This feeling is the opposite of what a Gelet’s touch does to me: I feel crushed by the reality of my own body, my own surroundings, my own mistakes.
“I would have died to avenge you, and you’re still at the center of my world, but you won’t fucking believe in me,” Bianca says.
“You and Sophie are like a single soul in two bodies,” Mouth is saying to Bianca. “I’ve seen how much you care about each other. Don’t let it go like this. Just work it out. We can find another way.”
I still can’t look at Bianca. I close my eyes, and instead I see an assault vehicle with empty weapon ports.
“There is no other way,” Bianca says. “We’re doomed if these two cities don’t start working together. The sky only just pissed alkali a short while ago, remember, and the southern root gardens and orchards are ruined. Argelo is running out of food and clean water, and meanwhile Xiosphant is a collection of ancient machines that can’t go much longer. This is a harsh, ugly planet, and we need to pool our resources or we all starve in our own filth.”
Alyssa shrugs and says to Mouth, “Can’t really argue with any of her logic. Those fucking complacent Xiosphanti need something to wake them up, make them care about the rest of us. Remember when we thought we were going to be stuck there for the rest of our lives? Ugh.”
I feel Bianca’s hands on my arms, smell the warm yeasty liquor on her breath. “Sophie, I need you. I can’t face any of this without you. Everything we used to talk about after curfew, all of the dreams we had, we can make all of it real. When the two of us are united, nothing can stop us. Please look at me. Sophie, please.”
I look, just in time to see tears streaking the metallic paint around Bianca’s eyes, illuminating the lines on her face. I want to put my arms around her, but I’m still deadlocked.
“Sophie has an amazing gift,” Mouth says. “Something that nearly killed me when I tried to do it. She can touch something that maybe nobody else has ever touched. And you’re forcing her to use it for destruction.”
“For liberation,” Bianca says through a wet curtain. “I want to save everyone in Xiosphant from the prison of endless repetition.”
“But Sophie doesn’t want—” Mouth starts to say.
“Everybody shut up, just shut up, shut up and let me talk. I’m sick of all your stupid voices. Just stop talking, stop talking, shut your faces.” The words come out of me in one breath, in a low, guttural rush.
Alyssa, Mouth, and Bianca all stare at me. The night wind rustles through the twine-wrapped bundles of rubbish.
“I never wanted to give up on you,” I say to Bianca in Xiosphanti. “All I ever wanted was to keep following you around and seeing each new thing through your eyes. But I can’t stand to watch you chasing power, or revenge, or whatever it is that you think you crave. You cannot force me to be your tool of conquest, as if I’m the last section of ablative shielding for one of those war machines. And if you insist on trying, then maybe you were right before, and our friendship belongs in the past.”
I pause to draw a toxic breath, the gears of my anger still scraping. And then, I realize. When I spoke Xiosphanti just now, I identified myself as a student, same as always—but I labeled Bianca an aristocrat, my social better. And I used the formal syntax, as if addressing a stranger.
Bianca realizes this the same time as I do, and her face collapses under its coating of reflective paint.
“I’ve screwed everything up,” Bianca says when she can talk again. “But I can still get it right.”
Mouth touches my arm. I almost forgot she and Alyssa were here. “If Bianca was telling the truth and nobody else knows what we’re doing, then we have a narrow window to get you out of town before everything explodes. She’ll be missed long before we will.”
I pull away from Bianca. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Mouth looks at Alyssa.
“Well, of course I’m going to help you, you fuckhead,” Alyssa groans. “It’s not like I was getting used to my life not being a giant nest of fetid swamp dogs or anything.”
I’m turning to leave and searching for a way to thank Alyssa and Mouth for the risk they’re taking on my behalf, when Bianca speaks.
“Please don’t leave me. Please, I can’t lose you again.” Bianca’s voice sounds almost the same as when the police were dragging me away from the Zone House. “Please. I know that I’m selfish, but you make me better, and after everything we’ve been through we share a bond, you and me, and it goes way beyond any simple college friendship. Sophie, please. I get it, you’re scared to go home, but it’ll be okay, I won’t let anything hurt you ever again. You’ll be a hero. Sophie! Don’t walk away from me.”
I almost walk into a wall of placards, but Alyssa steers me.
Mouth is already muttering to Alyssa about the best routes out of town, the easiest way to vanish. I concentrate on trudging.
And then, from somewhere behind me, Bianca says, “I love you.”
All of the strength leaves me and I fall, and Alyssa barely catches my limp body as my eyes wash out. My face feels hot and Alyssa’s shoulder smells like soaked-in sweat. Alyssa lays a hand beneath my nape, gingerly, and lets me rest on her as I tremble and spasm. The hurt I’ve crammed inside every joint and sinew for too long rushes to the surface, and my anger falls away, and I can’t hold any of this inside anymore. Nobody speaks, as my jag goes on and on, and I can’t think past the words I just heard Bianca speak, I can’t stand this hope.
Alyssa’s stiff denim shirt is soaked and she supports me, both arms now, without offering any false reassurance.
At last I pull myself upright. “I can’t leave her. I just can’t.”
“Oh.” Mouth bites her lip, then shrugs with her head slung forward.
Paint runs down Bianca’s cheeks in uneven lines, but she’s giving me the smile that used to make me want to dance on my bunk at the Gymnasium. “Thank you,” she says. “I’ll be by your side the whole time, I promise.” She pulls me close, and soon I’m crying in her arms instead of Alyssa’s.
My tears mingle with Bianca’s, and I realize the two of us have never cried at the same time before. I’m convulsing and clutching at Bianca, trying to pull her closer and also push her away, and my heart is a dented bell, and the junkyard shrinks in on us, and I hold on tight to her declaration of love, as if it could save me from all of the horrors that lie ahead.
PART
FIVE
SOPHIE
The viewports inside the Command Vehicle darken, then grow opaque as a dense layer of ice covers them. Even with warm air streaming into the passenger section through tiny vents, the walls turn frigid to the touch, and my fingers get numb. All around me, seasoned killers in dark padded uniforms whimper, Let me out I’m so cold I want to go home we’re all going to die out here we’re going to die. Every time our gravity-assist treads stumble over another sharp downgrade, we lurch, and the entire capsule screams. “Everybody shut up,” snaps Nai, an elegant older woman who’s the leader of the Perfectionists. “You all sound like children.” I can’t see anyone’s face behind their protective faceplate, which makes their wailing seem disembodied—as though delirium has settled upon us like a mist. My armpits chafe and my chest constricts, and I’m caught in my worst terror: strapped down in a tiny enclosed space, surrounded by a whole platoon wearing dark combat gear and helmets, being dragged into the night. Except that this time, I could have escaped. I had a choice, I could have said no. The moans grow louder as the Command Vehicle struggles to stay upright and move forward.