62 changed his clothes in silence, ignoring the idle chatter of Blue and 00 in the changing stalls. When they’d all finished, 62 told them Sunny had dinner ready and all three of their stomachs grumbled at the news that food was coming.
“I’ve never been so hungry in all my life,” 62 marveled. “It feels like there’s a baby bird in there, pecking at my insides, waiting for its mamma to bring it a meal.”
“I doubt you’ve ever worked so hard before, either,” Blue winked. “That’s the thing with work. The more you work, the more you’ve gotta eat. Your muscles burn up all the energy from whatever you ate before, so you have to keep at it.”
62’s stomach growled again. “Well, let’s not keep Sunny waiting then. I feel like I could eat a hundred potatoes.”
The trio marched noisily to the cafeteria and met Sunny in the kitchen. She plied them with bowls of hot stew, bread rolls, and even some fizzy cider to drink. The Boys convinced her to eat with them this time, and soon the four of them were seated around a table with a bounty of food piled between them. 62 and 00 marveled at the stew. Sweet potatoes bobbed in the dark liquid, along with rehydrated jerky, white potatoes, purple carrots, and soft, white apples. It was sweet and savory, filling their bellies with warm comfort.
Sunny was sipping her mug of cider, watching the Boys devour the meal. She lowered the mug to the table, a thoughtful look in her eyes. Her mouth opened and closed several times as she tried to gather the courage to talk. Finally, her low, deliberate voice eked out over the sound of smacking lips and spoons scraping the sides of bowls. “So,” she asked, “what was in that wheelbarrow you brought up today?”
62 looked at Blue with questioning eyes. He didn’t know if Sunny was someone they could share their secret with. Would finding out they’d built a computer be the thing to drive her back to Hanford? Even though they were living outside the reach of Hanford’s laws, he knew that if anyone found out about the bot, it wouldn’t help him have any hope of being accepted by the town again. Blue locked eyes with 62, then glanced at 00 and gave the pair an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
Sunny wasn’t immune to the extended silence hanging in the air as the Boys considered how to answer her question. She folded her hands on the table in front of her and looked them over. “It’s a secret. I understand.”
“It’s not that we don’t trust you,” Blue said. He winced as the words tumbled out. Trust was exactly why they weren’t telling her about N302.
Sunny raised a hand to stop Blue from saying anything else. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, I won’t pry. I only have one question about it. Is it dangerous?” She looked around the table, and the way that 62 and the other’s faces dropped was all the answer she seemed to need. “I see,” she acknowledged. “I won’t pry any further.”
The conversation was dropped, and everyone stared at the food in front of them. 62’s mind was nearly as full as his belly, and he started picking at his food instead of gorging on it as he had before. He hoped a day would come when he’d feel comfortable with Sunny, but he still couldn’t figure out why she was here. He decided not to feel guilty for keeping secrets from her, since she was wrapped in a shroud of her own mystery.
00 was the first to get up, and the rest followed. They cleared the table in relative silence until the last dish was washed and set to dry. Sunny closed her eyes, stood tall, and took in a sharp inhale. She held her breath for a moment and then opened her eyes and looked at the Boys standing nervously around her. She blew out the held air through her nose, seeming to decide on something.
“I don’t know why you’ve come here,” Sunny started. She paused for a moment, carefully considering her next words. “And I can’t expect you to tell me while I’m keeping my own story to myself.”
Blue looked at Sunny with somber eyes. “You don’t have to tell us.”
Sunny frowned. “I do. But not now. Tomorrow. For now, I’m going to my room. I’m tired.” Her face drooped as she said this, as if simply talking about her exhaustion made it manifest into reality. She patted Blue on the shoulder as she walked past him, then left the cafeteria, taking the weight of her worries with her.
“What do you think she’s going to tell us?” 00 asked.
“I don’t know,” Blue replied. “But I don’t think it’s going to be good.”
“It can’t be, if she’s been hiding out up here. It’s not like we came to live in a jail because we wanted to,” 62 said. His mouth twisted to one side for a moment, then he asked, “What do you think we should tell her about the bot?”
