Hatch

by Kenneth Oppel

  “What do you say to them?”

  “I told you, nothing!”

  Over his lifetime, Seth had spent a lot of time like this. Sitting in a chair, in a crappy room, answering questions and talking to people who sometimes took notes. He would have to tell them personal stuff about how he felt, and what he’d been doing. He was always trying to convince them of things. That he was well behaved. That he was a good guy. A good bet. That he wasn’t dangerous. That he deserved to have someone care for him.

  His eyes strayed to Dr. Weber—did she still care about him?

  Ritter leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. “Doesn’t it seem convenient,” he said, chewing on his words like he was enjoying some tasty food, “that the moment we discover how to kill the plants, a new wave of cryptogenic life pelts down?” His gaze dropped back on Seth. “Maybe they’re watching. Or someone’s telling them.”

  “Not me,” Seth said, hating Ritter. “Anyway, you guys picked up our signals, right? Shouldn’t you know what I said?”

  “The transmission was coded,” Ritter replied.

  “Wow,” Seth said. “With all your modern technology and everything.”

  “Seth,” Dr. Weber warned, “I don’t think being sarcastic is useful here.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?” Seth said, surprised by the anger in his voice. Then he jerked up straighter as Ritter slammed his fleshy palm against the table.

  “What—do—you—tell—them?”

  “Nothing!”

  “What do they look like?”

  “I’ve never seen them!”

  Ritter reached inside an attaché case on the floor and pulled out Seth’s sketchbook. The only grown-up Seth had shown that book to was Dr. Weber. Because he trusted her. Ritter slapped it on the table.

  “That’s private,” Seth said, half rising from his chair.

  “Sit down, Seth,” said Pearson.

  The soldiers at the door took a few steps closer, hands on their firearms.

  Seth sat. The soldiers retreated.

  “You don’t seem to understand your situation,” Colonel Pearson told him. “You’re being detained as a threat to national security under the War Measures Act.”

  “I haven’t done anything! Except help rescue people—and collect the soil that’s killing the plants!”

  “You’re transmitting information to a hostile force.”

  “You just said you don’t even know what I’m transmitting!”

  Seth winced as Ritter opened his sketchbook and started paging through it. That dead gaze of his passed over his pictures like greasy fingers.

  “It seems you have very detailed knowledge of what the cryptogens look like. And don’t tell me these are all made up.”

  “Some of them are,” he insisted. “I’ve been drawing that stuff since I was a kid. But some of it is stuff I saw in my dreams.”

  “A flying creature, an aquatic one, and a land-based one,” Ritter remarked. “One with feathers, one with a tail, one with claws and fur.”

  “We can’t know this is what the cryptogens actually look like,” Dr. Weber said.

  Ritter said, “On the contrary, I think Seth knows a great deal about them.”

  “I don’t,” Seth insisted.

  “I’m told your feathers are very impressive. Do you think they’ll form wings?”

  “I don’t know,” Seth said.

  “Do you hope they might?”

  All his instincts told him to say nothing, just shrug. He looked at Dr. Weber. She’d told him to tell the truth. Maybe she didn’t care what happened to him after all. So why not? If she wanted him to tell the truth, he’d tell the truth.

  He said, “Yes.”

  “Did you know that second rain was coming?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know what else is coming?”

  “Of course not—”

  “Are the aliens already here on Earth?”

  It was such a startling thought that Seth faltered. “No, I don’t . . . I don’t know!”

  Ritter turned to the colonel. “We have no idea what kind of information is flowing between them, or what kind of threat they pose. They need to be transferred immediately to a secure location.”

  Seth’s eyes flew to Dr. Weber, who looked as shocked as he felt.

  “Colonel,” she said, “you told me—”

  “I told you they’d be kept safe. I didn’t say where. Dr. Ritter will be taking custody of them now.”

  “Where?” Dr. Weber demanded.

  “That does not concern you,” said Ritter.

  “It does concern me. You can’t just disappear these kids!”

