Nine

by Zach Hines

  The Prelate of the Lake.

  The head nurse, who, by tradition, always remained anonymous. The nurses in blue kept everyone in line, and the Prelate kept them in line, tapping orders into his tablet that lit up signal lights around the room in an obscure pattern that only the nurses could understand.

  After about half an hour, Molly reached the front and was led into a booth. The nurse there pulled a privacy curtain closed, then gestured for her arm. She held it out to him, and he took a small device that looked like a pen and placed it just below her elbow. The pen was hot, and it pricked her like a bee sting. She flinched.

  “Ow. That hurt. How about a heads-up?”

  “Just relax,” the official said, his voice laced with bureaucratic impatience.

  He then plugged the pen into his tablet and checked the readout. Molly stole a glance: the Genetic Verification Scan displayed her name, her age, and her life number (“previous: 2; current: 3”). The officer then took a handheld device from his belt. It was shaped like a smartphone. The numbering gun. A tiny blue light blinked as the device turned on.

  “New number and new chip,” he said. Molly remembered—a tiny electronic tag was implanted with every tattoo to ensure the authenticity of the life number. “Relax again.”

  He pressed the device against Molly’s neck. She felt another burning sting, then caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as the officer removed the gun.

  There was now a black Three branded on her neck.

  She was a Three.

  She suppressed a tiny squeal of delight.

  Decorum, please.

  She was a Three now, after all.

  Molly found her way out to the bus terminal. She checked the time on the clock tower: 5:30 a.m. Rebirth almost always occurred within thirty to forty minutes of death in the nearest Lake (though sometimes it could happen as quickly as ten minutes). Why? As with most things having to do with the scientific mechanism of rebirth, all anyone had was a good theory. Still, this was a useful feature of the process that she could rely on. Subtracting three hours for processing, this meant she died around 2:00 a.m.

  The bus ride from here would be about two hours. She could remember asking Julian on the drive to the party to pick her up this morning around seven thirty.

  Good. The timing should work.

  Julian. He was another thing she could rely on.

  The hills that surrounded the Lake channeled the valley wind into a swirl that moved across the terminal, picking up pieces of litter. At least it was still warm, even though it was already September. The wind rustled Molly’s gown, and she pressed it against her legs as she found the line for her bus back to Lakeshore with a group of newly reborn Threes, Fours, Fives. . . .

  They were gorgeous. At least, to Molly’s eyes. The best physical versions of who they could be. Receiving a new body was the part of rebirth Molly had been most looking forward to; you returned at the same age as when you died, but you returned a perfect expression of yourself, in pristine physical condition—except, of course, for the “Wrinkle” you were likely to develop. But those were usually small: an allergy, a rebirthmark, or a subtle shift in interests or mood.

  Molly stroked her chin and felt a thrill of excitement: that small layer of fat she had hated so much had melted away. Take that, gym. Where’s all your regular exercise and a balanced diet now?

  Molly sipped from a Lake-issued juice box and looked out the window as the bus rattled along the route. Lake Road wound through the dense elm forests that separated the city of Lakeshore and the suburbs from the Lake itself. The trees were larger and thicker the closer the forest got to the Lake—their knotty branches entangling with each other, blocking out the sunlight and creating an inky, primal black space in the underbrush.

  But Molly’s attention was elsewhere. She was looking at her own reflection: at her chin, at her Three, at her newly lustrous, shiny brown hair. At how her chest now amply filled out the paper gown. She was admiring herself, but the way she would admire a beautiful stranger who passed her on the street.

  So you burned that Two, and this is who you are now, Molly. You’re the girl in the reflection. Nice to meet you. You have great hair, and you’re a Three. Make this one count. She repeated that last part quietly to herself, like a mantra. “Make this one count.”

  Finally, the bus pulled into the Lake Road terminal and Molly climbed off, still in her paper gown. Standing there, leaning against his beat-up old car, was good old Julian. The One on his neck was more obvious to her than it had ever been before. She was surprised at how taken aback she was by the sight of it.