“Not much, if we can help it,” 00 said, crossing his arms. “She grew up in Hanford. There’s no way she’s going to think having N302 up and running is a good idea.”
Blue squinted. “She might surprise you. Let’s see what she says tomorrow. Then, we’ll decide what to tell her about the computer.”
CHAPTER 5
62 was up with the sun, having hardly slept the night before. When his eyes had closed, he’d had a series of strange dreams. He’d tried to connect with Mattie to tell her that they’d arrived safely, but no matter how hard he tried, he wasn’t able to envision her or the library. Instead, his dreams had been plagued with Nurses from Adaline chasing him through darkened corridors. The flaming furnace loomed ahead of him before finally expelling him into the desert. The dreams ended with Joan, the Woman who’d wanted him sent away from Hanford, standing at the town’s gates surrounded by a crowd of angry town folk shouting that he’d never be allowed to return.
Now that he was back in reality, he headed down the hall from his room, stopping to knock on Blue’s door. When there was no answer, 62 opened it and poked his head inside. The bed was empty, so 62 pulled the door shut and crossed the hall to the stairwell. He listened to the silent air, trying to determine if he should go down to the cafeteria, or up to 00’s room on the top floor.
62 tilted his head and strained his ears. He couldn’t hear a thing, no thanks to the enormity of the building compared to the four souls living quietly within. He frowned, then decided to climb the stairs to see if 00 was in his room. No matter what Sunny was planning on telling them today, they’d need to find a good place to keep the computer, and 00 knew more about what the bot would need than anybody. He grabbed the handrail and pulled his tired body up the stairs. When he made it to the top of the stairwell, he let himself into the dorm’s hallway and headed toward the far corner of the building. Light streamed through the open door, leaving a bright rectangle of light on the floor and opposing wall.
“Hello?” 62 peered into the room. 00 was sitting at the window, reclining in a chair borrowed from some other area in the building. He looked down into the desert below them.
“Hey,” 00 answered with half a smile.
“What are you looking at?”
“Not much. I caught a nice view of the sunrise.” 00 folded his feet under himself, making room for 62 at the window’s edge. “I was right, though. From up here, you can see all the way down the hill. What are you doing up here?”
62 crossed the room and pressed his forehead into the gap between the bars that caged the window. He could see parts of the trail below, and out into the desert beyond. “I was thinking last night, what if we keep the bot up on the top floor with you?”
00 tilted his head, squinting as he scratched a spot above his ear. “There’s no lab up here. Power is probably easier to come by if we set it up in detox on the first floor.”
“Yeah, but what if someone comes to check on us? Or, what if Sunny gets mad when she finds out about N302 and decides to wreck it? Having the computer on the first floor, none of us would know if somebody messed with it.” 62 moved to sit on the bed, folding his hands under his armpits to ward off the morning cold.
“That’s a good point.” 00 gave a thoughtful nod. “If we build it up here, there’s no way anyone would find it. The only problem is getting the thing tapped into electricity. The rooms up here have a light bulb on the ceiling, but no
thing else to plug into. We’d have to run some wires to power it up.”
62 thought back to the solar panels and battery bank they’d built for the computer back at Mattie’s library. “It’s nothing we haven’t done before,” he said.
“True story,” 00 agreed. “I like N302 and all, but I don’t really want to sleep in a bed of wires. Should we look at the room next door and see what it’s like?”
“All the bedrooms I’ve looked in are the same.”
00 lifted a finger in the air, turned his nose up to the ceiling, and said in a haughty tone, “You never know what you’ll find if you don’t look.” He returned to his regular voice. “That’s what my old teacher used to tell me whenever I assumed I knew an answer. Who knows, maybe the room next door is a secret library or something.”
