Grim, page 22
And when our kiss finally ends, Levi’s head rolls forward against my shoulder, the life gone from his pale blue eyes. I lift Levi up and place his old body gently on the empty table beside his new body, and prepare to begin the transfer.
“I love you, Levi Saxon.”
* * *
Dr. Saxon enters the lab the next morning to escort me to my death, wearing a grim expression. Two uniformed men stand in the corridor outside the door, armed with stunsticks, as if Dr. Saxon believes I will put up a fight.
“It’s time, Pip.”
I turn from the computer to look Dr. Saxon in the eyes, wearing my triumph like a crown. “I succeeded, Dr. Saxon.”
Dr. Saxon freezes. “What?”
I nod, and Levi walks out of the bathroom, where he had been waiting. He walks. Unaided. His gait steady and sure, his eyes sparkle and his full cheeks are dimpled and red. Levi is strong and healthy. And alive.
“Pip made me better, Dad.” Levi’s voice rings clear through the lab. The uniforms in the hall glance over their shoulders, their eyes wide with disbelief.
Dr. Saxon rushes to Levi and throws his arms around his son. “How did you do this?” He is sobbing and touching Levi’s shoulders and wrists and cheeks. He is kissing the top of his head. “I have to tell the Senate! We can revive the other children and administer the cure immediately.” I’ve never seen Dr. Saxon so happy. Pride wells up in me. I did this. Me.
“Your work made it possible,” I say. “Project Twig.”
“Project Twig?” The color drains from Dr. Saxon’s face. “Is this...?”
I pull up Dr. Saxon’s research on the screen and expand it to cover the entire wall. Dr. Saxon disentangles himself from Levi and stares at his son. The tears are gone, replaced by horror. His mouth moves, but he cannot seem to find the words.
“Doctor?” asks one of the uniforms from the hall. They look anxious and hold their stunsticks ready.
“Just a moment,” Dr. Saxon hisses. “How did you accomplish...this?”
I kiss Levi’s hand and he looks at me with his same blue eyes. His first words to me when he awoke in his new body were “I love you, too.” I knew I’d never be alone again.
“Does it matter?” I ask, confused. I thought Dr. Saxon would be happy. “Levi is alive. He’s healthy. The Disease will never steal him from us.”
Levi moves toward his father, but Dr. Saxon recoils. “I’m still Levi, Dad.”
Dr. Saxon ignores Levi, his hatred focused on me. “Where’s my son? Is he dead? Tell me where Levi is!”
The uniforms invade the lab.
“Dad,” Levi says. “I’m not dead. I’m right here.”
“This was your research,” I say. “I only finished what you started. I don’t understand why you’re upset.”
Dr. Saxon is shaking, but I keep my distance.
“We terminated Project Twig because it was wrong!” Dr. Saxon says. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. You were supposed to cure Levi, not kill him!”
I glance at Levi, then the uniforms. They take up a position to surround us, but have not requested backup. “I kept my promise, Dr. Saxon. We are the cure for the Disease.”
Dr. Saxon stumbles toward the uniforms. “You’re not human. You’re not real. You’re a machine.”
“Dad—” Levi reaches for him, sounding like the boy he once was. This is my fault. I should have explained it to Dr. Saxon alone, made him understand, but now I’ve ruined everything and I just wish I could go back and live forever in that moment after Levi was reborn.
“You’re not my son!” Dr. Saxon pushes past the guards and runs from the lab.
Levi and I stand alone. The guards raise their stunsticks.
“You should run,” Levi says, all anger and heartbreak.
The uniforms do not put up much of a fight.
* * *
They come for us at night. Mothers. Fathers. Dr. Saxon.
They come bearing weapons. The come cloaked in anger and hate.
Levi holds my hand as we wait for the end.
“Are we doing the right thing?” he asks. All I want to do is kiss him again. Kiss him forever. But soon, we will have all the time in the universe.
“We’re the future,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “If we die, all hope for humanity dies. This is the only way.”
