I look to Howl for confirmation. “It is becoming more and more common. Mantis doesn’t stop compulsions for everyone anymore.” I spent enough time worrying about it back in the City. No more Mantis meant a cell in the Sanatorium, isolation. A death sentence would be better than SS with no medicine. Not to mention the fact that anyone in the orphanage—in the whole City—could go off at any minute, explosives waiting to blow up without warning.
“I don’t think resistance to Mantis is possible.” Siyu turns back toward the display on the wall as if that were the end of it, as if I had hallucinated Peishan’s sudden compulsion just like I’d hallucinated the monster at the bridge that night. That cold, condescending smile is still pasted on her face as she launches back into her lecture. “Back during the Great Wars, they didn’t know what it was. SS is related to the immune system, so it follows other sicknesses. One of the first outbreaks recorded was just after a serious flu pandemic that claimed the lives of thousands. The victims and survivors were well documented, but scientists didn’t connect all the SS infections that followed. It wasn’t until the Influenza War—the last Great War—that experts began to catch on. Deep sleep, psychosis . . . It trailed after the flu like a shadow. We don’t know who first harnessed a flu virus specifically engineered to cause and exacerbate SS, but we do know that the first bombs were used in Asia, part of an invasion that went terribly wrong. Whole cities fell to SS, armies immobile, every other citizen pulling out their own eyeballs or doing it for their neighbors. . . . We’re just lucky they never figured out how to make it communicable.”
I shiver. If SS were contagious, we’d all be dead, torn to pieces by the end of the first day.
Siyu shakes her head. “Unfortunately, almost all the research from that time has been destroyed, and we’ve been playing catch-up ever since. Things have stabilized enough over the last few years for us to start looking for better answers than Mantis. We know they manufactured a flu virus that targeted these areas of the brain to cause psychosis and compulsions, and that it has something to do with dopamine levels in the brain, but not how it works or why.”
I whistle. “So basically you are telling us you have no idea what you are doing.”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Not altogether. But we don’t have the resources to manufacture Mantis, and smuggling it out of the City or stealing the ingredients from the convoys coming up from City farms is becoming more and more problematic. A cure is our best option.”
A cure? I have to keep myself from scoffing. For all that Firsts claim to be looking for a cure back in the City, it’s been more than a hundred years since the invasion that brought SS here. “If there were a cure, wouldn’t Firsts have found it by now? They still say they’re doing research, but I always sort of assumed they’d given up. Maybe they’ve started looking again, now that Mantis isn’t controlling everyone so well up there. But even if a cure were possible, why are you testing both of us? Howl isn’t infected.”
Siyu glances at Howl. “We keep everybody on file, especially after time Outside, so we can catch infection early if possible. It progresses a little differently in every person, so by bringing in more test subjects, we have a better chance of isolating the actual cause and effect.” She turns her flat gaze on me. “Can you imagine success? A fresh start.” She gestures to the tube. “Shall we?”
A true liberation, not just from SS, but from Mantis too. Firsts wouldn’t have all the winning cards anymore. If Thirds knew about this, a place capable of curing the real threat—SS—who would stay in the City?
“Fine,” I say. “Take pictures of my brain. Save the world.”
CHAPTER 22
AS WE WALK OUT OF the lab, I start to ask Howl whether it’s a requirement to have a personality that resembles cardboard in order to become a member of Yizhi when he stops dead in the hall. A Menghu is standing in our way, arms out like he’s going to challenge Howl to a gun duel. “Howl? When did you get back?”
“Kasim!” Howl barrels into him, and they both end up on the floor, wrestling like a pair of kids, shouts of laughter echoing up the hall.
At first glance, I’m pretty sure Howl doesn’t have a chance. Two of Howl could fit inside this Menghu, his barrel-shaped chest framed by arms larger around than my legs, but Howl holds his own, latching an arm around his tree trunk of a neck and squeezing. They act like brothers, wrestling around and teasing each other as if they grew up making faces at each other across the dinner table.
I like the look of Kasim, unreserved smile splitting the Menghu’s face as he yells for mercy. And Howl seems his age for the first time since I’ve met him, the stress of the City, of Outside, peeling away like an onion. He laughs like he means it.
I like it. Howl happy.
Kasim feels the scrutiny and spins around, ready to pull me into the wrestling match. I skip back out of reach, cheeks flushing.
“Who is this?” he asks with a wide smile. “Bring a trophy home to show off?”
“She followed me in, and I haven’t been able to get rid of her.” Howl grins at me, standing a good six inches shorter than Kasim. “But she’s nice enough when you get used to her. Kasim, meet Sev.”
Kasim’s eyes widen. “Wow. You always did shoot high, Howl. She’s way prettier than you are, even with your sexy beard. And she’s famous, to boot.” He leans in close and whispers, “He’s giving you the royal treatment, I take it? Tours of the Heart? Strawberry shortcake?”
“I’ve yet to see a single strawberry, Kasim. You want to show me where they are?” He gives me an appraising look, making my cheeks grow hot again. That is not what I meant.
We start again toward the Core, and I listen to them catching up, Howl asking questions about everything from old friends to the food, groaning when Kasim tells him that meat is still something you have to go and kill for yourself.
“And good luck finding it,” Kasim adds. “The gores have started cornering patrols, because there isn’t much out there anymore. Those things are out of control.”
“We didn’t have any problems.” Howl looks just a little too pleased with himself. He catches me rolling my eyes and grins. “They probably couldn’t smell us under all that dirt. See, Sev? There are benefits to being filthy.”
“Benefits every Menghu seems to be exploiting to the fullest extent possible,” I say under my breath. There was a smear of dirt on the white floor where Kasim hit the ground.
Just as we get to the outer ring of the hospital, a girl wearing Yizhi’s long white coat pushes through a doorway in front of us with her head down. She charges straight into me, losing her grip on the black canvas bag slung over one shoulder, sending it to the floor with a clatter.
Rubbing her arm, she brushes long dark brown hair out of her face to go after the things that exploded from her bag when it fell, each grab a staccato burst of cold energy. Scissors, bandages, syringes. I crouch down to help, picking up a roll of gauze before it can escape down a heating vent. Blue eyes meet mine as I hold the gauze out to her, and suddenly I’m frozen, bitten by the blank intensity of her stare. She blinks and reaches for the gauze, shoving it into her bag with the rest of the things that fell when she walked into me.
Spell broken, I avert my eyes in embarrassment, both for tripping her and for the weird moment. “Sorry I bumped you.” My voice cracks in the effort not to laugh at myself. “I must have been listening a little too closely.”
A teeth-baring excuse for a smile plasters itself across her face, skeletal and unwilling. “I’m Sole. And it’s okay. We all hang on Howl’s every word, don’t we?” The bared teeth turn on him for a moment. “You must be our new celebrity. Jiang Sev?”
She brushes by me, edging past Howl and Kasim as if accidentally touching either of them would infect her with some terrible disease. Howl’s eyes follow her as she walks down the hallway, gaining speed until she’s running and out of sight, the pinging sound of her shoes against the metal floor echoing back to us. He scrubs a hand through his hair, looking lost.