| |
“Where is he?”
“They came for him.” Sandy drifted away.
“Who?”
“The helpers, who else?”
If he was telling the truth, he wouldn’t know where they’d taken him unless it was inside the resort. If he was telling the truth. But it was getting hard to know truth from fantasy. And Sandy wasn’t real. He was a technology ghost, an apparition made up by a program and projected in front of her. He was no different than watching TV.
And I’m part of the show.
Why should he help her anyway? It was just as likely he was part of the problem. There was only one person who she could trust, someone who was hiding in tunnels from this madness.
He was here once. He escaped but was still trapped on the island with a scar on his back.
A scar shaped like a hand.
She jumped on the glider, soared out of B wing and into the tiresome celebrations. No matter how hard she pushed, Sandy stayed by her side.
“I don’t know where they take him,” he said. “He just gets sad before the helpers come for him. That’s why I took you to see him. I knew it was coming. But he’ll come back. He always does.”
“But it’s not him, is it?”
“It’s exactly like him.”
“You said there were others. Whoever comes back won’t be the same boy that made me a Christmas gift.”
“It’s him, I swear.” Specks of grit blew out as he sighed. “But not really.”
“Cris escaped, didn’t he?”
“Who is Cris, again?”
“Once upon a time, there was a boy named Sonny who escaped the room and now calls himself Cris.”
“He named himself Cris?”
“He escaped and that’s why she locks Sonny in the room. Am I getting warm?”
“There’s that. It also protects him.”
“From what?”
“It’s all very complicated.”
“Try me.”
Sandy wiggled his stick fingers. “A mother’s love can be a little hot.”
The scar.
An accidental burn was one thing, but this was in the shape of a hand. It was as bizarre as everything else on the island. No wonder he escaped. Or did she do that to him afterwards? He was keeping away from her.
For good reason.
She brought the glider to a sudden halt. The momentum threw her into the handlebars—a safety feature that was missing on the tunnel glider. Sandy went soaring past her and splattered on the master suite doors. Kandi entered one of the side rooms.
The telescope was still perched at the window.
Sandy didn’t need to tell her where they took Sonny. It was one of two places, but she didn’t flip a coin to decide. She sighted the long, shiny tower through the telescope.
That’s where the bad things happen.
The building oozed the naughty list. It was an aberration surrounded by nature, windows with warped reflections that only looked out and seamless doors that were always locked. There was no way in.
Not without help.
“He had this glove,” she said. “He waved it at the gnats and then they flew off.”
“Gnats,” Sandy muttered. “Gnats, gnats—”
“They look like gnats, the little things that fly in clusters and follow me everywhere I go. But they’re not really gnats; they’re these tiny metal balls that hover—”
“You mean the eyes.” He snapped his sticks. It sounded like twigs breaking. “They see you when you’re sleeping—”
“How’d he do it? The glove was thin and silky but shiny, like it was dipped in metal. Every time he wanted to do something...”
She looked for flies on the wall. Of course, the miser was probably listening. She hadn’t said anything she wouldn’t already know, but the trapdoor in the dormitory and sneaking through the window might get Cris caught.
Have I already said too much?
She was already feeling trapped and the resort was huge. Sonny seemed to like his room, but would it stay that way? Maybe Cris liked it in the beginning. She didn’t want to say anything that would lead him back there. Even if he believed freedom was just a state of mind.
He’ll go nuts.
He was her only hope of helping Sonny. He knew his way around the island. Only he could elude the miser and journey through the forest.
She abandoned the telescope. There was nothing to see on the tower except her own warped reflection. She could call her dad, but he wasn’t going to help. She needed to get inside. The longer she stared from a distance, the longer she was outside.
Kandi went to the master suite. She packed a water bottle in each pocket and bit into an apple. It might be a while before she ate again.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Sandy said.
She changed her clothes, putting on long sleeves and jeans. These were the only items she hadn’t unpacked, but they were exactly what she needed.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Sandy said. “Don’t do it. There are things in the trees. You shouldn’t go alone.”
