Quicksilver

  Then he walked out.

  Alison and I traded glances. “I don’t get it,” I said. “Why would GeneSystem hire Deckard to hunt me down and then call him off as soon as he succeeded? What kind of game are they playing?”

  “I don’t think it’s a game,” she replied, looking troubled. “I can’t taste lies as well as I used to, but I know that wasn’t one. Or at least he believed he was telling the truth when he said it.”

  So either Deckard had found the answers he’d been looking for and GeneSystem had decided they weren’t interested in studying my weird biology after all—both of which seemed unlikely to say the least—or someone had convinced them to leave me alone. Someone who was either powerful and threatening enough to scare them away or who could offer them something they wanted even more than they wanted me…

  Just rest, murmured Mom’s voice in my memory. Your friend Sebastian said he’d look after everything.

  I sat up, clutching the arm of the chair. “Alison,” I said. “I need to use your phone.”

  Phase III

  I texted badly, my left thumb clumsy on the keypad.

  Don’t you dare leave without saying good-bye. Get up here and talk to me right now. I’m in Room 408.

  But as usual, Sebastian didn’t answer. And as I watched Alison gazing ruefully at the curled-up MAKE Magazine on her lap, I wondered if Deckard had warned him that she was here. Should I tell her what I’d guessed about the deal Sebastian had made with GeneSystem? Or would it only cause her more pain?

  “I’m sorry,” I said finally, giving back the phone. “I guess he’s gone.”

  Alison took it silently and put it in her purse. Her eyes were dry, but I’d never seen anyone look so sad.

  “Thanks for the magazine,” I ventured after a minute. “Or the paper telescope. Whatever.”

  She gave a sheepish smile. “I don’t like hospitals. Sorry.” She touched the crumpled magazine. “I’ll get you a new one.”

  Sunlight filtered through the windows behind her, and dust motes glimmered in a reddish halo around her head. Saint Alison of the Perpetual Disappointment, pray for us. “You don’t owe me anything,” I said. “You’ve already done more than I had any right to ask. If my plan hadn’t worked…”

  I didn’t need to finish the sentence, because we both knew what would have happened. At best, Alison would have suffered through two or three weeks of hellish sensory overload, fighting for her sanity every second. At worst, Mathis would have beamed her through the wormhole right after me.

  “Let’s not even think about that,” Alison said. “It’s bad enough that it did work.” She looked out the window and added, “That’s probably how Faraday feels about it too.”

  “That explains why he might not want to see me,” I said. Though it hardly excused him, in my opinion. If I could deal with losing my arm, there was no reason he couldn’t get over being the one who’d cut it off. “It doesn’t explain him avoiding you.”

  “No?” She raised her teacup, hiding her expression. “Well, maybe not.”

  We sat together quietly for a few minutes, finishing our drinks. Then my bladder twinged a protest, so I struggled to my feet. “Back in a sec,” I said and pushed my IV stand out into the hallway.

  And there was Sebastian, leaning against the wall outside my room with his arms folded and his long legs crossed at the ankles. As though he’d been waiting for a while.

  “Hey,” I said, and he glanced at me in surprise.

  “I thought you were in the washroom,” he said.

  “No, the lounge.” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “I’m doing a washroom run now, but it won’t take long. Why don’t you sit down and make yourself uncomfortable?”

  His mouth twisted ruefully, but he didn’t protest. He stepped around me, heading down the corridor and into the room beyond.

  I listened for the intake of breath, the sudden stop—but it never came. And when I peered into the lounge, I saw Sebastian pull out the chair I’d vacated and sit down across from Alison, folding his hands deliberately on the table between them. As though he’d known she’d be there all along.

  Well, of course he had. I’d texted him using Alison’s phone.

  I could still use a washroom, but it wasn’t unbearable yet. Carefully I lifted my IV stand off the tile so it wouldn’t squeak. Then I backed against the wall and listened.

