“Hello, Zelia. How are you this morning?” Marka asks, her eyebrows furrowing over my disproportionately oversized shirt.
“Do you want the long or the short answer?”
“That good, huh?” she says, her face full of concern. “We all missed you at breakfast—”
Hex clutches the ball. “There was breakfast? At a table? Since when?”
“Hexus,” Marka warns, and Hex holds up three hands in apology, while the other tosses the ball. “Anyway, I figured you needed to sleep in. Vera, give her some tea.” Vera reluctantly hands me a steaming mug.
“Would it be okay if I tinker around in one of the labs?” I ask. “You know. For my education and all.”
Marka watches me for a moment. Or perhaps smells me? Her face breaks into a gentle smile.
“Of course. Ask Cy, he’ll tell you what you need to know.” She goes to the door, then turns around. “I’ll find you at dinnertime. We have lots to talk about.”
“Okay, sure.” I watch her leave, hesitating. Should I ask her about the millions of weird things I’ve seen since I got here? Then I remember Q’s words. Trust no one.
My stomach suddenly pitches a grumble so loud that Hex makes a face.
“Feed that girl, will ya?” he barks at Vera.
“Shut your piehole, insect,” Vera says, putting the plate of food between us. It’s got a bunch of green-brown squares that smell grassy but sweet. Maybe she’s trying to poison me, but I can’t work on Dyl’s DNA if I pass out from hypoglycemia. I pick up a square. It’s this or Wilbert’s spittle-blueberry bread.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Parsmint brownie,” Vera replies. She ignores everyone, trying to read the e-tablet on her lap. Twice, Hex’s basketball bounces precariously close to her head. Oddly, the ball never gets close to me or Wilbert. The third time, she swats at it viciously. “If that ball gets close to me again, I will injure all your balls beyond recognition!”
Hex crosses his leg and purses his lips. Wilbert laughs but stops when Vera stares back. Oooh-kay. Happy that I’m not the source of her anger, I take a delicate nibble of the brownie. Vera flicks her eyes toward me as I chew. It’s herby and fibrous and tastes like something far too healthy for me. A honey and orange blossom flavor finishes it off.
“Wow. This is good,” I say, taking a huge bite. Vera doesn’t reply, but for the first time, the hostile expression on her face melts away a tiny bit. I wash the brownie down with the tea, which tastes a bit like mushrooms. I don’t care, I’m so thirsty.
Cy’s done with his climbing, but he doesn’t leave. He spends a lot of time mopping his head. Hex stops playing to pick up a brownie. He takes a bite and tosses the uneaten bits on the plate. “Ugh. Another dirt-delight.”
“Oh. You’re vegetarian?” I ask her.
“That means she’s like a cannibal, right?” Wilbert snickers.
“Shut up, Wilbert.” Vera’s cheeks turn brown. I guess that’s what happens when green people blush.
“We’re all cannibals, in theory,” I say, still chewing.
“How’s that?” Cy asks, holding his towel. When I look him in the face, I forget what I was saying. The lip ring is gone and replaced by a set of studs piercing his cheeks. His tattoos have all changed. They’re bright and distinct again, but this time there are fork-tailed demons over his arms, in a deep navy color. No tattoos on his face. How can that be? Is it just painted on? As he steps forward, I realize it can’t be paint. His shirt is sweat-soaked and clinging to his chest and broad, angular shoulders, and none of his wet skin is dissolving the designs. He asks again, “How are we like cannibals?”
“Well.” I clear my throat. “If you think about it, all the molecules in the world are constantly being recycled. What our bodies get rid of eventually ends up in the air, in the food we eat. We eat each other in one way or another.”
Hex hoots. “That’s totally disgusting. So you’re saying I could be ingesting Wilbert’s toenail clippings?”
Vera gathers herself and leans toward me, but stares down Hex. “Ignore him. Our brother Sex is out of it, most of the time.” She grins, a white set of perfect teeth almost fluorescent against her green lips.
“Don’t call me that,” Hex growls.
“Why not? It’s anatomically correct.” She gesticulates dramatically to accentuate her words. “You see, the number six is written as hex in Greek, or sex in Latin. However, neither word takes into account that he’s a virgin.”
“VERA!” All four of Hex’s biceps bulge out, ready to hit something, as Wilbert guffaws on the side. Okay, I need to get out of here. I push off the floor and keep an arm protectively around Dyl’s purse. Cy heads for the door at the same time I do. I step right up to him, but he doesn’t acknowledge my close proximity.
“Hey,” I say. He opens the door to leave. “HEY!” I roar. Wow. I’m impressed with the volume of my own yelling.
“What?”
“I need to see your lab here.”
“What for?” Again he gives me this look. The one that tells me I’m not special, I’ve got no trait, so I’ve nothing worth researching. Basically, not worth his time.
I don’t want to share this project with Cy. But I need him. Based on the subjects that holo-Dad taught him, he’s the only one with a clue about what I need. He waits for my answer, but when it doesn’t come, he makes to leave again.
“Okay, okay!” I yell, then drop my voice. “I want to find out what my sister’s trait is.”
“You got a sample?” he says. I try to ignore the fact that he’s staring at my chest now, his eyes narrowing.
“Yes. Can we go now?”
“Is that . . . my shirt?”
“There’s nothing else I could wear,” I explain. Cy turns around to glare at Vera, who’s still in a fight with Hex. They’re a blur of gesturing green and muscled arms.
“That’s my shirt,” he says again, as if this stupid garment is the end-all and be-all of everything important in the world.
If this is what stands between me and helping my sister, then so be it. I drop Dyl’s purse to the ground, yank the shirt over my head, ball it up, and launch it straight at Cy’s face. I’m so angry that I hardly care that I’m showing so much skin in public.
“Here’s your damn shirt. Now can we please go to the lab?” As I turn to walk out the door in my black bra, I pretend not to notice Vera’s irritated face, Hex’s and Wilbert’s open mouths, and Cy’s untattooed and distinctly red cheeks.
CHAPTER 9
OUTSIDE THE HOLOREC ROOM, CY TOUCHES my arm softly. I’m expecting a grab, or even a pinch. I’m surprised.
“Here, take it.” He hands his shirt back to me, which is now damp from his sweat and smeared with chalk. He’s making a clear effort to keep his eyes away from my body, as if he actually wants to see me in my underwear, but is being polite.
Before he changes his mind, I yank it over my head.
Cy leads the way up a few floors to a corridor I definitely haven’t seen before. It’s all cement floors and walls, with industrial metal and plastiglass doors. At the first one, he steps aside so I can enter. It’s the most polite thing he’s done since I got here.
The lab is big, twice as huge as Marka’s. Several machines hum near the door and a few solutions mix by themselves under the hoods. The faint scent of chemicals, ether and xylene, linger in the air and welcome me. I take a few steps in and my eyes flutter shut in bliss for a moment.
This place—it speaks a language I know by heart. The chemicals, the black tables, the vented hoods and boxes of lint-free, industrial-grade tissues . . . I feel more at home than I have since I stepped into Carus. Cy walks ahead of me and crosses his arms, waiting for a judgment. I can see why. The machines look—I hate to admit it—really, really old-fashioned, like from movies in the twentieth century. It’s so far from the contemporary labs I’m used to working in. My initial happiness deflates a little. They have state-of-the-art security systems and these lab dinosaurs in the same house?