by Budgett, Jay
She nodded. The odds were good I’d make it, but I could tell she was scared. Our lives were fragile, and we knew it. The Carcinogens could strike a kid down at any time. The Indigo vaccine was the only thing that kept the adults in our world alive.
The Federation must not fall. The Federal government drummed that mantra into our heads as fervently as it pumped the vaccine into our irises when we turned fifteen.
“Plus,” I said, “I’ve got my lucky socks on today.”
I rolled up my jeans to show her. They were Dad’s old pair. Red with pictures of cheeseburgers printed across the sides.
Charlie smiled and rolled her eyes. “I swear, Kai. You and those frickin’ cheeseburger socks.”
I grinned and quoted my father: “If a man’s brave enough to wear cheeseburger socks in public, he’s brave enough to do anything.”
I still missed Dad pretty much every day. His euthanization had been three years ago. I was lucky Mom still had two years left. Both of Charlie’s parents were already gone.
She smiled. “That’s a cheesy line, if I ever heard one.” She paused, then smirked. “Bun intended.”
You have to admire a girl who’s good with puns. I shook my head, feigning embarrassment. “Lord, just stop. Or I’ll quit taking you out in public. The chopsticks are already a bit much. But the puns? Now you’re pushing it…”
Charlie had pinned her blond hair back into a messy bun and secured it in place with a pair of chopsticks. She’d worn it like this every day since I’d met her in the fifth grade. The color of her chopsticks was determined by the day of the week. Mondays were maroon. Tuesdays, teal. Wednesdays, white. Thursdays, blue. And Fridays were whatever she wanted.
Today was a Friday (she’d skipped school to come to the clinic with me), and her chopsticks were lime green with margarita pendants that dangled from the ends. Her mom gave her this pair when she was seven. A souvenir from her work trip to Club 49.
I pulled the chopsticks from Charlie’s bun and shoved them under my lip. “Walruth,” I said.
She snatched them back and shook her head. “So immature, Kai-Guy.” I loved when she called me Kai-Guy.
She put a chopstick to her forehead and grinned.
“Unicorn!” I yelled.
An old woman—probably forty-eight or forty-nine—shushed us from the row behind. Charlie shook her head, holding the chopstick in place. “Not unicorn,” she said. “Narwhal.”
We both burst into laughter. Charlie’s laugh was something between a snicker and a snort. She was really beautiful—the kind of beautiful that made guys like me get sorta sweaty hands—but her laugh didn’t fit her looks. It belonged to an old woman choking on corn on the cob. It was the kind of laugh that made people wipe their brows, thinking: Thank god—she’s like the rest of us.
I wiped one of my sweaty hands against my leg. “Narwhals are extinct,” I said, “like whales. Like seals. Like lots of things.”
“Like your dignity?” she teased and winked. I think she was trying to be seductive—she did that sometimes. But it usually ended up looking like a bug had flown into her eye. Maybe that made it even more seductive. I guess it was just the way Charlie did everything, really. She could’ve burped the alphabet and my hands would’ve gotten sweaty at the letter A.
Sometimes it still felt like we were those same two kids who had just met in the fifth grade. Not much had changed. I liked it that way. In a world where we were constantly told we didn’t have much time, it was nice to sometimes feel like time wasn’t passing.
A picture of a girl with long, dark curls and bright green eyes flashed on the screen.
Green eyes.
It wasn’t often we saw those. Most of us had shades of brown, which turned blue after we’d been vaccinated, a side effect of Indigo.
People born with naturally blue eyes died out soon after the Final World War. Scientists theorized that they were genetically more susceptible to the Carcinogens that filled the air after the bombs went off. They thought the weakness might be carried on the same chromosome as the gene for eye color, but weren’t able to test it since the corpses were all burned at sea.
The green-eyed girl on the screen held her left hand to her head. Her thumb was pressed to her chin, her index finger to the corner of her eye, and her middle finger pointed skyward. The rest of her fingers were pressed to her palm. It was like she was throwing up a gang sign.