  “Deckard was here a few minutes ago,” said Alison. She sounded calm—a lot calmer than I would have been in her place. “Did you know?”

  He couldn’t lie to her, so he didn’t try. “Yes.”

  “I thought so.” The chair creaked as she shifted position. “How did you get him to drop the case?”

  “Does it matter? The important thing is that he did.”

  “Yes, but he wasn’t only looking for Tori, was he? He was searching for you as well. The Sudbury police—”

  “The charges are minor,” said Sebastian, “and easily settled. I’m not worried.”

  Alison was silent. Then she said, “You haven’t asked me to forgive you.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t think I can?”

  “I don’t think you should.”

  “Why not? Do you think I don’t understand why you did it? Do you think I believe you ever wanted to hurt me, or Tori either?”

  “That’s irrelevant.” Sebastian sounded tired. “Whatever my intentions, my actions were unforgivable. I betrayed your trust and hers, and you both paid a terrible price.” The chair made a scraping noise as he pushed it back. I risked a glance around the corner, in case he was getting up to leave—but no, he’d walked to the window instead.

  “I thought you’d be happier not knowing I’d come back, or that you were in danger,” Sebastian continued, his eyes on the traffic. “I thought I could handle Mathis on my own, or at least with some help from Tori. I was wrong.”

  Alison made a pitying noise. “You should taste what you sound like. All purple and bitter, like old-fashioned cocoa. All right, you made a mistake. Call it a sin, even, if mistake isn’t a strong enough word. But if you hadn’t put that chip in Tori’s arm, she wouldn’t be here now. The relay would just have kept scanning until it found her, and then it would have beamed her back to Mathis. All of her.”

  “We don’t know that for certain. There might have been a better solution, if I’d had the wits to think of it. And I should never have pretended to cooperate with Mathis in the first place. If I’d stood up to him, maybe even killed him—”

  “Don’t.” She got up and moved to his side. “You’re not a murderer. And you did the best you could at the time. Not necessarily the best thing of all, but either way, it’s done. And Tori’s forgiven you, so don’t try to tell me I can’t.”

  “Alison—”

  “No, you listen. You told me back at Pine Hills that I wasn’t crazy, and on the station you told me I was stronger than I gave myself credit for. You believed in me, when I’d lost all faith in myself. Well … I believe in you now.”

  Sebastian said nothing.

  “I’m not blind, Faraday.” Her voice was quiet but firm. “I know you’re not perfect. I knew that even before all this happened.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “But I also know that you love me. And that’s why you’ve been trying so hard to push me away.”

  He stepped sideways, out of her reach. “I have nothing to offer you, Alison,” he said. “Every bad thing that’s happened to you in the past ten months is my fault. If I hadn’t asked Mathis to send me to Earth the first time—”

  “Faraday, you were barely thirteen, and you had no idea what was going to happen! How can you blame yourself for that?”

  “I wasn’t that young when I met you. I was old enough to pose as a graduate student. Old enough to know better than to use you the way I did.”

  Alison threw up her hands, and I ducked out of sight as she paced back to the table and tossed her empty cup into the bin. “Fine. I give up. Be miserable and lonely, if that’s wha
t you think you deserve. But it’s not going to make Tori’s arm better. It won’t erase a single black mark from your record or balance out some cosmic scale of justice in your favor. It’s just going to make you miserable and lonely. And I don’t see the point.”

  “Not now, perhaps.” His footsteps moved across the floor. “But you will. Good-bye.”

  I’d had enough. I grabbed my IV stand and stepped out to block his path. “You weren’t even going to tell her,” I accused. “Did you think she’d figure out the truth or were you expecting me to break the bad news?”

  Sebastian didn’t look surprised to see me, only resigned. “There’s nothing to tell at this point,” he said. “I don’t know how it’s going to play out.”

  “I do,” I said. “What do you think I’ve been running from all this time? Being poked and prodded and bled and studied under a microscope, and branded as an alien freak for the rest of my life. You think it’s going to be any different for you?”

