Origin (28 page)

He nods. “I didn’t think the time would come so soon. I wanted you to be older, more experienced. But here we are: you, me, Eio. Alone in the jungle, and the time is ripe. Eio,
remember that journey I sent you on? The one you thought was a fool’s errand?”

“The city.” Eio’s eyes widen. “You mean—”

“Yes, I do.” Uncle Antonio turns back to me. “Eio is to take you, Pia. He knows the way; he proved that already. He’ll take you to Manaus, and after that…” He shuts his eyes and rubs his forehead. “There are so many details I haven’t planned yet. But you’re smart—”

“Uncle Antonio,” I start, but he doesn’t pause.

“And you’ll figure something out. Just get to Manaus for now. You can’t stay there long; eventually they’ll search there. You have to run, Pia, run far and long. Find somewhere safe—”

“Uncle Antonio—”

“I wonder if I should have told Harriet about this. Maybe she could help…I must say, I imagined
I
would be the one to sneak you out, introduce you to Eio. And all this time, you two have—”

“Uncle Antonio, I am
not
leaving Little Cam.” I stand with my shoulders high and fists clenched. He finally stops talking and stares at me as I continue. “Why are you saying all of this? You honestly expect me to leave everything behind? My home? My family?”

“Pia.” He seems blindsided by my response. “I thought you understood. You saw the cells in B Labs. You know about the terrible tests everyone has to take. And the secrets, the lies—what did you think—”

“Yes, I know all about those things,” I reply. “And, okay, I’ll admit it: they made me wonder. But are you telling me those are the reasons Alex and Marian killed themselves? They’d rather be dead than…what? Be lied to?”

“No.” His back is stiff now. Eio watches with silent, heated eyes, his arms crossed over his bare chest. Uncle Antonio presses one fist into his other hand and twists it back and forth as if he wants to punch someone and just can’t figure out whom. “That was part of it, yes, but not the reason.”

“Then
what was it
? You want me to leave behind everything I have ever known, but you won’t tell me
why
?” I pick up the Shakespeare book with one hand and slap it with the other. “‘Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.’ Isn’t that how it goes? I can’t fly if I’m ignorant, Uncle Antonio!”

His eyes bulge a little. “I—I can’t—you don’t understand, Pia. If you knew, you…I can’t
do
that to you.…You have to know that nothing good can come of Little Cam! Don’t you feel it?”

My own voice chills me when I answer, “
I
came of Little Cam. What does that make me?”

He sighs heavily. “That’s not what I meant. Of course you’re the only good thing to come out of that place. But, Pia…agh! Maybe I
should
tell you, maybe that’s what it’ll take.”

“Then say it! Why can’t you say it?” I plead, feeling tears burning the corners of my eyes. “Why did they run, Uncle Antonio? What is Uncle Paolo hiding? What is so terrible about Little Cam that you can’t even tell me what it is?”

“Pia—” Eio starts, but Uncle Antonio cuts him off.

“Every time you come out here, you flirt with the idea of leaving forever. Don’t you? I know I did.”

“Then why didn’t you?” I challenge.

“Because of this!” He jerks up the sleeve of his shirt and
turns over his arm. There’s a small scar on his forearm that I’ve never noticed before. “They did more than just lock me up when I tried to run, Pia. They planted a tracking device under my skin, hiding it so deep under arteries and veins that if I tried to gouge it out, I’d kill myself in the process. If I ever disappeared, they’d activate it and hunt me down within hours. That’s why I can only visit Eio at night, when they think I’m asleep. That’s why I can’t run. That’s why I have to send my only son to be your guide, to give up forever the only good thing—besides you—that I can account for in my life! Pia, there is evil in Little Cam. The truth would destroy you if I told it to you. I can’t put you through that, and I won’t. You have to trust me. Would I do all of this—give you Eio—based simply on speculation? I
know
what really goes on behind those lab doors. I’ve seen it for myself. After you were born, it ended for a while. But now they’re starting it again, bringing in new subjects, beginning the whole process from square one. You can’t be here for that, Pia. You’re
not
who they think you are. You’re not one of them. You can’t do the things they ask of you.”

Trembling, blinking away the tears that bead my eyelashes, I glare at him. It’s as if he’s been reading my mind these past few days and is now bringing every insecurity I have into the light.

