Chapter Fifty

 

The aquarium is open to the public. It’s anticlimactic, pero we just breeze through the front door.

We suspect Kayla is somewhere below us, but that doesn’t narrow things down enough. The main building alone is five floors, and the map shows outside exhibits too.

“At least whatever they’re planning, they need Stephen alert to do it,” Brill says. “Ven, we have a little time.”

“Sí.” But this much time? It could take us half the day to search this place. “Pero, mi vida, Tyson seemed frustrated that Kayla wasn’t using her telepathy. What if Murry gets too frustangerated with her?”

“Then we had better do this smart.” Brill points to a specific spot on the map. “What do you think, Babe?”

It’s a round exhibit that takes up the majority of the bottom floor. Living Jewels of the Deep.

The word deep could just be a coincidence.

“We better go check it out, no?”

We move into the quiet blue stillness that comes when you’re surrounded by glass y agua. There are people here, Zantite and otherwise, pero it’s not crowded.

Brill makes a startled noise.

I follow his gaze, expecting trouble. He’s looking at the back of a girl wearing a hoodie with his face stenciled on it. The eyes in the image are slate gray, and Brill’s real ones are chromashifting to match. I forgot he hadn’t seen those. “You OK, mi vida?”

“It’s going to be a bit harder than I realized to be dead right now. One picture on somebody’s feed, and Frank and I both have problems.” He takes my hand and squeezes it just a little harder than necessary. “I’ve never been famous before. What do we do now?”

I kiss him on the cheek. “Celebrities don’t shimmerpop when they’re not dressed up or trailing a cloud of fans. Act normal, and chances are nobody will notice, no? There’s a ton of offplanet tourists here because of Kaliel’s trial. It’s a miracle, pero we blend.”

I want to run to Kayla, now that I think I know where she is, pero that will call too much attention. As we wander down the hall, pretending to be captivated by the exhibits isn’t hard. Earth’s sea creatures are extraño enough. Some things in Zant’s oceans are downright weird. I pause to watch a small tank where dozens of feathery water-caterpillars with long legs that end in pinchers are building a wall out of pebbles to divide their space in half.

A girl’s voice says, “Bo? Bo Benitez?”

I turn. She’s humanoid, pero her pinched-forward chipmunkish face isn’t familiar.

“Sí,” I admit.

“I’m a FeedCaster, and it would virafizz if I could get an interview about how you feel about Kaliel being pardoned.” Brill’s still facing away, and she looks at him curiously. “I do want to say how sorry I am about Brill.” The feeds had to make some conclusion about what that pendant had meant, and somebody heard me say there’d been an accident, so Brill’s death by mysterious accident had already virafizzed. “Who’s this?”

Brill turns towards us, his eyes that steady blue he uses when he’s trying to mask other emotions. They’d better not shift, given the lie I’m about to tell.

I wipe my hand across my eyes, like I’m about to start crying. “This is Bob. He went to pilot’s school with Kaliel. I don’t have time for more than a picture, pero do you want to interview him about his parents’ sheep ranch in Oklahoma?”

She wrinkles her nose, then seems embarrassed she couldn’t hide the gesture. “That’s OK. Amazing how much he looks like Brill, though.”

“I look like a spider to you?” Brill taps a fist to his chest – a very Krom gesture, actually – and manages to look insulted as he says, “One hundred percent human.”

At least he remembered to say human instead of Earthling. And his eyes stay sky blue.

“So just the picture then?” the girl says hopefully.

“Sí!” I drape my arm around Brill.

The FeedCaster smiles weakly. “Just you, if you don’t mind.”

I pose with the caterpillar crabs. Afterwards, as we’re making our way towards the escalator, Brill says, “You think she bought that?”

“Eso espero, mi vida.” I hope so.

She’s not following us, at least.

He lets his eyes go violet.

“Que?”

“Just thinking how upset you got with me for being a good liar. When you’re capable of pulling off that kind of performance.” He gestures behind us.

“There’s a difference between lying and acting. And I’m not great at either, no? Or my holostar career would have taken off.”

“Babe.” Brill stops walking, grabs onto my hand. “You can’t believe that. I’ve watched every show you were in and–”

“All two of them.” I’m touched that he took the time, especially for the half-season of Un Corazón Demasiado, One Heart Too Many, where I was the daughter’s best friend, who mysteriously shadowpopped never to be seen again.

“Wal. All two of them.” Brill pulls me forward, and we start walking again. “You were better than the girl who played the daughter on that show where they stuck you as the sidekick. A lot of things came together to crash your career, but lack of talent’s not it.”

“Mire usted?” Really? His sincerity blows me away.

The lights dim progressively as we take two escalators to the bottom floor. It’s supposed to represent a descent into deeper parts of the ocean. Some exhibits here are lit by black light.