  Alison gripped the back of her chair. “What are you saying? That he—”

  “I made a bargain with Deckard,” Sebastian answered reluctantly. “I told him I had all the same anomalies in my genetic makeup as Tori did. And that I’d answer all his questions, and let GeneSystem do as many tests on me as they wanted, if he promised to leave her alone.”

  And that was why I couldn’t hate Sebastian anymore, even if I’d been stubborn enough to try. Because he’d paid for putting that chip in my arm twice over, and there was no punishment I could think of that was worse than what he’d done to himself.

  “You’re going to tell them you’re an alien,” Alison breathed. “After all the years you spent hiding, making sure no one ever found out—”

  “That was when I thought I’d been trapped on Earth by mistake,” said Sebastian, “and that my real home was on the other side of the wormhole, with people like Mathis.” He shook his head. “I’ve been there and back again. I’d rather stay here.”

  “As a guinea pig for a bunch of primitive genetic hacks?” I asked. “What kind of life is that?”

  “They’re scientists, Tori, not monsters,” Sebastian replied patiently. “I don’t think they’re going to put me in a cage. I see no reason we can’t work together—I’m a scientist too, after all. But even if that hope turns out to be naive, I have no job, no friends, and no family. If I disappear, no one will miss me.” His eyes flicked to Alison. “Or they shouldn’t.”

  “I don’t agree.” Alison’s voice shook, but she kept her head high. “I think it would be a good thing if the people at GeneSystem knew there was at least one person who would care if you disappeared.”

  “More than one,” I said, before Sebastian could speak. “Four people, if you add me and my parents. I think Milo probably counts too. And if you say anything more about being unfit to clean our mildew-infested grout or whatever, I’m going to smack you upside the head with my prosthetic.”

  Sebastian’s mouth twitched, and then he started to laugh. But after a few seconds it sounded more like a cough, and he rubbed his sleeve across his eyes before turning away. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He took a deep breath, then looked at Alison. “I apologize,” he told her. “I misjudged you, in so many ways. But I still think you’d be wiser choosing something—somebody—else.”

  Alison lowered her eyes. “You’re probably right.”

  Sebastian nodded. He moved toward the door.

  “But,” Alison called after him, “I made that choice a long time ago. Maybe you thought leaving me alone for three years, or five, would make a difference. But I always knew you’d come back to me someday. Because you didn’t close the wormhole as soon as Tori and I were gone, like you were supposed to. You left it open.”

  I opened my mouth to correct her, but then I thought better of it. Maybe it was Mathis’s fault that Sebastian hadn’t closed the wormhole right away, but then again, maybe it wasn’t. And Alison might have forgotten the time difference between Earth and the space station, but if Sebastian didn’t think it worth reminding her, that was his business.

  “I have to go,” Sebastian said distractedly. “I told Deckard I’d follow him back to Sudbury.”

  Alison’s shoulders slumped, and she began to sit down—but then Sebastian cleared his throat and spoke again. “Though there’s room in the truck, if you’d like a ride home. Because … it’s been good to talk to you. Very good.”

  Alison drew a slow breath. Then she whispered, “Sebastian.”

  The way she said his name, and the way he looked at her when she said it, made me suddenly want to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. I backed up into the corridor, but not before I saw Alison and Sebastian leap together like two high-powered magnets, and their mouths met so hard and hungrily that I could tell this kiss would be going on for quite some time.

  I tiptoed away with my IV stand and left them to it.

  Phase IV

  “Seriously?” said Milo, when I told him the story seven hours later. We were sitting together in the courtyard at the hospital’s back entrance, inside a half-rusted pavilion littered with cigarette butts and old wads of gum. Between that and the traffic roaring by in the near distance, it was about the least picturesque spot ever. But I’d been pacing the corridors all day, and right now I was just glad to be outside.

