Origin

by Jessica Khoury

  I take her hand and run along the fence, trying to keep distance between the scientists and us. I have to keep her talking to distract her from our pursuers.

  “What’s special about the necklace, Ami? Tell me.” They’re fifty yards behind us and gaining. I try to run faster, but even with the serum spurring her on, Ami’s short legs can’t keep up.

  “It’s an Ai’oan symbol,” she says. “When an Ai’oan boy gives it to a girl from another tribe, it means she belongs to him and to Ai’oa as long as she wears it.”

  “Try to keep up, Ami!” We’re behind the menagerie now. I glance back and see Uncle Paolo leading the others. Forty yards.

  “I couldn’t let you lose it,” Ami goes on. She hugs my waist. “Because you’re one of us.”

  “Ami, listen to me! You have to run! Run home and tell everyone—” There’s no time. I point up. “See that space where the chain link ends? Right under that bar?”

  She nods, squinting uncertainly through the rain.

  “Climb, Ami, and whatever you do, don’t stop. As soon as they get the power back on, the fence will be pumping with electricity. You cannot stop.”

  “But what about you?”

  “I’ll be right behind you! Go!”

  She starts climbing with alacrity to rival her monkey’s, and I’m close on her heels. She reaches the top and starts navigating over the uppermost bar securing the chain link.

  Suddenly a hand grabs my ankle, and I start to fall.

  “Pia!” Ami screams, reaching down and grabbing my hand.

  “Stop! Let go!” I yank away from her. “Go, Ami, go!”

  “Not without you!”

  I look down. Sergei has both my ankles, and Paolo has the hem of my lab coat. Looking back up at Ami, I’m forced to make a decision. I let go with both hands, giving me the split moment I need to shove her through the gap. She screams and falls to the ground on the other side, and I fall backward into the arms of the scientists.

  I yell for her to run, and she shoots a terrified look at me before racing into the trees. Relieved, I sag limply and let them drag me away.

  THIRTY-TWO

  They lock me in my glass room, and I run to the bathroom and throw myself on my knees in front of the toilet, retching. I haven’t eaten anything today, so all that comes up is stomach acid, but it makes my throat burn.

  When I can’t choke up any more, I lean back on my heels, gasping and coughing. I notice that there’s scarlet streaked on the toilet seat, and I lift up my hands.

  They’re covered in Ami’s blood.

  I vomit again, then stumble to the sink, where I wash my hands in scalding-hot water, over and over. Tears fall from my eyes onto my hands, then, stained scarlet with blood, they drip onto the white porcelain. I scrub faster and faster, my entire body shaking.

  When the water starts to run cold and my hands are raw, I drag myself back into my room and fall onto my bed, listless and dazed. My throat is on fire from retching, and my hands feel numb. I tuck them against my chest, feel my heart like a sledgehammer against my ribs.

  Uncle Paolo and Uncle Timothy stand outside my door for several minutes, discussing security measures. There’s a lot of talk of ankle monitors, cameras, and moving me into the abandoned wing of B Labs. Finally I hear their footsteps retreating and the front door closing behind them, but they’ve left someone behind to guard the door. I can hear him breathing.

  I turn to face the jungle and hold my wrists in front of my face, eyes tracing the fine blue lines beneath the skin. My blood is not my own. It belongs to Ai’oa, to the many who died that I might be born.

  I trace one blue vein with my fingernail, then start pressing down. The skin holds firm, as it always does. My tears sting like acid as I scratch harder and harder at my wrists, but nothing happens. Not my blood! Not my blood! My brain screams at me. I can’t stop the horrific mantra, can’t stop tearing at my wrists. Nothing happens. They’ve filled my veins with someone else’s blood, and I have no way to rid myself of it.

  Finally I give up and let my hands collapse to the bed. My wrists are red and sore, but the pain fades too quickly, and once again they are smooth, white, and perfect.

  How stupid of Uncle Paolo—no, not “uncle.” Never again. Not him, not any of them—to have thought that he could train me to be like him and the others. To have thought that, with the right tests and the right lectures, I could be made into a cold-blooded, heartless killer. To have thought that I could ignore the beating of my own heart long enough to stop the beating of another’s.

