“So you want us to keep this on the down low,” said Ruth.
“No, I don’t want you to keep it on the ‘down low.’ I don’t want you to keep it anywhere. If you tell anyone, that rumor will spread until those people I’m talking about decide to make the big score by treasure hunting in your body. My son is at risk by association. If any of you talks, I will make sure you face the consequences.”
GT had such a comfortable tone of voice, so relaxed and trustworthy, it took me a minute to realize he’d just implied that if we weren’t murdered for blabbing about the tokens, then he’d see to it himself. My heartbeat pounded pain in my brain.
Howell cleared her throat, reached for her juggling balls, then reconsidered. “Perhaps it will help if we make a promise to keep this secret?”
We all took turns affirming our solidarity.
“‘To be thus is nothing,’” Jacques added. “‘But to be safely thus.’”
“What was that, son?” GT tilted his head as if he thought he’d been insulted.
Jacques flushed and mumbled something.
“It’s from Macbeth,” I said.
GT looked between us, chewing his gum thoughtfully.
“Why is Wilder’s dad here?” Ruth asked.
“He happened to visit, and I felt an obligation to bring him into early confidence,” said Howell. “Now, each of the tokens took deliberate residence on top of your hearts. We’re not sure why—”
“I bet Maisie’s figured it out,” Wilder said.
“What is your hypothesis, Miss Brown?” asked Howell.
I did kind of have one. “Well, maybe the token isn’t just a nanite bag. It’s a machine too, and it’s powered by something heart-related—blood flow or the repetitive beats. That’s why the tokens were drawn there.”
“But how could something created for an other-planet species work as intended inside us?” asked Jacques.
“I don’t know,” Howell said. “But we did find sloughed-off skinlike cells on the tokens. I believe the species that made these are also complex, intelligent, carbon-based oxygen-breathers.”
The adults were speculating on the tokens’ function and adaptability when Wilder interrupted again. “What else, Maisie?”
Why was he picking on me? I cut my eyes at him.
“Well …,” I started. “Howell found the nanites in our spinal fluid. Maybe the nanites are powered by the electricity in the nervous system, and they’ve turned our nervous systems into a network with the token as the router.”
Dragon blinked. “That’s quite a detailed hypothesis.”
I shrugged. “It was just an idea.”
Wilder was strolling to the door. “What made you think to ask Miss Brown?” asked Howell.
He turned. “This morning she stripped a centrifuge down to its parts and rebuilt it. A lab guy says it works better than before.”
“Mr. Wilder has become very observant,” said Howell. “He suggested that we examine Mr. Ames’s skin for unusual bacterial growth, and his guess was right on. The nanites from Mr. Ames’s token appear to trigger mutation in the bacteria living on his skin. The new bacteria produce a polymer. Unfortunately, when removed from him, the bacteria die immediately.”
“So maybe the nanites not only trigger the bacteria’s mutation,” I said, “but turn Jacques’s skin into a micro-atmosphere perfectly suited for keeping those bacteria alive.”
Wilder pointed a gun finger at me.
I pretended indifference to my blush. “What are the nanites changing us into, Wilder?”
“I don’t think we’re changing into something so much as for something.”
“For what, then?”
“For action. So we’d better be prepared.” And he left.
As if called, Ruth, Jacques, and Mi-sun followed him. It felt risky—wrong even—to be away from Wilder, and I actually gripped the sofa arm to keep myself from going too. I wasn’t experiencing any inclination to start taking over the world in advance of an alien army. The only change I felt, beyond the headache, was an increased awareness, I guess, of Wilder. Or was that my own idiotic girl self?
The other staff and GT left as well, leaving me and Howell.
“I’d like to call my parents now,” I said.
“Interesting that you are the only one who recalled to ask,” she said.
She indicated the landline on her desk.
My mom answered.
“¿Es la Peligrosa? ¡Hija mí, cómo te extraño!”
There was a few seconds’ delay between when I spoke and when she responded, as if I were calling from across an ocean. Maybe it was a buffer—someone was listening, ready to cut me off if I spoke out of turn. The thought made my back prickle.
