Across the Universe

Doc shoves the glass box into the cryo chamber. He slams the door shut and pulls down the latch. A trace of cold swirls up around us, the only evidence that Number 63 was out at all.



“She’s fine,” Doc says. “You caught her in time.”



“Guys?” Harley calls. I look behind me in surprise—Harley has walked down the aisle and away from us, on the other side, out of sight.



“How did you know she was here?” Doc asks.



“I heard it,” Amy says.



Doc’s face scrunches in concentration. “That means whoever did this was down here when you were. Why were you down here, anyway?”



“I wanted to show Amy her parents’ trunks,” I say before Amy can mention how we were going to look at her parents. I somehow think admitting we were going to mess with the cryo chambers may not be a good thing to do now.



“Uh... guys?” Harley calls from two rows over.



“I don’t like this,” Doc says. “Whoever was down here when you were must have known you were here, must have known you would hear what was happening. Other than you three, did anyone else come?”



Amy and I glance at each other. “Not that I know of,” she says.



“Me neither.”



“Guys!” Harley shouts.



“What?!” I shout back.



“Come to the twenties row. Now!”



Doc starts walking, but Amy and I know better: we run. The urgency in Harley’s voice wasn’t false. Something is wrong.



When we round the corner, it’s clear what Harley was shouting about.



Another box lies in the center of the aisle. But this one has melted. And the man inside is already dead.



39



AMY



“OH.”



I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.



But I know this man.



Mr. Kennedy had worked with my mom, and I’d always thought he was a little creepy. He was one of those old men who never got married but who thinks that because he’s old, he can be a pervert and get away with it. He was always looking down my mom’s shirt or getting me to pick up something off the floor whenever I came to the lab to visit my parents. Mom always laughed it off, but I wondered what Mr. Kennedy did at home with his memories of my mom’s wrinkled cleavage or my panty line.



And now he’s dead, floating in the cryo liquid with his eyes opened and his irises milky. His skin is sallow, as if soaked with water like a sponge. His mouth is slack, and his cheeks sag, creating tiny water-filled balloons at his jaw.



“Number 63 was a distraction,” Elder says.



“I don’t think so,” Doc says. “This one has been out for a while.” He lifts the lid of the glass box up, and Harley and Elder help him set it down on the floor. Doc dips his finger into the liquid Mr. Kennedy floats in. “The water’s cool, but not cold. He could have been unplugged yesterday, last night at the latest.”



Elder catches my eye. While we were running through the rain, laughing, Mr. Kennedy was drowning. As that couple made love on the bench by the pond, Mr. Kennedy was dying. As I stripped off my wet clothes and stood in the steamy shower, as I fell asleep gazing at the dark fields, Mr. Kennedy was swimming in death.



Another thought: Harley was here the same time the killer was.



“Why?” I ask.



Doc taps on his thin computer thing. “Number 26. A man named—”



“Mr. Kennedy,” I say.



“Yes.” Doc looks at me, surprise on his face.



“I knew him before.”



“Ah. I’m sorry,” he says, but in an offhand manner, as if he’s just saying it to be polite. “Number 26—”



“Mr. Kennedy.”



“Mr. Kennedy was a weapons specialist.”



“Really?” I ask. Even though Mr. Kennedy worked in the same department as my mother, I’d never known that he had anything to do with weapons. My mother didn’t. She worked on genetic splicing. She dealt with DNA, not weapons.



Doc nods. “He was well learned in bio-weaponry. It says here he worked with the government to develop eco bombs.”



“Who is doing this?” Elder asks. “Who is unplugging all these people? First William Robertson, then the woman, Number 63, now this guy.”



“And me,” I add.



Elder’s brow furrows as he stares at me.



“Two victims—two near misses,” the doctor says.



“And no reason why.” I stare at the empty cryo chamber, where Mr. Kennedy once was. And past it, to the rows and rows of little doors with numbers scrawled on them. How many cryo chambers will be empty before we can stop the killer?



40



ELDER



HARLEY AND I WHEEL MR. KENNEDY TO THE RELEASE HATCH for Doc. Amy says she’ll wait for us. But I know she wants to go to the other row, to see her parents’ doors, to make sure they’re still sealed shut.



Doc opens the hatch door, and Harley and I dump the body inside. The door slams shut, protecting us from the maw of open space. Harley peers through the bubble glass window, eyes wide, relishing in one more chance to see the stars. But I only see Mr. Kennedy’s bloated body.



And I look at Harley, and the billions of stars are in his eyes, and he’s drinking them up, pouring them into his soul. He raises his arms to the window, and for a moment I have a crazy vision of Harley trying to open the door, to fly after Mr. Kennedy and reach the stars. The hatch closes. But the light of the stars is still in Harley’s eyes.



“They’re more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen,” Harley whispers.



