This Mortal Coil

by Emily Suvada

  I shake my head. I don’t have the strength to list all the ways that I am not okay right now.

  “I’m tired” is all I manage.

  He pulls a blanket over me. “Then sleep, Cat. You’re safe now. I’m not going anywhere.”

  CHAPTER 24

  HOURS LATER, THROUGH SNATCHES OF sleep and half-remembered dreams, I find myself back at home, standing in the cabin. It’s cold, but I’m sweating. I don’t know if it’s night or day. My father must be here somewhere, but I can’t hear him.

  “Hey, Princess.”

  Dax catches my arm, spinning me around. His hair flickers between long and short, his face both young and old. “Aren’t you happy to see me?” He brushes the hair from my face. “What’s wrong, Princess?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re bleeding,” he says, pulling his hand away from my face, holding his fingers up to the light. His skin is dotted with blood that splits into smaller and smaller drops, like water on a sheet of glass, spreading across his hand.

  “Nanites,” he murmurs, staring at the blood that is now barely more than a scarlet mist. “I always knew there was something wrong with you.”

  I clutch my face where he touched me, feeling wet, scabbed skin that comes away under my fingers, sloughing off my neck. “I-I’m sorry,” I stutter, backing away. “I need to go.”

  He just watches me, disgust etched in every line of his face.

  I turn and run. I need my father. If I don’t stop the reaction soon, it’ll spread down my back. This is my hypergenesis. If I don’t get help, I’ll bleed out like my mother did.

  But that’s not right.

  I skid to a stop. I don’t have hypergenesis—that was just an app in my panel. So why is my skin splitting apart?

  I turn around, finding myself outside my father’s door. Part of me knows I need to open it, but I’m gripped with a rush of dread.

  Something lurks on the other side of this door. Something I’m still not ready to face. Something dark and powerful that rises up like a long-forgotten memory.

  I close my eyes, drawing in a breath, and swing open the door.

  My father isn’t here. One wall of the room is blown out, the books and shelves covered with streaks of dried pink foam. Outside, a million-strong flock of passenger pigeons changes direction, racing for me. Their eyes are black. Their wings are flames. They shriek as they swarm into the room and surge over me.

  I jolt awake, my heart pounding, staring wildly around me. Concrete walls. A bunk above me.

  It was just a dream.

  I’m in Homestake, in my little room deep underground, and my empty, wounded arm is aching. It’s wrapped in gauze, so Cole must have bandaged it, but I slept right through it. I roll slowly to my side on the bunk to look around.

  The room is dark, but a bar of pale light in the ceiling traces out the lines of a mattress on the floor. The mess of my panel and the pools of blood have been cleaned away, and my genkit and the Zarathustra folders are stacked neatly in the corner. Cole is lying silently on his side on the mattress, but two twin points of light in his eyes tell me he’s awake.

  Watching me.

  As if in a dream, I push myself up and drift across the floor until I find myself standing above him. I don’t know what I’m doing here, and I don’t know what I need from him. All I know is that I need something, and that something is Cole.

  His eyes meet mine, his arms bare above his blankets, the first rows of scars on his chest gleaming in the muted light. I open my lips, but I don’t know what to ask him. I don’t know why I’m standing above him in the middle of the night.

  Then he opens his arms as if he was expecting me, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that I would come to him tonight. I drop into the blankets, and his arms fold around me, warm and secure.

  I curl into his chest and fall into a dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER 25

  I WAKE UP NEXT TO Cole again, but this time there is no awkwardness, and I don’t force myself to sit up and turn away. He rolls to his back, I roll to mine, and just like that we’re awake, and it feels normal. It feels right.

  I don’t know if what’s growing between us is romantic, or if this is just the kind of bond two people forge when they go through something like this together. It feels like gravity is shifting, swinging us infinitesimally closer. But in another way, it feels like we’ve always been this close.

  “So you don’t have hypergenesis?” he asks.

  “No. Well, I think I must have had it, once. But not anymore.”

  “How does that work?”

