“What research?” I asked.
“You, Matilda.” He didn’t say it unkindly, but just the same, goose bumps rolled down my arms and spine and my stomach clenched.
“I’m not research,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “I’m his daughter.”
“You are much more than that,” Oscar said. “You are what his enemies are looking for. You are what Kiana White would like to claim as her property. A successful attempt at immortality. Forever young.”
“People can’t own people,” I said.
He sipped his tea and studied me a moment.
“Galvanized are not recognized as people,” he said. “They are not naturals.”
And there it was, straight out of the head of a House. I wasn’t a person. I was a thing.
Funny; I felt like a person. I loved and cried and laughed like a person. But hearing it out of his mouth made it more true in some way. Made it more real.
“I still have rights,” I said.
He tipped his head. “Mostly true. The first galvanized stitched together and reawakened were little more than laboratory experiments. It wasn’t until the process was improved that scientists realized galvanized may have retained the mental and emotional capabilities of a human being. Before then, galvanized were nothing more than locks on death’s door that scientists hoped to pick.
“Then there was the fall and the Restructure. During those dark times, the galvanized broke free of their keepers and led an uprising against the Houses, declaring themselves nonhuman and above the law. They almost succeeded in changing the world. They did succeed in branding themselves as nonhuman.
“You can imagine the fear that spread when it became known that the galvanized feel no pain, can replace injured body parts, and never die. They were seen as killing machines, as alien. Monsters. To be burned, crushed, and killed.
“The Houses joined together to pursue the destruction of the galvanized and all those in House Brown who followed them.
“In exchange for mercy for the civilians who had taken up their fight, the galvanized agreed to treaties and terms of surrender. The laws were already in place: galvanized were not considered human. They are a biological and technological result of an experiment.
“I think it’s a ridiculous distinction, but the fear of galvanized cut too deeply and bled too long for too many people. Powerful people. The heads of Houses still wear vials of Shelley dust.”
I shook my head. “Shelley dust?”
“It burns through stitches. While it won’t kill a galvanized, it will cause the limbs, connections, and internal organs to fall apart. Grisly stuff. Distasteful and inhumane.”
Abraham hadn’t said a word throughout this. He just stood expressionless, staring at the far wall. But I knew he’d been there, been through all these events Oscar Gray related like they were dry text in a history book.
“So House White thinks they own me because my dad worked for them and I’m stitched?”
There was more. I knew the body my brother had transferred my mind into was once stored at House White laboratories. And if House White knew that, then they were right—they owned my body.
My stomach rolled. It was a horrifying thought.
“They believe any experiment that has a basis in the work he did in House White is their property. So, yes, they believe they own you.”
“He didn’t make me,” I said.
“Til . . .” Right Ned warned softly.
“Oh?” Oscar frowned. “We thought. I thought.” He glanced back at Abraham, who was still staring at the far wall.
“Who made you, then?” Oscar asked.
“My brother.”
“Quinten? Quinten Case?”
“Yes.”
