Poison
Page 17
“Why does it have to be him who shows me around?”
She shrugs and sets up her scalp-checking instruments again. “Just be thankful he’s taken a shining to you. It would be much worse if he hated you.”
I bite my bottom lip as the tingle of the laser warms my scalp and to stop myself from saying anything too incriminating. I find myself forgetting that Gloria is a Seeder at heart and that I still need to be careful. She tugs at a lock of hair too hard, almost as though she’s read my thoughts and is trying to prove the point.
“Ow!” I lean away from the laser as tears prick my eyes.
“Sorry.” She repositions my head and goes back to work. I don’t say anything because I don’t really care what kind of problems she’s having. They can’t be worse than mine. The silence gets really awkward.
“What’s in the box?” I say, trying to avoid meeting her gaze.
“They’re personal items from your father’s office.” I deflate visibly. What do I care about his belongings? Nothing is going to bring him back.
She opens her mouth as if to talk me out of it and then must think better of it. “You don’t look much like him,” she says after a lengthy pause. This makes me so angry I want to throttle her.
“I have his hands,” I contradict. That’s not entirely true. Papa taught me to be good with my hands, but physically, I don’t really resemble him. I look too much like my mother. It isn’t until Papa and I get into an argument that anyone would realise how similar we are. Except that’ll never happen again now. I will never do anything with Papa again. I will never see anyone from the Landing again, and it’s my own fault.
“All done. That’s the last time I’ll have to do this,” Gloria says. “Don’t forget Harlan will be here in fifteen minutes.”
On my way out, I kick the box of Papa’s things under the bed because it’s all I can do to suppress the guilt over the choice I made to kill him and everyone I’ve ever known. Alarm bells go off in my head as I step into the back of the limo, but I smother them with a plastered smile. If Harlan wants to take me to the seed labs, then I will play his game as long as I have to. He pats the seat next to him before I’ve even shut the door. Going against every instinct I have, I ease myself beside him.
“You look nice,” he says. It’s hard not to look nice when all I’ve got to wear are flimsy dresses. The one I have on today is a strapless feathery concoction of mauve chiffon that hugs my figure at the chest and then flows and wisps to my knees.
“Thank you. So do you.” I hope it comes out less sarcastically than it sounds in my head. He’s wearing a variation of the fitted suit he had on yesterday. Today it’s navy blue with a matching vest over a white shirt.
“Purple is really your colour. I’ll make a note to have more purple added to your wardrobe.”
I focus on tapping my feet to keep from strangling him on the spot. Perhaps if I antagonise him, he’ll decide I’m not worth it and will leave me in peace. Or more likely he’ll have me discarded.
The ride is blessedly short and before I know it, we’re pulling into the driveway of a gated research centre. The driver speaks into an intercom to notify of our arrival and a second later, the metal gates slide open and we continue along the driveway. Blue and black rosebushes stand sentinel along the drive, culminating in a set of mauve-flowered magnolia trees on either side of the front doors.
The building itself is a goliath of glass panels for doors and even more glass windows wherever possible. We park right outside the lobby of the centre’s office. Inside, there are Seeders wearing lab coats in every colour milling about everywhere. Harlan takes me by the elbow and leads me into the lobby, where we’re met by two Seeders in light-blue coats.
They all give Harlan a slight nod, and then we’re following them to the elevator. We get in at ground level and are taken to the fifteenth floor. I’m in full hunter recall mode, trying to remember everything I see. There are thirty-five floors below ground level and twenty-three above. One of the Seeders swiped a card over a reader before he pressed the button for our floor, which means the whole building is probably card access only.
When we arrive at our floor, he has to swipe again at a pair of frosted glass doors, and then we’re inside a brightly lit laboratory.
The room is set up surprisingly like my bunker but on a much larger scale. The entire back wall is lined with clear drawers with metallic labels at the front. I almost salivate when we walk past and I can see bulbs, corms, and seeds inside each container.
There are four island tables in the centre of the room, each one holding a sink and various scattered experiments. On one, there’s a microscope and an array of petri dishes and beakers along with several plant specimens.
A huge middle-aged man wearing spectacles is bent over the microscope. I find it strange that he should need spectacles, considering the Seeder penchant to surgically improve themselves. Our escorts leave us to resume their work at two of the empty tables.
“Dr. Bagrov!” Harlan calls out to the man in a white lab coat. The man ignores us and continues to examine the contents of his petri dish. “Doctor!” Again, we get no response. Harlan grabs my arm and almost dislocates my shoulder, dragging me over to the doctor.
“Don’t come any closer!” Dr. Bagrov barks at us. His voice is like gravel crunching and his tone is just as abrasive, but there’s something even stranger about the way he speaks. An accent I can’t quite place, even though I’ve been to all the regions. We stop short of the doctor’s mighty arm span.
I recognise the telltale signs of a tantrum coming from Harlan, but the doctor seems unperturbed. Who is this man that he is able to ignore the Chief Warden’s son when others have almost scraped their noses on the ground bowing to him?
