Limit of Vision (14 page)

12

Ela felt she
would never be warm again; the shower in the farmhouse to which Nguyen had brought her did nothing to change that perception. It was a thin stream of lukewarm water spilling without enthusiasm from a corroded pipe that lacked a showerhead. At least the water was clean, and the enamel walls of the stall a polished white.

To her consternation, there was no indoor toilet.

She peeled off her wet suit vest and dropped it on the floor beneath the flowing water. Her shorts and swimsuit followed. The shampoo smelled delicious, like chemical strawberries. She used it to scrub at the gritty mass of her hair, rinsing away a crop of chocolate brown suds. She was shampooing her hair a second time when her probing fingers found a scab on her right temple. It was a hard, grainy, flat patch the diameter of an earring stud. She picked at it, wondering where it had come from. There were bruises on her legs too.

When she picked up her swimsuit to rinse it out, the packet of
L
ov
s fell to the floor. Mud sloughed off the plastic, so she turned it over with her toes to let the other side rinse clean while she washed her wet suit, and then her farsights. A moth fluttered around the ceiling bulb as she dried herself and dressed in the clothes that had been left for her: a white long sleeve T-shirt, almost new, and blue running shorts. She could hear Nguyen speaking to the housewife as she crouched to retrieve the
L
ov
packet from the shower floor.

There was a thin film of mud inside the packet.

How had mud gotten inside?

She held it up to the light, her heart jumping as she squinted, checking for the
L
ov
s.

The packet was flat, empty but for a little muddy water. She rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger to be sure. Tiny perforations riddled the plastic, and the
L
ov
s were gone.

She found herself taking quick, shallow breaths. The
L
ov
s must have been loose inside her wet suit. The thought brought on a shudder of revulsion. She scrunched her eyes shut to suppress a scream. Maybe she had washed them down the drain?

But if so, then this whole, horrible day was for nothing . . .

Her hand jumped, to touch the scab on her forehead. A terrible suspicion dawned as her finger slid over its hard, grainy surface. She didn’t remember hitting her head, so where had the scab come from? Why wasn’t it soggy after soaking so long?

There was a little mirror over the worn porcelain sink. She looked into it. The scab didn’t look like a scab at all. It looked like a glossy spot of speckled, blue-green glass glued to her skin just above the fading red impression left by her goggle cups.

Without taking her eyes off the mirror, she groped for the light switch and toggled it off. In the darkness, the scab gleamed and flickered faint blue-green.

A sharp tap on the door made her jump. “Ela,” Nguyen called. “Are you all right?”

She tried to slow the panicked pace of her breathing, telling herself things weren’t so bad. Kathang had reported that
L
ov
s could attach to living flesh. It had happened before. It had happened to other people . . . like those scientists in America. It wouldn’t kill her. Not directly anyway.

“Ela?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m okay.” But her voice sounded too airy, too high in pitch.

“Come have some food.”

“I need to hang out my clothes.”

“Mrs. Dao will take care of it. Come eat.”

She wanted to run away. Instead, she made sure her hair fell over her temple. Then she opened the door.

Nguyen stood in the dim, steamy hallway, surrounded by the smell of hot rice. Ela was so hungry he seemed to
be
that smell. She thought she might forever confuse him with that smell. Oh why was her heart beating so hard? She took a step back into the lightless shower room. He stepped after her.

She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust protective men. Their interest was always a trap. They would be kind until they took your freedom away with blackmail or babies or jealousy, and if you rejected their kindly advances, there was always rape.

She tried to slam the door. Nguyen caught it; he held it open. He was a silhouette, but Ela could feel his anger in the strength of his hold on the door. “Ela, are you so afraid of me?”

“No. I . . . I don’t know.” She feared Nguyen. She feared the IBC. She feared the
L
ov
s.

But she felt immersed in a terror independent of any of these. A sourceless terror that seemed almost to come from outside herself. “Shouldn’t I fear you?”

“Perhaps.”

She forced herself to breathe slowly, deeply.

“. . . if you have lied to me?” Nguyen finished.

Well she had certainly lied. She had told him she’d brought nothing away from the crash site except her video. It was almost true.

She looked at her hands, commanding them to let go of the door. It would not be wise to encourage his anger. “May I eat now?” she asked softly, brushing the hair out of her face. Nguyen’s sharp intake of breath exposed her blunder. In the lightless shower room, the glowing scab of
L
ov
s was easy to see.

She stiffened as his hesitant fingers reached toward her temple . . . but he drew his hand back again before he touched her. “So. You did bring something from the crash site.”

She didn’t trust herself to speak. She had told him about finding the broken fragment of the EquaSys module, but she had not mentioned the
L
ov
s.

“Is this what the IBC is seeking? This is the thing in the news?”

“I only took a little! I left most of it there.”

He reached for her temple again. She forced herself not to flinch as he ran a finger across the gleaming, glassy scab. “These are
L
ov
s?”

She nodded. The news descriptions left little doubt of that. “They are supposed to make people smarter.”

He chuckled. “I think you are very brave, Ela. Or very desperate.”

Tentatively, she touched the scab. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

He nodded, looking thoughtful. “You don’t have any more?”

“No. This is all.” Silently she added,
All that’s left.

“Well then, I’ll have to take very good care of you.”

That
was the promise he made. But the next morning when she awoke to the crowing of an army of cocks and looked out the window of the neat farmhouse, his car was gone. She let the brittle lace curtain fall back across the screen. Black-and-white portraits of smiling children looked at her from the walls of her little room; the air bore the musty smell of old possessions. She pushed aside a red coverlet and stood up from the low bed where she had slept. The wooden floor creaked beneath her feet as she stepped barefoot to the door.

