Origin

by Jessica Khoury

  “What he always says. That I was perfect and that I passed.”

  “Perfect,” he snorts.

  “What? You don’t think I’m perfect?” I can’t resist, because he gets so riled whenever I bring it up. “I can run up to thirty miles without stopping. I can jump six feet in the air. There is not a material in this world sharp enough to pierce my skin. I cannot drown or suffocate. I am immune to every illness known to man. I have a perfect memory. My senses are more acute than anyone else’s. My reflexes rival those of a cat. I will never grow old”—my voice falls, all smugness gone—“and I will never die.”

  “Perfect is,” Uncle Antonio whispers, “as perfect does, Pia.”

  I almost laugh at him for sounding cliché, but his eyes are so solemn I stay quiet.

  “Anyway,” he says, “if you’re so perfect, Chipmunk, why does he keep testing you?”

  “That’s not fair and you know it.”

  “Did you ever consider…” He stops, shakes his head.

  “What? Consider what?”

  His eyes flicker over his shoulder before he answers. “You know. Not passing.”

  “Failing on purpose? Why? Just so I don’t have to take any more tests?”

  He spreads his hands as if to say, Exactly.

  “Because, Uncle Antonio, then I’d never be allowed to join the Immortis team. I’d never know how they made me the way I am.” And I’d never be able to help make others like me. “You know as well as I that I’ll never learn the secret of Immortis until I’m part of the team. That is”—I give him an encouraging smile—“unless you want to tell it to me?”

  Uncle Antonio sighs. “Pia, don’t.”

  “Come on. Tell me. I know all about the elysia flower…but what about the catalyst? How do they make Immortis?”

  “You know I won’t tell you anything, so stop asking.”

  I watch him closely, but he can be as impassive as Uncle Paolo when it suits him. A moment later we reach the menagerie, but instead of going inside, I stand and stare at the door.

  “What’s the matter?” asks Uncle Antonio.

  I look down at the sparrow. His wings are splayed over my palms and his head is abnormally still. I feel the beat of his tiny heart in my palm, so faint it’s hardly there at all.

  In this moment, I suddenly find myself not caring about being the perfect, obedient scientist. It’s an irrational whim, and I’ll probably regret it in less than a minute, but I open my hands until they’re flat, lift the sparrow up, and gently thrust him into the air. Surprised and disoriented, he drops a full foot before spreading his wings. Then he hurls himself skyward, climbing high above the roof of the menagerie to disappear into the darkening sky.

  TWO

  I wake the next morning to thunder.

  Above me, the branches of the trees shudder in a strong wind, and every few seconds lightning flares over them, like hot white branches of some larger, celestial tree. The thunder is so deep I feel it in my ribcage.

  For a moment, I just lie in bed and stare. I love thunderstorms. I love the raw, unpredictable power shattering the air, shaking the jungle, searing the boundary between earth and sky. The lightning fills my room with bursts of light, making my pale skin seem even whiter. Outside, the vines of lianas in the trees thrash like snakes.

  After several minutes, I drag myself from bed and yawn my way into the bathroom. As I brush my teeth, the lights above my mirror flicker. The storm must be interfering with the power, but I ignore it. It seems like every other thunderstorm that rolls overhead knocks the power out for fifteen minutes or so, before Clarence gets the backup generators running. There’s a flashlight in my sock drawer just in case, but it’s light enough outside that I won’t need it.

  After showering and dressing, I jog to the dining hall and snag a bagel and a banana from the kitchen. It’s not raining yet, but judging by the thickness of the clouds, it won’t be long off. I clamp the bagel between my teeth as I peel the banana and head for the gym. There’s time for a couple of miles on the treadmill before my lessons with Uncle Antonio.

  Uncle Antonio’s main job is my education. We alternate subjects every day, according to a curriculum Uncle Paolo writes out. Yesterday, after the Wickham test, was mathematics (we studied combinatorics—easy). Today is microbiology. Tomorrow could be botany, biomedics, zoology, genetics, or any of the various fields represented by the residents of Little Cam. Uncle Antonio really only tutors me half of the time. The rest of my studies are done under the scientists themselves, with Uncle Antonio monitoring my progress and reporting it to Uncle Paolo at the end of each week.