“Is Dad there?” I spoke softly, afraid my voice would crack and then there’d be no stopping the tears.
She conferenced in my dad at work.
“Our group took first place in the team competitions,” I said. “Howell—Dr. Bonnie Howell—she wants to keep the five of us here for more specialized training.”
“Do you want to?” Mom asked.
“It’s the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Maisie, you haven’t been … contenta lately.” She used the Spanish word for content or happy, as if it were too stark, too uncomfortable to say it in English. I hadn’t realized that she’d noticed. “Are you now? How do you feel?”
“I’m okay.”
“You sound exhausted.”
“When you were a baby, we had to call the police on you,” said Dad. “You were constantly resisting a rest.”
“Heard it,” I said.
“Come home the minute you want to,” Mom said.
My old, comfortable, small life was waiting. Part of me was tempted to run back to it, pull a bedspread over my head, and pretend that nothing had changed.
“I need to stay. I want to.” And I meant it.
I trusted my parents way more than GT, but I didn’t break my promise. Speaking about all the drama to Mami y Papi would make it feel dangerously real. Besides, if they knew, they would come for me at once.
When I hung up, Howell came back in and unloaded a long box into my hand. She sat on her desk and began reflecting a mirror onto the ceiling.
“Um, did you want me to put this somewhere?” I asked.
“It’s for you. I have no use for it,” she said as if I’d said something foolish.
I opened it. I gasped.
“A Rover,” I whispered.
It was a robotic arm, nicknamed Rover because the inventor had called it “a one-armed man’s best friend.” Raw metal, skeletal and fierce looking, it was not meant to just resemble a human arm like Ms. Pincher—it was meant to be awesome.
And yet I had an inkling that it could be better.
For the next two days, I felt a hot, crazy, whirling sensation, as if the whole world were on fast-forward and I had to keep thinking fast enough just to survive. The diversion seemed to separate me from both my headache and my freakish yearning for Wilder. Every item I requested, one of my new whitecoat groupies would go fetch. I imagined a basement in HAL where Rumplestiltskin spun straw into spools of gold wire and titanium dioxide nano-tubes.
I programmed a computer inside the arm to recognize, amplify, and interpret my brain patterns so I could control the arm with my thoughts. It should have been impossible to train my nervous system into believing I had an arm, but maybe all those nanites were working for me on the inside.
I’d say, “What’s an experimental, low-weight, renewable power source?” or “I need to understand the nervous system,” and my groupies would talk me through it. Pieces of what they said would click, and I’d build from the idea. Or they helped me build, since my ideas raged faster than my one-handed ability.
Howell’s engineers had been working on a strong, stretchy fabric to use as the “muscles” for the space station’s robotic arm, so we looped some of that inside Rover and covered the titanium tung
sten skeleton with flesh-colored plastic for waterproofing.
“This little pump pulls in water vapor from the air,” I showed my groupies when the upgrades were complete. “The water functions as an electron battery. This bracelet is made of photovoltaic cells, and in concert with the titanium dioxide nanotubes, they catalyze a directed electron drift. On demand those electrons can be snatched up and used for electricity.”
“Um … how?” Dragon asked, unblinking.
“I … I can’t seem to find the words. I tried writing it down and I couldn’t. I just … know.”
It reminded me of the time I’d tried to describe an astounding dream to Luther, but in the retelling it turned into a boring, senseless story. Dreams have their own language, we decided, and you are fluent only while you’re asleep. In the same way, it seemed my token had taught me a language of technology, and I was fluent only inside my head.
I couldn’t tell them, but I could show them. I slipped the arm over my right elbow, sensing where each pincher would connect with certain nerves. I opened and closed the fingers. My fingers. I raised my hand and waved.
“Meet Fido,” I said.
Everyone applauded. Except Wilder. I could sense him standing behind me.
“How’s your head?” he asked.
“Pain’s gone,” I said. “Whatever my nanites were trying to do in there seems to have been resolved.”