“How do you know what’s out there?”
“You told me. I’m reminding you. You might not come back, and then what am I going to do all day?”
“You’re okay with Sonny going away, but not me?”
“The, uh, helpers took him. That’s different.”
“He doesn’t come back, Sandy. That’s called death.”
“You got it all wrong.”
“Cloning’s not the same thing as coming back.”
“What’s the difference if the memories are the same?” He tried to keep her from peeling a banana, but his arm went through her hand. “Listen, it’s Sonny who comes back. Maybe it’s another body, but what does that matter? It’s him.”
“That’s what she’s doing in the tower?” She dropped the banana peel. “Cloning?”
“I don’t know what she’s doing.”
That was probably a lie. “You’re a program, Sandy. You don’t know what it’s like to be human. You say things and you don’t know why. Penny for your thoughts? That’s what old people say. Why are you saying it? Because the miser wants you to say it.”
“So I’m nobody?”
“You said it yourself—you’re not real.”
“Is your boyfriend real?”
“What?”
“You’re all gooey for Cris, admit it. He’s one of them, you know. One of the others.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t real. I said he wasn’t Sonny.”
But she didn’t feel that way. She was all warm and fuzzy around Cris, but if he was some sort of clone, then how could he be real? Was he any different than Sandy? If she had a printed organ, would she be less real?
“I got to go.”
“Oh, sure. Hurt my feelings then leave.” He crossed his sticks.
“You don’t have feelings.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Then why haven’t you done anything about Sonny?”
“I feel like we already talked about this.”
Kandi drank half a bottle of water. This conversation was pointless and the day was getting late. Maybe he was stalling her until it was dark. She ignored him on the way to the door and stopped. Someone was blocking the doorway.
“Where have you been?” she asked her dad.
***
HE POURED A GLASS OF water and drank it without pause, staring across the room. He put it down, sighing.
“The tower,” he finally said.
A flash of anger lit up. “Doing what?”
He rinsed his face in the sink, holding the towel before rubbing it across the back of his neck. His eyes were heavy. He had been adamant about her helping him, but now worked alone.
Ever since he went to the tower.
She could ask what he was doing in there, if he knew about the others, about Sonny and Cris, but she could read her dad. Now was not the time to press.
“I’m sending you home,” he said.
“What?”
He washed his hands and splashed his face once more before going to his bed. Part of his tool bag had been unpacked. He began sorting through it.
“What have you been doing?” That was the closest she came to asking what she really wanted to know.
“I’ll get a hold of Jack and Wendy,” he said. “You can stay with them until I get back.”
Jack and Wendy were a retired couple in South Carolina. They lived on an island and played shuffleboard on Sundays. Jack was her dad’s mentor. They had three dogs and a parrot.
“Why can’t I stay? We were just talking about homeschooling and now you want me to live with Jack?”
“It was a bad idea for you to come.”
“And not you?”
He slid the satellite laptop out of the tool bag. The anger roiling in her gut was snuffed out by a cold wash of fear. He opened the browser and began searching. From her vantage point, he wasn’t looking at the history. With everything that had happened—finding Cris and seeing warehouse helpers—she strangely felt more afraid of getting caught sneaking time on the laptop than speeding through a hidden tunnel.
“The miser’s son is missing,” she said. “The boy who lives at the other end of the resort, there’s something wrong with him and he’s gone.
He didn’t look up. “He’ll be all right.”
“How do you know?”
He closed the laptop and began packing the tool bag. He went to the bathroom and returned with a small container, packing it with the other equipment. It was the blood testing kit. He’d just tested himself a week ago.
It’s not for him.
When the last item was packed, he looked at his feet with a heavy sigh. “You need to stay in the room, Kan.”
She thought she heard him wrong, but he looked up and repeated it.
“I insist,” he said. “I know it’s hot in here, but until I hear from Jack, I don’t want you wandering around.”
“What’s going on?”
“It’s just work stuff. I’d rather you not get mixed up in it.”
