Idols (27 page)
“Surprise,” says Bibi.
“But it was just research. Purely theoretical. Ela and I, we never actually built anything,” she says. Then she corrects herself. “Anyone.”
Ela. There’s that name again, the one I read in Fortis’s journal.
“And yet here they are.” Bibi nods. “Dolor, Timor, Furor, Amare. The four iconic characteristics of the human temperament.”
“It’s true,” I say, staring at her. “Ta-da. Here we are. Humanity itself, in the flesh.” I sound bitter, which I am. And frustrated, because this Dr. Yang knows more than she’s saying.
It’s my job to poke her until she says it.
I feel the questions behind her eyes. I feel the pounding of her heart. The quickening of her pulse.
Nothing more.
I leave her alone.
Yang moves her eyes from me to the others.
“They were nothing. The most unlikely of ideas. The vaguest mathematical possibility.”
She’s in shock
, I think.
Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to read anything more from her.
Yang peers into Tima’s face. Pinches the side of her cheek. Runs her hands over the tattoo on Tima’s arm. Tima stands, frozen, looking as though she might throw her soup bowl at the woman. Yang doesn’t even seem to notice. She’s so absorbed in what she sees.
In us.
Finally, Yang looks up at Bibi. “They’re perfect, aren’t they? Truly perfect?”
“They’re something.”
“Generally speaking, I’d say they hit the mark. One hundred percent. Has someone been tracking this?”
Bibi shrugs. “The Merk.”
“I heard they arrived by boat. A SEA Projects cargo ship. A bit risky, don’t you think?”
Bibi sighs. “That’s a Merk for you.”
“But why did they come back here?”
“Back here?” Ro looks at her like he wants to hit her. I don’t feel much differently myself.
Back here. To the SEA Colonies. A place I have never been.
I knew Fortis had been here.
I didn’t know we had.
“You realize, of course, that we’re standing right here,” Lucas says.
“And we can hear you,” Tima adds.
“You can speak,” Yang says, nodding. “Well done.” I can’t tell if she’s joking or not.
“We can do a lot of things,” Ro says, evenly. I can feel his temper rising. “You want to try us?”
He fixes his eyes on her until beads of perspiration form on her forehead. Moments later, the soup in her bowl begins to bubble.
“Enough.” Yang holds up a hand. She turns to Bibi. “This is, I take it, the Rager?”
“He’s not the Freak,” says Bibi, looking like he’d like to take a step back from Ro himself. Tima glares at both of them.
“We’re here because we’re looking for someone,” I say. “We were hoping you could help us find her.”
“Someone like us. A girl. The fifth.” Tima looks at Yang, who doesn’t seem to understand.
“The fifth?” Yang repeats. She looks at Bibi, meaningfully. “The fifth what?”
“Icon Child,” Lucas says.
“That’s not possible,” Yang says, after a moment.
“More impossible than we are?” Ro asks. He looks at me. I can read the questions in his face.
How does she know what’s possible? What does she know about us? Do you want me to find out what she really knows?
Ro’s ready to resort to other methods. I shake my head, almost imperceptibly.
Let her talk.
“Don’t act so surprised. You work in the Project labs, Dr. Yang. It’s not like you’re a monk.” Bibi studies her face. “People do talk.”
“I’m telling you. I would have heard if…” Her voice trails off.
“If what?” I ask.
“I just would have heard.” She looks at Bibi. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know they were real. I didn’t know someone would actually do it.”
It’s Ro’s turn. “Who are we, Dr. Yang, and what do you have to do with us? If you know anything about me, you know not to make me mad.” He takes another step. “I’m a Rager, remember? I rage. Is that the scientific term?”
Another step.
“To be honest, I don’t know what else I’ll do.” He leans in. “Sometimes I surprise even myself.”
For the first time, Yang looks nervous. “I swear. I’ve had nothing to do with this. Not for years.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Ro says.
“It isn’t me. It’s him. Ask him. It’s all him.”
“Who?” Ro says. “Fortis? We already know that he made us. That he’s the reason we even exist.”
“No,” Yang says. “Not that. Not just that. Someone else. Something worse. Far worse.”
She opens her mouth to answer—
But the words never come.
Only the noise.
Because the entire hawker center explodes into flying chunks of concrete and billowing clouds of smoke and ash.
GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH: EASTASIA SUBSTATION
MARKED URGENT
MARKED EYES ONLY
Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B
RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies
Note: Contact Jasmine3k, Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA, Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang, for future commentary, as necessary.