  “I don’t really know.” I lift my arm, turning it slowly. I can feel the difference in weight now that my panel is gone. “It’s not a genetic condition, but my father must have created a treatment. It was probably after my mother died. He would have tried to save me from dying the same way.”

  “And he didn’t tell you?”

  I let my arm drop. “No. He hid it, from me and Cartaxus. Dax thinks that’s why he told me to stay away from the bunkers.”

  Cole scratches his chest, staring at the ceiling. “That’s messed up.”

  “Tell me about it. I could have had a real panel this whole time.”

  He looks over. “But you can get budded with another one, and get real apps this time, right? Would that be safe for you?”

  “I think so. But I don’t need to get budded. It turns out I have a backup in my spine, and it’s growing me a new panel right now.”

  Cole sits up, grabbing a T-shirt, and pulls it on. “If you’re growing a new panel, you’re going to need a lot of calories. How about I run to the cafeteria and get us some breakfast?”

  I sit up beside him, pulling my sleep-tangled hair into a ponytail. “What are my choices?”

  “Scramble, beans, congee, toast, waffles, burritos—”

  “They have waffles here?”

  Cole grins, pushing himself to his feet. “Two servings of waffles coming right up. I’ll be back soon.”

  He steps into his boots and slips out the airlocked door, shooting me a smile I can’t help but return. I get up and walk into the bathroom, stopping short the moment I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

  The healing tech’s nanites have been working overnight, and they haven’t just been sealing the cut in my arm. My skin is still scarred, but it looks bright. My lips are smooth instead of chapped, and the heavy shadows under my eyes are all but gone. In a few days, when my panel finishes growing, I could look as good as anybody else in this bunker. Fresh-faced, healthy, clean. Two years of misery and horror, wiped away. It would make me look like a new person.

  But that isn’t going to happen.

  I decided in the night that I would do the decryption. Some part of me knew that I would agree to it as soon as I read the code. It doesn’t mean I’m ready, and it doesn’t mean I’m willing, but the world can’t wait for Cartaxus to unlock the vaccine with brute force. People are dying. The virus is evolving. This is the only way to save humanity from this nightmare.

  The apartment’s door whooshes open. I turn as Dax walks in, looking at Cole’s mattress with a furrow in his brow. His tech can probably read heat signatures. He’ll know I shared Cole’s bed. My stomach lurches into my throat.

  “Princess,” he says. His face is unreadable. “How is your arm?”

  I step out of the bathroom. “It’s . . . fine.”

  “Good.” He glances around the room, his eyes lingering on the hardened mess of my panel in the sink. “I had time to read more of the procedure’s code. I’m not sure if I’m reading it right, but—”

  “It’s going to kill me.”

  He swallows, meeting my eyes. His red hair is disheveled, and his emerald eyes are bloodshot. He’s probably been up all night reading the code, trying to figure out what it would do to me. I understood since I first saw it, but I haven’t thought about it from Dax’s point of view. He’s the one who’s going to have to get the equipment ready,
to jack me in and run the code.

  This is the task my father left him: killing me.

  “There’ll be another way,” he says, his voice tight. “Your father left this as a last resort, but that doesn’t mean we have to use it.”

  “Of course we do. We can’t wait any longer. The virus will evolve.”

  He stares at the floor, his shoulders hunched. “There has to be another way. I don’t understand why he’s used you. Why not someone else? Millions of people would be happy to die for this.”

  My eyes drop. The same question has been circling through my mind since I first read the code. How could my father leave this task to me? Why would he sentence me to death?

  Did he even love me at all?

  I don’t think I’ll ever know the answer. Even though we lived together, I never truly felt as though I was a central part of my father’s life. He was protective, and I knew he cared for me, but he would lose himself in his work, forgetting to eat, hacking his metabolism to keep himself awake for days at a time. I wouldn’t hear a word from him, or he’d stare right through me while he spoke, lost in a gentech puzzle more compelling than his daughter’s face. His work was the burning star of his life, and I existed as a minor planet, visible only in transit, a periodic dimming of light.

