The Ones

by Daniel Sweren-Becker

  She hesitated for a moment. “Once or twice maybe.”

  “Like for a party?”

  Cody squinted as she saw something ahead of them and then gestured to a spot in the woods. “Over there,” she said. “There’s an old dirt road behind those bushes.”

  James slowed down and pulled to the side. He slid through some undergrowth and then started down a bumpy road with branches clawing at their windows. At the end of it, he could make out the faint glow of a bonfire. Cody pointed to a little clearing off the path, and James steered the Jeep into the small area that was hidden from the road.

  He shut the car off and turned to Cody. “What now?” he asked.

  “Someone owes us an apology.”

  Cody hopped out of the car, brick still in hand, and started toward the bonfire. James walked next to her, taking in the heavy darkness and trying to force his eyes to adjust. Sure, he had perfect vision, but he still couldn’t see in the dark. There was music playing ahead of them, kids shouting, shadows dancing through the bright orange flames. Looking on from a distance, James immediately felt inclined to give everyone a lecture on fire safety. He had been an ace fire starter in his Boy Scout troop, and that included learning all the dangers that came with camping in a prehistoric, dry pine forest. The sparks rising from the bonfire ahead practically gave him a heart attack. One unlucky change in the wind could burn down half the state.

  Cody and James pressed forward, and when they reached the end of the path, James finally got his bearings. Ahead of them—or really below them—was the expansive reservoir, black, shiny, and still in the calm night. They had emerged to stand on top of a giant cliff, carved smooth and flat up to its edge, sixty feet over the water. And they had stepped right into a scene that even James had to admit seemed like an awesome party.

  “Yooooooo!” someone shouted, finally noticing them. “You’re hella late!”

  James and Cody stepped into the light, closer to the oil-barrel trash can containing the flames. About thirty people from their school were milling around. James recognized most of them but didn’t exactly see any friends. And whoever had shouted at them changed his tone when he saw Cody and James.

  “Oh,” he said. “You guys lost or something?”

  James saw who was talking to them: a kid named Marco Spiller, the de facto leader of the Bench Mob. The Bench was a noted landmark at their school, an otherwise boring piece of public infrastructure that happened to be set in concrete just on the other side of the school’s property line. It was technically off-campus, and thus a convenient meeting spot for any activity that wasn’t allowed on school grounds. There were always kids gathered around the Bench, but only a few actually sat down on it. Marco Spiller perched on it like it was a throne.

  He continued eyeing James and Cody and then began to smile. “Or did you guys come to party?”

  All of a sudden, from the corner of his eye, James saw a burst of sparks. He turned just in time to see a kid vault over the garbage can, jumping straight through the fire and landing right in front of them.

  “Ain’t no party like a quarry party, ’cause a quarry party got rocks!” the kid shouted, and then fell over laughing as everyone else whooped and hollered. This was Fitz. If Marco was the king of the Bench Mob, Fitz was the jester. The rest of their crew was there, too, all in variations of their uniform—thick jeans, flannel shirts, baseball hats with flat brims tilted at odd angles.

  James instinctively took a step closer to Cody, but she wasn’t there anymore. She had walked right up to Marco.

  “Is that your car?” she asked, pointing at the beat-up Mazda coupe that had been pulled up to the edge of the cliff and was blasting music for the party.

  “We found that here,” Marco said. “Lucky, huh?”

  “That car drove past my house tonight.”

  “Impossible. We’ve been up here all night. It hasn’t moved an inch.”

  “Truth,” Fitz chimed in. “Although I went to piss a few times, so maybe it moved then.”

  “What’s that?” Marco said, reaching and taking the brick from Cody’s hands.

  “You tell me,” she said.

  Marco turned the brick over in his hands, tracing his fingers over the equal sign. “Looks like some kind of message. Like a warning to gennies or something.” He paused. “You are a genny, right?”

  James bristled at Marco’s word choice. For some people, genny was the preferred slur to refer to kids who had been genetically engineered. James felt the urge to sucker-punch Marco right there, but he knew the fallout from that momentary satisfaction wouldn’t be worth it.

  “A One? Yeah, I am,” Cody said proudly.

  “I thought so,” Marco said. “Bad day to be a One, huh?”

  “Real bad,” Fitz said. “I heard they’re gonna stuff all of them in the Grand Canyon and throw away the key.” Fitz cackled, and James just felt bad for him. If anyone could have used a genetic boost, it was this degenerate.

  Then Fitz stepped closer to Cody, looked her over, and turned to Marco. “But I didn’t know they let poor people be Ones.”

  “It was decided by random lottery, you idiot,” Cody said.

