Rootless - Howard Chris. Страница 48

I counted seven saplings.

Each one of them was fresh, bright green, budding in the liquid. Two of the saplings had grown out of Pop’s legs, and one was growing on each of his hands. There was one on his head, one out the belly. And the smallest one curled out from his chest. Straight from his heart.

Pop’s skin was green and knotted. Fibrous. The hair on his scalp had grown twiggy and black. His face was buried under a mess of green roots, and right where his mouth should have been was where a sapling wound upward in the golden lights.

I remember being grateful Pop’s eyelids were sealed shut.

No faraway look in his faraway eyes.

Thought I might puke. Let it all spill out of me. But I just shuffled closer. My footsteps echoed as they scraped at the floor. I went ahead and got next to the glass, and I knelt down by the rubber wheels the tank had been placed upon.

No matter what you called the thing floating in there, it was still my father. What was left of him, anyway. And if what the woman said was true, he might somehow live on forever now. Just keep on going.

But not in the ways that mattered.

I closed my eyes and pictured that forest we’d talked of building. The metal trees and a house of our own. And I saw myself sitting amid the forest and every leaf and branch had turned rusty and broken and all the trees were nothing but holes. I had our old book in my hands, but I’d forgotten all the stories and I was ripping out the pages now, crumpling them and burning them along with Pop’s corn husk sombrero. And I’d quit eating so I was just made of bones and even the locusts wouldn’t touch me. And no one would touch me or see me or hear me as I began screaming for my father in the never ending night.

When I opened my eyes I was still screaming and the Creator had wrapped her arms around me and everything seemed to suffocate me. Heavy and loud. So I quit screaming. I just squatted there. Quiet. Still. The Creator crawled off me, sat on the concrete and watched me. And I knew I had to find a way to let go of this feeling. I had to find some way to keep in control. And I had to play things out right, in front of this woman. Everything depended on it.

So I told her what she’d done to my father was beautiful.

And you know what’s messed up?

It was sort of beautiful. In its own horrible way. And I remembered what I’d said to Crow about heaven and hell and how they’re maybe just the same thing anyway. Glory and hunger. Fear and love. All looped together so there’s no place where one ends and the next one’s beginning.

And then, as I stared into the tank, I thought maybe the world wasn’t as dead as we’d thought it. Maybe it was just lying dormant. Waiting for seeds.

“The liquid preserves the microclimate,” the Creator said, still watching me, her voice scuffed and loose. “Protects him from winter.”

I swallowed. Almost spoke.

“He’s safe,” she whispered. “This is the one. Where every test went right.” She stood, staring into the tank. “He’s a hundred percent locust-proof. Free from harm. Forever.”

I tried to see a way my dad was just sleeping inside what was growing in there. His mind still working, still thinking. Dreaming. Not dead, somehow. Not gone.

“What about his brain?” I whispered.

She shook her head. “He’s more tree now than man.”

The words stabbed at me. I felt them in my guts. My bones. Nothing makes the world seem hopeless like knowing it’s empty. But I had to cut off those parts that the knowing infected. Those parts that can cause you nothing but pain.

“And what’ll be left?” I said, clenching my fists as if I might squeeze out the hurt and let it drip from my fingers. “After you’ve used him.”

“Just enough to regenerate for the next crop. His body became the perfect breeding ground. And we’ll keep fusing these cells to human tissue until we’ve reached enough diversity.”

“And then?”

“Then my work will be done.” She put her hand on the wall of the tank, and it left a sticky smear on the glass. “His work, too.”

Outside the Orchard, we stood huddled together as snow fell white against the darkness. I felt like I’d been punched flat and sucked dry. My head was pounding and parched.

“I am sorry,” the Creator said, hunching her shoulders. “I’m sorry your father and I caused you so much pain.”

The woman smiled at me and for the first time I felt bad for her, because I knew there was no part of her that could understand what I felt.

She’d stayed here, searching for a solution that cost hundreds of lives. Thousands, maybe. And no matter how she justified it, the way I saw it, everything the world now needed only GenTech was going to get. But how could she not see that? How could she choose to be so damn blind?

We crunched back through the snow with our hoods hiding our faces, making our way toward the building where Zee would be sleeping and Crow would hopefully be healing so as to be ready to fight. You got to be strong, that’s what I told myself. For Alpha and all the other prisoners. For what was left of my father. For the taken. The burned. For the empty-bellied strugglers. On this island we could bust a hole in something wicked. And I’d die if I had to. Or I’d live. And bring home the trees.

There was an agent standing watch at the door to the building. He was bundled and wrapped as we were, buried inside a huge puffy coat.

“Good evening, Creator,” the man said.

“Staying cold enough for you?” She swiped her electronic tag to unseal the door.

“Oh, don’t worry about me, miss,” the man said, and his voice wound my guts tight inside me. “I love to see the seasons. No matter how cold they get.”

As the door began to slide back in place and lock us inside, I stared back at the bulky figure all covered in fuzz and GenTech logos. A gun on his back and a club in his hand. Just like all the agents. Except he had a voice I’d heard and would always remember. Because this agent wasn’t just no one. Or anyone.

This agent was Frost.

I didn’t sleep. I just waited at the side of Crow’s bed, counting the seconds till he woke up again. The work they’d done on his legs had helped repair his skin as well, gave him a sort of sheen where before he’d been all scarred and blistered. The new limbs were something else, though. Strapping big legs, all scaly with bark. They were stuck outside the sheets, full of lumps and grooves, and they were bigger even than the originals had been. If Crow woke up able to use them, I reckoned those legs would have him standing about ten feet tall.

Crow’s face was peaceful, looked like he was catching up on a whole lifetime of sleep. And I just sat there, restless, watching the watcher.

“Crow,” I finally whispered.

“What?”

“You sleeping?”

“No. I be talking to you.” He opened his eyes. “What you doing here staring at me?”

“Wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“Okay. We doing okay.”

“The legs,” I said.

“Yeah, man. I been trying to use them.”

“How long?”

“Long enough, man. Long enough.”

I stared down at his legs and they weren’t even twitching. “Maybe it’ll just take awhile,” I said.

“Sure, Banyan. Maybe.”

“I gotta tell you something.”

“What?”

“Frost’s here.”

This got his attention and he turned his glare on full.

“Frost?”

“Yeah. I seen him.”

“Old bastard must’ve volunteered himself.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t have much choice. Or maybe he just paid his way up here. How in Jah’s name would I know?”

“Listen,” I said, not sure what I was going to say till the words were coming out. “I think we can use him.”