“Then let’s go play,” he said. “We’ve got some things to show you.”
Chapter 12
I followed Wilder outside. Now that the boot campers were gone, Wilder had claimed the acres of scrub surrounding HAL as the fireteam’s playground. Ruth was tossing a half-destroyed SUV as if it were a doggie toy.
“Whoa,” I said.
“I know, right?” She set it down with a grating squeak and came over by me in the shade. I sat up straighter. Her attention felt like an honor.
“Ugh, I hate the heat,” she said, batting at her long red hair.
“Why don’t you pull your hair back? Or cut it? That must weigh a ton.”
She took a bottle of polish out of her pocket and began to paint her nails. “‘What pretty hair,’ people always say. If I lost the hair, what would I have left?”
“Superhuman strength and invulnerability?” I said.
“Yeah. This is kinda awesome, isn’t it?” she whispered. “I mean, unknown, dangerous, blah, blah, blah, but kinda—”
“Awesome,” I said, wiggling my Fido fingers.
Ruth nudged me with her shoulder. “Look at you, Two-Arms. Look at us.”
I fought the temptation to hug her. I would not act like the immature weirdo she already thought I was.
“I wish my psychopath sister would try to smack me now.” Ruth laughed, standing to stretch. She didn’t stoop. She seemed aware of her extraordinary height and shape, her long hair loose. She was beautiful.
I walked over to Mi-sun, who had finally stopped shaking. She picked up a lug nut and pointed her fingers at a two-inch-thick plate of depleted uranium set up a hundred yards away. Crack! Faster than I could track, the lug nut shot from her hands, leaving an electric-blue trail and slicing clean through the target.
“Not to brag, but I’m getting good,” she said.
“Yeah you are,” I said.
CRACK!
Between Howell’s cadre of PhDs, Wilder’s instincts, and my techno-brain, we hypothesized that Mi-sun’s skin attracted spare electrons and her token acted like a battery and stored them. With a thought she could send the electrons from her token down to the nerve endings in her hands and expel them in bursts. When she was holding ammunition in those hands, look out.
Jacques could cover his entire body in armor. He made a shield that was impervious to Dragon’s gunfire, and Mi-sun’s lug nuts could only dent it.
“We thought the bacteria died upon leaving his skin,” Howell explained, “but it looks like many remain in a dormant state on the armor he discards. After about ten hours they wake up and gorge themselves on the plastic, expelling nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, effectively undoing the work that they’d done.”
“So his stuff has a built-in recycling system,” I said.
“Here’s what’s left after two days.” Howell showed me a petri dish with a heap of shiny black dust. “Carbon. The rest of it changed to gasses.”
Mi-sun squinted at the dust. “Where did that come from?”
“From Jacques,” I said. “The bacteria build the plastic from what he breathes, drinks, and eats.”
Ruth laughed. “Jacques, you’re eating all that black stuff?”
“So are you,” said Dragon. “Plants ‘eat’ carbon dioxide and water, and then we eat plants. Or we eat animals that have eaten plants. Besides vitamins and minerals, our food is just hydrocarbons.”
“I’ll stick to slushies,” said Mi-sun.
“Why don’t you do anything cool?” Jacques asked me.
“I make stuff. That’s cooler than being host to bacteria that poop plastic,” I said.
“I’m bleeping amazing,” Jacques said, putting his fists on his hips. “I’m Plastic Man.”
“That name’s taken.” Dad had a comics collection. I knew these things.
“I’m Super Plastic,” said Jacques. “Super Man—”
“That one’s taken too,” I said.
“I KNOW!” Jacques said with a laugh. “I meant Super Jacques—”
“Jack Havoc, Creator of Chaos,” I said.
“Be nice, you two,” Mi-sun said.
Ruth whispered to me, “Mi-sun is so bossy.”
“What about Wilder?” said Jacques.
“He’s the thinker, right?” I said. “He figured out what each of us can do. Have you guys felt … um, weirdly tied to him lately?”