It felt flimsy as she opened it, the knob smooth and loose with age. She peered into the dim hallway. She could see no one about, but the rhythmic beat of a metal spoon against a metal bowl told her old Mrs. Dao was at work in the kitchen. Ela ran her fingers through her hair, knowing she must look a sight: a gangly, wild-haired, red-eyed foreigner. Mrs. Dao, though, had not seemed to notice. Last night she had tut-tutted over Ela, spoiling her with smiles as if she were a favorite granddaughter.

Drawing a breath of courage, Ela crept down the hall. She managed to surprise a little boy in the cluttered living room. He yelped and darted into the kitchen. Mrs. Dao emerged a moment later, smiling and nodding a greeting, her white hair gleaming in the dusty light that spilled in through a screen door. Ela tried her sparse Vietnamese, asking
“
Where is Mr. Nguyen?
”

With Kathang translating, Mrs. Dao explained that he had left the night before, shortly after she’d gone to bed. She was careful to relay Nguyen’s instructions: Ela was to stay in the house, and away from the windows, as much as possible. When she must go outside to use the outhouse, she was to wait for clearance from the
Roi Nuoc
. Mrs. Dao took Ela by the hand and led her to the screen door, nodding at two farsighted youths lounging on the covered porch. Ela wondered if they were Nguyen’s private soldiers.

After obtaining permission, she made a quick trip out the back door, returning to find a breakfast of eggs and noodles and thick, sweet, gooey coffee laid out on the table. While she ate, she checked her brief queue of messages. There were three, where usually she had none. The first was from the national police:

Ms. Ela Suvanatat, your identity and activities are known.
You have been charged with an act of trespass on a prohibited site.
In addition, you are wanted for questioning by the International Biotechnology Commission.
Only by surrendering yourself immediately will you gain the mercy of the court.

Perhaps she would receive the same mercy the Honolulu police had shown to that EquaSys researcher? The news links had drooled with violent reenactments of the shooting, and his subsequent, terrible death in the dark. Ela had higher hopes for herself.

From Joanie Liu there was this terse note:

Ela, I tried to keep you out of this mess.
Now we’re both in trouble.
Give yourself up now, girl, if you ever want to see the light of day again.

Ela felt sure it was written with the approval of the national police. No doubt by this time the officer was Joanie’s new boyfriend. She liked to work that way.

The IBC had tried a different tone:

Ms. Ela Suvanatat, our records show you were present at the impact site of the EquaSys module.
It’s known that certain contaminants were released into the water following this accident.
There is a strong possibility that you have been affected by these contaminants.
Your life could be in danger.
Please report your whereabouts immediately, so that every necessary step may be taken to assure your continued health and well-being
. . .

Ela touched the glassy patch on her right temple. This missive might have persuaded her . . . except the
L
ov
s were the only asset she had left. What good would it do her to be cleared and released by the IBC, only to starve to death, or find herself consigned to the sex trade? Better to be gunned down and die alone in a dark tunnel.

Better to deal with Ky Xuan Nguyen. He, at least, seemed to have no special love for tradition or the authority of the police.

She finished the last of the noodles, then lingered over the coffee. It seemed proper to be terrified at her situation, but somehow she wasn’t. In truth she felt oddly calm and determined. With a swift tap of her fingers, she summoned Kathang’s salamander icon. To deal successfully with Nguyen, she must first understand what she had gotten herself into—and that meant reviewing everything the
R
osa
had gathered on the fall of the module, and the life cycle of
L
ov
s.

Ela read the articles and listened to the newscasts—and it wasn’t long before she learned a grim truth: Her
L
ov
s had been made dependent on certain rare chemicals, special amino acids. Kathang explained that amino acids were the building blocks of proteins. There were many different kinds, but those needed by the
L
ov
s were not commonly found in nature. Without an artificial source of these select
opines
, any escaped
L
ov
s would surely die within a few days, at most.

Ela felt a flush that could not be explained away by the day’s rising heat. Trembling, she hurried to the shower room to look in the little mirror. Any hint of luminescence from the
L
ov
s was drowned out in the diffuse early sunshine pouring through a scarred plastic skylight. She could not tell if they were alive or dead, but when she scratched at the cluster’s edge, a slim crust broke away. Her eyes widened as seven tiny, perfect spots of blood oozed into existence where the
L
ov
s had been. She looked at her fingernail, and could just make out the glassy disks, trapped like dirt at the nail’s end. “
Oh no
.” Cupping her hand over her finger to block out the light, she examined the stray
L
ov
s. No trace of a blue-green glow could be seen.

Had they died? Had all her
L
ov
s died?

The mirror was hung on a hook, so she lifted it off and hurried with it into the relative darkness of the hallway, closing the shower-room door to block off the light. She held the mirror up to her temple. To her relief she could still make out a soft blue-green glow across most of the cluster.

But it was only a matter of time before these
L
ov
s failed too. How long?

It might be hours. It might be minutes.

She returned the mirror to its proper place, thinking hard. She could hear Mrs. Dao outside, talking to the chickens. From somewhere nearby, there arose the squeals of children playing. Then Kathang whispered that another message had just arrived from the IBC.

Ela’s gaze shifted to the little icon of wing-footed Mercury.

She stared at it, thinking of how the routing of messages was completely anonymous. An address gave no hint of its owner’s location. That was why she had not shut down her mailer.

It occurred to her that Dr. Virgil Copeland would have had no reason to shut down his mailer either, not if he was still at large. He wanted to see the
L
ov
s survive, didn’t he? That’s why he’d run away. If he was still free, she could write to him. She could send him a message requesting his advice. Yes. That was the thing to do, for who would know better how to keep her
L
ov
s alive?