Origin (37 page)

“When they told you to pass
your
final test,” Aunt Harriet
continues, “all I saw was myself facing the same decision, the same sacrifice of my soul, and I thought that if only I could stop you, save you somehow from making the same mistake, I could erase my own sin. And for a time, I thought I had.…But then Paolo put it all together. He figured out it was me helping you sneak out, and he said…he threatened to tell Strauss. And then Evie wouldn’t get her treatments and…I still had that gun, Pia, and I knew that if I pulled the trigger, I could prove to them that I was still a team player. Still the amoral scientist they wanted. So I did it. I pulled the trigger. I won back their trust, and I bought my sister’s life. Whatever humanity I had managed to scrape back together, I shot it all to hell. And you, dear, sweet Pia, you were caught in the crossfire. I’m sorry. Truly, miserably sorry. But if given the chance to do it all over…”

I stare, heartsick, as she starts weeping. “You’d do it again. I know. I understand now, Aunt Harriet.” I hand her picture back and hope that Strauss gets eaten by an anaconda. “Uncle Antonio and Eio are pinned down by Timothy’s men. I need to get to them and get out of Little Cam. Will you help me?”

She stares at me, sniffling, her red hair looking like some kind of explosion on her head, and then she nods. “I’ll see if the coast is clear, then signal for you.” She doesn’t meet my eyes, but blinks and wipes her eyes, then leaves.

Less than a second later, the door opens again, and she’s backing into the room, a gun pointed at her face.

Timothy. And he’s backed up by a dozen armed men, Jakob, Sergei, and even my father among them. Uncle Will holds his gun as if it were a snake about to bite him, and he looks at me with large, frightened eyes.

“Enough of this, Pia,” says Timothy as he switches on the light. “Just come with us. Let’s work this out.”

I look at him, look at the others, look at Jakob’s frown and Sergei’s stormy eyes, and I think only one thing.

Ants.

The terrarium is right behind me. There’s a chair right beside me. I glance from it to the terrarium to Uncle Will. He must read what’s in my mind, because he starts to turn very, very pale.

“Pia,
no
!”

But I’m already picking up the chair, swinging it, smashing the glass. Ants pour out like living black water. I look straight at Timothy and smile.

Uncle Will runs to the alarm and yanks it down, but he can’t get to the insecticide; ants are crawling all over the cabinet. I wonder if the others even know what I’ve released.

They do. Grown men scream like cornered monkeys and throw their guns down in their haste to flee the room. Timothy tries to keep order, but he’s carried out with the tide. Aunt Harriet, her face a mask of horror, doesn’t wait around either. I’m right on her heels.

Mass hysteria has broken out across Little Cam. There are people yelling in panic who couldn’t possibly know what’s going on yet. Maybe it’s the sirens screaming at a deafening volume that frightens them. I glance behind just once to see someone—impossible to tell who—disappear under a tidal wave of ants.

I run to Uncle Antonio and Eio. The men who’d been firing on them have abandoned their posts and are stampeding along with everyone else.

“Uncle Will’s ants,” I say, and Uncle Antonio blanches.

“Ants? They’re all scared of some
ants
?” asks Eio.

“They’re not just any ants—no time! Let’s go!” I grab Eio’s hand and pull him along with me. The mass of carnivorous insects has moved toward the center of Little Cam, and I see Haruto yanking off his ant-covered shirt. Everyone is still occupied with escaping the tiny monsters, leaving us free to run for the gate.

Just before we reach the Jeeps, we’re intercepted by Timothy, Paolo, and Sergei, all three of them armed. We freeze. They freeze. No one lowers their weapons.

“Stop this madness, Antonio,” says Paolo, using his smoothest, most persuasive voice. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We’ll let the boy go, I swear. I didn’t know he was your son. You should have told us. We could have given him a place here. Maybe we still can.” Slowly, he bends down and lays his gun on the ground, then extends his hands. “See? I want no violence.”

I can’t help it. I burst out laughing with disbelief. “No violence?
No violence?
You’ve killed
how
many people?”

“Pia.” He looks at me with reproach. “You may want to look behind you.”

I do, and so does Eio. Uncle Antonio tries to turn but is stopped by the prick of a needle against the back of his neck. He goes very still, and so does my heart.

“Mother,” I breathe.
“Don’t.”

Her face is an icy mask, and her fingers, delicately holding the syringe of elysia, don’t even tremble. “Don’t move, Antonio. Don’t make me do it.”