Jacques snorted, but Ruth and Mi-sun nodded. I fiddled with Fido to hide my relief.
“Yeah, I’d like to test that out.” Wilder looked out over the open brush. “Anyone want to play hide-and-seek?”
Howell gave us each an ATV to drive. Wilder had half an hour to hide. The four of us started at different points on the compass, and then we had to find him using instinct.
By then it was night. My ATV’s headlights lit up pale circles on the ground, ghost eyes staring back. I’d been trying not to think about Wilder with emotion ever since he weirded out on me, and I’d done okay, except for that kissing relapse in space. But now as I hunted him, wanting to win the game, the barrier in my mind thinned. I wanted him.
The need to find him became an ache. Maybe if I got there first. Maybe if I found him before the others were near, he might look at me the way he used to—
A roar to my left startled me.
“Have you seen him?” Jacques shouted from his ATV.
“No,” I said. Go away, I thought. But he rode beside me.
It was creepy, not comforting, sensing Wilder out in the dark. I found myself thinking about a species of caterpillar Luther and I had studied. A wasp stings the caterpillar to turn it into its zombie slave. The caterpillar will spend the rest of its life protecting the wasp’s larvae, neglecting to eat or rest or do anything else until it dies. I wondered now if the caterpillar was content in its zombification.
We spotted Wilder just as Mi-sun and Ruth came up behind us. He was staring at a line of smoke on the distant highway, illuminated by a car’s headlights pointing up.
“Come on,” Wilder said.
As we sped over the bouncy terrain toward the asphalt highway, I realized we weren’t just following Wilder. The four of us had formed a web around him, Ruth in the lead, Jacques and Mi-sun on his flanks, and I in the rear. The formation felt natural, safe even. I was a part of something important.
A livestock truck lay broken-backed on its side. Smoke crept out of the engine. Cows were bawling. A passenger car was off the road in a ditch, lights blindly staring at the sky.
Wilder yelled back at us, using nicknames. “Ruthless, Havoc, help the people out of the car before som
ething blows up. Peligrosa, Blue, get the animals out. Does anyone have a phone?”
Personal phones had been forbidden at astronaut boot camp, but technology was my department. I should have come prepared.
“I’ll ride into town to get help,” Wilder said.
I watched Wilder go, and that safe-web feeling was torn. We all looked at each other.
“Um,” said Ruth.
Jacques was staring after Wilder as if he would follow.
I pointed at the passenger car. “You two help them?”
Mi-sun and I went to the back of the trailer. The calls from the cattle were forlorn and desperate. The door had twisted in the crash. I grabbed a handful of gravel from the road.
“If you shoot these around the door at an angle, careful not to hit the animals inside, maybe you can weaken the door till it comes off.”
I ran back to the cab. The driver was conscious but woozy, his forehead bleeding. He was belted in, the driver’s side up in the tilted truck. I hauled myself on top and opened the door.
“I can’t reach the seat belt release,” I called to Jacques. “Can you work your havoc magic and make something sharp enough to cut with?”
His eyes widened as he thought about it, and then on the tip of his finger he formed havoc armor—that’s how I thought of it, anyway. It grew longer than his finger with a sharp edge. He sliced through the seat belt and helped pull the guy out.
I thought I saw a phone lying against the passenger-side door. I tried to lower myself in, but my hand slipped. I fell, my impact causing the cab to roll a little more. The door above me slammed shut, the crushed seat folded, and I found myself curled up and pinned against the far side of the cab.
“And it’s not even a phone,” I said, pulling a tin of mints from under my back. “Jacques! Ruth!”
The door behind me was smashed against the pavement, the door above obscured by the bench. I heaved at the bench with my legs. It barely budged.
My eyes stung. Smoke from the engine was drizzling into the cab. Both doors closed, windows closed, glass intact, no outlet. Pulling my shirt over my mouth, I took one last deep breath, gagging on the tainted air. I reached up, thumping on the windshield with my fist. My brain was firing, designing a dozen different devices that could free me. If only I had the materials and tools handy.