“Papi, stop! Can’t you see how upset you’ve made her?” Eio comes to me and tries to take my hand, but I shake my head.

“What are you saying, Uncle Antonio?”

“You’re not their perfect little scientist, Pia. They’ve done their best to mold you into their image, but you’re breaking free. Why else do you come to Ai’oa? Why haven’t you killed
that kitten yet? But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have Ai’oa
and
Little Cam. You’ve felt it, haven’t you? I know, because I’ve felt it almost my entire life. You try to balance between the two, but sooner or later, you’ll just fall. Or you’ll end up like me—belonging nowhere.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. It’s as if he and Eio planned it all—this afternoon under the kapok tree, Uncle Paolo’s angry lecture, and now this.

“What’s funny, Pia?” Eio asks.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Does he not hear how similar Uncle Antonio’s words are to the ones he himself told me earlier today? “Anyway, if you have a tracking device, Uncle Antonio, then so must I. I can’t go anywhere.”

“No, Pia. You don’t. They tried implanting one when you were born, but…unbreakable skin, remember? They wanted to strap one to your ankle, but I convinced them it wasn’t necessary. I told them that as long as you never knew about the outside world, you’d have no desire to see it, and you’d stay safe and secure inside your glass walls. Because I knew the day would come when you would have to run. I’ve known it for years. But if you’re caught, they won’t hesitate to use an ankle monitor, and then you will be well and truly trapped.”

No! It can’t be! I know these people. They’re my family. They
created
me.
I could believe it of Victoria Strauss, maybe, but not Uncle Paolo. Not my Immortis team.

But if he’s right…I close my eyes and imagine going down to the river, climbing into a boat with Eio, and striking off for those distant corners of Aunt Harriet’s map. My heart pounds a little faster at the thought. It’s possible. We could do it. Simply go and leave it all behind for good.

Leave
what
behind? So Uncle Paolo lied about the fire in B Labs. Would he do that without good reason? Uncle Paolo is the most reasonable person I know. And if I leave, I leave them to the punishment of Corpus. I remember Strauss’s words as if she’s whispering them in my ear this moment:
“There are at least twenty scientists I can think of who would kill for the chance to have your job. Your job and the jobs of your entire team.”
Who knows what will happen to them if I run away? Could I live an eternity with that guilt?
No. I can’t do that to them.

I feel like the set of scales in Uncle Sergei’s lab, and each new thought that runs through my head adds weight to one side. I tip this way and that way, but cannot seem to find my balance.

“I don’t know how I can believe you, Uncle Antonio,” I say miserably. “If there’s some terrible secret I don’t know about Little Cam, then you would tell me.”

“I’m not making this up, Pia.” His voice is low. “You know I’m not. You’re denying what you know is true.”

“I’m not denying anything because I don’t know what to deny! You won’t tell me!”

He lapses into silence, his eyes a muddle of frustration and sorrow. I envy him; he only has two emotions at war inside him. I have dozens, it seems, but anger is winning out.

“I’m not leaving Little Cam,” I say. “I’ve dreamed my entire life of having someone like me. Someone who knows what it is to live forever and what it’s like to never be hurt. Someone who will…” I have to force myself not to look at Eio. “Who will stay with me always, who will never grow old and die and leave me alone, while I stay forever young.” I hold
my hands out, pleading with him to understand. “You’re right. I
don’t
belong. Not in Little Cam and not in Ai’oa. I’m all alone, Uncle Antonio. I always have been. And if I leave Little Cam, I leave behind my chance of ever belonging to anyone. I’ll be alone forever,” I whisper.

“You don’t have to be alone, Pia!” Eio interjects. “Why don’t you see that?
I’m
here.”

“Yeah? For how long? How long, Eio? I can’t…I
can’t
have you only to lose you. I can’t do it.” I look back at Uncle Antonio. “The only place that I will ever have is with my own kind. And they don’t even exist yet. This is my dream, Uncle Antonio. It’s my destiny.”

“Those are Paolo’s words,” he replies coldly. “Not yours.”

“Uncle Paolo made me what I am.”

“He’s making a monster of you.”

That does it. I almost hear a
snap
inside my head. “I’m not going to stand here and listen to this anymore. This is—it’s crazy.
You’re
crazy. I’m leaving.” I turn to the window, then remember there’s a door and head for that instead.

“Pia!” His voice stops me just as my hand touches the flimsy wood. “If you knew the truth, would it change your mind?”