  But still: there he was. Like he promised. She smiled, crossed the road, and walked to meet him.

  Chapter 3

  “WEIRD? YOU FEEL ‘WEIRD’? THAT’S ALL I GET?”

  Sure, Julian had learned at school how rebirth worked, and what you’re supposed to do when you wake up in the Lake. But what he wanted to know is how it felt.

  “Yeah, weird. At first, it feels like . . . like every part of your body is coming. Simultaneously,” Molly said.

  “What?” Julian looked over at her while still trying to keep his eyes on the road. “Wait, you mean like . . . like an orgasm?” He whispered the word.

  “Yes. A full-body orgasm,” Molly said. “It felt so good it actually kind of hurt. And when it stopped, I just sort of felt like . . . like I wasn’t myself anymore. And I still don’t feel right. It’s like I’ve been having an out-of-body experience that’s just now kind of settling down. It’s hard to describe.”

  “Wow, that does not sound fun to me,” Julian said. “Overwhelming pain. Paranoid confusion . . . the opposite of fun. What do you call it? Oh yeah. Torture.”

  Molly looked at her reflection in Julian’s rearview mirror. She fluffed her thick hair. “No pain, no gain, I guess.”

  “Call me crazy, but I prefer the continuous physical persistence of being,” Julian said.

  Molly ignored this. She stroked her face and asked, “Hey . . . do I look fat?”

  “Really? That’s what you’re thinking about?”

  “I’m serious. Do I?”

  “No. But you were never that fat to begin with.”

  Molly cocked an eyebrow at Julian. “Never ‘that fat’?”

  “Sorry, I don’t mean it like that. I guess you do look . . . fitter? Good muscle definition. That kind of thing. You know, gymnastics is still taking tryouts.”

  Molly punched him on the arm. “You just want to see me in Lycra.”

  “Getting a little carried away with your new body there, I think,” Julian said.

  Although . . . the image of Molly and her fit, new body in a skintight outfit . . . It flashed into his mind—but he pushed it away.

  Molly snorted a half laugh.

  At some point last week, Molly became convinced that she needed to pop her Two.

  Julian and Molly were among the tiny handful of students who were on scholarships at the academy, lower-class kids thrust into the finest educational institution that the upper crust of Lakeshore could provide. That was how they’d met, in the headmaster’s office, completing scholarship forms on the first day of freshman year. But what they really bonded over was that, until a little over a year ago, Julian and Molly were the only Ones in the entire academy.

  Though he never told her, Julian took a secret, silent pride in their defiant solidarity. He imagined they were two against the world, watching, above it all, as their classmates fell obliviously into the traps that society had set out for them: Homework. Football. Pep Club. Burning.

  Such self-importance. . . . To think of those times now filled Julian with a deep, shameful sense of foolishness.

  When Molly popped her One, she did it in secret. When Julian saw her Two on that otherwise ordinary morning in homeroom last year, as she slipped through the crowd toward her desk, her eyes looking anywhere but at him, he realized in an instant that he was utterly alone in this world. He lost his temper after school that da
y. “How can you be so stupid?” he yelled at her.

  Molly opened her mouth in response but said nothing. It was like she was trying to find an explanation, but there were no words in existence that could capture why she had turned her back on everything they had spent so much time railing against. Instead, she closed her mouth, turned, and walked away toward the parking lot. They didn’t speak for a week after that.

  So, this time, Molly told Julian her plans as soon as she had decided to pop her Two. She leaned over to him in homeroom before Headmaster Denton started class. She watched him expectantly for his reaction as she explained how she was going to the Night of the Terrible Twos.

  This time, Julian had vowed to be more mature. More adult. He closed his eyes and mustered a smile with only somewhat feigned serenity. There was no sense of betrayal this time. There was no anger. There was just that now familiar stirring of aloneness. He told Molly, “Don’t worry, it’s cool.”

