After fifteen minutes the news repeated itself, so I turned the volume way down and flipped to cartoons for Baby. I searched the fridge, which was pretty bare except for some questionable-looking plastic bowls, their contents even more questionable. Great snacks, Mom. I did find a block of cheese wrapped in a cloth. On the counter was a loaf of coarse, homemade bread. Cheese sandwiches it was.
I toasted the bread and cheese in the oven and it smelled delicious. I hadn’t had real cheese in a very long time. My mouth started to water. The oven dinged and I transferred the sandwiches to a plate. The smell of melted cheese filled the room and suddenly I was brought back to another time. I was watching TV in our old house, eating pizza bagels. I saw an alien for the first time.
I was no longer hungry.
I handed the plate to Baby, who automatically took a large bite, her eyes glued to cartoons. The food was hot; she blew on it and took a sip of water to cool down her mouth. As she chewed she turned and stared at me.
What is this? she asked.
She’d never had unprocessed cheese. The only bread we had was the kind I made at home which always came out hard and dry. I never got the knack for baking.
It’s food from Before.
This is the most fan food ever. She turned back to the TV and wolfed down the rest.
My stomach growled, but I ignored it. I was way too on edge to eat. My mother would be back soon to show us around New Hope. I thought about her on the news. She was the director, but who, or what, did she direct? Before, she worked in a research lab for the government.
Maybe she could tell me more about the creatures, about where they came from and why they were here. It couldn’t just be coincidence or a mistake. Why were they so vicious? And why us? Why now?
I glanced at the clock. My mother couldn’t answer my questions if she wasn’t around for me to ask them. I tried to watch cartoons with Baby, but I was unsettled. I sighed and willed time to go faster, which only made it worse.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Hello again, Amy.” An older, doughy man sits in a plastic chair across from me, smiling. I rest on my bed, my feet thrust under the covers. I’m uncertain about most things, my thoughts are murky, but I know I like my room. Even groggy, I feel comfy here.
“Hello . . . Dr. . . .”
“Dr. Reynolds,” he tells me helpfully.
“Yes, of course.” I know this man, I’m sure of it, but I can’t quite place him. I’m finding it hard to concentrate.
He looks in his notebook and scratches his bald head. “How are you feeling today?” he asks pleasantly. He seems nice enough. Maybe he’s a friend? But that doesn’t seem quite right. I feel bad for not remembering him.
“Good,” I tell him. “I like it here.”
“That’s great.” He scribbles something in his notebook and looks up brightly, which makes me smile. “You’re not planning any more escape attempts, are you?” he asks in a joking tone.
“No . . . . ,” I assure him, not certain what he’s talking about. I want his approval, so I add, “New Hope is fan!”
Dr. Reynolds laughs lightly. “Well, I think so too, Amy. New Hope is everything I’ve always wanted.”
“It’s safe,” I offer. I hear my mother’s voice saying it again and again. “You’re safe now, Amy.” I scowl because I know, somehow, that she was wrong. I also remember another voice, a male this time. “I’ll keep her safe,” he promised. “I’ll protect her.”
Dr. Reynolds studies me and I lose my train of thought, my face softening into a smile. “New Hope is safe,” I tell him again.
“Oh, it’s so much more than that, Amy.” He closes his notebook and sits back. “New Hope holds all my ambitions for the human race. It’s our destiny.”
I nod sleepily. A glint of a memory forming in my mind. A boy who made me promises. I let the spark flare. I need to remember him.
• • •
Someone’s at the door, Baby told me moments before I heard a knock.
I hurried to the door and looked through the peephole. A teenage boy was standing on the other side.
“Yes?” I asked through the door.
“I . . . your mother sent me,” he said loudly. “I’m supposed to show you around. The director said . . .”
I jerked open the door.
“She said . . .” He lowered his voice. “She’d meet you for lunch.” He smiled crookedly, which softened his striking features and wild blond hair, making him look kind. When I noticed a pair of glasses shoved in the pocket of his white coat, I realized he was the “psychiatrist” from our arrival.
“Oh.” I put my hand to my mouth, suddenly remembering. I’d pulled a gun on him, frightened him half to death. “Look, about yesterday, I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. The director explained your situation.” He said director like it was the president or something.
“Did she?” I wondered what my mother told him, what she was telling everyone about her long-lost daughter.
“We have a lot to cover, though, so we really should get going.”
“Right. Okay,” I motioned to Baby, who turned off the television and hurried to my side. She bounced slightly on her toes, eager to explore.
“Um . . .” He stood in the doorway awkwardly.
“Oh, sorry. I’m Amy and this is Baby.” I introduced us, though we already unofficially met yesterday and I was sure he knew our names.
“I’m Rice.” He held out his hand and I shook it.
“Rice?” I asked. I signed to Baby He says his name is Rice.
Rice? Why would he be named after food? she asked, scrunching her nose.
I started laughing. The tension in me was breaking—or finally overflowing—I wasn’t sure which.
“What did she say?” Rice asked.
“She wants to know why you’re named after a food,” I explained, still giggling.
