Across the Universe (28 page)

65

AMY

THE DOCTOR BRUSHES MY ARM ASIDE. “I WANT YOU TO SEE this.”

“What’s happening?” I ask hollowly.

The doctor glances impassively at Steela’s empty body. “Oh, that.”

“That?
That?
” I scream. “That was a person just a moment ago! What did you do?”

The doctor walks around the bed and taps one of the clear IV bags. “There’s a very high concentration of Phydus in here. It’s a drug,” he answers me before I can ask. “One that makes people passive.”

I think of Filomina, of Steela’s daughter, of myself. “You’re drugging the ship,” I whisper.

“Most of it.” He shrugs.

“Why?”

“Medicine is a marvel,” the doctor says, squeezing the IV bag. “If there is a problem, even a problem with a whole society, medicine can fix it.”

“You’re evil,” I say, the words creating a dawning realization of the fact within my mind.

“I am realistic.”

I reach down and grasp Steela’s hand. It is cold and lifeless.

“What is happening?” I say, dropping her hand and stepping back in disgust.

The doctor’s oblivious to both me and his patients, intent on the IV. “I told you: Phydus induces passivity.”

“What does that mean?” I shout, a note of panic tingeing my words.

“Passivity? It makes them calm. Peaceful. Passive.”

“But she’s not moving!” My voice grows louder and louder. “She’s not even blinking! Just staring straight ahead!”

The doctor looks surprised at my distress. “Don’t you see that Steela—all of them—are beyond usefulness? She and the other grays are no longer physically useful; they can’t do labor like the younger gens can. They are no longer mentally useful—long-term exposure to Phydus deteriorates the mind, even if they are on Inhibitors like Steela was. Their neurons are skipping around the Phydus, and they either become confused about what’s real and what’s not, or they become rebellious as they break through the drug’s influence. Either way, they can no longer be anything but a burden to our society. So, we take from them what we can.” He nods toward the bag with Stella’s blood. “Her DNA held particular perception and intelligence; we might be able to recycle it. Once we’ve harvested what we can use from the grays, we put them to sleep.”

Steela doesn’t look asleep. She looks dead.

I remember the puppy my parents got me when I was eight. It got Parvo disease and grew sick. My mom told me the vet had put it to sleep.

“You’re killing them?” I whisper, horrified.

The doctor shrugs. “Technically.”

“
Technically?!
” I screech. “They either die or they don’t; there’s no middle ground there!”

“We are in a contained environment,” the doctor says. “This ship must sustain itself.” His gaze roves from Steela to me. “We need fertilizer.”

I choke back the bile rising in my throat.

“Take it out!” I scream. I lunge for the IV.

“It’s too late. The drug is already in her system.”

I rip the needles from Steela’s arm, and I can tell the doctor isn’t lying. A drop of blood falls from the IV needle’s point, nothing else. The bag is empty. Steela’s arm has flopped over the side of the bed, but she doesn’t notice it.

“Amy,” the doctor says coolly, “I tell you this because you need to understand reality aboard this ship. I have seen you question Eldest; I have seen you talking with Elder. You must know the danger of causing trouble, of getting on Eldest’s bad side. The hatch is not the only way Eldest can dispose of you. Eldest is dangerous, Amy, very dangerous, and you’d do best to keep out of his way in the future.”

He sighs, and for the first time, I wonder if he has sympathy or empathy or any feeling at all for these patients. “I knew when Elder brought you to me that you were being affected by Phydus. Eldest and I are responsible for distributing Phydus to everyone on
Godspeed
. It’s our duty. However, although I believe that Phydus maintains peace, I do not believe it is best for everyone.” He meets my gaze full on. “But if you disrupt this ship, Eldest will order me to take you here, to the fourth floor. And I will put that needle in your vein. And you will at first feel a sense of warmth, and comfort, and joy.”

His gaze shifts to Steela, and mine follows. A tiny, tiny smile lingers on her wrinkled lips. “When Phydus has calmed your mind, it will calm your body. Your muscles will ease, and you will feel more relaxed than you’ve ever felt before.”

Steela’s body is sagging against the pillows. The smile slides off her face, not because she seems sad, but because the muscles in her mouth aren’t working to keep her lips curved up.

“Your body will become so calm that eventually your lungs won’t bother breathing, and your heart won’t bother beating.”

I watch Steela closely, my eyes flicking all over her body. I imagine that her chest is rising and falling, that I can hear ever so softly the beat of her heart.

But it’s all just wishful thinking.

