Part 11 (1/2)
”Why not?” Persis asked, honestly curious this time.
Noemi looked grave as she put the pieces together. ”He's saying the problem is connected to how the cure works, Persis. The reason Reduction was so insidious for all those centuries is that it couldn't be gengineered out of our genetic code. No matter what people tried, the genes would mutate right back into place in the developing embryo.”
”Right, but Persistence did something different.” Everyone knew that.
”Yes,” said Noemi. ”The Helo Cure didn't seek to fix the flawed code. It merely bypa.s.sed the architecture of Reduction, changing the way the brain developed in the womb. And that changes the way it functions. A natural reg, whose genetic code mutated the flaw of Reduction out, has a brain more like an aristo's. But a Helo Cured reg has ana”Well, I don't want to call it an artificial boost. But it's a different kind of brain from other humans.”
Justen gave Persis a curious look. ”Does this really interest you?”
”How my brain might work?” Persis snapped. ”A little.” Let him think she cared on behalf of her mother. That she was still thinking about DAR. He could allow Persis Blake to be serious about that, at least.
”All right. Imagine a road that's perpetually flooded,” Justen said. ”That's Reduction. The road exists, but it's useless. With aristos and natural regs, the road's built on higher ground. It doesn't get flooded. With the Helo Cure, we built a bridge. However, the flooded road is still there. The flaw that causes Reduction still exists in the reg's genetic code, but there's a workaround now. That's what Persistence Helo did. She gengineered an early end to the Reduction.”
Before Persistence Helo and her cure, only one in twenty Reduced births resulted in a naturally reg offspring. If they waited around for generations, Reduction would have died out eventually. But Persistence Helo, like Persis, didn't have that kind of patience. She fixed the entire population in one fell swoop.
Even though that meant side effects.
”There are some,” Justen said, ”who argue that DAR is more common in genetic lines that were farther away from producing natural regs. But there's no way to know now.”
”And that's not relevant to this case,” Noemi added, practical and focused as always. This is why Persis had wanted her so badly for the League. She was older than most of her other confidants, and she rolled her eyes at many of Persis's ideas, but her heart was true. Like everyone in the League of the Wild Poppy, Noemi Dorric cared only that Galateans were being tortured, and that was wrong. She wasn't political; she wasn't sn.o.bby. She just wanted to stop people from being hurt.
And now it looked like that was a lot harder than anyone had imagined.
”So the damage being done to the reg refugees is connected to the way their brains work?” Persis asked.
Justen nodded. ”We'd know for sure if the Poppy comes across a Reduced prisoner who's a natural reg. And they're much rarer.”
If the Wild Poppy had her way, she'd start rescuing Galateans long before they became victims of this terrible drug.
Justen was still studying the lab results, his gaze intense, almost manic. Persis knew that looka”it's the one she wore when the Wild Poppy was in charge. It was the one where everything fell away except a singular focus on her quest. There was no chance of taking him on a splashy public outing this evening, no matter what Isla wanted. Tonight, people needed him.
It was a glory to behold, actually. She'd agreed to host Justen the way she'd support anyone who wished to take refuge from the revolution, but she hadn't expected what she'd find in him. His medical skills might be a boon to her mother and now a boon to these poor Galateans, too. But even more than that, Justen had taught her the truth about the revolution.
All the other refugees she'd talked to after their detox so far had been real enemies of the revolution. Their feelings about it were purely negative, which was understandable, given their experiences. Upon meeting Justen, she saw a different side entirely, a side that she might have sympathized with before everything had gone so terribly wrong. Persis never would have understood Remy's mind-set has she not seen it in her brother first.
These were the true revolutionaries, these Helos, these citizens who believed that things in Galatea were bad, that they had to changea”but were horrified at the way Citizen Aldred had perverted their desires into cruelty, revenge, and torture. And the fact that Justen and Remy could hold these feelings while being raised in Aldred's housea”it was a testament to their inner strength.
There must be others in Galatea who thought the same way but were too frightened to act, given Citizen Aldred's swift and severe punishments. Unlike the Helos, they didn't have the protection of their names. But if others could be reached, if people who thought like Justen and Remy could be marshaled to pose a challenge to the reign of terror, then maybe they could find a way to stop all of it, and then no one would need asylum.
Or the Wild Poppy.
Could she ever be satisfied with merely running the estate and being a dutiful daughter to her parents after these months of adventures? Persis didn't know. But once the Galateans were no longer in danger, there would be no need for her alter ego, or for the mask she wore when playacting as Persis Blake. Maybe then she could finally talk to Justen as an equal.
Or maybe even sooner than that. After all, he was already helping the League of the Wild Poppy by a.s.sisting the refugees. And even his sister was taking part in the operations.
Maybe it was time to tell Justen who she really was. This latest development should kill any remaining loyalty he had left for the twisted travesty his revolution had become. Justen, who held so much respect for his grandmother's work, who had dedicated his life to fixing every flaw in her great achievementa”he couldn't stand by and watch his leaders take it apart. Couldn't let them threaten his fellow citizens like that.
His fellow citizens, but not himself. Justen was a natural reg, she remembered with a sudden chill. He was natural, and she, though an aristo, might have a Helo-cured brain. If either of them were ever captured by the Galateans and dosed with this drug, Justen would recover, while Persisa”
She might learn what it was like to Darken a few decades early.