The words WANTED: MILA VACHOWSKI were stamped across her face in scarlet letters. It wasn’t often the press showed us pictures like this. The Federation didn’t want to hurt its people—the Carcinogens in the air did enough of that on their own.
I stared at the girl’s mug shot and shook my head. “I hope they get her.”
Charlie nodded. “They’ve been looking long enough.”
“Wouldn’t know.”
She teased me with her elbow. “Maybe if you spent more time out of the water than in it.”
I grinned. Since there wasn’t much to do on Moku Lani, I usually swam. “I held my breath for five minutes and thirty-six seconds yesterday,” I told her. “Even saw a megalodon swimming on the other side of the nets.”
She slapped my arm. “C’mon, Kai. You’ve gotta stop doing that. Free diving isn’t safe. Those nets are about as reliable as Mr. Hoover.”
Mr. Hoover had been our teacher when we were in the sixth grade. He’d had a habit of forgetting what day of the week it was and not showing up to work. Once he came to school in a cape. He thought it was Halloween. It was December.
“Aw, come on, Charlie,” I said.
“I’m serious. One of these days, something’s gonna happen. The nets’ll go down and then it won’t be so funny. You really wanna do that to your mom?”
“She doesn’t mind me free diving. She thinks it’s good for me to get out of my head.”
I’d been free diving since Dad died. It was nice to be deep in the water. There was something about the quiet and the cold, being able to clear your mind of all thoughts but oxygen.
Charlie shoved her chopsticks back in her bun. “The nets aren’t safe, and you know it. The electrical signals go out all the time. I find it hard to believe a boy with a conspiracy theory about the lunch lady would be so trusting.”
Agnes Oldwinski had a lazy eye that spun inward whenever she spoke. She’d be staring you straight in the face—“Peas?” she’d ask—and then her left eye would spin inward. I couldn’t trust that.
Charlie pushed a strand of blond hair behind her ear. “How many copies of your birth certificate did you bring? Just answer me that, and then tell me you’re not paranoid.”
A copy of your birth certificate was required at every annual Federal physical. They made notes on it each year and signed it. We were required to have it signed every year in order to be eligible for a vaccine at fifteen. They had to keep the supply controlled somehow; there were never enough vaccines to go around. Production couldn’t keep up with demand.
Each vaccine had a dose of Indigo that lasted for thirty-five years. When a person reached their fiftieth birthday, it expired, and they were euthanized. The Carcinogens affected adults even worse than kids. Kids just fell to the ground, dead, but the adults went insane and died a slow, terrible death. Doctors dubbed it “Madness.”
I thought back to the birth certificate copies I’d scanned and printed that morning. “Four,” I said. I pointed to my cargo shorts. “One for each pocket.”
“None in my purse?”
Okay, I’d lied. I’d hidden an extra copy in her purse that morning. In case I got mugged or someone spilled coffee on me. I couldn’t be too careful. The copies were my ticket to a vaccine, and a vaccine was my ticket to life. I couldn’t admit my paranoia to Charlie, however.
I shook my head and made a mental note to grab the extra copy from her bag later. “Nope,” I said. “Just the ones in my pockets.”
“So you’re really not nervous, then?”
Her eyes were blue, like the eyes of all citizens over fourteen
, but there was something different about hers. They were brighter. Not a normal shade of blue like the others, but a shade I called “Charlie blue.” She squeezed my hand, and my palms got sweaty.
“Maybe a bit nervous,” I said, “but it’s nothing to worry about. I’m fine.”
I was terrified.
I turned to the screen that flashed with the green-eyed girl’s mug shot. A diamond stud decorated her nose.
Charlie rubbed my hand. “You don’t need to be nervous, Kai. You went with me on my birthday a couple months ago, and I was fine, wasn’t I? I didn’t pass out in the waiting room or anything.”
I nodded. She was right. She hadn’t passed out.
But I had. In the waiting room while she was getting vaccinated. The nurses had revived me with promises of dinosaur stickers. I still had a T-Rex stuck to my notebook. I didn’t tell Charlie. I wanted her to think of me as a man.
I sighed. “It’s just, well, it’s the whole needle and iris thing, really. It’s not right, watching a needle come straight at your pupil like a rocket to the moon.”
