I ache to ask Mother ask if I made the right choice with the VacTech, and to tell her of the rebel I saw on the way in, but I say none of it. Instead, we sit in silence as Father completes work tasks on his Flexx handheld. Nervous energy works its way through my body, making my head spin.
The door by the viewing screen opens, a lean woman with graying hair stepping out. “Avlyn, Mr. and Mrs. Lark,” she greets. “Come in.”
From the dizziness, I grab my mother’s arm to steady myself as we stand and follow the woman. Mother glances at me, then the spot I grabbed, but if I let go, I’m sure to fall over. Three padded chairs wait in front of an enormous wooden desk. The desk is an odd sight. It’s old, antique, and stands out from the functional, sleek appearance of the rest of the office. I take the first seat, my parents following behind with Mother in the middle. Some of the light-headedness passes.
The woman rounds the desk and sits, introducing herself. “I’m Claudia Alder, and I will handle your career configuration today, Avlyn. Your parents will serve as witnesses and listen to the information to assist if you have questions during the transition period from living under their care to becoming responsible for yourself.”
I rub my palms over my thighs. The hand I took the Medvac in tingles again, as if an electric pulse is running through each of my fingers. I turn over my palm to find that it’s glowing.
What is going on?
I blink and the glow is gone.
I’m just nervous.
Maybe I’m not ready to live on my own. Somehow, the idea of the spouse pairings is growing more and more appealing.
Ms. Alder continues to speak, but slowly, her mouth forming words I can’t hear. My hand burns, and the room rotates in slow motion. Everything in the room glows white, then falls away; the desk, my parents, and Ms. Alder. Replacing them is a tall, thin boy with shaggy, chocolate brown hair, dressed in a navy short sleeved shirt and gray pants.
He stands off in the distance and reaches his hand out to me. I squint. It’s Ben, the way I’ve pictured him a thousand times in my head… if he hadn’t died.
Confused, I reach toward the apparition, but just as I do, the vision dissipates. So does he, sending me back to reality with a jolt.
I twist toward Mother and Father and blink several times.
Did you see that?
Instead, they both exhibit satisfied looks and nod toward Ms. Alder. If I didn’t know better, I’d even think they were almost smiling.
Is the meeting over already? How is that even possible? Didn’t we just sit down?
Mother looks toward me and we lock eyes. She mouths my name, then again, except this time I hear her. “Avlyn, do you have any questions for Ms. Alder?”
“What?” I yelp.
“Do you have questions?”
I didn’t hear a single thing during the meeting. What questions should I ask?
Deep breath, hold it, and let it out.
Keep control at all times.
When I was six, Father walked me to primer school. Out of nowhere, an auto taxi, which must have malfunctioned, launched itself on to the sidewalk twenty feet in front of us. The taxi hit a woman, pinning her underneath it. Blood spilled onto the ground from a gash on her head. My screams caused as many people to stare our way as at the bleeding woman. It was as if electrical pulses in my legs were telling me to run toward her. Why was no one helping that woman?
Father had squeezed my hand tight so tight I thought I might explode. Bending next to me, he pulled my chin up until I stared into his placid, brown eyes.
“Look at me,” he soothed. “You must be able to keep control at all times. It’s essential.”
Tears pooled in my eyes as I kept trying to dart my eyes back to the scene, but his gaze stayed locked with mine.
“Avlyn, focus.”
Then he started breathing. Deep breaths. He held it in, then let it out. I followed him while time froze.
He breathed with me for a long time, and when we finally finished, the lady and taxi—as well as any other sign an accident had even happened—were gone, taken care of by drones and security vehicles. I still don’t know whether she lived or died.
I curl my fingers together and squeeze until I gain control.
Just breathe.
“No.” I clear my throat. “But I’m looking forward to beginning tomorrow.” I wrack my brain, trying to remember the meeting, but nothing other than the vision of Ben comes.
“Well,” Ms. Alder states and rises, “if you do have questions, today’s meeting is recorded in your citizen’s account for review.”
