Origin (10 page)

Soon he’s lost to sight, hidden by leaves. I stare for a long minute and start to wonder if he changed his mind about walking me home and just abandoned me in the middle of the jungle. Then I hear a rustle and a shout behind me, and I whirl to see him sliding to the ground on a thick liana. He lands lightly, knees bent, with a string of aguaje draped over his shoulder.

With a smile that can only be described as cocky, he deftly skins the fruit and hands it to me. I discover I’m grinning like a monkey.

“Thanks, I guess,” I say. The fruit is mildly tangy, not my favorite of the local produce, but what can I say when the boy climbed a hundred feet to pick it? “Aren’t you going to eat some too?”

He laughs. “No! Aguaje is for girls. If a man eats too much of it, he starts to look like a woman.”

“That is the most unscientific thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Then you haven’t met my cousin Jacari.” Eio swings the string of fruit back and forth. “Too much aguaje. Now the mothers use him as a wet nurse.”

My mouth freezes in mid-bite, and I stare at him. “You’re teasing me.”

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe.”

I throw the aguaje pit at him, and he laughs again and catches it. His laughter is infectious. I can’t stop smiling. Everything he does, each movement, each word, is so vivid and strange. I feel like I’ve discovered some fascinating new species.
Homo ferus
: wild human.
An unpredictable, nocturnal creature usually found in trees. Caution: may cause bewilderment and disorientation. Also, prone to teasing
.

He picks another aguaje from the vine and tosses it up and down, watching me with his head tilted and his eyes curious. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen. How old are you?”

“Almost eighteen.”

“Do you have brothers and sisters?” I’ve always been enchanted by the idea of siblings. As a rule, the members of my family tree could never have more than one child, for the sake of population control—though that rule backfired on them when the Accident happened.

“Not by blood,” he says. “But by heart.”

“What does
that
mean? If not by blood, then they’re not really siblings.”

He frowns and catches the agauje again, rubs his thumb over its scaly skin. “Shows what you know about family.”

“I’ve spent months of my life studying genetics,” I say. “I think I know all there is to know about family.”

“Genetics,” Eio repeats thoughtfully.

“It’s the study of—”

“I know what it is. But that’s just a part of what family is, at least in Ai’oa. And it’s a very small part.”

I open my mouth, shut it again. My brain does a somersault and lands with its fists raised. “It’s
everything
. My genetic heritage was handpicked, designed by the best scientists in the world—” I stop before I go too far and tell him what I really am.

Eio gives me a sad smile. “You really are a scientist. Whenever we contradict one of you, that wall comes up in your eyes. We have a word for it in Ai’oa.
Akangitá
. Head like a rock.”

My mouth drops. “Head like a
rock
!”

I clamp my jaw shut, whirl on my heel, and march off toward Little Cam in a huff.

At first I hear nothing behind me, and I almost slow and stop, but then I hear Eio hurrying to catch up. I wipe the smile from my face before he sees it. He skips around me and blocks my path.

“Sorry. If it makes you feel better, everyone in Ai’oa calls me
Akangbytu
.”

“What does that mean?”

He thinks for a moment. “Head full of wind.”

My indignation, already thin, shatters. I laugh. “Head full of wind! Perfect. How do you say
mouth
?”

“You say
îuru
.” He frowns. “Why?”

“So if I called you
Îurubytu
…”

He gives me a dark look. “Mouth of wind. Ha ha.
Îurukay
.”

“What’s that?”

“I said you speak with fire, Pia bird. Your words scorch.”

I smile. “Teach me more.”

As we walk, I name words, and Eio tells me their Ai’oan translation, which I file away in my memory. He is stunned by how quickly I remember things and how easily I string the words together into sentences.

“It took me years to speak English this well,” he says. “You speak my language as if it were planted in your heart.”

I smile and wonder if he can see the warmth in my cheeks.

Suddenly the fence appears, and we’re not far from my escape hole. I see the fallen ceiba only a few dozen yards to the right. The heat melts from my face. I wish I had walked slower.

“Thank you for walking me back,” I say, because it feels like the right thing to do.

“Pia…” He looks down at his feet suddenly, seeming almost embarrassed. “I must tell you something. I told you a lie.”

