[Incubation 01.0] Incubation Page 4

  “I am your friend.” It comes out as a whisper, even though I mean it with all my heart.

  “Not the friend I need right now. Go, Everly. Just go.”

  “Halla, I can help. I’ll—”

  She shakes her head vehemently, unable to speak. When I don’t move, she walks around me and opens the door. Her head tipped down, she motions for me to leave.

  I get to the threshold and hesitate. When she doesn’t look up, I step into the hall. The door closes behind me with a snap that should have me looking over my shoulder, hoping no one heard it, but I’m on the verge of tears, choked up about losing Halla. Part of my sadness is for her, and part for me. I’ll never see her again if she runs away. I can’t stand it. I rest my forehead against her closed door. “Don’t go,” I whisper.

  Nothing happens. Halla doesn’t emerge. I don’t knock.

  I make the stealthy trek back to my room, thinking about Halla. She’s been my best friend forever. We played pretend together when we were little, with me the daughter and Halla the mommy, or me the scientist making save-the-world discoveries and Halla sometimes my lab assistant and sometimes an insect I was dissecting. The world’s only giggling cockroach: “Being dissected tickles,” she used to say. When we got older and spent more time in classes, we always sat side by side until one exasperated proctor or another separated us to keep us from talking. I helped her keep up in science classes so we wouldn’t get split up. She smuggled me rations when I did something that got me confined to quarters. I can’t imagine being here without her.

  As I enter my room, I have a thought that makes me let go of the door so it bangs shut. I wince. I can save Halla by telling Proctor Fonner about her plan. They’ll keep her under guard until she has the baby, and then take it to another Kube. That would be the right thing to do, for the baby, Halla, and the nation, but it feels incredibly wrong. Amerada over all, I remind myself. She’ll hate me forever for separating her from Little Loudon, but wouldn’t that be better than letting her go off to die somewhere between here and Atlanta? I worry about it for hours, tossing and turning so much the covers wrap me like a mummy and I have to get up to untangle them. Yes, I finally decide, it would, but can I make myself do it? Can I betray her to Proctor Fonner? I punch my pillow. I’m ninety percent certain she’ll die if she runs away on her own, her and the baby both. I can’t have that on my conscience, even though keeping her here against her will, hating me, will be unendurable. I can’t understand why she wants to keep the baby so badly, but I understand that she does, and I know she’ll never, ever forgive me for what I’m going to do. I cry myself to sleep.

  Chapter Four

  At breakfast the next morning after the mandatory physical fitness period, I’m heavy-eyed and draggy, uninterested in food. Halla and I exchange a brief, unsmiling look when we enter, and she chooses to sit across the table and well down from me, rather than at my side. She looks as bad as I feel. It’s painful to think that we’ve probably exchanged our last words, because she’ll never talk to me again after I tell. Proctor Fonner glides in after we get seated and steps onto the small dais where the proctors stand to read to us or lecture as we eat. His presence is unusual and his aspect solemn. From the thick silence that smothers conversation, I think we all know what’s coming.

  Looking down his long nose, and with his hands clasped at waist height, Proctor Fonner says, “I regret to inform you that our Kube community, our nation, has lost two of its valuable members, Dal Spaeth and Yuna Nieves. They were killed in yesterday’s unconscionable attack on our train. Additionally, Proctor Jeffson suffered serious head and spine injuries—she’s paralyzed from the neck down—and has been transported to Atlanta for treatment.”

  There’s a collective gasp. Yuna was four years younger and I didn’t know her well, but she seemed to be a sweet girl, always smiling, with a gap between her two top teeth that somehow made her smile infectious. Dal was my age, but a little slow, almost simple, so we hadn’t been in the same academic track. Still, I’ve known him forever and I feel his loss more keenly than I would have expected. I push my plate away. Muffled sobs and sniffles sound from all sides.

  “The Premier and her ministers are outraged by the increasing boldness of the Defiance and she has promised to send an additional IPF contingent to find and neutralize the individuals who participated in yesterday’s lawless attack,” Fonner continues, letting righteous anger creep into his voice.

  “It was the Defiance, then?”

