Eve & Adam
Page 28The sense memory, the shiver that comes with it, of Solo running careful fingers down my inner thigh.
Despite all of that, I sleep. I dream of a hospital. But not the one here at Spiker. Or the emergency room.
It’s a hospital room far back in my past.
I see my mother. I see my dad.
I dream of my father sometimes, never of my mother.
But in this dream, they’re together, whispering. My mother is holding a syringe. My father nods his approval. They are both crying.
I wake up to a blast of very bad breath from Aislin. She smells of puke. I hope she made it to the bathroom. I stagger up and find the toilet bowl full. Well, better than the bed.
My bandage is flapping loosely. I either have to cut it all the way off, or try to conceal my guilty knowledge until my next scheduled bandage-change.
It hits me then, what should have hit me earlier: They’re all in on it. The doctors, the nurses. They know the injury’s gone.
They’re all in on it. All playing a game, hiding the truth from me.
It’s why my mother was in such a hurry to get me out of the hospital and safely to Spiker. My secret would have been out within a day. And what would have happened to my mother if it had come out that she’d broken the law? Many laws?
It’s dark in the room but the clock shows 8:42 A.M. I would normally be up by now. I’m buzzy from lack of sleep, and my head is full of pictures and words. Aislin’s bloody face. The dream memory of a long-ago hospital room. Solo’s words: You’re a mod. You’re genetically modified. The unreal sensation of my fingertips on the place where terrible damage should be.
Despite this, what I remember most is Solo kneeling on the bathroom floor.
I head for the bathroom. Aislin snores softly.
I grab the scissors Solo used to cut off my leg bandage. Awkwardly, I slit the bandages on my right arm and hand.
It’s as if nothing ever happened.
You’re genetically modified.
Don’t think about it.
I take a hot, hot shower. I can’t believe how good it feels. Standing upright in the stinging spray is a gift. Shampooing my hair with both hands is bliss.
I towel off, change into fresh clothes, actual jeans with two legs. Then I reach—with my right hand, no less—for my sketchbook and pencil.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
I open to the unfinished sketch I’d been working on for Life Drawing.
The pencil feels smooth and certain between my fingers. The whispered resistance of point on paper is music.
I make a few random lines, just to get the rhythm right.
Don’t think about it.
I study my drawing. It still sucks.
It needs something. Energy, spark, soul.
Life drawing, my ass. This is a still life.
It’s the eyes. The eyes are all wrong. They’re nothing like the eyes I’ve been creating with the aid of my mother’s software.
These eyes … well, they’re granules of graphite on recycled wood product.
Don’t think about it.
I start to erase the left eye, but suddenly I picture the dog-eared poster on the art room wall: “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
I turn to a new page, tear it out, and write Aislin a quick note.
I put the paper by her pillow. She’s kicked off her blankets, so I tuck them around her chin. Her cheek looks like an overripe plum, purple-black and swollen.
I stash my sketchbook in a drawer.
Then I flee for the safety of Adam.
– 20 –
I settle into my workstation. A shaft of sunlight slices the air. The twinkling ficus tree has dropped a leaf onto my keyboard. A couple of workers glance up when I appear, then quickly return to their monitors.
I enter my password. Click, click, tap, tap.
I can type again. Two hands, ten fingers.
Adam materializes.
He is a good-looking guy, Adam. Very good-looking.
Apparently, the other workers think so, too. They stare, as if hypnotized, at his hovering form.
I glance over, and, in perfect sync, all gazes return to their respective monitors. I am, after all, Terra Spiker’s daughter: Eye contact is not an option.
Terra Spiker, who’s apparently capable of anything.
I wiggle the fingers of my right hand. My perfect, pain-free fingers.
They were trying to save my life. They did save my life.
If they hadn’t cut corners, ignored the FDA, I wouldn’t be here.
Wouldn’t I do the same thing for someone I love? For Aislin?
Yep. In a heartbeat.
But would I have kept it a secret from her, a secret she has to hear from some stranger?
Solo’s not a stranger, some part of my brain protests. But he is, of course. I know virtually nothing about him, except that he hates my mother.
Click, click. I focus on the monitor.
I realize that Adam’s eyes—which, yes, happen to be the color of Solo’s, which, yes, is just a coincidence—aren’t as lifelike as I’d remembered.
Like my sketch, the gaze is blank. There’s an emptiness, a void. Still, there’s a feeling of, I don’t know, possibility with Adam.
This isn’t like art. I know how to fix this problem.
The set of tools for designing the genetic components of the brain are different. They aren’t as simple as the first steps in creation: Plug in this gene and presto, you’ve got blue eyes or dark hair or lungs.