  The gym is empty when I arrive. As I run, the slap of my sneakers and the hum of the treadmill echoing in the deserted room, I try not to think about yesterday’s experiment. Mother told me after the last Wickham test that the best thing to do is just to move on. Force the mind to look forward and not backward.

  To keep my mind from slipping into the past, I mentally run through the day’s schedule. Two hours with Uncle Antonio. Lunch. Five more hours of studying. Dinner. Painting with Uncle Smithy. Run a few more miles. Swim. Read. Sleep.

  It’s a wonder I fit everything in, but even if I had free time, Uncle Paolo would be sure to fill it in with something. He says the mind is a muscle like any other, and letting it sit unused will make it weak and slow. There’s plenty to do in Little Cam. There’s the gym, the pool, the library filled with science and math books, the lounge with games like chess and backgammon. There’s usually some kind of interesting experiment being conducted in one lab or another, and the scientists always let me drop in and watch or even help. And there’s the menagerie of animals that are constantly in need of feeding, grooming, exercise, and attention.

  The lights flicker again, and the belt of the treadmill jerks. Anticipating it, I slow down, then speed up once the electricity settles again and the belt resumes its steady roll.

  I glance at the screen on the treadmill. Twelve miles. Not bad for half an hour, though I usually go faster. I hit the stop button, and, instead of waiting for the belt to slow, I vault over the handrail and land lightly on the tile floor. I wipe away the few beads of sweat that are on my brow and head outside. Rain begins to fall as I jog to my room, but I make it indoors before my clothes get soaked.

  As I wait for Uncle Antonio, I start pruning my orchids. I have ten different species of them, each one specially cultivated for me by Uncle Paolo, who likes to dabble in botany in his spare time. One of the species, which he named Epidendrum aureus, is genetically manipulated to be the only one of its kind.

  “Completely unique, just like you,” he told me when he gave it to me, three years ago. “And see? I’ve specially designed it to have those flecks of gold. It almost looks like ely sia.”

  That is the Uncle Paolo I know best. The detached scientist who sticks birds in electric cages is a rare side of Uncle Paolo that I admire for its cool reason and objectivity, but I’m glad he’s not always that way.

  Outside, the clouds are disintegrating, and no more thunder pounds at the glass around me. The storm is over. Thin tendrils of sunlight creep through the trees as if embarrassed for having been so long absent.

  It’s time to meet Uncle Antonio for lessons. I quickly spray the orchids with a diluted formula of potassium, calcium, and nitrogen, then grab my bag of textbooks and head down the hall, twisting my hair into a ponytail as I walk. It’s smooth as water in my hands. I have my mother’s dark, straight hair, though she cuts hers short. I pause at the kitchen and grab the molding around the doorway, letting myself swing into the room. Mother is sitting at the kitchen table, doing sums.

  “I’m going to meet with Uncle Antonio.”

  She looks up. There is a brief moment in which anger flashes across her face before her features smooth silkily back into her accustomed composure. I ignore the anger; she always does that when I interrupt her. “Don’t forget you have your monthly MRI with Paolo this afternoon.”

  I tilt my head
to the side and frown at her. “Forget? Me?” She might forget, or Uncle Antonio. But not me. Never me.

  “Yes,” she says, her eyes scanning me from head to toe. “That’s right. You’re perfect.”

  As I wave to her and head for the front door, I feel a sudden coldness in the bridge of my nose, right between my eyes. Of everyone in Little Cam, my mother is the only one who never smiles when she says that.

  Later, after my lessons and MRI—which showed nothing new—I am sitting in the menagerie, brushing Alai, when the alarms go off. Alai is a two-hundred-pound jaguar that Uncle Paolo gave me for my ninth birthday, when Alai was just a cub. He hates everyone in Little Cam except me, Uncle Antonio, and the cook, Jacques, who brings Alai cookies every morning. Alai is mad about cookies.

  The alarms blare in two short bursts. Behind me, the monkeys start screaming in response. They like to think they run the menagerie, but I won’t have any of it.

  “Oh, shut up, you dummies,” I say, rising from the ground and turning to shake Alai’s brush at them. The Grouch, a huge orange howler monkey, stares straight at me and lets out an obnoxious roar. The howlers used to scare me when I was little, but now I just roll my eyes at them.

