In my dream, we are saying good-bye with our bodies, wrestling with a desperation, warm and uncontrolled. My own heart runs quickly, like legs galloping down a steep bank. Faster and faster. I want it to be real.
My awake body dips lower, and I kiss him, gently at first, then with more strength as he begins to respond. His hand slides around my waist, and I let him pull me closer. The dream and reality are almost in sync. Cy begins to peel off my shirt.
The door to my dream-world room opens abruptly, and Dyl stands there, emaciated and white. Her sundress is torn and the dirty hem drags on the floor of our almost-abandoned apartment.
“We have to go, Zelia.”
Both Zelias stop kissing both Cys.
“We have to go,” she repeats, insistent and commanding.
“Why are you making me choose?” I say in the dream.
“Oh, Zel. There’s no choice. There never was.”
And with that, I’ve jumped off Cy’s bed, my breath caught in my throat. I back away from Cy, who groggily comforts himself by embracing a pillow and falling deeper asleep. I close his door and walk back to the lab in the silence of the phosphorescent-lit hallways. The dream is over. Reality is the only thing I have now, and my task.
Oh, Zel. There’s no choice. There never was.
I know she’s right.
TWO DAYS LEFT.
I change my clothes at dawn after a fast shower. Turns out the dreams don’t come all the time, but in short bursts. If I close my eyes, my eyeballs start whizzing around. It’s disconcerting, so I hardly blink. Then my eyes dry out like rubber balls.
The visits from Dyl keep occurring, interspersed with ones from Dad and Cy, of course. Cy and I have a pretty healthy sex life in my dream world, and the mind-porn during work is really disruptive. It makes Wilbert’s elixir kind of useless during the dream cycles, as I can’t take advantage of all the time gained by using it.
I finish hiding the new clasps and scissors I’ve made just before Cy shows up at nine, freshly scrubbed and wide awake. I don’t have to fake a smile.
“You’re up early,” he remarks.
“Only just. I’m on the fifth batch.” I’m impressed at how easily the lie comes. The truth is that fourteen batches are done. At this rate, I’ll have them finished with a few hours to spare.
“That’s it? Well, we’ll get there, eventually. We’ve got time.” He slurps a coffee and sits in front of his monitors, watching the news.
No, I think. Thirty-nine hours until midnight tomorrow. And meanwhile, Dyl could be getting sicker and sicker every hour that goes by. No one suffers from that knowledge but me.
I snap the fragmenter shut, punch an order in, and check on the cell cultures needed to test the first round. I could test all fourteen, but try to be content with just two for now. If the chromosome makes the telltale infinity sign, then I’ll know the scissors and clasps worked.
Two hours later, I fist-pump in victory.
“What?” Cy comes running over, slipping his hands around my middle. I can’t have him think things are different, so I allow it. My eyelids succumb to gravity for a second, and I memorize the sensation of his hands encircling my waist.
God, I feel like a drug addict taking morphine for a hangnail. It’s okay. I’m not really going back on my promise to Dyl. It is a necessary thing. Well, the necessary thing is kissing my cheek now.
“You haven’t let me kiss you in a while,” he whispers.
“I’ve been busy.” I throw him a bright smile, brushing off his complaint. “Here, look.” I hook up the microscope to the screen that feeds to his desk. He peers at the screen, where there are twenty-two pairs of normal X-shaped chromosomes . . . and a single figure eight.
“It worked?”
“Your confidence in me is astounding.”
“How’s this for confidence?” he says, pulling me into an embrace. I swerve out of his open arms, shaking my head.
“Mm, no. Back to work.” Cy’s disappointment darkens his eyes. The guilt weighs on my shoulders, and I hunch over. “I’m sorry. The sooner I get this done, the sooner I can . . . you know, Marka can get Dyl out of there.” Crap. Cy catches my Freudian slip. He crosses his arms and doesn’t say anything for a long time.
“That reminds me. Marka wants to talk to you.”
“Sure.” I have precious little time, but enough for Marka. I head toward the door and Cy follows me like a shadow.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going with you.”
“You’re guarding me, aren’t you?” My hands rest on my hips. It’s the small girl’s version of fluffing my feathers to look bigger.
“Maybe.”
“I don’t need a sitter. Really. Call Marka in a minute to prove I’m there. And then I’ll come right back.”
Cy leans over for a kiss, and I let him. After what feels like forever—a delicious, forbidden forever—he lets me go.
A few minutes later, I enter Marka’s lab, but it’s empty. The bottled scents still sparkle behind their glass doors, a museum of all things human captured in convenient, travel-sized containers. I wait for Cy to check in, but the room stays silent. I guess he does believe me, which is good. Trust is essential when you’re planning to lie to everyone you know.
Hmm. Where’s Marka? It’s quiet as death in her lab, unlike ours, which constantly buzzes with elderly, arthritic machines.
“Marka?” I call.
“Be there in a minute. I’m on my way,” her voice intones from the walls.
To pass the time, I start reading the handwritten labels on the bottles, stoppered like fragile, expensive scents at the store. The liquid is clear as water.
Love, type 7 (E)
Love, type 8a (E)
Love, type 8b (E)
Lumbar radiculopathy
Lung cancer, small cell
I smirk. She can smell love? There’s actually a number limit on them? I wonder if she’s bottled roses and candy, or something more comforting, like the scent of Cy’s neck. I read on.
Lupus
Lying (E)
Lyme disease
I stare at the bottle titled “Lying.” Oh no. I remember wondering before if she could smell that, but I wasn’t serious. That is not good for me right now.
“Zelia, hi!” Marka rushes in with a swoosh of air.
“You wanted to talk to me?” I shove my hand under my seated butt to keep from fidgeting.
“Yes. I want to know how your work is coming along. If I’m going to try to get Dyl back, we need to make a plan.”
“It’s going. We’re producing the elixir right now, but it’s going to take time to make a complete set.”
“Good.” She smiles warmly. I’m not lying yet, so I don’t mind that she’s so near. I surreptitiously check out the doors. There is one directly behind me, and the one Marka walked in from. A long, polished rectangular window spans the entire wall opposite from the scents. I point at it.
“Hey, does that window open?”
“Huh? Oh, sure. But I don’t ever open the transoms. The scent of Neia drives me crazy. Too much stimulus for my nose.”
Really. Interesting. “Marka, I need to ask you one more time.” She must know what’s coming, because she inhales deeply, probably reading my desperation.
“No. I can’t let you get Dyl yourself. It’s out of the question.”
“But she’s my sister.” I try to keep my voice low and steady, but it’s hard. “It’s only right. Please.”
“Zelia,” she says, clamping her hand on my arm. “Your father made me promise to keep you two safe. I’ve already lost Dylia. I won’t endanger you.”