by Julia Karr
“Of course you do. Work will wait.” He rushed me through the maze of corridors back to the main storeroom. “I won’t expect to see you here until Monday,” he said. “My best to your grandmother.”
***
I called Chris to meet me at the hospital with Dee. When the trans pulled up to Metro, it seemed as if every passenger was getting off there. I shouldered my way through the crowd, looking around for them, torn between racing to Gran’s room and waiting for my sister. I knew Chris wouldn’t drop her off if I wasn’t there. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long.
Once inside, Dee and I grabbed the first elport going up. When the doors opened, there was Dr. Silverman, at the nurses’ station.
Wary of his attitude and how it might affect Dee, I whispered, “That’s Gran’s doctor. He’s kind of, uh . . . well, he’s not real friendly.”
Almost as if he knew I was talking about him, he looked up and motioned me over.
“Two of you.” He frowned at Dee. “How old is this one?”
“I’m Delisa Oberon. I’ll be twelve next month.” She stuck out her hand. “Thank you for saving my grandmother’s life.”
He stared down at her. Begrudgingly, or so it seemed, he shook her outstretched hand. “It’s what I do.” He withdrew his hand. “Nurse, a sani—” He stopped short.
I’m not sure what kept him from asking for that wipe. Maybe it was Dee’s open smile. Whatever the reason, I hid my astonishment by asking, “How is our grandmother?”
Fully recovered, and drawn back into his I’m-top-tier-and-you-are-disgusting-low-tier persona, he said, “Of course, the surgery was successful. Assuming Mrs. Oberon continues her present rate of recovery, I anticipate releasing her to the Edgewater Rehabilitation Center on Tuesday.”
“Rehabilitation center?” Metro was one thing. Everyone had free medical care. But rehabilitation—that cost credits. Lots of credits that we didn’t have. “Can’t she come home? I can take care of her.”
“Always about the cost, isn’t it?” He flared his nostrils, as if something stank. “Because the surgery was experimental, all the care is covered. You won’t be out anything.”
“May we see her now?” Dee asked.
“Yes. Go. Ten minutes,” was his snappish answer.
We stopped outside Gran’s room. I took a deep breath, releasing my anger. Gran didn’t need to feel my exasperation with some jerk like Dr. Silverman. I had to remind myself that he’d saved her life, and he’d been almost nice to Dee. Although, in my corner of the galaxy, that didn’t give him a free ride.
“Gran?” I peeked around the door.
“Girls.” Gran was reclining in the bed. Smiling, albeit weakly, she said, “I’m not in much of a position to hug you two.” A tube dangled from her arm to a bag of clear fluid on a stand.
I took one hand, and Dee took the other. Gran felt warm, alive. Color was back in her face, replacing the deathly gray from the day before. “You look great.” I kissed her cheek. “How do you feel?”
“Like a new woman,” she said. “Tired, but alive.”
Dee stroked her hand. “I was so worried.”
“No need to worry any longer, dear.”
“I know.” A tear trickled down Dee’s face. “It’s just with Pops gone . . .”
“Your grandfather, yes. And the writ.” Gran’s face clouded. “Nina, dear, you will have to handle this alone. Can you do it? I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins will help.”
“Especially now that we’re living with them,” Dee said.
“What?” Gran’s eyebrows knotted. “Why are you living with the Jenkinses?”
“We were evicted.” I hadn’t wanted to tell her, not just yet. “But it’s all right. I’ve got it all under control.”
“Oh, no, Nina. Our things? How will we––” She rubbed her forehead, her monitor beeps speeded up.
Dr. Silverman swept into the room, a nurse scurrying in behind him. “No disturbances. Out.”
“We didn’t mean to,” Dee said. “It’s just—”
“Out!”
As we slunk through the door, I saw him take a needle from the nurse, inject something into one of Gran’s tubes, and then the monitor slowed down, back to its hypnotic beep, beep, beep.
Silverman strode into the hallway. “She cannot be subjected to anything that will agitate her. If you can’t keep from upsetting her, you can’t come back.”
