What Tomorrow May Bring

by Tony Bertauski

  “Kira and Blake. Meet Bri and Bailey,” Tristan says. I bite my nail again, still not being able to get my head around Tristan and Bri together. Flashes of that night fill my head which are only made more vivid as Tristan shoves some tongue down Bri’s throat right in front of us. It’s him all right, hasn’t changed a bit.

  “So—” Blake finally finds his voice, “—why don’t you guys show us around?” Thank you Blake for getting us off the topic of relationships and Cleaving or I would be doing a lot more heaving. Tristan drags Blake off to show him the sports facilities and I’m left with Bri and Bailey.

  “Kira, is it?” Bri asks. Bailey’s busy watching Blake walk away and muttering “unfreakingbelievable.” I guess he made quite the impression on her. I feel a small pang of jealousy over her open gawking at my fake boyfriend.

  “Yeah,” I answer Bri as I stare at her. She looks the same. Still tall. Hair’s still dark and wavy. Eyes are still bright blue and surrounded by heavy eyeliner and eyeshadow. But her demeanor has changed a bit. She looks happier, less jaded. The last year before her death she’d been a little withdrawn, always wanting to talk about and meddle in my business but never willing to open up about her own.

  She can spew out words faster than anyone I know. “Ignore Tristan. He’s a super competitive showoff. I swear he thinks the next couple to self-Cleave is going to get some sort of prize or something.” I can’t respond to that one without saying something I shouldn’t, so I just nod.

  “Your boyfriend is hot,” Bailey pipes up, making conversation. “His name’s Blake? He has got gorgeous eyes and a smokin’ body.”

  “Yes, his name’s Blake Sundry. But, we aren’t quite at the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing,” I respond. Bailey shoots me one of her well known “I’m better than you” smiles. I can already see the scheme forming in her head. She’s nothing if not one of the most calculated and manipulative people I know. We always got along as fellow cheer squad members, but those who weren’t on her good side were targeted and tortured. She was particularly vindictive while wasted, and she rarely abstained. If she has got her sights set on Blake and thinks I’m in her way, it could get ugly.

  Briella pipes in. “Kira, I bet you and Blake will Cleave. You look right together. There’s no hurry though unless his eighteenth is coming up like Tristan’s,” she says, presumably to irk Bailey. Bailey looks at Briella like she wants to stab her.

  Bailey says, “I have to disagree. Kira here looks all ‘what you see, you can’t touch’ and, well, Blake looks like the real touchy-feely sort. And I just know he feels real fine. Someone’s gonna Cleave that, and I’m willing to bet my teebs that it’ll be someone who knows what to do with such exquisite merchandise.”

  “I don’t think either of us are thinking about Cleaving.” I try not to let Bailey know she has hit a nerve or three.

  Bri swats Bailey in the arm. “Knock it off. You’ve been anti-Cleaving all along. Don’t pretend like you’re suddenly a fan.”

  “That’s because I’ve been surrounded by uninteresting dolts…until now.” Bailey flashes her most wicked grin. Yeah, in your past life you seem to have found most of these guys quite interesting at one time or another. “Besides, a girl has a right to change her mind. Cleaving may just be for me after all.”

  Bri ignores Bailey, rolls her eyes, and addresses me. “A few of our friends have hooked up and ended up Cleaved. And then there were others who didn’t Cleave before their eighteenth birthday. The government Cleaved them to random people they barely knew. Maybe it’ll work out, but I prefer to choose my Cleave myself.” Gah. They look the same, talk the same, but they’re dead, and I’m having a hard time getting past that critical piece of data. And their obsession with Cleaving? Shut up already about it. I so do not want to be even thinking about it, much less talking about it all the time.

  “Yeah, I definitely think choice is a good thing,” I respond. So’s freedom and governmental checks and balances. Those seem to be missing in Garden City, too.

  “We’re going to get along, you and me,” Bri tells me. “I’m glad you’re here. I can tell we’re like-minded.” I used to think we were on the same page until I found her groping my boyfriend.