  He was a fool, but so was I. I believed it all. From the sparrow in the electric cage to poor, defenseless Sneeze. I believed him when he said it was necessary. It wasn’t. None of it was. It was all a waste, a terrible waste of life. Even after I heard the story of the Kaluakoa and I felt in every bone of my body that it was true, I still wouldn’t believe. Not fully. I thought, even then, that somehow everything would work out. That the light of day would banish the suspicions of night. That somehow it would all turn out to be a huge misunderstanding.

  Yes, Paolo was a fool.

  But I was a bigger one.

  I think of my virulent outburst and feel not even a shred of triumph that I was finally able to defy him outright. Ami is free, yes, and I wish I could feel some relief at that, but all I feel is defeat and misery and regret and, above all, a terrible, permeating guilt.

  What will happen to me? Will I stay locked up, like Uncle Antonio, except that for me it will be forever? How long can they keep me in this glass cage? My mind starts to run calculations, then slows and freezes, reaching for numbers that dissolve like smoke. For the first time in my life, my brain fails me. That should scare me, but I feel too hollow.

  Why should I expect to be the same as I was yesterday, anyway? The Pia who was is no more. If I am even Pia at all, I am vastly different. Unalterably changed. The change, I realize, did not happen suddenly. I have been changing for days now, ever since I first stumbled into Ai’oa. The people of the jungle have changed me. Eio has changed me. I haven’t been myself for a while, but until now, I hadn’t realized it. Until now, I didn’t have to. I’ve been balancing between two worlds that could never coexist, and at last, I was forced to choose. Uncle Antonio knew it would happen and tried to warn me, but instead of choosing the right side, I chose the wrong. I went back to Little Cam. If I had only listened to him then, Eio and I might be long, long gone, safe in some distant land where even Paolo couldn’t find us.

  But where would that have left the Ai’oans? The killing would have gone on, with or without me. I wonder if Uncle Antonio factored that into his plan. What did he think would happen? That my absence would bring Little Cam to a grinding halt? Far from it. Likely they would have restarted the Immortis project with twice the fervor.

  I hear a tat at the window, and my heart skips a beat.

  Tat, again.

  I run to the window and press my hands to the glass.

  There he is, in plain view, not even bothering to blend in. Only inches from the fence.

  His eyes are feral. He’s here because of Ami, I know it. I imagine the rage that must be pulsing through him, equal to the electricity pulsing through the fence. Does he realize the truth now? The Ai’oans know the story of the Kaluakoa. They know my existence must mean the death of many. They just never knew the deaths were their own.

  Oh, Eio, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. For Ami and for Sneeze and for you and me and for all the others we never knew who died that I might live.

  His lips are moving. He has to know I can’t hear him. I shake my head.

  Suddenly Eio grabs the fence.

  “No!” I shout, but he’s already jumped backward, hands held up. I see agony in his face, and I think, At least he won’t try again.

  But he does. He grabs the fence and makes it nearly three feet up before the electricity pulses again and he’s forced to release and drop to the ground. He lies in a crumple, and for a moment
I think he’s dead. The numbers run through my head like the electricity pumping through the fence: 5,000 volts every 1.2 seconds, and if he’s wet that drops his resistance level by at least 1,000 ohms, which increases chance of death from 5 percent to 50 percent. If he touches it again, chance of death becomes 95 percent.…I shake off the numbers, force them away until they’re pressed against the back of my skull. Even if he’s alive, the alarms will already be blaring in the guardhouse. Uncle Timothy will be on his way. If he catches Eio—

  My heart stops, my breath stops, and the blood stops flowing through my veins. No, not Eio.…

  I can’t stand it. I can’t watch him kill himself like this, and I won’t let him get caught by men who will murder him for his blood. But what can I do? The door is locked.

  Your walls are made of glass, Pia.

  And what does glass do best? I think of the syringe.

  Moving at a speed no other human could equal, I grab the lamp from my nightstand and swing it with all my strength. It bounces harmlessly off the window.

