The Variables (14 page)

“As Gordy mentioned,” Huck began, “there is a ninth Island yet-to-be-made. It’s in the final stages, but it’s unready for occupants. We would house you at the other Islands until it was time, but so much of our sustainable lifestyle rests in the comfort of knowing we won’t be pushed beyond our limits. We know how hard it is to wait. So, if your name appears on this
next
list, the list for
Copia
, then to supplement for the extra hardship, we will be asking for your input as we complete your housing. We want you to experience the ultimate luxury. Copia will be our crowning achievement.”

The anger subsided and a few people crossed their arms and shook their heads, but most seemed pacified.
 

Huck smiled.

“Yes, you deserve it. Please don’t think your utmost help has gone unnoticed.”

The slide popped on and the names rolled.

Then Lucy put a hand over her mouth and she stared dumbfounded.

There, on the screen, was Grant’s name. Grant Trotter.
 

But it was her father who was unable to hide his disbelief, “No!” he said audibly and then he looked to Grant and then to Lucy and then back to the stage. “That’s not right. How could that be right?”

“Copia?” Grant asked. He looked at Lucy and tried to hide his own shock and doubt. “The luxury island? Well, that can’t be too bad.”

“Can you fix it, dad? Will Huck fix it?” Lucy asked. She made eye contact with Cass, who had gone quiet and pensive. “It shouldn’t be a hard switch. Grant could stay with us, until...”

“Maybe I can request a zoo,” Grant offered weakly and he smiled, but his eyebrows were lifted with concern. “My own little zoo right off my penthouse suite.”

“We’re not together,” Lucy said, turning to Grant. “We’re not together?”

“Hey.” Grant leaned down and kissed the top part of Lucy’s head. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll request to transfer. And there’s travel between the Islands, right? Until we get it sorted out. We’ll make it work. Maybe you can come to Copia
with
me.”

Lucy spun and looked at Cass, but Cass looked perplexed herself. “No transfers,” she said with sympathy. She stepped forward and dropped her voice. “You know how this works, Lucy—”

“That’s ridiculous. Grant is part of my family now. We’re staying together. Someone will have to fix it,” Lucy said. She tried to suppress the panic rising in her voice. She had just got him back; they’d only had a short time together. It was fixable. Hadn’t her father earned that much? “Dad? Dad. Please—”

When her father didn’t answer, she turned. It was only then that she noticed Scott had already taken off toward the stage, walking straight toward Huck, his hands clenched into fists by his side.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ethan sat on the edge of the bed. The prosthetic limb stretched out in front of him, a giant block of plastic and metal. He had no interest in getting up and walking around; his now unusual gait prevented him from feeling like the leg offered him a piece of himself back. Instead, it felt foreign, robotic. He pushed the plastic foot into the floor of the hospital room, and he felt the hydraulics bounce. It was heavy, cumbersome. The doctor had told him that it would take adjustment and therapy, but Ethan hadn’t said a word. Sometimes, especially when his mother came to visit, he wanted to speak; she was so relentless in her attempts to get him to talk. While she hadn’t quite slipped into bribery, he knew it was coming.

He wasn’t doing it to spite them.

There was simply nothing to say.

He had not been entirely lucid when the men arrived, but he relived those ten minutes in snapshots. It was like he was trying to call forth a dream after waking: some things felt so real, other things seemed so strange. First, he could see Doctor Krause’s body falling in a heap beside the couch. One minute she was there, the next minute she was gone. Teddy was crying. And there was smoke. From there, he couldn’t quite recall what happened next. He woke up in an elevator; lights flickered like he was headed into a mineshaft. After that, nothing. Not a glimmer of memory until he awoke from grogginess and realized, with deep anger, that his leg had been violated again.

What could he say?

His friends were gone.

And they had been right all along.

He hung his head and wept for them, like he did so often during the silence of his afternoons—when the doctors and nurses didn’t bother to engage him, and his own mother seemed preoccupied with other tasks. Kicking the prosthetic against the ground, he hoped it would break, but it proved resilient, and Ethan abandoned the effort.