We approach the rounded glass tank that takes up the middle of the room. The glass wraps around a metal cylinder, which is so wide that there’s only about a two-foot gap between the metal and the glass. This minimizes the amount of water needed to show off the creatures clinging to the cylinder’s surface. They look like brilliantly-colored gemstones. With stalk-eyes and rings of tiny glittery frond-hands. They’ve formed a mat that goes up to the top of the water level. The exhibit is breathtaking.

That cylinder’s wide enough to have a whole room inside it. It has to be where they’re keeping Kayla. Pero, how do we get inside?

The cylinder goes all the way to the twenty-foot ceiling. The exhibit glass is only two-thirds that tall. Up near the ceiling, there’s a small door leading inside the cylinder, and a narrow platform with a ladder down the outside of the back of the tank. Brill puts his hands on the rungs and steps up on the ladder.

“Are we going to climb it?” I whisper.

“Bob from Oklahoma feels entitled to see what’s inside that tube. Act like you have the right, and nobody will question it.” He starts climbing. “The skills of a trader and the skills of a celebrity aren’t so different.”

Nobody questions us, though this one Zantite kid stares openmouthed as we make our way onto the platform. He points, says something to the guy he’s with. The guy glances at us, nods curtly, and then pulls the kid over to look at an inky blob in the next tank. I guess it’s common to see non-Zantites in service jobs. I move to the door and turn the wheel that opens it.

A matching ladder inside the cylinder descends two levels, into a wide well-lit lab, bigger than the footprint of the building above it. Two float tanks on the far side of the room below look like giant black Cup Noodle containers with holes cut in the side.

Stephen and Kayla are huddled up on a Zantite-sized sofa next to each other. They’re both wearing silver circlets on their heads. One of Stephen’s hands is cuffed to one of Kayla’s, and one of each of their ankles is cuffed to the metal sofa leg between them, a third of a way along the couch’s length. Brill isn’t the most skilled Krom I know when it comes to picking locks, pero those he can probably manage.

There are four Zantites down there, too, absorbed in their work.

Stephen used to keep his phone on vibrate. Hoping he still does, I call him over my sublingual. He looks startled, pero the phone stays silent. Furtively, he answers it. Bo, I’ve been captured. But I know where they’re keeping us. I told Gavin–

I do too. Look up.

When he does, feedback squeals in my head, and then my own words, in my own voice echo back over the hardware. I do too. Look up. It hurts. I stumble backwards.

Brill catches me before I fall into the agua.

Gavin’s right. We could use Stephen to kill these things, if not for the cost to innocent bystanders. And if it didn’t feel so wrong.

When I get righted again and peer back inside the door, Stephen snatches the circle off his cabeza. Sorry about that. I’m not sure how all this works.

I have a couple of guesses, based on Chestla’s notes. This would be easier for Stephen if he’d had a sublingual to practice with, pero his and Kayla’s parents had adamantly opposed either of them getting the tech. Dr. Baker was probably more afraid it would mess up something in their Nitarri heads than that the tech’d get hacktacked.

Can you distract them so we can come down to you?

Brill can pick the locks, and then we can sneak Kayla and Steven out of here. Which should stop the Mindhugger’s plan to reclaim its home planet. It’s still going to be a threat to the galaxy, pero let’s solve one problem at a time.

Kayla stands up and announces, “I have to pee!”

The Zantites all look at her in unison as she starts rattling the ankle cuff against the sofa leg, like in that gritcast of the first day of the Mindhugger’s life.

All four of him stand frozen, their heads at an identical tilt, staring at Kayla as Brill and I make our way down the stairs. It’s creepy.

We’re halfway down when the little door slams shut above us. The echo of the bang in the metal jolts through me.

One Zantite turns. He’s tall, with a scar running down the middle of his forehead, bisecting his nose. “Come down here, Bo. Murry is glad you came. He wanted you to see this.”

The others all nod, but it’s not so uniform this time, which helps. It’s the first time I’ve seen more than one infected person in the same place. They’re all part-Murry – part-themselves. And my brain is having difficulty wrapping itself around that. I address the one that spoke to me.

“Mire usted? He’s happy to see me, when he just tried to kill me.”

The Zantite’s whale eyes look sad. “Yeah. Sorry about that. We need to think more carefully before we take the life of an individual. We would have missed you.”

I find myself smiling at that.

Plus, I just realized why we’re here.

Tyson said the Mindhugger is rapidly developing a moral code. Minda said I’m a good teacher. I have to teach Murry that holding hugs on sentient beings is wrong. If he willingly gives up the hold on his hosts, maybe we can find somewhere for him to belong.

“What happens next time you get angry, mijo? These guys you’ve infected now tend to chompcrush people they’re unhappy with.”

The Zantite chews at his hunormous rubbery lip. “They won’t do that. Come down from there. Unless you can melt metal, you have no way out of here. I have several dozen pieces of myself outside.”

“Babe?” Brill taps the gun in his jacket.

