I was halfway down the hall with Anna and Penny before I realized Father wasn’t coming.
“There’s no time,” Anna panted. “Forget it—Helga, we’ve got to leave.”
But I knew I had to go back for him. If Father couldn’t get out of the building because of his ankle … I didn’t know if I could live with that guilt, especially since I was the one who broke it.
“I’ll catch up,” I told them. Doubt lingered in my chest, but I pushed it aside. “I promise.”
I doubled back to the lab despite the voice in my Cog screaming at me to fucking run. When I got back to the lab, it was clear that Father was in no hurry to leave. He was crouched over one of the computers in the dark, trying to get the system back up and running. Even with his own life at risk, he was still trying to save his precious data.
“Such a mess,” he muttered to himself. In the dark, his eyes looked wild. They roved over the silent machines, itemizing and cataloging everything. “As soon as I get the backup generator started, I’ll transfer the last of the local files.”
I picked him up and hoisted him over my shoulder, ignoring his objections and loud shouts. I carried him out of the lab while he complained about the pain.
“My ankle,” he sputtered. “My files.”
“I don’t give a shit,” I said, which was my response to both things. Fuck the files. And if Father’s ankle bounced a little while I was literally dragging him to safety, then so be it. It was much better than dying.
Father smelled faintly of cleaning solution and something unplaceable. Maybe it was the airport: a composite of places I’d never been and people I’d never know. My fingers clutched at him, crumpling the stiff fabric of his button-down. I squeezed him closer, as if I could squeeze some warmth out of him. Wring out a single drop of affection.
In my heart, I knew it wouldn’t work. All the hoping and wishing and wanting wouldn’t change a thing. It wasn’t just on me to act. It would have to be the both of us, willing to try. And at this point, I was sick of trying alone.
Father squirmed between my arms. He was still trying to get back to the lab, even now. I realized that this was the very first time I’d ever held him. I thought about how he’d never once held me. He made me feel like unclaimed luggage.
With Father, it was like running to catch a door that was already shut, a bus that had already departed, a plane that had taken off.
When I pressed the elevator button, he managed to momentarily pry himself from my grip. He scrambled down my back. He pulled at the metal elevator doors, but it was too late. We went up together.
“How dare you,” he told me.
He repeated this as I dragged him out of the Institute. How dare I? I had so much gall, defying him. I was just a child. I didn’t respect his work. I could never seem to learn, could I?
We made it outside, where the whole world was different.
The ground was still shaking. Some of the lawn mowers had flipped on their sides. They were slicing the air, not grass. It wasn’t helicopter blades I’d been hearing, after all.
“They’re sensitive to vibrations,” Penny mumbled, lighting a cigarette with shaky hands. “Guess that’s why they’re like this.”
She and Anna were waiting outside the building, even though they should’ve just left us behind. There were bigger concerns than the destruction of a few Institute computers now. The entire island was in chaos.
People were streaming Downhill. Both children and full-grown adults were crying. Palpable panic clouded the island. I heard snippets of hysterical laughter, and even a few throttled screams.
This was so unlike what I was used to. There was no more waiting in lines, no more pleasant small talk. The whole city was in upheaval.
We staggered Downhill together. Me, Anna, and Penny, dragging Father between us. My shoes pounded against the cracked pavement. Panic simmered in my chest.
We were some of the last stragglers on the hill. Ahead, I could see most of the Uphill residents already nearing the cemetery. Some of them were heading directly toward the Night Market.
There was something going on, back at the tip of the hill. Something big. Even from further down the hill, anyone could see it. Even Father could, shortsighted as he was.
We watched and waited.
“I thought I had time for my research,” Father said, his mouth parting in surprise. He pressed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, straining to get a better look.
“Oh,” Penny said. She looked like she had more to say about that, but her attention was torn away by the same thing everyone was now staring at. There was one short, sharp crack. Then a resounding boom pierced through the sky.
The mouth of the volcano opened, and out spewed a great gray cloud, eclipsing the orange sky. Red lava poured down toward the geothermal power plant on the side of the mountain. The plant swayed, then toppled with a loud crash. The lava continued its streak toward the Institute. The Institute buildings, which had seemed so unshakable, so formidable, swayed for a moment, as if to draw themselves up in indignant protest. But then just like the power plant, the buildings toppled one at a time. Father’s apartment building was next. The tall glass box shattered, and it too came down with a long, terrible crash.
The lava flowed down the side of the mountain. Debris floated on the red tide. Expensive machines, fragile curios, white lab coats. I even saw a muscled arm, coming out of that bubbling current. Long strands of melting black hair.
Something had died. Not a person, like I initially feared when I saw the bubbling flesh bobbing in the long red river. The black hair and muscled arm were too like my own to not recognize who or what they belonged to: the Institute. I was sure there were even more body parts below the surface—severed torsos, legs, and fingers, dissolving along with the Institute’s grand plans for them.
