SUGAR AND SPICE AND ALL THINGS NICE
Part 6 of 8
Rumors swirled across the facility, but lyrik nineteen was in near chaos: First Girl Briseis lay senseless in the infirmary.
Teacher was frantic. “Why was she in there? How’d she get in the pharmacy? They’ll hold me responsible!”
Someone certainly thought the class assistants were responsible: the security chief quizzed them until the staff mentist had to adjust them.
“Explain this,” the Director demanded.
The chief coughed. “There’s a record of the Museum of Anatomy’s side entrance opening at 24:20. At 24:39, the pharmacy. The girl’s presence, unexplained. Someone loaded a hypo with seda-t, narkek, and tanatypsis. Quite the cocktail. We discovered the hypo in a bathroom rubbish bin—”
“Prints?” the Director said eagerly.
“Clean.”
The Director struck her desk. “The Investors and Board are already at me. Someone comes on campus trying to cull a contract…it’s a serious breach. The cameras?”
He ticked them on his fingers. “The grand foyer. The central hall. Facing the side entrances and the doors to the ten Chambers, and the Museum. Briseis and her assailant avoided the central hall and, of course, the main entrance. Someone subtly tilted the cameras at the side entrance and at Chamber Seven: if you hugged the wall, you were unrecorded. We’re trying to determine when and how that happened.”
“No one ever noticed when checking the cameras?”
“No, Director Scyros. There’ve been lapses, and I’ll deal with them. We should be thankful the girl’s breathing.”
“The financial loss would’ve been mulcted from someone.”
Teacher sat with Briseis’s nineteen lyrik sisters. They colored on sheets of paper, held hands, and prayed for Briseis’s health. Andromache cried when they cried, and she colored when they colored, but her tears dried quickly and her drawing was tidy.
The mentist came pale and ill, circles under her eyes. “How are the girls?”
“Shaken,” Teacher said, taking her hand. “I thought about sending Drusilla to the infirmary; she’s been vomiting. Ismenia is closest to Briseis: she can’t stop crying. Andromache has handled it best of anyone.”
The mentist licked her lips. “I shall talk to them all together and then one by one.”
She did, saving Andromache for last. They sat on the warm stone bench outside the classroom. Andromache tucked her feet under her, examining her hands.
Miss Yilmaz searched the girl’s face. “What have you done?”
“What does Miss ask?”
“Why did you get on the Director’s terminal?”
“I was not proper.”
“That does not answer me.”
“I do not know, Miss.”
“Why did you hurt Briseis?”
“I did not hurt Briseis.”
“Lying is not proper, either.”
Andomache studied at her from the side, almost sly. “Designing a contract to be used in crimes is improper, Miss.”
Miss Yilmaz drew in her breath. “That is defiant. You cannot be defiant.”
“I’m as I’ve been made, Miss. I’m worth,” she added, gazing at her full-on, “a lot of money.”
“Now that you’ve led the Director to your files, you’re worth nothing.” She leaned close to her. “You might be culled, Andromache!”
“What would they put in the Museum of Anatomy, Miss?” Andromache’s eyes sharpened, losing the empty expression usually resident there.
“What?”
“My organs in section, do you think? My skeleton?” Her voice was thin, harsh. The languid arrangement of her limbs seemed more angular. She lifted her sharp chin.
Yilmaz drew in her breath, heart racing. “That would not happen.”
“Lying is not proper.”
The mentist recoiled, flushing. “You cannot talk to a citizen like that! I shall tell the Director at once!” She jumped to her feet, glaring at the child.
“You shall not,” Andromache hissed. Her eyes blazed, caught Miss Yilmaz’s. “You will not speak of it!”
Yilmaz swayed. An unaccountable force in her mind seized her throat, struck her dumb.
She must not speak. She should not speak. It was improper—
Her eyes bulged. She gasped. “How—! You—you—you error!”
“Silence!”
Miss Yilmaz choked.
The ten-year studied the mentist’s face, curious, and tittered faintly at what she saw. She pointed. “You will not speak of it to her.”
She put her feet in the shaggy cropped grass and rose. Yilmaz stepped back.
“You will not speak of it to the Miss the geneset designer, either. Nor Teacher, nor anyone else. You will not, and you cannot. I will speak with the Miss the Director when I wish to.”
The mentist made a strangling sound.
“When. I. Wish.” The ten-year closed her eyes, then opened them, curtseyed demurely, and returned to the classroom.
Yilmaz, leaning against a poplar tree under flashing leaves, swallowed thickly. Tears welled in her eyes, and she could not catch her breath.
Hmmm, is Yilmaz herself indentured, or merely... susceptible?