“You didn’t kill an anaconda after all?”

“No!” he retorts indignantly. “
Îurukay
. I
did
kill the anaconda! I lied when I said you were ugly. It is not true. You…” He scrubs at his hair, and his discomfort makes me smile. “You are in fact very beautiful. More beautiful than any girl I know. Because I lied to you, I must give you a gift. It is the Ai’oan way. I took the truth away from you; now I must give something back.” He extends his hand, and I see he is holding a flower. It’s as big as both of my hands, a lovely pink and purple passionflower.

I stare at it as my heart tumbles over itself and my tongue turns into stone.

“Will you come again?” he asks. “In the daytime? You are not like the other scientists, who come and try to bully us, showing off their guns and motorboats.” He snorts. “If it wasn’t for us, your scientists wouldn’t know half of what they know about this jungle. But you are…still young and not so ugly. I can teach you more of my language. And I can show you Ai’oa.”

I swallow the shard of ice that’s formed in my throat. “I…can’t, Eio.”

“What are you so afraid of?” He stares at me defiantly, his blue eyes cutting right to my heart.

I repeat my promise to myself to never leave Little Cam again, but my thoughts get muddled, and all I can think of
is the jade jaguar on Eio’s necklace. The words come out of their own accord. “Okay…I will.”

A slow smile spreads his lips, revealing a row of beautiful white teeth. He nods and turns to Alai, bends from the waist, and says, “Farewell, guardian.”

Then he is gone, blending into the dappled night like smoke.

T
he next morning, when I look at the syllabus Uncle Paolo wrote for this week’s studies, I can’t help but smile. Today, instead of the usual routine with Uncle Antonio, I get to work with Uncle Will in the bug room. Then again, I could be scheduled to give the Grouch a bubble bath and I wouldn’t mind. Last night’s adventure—though I’m awed and a little terrified that it happened at all—has left me giddy and lightheaded. It doesn’t feel quite real, and if it weren’t for the passionflower I hid in my nightstand drawer, I might dismiss the memory as a wild, vivid dream. Before leaving my room, I peek at the flower one more time, just to be sure it’s still there. The sight of it sets butterflies loose in my stomach, and I wonder if it’s because it came from the outside—or because Eio gave it to me.

The entomologist lab is located in A Labs, and there are boards covered with insects all over it. Butterflies, spiders, caterpillars, you name it, Uncle Will has it. The nastier and
bigger the bug, the more fond of it Uncle Will is. He’s pretty much the only one, however. Everyone in Little Cam does their best to avoid Uncle Will’s lab. I don’t mind it so much; there’s only one member of his collection that I don’t care for, and I hope it won’t make an appearance in today’s lesson.

Uncle Will looks up from his microscope as I enter the lab and gives a little smile.

“Pia,” he says, and that is all. My father is the quietest person in Little Cam. He rarely spends time in the lounge or gym, choosing instead to keep to himself. There are many cliques within the population of the compound, but I’ve never known Uncle Will to be in any of them. He seems to enjoy the company of his bugs more than that of other people. Sometimes I imagine a day when everyone leaves Little Cam to go back to the outside world, leaving all the buildings empty and dark. Except for Uncle Will. I can’t imagine him anywhere except right where he is now, and I think even after the rest of us have left he’ll still be here, pinning beetles to Styrofoam.

“Uncle Paolo sent me to study with you. Didn’t he tell you?”

Uncle Will nods absently. He’s already glued his eye back to his microscope. I slide onto a metal stool, its blue cushion cracked and leaking yellow foam, and wait.

After several minutes, Uncle Will looks up again and smiles. “Pia.”

“Um…yes?”

“Today we will study my little pet.” He opens the lid of a terrarium and takes out the most terrifying creature in Little Cam. It’s a beetle larger than my hand, dark, shiny black, and fitted with a ferocious pair of pincers. My heart sinks. So Babó
is to be the lesson after all. I’m normally not squeamish, but the sight of this abnormally huge beetle makes my stomach turn. When I was three, Uncle Will gave me a titan beetle, thinking it a perfect pet. It escaped its cage one night, and I found it two days later—under my pillow. They told me years later that my terrified scream reached every ear in Little Cam.