“Yeah, I’m sure Mr. Kennedy agrees,” I say, but Harley doesn’t notice my sarcasm.



“Come on, boys.” Doc’s worried expression deepens the lines at his eyes.



Amy is wiping her face when we get back. She’s retrieved her stuffed animal, photos, pencils, and books from where she’d dropped them by the lockers. Doc looks at them, but he doesn’t comment. He picks up a floppy and fiddles with it. Wasting time. Preparing to say whatever it is he means to say.



And I know then: he’s thinking about how he is going to contact Eldest and tell him about this. And I know that the reason why he’s fiddling with the floppy is to give himself time to think of something to say to me so that I will acquiesce.



I stand a little straighter. Before, Doc would have just called for Eldest without thinking of me, without even consulting me.



“Elder,” Doc says, “I know you understand the gravity of the situation. But Amy, Harley, it is vital that you do not tell anyone else about this. Not about Mr. Kennedy, not about the hatch”—he glares at Harley—“not about the people down here, not about the fact that there is even a level below the Hospital. You must keep this secret.”



It’s coming. I can feel it. That niggling doubt Doc has that he still needs to refer to Eldest.



His hand inches toward his wi-com.



Ah. There it is.



“You don’t need to com Eldest,” I say. “I vouch for Amy and Harley.” I shift my weight so that I’m between Doc and them. I’ve always been tall, but I don’t let myself slouch now. Instead, I make Doc look up to meet my eyes.



He hesitates, but finally nods. “You’re the Elder.” He means, I’m the one who will have to answer to Eldest.



“Little Fish and I will be fine,” Harley says, throwing an arm around Amy. “You don’t have to worry about us.”



Doc’s doubt returns. “Maybe I should com Eldest anyway, just see what he thinks.”



“No,” I say.



“What?”



“I’ve got just as much authority as he does. The Season is in full swing up there, and my gen is coming from that. Doc, you’ve got to learn to trust me, not just Eldest. I say Amy and Harley are fine knowing this, and that we can trust them. And I say it’s time to go. But first,” I add before Doc can say anything else, “let me see your floppy.”



“My...?”



“Your floppy.” I take the digital membrane computer from his still fingers. The scanner reads my thumbprint and grants me Eldest/Elder access. I tap quickly, with the back of the screen black. I don’t want any of them to see what I’m looking for.



I’m trying to find out who has been here in the lower level. The scanners on the doors read thumbprints; it shouldn’t be that hard to find a trail of thumbs leading to this level, this aisle of cryo chambers, this murder of a helpless frozen victim. And it isn’t hard to find. When we checked before, we didn’t have a time frame—Doc had been down to the cryo level, and so had Eldest and a handful of Shipper scientists.



But since then, there’s only been one person on the cryo level other than us.



I stare at the name on the screen.



Eldest.



41



AMY



ELDER DOESN’T GET ON THE ELEVATOR.



“I’ve got something else to do,” he says. There is a dark, serious manner in the way he stands now. I never noticed how much he slouched until he stood up straight. Before, I knew he was the destined leader of this ship merely because Doc and Eldest told me he was. Now I look at him, and I can see the determined leader within.



A part of me wants to stay here, on this level, and protect my parents from whoever is clever enough to unplug the frozen people while we’re all down there on the same level, but I can see that Elder needs to be by himself down here, for whatever purpose, and I trust him to guard my parents.



“Elder, I think you should come back with us, meet with Eldest,” Doc says.



“Oh, I’m going to meet with Eldest,” Elder says, and he reaches over, pushes the elevator button for Doc, and stands back as the doors slide shut. Before they close all the way, he turns away from the elevator and strides purposefully down the hall.



“I think his chutz is up, don’t you?” Harley says in a conversational tone. He’s awfully cheerful for someone who’s just dumped a body out into space.



Doc harrumphs.



When the elevator stops, Doc storms off. I watch him, waiting for him to push that little button behind his left ear and snitch on Elder, but he doesn’t—he just keeps walking.



“Wanna go back to the Ward?” Harley asks, holding his arm out in mock chivalry.



“Let’s go to that garden Elder showed me,” I say.



“Oh, he showed you the garden?” A lopsided grin smears across Harley’s face. He starts to head down the hallway.



“It must be weird for him,” I say. “He’s the youngest one on the ship, but he’s also something of a leader. I don’t know if I could tell someone older than me to do something and expect them to do it.”



Harley looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “You’re a strange one, Little Fish.”



“How so?” I grin back, willing to play along.



“You’re thinking about how weird it is for Elder on the ship. But you’re the fish out of water.”



I snort. “It’s easier to think of Elder than myself.” Unexpected tears prick my eyes. I had not meant to say something so close to the truth.



When we get to the doors in the lobby, Harley holds them open for me, and I step out into fresh sunlight and the smell of grass after a light rain.