Lizard Radio

by Pat Schmatz

  Every day, I know more of nothing.

  One thing I do know — starting now, the komodo stays with me.

  At morning Cleezies, Machete announces that today is Silent Sunday. We are to move through our chores and rotations without speech. The fields are still too wet to work, so we’ll have extra contemplation and study time in our slices. Then at three p.m., we’ll have early Cleezies. The grass should be dry by then, and we’ll meet on the Quint.

  Halfway through morning chores, I break off and go to Machete’s office. She said to come to her if I need anything. I need information. I find Micah on his hands and knees in the office entryway, wiping down the floor. He looks up when I enter.

  “Ms. Mischetti said that I should come if I need to talk.”

  He shakes his head and points at Machete’s closed office door. He’s taking this Silent Sunday thing very seriously. I roll the komodo over between my fingers.

  “She said anytime. Because I have things going on at home.”

  His eyes are regretful, understanding. But still he shakes his head and points at the door again. Then he puts a finger to his lips: shhhh.

  “Really?”

  He nods.

  I go back to my chore rotations, mopping the Mealio floor with Jyana. Since we can’t talk, we just work. It’s a big, wooden floor, and first we have to put all the chairs up on the tables.

  Machete is not at lunch. Ms. Kroschen and Mr. Mapes are here, even though it’s Sunday and they’re usually off. Maybe Machete is finally taking a day off. Figures — the one day when I actually want to see her.

  The komodo and I nap through the early afternoon, deep and dreamless without so much as a hum from Lizard Radio. The gong wakes me, and Machete welcomes us all to the Quint. She directs us to lie in a big circle, arms outstretched, hands linked. As I lie down, I push the dragon deep into my pocket so that it won’t fall out. I reach out to Rasta, and she sets her hand in mine. My right hand is linked with Emmett’s. Nona is on the other side of him, and Sully is on the other side of Rasta. Thirty-seven comrades. Thirty-nine at the start, now minus Donovan and Sabi.

  “Today we enter a new phase.” Machete walks around the outside of our circle. “Today and for the next week, we are in transition from the adjustment phase to the immersion phase. As of now, all inflows stop. For the next nine weeks it will be only us. You, your teachers and counselors and guides. All of us in cohesion and symphony. Working and learning together as you take your first steps into your future community roles, as workers, as comrades.”

  The unease that runs around the circle isn’t quite audible, but it’s palpable. I’m not so worried. I wouldn’t have an inflow anyway, not until Sheila is found. The lizard came back. So will Sheila. The sky is broad and deep and blue with puff-clouds. The breeze blows across us. Nobody speaks or moves.

  “This is your last week as children. Beginning next Sunday, you’ll be fledgling adults. So in this, your last week as children, you must each give careful thought to the adult you want to become. The schedules change. You’ll have at least two DM sessions this week. Cleezies will last a full hour, and curfew will ring thirty ticks after the close of Cleezies — so the entire Social time is mando, and there will be no free time after that.

  “Today, as a celebration of the beginning of the end of childhood and a treasure on the threshold of change, you will receive double doses of kickshaw. And yes, as many of you have guessed, the kickshaws contain a drug.”

  The weight of Rasta’s hand in mine increases as if the force of gravity suddenly doubled.

  “And yes, the drug is more than a passing pleasure. The drug in kickshaw is an integral part of our culture, our peace, and our safety. We do not give it to children. You are no longer children. You stand on the brink of adulthood, with all of its impulses and dangers. With adulthood comes tumult and struggle. You have new power, and with power comes responsibility. Now is when you learn to temper and focus your power and responsibility. Now is when we teach you how to do that, in safety and community. Your parents and guardians know of this drug, of this practice. They use it themselves.”

  A circular gasp rises from the grass. I raise my head and look around. No one gets up; no one leaves. Where would we go? Our parents signed the docs and turned us over. Yes, Sheila, too. No matter where she is, she signed the doc. Does she use the drug? Does Rasta’s da? We are pinned to CropCamp dirt with the weight of all that we don’t know, all that we can’t imagine or guess.

