“Vasana 11’s teeth have responded positively to the influence of synthetic genes,” Dr. Albatur says. “Now initiating sonic communication to the new brain tissue.”
A hum enters the observation deck through the small speaker by the window. I’ve never heard the sound before, but I know immediately that it can mean nothing good. The vasana’s muscles twitch as if a current is passing through her body: she begins to swing her long neck from left to right. Faintly, through the speaker, I can hear her snorting and snuffing. The buzzing in my mind quiets, almost to a whisper. Are you there? I try to ask, but the shape of the question stays stubbornly in my mind, where it lies flat. Her presence is receding from the tunnel, shrinking.
“Vasana 11 is displaying effects but not a positive sequence. Thirty seconds into sonic communication and no visible sequence.”
I don’t know what he means by sequence. Every word out of his mouth is like a weapon, aimed at the defenseless vasana with the intent to kill. I grope for the buzzing in my mind, but it quiets, smolders, the vasana becoming more and more agitated. Then her head snaps up from where it had been drooping and she fixes her eyes on Jain.
The tunnel in my mind roars open, so abruptly and so wide that I stagger backward away from the window. Alma gives a small scream of surprise and Rondo is by my side, grasping my arm.
“Octavia! Are you all right?”
But above his voice, above everything, I feel the vasana’s rage. It’s not normal, this anger: it feels false. It’s red and vibrating, and in the waves of feeling that pulse through the tunnel into my head, I can feel the vasana somewhere underneath all the rage, drowning in it. It’s as if a giant needle filled with magma has been thrust through the animal’s flesh and injected into her blood. A foreign substance not her own, but strong enough to take over.
“No,” I gasp, and in my mind I reach out for the vasana, try to fasten myself around her and pull her up for air. But she strains against the bonds that hold her to the table, eyes flaming, snarling with the huge, perilous fangs that protrude from her mouth. She growls unnaturally, scrabbling at the platform to get at Dr. Jain and Dr. Albatur. The two whitecoats look on, expressionless. My shock and horror is nowhere on their faces: this is what they expected to happen. What they wanted to happen.
“We have to get her out of here,” Alma says, and she and Rondo grasp my arms, towing me toward the door. I fight them, struggling to keep my eyes on the vasana.
“No,” I scream, scrambling to get back to the window. “She needs me, she needs me!”
“Do you see what I see, doctor?” Dr. Jain says, his haughty whitecoat voice like an injection of ice into my spine.
I’m losing the vasana in the tunnel; she’s slipping under the red mist of rage. Her gentle spirit is being smothered, from flame to coal, extinguished by whatever false interference the whitecoats have put inside her. Rondo and Alma drag me away, the door whispering open before us. The last thing I hear before we’re closed out of the observation room is Dr. Albatur’s voice, calm and smug through the intercom.
“Vasana 11 has successfully completed sequence. Will begin alteration of Vasana 12 directly.”
CHAPTER 22
In the bright hallway outside the observation room, I crumple to the floor. The hidden door to the empty room slides shut, blending back into the smooth blankness of the white wall. The vibrations of the vasana’s strange, unnatural rage still quiver through the tunnel.
“Octavia,” Alma says. She crouches down in front of me and grabs my face in both her hands, forcing me to look at her. “You have to get it together. We can’t get caught here!”
I stare into her round brown eyes, their thick black eyelashes. I focus on those eyelashes. Their blackness is comforting in this terribly bright hallway. I finally find a hold on the slippery arm in my head and wrench some central muscle, the vasana’s pain and anger slowly dimming. I breathe in short gasps. The tunnel spirals shut, the red clouds disappearing inside it and my lungs expanding to take in more air.
“Better?” Alma asks, her eyebrows crunched down in the middle. I nod slowly. My mind quiets, and the only buzzing I hear is the vague hum from the lights above.
“What did we just see?” Rondo says.
“I don’t know,” Alma says, reaching her hands down to help me rise. “But we can’t talk about it here. We need to get back to our observation room now.”
“She’s right,” I say, scrambling up with Alma’s help. “We need to go.”
We hustle back down the direction we came. My mind prickles as we continue past stretches of blank white walls, but I grit my teeth and concentrate on keeping the tunnel shut. I need to learn how to control this better: I can’t risk having it open whenever there’s something on my radar. I wish I could talk to Rasimbukar; and at the thought of her, I’m stabbed with anxiety. What if she’s already here? Locked up like her father probably is? Being experimented on? Seeing what we saw, feeling what I felt . . . no wonder Rasimbukar thinks her people could start a war. Members of the Council, the lawmakers of N’Terra. If the Faloii knew what we were doing . . .
“It’s this room on the left,” Alma says. “Be smooth. Maybe no one noticed we left.”
Slipping inside, I expect to see two dozen pairs of eyes turning to stare at us, my father’s among them. But all we see are the backs of whitecoats, right where we left them, peering into the procedure room where Dr. Depp has moved on to a young igua, which stands cowering on the table, Dr. Depp rubbing an ultrasound against its belly to view its digestive tract. I wonder if these animals will eventually be subject to painful experiments too.
I exhale softly, grateful that no one seems to notice we were gone. They’re all rapt, watching the procedure and taking notes on their slates.
“Where have you three been?”
I jump at the voice so close to my ear. It’s Yaya, standing even farther to the rear than we are. I hadn’t noticed her leaning against the wall.
“What is wrong with you?” I demand, hissing. “Stars, you scared me. Why are you hiding at the back?”
She shrugs, her eyes wandering to the procedure.
“I came back here to ask you guys what you thought of the igua and then I realized you weren’t here. Where were you?”
“Dr. English stopped by,” Alma says quickly. I’m impressed with the smoothness of the lie. “She was just asking some preliminary questions about the procedure.”
“Oh.” Yaya looks disappointed. “She could have asked me. I hope you didn’t make us look bad.”
She offers a close-lipped smile to show she’s kidding, but I know she’s not.
“You didn’t miss much,” she says, turning back to the procedure room. “Besides it’s kind of sad.”
“Sad?” I say. I wouldn’t expect her to attach any emotions to the work in the Zoo.
“Yes. They’re all so scared.”
“How can you tell?” I ask.