Now eliminate the threat.
Lux leaped forward, barely registering what she was even doing. She looked down and saw her hands around the girl’s throat. The girl’s eyes were wide. She was trying to breathe but Lux would not let her. She tightened her grip. Eliminate the threat.
But . . . Deep, deep in her mind, Lux whimpered. I am hurting her.
Yes! Eliminate the threat!
She could not stop. The words were too powerful. There was a voice inside her brain that was not her own and it commanded her body. She watched as her hands tightened, tightened, tightened. The girl twisted. Struggled. Made raspy throat noises.
“Lux!”
Jim’s voice was dim and distant.
Her eyes fixed on the girl. She felt a throbbing in her temples and in her wrists. Suddenly she wanted it to stop—all of it—the hurting and the struggling and the voice in her head that kept saying Eliminate the threat eliminate the threat eliminate the threat but she could not turn it off.
“Lux, stop!” Jim yelled.
And she let go.
The voice, the words, eliminate the threat: it shut off and disappeared and the girl threw her aside.
Lux lay in the sand in a sprawl and trembled. Jim was talking to the others; they were running away. She hardly noticed. She stared at her hands and rocked back and forth. Hurts hurts hurts hurts, which did not compute because there was no pain. Then why did she hurt? Her heart hurt and her head hurt and her hands.
What am I?
The thought punched her mind the way her fist had punched the boys, leaving her gasping.
What am I?
I am Vitro beta model—
No. That was not the answer she wanted. She wanted more. She wanted—she wanted—There was no word for it. Her mind was blank. She was missing something so very important but she did not know what it was. She had found that the longer she stared at something, the more she knew about it. She could stare at a tree and know more and more about how it worked—roots below the ground and sunlight on the leaves and it begins with a seed. The ocean held fish and dolphins and microorganisms and it covered 71 percent of the earth’s surface. But when she stared at herself, at her hands, at her sandy legs, at the ends of her hair, nothing came into her mind. She was blank, a wordless being. She could look anywhere around her and know what she saw but when it came to herself . . . She was a hole in the universe.
Suddenly she felt as if there were hands around her throat and she reached up—but there was nothing there. Yet still she felt a panic in her throat, in her chest. She bent over, pressed her forehead against her knees, wrapped her arms around her legs and held them tight.
What am I?
This time, her brain made no reply at all. She sat silent and empty. Listening for words that never came, for an explanation that did not exist. I am I am I am I am . . . Blank.
Hollow.
Empty.
Then at last, slowly, softly, a word bubbled up from the bottom of her mind.
Afraid.
I am afraid.
NINETEEN SOPHIE
Sophie paced the length of her small room with all the restless energy of a cat in a box. She’d been locked up since morning while her mother made excuses for her, telling the others that she was working with Lux one on one, that everything was fine, not to worry. The only person she had seen since was Dr. Hashimoto, who had brought her a light lunch consisting of a sickeningly bland sort of oatmeal that tasted like Elmer’s glue. Was this standard Vitro fare, Sophie wondered—or just some special recipe reserved for those newly awoken from years of slumber? With the exception of Dr. Hashimoto’s lunch delivery, Sophie was under strict orders not to open the door to anyone except Moira, who was off trying to discover what had become of the real Lux. Since there had been no sign of her for several hours, Sophie imagined that her quest had been unsuccessful thus far. The longer she waited, the more Sophie felt like a boiling kettle with no way to release the steam building inside her. She rattled around the room with mounting frustration.
The room was small and simple, like any number of hotel rooms, with a twin bed and a flimsy dresser. Impersonal prints of seashells and beach scenes hung on the wall, perhaps left over from Halcyon Cove’s resort days. It was on a hall of similarly furnished bedrooms occupied by, she reckoned, the Vitros. She heard them and the doctors throughout the day, walking past and talking in low voices. After digging through the dresser, she found a pair of khaki shorts, underclothes, and a white tank top that fit her perfectly. They must have been put there in anticipation of Lux. She couldn’t find any socks, but the small closet produced a pair of brand new white Keds, the sort she’d worn in first grade and which, she remembered with a start, Jim had stolen once and doodled all over with a Sharpie.
She was certain now that he must have left. If the plane were still grounded, wouldn’t he have turned up at some point, looking for a phone or for Sophie? She was surprised at the disappointment she felt at the thought. Though she was glad he was gone and safe, something inside her stretched out its hand, seeking to stop him, bring him back, but it was too late. Why didn’t I bring him with me? Would he have come, if she’d asked? But she knew that the pain she’d have felt if anything had happened to him would far outweigh the loneliness she felt now.
When she was tired of pacing, Sophie flopped onto the bed or stared at the ceiling or hovered at the window; it looked out over a span of grass that ended abruptly in a steep bluff; beyond it lay the endless sea. She was gazing out the window when she heard voices from the hall. These were different than the ones she had been hearing all day—louder, angrier, and younger.
She crept to the door and pressed her ear to it. The voices were unfamiliar. She reached for the doorknob, her fingers hovering over it indecisively. She wanted to see who it was but she didn’t want to give herself away. So she bit her lip and tried to overhear the conversation.
“We’re not telling Nicky anything,” a girl said. “I can handle it. He’s not in charge of us! He thinks he is but he’s not.”
“I’m just saying,” a boy replied, “that he’s gonna want to know what we saw.”
“And what, exactly, did you see?” That was Nicholas. He must have surprised them, because Sophie heard a moment of silence from the others. “Mary, Mary, so contrary,” Nicholas sang. “What don’t you want me to know?”
“We found the pilot,” Mary grumbled.
Sophie pressed a hand to her mouth as her stomach tightened. He’s still on the island? What joy she might have felt at the knowledge that Jim was still nearby paled in comparison to the twinge of alarm in her gut. Why is he still here? What happened?
“And?” Nicholas asked, his voice so low that Sophie barely caught it.
“He has Lux.”
A moment of silence, then, “You don’t say? Well, that explains a lot. Did she wake up?”
“Look at Wyatt’s eye and you tell me.”
“God! She did that? Already?”
“He got the plane into the water somehow. Anyway, he’s stuck until the tide goes down, unless he finds the boat.”
“He won’t find it.”
“Where have you been, Nicky? We looked everywhere for you.”
“Oh, you know. Around. Go on, get out of here. I’ll let you know when I need you.”
“You’re not our boss.”
“Shut up, Mary. Whose plan is this? Whose idea was it? Go.”
Shuffling footsteps told Sophie that they’d gone, but just when she started to turn away from the door, the knob began to turn. She sprang back as the door opened and Nicholas walked in.