It was Zada’s first time in two years hearing someone else utter Carine’s name. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There were a few moments in the beginning when one of her friends had stumbled and misspoken. But they all learned over time. No one was to talk about Carine, not ever—as if the girl who had once been one of the principal planets in Zada’s solar system had never existed.
She knew she shouldn’t encourage this line of conversation, but she couldn’t resist. It was always hard to do what she knew she should do when Daphne was around.
“I miss her,” said Zada.
“I do, too.” Daphne’s lips twisted sadly. “Do you remember how she used to break up our arguments with weird science facts?”
“I don’t think I could forget if I tried,” Zada said. And here came the tears. Her eyes prickled as she blinked rapidly. “And I’ve tried.”
Daphne looked out the window. For a long moment, neither of them said anything. “Only Carine would risk everythingjust so she could get her hands on a book about the weather.”
Zada looked at Daphne sharply. “What? What do you mean?”
“That was why she was Extricated,” Daphne said. “For breaking into the archival library so she could access weather records.”
“But why—”
“Why do you think?” Daphne cut in. She waved a hand at the view blurring past their window, the bright facades in the sunshine. “She was trying to do something about the blasted temperature in here. At least, that’s what I assume. She came to me first, asking if I could get her into the library since I’m a Fallow. I told her to drop it.” Daphne sighed. “But clearly, she didn’t.”
And the rest was history. One day, Carine was sitting with the rest of them at lunch in the solarium, laughing and correcting Augusta’s lab report. The next day, she’d vanished. The sudden terrible, inexplicable absence kept Zada awake for nights after.
“She made her choice,” Zada managed at last.
“We all do,” said Daphne.
Zada felt her throat beginning to close up. Blinking hard, she made herself swallow and breathe.
“It ruined her parents,” Zada said quietly. “Carine being Extricated, I mean. Hardly anyone talks to them. Her mother used to work in biosystems, but she lost her job.”
“How do you know that?” Daphne’s voice came out harsh.
“My mother. She went over to check on them a few times,” Zada said. “But you see why I did what I did? I couldn’t letthat happen to my parents.”
“But what does Carine have to do with you? Whether she meant to or not, she committed treason. She broke into a sealed facility, Zada. We were pulling pranks and ditching class. Those aren’t the same at all.”
“But I didn’t know that!” Zada slumped back, rubbing her forehead. “Carine disappeared one day, and we all acted like it was perfectly normal. I was afraid, Daphne.”
“You think I wasn’t?” said Daphne. “You think I don’t—she was one of my best friends too.” Her throat worked. Zada had a sudden intense urge to lay a comforting hand on Daphne’s knee, and an equally intense certainty that it would not be welcome. Her fingers twitched at her side.
“I’m sorry,” said Zada. “It’s horrible. I still wonder what happened to her.” Sometimes at night, she’d written little stories in her head: Carine, saved by a hardscrabble family of scavengers. Carine, saved by her own ingenuity. At some point, she’d stopped. It had hurt worse, for how improbable it all felt. She swallowed. “But it’s different if you’re not a Fallow. It’s different if you have to live every day knowing you could just as easily suffer the same fate. It just is.”
“Okay,” said Daphne. “You’ve made your point. I get it.”
“I know I should’ve talked to you,” Zada added. “I know I should’ve tried to explain.”
“Yes,” said Daphne, jutting out her chin. “You should’ve. Instead of cutting me off like a gangrenous limb.”
Once again, Zada reminded herself to breathe.Inhale, exhale. Don’t tell your mercurial, charismatic former friend that the reason you never broached the concept with her was because you knew she would find a way to argue you back into her innercircle, the way she could always convince you to go along with her plans, voice low and exciting, eyes sparkling with mischief—
Zada forced her mind off that path. Unfortunately, it brought her back to Carine. She could still remember, with the clarity of a cut, how it had felt to walk into social studies the day after Carine’s Extrication. The empty desk, not yet cleared out. Carine’s reader lying where she’d always forgotten it, on the windowsill. It was the only time Zada had faltered before entering the field that scanned her thoughts for the Core.
She’d worked hard to maintain impeccable grades, determined first to qualify for Dalrymple and then to justify her presence there, which meant that unlike some of the more disruptive students, she had never fed the field false intelligence for the sake of a joke. She had carefully left out most of her and Daphne’s shenanigans, but she had always been honest. Assuming her responses had been correctly cross-referenced against those of her fellow students, the Core—and thus, anyone with the authority to access it—knew all of Zada’s hopes and dreams as well as she knew them herself.
The Core knew that she longed to be a musician but worried her shyness would kill any performing career before it began. The Core knew that Zada loved her parents very much but preferred spending time with them separately. The Core knew who Zada’s best friends had been in the past and who they were now, and the Core also knew Zada’s shame that despite a lifetime of a loving family and almost absurdly kind friends, despite her years of top-tier education, despite every considerable advantage she had been lucky enough to receive, Zada had never, not for one day, felt good enough. And, from age sixteen onward, the Core had known that Zada missed hertreasonous former friend like an open wound.
“So,” said Daphne, “let’s try this again. How do you feel about Buford?”
“I feel good.”
