Vagabond (17 page)

Ono grinned at the name. I smiled too. It hadn’t taken us long to get an inside joke.
 

 
Gray leaned against the wall a few feet from us, and we could feel the rumble of the train on our backs. It was soothing, like the way a mother pats the back of a crying baby. “You two been traveling together long?” he prodded.
 

“A ways,” I answered in true Track-fashion.
 

“We’re close to the 88
^th
.”
 

“I know,” I said. There was a bridge not far off I planned on camping at before going into the Colony for more supplies. I’d been this way a few times already, and I loved this part of the country. Lakes and rivers and so many hiding places. I had daydreams of staying near the 88
^th
year round, but Xavi had always gotten itchy-feet, and we would move on before I was ready. My favorite lake was here, and after I got some more supplies, it’d be a good enough place as any to rest for a bit before continuing west. It was a spot that would remind me of Xavi’s kiss and Polo’s death, but I needed to say goodbye.
 

“Cool. Just spent the summer in the east. There was a few of us, but we all wanted to check out different parts for the winter. I’ve only been on my own for a week now. Are you looking for a partner?” he asked.
 

The question was so intrusive that it threw me off. He wasn’t asking because he was interested. He just wanted to see my reaction. It was a test, but it was one I failed when I laughed nervously. “No.Thanks though.”
 

Ono picked up on the meaning and turned red as he figured out the ‘between the lines’ questions within the actual words. He took a deep breath, reached down, and grabbed my hand. His fingers laced into mine and closed mine in his so that our knuckles looked like knots on a shoelace, layered in a line. I knew he was remembering his friend who held hands with a girl, and terror must have been ripping through him. I wanted to remind him that he was just playing a part to help me out. He wanted to protect me, which was sweet in its own way. I had to refuse my knee-jerk reaction of pulling my hand away. I didn’t need him, but it was a smart move. It’d save me from having to shut down any unwanted advance from Gray latter. It also explained away the blushes. His hand was big and dwarfed mine in its caverns. There weren’t many calluses yet— just dirt. The smoothness was different from Xavi’s. Where Xavi’s hands were all about textures, Ono’s were all about ease. His grip relaxed when I didn’t pull away, and his fingers explored the contours of my skin. There was a sweetness about the entire thing, and I nearly missed the fact that it held none of the sour. Unlike Xavi, Ono was not about contradictions.

Celeste absently braided a few dreads together. “A Claiming? It’s an interesting and useful thing. Traveling with a boy can be a great asset. If they grab your hand or touch your shoulder in front of new people, it lets the others know you’re not up for grabs.”
 

“Huh?”

“Do you not notice how Xavi always grazes your shoulders every time we meet new people? It’s a signal, silly girl. Do you not wonder why no one has hit on you yet?”
 

“That’s preposterous. He’s just warning me to shut up. I always say the wrong thing— what? It’s not funn—“
 

 
But Celeste found it nothing but funny. “It’s why I was so surprised to hear you both never… you know. He treats you like you belong to him, but he never uses you like you do.”
 

“Celeste!”

My expression only made her laugh louder until she was tired of watching my cheeks grow into unnatural shades of red. When she finally sobered, she frowned. “In a way, it’s unfair to you. You should be able to make any connection you want out here, rather than let him string you along. He won’t let himself have you, but he won’t let anyone else either.”
 

“I don’t want anyone,” I growled. I didn’t. What she was talking about was so wrong and dangerous.
 

“I see. You sure about that?”
 

I glared.
 

“Well, at least it protects you. Maybe that’s why he does it. Still doesn’t make sense that he’d ignore me now that I’m not a threat though. I’m awesome.”
 

Gray had gone to the back of the train to “take care of some business.” Boys had it so easy sometimes.
 

The hours had passed, and Gray was a pretty interesting character. For the first time, I didn’t have Xavi in front of the questions, volleying them back in true Vagabond form. I held my own, and I think I came across as someone knowledgeable of the Ways.

I shook my hand out of Ono’s and laughed. Our palms were sweaty to the point of uncomfortable. “Thanks for that.” I smiled. “It saved me from all kinds of work later.”
 

“Huh?”
 

“By the way, if you’re looking for Rebels, it may be good for you to hook up with Gray.”

“What?”

Ono looked unnaturally confused, and I frowned. “You’re looking for Rebels, right? The Revolution?”
 

“This boy?”

“Yes.”
 

“How do you know?”

“My bared teeth are broken chains. He was testing us for information.”

Flea’s eyebrows burrowed in on each other. “How do you know this?”
 

“I’m not a Rebel, for the last time. But I know this is the entrance. There’s more to it, but I don’t know it.”
 

“My bared teeth are broken chains? What does it mean, anyways? It’s a pretty weird chant, if you ask me.” I said.
 

“I can only guess,” Xavi replied.
 

“What have you guessed?”

He skipped a stone over the water. He did this often when he was stumped, or bored, or contemplative. “It’s a riddle. If you’re good with words, you figure it out. The Revolution only wants Rebels smart enough to figure it out. I’ve played with the words a bit out of curiosity but haven’t made much of it.”
 

“So. Connotations? Denotations? That’s how we find the answer?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, smarty pants.”

I loved riddles, and I loved analyzing linguistics. It reminded me of analyzing genetic sequencing codes in my lab. “Bared teeth,” I mumbled. “Bared. Like an animal bares its teeth?”

Xavi’s eyes grew wide. “I didn’t think of that one. I was thinking of Bars, like being kept behind bars.”
 

I thought about that. Sometimes, when it came out before executions, depending on the accent, it sounded like ‘barred teeth.’ Maybe it was a little of both. “A caged animal. You only need to cage it, if it’s a danger. You only fear it, if its a danger.” I tried to skip a rock too, but I still hadn’t learned the trick to it. It only plunked into a small, pathetic splash.
 