“Be careful, Doctor. You tread on very thin terrain,” Harlan warns.
The doctor whirls around to face us, his attention finally captured. He’s the most real person I’ve seen so far in this place. Scars line his weathered face, and his dark brown hair has been left to pepper naturally. Up close, he’s bigger than Harlan by at least a foot, and he uses that to his advantage.
“Get out of my lab,” the doctor says. His dinner plate-sized hand points back to the door we came from. Something inside me deflates. I’ve put up with being a dress-up doll for nothing.
“How dare you!” Harlan says. He’s still gripping my forearm and the pressure tightens, cutting off circulation. “You were told to cooperate with my tour! Wait until my mother hears—”
“Go and tattle to her, then. Just get out of my sight.” He turns away again, but then as an afterthought he says, “The girl can stay.”
Harlan and I are both speechless.
“She’s my—”
“Out now!” the doctor roars. “Come back for her this afternoon.”
I’m torn between wanting to stay and the promise of retribution in Harlan’s eyes. I think of the consequences of sharing a smile with Gage and decide it’s not worth it.
“I said stay!” the doctor barks when I move towards Harlan. “You have five seconds to disappear, boy.”
Without a backward glance, Harlan stomps out of the lab, leaving me in this enclosed space with the human equivalent of a bear.
“Well, are you just going to stand there like a lackwit clone?” the doctor comments from where he’s back to examining specimens.
I practically jump out of my skin and race beside him to peer over the edge of the table that comes up to my chest. You almost get the feeling that the entire lab has been altered to suit the doctor’s height.
As I watch, he slips on a pair of gloves, picks up a scalpel, and slices a hair-thin layer from the stem of a flower I don’t recognise. He carefully places the tiny bit of stem on a glass slide and into the viewing compartment of the microscope.
He does this continually for about fifteen minutes, grunting after each turn at the microscope and typing his findings into an electronic device. The whole time he acts like I’m not there. T
hat’s fine by me. It’s certainly better than having to dodge Harlan’s awkward compliments.
“I need more slides,” the doctor says after a while. “Get me more slides.” The other Seeders don’t even glance up from where they’re working, and I realise he’s talking to me.
“Umm…”
He sighs and points to a door I’ve seen the other Seeders go in and out of. I push through the door and it closes with a click. I find myself in a tiny space and facing another door. A plated sign in the middle of it reads: Sterilised Area.
Compressed air rushes from the metal vents above me for a few seconds until the temperature in this small area has dropped a few degrees. A globe above the new door turns from red to green, and then the door swings open on its own. It shuts tightly again once I’m inside.
My secret hope that there will be seeds stored in the room is dashed straightaway. There’s nothing but shelf upon shelf of beakers, test tubes, glass tanks of various sizes and shapes, scalpels, glass and plastic slides, and various other scientific instruments. Not a stray seed anywhere.
Not knowing what kind of slides he wanted, I come back with an armful of everything. It’s lucky I don’t expect thanks because I certainly don’t get it.
Five minutes later, he takes a key card out of the pocket of his white lab coat and slides it across the table to me.
“Get me some feverfew from the wall,” he says casually. Without thinking, I grab the card and head for the shelves, only to realise my mistake halfway there. Feverfew doesn’t exist outside of the Citadel. My mother’s books said the plant, which resembles a bush of daisies, was found to have quite strong pain suppressant qualities, and the Seeders appropriated the plants immediately. I shouldn’t know what it is.
“Which one is it?” I ask lamely.
“The one you were already going to get.”
I should be amazed that the feverfew sprigs come out of the shelf as if they’re freshly picked, but I’m too busy scrambling for an excuse. The doctor really looks at me for the first time when I place the feverfew down before him. He reaches and grabs hold of my wrist, dwarfing my hand with his own.
“And that, my dear, is the closest you’re going to get to any seeds while you’re here.”
Twenty-Four
“My stepmother used to run an apothecary,” I explain. My mouth speaks the words, but my eyes cut across the room to the exit.
“I don’t remember asking,” he says. I can’t believe I’ve already managed to get myself in trouble. Assuming I can reach his neck, I might be able to puncture an artery if it comes to it. The idea makes me want to cry. Who am I? Why is every second thought one of murder?
“Let me explain something to you, girl.”
“Aurora.” It can’t hurt for him to know my name, can it?
“Of course. The entire Citadel knows your name, Aurora. How much do you know about the concept of supply and demand?”
“My stepmother handled all the money.” Or the taking of it, at least.
“I see. Well, when a product is in great demand and there is not enough supply to meet that demand, the product goes up in value. For instance, I am the foremost horticultural geneticist in the Citadel. The only other person who can do what I do is, shall we say, indisposed. My head is full of many things that no one else knows. There is great demand for what only I can supply, and it affords me certain leniencies.”
“Like saying no to emotionally stunted sons of Chief Wardens?”
