62 was so focused on moving forward that he nearly fell on top of 00 when he stopped in front of the hospital. It was a dull grey building with a faded red cross painted over its doors. Chance knocked on the front door and a Man in a lab coat opened it. 62 couldn’t hear what the two Men said to each other, but Chance pointed to each rescued body and the doctor nodded at each one. Chance shouted at a couple of Men at the back of the group and they brought forward their charges. The doctor swung the door open behind him and two more doctors appeared. Two infants and a half dozen small children cried in chorus as they were handed from their surrogate caregivers to the identical masked doctors who were now in charge.
Chance stood at the top of the low stairs ahead of the group and raised his voice over their quiet murmurs. “Welcome to the Hanford hospital. This will be your home for now. The doctors here aren’t quite what you’re used to. They won’t condemn you for your flaws, but they are acutely interested in your health. There’s a sickness that may show up now that you’ve been above ground for a few days. Please let them know if you have any issues with nausea, or if you can’t keep your meal tabs down now that you’ll be getting them regularly. If you feel feverish or have any other problems, tell your medical team right away. Our docs will try to make you as comfortable as possible.”
“Sickness?” 62 murmured to Blue. His friend just shook his head in silence and pointed back at Chance.
28 raised his hand and moved forward in the group. His other hand held his stomach. “I’ve got a stomachache and I can’t stop sweating.”
Chance’s head dipped, somehow casting a disapproving look even through the stripes of his mask. He turned and spoke to the doctor standing nearby, his voice too low for anyone else to hear. The doctor seemed impassive as he looked down at 28’s hunched shoulders and sweat soaked collar. After another minute of private conversation, the doctor waved 28 forward and sent him inside.
Chance shook his head, then looked back at the remaining refugees. He spoke up a bit, but his voice kept the sincerity of an intimate tone. “It’s been an honor serving you. I’m glad that each of you made it out of Adaline and wasn’t lost to an unfair extermination. I look forward to seeing you again when you’re released.” Chance trotted down the steps, passed through the group, and started walking away. As he left he shouted over his shoulder, “Everybody to detox. Then, we celebrate coming home!”
There was a whoop from the few rescuers who hadn’t run off earlier, and they rushed after Chance in a blur of excited ponchos and dancing feet. 00 snaked his way up to the doctor on the steps, begging some meal tabs off him. Blue gave 62 a quick slap on the back. “Good luck. I’ll visit soon.” Then Blue was dancing his way behind the rest of the rescue team, around the corner of the building, and out of sight.
The doctor tossed a small parcel to 00, then he raised both hands in the air, waving them slightly to redirect the refugees’ attention. “Yes! Welcome. If you will please drop whatever gear you’re carrying, someone will come collect it. Once your hands are empty, please come up here. I have a meal tab for each of you before you begin detox.” He moved toward the door and pulled it open, propping it with his foot to keep it from closing on its own. He waved forward a few of the already empty-handed refugees. When he noticed a few people start to take off their ponchos and masks he added, “Please, only lift your mask high enough to eat your meal tab. Leave everything else in place. We’ve got special tools for removing your clothes.”
62 dropped the pack he’d been carrying and made his way closer to the building. The dusty goggles around him framed varying expressions of worry, and he was sure he looked no different. Anxiety flowed through his veins like an electric current and his hands shook as he ascended the few steps leading toward the open door. He’d sworn that he’d do everything he could to avoid another doctor’s prodding back in Adaline, and now here he was, offering himself up for another exam.
The hard breath he pushed out through his nose made his mask stretch out like a dusty balloon. He clenched his fists and forced them to stop trembling. Blue, 00, and Chance believed this was the right thing to do. They’d kept him alive so far, and he knew he had to trust them now. He reached out a hand for his meal tab. The familiar cream-colored oval fell into his palm. He pushed up the bottom edge of his mask and popped the pill into his mouth. He bit down on the gritty texture of it, then held it inside his cheek while it dissolved, glad to have its nutrition filtering into his starving body. He forced his feet forward and passed through the open door.