“Like you?”
“I can handle myself.” He kissed her forehead. His whiskers scratched her.
“No, Dad, wait—you can’t do this, it’s not fair.”
He went to the bathroom and showered. Kandi was standing in the same spot when he came out drying his hair. No more questions, he told her. And then he apologized.
He grabbed something to eat and his tool bag. Glancing at his phone, he told her to get some rest; then he waved and closed the doors. There was no lying this time, no touching his temple or demure answers.
He’d shut her down.
Kandi threw her phone on the bed. She’d leave it behind in case he was looking for her. If he texted or called, she’d claim she was sleeping or in the shower and not looking for Cris. But the doorknob clicked when she turned it. She was locked inside.
Just like Sonny.
***
SANDY WATCHED HER PACE.
She was checking the door every ten minutes, turning the knob then making another slow lap around the room.
“Still locked,” he would say. And she wouldn’t laugh.
Now he just watched her mimic a Buddhist monk doing walking meditation. It was something she’d seen in social studies class, men in robes with their hands folded in front of them, eyes cast down. There was at least one robe on the island, but Kandi doubted she was doing meditation.
Her phone buzzed every hour.
If she didn’t text her dad back, he would call. That evening, he facetimed. He wanted to see the room behind her, make sure she hadn’t snuck out and left her phone behind. That was exactly what she would do. If the door opened.
He didn’t come home that night.
By the second day, she stopped checking the door. Her dad came home that afternoon and dumped his tool bags on the bed.
“Jack won’t be home until after Christmas,” he said.
“Am I still a prisoner?”
“You’re not a prisoner, Kan.”
“Fooled me.”
“It’ll be a few more days before you can fly home, so I’ll let you out.”
“You’ll let me out, but I’m not a prisoner?”
“Just promise me you’ll stay on this side of the resort.”
“Why are you doing this, Dad?”
“It’s just...” He rubbed his temple. She cut him off before he lied.
“Complicated. I get it. It’s too dangerous for me, but you’re fine.”
“Just promise.”
She kicked the floor then bit her fingernail. “Promise.”
He took her by the hands and turned her hands palms up. Red scratches crisscrossed her forearms. Some had scabbed over.
“And stay out of the trees.”
His arms were perfectly unharmed. She’d seen him come out of the trees a few days ago and there wasn’t a path behind him. Either he knew Cris’s secret of avoiding the razor edges of the foliage, or she was just plain clumsy. She was clumsy, but he was no woodsman.
***
GNATS WAITED ON THE veranda.
They had tripled in number, hovering like a rainy day. It was a depressing walk to the beach. There were more buzzing in and out of the trees and flitting around the beach. They even clustered above the resort.
She didn’t bother calling for Cris.
Whatever his glove could do, it was no match for this. They were watching her. Maybe her dad was making sure she didn’t stray, or the miser was keeping her from finding her little runaway.
The beach was a long and sandy prison.
The boat was still moored on the dock, waves rocking it against the cushioned bumpers. A shadow rippled along the sides. The gnats hovered above the cabin, as if she would try to escape on the water. She threw a handful of sand.
It seemed to go right through them.
She went back to the resort. Avoiding the glider, she took the long walk down the B wing. The decorations had fallen limp. She tapped out “Jingle Bells.” The doors split open. The tree was decorated and the presents stacked high.
“When does he come back?” she said.
“It’s usually a day.” Sandy spoke gruffly. “Two at the most.”
“It’s been four.”
He didn’t answer. Something was different this time.
When she walked off, he vanished. She didn’t want to hear him scratch his sandy bottom across the floor anyway. She lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling. The door was open.
She was still a prisoner.
***
A GREAT CLATTER WOKE her.
Her dad was crawling out of bed, knocking all the contents of his tool bag on the floor. There was a distinctive crack. She knew that sound well—the sound of a laptop meeting the floor.
He was looking at his phone.
“What’s wrong?” Kandi said.
“I need to get back.”
