Origin (26 page)

He taps a photograph. “These are the candidates Corpus has selected to begin the process.”

“They’re coming here? From outside?”

“Soon. When we’re ready for them.”

“Where will they all fit?”

“B Dorms. Most of the rooms are empty, you know. It was built to hold subject groups like this.”

“Will they be here to stay?”

“No, not permanently.” He leans back in his chair and props his left ankle on his right knee. His foot bounces as he talks. “The men will be here for three years, long enough to receive three injections of Immortis. Then we’ll collect sperm samples from each and send them home. The women, after in vitro fertilization, will stay longer. They’ll give birth, and then we’ll send them back after they sign contracts ensuring full confidentiality of everything they did and saw here. We can’t support a population that size for a length of time, not without attracting attention.”

“Is that safe? What if they let something slip?”

“Corpus will deal with that,” he says vaguely. “Anyway, they won’t ever know what our real work is. Your true nature will be a strictly guarded secret. As far as any of them will ever know, they’ll just be providing us the use of their genetic code for some kind of biomedical research.”

“Why would they do it?” I stare at the blank expressions on the people’s faces. “Why come down here for three years for a project they’ll never really know about?”

Uncle Paolo watches me with a frown. “Why are you concerned with their motivations?”

“I’m a scientist.” I shrug. “Well, almost a scientist. You always say the only real job a scientist has is to ask questions and find answers.”

“All right. Granted.” He shuffles the photographs around. “Most of these people are athletes, scholars, and artists who are exceptionally gifted, either mentally or physically, but who have all made bad decisions at some point. They all need something—money, new identities, some just a clean slate
to start over with—and we need genetic material. Everyone wins.”

“And the children?” My heart leaps. “We’ll have lots of children in Little Cam, won’t we?”

He nods, sighs, and rubs the bridge of his nose. “Which means we’ll have to hire nurses to take care of them. Antonio can’t look after them all.”

“And the children will have children, and on and on.…” I pick up a photo of a brunette woman, very pretty, but her eyes are sad and distant. “And I’ll see them all. I’ll see them be born, I’ll see them grow and learn, and I’ll see them die.”

Uncle Paolo takes the photograph from me and lays it with the others. “Pia? Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine,” I say automatically. “So when will they get here? When will we be ready?”

“That,” he says slowly, meeting my eye, “depends largely on you.”

“Oh.” I know what he’s referring to, but I don’t want to think about that. Instead, I change the subject to something that’s been bothering me the past few days. “Uncle Paolo, when exactly did the fire in B Labs happen? The one that destroyed the old wing?”

He sits up straighter and gives me a sharp look. “Why do you ask?”

“Why not? It’s one of the few things about Little Cam I don’t know. And how was the fire started? Seems like it must have been an important event; I find it strange I don’t hear much about it.” Though my tone is casual, I watch him very carefully. I can see the muscles in his neck tense, but there is no change of expression on his face.
Come on. Just tell me the
truth
. I want so badly for him to say it:
“There was no fire, Pia.”
How hard can it be? If he’d tell me the truth, the uneasiness I’ve carried with me since Aunt Harriet and I first discovered those rooms would be lifted.

But instead, Uncle Paolo turns the point of the conversational dagger back to me. “Why are you worrying about this? You should be thinking about your test.”

Instantly I switch from offense to defense. “You said to take my time—”

“I said I wouldn’t pressure you, Pia, I know. But we need you on board for this.” He gestures at the photos. “The longer you wait, the more concerned I am that you might not be as ready as we hoped.”

“I…I’m almost ready.” I square my shoulder and look him in the eye, hoping that will convince him.

He nods, but there’s still pressure in his eyes.
Then get to it
, they seem to say.

Desperately I ask, “Is it really necessary, though? What purpose does it serve? What does killing Sneeze—ah, Subject 294—prepare me for, exactly?”

“Pia—”

“I just don’t see how killing a kitten can show I’m able to mix a formula of Immortis!” I finish strongly, glad to finally have my main frustration out in the open. “Maybe I don’t want to do it! Maybe I don’t want to pass your test! Who says I have to, anyway?” My temper is rising with every word; they spill out of me like a punctured water bottle. “I’m tired of always doing what you say, Uncle Paolo! I’m tired of staying locked up in this place!”