Thirteen.
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, PERSIS and Justen were still at the sanitarium, with no sign of departure on the horizon. Justen and Noemi had tested the regs in the facility and learned that Justen's hypothesis was correcta”every one of them was descended from those who'd received the Helo Cure. The next step was seeing if there was a way to counteract or bypa.s.s the effects. To pa.s.s the time, Persis was playing chess on the floor with a few of the other patients. But she wasn't paying careful enough attention. She kept accidentally winning.
She'd also fired off a few flutternotes whenever she was sure no one was watching. She fluttered Isla that a problem at the refugee base was keeping her from fulfilling Isla's public relations quest, but that she and Justen were working on it together. She fluttered Andrine to get an update on Remy's transport back to Galatea. Andrine had been charged with giving the girl some very explicit instructions as to what she was to do when she arrived home, since Persis didn't want to place Justen's sister in the path of danger. Remy was to gather information, not hunt it down.
Finally, she fluttered her parentsa”on a frangipani flutter, naturallya”saying she and Justen would be late for supper.
And she thought. Was it possible that the Galateans were not aware of what they were doing to their people with this drug? They'd begun by using it solely on aristos, a symbolic punishment meant to enslave the upper cla.s.s as the aristos had once enslaved the ma.s.ses. The revolutionaries' first victim had been the old Queen Gala, followed by her entourage. It was only recently that they'd expanded to punis.h.i.+ng regs who ran afoul of the revolution in this manner. Did they mean the sentences to be for life?
”Excuse me, Lady Blake?”
Persis looked up from her most recent game to see Lord Lacan standing there, his face grave. Lord Lacan was the first aristo she'd rescued who was aware of her true ident.i.ty, thanks to Remy's unmasking her during the man's rescue. The other aristos in his party, thankfully, had been out of sight when Remy had knocked off her cap. Though every new person who knew her secret was one more node of danger, she was glad it had been someone like Lacan and not someone like Lord or Lady Seri.
She excused herself from the boarda”a good thing, too, as she was two moves away from another checkmatea”and retreated with him into a quiet corner.
”Rumors have been flying around the facility like your little spun-sugar flower messages,” the old man said to her. ”There is a problem, I understand, with the reg refugees?”
”It's not of concern to you or your family, sira””
”You're wrong,” Lacan replied. ”The regs you rescued along with me are my friends. Anything that hurts my countrymen hurts me as well. May I see them?”
Persis blinked, surprised by the vehemence in his voice. Then again, even Reduced, Lacan had a presence about him. He'd been one of the most powerful voices for reform before the revolution, which is why she was so mystified that Aldred made him a target for imprisonment and Reduction. Even Remy Helo seemed to have been curious. Lord Lacan was responsible for changing at least one Galatean reg's mind about the revolutiona”and one who'd been raised to believe in it more strongly than anyone. Maybe that's why Aldred found him so dangerous. He was one of the only proreg forces out there who could challenge Aldred's despotic rule. Lacan was an aristo, but not the kind the revolution was meant to challenge.
Persis led him into the next chamber. There were seven refugees here, all regs. Lacan observed them for a moment, their sullen, confused faces, their clumsy movements and mumbled groans.
”This is an abomination,” he said at last. ”We must tell my countrymen what is being done to them, what they truly risk the longer they allow Citizen Aldred to control the island. Everything I fought for, the integrity of the Helo Cure itselfa”” The old man's voice broke on the words, and he shook his head.
”I know.” Persis put a hand on his arm.
He looked at her hand, at the yellow leather wristlock covering her palmport. ”You are a very young person to be taking this on all on your own.”
”I'm not on my own,” she replied in defense. ”I have helpers, and Noemi, and the support of the princessa””
He cut her off, his tone contemplative, as if he hadn't even heard her. ”This is what I've been thinking ever since I came back to myself. How young you are. How young you and that little soldier girl looked as you grappled on the ground in Galatea. How young Princess Isla is.” The Lord Lacan looked down at his wrinkled hands, at the bandage covering his thumb. ”I was ten years old when I took over my family estate. Twelve when Persistence Helo came to me and told me about her cure, when I decided to give it to every Reduced person on my land. My neighbors, all those people older and wiser than I, they all told me how foolish it was to listen to some reg who managed to get herself a medic's training. Said even if it did work, I'd have a lot harder time managing an estate full of regs than I would if they were Reduced.”
”And you were right, in the end.”
He chuckled. ”Yes, I was. At twelve years old, I was young and idealistic and lucky that I happened to be right. So that's why I know it's foolish to tell you how dangerous this whole Wild Poppy business is and utterly pointless to say you're too young to pull it off. Because I know from experience that sometimes it's only the young ones who are crazy enough to change the world.”
VANIA SCOWLED AS SHE scrolled through the files on her oblet. General Gawnt's new strategy of beefing up the security at the work camps meant far more administrative work than Vania liked. He was doing this to annoy her, of that she was certain. Now, instead of being at the front lines of the Ford siege, waiting for the moment she could watch the final barriers fall, she was stuck in an office in the Halahou royal palace, reviewing files on troop movements.