The Boys went to the neighboring room. It wasn’t set up any differently than the other bedrooms had been, although the window offered a slightly different perspective on the view outside. They determined that they’d have to remove the bed and find some tables to set the computer on, but if they set the device up below the window, they’d be able to work and keep an eye on the desert below at the same time. If they happened to be paying attention, they’d be able to see someone coming long before they showed up at the building’s entrance. 00 was sure they could make a way to lock the door from the outside, so they could secure the room and keep Sunny or anyone else out.
With the idea growing in their minds, the Boys started down the stairs to find breakfast for their gurgling bellies. They’d made it down two flights of stairs when 62 said, “We should have Blue figure out how to start up the elevator. I don’t want to haul N302 all the way up these stairs. It’s dang heavy.”
“Plus, we have plans for a second computer,” 00 reminded him. “Once we get it up and running, I think N302 is going to be ready to start trying to duplicate itself.”
62 hadn’t been thinking about the jumble of parts they’d brought that were waiting to become a second computer. Just before he’d been kicked out of Hanford, they’d discovered that N302’s creator, Doctor 2442, had designed the bot to be a virus. They weren’t sure what 42’s plan had been, but they hoped that he was going to use N302 to worm into Adaline’s rigid programming to make it easier for Hanford’s residents to rescue Boys and Men from the underground society.
They made it down the stairs and across the building to the cafeteria. The lights in the room were dimmed, and 62 smirked at the thought that maybe Blue had already tired of his scheme to keep all the lights on. They entered, and found that only the lights directly above the table they’d been using, and the few tables closest to it, were lit. Blue was hunched over a bowl, slurping his breakfast from his spoon.
“What’s with the lights?” 00 asked.
Blue pulled the spoon from his mouth. “Sunny told me it was a waste to keep them all on,” he shrugged. “Besides, if we’re going to put—” The thin Woman entered from the kitchen with a bowl in hand. She peered at 00 and 62 in surprise, set her breakfast down on the closest table, and ducked back into the kitchen. Blue lowered his voice. “If we’re going to put you-know-what together, we should save some power.”
Sunny re-emerged, two fresh bowls of food in her hands. She carried them over to the table and set them down in front of 62 and 00. “Porridge,” she said before going back to retrieve her own bowl.
“Thanks,” they said in unison.
“It’s best when it’s hot,” Blue advised. He lowered his head over his bowl and slurped in another spoonful.
Sunny settled down in a seat across from Blue, and the two latecomers settled into the remaining unoccupied seats. 62 ate a few bites, then remembered how upset Sunny had been over his reaction to the sweet potatoes. He looked up at her, poking at the porridge with his spoon. “It’s good,” he offered in earnest. “Thank you.”
Sunny smiled, then blew the heat off her own spoonful of wet grit. “It’s pretty bland, but it’ll stick to our insides and keep us full for a while.”
Blue finished his meal and pushed his bowl away. He reclined in his chair, attempting to look casual although his gaze fell time and again on Sunny. She ignored him, seeming to be engrossed in the pale, creamy breakfast in the bowl in front of her. 62 and 00 ate their fill, pushing their bowls to the side and sitting quietly while Sunny continued her painstakingly slow eating. 62’s foot jiggled on the floor beneath him nervously and 00 looked up to the ceiling, his mouth moving in time to his counting of the light fixtures in the room.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Sunny cleaned the last bite of porridge from her spoon and pushed the empty bowl away. She placed her elbows on the tabletop and rested her chin in cupped hands. Looking around with glistening eyes, she said, “So, I suppose you’re ready to hear my story?”
All three Boys shifted in their seats. “I think so,” 62 said.
“I know I am,” 00 agreed.
Blue nodded and Sunny cleared her throat. She looked at 62 and lifted one corner of her mouth in a nostalgic smile. “Before you came to Hanford, I was a teacher. I understand that my friend Parker has taken over for me.” Her smile drooped slightly, and she turned her eyes down to look at the empty bowl in front of her. “From the time that we are young girls, we’re told that when the Oosa come, it’s our duty to volunteer to go with them, and to bring back new children. I was sure that volunteering was the right path for me. I prepared for it all my life. Then, I met Parker and,” she breathed in haltingly, “well, I began to second-guess that decision. With him, it might have been possible for us to have our own child, without me having to go to the Oosa at all.”