  “Thanks. So, what’s there to do around here?” And with that, they show me around what is actually an enormous complex, serving children from preschool through high school depending on the area. Several areas are so crowded it’s almost claustrophobic, but everyone seems to have friends and be generally happy, so I guess that’s good. It all feels old school to me, like it must have been for my parents before everyone got obsessed with TV, the internet, texting, music, and games. The focus appears to be on getting out and staying active, or on exploring one’s artistic talents. Had I come here cold turkey without having my self-imposed mourning period of inactivity, I would have gone nuts, but, by now, I’m plenty used to not being attached to my phone, computer, and music at all times.

  We stop by the school clinic to clean and bandage my Theranberry bush wounds before continuing our tour. While walking, I ask Bri and Bailey all kinds of generic questions like where to get my hair done (they come to you), and whether they get to take any trips into the city (they take at least one a week to see various Career options). I’m careful not to ask about anything that they probably don’t have like restaurants or shopping, keeping it to inquiries about free time and school classes.

  I want to find out when they got here, how they got here, and where they were prior—but know better than to ask. How can they deal with being seventeen, almost eighteen, not knowing what they did for the first seventeen years? I suspect that’s why the past can never be mentioned. If the seed isn’t planted then they don’t even worry about the existence of the seed. Briella does most of the educating me about the way of things while Bailey peppers me with questions about me and Blake and where we were before we arrived. For someone with no memory of what happened, she seems oddly inquisitive. I was wary of alive-Bailey and surely don’t trust dead-Bailey.

  We meet up again with the boys on the interior football field where Tristan is tossing the ball to Blake with the force of a bullet. Tristan’s posse is cheering him on and laughing at Blake’s comparatively inept ball handling skills. Blake looks less than happy about it. Tristan has got his shirt off and is calling plays as if Blake should know the entire high school playbook. Blake sees me and bolts off the field to my side, skirting Bailey who tries to grab him.

  “Save me,” he whispers. “You promised to have my back.”

  “Then save me,” I whisper back. “Because I’m having a seriously bad nightmare that involves zombies.”

  “What are you two whispering about?” Tristan says, getting his sweaty body a little too close for comfort. “You already see some other guys you like better and want to ditch Blakey boy here? You probably never saw him try to catch a football before, eh?” he says—I’m sure as a joke—but it just sounds conceited and makes Bri even more uncomfortable than it does Blake and me.

  I roll my eyes at Tristan’s dig at Blake. High school antics really are universal and I guess boys will be boys no matter what planet they are on. To Tristan I say, “Blake and I want to go take a walk in the canyon and check it out.”

  “I can show you the best paths,” Tristan offers.

  “I think that they’re looking for a little alone time, Tristan,” Bri says, and when I see Tristan sign “Forgive me” to her, I can barely squeak out a response.

  “Thanks, but another time. See you guys in a bit.” I grab Blake by the hand and head to the first path I see once leaving the interior. I walk carefully but purposefully, paranoid about tripping into another thorny bush or happening upon some creepy critters. The path I chose isn’t as well lit as most. Every sound makes me jump, and I don’t want to stray so far from the school, but I need distance from the dead kids. So, I wait until we’re at least a hundred yards away from anyone before I speak again.

  “Can I scream now?”

 
CHAPTER TEN

  Blake

  “I’m not sure screaming is going to help,” I tell her. “It’d just echo through the canyon and then you’d have to go back and explain why you’re having a meltdown over meeting some kids—who we aren’t supposed to know—and who tried to be nice and show us around.” She’s pacing back and forth and flailing her arms like a deranged chicken and I know I need to get her to chill quickly.

  “Okay, so those freaking SCI psychopaths stick us in a school with all our dead friends and want us to watch them like a bunch of mice in a cage and report on them nightly. Am I missing anything? What is the punishment for blowing the lid on all of it? Exile? How bad can it be? Maybe I could find shelter, food, and an exit portal out of here. That Daynighter dude implied the exit portal was close,” she says in a hushed but clearly upset voice.

