“How can anyone think a place like that is perfect?” Sunny asked. “It’s as bad as the Oosa. Maybe worse. What you’re describing, happening to children, it’s wrong. How can anyone let that happen?”
“But there, it’s normal,” 62 answered. “Everyone lives that way. So, when I didn’t fit in, I knew there must be something wrong with me. It had to be my fault, because everyone else was doing fine.”
“Not everyone,” 00 said. “I was so miserable I broke out, even though I didn’t know there was anywhere else to go.”
“When you got to Hanford, did you change your mind about what was right?” Sunny asked.
00 seemed to consider the question, then shook his head. “It’s a different kind of wrong,” he admitted. “Above ground, we’re still just clones. Still not good enough.”
“What do you mean?” Sunny asked.
“We’re here, aren’t we?” 62 said, lifting his hands and gesturing to the empty building around them. “If Hanford was more okay with me being different than Adaline was, I wouldn’t have been sent out here.”
“I’m sorry,” Sunny said. “You’re a wonderful Boy, 62. I’m sorry we’ve made you feel bad for being who you are. You too, 00. And Blue, wherever he is. Your loyalty to one another, and willingness to help someone you hardly know, speaks volumes about what kind of Boys you are.”
“What kind of Boys are we?” asked 00.
“The good kind,” Sunny answered. Her lips turned up in a genuine smile. Her companions grinned in return. The trio sat silent for a moment, content with the warmth of their shared admiration. Eventually, Sunny’s eyes shifted, wandering with an unspoken thought into discomfort. She winced, pushing herself up from the floor. “We should find Blue,” she said in an awkward tone. “I think he’ll enjoy knowing the computer isn’t the smartest thing in the building.”
“Oh, yeah,” 00 agreed in a sarcastic tone, “he’ll think it’s hilarious.”
62 got up and lent 00 a hand. He helped his brother up from the floor. When they were both standing, 62 wrapped his arm around 00. “Don’t worry about Blue not liking N302 sometimes. You gotta remember, the bots chucked him out of Adaline the second he was born. He didn’t have time to get used to them being around like we did.”
00 shrugged. “That’s true. Maybe if he’d had brown eyes, he’d have stayed in.”
Sunny led the Boys to the stairwell. “Do you really wish Blue was like all the other Boys in Adaline? All the ones who couldn’t accept your differences?” Sunny asked.
“We couldn’t be friends if he were like everyone else,” 62 admitted. He thought back to the one friend he’d had when he was younger, Boy 99. Not only had 99 turned himself in for having the same anomaly as 62, but then he’d convinced 62 to join Defense, which had resulted in 71 being captured by the group cleansing Adaline of imperfect people.
00’s voice and the sound of their feet on the steps echoed as they descended to the main floor. “I guess he’s okay the way he is now. He knows how to do practically everything. And, he’s the one who got most of the stuff to build N302.”
“How long do you think it would have taken you to get all the way out here without Blue’s help?” Sunny asked curiously.
“A thousand years,” 62 answered.
“Seems to me, Blue is pretty great the way he is,” Sunny said finally.
“Maybe,” 00 said, “But don’t tell him that. He already thinks he’s the best thing above-ground. There’s no telling how annoying he’d be if he knew we thought so, too.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Sunny said with a chuckle.
CHAPTER 12
Blue had harvested enough carrots to fill one of the kitchen storage drawers and sat on the edge of 62’s bed crunching one of the root sticks. He’d arrived with a heaping plate of the pale orange carrots, delivered as a late-night snack. 62 was thankful for the company, having spent another fruitless night chasing Mattie in his dreams. That is, if the dreams would even come. Most of his attempts became brief, terrifying nightmares. The few moments he’d thought he would actually find Mattie, he’d entered the dream library to find it empty. One thing was for sure, he didn’t mind the addition of another body in his room. The sound of Blue’s teeth crunching on the firm carrot’s flesh was a welcome distraction from the frustration of sleep.
“So, Sunny had to teach the bot.” Blue chuckled before taking another bite.