  “Kids.” Ritter smiled. “Are they?”

  In shock, Seth stared at his unreadable face.

  Dr. Weber said, “Of course they’re kids. And they’re completely innocent. You can’t trample on their human rights.”

  Ritter looked at his hands like he might be contemplating trimming his fingernails.

  “These hybrids have less human DNA than a banana. If a banana isn’t human, neither are these kids. And if they’re not human, how can they have human rights?”

  Chapter Four

  BEHIND HER, ANAYA HEARD the soft boom of a heavy door closing. Without warning, her blindfold was tugged off. After so many hours of darkness, even the dim light of the corrugated metal tunnel made her squint. Seth and Petra stood blinking beside her.

  It was such a relief to see them again. Automatically, she stepped toward Petra to hug her. A guard yanked her back by her handcuffed wrists.

  “Hey!” she said, glaring at the five guards who encircled them.

  She’d had enough of being prodded and handled. Blindfolded the whole time, she’d been shoved onto a helicopter, then an airplane, then another helicopter. Never had she had any idea where they were going. No one told them anything, not even what time—or day—it was.

  “You two okay?” Seth asked her and Petra.

  She nodded, and Petra muttered, “Yeah,” even though she still looked a bit green from that last helicopter ride.

  Anaya hoped they weren’t going to be separated again. Back on Deadman’s Island, after her interrogation, she’d been locked in her solitary cell for at least another twenty-four hours. She’d gone over everything that had been said in that white, windowless room. The thing in her brain. Dr. Ritter’s chilling words: The fact is, we don’t know what you are. She’d felt like he’d just torn away her humanity.

  “This way,” the guard said now, giving Anaya a shove.

  As if there were any other way to go. The corrugated tunnel dead-ended at a thick metal door that looked like the entrance to a bank vault. One of the guards pressed a buzzer, and after a moment, there was a loud clacking sound. It took two guards to haul the door open.

  A wave of musty air crested over Anaya, and she was prodded inside a small vestibule. Behind a window of reinforced glass, a female guard regarded them before buzzing them inside.

  Was this some kind of army base? She didn’t see any sign, although the wall behind the reception desk did look like it had been hastily painted over. No Canadian flag, no American flag.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  Without replying, the guards pushed them along a hallway. With a start, Anaya saw black grass growing out of a planter, then realized it was some kind of ancient plastic bamboo, mildewed with age.

  They were brought to a set of elevator doors stenciled with the number 400. When they got on, Anaya checked out the old-fashioned control panel. There were four buttons, numbered 400 to 100. The guard inserted a key and pressed button 200, and with a jolt they started to descend.

  So 400 was the highest level, and 100 the deepest. She didn’t know if the elevator was just really slow or if they were going impossibly deep underground. Her ears popped.

  When the doors rattled open, she felt like she’d entered a dingy hospital. Linoleum floors, pukey pastel colors on the walls, fluorescent lights set int
o stained ceiling tiles, and the sickly-sweet odor of mildew. She sneezed.

  It had been a long time since she’d had an allergic reaction to anything. With the arrival of the alien plants, all her seasonal allergies had pretty much disappeared. But down here there must be mold or something. She sneezed again and wished she had a tissue—which would have been useless anyway since her hands were cuffed behind her back.

  Lots of uniformed personnel moved around busily, some with clipboards, others dragging dollies stacked with boxes. It looked like they were still moving in. Everyone cut glances at her as she was marched past. The guards, she noticed, wore holsters, but the weapons looked stubbier than pistols, and she wondered if they were Tasers.

  For the first time she realized no one had name tags or insignias on their clothing.

  “Stop here,” a guard told her in front of an open door.

  When she saw Seth and Petra being taken farther down the corridor, she panicked. “Where are they going?”

  Seth and Petra were all she had now. All during the long blindfolded journey, at least she’d felt their nearness as they’d jostled against one another. Whenever they’d tried to talk, they were promptly shouted at to stop.

