As I cross the threshold, the air shimmers with warmth. Lights flood my vision. Despite the heat filling the room, I feel like I’m encased in ice. I turn to Ellis, unable to comprehend what I’m seeing. But he just looks at me with despair, his arms hang limp at his side.
All around me are bodies. Women’s bodies standing in skinny glass tanks, their hair drifting like seaweed. From each tank, extends a long tube that attaches to a large container in the center of the room. Some of the women are rigid and some are slumped against the glass. A bell chimes and a scarlet cloud disperses through the tank. The tube expands as something whizzes through it from the tank and into the central container. The body crumbles against the walls. Within a few seconds the entire procedure is repeated for the next one in line.
His words come back to me. All the other women we used were tranquilized for the seven days it takes to incubate the embryos.
Fallon’s voice jolts me from the horrific scene.
“I’m going to remove your tracker,” he says, grabbing my arm.
I yank it away from him, but he easily pulls it back.
“Don’t be a fool, Kalli. You don’t want them to find you.”
I can’t believe what I’m surrounded by. It’s like some scene from a bad movie. The women’s faces are pasty, their pupils white and lifeless. Their bodies are hidden beneath a golden gleam of ribbons floating alongside them.
I flinch. My arm’s burning. I look down, shocked to see Fallon cutting the inside of my arm, just below my elbow.
“Ow,” I moan, pulling my arm away.
“Dammit. Ellis, hold her still,” Fallon hisses.
“You don’t just cut someone like that,” says Ellis.
“Fine. I don’t care. She can keep the tracker,” he says.
“The tracker has to come out. It’ll be quick and then Fallon will put some salve on it so it will heal almost instantly,” Ellis says to me.
Fallon’s hands move rapidly and precisely as he pulls back my skin. I expect the pain to be agonizing, but the burning sensation doesn’t escalate. Even when he sticks his thick fingers into the opening he’s made and fishes around, the pain never increases. But my stomach lurches, when I see what he pulls out of my arm.
Fallon holds out a tiny golden ring, from which dangle millions of thin cilia fibers.
“What is that thing?” My words are saturated in disgust.
“It’s called verbindi.” Ellis says, admiring the tiny creature writhing in Fallon’s hand. “It connects us.”
“Why was it inside me?”
“It allowed us to track you. We are given our verbindi as infants. It allows families to track their children and keep them safe. But as we grow, we learn to limit access to our verbindi and can choose who we want to be connected with.”
“Aren’t you going to tell her the other function of her particular verbindi?” Fallon juts out his chin.
My head turns to each of them. Fallon meets my gaze, but Ellis looks away.
“Didn’t you think it was odd, after all you’ve been through, that you’d so easily go off and play house with a perfect stranger? Even one as gorgeous as him.” Fallon nods toward Ellis.
“Shut up, Fallon,” says Ellis, still averting his eyes from me.
“What’s he talking about?” I ask, grabbing Ellis’s arm. He opens his mouth, but doesn’t answer me. “What’s he talking about?” I repeat.
Ellis groans. “You had to stay with me. It was critical.” He finally looks up and I know. I know the truth.
Other than Sammy, I hadn’t allowed myself to get close to anyone since I ran away. In fact, even before leaving home, I couldn’t trust people. Just Mim. Even Bradley, whom I’d known for years—I couldn’t handle his touch. But Ellis—I was drawn to him immediately. Other than my freak-out in his car, I’ve been desperate to trust him.
“What did you do to me?”
Ellis shakes his head. “Margaret added something to the verbindi, to make you trust me. It made you—”
“It made me think I love you!” Everything starts to spin. My legs can’t hold me up.
“No. It didn’t do that. I know it’s a lot to take in. But what we felt for each other…. What I still feel for you is real. You have to believe me.”
I look down at the thin cut on my arm. “I don’t have to believe anything you say anymore.”
Fallon walks toward the center canister, carefully cupping his hands over the slippery substance. He uses his fingers to turn one of the dials on the outside and a small glass compartment slides toward him. He removes the lid and gently places the squirming creature inside. Immediately, the compartment is bathed in a brilliant glare and then disappears back inside the wall of the container.