  Everything was cool.

  But that night, after Molly had made her announcement, Julian stared at the ceiling of his bedroom in the dark, a terrible loneliness grasping at him with long, sorrowful tendrils. He would’ve cried, but he had already decided that was not something he was ever going to do again. He lay awake, staring, until the tendrils gave up and retreated.

  And so he went to the Terrible Twos party with Molly for moral support . . . but also for a kernel of hope that, maybe, he would give in and join the ranks of functioning high school society like Molly. That he might slip into the smooth flow of the world with her, the two of them again; no longer against the world, but a functioning part of it.

  That sure as shit didn’t happen.

  Julian pulled up at Molly’s house.

  “Sorry, I’m spacing. I feel like I’m chasing my own echo here,” she said. “I just need some time to sync up my mind and body. But thanks for the ride. You’re the real deal, Jules. I know you didn’t even want to come with me in the first place.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Julian said. “It’s all part of the BFF Code. You know, be the plus one when they need it. Pick them up after they’re dead. Etcetera.”

  Molly smiled at Julian and hopped out. She started to walk away but stopped and leaned back in through the passenger window.

  “Hey, so did the Burners clean it all up afterward?”

  “That’s what I heard,” Julian said. “But I left before that.”

  “So there’s no funeral party or anything. . . .”

  “Gross. You wanted to see yourself?” he asked.

  “No. Um . . . I just . . . want to know what happened exactly?”

  Julian’s face soured as the image of her dead body popped back into his mind. He shook it off.

  “You played Kiss or Cap with Constance,” Julian said. “But I don’t know what happened. I came back in and everyone was dead.”

  Molly was quiet for a moment as she thought. “Did you happen to pic anything?” she finally asked.

  “You know,” Julian said, trying to suppress his disgust, “it just didn’t occur to me.”

  Molly sighed. “That’s okay, you’re right. I don’t want to see that stuff, anyway.” She took off for her house, and Julian watched her walk away and disappear inside.

  For a long moment, Julian sat in the car in her driveway, in the lingering cloud of Molly’s new-life scent: it was the musty smell of the Lake—sort of like rain-fresh mud—mixed with the faint chlorine whiff of the sanitizer from her decontaminated gown. He studied his hands gripping the wheel. They were thin and pasty. His thumbs were awkward, too small in proportion to his fingers. He looked out the window. Sunlight gleamed off the concrete sidewalk, so bright it stung his eyes. Motes of dust floated in the air like sad, errant confetti.

  He was definitely not crying.

  Chapter 4

  JULIAN’S HOME SAT ON A SMALL HILL OVERLOOKING A scrapyard of mangled cars. The yard was built about ten years ago and significantly dragged down the property prices for everyone on the hill.

  Most of the neighbors moved out during the yard’s first year of operation. Julian’s family was also once in the process of moving out, after his mother received a promotion at the Lake. The promotion meant she was able to secure Julian’s enrollment at the academy. But this was a different time. The idea of moving was never discussed anymore.

  The front door creaked on rusty hinges as Julian entered and tossed his bag on the chair. At the kitchen table, his little brother, Rocky, was working on his third-grade homework.

  “Is Molly coming over?” Rocky asked.

  “Not today, Rock. She’s not feeling well.”

  “Did you kiss her or something?” Rocky said.

  Julian playfully flipped his eight-year-old brother the finger. “Molly doesn’t like me like that. She doesn’t like any boy like that,” Julian said.

  Rocky shrugged. “She could swing both ways.”

  Julian rolled his eyes, wondering how his kid brother was staying on top of his friends’ sexual preferences. He took out the pots to cook supper.

  Rocky went back to his homework. “I think Molly would be a cool mom,” he said.

  Julian put the pots down with a clatter.

  Mom.

  Rocky always had a way of catching him off guard.

  When Rocky was born, their mother was on Life Five. She was a senior official at the Lake, and was constantly brimming with energy, keeping Julian and Rocky and their father on the move to school, to parties, to sports. She was the engine of the family.