  But sometimes I was not his daughter—sometimes I was his coding partner. We would sit side by side in the basement, working together as equals. I knew his code better than anyone. I knew what it meant to him.

  That’s why I’m going to do the decryption.

  “The vaccine was my father’s life,” I say, “and I am the only person he trusted its decryption with. This isn’t a punishment, Dax. It’s an honor. He chose me because he knew that I would understand what’s at stake. He knew I’d see the truth—that releasing this vaccine is worth more than my life.”

  Dax runs one hand through his hair, bunching it into a fist. For a moment he looks younger, like the boy I knew before the plague. “Princess,” he says, but his voice breaks. He covers his mouth with his hand.

  I step across the floor and pull him into a hug.

  His arms slide around me. His body is trembling like it was when he first stepped out of the Comox. He smells of soap and laboratory-grade disinfectant. The scent fills me with memories—coding in the basement, falling hard for the kid who showed up on our doorstep. I remember fighting over algorithms and swimming in the lake. Listening to my father read us poetry in the evenings.

  Dax holds me tightly, his face pressed to my hair. “Are you sure?” he whispers. “You don’t have to do this. I can wipe the code. We can say that the instructions were destroyed when we cut out your panel.”

  I freeze. “No.” I step back. “No, we can’t. The virus will evolve—”

  “Forget the virus. We’ll stay in the bunkers.” He grabs my shoulders. “You and I can strengthen the vaccine ourselves. You don’t have to walk into an execution just because Lachlan left one waiting for you.”

  Dax’s words are pure madness—there’s no way we can just hide from something like this—but his desperation drags up every doubt I have about my father’s plan. My eyes stray to the Zarathustra files, piled neatly on the floor. I trust my father’s code, but I’m still handing my life to a man who cut open children.

  But he always had his reasons. Cole said he trusted my father more than anyone on the planet, even after what he’d been through. My father was a complicated man, but he wasn’t wasteful. He wouldn’t have written a procedure like this unless he had no choice.

  “No, Dax,” I say, fighting to keep my voice level. “We’re doing the decryption, and we have no time to spare. We can do it tonight if we can get out of here with the clonebox and make it to the lab.”

  His emerald eyes blaze, but I can see the fight in him fading. He knows there’s no walking away from this just as well as I do. Finally, his shoulders drop and he paces across the room. “I always thought we’d get married one day,” he murmurs, “after this was over.”

  “Dax . . .”

  “It just seemed like the way it should go. We’d live together, we’d code together, but now . . . we won’t.” His eyes drop to Cole’s mattress again.

  “It’s not what you think,” I say, even though I don’t know what Dax thinks, and if I’m honest, I don’t know what’s happening between Cole and me. “I was shaken—”

  He waves a hand. “You don’t need to explain yourself. I should have read the code faster. I should have understood.”

  “It was in quaternary.”

  “Yes.” He gives me a sad smile. “You and your father seem to be the only ones who can read it like that.”

  I hold his gaze. There is a sadness in his eyes that opens a crack of fear in me. Somehow it’s worse than his anger. He’s already mourning me.

  A day from now I’ll be gone from this world, and he’ll have to live with the knowledge that he was the one to kill me. It won’t be clean, and it won’t be painless. I’ve pushed that aspect of the decryption to the back of my mind, but seeing grief etched into Dax’s face brings it into focus. That crack of fear widens into a chasm, until I find myself teetering over it, a breath away from free fall.

  I will die. There will be no return. My body will dissolve, and I know that death is inevitable, but I’m not ready for it yet. If I believed in something beyond this world, maybe I could clutch at it like a rope, but I don’t, and all I see after this life is cold, infinite darkness.

  Dax’s eyes narrow in concern. I draw in a slow breath and hold it, wrenching my focus back under control. The fear shrinks inside me, folding in on itself, yielding to my will.

  I blow out a breath, steeling myself. “Just tell me what I need to do.”

