The Unadjusteds

by Marisa Noelle

  Dad!

  I sit up, reaching for my knife. Nausea slithers through my stomach. “Where’s my father?”

  The bulk turns. I struggle to my feet, but blackness swarms my vision and I immediately fall back onto the couch. I wince at the pain in my shoulder.

  The bulk raises his hands, eyeing the knife in my hand. “I have no idea where your father is.”

  “What did you do with him?” I demand, my voice hoarse from thirst.

  He backs off a step. “Nothing. I swear. I think the army got him.”

  I frown, but even that effort worsens the headache. “Aren’t you the army?”

  He shakes his head slowly, as if afraid I might pounce. “No. No way.” The bulk steps closer, out of the shadows. He points at his trousers. “Lifted these from an unsuspecting soldier a couple days ago.”

  My head pounds and I can’t make any sense of his words. He could be lying.

  Hell, of course he’s lying. He takes another step. I flinch.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.” The bulk stands over me. Enlarged muscles. A flop of corn-colored hair. The face of a thousand aftershave commercials. Right down to the cleft in the middle of his chin. But that could be a trick.

  My body tenses. I open my mouth but can’t think of the words to save myself.

  The bulk moves closer and hands me a flask. “Have some water.”

  I eye the flask as if it might contain a snake, then snatch it out of his hand. I drink it greedily, not caring that half of it dribbles down my chin.

  “Easy,” he says, a hint of amusement in his tone.

  I notice a bandage wrapped around my shoulder. Only then do I realize I am no longer wearing my T-shirt, just my bra. Outrage swells in my chest, but I don’t have the energy to do anything about it.

  The bulk must’ve seen the look on my face because he points to my shoulder. “You were injured. I needed to dress your wound.” Color rises in his cheeks and he averts his gaze.

  “Who are you?” I back into the corner of the couch, which squeaks an irritated protest.

  “Name’s Rucker. Joe Rucker.” The bulk sticks out a hand that I don’t shake. “And you, I believe, judging by that nice little array of nanite pills, are Silver Melody.”

  I frown. “How do you know who I am?”

  “Everyone knows who the inventors of the nanite pills are.” He picks up a bottle and shakes it. “And their very unadjusted daughter. More so since there’s been a price on your head.”

  Narrowing my eyes, I wobble to my feet. “Is that your plan? To turn me in? Is that what you did to my dad?” I swish the knife between us, then realize my folly. No blade can pierce a bulk’s skin.

  “Of course not.” Joe cocks his head, his golden eyes shimmering in the firelight. “I couldn’t get to you both before the army got there. Your dad looked… pretty bad.”

  “You should have saved my father!” Lurching forward, I drop the knife and pound my fist against his armored chest, bruising my knuckles. I move to sweep his legs out but only succeed on collapsing to the floor. My teeth smack together. “He’s more important than me.”

  A renegade tear leaks down my cheek.

  “Hey, it’s OK.” Joe’s hand finds my arm through the sleeping bag, and I leap away from his touch. He holds up both hands. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

  “We’ll see about that.” I cower away, cradling my knife.

  “What were you and your father doing in the woods?”

  I don’t look at him but keep my head down and try to ignore his presence. If I could move, I would. I’d kick his face in and run into the forest.

  Joe leans against a wall and crosses one ankle over the other. “Do you have more clothes? Can I help you get dressed?”

  This time I lift my head and glare at him, then pull the sleeping bag tighter.

  “Have it your way.” He shrugs and returns to the fire, where he turns the sticks. The tempting aroma of meat wafts closer.

  “Where are we now?” I ask, eyeing the food.

  Joe reaches for one of the sticks and hands it to me. Cautiously, I grab it and inspect it for poison. Joe laughs, takes another of the sticks and gulps the sliver of meat down in one. I nibble the edge of mine.

  “Some kind of abandoned village. A couple of ramshackle houses.” Joe smiles; it lights up the hard edges of his face. “Looks at least a hundred years old.”