Sunny seemed to shrink before the Boys’ eyes with each word she spoke. Despite the obvious toll it was taking on her, after a brief pause she continued. “Then, the time came for me to choose. Would I stay in Hanford, or go with the Oosa to fulfill my responsibility to my people? I began to think, why not do both? There was no rule that said a Woman can only carry one child. I decided, foolishly, to go with the Oosa. I’d fulfill my obligation to my elders, come back with child, and after I’d birthed and raised the infant, I could partner with Parker and we could have a child of our own.” Sunny chuckled bitterly and shook her head in her hands. “I was stupid. But I didn’t know that then.”
Blue’s voice was a soft whisper when he asked, “What happened when you went to the Oosa?”
Sunny closed her eyes and sat in silence. A single tear trickled down her cheek. When her eyes opened again, they were vacant. She seemed to see a world beyond the cafeteria. She muttered, “Nothing we thought would happen. Seven of us volunteered. They took us straight from the gates of Hanford to their doctors. The Oosa hoped to send all of us back with children in our wombs, as quickly as possible. They tried three times to implant a fetus in me, but each attempt ended in failure. I tried to be happy when Sasha, Flora, and Kat got word that their pregnancies had successfully begun, but my heart broke that I wasn’t with them when they were taken back to Hanford. Eventually, the Oosa gave up on the rest of us. Skye, Robin, Juniper, and I were separated. I was taken away from the hospital, sent somewhere entirely different. There was a doctor, but he wasn’t gentle like the hospital doctors were. He said he was glad that my pregnancies had failed, because that meant I was going to help him.”
“Help him with what?” 00 asked with wide eyes.
More tears fell as Sunny thought back. “He said I was going to help them unlock the mystery of why our Women stay living while their people die. He said something inside me was the key to saving the Oosa.”
62 looked at his friends. Their long, worried faces matched the strain that he felt in his own. 62 laid a gentle hand on Sunny’s shoulder. “Did they find what it was? Did you solve their mystery?”
Sunny drew back from 62’s gaze. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, and she looked down at her body. “I don’t know,” she said between quiet sobs. “He did tests on me, small ones at first. A couple of blood tests and s
aliva samples. Then, he said they had to do surgery.” Her voice trembled and cracked. “So many surgeries.”
“How did you get away?” Blue asked with anxious eyes.
Sunny smiled through the cascade of tears. “After each surgery, they’d leave me alone for days, or weeks, to recover. Then, more tests and more surgery would come. The last one I had, I could hardly move after. It hurt so much. So, when I was alone, I loosened a couple of the wires to the monitors they had me hooked to. Then, I played dead.”
The admission pushed the Boys back into their chairs in shock. They stared at Sunny, marveling at the trauma she was describing as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. She heaved a few more dry sobs, then continued her story. “They moved me to a room with the rest of their dead. I saw Juniper there first. Nearby, Skye and Robin lay. But they weren’t pretending. They were gone. And, there were others, Men, Women, and even some children. Rows and rows of people. But that was good. It meant they wouldn’t be back to dispose of me right away. I waited for the workers to be done with their jobs, and after they turned out the lights for the night, I snuck out of the building. Then, I ran.”
“You just…ran? All the way here?” 00 exclaimed.
Sunny nodded. “It wasn’t easy. The first few days I was on my own, all I could think about was going back to Hanford, and to Parker. But when I finally saw the lights of town, I realized I couldn’t go back there.”
“Why not?” 62 demanded. “Parker misses you. He told our whole class. He even cried!”
Sunny dropped her hands to her lap. A hard focus returned to her eyes and she locked her gaze on 62. “Because now, I’m flawed. Just like you. They wouldn’t accept me the way I am.”
“But you belong there,” Blue urged. “Hanford is your home.”
“It was my home when I was a Woman,” Sunny said through clenched teeth. “But now, I’m nothing.”
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