“That’s what she said. N302 thought she was pulling one over on it at first. It took a while for her to convince it that she was telling the truth about Women.” 62 grabbed a carrot from the plate and nibbled on one end. The hard vegetable cracked between his teeth, breaking apart in chunks that seemed to become sweeter the longer he chewed on them.
“Why do you think the bots don’t know about Girls?”
62 pondered the question while he chewed, settling on the same answer 00 had given him. He swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I think it would have been useless data. What’s the point of knowing how to take care of something that doesn’t exist?”
“But Adaline must have known about females when it was first built. Curie kept a log of the other site. Why wouldn’t Adaline do the same?” Blue asked.
“The Curie site didn’t keep a log of it though,” 62 said with a shake of his head. “The scientist Anna Joliot-Curie did. If it hadn’t been for whoever hid her journal, nobody would’ve known what the Adaline site was built for. They probably never would have gone looking for it.”
The pair sat, crunching carrots and pondering questions. 62 still didn’t understand why Anna had insisted the male and female clones be separated. He’d grown up not knowing anything about the people who built Adaline, so why was she worried that her research be kept separate?
As he thought about the faceless specters of the scientists that came before the cloning programs began, he wondered, would anyone remember him, Boy 1124562, generations from now? Would they care that he was a dreamer who’d escaped an automated empire, survived an attack by a Woman who accused him of starting a war, and saved a robot from being turned into scrap? Probably not.
“Sunny told me something.” Blue said the words in a low tone, just above a whisper. “She said N302 told her to go back to Hanford. It says she needs a doctor.”
“When is she leaving?” 62 asked.
Blue shook his head and frowned. “She isn’t. She swears she won’t go back. But the bot says she won’t get better if she stays here. I don’t know what to do.”
“What if you go back with her? You didn’t get kicked out of Hanford, I did. I’m sure if you went back with her, they’d let you in. Especially once they found out Sunny was with you.”
“I’m telling you, she won’t go. She keeps saying that she’s not whole enough to go back. She doesn’t want them to know what happened.”
62 thought hard about what Blue was telling him. If Sunny needed a doctor, how could they get her to one? She was an adult, and even if she was thin from being sick, there was no way they’d be able to drag her to Hanford against her will. If Parker knew how sick she was, he might be able to get her to go back. But even if Blue went to Hanford alone to get Parker, it would be a week or more before they’d come back for her, and there was no way to know how long it would take them to get her back to the hospital.
62 wished they’d been able to have N302 copy itself before they left. N302 wanted another Machine it could talk to. If they’d completed the experiment and figured out how to get the computers to talk across the desert before they’d come, they could send a message back to town.
“I wish there were a way to tell someone we need help,” 62 admitted.
“We do have a way,” Blue said. “With your dreams. Mattie said you talked to her in a dream right before we left. Just do that again. She’ll get us help.”
“I’ve been trying,” 62 said with a groan. He slouched on the bed. “But all I’ve been getting are nightmares. They’re bad, Blue. I ge
t so scared that I end up awake all night.”
“Didn’t you share dreams all the time in Adaline? What’s so different here?”
“It was easier there,” 62 explained. “I knew exactly where my friends were all the time, because we couldn’t do anything without bots. Up here, there’s so much space. It’s impossible to sort through all the things Mattie might be doing. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“But you know where Mattie will be, at least some of the time. She’s in the library, practically always.”
“During the day, yeah. But at night when we’re sleeping, I can’t find her.”
“Well, there’s your whole problem,” Blue said with a shrug. “You’re trying to dream about her at the wrong time. Just sleep during the day. Then you’ll know where she is.”
“But she’s awake during the day.”
“You sure about that?” Blue’s forehead lifted an inch along with his eyebrows.
“I think so…”
“Look, before you started spending so much time there, I caught her taking naps behind the front counter all the time. When you and 00 started showing up to use the library, she stopped. Now that we’re not there mucking up her day, what’s to say she hasn’t gone back to nodding off?”
“What if you’re wrong? I can’t tell what she’s doing from way out here.”