  Oh, no. The voice is Wyck’s, too interested, and I turn my head to see him half out of his chair. Sit down and shut up. I scrunch my eyes closed as if that will keep the inevitable from happening.

  “Has the Defiance—”

  “The perpetrators were murderers, plain and simple,” Fonner interrupts him coldly. “Report to my office after classes today, AC Sharpe.” His voice smoothes out again. “Every premature death is a blow to our nation’s stability, but especially so when the deceased were so young and vital and still had so much to contribute. This is a very sad day, a tragic loss. We will have an appropriate memorial for our lost colleagues on Friday, but for now I ask for a minute of silence on their behalf.”

  I bow my head and think about how Dal, always big for his age, used to pick me up under the arms when we were six or seven, and swing me around so my feet flew out and it felt like I was flying. He’d laugh and I’d laugh and he’d spin me until he got dizzy and we both fell. I haven’t thought of that in years. Poor Dal. I’m lost in my memories when the sound of my name startles me.

  “—and AC Jax report to my office before the afternoon service period.” He descends from the dais and leaves, his straight back telling me nothing.

  Why have I been summoned? Who else’s names did he call? I look around, and the girl beside me gives me a tiny, puzzled shrug. Maybe it’s for the best. I can tell Proctor Fonner about Halla when I see him.

  I get nothing out of my morning class, a physics lesson with Proctor Lutz who stammers. I’m too busy agonizing over Halla, mourning Yuna and Dal, and worrying about my summons to the Supervising Proctor’s office. When he wraps up the lesson, Proctor Lutz reminds me of the appointment and I get into the elevator nervously. Has Proctor Fonner decided on my punishment? Not Reunion Day, not Reunion Day, I think. Don’t let him take it away.

  Wyck is waiting in the anteroom when I arrive, chatting with Proctor’s Fonner’s aide as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. My first thought is that I can’t tell Proctor Fonner about Halla if Wyck’s there. He winks at me as I come in. Rolling my eyes, I enter Proctor Fonner’s lair. He’s seated behind his desk, erect and severe as always, and he eyes us dispassionately as we stand in front of him. He gets right to it.

  “AC Sharpe, AC Jax. I’ve selected you to carry out a special task this afternoon during service hours.”

  Is his pause to gather his thoughts or heighten the tension? I’m guessing the latter.

  “Someone must undertake the sad duty of inventorying and packing up AC Spaeth’s and AC Nieves’ effects. I have selected the two of you.”

  Relief whooshes through me. This is my punishment for the beach. It’s a sad task, but he’s not taking away Reunion Day. I sneak a sidelong glance at Wyck who seems equally relieved that he’s not being disciplined more severely.

  “I trust you will carry out this duty with decorum and thoroughness.”

  I nod and Wyck says, “Yes, sir.”

  A slight lift of Proctor Fonner’s brows dismisses us. Wyck holds the door for me. I hesitate for a moment, but Proctor Fonner is engrossed in work on his desk and Wyck is waiting. I’ll tell him later. Feeling cowardly, I hurry out.

  Back in the anteroom, we let out simultaneous sighs of relief and it almost makes me giggle. Then I remember what we’re tasked to do and I sober up. The aide gives us the room locations and we head for Dal’s room first. Two empty cartons are stacked in the hall. Only two. A palm sized imager for making an inventory record sits atop them. Wyck imme
diately grabs up the gadget, along with a box. I lift the other box. Wyck pushes open the door without hesitating, but his movements are jerky and I know he’s as uncomfortable as I am.

  Dal’s room is furnished like all the rooms, but his is messier than most, with the bedclothes draping onto the floor, spare jumpsuit crumpled beneath a hook, and oddments piled high on shelves. Scraps of paper, pinecones from the dome, funny shaped rocks, used up toothpaste tubes and other things I’d classify as junk litter every flat surface.

  Wyck looks around. “Dal was quite the collector.”

  I nod, set my box down, and open the top drawer of the nightstand. Wyck scans the shelves with the imager, and then picks up the other box and looks at the litter, irresolute. “Should I box this stuff up or just throw it away?”

  “Box it,” I say without hesitation. “It was important to Dal.”

  “I wonder where it goes?”

