“Clean again!” Orion says cheerily, tossing the towel behind him. He hands me a glass of cold water, and I drink it greedily. My muscles seem to relax, and I finally start to feel calm again. “So,” Orion says, nodding to the replica, “you found our model of Sol-Earth.”
By Sol-Earth, I guess he means my Earth.
“And here,” Orion adds, “is Godspeed.”
I hadn’t noticed the little model of the ship made to look as if it were flying from Earth before. It’s about the size of my head, whereas the model of Earth is so big my arms wouldn’t reach around it.
I flick the model with my hand. It swings on its wire, chaotically off-course. Then settles back, as if nothing has happened. It’s a ship. It can’t be bothered to care.
“Everything better now?” Orion asks, as if a warm towel is enough to solve any problem.
“I’ll be okay,” I say, but we both know I’m lying.
24 ELDER
“COME,” ELDEST DEMANDS, AND I KNOW BY THE WAY HE SAYS it, as if he’s a master speaking to a slave, that he means me and not Doc. I tear my gaze away from the closed hatch door and follow Eldest. Doc comes, too, but his steps are measured, an ominous drum beat on the floor.
When Eldest gets to the table against the wall at the end of the rows of cryo chambers, he stops and looks at me expectantly. My eyes are on that table, remembering how Amy huddled on its cold metal top, and how there was nothing I could do to help her.
“Well?” Eldest demands, his voice a short bark.
“What?”
“As leader, what would you do in this situation?”
“Um…” I say, wrong-footed. Typical Eldest. Just like him to throw a lesson at me when I’m least ready for it.
“Um, um!” Eldest mocks. “Be a leader! What should we do?”
“Uh — we need to see the vid records. And!”—I add when Eldest shows signs of derision—“we could check the wi-com locators, too.”
Eldest harrumphs, but does not insult my plan, just hands me a floppy. I press my thumb against the access login, and the floppy flashes into life. I tap in a few commands, searching for the video recordings of the cryo level. But when I find them, they show nothing but black.
“Something’s wrong with the vid screens,” I say, trying again and getting nothing but black.
Eldest grunts. “The vids were out the first time, too. I thought I’d taken care of that, but clearly he’s found a way around it. Try the wi-com locator.”
I tap more commands, this time accessing the map of Godspeed. Hundreds of blinking dots shine up at me: one dot for each person, each traced through the locator in the wi-com. I’ve done this before — it’s a good way to cheat at hide-and-seek, and it took Harley a full six months before he realized how I was so good — but I’ve never tried to use it for anything else. Now that I know what I’m looking for, I see an access dot on the fourth floor of the Hospital, and when I tap the screen there, the map shifts to the cryo level. Three dots blink on the cryo level now: one for my wi-com, one for Doc’s, one for Eldest’s. I press the time slider and move it back an hour. The wi-com map shows no one except—
“Doc,” I say, handing the floppy to Eldest for his inspection. “It was only Doc down here.”
“Some of the scientists have been in the secondary lab with me. They could have come out here, too. It would be easy. It’s not like I escorted them out. Any of the scientists could have been here earlier today.” Doc’s voice is emotionless and analytical. “I know what you’re thinking, Eldest, but you’re jaded. It could be any of them. They all have access to this floor; they all know about the cryo chambers and how they work.”
“Or it could be him,” Eldest says.
Doc’s face is like carved ice. “He’s dead,” he says, with such finality that whoever Doc is talking about, I’m convinced he’s not alive.
“Yes, he is,” Eldest growls, staring at Doc, hard. “But I’m not sure his influence is.”
Doc’s jaw juts forward, biting back whatever chutzy thing he was going to mouth off to Eldest.
“Either way,” Eldest says, “we’re going to have to figure out a way to fix the vids. And as for the wi-com locators—” He pauses mid-sentence, cocking his head as he listens to his wi-com.
He keeps his voice low, but I can still hear him say in a low growl, “She’s doing what?”
25 AMY
WHEN I GET BACK TO THE HOSPITAL, I BREATHE DEEPLY. IT’S almost a relief to smell the harsh, stingy scent of disinfectant in the air — at least there’s one difference between the air inside and the air outside.
I pass a family checking in their elderly father. The old man mutters to himself under his breath, too low and with too thick an accent for me to understand, but I can still tell he’s upset.
“What’s wrong with him?” the nurse at the desk asks in a bored voice as I wait for the elevator.
“He is having strange memories.” The young woman’s voice is empty, monotone. I pause, staring at them. If I were checking my father into the hospital, I think I’d be a little more emotional.
The nurse checks something off on a thin piece of plastic-like stuff. “We’ve seen a lot of this recently in the grays.”
The young man nods. “It’s their time.” The elevator doors open, but I just stand there, staring at them. Does he mean it’s the old people’s time to die? Surely not.
“Come with me,” the nurse says to the old man. He takes her arm and walks with her toward the elevator. The young couple leave the old man without saying goodbye.
“Please hold the elevator,” the nurse says. I jump out of my distraction and throw my arm out, catching the elevator doors.
“She has odd hair,” the old man says, staring at me, but he’s got very little emotion behind the words.
“Yes, I know,” the nurse says. She glances at me as she steps inside the elevator. “Doc has told us a strange girl would be taking up residency in the Hospital.”
“Um, yeah.” How am I supposed to respond to that? I press the third button, where my room is.
“The fourth floor, please,” the nurse says. She glances at the glowing screen on the elevator. “It’s almost time for meds; if we hurry, we’ll get you to your new room in time.” She pats the old man on the hand.
The elevator doors slide open to the third floor and I move to step out, glad to be breaking free from them. The old man seems as if he should have been checked into a nursing home years ago, even though he doesn’t look that old. But his eyes are vacant, his expression slack. It reminds me of Grandma, when her Alzheimer’s was bad enough that Mom put her in a nursing home. We visited her the Easter before she died, and she gave me a decorated egg. She called me by my mother’s name and didn’t know where she was, but she gave that egg to me.
I give the old man a watery sort of smile that’s mostly an apology.
When I had left earlier, there was only the tall man in the common room. But, as the nurse said, it is now time for medicine. The common room is crowded, and two nurses walk among those gathered inside, passing out big blue-and-white pills. I can tell by the uncomfortable silence that this room had once been buzzing with noise and activity — the dying strains of guitar music are still on the air — but it is as if I’d pushed pause. As soon as everyone turns my way, they freeze.
“Yeah,” says a friendly-looking guy with a grin, “this is gonna get good.”
Standing behind him, leaning against the big glass window, is the tall man who saw me this morning. His lips spread in a smile, but his grin is more malicious than the friendly guy’s.