Icons by Margaret Stohl Page A

just, I knew there was no way to stop her—”
    “Don’t.” I hold up my hand. I can’t let him finish.
    “They told me you were quarantined.” He can’t say anything else. That I’ve been trapped and cornered and tested—and failed every part of it all. At least, failed myself and Ro.
    Because I couldn’t keep them from seeing what we do. Not any more than Lucas could stop them from forcing us to do it.
    So I only shrug. “They were probably afraid it was contagious.”
    “Being an Icon Child?”
    “Being Grass.”
    “What if it is?” He stares at me for a long time. As if there was any kind of answer to his question. As if his mother wasn’t the Ambassador. As if he didn’t already know where his whole life was going to lead him.
    Not to the Grass.
    I stand up, sliding expertly from beneath Ro’s deadweight arm.
    “It’s not. So you can tell them not to worry about it. Tell her. We don’t want you.”
    I push him out the door and close it before the tears come.

    It has been two days since our “conversation” with Colonel Catallus.
    They haven’t sent for us again. Not Colonel Catallus or the Ambassador.
    Not a single Sympa.
    Ro stays in my room with me. They must know he’sthere, but if they do, they haven’t said anything about it.
    The first day we are exhausted and do nothing but sleep. By the second morning, though, we are starving, and there is no sign of a food tray coming.
    That’s when Ro and I decide it is time to think strategically. We need a plan beyond anger. We need to find a way to get out of here.
    Time to venture beyond Santa Catalina Examination Facility #9B.
    We walk the long halls of the Medical Wing, looking straight ahead, keeping to one side of the corridor. “Don’t speak to anyone,” says Ro. “We just need to get our hands on a food tray.”
    “We need more than that,” I say.
    He nods. “But first, food. We should probably load up. We can’t just walk out of here, and we don’t know how long it could take to find a way to escape.”
    “Don’t talk about it,” I say, lowering my voice. “Not inside.”
    I point up at the round grating in the ceiling.
    “Got it.”
    The room with the door marked CAFETERIA is full of people when we enter. Doctors, officers, Sympa guards. The room is huge and the ceiling is plexi, seamed by metal ribbing that reminds me of the carcass of an animal whohas come to die in our field and his flesh rotted away.
    The windows would let the light in, if there was light. There are only clouds, though. So the glass lets the gray in.
    I see Lucas at a table in nearly the center of the room. Just seeing him makes me stumble into a chair as I pass by, but I collect myself.
    Ro lets his hand brush against mine, letting me feel his presence. “Easy there, Dodo. We’ll just grab a couple trays and go.”
    I swallow a smile. Ro hasn’t asked me anything about Lucas, not directly, but he hasn’t said anything, either. To be honest, there isn’t much Ro and I have wanted to talk about, these last few days. His “conversation” with the Sympa was probably harder to endure than the one I had with Colonel Catallus.
    Either way, they aren’t conversations we will be having again. Not if we can help it.
    Lucas catches my eye. He sits stiffly beside the silver-haired girl, the one from the Chopper. She looked almost like an apparition then, and she doesn’t look real here, either; now that I can get a closer look at her, I see she’s slight as wild bamboo. Her fingers flutter as she talks, moving with a different emphasis for every word. They tell stories, her fingers, like a dance. It’s mesmerizing.
    My mind stretches toward her, and I catch flashes of terrible things. Disasters and creatures. Storms and slidesand fires. I pull back, and she turns toward me.
    Strange.
    She shouldn’t have felt it, shouldn’t have felt anything. Most people can’t. And yet it looks like she has, just as Colonel Catallus did, during his stupid test. I