  “They are.” I remember Matt’s instructions. If we really are at the ruined village, then we’re halfway to the caves. At least Joe has taken me in the right direction. I finish nibbling on the meat and he passes me another.

  “That’s not where you attacked me.”

  Joe rolls his eyes and the gesture irks me. “I didn’t attack you. I saved you.” He kneels next to the crate. Although his eyes are now at my level, he still looms over me. “I carried you here.”

  “All this way? And my rucksack?” I ask, glancing at it.

  Joe nods. “I saw the hellhound. You managed to kill it?”

  It’s my turn to nod.

  “How? I had a run-in with one. It’s one of the few times I’ve been thankful for my impenetrable skin. It kept coming for me until I managed to break its leg.”

  “I didn’t have a choice. It was eating my father.” I fiddle with the empty stick in my hand. “It would have killed us both.”

  Joe appraises me from his position on the floor. I reach for my rucksack and pull out a new T-shirt. I’m unable to slip my injured arm into the right hole. Joe moves to help me, but I shoot him a glare.

  He steps back. “Just trying to help.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  With no small amount of pain, I manage to slip the shirt over my head. Then I reach for one of the pill bottles. Regeneration. I swallow two.

  The light outside the dirty window dims, and with it, my energy as the nanites take effect. Although the last place I want to be is with a bulk in a ruin of a home, I can’t stop my eyelids from drooping.

  “What did you say about a price on my head?” I hear myself whisper as I drift into a fitful sleep.

  “You and your father are wanted. It’s a lot of money…”

  His voice trails off as I fall asleep. When I wake again, it’s the middle of the night. Joe sleeps stretched out in front of the fire. A new rush of energy fills my limbs. Rotating my shoulder, I find it doesn’t hurt at all. I remove the bandage to find the wound healed except for a scar.

  Staying as quiet as possible, I repack my rucksack and head toward the door.

  A hand circles my boot. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  I try to kick it off, but it’s no use. “So I’m a prisoner?”

  He releases me and springs to his feet. “You’re injured. You need to rest.”

  I pull back the collar of my shirt and show him the healed wound.

  He looks from my shoulder to my face. Twice. “Well, I never.”

  “I need to find my dad.” I turn toward the door.

  “You know,” he calls after me, “a lot of people are looking for you out there. President Bear put a million dollars on your head. And your father’s. Each. That’s a lot of money to a lot of people.”

  “A million dollars?” I gulp. “That is a lot of money.”

  “Yeah. I could buy a regeneration pill with that. Several.” He stares at me, but I can’t read his expression.

  I edge a step closer to the door. “Why do you need a regeneration pill?”

  “I was recruited for the NFL. I’d only been playing for six months when I tore my ACL. My insurance package didn’t cover regeneration pills, so they dropped me.”

  He stands like he’s ready to pounce, which doesn’t match the words coming out of his mouth. Can I trust him or not?

  Definitely not. I’m on my own in this.

  I pause, my hand on the door. “And then what?”

  Joe shrugs his massive shoulders. “And then, nothing. I argued my case in court for a few months but didn’t get anywhere. Got disi
llusioned. Then I heard about the cave—”

  I freeze. “How do you know about the cave?” Shit. I could have just walked into a trap.

  “Ran into an old school friend in a similar predicament. She told me about a safe place, and with my parents in a compound…” He shakes his head. “There’s really no place else for me to go.”

  I glance out the window and see a perfectly still night. No wolves. No helicopters. Nothing hiding in the dark shadows. My dad needs me. And Matt. There’s no way I want to exist in President Bear’s nanite world without either of them.

  “What compounds?”

  He frowns. “You don’t know?”

  I look away from the window. “No.”

  “The army and the City Investigation Force have rounded up all the unadjusteds in the country and detained them in compounds.”

  “To force the nanites down their throats?”

  “To start with, but then they got a little desperate.” Joe leans against the wall. “With unadjusteds fleeing all over the city, hell, all over the country, it had an effect on the superbeings.”