  “Or we can both calm down and work on a plan that doesn’t involve immediate Exile. I mean, I have ideas about what to do.” That was a slip. I can’t tell her now, can I? No, no I can’t. Then she’d distrust me as much as she does Ted. I need her to stay on my side.

  “Like what?” she asks. I move in close to her, staring into her wide set green and gold eyes that are definitely high on the “Things I find attractive about Kira despite my attempts not to” list. My body betrays me at every possible junction.

  “I’m going to hug you now.” I put my arms tightly around her, which sends an electric sensation through my more sensitive areas. I don’t want to let go. “You’re just going to have to trust me. You’ve had enough crud dumped on you tonight and don’t need all my baggage as well. So why don’t we get through this first, and then I can have sharing time, and you can hate me for dragging you into it.”

  “That does sound like a plan. How much longer before we get locked in our house, and I can have my meltdown?”

  “We’ve got a half hour until our mandatory workout time. Afterwards, we can go back for dinner and meltdown,” I respond.

  “Where do we workout exactly?” she asks. “Please tell me we don’t have to work out with the dead kids, please, please, please?!” I grimace, knowing she’s not going to like my answer.

  “Sorry. Didn’t you see that monster gym off the back of the fields?”

  “Yeah, I saw it.”

  “Well, that’s where we’re required to work out with the zombies.” I chuckle in a feeble attempt to lighten the mood. “I don’t think they’re exactly zombies though. They’re a bit too lively.”

  “I think I would be better with zombies. Because it’s one thing to imagine decaying bodies digging themselves out of a grave, and quite another to have completely blown to bits bodies suddenly reappear in perfect form. I mean, Humpty Dumpty never got put back together again, and he was just a freaking egg.”

  “You seriously never contemplated any sort of life after death? Billions of people in the world believe in it, and we’ve just seen proof. That’s actually pretty cool if you think about it,” I respond. Of course, there are some people who don’t really deserve life after death, mainly Ms. Bailey Goodington. Since she can’t remember squat about our history, I think I may have to make an effort to ensure her “afterlife” is as close to the hell she deserves as possible. The way she looked at me though…eerily like she used to back when we were steaming up her pool (and the pool house). It was hot then and, to be honest, it’s still kind of hot. Scary, but wow. Thank goodness for that “Cleave-axe” positioned over my neck, or I might be tempted to refill my drink so to speak.

  Kira answers my life-after death question with, “I mean, I thought it’d be nice, but it’s not like I was raised by born-agains or anything, so God and I aren’t really on a first name basis. And if there is a God, I really doubt he’s only going to give a fraction of the people who die every year a second chance, and send them to some sort of autocratic world where no one’s allowed to mention him.”

  “Everything has to make perfect sense to you, doesn’t it? Do you ever take a leap of faith on anything?”

  “Ha ha.” She gives me a weak smile. “I’m trusting you, aren’t I? I want to crawl in a hole and die right now, but I’m giving it a go because you asked me to.”

  I want to comfort her or somehow say the exact right thing. “How are you about Tristan? And Tristan and Bri?” I ask. That wasn’t the right thing. I can tell by the look on her face. My eyes have adjusted to the low light enough to catch the glare. Her mental wheels are spinning as she tries to place all her feelings in cookie cutter pieces to get the solution to the puzzle.

  “I don’t know. I mean, it’s them, but all that shared history we have is gone. Dead Bri and I clicked, but I can tell she’s pretty defensive about Tristan. And they’re supposedly dating, but Tristan was kind of flirty with me yet saying and signing things to her that he usually did with me. Not that it matters. They’re dead and can never exist again on Earth.”

  Kira rambles about her confused feelings. The only nugget I pick up on is that she thinks Bailey Goodington has a thing for me. No way I’m telling Kira about my history with Bailey. Kira’s tirade continues for a few minutes, and my brain hurts from her psychoanalysis. Man, I’m so happy I’m not a chick. They think way too much and overcomplicate everything.

