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“Or this.”

He presses another button, and I see my own face projected on the long window in Ro’s room. I see myself pounding on the doors, screaming a stream of almost unintelligible words.

“We all have our triggers.” Colonel Catallus exhales, apparently feeling like himself again.

Ro’s face is flushed and sweating.

“And Doloria? I’m fairly certain he is a gun.”

Ro’s hands curl into fists.

A Sympa guard, standing next to the door, looks like he desperately wishes he was outside the room. He’s as armored and padded as I’ve ever seen a person. But I know
why he’s there, why he had to be on the inside.

Within Ro’s reach.

No.

Colonel Catallus smiles, pushing the button harder. He’s enjoying this, I can feel it.

The Doloria in the room with Ro screams louder and louder. Ro covers his ears, rocking back and forth in his chair.

Ro, don’t. I’m fine. I’m right here.

The chair goes flying, then the table. Now his hands are around the Sympa’s neck. Now the Sympa is flying. He’s so heavily protected he will be hard to kill. I think it only makes Ro angrier.

My own window rattles as the Sympa hits it. I wince, but the window holds. Colonel Catallus only smiles more broadly.

“Stop it. Ro’s going to kill him.”

“This is science, Doloria. Do you know how long it’s taken us to find you?”

“No.” I can’t take my eyes off Ro. The rest seems insignificant, right at this moment.

“You’ve no idea, the valuable research data you and your friend are giving us.”

A camera, high in the corner of the ceiling, follows Ro as Colonel Catallus speaks. I think he is talking, but I’m not listening. I’m watching the Sympa die. Ro can’t see
what he’s doing, and he can’t stop himself from doing it.

Maybe he is a gun
, I think.

Maybe I am a trigger.

The Sympa hits the wall again. It shakes so hard I think it will collapse. A spray of blood drips on the glass between us.

Even Colonel Catallus looks a bit taken aback. “As I was saying. Very valuable. Definitely worth the cost.”

Ro. In the name of the Lady, get hold of yourself.

“Please.” I look at Colonel Catallus. “Stop him. I’ll do anything.”

“Anything?” he asks, with a grim face. I nod. Of course. All he cares about is saving his own skin. He wants to know he has nothing to fear from me.

“I’ll never speak of your personal life again. I swear, Colonel.”

He opens the door and I run.

“Ro!” I scream. The soldier is frozen in the corner of the room, choking on his own spit, though Ro isn’t touching him. He doesn’t have to. I see the red waves coming off him, the energy that pulses through the room.

“Ro!”

The Sympa’s eyes roll in my direction. He makes a gurgling noise. Desperate.

I pull Ro toward me. Blood streams from the Sympa’s eyes.

“Furo Costas.”

“Doloria,” he says. He repeats my name like a chant, over and over, focusing the red waves on me.

I don’t flinch. I never do.

I take him in my arms, wrapping myself around his raging heart although it burns us both.

Handwritten notes, transcription follows:

GENETICS OF EMOTION:

A
LL EMOTION IS CONTROLLED AND MODERATED BY THE LIMBIC SYSTEM OF THE BRAIN.

B
UT OUR BRAIN HAS EVOLVED AND PUT UP SAFEGUARDS, LIMITS.

S
O OUR POWER TO FEEL IS MODERATED, HELD BACK, FOR REASONS THAT ARE NOW OBSOLETE.

T
HE BRAIN’S LIMBIC SYSTEM IS DETERMINED BY OUR
DNA.

T
HE BLUEPRINT
.

I
F I CAN ALTER THE
DNA,
CUSTOMIZE IT TO TWEAK THE LIMBIC SYSTEM, I CAN REMOVE THE MECHANISM THAT IS HOLDING US BACK.

C
UT THE BRAKES. OPEN THE FLOODGATES
.

U
NLEASH OUR TRUE POTENTIAL
.

W
E MAY NEED IT
.

In the darkness I hear a sound, something knocking at a door. I try to answer, try to just open my eyes, but I cannot.

It’s the Padre
, I think.
I’ve slept through my chores. The pigs must be hungry.
Then I drift back into the dark, knowing that sometimes even the pigs must wait.

Ro will do it.

I can depend on Ro.

The darkness is thick and soft and warm. It reassures me that I am right, and then I am gone.

Later, I feel someone shaking me. It must be Bigger. I must be in the way of the stove.

I open my eyes. I am not in the Mission. I am staring at the door of Examination Facility #9B. I am on the
floor, holding on to the air vent with one hand. Ro is on his knees, looking down at me, grabbing me by both arms.

“Dol, wake up. Are you okay?” He’s dressed, at least in pants, though his hair is standing straight up. He has bruises under his eyes, and his hands are bandaged.

“They must have given you something. I thought you’d never wake up.”

He looks stricken. I watch his eyes while he waits for me to remember. The guard and the room and the horrible Colonel Catallus.

I remember it all.

I also know something he doesn’t. They didn’t drug me. They didn’t have to. The way I feel now—broken and empty and depleted—this is what happens when I let the feelings come. My hands and mouth and stomach and eyes are burning dry. I try to make my eyes come into sharper focus, but I can only see the wires reconnecting me to the hospital walls once again.

I turn my head, slowly.

A tray of food sits on a table next to the bed.

I lift my hand. Caught between my fingers, I see the delicate gold chain of my mother’s necklace.

It doesn’t matter.

I’m not a daughter. Not anymore, and not to the Embassy. I’m a weapon, just like Ro.

A single tear rolls down from the corner of my eye. I close them so I don’t have to see it fall.

Then I feel Ro, warm as the lost stove in my lost kitchen, pulling himself down onto the floor beside me, leaning his head against my back.

“Shh. I’m here, Dol. It’s okay. We’ll get out of this. I’ll find a way to get us home.”

