And it wasn’t just her muscles that suddenly worked smoothly. Her mind did, too, in efficient autonomous plans that amazed herself. To get to Miranda Sharifi, Theresa needed to start at the last place Miranda had been seen on Earth. That was the Liver compound where people bonded in threes, where Patty and Josh and Mike could never be alone again because they were forced to be with each other. Miranda had been there, leaving a tape explaining the new red syringes. To use the new syringes, you had to be Changed. That’s what Josh had said. So Miranda might have also left more Change syringes there than anywhere else. Or, she might even have come back, or sent somebody else back, to bring more, after the fighting broke out over Change syringes. If bonding was Miranda’s latest plan for people, then surely Miranda would monitor the place (places?) she was testing it. Even Theresa knew that much about how science worked.
On the roof, she blinked in the bright warm sunshine. Her heart speeded up, and her breath caught in her throat. Outside the enclave, the last time she’d tried that she’d blacked out, the panic had been so bad, seizure after seizure…
But Cazie was coming here. If Theresa didn’t leave, she’d have to see Cazie.
Theresa closed her eyes, bent over from the waist to put her head between her knees, and breathed deeply. After a few moments, the panic lessened. Or maybe it didn’t; maybe it just seemed less because facing a camp full of wild, bonded Livers was less scary than facing Cazie Sanders in a rage.
Maybe that was how people made themselves face dangerous things. By running away from things more dangerous.
In the bright sunshine, walking through the roof garden toward the aircars, Theresa whimpered. Then she climbed into the car and retrieved from its memory the district coordinates for the camp of the biochemically bonded Livers, trying to breathe evenly and deeply, trying not to give in to the chemistry of her own mind.
The Livers hadn’t moved camp. Theresa was afraid they might have gone somewhere else—Livers did that—but from the air she could see small human figures moving around in groups of three. How far away could they get from each other before they died? Theresa couldn’t remember the exact distance.
She landed, breathing deeply and evenly, but this time no one came running toward the car. Instead, all the triads immediately vanished into the building and closed the door.
She forced herself to get out of the car and walk toward the building, then around it. Under the plastic tarp of the feeding ground sat three naked people who hadn’t noticed the aircar: two women and a man. When they saw Theresa their faces froze, and then she saw the kind of look she usually only saw in the mirror.
They were afraid. Of her. Like Lizzie’s baby had been afraid. This camp had been infected just like Lizzie’s had.
“Hello? Is Josh here?” Josh had been kind to her, before.
The three people stood, huddled close together, and clutched each other’s hands. In a naked tangle they inched toward the flap of plastic that served as the feeding-ground door. Theresa moved in front of the flap, and they halted.
“I want to speak to Josh. And Patty and Mike.”
The names seemed to reassure at least one of the triad. The older woman took a step forward, still holding both her partners’ hands, and said fearfully, “Do you know Jomp, you?”
Jomp. It took Theresa a minute to realize this was Josh-Mike-Patty. She felt a flicker of distaste.
“Yes. I know Josh, and I’m here to see him. Take me to him, please.”
Despite the pounding in her chest, Theresa marveled at herself. She sounded like Cazie. Well, no, maybe not. But at least like Jackson.
The woman hesitated. She was about thirty, small and fair, with a bony face and short hair as pale as Theresa’s own. “Jomp are inside, them. I’ll go in, me, and get them.”
“You might not come back,” Theresa said. “I’m going with you.”
“No! No, no. You stay here, you.”
Theresa merely stepped aside. The triad squeezed past her. As they left the warmth of the sun-magnified enclosure, their naked skin dimpled and goose-bumped. Theresa watched them pull on the jacks dumped in a pile on a wooden shelf, before she moved closer to the fair-haired woman, who shrunk back.
“It’s all right. I won’t hurt you, any of you. I just… want to see Josh. He’ll remember me.” Would he? “What’s your name?”
“We’re Peranla, us.” It came out in a whisper.
Peranla. Percy-Anne-Laura. Or Pearl-Andy-Lateesha. Or… it didn’t matter.
But it should.
“Peranla, I’m going with you to see Josh.”
The triad stopped moving. Almost they stopped breathing. What if they went into a seizure, like Theresa did when she got too frightened? What would Theresa do then? But they didn’t. After a minute they moved in their huddle past Theresa and broke into a clumsy group run around the corner of the factory. Theresa ran after them.
“Open the door! It’s Peranla, us! Open up!”
The door opened, and Peranla tumbled inside. Theresa, astonished at herself, squeezed in with them.
Her eyes took a minute to accustom themselves to the gloom. Over a hundred people, grouped in threes, staring at her. The triads pulled closer together and looked uneasy, but nobody looked terrified. Even Peranla looked less anxious than they had outside. Of course. When Theresa was at home, with familiar people among familiar things, she was less frightened, too. Safer.
Her heart quickened and her throat tightened around her windpipe. “Is… Josh here? Josh?”
“You better leave, you,” said an old man. Several other people nodded.
“Josh? Jomp?”
He came forward slowly, dragging Patty and Mike by the hand. Mike scowled faintly, but Patty, whom Theresa remembered as a scary bitch, trembled and hid her head in Mike’s shoulder. That calmed Theresa’s breathing.
Maybe being the least scared person in a group was almost the same as not being scared at all.
“Josh, I’m Theresa Aranow. I was here last fall. I brought you clothes and Y-cones. You told me about the bonding here, and… and the red syringes.”
Josh nodded, without meeting her eyes.
“And the holo, Josh. You showed me a holo of Miranda Sharifi. She was explaining the new syringes, the ones that she left with you to cause bonding.”
Mike growled, “It don’t having nothing to do with you.”
“I want to see the holo again, Josh. Please. You’ve all seen it lots of times, haven’t you?”
Josh nodded again. Patty looked up from Mike’s shoulder.
“Well, then,” Theresa said as firmly as she could, “you can see it again. Just like you always do. And I’ll watch, too.”
“Okay,” Josh said. “Everybody, you—it’s Miranda time. We are the life and the blood, us.”
“We are the life and the blood,” the crowd responded raggedly, and Theresa could feel relief running over them, clear as falling water. This was a known routine: comforting, safe. The triads moved and jiggled, settling down in front of an ancient holostage in what Theresa would bet were the same places they always sat. After a minute, she sat beside Josh, nearest to the door.
“On,” Mike said. “Miranda time.”
The holostage sprang to life. A pretty, meaningless swirl of color, and then Miranda appeared, head and shoulders only, the background a plain dark recording booth designed for anonymity. Miranda wore a sleeveless white suit; a red ribbon held back her unruly black hair.
“This is Miranda Sharifi, speaking to you from Selene. You will want to know what this new syringe is. It’s a wonderful new gift, designed especially for you. A gift even better than the Change syringes were. Those set you free biologically, but also led to much isolation when you no longer needed each other for food and survival. It’s not good for man to be alone. So this syringe, this wonderful gift—”