  I don’t know, so I don’t say anything. The top drawer contains nothing but underthings and I layer them into the box, not sure why I’m not just flipping the drawer over and dumping the contents. The bottom drawer contains more “treasures,” I see, but Wyck distracts me from inspecting them.

  “They died instantly,” he says, not looking at me, seemingly focused on putting what seems to be a kudzu leaf collection into his box.

  I remember that he went behind the screen to fix something when the medics were trying to save Yuna and Dal. I hadn’t thought about his seeing them.

  “The explosion got them both. Yuna had a two-foot piece of metal straight through her heart, and Dal’s neck was broken by the force of the explosion. Proctor Jeffson wasn’t so lucky. I’d rather die quick than end up like her. Not being able to walk or feed yourself—” He shudders. “I want it to be quick when it happens. No pain, no lingering, and for certain sure no fire. Drowning might not be so bad.”

  My lungs ache and my throat closes against the water. It invades my nostrils and I watch little bubbles drift to the surface. My limbs thrash. The gold eyes above me, blurred by the water between us, seem full of dancing flames. Need to breathe . . . I suck in a breath, and blurt, “Drowning’s horrible.”

  Wyck gives me a look, startled by my vehemence, and says, “How do you want to die?”

  “This is a morbid conversation.” I fling items in the box, completely unaware of what they are.

  Undeterred, Wyck says, “I could die a hero’s death, throw myself on a vaporization grenade to save my troops. Gone”—he snaps his fingers—“just like that. That wouldn’t be a bad way to go.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to be a soldier.”

  Wyck shrugs, annoyed, and a handful of dried kudzu leaves flutter down. “A sergeant in my dad’s unit died like that the week I got repoed. Not my dad, that’s for sure. I want my death to mean something, that’s all.”

  “Better for your life to mean something.” A glint from the bottom of the drawer catches my eye. It’s a mirror. A palm-sized, silver-backed mirror like the girls were searching for on the train. There’s a bracelet, too, with heavy links; a knife with a short, shiny blade; a six-inch square remnant of reflective mesh; and a ring made of intertwined metals. Uh-oh. I rock back on my heels. Dal was the thief. My brow crinkles as I try to reconcile the happy, somewhat simple Dal I knew with this evidence. I use a forefinger to rearrange the objects; they are all so shiny. I know suddenly that it’s the shininess that attracted Dal. I can see him when we were younger, fascinated by a hematite specimen that the geology proctor passed around. Dal turned it over and over, staring at it, mouth agape, until the next kid in line wrestled it away. I scoop the objects into my messenger bag. Wyck’s busy imaging the items he’s packed up and doesn’t notice. I’ll get these things back to their owners somehow. I’m not branding Dal as a thief. He wasn’t, not in his heart. I don’t want him remembered that way.

  Wyck approaches with the imager and inventories the items in the box. “Not much, is it?”

  “No.” I think of the feather, my Little House book, and the clothes and toiletries in my room. What would someone sorting through my effects think about me? Would my feather be dismissed as “nature junk,” the way Wyck and I have written off Dal’s treasures? Would the person dropping Little House on the Prairie into a box assume I was slow, that I read on an eight-year-old level? Stuff lies, I decide.

  I stand, and the items in my bag clink. I must look funny, because Wyck asks, “You okay?”

  There’s concern in his voice and I tear up, even though I didn’t know I was feeling so sad. That’s the thing about Wyck—one minute he’s talking about how cool it would be to get vaporized, and the next he’s tuned into my feelings, sometimes before I am.

  “Yeah,” I sniff. “Okay enough.”

  He puts an arm around my shoulders and hugs me against his side. “I can do Yuna’s room by myself.”

  I let myself lean into him for a moment. He’s warm, comforting, skinny enough I can feel individual ribs. Before the embrace can get awkward, I ease away, saying, “Thanks, but I’ll help.”

  There’s something indefinably feminine about Yuna’s room, even though she has the same furniture as Dal. Maybe it’s the neatness, with every toiletry item carefully aligned on the shelf, or maybe it’s the scent, a hint of baby powder in the air. It takes us less than twenty minutes to inventory and pack her things.

  “She was only twelve,” Wyck mutters, imager held high to document it all. “Twelve.” Laying the imager on a shelf, he crosses to the door and closes it. He returns, halting only a foot away from me, his expression intense.