I yank open the door and don’t turn around to answer. “How can I know that when I don’t know what the truth is?”

The jungle seems darker than it was before. I strike out blindly, tripping over rocks and nearly walking into trees, I’m so unsettled. I hear Eio behind me, hurrying to catch up, but I ignore him. It’s only when he steps directly in front of me and refuses to let me get by that I am forced to stop.

Eio takes my hand gently. “Come, Pia.”

“No, I—”

“
Come
, Pia.”

“Where are we going?”

“On.”

I give in to his will, knowing it’s useless to resist. I already saw how his stubbornness held out against Uncle Antonio. Eio’s father. That particular revelation is still raw and unexplored.
How could he have hidden you from me all this time?

Or maybe the question I should be asking is:
Is Uncle Antonio right?
His words terrify me.
There is evil in Little Cam.
But no one
shows
it to me. I see shadows, hear whispers, but none of it is certain.
You tell me to run, but you won’t tell me why!
I don’t understand why he thinks simply telling me that there is evil—without telling me what it is—will convince me to leave everything I’ve ever known. If he can’t tell me the truth, maybe it doesn’t exist.

Be honest with yourself, Pia. You know it does.
Despite the warmth of Eio’s hand over mine, I shiver.
You know it’s true. You’ve seen the cells. You’ve seen the look in Paolo’s eyes. There’s something there, something no one will speak of.…

I shake my head, trying to clear the thoughts that fog it. I used to see so clearly before all of this started happening. Before Aunt Harriet came with her wild red hair and her strong ideas. Before the hole in the fence and the boy on the other side—and his frustrating father. I saw like a scientist. Everything was black and white. Reason and chaos. Progress and regress.

Where am I now? Progressing or regressing? Is this reason, to be out here in the jungle at night, holding the hand of a wild boy with stripes on his face? Surely not. If anything, my
life is growing steadily and inexorably more chaotic with each passing day.

“Here,” Eio says, pulling aside a thick curtain of vines. Behind it lies the swimming hole, the still water shimmering in the pale moonlight. The moon must be full tonight. I can’t see it, but only the light of the full moon ever reaches the forest floor. The waterfall looks like flowing silver, its rumble soft and soothing.

“Wait here,” he tells me.

“What—”

“Just wait.”

I shut my lips and sit on a mossy log by the pool.

He walks to the edge and leaps into a shallow dive, skimming under the surface like an otter. The water around him begins to shine blue; the pool must be filled with some kind of bioluminescent algae,
Pyrocystis fusiformis
perhaps, that glows when disturbed. I catch my breath, overwhelmed by the ghostly beauty of the scene. I’ve only ever seen this phenomenon under a microscope in a lab. Out here, beneath the jungle moon, the pale blue light is a hundred times more captivating. Eio swims in light, his body a dark shadow that moves quietly and swiftly toward the waterfall.

He finds a foothold on one of the rocks under the cascade and stands, his body splitting the curtain of water. It splashes off his shoulders and glitters like silver beads when he shakes his hair. My mouth hangs slightly open and I realize I haven’t drawn a breath in over a minute. Why are we here again? Am I supposed to be angry? But I can’t remember why. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. My head empties of every thought to make room for the beautiful image of Eio standing in that
glowing pool as the jungle anoints his shoulders with its fragrant water.

Eio begins climbing the slippery rocks until he’s clinging to the crest of the waterfall, which streams in two silver bands on either side of him and joins together again just below his hips. It pulls at his shorts, threatening to undress him.

I swallow. Hard. And don’t blink for a second.

My eyes hardly notice what his hands are doing, they’re so fixated on the way his back muscles strain beneath his skin, illuminated by the gentle blue light of the shining pool below. Then he turns, and I realize he’s picked a passionflower from a thick vine that hangs over the top of the falls. Eio carefully works his way down and slips back into the water, which shimmers brightly at his touch. He holds the flower above the surface as he makes his way through the luminescent pool toward me. Then he’s here, emerging from the water like some kind of myth, some fabled Ai’oan god, his hand smoothing his wet hair back from his face, his chest and shoulders gleaming with water and moonlight. Behind him, a pale, shimmering trail of blue light marks his passage through the water. His wet shorts hang a good bit lower on his hips than they usually do, tempting my imagination. He extends the flower, which I take with trembling fingers.