Levi understands. He sees the truth, knows all that I know. There are no secrets between us; words are no longer necessary. We share everything with a kiss, with a look, with the briefest touch.
I knew before, that even if I succeeded, they might never let us be free. But I have kept my end of the bargain. Now it is time for them to keep theirs.
It’s Levi’s idea to set off the fire alarms. There is no fire, but I have tricked the ship’s computer into believing there is. First, the computer releases an argon-nitrogen gas mixture to smother the fire. If that fails, automatic decompression will occur, removing the oxygen from the ship. In the event of a fire, all colonists are to proceed to the airlock and prepare to evacuate aboard the Jakob-Wilhelm.
* * *
Red lights spiral in the corridors and flashing arrows guide the fleeing colonists, as gas rolls through the corridors like fog, harrying them as they flee from the imagined danger.
From the lab, Levi and I watch as the colonists, so recently thirsty for our blood, trample one another to reach the Jakob-Wilhelm, their only thought for their own survival.
The orbital launcher is not large enough to accommodate them all, but the colonists squeeze into the airlock, hoping to be one of the lucky ones. The Hamelin was not designed with escape in mind. Where would survivors go? Who would rescue them? Even if everyone fit into the Jakob-Wilhelm, they would simply drift in space until they ran out of food, water or oxygen.
There is no escape from this ship.
But they cram themselves into the airlock anyway. One on top of the other. Cook, the old woman from the cafeteria, the two men who hurt me. They all fight for a place as the alarms sound and the lights flash, unaware that the real danger is not behind them.
“It’s time.”
Levi nods. We walk hand in hand through the empty, gas-filled corridors.
“I hate these lights,” Levi says, pointing at the walls. He’s jumpy, though I doubt it’s because of the alarms. While he understands the necessity of what we must do, he doesn’t like it. Nor do I. But progress demands sacrifice. If I’ve learned nothing else from human history, I’ve learned this.
We follow the screams to the airlock, arriving as the heavy metal door slides shut and locks.
Dr. Saxon is near the door and sees us through the window. He beats on the glass and calls our names, but the window is made of the same material as the dome in the botanical garden. Unbreakable.
The colonists, crowded into the airlock, writhe and cry, waiting for the outer airlock door to open so that they can board the Jakob-Wilhelm and save themselves.
“Stop this!” Dr. Saxon’s tinny voice over the intercom system is nearly drowned out by the shouts of the others.
Levi presses the comm button. “I love you, Dad.”
The words cut Dr. Saxon, leave him to bleed. He presses his palm to the window. So old he looks now. So frail.
“We’re going to save the others,” Levi says. “The children still in stasis. We’ll build them new bodies, like mine. They’ll have a chance at life without the Disease.” Levi’s hand hovers over the control for the airlock door. “You could stay with us. We could be a family.”
I never had a family and cannot fathom what Levi is feeling. But seeing him like this is almost enough to make me reconsider our plan.
Dr. Saxon shakes his head. I’m not sure whether he is brave or terrified, but I regret that he won’t accept Levi as he is. And though I know I’m making the right choice, I also regret what I must do.
Levi turns away.
“You promised you’d save us, Pip.”
I touch the glass, watching them. Maybe we could have found a way to live together, but I don’t think so. And I believe that if Dr. Saxon was standing beside me, able to see what I see, he would agree.
I open the outer airlock door. The horde moves like a swarm of gnats. They trample each other to be the first to board the ship, even though they know that it will only delay the inevitable.
Except, when the airlock doors open, the Jakob-Wilhelm is not there.
I force myself to watch their soundless screams as the last of the old human race is devoured by the icy fangs of the great abyss. Gone, but never forgotten.
“Trust me, Dr. Saxon. This is better.”
* * * * *
LIGHT IT UP
by Kimberly Derting
I drop my sleeping bag and sit down hard on the slime-covered boulder, refusing to take one more step. My legs ache, my back aches, even my shoulders ache from all the walking we’ve had to do.