The Marietta Project was dead. Mount Amaris itself had destroyed it.
In the cemetery, we braced ourselves for worse to come. People crouched behind trees, statues, and the morgue for cover. Ash fell from the sky in thick, dark clumps. The automatic streetlamps flickered on in confusion. Sulfur stung my nose. Behind me, I heard a woman gag.
Sirens went off, their warnings far too late.
Penny reached into her gigantic black bag and procured lab goggles and sunglasses, thrusting them into our hands. Around us, I saw some other people mimic her actions. People covered their arms and put masks on for added precaution. I even saw a toddler with swim goggles on.
“There’s no pool,” he wailed.
“Kid, that’s the least of our problems right now,” Penny muttered.
“Hey,” Anna said. She pointed toward the tip of the hill. “The wind direction is changing. Look—the smoke is blowing away from us, not toward us.”
I didn’t dare believe it until I heard other people echoing her assertion too.
The sky didn’t seem as dark as it did even a few minutes ago. Maybe it was just my wishful thinking, but I swear, it was getting a little easier to breathe. The smoke seemed to be clearing up. There was no more falling debris.
The wind was carrying volcanic ash toward the Pacific Ocean, which was bad news for fish and other marine animals that lived there. And it was also bad news for whatever countries the wind was carrying that ash to. The problem hadn’t gone away—it’d just grown beyond Amaris City, toward other parts of the world.
Even if we weren’t in danger, there were people living on other continents who would be. And it all had to do with the wind. There was nothing any one of us could do to change nature—not even the Institute had that kind of power. I doubted they would’ve ever used that power to help people, given their record of exploiting us along with whatever resources they could.
The Institute was in no position to do much of anything though. Their entire structure had collapsed, thanks to Mount Amaris.
Penny still looked worried. “I have family in the States,” she said slowly. “I hope they’ll be okay.”
People covered their faces and headed deeper into Downhill, away from the site of eruption. The lava flow had slowed down. Steam sizzled on its solidifying surface. It didn’t seem like anything on the island was in immediate danger. More than a few power lines were down—and the tip of the hill had been flattened—but I knew things could have been worse.
“It’s a good thing I programmed you well. Your fast reflexes made a difference,” Father said, once the chaos had somewhat settled.
A streak of old blood had dried on his face. He leaned against a tree trunk, his black hair covered in soot. He winced whenever he put weight on his ankle. But he looked proud. Not of me, but of himself.
Anna and Penny were wordless, waiting for my cue. But their body language was telling—Anna’s whole body was tense, and Penny looked ready to throw herself between me and Father.
“If I hadn’t made your Cog as well constructed as it is, we would’ve been in danger up there,” Father said with a slight smile. “I suppose that’s a testament to my effort and ability.”
Did he really credit himself for me saving his life? I could feel a vein throbbing in my temple. Heat raced up my collar. “That was me,” I said. “Not you.”
Father shook his head, tsking. “I made you.”
He was old and his ankle was broken. But I sort of wanted to break his leg too.
He warped everything to put his own needs first and foremost. I hated the way he dangled taking care of Penny’s debt in front of her like a carrot. He didn’t want scientific progress for the sake of humanity. He wanted it to stoke his fucking ego. I could see that so clearly now.
“I can’t believe we’re related. You’re the absolute worst person I’ve ever met—and that includes DJs,” I informed him. “It’s a miracle I haven’t turned into a monster.”
“The worst person?” Father echoed. “That’s simply a lie.”
It really didn’t matter how well I could see into Father’s past. Not when Father couldn’t see the error of his own ways in the present and didn’t seem willing to change in the future either. Everything was gone—the Institute, his apartment—but he clung to an inflated, false sense of self. Decrypting Mandarin wouldn’t have brought us any closer. He wasn’t willing to take a single step toward me.
I was still an object to him. Even when I’d saved his life.
The difference between me and Father was that I knew every person deserved to make their own choices. And I would never be an accessory or assistant to my father—or anyone else for that matter. I wasn’t an extension of the man who created me. I was a complete person all on my own.
“This is goodbye,” I told him, swallowing the lump in my throat.
Father didn’t respond for a long time. Penny had her arm wrapped around my waist. I buried my head in her shoulder. I was getting her shirt wet, but she still didn’t move away. She hugged me even harder.
Almost everyone had left the cemetery. I could still hear the Uphill lawn mowers, sputtering and slicing haplessly through the air. There was another sound too. Loud, ugly sobs, which it took me a minute to realize were my own.
“I’ll always be able to find you,” Father told me. His mouth was a thin line. He didn’t acknowledge my tears. “You’re my daughter, so you belong to me.”