My hands shake as I close her staring eyes.

“It is a merciful death,” the doctor says. “But still, it is death. If Eldest finds you useless—or worse, a nuisance—this is what awaits you.”

66

ELDER

I CAN HEAR HER SOBBING THROUGH THE DOOR. I RUN MY thumb over the scanner, and the door slides open before I realize what I’ve done—entered a room without permission. But that doesn’t matter now—what matters is Amy lying on her bed, sobbing so hard that her whole body is shaking.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, rushing forward.

Amy looks up at me, her eyes melting jade. She makes a bleating sound and lunges for me, wraps her arms around my waist, and buries her head into my stomach. I can feel the warm wetness of her tears through my tunic.

For a moment, I just stand there. She’s attached to my middle, and I’m not sure what to do with my arms. She gives a little hiccup of a sob, and I act on instinct: I wrap my arms around her, holding her against me, being the strength she needs to stay up.

Eldest thinks power is control, that the best way to be a leader is to force everyone into obedience. Holding Amy against me, I realize the simple truth is that power isn’t control at all—power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others so that they may have the strength to stand on their own.

This is what I’ve been looking for since the first day I was told that I was born to lead this ship. Leading
Godspeed
has nothing to do with being better than everyone else, with commanding and forcing and manipulating. Eldest isn’t a leader. He’s a tyrant.

A leader doesn’t make pawns—he makes people.

Amy pulls away and looks into my face. Her pale skin is blotchy red, her eyes are veined and shadowed, and a shiny line of snot trickles from her nose to the top of her lip. She wipes her face with her arm, smearing tears and mucus.

She has never looked more beautiful to me.

“What’s wrong?” I ask again, sitting down beside her on the bed. Amy curls her feet under her and leans her head against my chest. I forget about Phydus, about Eldest, about all the problems on board this frexing ship, as a sudden, primal urge to push her against the bed and kiss her problems away sears through me.

“I found out what happens behind the locked doors on the fourth floor,” Amy says, hiccupping halfway through the sentence. “It’s horrible.”

She tells me. When she gets to the Phydus, I tell her what I’ve learned from Eldest.

“That’s what happened to me,” she says. “When I felt so slow and fuzzy—it was this drug. The same drug they used on”—she chokes on the name—“Steela.”

I nod.

Amy clutches my arm, squeezing it as I imagine Steela held her arm. “Elder, we’ve got to do something. This isn’t right. It’s not fair. These are
people
, whether or not Doc or Eldest sees them as such. That drug is evil. You shouldn’t control people like this!” Her eyes gaze past me, and I know she’s no longer with me: she’s up on the fourth floor. “That drug makes people obey. It’s just Eldest and Doc’s sick way of controlling the ship.”

A part of me, a very small part of me that I bury so deep inside me I hope Amy never sees it, thinks that not all of what Eldest and Doc are doing is wrong. After all ... it’s
worked
. The ship has run in peace for decades.

And then I remember the dead look in her eyes when she was drugged with Phydus, and the feel of her arms just now, and I push that part deeper down.

“And—oh, no!” Amy’s face dissolves into more tears. “I’ve just remembered! My parents, down in the cryo level! I’ve not been down there all day! What if something has happened?”

She lurches up as if to stand, but I grab her wrist, and with the barest of tugs, she tumbles back onto the bed.

“How could I have forgotten them?” she wails.

I place both my hands around her face and lift her head so she can look me in the eyes.

“Calm down,” I say in as steady a voice as I can muster. “Harley has been on the cryo level all day. You don’t have to worry about that now. I’ll go next and spend the night there.”

Amy’s watery eyes flick back and forth between mine.

“I’m so useless,” she sighs. “I can’t do anything but hide here and cry like a little girl! Look at me!” I look, but I don’t think I see her the same way she sees herself. “It’s pointless! I can’t save my parents, I have no idea who’s been killing the frozens, and this ship—it’s the worst—and I’m stuck here for the rest of my life, surrounded by drugged up people who go to the fourth floor to die and become fertilizer!”

She breaks again. It’s like watching the glass top of Amy’s cryo chamber break when Doc heaved it off the night she woke up. For a moment, I can see the pieces of Amy all loosely together; then, starting with her eyes and her trembling mouth, she shatters. Her hands are against the sides of her forehead, her fingers curling around her hair. She softly beats her palms against her head, willing herself to think, tugging at her hair, pulling strands from her scalp, seemingly oblivious to her self-inflicted pain. I reach up and gently unwind her hair from her fingers and pull her hands back down into her lap.