“I’m sorry.” Tears swam in Dee’s eyes. “I’d never do anything to hurt her.”
“See that it doesn’t happen again,” Silverman said, a softness crossing his face. “I will not have my work ruined. No more visits today. Call tomorrow to find out when you are allowed back.”
“Yes, sir.” I took Dee’s hand, and we walked silently to the elport. Neither of us said a word until we got outside the hospital.
“He’s not so bad,” Dee said. “He’s just worried about Gran.”
“Uh-huh.” I let her think what she wanted. I, on the other hand, thought he was more worried about his precious reputation as a doctor.
XI
By the time we got back to our old apartment, Chris and his friends had already packed and moved most of our things to a storage unit.
��I sent the guys home,” he said. “Everything’s done except the kitchen and these from your grandparents’ bathroom.” He pointed to a collection of bottles on the dining room table.
“Pops’s medicine!” Dee exclaimed. “He hasn’t had his pills since yesterday. Nina!” She grabbed my sleeve. “He’s got to be hurting, really bad. We have to do something.”
Chris said. “You might be able to drop these off, although . . .” He glanced at Dee, like he wasn’t sure how much more he should say.
“Although what?” She waited for him to finish.
“You might not get in. And if you do, they might not give them to him.”
“They have to,” I said. I’d had enough. Pops needed his medicine, and I was sick and tired of being told what to do. “In Government class we learned that it’s against the law to withhold medical treatment from prisoners if it’s doctor ordered. And all these prescriptions are doctor ordered.” I whisked them off the table into a bag. Then scrolled through my PAV for the copy of the digi I’d sent to Wei of the order the cops had given Gran. It said Pops would be taken to the downtown detention center at the main B.O.S.S. building on LaSalle and Jackson. “I’m taking these to him. Chris, take Dee with you when you’re done. I’ll meet you back at your house.” Grabbing my coat, I rushed out the door.
“Nina!” Dee ran after me to the elport. “You can’t. What if they arrest you?”
“Dee. They will not arrest me. Go back there and finish packing.”
Chris came up behind Dee. “I’ll drive you. You could use some backup.”
“I can take care of this myself. Dee needs your help more. Our twenty-four hours are up at six p.m., remember?” The elport doors opened. I stepped in and hit Close before either of them could stop me.
***
“Where’s detention?” I asked the reception bot.
“Stand for weapons detection,” it said. A bright light flooded over me. “No weapons found. Place hand in reader for ID scan.”
I did as I was told.
“Nina Oberon, who do you wish to see?”
“Herbert Oberon, my grandfather. He needs his medicines.” I placed the bag of bottles on the desk in front of the bot. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to do.
Sirens blared, and a booming voice intoned, “Code blue at reception. Contraband. Code blue at reception. Contraband.”
By the third Alert, I was ready to run. But there was nowhere I could go that they wouldn’t find me.
“May I ask what you are doing?” said a female voice behind me.
I spun around to find myself face-to-face with a woman in uniform, a look of curiosity on her face and a stun-stick aimed at my neck.
“I’m looking for my grandfather.” My voice radiated a confi
dence internally negated by the quivering in my belly. “He’s required to take these.” I reached for the bag.
“Hands up,” she commanded.
I threw my hands over my head, but I wasn’t about to back down. “Those are his meds. It’s not legal to keep them from him. It’s illegal to withhold medical necessities.”
“You seem well versed in Governing Council law.”
“I’m in school. They teach us that in Government.” My arms were getting tired, and I was more than a little scared.
The woman opened the bag with her free hand and perused the content. Gesturing with the stun-stick, she said, “Pick it up and come with me.” Keeping her weapon at the ready, she marched me across the atrium, where we went into a small office. The door clicked behind us. “Put the medicine there.” She indicated a spot on her desk. “You may sit, if you’d like.”
“I’d rather not.” Sitting felt like surrender. My eyes swept through the room. Besides the desk, there were two chairs, and a tech rack hung on the wall. That was it.