My parents stand and nod to Ms. Alder. I follow their lead, afraid the dizziness will return, but it doesn’t.
Father goes to the door and gestures for Mother and I to walk through.
I tail them, but turn the check for Ben again. He’s gone. My eyes dart to the top of the wooden desk, displaying a viewing screen. I spot my name, and beside are two words: Genesis Technologies. The top company you can be placed at as a Level Two, and the place I feared the most.
I pull my bag against my body and force myself around and out the door.
To read the rest of Avlyn’s story, Configured, click here.
—ABOUT THE AUTHOR—
Jenetta Penner is a long time fan of all things sci-fi. So it made sense to her to write a science fiction novel for young adults. Check out www.JenettaPenner.com for YA book talk, giveaways, and information about Configured. You can also sign up to get free books and a Configured coloring book.
ZOO GIRL
Jennifer Bardsley
“I don’t care what the keepers say, I’m not going to mate with you.” I scoop up my bundle of twigs and sidestep closer to the glass wall of our exhibit.
“Come on, Emilia, don’t be like that.” Carter rolls his neck and gives me a lopsided smile. “The other girls had a real good time.”
“Then go back to their enclosures and leave me alone.” Carter used to be harmless, but ever since his voice changed, I don’t trust him. Crouching down, I pretend to inspect a dandelion weed. But really I reach up the hem of my pant leg for a shiv.
“Emilia. Babe.” Carter’s blond hair glistens in the artificial light. The keepers turn on the UV fluorescents every day for approximately twelve hours. Or at least I think it’s twelve hours. I haven’t seen a clock since I was thirteen. Carter licks his lips and takes a step forward.
“Don’t even think about it!” Quick as a flash, I whip out the homemade shiv I’ve carved from bamboo. It’s small and easy to conceal, but it boasts a wicked point. “I’m not interested in contributing to your incestuous gene pool.”
“You’d let the human race die out?” Carter looks at me in disbelief.
“Better that then let my children live in a zoo.” I stare over Carter’s shoulder into the enclosures where the other female humans are kept. “Or become part of some messed up breeding program with their future half-siblings.”
“But that means letting them win.” Carter indicates the giant, roach-like creatures staring at us from the other side of the glass. “Humanity: zero. Arthropods take all.”
The eight-foot creatures who destroyed our planet are terrifying. Their bulging eyes look like mirror balls. When in close contact, their long antennae roam over you, tickling your skin with tiny feelers. When their curled up wings unfurl unexpectedly, it sounds like a thousand newspapers ripping.
“They only win when they turn us into animals.” I grip the shiv tighter. “That’s when humanity has lost.”
“Emilia.” Carter’s voice is suddenly soft. He looks around for a place to sit, and settles for a flat spot in the grass. “You know we don’t have a choice. It’s either me or some other male from a competing zoo. At least we’re almost the same age. You’re sixteen and I’m fourteen. What if the next guy they send is fifty-two?”
I glare at him menacingly. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Carter grabs a small pebble and tosses it into my
pond. I’m surprised he found one. The keepers sweep my enclosure each day and confiscate anything that could be a weapon. With a quick glance over my shoulder, I hide the shiv back under my pant leg.
“Look, I don’t want to do this anymore than you do,” Carter says.
“Gee, thanks.”
Carter continues. “You’re like my sister. If you and I hadn’t been standing at the ice cream truck that day, at the exact moment the Roaches came for us, we’d be dead like the rest of the human race.”
“We don’t know that everyone is dead,” I say quickly. “My mom and her NASA buddies are probably out looking for us right now. I mean, yeah, we saw a lot of people die—”
“Everyone died. You know that. We saw the bodies. You, me and Lex were the only ones who survived.”
“Don’t talk about Lex. Don’t you dare!”
“I can talk about my brother if I darn well want to!” Carter rips a fistful of grass up by the roots and scatters it everywhere. “You’re not the only one who loved him. I cried just as hard as you did when they popped his head off in their sick experiments.”