“We can figure this out,” I say, dipping my head down so I can catch her gaze. “Don’t give in. You’re not useless.”

I catch a glance at the wall across from us, at the big painted black chart Amy started.

“You’re the one who’s going to figure this thing out. Keep doing what you’ve been doing. Figure out what the connection is.” I reach over to her desk and hand her the jar of black paint and the brush. “You can do this.”

Amy looks up at her painted wall, and for a moment she’s focused on it. Then I see frustration and hopelessness wash over her face. Before she has a chance to break again, I jump up and go over to the chart, distracting her. “Keep working on it.” I pause. “Try to figure out how these are connected,” I add, indicating everyone on the list but her. “Remember: you woke up, but survived. Maybe you weren’t meant to be unplugged; maybe you were an accident or something. You’re the one who doesn’t really fit into the list. Try looking at how they’re all connected when we take you out of the picture.”

Amy stares at the chart a moment longer, then nods slowly.

I stand, hesitate, then bend down and kiss her on the top of her head. She looks up at me, and my heart surges, and even though I can still see traces of hopelessness in her face, I have enough hope for the future for both of us.

“I’ll go down there and watch over your parents. You need to rest,” I say. I touch the side of her face, and she nuzzles her head against my palm. “You’ll be fine,” I add, and I hope she can believe it.

I hope I can believe it.

67

AMY

MY FINGERS ARE STAINED BLACK WITH PAINT. I EXAMINED MY list of suspects first, but there was little to do there. It is Eldest, or perhaps Eldest and Doc together.

But
why
? If I can figure out their reason, I’ll know what to do next.

I have stared at the wall until the lines and words blur together. I’ve added all the information I could from their charts, even the info that seems irrelevant. It cannot be random. Eldest and Doc do not act randomly.

I fall asleep with the wet paintbrush still in my hand.

68

ELDER

THE CRYO LEVEL IS SILENT, A DEEP, PENETRATING SILENCE that makes me feel like a trespasser in a private place.

“Harley?” I call. Where is he? He is supposed to be guarding this floor, protecting the sleeping frozens.

Silence answers.

I start walking through the aisles of cryo chambers, then I start jogging, and by the time I reach the seventies, I’m racing past the rows, shouting Harley’s name. My panic is weighed down by a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. With each pounding step, I ask the same question:

What if the murderer has moved on to awake victims?

I round the corner, fully expecting to see Harley’s body on the floor, a pool of blood, the murderer fleeing the scene.

Nothing.

I’m being stupid. He’s probably at the hatch. My heart is pounding. When I wipe the sweat from my neck, my fingers brush my wi-com button. I jab it quickly.

“Com link: Harley,” I pant as I head toward the hatch.

Beep, beep-beep.
My heart thuds. If he doesn’t answer, I’ll go back, grab a floppy, locate him and—

“What?” Harley’s voice is sullen, impatient.

“Where are you?” I shout.

“On the cryo level.”

“I’m here, where are you?”

“At the hatch.”

I sigh with relief. Of course. Of
course
he’s at the hatch. My previous panic makes me feel stupid and frexing mad. I turn down the hallway and there he is, his face pressed up against the bubble glass window.

“What are you doing?” I shout. “Why aren’t you out there, guarding them?”

“You left me here all day!” Harley shouts right back. “Shite, I was
bored
, okay?”

“Amy’s parents are here, all those helpless people down here, and all I asked you to do was sit and watch them. Was that too hard for you?”

Harley narrows his eyes at me. “Don’t be such a chutz,” he says. “Just because you’re going to be Eldest some day doesn’t mean you can order me around.”

“Don’t even play at that. How long did you wait before you came back here to look at the stars? Or did you wait at all? Did you even check to see if there were any melting bodies before you turned your back on them? I seem to remember that the last guy
died
on your ‘watch.’ ”

Harley rushes me, grabbing me by my shirt collar with both hands and shoving me against the wall opposite the hatch. “How long did you keep them from me? When did Eldest first show you them?”

“What, the stars?”

“The stars, the stars, of course the frexing stars!”

“I only saw them a few days ago.”

“Lies!” Harley rams me further into the wall. I twist and struggle against him, but even though my fingernails scrabble against his hands, he doesn’t relinquish his grip. “You and Eldest, always so close.”

“Like I had a choice!”

“Maybe if she could have seen the stars, she wouldn’t have died!” Harley screams at me, his face scrunched in rage—and tears glistening in his eyes.

