Page 63 of Across the Universe (Across the Universe 1)

I expect her to be surprised—she hadn’t acknowledged before that she’d noticed me—but the girl just glances up and says, “Hello. ”

She does do a double take when she sees me, though. I remember what Elder said about me, and how easy I’d be to recognize. My hair is sweaty from my run and plastered to my skull, with flyaways escaping my hasty braid. I smooth my hands over it anyway, not that it will do any good; there is no hiding who I am on this ship.

“You’re the genetically modified experiment,” the girl states. I nod. “Eldest has said we don’t have to speak to you. ”

“Well you don’t have to,” I say, unable to keep the growl from my voice, “but you could at least be polite. ”

The girl tilts her head, considering. She reaches behind her and grabs a small basket full of hypodermic needles. About half are empty; the other half contain golden-yellow liquid that looks like honey swirled with butter.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Inoculations,” the girl says, turning to the rabbit she still holds pinned to the ground. The rabbit doesn’t seem to have any fight in it. It twitches its heavy back legs occasionally but doesn’t really struggle against her grip.

“Are these your pets?” I ask.

She looks at me, and I can tell she’s thinking about what Eldest said, how I am supposedly slow and stupid. “No,” she says. “They are food. ”

Stupid question. The field is fairly large, and I can see about twenty rabbits nearby, and dozens more in the distance. On the far side of the field is a house—the girl’s home, I suppose—and lined around the house are wired hutches for more rabbits. There must be hundreds of people on Godspeed; it makes sense that they’d need a source of protein that reproduces as quickly as rabbits.

“I saw you running,” she says, her attention on the rabbit. “What were you running from?”

“Just running,” I say. She’s watching me silently and intently, like a cat.

“Why?” she asks.

I shrug. “Why not?”

“It’s not Productive. ” She says it like productivity is holy, the only thing worth having.

“So?” I say.

Instead of answering, the girl just cocks her head to the left, then turns away from me. She picks up one of the full needles in the basket, jabs it into the rabbit’s back leg, and lets the rabbit go. “Number 623, inoculated,” she says. The computer thing flashes a wavy line and a green light, and the words she’s spoken show up on a chart on the screen.

“What are you inoculating them against?” I ask. How many rabbit diseases could there be on a contained ship?

“It makes them stronger. Healthier. Better meat. ” She squats on her heels and stares at me. “You live in the Hospital, right?”

I nod.

“My grandfather was taken to the Hospital,” she says.

“Is he better now?”

“He’s gone. ”

She says this matter-of-factly, without a hint of emotion, but her eyes are glistening. “I’m sorry,” I say.

“Why?” she asks simply. “It was his time. ”

“You’re crying. ”

She wipes one dirty finger under her eye, leaving a smudge of dirt and green grass stains on her cheek. She looks at the tear on her finger, confused that such emotion should leak from her eyes. “I have no reason to be sad,” she tells the evidence dripping down her fingertip. Her voice is even, monotone, and I know she believes she’s not sad, even though her body tells her differently.

The girl picks up her basket and then reaches for the computer thing. It’s further away than she’d thought, and it slips out of her hands, floating toward me. I catch two words on the top of the screen: GENETIC MODIFICATION.

“What’s that say?” I ask, pointing.

She obeys me without question, which surprises me a bit. “Genetic modification to manipulate reproductive genes and muscle mass,” she recites in her same even monotone. “Projected increased productivity: 20 percent, with increased meat production at 25 percent. ”