“Stop!” I hold my hands over my ears, but Carter speaks louder.
“I’m sorry I’m not Lex, okay? He should have been your partner instead of me. But at least I’m not some old guy. At least you know me.”
“I can’t do this.” I brush an errant tear away with my thumb. “I can’t talk about Lex. I won’t!”
Despite my brave words, the memory of my last days with Lex return. The three of us huddled under a glass dome on the Artho-ship as it zoomed us away from Earth. Lex, Carter, and I were stripped down naked and examined like specimens. For the first few weeks of the journey we were kept together. They fed us twigs, raw meat, fresh fruit, and leather until they finally determined what we would or would not eat. There was no possible way to communicate with the Arthropods. None of them seemed to understand English, and we couldn’t decipher the low frequency humming that emanated from their thoraxes.
That first month was horrific—but survivable. But then they separated us into our own glass prisons and the experiments began. Electricity, gas, burns, and acid. They tested our skin bit by bit. I still have the scars on my shins to prove it. What’s worse was seeing Lex and Carter tortured. It was Lex’s accidental decapitation that caused the so-called-scientific program to end. I watched in horror as his head severed off his neck during an experiment on muscular-skeletal structure.
Lex’s death must have been accidental because after that we were better cared for, as if the Arthopods wanted to keep Carter and me alive. As soon as we landed on their brown-green planet we discovered why. Our zookeepers greeted us upon arrival and brought us to our new home. I’ve been on display as Female Number Five ever since.
I have a cordial relationship with the other female humans, and by “cordial,” I mean they no longer throw feces at me every time Carter talks to me. We aren’t sure how long the females have been here, or where they come from, but Numbers One, Two, Three, and Four don’t speak any language Carter or I recognize. It’s more like a long sequence of grunts and guttural moans. Thankfully there’s a door that separates their enclosure from mine.
“Look,” Carter pleads. “I haven’t eaten in two days. Not since I did it with Four and got flea bites all over my butt.”
“It’s not my fault you don’t get fed without procreating. Go hit up One, Two or Three.”
Carter screws up his face. “But they’re ugly.” He stands up, and the full power of his six-foot frame towers over me. “And you’re not.”
I jump two steps back and bump into the glass wall of my enclosure. “I give you half of my food. That’s plenty.”
“Not for a hungry guy like me.” Carter grabs my elbow before I can dart out of the way. “Come on, Em. You’re going to like it.”
I act on instinct. My fist flies out and hits him in the stomach, where my knuckles crunch against tight abdominal muscles. Tears of pain blur my vision. Carter squeezes me with one arm and reaches to pull down my pants with the other.
“Leave me alone!” I stomp on his foot and twist away.
“Stop being like this!” Carter yanks me by the hair. “This is our life now.”
Thud. I kick him in the nuts like he deserves. Then, when he’s crouched down in pain, I rip out my shiv and brandish it against his face. “If you ever touch me again I will kill you!” I shove him over into the dirt. “Maybe I should cut off your balls right now just to be safe.”
“No!” Squealing, Carter crawls away. “I promise I’ll leave you alone.”
“You better. Now go back to the gate and stay there until they move you into the other cage.” I give him another kick in the butt to hurry him along. My eyes follow Carter as he approaches the separation between my enclosure and the other females’. Numbers Two and Four come over to greet him, pushing their grimy fingers through the bars and pawing at him in welcome. I don’t put the shiv away until I see Number Three come up and pet Carter’s hair.
I shiver, despite the climate-controlled cooling system. With one eye still watching Carter, I walk over to my heat rock and sit down on the granite. A tall swath of tropical plants grows next to it, and the pond shimmers a few feet away, tempting me with drastic measures. I could drown myself in that pond. It’s only a small puddle, but maybe if I tried hard enough it could be my final solution.
But that’s the coward’s way out, and I wasn’t raised to be a coward.
