Intrepid (22 page)

“You know how our eyes tend to marble in the irises, no matter what color we think they are? The cracks in her marble started bleeding out shades of purple, and they began to swirl like storm clouds in her eyes.”
 

I shivered and took a long swig from the container. There was something about the eyes that drew out even more questions. I remembered the feeling of caterpillars crawling on mine, and wondered what it would feel like to have what happened to her happen to me. How do you empathize with an experience you haven’t gone through? And more importantly, why were the eyes a side effect?
 

“She could have died.” There he went, getting back on the train of unproductive thoughts. Being a broken record was not going to help us get through this.

“She’s not dead, though. No use dwelling on it,” I said, hoping he’d finally get the point.
 

Santiago scratched his head, and I could hear the way his fingernails grazed his scalp. The new sense of hearing kept getting in the way of concentrating, and I pulled at my earlobe.
 

“You know, it sucks that you were kept in the dark, too. Maybe after some time, you’ll figure out that your new normal won’t be so bad,” he said.
 

Annoyance flittered through me. I wasn’t like Santiago and Texi. I didn’t need any more time to adjust past understanding because I had enough time in the hours I gave myself on the island. Things were one way, and now they were another. Maybe that was another difference between how Watchers and Explorers are raised. We learn how to use objective acceptance because we are aware that situations can change in the blink of an eye. “I’m not Texi,” I reminded him. “You don’t have to try and soothe this transition over with me. I’ve known my entire life that I belonged to the cause. Just because my role has been altered a bit doesn’t make it any less or any more important.”
 

“I wouldn’t say less important.” There was fear playing on his face as he continued. “She Spliced on a Stagnant.”
 

“What?” I had to choke back the swig of orange juice I’d just taken. It burned the back up my throat and the pathways up to my nose.
 

“That’s how we escaped Sully. She created four new Veins.”
 

I pulled in a breath, but the hairs at the back of my nose were still on fire. “Four?”
 

Santiago finished off his coffee, and the ceramic clinked against the marbled countertop. “The worst part is… I took a brief Culture Pulse before we left. Those four Veins? They aren’t Stagnant anymore.”
 

My mouth swam in new levels of acidic with this information. I knew I needed to form words, but they wouldn’t coagulate on my tongue. Texi had set the inert into motion. “But Energy can be neither—”

“Created nor Destroyed,” Santiago finished. “But what if it can be?”
 

I shook my head. There had to be another explanation besides Creation. Just because she could Splice didn’t mean the Calvary succeeded in harnessing Creation. I slid the rest of the juice back onto the shelf in the fridge and closed the door. The stainless steel of it felt cold on my fingertips, and I tried to mimic the metal’s cool calmness as I asked my next question. “So these Veins could possibly expand out?”
 

“I doubt they will without her there to push them along. I’m sure she just bought them time, but when it happened, I thought she was gonna collapse the entire Vein.” Santiago shuddered as he confessed, and I remembered the way a vein in the arm can collapse around a needle. Nobu always took blood from me four times a year to check my vitals, and he always struggled with finding just the right place to make the needle stick. Once, just as the blood began to stream into the vial, the vein fell in on itself and blood spurted out, sprinkling us both with red, metallic dots. I imagined the Multiverse squeezing out entire universes like these red, metallic dots into the Nothing.
 

Santiago continued his story: “And when I told her this, she said it was like breathing. Liam, she did it as naturally and instinctually as taking a
breath
, and she pulled us
both
through it without needing the Planck Activation Bracelet.”
 

I didn’t know what to make of it. She could not only Jump without her bracelet, she could pull others along with her? Although all Saltadors had the power within them to Jump, no one should be able to access the power on their own. And although every Splicer had the ability to Splice, none of them should have the power to be self-aware in doing so. Yet here Texi was, doing both.
 

Santiago tapped his fingers across the counter. “We have to be even more careful—especially when it comes to sympathizing with her. We don’t know what can happen.”
 

“I think I understand objectivity even better than you do,” I reminded him. I tried not to let his superiority bug me. I recognized he was telling himself these things more than he was telling me. Still. It bugged me that he thought I might need a reminder of it.
 

“Maybe it was a mistake to let you meet her so soon. We don’t know what she’s capable of yet. I should have gotten more time alone with her.”

Patience. It was a hard thing to maintain with this conversation. When Santiago learned to Jump two years ago, he visited
Geeta
often. I tried not to be annoyed by the way he believed in his own understanding of things. He latched on to every new concept like they were absolute truths, and he always said them out loud to remind himself of their importance. Except he’d include me in this conversation because he saw me as younger. The big brother complex he had with Texi and Mina transferred onto me, since I was at least someone he didn’t have to watch his mouth around. He still didn’t get that even though he was over two years older, I had the breadth of a different experience—one that let me truly grasp concepts a million times easier than him.
 

“And what would that have accomplished? The fact that the Shadow Boxers knew where she was should only tell you that the extra time you speak of never existed. If I’m supposed to be a part of this, now is as good as time as any to get started. This was the right thing to do, and you know the failsafe if things get out of hand.”

His chest rose as he sucked in a deep breath. “I have to be honest. I don’t know if I could do it. I don’t know if I could kill Texi if it came down to it.”
 

I didn’t reply. It only solidified the conclusion I came to in the 2040s. It wasn’t Santiago’s job to do, although he thought it was. The fact that he was prepared for it, even if he couldn’t follow through with it, gave me a strange sense of respect for him.
 

I understood how difficult it could be for Explorers as they discovered the truth behind what they were. During that time, loyalty to duty can be a hard thing to establish, so even though his reaction to it annoyed me, I kept reminding myself to show compassion towards him. Santiago was preparing to honor his duty to the Saltadors despite his relationship with Texi, and that was a feat in and of itself.
 