  “Come on, Alai!” I say, heading for the door. The menagerie is a long, low cement building with dirt floors and wide picture windows in every cage. Most of the animals are there for experimentation—which means we have several immortal residents—but Alai is not allowed to be used for any tests. He is completely mine.

  After pulling the heavy metal door shut behind me, I start running. Alai lopes at my heels, his huge paws all but silent on the path. I have to circle most of Little Cam before I finally reach the gate. My heart is racing, not because of the run, but from excitement. Two alarms means the supply truck is here.

  We only get a delivery every few months, so it’s always a special occasion when one arrives. Uncle Timothy, a huge, muscular man with skin as dark as obsidian, is in charge of making the trek through the jungle to the Little Mississip, the nearest river to Little Cam. I don’t know what comes after the Little Mississip, but it must be a long journey since every supply run takes him nearly two months. Once I asked Uncle Paolo to show me a map of Uncle Timothy’s route, but he told me to never ask him or anyone else that question again.

  The gate is the only entrance or exit from our compound, and now it is swinging open on mechanical tracks to admit the trucks. There are three of them, huge, growling, angry things with canvas tops and wheels drenched with mud. Belching and rattling, they pull into the wide dirt drive in front of the dining hall and shudder to a stop. Uncle Timothy jumps out of the lead truck, his bald head glistening with sweat. He has a handkerchief tied around his mouth and nose, and as I come running up, he pulls it down and smiles. He has the whitest teeth of anyone I know.

  “Hey, little miss! Come give your Uncle T a hug, yeah?” He spreads his arms, but I wrinkle my nose and dodge aside. He smells like the Grouch.

  “You’re disgusting! What did you bring? Where did you go?” I race around to the back of his truck and climb onto the high bumper so I can peer inside. “Did you trade with some natives?” Ever since I first heard of the jungle dwellers whom Uncle Timothy calls the “natives,” I’ve been fascinated by the possibility of seeing one. I’ve not had the chance yet, since he usually goes to their villages whenever he needs to trade for fresh fruit. Often the scientists go with him to ask the natives how they use certain plants for medicine.

  “Get down from there, Pia!” calls my mother. She and a crowd of people are gathering around the trucks, and everyone looks excited, since delivery days are our only contact with the outside world.

  I eye the boxes and crates eagerly, wondering what they hold. I start to reach for something with the word Skittles across it, with a picture of a rainbow and what look like pieces of candy, when suddenly someone pops up from behind the crate. Startled, I jump backward and land on the ground beside Alai.

  It’s a woman. She’s squinting and yawning as if she just woke up, and her rumpled clothes suggest that she just did.

  “Oh, hi,” she says with a sleepy smile. “Is this Little Cam, then?” Her accent is clipped in a way I’ve never heard before. Her hair is as shockingly orange as a howler monkey’s, and it frizzes out in every direction.

  “This is Little Cam,” I reply warily. “Who are you?”

  “Dr. Fields!” says a voice, and I turn to see Uncle Paolo striding toward us. “Welcome! So good to meet you!” He helps her down. She’s very tall and thin, and her white shirt is stained with brown spots.

  She must have seen me staring, because she laughs and pulls at her shirt. “Coffee,” she explains. “I must have drunk a gallon of it in Manaus and another pint on the Little Mississip. What a name for a river! Who’s the Yank responsible for that one?”

  Suddenly everyone grows silent.

  “Where’s Manaus?” I ask.

  She stares at me with a funny smile. “What do you mean, ‘Where’s Manaus?’ You have to go through Manaus if you want to get anywhere in this jungle—”

  “Dr. Fields,” interrupts Uncle Paolo. “I’m sure you must be exhausted. Come inside, we’ll get you something to eat and show you to your room.”

  “Sounds brilliant. Whoop! Wait just a tick—” She clambers onto the truck and bends over the tailgate, rooting around for something inside. I notice Uncle Paolo, Uncle Antonio, and a few other uncles observing how her rear bobs up and down while she searches. I scowl, not too sure about this Dr. Fields woman. No one told me she was coming.

  “Ah! Got it!” She holds up a large metal canteen as if it were a cure for cancer she’d just discovered. “My coffee!”

