Theresa felt sick. They wanted so badly to have a reason to need each other, to be a community… but this. It must be done with pheromones. Jackson had explained pheromones to her. Chemicals given off into the air and smelled by other people, even if they didn’t realize. And the chemicals affected people’s behavior… Maybe without the new smell, some poison was set off in the bonded person’s body. But wouldn’t the Cell Cleaner destroy any poison? Wasn’t that what the Cell Cleaner was for? Of course, if Miranda Sharifi had really made them both… would Miranda Sharifi do that? Why?
A part of Theresa’s mind said softly, Because they remade human bodies in their own image. Now the Supers want to own human brains. No. That was Theresa’s own brain, the part that was so afraid of new experiences and new things, the part that never wanted to leave the apartment. Xenophobia. Inhibition. Agoraphobia. Novelty anxiety. Jackson had taught her the words. It was she who was mistaken, was blind, didn’t recognize a path up to the light when she saw it…
No. It wasn’t her. What these people were doing was wrong.
Her breath went ragged, her heart raced. She felt the attack coming—nausea, dizziness, the terror of not being able to breathe—and flailed one hand, as if she could physically ward it off.
Patty misinterpreted her gesture. “You don’t believe me, you? Then come see the holo!”
“No… I… please don’t…” Patty seized her arm and dragged her around the building and inside.
Livers were there, in threes, crowding close to her and breathing in her face and it was dark and her gorge rose and…
“Mother Miranda time!”
The holostage sprang to life. A pretty, meaningless swirl of color, and then Miranda Sharifi appeared, head and shoulders only, the background a plain dark recording booth designed for anonymity. Miranda wore a sleeveless white suit. A red ribbon held back her unruly black hair.
“This is Miranda Sharifi, speaking to you from Selene. You will want to know what this new syringe is. It’s a wonderful new gift, designed especially for you. A gift even better than the Change syringes were. Those set you free biologically, but also led to much isolation when you no longer needed each other for food and survival. It’s not good for man to be alone. So this syringe, this wonderful gift—”
Beyond the holostage, in a corner of the warehouse, Theresa saw an unChanged child.
About two, the child sat propped in a corner, thin flabby legs straight out. One side of its head was empty of hair, the skin eaten into circular patches oozing pus. Rheum trickled from its filmy eyes.
Theresa’s throat closed entirely.
“You, my chosen people, the first to know the life and the way—”
The child whimpered. A girl no older than Theresa darted forward and picked it up. A strong, healthy Liver girl, free of hunger and disease, who could stand by herself and see from clear eyes… Was the unChanged child… could it be in actual pain?
“—spiritual gift, the life and the way—”
She couldn’t breathe. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t breathe…
“—building on the work of the Change syringe I first gave you years ago when—”
… couldn’t breathe and she was going to die, this time she would really die…
“What’s the matter with the donkey, her?”
“What’s wrong, you?”
“Give her some room!”
“She’s dying, her!”
“People don’t die, them, you asshole! Holo’s done! Inject her!”
“There ain’t nobody, them, to be in her group…”
“Yes! The two new people, them! Cathy and Earl!”
“Inject them, all three! Inject them!”
The room spun crazily. It went black in a deep swooping wave, as if someone had jerked the far wall, and the wave rushed toward her in a minute it would take her… Put your head between your knees, Jackson’s voice said inside her head. Breathe deeply. Take a neuropharm… She doubled over. Two people pulled her upright, one on either side of her, her new bonded group… In the spinning room a syringe whirled into view, in somebody’s hand, bright red.
“No!” Theresa screamed. “No… d-d-don’t…”
“It’s all right, honey,” a woman’s voice said soothingly. Her coat was pulled off. “It don’t hurt. Just like another Change needle, you won’t hardly feel it, you. Mother Miranda says, her, that it just builds on the first Change…”
The red syringe swam closer to her arm. The room whirled and the dark wave washed over her… dizzy faint she was going to throw up… At the last minute she pulled the words somewhere out of herself.
“I’m… not… Changed!”
And the blackness took her.
Outside. She was lying on the ground outside, and it was cold. She wasn’t wearing her coat. She opened her eyes and the sunlight hurt them. People stood around her in groups, their ugly faces gazing down at her. In a group… Cathy and Earl and Theresa… She was bonded.
“She’s coming back, her.”
“Give her some room, damn it!”
“Don’t give the bitch nothing, us.”
“Theresa… you’re not bonded, you. We didn’t do it.” Josh, squatting beside her, not touching her. Theresa concentrated on her breathing. Sometimes the attacks came in twos, or even threes… The very thought made her heart race and her breath shorten.
“I said, me, that we didn’t bond you.”
Josh’s face was kind. How could that be, kindness from a Liver? He couldn’t understand what happened to her… not even Jackson understood. Theresa tried to breathe deeply.
Patty said, “It must be true. What we heard, us. That even the enclaves don’t have no more Change syringes.” Her tone was slyly pleased.
Theresa sat up. Home. She had to go home. Would they let her go home? What would they do to her? Tears filled her eyes.
“Oh, God, she’s crying, her,” Patty said. “Let the bitch go.”
Mike said, “No. Wait. She’s got a mobile. She knows entry codes we could use, us.”
“She don’t know nothing, her—look at her! She ain’t even Changed!”
“So? She’s got stuff in her head, she’s a donkey—”
Josh leaned close to her. Theresa flinched. His breath was sweet and warm but somehow alien. He said, very low, “Get up, you, while they’re arguing. Get in your car and go.”
She looked at him wildly. He nodded once, pulled her to her feet, and whispered something in her ear. Mike and Patty had started pushing each other, their faces contorted, their words coming out in spittle at the corners of their mouths. Theresa ran toward her car.
“Stop her!” Mike called. “Stop, you!”
Theresa lurched and fell. Her breath came hard, the ground shook and grasped… not again. Not another attack. She forced herself to her feet and looked back over her shoulder.
Patty and Mike were trying to chase her, but every time they got a few yards from Josh they stopped, ran back, and tried to pull him along. Josh made himself heavy and limp as rags. And Mike and Patty couldn’t chase Theresa without him.
She stumbled to the car and collapsed inside. “Door lock. Automatic… takeoff… Home coordinates.” The car lifted.
Below, she saw Patty slug Josh.
Theresa fell back against the seat, trying to control her breathing, trying to stop the world below from spinning into another of the sickening black waves. Home. She had to get home. She should never have left, should never have come out of the enclave, should never have thought she was strong enough or worthy enough to actually find out something about the light… She was just a defective overprivileged donkey… no, those people were wrong, that wasn’t the way, courting death to force you into community, no no no… Not like that. The answer wasn’t like that.