“Don’t think about it like that. You’re numb when they do it.”
“I know,” I said, “but it’s the whole idea of it. I mean, why hasn’t someone been able to put the drug in a pill or a mist or, heck, even a handshake at this point?”
“Oh yeah, because an Indigo handshake would be really effective.”
“I don’t know. We’ve got screens that bubble, right? The whole procedure’s a lot to stomach, that’s all.”
Charlie squeezed my hand again. It was still pretty sweaty. I should’ve wiped it on my shorts before she squeezed it again.
She grabbed my right hand and put my first two fingers below her cheekbone. “At the appointment, they just have you do the Federal salute, look up, recite the pledge of allegiance—‘The Federation must not fall’—and you’re done. You rinse your eyes out with some drops and you leave.”
“Oh, that’s it? Great, no big deal then, just shovin’ a needle in the ol’ retina. It’s casual.”
She poked my side. “C’mon, Kai-Guy.”
“You’re tougher than me, Charlie.”
It was true. Her parents had been euthanized four years ago. They were old when they’d had her—thirty-nine—so she’d always known it was coming. It didn’t make things easier though.
The state moved her to from her home in Kauai to Moku Lani to live in H.E.A.L., the Federal orphanage. H.E.A.L. stood for the Home for Emancipated Adult Leaders, but the place had a reputation for doing anything but healing its charges, who had only a fifty percent chance of living long enough to receive their vaccination. They just didn’t have the support necessary to make it.
“You think I’m tough?” Charlie straightened the chopsticks in her bun. “The boy who free dives less than a hundred feet away from the megalodons thinks I’m tough? Quick! Call the press, this is big news!”
I laughed. “Not big enough. If you want the press’s attention, you’ll have to find the Lost Boys.”
She winked. “If I found them, they wouldn’t be lost, would they?”
The bubbling screens signaled we were fifteen minutes from Kauai. Through the subway’s windows and the Tube’s glass walls, I saw a shadow move among the photosynthetic plankton.
Charlie sighed. “When do you think they’ll finish the new Tube?”
The old woman who shushed us earlier lowered her newspaper. “Lord knows, honey.” Her voice was husky, like she’d spent her entire life with a cigarette between her lips. False eyelashes lined her eyes like dusters, and a purple scarf was wrapped tightly around her neck.
She cleared her throat. “If the Minister of Transportation & Commerce pulled his head out of HQ’s anemone for five seconds, then the Feds might actually finish construction on it one of these days.”
I stared at her, stunned. People didn’t insult the ministers. Or the government at all for that matter. We lived in a democracy, but most people were too grateful for the gift of Indigo to speak up. The Federation had created a way for us to live, to beat the Carcinogens. Who wanted to argue with that?
The subway car fell silent. The woman shrugged and pulled a wooden fan from her purse. A fiery bird was imprinted along its cloth binding.
Charlie pulled my sleeve. “You’re staring, Kai.”
I could hardly hear her. I was too mesmerized by the fire that danced along the bird’s wings when the woman flicked her fan. The flames ran to the base of its neck, curled around its beak, and smothered the rest of its body with fire.
The woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Don’t you know it’s rude to stare at strangers? Why don’t you look at your girlfriend instead?”
Charlie blushed. “I’m—er—not his girlfriend. We’re just friends.”
“Yeah.” I wiped a sweaty palm against my cargo shorts. “Just friends.”
The woman shoved the fan back into her purse and returned to the newspaper.
I stared at the bag. “That’s a pretty sweet fan. Where’d you get it?”
Her eyes darted back and forth in the subway car. “You’re kind of nosy, aren’t you, kid?”
Charlie put a hand on my knee. “He’s just a little nervous.”
“Why’s that? First date?”
“He’s getting vaccinated today.”
The woman narrowed her eyes. “Pity.”
Charlie looked stunned. “What? How is that a pity? He’s going to live.”
The woman looked at me sideways. “You seem like a nice boy.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not. I’m a rebel.” I glanced at Charlie. Girls loved bad boys.