  “I ask you to consider today’s kickshaw experience with full knowledge. You will not lose consciousness, but you will lose coherence. That’s why you are lying down, in solid touch with one another. We’ll watch over you. The effects to your mobility and coordination will last for approximately two hours. Then, to give you time to absorb all that you’ve learned in the past three weeks and to begin your preparation for the transition week, we’ll have a silent dinner. Then to your slices. No speech from now until first gong tomorrow morning.”

  Rasta’s hand twitches. What if she jumps up? What if she bolts for the gate? Will they shoot her down? Tackle her? Force the kickshaw on her? Vape her?

  I want the double. I want to feel the juices move down my throat and pulse through my veins. No matter how much I want to be fierce and true like Rasta, I am not. Machete wants to give us something sweet and good. She makes it so easy for us. We’re flat on our backs, among comrades and friends, held by the alla-One. We have nowhere to go. The parents gave permission.

  Micah places the kickshaw on my lips, and saliva shoots like a fountain. I part my lips and hold the extra-large morsel in my mouth, my pool of a mouth. The first swallow slides down my throat and the kickshine spreads. Rasta’s hand burns in mine, body electric. Emmett’s heat radiates sideways, and the connection on either side is so intense that my actual cells try to move first toward Emmett, then toward Rasta.

  Sheila said that CropCamp would be good for me, and she was right. With or without the komodo, with or without Sully’s jazz, I am better here. I am more a part of things than I’ve ever been, and for the first time in my life I have friends. Real friends. All of us, and all of the comrades in camps everywhere, all taking the same ride at the same time, one and the same, together. Whether the lizards speak or speak not, I live in a human skin, and I am with the humans.

  The kickshaw’s warm fluid spreads me in a puddle of earth. I suck in air, inflate my lungs. Color swirls and pulls me up and out of myself. Down below, my physical body morphs before my up-high eyes. Claws grow from my hands, but then they recede. Skin to scales and back to skin. Snout lengthens, shortens. My entire shape pulses and changes, misting from one to the other.

  The other bodies shift, mostly in color. Sully pulses hot red, Emmett flows a deep green, and Nona’s body is a sketch of charcoal, just an outline draped on the grass. Only Rasta looks like herself, unaffected. She holds the kickshaw between her teeth, refusing to touch it with her lips. Drool runs out the corner of her mouth.

  How can she do that? How can she be that strong?

  Lacey notices Rasta’s resistance, walks over, and presses the kickshaw through her teeth and into her mouth. The outline of Rasta’s body fades. A shimmer of deep purple light pulses between me and Sully. My body has lost all traces of lizard, but like Nona’s, it has no color. Just a human outline.

  Hours later, the gong rings. Rasta’s hand twitches in mine. Emmett’s fingers wrap around my other hand. I pull away and sit up, stiff-bodied. The Quint grass and the treetops are green, the sky a deepening blue. Still daytime. Nobody radiates colors, nobody shimmers or morphs. We all look like we look. Half-awake humans, coming up from under. I rub my face and yawn.

  “Dinner in ten ticks,” Machete says. “You must all be strictly on time. Remember, no speech. After dinner, you will go directly and silently to your slices. There will be no gongs tonight. Curfew begins immediately after dinner.”

  Curfew sounds like the worst sort of punishment. I want only to be close, to be
touching. I want Emmett and Rasta closer. Sully is miles away, and I long for her to again reach out and touch my hair. How could I have knocked her hand away? Why would I do that?

  All through dinner, I’m so aware of the separation. Each of us is locked up in our own bony skull, full of thoughts and feelings that we can’t share. Nona and Sully and Machete and even Lacey and Micah — they each have an entire world inside of them, and I can’t ever know it. I’m so completely alone. Even when Emmett bumps me, his skin and my skin keep us from really touching.

  After dinner I go to my slice and pull the blankets over my head. I don’t want to be separate. I don’t want adult tumult. I don’t want power, and I don’t want responsibility. I want . . . Sheila.