The group was herded through a series of corridors, each one with staff bearing tools to carefully remove ponchos, masks, shoes, and clothing without disturbing the fine dust that clung to all of it. Once naked, the group shuffled into a bank of showers with nozzles pointed every direction. Although there was no doubt that the sprayed foam and hot water left 62 feeling clean, the fast jets of pressurized liquid pelted him in areas he’d never thought to reach before. It was uncomfortable, invasive, and he exited the shower with soap in one eye and bubbles clinging to the backs of his knees.
“Is every shower like that?” 62 asked a doctor dressed head to toe in a sealed white suit as he collected a new set of clothes near the exit.
“No,” came a muffled, high-pitched voice. “just this first one. There are a few hotspots out there that aren’t avoidable. And they change places when the wind and rain hit. We make sure to get the radioactive dust off you, so it doesn’t make you sick.”
The naked Boys on either side of 62 looked at him in confusion as they moved toward some benches where they could dress, and he wrinkled his face in reply. “The dust never made us sick back in Adaline,” he muttered.
Soon all the refugees were dressed. More meal tabs were eaten and nutrient liquids were drank as they travelled down yet another sterile corridor and led to the room they’d all be sharing. Quarantine, Room 12 was stamped on a plaque above the door.
“Welcome home,” the white-clad doctor squeaked.
CHAPTER 6
THE AIR WAS THICK IN the hospital. And wet. 62 wasn’t sure how air could feel so heavy. It didn’t seem possible, and yet, he could feel the weight of it on his skin. It was like an invisible blanket. Dense. Warm.
Then there was the noise. Constant noise like 62 had never heard. So much more than the hum and click of Adaline’s mechanics and the intermittent passing of bots. In Hanford’s hospital, there was a never-ending drumming in his ears. The sighs and complaints of his brothers. Voices mumbling just beyond the door. Laughter beyond the window. The creak and sigh of a building that seemed too brittle to house so many bodies. There was the constant whisper of wind passing by. The jumbled rustle of a world in motion.
The room was much too small for the group 62 had been rescued with, even without the babies and toddlers that had been taken away on their arrival. Beds were lined up side by side with barely enough room to shuffle between them. The crowded space was uncomfortable even by Adaline’s standards. The lights flickering in the ceiling were intermittent. The fabric of the medical tunic draped over 62’s body was dull and scratchy. Hanford seemed intent on being as unaccommodating and unpleasant as possible. He wondered if he’d ever be comfortable again. But then, in an instant, 62’s attention was pulled away from his troubles and the plague of irritation was broken.
“There’s another one!” The Man nearest the window pressed himself against the glass as he shouted. Everyone in the room either crowded the window or stood on their bunks to get a better look.
A person in a white smock walked along the path just beyond the glass. They marched with purpose from one side of the frame to the other. They didn’t bother turning to glance at the faces gawking at the windowsill. They didn’t pause as if they heard the groan and sigh of weight moving across old bed frames. It was as if this person, with long hair cascading down their back swishing in time with each delicate step, moved across the path outside without noticing the refugees at all.
No one worried
about the inattention. The excitement of seeing a Woman overrode any need to be looked at in return. Instead, each of the residents instinctively touched the flat of their pectorals or tugged on their hair while they considered the strange appearance of the new humanoid creature.
Blue had been right. Women were the strangest thing living in Hanford. The group had first seen the creatures passing by their unshaded window just hours after they’d been placed in quarantine. Although the rising and setting of the sun across the vast open sky, the plants growing in clumps along the ground, and the appearance of bugs and small animals had been shocking to the group as they’d stumbled across them in their long march away from Adaline, none of those things was nearly as exotic as the occasional appearance of these oddly shaped people.
62 thought back on 13, lying dead and alone in the dusty countryside. He’d never know the wonders of such things. If only he’d kept moving forward. Just one more day. He’d almost made it! 62 shook his head. He vowed that no matter how bleak things seemed, he’d always keep going. “You just never know what’s over the next hill,” he whispered to the phantom of 13 as it faded from his memory.