“Suit yourself.” Sheathing the stun-stick in a pouch on her belt, she selected an ID reader from the rack and scanned my information. “Hmm, Nina Oberon.” Scrolling through a digi-pad, she eventually stopped. “Ah, here we are. Herbert Oberon.” After she studied the info for what seemed like an eternity, she pressed a button on her desk. “Send a detention runner to purple corridor security office.”
Detention runner? Were they going to arrest me? My heart pounded in my chest. Gran was in the hospital, and if I got arrested, both Pops and I would be in jail, and Dee would all alone. Just as I was contemplating making a run for it, a nonhumanoid bot whirred through the door.
The woman removed Pops’s medicine bottles, scanning each one into her desk unit. “You know, you didn’t have to create a scene,” she said. “All prisoners are allowed personal medications after they are approved by the detention facility physician. I’ll have that confirmation in a moment.”
Create a scene? How was I to know the reception bot would think I was trying to get contraband to Pops? Adrenaline abating, I felt the need to move around, or I was sure I would collapse on the floor, a mass of quivering body parts. However, the room was tiny, and any movement on my part could easily be read as hostile or combative. So I stood as still as possible, even though the bot’s sensors were picking up on every twitch and sigh I made.
“All medications are approved,” the woman said. “They will be administered at the appropriate times.” She opened the bot’s front compartment, put Pops’s meds inside, shut the door, and pressed a code on the keypad. It spun around and skimmed out the door.
The woman scrutinized me. “Due to your youth, the recent loss of your mother, and your grandmother’s sudden illness, I’ve requested my superiors overlook your flagrant disregard of protocol. Should it happen again, however, you will be detained and charged with attempted breach of Bureau offices. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” My age was on my ID, but it was beyond me how she knew so many personal details about me and my family.
“Good.”
Pops’s incarceration, it made sense that they’d know that. But Ginnie’s death and Gran’s heart attack. There was no doubt in my mind, B.O.S.S. was tracking me.
She escorted me to the entrance. “There is not to be a repeat performance. Correct?”
“Uh-huh.”
The door shut behind me.
I was headed for the trans stop when Chris’s trannie pulled up in front of me. Dee jumped out and flew into my arms. “Nina! Are you all right? Don’t ever do that again,” she said. “You scared me to death.”
“I had to, Deeds. Pops needed his medicine.”
Chris leaned out the window. “You guys mind getting in? I’d rather not get a ticket.”
Dee took the front, and I slid into the back.
“We packed the things, and I made Chris come here first. We’ve been waiting forever,” Dee said. “Chris was ready to go in and see if you were okay.”
“Really?” I looked over at him. “I was fine.” Liar.
Chris shrugged. “Wei’d kill me if I let anything happen to one of her best friends.” Changing the subject, he said, “So they let you give him the meds?”
“You saw Pops? How is he?” Dee swiveled around.
“They didn’t let me see him. They scanned in the meds, and then a robotic carrier took them to wherever he is.”
“Were you scared?” she asked.
“Not really.”
Chris glanced in the rearview, raising his eyebrows.
I looked away, not planning ever to admit how terrified I’d been.
XII
When we got back to our new home, I put Gran and Pops’s things in the room they would eventually share. I was being as positive as I could be about Pops’s eventual release. Dee was busy arranging her clothes in the huge dresser in her room. We could’ve fit everything—hers, mine, and our grandparents’ clothes—in those drawers and still had room left over.
My room was beautiful. Like most everything in the apartment, the bed was antique. Solid, warm, and comforting. I loved it. I was putting away my clothes when there was a tap at the door.
“Hope you don’t mind that I let myself in,” Wei said. “I won’t do it after your grandmother comes home.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t care,” I said. “Besides, it is your house.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! This”—she threw her arms wide—“is your house now.”