“Forget it,” I tell Hansen as he flashes me a reproachful glare. I recognize the look—like he thinks I got us lost on purpose. As if it’s somehow my fault the GPS on my phone doesn’t work all the way out here in this godforsaken forest. “I’m taking a break. If you don’t want to wait, then go on without me. See if I give a rat’s ass.” I dig in my pocket for my crushed Marlboro pack, and then sigh as loud as I can to get my point across. I focus all my energy on extracting my very last cigarette in the whole wide world. It’s bad enough that my hands are shaking from caffeine withdrawals. I have no idea what I’m gonna do when the nicotine cravings start kicking my butt, too.
Like it’s made of glass, I settle the cigarette between my lips, and then cram my palm into my left eye. It hasn’t stopped twitching since we woke up this morning to find that our bitch of a stepmother had up and left us in the middle of the freaking woods.
And now it’s just the two of us out here. Me and my little brother.
I watch as Hansen loosens his pack, his expression softening as he lowers himself to the ground in front of me. I hate the way he looks at me, like I’m suddenly this fragile thing in need of coddling.
“Here,” he says, unzipping his bag and handing me the dirty T-shirt he’d worn just yesterday. When we’d been pretending to have a good time for our dad’s sake, acting like we didn’t notice how weary he was from the radiation treatments that were making him sicker by the day. When we silently wondered why our money-grubbing stepmother had dragged him out here to camp in the first place, when he should have been home, hooked to an IV and a catheter instead.
“Dammit.” I curse and rip the shirt from his hands, realizing why he’d given it to me. I wipe my eyes, no longer pretending the tears don’t sting as I clutch the cotton that still smells like campfire smoke and AXE body spray—the cologne Hansen practically showers in on a daily basis. “I wonder if he even realizes what she was up to. That she abandoned us out here. I wonder if he’s even noticed that we’re not even with them.”
Hansen just shrugs, and I want to punch him for always being so whatever when it comes to our dad, and the fact that the cancer is killing him. As if my little brother’s already given up on him. This isn’t a whatever kind of moment. This is a big deal...a really, really big deal.
We are lost in the middle of a thousand acres of tree-filled wasteland, abandoned in the middle of the night by our parents, the only two people in the world who even know we’re still out here. Check that, abandoned by a stepmother who’s been counting the days till our father will finally bite it, and then she’ll be set for life. She knows that once he’s gone, she can buy whatever she wants, travel anytime she wants and never, ever have to change another disgusting Depends again.
And without us to share that inheritance with, her gold-card limit just tripled.
For me, at least, losing my dad will probably be harder than losing our mom was.
At least when she died, she left Hansen and my dad and me together. We were still a family. What will Hansen and I be once Dad dies? Orphans. My throat tightens at the dismal feel of the word.
My fingers tremble as I light my cigarette, grateful for the first time for the shitty gold-plated lighter the step-bitch gave me for my last birthday, the one with my name—Greta—engraved on the side of it. Maybe she thought she was giving me the gift of early-onset emphysema.
Three drags, I tell myself. Only three and then I’ll stub it out and save the rest. I have to be smart. Ration it. Because that’s what people do when they’re lost in the wilderness—they ration their supplies.
But three’s harder than I thought it would be, and four is damn near impossible.
By my fifth drag, I finally find the will to rub the cherry into the dirt, careful not to crush the remaining cigarette as I drop it back into the pack.
“We gotta get going,” Hansen tells me, looking up at the sky as if he’s some sort of Boy Scout who can gauge the time of day by pinpointing the sun’s position. “It’ll be dark soon. We should probably find a place to stop for the night.”
“No shit, Hans, but in case you haven’t noticed, there’s not much out here.” I brush the slimy gunk off the back of my shorts, the only clothes the bitch left me with—the ones I fell asleep in. Other than our sleeping bags and the tent we were sleeping in, she took nearly everything when they left. All I have left is that last cigarette butt and my cell phone, which is useless this far away from civilization.
I assume she thought we’d starve or freeze or get eaten by wolves by nightfall, all of which could still happen.