He closed his eyes and whispered, “Be intrepid.”

The way he put softness into the phrase made me pity him. He was right, and he wasn’t alone in that fear. When it came down to it, was I willing to take a life? Objectively or not, no matter what conclusion I’d come to on that island, I wasn’t sure if I could follow through with disposing of the subject. “For we Stand on the Shoulders of Giants.” I finished the phrase, but the more complicated things got, the more I realized that sometimes the Shoulders of Giants was a crappy place to stand.
     

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The buzzing on my wrist woke me. I’d fallen asleep in the den, and before I sat up, I realized I had an uncomfortable crick in my neck.
 

 
I pulled up my screen and clenched my fist.
New Post to the Eightieth Generation.
 

Geronimo was spewing out more and more of his crap at a faster and faster speed. I tried tracking it before I read, but, as usual, nothing came up.
 

Then I read:

We are warned against impatience in the Manifesto, yet it is in our nature to fear that which we don’t understand. It is also in our nature to destroy that which we fear.
 

Is it any wonder that when the Humanitarian Project was revealed for what it was, we sought to destroy it all? No. I can forgive that which was in our nature.
 

Fifteen years later, we have had time to digest the whims of our fear. Now that we have, I will not be able to forgive any Destruction that comes beyond this moment.
 

For I have met her, and I have been her friend. She is no more dangerous than you or I when you consider everyone’s ability to create or destroy. You, my countrymen, who seek her death, are those whom we should fear. Destruction rests in your will more than it does in hers.
   

His logic sounded logical, but his feeds were, like always, unbalanced. If he’d just play up both sides, I would have more respect for him.
 

I shook my head. At least Texi wasn’t trapped in that universe anymore. Geronimo could go ahead and keep spouting off that crappy propaganda, because at least now we could keep her safe. Maybe, now that I didn’t need to worry about the forum giving away Texi’s location, I wouldn’t have to keep such a close eye on it. I shut off the screen, unwilling to give the forum any more of my Energy. Although it did make me realize that there were things Texi needed to learn faster than I would have liked her to.
 

Forums. They were the same in every universe that existed within technology, and the Planck Activation Bracelets allowed for instantaneous downloads from Explorers for Watchers to filter. I remembered when Nobu allowed me access to it for the first time. “Do not attach yourself to any belief, because you’ll only find one that contradicts it two articles later. Explore all sides of every issue you come across, because if you believe before you understand, then you fall into ignorance.” He was right. For all the talk within
The Manifesto
about balance, our government sure did like to sway into extremes.
 

But maybe it was time to teach Texi how to use the forums. I recognized that it may be a mistake to give her the databases so early on, but she’d understand more if she knew how to find the answers to random questions on her own. After last night, I felt the cold fingers of time squeezing around us. Now that she was opening her mind up to learn, she needed to absorb as much as she possibly could before events started to unfold in front of her.
 

The morning was well on its way out when I finally went to wake her up, but she was already sitting in the same chair I’d left her in last night. I wondered if she ever left it. I glanced over at the still, pristinely made bed and got my answer.
 

I sat in the other chair and thanked the fish-tank-table for the space it put between us. Objective distance was going to be difficult to keep now that she was on
Geeta
, and after talking to Santiago last night, I realized I needed to be surgically careful around Texi. Any extra wall to keep between us, even if it was in the form of a coffee-table-fish-tank, helped. “Want to learn how to pull up your screen?” I asked.
 

“Good morning to you, too.” She passed me a sly smile, and let the words litter the room with sarcasm.
 

I laughed without meaning to, and the moment I heard it, I cut it short. I couldn’t like her or be her friend. I needed to maintain emotional distance as much as physical distance. I pulled my mouth out of the smile, and said, “Do you know how to activate it?”
 

She shook her head no.
 

I talked her through pinching the space above the hidden latch, and the screen hovered above her wrist. “You can also command it with your voice, which is easiest. I just wanted you to know you can do it manually if for some reason you are unable to speak.”
 

“What do I say to activate it?”

“Activate Planck Activation Bracelet,” I said, and my screen expanded over my wrist. “And to put it back? Deactivate Planck Activation Bracelet.” My screen folded up into the empty air until it was gone.
 

“Cool.” She practiced both several times, letting a giggle escape each time.
 

“It’s not a toy,” I said.
 

Her eyes rolled. It was something I’d witnessed more times than I realized over the years I spent watching her. Between all the crossing and the rolling, I wondered how her eyes were still able to function normally. It made me want to smile, and like the last time, I pushed the urge away. “You see how the screen is see-through, so that it gets difficult to read because you see everything beyond the letters?”
 

Texi nodded.
 

“Say, ‘Increase opacity.’ It’ll make it easier to read.”
 

She said it, and the screen grew a black backing into it. “It looks like a floating computer!” Her eyes examined every inch of the screen, and they widened in excitement. Then there was a pause in this excitement to let in a wave of confusion. “Why doesn’t my screen respond to your commands?” It was a good question. She always seemed full of good questions.
 

“Because the bracelet is connected to your Energy. It’ll only respond to your voice commands. Although there’s a failsafe for anyone to pull it up manually in case a partner has to help you Jump. Speaking of, when entering coordinates, it’s protocol to always type them in. You don’t want to accidentally say the wrong thing. One letter or number off can make a huge difference.”
 

“That makes sense. When do I get to learn how to enter coordinates?” Texi asked. She was curious as always, thirsty for more things to understand before she was ready for them.