He had been coming back to the room sometime after midnight. She would hear him tiptoe to his bed and collapse. In the morning, he’d change clothes and stay long enough to eat breakfast and not answer a single question.
This morning, he walked out the door.
No tool bag, no goodbye. She watched his location all the way outside. There was no reason to follow him. She knew where he was going.
The tower was calling.
Kandi picked up the laptop. The urgency that had driven him out the door would keep him distracted. She hoped. If not, what would he do if he caught her on the laptop? Ground her?
Already there.
Cris had reached this point, once upon a time. The walls grew taller and space shrank smaller. She wondered if Sandy had watched him pace like a caged animal too, or if his impatience hit him all at once. Did he plan his escape or just start running? At some point, it was worth the risk.
Freedom.
A spiderweb spread across the monitor. Fractured blue light flickered to life when she hit the start button. A moment later, the browser lit up. She didn’t check the history. Whatever he was doing in the tower wasn’t on the internet. But there was more to learn. She searched a name.
Heather Miser.
It was more of the same. Her Wikipedia page shed no light on the mysterious decline of the biotechnology industry’s leading scientist. She clicked through the links. An hour later, she was bored. But there were no texts from her dad, no calls to cease her searching. She scrolled through the footnotes and was about to close it up when Sandy reached over her shoulder and nearly touched a name at the bottom.
Naren Anthony.
Her dad was referenced on Heather Miser’s page. It had something to do with an annual conference. She had never thought to search her dad’s name. She didn’t even know he had a Wikipedia page. He didn’t feel famous. He was Dad. Looking at the length and detail of information, he was clearly famous to some.
He was the first to develop skin grafts from synthetic stem cells. The fleshy patches were living Band-Aids that instantly fused with damaged skin whether it was burn injuries or disease. It was a major breakthrough. Not only did his stem cells match any blood type, they were said to be indestructible, instant healing, and resistant to temperature extremes.
Flesh like armor coating.
For fear of the military using it to create super-soldiers, the synthetic flesh didn’t retain any of the superhuman attributes. Rumors were that his pacifist beliefs led him to implant imperfections into his line so that it mimicked real flesh. Much of the scientific community accused him of sabotage, but none of those claims were ever substantiated. And he never talked about it.
Not to Kandi.
After synthetic flesh, printed organs were quickly developed. Heather Miser was leading that part of the industry. Her dad, ever the visionary, skipped organ development. Why move organs when the body was vulnerable? We didn’t repair old cars forever.
Eventually, we got a new one.
An entire body transfer was impossible. The identity and memories of a person could not be moved from one body to another. But there were rumors he had proved his theory, that he had successfully moved a person into a synthetic body. They had simply opened their eyes and were new again.
And then he quit.
Kandi read that line again. And again. And then he quit.
Everyone knew he was forced out of science for crossing the ethical line drawn in the sand. Full-body transfer was creating life. He was conflicted, one of his peers said. Humans aren’t meant to be immortal. If we create bodies like automobiles, who chooses who gets to continue? Naren’s greatest fear was that his discovery was ahead of its time. Humankind wasn’t ready.
Her dad left. And never came back.
All attempts by his successors to revive his research failed. His notes were flawed, and they believed he did it on purpose. Just like his synthetic flesh, nothing was superhuman. New bodies were created, but no one transferred over to them. His one and only success was still a secret. Somewhere in the world there was a synthetic man.
Or woman.
There were rumors he was working with another reclusive researcher, another visionary.
Her name was Heather Miser.
Once an outgoing philanthropist, she had entered an introverted phase of her life. Naren was working with her, but no one knew why. Some suggested it was a romance that had been budding since Kandi’s mother’s death.
There were several links to documents that recorded their interactions as well as her obsession with her son. There was no explanation as to what Naren and she were working on when her accident happened. Whatever they were doing, it did not change Naren’s mind. When she died, so did the remains of his interest in biosynthetic research.
Until now.
The phone buzzed and she nearly dumped the laptop for a second spill. Her dad was calling. If the miser was watching, she was busted.