  “And how do you feel about keeping up our little charade? Or do you want to make a play for Tristan? I mean, you can’t do both, and I know his Cleave date is coming up.” I hate to push on this stuff so soon, but I can trust her unedited thoughts better than the contrived ones she might give me later once she sorts her strains of paranoia.

  She pauses before answering, avoiding my gaze and taking a few deep breaths. I brace myself for the inevitable blow to my ego. How could she ever choose to continue with our fake relationship—a guy she has only known a couple weeks—over her long time boyfriend? It’s going to royally screw up my plan, though, if she bails on me. She’s my cover. Finally, she speaks, “As long as you can deal with one overly hormonal, really messed up girl as your pretend girlfriend, I’m good to leave things the way they are for now. In the meantime, I have a lot to work through, so I’m probably not going to be so great to be around. Can we just say I’m cranky about my upcoming surgery?”

  What the hell? “Surgery? What surgery? You didn’t mention that.”

  “Sorry, the doctor told me this evening that I do have one of those reproductive organ lesions, but the surgery’s apparently just an hour-long deal, and they’ll give me a local for it…though I wish they’d knock me out since I think it involves a really big needle,” she says.

  “I don’t want to freak you out any worse, but do you believe them? Could it be something else? Extracting your DNT like you were worried about or something?” I grab her when the blood drains from her face because she looks like she’s going to keel over again.

  She fixates her eyes on me, glaring. “I hadn’t thought about that, but I was needing some more fodder for my nightmares, so thanks.”

  “Technically, here they’re called daymares—or I think they would be. But sorry. I’m an admitted paranoid.” I shrug my shoulders.

  “The doctor seemed sincere, but it’s not like I know how to read an ultrasound. They gave me an extra couple shots and some meds to take to get ready for the surgery and help prevent infection,” she says. I wish I knew for sure what they were doing was legit, but I have absolutely no reason to think they’d be messing with “the future of Thera” unless it was necessary.

  “I’m sure I’m just overreacting after everything that has happened tonight. DNT is in the blood, so if they wanted that they wouldn’t stick a needle in your tummy. There may well be medical consequences from passing between Earth and Thera. After all didn’t—” I pause because I was about to say Ted, but I quickly change because Kira isn’t quite on a first name basis with him, “—Mr. Rosenberg tell you that we are anomalies to be able to be here? It probably does muck with our systems, and the doctors are probably trying to help. But, don’t let them put you under, Kira. Watch what they d
o so we can talk about it and make sure it adds up, okay?”

  She looks terrified, my attempt at comforting her being an epic fail. “Yeah, sure, I guess. Or maybe I can beg to have you there, since I’m really not positive I can look at that needle.”

  “That’d be even better.” I’m not certain they will go for it, but what teenage girl wouldn’t want her boyfriend at her side holding her hand through something uncomfortable? It’s worth a shot.

  “Thanks, Blake. You’re the only thing getting me through this.” She gives me such a sweet look that I’m tempted to brush up on my making out skills. Kira is just as gorgeous as Bailey but with less venom for sure. However, I know I need to remain in control. I’ve kept my hormones tamped down for a long time and need to continue to do so. My one and only job here is to combat evil in its purest form.

  Four years prior

  My mind reverts to memories of my dad, and my years of no-holds-barred training. When he was home, he worked me for hours after school and every weekend. Some of it required mental prowess. The rest, physical strength and acuity. I didn’t beat him in hand-to-hand combat until my fourteenth birthday, but he had no issue with starting my training at the age of eight. Day after day of having the crap beat out of you takes its toll. So when I finally won, celebration was in order, but the only celebration I got was mental triumph.

  On that particular day, we were doing combat in a dumpy shack located an hour into Death Valley. During the fight my dad made a crucial mistake, as I faked a hit to the abdomen but whirled around and chopped him in the kidney from behind. His recovery was quick, but his stamina suffered, and the strength of his blows to my knees and left shoulder weren’t enough to keep me from a blunt kick to his shins, buckling his body and allowing me to pin him to the ground.