  This time I look harder and settle on the piping beneath the sink in my bathroom. I half unscrew, half rip it from the wall, and immediately water begins spraying across the room. Ignoring it, I grip the pipe firmly and smash it with every fiber of my being into the glass.

  Cracks don’t spiderweb across it, as I expect.

  Instead, the entire wall shatters. Glass as fine as drops of rain, even sounding like the rain outside, showers to the floor and the ground outside.

  My door bursts open, and the guard named Dickson storms in. He stands for a moment, staring in shock at the opening that used to be a wall, and then he starts toward me. Before my brain can even process my next move, my arms are swinging. The pipe connects with Dickson’s knees, and he falls to the floor with a gasp.

  I turn for the fence, but he grabs my ankle.

  “Let—go!” I try to pull away, but now his hands are around my leg. His face is red with pain and exertion, but he’s determined not to let me get away. I glance over my shoulder and see Eio watching, wide-eyed and pale.

  “I really don’t want to do this,” I say to Dickson, holding up the pipe.

  At that moment another person comes through my door. Clarence. You’re in on this too? He must have been in the living room. His eyes connect with mine, and he slowly shakes his head and holds out a hand.

  “C’mon, now, Pia. Just hand it over. Everything will work out, you’ll—”

  I smash the pipe onto Dickson’s left hand. He bellows and releases my leg, then grabs the pipe with his other hand, yanking it from my grasp. Weaponless, I stumble backward. Dickson’s knees must be smashed, because he can’t get up, but Clarence is charging at me now.

  “Pia—”

  Just as his hands are about to close on my arm, I pivot and whirl. By the time Clarence even blinks, I’m behind him. Dickson makes a grab for my ankle, but I dance aside. I’m too quick for them, my reflexes too advanced. They are three-toed sloths, and I am Ami’s golden tamarin, small and swift and untouchable.

  I’m amazed at how slow, how fragile these humans are.

  Clarence takes the pipe and tries to land a blow to my stomach, but I simply step aside. The janitor’s swing is so strong the momentum causes him to stumble and fall—his head cracks against my shelf of orchids, and he collapses, covered in soil and flowers.

  I leap through the opening and run to the fence.

  “Eio! Are you okay? Are you breathing?”

  Eio nods, eyes fluttering open. “Pia bird.”

  “Eio, I’m here. I—I can’t come to you, but I’m here.” The fence is just wide enough for me to reach my arm through. He grasps my hand. His strength is weak, and his fingers tremble. I know we have less than a minute before Uncle Timothy and his men arrive.

  “Ami…told us…they tried—”

  “They tried to kill her, Eio. You have to leave or they’ll get you too!”

  “I will save you. I told you and Papi that I would climb the fence if I had to. And I will.”

  “No, Eio. Go home and tell your people they must run.” Was it just yesterday I was saying something similar to him? But those words were spoken out of pride and anger, from the lips of a different Pia. These words are pleading. Helpless. We’re running out of time.…

  He lets go of my hand and, very slowly, stands up. And walks toward the fence.

  “Eio, no!” I reach both hands through the fence and shove him backward. It shocks and hurts like nothing I’ve felt before, but I force my mind to overcome the pain because I know it’s not really hurting me at all. He’s still weak, so he falls to the ground, which is growing soggier by the minute, and he ends up splattered with mud.

  “Eio, you idiot, it’s my fault all of this is happening! They took her because of me, so they could—could use her.…You know it’s true! You’ve known all along, because of the Kaluakoa, that in order for me to be immortal, many people had to die. Did you know they were Ai’oans? They were your people, Eio, and they died for me!”

  I realize I’m kneeling in the mud, hands in my hair, and there are as many tears as raindrops on my cheeks. “I don’t deserve you, Eio. Go! Please! Why won’t you just go?”

  His eyes are profoundly sad, as if I’m giving voice to the thoughts in his own head. “Love, Pia. That’s why. I love you. That’s why I’ll climb this fence again and again if I have to. I love you, I love you, I love you. I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  Love.

