Vitro (13 page)

He decided to wait out the day and make one final attempt to rescue Sophie. After what Mary had said, he couldn’t pretend that Sophie was all right.

“Don’t get involved,” he muttered as he trudged into the palms, looking for a shady spot to sit. “Brilliant plan. Perfect execution. I’m an idiot, Lux. What do you want to follow an idiot for?”

But follow him she did, with unwavering doggedness. He watched her warily, his mind replaying what he’d seen: Lux spinning into action with almost cartoonlike speed, laying all three of Jim’s attackers out without breaking a sweat. She’d seemed perfectly at ease, unsurprised at her own skill, as if she were peeling a banana instead of channeling some kind of ninja warrior. And yet she still moved unsteadily, her body at odds with itself, though he noticed she was gradually getting more stable, like someone adjusting to solid land after spending a week on a boat in rough seas.

Mary had called her a “bodyguard model” after Lux had gone all Chuck Norris on them. He imagined, for some reason, a conveyor belt transporting boxes of girls identical to Lux, like giant Barbies, with Bodyguard Model! stamped on them in swooshy pink letters. He shook his head and grunted, disturbed by the image.

He found a flat space of sand between three tall palms and made a kind of mat out of dried fronds, within view of the beach but obscured by a thicket of low-growing, broad-leaved shrubs, so that anyone searching for them from the shore wouldn’t spot them unless they stumbled upon their exact location. Then he gathered an armful of coconuts and hunted for a rock to open them with. He found a nicely sized boulder deeper into the trees, and, Lux looking on, he smacked the first coconut against the rock. It split neatly in half. He grinned and extended a half to Lux.

“Learned that from a bum named Nico,” he said. “He lived off coconuts and shellfish he pried off the docks. Guy was crazy as a bag of cats, but he knew how to crack a coconut.”

“There, see?” He stuffed a handful of coconut into his mouth. Lux stared at her coconut for a moment, then began to mimic his actions.