  “Excellent, excellent,” says Uncle Paolo. He offers her a hand down, but she ignores it and jumps clumsily, nearly breaking her ankle when she lands.

  “Whoop!” she hollers. “I’m such a klutz! Ha! Oh, great Scott, a jaguar! Hello, beautiful!” She bends down and makes a kissy noise at Alai. I wait for him to growl and snap like he does with everyone else, but instead he pads right up to her and starts purring as she scratches his ears. Finally she declares she’s ready for dinner and some hot coffee, and, chattering all the way, she leads a cluster of men into the dining hall. Each of them is shoving the others to extend a handshake and their names. They disappear inside, leaving the crowd around the trucks much smaller in number. Alai rubs against my leg, still purring.

  “Traitor,” I hiss. With a yawn, he flops onto the ground and starts licking his paws.

  “What a dope,” I say to Uncle Antonio. “Who invited her, anyway?”

  “What’s your problem, Chipmunk? She seems nice.” He stares at the dining hall wistfully, and I sigh. At least he hadn’t joined the welcoming committee.

  As if in direct response to my relief, he adds, “I better see if she needs help with her luggage.” And off he goes.

  “What about the supplies?” I yell. “Who’s gonna unload those? Me?” I point at the trucks, but he ignores me. Uncle Timothy comes over and slaps me on the shoulder, laughing.

  “Looks like our new ginger’s got plenty of help, eh, Pia? She’s a nutter, that one, and she talks enough to make a sloth want to run the other way.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Dr. Harriet Fields, a biomedical engineer. Come to replace Smithers, I think.”

  “Uncle Smithy’s leaving?” The ancient, white-haired scientist has been in Little Cam longer than anyone else. Some say he was here when the Accident happened, thirty years ago. Besides being a biomedical engineer, he’s a painter, and he always keeps a brush close at hand.

  “It’s what I heard.” Uncle Timothy shrugs. “So, did I hear you volunteering to unload everything? Sounds great, I’m bushed.”

  I don’t rise to the bait. I’m too disturbed by this new biomedical engineer. It’s been years since someone new has come to Little Cam. The last new arrival was Clarence, the janitor, when I was eight.

  Deciding that I am
tired of talking about Dr. Harriet Fields, or, as I’m already calling her in my head, Dr. Klutz, I ask Uncle Timothy if he’s brought my dress.

  “Dress? What dress?”

  I slap his massive arm. It’s as solid as steel, but he makes a show of pouting and rubbing the spot. “Oh, that dress.”

  I have to wait until a crew unloads the trucks, hauls everything to a warehouse, and starts opening boxes before we find it. It’s teal blue, and the bodice is studded with tiny crystals. “Oh,” I breathe when I see it. Mother comes over and takes it. She holds it up to me, her face uncharacteristically cheerful.

  “Lovely,” she says. “Chiffon and silk…and it even matches your eyes. I’m surprised at you, Timothy! I thought surely with you doing the shopping, you’d come back with a jaguar-print toga or something hideous like that.”

  “Mother!” I gasp, and I reach down to cover Alai’s ears. “You’ve offended him.”

  “I didn’t pick it,” Uncle Timothy protests. “I had that Fields woman find it. Send a man like me to shop for a party dress…pah!”

  “Go try it on,” Mother urges.

  “No, it’s for my party. I won’t wear it until my birthday.” Two more weeks. I can barely stand the wait. Ever since I found out about parties, I begged for months for a real one. Finally everyone agreed, though most of them were grudging about it. Tuxedos are scarce in the middle of the rainforest. Luckily Uncle Timothy already had a supply run planned, so one of the boxes scattered around the warehouse has to be stuffed with party clothes. Uncle Paolo still grumbles at me about the cost and the inconvenience of it all, but only half-heartedly, or he’d never have agreed to it in the first place.

  “Here,” says Uncle Timothy, handing me a little package. It’s the one called Skittles, and he’s already ripped it open and started munching on a handful. “Try those.”

  I expect chocolate, since they look like M&Ms (which Uncle Timothy brought me last time), but instead I taste a burst of fruit. “They’re good!” I dump half the bag into my mouth and decide I want Skittles instead of birthday cake at the party. Mother wanders off to help inventory a box of syringes and other medical supplies, and I trail after Uncle Timothy as he oversees the unpacking.