Hungry

by H. A. Swain

  No, that’s not tingling. It’s my Gizmo buzzing in my hand, pulling me out of my reverie. Who needs a virtual life when you can have this heady feeling in reality? But the feeling is fleeting. It’s already skittered away into the night sky, leaving me staring down at the directions to my Smaurto that Astrid is showing me. I sigh then shoot a quick text to Yaz, telling her that my mother wants me home and I’ll see her tomorrow at our ICM.

  I focus my attention on the map, which leads me back past vacant buildings I vaguely recognize and retraces my steps up the alleyway I remember. Everything around me is beginning to seem familiar, but I feel different. Like I’ve walked through a time warp, only I’m not sure I want to go back to my life. Part of me wants to stay in this old part of town, caught in the past while searching for my future. That’s silly, though. The future is unknown until you get there. But I won’t leave it to something as false as fate to ensure that mine includes Basil.

  Basil? Could that really be his name? It dawns on me just then how little we really know about each other. I close my eyes and silently say the words he had written on the paper.

  Analogs … Friday … 6:00 p.m.… 1601 South Halsted

  * * *

  The minute I walk in the door to our house, my mom is all over me. She’s standing, Gizmo in hand, firing questions before I even have my shoes off.

  “Where were you? I couldn’t locate you! And what on Earth were you doing? Your vitals were all over the place. Heart rate up and down, your metabolism swinging, and your calorie burn skyrocketed!” She shoves her Gizmo in my face as if the graphs and numbers on the screen mean anything to me.

  “God, Mom. I just walked in the door.” I push her Gizmo away and head into the living room, where Dad is engrossed in a 3-D historical docudrama about the invention of some old thing called an iPhone. “I was out with Yaz. We went to a new PlugIn. I was probably playing a game or something that got my heart rate up. Then I got bored and took a walk.” I feel a little bad for leaving out some of the truth, but not bad enough to tell her what really happened. I plop down on the sofa beside Dad. “How do you know that stupid patch is accurate, anyway?”

  Mom stands in front of us, hands on hips. “Of course it’s accurate!” she says. “I invented it and your father made it.” My dad shifts so that he can see around my mom.

  “If this is how you’re going to treat me…” I lift my shirt and try to rip the patch off my back. “Ouch!” I yell when it won’t come off.

  “You have to wear it for the full twenty-four hours before it will release,” she says.

  I slump back on the couch and mutter, “You might as well put a chip in my head.”

  At this my dad perks up. “Actually…”

  Mom shoots him a look, and he stops short of launching into his diatribe about singularity—his favorite topic.

  “What?” I look from Mom to Dad and back to Mom. “Do I already have a chip in my head?”

  “Not yet,” Dad says with a smile.

  “Max,” Mom says, exasperation in her voice. “Could we talk about that another time?”

  He shrugs and goes back to the docudrama.

  Mom takes a deep breath and tries to reason with me. “I’m collecting this data for your own good. Your Synthamil formula has been precisely calculated, and any little shift—”

  “You said you wouldn’t look at the data until tomorrow,” I point out.

  “I wouldn’t have except there are built-in warning signals if a patient’s vitals suddenly go haywire.”

  At this I feel myself turn pink. When did my signals go bonkers? When I met Basil? When we were using his device to smell roasted chicken and chocolate brownies? When I ran through the streets? I certainly don’t want my mother knowing any of that. I should have hacked the dumb patch. “I shouldn’t be made to feel abnormal,” I say, reciting Basil’s argument, but somehow it sounds ridiculous when I say it to my mother.

  “I didn’t say you were abnormal.” She screws up her face like I’m babbling nonsense. “I think your metabolism is out of whack for some reason, so we might need to tweak your Synthamil formula.”

  “Well,” I huff at her, “I’m not your test subject.”

  “First of all, I’m not experimenting on you. Secondly, it’s a privilege to have a personal optimized formula. Not everyone gets that.”

  “So I should be grateful?” I snipe.

  She draws a long breath in through her nose, trying to stay calm. “Thalia, I only want to make sure that you’re okay.”

  “I’m sitting here, aren’t I? Obviously, I’m all right.”