  “I guess rich people are just better at lotteries, then,” Marco replied, and turned to look at James for the first time. Well, for the first time that night. James and Marco had looked each other square in the eye many times before. That’s what happened when you were the two best athletes growing up together in a small town. They had always been matched up against each other, both of them so skilled at every sport that the only way to make fair teams was to have them cancel each other out. That’s how every school yard football game and driveway basketball game had played out for years, James and Marco going at each other tooth and nail and playing to a standstill. James had actually started to enjoy their battles and relished the rare opportunity to compete against an equal. But then Marco quit playing sports. They hadn’t faced off for years now.

  As Marco stared at James, Cody snatched the brick back from him. “If you’ve got a message for me, you can say it to my face,” she said.

  Marco’s slick smile returned. “Take it easy—this wasn’t from me. I’m down with you gennies. I mean, you people. In fact, you should stay and hang out, have some fun.”

  James caught Cody’s eye and saw her confusion. Neither of them believed Marco, but what could they say?

  Marco continued talking to Cody. “Now you, I know I’ve seen you up here before,” he said with a knowing smirk. Then he turned to James. “But you … this is your first time, right?”

  “Yeah,” James replied. “So what?”

  “Well, if you want to stay at a quarry party, you’ve got to initiate.”

  “Initiate?”

  Marco gestured to the edge of the cliff. “Leap of faith, bro, and then you’re cool to stay. We all did it.”

  James heard several people in the crowd give their assent. He looked over to the darkness beyond the cliff. He knew it was just water below—deep, calm, clear water—but he had no interest in confirming that. And even if the water seemed tranquil, he knew it wasn’t. That water had the power to kill, to hurt not just the people who went in it but also people miles away and years removed. Maybe there was a grain of truth in the campfire legends: A boy could disappear into this quarry and end up tormenting the people he left behind.

  James stopped looking at the reservoir and turned to Cody. “Come on, let’s go.” He started walking toward her, but Marco stepped in his way.

  “I’m not jumping. We don’t even want to stay,” he said to Marco.

  James tried to walk around him, but Marco cut him off again. He was blocking James from getting to Cody. Then Fitz and a couple of other guys stepped over. They formed a semicircle around James, with his back to the edge of the cliff now. Slowly, they pressed forward.

  “What’s wrong, James? Aren’t you a One?” Marco asked pointedly. “Ones can do all kinds of cool stuff, right? You guys can probably even fly.”
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  Marco and his buddies tightened into a circle. James had no choice but to take a step back. He wasn’t on the edge yet, but there wasn’t much room left. He considered his options: jump on his own, which didn’t sound very appealing, or rush these guys, try to fight them off, and maybe end up falling over regardless. At least he’d bring a few down with him, he thought, grasping for a silver lining. It was hard to think. The music was loud, people around the fire were shouting, and Marco was inching closer. James steadied himself, ready to charge.

  And then, out of nowhere, there was the tremendous sound of glass shattering. It was followed by dead silence. The music had stopped abruptly, and no one spoke.

  Everyone on the cliff looked over to where Marco’s car was parked. Cody stood in front of the hood, having quite obviously just thrown the brick through the car’s windshield. She stared defiantly at Marco.

  “Now we’re even.”

  The mayhem that followed lasted only a few seconds, but James felt as if he watched every event unfold in slow motion. First, the pure anger that came across Marco’s face, then the speed at which he charged Cody. Marco yelled something at her, something horrible, then grabbed the burning trash can. James saw that Cody was trying to join him on the edge of the cliff, and if she could make it, he knew that they could get out of there, that the crowd of people penning him in had dispersed enough to let them squeeze through. And finally, as she ran toward him, James saw Marco lift the trash can over his shoulder and hurl it at Cody.

  The burning missile landed directly in front of her, the metal screeching on the rock, sparks and half-burned logs bouncing off the ground. James watched the embers shoot up into Cody’s face, saw the look of panic and searing pain, and saw her balance start to shift. With two more strides, she would have been next to him, and he could have caught her, but she never made it. The fiery trash can bounced right in her path and sent her tumbling off the cliff.

  James watched her fall, watched as Cody disappeared into total darkness. He stood on the edge, trying to see, straining to hear. There was a splash and then nothing but silence. Silence in the quarry, and silence from everyone behind him. And somehow the silence helped James focus, helped him translate the moment into a straightforward problem-and-solution format with an answer that was obvious, even if it contradicted every physical instinct in his body. The equation was simple: Cody had fallen into the darkness, and he had to help her.

  So he jumped.

  CHAPTER 3

  AS CODY TWISTED through the air high over the reservoir, she waited desperately to hit the water. She didn’t care if the impact would hurt, if she would drown or freeze to death or get devoured by a giant squid. All she cared about was getting the fire out of her eyes, the burning embers that had bounced up into her face and left her with a searing blindness. The sixty-foot free fall into the water couldn’t end soon enough.

