Silver Eyes (8 page)

“Nevertheless,” Graciana said serenely. “That is the rule. Supper will be ready in five minutes.” She returned to the kitchen.

“You've
got
to trade with me,” Dahlia said dramatically.

“Do either of you snore?” I asked.

“She does,” they both said simultaneously.

I crossed my arms. “Then I think I'll stay right where I am.”

Rianne's lips twitched.

Supper was a red beans and rice dish, tasty but spoiled somewhat by the Flower Twins' sniping. I finally discovered the reason behind their enmity when I referred to Zinnia as “your sister” while talking to Dahlia.

“She's not my sister! She's my clone!”

“I am not
your
clone!” Zinnia looked down her nose at Dahlia. “We're both Iris's clones.”

“And who is Iris?” I asked when no one else did.

“Iris Cartwright,” Zinnia said.

I looked blank.

“Oh, come on! Everyone knows who Iris Cartwright is,” Dahlia said impatiently.

Graciana broke in quietly. “Iris Cartwright stopped the Blight. She was a hero.”

“Oh,
that
Iris Cartwright,” I said. Inside my heart was hammering. Another missing memory? “I thought cloning was illegal.”

“It is,” Zinnia said. “But our progenitor received special permission from the UN.”

Special permission,
I wondered,
or blackmail? Let me clone myself or I won't give you the cure for the Blight?

“She knew that when she died her work reversing the Blight would be unfinished and that no one else had the genius to continue it. So she made us to carry forward her life's work.”

Zinnia sounded awed, as if she was talking about some holy crusade, but to me it sounded creepy. Born just to carry on someone else's life as if she were some miserable shadow-thing?

“So that
one of us
can inherit her company and carry forward her life's work,” Dahlia corrected. “And that someone is going to be me.”

Anger and something else—sadness?—flashed across Zinnia's face before she picked up her fork again. “We'll find out when we graduate in June.”

I suddenly understood why Iris Cartwright had made two clones instead of one. She wanted two in case one of the clones proved to have its own personality instead of being an exact
copy.

Back in our room afterward, Rianne started laughing for no reason.

“What?” I asked.

“The look on their faces when you pretended not to know who Iris Cartwright was. One hundred percent priceless. I like you, Angel.” Her wheelchair made her too short to punch my shoulder, so she thumped my knee instead.

I smirked back at her. “Glad you liked it.” But it was all an act. I still didn't really know who Iris Cartwright was. Perhaps I should have read that chapter on the World Environmental Crisis instead of just taking the test. “If they try to get us to switch rooms again I'll invent some fictitious disease.”

The smile on Rianne's face corroded. “No need to do that. Neither of those two snobs would be caught dead rooming with me.” She indicated her legs. “They'd be afraid that my poverty might rub off.”

“I think they're already afraid,” I said thoughtfully. “I think each one is terrified that she'll be the one to lose and the other one will cast her out without a penny.”

“Maybe,” Rianne said. “But I still don't want to room with either of them.”

“Me either. Besides,” I said cynically, “they'll sleep better if they can keep an eye on each other. Otherwise the other one would always be wondering if her clone was up to something.”

I sent an e-mail to Anaximander requesting some more stylish clothes and colored contact lenses— nothing too outrageous, blue and brown—then did a net search on Timothy's kidnapping. To my consternation, nothing came up no matter what search terms I used.

A commotion in the hall made me jump guiltily. “Timothy Castellan must be home.” I shut off my palmtop. “Want to come see?” I asked Rianne.

“Sure. I wouldn't want to miss SilverDiaper,” she said sarcastically.

“SilverDiaper?”

“That's what the tabloids call him because he's a rich kid.” Rianne wheeled her way into the hall.

I followed her but put my hand on the back of her chair to stop her, when I realized Graciana and Timothy were arguing.

“Mr. Timothy, aren't you going to listen to the message?”

“Why? It's obvious what she's going to say. She promised she'd be home,” Timothy Castellan said dully.

