Across the Universe - Beth Revis [71]
And then I see it.
My teddy bear.
I lift her up. The big green bow at her neck is lopsided and the felt is worn off her nose. The fur on her right paw is almost gone, because when I was a baby, I used to suck on it instead of my thumb.
I hug Amber to my chest, longing for something I know felt and stuffing can’t give.
“Last trunk,” Elder says, pushing it toward me as I close Daddy’s trunk.
I take a deep breath. I squeeze Amber.
But that trunk is empty.
“Where’s your stuff?” Harley asks, leaning over my shoulder.
Tears prick my eyes.
“Daddy didn’t think I was going to go,” I said. “He didn’t pack anything for me, because he didn’t think I was really going with them.”
38
ELDER
“BUT IT’S OKAY,” I SAY. “WE’VE GOT EVERYTHING YOU NEED here on the ship. You won’t have to worry about clothes or anything.”
Harley punches me in the arm.
“What?”
Amy hugs her stuffed animal and picks up the notebook, pencils, book, and photograph she’s selected from her parents’ boxes. “I’m done here,” she says in a hollow voice.
Harley helps me load the trunks back into the locker. He keeps shooting me these looks and waggling his eyebrows at Amy, but I have no idea what he means by it.
Click. Whoosh. Thud.
Amy drops the stuffed animal and books, the pencils clatter on the floor, and the photograph drifts down. “I know that sound,” she breathes, and she’s off, running down the aisle toward the rows of frozen bodies.
“Amy, wait!” Harley calls, but I just chase after her. She skids around the corner in the row of sixties.
“Hurry up!” she screams.
I round the corner. Fog is rising from a glass box resting in the center of the aisle.
“Did you do this?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
“Of course not!” Amy says, her voice raspy, as if she’s trying to say everything at once. “Is she going to wake up like me?”
I glance at the box—there is a woman inside, a taller, heavier woman than Amy with dark kinky hair and darker skin than mine. The light at the top of the box blinks red. I look at the black electrical box. The switch inside has been flipped.
I jab my finger into my wi-com button. “Com link: Doc. Now!”
“What is it?” Doc’s voice fills my wi-com.
“Doc! There’s been another one! There’s another box out here! Come quick!”
“Wait, what?”
“Down in the cryo level. One of the other frozens. She’s been pulled outside. The light is red!”
“I’ll be right there.”
Doc disconnects the link. I hope he’s close. If he’s in the Hospital, he’ll be here in minutes—if he’s in the City or on the Shipper Level, it will be longer.
“What’s going on?” Harley asks.
“Someone’s done to this woman what they did to me,” Amy says. “Someone just unplugged me, left me here to die.”
“So will she wake up?” Harley asks.
“I don’t know. I think if we flip the switch back, put her back in... but I don’t know. I’m afraid to mess with it. It looks so simple, but...”
“Don’t let her wake up,” Amy says softly. “It’s bad, being frozen, but it’s better than waking up alone.”
My heart jerks. She still thinks of herself as alone.
“Elder?” a voice calls.
“Here!” I call back. “Number... ” I glance at the open door. “Number 63!”
Doc races down the aisle. He shoves Harley aside as he bends over the glass box. He wipes away the fog blurring the glass. “She’s not been out long,” Doc says. “She’s hardly melted at all.”
“That’s good, right? Right?” Amy’s fingers press against the glass box, like she’s trying to reach through the ice and hold the woman’s hand.
“Good,” Doc says. He bumps into me. I step back. Doc leans over the glass, looking at the electrical box. He plugs a floppy into a wire on the box and reads the numbers that pop up on the screen. He grunts, but I can’t tell whether it’s a good