  But just a few years later—it seemed to Julian to have happened overnight—she was on Life Seven. The change in her was so swift and so dramatic, it was as if she had been replaced with an entirely new person. Which, since she was in a new version of her body, was technically true.

  Not long after she came home as a Seven, it became apparent that retrogression had bitten her. Bad. The doctors hadn’t seen anything like it. She missed work frequently. She forgot entire chunks of her life. She lost a core aspect of her personality—her laugh, her sunniness. She forgot where they lived. Forgot she had a toddler at home who needed her. . . .

  “Was Mom cool like Molly?” Rocky asked.

  “Yeah,” Julian said. “Mom was cool.”

  When she was on Life Eight, his mother disappeared for over a week. When Julian asked his father where she went, he clammed up. “It’ll be all right. She’ll come back,” he said, not looking up from his workbench. Not looking Julian in the eye. “Let’s not talk about this.”

  Right, Dad, let’s never talk about this. Let’s forget about this, forget about her like she forgot about us.

  There was another incident that was permanently etched in Julian’s mind, down to every awful detail. It was the middle of the night and his mother had been missing for days. The sound of breaking glass woke him up. He slipped down the hall and peeked around the corner. Instead of an intruder, he found his mother, ghostly, clad only in a paper gown, a Nine tattooed on her neck. Julian remembered creeping into the room, hoping she would recognize him, hug him, become his mother again. Instead, she looked at him and screamed, “You! It’s because of you! You bastard!”

  She charged toward him. His father, appearing out of nowhere, grabbed hold of her before she could reach him.

  “Go to your room and lock the door!” he yelled at Julian.

  Julian ran back to his room and slammed the door shut. From behind it, he heard the deep, muffled shouts of his father. He heard the front door slam. He heard the slap of flesh on flesh outside on the porch. He heard his mother’s anguished screams tear through the night until, finally, there was silence, deafening in its suddenness.

  When Julian worked up the courage to look out the window, he saw his mother running away from the house toward the scrapyard. But about a dozen yards out, she suddenly stopped. She turned and looked over at his window. Over at him. He could feel her eyes burrow into him. There was a connection to her bright green eyes that night that felt real and
heavy, almost like it was gripping him by his soul. He could never forget that feeling. But then the connection was severed. The moment ended. His mother slipped away into a shadow.

  That was his last memory of her alive.

  After that night, a new word entered Julian’s adolescent vocabulary. A word he had only read before in textbooks and Lake-issued warning signs. A word he rarely heard spoken aloud, and when it was, always in a whisper, always spoken by grave and worried adults.

  Permadeath.

  “Jules, can you help me finish this?” Rocky said. “Mrs. Landon is all on my case about math. She says she doesn’t like ‘my attitude.’” Rocky made air quotes with his fingers.

  “Well, being a sarcastic jerk isn’t going to help you. Neither will cutting corners,” Julian said. “You don’t need me to help you with multiplication tables. You know those. Besides, I have to put dinner on.”

  “Really? It’s already so late. Let’s just have a sandwich.”

  “Sorry, but I promised Dad. Even though he works doubles, he insists on having a family dinner.”

  “It will be way past my bedtime,” Rocky said. “Dad would want me to get some sleep. He’s all about early rising.”

  “What, and just leave me alone with him after he’s worked a twelve-hour shift? How about some brotherly solidarity here?”

  Rocky groaned. “All right, but you owe me one.”

  “I’m indebted to an eight-year-old. . . .” Julian shook his head.

  “So get over here and help me with these multiplication tables.”

  “Okay, okay,” Julian said. He poured a can of soup into the pot and went over to his brother.

  “See? Brotherly solidarity,” Rocky said. Julian rolled his eyes.

  Julian’s father made it home even later than expected. It was almost nine thirty. “Damn traffic coming in through Retro Row was backed up all the way to Lake Road,” he said as he dropped his work bag by the door.