  Dax looks me up and down, his eyes still narrowed, then turns and scans the room. “Pack your things. I’ll get the clonebox and set off the kick to get us out of here. When I do, you and Lieutenant Franklin just need to get up to the garage where your jeep is waiting. Leoben and I will take another one.” He glances back at Cole’s mattress. “You can’t tell him about this, Princess.”

  “Cole?”

  He nods. “He’s a black-out agent who’s been tasked with your protection. I don’t know how he’ll react to this. He might be fine, or he might go rogue and try to take you away. He might sabotage the procedure. It’s not a risk we can take.”

  I close my eyes. The thought of lying to Cole sparks a war inside me. Cole deserves to hear the truth, and I don’t want to lie to him, but Dax has a point. I don’t know how Cole’s protective protocol will deal with my impending death.

  He might flip out and try to protect me. He might lose control during the procedure.

  He might inadvertently destroy any chance we have of unlocking the vaccine.

  “Okay,” I say, “I won’t tell him. How soon can we leave?”

  “Within the hour. I can get started now.” He steps to the door. It slides open, and he stands with one hand on the frame. “Are you ready?”

  I wrap my arms around myself. “Am I crazy for doing this, Dax?”

  He looks me up and down, his face softening. “No, Princess. You’re not crazy at all. I think you’re very brave.”

  Brave. The word is steadying. I let it roll back and forth in my mind, quieting the sparks of fear in my chest. Maybe my father didn’t just choose me for this because he knew I’d be dutiful and follow the plan he left for me. Maybe he chose me because he knew I’d face it.

  Because I’m strong. Because I fight. Because I’m not afraid to do the right thing.

  My father left this task to me because I am brave.

  “Okay,” I say. My voice is firm, unwavering. “Let’s do this now. Set off the simulation.”

  Dax nods once, his eyes lingering on mine, then turns and strides from the room.

  • • •

  By the time Cole returns with a tray of waffles, I’ve packed our bags and am pacing back and forth, chewing my fingernails nervously. It’s a habit I’ve fou
nd myself picking up the last few days, though I’ve never done it before. The stress must be getting to me.

  My genkit is safely stowed in my backpack, along with the Zarathustra files, and I’ve left my bloodstained blue Homestake clothing in a pile by the bed. I’m wearing the tank top and cargo pants Cole brought for me, my hair pulled up in a ponytail. I keep wondering if this is the last outfit I’ll ever wear.

  “Hey,” Cole says, setting the tray down. “Are you okay? Crick commed me, said we’re leaving now. What’s going on?”

  “He’s getting the clonebox and setting off the kick simulation. We’re going to the lab.”

  Cole’s jaw tenses. My intuition spikes.

  “What?” I ask. “Is there something wrong with the plan?”

  Cole meets my eyes, but he doesn’t say a word. My mind rolls back to the morning before, when Dax and Leoben arrived. Dax said the simulation would get us out of here. Leoben said it was written by Jun Bei. . . .

  The girl he thought was responsible for the hack that killed my father. The girl who stabbed a nurse with a pair of scissors.

  “Oh,” I whisper. “I forgot. The kick is Jun Bei’s code.”

  He nods. “It’s a computer virus. It runs a simulation that’ll make it look like the bunker is under cyberattack. Which it is, I guess. It’ll infect every system and cause temporary chaos. It’s how Jun Bei escaped from the lab.”

  Chaos? My stomach clenches. I don’t know much about Jun Bei, but everything I’ve heard has made her sound terrifying. Which is understandable, I guess. I can’t imagine what kind of horrors the Zarathustra subjects lived through. If Jun Bei is dangerous now, it’s probably because my father made her that way.

  But the idea of using her code to break out of Homestake still chills me to my core.

  “Cole, this simulation . . . Nobody is going to get hurt, are they?”

  He opens his mouth to reply just as the lights flicker, and an alarm wails through the speakers in the ceiling. An automated voice starts up, reciting instructions on a loop.

  “Warning. Lockdown in progress. Proceed to your quarters.”