  Dad looks over. “She’s got a point, Lil.”

  Mom sighs and rubs her forehead. Finally she says, “Data doesn’t lie.”

  “But daughters do?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Mom says with her teeth gritted. We stare at one another for a few seconds until she says, “I just want to know that you’re safe and healthy.”

  “I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” I tell her as I haul myself off the couch and stomp toward my room.

  As I’m leaving, I hear her say to my dad, “She has no appreciation for the work I’ve done in my life. No appreciation at all!”

  I can’t help but roll my eyes. How many times have I heard her speech? How if it weren’t for her and One World, all humankind would be dead. How her breakthrough in the lab helped refine the inocs so no one experiences hunger anymore or procreates without permission or gets horrible fatal diseases. And how without nutritional beverages like Synthamil, humans would still be starving and fighting. The thing is, I do appreciate it. Of course I do. I wouldn’t want to watch the people I love starve or kill each other for meager scraps of food. But I don’t like having it shoved down my throat all the time. Like I have to agree with everything she says just because she was instrumental in saving humanity. She’s still my mom and she can still be annoying.

  * * *

  The next night, Mom, Papa Peter, and Grandma Grace gather around the main screen in our living room to discuss my vitals, which Mom uploaded from the patch.

  “Her insulin level is definitely spiking.” Grandma Grace points to a sharp line. “It should stabilize between her morning and evening ingestion of Synthamil.”

  “And her glucose is falling too rapidly,” Papa Peter adds. “Which would explain the headaches and fatigue. But her hydration level is fine, so she’s getting enough water.”

  “Look at her ketone level here,” Mom says. “It shouldn’t be that high.”

  I sit on the couch, hugging a pillow, while they discuss me like I’m some sort of chemistry project.

  “When was her last inoculation?” Grandma asks my mom.

  “Three months ago,” Mom says. “So she’s not due for another three months.”

  They flip through screen after screen showing how my body operated on an hourly basis for the past two days.

  “That’s odd,” says Grandma Grace. “Her dopamine level shot up here. When was that? Zoom in.” Mom commands the chart to enlarge. “Friday night around eight p.m.”

  They both turn to me. “What were you doing then?” Mom asks.

  My heart begins to race and my palms sweat. I know from biochem that dopamine is a neurotransmitter that’s released in the brain when something unexpected and good happens. I remember sitting next to Basil that night. How close my thigh was to his while we were smelling roasted chicken and chocolate. I almost get dizzy thinking about it. I bet my dopamine level’s sky-high about now.

  “I don’t know,” I say, trying to act nonchalant. “Maybe playing some game at the PlugIn.”

  “The time-released benzodiazepines in her inocs should suppress spikes like that,” says Grandma Grace.

  “Unless she’s not getting the right dose,” Mom says.

  Grandma turns to me. “How much do you weigh now?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  She frowns. “Why not?”

  When I was little, Grandma Grace’s frown sc
ared me. And now with a bold stripe of gray down the front of her jet black hair, she looks even more fierce, like she could face down an angry mob looting a hospital pharmacy, which according to Papa Peter, she did once during the wars.

  “I never weigh myself,” I tell her, annoyed.

  She doesn’t budge. Doesn’t change her face. Doesn’t say anything. She just stares at me until I hoist myself off the couch and slink into the little vestibule in the back of our house. Between the water tap (which is connected to the Whisson Windmill on the roof) and the closet with our urinal is the cabinet holding our monthly supply of Synthamil—our personal cocktails designed to optimize each person’s brain and bodily functions. Small bottles of blue for me. Red for Mom. Green for Dad. And orange for Grandma Apple. Each one is wrapped in a gold embossed label bearing our names. Technically, you’re supposed to weigh yourself once a week, and do an at-home spit test, urine sample, finger prick, and hair follicle analysis to make sure all your nutritional needs are being met, but almost no one does it. Except for little kids who are still growing. Their doses need recalibrating all the time. Although I bet Grandma Grace and my mother do it, since they do everything by the book they helped write in the first place. I step on the scale and wait for the number to appear. One hundred twenty-two pounds.

  By the time I walk back into the living room, they’ve pulled up my weight on the screen.