“Pia—”

“Why does it have to be me? If you need a dead animal for Uncle Sergei to dissect, do it yourself!” I slam my fist onto the table, making the photos flutter into the air. I’m just so
full
. Full of confusion about Eio, full of frustration with Uncle Paolo, full of anger at that Strauss woman and her hideous white pantsuits. I’ve never had so much emotion locked up in me before. It pours out, and I feel helpless to stop it. “I want…I want…”
What do I want?
Tears of frustration blur my vision, and I dash them away with my fingers.

Uncle Paolo’s lips twitch, and there is a sharp twinge around the corners of his eyes. For a moment, I almost sense he’s about to slap me. But he swallows and says calmly, “It’s that Fields woman, isn’t it?”

“No—”

“She’s been putting ideas in your head. I know she would. She has that way about her. If I’d had my say she’d have never…Pia. Listen to me.” He grips my shoulders and ducks his head so he’s looking me square on. There’s stubble around his mouth; he’s been working so long and hard in preparation for Corpus that he’s not even stopped to shave. “You are perfect.
Perfect
. Not just perfect for who you are, but for
what
you are. What you mean to your entire race. You are the pinnacle of human perfection, the dream men have dreamed for millennia. There is no greater good than you, Pia. You are the end to all debates of religion and morality. There is no right and wrong. There is only reason and chaos. Progress and regress. Life and death. We created you for reason, Pia, and for progress, and for life. For
life
. It is the most precious thing of all, and you have more of it than anyone has ever had in history.”

His eyes are wild, like Eio’s were when he fought the snake,
and he starts yelling. “We
gave
you life, Pia, and we
made
you perfect! And we had to make sacrifices to do it. We sacrificed our lives and reputations as prominent men of science in the world. We sacrificed lives of comfort, surrounded by friends and family, to live and work and die in this godforsaken jungle. We sacrificed things that most people wouldn’t dream of giving up. We did things—we
do
things—that the people out there call wrong and evil, but they are only ignorant, Pia. Ignorant and weak. But you will put an end to that. You will bring reason and progress and life to a dark, dying world. And where others may point and scream
evil!
we know—we
know
, Pia—that the things we do are really the greatest and most noble form of compassion. We—”

He breaks off, panting, and sits back onto a stool. I rub my shoulders where he gripped them and left them sore and bloodless.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

He shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose until he calms down. Then he looks up at me, some of the savagery gone from his gaze. “But do you see, Pia? Do you see what I’m saying? You are perfect, and there is nothing greater than that. Some things must fall by the wayside, yes, including kittens. It is necessary. You don’t understand now, but you will. You must do it; you must prove to us that you’re ready. That you understand the importance of your own existence and what you mean for humanity. That you can devote yourself to
you
and to the ones who will come after you. They’ll look to you, Pia, because you’ll be the firstborn of the immortals. One day, long from now, you’ll be the oldest creature on this earth. You’ll rule over men and women as a queen, an immortal
goddess. All of that begins today. It begins the moment you make the choice, when you look in the mirror and say to yourself, ‘This is it. I’m going forward, and I’m never going back.’ You can’t have regrets, and you can’t hold on to guilt.” He stands again, his face mere inches from mine. “You must kill Subject 294 and be able to leave it in the past, do you understand that? Then, and only then, will you be ready.”

I feel as constricted as I had when the anaconda was wrapped around my throat. Uncle Paolo’s words are a serpent of their own, frightening and beautiful at the same time.

“I’m sorry, Pia,” he says, apparently reading the fear in my eyes. “I never meant to yell. I hoped you would come to see these things on your own. But maybe I was too soft. Maybe I overestimated your strength. Show me how strong you can be. Finish the test.”

I nod and, at his wave of assent, flee the room.

I find a quiet spot beneath a low-spreading cinchona tree behind the glass house and kneel there, giving free rein to the tears. They fall over my hands and drop to the ground below, darkening the soil.
What do you want from me? What more do you want? Isn’t it enough to be immortal and fast and smart? Why must I
…what? What is it they want me to be?