“What are you—Who?” I struggle to piece together what is going on.

“Kayleigh!” Harley says in a surge of grief. He lets me go, and I slide against the cool metal wall a few inches. “Kayleigh. Maybe if she had seen the stars, she wouldn’t have given up.”

Harley backs up to the hatch door. He places both palms against the door and presses his face to the glass window.

“No good, no good,” he mutters.

“What’s no good?” My voice is even, calm now. I’m remembering how Doc locked Harley up for weeks last time, certain that he’d try to follow Kayleigh in death. How closely the nurses watched his meds, how Doc always made sure Harley took the extra ones.

“Harley, why don’t you come with me? I’ll spend the night down here; you go back to your room and rest.”

“You want it all to yourself, don’t you?” Harley snarls.

“What? No!”

His face crumples. “I know, I know. You’re my friend, I know.” He turns back to the window. “But still, it’s no use. There’s no frexing point.”

“No point to what?”

“Doesn’t matter how long I stare. We’re never going to land, are we Elder? We’re never going to get off this frexing ship. We’re all going to live and die in this metal cage. 74 years and 263 days. Too long ... too frexing long ... This is the closest I’ll ever get to the outside, isn’t it?”

I want to tell him no, that he’s wrong, but I know that’s a lie. And I understand now, oh, how I understand why Eldest lies and makes the people all raise their children with the hope of planet-landing. If we don’t have that, what do we have to live for? Does it matter if it’s a lie if it keeps us alive? Taking away the chance for planet-landing has left Harley nothing more than an empty, desperate shell.

Harley has sunk all the way to the floor. He has a canvas there, but it’s covered with muslin, and I don’t have the heart to ask him what he’s painting. Instead, I leave him here, the closest to freedom he can ever be.

I’m not going to be the one to drag him away from the stars.

Back by the cryo chambers, I hobble together a pile of lab coats and a stray blanket and make something of a nest for myself in front of the big open room. I cannot stay awake, but I hope my presence forestalls the murderer—and if not, I hope that I’ll at least awake when the elevator dings. I’m so exhausted—
so
exhausted—and the weight of the ship, the stars, the hopelessness, Phydus, Amy, and Harley all crash on me at once.

I wake to the smell of paint.

Harley
, I think.

I struggle with the lab coats I am lying on. Their arms drag me down, but I eventually disentangle myself from them.

“Harley?” I ask, breathing deeply.

I turn from the elevator to the cryo chambers behind me.

At first I think it is blood, but as I step closer to the cryo chambers, I see that it is only red paint—thick, not-yet-dry red paint. Dripping giant Xs mark some, but not all, of the cryo chamber doors. I touch the one closest to me—number 54—and leave a red fingerprint in the paint. Looking down this row, I see six doors marked with Xs; the next row only has three, but the row after that has twelve.

My immediate thought is that this is the killer’s doing, that he has marked the people he plans to unfreeze next.

I shake my head. Could the killer have been down here, while I slept beside the elevator? No—it must have been Harley.

But just in case ...

I creep down each hall, looking for someone who might still be here, counting the marked doors. Thirty-eight doors are marked in total, and none of them give any indication of who painted them.

I envision the killer here, silently marking the doors of his victims while I slept. I shake my head again. Paint means Harley. This is Harley’s revenge for our shouting match last night; this is Harley trying to scare me or spook me, or he’s just being stupid.

Harley, it has to be Harley.

I can’t have let the killer stroll past me while I slept. I can’t have.

“Harley?” I call.

Nothing.

I run straight to the hallway, to the hatch, but before I get there, I know something is wrong.

The muslin-covered canvas is gone. Paint is splattered everywhere. For one sickening moment, I think that this is a crime scene and that the paint smears all over the floor and wall are blood splatters from a murder, but then I shake myself all over, and I whisper, “No,” because if this was a murder, then Harley would be dead, but he’s not here.

The control box beside the hatch door is broken.

The cover to the keypad has been pried off, and thin wires extend from the box through the shut door of the hatch.

Harley is inside the hatch, holding the keypad in his hand. He’s already tapping out the code.

I pound on the hatch door. Harley gives me a watery smile.

“I can get closer,” he says.

“Don’t!” I shout, banging against the glass.

Harley turns toward the hatch. He finishes the code on the keypad. The hatch slams open and Harley is sucked out into space.

For a moment, he looks back at me, and his farewell is in his smile. Then he turns to the stars.

And he is gone.

The hatch door swings shut, leaving emptiness.

Harley is gone.