  “Alts,” I mutter.

  “Whatever you want to call us.” His face remains neutral, although the cleft in the middle of his chin bobs a little.

  I want to push open the door and escape, but I need to know what’s going on out there. “What happened?”

  “The adjusteds went a little wild.”

  “Wild how?”

  “No one knows. They started killing each other. Like, rampage bad. There’s a whole ton of speculation. Some of the superbeings who’ve taken just one nanite, like me, seem fine. But any more than that, they went bad. The only thing keeping them in control is the presence of the unadjusteds.”

  “I don’t understand.” My mind races back to the day of my escape, but everything happened so fast that it was hard to tell what was going on.

  “Neither do I,” Joe says. “But my parents are unadjusted. They poured all their money into that one nanite so I could have a career. Now they’re in a compound.” His voice hardens. “And I, for one, am going to get them the hell out.”

  “Well, good luck with that.” I turn and yank the door open.

  Joe steps across the room. “Where are you going?”

  “I already told you, I’m going to get my dad.”

  “You don’t even know where he is.”

  So what? “I’ll go to the caves first. Get Matt to help me.”

  Joe’s voice softens. “Matt?”

  I glance over my shoulder. “He’s my best friend.”

  “I think he’s the one I’ve been hearing about, helping to organize a resistance.” Joe closes the gap between us. “We’re going to the same place. We might as well go together.”

  “I’m OK on my own.” I let the door slam behind me.

  Although it’s dark out, the night-vision nanite I took a few days ago still aids my progress. I refill my water bottle in a nearby stream before trudging through the forest, keeping alert for any suspicious noises. Which includes Joe’s not very subtle trampling behind me. He mutters curses under his breath, and it brings an unexpected smile to my lips.

  The forest around us falls silent as he thunders through bushes and swears at the branches invisible in the shadows. After half an hour, I hold my breath and double back on him. I wait against a tree, using the knife to pick dirt from my fingernails.

  “If you’re going to follow me, you really need to be quiet.”

  Joe yelps and trips over my feet.

  He pushes himself up. “Damn, Silver. How can you see where you’re going? There’s no moon tonight.”

  I remove a bottle of pills from my pack and place one in his palm. He rolls it between his fingertips. “What is it?”

  “Night vision.”

  “I thought you were an unadjusted.”

  “Of course I am. I’d never… They’re temporary. It lasts a few days.”

  “I’m not sure I want to take this. Superbeings are going murderous because they’re taking too many nanites. As irritating as you are, I’m not sure I want to murder you. Yet.” His eyes flash.

  “Hmm. I’m harder to kill than I look.” I toss my hair over my shoulder. “But you don’t need to worry, it’ll wear off soon enough.”

  “Thanks.” Joe dumps his pack on the ground, pulls his water flask out and swallows the pill. “How long does it take to… oh my!” He cranes his neck around the tree and peers into the darkness of the forest surrounding us. “I’m not sure I want to see what I’m seeing. There are so many animals out here.”

  “Surely a big, bad bulk like you isn’t afraid of a prowling fox?”

  Joe re-shoulders his pack. “There are more than foxes out here.”

  A slice of fear cuts through my shoulder, echoing the memory of pain. Yes, there are a lot of dangerous animals out here.

  Checking my compass, I steer us in the right direction. It should be three more days to the caves, and I want to leave as few tracks as possible. Despite the nanite I’ve given Joe, he continues crashing through the low-growing shrubbery, favoring one of his legs.

  When the sky lightens and the nocturnal animals return to their lairs, Joe sits on the ground and gulps from his flask.

  “What’s the problem?” I ask. Joe is a bulk. Stronger and bigger and almost immortal, yet he’s tiring quicker than me.

  “It’s my knee. All the walking.” He presses around the joint.

  The weight of the pills in my rucksack nestles against my back. Looking down at him, I appreciate for the first time the machine a bulk can be. The impenetrable skin, the power in his muscles, his towering height. And his speed. With catlike reflexes, they’re fast. Not as fast as a speedster like Kyle, but still fast.