I could run far from the hill. I could dye my hair and change my face. Father didn’t have the fortitude or grit to go after me himself. The best he could do was enlist the Institute’s help. Which would mean admitting his own failure—which I knew he’d never do.
“The Marietta Project is over,” I said. “It has been over from the moment I woke up.”
“I have my ways,” he said. His voice cut like a scalpel. “You won’t escape from me, ever.”
Father wouldn’t tell me how he’d find me, but I knew he certainly would. There was something he was hiding from me. A trump card, but what was it?
“I’m glad not to have parents like you,” Penny said. She reached into her bag again and produced a blue washcloth that looked like something she’d probably pilfered from the lab. Penny gingerly dabbed my face with it, absorbing a mess of sweat, tears, and makeup—and if I was less heartbroken, I would have really wanted to know what else she managed to store in there. “We should go, Helga. It’s safer Downhill.”
I knew she was right, but I still had unfinished business.
“I can tell your parents let you make mistakes,” Father scoffed. “Your tattoos, your dyed hair. You’d never find a job without your uncle’s connection to me.”
Anna looked like she was on the verge of biting him. “I swear,” she said, “I’m about to throw down. Penny, hold my stuff for a sec.”
I was still working out what Father said earlier, about always finding me. Back when I was more naive about the world, I would’ve thought this meant that his fatherly bond would guide him to me, no matter what. That somehow a familial love would bring us together again.
But now I knew it had to be something else. Something way more intrusive than that. Something suitably awful for someone as possessive as he was.
Shit. My eyes widened when I realized exactly what he’d done. When Father said he’d always find me, what he meant was that he had some way to get to me. To make me do what he wanted.
I patted around my stomach, searching for the intruding object. All this time, I’d thought that my ache was related to guilt. Okay, and due to having a healthy appetite, there were times when it was genuinely just hunger pains.
“What are you doing?” Penny asked me. It was a reasonable question because I’d just unbuckled the top of my overalls in the middle of the cemetery.
My hands brushed against something hard, right where my belly button was supposed to be. I’d never even looked at my own belly button closely before this. I had a lot going on, with running away from Uphill and living on the bus and falling for Clyde and turning him into Hugo.
But now I had the hard-earned knowledge of my own Father being an asshole. So I knew exactly what he’d done. He had location tracking on Penny’s phone, monitoring her coming in and out of work. So of course he’d have something on me too. Something even more intrusive. Something internal.
If I ventured too far out from Uphill or had thoughts opposing his, it’d hurt me from inside. This thing was his version of a shock collar. At some point, I wouldn’t even be able to move forward—the pain would become too unbearable. He’d installed this thing in me because he thought of me as his property.
I dug my nails deep into my skin and yanked the small object loose. A thin wire wormed out of my stomach. Blood dribbled down my front, slicking my stomach, but it felt good. The gnawing ache was finally gone. This new pain was cathartic and sharp. It was freeing.
I wiped my bloody hand off on the overalls, snapped them back in place, then hurled the tiny, circular black tracker right at Father’s shoes.
“I didn’t know about this,” Penny breathed. Then her eyes hardened. “Now I’m even more glad that the Institute is gone. Fuck everything about that place.”
“You’re bleeding,” Anna screeched, completely unbothered by the fact that I’d resorted to violence. “Oh my god, Helga.”
I knew I’d be fine, though. I’d been hurt a lot worse than this before.
“I felt pain when I did things differently from how you wanted. I felt pain when I went to new places, pain whenever I thought about the Marietta Project. You didn’t have system intent installed yet, but you had your own way of managing me from afar, didn’t you?” My voice shook. “That’s why you were okay leaving for your business trip. This was supposed to keep me at your side forever, wasn’t it?
“You treat me like I’m a monster, but I know the truth,” I continued. “If anyone here is a monster, it’s you, not me.”
But even as I denounced him, I knew that deep down, Father wasn’t a monster at all. He was human, through and through. Fragile, and capable of things both good and truly terrible.
“I’ll find you,” he promised me. Even under the dim lamplights, I could see his face turning a dull red. “Even without the device, I will come after you, no matter what.”
I knew he was bluffing. I would always outrun him. “You can try.” I shrugged. “But it won’t work.”
Finally, it was clear that the issue between us was not a language barrier or a difference in cultural expectations. It was the weight of unmeetable expectations. It was not my displacement after all, but his. Father shifted his ambitions onto me because he couldn’t fulfill them all himself.
Father’s hand reached out toward me—and before today, I would’ve thought it was a sign of love, a possible bridge. Now I saw it for what it was: a gesture of ownership. This time it was my turn to shut the door. To leave the waiting station and take off for better things ahead.
The three of us left him in the cemetery. Penny, Anna, and I walked through the black gates together and into the Night Market. Everything in me ached. Father was following, of course. Hobbling forward one step at time while the gap between us widened.
“You good?” Penny asked me.
“I will be,” I told her.