  “Three pounds less,” Mom says. “A little odd, but nothing to be alarmed about.”

  “No,” Grandma says. “But it could be an indication that her metabolism shifted slightly.”

  Mom and Grandma Grace both whip out their Gizmos and start calculating.

  Papa Peter rolls his eyes at them then drops down on the couch beside me. He leans in close so I can smell his aftershave, which reminds me of the pine trees programmed in December. When I was little, I loved rubbing his cheeks so I could get his scent on my fingers. “In the old days,” he tells me, “I would’ve told your mama to fatten you up on some hamburgers and french fries.”

  I can’t help but grin. There’s something about Papa Peter that just makes people comfortable and happy. “What are french fries?”

  “What are french fries?” He shakes his head. “Hm-mm-mm. Only the best thing there ever was. First you took a potato—that was a tuber that grew underground. Then you sliced it up and dropped those slices down in a deep-fat fryer full of bubbling oil. They came out all crispy on the outside but soft and fluffy on the inside. You’d sprinkle them with a little salt, which tasted like tears of joy. Then finally, we’d dip them in something sweet and tangy called ketchup that was made from tomatoes.”

  I try to mix all those descriptions together, but my mind gets blurry. “My friend has this little machine,” I start to say, excited to tell Papa Peter about Basil’s gadget, but then I stop.

  “And what’s this machine do?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “You can tell me.” Papa leans back and crosses his hands lazily over his belly like he’s got nowhere to be and nothing better to do than listen to me.

  I wish I could tell Papa Peter. And Grandma Apple. They would probably love Basil’s scent device because they could relive all their favorite foods. But if I tell him, then my mom will have a zillion questions about how and when I met him and who his family is and where they live and what they do. So I change my tack. “Do you ever wish you could see and smell food again?”

  “Thalia!” My mom whips around and blinks at me. “What did you just say?”

  “I asked if Papa Peter ever wished he could see and smell food.”

  Mom and Grandma Grace exchange looks. “You know perfectly well that we don’t do that,” Mom tells me.

  I think about this for a second then ask, “Why don’t we?”

  Mom is at a loss for words but Grandma Grace says, “Because it’s unnecessary, not to mention illegal.”

  “Illegal?” Papa Peter’s eyebrows lift up, causing a line of wrinkles to march across his forehead. “You sure?”

  “Of course it is,” snaps Grandma Grace.

  “Under the Universal Nutrition Protection Act,” Mom adds.

  “The young people call it forno,” Grandma Grace says, and Papa Peter laughs.

  “Forno?” I ask.

  “Food porno,” Grandma Grace says.

  “Mother,” Mom protests, embarrassed.

  “She’s seventeen. She should know,” says Grandma, ever the pragmatist. “But him?” She nods at Papa, who’s giggling like a little kid. “He’s hopeless.”

  I wonder if Basil and I were actually breaking some stupid law. Did he know it was illegal? I swallow a giggle. He must have been freaking out when I told him he should turn his device into the newest form of entertainment. “But how is that illegal?” I ask.

  “Breach of contract,” says Mom, which clarifies nothing.

  Papa Peter interrupts. “Well then, I must be breaking the law in my mind right now because I’m sure thinking about french fries!”

  “Peter!” Grandma admonishes him, but I laugh.

  He closes his eyes. “Now I’m thinking of a chocolate shake. Thick, cold, creamy, chocolaty.”

  I remember the smell of chocolate. Deep and heavy, slightly bitter but sweet.

  “Watch out, here comes a doozy,” Papa says. “Call security. I’m picturing a banana split with whipped cream and a cherry on top.”

  Suddenly my stomach groans and gurgles. Papa’s eyes open wide and he laughs. “Well I’ll be darned. Did you hear that? I just made this child’s stomach growl.” He looks at me. “Let’s try that again.” He leans down close to my belly, lifts the bottom of my hoodie and T-shirt like I’m a little kid and he’s going to give me a belly blow. I try to protest, but it’s hard not to laugh when Papa Peter is being such a goofball. “Hello in there!” he calls. “How about a big plate of flaky, buttery biscuits and nice thick sausage gravy? Or a pepperoni pizza with lots of melted mozzarella cheese?”

