming with you. We don’t know how much they know, or what Dax told them. It’s better if we act like we have nothing to hide.”

  He frowns, considering. “Okay, but stay behind me, and get ready to run into the jeep if I tell you to.”

  “So you can what? Blow them up?”

  He pulls a shirt on, wincing. “I don’t know yet.”

  “Yeah, well, the last time you didn’t share your plans with me, you ended up getting shot.”

  He snatches up his gun as the Comox’s blades grow louder. “I know, Cat. I screwed this up. You don’t need to remind me.”

  I grab a fistful of his shirt as he reaches for the door. “No, Cole, this isn’t over. Even if Cartaxus takes us, there might still be a way to release the vaccine, but we need to work together, now more than ever. Please don’t do anything reckless.”

  He turns back to me, his eyes unreadable, then throws open the rear doors and launches himself outside. The thumping of the Comox’s blades rises into a roar as I slide from the back of the jeep, one hand over my eyes.

  Cole stands like a statue in the middle of the road, staring up at the sky, where a hulking black quadcopter is dropping toward us. It lands with a thud in the middle of the empty, potholed highway, sending up billowing clouds of dust.

  I turn my face away, squinting as the side door opens and a metal ramp extends down to the road. I brace for a rush of soldiers, a unit armed to the teeth like the one that stormed the cabin during the outbreak, but the doorway stays empty. The rotors slow, and through the clouds of dust, a single figure jogs down to the ground.

  He has sparkling green eyes. Freckled skin and red hair.

  “Hey, Princess,” Dax says. “It’s been a while.”

  CHAPTER 17

  THE WORLD TILTS AND SPINS. My backpack slides from my shoulders.

  “Dax,” I choke out, running to him.

  He catches me in his arms and lifts me. His body is trembling, his breathing coming fast and shallow. “You’re really here,” he whispers. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you.”

  I pull back, half laughing, half crying, wiping my eyes. “Dax, look at you! You’re like a different person.”

  The man before me isn’t the Dax I remember from our days in the cabin. His ponytail is gone, along with the white streak in his red hair. He now wears it combed back in a sophisticated cut. The soft lines of his face have grown sharp and refined, graced with a single leyline snaking up his neck, terminating at his temple. His body isn’t jacked up like Cole’s. He’s leaner and taller, with the same subtle elegance in his movements that I remember. He wears a black metal cuff over his forearm, covering his panel. It looks like my father’s crypto cuff but has a row of blinking scarlet lights along the side.

  “Catarina, look at you,” he says, stepping back to look me up and down. “You’re all grown-up, and you’re positively stunning. Lachlan would be so proud if he could see you now.”

  A lump forms in my throat. Hearing Dax say my father’s name hits me harder than I thought it would. It sounds so different from the way Cole says it. So intimate, so raw. Dax loved my father like I did. I have to fight to keep my face straight.

  “Oh, Princess,” Dax breathes, pulling me back to him. “I’m so sorry. You must be devastated.”

  “No, I’m fine.” I step away, scrubbing at my eyes. “I just . . . I can’t think about it right now.”

  “Of course.” Dax nods, taking my hand in his. “We have a lot of work to do.”

  Cole clears his throat conspicuously. His expression is stony, but it breaks into a grin when another figure appears in the quadcopter’s door. It’s a soldier with the same smooth, purposeful movements as Cole, the same leylines traced across his arms and the sides of his face. His silhouette is exactly like Cole’s—ridiculous shoulders, close-cropped hair, even the same tank top and cargo pants—but the details couldn’t be more different. This soldier wears a playful smirk, and his eyes are underlined with a sweep of cobalt shadow. Tattoos of eagles and wolves cover the dark skin of his arms, and his hair is bleached or hacked to a startling white blond.

  “Leoben!” Cole shouts, laughing. The two men run to each other and hug fiercely. There’s no awkwardness in their movements, no hesitation. Their embrace is deep and real, and a single word springs into my mind as I watch them: brothers.

  Cole pulls away, still clutching Leoben’s shoulders. “Lee, it’s true. Jun Bei is alive.”

  The words burst from Cole with an excitement I haven’t heard from him before. His face is lit up, his eyes shining. The reverence in his voice when he says Jun Bei’s name makes the skin on the back of my neck prickle.

  It’s love.