“Sorry about this morning,” he said. “Eat lunch without me.”
That wasn’t hard, since she’d been doing that for the last few days. Kandi stared blankly at a dense document, seeing the words but not reading them. She yearned to be curled up beneath a blanket on a snow day with nothing to do. She wanted to beg him to go home and pretend like this never happened. There was no island, no empty resort with countless little beds and flashing Christmas lights. Just hide away in Alaska like they’d been doing for years.
But that wasn’t fun either.
She couldn’t leave Sonny. Or Cris. Even if she begged, her dad wouldn’t listen. He was hyperfocused. The miser had captured his attention. Again.
“My laptop is in the room,” he was saying, “why don’t you go online and...”
She was staring at a word.
It was just four letters at the end of a sentence and a hyphen at the end. When she followed it to the next line, a mixture of fear and excitement nearly jolted her off the bed. It was like she was standing at the end of the tunnel again with her feet on the edge, the world with all its dangers and promises spread out before her.
It’s not her.
Sonny had said it. Cris too. They were stating something obvious, but she didn’t get it.
“Kan? You still there?”
“Yeah.” The word fell off her tongue.
“Sit tight another day or two, okay?”
She nodded like a kid who didn’t understand how a phone worked. Last thing she heard before the call ended was, “Love you, Kan.”
She was still staring at the hyphenated word. It was a name.
Heather.
Only the first part was hyphenated. Hea—The second part was on the next line—ther.
It’s not her.
She grabbed a pen and wrote Heather Miser then crossed out the h-e-r.
Heat.
She didn’t pronounce Heather the way most people did, because that wasn’t her. Whoever she was before the accident was gone. Now she was someone with bright red skin.
That wasn’t a sunburn.
She needed her dad. There was something only he could do. She’d tracked him down and invited him to the island. Did he know it was her?
Sandy was standing over her, sand dollars unblinking.
“Heat miser,” he said.
***
SHE FELL ASLEEP LATE that night.
It was a fitful few hours of rest, interrupted by dreams of melting candy canes and rivers of bubbling chocolate. She woke with a damp pillow and a brine of perspiration on her lip. The fans weren’t moving.
Cris.
The last time the fans had gone out, someone had flipped the switch. Cris had been pulling pranks, but not this time. This time a sandman had killed the fans.
But he didn’t flip the switch.
“When Sonny paced,” he said, “that meant the sadness was coming. He was caged and restless, no matter how many presents were under the tree. Nothing satisfied him. And then the helpers would come for him and he’d start over.”
He looked at the ceiling. The fans weren’t moving and the lights began to flicker. Sandy’s image flickered with them.
“You have twenty minutes.” His voice was full of static, like a bad reception. “Get in the trees as soon as you can and don’t come out. Stay there until he finds you. And be careful. It’s dangerous out there.”
One of the sand dollars disappeared in a wink.
The lights went out. Sandy disappeared. The room was silent in the predawn darkness. The power was out.
That meant no one was watching.
She leaped from the bed and ran for the door, jumping on the glider and heading for the exit. She was nearly there before turning around, wasting five minutes of precious time to return to the master suite to throw her phone on the bed.
She reached the exit with plenty of time.
When she opened the door, it was darker than usual. The Christmas lights were off, too. And the ground was littered with shimmering dust. She stepped over it and jumped into the trees sideways, like Cris taught her. She didn’t slow down, realizing as she hurried for cover that wasn’t dust outside the door.
The gnats had fallen.
Her dad thought the power fluctuations were due to a virus in the computer. They had gone to the power plant to solve the problem. It’s not a virus, she thought. It’s a sandman.
Two days until Christmas. She wasn’t thinking about presents or snow or sugar plums.
She was running.
Onward she plunged into the teeth of the forest. Cris wouldn’t find her. She would find him. Because Sandy had found the cure that ailed Sonny long ago. It was the reason he was out there, the reason Cris wasn’t sick.
Sandy set him free.