So I sit on the rock, soak in its warmth, and focus on the things I know to be true. My name is Emilia Reid. I’m from Orlando, Florida. My mother is an engineer for NASA. My father bakes cakes for Disney World. Lex was my best friend. When we rode bikes together in our cul-de-sac, his annoying brother Carter used to tag along. That’s the real me, I think. Not this.
I’m not an animal until they make me an animal.
A soft tapping against glass rouses me from my thoughts. Normally I ignore spectators, but I recognize the soft rhythm of this greeting. I slide off the rock and hurry to the wall.
The Arthropod-juvenile wiggles its antennae wildly. Standing on six legs, it’s my height, half the size of the parent behind it, which stretches its wings a few times before scurrying across the sidewalk to a spot in the shade.
Tap. Tap. Tapity tap. It’s our secret signal. I rap against the glass in reply, and my Arthro-friend hovers its antennae next to the glass as if it’s trying to read my thoughts.
“You came back! I knew you would, but it’s been a few days now and I was getting worried.” I press my hand against the glass and it moves one of its feelers on the other side of my fingertips. Its mandible moves frenetically, but I can’t hear anything but my own breathing.
“Did you bring anything to show me today?” I see a faint reflection of myself in its compound eyes.
As if it understands my question, the Arthropod wiggles something with its foreleg and knocks it against the glass. I look down and see a two-foot doll with brown hair, blue eyes, and a crazed expression.
“Aw, you bought a souvenir-me at the gift shop!” I bend down to get a closer look at my action figure. I’ve seen thousands of them before. Every Arthropod family that visits the Zoo seems to buy something. But I’ve never inspected the doll up close like this.
The doll wears my original outfit: jeans and a softball T-shirt. It even has tiny sneakers with fake shoelaces. “It’s so cute!” I beam a smile. My friend grips the doll tight with two of its legs.
“What are you doing over there?” Carter calls from his corner.
“Shut up and mind your own business!” I holler back.
“Why are you talking to the Roaches?”
I turn my head in time to see Carter stand up. Behind him, the females grunt in approval and shove their hands through the bars.
“Leave me alone!” I tell him and turn back to my friend.
Its antennae stretch across the glass wall like it’s encircling me in protection. But there’s no way it can
actually help me.
The sound of Carter’s movements grows louder and I spin around as he steps close. “I said to leave me alone!”
Carter cracks his knuckles. “You’d rather hang out with a Roach than with me, a fellow human? Maybe you need a taste of what humanity’s like.” There’s a gleam in Carter’s eyes that’s part hunger, part insanity.
I bring out the shiv and plant my foot forward in a defensive stance. “I don’t like guys who act like animals. Go back to your harem, where you belong.”
“Oh, I think I’m exactly where I belong.” Carter stretches his muscles like he’s preparing for a fight.
Tap. Tap. Tappity tap. My Arthropod-friend is going crazy.
I brandish my homemade weapon. “Haven’t we been over this before? If you lay one finger on me, I will kill you.”
“I’m not afraid of you or your little knife.” Carter thrusts his fist forward, grabs my neck, and smashes my face against the glass before I have time to react. My lungs scream for oxygen. I swipe outward and slice Carter’s shirt. Ribbons of red blood ooze out of his side, but he doesn’t release his chokehold on my throat.
Whack! Something beats against the glass behind me. Whack! Whack! Whackity Whack!
My body goes limp as I begin to black out. My legs flail out from under me.
“There you go,” Carter whispers. “I don’t need you to be awake for this.”
My brain doesn’t work right. I see flashes flicker in front of me like on a dying television. Mom in her flight suit heading off to work. Dad frosting a cake and letting me lick the spoon. Lex and me playing cards in my treehouse and Carter shaking the rope ladder, begging to join us. The Arthropod invasion with thousands of explosions. Lex, Carter, and me being sucked away onto their spaceship. Everything is fuzzy. Tap. Tap. Whackety whack! I hear the sound of glass cracking and the smell of burning flesh.
That Moment When: An Anthology of Young Adult Fiction Page 17