35

THROUGH AND THROUGH

THE PLANNING OF THE CORPS HACK went on for hours or seconds or years, until the crew’s bodies realized that they were, in fact, mortal and very, very sleep-deprived. No one had caught z’s since the flight from Vegas, and the chance to enter REM cycle would be nonexistent once they landed back in Central.

Priya had never struggled with insomnia before, but the thought that this was the last sleep she’d ever have as herself kept the ceiling in sight. Ocean noises hushed through her headphones and dreams licked her peripheral vision—come to us sink in deep sleep sleep—but memories kept getting in the way, washing her back into wakefulness. Many of them were firsts: the sight of a cadaver’s waxy lips, the Acidic Sisters concert her father took her to for her thirteenth birthday. That fateful day when, on the angrier edges of a caffeine headache, ERROR: MANUAL MED NEEDED flashed across her interface and she’d marched into the examination room to find a cadet whose grin punched through all defenses.

These memories… who would she be without them? Identity was never something Priya had taken for granted. You are a Parekh, her mother reminded her every time she stressed over study notes. These were double-sided words. Encouraging: You come from a long line of medical professionals. Daunting: You must live up to their accomplishments. It was something she remembered every single time she put on her ID card at the Academy infirmary: PRIYA PAREKH, MED, mirrored in Hindi.

The thought of being rewritten kept her turning on the bunk. Reincarnation—sloughing off old bodies for new—had always been such a distant promise, seventy, eighty, ninety years off, and yet here she was, on the eve of it. How much would change in this next life? Would she still be a Parekh? Yes. She was a few months older than Far. If she was a Parekh, she’d probably end up being a Medic.

The ocean rolled through Priya’s ears, out of her eyes, on, on…

Tap, tap. The knock was soft, and might’ve been lost to the nautical noises, if Priya wasn’t so familiar with it. Many of the Invictus’s lights had been dimmed, and gloom pressed through the door when she opened it, settling in the corners of her bunk, dripping from the ends of Far’s curls.

She pulled back her headphones and wiped her eyes. “Did I wake you?”

Far shook his head.

The space between them reeked of lasts. Priya wanted to be brave, wanted to say what she meant—I love you. Good-bye.—but the words withered inside her vocal cords, trapped by the deadened tangle of what never was jealousy, but fear. Fear of a loss now realized. “I wanted to let you sleep. We’ve got a big day ahead.”

“You’ve been crying.”

Her lips trembled, attempted a smile. “This haircut looks abysmal.”

I love you. Good-bye.

Good-bye.

It was almost as if Far heard. He tilted his head. “You don’t have to hide from me, P.”

Open the floodgates. This was more than ugly crying. It was the grief that came with truth: They were past saving. Their love was all, but soon it would be nothing, and the certainty of it clutched Priya’s spine, shook and shook and shook, until her sobs became wretched, waterless things. Far sat on the bunk, his arm around her shoulder. There were tears on his face, too, aqueducting down his nose. One for his mother, two for the worlds, more for this life.

“I know it’s not everything we’d hoped, but we’re giving ourselves a chance,” he whispered. “We’ll live.”

“But the Invictus, Saffron, Gram and Imogen, us…”

“We’ll find each other.”

“You’ll have a birthday, so there will be no need for me to come in and reset the med-droids every time you have a medical exam.” Priya’s breath shook. She was a drought inside. “We’ll never meet.”

“Maybe we’ll bump into each other on a street corner. I’ll flash my impish grin. There’s a vendor a few meters away selling real coffee, but since I’m still a cadet and too broke to pay, I’ll invite you to sit on the curb and share a stimulant patch while we smell the roasting beans instead.”

“Maybe…” She’d never been one to accept random invitations from boys on the street, and the chances of two souls colliding in a city of millions was slim. Even if both of these things happened, as soon as Priya discovered Far’s future profession, she’d stick to her no-time-travelers policy. But these doubts were nails in a coffin, no point in voicing them. “Make it a tea stand and I’m there.”

“Of course, tea!” Far laughed—a light, ragged sound. “We’ll smell smoggy chai and I’ll ask you your name and you’ll ask me mine first because you like to know the lay of the land before you commit to anything and I’ll say Farway Gaius McCarthy, just a normal guy with a birthday who likes your smile and your cutting-edge hairstyle.”