Beyond morality
, Aunt Harriet’s voice echoes. Isn’t that what she said only this morning?
Of course it is
, you know it is, my own voice mocks me.
After all, your memory is.
…

“Perfect,” I whisper, pulling up a handful of grass.
Cynodon dactylon
, I think, studying the slender blades.

I should just
do
it. Get it over with. The pentobarbital is still in my sock drawer; it would take less than a minute
to retrieve it. It would all be over then. The frustration, the dread.…

“Chipmunk?”

I look away, trying to wipe the tears off before he sees them. “Uncle Antonio.”

“Are you all right?”

I turn to look at him and do a double take. “Your beard!”

He runs a hand over the smoothness of his chin. “What? Don’t you like it?” He actually blushes. “Harriet said she liked it better off.…”

But it’s not the missing beard that catches my attention. It’s what’s lain beneath it all this time. I stare in open-mouthed shock at him, eyes tracing the line of his jaw, which I’ve never seen, the hard line of his lips, the dimple beneath the left corner of his mouth.
I’ve seen that face before.
I look down at his waist for the final clue…and there it is. An anaconda-skin belt. I can only gape at him for a long minute, mind boggling and eyes wide.

“You’re Papi
,” I gasp.

His head rears back, and he jerks a glance over his shoulder, then he’s kneeling in front of me, gaze burning as fiercely as Uncle Paolo’s. I’m getting a bit weary of all these wild-eyed glares boring into my skull.

“Where did you hear that name?” he hisses.

I’m still shocked. Of all the scientists in Little Cam, I would never have imagined…but yes. It does make sense. Uncle Antonio. Quiet Uncle Antonio, who should have been the father of an immortal. Whose purpose in Little Cam has always been uncertain, ever since the Accident. Whose lips
twinge whenever someone calls me perfect and whose eyes seem so sad whenever I pass another test.

I’m feeling a little triumphant since I
did
tell Eio I’d probably figure Papi’s identity out on my own. And triumph is nothing if not empowering. Maybe that’s what emboldens me to speak the truth. “I’ve been doing it too.”

“Doing…what?” He’s on edge, ready to burst. I’ve never seen him so tense.

“Visiting.” I know he’ll understand what I mean, and I see I’m right when he sighs.

“Harriet,” is all he says.

I nod. “Harriet.”

“The hole in the fence?”

“The hole in the fence,” I confirm. It’s so wonderfully easy to finally let it all out after lying for so long. I have no fear of Uncle Antonio turning me in. After all, we have the same secret.

“Eio?”

I nod again and whisper, “He saved me from an anaconda. It was twenty-two feet long.”

The fact doesn’t impress him. He’s still too agitated. “Pia, you
can’t
…you have to stop. Stop sneaking to Ai’oa.”

“Why? You do it.”

“I’m…older. I have less to lose.”

“Less to lose?” I snort. “I’m
immortal
. What can they take from me? My dinner?”

“It’s more serious than that!” he snaps, and I start to pay more attention.

“Like the empty wing in B Labs?” I ask. “I know it’s not burned out. Aunt Harriet and I saw it.”

He stares for a long moment. “You…Pia, please. Promise me you won’t go back.”

“I will. You can’t stop me. Unless you tell, and then I’ll just tell on
you
.”

He groans. “How many times have you been?”

I shrug. “Only four so far. You’re bad, Uncle Antonio. Really bad. You’ve been sneaking out for
years
. You even had a baby with—”

“That’s none of your business,” he says quickly. “And for the record, I loved Larula.”

“Why didn’t you bring her to Little Cam then? And Eio too?” How different my life would have been if I’d had a friend growing up. And Eio’s mother might never have died.

Suddenly I see the irony. If the Accident hadn’t happened, Uncle Antonio would have been the father of my immortal Mr. Perfect. Instead, he became the father of Eio.
But Eio can’t be my…can he?
I think of our almost-kiss, and my heart tumbles.

“I couldn’t bring them here,” Uncle Antonio replies. “It was too…I have my reasons. Pia, you must promise me you won’t go back. Trust me. If you were caught…they’d take more than your dinner. These people are not to be played with, Pia. They’re hell-bent on getting what they want, and anyone who gets in their way is simply collateral damage.”