“Sooner or later,
someone’s
going to get injected today,” Paolo says. “Timothy?”

Timothy comes forward and takes the guns from Uncle Antonio and Eio, neither of whom object.

“Sylvia,” Uncle Antonio whispers. “We grew up together. Remember? You, me, and Will. We used to sneak into the labs and mix the chemicals, make explosions. We stole all the cook’s knives and hid them in the nurse’s closet. We let out all the animals in the menagerie at once. Remember that day? Old Sato running around, trying to catch that tapir…”

“Shut up, Tony,” she says and turns to me. “It should have been me,” she whispers. “Only one generation removed…to think it. Here I am, trapped in this mortal, dying body, and you, you ungrateful, spoiled girl, don’t even know what you’ve got. It should have been
me
.
I
wouldn’t have disappointed him.”

Him
can only be Paolo. I gape at her, stunned once more by the venom I never knew she had. “You’re my
mother
.…”

“I never asked to be” is her reply, and the words seem to crack the earth between us, creating a chasm no bridge could ever span.

“Well, it seems we’ve all reached an understanding.” Paolo gestures to Timothy and Sergei, and they lower their guns. “There. That’s better. We’re civilized human beings, after all.”

Over his shoulder, through the trunks of the trees planted in the center of the drive, I see the front gate opening. Who is operating it, I can’t make out. I glance sidelong and see that Uncle Antonio and Eio have seen it too.

But my mother still has the needle pressed to Uncle Antonio’s neck.

“If I stay,” I say suddenly, “and swear to do whatever you tell me—will you let Uncle Antonio and Eio go free?”

Paolo gives me a thoughtful look. “Well, let’s see now. If—”

He’s interrupted by an earsplitting screech. We all look up to see the Grouch go sailing overhead in a magnificent leap from the roof of A Dorms to the stand of trees in the drive, howling all the way. The branches rustle as he claws his way through them, and then he suddenly swings out and through the gap between the metal bars above the chain link, the same gap through which Ami escaped only this morning. The Grouch disappears into the jungle, his wild screech leaving a fading trail behind him.

Someone—probably Uncle Jonas—has released all the animals, probably thinking that the ants might decide to make dessert of the menagerie. Parrots squawk and soar overhead, Jinx slips past like a shadow, and a troupe of monkeys do their best to catch up to the Grouch. Last of all, Alai lopes by, sleek and smooth as the wind, and he spares one golden glance at me before vanishing through the gate.

We all seem to have lost the trail of our conversation, and it is Uncle Antonio who speaks first. He turns his head just enough to see both Eio and me. He gives Eio a long, deep look and a nod, and then he turns his gaze on me. I am terrified by the look I see in his eyes.

“Remember, Pia,” he whispers. “Perfect is as perfect does.”

He steps backward, and the needle slides into his neck. Mother, shocked, lets go of the syringe, and it falls to the ground, but not before half of its contents are injected directly into Uncle Antonio’s bloodstream. He crumples like paper to Mother’s feet.

T
he world opens beneath my feet, and I start toward Uncle Antonio, as do Paolo, Timothy, and Sergei. But Eio grabs my hand and pulls me away, and before they can reach us, we are off and running.

Shouts echo after us. We do not stop. Through the stand of trees, across the drive, through the gate—I have only a brief moment to turn and see who has opened it for us.

My father. My meek, gentle, mild-mannered father, who wouldn’t contradict someone even if they said the sky was green and the sun nothing more than a big lemon. He gives a sad little wave as we fly past, and there isn’t even time to call out to him. When I glance back, I see him being overtaken by Paolo and Timothy.

Please don’t hurt him
, I cry out inwardly.
He never did anyone any wrong.
The small gesture of help, though feeble compared to the hideous betrayal by my mother, is like a gentle salve on the wound she tore open in my soul. It doesn’t heal,
but it helps. At least one of them was true, when it came down to the wire.

Gunshots sing by our ears, and I even feel one bite the back of my leg. It stings like nothing I’ve ever felt before, but of course it doesn’t puncture.

“Faster!” Eio yells, pulling me along with him. They can’t hope to keep up with us, me with my enhanced speed, Eio with his jungle upbringing.

They can’t keep up with us, but their bullets can. Eio stumbles as one slams into his right shoulder, but he doesn’t fall.