Rice smiled politely. “My name is Richard. Richard Kiernan Junior. My dad used to call me Rice and I absolutely hated it, but . . . well, he died, so I decided . . . you know.”
I nodded, understanding completely. We stood for a moment, waiting. “So, should we go?” I asked eventually.
“Yeah, sure, um, it’s just . . .” He glanced down at my feet.
“Shoes,” I said, smiling. “Right. Wait here.” I felt a little embarrassed as I ran to my mother’s closet and scanned her few pairs of shoes. Like Rice was picking me up for a first date and I picked out the wrong outfit. Not that I knew what that felt like, since my parents never let me date in the Before. In the back of the closet I found some black rain boots, not too chunky.
I pulled them on; they were a bit big but not unbearable. It was so strange to wear shoes and I tripped as I left the room.
“Are you okay?” Rice asked, putting out a hand to steady me.
“Yeah,” I said sheepishly. I wiggled my toes in the boots. Even though they had plenty of room, I felt trapped. “I’m not really used to wearing shoes.” I took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
“What about for ‘Baby’?” he asked. He said it like it wasn’t really a name. I guess it really wasn’t. To be fair, neither was Rice.
I shook my head. “I don’t have any for her. The ones my mother left looked way too big.” Just like my ugly, red jumpsuit.
“The director had to guess your sizes. . . . We can stop by clothing appropriation and get her a pair.”
“Fan,” I said, making the fanning motion with my right hand so Baby could understand.
Baby smiled. This whole place is fan, she signed. I wished I felt the same.
“Fan?” Rice asked, confused.
“You know, like fantastic,” I explained. “It’s a thing that Baby and I say.”
“Oh.” Rice laughed and led us downstairs and outside into a courtyard. People meandered around, enjoying the sunshine. Baby clung to my arm. I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, trying not to show her how overwhelmed I felt. I wasn’t comfortable being out i
n the open during the day. The day belonged to Them.
“This is the Quad,” Rice told us. “We’re going to head to the north building, where the nonperishable goods are stored. You can get clothes and shoes and any other stuff you need.” He led us to a large, white building that looked like the others.
Inside, it seemed like a campus bookstore, minus the books. The shelves were full of random items, from soap and toothbrushes to backpacks and clothes. A few dozen people wandered the aisles, shopping. An older teenage girl looked from one skirt to another, deciding, while a young, pregnant woman grabbed some cloth diapers and put them in her cart.
“Usually people are assigned a time to come and pick up the essentials,” Rice explained, “but since you’re new to New Hope, you two are allowed an unscheduled visit.”
“You have to make an appointment to shop?”
“Yeah, if people didn’t keep to their appointments, a hundred people might show up at once and clearly”—he motioned around the store—“it would be too crowded. Besides, it gives the store time to restock between appointments. We have a big warehouse of nonperishable items that we’ve gathered from the surrounding . . .” He paused, looked at me. “Are you okay?”
“How many people live here?” I asked shakily.
“Three thousand five hundred and thirty-three,” he answered matter-of-factly. My jaw dropped and I made a strangled coughing noise.
“They give a daily population update on the news,” Rice explained. “Population growth and human expansion are our primary concern, for obvious reasons.”
I found a bench nearby and collapsed on it. Baby still held my hand and pressed her cheek to mine.
What’s wrong? she asked.
Nothing. I never imagined so many people survived.
“Rice, where are we? I mean, where is New Hope located?”
“Geographically?” he asked, sitting down next to me.
I nodded and noticed he smelled clean, like soap.
“This was a university in Kansas, but I don’t think state boundaries apply anymore.”
“It looks less like a college campus and more like a military compound,” I said.
“It would. You’ve mostly seen the buildings devoted to research and development. They were working on some pretty important high-security projects here.”
I looked at him, a frightening thought nagging at me. “Rice, what keeps Them out . . . the creatures? I didn’t see any fences.”
He looked back at me, smiling. “There aren’t any,” Rice said proudly. “It’s perfectly safe. We’ve developed a sonic wave that keeps the Floraes away. They have sensitive hearing and can’t tolerate it.”
“That must be what Baby heard last night. She complained about a humming.”
He frowned, turning toward Baby. “That’s impossible. It’s beyond the range of human hearing.” He gazed at her intently, an odd look on his face. I didn’t like the way he was gaping at her, as if something was wrong with her.
“Noise keeps Them out? So, if you know how to get rid of them, why don’t you broadcast that sonic wave thing across the country, around the world?”
Rice snapped his attention back to me. “It doesn’t kill them, Amy. It just makes them unhappy, hurts their auditory nerves, their ‘ears’ so to speak. It makes them want to get away. What would that accomplish? If they had nowhere to go for relief, they’d wander everywhere just like they do now. Then we wouldn’t be safe here.”
“Is that why you capture Them?” I asked. “To find a way to hurt them, instead of just annoy them?”
Rice flinched slightly. “We don’t capture the Floraes,” he said slowly.
“Yes you do. Baby and I saw someone, in a hover-copter. They caught one the same way they got us.”