“Oh…” I shake my head. “Can we just study butterflies? Or ants? Or even worms? Please? Anything but
that
.”

Uncle Will looks hurt. “Babó won’t hurt you, Pia. He’s gentle, see?”

He sets the monster on the metal table beside me, and I automatically lean away from it. It scrabbles across the papers and petri dishes, knocking things over and making a general mess of everything.

“He looks hungry,” I comment.

“No, no. Babó doesn’t
eat
. He’s a male. Male titan beetles don’t eat, they just fly around looking for females to breed with.”

I know all of that, but Babó is Uncle Will’s favorite subject. My father rarely says more than three words a day, but if you mention the beetle, he can get as talkative as Dr. Klutz. Either we talk about Babó, or I’m in for a very quiet lesson.

“Charming,” I say.

“I know, I know!” Uncle Will bobs his head cheerfully, pleased I’ve caught on to the joys that come with titan beetles.

He starts babbling on about Babó as the grotesquely huge beetle attempts to climb up the microscope. Uncle Will scoops it up, keeping his fingers well out of the way of its pincers.

“See how strong he is?” He picks up a pencil and dangles it in front of Babó’s head. The beetle looks far more interested
in escaping Uncle Will’s grasp than in the pencil, and I frown dubiously.

Suddenly Babó snaps his pincers around the pencil, which cracks clean in half. I yelp and leap off the stool, then feel like an idiot as Uncle Will laughs.

“It broke it in two!” I press myself against a terrarium filled with ants, unwilling to go an inch closer to the beast.

“You want to hold him?”

“No!” I rock backward on my heels, and the ant farm behind me sways.

Uncle Will gives a wordless cry, drops Babó to the floor, and rushes at me. Stupefied, I wonder what’s gotten into him and then realize that the ant farm is about to tip off its stand onto the floor. My father throws himself on it, steadying it until it’s still again. Sweat beads his brow, and I see he is shaking.

“Uncle Will? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset the ants—”

“Not just
ants
, child!” He peers into the terrarium, nearly feverish. “
Eciton burchellii
. Or they were
Eciton burchellii
before the experiments.”

“Experiments?”

Uncle Will chews his lip. He seems unwilling to talk about it, but I stare pointedly at him, waiting for an answer. Babó has disappeared to the far corner of the room, where I hear him rooting through a pile of discarded Styrofoam.

“I…have been developing a formula, mainly with
Ilex paraguariensis
.…”

“A steroid,” I remark. I see some of the leaves scattered across the table.

“Yes. Sometimes it has no effect. Sometimes it makes the
subjects race in circles until they die from exhaustion. But this time…” His eyes are grim. “This time was different.”

I look from him to the ants. They are large, but not freakishly big like Babó. The terrarium isn’t filled with sand and dirt like most ant farms; it has leaves and sticks to simulate the rainforest floor. I realize there are many, many more of the insects than I first noticed. What I took for topsoil lining the bottom of the terrarium is actually a living carpet of ants. “
Eciton burchellii
are army ants,” I say. “Carnivorous, hunting in swarms.”

He nods. “Just so. But there was a mistake. I cut my finger on a broken vial when I was making the formula. I thought I cleaned it all up, but I found later that a drop had made it into the mixture.” His voices trembles, and he continues hoarsely, “The ants…they have a thirst for human flesh.”

“What?”

He clears his throat, but his voice still shakes as he holds up a finger wrapped with cloth. He unwinds the bandage, and I gasp.

The finger looks as if he dipped it in a jar of acid. The skin is red and mangled, evidence of a hundred tiny jaws at work. “They attacked me. I reached into the terrarium to change their water, and they just…attacked me.”

Man-eating ants
. I’ve read of species of ants that can devour human beings, but never of any that specifically target them. “If they were to escape—”

“I have prepared for that unlikely event.” He points at a white box on the wall. Inside the box is a wide red lever.

“The emergency alarm,” I say, recognizing it immediately.
There is one in every building in Little Cam, even in the glass house. If pulled, the lever will set off a series of loud alarms all across the compound, signaling everyone to evacuate immediately. As far as I know, the alarms have never been set off.

“And I have this,” Uncle Will adds. He opens a metal cabinet under the terrarium. It’s filled with cans of aerosol insecticide.