“Sure you can,” Blue said, sliding off the end of the bed and picking up what was left of his plate of carrots. He picked one up and snapped the end of it off between his teeth. He pointed the thick stub of vegetable that was left at 62. “Stay up tonight, and sleep all day tomorrow. See if you bump into her, or whatever you call it. It’s not like we need you for anything. Sunny’s caught up with N302. 00 is tryin’ to get brave enough to tell her he wants to build another computer, and I’m gonna be down in the greenhouse planting peas. You may as well give it a shot.”
“Peas?” 62’s voice had a suspicious lilt. “Since when have you been so into gardening?”
“Since I’ve been hungry, that’s when. ‘Sides, Sunny’s cooking is fine, but I want to eat something that doesn’t have potatoes in it.” Blue let himself out of the room and closed the door behind him.
62 propped himself up on his pillow. Blue’s suggestion might help. If there was a chance to catch Mattie asleep during the day, why shouldn’t he? But he’d have to stay up all night so he’d be tired enough to try. 62 thought back on his last nightmare. He’d been lost outside, surrounded by dirt and sagebrush, a band of coyotes howling just out of sight. He had tried to get away from them, but the more he ran, the closer their howls came. He’d woken up in a sweat, panting from the strain of panic.
62 got out of bed and found Charlotte’s Web. A couple pages had come loose the last time he’d read it. He was careful to keep them in place when he opened the cover. Did nightmares happen during the day? He wasn’t sure. But staying up reading sounded better than chancing being hunted by predators in his sleep tonight. He sat on the bed, folded his legs beneath him, and opened the book on his lap.
Although he loved Charlotte’s Web, as he flipped through the pages, he felt a pang of desire for something different to read. If only there were a library in the jailhouse. It had been in dreams that he’d first come across a book. Just before he was exiled from Hanford, he found out that the books he’d seen in his sleep were Mattie’s doing. She’d memorized them and given the memory of her books to someone called The Curator. In secrecy, he’d cataloged the books in a sort of make-believe library that only Adaline’s dreamers could reach. 62 yawned as he thought about the collection of books that were hidden in the shared dreams of Adaline. He had no way of knowing if The Curator or any of the other dreamers were still sharing the forbidden books. But he wondered if he could imagine a book that he’d seen before. Perhaps he could re-read old books in his imagination.
A yawn pulled through 62’s body, forcing a thin trickle of tears to press against his eyelashes. He’d only just decided to stay up reading, and already his body was fighting him. 62 rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, pressing the tiredness out of them. He sat up a bit more, shaking his head to force himself awake. He could do this.
His mouth opened wide, and this time the yawn was so strong that it made his ears pop. His eyes were heavy and wet, and he tried to rub the sleep from them a second time. 62 looked back at the page, re-reading the first sentence once, twice, and then a third time. The bed pulled at him with inhuman force, and he rocked himself forward to fight the urge to lie down. He could stay awake. He was sure of it.
Well, mostly sure.
CHAPTER 13
The sunrise found 62 standing at the window, bleary-eyed and despondent. He’d made it to morning. As tired as he was, he knew that the wait for sleep wasn’t quite over. His new plan was to stay up until mid-morning, so that he could sleep through as many of the early daylight hours as possible. 62 held the bars of his window and pressed his face between them. The cold metal stung his cheeks before slowly warming to match the temperature of his skin. 62 let his eyes close for a moment, then forced them open again to watch the sunlight creep across the desolate landscape outside.
The rising sun was beautiful. The passing clouds glowed a vibrant orange, then yellow and pink. Patches of deep blue sky appeared in the breaks between the clouds, and then the sun began to show itself in earnest. The morning light blotted out the hyper colors and replaced them with neutral hues. The transformation from night to day was incredible, and 62 wondered why he didn’t watch the sunrise more often. A moment later, he leaned back from the bars, nearly stumbling over the weight of his own body. He remembered. He didn’t watch the sunrise because it happened so dustin’ early in the morning.