I recognized him from the data file Anaximander had given me. He had dark blond hair, watery gray eyes, and would have been taller than me if his shoulders hadn't been rounded with despair. His clothes were fashionable enough—a short-sleeved red shirt with a zebra tie and black linen pants— but they were rumpled and he looked uncomfortable in them, giving him a geeky look. Definitely not the snooty rich boy I'd feared.

Graciana looked compassionate and patient. “And she will be here. She wouldn't miss your symposium. She's just going to be later than she expected.”

“She's
always
late,” Timothy muttered.

Just then Graciana saw us. “Mr. Timothy, your guests are here.”

Left with no other choice, I put on a smile and came forward to introduce myself.

“I'm Timothy Castellan.” He shook my hand absently but didn't appear to see me. He gawked openly at Rianne's wheelchair. Rianne became angry again, snatching her hand back after Timothy shook it.

I rushed into the silence. “So are you planning to go to Dr. Keillor's talk on Martian geology tomorrow?”

“I wouldn't miss it. He's been studying Mons Olympus, Mars's biggest volcano, you know.”

“We'll have to sit together, then.” I smiled.

The invitation seemed to surprise Timothy. “That would be one hundred percent great!”

“By the way, just to warn you, our other roommates are a bit—” I paused, searching for the right word.

“—weird,” Rianne said for me.

“—focused,” I substituted.

“Obsessive,” Rianne corrected.

“Have you heard of Iris Cartwright?” I asked.

Timothy nodded. I must be the only person in the world not to know who she was.

“Well, they're her clones, and their inheritance depends on their grades, so they're a bit competitive.”

“Self-centered is more like it.” Rianne rolled her eyes, relaxing out of her earlier stiffness.

Timothy blew it. “So what's wrong with your legs, anyhow? How come you don't have Augments?”

Rianne's face froze. “Not everyone was born stinking rich.” She wheeled her chair around and left.

Timothy blinked, gray eyes bewildered. “I was just asking.”

“She's a little touchy about her legs. Don't worry, she'll be okay in the morning.” I hoped.

“Do you know what's wrong with her legs? I didn't think anybody had to use wheelchairs anymore, no matter how poor. Her parents' employers should have covered the cost.” Timothy looked genuinely troubled, and it occurred to me that he was somewhat naive.

“She hasn't told me, and I'm not going to ask,” I said firmly.

“It's not right.” Timothy frowned stubbornly. “I'll ask my mother to arrange an operation for her.”

His generosity to a girl he'd just met staggered me. I couldn't help liking him, even if he had the tact of a charging rhino.

“That's a very nice idea, but you might want to wait until she knows you a bit better before you do that,” I said gently.

“Why?”

“Because she might refuse.”

The possibility boggled him. “Why would she do that?”

“Pride,” I said. From what I had seen Rianne had a lot of pride.

Timothy looked puzzled.

If he didn't get it, I couldn't explain it to him. I asked him a question about Mars, and he took the bait happily, talking for long minutes about making Mars habitable for humans outside of domes. “People think terraforming Mars means turning it into Earth's double, but that simply isn't possible. All you have to do is look at Mars's pink sky to know that.”

“Have you actually been to Mars, then?” I asked. If anyone could afford to go for a pleasure trip it was the son of SilverDollar's president.

It was a simple question, but Timothy's expression changed. Shuttered. “Maybe,” he said, and started talking about carbon dioxide levels.

I struggled not to show my astonishment. How could you not know for sure if you'd been to Mars? The journey took over a month and would be momentous. I imagined that one's first sight of an alien planet would
be branded into memory forever.

Unless he'd been blindfolded.
When Timothy was kidnapped had he been held somewhere in space, possibly on Mars?

H
E'S NOT DEAD,
was all I could think as I stared at Michael Vallant the next morning. He was the last person I had expected to see when I stepped into the hallway.

I barely heard Graciana's introduction: “Miss Angel, this is Mr. Michael, the fifth finalist. You show him around? I make breakfast.”

My knees felt weak as I anxiously studied Mike. He didn't look insane, either. In fact, he looked much better than the last time I'd seen him, no longer sleepless and haggard. His dark hair looked thick and vital, and he had shaved. His movements held only a faint remaining stiffness from his ordeal in the Loyalty Induction chamber.

