The silence stretches, and I feel the need to fill it. “It’s weird . . . I had this nightmare a few nights ago and in it, I had a sister. She had green eyes. Her name was Lizzie. But we were in a car accident and she— What?” He’s staring at me so intently, I think I must have avocado smeared on my nose or something. I do a quick swipe with the back of my hand.
He’s still staring. I stare back. “Your eyes,” I murmur, “were you born like that?”
“I was born with an opaque layer over my corneas. My parents took me to a bunch of specialists. No one could figure it out. They weren’t cataracts. They weren’t anything that anyone had seen before. And because I was able to see as well as anyone else, they decided against surgery. They just left well enough alone. Things didn’t change overnight. It was slow and subtle, but by the time I was six, my eyes looked like this. By the time I was seven, my parents figured it was easier for me to wear sunglasses and get a medical note than to try and explain my eyes. Kids can be nasty.”
“Adults, too.”
“True enough.”
“So those diseases you rhymed off for Mr. Shomper. You don’t actually have any of them.”
“No. I don’t have any disease at all.”
“Why don’t you wear colored contacts to hide the color?”
“I do when I absolutely have to. Like when I got my pic for my driver’s license.”
“But you don’t want to wear them all the time?”
“Can’t. They disintegrate within an hour.”
I don’t know how to word the next question, so I just come out and say it before I chicken out. “So your eyes are Drau, which means somewhere back in your line, you had an ancestor who was one of them.”
“Most likely. Does it matter?”
I think about it, then say, “It matters in the scheme of the game. Are there some Drau who are good?” Is that why one of them is part of Jackson’s genetic pool, or is that because of a darker reason?
But in the scheme of how I feel about Jackson, no, it doesn’t matter at all.
“Never met a Drau I liked . . . ,” Jackson says. “Maybe if they weren’t trying to kill me, it’d be different.” He takes my partly eaten half a sandwich from me, takes a bite, then hands it back. “Next question.”
Which one to ask? I have so many. “If I have alien DNA, why hasn’t anyone ever noticed anything weird in my blood work? Or my mom’s blood work? I mean, she had a million tests because of her cancer. No one ever said a word. Or is the alien DNA from my dad’s side? His mom had eyes like mine.”
Jackson holds up his index finger. “You probably get the DNA from both sides. Your strain’s pretty strong for it to have come from just one.” He holds up a second finger and I realize he’s counting off answers to my questions. “Blood tests look at standard stuff. Iron. Red blood cells. White blood cells. Enzymes. Stuff like that. If you go for the average blood tests, they aren’t looking for genetic stuff most of the time. The doc has to special order genetic tests. And even then, they don’t have tests for every genetic variant.”
“So basically you’re saying no one will see it because they aren’t looking for it.”
“And because no one knows what to look for.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’ve had a while to read up on it. Some of this stuff I don’t know for certain. I’m winging it, but it seems to make sense.” He shrugs. “Not like I can go to my doctor and ask her to see if there’s anything weird about my blood.”
I finish the last bite of my sandwich while he speaks. “Good point.”
He taps his index finger on the empty plastic container in my lap. “You got anything else to eat?”
I put the tub back in my knapsack and pull out an apple. “I only have one.”
“We’ll share.” He takes the apple from my hand and holds it to my lips. “Bite,” he orders softly.
I close my hands around his wrist, holding his hand steady, and I take a bite. He turns the apple and takes a bite from the same spot, his eyes never leaving mine. I look away, flustered.
“You’re awfully chatty, Jackson. What happened to the rules?”
He holds the apple out to me. I steady his wrist again and take another bite. His skin is warm under my fingers, and I can feel the tendons of his muscles.
“The rules are in place to keep the soldiers safe. To keep them from being overheard by other people in the real world and sent for a psych eval. To keep them from being overheard by the Drau and killed for a single slipup.”
“Yeah. I get that. So why are you breaking them?”
He holds the apple out to me again, but I shake my head. He keeps eating until there’s only the core left. And still he doesn’t answer. I pull out the plastic tub, open it, and hold it out so he can drop the core inside. I figure he isn’t going to answer, so I’m surprised when he says, “They’re not written in stone, even though we want the soldiers to think they are.”
“You keep saying soldiers like we’re in a war.”
“We are.”