  “Peter Alan Pike!” Grandma snaps at him.

  He sits up. “Yes, my dear?”

  “What nonsense are you telling our granddaughter?”

  He grins at me and lowers my shirt, then pats my belly sweetly. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  “I should hope not,” Grandma Grace says, turning back to the screen and her calculations.

  “I must be doing this wrong,” my mom says with the same frown Grandma wore earlier. “I keep getting the exact calibration for her Synthamil formula even though obviously it’s not working correctly for her.”

  “Me, too,” Grandma admits. “So either we’re making the same error or there’s something we’re overlooking.”

  “She’s hungry,” Papa Peter says. Mom and Grandma Grace exchange a quick worried glance.

  “But that would mean…” Mom starts to say, then she trails off, bewildered. For half a second I think about telling her I’m not the only one, but I keep my mouth shut. “Do you think I should take her to a specialist?” she asks Grandma Grace.

  “No way,” I say from the couch.

  Grandma and Mom both turn, put one hand on a hip, and stare at me. “And why not?” they ask me at the same time.

  I think of what Basil said about the others who tried to get help. “Because they’ll probably say it’s all in my mind and drug me up.…”

  “So you’re a doctor now?” Grandma asks me.

  “She’s probably right,” Papa Peter says. Grandma gives him a look that could wilt hologram daisies, but he’s not deterred. “If I were her, I wouldn’t want some stranger poking around me either. Especially when she’s got two of the smartest medical minds in the world right here in the living room.” He grins at both of them and I know what he’s doing. Papa Peter’s favorite saying is “you can catch more flies with honey,” which I think means that you get farther with people if you’re nice, although I have no idea what flies and honey have to do with it. And it seems an odd choice for Grandma Grace, since she uses the exac
t opposite approach. She only believes in bossing people around. Maybe that’s why they work well together. Opposites attract after all.

  “Just give her some extra Synthamil, a little at a time, until her tummy’s not growling anymore,” Papa Peter suggests. I look to my mom hopefully as she considers Papa Peter’s advice. “Sometimes trial and error works just fine,” he adds.

  “I suppose we could try it for a few days,” Mom says, but she doesn’t seem convinced.

  I sit back, relieved and mouth “Thanks” to Papa Peter.

  “But,” Mom adds, “if that doesn’t work, then we have to see someone.”

  * * *

  The next morning, I head off to One World, Happy World for my monthly Interpersonal Communication Meeting. As I walk into the enclosed glass atrium (where all the toy and game design is done), a hologram of a giant pink, banjo-playing animal that has spines all over its back and a little snout sings, “Happy time. Fun time. One World loves us all! Welcome to our happy home. Welcome to our mall!” I stop and stare at it. Not out of amazement or adoration, but out of sheer loathing. Really? Do people really feel inspired to buy toys and games if a giant pink, banjo-playing extinct spiny, piglike creature sings some inane song? Most people push right on by and head straight for the shops, but a few slow down or stop, especially the little kids.

  A girl, probably five or six, stands across from me, looking up with her mouth hanging open. She’s dressed head to toe in purple Silkese and Cottynelle with ruffles and sequins. She watches in awe as an animated Synthamil bottle with big eyes and chubby hands floats down. “Remember, always drink your Synthamil!” it says, then giggles when the pink animal grabs it, pops off its lid, and chugs its contents. Creepy, if you ask me.

  “Can we get one, Mommy, please?” the little girl begs the woman who’s busy snapping pix with her Gizmo because the spiny pink creature has floated down and positioned itself right beside the kid. When the weird animal and the bottle begin to dance and sing around her, the girl squeals with delight.

  Someone smacks me on the arm and says, “Can we get one, too, Mommy?” I turn to see Yaz, grinning stupidly at me. Today she’s wearing navy blue trousers and a three-button jacket. Her hair is parted neatly to the side and tucked behind her ear. Yaz always looks the part she’s playing, which today is Good Student. Unlike me who refuses. I’m in a bright blue fleece hoodie and a pair of real denim jeans, so soft and worn from my grandma’s farm days that the knees and butt have patches.