  She was prodded inside the room. There was an examination table, counters, a sink. It looked like a doctor’s office, except it also had a shower stall. A wiry woman entered through a second door. A nurse? A doctor? She didn’t introduce herself, only said, “Here,” and handed Anaya two paper cups, one filled with water, the other containing a small pill.

  “What’s this?”

  “Allergy meds. The air’s filtered down here, but you’re allergic to the mold spores.”

  She was surprised they knew this about her. Maybe they already had a huge file on her. Anaya swallowed the pill.

  “Up on the table,” the woman said, and drew a privacy curtain around it.

  “I want to call my parents,” Anaya said calmly.

  Maybe this woman was a mother herself. Anyway, weren’t prisoners entitled to a phone call? Wasn’t that the law?

  “Clothes off,” she said. “Keep your underwear on.”

  Anaya took a breath. “I want to know where I am and why I’m here.”

  No reply. Anaya slumped. What had she expected? Milk and cookies and a phone? She knew she wasn’t a simple prisoner. What was the phrase that creepy Dr. Ritter had used? A grave threat to national security. At least she wouldn’t have to see him anymore.

  “Clothes off,” the woman repeated.

  She kicked off her shoes. Her claws had already ripped through her socks. She was surprised by how quickly they’d grown. At the army base she’d been filing them down. At first, it was only the nail of each big toe that had tapered into a long claw. But now all her other toenails had darkened and sharpened, too.

  She’d never forget her absolute horror the first time she’d seen those claws. What she felt now was nowhere near acceptance. More like resignation, and a tiny glimmer of wonder, too.

  Next she peeled off her jeans. It was only a few days since she’d last shaved, but her calves had a thick covering of hair. Even her thighs were pretty much covered. They were also muscular in a way they’d never been before. Her legs had always been slightly too heavy for her liking, but now she felt an impatient strength in them. She’d been sitting for hours—days, really—and she wanted to move. She wanted to run and jump.

  She glimpsed herself in a stained, wall-mounted mirror. Gone were the pimples and rashes that had once plagued her face. Gone were the puffy eyes, and the sneezing and wheezing. She hadn’t used her inhaler in weeks. She looked so healthy. With her hair fanned untidily around her face, she was almost leonine.

  Defiantly, she turned to meet the gaze of the woman—the medic, or doctor, or whatever she was. She’d spent so much of her life wishing she could hide herself away, and she was done with that. She wasn’t going to be ashamed of how she looked anymore.

  “You going to file down my claws?” she asked.

  She wasn’t. But she did measure them, then checked Anaya’s fingernails—which were starting to thicken and look bruised underneath the nails. She was going to have clawed hands, too. The woman plucked out a few strands of her leg hair and put them in a test tube. She opened a drawer under the examination table and passed Anaya a towel and a stack of fresh clothing.

  “Shower and get dressed.”

  “I don’t even get a wax?” Anaya asked, nodding at her legs. It made her feel better to crack a joke, like she had a bit of control. This got not even a grunt from the woman.

  Anaya glanced at the clothing: a brown jumpsuit with short sleeves. On the breast was stenciled L9.

  This did not seem like a good sign. If you gave someone a number, it was because you were taking away their name. And once you took away someone’s name, it was a lot easier to take away whatever you wanted.

  PETRA TURNED HER FACE into the shower, luxuriating in the hot water beating against her skin. She never, ever wanted to get out.

  When the woman had told her to take a shower, Petra had sighed and said, “I’d love to, but I’m allergic to water.”

  “This water’s safe for you,” she’d been told curtly.

  So she’d stepped warily into the shower stall, where a big plastic tank was mounted high up. The water inside had a suspicious yellow tinge. Petra had turned on the faucet and tested the drips with her finger, then her whole hand. She counted down the seconds. No reaction at all. Ecstatic, she’d stepped right under and taken her first proper shower since her allergy had started years ago.