“Find a flatter stone,” Xavi corrected. He’d shown me how to throw level rather than arched, even though it went against every instinct I had about throwing things. I reached into the water and let my hands search for another pebble. I pulled up a handful and examined the ones that came up.
 

“Maybe they’re saying, ‘Even caged animals are something to fear?’ Or ‘’Citizens should fight against the cages they’re in.’”
 

Xavi laughed. “You’re too smart for your own good. Word games were never my strong suit. It’s one of the things I hate about the Tracks. People can never just say what they mean.”
 

I found a flat, purple-brown stone and positioned it between my forefinger and thumb. “The ‘broken chains,’ makes sense. Living life out here is breaking the Republic’s chains. Every day out here, we have to grow comfortable with breaking the things that hold the Republic together. We uncage ourselves a little bit with each new thing we learn. We have to bare our teeth to do it… get back to our animalistic roots and trust instinct over the science of people.” I threw the rock. It didn’t skip, but my heart skipped enough for every rock I held in my hand.
 

Xavi threw again, and five hops came before the plunk. He threw another after. It chased along the water in an attempt to catch the previous one. “Wow. Poetic. I hate poetry.”
 

I laughed. In Literature classes, I was always able to figure out the mysteries of poetry. It was its own kind of math. Words always added up to mean more than what they said. Implied weights made words heavy or light, and the connotations gave each line a million definitions. It allowed sentence fragments and stanzas to tell a million different stories in one small way. When I’d see a poem, I saw similarities with DNA in all of its tiny power. The way phosphates, sugars, and nitrogen created the nucleotides, and the way the nucleotides created the strands. I could see a million different stories in those small words. How people got blue eyes or bulbous toes. So much of science is reading between, past, over, and around these lines to question the stories we thought we knew.
 

Poetry. That was just good practice. I told Xavi this. “It makes sense for the Rebels. You have to earn the answers, like you have to earn their trust?” I threw the next pebble. It skipped twice, and I grinned.
 

“I have no clue what it means,” I lied. No good could come out of me sharing. He wouldn’t understand it until he had more time on the Tracks anyways.
 

There were expressions racing across Ono’s face that I couldn’t decipher. He had a choice to make, but, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why it was a difficult one for him. Gray was who he was looking for.
 

“So. This’ll be goodbye, then,” I said. It surprised me to find a little bit of sadness at the thought. Ono—Flea was growing on me.
 

“Goodbye?”

I nodded. “I’m getting off in about an hour. There’s this bridge I like to camp at, and I need some more supplies.”
 

“A bridge?” Questions. They were everywhere on his face. I couldn’t understand why the idea of going our separate ways could be so confusing to him.
 

I nodded again as Gray returned.
 
“Whew! This weather is amazing. I love this time of the year.”
 

I smiled. “I know.”

“So, want to play the Roll Call?” Gray grinned.
 

“Yup!”
 

“You first?”

“Celeste.”
 

Gray laughed. “You know Celeste?”
 

“Yeah. Have you run into her?”

He shook his head, and dirty brown hair littered his eyebrows. “Haven’t seen her all year, but I’ll pass along a message if I do.”

“Tell her I stole a water-filter. Distracted a clerk enough that he didn’t even see us take it right in front of him! Tell her thank you for the ‘Way.’ Won’t know me as Knucs though. Tell her N. Tell her the girl she taught to surf.”
 

“Surf, huh? You any good?”

“I can hang.” And I could. I could walk and run and dance on the top of the fastest moving train out there. I could, now at least.
 

 
He reached into his pack to pull out some jerky.
 
“If you see her first, tell her Gray has a secret. Have you run into anyone named Muna? She goes by Yuck, too.”
 

“Sorry. Doesn’t ring a bell.” Roll Call was a hard game to play. People changed their names so often out on the Tracks, that I never knew for certain if I actually did run into someone or not. The more names you had on someone, the more likely you’d figure out how they were doing. I didn’t recognize the names he gave though. “Have you run into a Xavi?”
 

“Nope.” His jaw did a jerk-stop motion as he gnawed on his jerky. I tried not to let that answer hurt my heart, but it did. I wanted to— no, needed to— know if he was alive still. “A boy named M.P.?”
 

“No. Haven’t run across an M.P.” The game continued until it got old, and we moved to a different topic. The topic of what was next. The segue was there. The moment had come. I had to let my new friend go. “Flea and I are about to part ways. Mind if he joins you?”
 

Aeschylus hovered the rodent over the entrance of the water maze. “Trial twelve. Mark it, Nikomedes.”
 

I typed the trial into the proper box.
 

“Generation from Sector A?” he asked.
 

“Nine. Subject A-5425”

“Generation from Sector B?”

“Nine. Subject B-5425.” I grinned. I knew my sector had this. My mice were outperforming Aeschylus’ in everything. Between the slight modifications on their DNA and their genetic pairings, mine were becoming stronger, faster, and smarter than his. I tried not to pat myself on the back too much, but I could nearly see myself wearing the shiny white robes of the G.E.G.
 

“Attempt with the same test group?”

“Twelve.”
 

“Genetic test?”

“NPTN. Neuroplastin.”

“Breeding path?”
 

“NPTN fifteen.”
 

“Layman’s term?”

I laughed. “Intelligence test.”
 

We had a shorthand way of talking in the lab. In three years, he moved me along from plants and animals to theoretical human experiments in the simulators. I ended up having a knack for selective breeding. Sector B even had fewer naturally occurring mutations than the sectors the other students were working with.
 

“Control?”
 

“Subject C-5425. Ready to release.” I always felt bad for the control mice. They lived their entire existence with haphazard breeding. Every once in a while, a mutation naturally occurred, but even those had a way of being detrimental.