  Pure, euphoric, unbridled. The emotion is so clear on Cole’s face that it makes me look away. My chest tightens with something that almost feels like jealousy.

  But that would be insane.

  “What?” Leoben steps back, his eyes growing wide. He balls his hands in fists and lets out a whoop. “What did I tell you? She’s invincible, man!”

  “Yeah, I guess she is.” Cole grins, still shaking with excitement. “What the hell are you guys doing here?”

  Leoben glances at Dax. “We intercepted your beacon and came to save your ugly ass. I’m Dax’s official bodyguard, effective yesterday. He fed them some bullshit about needing to leave, and they sent me out with him.”

  I turn to Dax. “Cartaxus knows you’re here?”

  Dax sweeps the hair back from his forehead. “Yes and no. They think I’m here to pick up Lachlan’s notes in case there’s something in there to help with the vaccine.”

  “And they just let you go?” I thought Dax was a prisoner, that he and my father were being locked up and tortured. But Dax looks healthy and confident, like he’s been living in comfort.

  It’s been two years. I haven’t heard anything from him. If Dax could leave whenever he wanted, why didn’t he visit me?

  “Princess,” Dax says, taking my hands, “there’s a lot we need to talk about. You must have a lot of questions, and I do too, but right now we need to focus on unlocking the vaccine. We need your father’s notes—anything he left behind that might be related to decryption.”

  I rub my forehead, trying to focus. “Yeah, I know. We have all his notes in the jeep, and there was a message in Cole’s panel.”

  “Mine too, and Leoben’s. Your father liked to cover his bases. I take it you were on your way to the lab in Canada?”

  I nod, still trying to stop my head from spinning. Dax flew here. He took a Comox. He’s healthy; he looks happy. I spent two years surviving on my own because my father told me it would be safer—that Cartaxus was evil, that they’d hurt me to get to him.

  But after seeing the research my father carried out on Cole, I don’t know what to believe anymore.

  “We still need a clonebox,” Cole says. “Did you bring one?”

  “Not exactly,” Dax says. He and Leoben exchange another glance.

  Cole stares at them for a second, then steps back, shaking his head. “No, absolutely not. It’s too dangerous.”

  Leoben grins. “But you’ve thought about it.”


  I look between the three of them. “Thought about what?”

  Leoben chuckles. “About stealing a clonebox from one of the bunkers. Homestake isn’t far from here.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I ask, stunned. “Go into a bunker? I’ve spent the last two years hiding from Cartaxus, and Cole is AWOL. Why don’t we just call them and ask them to lock us up?”

  “It won’t be like that,” Dax says. “I told Cartaxus that I sent Lieutenant Franklin out to find you. I didn’t say who you were, just that you were a coder I knew, and there was a chance you’d be able to help us. I’ve already booked us in to refuel at Homestake. It’ll be fine. We’ll be able to get out of there easily.”

  “No we won’t,” Cole says. “Homestake is a tier-one-secured facility. If we go in and they lock the place down, we could be stuck in there for weeks. We’ll have to find a clonebox somewhere else. We can’t risk going into a bunker. Lachlan made it clear in his message that we have to keep Cat away from Cartaxus.”

  Dax crosses his arms. “Listen, Lieutenant. Cat will be just fine, don’t worry. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re in something of a minor apocalypse, and the chances of finding a living clonebox on the surface are slim to none. We don’t have a choice. We have to go to a bunker, and we don’t have time to stand around here arguing about it. Homestake is expecting us. We’ll restock our supplies, and then we’ll take the clonebox and drive to the lab.”

  “That sounds fine,” Cole says, crossing his arms as well, mirroring Dax’s pose. “But tell me, Crick, won’t Homestake notice when we steal one of their cloneboxes?”

  Dax holds Cole’s gaze. “Well, they’ve only got one, so yes, I assume they’ll notice, and then they’ll institute a lockdown, as you’ve noted.” He taps the black cuff on his arm, glancing at Leoben. “Fortunately, Lachlan gave me access to his personal libraries, and I found a piece of code that should keep them busy long enough for us to get out.”

  “What code?” I angle myself between Dax and Cole, breaking up their staring match.

  “It’s a simulation,” Leoben says. “We call it a kick, like when you kick the doors down to get into somewhere secure—only we’ll be using it to get out. It was written by a friend of ours.”