FORTIS ==> DOC
02/13/2067
PERSES PRESSURE
//comlog begin;
Doc, I’m sending this from a private terminal. One way.; I am receiving increasing scrutiny regarding PERSES and what we have learned thus far. Since I have been provided essentially a carte blanche research budget, Congress is insisting on progress reports and accounting. As though they don’t trust me!;
For now, to be safe, keep all information regarding NULL, the nature of the contents of PERSES, and related research materials highly encrypted, obfuscated, tucked away. Hidden. You get my meaning.;
Until we know more, I am characterizing PERSES to Congress as an asteroid only, with minimal likelihood of impact with Earth. Which, at its current trajectory, at least, is true.;
A lot of people, governments, corporations, etc., would be willing to spend or do almost anything to access my—our—information. As such, keep a close eye on any queries, probes, worms, attacks, small or large. Any attempts to breach your security.;
Finally, please, and this should be obvious, but if others are watching/listening when we communicate, play dumb.;
//comlog end;
I lie under what feels like a blanket. Heavy as a layer of beach sand, or strangely tepid snow.
It isn’t.
It’s the room and the people and the food stands and everything else that made up this busy hawker center—pulverized and powdered into nothing.
I hear the screaming and the shouting and I feel everything starting to move again around me.
Hands take my shoulders, pulling me upward, and soon I am lying over Ro’s back, slumped like a big sack of rice.
He lowers us both to the ground. “Dol. Dol, please. Wake up.”
I open my eyes. My eyelashes are fringed with a grayish blur.
Ash. It’s ash.
“Ro.” I try to think of the words, but my brain is still as rattled as the marketplace. “I’m here. I’m good.”
For a second, Ro looks like he’s going to cry. Then he pulls me in close. I feel his head resting against mine, his lips against my forehead. “Doloria Maria de la Cruz. One of these days, you are going to kill me.”
“I thought you didn’t care?” I smile, reaching my fingers up to his cheek. He takes them in his hand.
“I don’t. But if someone’s going to kill me, I don’t want it to be you. That would be insulting.”
I smile again, and then I remember.
Lucas. Tima.
“Ro,” I say, but he knows.
He nods. And like that, he’s gone for the others.
I close my eyes, wondering what I feel and why I still feel it.
Dr. Yang is lying somewhere, unconscious in an Embassy hospital bed.
Connected to beeping machines, just as I was, in another Embassy—in what feels like lifetimes ago.
Will she die because of what she was going to tell us?
Will she die because of him? Whoever he is?
Is there really something more to this than just Fortis?
Or could the Merk have blown the place up? Was this his work?
I stare at Fortis while he speaks. Shouts, more like. He’s as angry as I’ve ever seen him, and I have to wonder if he’s worried about Yang, or his plans to take out the GAP.
“It’s not an accident when someone blows up the whole hawker center you happen to be visitin’ while you’re still there.” Fortis pulls the bandage tight around Tima’s arm, wrapping it against her body. “Done it enough times myself. I should know.”
“Relax. We’re all okay,” I say. I move my leg up and down, trying to get the throbbing to stop. I can’t decide which hurts more, the lump on my head or the swelling in my ankle. Even in the clean sarong I have tied around my shoulders like a sleeveless shift, I am sweltering in the heat—which doesn’t help.
Still, I know how lucky I am.
Who knows what else could have happened?
“This is okay?” Bibi looks up from where he’s picking bits of broken glass out of a gash on Ro’s arm.
“Relatively speaking,” I say.
Lucas is taping up the fingers on his right hand himself. The clean classroom robes make him look like one of Bibi’s boys. “Fortis is right. We have to be more careful.”
Lucas looks at me. I take the tape from his hand, ripping it free, tucking in the loose ends.
“I’m fine. We’re fine,” I say, but I can feel Ro’s eyes on me.
I don’t look at him.
“You rest up, and we’ll go pay a little visit to the monks tomorrow. Then, one way or another, we’re out of here. I’m not waitin’ around for the GAP to blow our heads off. Not while the GAP’s head is still sittin’ pretty on his own neck.”
I shoot Fortis a look, but he says nothing more.
“Tomorrow, then,” I say.
“Tomorrow,” Bibi agrees.
After that, even the silence sounds threatening.
One by one, the others have retired inside. Tima is helping Bibi in the classroom, while Fortis has gone off, mumbling about some sort of search for ancient maps.
Lucas and I are the last ones left out in the heat of the garden, when I notice Fortis’s jacket lying on the rocks.
I pick it up.
It must have been too warm to wear.
It’s heavy, and I realize the book must still be inside. I hesitate.
“What are you doing?” Lucas watches as I pull out the cloth-wrapped book. He’s right next to me, close and warm. I feel as safe as I can feel—with my throbbing head and my battered leg.