“It really is awful.”

“It really isn’t.”

They sat, wordless. Waves crashed through Priya’s headphones, became the pulse in her neck, the beat of her heart, the want want want to not just stay here with Far but to go back to when they had a future. She thought back on all the other times they’d sat like this, where she’d wasted the silences between them wondering about their trajectory: Rings? Vows? A villa in Zone 6? Children?

None of that now.

This was it. The moment they’d rushed to.

There was a shudder, Far clearing his throat. “Back in Vegas, when we were at Café Gelato, I was on edge because I knew Eliot was playing us for something. The sparkler was burning down, and you and Gram and Imogen were singing, and as I looked around that table, all I wanted… all I wished for was a happy ending.”

Priya shut her eyes. According to the rules of ancient birthday lore, Far was only telling her because he didn’t believe it would come true. If only the Fade were a force that could be bargained with…

“Lux grilled me pretty good before he offered me this job. He asked me what my biggest fear was. Dying without living, I told him. I had no idea the living part could be stripped away, too.” Far’s arm shifted, so he was no longer holding Priya together, but gathering her in. “For all of its faults, I want to remember this life. I want to remember you.”

When they kissed, the water on their cheeks mingled, salt into salt. Priya thought she’d been wrung dry, that there was nothing deeper to feel, but Far’s lips were proving otherwise. This couldn’t be what good-bye felt like: his hands on her hips while her breath grazed his ear and more than tears began to meet. Neither of them held anything back.

This was all.

This was I love you, through and through and through.

It was dark when Priya woke. She lay in her bunk, memorizing every point where Far’s body met hers: kneecap to thigh, hand to waist, nose to neck. Sounds of the sea poured through her BeatBix, and for one sweet moment, Priya forgot that she was going to forget. But dehydration buzzed against her skull, a reminder that she’d cried herself out.

There was no point in checking the time to see how long she’d slept, but she felt rested, and it’d be wise to check the Invictus’s fuel rods to make sure they had enough juice to jump back. The air cooled a few degrees as she pulled away from Far, into a clean pair of scrubs. She stumbled over her purse on the way to the door. The thing was so pedestrian compared to Eliot’s pocket universe—overlarge and yet far too small. How much easier would life as a thief-patcher be with an entire hospital’s worth of medicine stored around her wrist?

Have been, Priya corrected herself. Not be. Existence had changed tenses.

The common area was empty, not to mention in shambles. The pan of tiramisu was scraped clean, thanks to the ladyfinger-laced paw prints that skipped up the couch. Floor panels were sharp with Rubik’s Cube corners and mug shards, sticky with tea. Normally, Priya would’ve cleared a path before anyone else needed stitches. Now she just stared at the clutter. Her eyes landed on the Code of Conduct, pages splayed so the stick figure was out of sight. Their paper crinkled and torn and not made to last.

Everything was still. Everything was urgent.

Far’s snores drifted from the bunk alongside ocean sounds. Priya grit her teeth and thought of the Fade, not as she’d seen it from the hatch of the Invictus, but through Eliot’s eyes. She could almost feel it rolling over the waves, obliterating an entire seascape, DESTROYER OF WORLDS so hungry, tugging every one of her hairs to itself as her hands locked around the railing, but what was the point of holding on? It was strange to think that she herself had never stood on the Titanic’s deck. The chip made everything feel so real, as if she herself had lived it….

Priya regarded the room again—five full cups of subpar tea, red panda tail poking through bare pipes, Empra’s profile shining from the infirmary. The gape in her chest grew a thousand-fold as her fingers furled into fists. This was the life she’d chosen. There had to be a way to save it.

She wanted, she wanted, and this time, when she rallied, it wasn’t to walk away, but forward, to the table where the velvet box sat. It felt lighter than when she’d first plucked it from the pocket universe, silver hinges soundless when she opened it. The chip within—with its see-through circuits, its nano- dimensions—was a marvel.

Seven worlds should weigh more.

Is there room for another one?

Priya snapped the box shut and knocked on Eliot’s door.