62 shuffled across the room, letting himself out into the hall. He hoped a walk around the building would help him stay awake. He looked down the hall, folding his arms across his chest and rubbing his hands over his upper arms. It was a frigid morning. He went back to his room, looking for a warmer shirt. He settled on the jacket hanging in his closet, and headed out again. 62 dragged his tired, bare feet over the cold tiles. His boots were all the way down in the decon room, and he’d run out of clean socks the day before. This thought made him pause, and he stared at his naked feet for a moment. When would he get fresh clothes again? In Adaline, the bots had given him something new to wear every day. In Hanford, dirty clothes went in a bin and a few days later appeared back at his doorstep, washed and folded by people who worked in the laundry. But what about here?
62 approached Blue’s door. He rapped his knuckles against the wood. He leaned against the door’s frame while he waited for a response, laying his temple on the hard surface and resting his eyes until Blue opened the door. When Blue emerged, his face was contorted with sleep. His eyes were half-lidded, and his mussed hair told of a night of slumber. A pang of jealousy ebbed through 62 as he looked at his slumber-filled brother.
“What’s up?” Blue said through a yawn. He closed his eyes and stretched his arms overhead. He trembled a moment as a sleepy shiver ran through him.
“I don’t have socks,” 62 complained. Blue looked at him in tired confusion. 62 tried again. He picked up a bare foot and wiggled his toes at Blue. “I need socks.”
Blue frowned. Then, as the statement filtered through the fuzz of the early morning, he nodded and waved 62 into the room. Blue rummaged through a messy heap on the floor, producing one sock and then another. He sniffed them both, shrugged, and handed them to 62.
“I want clean socks,” 62 repeated.
“We’ll have to do laundry for that,” Blue said, scowling. Although he still looked a mess, he began to sound more alert. “I’ve never done it before, but it can’t be too hard. We’ll figure it out.” He pushed his dingy socks in his hands toward 62 again. 62 shook his head, and Blue tossed the socks behind him. One landed on top of the pile it had come from, and the other dropped to the floor just inside the door. Blue didn’t seem to mind. “Why are we talking
about socks this early in the morning?”
“I’m going for a walk. To stay awake.”
“Oh. Have you been up all night?” Blue asked, his voice lilting in surprise.
“It was your idea for me to sleep during the day. Remember?”
Blue ran his fingers through his hair. “Oh! I hadn’t thought you were actually going to try it. At least not right away. I figured you’d have taken a few days to shift your sleep around.”
62’s face dropped into an exhausted grimace. “What?”
“I thought you’d, you know, stay up a bit late, sleep in the next morning. Stay up later the next night, sleep in later the next morning. And keep doing that until you weren’t tired at night, but were tired during the day.” Blue patted 62 on the shoulder. “You’re a champ for getting it all done in one shot though.”
62 growled. “You could have told me this sleep-shifting plan last night.”
“Sorry,” Blue said. He shuffled nervously, then changed the subject. “So, where are you walking to?”
“Don’t know. Cafeteria I guess.”
“I’ll come with you,” Blue offered. “I’ll even make you some breakfast. It’s the least I can do.” Blue turned into his room, now picking up the two discarded socks once more. He smelled each one again, shrugged his shoulders, and put them on. He pulled on a long-sleeved shirt and joined 62 in the hallway.
By now, Blue was visibly much more alert than 62 but he patiently kept his sleepy brother’s pace as they made their way down the stairs. When they reached the kitchen, they discovered a half-eaten loaf of bread on the counter. Blue cut the gnawed end off and sliced the rest of the loaf. 62 reached forward to grab one of the slices and Blue shook his head.
“Let me toast it,” Blue said. He turned on the stovetop and slathered some lard from the pantry on each slice of bread. Soon, the bread was crackling as he laid it in the pan.
The Boys watched the bread toast in silence. When it was finished, 62 took his meal with an appreciative grunt, and followed Blue out to what was becoming their regular table. Blue chewed his breakfast thoughtfully while 62 hung his head in his hands, staring at the steam rising off his warm toast.
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