There was a small bandage on his temple, just where my own had been. The Loyalty chip had clearly been installed, but was it working or was he free?

“Michelangelo,” he said, his violet eyes dancing.
“Michael plus Angel. You did it. The chip doesn't work.”

I bit my lip to keep from crying in relief. Mike held out his hands, and I gripped them both hard.

I experienced a small flash of memory—
running up and hugging him only to find his embrace unenthusiastic and brief
—and then the drowning memory overtook me again.

I opened my mouth in a soundless gasp, surfacing, and found Mike watching me with a frown on his face. I pulled away.

“What is it?” Mike asked.

I considered playing dumb, but something told me Mike wouldn't be put off. “I remembered something. I hugged you, but you didn't hug back. You weren't happy to see me.”

Mike swore. “Of all things you would have to remember that.”

I waited.

“Remember when I told you that I failed you once? The two of us were separated, and Dr. Frankenstein convinced me—briefly—that you had betrayed me. As soon as I saw you, I knew he had lied. You hugged me, and I realized I'd betrayed you, not the other way around.”

I looked at Mike. He looked sincere. Sorry. But I didn't know if I could believe him.
Violet eyes lie.

I dodged into shallower waters. “So you're the fifth finalist. Did Anaximander make you write an essay, too?”

Mike didn't let me get away with the retreat. He took my hand.

I resisted the urge to yank my hand away, keeping my voice cool. “Yes?”

“You and I may need to confer regularly.” Mike bent his head, his voice a low whisper in my ear that sent a frisson of awareness racing up my spine. “I think we should pretend to be attracted to each other so we have an excuse for spending time together . . . alone.”

His suggestion made sense, so I nodded. But inside my nerves were shrieking. I didn't want to. I didn't trust him. And I was all too aware that an attraction wouldn't be pretense.

“By the way, this is for you.” Mike held out a flat package. “Anaximander said something about clothes?”

I snatched it from him. “Thanks. I'll be right back.” In my room, I exchanged my plain dark green shirt for a pretty royal blue one with a scoop neck and plunked in blue contacts.

Dahlia and Zinnia came downstairs just as I came back out, and I introduced Mike to them, correctly deducing which clone was which from Zinnia's white hair and more conservative clothes. Today Dahlia's hair was black with red tips to match her wraparound red zebra-striped dress. I flinched when I saw her eyes. Color coordination might be fashionable, but, in my opinion, red contacts made her look freaky and inhuman. Bestial. Zinnia's white eyes weren't much better.

“I'm hungry,” Dahlia said to Mike. “Have you eaten yet?”

“Yes.”

Dahlia pouted. “Well, come have breakfast with us anyway. Graciana said she would make fresh orange juice.” She meant the words to be cajoling,
but the red glint in her eyes made them seem ominous instead.

Mike accepted anyway. “Sure.” He turned from Dahlia to smile at me. “Let's all go in to breakfast.”

Within fifteen minutes Rianne and Timothy had also joined us at the dining room table.

Dahlia kept trying to flirt with Mike; he responded politely but saved his best smiles for me. And his best smiles were heart-meltingly good. On his lips, my name became an endearment.

I tried to tell myself that it wasn't real, that he was only pretending to like me, but I didn't believe it. Worse, I didn't want to believe it.

Rianne turned out not to be a morning person. When Timothy moved one of the chairs so she could park her wheelchair, she snapped at him. “I can do it myself!”

Timothy blinked, looking bewildered. “I was just trying to help.”

“Well, don't.”

Coming from such a tiny person, I found Rianne's surliness amusing, a princess snarling at her subjects.

Mike distracted Timothy by asking him about the symposium. Ten minutes later, Timothy was still talking happily, his banana muffin forgotten on his plate.

I exchanged a laughing look with Mike before leaving the two of them to bond. Rianne went with me back to our room.

“He likes you,” Rianne announced. “Too bad for Dahlia.”

I smiled and flopped on the bed. “You think so? He's pretty cute, isn't he?”

Rianne nodded enthusiastically. “One hundred percent.”