  My missing grief finally arrives. My eyes fill and tears spill out, dripping into my ears. My stomach and chest get in on the act with involuntary shudders and gasps. I huddle in a ball, and tears and fear erupt from the floor of my stomach, from the marrow of my bones. The grief shivers and wrenches and convulses me. It throws me on the ground, batters me in the wind, crashes into me head-on again and again.

  “Lizard.” Sully’s voice. “Lizard, are you all right?”

  “No speaking.” Nona’s voice is flat.

  “But listen to her.”

  “She’ll be okay.”

  “She doesn’t sound okay.”

  Sully’s voice is full of fear. Nona’s is not. I cry harder.

  “Lizard, should we get somebody?”

  “Sully.” Nona’s voice smacks against the synthie walls. “If you try to leave this pie, I’ll stab you with my secateurs.”

  SHEILA IS GONE. After the night’s wild grief ride, I wake in the morning to calm gray waters. She’s gone. The komodo in my pocket is all that I have left from my childhood life. I cannot think about after CropCamp right now. I can barely think about this day.

  Sully and I walk up to CounCircle together. The clouds moved back in overnight, layers of muted blankets. Thankfully, Sully is quiet. She doesn’t mention my noisy grief in the night, or Nona’s threat. Neither do I.

  At CounCircle, Machete announces that a new schedule is posted in the Mealio. As everyone files in for breakfast, we clump around the bulletin board to see. My name is listed under Machete with DM on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

  “Triples.”

  Sully points at my name.

  Rasta wiggles in beside us. She arrived late to CounCircle with huge raccoon circles marking her elfin face. Her night had to be at least as rough as mine. Her da’s betrayal must be killing her. I need to talk to her, about that and everything.

  “I’m switched back to Ms. Kroschen,” she says.

  Aaron appears from behind, sets his hands on Sully’s shoulders, and looks over our heads.

  “I have Machete now? And look, three times a week!”

  “Lizard, too.” Sully points.

  Aaron looks over at me. It’s the first time we’ve looked directly at each other since the very first day. Unless you count my dream with the blood-dripping teeth.

  “You and me, Lizard. Team Machete.”

  He holds up a fist. So different from the way Rasta holds up her spread hands to touch fingertips. Aaron smiles his easy jazzy smile, and I turn away. I’ll not be part of any fisted alliance.

  My first DM session takes me out of Block One right after breakfast, before I have a chance to talk with Rasta. I settle into the chair, leg curled under me. I study Machete’s face as she reads something off the Deega. She looks different somehow. Maybe it’s because she’s not looking into my eyes, not speaking, not handing me kickshaw. Sitting there, she’s just a person.

  “Sheila didn’t say that you could drug me.”

  Machete’s eyes snap up, and for a brief instant, they are wide. Then they narrow, and her jaw juts slightly forward.

  “You are here with full guardian permission,” she says. “Just like every one of your comrades.”

  Her gaze is steady, but when I lick my lips I smell fear.

  “I don’t believe it. Maybe you’re not lying, but you’re not quite telling the truth.”

  She stares at me the way she stared at Sully that night outside of Lacey’s slice. I do not look away. Sheila is gone. I have to find the fly peppers on my own.

  “Kivali. This transition is difficult for every young comrade, and for you it will be harder than most. The loss you’ve sustained is terrible, and the timing is unfortunate. Everything must seem uncertain to you. But you’re still responsible for your choices, every one of them.”

  Maybe. But when the komodo and I crawled out of the grief chasm this morning, we brought something new with us. I’m not sure yet what it is, but it’s mine.

  “Are you responsible for your choices, too?” I ask. “Every one of them?”

  Again, Machete’s eyes widen and then narrow. I’m poking a stick into a dark hole of danger, but for the first time, I sense something sensitive and afraid in there.

  “You need to step carefully, Kivali. Don’t let your past destroy your future.”

  “Why are you threatening me? What are you afraid of?”

  I’ve gone too far. The stick and the hole and the teeth and the fear disappear in a flash. Machete smiles and leans back into the power of them.

  “Sheila was a powerful force and a strong influence. She could make the untrue seem true, and the true seem untrue. She should have been honest with you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are some things that Sheila didn’t tell you.”