The woman’s eyes widened. “Okay, rebel. Whatever happens today, skip your vaccination. It’s the most important thing you can do. They’re not safe right now. There isn’t much time.”
Skip my vaccination? “Before what?” I asked.
The subway’s screens froze for a half second. The green-eyed girl’s face flickered across them again before the station cut to a reporter in the studio.
The old woman’s jaw dropped. “Too late.” She stood abruptly and pushed her way down the aisle. The doors to another compartment whooshed open and then closed. She was gone.
Charlie put in her hand in mine again. “What was that about?”
“Dunno. Probably on drugs. Maybe Neglex? Possibly a Fryer?”
Charlie frowned. “That’s not something to joke about.”
I’d forgotten there were a few Fryers—people who’d been hit by one too many Dummy Darts—at H.E.A.L. A single Dummy Dart was bad enough, it could make you forget the past day, week, or even month depending on its dosage. Too many Darts, and, well, you could kiss your identity goodbye. It was like you were born all over again. A toddler in an adult’s body. Of course, the Feds still said Dummy Darts were safer than bullets.
Red sirens lit the aisles. A feminine voice that sounded like velvet spoke over the speakers. “This is a drill. This is only a drill.”
Outside the windows, sparks flew as the subway skidded to a halt. Its doors swung open.
“This is a drill.”
There was going to be more time until my vaccination. More time for the Carcinogens to kill me.
“Just our luck,” said Charlie. “You’ll be okay.”
A clock blinked on the TV screen—it was 8:10.
Charlie reached for my hand. I wiped sweat on my cargo shorts and then put my hand in Charlie’s. My heart was beating hard in my chest. I glanced at my cheeseburger socks. I had to be brave.
“Stay close,” I said to Charlie. As if there were many options in a Tube a hundred feet below sea level.
A girl with black, curled hair elbowed her way to the back of the subway, keeping her head down. People hardly noticed her beneath the flashing lights.
“This is only a drill.”
The red lights lit the girl’s nose. She wore a diamond stud.
A scream caught in my throat. This was no drill. It was a terrorist attac
k.
The Lost Boys were here.
I squeezed Charlie’s hand. “We have to get out right now. Get as far away from this compartment as we can.”
Charlie didn’t understand, but she saw the fear in my face and nodded. We pushed through the aisle. Screams sounded from the direction in which the girl ran.
Charlie and I pushed out the door and hurried along the maintenance shelf in the Tube’s pressurized air. I glanced back. The subway compartment where we’d just been sitting exploded into flames.
“This is a drill,” the robotic voice droned calmly over the sounds of screams and explosions.
Charlie and I stared at our former compartment in horror. The flames leaped from the car, licking at the Tube’s glass ceiling, where cracks began to form.
Charlie buried her face in my chest. Shoulder, really. I wasn’t much taller than her—I hadn’t had my growth spurt yet. Mom said I came from a long line of late bloomers. I was glad Mom was safe at home.
Charlie sobbed. There had to be something I could do. Something I could say to make her feel safer. Maybe I should kiss her. Uncle Lou said fear went well with romance. Instead, I blurted the first thing that popped into my head. “I think this was a terrorist attack. I saw a Lost Boy.”
The screams of a woman next to us pierced the chaos. “IT’S A TERRORIST ATTACK! THE LOST BOYS ARE HERE!”
Another explosion sounded. The cracks in the Tube’s ceiling stretched wider. Water began to shoot from them in thick spurts.
The Tube was breaking in half.
Chapter 3
The Tube’s leaking ceiling groaned and quivered beneath the ocean’s smothering weight. A boy dressed in a Captain Ultimatum shirt wept and kneeled on the maintenance shelf as throngs of people raced past him like water through rapids.
Charlie knelt next to the boy. “Shhhh, it’s okay, kiddo. Is your mom with you?” He shook his head, and Charlie wiped away his tears. “Do you want to come with us? It’s not safe here.”
He pointed to the burning compartment. “M-M-My sister S-S-Sandra is still in there,” he stuttered.
Charlie threw me a look. “We have to go back.”
I stepped back. “Not now, Charlie. Now’s not the time to be a hero.”