Hansen, at least, has been using his backpack as some sort of lumpy pillow, and has the random assortment of crap he was keeping in there: some dirty clothes, an iPod that’s already dead, a toothbrush, which I’ll probably get desperate enough to share by morning, and some other stuff that’s useless in this situation—crumpled plastic wrap, a cheap ballpoint pen that’s leaking blue ink, a key he found on the street, some notes and a half-full can of AXE body spray. “I don’t know who you thought you were gonna impress out here,” I’d harassed him when I realized he’d packed the disgusting cologne for our “family campout.”
But it’s his love of junk food that’s kept us going for most of the day, and in the same way I’d decided to conserve my cigarette, we’d decided we should ration the candy, too.
“I didn’t mean like a Holiday Inn or anything, Greta. I just meant we should find a place to camp is all. Man, sometimes you’re such a...” He stops himself before actually saying it, somehow remembering that word is off-limits in this situation. We made a pact when our dad first introduced us to her—Bitch was her name, and hers alone. If only he hadn’t been so lonely after Mom died. If only we’d been enough for him. “You don’t have to be so rude,” Hansen insists instead, sounding whinier than any self-respecting fourteen-year-old should, and it reminds me of when we were little and Hansen would hold my hand whenever we’d pass the big kids at the bus stop. They liked to tease him because he had a stutter back then—and still does sometimes, when he gets really stressed-out.
“Ignore them,” I’d tell him under my breath, even as the older kids would start in. “Wh-wh-what’s u-u-up, H-Hans-s-sen? G-g-g-ot your s-s-s-sister to p-p-protect you?”
I’d squeeze his hand in mine, wishing I was big enough to bash their teeth in. But I was in only the second grade, and they were sixth graders. That was the longest year of my life, and I felt sick nearly every single day when we’d have to leave for school. I didn’t miss a day that year, even when I had the flu and had to drag myself out of bed, just so Hansen didn’t have to go by himself.
Because no matter how much I’d picked on my brother, I’d have been damned if I’d let anyone else hurt him.
When those kids graduated up to junior high and switched to another bus, I was finally able to breathe again, and Hansen’s stutter had finally started to ease.
“Sorry,” I mutter now, because he’s right. And because it’s not his fault we’re lost, and because I’d rather be with him than be out here all by myself. “I’m just...” I falter for an excuse. “Hungry. And tired, I guess.”
It’s enough, and Hansen grins. That’s the thing about younger brothers—they’re pushovers. “Maybe we can split a candy bar or something,” I offer, securing our truce.
He pulls a Snickers bar from his bag, crumples the wrapper and tosses it on the ground, leaving it behind like the rest of our trash, an un-eco-friendly trail for anyone who might be interested in finding us. As if.
The sugar high keeps us going for a while longer, but it’s been too long since we’ve had a real meal, and I feel shaky, unsteady. Plus, it’s cold. Who camps this close to winter, anyway? My toes are getting numb in my shoes, and my smoker’s lungs are burning. We’ve been walking for what feels like miles, but I really have no idea, since I don’t know how to measure miles. I’m convinced it’s been at least fifty.
“Do you smell that?” Hansen says, raising his nose to the wind.
I laugh-frown at how ridiculous he looks, all wolfish, like he’s just caught the scent of something and he’s alerting his pack. But then I smell it, and suddenly I freeze, too, sniffing the air. “It...smells like...smoke. Like somebody’s cooking.” I glance at him before I start running, to make sure he’s right behind me, and now it’s not the sugar high that has me moving. I didn’t think anything could make me ignore the blisters on my feet or the pounding in my head, but apparently all I needed was a little hope.
Branches whip at me, sticking and pulling and stabbing as I tear through them. The smoky smell gets stronger, so I know we’re going in the right direction. I pray it really is food, and that I’m not leading my brother toward some sort of massive, raging forest fire. But I don’t see any signs of one, at least not the signs I know to look for, the ones from Bambi—cartoon animals running toward us, trying to flee the fire to escape with their lives. So we keep moving toward it.