The door creaked open and Ethan sat up. He wiped his tears and composed himself. When he finally turned around, he saw the black girl, the one his sister had brought with her on one of her visits, entering his room. Her hair was in braids and piled on the top of her head; she wore jeans and a bright green shirt that slipped off her shoulders. Ethan’s eyes lingered on her exposed collarbone for a second longer than he wanted them to. Under her arm, she had tucked a book, and when they made eye contact, she smiled and gave him a half-wave. She assessed him and examined his running nose and red eyes, but she didn’t look through him, like the others did. Her eyes were not pleading, not indifferent. Instead, they were intense, focused, determined, and soft. She was not here without a purpose, but she wanted him to know that she did not mean harm.

Cass. He remembered. Cass.

“Bonswa,” she said and took another step inside. “I’m Cassandra. Cass. But you remember me. I know that you are not much for speaking these days, so...don’t worry...you don’t have to say a word.”

Ethan exhaled, unaware that he had been holding his breath.

“Did you hear the alarm? I suppose they didn’t make you go, but you missed quite the show.” She scratched at her hairline and tapped her fingers against her arm. “We’ll all be moving soon. You and me? To Kymberlin. I must admit, I knew I was going there...my father built me my own house. An apartment, really, but it will be mine. That is the reality of my life...isn’t this the time I’m supposed to be exploring life on my own? I’m twenty-two. Ha! Not that much older than you, but here we are, right? My place is lovely, or so I hear. It’s right at the water. When I open my shades, I will look out into the sea hitting my window. I could have had an underwater view, but this felt right. Better. I’d worry too much about the darkness of the deep if I couldn’t see the sky. There’s something about the sea that is quite terrifying, right? Your family will have quite the place, too. Not like here...crowded into a tiny space. No, no. I imagine you will be well cared for once the move occurs.”

She paused. Took several steps forward.

Ethan hadn’t moved, but he watched her. Cass.

“You wonder why I’m here. It’s strange?”

He turned away.

“I brought a book. Charles Baudelaire. Both in English and in French, which is lovely, isn’t it? It’s my father’s book, from his personal collection, and I’ve stolen it. May I sit?” she motioned to a chair in the corner. Ethan looked at the empty chair and then back at Cass. She smiled again and then walked over to the chair and sat.

“I just thought,” Cass continued, “that you’d want some company.”

Ethan looked down at the metal and plastic contraption hooked to his leg. He scooted himself back up on to his bed and then swung the prosthetic upward, where it landed with a plop. He stared at it, so unwieldy, and yet, if he were to cover himself with a blanket, it gave the illusion of wholeness.

“No expectations,” she added. “It’s not that I like to hear myself talk. I don’t, certainly, but...”

Cass stopped and looked at Ethan; he couldn’t tell what she was thinking, what she was trying to convey.

“We could have a signal. If I get too annoying and if you just think I should go. I wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome. So, how about this...if you want me to go, just put your hand on your head like this.” She put her own hand on top of her braids. “Then, if you do that, I’ll just go.”

She paused as if waiting for Ethan to confirm that he would comply. When he didn’t, she just continued on. Sitting back in the chair, she crossed a single leg over her other leg and set the book down in her lap.
 

“Well then. French poetry. I’m so sorry...it was the best I could do. I don’t like Baudelaire, myself. And it’s not because he’s too esoteric or too French, but really, I don’t agree with him. He believed mankind to be evil. Inherently. And I can’t bring myself to believe that yet. Not yet.” Cass paused and opened the book randomly, placing her finger over a poem and humming to herself. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s fine. I don’t see evil...I see sadness, anger, confusion, and...whether you want to believe this or not...good intentions. That doesn’t mean I have to go along with it. You either, for that matter.”

She looked down and examined the chair, then stood up and dragged it across the floor to the bedside.

“Better,” she announced. The green top slid further down her arm; Ethan looked away. She looked at the pages of her book and then started to read in French. Ethan watched her lips read the poem, listened to the sound of the language roll off her tongue. “
Quand notre Coeur a fait une fois sa vendange vivre est un mal. C’est un secret de tous conmu, une douleur très simple et non mystèrieuse et, comme votre joie, èclante pour tous. Cessez doc de chercher, ô belle curieuse. Et, bien que votre voix soit douce, taisez-vous
!”