  He’s going to kiss me. Finally. Anticipation rises in me like helium, making me light-headed. I angle my face slightly and sway—

  “Halla told me she told you.”

  I stagger back a step. I feel stupid for thinking— “She told you? When?” I immediately realize how stupid it is to care whether Halla told Wyck about her pregnancy before she told me.

  He sits on the bed. “This morning. She says she’s leaving. I’m going with her.”

  His announcement hits me like an axe in the stomach. I deflate onto the bed beside him. “What?” I whisper.

  “She needs me,” he says, almost angrily. “No one needs me here.”

  “That’s not true!” I need you. “You fix—”

  He grabs my shoulders and makes me face him. His eyes burn greenly. “Halla needs me. She’ll probably die out there on her own—”

  At least we agree on something.

  “I mean, what are her chances? She’s not tough to start with, and she’s pregnant.”

  “Did she say anything else?” About our fight?

  “Like what?”

  I guess not. My fingers pluck at the coverlet hard enough to yank fibers from the decorative tufts.“She shouldn’t go.”

  “Of course not, but she’s going to. And so am I.” He firms his mouth into a thin, resolute line.

  With Wyck along, Halla has a chance. Maybe fifty-fifty. Not great, but good enough that I let go of my plan to tell Proctor Fonner, a plan I hated anyway. But they’ll both be gone . . . I’ll be alone. Halla’s stealing Wyck away. I wasn’t a good enough friend to offer to go with her. I’ll have nobody. The thoughts stream through my mind, a jumbled mix of panic and fury. “Wyck, don’t—”

  “Fonner handed me my orders for border sentry training last night,” he says. “I’ve got a ticket on tomorrow’s train to Base Kestrel.”

  “Oh, Wyck.” He’s always said nothing could make him undertake military duty of any kind. “Oh, Wyck. There’s got to be another option. Running away—”

  “There’s not.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re needed here, Ev. You’re going to be the one who finds a way to eradicate the locusts—I know it. Me . . . yeah, I come up with some useful gadgets now and then, tinker with stuff and fix it, but no one will miss me anymore than they’ll miss . . . than they’ll miss Yuna.”

  “I’ll miss you.” He can’t go. I lean forw
ard an inch, almost working up my nerve to kiss him. I don’t know if he likes me that way. Kissing him might embarrass him and then I’d be humiliated and he’d leave with the awkwardness uppermost . . .

  He rises, and my shoulders slump. The moment is gone. Picking up his box, he crosses to the door. “We should go.”

  “Just a minute.”

  Yuna’s bed is rumpled, an offense against her evident neatness. I make it. Wyck hovers in the doorway while I plump the pillow. As I smooth the last wrinkle from her coverlet and scoop up the threads I pulled loose, I wonder who will miss her, who will remember her a year from now, five years from now. You’re not really gone until no one remembers you. I lift my box, join Wyck, and close the door softly.

  Chapter Five

  Sunshine knifes through my window to wake me on Reunion Day. Despite lack of sleep, I hum with excitement. Worry and sadness about Wyck and Halla take the edge off my anticipation and for a moment I resent Halla for stupidly getting pregnant, for insisting on keeping the baby, for leaving and for taking Wyck with her. I’m ashamed of those feelings and try to make them go away.

  I take extra time getting ready after morning calisthenics. I’m stuck wearing the sky blue jumpsuit, but I brush my blond hair until it gleams, wondering if my mother, or maybe someone in my father’s family, has hair this color. I lean in toward the small mirror. My eyes with the charcoal ring around the marine blue irises . . . do I have aunts or uncles or a grandparent with that same dark gray ring? I abandon preening and ride down in the elevator, stomach clenched, ignoring the buzz of conversation around me. I don’t see Halla in the cafeteria. I sit by myself, too keyed up to chat with friends, even Wyck who is letting his breakfast congeal while he uses the miniature tools he invented to tweak something in Johan’s prosthetic hand. Johan twists and bends his wrist and claps Wyck on the back with a broad grin when he’s done. I eat without tasting anything, and jump when the announcement booms loudly: “All apprentice citizens participating in Reunion Day, report to Room 104.”