  Such a sweet, simple word. A word I’ve been searching for my entire life—but especially since I met Eio—and I never knew it. Until now. When I hear it on his lips, I know as I can never know anything else—no numbers, no formulas, no scientific names—I know it’s true. A piece slides into place in my heart, filling a hole I never knew existed.

  I breathe out, long and slow, staring at him in wonder. After everything you know about me…the deaths, the sacrifices, the evil.…

  “You love me,” I whisper, knowing this isn’t the time, but knowing there may never be another chance.

  I need to tell him. I need him to know that I feel the same way, that I always felt this way, since the beginning. Since that first night in the jungle, when I felt it—love—but I didn’t understand it. But I understand it now. Oh, do I understand.…“Eio, I—”

  Suddenly I hear shouting, and the moments we have stolen are shattered. I turn to see shapes, blurry in the rain, come around the corner of the house and start toward me. Too late. Just like Alex and Marian. We’re too late.

  “Eio, RUN!” I scream as they reach me. Strong arms haul me up, start dragging me away. On the other side, I see more men headed for Eio. No, no, no.…

  “Run, Eio! Please! I promise I’ll find you!”

  He sees them too, but instead of running, he stands and faces Timothy, who is the first to reach him. I gasp as Timothy throws a powerful punch—but Eio ducks and slams his own fist into the guard’s chin. Timothy’s head snaps back, but he doesn’t lose his footing; he just turns to glare at Eio and swing again. There must still be electricity sizzling through Eio’s muscles, because he tries to duck but staggers instead, taking Timothy’s blow straight to his stomach.

  “Eio!” I scream.

  He finds his feet again, but it’s too late. Timothy seizes Eio’s wrist, yanking him backward. Eio struggles, and even Timothy finds his strength tested against the Ai’oan boy. But other men arrive, and soon Eio is surrounded, held by a dozen hands.

  “NO!” I buck against Paolo’s grasp.

  “Stop it, Pia!” he orders. “Timothy! Take the boy to the lab.”

  My strength abandons me at those words. I turn horrified eyes on the man I once thought a hero. To the lab?

  “That’s right, Pia. Looks like we’re going to make Immortis today after all.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Eio, yelling threats and insults, has to be picked up and carried across the compound by three men. He twists and struggles, the rain making his skin
slippery and giving the men considerable trouble keeping a grip on him, but he can’t escape. I feel as if a knife has been thrust into my stomach, and every step makes it twist and dig deeper.

  We are led right back into the lab where Ami nearly met her death. Timothy and his men struggle to keep Eio down, while Jakob and Haruto strap his wrists, ankles, torso, and neck to the table. Sergei gags Eio with a towel, stopping his angry shouts.

  Paolo says, in a horribly agreeable tone, “Let’s try this again, shall we?”

  I keep my eyes trained on my muddy shoes and say nothing, resolved to stay silent and expressionless as my mind searches frantically for a way out. But there is nothing. My thoughts are still too full of Eio’s words. “I love you.”

  “Haruto.” Paolo holds up a hand, and Haruto places a syringe in it. I don’t have to ask to know what the clear liquid inside is. Despite my resolution to stand firm, my heart pumps faster.

  “Come.” He motions to Sergei and Jakob, who prod me. When I refuse to move, they lift me up anyway and push me toward Eio, who’s still struggling. I wish I felt the same fighting spirit, but it seems to have been drained out of me.

  Paolo presses the syringe into my hand, and when I keep my fingers taut and extended, he forces them shut around it.

  “I won’t do it. You can’t make me.” I struggle against him, trying to drop the syringe. He grabs a roll of duct tape and wraps it around my fist. Tears burn my eyes, but I refuse to break down. I have to be able to think clearly.

  But I’m starting to lose hope.

  “You think by making me do it once you’ll change my mind?” I ask, my voice halfway between a whisper and a snarl.

  “Of course not, my dear.” Paolo whispers in my ear, the stubble on his chin tickling my neck. “But by making you do it a dozen times or five dozen times. However many it takes. After all,” he sweeps his hand wide, “we have a whole village to practice on.”

  “No.”

  “You seem strangely upset over the fate of people you don’t even know,” he says thoughtfully. “Or do you know them?”