Cass stopped and put the book in her lap. She looked up at Ethan and laughed, her head rolling backward, her loud roar filled the room. “It’s a joke. You see?”

She picked the book back up again and handed it over to Ethan, getting up off her chair long enough to point out the line she thought was so funny. “It ends with a line that says,
and though your voice is sweet, be still
. Which is funny because you’re not talking, and you’re already quiet and still. You see?”

Ethan handed the book back, but not before scanning the English translation first:
The secret all men know...to live is bad
. An understatement, he thought. Somehow Cass had captured the moment with perfect precision, and he didn’t think for a minute that she had picked that poem randomly. She watched him read the words, and then placed her hand out for the book, but not before she grabbed her shirt and lifted it back up to just below her shoulder.

“Maybe Baudelaire was a bad choice. He’s a bit too impenetrable for me.”

Ethan turned his head away from her. His hand hovered at his side, and he was seconds from putting it on top of his head, just to get her to leave, so he could weep again without an audience. She was trying too hard to get through to him, but he didn’t want to reward her.

“Let’s try this poem instead,” Cass said in a low voice, and she opened the book to a different page. Instead of reading it, she set the book down next to the bed, and then took Ethan’s hand and placed it on the open page. He wanted to pull away from the warmth of her touch; it was the first time in weeks someone had touched him with tenderness, not poking and prodding and taking his blood pressure. His mind went to Ainsley. Then his next thought was of Doctor Krause’s body and the smoke and the crying. He could not disconnect his memory from playing the disjointed scenes in a loop. Thinking of Ainsley had triggered it all and he pushed his eyes closed.

But Cass’s hand stayed on his hand, lingering. So, he looked down and took the book.

Taped over the page was a note.

Without reading it, he looked up at his visitor, whose face stayed still.

“Take your time,” she instructed.

Ethan looked back down at the handwriting. He read it slowly.

It read: “
If you care and love Teddy, then you need to fight for him. By the end of the day he will be in Blair’s care. More later, when I can. Enchantè.
”

He looked at Cass when he was done. She leaned over the bed and took the book from him.

“I see that poetry was a poor decision altogether. Next time, I’ll try to find something more engaging. A spy novel? What is it that you read?” she paused, as if he would answer her. “This is a touch embarrassing, but can I use your toilet? My pod isn’t far, but I have to make a stop on the way...may I?” She rose and pushed the chair back to its original spot and then waltzed, without waiting for an answer, into his private bathroom. The door shut and locked behind her; he heard her singing to herself, a deep hum.

He couldn’t help finding her beautiful. And mysterious. At one point in his life that might have meant something, but it was no use. He could no longer recall Anna’s face with clarity. They were going to get married, he was certain of that. His parents were married before they had finished college; of course, while no one ever talked about it, he was there, too—his mother’s burgeoning stomach unable to hide beneath the empire waist of her white wedding dress. He had grown up with the knowledge that the timing of his arrival made life and early marriage a bit harder, but that didn’t mean it was a mistake. His parents were young, full of life, and they loved each other. That’s all he had ever really wanted. People judged him for his romantic notions, but Ethan knew his heart. Whether or not Anna was his soulmate was never a question; Anna gave him everything and he, in return, gave her everything. That was how he defined marriage; theirs would have been a good partnership.

Ainsley was an act of hopefulness; a bet on the possibility of a happy future.
 

And maybe Cass had touched his hand with affection and asked him to trust her, so something stirred within Ethan, but there was still a voice of warning that reminded him that he was a stranger here, and while he may have been rescued, he was an enemy.

It was futile to dream of a future.

Cass’s message was ominous.

He felt a twinge of resentment. Had she come in here and brought any other message, she would have been easy to ignore, but she had come with news of Teddy. He felt responsible for Teddy and connected to him; Teddy was the only thing tethering him to this world, and somehow Cass knew that, intuitively.