LUX
Lux sat in a tangle of limbs and stared at the horizon with wide, unblinking eyes. Outwardly, she was still as stone, but inwardly she trembled.
The moment the boys hit Jim, something terrible and powerful had snapped inside of her, and she lost all control. She did not understand it and she did not like it but she could not stop it. It was as if the entire world stopped existing except for one all-consuming command roaring inside her head: Protect Jim.
Then her body took over and left her behind: It whirled and danced and moved with a speed that made her thoughts spin.
Protect.
The words took over, pushing her aside and moving her hands, her feet.
Kick. And her body followed. She spun and threw out a leg and her foot slammed into the stomach of the one who had hit Jim.
Punch the other one. Her fist plowed into his jaw.
Still not down. Kick him. A sharp upward kick between his legs. He gasped and doubled over, but still remained on his feet.
Bring him down. She snapped her head against his, and he fell at last, groaning and writhing.
Now the girl. The girl was the leader. She had to be stopped. Lux dropped onto her hands as her legs swung in a wide arc, knocking the girl’s feet from under her.
Now eliminate the threat.
Lux leaped forward, barely registering what she was even doing. She looked down and saw her hands around the girl’s throat. The girl’s eyes were wide. She was trying to breathe but Lux would not let her. She tightened her grip. Eliminate the threat.
But . . . Deep, deep in her mind, Lux whimpered. I am hurting her.
Yes! Eliminate the threat!
She could not stop. The words were too powerful. There was a voice inside her brain that was not her own, and it commanded her body. She watched as her hands tightened, tightened, tightened. The girl twisted. Struggled. Made raspy throat noises.
“Lux!”
Jim’s voice was dim and distant.
Her eyes fixed on the girl. She felt a throbbing in her temples and in her wrists. Suddenly she wanted it to stop—all of it—the hurting and the struggling and the voice in her head that kept saying Eliminate the threat eliminate the threat eliminate the threat but she could not turn it off.
“Lux, stop!” Jim yelled.
And she let go.
The voice, the words, eliminate the threat: They shut off and disappeared, and the girl threw her aside.
Lux lay in the sand in a sprawl and trembled. Jim was talking to the others; they were running away. She hardly noticed. She stared at her hands and rocked back and forth. Hurts hurts hurts hurts, which did not compute because there was no pain. Then why did she hurt? Her heart hurt and her head hurt and her hands.
What am I?
The thought punched her mind the way her fist had punched the boys, leaving her gasping.
What am I?
I am Vitro beta model—
No. That was not the answer she wanted. She wanted more. She wanted—she wanted—there was no word for it. Her mind was blank. She was missing something so very important, but she did not know what it was. She had found that the longer she stared at something, the more she knew about it. She could stare at a tree and know more and more about how it worked—roots below the ground and sunlight on the leaves and it begins with a seed. The ocean held fish and dolphins and microorganisms and it covered 71 percent of the earth’s surface. But when she stared at herself, at her hands, at her sandy legs, at the ends of her hair, nothing came into her mind. She was blank, a wordless being. She could look anywhere around her and know what she saw, but when it came to herself . . . She was a hole in the universe.
Suddenly she felt as if there were hands around her throat, and she reached up—but there was nothing there. Yet still she felt a panic in her throat, in her chest. She bent over, pressed her forehead against her knees, wrapped her arms around her legs, and held them tight.
What am I?
This time, her brain made no reply at all. She sat silent and empty. Listening for words that never came, for an explanation that did not exist. I am I am I am I am . . . Blank.
Hollow.
Empty.
Then at last, slowly, softly, a word bubbled up from the bottom of her mind.
Afraid.
I am afraid.