I bounced back into a sitting position, grinning besottedly. “You made a conquest, too. Timothy likes you.”

I'd meant to be teasing, but Rianne surprised me by getting upset. “He does not!”

I remembered the way Timothy looked at Rianne and how he'd gone on and on about Mars, trying to impress her. “Actually,” I said seriously, “I think he does. Why, don't you like him?”

“He's a rich snob!” Rianne burst out.

My eyebrows went up in surprise. “Really? I think he's kind of sweet. Geeky, but sweet.”

“He's condescending.”

I shrugged. “Hey, if you don't like him, you don't like him. We're only going to be here four days.”

I enjoyed Dr. Keillor's talk on Martian geology, but I wished he had spent more time talking about its monstrous volcanoes and canyons and less time talking about its ice caps.

Standing in line for lunch afterward, I spied Anaximander crossing the food court. “Save a place for me,” I told Rianne. “I left something in the auditorium.” I took off after Anaximander. I had a bone to pick with him.

“Why wasn't I told that Timothy was kidnapped last year?” I asked when I caught up with him in the hall.

“It wasn't relevant,” Anaximander said calmly. “You're here to learn about Mars, that's all.”

“That's not true. Eddy placed me and Mike in the
Castellan household deliberately,” I said. “Why?”

“I can't answer for Mr. Castellan.”

I ground out a word of frustration. “All Eddy said is that he's worried about Timothy and to ‘keep an eye on him.' ”

“Then that's all you need to know,” Anaximander said.

“How can I judge Timothy's state of mind, if I don't know what happened to him? I need more information.”

“I'll inquire about releasing the information to you.”

In other words, no. “At least tell me who kidnapped him. Was it the Spacers?”

“Yes.” Anaximander hesitated, then said softly, “They held him for six months.”

My gut wrenched in sympathy. Six months was a long, long time to be held among strangers. “What was the holdup?” I asked, but Anaximander only shook his head.

“I really can't tell you any more.”

“Just one more question. Is kidnapping a concern now?”

“Kidnapping is always a concern for the rich,” Anaximander said unhelpfully.

I frowned. “If I were Timothy's mother, I'd be paranoid about it. Surround him with bodyguards.”

“She'd like to,” Anaximander said dryly. “Timothy refused. He wouldn't even accept electronic surveillance. All he has is a panic button.”

Interesting. But I was running late. “Thanks. I'd better hurry back, before Rianne stops saving me a place in line.”

“Who?” Anaximander said.

“Rianne. The black girl in the wheelchair,” I said.

Anaximander's expression didn't change, but I had the oddest idea that it took him a moment to remember Rianne. Was something wrong with one of his Augments?

“Of course.” Anaximander walked away.

I made a face at his back, then hurried back to the food court. Rianne had had to let a few people go ahead of her, so the two of us were the last ones to arrive at the table, but Mike immediately squeezed over to make room for me between him and Dahlia. She grudgingly moved her chair over a bare inch.

I smiled sweetly at her. “So have you guys decided what prize you'll choose if you win? The trip to Mars or the cash?”

“Mars.” “Mars, of course.” Zinnia and Dahlia spoke together.

Dahlia looked as though she'd swallowed a lemon when she realized that she and her sister had actually agreed.

“We—” Zinnia stopped. Bit her lip. Started again. “
I
want to see if the microbes that are being used to reverse the Blight can be adapted to work on Martian soil.”

“And you?” I looked at Rianne.

“I'll take the money.” Rianne was just as positive.

Mike nodded agreement. “The money.”

Timothy looked at Rianne and Mike in dismay. “But the trip to Mars is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”

Rianne wasn't impressed. “So is receiving seventy-five thousand dollars. At least for most of us.”

“What about you?” Zinnia asked me.

“I haven't decided yet,” I said. I didn't need to decide, since Mike and I weren't true finalists. The winner had to be chosen from among the Flower Twins and Rianne. “My head says the money, but my heart says Mars.”

Timothy beamed at me. “Go for it.”

“Maybe I will.” I did want to see Mars. I hoped Eddy kept his word and sent me there on assignment.