Blue and 00 had both visited as promised, on separate occasions. Questions about the creatures outside were immediate during their visits, shouted from every corner of the room. Blue had assured, and reassured, each of the refugees that the Women outside the window were human, and not that different from the male companions that had been abundant in Adaline. He explained that the young ones were Girls. The older ones were known as Women. All of them were crafty, smart, and not to be underestimated despite their smaller size.
00’s explanation of the females flitting about was a bit more dubious. “I’ve seen a little Girl bring an adult to tears,” he’d explained, “using nothing more than a frown and stern words.”
62 watched the Woman outside pick up speed as she trotted the last few visible steps in a sudden rush of urgency. She wiggled in a way that was unnatural. Blue may be certain that these beings weren’t the result of a failed batch of clones, but 62 wasn’t convinced. They were just so... odd.
Once the Woman was out of sight, the group of males turned to one another.
“Did you see that?” a Boy two beds over squealed excitedly. It was 91. His enthusiasm over the females hadn’t faded from his first sighting of them. “That one ran. Only a little bit, but she did. Not as fast or as well as we do. But close enough. How do you think their hair gets that long? Do you think their PTS units don’t have clippers installed?”
“I don’t think there are PTS units.” 62 sighed. “That’s what I keep telling you. Blue told me when we first got here that it’s just Women and a few Men out there. No Head Machine, just people.”
91 shook his head. “Can’t be. People can’t live without Machines. Everybody knows that.”
“Maybe things are different here,” 62 suggested.
“Can’t be that different.” 91 picked up a meal tab from the tray beside his bed. He popped it into his mouth and chewed it until it dissolved.
62 turned his own meal tablet over in his hands. He wondered if the tablets they were eating now were ones that Blue had stolen from Adaline. 62 had been warned by his trainer in T.A.S.K. that Blue was a thief, and the Boy had admitted as much himself when 62 had asked. Being a thief, or at least agreeing to be an outlaw, seemed to be a way of life here in Hanford. It wasn’t something that Blue said was optional. If you lived above ground, you were breaking the law already. Was there really any harm in bending a few more? 62 wasn’t sure.
“We won’t get these forever.” 62 held the meal tab between his fingers and brought it to eye level. “That’s what Blue said, anyway. Eventually, they’ll make us eat something else.”
91 rolled his eyes. “Like what? It’s not like there’s anything to eat out there.” The Boy swept his arm toward the window. “It’s a wasteland. Nothing but plants and bugs. I bet Blue is just pulling your leg.”
62 popped the tab into his mouth and bit down. The crush of the nutrients between his teeth was satisfying. “Maybe.”
CHAPTER 7
THE SUN HAD THROWN itself across the sky reliably since he’d left Adaline, and now, 62 had come to expect it. Each time it rose, the temperature of the quarantine space rose until sweat beaded on 62’s skin. When it set in the evening, it took the heat with it. As night fell, 62 found himself clinging to the dingey brown blanket that seemed neither clean nor warm enough for him to be using.
Each day brought with it a new team of doctors. First, they did physical exams of everyone in the room. The next day, only certain Men with physical injuries were tended to. The third day, everyone had to push their beds to the far side of the room and the group used what open floor space was left to jog in place while wires counted their heart rates and tubes held in their mouths measured their breathing.
Of the entire group, only 38228 had complained of feeling sick, and no one had seen him since he’d entered the hospital on their arrival to Hanford. 62 had asked the doctors for updates on him whenever he had a chance, and the news wasn’t good. The last report had been that what started as a simple stomach ache had spread to headaches and swelling joints, and the fever that he’d complained about when he got to the hospital hadn’t ever gone away.
A dozen days later, the latest update had come from a wiry Man who’d delivered midday meal tabs. “Radiation poisoning. Rare. Not contagious,” the muffled voice under the masked face said. No other explanation was given, and the worker had moved on through the room without another word.
