“When your back’s against the wall and you’ve got nothing to lose it doesn’t seem brave. It seems the only thing to do.”
“You give examples. Things people can do. Like… refusing to co-operate with the Gene Police. Not registering hybrids…”
Johnny was sitting up now, clearly animated. “Hacking medical companies’ files, disabling government databases.”
“Yes. Tell me, have you done that yourself?”
There was a pause while his screen went still. “Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t.” I understood that he didn’t want to incriminate himself. “But you still haven’t told me why you wanted to meet,” he said.
“That’s kind of why. It’s about Maman.”
“Your mother?”
I nodded. “Three months ago she caught Creep, probably from me though she said not.”
His monitor screen stopped swirling so fast and turned to a blue scene. “I’m sorry.”
“Papa thought she could be cared for at home like me, but hadn’t got around to registering her yet. She was still a Grey. But then—”
“She disappeared. One day. Just like that. While out somewhere,” Johnny interrupted, question marks flashing on his screen.
I stared at him. “How did you know?”
“’S common. Sometimes people’re picked up by the GP, other times…”
“…Vigilantes.” There was silence for a moment. “I know. It’s what I’m most afraid of.”
“When did she vanish?” he asked.
“Ten days ago. We’ve tried everything to find her. Oh, Johnny, I’m getting so desperate. I miss her so much. You must know how I feel…”
“I don’t think my situation’s quite the same as yours,” he intoned.
“What do you mean?”
“I came home from school one day and my parents weren’t there,” he said in a low voice.
“Just like that?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You mean they’d left you?”
“Moved out. Clothes, furniture, everything. Didn’t bother to tell me where to, did they? Why should they? I’m a hybrid. Unwanted.”
I was struck dumb as I absorbed the enormity of this betrayal.
“What did you do?”
“Went wandering.”
“Didn’t you try to find them?”
“What on earth for? Look, I don’t want to talk about it, all right?” he snapped. “Just tell me what you want from me.”
“Could you help find my mother? You’re good at hacking and things. Johnny, I must know if she’s alive or not. Cheri’s her sister. She agreed to help me. We’ll do anything we can in return. What do you say?”
At that moment Cheri herself came in carrying a clipboard. She was wearing exactly the same as yesterday: had she been to bed at all?
“Ah.” She came over to check the records at the bottom of his Johnny’s bed. “How’s the sleepy patient today, mmm? Do we have any results?”
The ward sister who had followed her in handed her a printout. “Blood test: RTGV positive—version 4b. Low on iron and red blood cells. Infections easing but not clear yet.”
“Thanks, Jenny. Hmm.” Cheri studied the test results, then fixed Johnny with a gaze. “I’m afraid this means we’re going to have to keep you here a few days. You’re not seriously ill from the secondary infections, but you could be if you go out too soon and continue your old way of life.”
“I thought I’d been looking after myself all right,” he said, sounding petulant, and more like the fifteen-year-old that he was. I realised that his artificial voice and height made him seem older.
“Actually, you’ve been having very poor nutrition. So your immune system is low and you’ve developed mild blood poisoning, chronic inflammation at the organic-inorganic interfaces and anaemia. You’re basically susceptible to any virus or infection going around.”
His screen shut down for a moment.
Cheri turned to me. “So…No stress, OK? You haven’t been bothering the patient, have you, Kestrella?”
There she was, pulling the Responsible Aunt thing on me again. “I only asked him what we agreed I would, Auntie,” I said, in as level a voice as I could manage.
“Oh, you did, did you?” Cheri studied Johnny. “You were supposed to wait a few days, child.”
“But we can’t wait any longer!” I cried. “Every day means—Maman might be—Anything could happen to her.”
“Yes, but that is not this boy’s affair, is it? What did he say?”
“Nothing yet.”
We both looked at him. He’d turned his body away from us.
“Then I think we should let him think about it for a few days, don’t you?”
“But Aunt Cheri!” I pleaded.
“We’ll not stand a chance if our patient gets worse, will we, darling?” she said with finality.
I felt powerless and exasperated. After all I’d done. But then the patient spoke.
“I can begin from here,” he said. “There’s wi-fi in the building.”
I looked at Johnny with grateful disbelief. He’d said yes! He wanted to help me! I felt so happy. But then…
“No, I’m sorry. It will tire you. What you need now is rest,” said Cheri.
“But Auntie—” I begged.
“Do you want to kill him?” she said.
“I can be the judge of that,” Johnny said. “But before I agree to help there’s one thing I need to ask you first. You’re in charge here, aren’t you?” Cheri nodded.
Without the slightest trembling of his hand or adjustment in posture he spoke in his near monotone to Cheri: “Did you register me?”
Cheri adjusted her posture to its full height. She said in her firm, professional voice: “By law, every hybrid we treat has to be registered. Failure to do so, and to find a responsible carer for them, means they have to be taken to the Centre for Genetic Rehabilitation, which is run by the government.”
I could feel the anger welling up inside him from where I stood.
Cheri continued. “The Gene Police already know you exist because they monitor all our patients. You can bet your last chromosome that if you left here unregistered they wouldn’t rest till they’d picked you up.”
There was a short silence during which Johnny didn’t move, but I could sense the stiffening of his body and the churning of unseen circuits. Then he emitted a huge roar. A brilliant light from his screen threw everything into relief and suddenly all the bulbs in the room went out. The humming of machines that I hadn’t noticed before ceased abruptly, to reveal a horrible silence. The only illumination came from the street outside through the window blinds. The silence and darkness were all the more effective after the roar and brightness beforehand. Nobody said anything for—I swear—ten seconds, but I fought to keep my panic down. Finally Cheri spoke, her voice soft and calm.
“Johnny, did you do that?”
But he didn’t reply.
Then, from somewhere within the bowels of the building, an emergency