“You’re hit!” I pull on his hand, trying to stop him, but he shakes his head stubbornly and charges on, though at a slower pace, and we cut sideways, off the road and into the jungle.

“Can’t…stop!” he yells, and I realize there are tears in his eyes. “I promised him I would take you away from here—and I will die before I fail him!”

I cannot argue with that. I see Uncle Antonio fall again, see the life spill from his limbs, see his eyes lose their light. Now I’m crying too, and it makes me clumsy. We’ve outdistanced our pursuers, but Eio is growing weaker.

“Are you okay?” I yell as I leap over a fallen log. He has to climb over it, and I finally slow to wait for him. “Can you make it? If they catch us, they’ll just shoot you again! For good, this time!”

“I’m fine,” he insists. “Go. I’m right behind you.” To prove it, he picks up the pace.

But only for a few steps. Then he stumbles and collapses. I run back and help him sit up. “Eio, you can’t go on like this. You’re bleeding too much.”

“Mud,” he says, gritting his teeth. “To stop the bleeding. Leaves and mud.”

I start digging right there, until my hands find the moist soil under the loam. I scoop up handfuls and give them to Eio, who smears them across his shoulder. He gasps with pain and shudders with each touch. I’ve never felt more helpless.

Once his shoulder is caked in mud, he lies back and shuts his eyes, his chest moving in spasms. My own breathing comes jaggedly, as if my body is trying to mimic his.

“Eio?” I take his hand in mine. “Eio, what do I do now? Should I get Kapukiri?”

“He’s gone.”

“What? What happened to him?” I involuntarily squeeze Eio’s hand in alarm.

“Not Kapukiri.” Eio opens his eyes and stares up at the canopy. “Papi.”

Oh, yes.
That’s right. Uncle Antonio is dead. The image replays in my head: Uncle Antonio stepping into the needle, falling to the ground, sprawling unnaturally in the dirt. Chills run up and down my skin. I feel as though I’m covered in the flesh-eating ants.

“Why did he do it?” I ask softly. “I was ready to bargain with them. You both could have been free.” But I know why he did it. I know too well.
The noblest life is the one laid down for another.

Eio shuts his eyes again. I wonder which hurts him more, the bullet or the grief.

“Go, Pia. I’ll hide; they’ll never find me. Listen. The Ai’oans…they’re preparing to fight. They want to attack
Little Cam. You must stop them.…They’ll only get killed.” He winces and pauses to catch his breath. “You have to keep going. I’ll be fine; the jungle is my home. It will…hide and protect me.”

“Eio…”

“
Go
,” he growls, sounding for all the world like his father.

“Fine,” I hiss back. “But don’t go far. I’m coming back for you.”

His eyes are shut against the pain, but he nods. I reach out and touch his cheek, run my thumb down the square line of his jaw. “Be safe.”

“I will. You too.”

“I mean it, Eio. You—you’re all I have left,” I whisper.

“
Go
, Pia.”

I run.

Eio did not lie. The Ai’oans are in an uproar. The men are filling their gourds with curare, and even the women are gathering spears. I stumble down the row between the huts, looking for Achiri or Luri.

Suddenly a hand grabs me by the back of my shirt and whirls me around, and I find myself staring Burako in the eye. His face is slashed with red paint, and his hand holds a knife—pointlessly, I think—to my throat.

“You.”
He shakes me and hisses. “
Karaíba!
Have you come to finish the job?” he asks in Ai’oan. “Come to kill our children, have you? Come to drink their blood? Murderer!”

“No! Of course not! I came to
help
—”

“Liar!” He presses the knife to my skin, and I wonder what he thinks that will solve.

“Stop!” yells a small voice, and Ami appears at his elbow. “Let her go! She saved me!”

Burako looks from me to Ami with uncertainty, but he doesn’t loosen his grip.

Ami puts her hands on her hips and glares at him. “I said she saved me. She’s on
our
side, Burako!”

In any other situation, seeing her try to cow the muscled warrior would be funny. As it is, I only breathe in relief when he lets me go. But there is still distrust in his eyes. I can’t really blame him.

Ami throws her arms around my waist. “You’re here! Pia!”

“Yes,” I say. “Your arm, Ami. How is it?”

“I’m fine.” Someone has redone the bandage, so it’s tighter and neater, and I’m glad to see it seems to have stopped the bleeding. I’m also relieved the E13 didn’t leave her unconscious…or worse. But I don’t regret using it on her; if I hadn’t, she might not be alive.