48
The audience is debating about what is going on in my mind after I passed the beating of my heart to them. Imagine that: your heart is beating so fast and you’re afraid, not having the slightest idea why. The only reason you know is that because Decca is afraid, you’re afraid too. That ClairVo is really something.
I put everything back in the backpack and strap it on, then straighten up on the pole. I summon Carnivore with its name, climbing down. Why didn’t I think of that before? It is trained, and somehow it does understand like a human. Summoning it by its name provokes it, and makes it curious.
It shines through the white, running toward me. I climb up again, having just fooled it for a moment.
“World,” I address the audience. “Take a deep breath, because right now I will show you how this is done.” I look down at Carnivore. “I don’t think you have ever seen anything like this.” That last sentence goes for Carnivore, as much as it goes for the world.
I close my eyes as I hold out one bare palm, and don’t hesitate before I cut through it with my knife. The pain in my arm is indescribable. I just cut myself on purpose. I scream all alone to the top of the world, while the world screams with me, feeling my pain. It occurs to me suddenly that if I die, shouldn’t they die too through the ClairVo? Nah, it’s not that fantastic.
“Carnivore!” I scream, holding a syringe in my unwounded hand, and one tucked between my teeth in my mouth. I climb down fast, as close as possible, and swing my wounded and bleeding hand at him, spattering him with blood from my hand on it big ugly eye. Then when it closes in for a tiny second, I spatter it again with my own blood. Its head and its back are spattered with shiny red blood that belongs to me.
I climb back up fast, as Carnivore roars behind me.
Looking from up here, I can see it now, marked with my blood.
“Now I can see you, you ugly—” I say from above.
Of course, the audience repeats the words after me.
I take one last breath with both syringes in my hands, and focus on Carnivore.
“Every girl dies,” I remind myself. And before I finish the phrase, the audience amazingly, and for the first time, finishes for me. “But not every girl really lives.”
I jump.
Yes. I jump from this high onto Carnivore’s back. It’s the only way to do it. If you want to fight a giant, claw onto his back, and never let it go. If you’re an ant, and you want to outlive an elephant, climb up onto its head, and tickle it in the ear.
I have jumped many times before in the game. I don’t worry about jumping anymore. Let the audience go crazy.
The first thing that hits my face is its back. I am lucky it didn’t slash at me. I wrap myself around it, holding to its coat so tightly that the veins in my hands pop to the surface of my skin. Carnivore goes crazy, surprised by me being on its back, still looking for me. Before it shakes me off its back by running as fast as it can, I hit it with one syringe as hard as I can and push the red button, while clawing onto its coat with my hands and legs. I don’t let go of the red button like Leo taught me.
“Buzz to death, Carnivore.” I keep my thumb on the button. Carnivore starts to slow down. At least, it doesn’t try to shake me off its back anymore. Since one syringe doesn’t seem enough, I pull the other syringe from my mouth, and buzz it again.
I keep my thumb locked on the button. Carnivore stops and falls to its knees, rearing vertically with its paws up to the sky, like a mad horse in pain. I guess it’s an unexpected reflex response to the electrocution. I swing straight with it, digging my feet into its coat and wrapping my arms around its neck, not taking my thumbs off the button until Carnivore gives up, and drops dead on its stomach.
I didn’t want to do this to an animal. I love animals. A rabbit saved my life, remember? I remind myself it is not an animal. It is just some kind of a man/animal/machine like Xitler.
Almost fainting, I lay on Carnivore’s back, resting my cheek on its coat. Not the worst of beds, I tell myself. I brush my hand gently over it, and pat it. “It’s all right, Carni,” I whisper to it, as it moans its last breath. “We’ve taken the pain away. You’re better off away from this mad world.”
The audience sings, dances, and talks. Some are shocked, some are astonished, and some are whatever.
As my eyelids throb from exhaustion, I shake myself awake, and buzz Carnivore one more time. “Don’t take this personally,” I whisper in its dead ears. “It’s like making sure the door is locked before you go to sleep.” I stand up.
Looking at the cut in my hand with the blood gushing out, I wonder why it doesn’t hurt as bad now. I use the gushing blood, and smear a big number ten on Carnivore’s back.
As I do, I smell something like a burning wire. I take it that Carnivore was some kind of machine and now that it’s dead, something is frying inside. I don’t investigate it though.
The audience goes wild after this.
A voice sneaks through, and talks to me in my ears. “So the Breakfast Club was right about you,” says Leo. He sounds tired.
My heart flutters. I can almost imagine myself with wings. “About what exactly?” I ask, wondering why I feel like kissing him right now. “About being a Ten?”
“About being the Monster I am in love with,” he teases.
I laugh. “So you’re over the God thing now?” I ask, watching the crowd celebrating like crazy up there in the Zeppelins.
“What?” Leo asks.
“Nah.” I wave my hand, panting, unable to comprehend the crowd’s enthusiasm. “Forget about it. You won’t remember,” I say, as I’m showered with flowers from the sky all over again.
“In the name of the Burning Man, the nation of Faya announces…” Xitler declares in the main microphone. “For the first time in history, boys and girls — we have a Ten!”
Tears are about to spurt out of my eyes, as the audience hails me. I am a Ten? By whose standards? What about all the other kids who died? As overwhelming and euphoric as the feeling is, there’s something not right here.
But what should I do? If society declares me a Ten, which might seem close to being a god walking among them, what other options do I have?
I am just a normal girl — abnormal-looking, being bald and blood-spattered now — who just wanted to graduate and go to the Prom. Not that I didn’t have big dreams after that, but I don’t want to be a Ten. I came here to find my friend Woo, and ended up finding who I really am, what I am capable of.
The world has thrown me to the lions, and I have won.
Should I stay here in Dizny Battlefieldz, and never leave? What could I possibly do all alone here?
It’s either the Playa or the world outside. It would be insane if I don’t choose the world outside, with all that it offers me right now.
In my iAm, Mom is driven to tears, Dad too. Faustina is waving at me, and Timmy is astonished, but plays happy with everyone else.
“Leo,” I call him on my iAm.
“Yes?” he says, still aching.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“I am on my way out of the hospital, champ,” he says. “The world is waiting for you outside of the Playa. I’ll meet you there. You want anything?”
“How did you know about the ‘I wish I could see through your eyes’ phrase?”
Leo stops. He doesn’t answer me. “What do you mean?” he asks.
“You know the phrase you said to me when you were falling from the cliff?”
“I said something when I was dying? I don’t remember.”
“It’s all right,” I say. It might not be the right time to argue right now. “Maybe I just imagined it. I’ll meet you outside.”