Rice looked around, then back at me. “I wouldn’t go around telling that story to anyone,” he said quietly. “Please.” He pressed his lips together and searched my face, his blue eyes penetrating. “Sometimes, the post-aps are unfocused. . . . They have to have extensive psychiatric treatment. It’s for their own good,” he assured me hurriedly. “But I don’t want you getting sent to the Ward.”
A chill ran down my spine, and Rice looked worried that he’d upset me. “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out to touch my arm. “I don’t want to scare you. It’s just, you’re one of the first girls my age brought here in a while. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
I looked down, feeling myself blush.
“If this is too much for you, we can go back. Maybe when the director has the time, she can take you around, if that would make you feel more comfortable.”
I shook my head. “When does my mother ever have spare time?” I asked.
He smiled at that. “She’s very busy. But hey, it gives us time to get to know each other.”
His leg jostled against mine and I got goose bumps. I wasn’t used to anyone but Baby touching me.
I turned to Baby and tried to explain to her about the population. She could only count so high, but I knew she could conceptualize larger numbers.
Think of the largest number that you know, I told her. And double it again and again and again.
Baby looked at me like I was crazy. There’s that many people?
Yes. More. I felt Rice’s eyes on me. I turned and caught him staring. He blushed bright red and looked away.
“I was just . . . ,” he stammered. “That’s not standard American Sign Language.”
“No, we’ve modified it a lot.”
“Baby, she’s so quiet.” He smiled at her and she watched him with her big, brown eyes. Even if she didn’t understand him, she knew he was talking about her.
“It’s why she isn’t dead.”
He nodded. “And you really don’t know how she got that scar on her leg?” he asked.
“No, she was already hurt. I didn’t see how it happened.” I told him the entire story of how I found her, wounded and alone in the supermarket. “She also has a strange mark on the back of her neck,” I mentioned.
“Yes, but that was nothing of significance,” he told me quickly, even though I knew he looked closely at it yesterday.
I studied him while he watched Baby taking in the people around us.
“How old are you?” I asked.
He paused. “Seventeen.”
“Seventeen? And you’re my mother’s assistant? But you’re so young.”
“You have a lot to learn about New Hope,” he told me, fiddling with his name tag.
“I don’t doubt it,” I agreed, standing. “I think I’m over my initial shock, though. Let’s go get Baby some shoes.”
• • •
Dr. Reynolds is still talking. I’ve zoned in and out of hazy memories, but continue to nod my head dutifully. I tune back in to the sound of his voice, trying to concentrate on what his words mean.
“It’s a fresh start. We have an opportunity to isolate all the best that humanity has to offer and weed out the worst. New Hope is a society that will be spoken about as the birthplace of a new civilization. When humans reclaim the earth, they will look back here and know this was the foundation for a new world.”
He is talking with such passion the skin on his face jiggles slightly. I laugh despite myself.
“Is that funny?” His smile fades to a scowl.
“No . . . I’m just . . . excited.” I don’t want him to know I wasn’t really paying attention to his prepared speech. I don’t want him to be angry. Worry begins to creep into my thoughts.
“It’s all right, Amy. You can go back to your nap now.”
“Thank you, Dr. . . .”
“Reynolds,” he reminds me.
“Yes, thank you.” I lie down and pull the covers up over my head, welcoming the ease of unconsciousness.
• • •
“Let’s try these.” Rice pulled a couple of pairs of shoes down off a shelf for Baby.
“Why are they yellow?” I asked as Rice bent down, placing the shoes next to
Baby’s feet to size them up.
“Class Three is yellow,” he declared, holding up a pair triumphantly. “I think these should fit her.”
“What’s all this ‘class’ business?” I asked.
“That’s how we keep track of children. After the Floraes showed up, there was a core group of survivors. Mostly researchers and military, people who were in secure, easy-to-defend areas.”
“My mother mentioned that last night.”
“Well, the post-aps . . . the ones left”—he motioned vaguely—“out there. The ones who really survived the Floraes, they’re mostly children.”
“Children? I never saw any children, except for Baby.”
“You were in a city,” Rice explained. “High concentration of Floraes, hardly any post-aps. In other areas, where there was less population density, children were the ones more likely to survive. Adults probably kept them concealed, took extra measures to protect them. And of course children are good at hiding. Once their instinctual survival skills kick in, they know how to be quiet.”
“They believed in the monsters before the monsters showed up,” I whispered.
“Exactly. That’s why when we bring in the post-aps, we usually don’t have a problem with them. We place them in a structured environment. They fit right in.”
“What does that have to do with Class Three or Four or whatever?”
“It’s just how we organize the kids. Newborn to toddler is Class One. They don’t get a color. Three to five years is Class Two and they have to wear pink or blue based on their gender.” He cleared his throat. “Kids aged six to nine are Class Three; they all wear yellow. Age ten to twelve is Class Four—they wear orange—and thirteen to sixteen is Class Five . . .”
“Let me guess. Class Five is red.” I tugged on my oversized jumpsuit. “Only the kids are assigned a color?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“But I’m seventeen years old.” It was strange for me to say it. Seventeen. I’d never had a sweet sixteen. I’d never gotten my learner’s permit. I didn’t get to do all that normal stuff that teenagers used to do.
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