I wet my suddenly dry lips. “And you keep saying we like you’re part of a group separate from the soldiers. . . .”
“I am. And so are you. You’re not a soldier, Miki.”
There’s something in his tone, something dark and frightening.
He’s still staring. I stare back. “Your eyes,” I murmur, “were you born like that?”
“I was born with an opaque layer over my corneas. My parents took me to a bunch of specialists. No one could figure it out. They weren’t cataracts. They weren’t anything that anyone had seen before. And because I was able to see as well as anyone else, they decided against surgery. They just left well enough alone. Things didn’t change overnight. It was slow and subtle, but by the time I was six, my eyes looked like this. By the time I was seven, my parents figured it was easier for me to wear sunglasses and get a medical note than to try and explain my eyes. Kids can be nasty.”
“Adults, too.”
“True enough.”
“So those diseases you rhymed off for Mr. Shomper. You don’t actually have any of them.”
“No. I don’t have any disease at all.”
“Why don’t you wear colored contacts to hide the color?”
“I do when I absolutely have to. Like when I got my pic for my driver’s license.”
“But you don’t want to wear them all the time?”
“Can’t. They disintegrate within an hour.”
I don’t know how to word the next question, so I just come out and say it before I chicken out. “So your eyes are Drau, which means somewhere back in your line, you had an ancestor who was one of them.”
“Most likely. Does it matter?”
I think about it, then say, “It matters in the scheme of the game. Are there some Drau who are good?” Is that why one of them is part of Jackson’s genetic pool, or is that because of a darker reason?
But in the scheme of how I feel about Jackson, no, it doesn’t matter at all.
“Never met a Drau I liked . . . ,” Jackson says. “Maybe if they weren’t trying to kill me, it’d be different.” He takes my partly eaten half a sandwich from me, takes a bite, then hands it back. “Next question.”
Which one to ask? I have so many. “If I have alien DNA, why hasn’t anyone ever noticed anything weird in my blood work? Or my mom’s blood work? I mean, she had a million tests because of her cancer. No one ever said a word. Or is the alien DNA from my dad’s side? His mom had eyes like mine.”
Jackson holds up his index finger. “You probably get the DNA from both sides. Your strain’s pretty strong for it to have come from just one.” He holds up a second finger and I realize he’s counting off answers to my questions. “Blood tests look at standard stuff. Iron. Red blood cells. White blood cells. Enzymes. Stuff like that. If you go for the average blood tests, they aren’t looking for genetic stuff most of the time. The doc has to special order genetic tests. And even then, they don’t have tests for every genetic variant.”
“So basically you’re saying no one will see it because they aren’t looking for it.”
“And because no one knows what to look for.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’ve had a while to read up on it. Some of this stuff I don’t know for certain. I’m winging it, but it seems to make sense.” He shrugs. “Not like I can go to my doctor and ask her to see if there’s anything weird about my blood.”
I finish the last bite of my sandwich while he speaks. “Good point.”
He taps his index finger on the empty plastic container in my lap. “You got anything else to eat?”
I put the tub back in my knapsack and pull out an apple. “I only have one.”
“We’ll share.” He takes the apple from my hand and holds it to my lips. “Bite,” he orders softly.
I close my hands around his wrist, holding his hand steady, and I take a bite. He turns the apple and takes a bite from the same spot, his eyes never leaving mine. I look away, flustered.
“You’re awfully chatty, Jackson. What happened to the rules?”
He holds the apple out to me. I steady his wrist again and take another bite. His skin is warm under my fingers, and I can feel the tendons of his muscles.
“The rules are in place to keep the soldiers safe. To keep them from being overheard by other people in the real world and sent for a psych eval. To keep them from being overheard by the Drau and killed for a single slipup.”
“Yeah. I get that. So why are you breaking them?”
He holds the apple out to me again, but I shake my head. He keeps eating until there’s only the core left. And still he doesn’t answer. I pull out the plastic tub, open it, and hold it out so he can drop the core inside. I figure he isn’t going to answer, so I’m surprised when he says, “They’re not written in stone, even though we want the soldiers to think they are.”
“You keep saying soldiers like we’re in a war.”
“We are.”
I wet my suddenly dry lips. “And you keep saying we like you’re part of a group separate from the soldiers. . . .”
“I am. And so are you. You’re not a soldier, Miki.”
There’s something in his tone, something dark and frightening.