His big hand curls around my littler one, his thick arm around my thinner one. There is no cake on his face today, no twig in his hair.

Once again I let myself fade into a faraway world where there are no babies screaming in cribs—no silent radios, no rag-doll fathers, no crossless mothers.

And all the hearts are beating. Every last one.

I hear the door click open, and bolt upright.

I only have a moment to realize Ro is sleeping with his whole arm across my stomach, trapping me with half his body.

Then the door is open and Lucas is standing over us.

“Oh. Sorry. I—I didn’t realize I’d be interrupting.” I see his hand gesture, helplessly.

I rub my eyes. “Lucas? What are you doing here?” I look at him, confused, and then look over to Ro.

Ro’s snoring, one leg twitching. Probably chasing rabbits or Sympas in his dreams. I can smell the Ro-smell, the
sweat and the dirty hair and the brown, tanned skin, from here. No matter how clean he gets, he still smells like mud and grass and the ocean.

I turn slowly back to Lucas, who is bright red. I don’t want to look him in the eye.

“You’re not interrupting. We had a hard time sleeping. After—everything.” I can’t bring myself to refer to my conversation with Colonel Catallus any more than that. I can feel my own eyes narrowing. “But I guess you know that.”

I don’t have to explain. I remind myself Lucas has no reason to care about me, just as I have no reason to care about him.

Ro turns over, snoring, which doesn’t help things.

“Right. Obviously. He can’t sleep.” Lucas laughs, but he doesn’t smile.

I lower my voice. It would not be good for anyone if Ro woke up now. “Can I help you with something, Lucas? Is there a reason you’re here?”

“I’m sorry. About before.” He sounds anguished. “It’s just, I knew there was no way to stop her—”

“Don’t.” I hold up my hand. I can’t let him finish.

“They told me you were quarantined.” He can’t say anything else. That I’ve been trapped and cornered and tested—and failed every part of it all. At least, failed myself and Ro.

Because I couldn’t keep them from seeing what we do. Not any more than Lucas could stop them from forcing us to do it.

So I only shrug. “They were probably afraid it was contagious.”

“Being an Icon Child?”

“Being Grass.”

“What if it is?” He stares at me for a long time. As if there was any kind of answer to his question. As if his mother wasn’t the Ambassador. As if he didn’t already know where his whole life was going to lead him.

Not to the Grass.

I stand up, sliding expertly from beneath Ro’s deadweight arm.

“It’s not. So you can tell them not to worry about it. Tell her. We don’t want you.”

I push him out the door and close it before the tears come.

It has been two days since our “conversation” with Colonel Catallus.

They haven’t sent for us again. Not Colonel Catallus or the Ambassador.

Not a single Sympa.

Ro stays in my room with me. They must know he’s
there, but if they do, they haven’t said anything about it.

The first day we are exhausted and do nothing but sleep. By the second morning, though, we are starving, and there is no sign of a food tray coming.

That’s when Ro and I decide it is time to think strategically. We need a plan beyond anger. We need to find a way to get out of here.

Time to venture beyond Santa Catalina Examination Facility #9B.

We walk the long halls of the Medical Wing, looking straight ahead, keeping to one side of the corridor. “Don’t speak to anyone,” says Ro. “We just need to get our hands on a food tray.”

“We need more than that,” I say.

He nods. “But first, food. We should probably load up. We can’t just walk out of here, and we don’t know how long it could take to find a way to escape.”

“Don’t talk about it,” I say, lowering my voice. “Not inside.”

I point up at the round grating in the ceiling.

“Got it.”

The room with the door marked
CAFETERIA
is full of people when we enter. Doctors, officers, Sympa guards. The room is huge and the ceiling is plexi, seamed by metal ribbing that reminds me of the carcass of an animal who
has come to die in our field and his flesh rotted away.

The windows would let the light in, if there was light. There are only clouds, though. So the glass lets the gray in.

I see Lucas at a table in nearly the center of the room. Just seeing him makes me stumble into a chair as I pass by, but I collect myself.

Ro lets his hand brush against mine, letting me feel his presence. “Easy there, Dodo. We’ll just grab a couple trays and go.”

I swallow a smile. Ro hasn’t asked me anything about Lucas, not directly, but he hasn’t said anything, either. To be honest, there isn’t much Ro and I have wanted to talk about, these last few days. His “conversation” with the Sympa was probably harder to endure than the one I had with Colonel Catallus.

Either way, they aren’t conversations we will be having again. Not if we can help it.

Lucas catches my eye. He sits stiffly beside the silver-haired girl, the one from the Chopper. She looked almost like an apparition then, and she doesn’t look real here, either; now that I can get a closer look at her, I see she’s slight as wild bamboo. Her fingers flutter as she talks, moving with a different emphasis for every word. They tell stories, her fingers, like a dance. It’s mesmerizing.

My mind stretches toward her, and I catch flashes of terrible things. Disasters and creatures. Storms and slides
and fires. I pull back, and she turns toward me.

Strange.

She shouldn’t have felt it, shouldn’t have felt anything. Most people can’t. And yet it looks like she has, just as Colonel Catallus did, during his stupid test. I know Ro can feel me when I am connecting to him. It seemed like Lucas could, too.

But why can she?

The girl is painfully beautiful, and it’s only now that she fixes her eyes firmly in my direction that I realize I am staring.

Ro pulls me, gently, closer to the food counters. A reminder. He is here. I relax into him, letting the heat in my stomach radiate through me.

Moments later, when my tray is full, I follow Ro toward the door.

“When you get to the door, ditch the trays, just carry as much as you can.” He speaks quietly, only to me.

“Fast,” I say. I’m not comfortable talking about our plan to leave, but given the lunchtime clamor in the room, I’m not sure Doc could hear us.