  She guessed this special water was like the stuff from the Cordova eco-reserve. When they’d rescued Anaya’s father, Mr. Riggs, they’d had to cross a lake filled with acid-spitting water lilies. Somehow those lilies had changed the chemistry of the water, and Petra, to her amazement and delight, had been able to swim in it without getting seared like regular people.

  Dr. Weber had said that, once she got the formula, she might be able to synthesize that water, but obviously these guys had beaten her to it. If she could shower every day, maybe things wouldn’t be so bad down here.

  She checked her amazingly smooth legs, then the rough patches spreading up her torso. She craned her neck to catch a glimpse of her tail, and shuddered as it twitched energetically in the water. Oh, it’s so hard being a teenage girl, people were always saying. They had no freaking idea.

  “Out,” the woman in the white coat said.

  Petra stayed in until she got barked at again and then reluctantly emerged in her towel. She saw the clothes waiting for her and sighed. The jumpsuit was a deeply hideous minty green. She’d look like a corpse in this. As she put it on, she noticed she’d been labeled W10, and that there was a Velcro flap in the seat.

  “For your tail,” said the woman. “When it gets longer.”

  “How long?” Petra asked in alarm.

  “Remains to be seen.”

  No way was she going to let it stick out for everyone to gawk at. She guided it down her right pant leg, then pulled on the ugly black slippers they’d provided.

  “Follow me.”

  The guard who’d stood watch outside now led her down a series of corridors. This place was a maze.

  “Where’s Seth and Anaya?” She wanted her friends back. Or were they planning on chucking her in a cell all by herself? “Would it kill you to answer me?”

  Then she reminded herself, again, that she was going to be on her best behavior. Being snarky wasn’t going to help her. She had to be cooperative. She had to show she wasn’t a threat of any kind.

  She passed doors stenciled with things like RESTRICTED AREA: PHONE AND WAIT and SENIOR OFFICERS ONLY. Through one window she glimpsed a huge faded wall map and antique computers. In another room people were setting up more modern equipment. Everyone was hurrying, and she got the sense they were still getting this place ready. Was it all just for the three of them?

  Twice her guards stopped to unlock doors barring the cor
ridor. It was all done with keys, she noticed. No high-tech touch pads or retinal scanners. This place was definitely old—it sure smelled old—and she didn’t think it was built to be a prison. In the corners of hallways were sad, discolored plastic plants.

  As she was led toward a set of double doors, she frowned. From beyond those doors came echoing shouts and the unmistakable squeaky footfalls of a school gymnasium. One of the guards pushed the doors wide, and the sounds burst over her—along with the familiar smell of rubber and varnished wood. Colored lines were painted on the floor, basketball nets raised at either end.

  And everywhere: kids.

  Stunned, she walked inside. All the kids looked around the same age as her, and all wore jumpsuits that were blue or brown or the same vile green as hers. Various stations had been set up around the gym where kids were doing drills. She saw a boy with hairy arms doing a standing high jump onto a stack of truck tires. A girl with feathered arms slashed at a punching bag. Petra’s eyes locked onto the swinging tail of a boy doing laps.

  Back on Deadman’s Island, Dr. Weber had said there were others like them. But Petra had no idea there’d be so many. The same terrible thing must have happened to all their mothers. And now the kids had been collected and brought here, like some crazy alternative school. The kids in blue were labeled with an A, the kids in brown an L.

  She searched for Seth. For a lot of the blindfolded journey here, she’d been smooshed up beside him and been surprised how reassuring she’d found his warmth, and even his slightly musty smell. In the helicopter she’d felt so cold, like her whole body was coated in frost, and only Seth holding her hand had stopped her shivering.

  A man in sweats with a clipboard was walking toward her. He was extraordinarily thick and muscular. With his square jaw, overly blow-dried hair, and neutral expression, he looked very much like an action figure. Or someone who should be hanging around with Barbie.

  What she wanted to say was, Let me guess, your name’s Ken and you’re a social worker who’s super concerned about our safety.

  What she said instead was nothing. Because she was going to be cooperative and helpful.