  I pluck a bottle of pills from my pack and chuck him a regeneration pill. Sure, he could heal and kill me. But he could have killed me countless times by now. He didn’t have to rescue me or tend to my wound or feed me roasted squirrel meat. But he’s done all those things. And even though he might be pulling me deeper into a trap, it won’t be any better or worse with his knee healed.

  “Is this going to kill me?” he asks, staring at the pill.

  “Maybe.” I can’t resist the jibe.

  He locks his golden eyes on me, glaring, and pierces my soul with his gaze.

  I smile. “It’s not going to kill you. It’ll help your injury. I promise.”

  Joe’s gaze doesn’t move from my face. I wriggle under the scrutiny.

  He squints at me. “How do I know I can trust you?”

  I bark out a laugh. “Take it, or don’t take it. Up to you.”

  He nods, then swallows the pill. I sink next to him, knowing it will take an hour or so for the genetic changes to take effect.

  Then he’ll be tired.

  Joe offers me some squirrel meat from the traps he set around the house. It’s starting to run low. “I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

  I tap my finger against the blade of my knife. “Just don’t make me regret my decision.”

  Joe massages the muscles around his knee, digging his fingers in. It’s been over an hour and the regeneration has taken effect. I watch him, alert for any sudden movements. Now that he’s healed, he might change his mind about me and that reward.

  He must see the way I’m looking at him because he says, “I’m not going to hurt you, Silver. I just want my life back.”

  I eye his rippling muscles, wondering if he’s ever tried to snap a branch between tricep and bicep. Hell, he could probably crush a boulder in the crevice of his elbow.

  “We all want our lives back,” I say. Living in a penthouse apartment, with an imprisoned mother and an over-worked lapdog of a father. I shake my head. “Scratch that. I want a new life back.”

  Joe’s shoulders slump and he laces his fingers over his knee. “The American dream.”

  I snort. “Not a dream. I just want what’s mine. I want what I deserve.” My neck muscles tauten. “I want my freedom.
”

  Joe sighs. “Me too.”

  I think of all the anthems in the history of our country. The impassioned speeches and hopeful prayers. So many in the past penned heartfelt words, hoping to change the future. New words come to me, the way they always do when I’m composing a new song. But this time verses fly into my mind, a complete package, their message bold and clear. My fingers ache for my guitar.

  I look at Joe. “Then maybe you can help get me to the cave safely.”

  He smiles. “I’ll do my best.”

  Thinking of the cave reminds me of those in my life who are missing. Images of my father tumble through my mind, images of the hellhound attack and the blood pooling under his mangled leg. Please be alive. Please.

  I blink away the sudden sting of tears and turn my face so Joe won’t see. I can’t afford to show weakness. I can’t swallow around the meat in my mouth, so I spit it into my hand and cough, trying to hide my bursting emotions. Joe either doesn’t notice or is decent enough not to say anything. When I get myself under control, I touch a fingertip to the pendant, wishing I could somehow fast forward through the next three days and get to Matt.

  We sit under the tree until dawn. I pick acorns from the ground and run my fingers over the smooth shells before shoving them in my pockets. An old habit, one Matt always grumbled about when we went camping and I’d fill his backpack too.

  Occasionally I nod off for a few minutes, but my hand never leaves the hilt of my knife and Joe never leaves my side. And he doesn’t murder me in my sleep, either. Actually, he snores for a good two hours straight. Nothing about him is stealthy or quiet; maybe he’ll be the death of me after all.

  Just before dawn, I collect several handfuls of blackberries from bushes and share them with Joe for breakfast. After stretching, he pushes himself to his feet and grabs his knee. He frowns.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My knee. It doesn’t hurt.” He bends and flexes his leg a couple of times, performs a few low squats, and dances around the forest, leaping over ferns.

  “Well, that’s a good thing then.” I clap.

  He whoops and yells at the trees and thanks Heaven and God above.