“Lux,” he said, and her head swiveled and her aquamarine gaze locked on him. “What are you?”
She tilted her head, like a puppy trying to hear better. “I am Vitro beta model 2.1.”
Despite his feast of coconuts, his mouth went dry. “Are you . . . human?” His voice cracked as he said it, because he couldn’t believe he was saying it. It was too weird, too inconceivable that this was actually happening. It wasn’t a question he ever thought he would hear himself ask.
“Yes,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation.
“Are you . . . a clone or something?”
She looked down at her hands, her brows lowered in thought, then back up at him. “The answer cannot be found,” she said cryptically.
He worked very hard to keep his expression blank. “Um. Okay. So, how old are you?”
Again she hesitated, then said, “Four hours, twelve minutes, fifty-seven seconds.” A pause, then, “Fifty-eight seconds . . . fifty-nine seconds . . .”
“Okay, I get it!” He waved his hand to stop her, though in truth, he didn’t get it at all. Well, that’s not true, is it? He understood what she was saying—in theory—but it was impossible. He sighed and leaned back, his head clunking against the trunk. “The answer cannot be found,” he muttered. “That should be my new life motto. You’re saying you woke for the first time just four hours ago.”
“Yes.”
He thought back to the moment he had found her lying unconscious, of her sleep so deep that his mad run across the island, over hills and rocks, with her in his arms had not woken her.
A gust of wind snapped a dead palm frond high above their heads, and it smashed to the ground off to Jim’s right. Lux flinched.
“Do you think those three will be back anytime soon?” Jim asked, not expecting an answer. “Or maybe we have time to nap . . .”
He relaxed against the tree; he hadn’t realized how much tension had been knotted in his muscles until he couldn’t hold it any longer and it seeped out of him and into the sand . . .
Jim woke with a start, and the first thing he saw was Lux watching him, eternally patient. He was lying on his side; he must have dropped off and then literally dropped to the ground, too exhausted to even wake. The side of his face was crusted with sand.
Jim sat up and stretched with a groan. He’d been lying on half of a drained coconut and now there was a stinging pain in his hip where it had left a deep indent in his skin. “How long was I sleeping?” he croaked, his throat dry.
“Six hours, nine minutes, four seconds,” said Lux.
“You counted?”
“Yes.”
Jim exhaled noisily and climbed to his feet. He was still sore, but the nap had taken the edge off his exhaustion. “Any sign of Mary and the gang?”
Lux looked around, inspecting every direction before answering. “No.”
The sun had crossed the sky while he slept and now sank in the west, but they were still several hours from night. He roved the vicinity restlessly, wondering if he should go ahead and strike out for the resort now or wait until full dark. He didn’t think they’d run into anyone if they rounded the eastern side of the island, keeping the mountains between them and the path that led to the resort, and then when he approached the buildings he’d come from the east, where they might not be looking for him. If Mary had told the guards about him, they’d have already converged on him and Lux by now.
There was one aspect of Lux that continued to disconcert him, and the more he dwelled on it, the more disquiet stirred inside him. She obeyed everything he said without hesitation, without question, without resentment. All the thoughtless commands he didn’t even realize he was dropping—Stop that and Come here and Try this and Look over there—she responded to with alacrity. It wasn’t just congeniality; it was deeper, instinctive. Mary had known. She just tries so hard to please her precious master, she’d said. And it seemed all too accurate a description.
Jim asked Lux again, “Why do you do everything I tell you?”
This time, she replied, “I must.”
“Why?”
“You are Jim.” She smiled, as if that explained everything.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “Can’t you disobey? If I tell you to go climb that tree, and you don’t want to—you can say no, Lux.”
This seemed to distress her. Her face twisted into a grimace. “I do not . . . The answer cannot be found.”
“Fine. Listen. Lux, you don’t have to obey me.”
She cocked her head, her eyes troubled.
“Now, go climb that tree,” he said.
She ran to the tree and threw herself at it, but it was a branchless palm and she could get no purchase on its trunk. He ran after her and saw her knees were bloody and scraped from trying to attempt the climb, but even so, she kept clawing at the bark, trying to find a way up.
“Lux!” he shouted. “Lux, stop!”
She went still, her hands at her sides, breathing heavily. Her hair hung in damp, bedraggled strings over her shoulders and a trickle of blood ran down over ankle. Jim watched her in mute horror, guilt souring his tongue. She stared at him, and it seemed to him that there was a little less bright spark in her eye and little more blankness.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Lux,” he said, his face hot. “Come on, let’s clean that up.”
She followed him to the water and stood silently as he washed the blood from her knees, though he knew the salt water had to sting the cuts.
When he was done, he was left with a deep sense of dread and guilt. He stared at her in helpless stupefaction and she stared back unsmiling.
“I’ve decided,” he announced. “We’ll leave now for the other end of the island so we can look around, maybe see some sign of Sophie before we go in after her.”
He said we because it gave him a slight sense of confidence, as if he weren’t going into this alone. But he wasn’t fooled; Lux was more of a liability, even if she could take out three people bigger than her without breaking a sweat. Maybe she was better at handling herself than Jim was, but she was so childlike that he couldn’t even imagine entangling her in his mess. He would tell her to stay put while he went after Sophie, and then the three of them could escape together. That was his best case scenario; he was fairly certain things wouldn’t go that smoothly.
“Okay, kid, let’s move out.” He held a hand to Lux, and she stared at it blankly. “Take my hand,” he added. “I’ll help you up.”
She did, and he pulled her to her feet.
They trekked along the eastern shore, walking just within the tree line where the ground was firmer and they were concealed from anyone on the beach.
Jim’s stomach grumbled at him as they walked; the coconut had taken the edge off his hunger but it had not entirely appeased it. He found himself fantasizing about cheese fries for the majority of the walk. He asked Lux if she’d ever had cheese fries and she said no, and once again he was reminded that she wasn’t the average seventeen-year-old girl.
She grew tired long before he did. Her gait had improved but her muscles were still weak; if she’d been sleeping for seventeen years he wasn’t surprised that she’d be suffering from atrophy on some level. They must have had some way to stretch and exercise her limbs while she slept or she’d be a stick figure, incapable of standing up, but he doubted that whatever lab regimen they had could equal a solid hour’s hike over jungle terrain, which is what they now faced.