  There’s a lot that you don’t know, isn’t there?

  I lick my lips again, and the fear I taste is my own.

  “She did the very best that she could with you, but she had some mistaken ideas. You see, I know this because Sheila and I were once friends.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  My words don’t fly out fast enough to cover my own eye-widening, and Machete, who is now leaning forward on her elbows, doesn’t miss a thing.

  “Oh, I think that you do. Why would I lie about that? Loyalty is a beautiful quality, but we must choose our loyalties carefully, and accept the truth when we hear it.”

  The leg curled under me pricks and stings. I concentrate on that peculiar feeling, zillions of tiny tingles. I don’t want to look at Machete. If I look, I’ll believe everything she says.

  “You’re so young.” Machete’s voice is now full of compassion. “Sometimes I forget how young you are. So much happened before you were even born, so much that you know nothing about. We were young and independent, too. We made our choices. You saw how Sheila lived. You see how I live now. She struggled to make a life. I bring my strengths to my community, and contribute, and live well.”

  Machete rises and comes around her desk. I uncurl my leg, dropping my tingle-dead foot on the floor. I stand and lightly stomp, backing so the chair is between me and Machete.

  “Foot’s asleep,” I say.

  “Kivali.” Her voice is all kickshaw. “It’s not fair that you have so much to deal with. It’s too much, I know. It must feel as if you’re utterly alone in the world now that Sheila is gone.”

  She steps closer and puts a steadying hand on my shoulder. She has never touched me before. There’s no fear in her touch. It’s all strength and gentleness. And she is sure of herself in a way that Sheila never was. She has the power of the gov behind her.

  “Micah said that you came by yesterday when I was gone. I apologize for being unavailable. I think we need some more time together, the two of us. Come, you can relax in the Quarry this morning while I finish up some paperwork.”

  She could make the untrue seem true, and the true seem untrue.

  Sheila? Or Machete?

  Fly pepper or no, Machete is here, and Sheila is not. She wants to help me. I need her to want to help me. So I don’t resist when she guides me out the door and down the hall to the Quarry stairs.

  At the bottom, she signals me to slip out of my frods, and I have a va
gue memory of doing this before, years ago, the day that she told me about Sheila’s disappearance. The day that Sully nipped my ear. Machete swings the door open, and I step through.

  “You rest here,” she says. “I’ll check in on you before lunch, and we’ll have some time to talk then.”

  She puts her hands on my shoulders again and turns me to face her. Her eyes are like her voice, chocolate brown, kickshaw smooth.

  “Kivali, I want what is best for you. Now more than ever, your choices matter. Let me help you make them.”

  “Ms. Mischetti, may I ask you something?”

  “Of course. Open communication is key.”

  “I thought that no one could vape from a camp. How did Donovan Freer do that?”

  Machete’s upper body twitches forward as if I’d punched her in the gut. She turns from me and leaves, closing the door behind her. I listen to her footsteps on the stairs. Another door closes above.

  I reach out to the doorknob in front of me and check. The door is locked.

  THE KOMODO SPITS STATIC from my pocket. Not audible, but plenty loud.

  “I know.” I pace a fast circle, climb up on beds to check the windows — they don’t open — and check the door again. “I know.”

  We do not like being trapped. We don’t like cages. Neither one of us. I sit on the edge of a bed, bring the little dragon out of my pocket, and set it on my palm. The inanimate lizard looks back at me without comment. I curl it into my palm and pace around again.

  Sheila would have told me, wouldn’t she? If she knew Machete? I don’t know. There’s a lot that I don’t know.

  As I turn to pace the other way, music suddenly surrounds me. I stop and turn in place, looking for the source of sound. There — a small speaker in the corner of the ceiling — and there, another. All four ceiling corners have tiny speakers. The music is soft and swirly and mild. It’s — well, I suppose it’s kickshaw music.

  I pull a chair under one of the speakers and climb up, feeling around for a switch. The surfaces are smooth. Maybe it’s a cam, too. I wave a hand in front of it, and hop off the chair to study the room more closely. The way they’re angled, they see every part of the room.