My room was luxurious by any standards. “You know, it’s going to take some getting used to. And in a way, I don’t want to get used to all these beautiful things.” I knew Wei wouldn’t understand what I meant as soon as the words were out of my mouth, and her quizzical look confirmed that. “I don’t mean that I don’t want to feel like they are . . . well, not mine, but you know . . .” I could tell she didn’t. “Look. This—everything here—can all be taken from me in a nanosec. Everything. I mean, even my family can be taken away from me. This stuff, it’s not mine. It belongs to your family. I’m a tier-two girl who might get something better someday, but only if I work really hard and get lucky. I’ll never be up in your stratosphere.”
“You know . . .” Wei whisked one of my T-shirts from the bed and began folding it. “You have got to get over this tier crap. You think way too much about it. I’ve told you before, it means absolutely nothing to me. Period. Okay?” She laid the shirt on top of the others in the drawer.
I sighed. It meant nothing to her, but that didn’t mean it meant nothing to everyone else in the world. I resigned myself to the fact that she, like Sal, might never understand where I was coming from. “Sure.”
“Listen, I came down because Dad wondered if you’d mind talking with him now. He needs to know everything you know about all that’s happened to your grandfather and about the writ. He said to bring the arrest papers.”
I took the order for Pops’s arrest out of a folder. As we went by Dee’s room, I let her know I’d be across the hall. She was on her PAV, chatting away with her friends.
***
Across the hall, Wei and I stood in front of Mr. Jenkins’s desk while he read both papers. “I heard you made a trip down to Bureau headquarters today. Did they let you see your grandfather?”
“No.” I couldn’t help turning red. The tone of his voice registered his disapproval. Wei gave me an admiring glance, which made me feel a little less guilty of recklessness. “They did log in the meds, though. So I guess they took them to him.”
Mr. Jenkins made notes on a digi-pad. His voice softened. “How is your grandmother doing?”
“She got upset about the eviction. The doctor had her sedated. Before that, she looked much better.”
“Her doctor is Silverman, right?”
“Yeah. He doesn’t seem to like low-tiers very much.”
Mr. Jenkins tapped his rapido on the table. “I don’t think he likes anyone very much. There’s no denying he�
��s a brilliant physician, but . . . I’m not sure what kind of person he is.” He projected a page from his PAV onto the desk. It looked kind of like the genealogy charts we’d studied in Personal History and Health when I was in fifth grade.
“What’s that?” Wei asked.
“Dr. Silverman’s career path. He’s been on the Resistance watch list for a while.” Mr. Jenkins studied the graphic. “See here?” He pointed to a line on the projection. “He was head of research at Utar Seriosus Research and Development, before moving to Chicago as head surgeon for Metro.”
It sounded as if I should understand the significance of that information, which I didn’t at all. “What does that mean? What’s Utar Seriosus?”
“He went from being top man at a prestigious research-and-development laboratory to taking a job at an inner-city hospital that specifically treats low-tier and welfare citizens. Utar Seriosus is where the Infinity machine was invented. They were rumored to be working on a cure for the Ocri virus.”
“Wouldn’t that mean the miners on Mars could come back to Earth when their time was up?” Wei asked. Being sent to the prison mines on Mars was nearly a death sentence, since few if any escaped being infected with the Ocri virus while there. Once infected, they could never return to Earth.
“Yes,” her father agreed. “But there are people who would prefer that never happened.”
“Why?” I asked.
“There’s not enough money in the research end of it. The possible users of the drug are limited to ocribundan miners. Men who aren’t even at the bottom tier, but way below that. Most of them are criminals who were given a sentence of labor on Mars or death.”
“I thought some were just low-tiers who went off to work and send money home to their families.” My stomach clenched as I thought of Joan. Part of the information Ginnie’d uncovered about FeLS was that girls, like Joan, who broke down during sex training were sent to Mars as “wives” for the miners. “Are they all . . . murderers?”
Mr. Jenkins pressed his fingertips together, pursing his lips. “Many are nonrehabilitatable criminals who, for a variety of reasons, would be better kept far from America’s society. Some are people who fared poorly during reassimilation. And more than a few of them are NonCons or Resistance sympathizers.” He dropped his gaze.