“You okay?” he would ask, and though she would nod—a gesture she seemed to have picked up from him—he would still stop and let her rest. This added a great deal of time to their journey and he grew more and more frustrated by it, but not by her. He knew he couldn’t blame her for anything. Still, while she sat and poked her fingers in the dirt he wandered in circles through the trees, watching for Vitros or guards. Mary’s warning about never seeing Sophie again ran continuously through his mind.
Finally they came to a bend in the shore, and he realized they’d reached the southern edge of the island. When he looked around, he saw buildings obscured by overgrown trees and vines; this part of the resort had been completely abandoned and was well reclaimed by the island. With Lux a quiet shadow behind him, he slipped between two-story villas and dilapidated shops, following a path made of cemented seashells. Grass poured up through cracks in the sidewalk; he felt as if he were walking through a ghost town. Empty, gaping windows stared malevolently as they passed, and he startled when the wind clacked beneath a broken shutter. It sounded like a gunshot, and his heart jumped onto his tongue.
“It’s okay,” he said to Lux, though she was apparently unfazed by the noise.
Gradually the villas began to look less abused by the elements and more kept, and he started seeing signs of habitation: a laundry line draped with men’s clothing, a wind chime on a balcony tinkling like a mad fairy, a garden that actually had flowers in it instead of weeds. These must have been the villas the doctors and guards lived in. On the porch of one of the villas he spotted a row of women’s shoes. He snagged a pair of bright blue Nikes and put them on Lux’s feet; they were a bit large so he pulled the laces as tight as they would go and knotted them securely. When he asked her how they felt, she just smiled.
He found the door to the villa unlocked, and, proceeding on pins and needles, he slipped inside. The villa seemed to be inhabited by one person, a woman judging by the coat hung next to the door and the shoes he’d found on the porch. He made for the small galley kitchen off to the left, only to find the cupboards maddeningly empty. When he searched all the drawers, he found a pack of granola bars—no telling how old—which he shared with Lux. She took it with great care, nibbling tiny pieces, the expressions on her face spanning from awe to terror as she ate. In the end, she had half a bar to Jim’s four, and when she seemed content, he didn’t press her to eat more, not wanting to abuse her odd capacity for obedience. He was glad to leave the place; no matter who these people were, rifling through their kitchens made him feel like a criminal. Eventually the path turned and ran uphill, past a gymnasium and an open-air restaurant with a thatched roof. Though most of the tables were dusty and unused, a handful were wiped clean and had chairs set around them; they must have used the restaurant for meals from time to time. The roof was supported by tall thick poles and airy curtains served as walls. They fluttered in the breeze. Beside the restaurant sat an old excavator; with its huge arm and claw bending out the front, it looked like a giant, silent scorpion. A crater in the hillside was evidence of recent work, though a lot of dirt had fallen back down into the hole.
Jim crept around the back of the restaurant and found himself looking up the hill at the building where he had found Lux. Guards stood in front of it, looking more alert than they had that morning. Three doctors were walking briskly up the hill toward them, talking animatedly. Something was up. They all looked riled and excited—had it anything to do with him or Sophie? He had to assume it did, and that they were right now hunting for him. A dark helicopter crouched on the grassy clearing between the building and the bluff; that was new. He was certain it hadn’t been there that morning.
There was no sign of Sophie, though he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. He waved to Lux, unnecessarily since she seemed bound to follow him anyway, even if he walked off the edge of the cliff beside them, and he moved north, using fences, shrubs, and palms for cover. There was no way, with this kind of activity going on, that he’d have a chance of getting inside while any light lasted. Not that darkness would be much help; light posts dotted the perimeter of the building and floodlights were fixed over every door. He could hardly expect to slip in the way he had that morning by sneaking through a door opened from the inside.
“Okay, here’s the plan. We’ll wait here until—”
Jim froze, then dropped to the ground, motioning for Lux to do the same. A triplet of armed guards walked by, toting rifles and moving with haste, as if on the hunt. Jim’s pulse quickened; he was certain now that they were onto him. On the bright side, if they all ran off to look for him, he’d have a better chance of sneaking in to find Sophie. On the not so bright side, if they knew about him they probably knew about Sophie, which meant she could be locked up and guarded . . . or worse.
The guards had almost passed them by when the wind caught the black ball cap on the third man’s head and blew it off. He turned to grab it, and it blew into the bush behind which Jim and Lux were crouched. Jim had milliseconds to make a move; he could stay put and hope the man didn’t spot them or he could start running now in hopes of putting as much space between them and the guards before they could start firing.
He hesitated too long. The guard plucked his hat from the branches and then shouted when he saw Jim.
“RUN!” Jim bellowed to Lux. He grabbed her hand and sprinted into the trees, away from the guards and the resort.
The thickness of the foliage made running difficult; he kept snagging his foot on vines and rocks and barely avoided smashing face first into the palms. He glanced back and saw the guards following; they zigzagged through the trees, which, at least, prevented them from getting a shot at either Jim or Lux. He wondered if they would risk shooting her; he got his answer when he heard the crack of a gunshot. He glanced at Lux to be sure she wasn’t hit.
They emerged from the trees and onto an old putting green that was flooded with an inch of muddy water. Water splashed up his legs and filled his boots, but he didn’t dare slow down. Lux tripped when they reached a sand pit, the soggy crater catching her by surprise. He helped her up and pulled her along. They vaulted up the opposite bank and found themselves in even denser undergrowth. The trees and ferns and shrubs tangled together in a mess of leaves and vines, like a giant trap intent on snaring them.
Looking back, he saw that they had gained a short lead on the guards, but if they stopped for a moment the men would have no trouble firing at them. By weaving back and forth, he was able to avoid giving them a direct shot, but as the ground began to incline, their pace slowed.
Ahead of them was a mountain, a short but steep pyramid of rocks and greenery, devoid of trees. He knew he had to avoid open area; it would only give the guards that much more of an advantage if they opened fire. So he cut to the left, rounding the foot of the mountain and heading directly toward the declining sun, Lux a half step behind, her hand clenched in his. Light beamed at them from around the tree trunks; he felt as if he were running into some kind of otherworldly portal. The leaves glowed around them, dewdrops catching and reflecting light like a million tiny prisms. Behind him, he could hear the guards thrashing and yelling, calling for them to stop.