  “Yeah,” I said, leaning back and stretching out my pajama-clad legs. I’d traded my hospital gown for a tank top and zippered sweatshirt my mom had brought me, so I didn’t feel half-naked anymore. And though my arm still throbbed, the pain wasn’t as distracting as it had been. “It was like watching an emotional grenade go off.”

  “Wow,” Milo said. “Sebastian and Alison kissing? I can’t even picture it.”

  Lucky him. “So what did you tell your mom?” I asked, to change the subject. “About your concussion?”

  “Told her I’d slipped in the science lab and clocked myself on one of the desks,” he said. “So now I’m supposed to take it easy for a few days. No running, no biking, and no contact sports. The only reason I’m here right now is because she thinks I had to go to work early for a meeting.”

  Obviously my new policy of forthrightness and honesty had its limitations. I might have stopped lying to the people I cared about, but that just meant they had to tell more lies on my behalf.

  “But I did tell her the truth about one thing,” said Milo, as though he’d guessed what I was thinking. “I told her I wasn’t going to medical school, even if my marks were good enough. That I’d applied for phys ed at Laurentian, and been accepted.”

  “Just like that? How did she take it?”

  “About as well as I expected. But she didn’t kick me out of the house, so that’s something.” He flicked a bottle cap off the bench, sending it skittering across the walkway into the shrubbery. “How do you feel?”

  The sling was chafing the back of my neck. I wriggled out of it and laid my bandaged arm across my lap. “Alive,” I said. “And glad it’s over.”

  “You think it is?”

  “I know it is,” I told him. Even if the EMP bomb hadn’t knocked out the space station’s life support systems, Mathis no longer had the equipment to open another wormhole, let alone keep it open for more than a nanosecond before it collapsed.

  Milo slid his fingers under his glasses and covered his eyes. “Okay,” he said roughly. “Good to know,” and it took me a minute to realize that he wasn’t just tired or fighting a headache. He was crying.

  I didn’t have to ask why. What I’d put him through yesterday had hit him hard, not just physically but emotionally. In a day or two, when the initial shock wore off and the enormity of what I’d done to myself came crashing in, I’d probably be a wreck myself. But right now I only felt sorry for Milo.

  “You were incredible,” I whispered, sliding my good arm around his back and leaning my head on his shoulder. “I could never have made it without you.”

  He gulped a laugh, reached for my right hand—and I
felt him shudder as he realized it wasn’t there. For a second I thought he was going to pull away from me, but he didn’t. He hesitated for one second, and then he drew his hand back and let it drop to his thigh instead.

  His thigh, not mine. That was the difference between him and Brendan.

  “I’ve had better dates,” Milo said, clearing his throat. “Next time, can we just go out for cake again instead?”

  I smiled, but briefly. “Do you want there to be a next time?” I asked.

  Milo was quiet. Then he said, “Three days ago, I would have said no. But when I found you in the cemetery and saw how terrified you were, and yet so incredibly brave…” He laid his head against mine, soft hair brushing my cheek. “I realized that if I didn’t try to make this work, I’d regret it for the rest of my life. Because I’m never going to meet anyone else like you.”

  “Alien, asexual, and missing a limb?” I pulled back, sweeping the bangs from my eyes. “I’m not seeing the selling point here.”

  “You’re not that alien,” said Milo impatiently. “Sebastian thinks his ancestors—your ancestors—started here on Earth, but they went through a dimensional rift or something.” He touched my bandaged arm. “And I don’t care about the hand, except for your sake. Knowing you, you’ll find a way to be equally amazing without it.”

  I’d already started thinking about that. Imagining new prosthetic designs specially suited to the work I loved best, with delicate pincers that could grip solder and twist wire, and magnetic tips to hold tiny screws in place. Interchangeable tools I could snap on easily and almost as quickly as other makers could pick up a wire stripper or a pair of pliers. Maybe there were prostheses like that already—but if not, nobody was going to stop me from making one.

  “That’s two out of three,” I said. “But it’s still a pretty big three, don’t you think?”