Not long after, a new group of doctors streamed into the quarantine room. Men, trays laden with tools, and rolling desks with clipboards filled the empty spaces between the beds. The room had been crowded before the addition of equipment and bodies, but now the lack of space was stifling. 62’s arm was outstretched. A primitive rubber hose was strapped around it and the doctor tapped at the inside of his elbow, searching for a vein to draw a blood sample.
“Where’s your Nurse?” 62 asked the question with a tinge of complaint.
The doctor didn’t bother to look up. “We don’t have bots here. All of our nurses are human, and mine is off harvesting peas today.”
62 looked over the Man’s shoulder at Boy 17, who sat on the bed behind the stooping doctor. “See? I told you.”
17 looked baffled. “If you don’t have mechanical helpers, shouldn’t you build some? Mechanical aids are better at taking care of us than people are.”
“Is that so?” There was a sharp pain in 62’s arm as the needle found a vein. The doctor gave a bitter laugh. “You might be right. Building an army of Nurses to take over the hospital is a great idea. We can let them conduct all your exams, and keep track of everything that’s wrong with you so that you’ll feel as imperfect as possible. Then, we can give them permission to take over the rest of Hanford and strip away everything we have, burying us underground and removing any sense of identity we’ve come to enjoy.”
17 looked from the doctor to 62, bewildered and confused. 62 opened his mouth to ask a question, but before he could, the doctor slid the needle back out of his arm, unwrapped the tight rubber hose with a slight tug of his fingers, and turned around to deposit the vial of blood into a bag on the bedside table. “All done here.”
As soon as the first doctor pushed his equipment out of the aisle between the beds, another shuffled over to 62. He sat down on the edge of the mattress, adjusted his coat, and then turned and smiled. “Hello, 1124562. My name is Dr. Smart.”
“Hello.” 62 pulled his knees up to his chest to make more room for the uninvited guest. “That other guy already took my blood.”
Dr. Smart nodded. “Oh, yes. I know. I’m actually not that kind of doctor. Now that you’ve been here a while, I’ve come to see how you’re feeling.”
“How I’m feeling?” 62 scrunched his face at the odd question. “I’m a little uncomfortable. It’s hot in here.”
The doctor laughed. “It s
ure is. I wish I could take off this lab coat, but my superiors keep telling me I have to wear it to make you newcomers feel more comfortable. I remember the doctors from Adaline being very formal when I was younger.” He flapped the lapels of his jacket and let them fall back to his chest, wrinkled. “I’m not that in love with the pomp of the white jacket, myself.” He laughed at his own joke. When 62 didn’t laugh with him, he cleared his throat and put on a more serious face. “Actually, what I meant is, I’ve come to ask you how you’re feeling emotionally.”
62 wrinkled his eyebrows and frowned. “What does that mean?”
Dr. Smart smiled. “I want to know how you’re feeling inside. I understand that leaving Adaline might have been scary. Sometimes when we find ourselves in new situations we feel worried, or upset. If we miss our brothers, it might make us feel sad or angry.” The doctor reached forward and tapped 62’s forehead. “I want to know how you feel in here.”
The doctor stared as 62 pondered the question. “Don’t you know how I feel?”
“How would I?” The doctor grinned. “I’m not in your head with you. We aren’t that much alike.”
“You’ve been through all this before, right? It seems like it’s about the same for everyone. Don’t you know what it’s like?”
“Oh, yes. Well,” Dr. Smart shifted uncomfortably, “I don’t tell my patients much about my trip from Adaline. It was pretty troublesome, and my feelings might influence your own in a negative way. No sense in stirring up anxiety in someone else needlessly, you know?”
“How long have you been here?” 62 did his best to ignore 17, who was blatantly eavesdropping on their conversation. The Boy whipped his face toward Dr. Smart and awaited his answer.
The Adaline Series Bundle 1 Page 38