“No, mi vida. What would that help?” He’d just be killing the victims and putting Murry beyond our reach forever. Where Murry would then multiply until he takes over the galaxy. The only way we’re going to win this is through logic and kindness. The mindworms said they wanted mercy. I have to try to believe that mercy can be as powerful for Murry as it was for Frank. “I’ll come down if you tell me what you’re going to do next time someone makes you angry. Something that leaves them breathing.”

The Zantite starts to say something, but then looks stumped. “What do you do?”

I wasn’t expecting that. “I step away from the situation if I can, so I can calm down. And then I come back and tell them why I’m angry.”

Zan-Murry nods. “Like with Jimena Duarte. She made all those mistakes, and when she was afraid you’d fire her, you came back and encouraged her.” He looks up at Brill. “And how you didn’t let your friend kill Gideon Tyson, even though Tyson believes he has deeply wronged you.”

Brill looks at me, his eyes slowly turning burnt orange. “I get what you want us to do here, Babe.” He jumps off the ladder and flashes over to the Zantite – who flinches away as though expecting violence – and takes both enormous hands in his. “I know you’re angry about Awn, and about Dek.” That must be Awn’s son. How is this the first time I’ve heard his name? “But the people who hurt them are dead. Tyson may not have been there for my friend when Darcy needed him, but he wasn’t the one who hurt him. Me blaming him – that was wrong. That was me trying to make sense of my own pain, trying to find logic in it.”

“But it’s not fair.” The Zantite’s lip is quivering. “None of it is fair.”

Brill hugs the Zantite to him, like the guy’s a little kid, even though Brill only comes halfway up the guy’s chest. “I know–” Brill’s voice breaks, and he has to start again. “I know these are difficult emotions to process, and nobody programmed or prepared you to have to deal with them. You’ve been hurt from the day you became aware, and rejected ever since. And that’s not fair. But you can’t hold onto it. Because if you do, it will make you a monster. And I don’t think that’s what you are.”

The Zantite hugs Brill so hard and so long that it’s a good thing mi vida doesn’t have to breathe. Then Zan-Murry pushes Brill away. “You hurt people. You shot at Mertex, back aboard that warship. Tyson and Mertex both think you’ve killed people. How can you tell me not to do the same?”

Brill is silent. There is no easy answer to that question. How do you explain the difference between self-defense and vengeance to a being with the psychological maturity of a seven year-old?

What Murry needs is an out, a viable choice that will let him be something more than a parasite, so he can live long enough to understand. My half-baked idea about talking him into becoming a people of dragons – maybe it’s not a mistake after all. I pull out my handheld and call Chestla. “You muchachos didn’t eat the spuck Ekrin and her crew captured yet, no?”

My breath catches at my own bluntness. Because the only way they would have done that already is if Ball had died.

“No. Ball’s not even out of the hospital yet. They’re about to transfer him to the physical therapy ward, but it will be a while before he’s strong enough to kill a beast that size.”

My shoulders relax in relief. “If Leron really can salvage that parasite out of Awn, inject it into the spuck. And let it go.”

“But cesuda ma–”

“Please. Trust me. I don’t have time to explain.”

Zan-Murry says, “What are you doing up there?”

“I want you to talk to some of the people you want to destroy.” I come down the ladder and hand Zan-Murry my phone. “Remember what you said about mercy? They’re about to beg you for some.”

There are still tears in the Zantite’s eyes. “All I want is to go home.”

Come on, Chestla. Tell him you’ll take him back. That your people made him and now you’ll take responsibility for him.

Chestla starts apologizing for her entire species, pero the Zantite’s lips move into a hard line. He points at Leron, who seems to be edging out of the frame, trying to keep his face turned away. “You! You froze us.”

Leron holds up his hands. “I didn’t have a choice. I was just a lab assistant.”

We had assumed he’d only helped with the cover-up after. Hadn’t he said he’d looked at the records, to know what had happened that day?

Chestla turns to glare at him. “You said it wasn’t your mistake.”

“It wasn’t. They said if the consciousness was inside the original test subjects that we could stop the plague. Five lives in exchange for the galaxy. And they made it clear that if I’d said no, it would have been six.”

My heart sinks. How could he not have told us?

“Oh, Ler,” Ekrin says.

“This?” Zan-Murry protests. “This is your case for mercy?”

He throws my phone on the floor, then grabs both me and Brill – who doesn’t even try to dodge – and bares his teeth. I struggle against his grip, pero it’s like iron.

“You said you absorbed all of Mertex’s memories,” I say. “Don’t you remember trying to freeze Brill? The guy who was just trying to comfort you? He forgave you for that, remember?”

Zan-Murry opens his mouth, wide, and moves my face right up to his lower lip. Then he takes a deep breath through all those open teeth and puts me back down. “You told me to take a minute before I do something I regret. And I would miss you. So don’t talk to us while we finish setting this up.”

The other Zantites cuff me to Brill, and we find ourselves attached to the end of the giant sofa opposite Stephen y Kayla.

Frustangerated heat builds in my eyes. We were so close!