“Exactly.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“You are in a bit of a bind. You see, I am what you would call a loner. No family, no indispensable friends, nothing that can be used as leverage. If I were about to do what I think you want to do, I would reconsider my position. Even if you are the hottest topic going around the Citadel gossip circles right now.”
“What is it I’m supposed to want to do?”
He grunts at me. “Let’s assume we’re both not idiots for the duration of this conversation, shall we? You’re a Merchant. The sole purpose of all Merchants and Farmers who come to the Citadel is to get seeds. Given the alternative way you’ve arrived and that you’ve arrived at all, plus your affinity for plants, I think it would be safe to theorise that your desire for seeds is much more urgent than most.”
At the moment, I really despise scientific intellectual types. He doesn’t even bother to pay me any attention as he speaks. Like there’s no possibility his theory could be wrong.
“All right,” I say. “Suppose your theory is correct on a completely hypothetical level; why am I still here and not in chains in a prison?” If ever there were a time for me to exercise discretion, it would be now. But something in the way he’s so casual makes me think he won’t rat me out.
“I am a scientist, not a soldier. I need a new research assistant who can tell me more than if a flower is pretty.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll find the seeds and cut and run?”
Apparently, I’m really funny in the Citadel, because my suggestion makes him burst out laughing. “Follow me,” he says between gasps. He leads me back out to the elevator and presses the button for two floors below ground. The lifts open up to a fortress of metal. Six guards stand armed and ready in front of a set of reinforced steel doors. They don’t lower their weapons even when we get close enough to shoot point blank.
“Assuming you can get past the guards, see this palm recognition pad?” He points to a contraption like a flat TV screen by the side of the steel door. “Only those with special clearance can activate them. Last time I checked, you’re not one of them.”
Splayed out, his palm covers almost the entire surface of the scanner. A fluorescent line appears at the top and slowly moves down the scanner from the tip of his fingers to the base of his palm. Something hisses like the door of the sterilised equipment room, and then the metal doors slide open.
At first the room is dark, and then one by one the lights come on until the intensity of the bright light is almost blinding. Everything inside is white and spotless, from the tiles underfoot to the incredibly stark walls. To my dismay, there are even more guards in here, positioned back to back to their outside counterparts. Their guns are just as intimidating. But it’s not the weapons pointed at me that steal my breath away.
It’s the rows upon rows of compartments standing wall to wall on either side of us. Just like the ones inside the lab rooms, but on a much grander scale. Whoever designed this place must have had some kind of aversion to darkness and germs. There’s not a gloomy corner or a speck of dirt to be seen.
Above the giant filing cabinet structures sits a maze of opaque white piping going every which way. The only discernable pipe is the one that leads to an enclosed glass case on the desk of the small workstation to our right.
“Pick a plant,” Dr. Bagrov says as he presses buttons on the touch screen of the computer that takes up the other portion of the workstation. When I don’t respond, he mutters something under his breath and then chooses a random option. An enlarged picture of a marigold flashes on the screen, and then a whooshing sound can be heard from above. A small paper-wrapped package shoots out of the pipe and into the glass case.
The white label reads Tagetes patula, the scientific name for French marigolds. Besides the plant name, there are various other instructions on the label, including flowering time, water requirements, and plant size, but I’m only interested in one thing. The small red print on the top right of the label that pronounces: VIABLE.
Without meaning to, I inch towards the case. “Don’t!” the doctor yells. Our eyes meet over the desk. Behind us, I’m aware of the movement of the guards in our direction. Without seeing them, I know their guns are pointed at me.
“Touch the case without swiping with a card first and the whole thing will detonate.” If I hope he’s going to show me, then I’m completely wrong. He keys something else into the computer screen, and the parcel is sucked back to where it came from.
The doctor notices my reticence and offers what he must think is comfort. “Come now. It’s not that bad here. You’ll get to do research and go to parties. If you manage to formulate the antidote to the rotting sickness, you’ll be the most famous person in the Citadel. More famous than the Wind Dancer ever was.”
“Is that all we can hope for in this supposed city of dreams?”
“It’s more than a lot of people have and better than the alternative.”
“Thank you for the warning, Doctor—”
“Yuri. All that doctor business makes my head hurt.”
I give him a nod to acknowledge his preference. “Can I ask why you’re warning me at all? Everyone I’ve met seems to want me to make the best impression possible. What does anything I do matter to you?”
For the first time, he casts around to where the other Seeders still have their heads down, doing their work. His voice lowers slightly. “I can’t speak for anyone else, but I am not in the business of condemning entire regions to death. I do what I do because it fascinates me. I can see you have an inquisitive mind. You’ll do well here.”
I give him a small smile and we lapse back into silence. For the rest of the afternoon, he treats me like an assistant, and I get to see what life would be like living in the Citadel and being a real scientist. It’s wonderful to have everything I need at my disposal. No more holding off on experiments because I’ve run out of supplies. No living in constant fear of Seeders battering down the door and dragging me away.