“Ellis, the process will take another thirty hours. We attached the last specimens six days ago. If we disturb it now, all the embryos will be destroyed.” Fallon’s walking around, looking at the bodies, a pained expression on his face. “Ellis!”
Ellis turns away from me. “Okay. That gives us enough time. Margaret won’t harm any of the women until the process is over. We can get back to Istriya and speak with the Council. We ask them to spare the lives of these women. It’s our only hope. We’ll take the secondary ship. It’ll be easier to operate without a crew.”
“Okay, I’ll go get it ready. I’ll leave that to you,” Fallon says, tilting his head toward me. He rushes past the tanks and disappears into a hallway at the back.
I look at the spheres rolling from the glass boxes into the vessel. Waves of nausea crush me and threaten to overflow. I sit on the ground.
Ellis sits down beside me, and I purposefully slide myself away from him.
“Oh Kalli, it was real. The verbindi can’t do that. It can’t make people love each other. It just made you trust me a bit. And even that didn’t work so well. Remember the car ride? You’re a strong person, Kalli. Stronger than anyone I’ve ever met. I could never make you do or feel anything you didn’t want to.” He sighs heavily. “I know you hate me right now. But you’ll never despise me as much as I despise myself for hurting you this way. For betraying you.”
I know what he’s going to say next, and I don’t want to hear it. I cover my ears, but his words seep in anyway. “I love you,” he says.
I look up at him. Unwelcome thoughts rush through me and weaken my resolve. He chose me over Margaret, his own mother. He made sure I got to say goodbye to Navi. He stood up for me against Sita, even when my own mother wouldn’t. And all those moments we shared, surely I’d have known if he was faking. I can feel my anger slipping away, but I refuse to let it go. I cling to it, like it’s the only thing I have left.
“I’m so sorry,” he continues. “Sorry for lying about Sammy. That was inexcusable. I panicked. I didn’t want you to get hurt. If you left, they would have come for you. Margaret would have discovered that your memory was back and she would have ….” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t let anything happen to you.” His hand gently brushes the side of my cheek, and despite my conflicting thoughts, I smack him away.
“It’s ready. Let’s get going.” Fallon’s returned. “We have to move quickly. I won’t be able to give you a proper lesson on what to expect, but you will be okay.”
We head for a long object, like an upright bullet. The majority of the spaceship is made of silver metal, but one section is transparent. Ellis pushes one of the many buttons on the side and the front half pulls away, revealing a bench. On the other side is a panel with switches and levers.
“Hey!” I say. Fallon has a hold on my arm, and this time he’s armed with a syringe. “Sticking me with more of that stuff? So I’ll do whatever you want?”
“It’s not verbindi. It contains some more nuveau flureans,” says Fallon.
“New what?” I ask.
“It’s kind of like the oxygen that flows through your blood and into your heart. Nuveau flureans flow through our bodies and keep us alive. You need it to survive the trip. We’ll be traveling through several different star systems in space and going at a great speed. Please, Kalli, you have to.”
I slacken my arm. After all they’ve shown me, after all they’ve told me, there’s no need for them to lie now. He injects the needle into my forearm. A cool sensation spreads down to my fingertips and up to my shoulder. Within seconds, the chill branches to my other limbs and chest. Fallon nods reassuringly, as if he’s aware of what’s going on inside me. He helps me into the capsule, eases me onto the bench, and then straps me in.
“Don’t I need a mask to breathe into?” I ask, remembering all the shows I’d seen of people traveling into space.
“No, that’s what the shot was for. You’ll be fine,” Ellis says, as he and Fallon place themselves on either side of me.
“Not afraid of closed spaces, are you, Kalli?” Fallon asks.
Before I can answer, the air erupts into a blaze of angry shouts. All three of us look at each other. Fallon leaps out. Ellis reaches over me to try and pull him back.
“Go, Ellis. I’ll keep them off for as long as I can.”
“No. We go togeth—” The rest of his words cut off as Fallon jumps out and seals the bullet shut.
“Fallon will hold them off. We’ll have a head start. The team won’t do anything without Margaret, and she’ll be incapacitated for another couple of hours.”
But Ellis is wrong. Standing in front of us is Margaret.