  Of course, falling in total darkness while completely blind made for a brutal landing. Cody hit the water with a violent thud that immediately knocked the wind out of her. Instead of calmly holding her breath like every other time she’d dived into the quarry, Cody felt the need to breathe right away. But she was sinking, and her baggy sweatshirt was riding up over her shoulders and tangling her arms. She tried to swim upward, but it was no use; every attempted motion just made the straitjacket even tighter. She had to take a breath—her brain demanded it—so she opened her mouth and gasped for air, but got only water. This made her panic even more, and she continued flailing helplessly in her heavy, twisted clothing, sinking deeper and deeper. At least her eyes had stopped burning.

  Then a hand touched her, clawed at her face, and started to pull her—first painfully by the hair, then from under her shoulder—and with great force she was dragged to the surface, and she knew that James had found her.

  When they finally exploded out of the water, Cody gasped and coughed and inhaled all at once, which actually served no purpose at all. But her second inhale worked a little better, and she devoured the cold, clear air, drawing huge breaths and finally freeing herself from her anchor of a sweatshirt. She sensed James floating beside her—couldn’t see him in the moonless night, but heard him taking the same gigantic breaths. As Cody strained to locate him, she realized why this moment felt so incredibly surreal.

  She had never seen James swim before.

  “Can you make it to the rocks?” he said, his voice cutting through the darkness.

  “Yes,” she replied, and they started paddling slowly to the edge of the water. When they reached a low rock shelf, they pulled themselves up and lay still for a moment. Unable to talk, Cody took James’s hand and held it against her pounding heart. From there they would have to find one of the rocky staircases that led back to the top of the quarry. Traipse through the woods and locate their car. Avoid Marco and the other idiots if possible. And drive back down the mountain, back to where this whole night had started. But for now they lay motionless, staring out over the black water as it rippled almost imperceptibly.

  Cody turned toward James, not knowing where to begin.

  “Did they push you off, too?” she asked.

  James hesitated for a moment, then answered softly. “No. I jumped.”

  And with that the tears came at once, in an overwhelming rush, and Cody pulled James closer and held on as tight as she could.

  * * *

  Cody was dragging the next morning as she waited to board the bus to school. She usually sat with her friend Erica, a human jolt of caffeine who lived down the street from her. Of course, Erica had already pounced as they waited on the sidewalk.

  “I heard what happened at the quarry last night. Now tell me everything,” she said.

  Cody didn’t have the energy for this. “You just said you heard already.”

  “Not from you! Now, spill it.”

  They got on the bus, and Cody slid into a seat alone. She looked up at Erica. “Sorry, E, I think I just need to sleep this morning.” She pulled her hood over her head and tried to get comfortable.

  But as the bus rumbled along the pockmarked street, Cody couldn’t help staring out the window at all the new flags that had cropped up, the crisp equal signs flapping proudly in the breeze. And then there was the traffic jam in the center of town, as everyone rubbernecked past the flower shop, with its shattered windows and walls charred with smoke from a fire the week before. An accident, perhaps. Maybe it had nothing to do with the fact that the florist’s son was a One, a quiet, friendly boy named Victor in the grade below her.

  So Cody was already on edge in her first-period English class when the announcement came over the PA system. It was odd for a class to be interrupted like this, and as Margie, the ancient school secretary, started talking, Cody noticed her voice wasn’t as sunny as usual.

  “Will the following students please report to the office immediately…”

  Everyone looked up at the speakers expectantly as the names were rattled off slowly and formally. Cody Bell. James Livingston. Then all the rest of the Ones in school, around ten in total. When Margie was done, Cody felt her classmates turn their attention from the speakers to her. As she moved toward the door, she desperately wanted someone to lighten the moment, to make a joke about getting to miss class or to ask her to bring back some candy from the giant bowl on Margie’s desk. But instead they all silently watched her, and each gaze seemed to say the same thing: I’m glad I’m not her.

  Cody joined the rest of the Ones in the office and immediately felt weird seeing all of them in one place. It’s not like the Ones socialized only with each other; that would hardly be feasible, considering there were just a few of them in each grade. Plus, there was never any official moment when a kid was publicly declared a One. In fact, there was nothing that even required parents to tell their child that he or she had been genetically engineered. And it wasn’t like you could simply tell from looking. There were plenty of people at school who were healthy and good-looking and athletic, but that didn’t mea
n they were Ones. Inevitably, though, word got around, and it became common knowledge in their town and school and clearly with the principal about who was a One. Cody and the others had always shared an extra look or smile in the hallways. They were a tiny slice of the population, so of course a bond existed between them. And now that shared bond had landed them all in the school office.

  “What do you think this is about?” a hulking senior named Gregory asked. He was a gentle giant, the star of the football team, and not used to being in trouble.

  Cody shrugged, not knowing for sure and not too excited to find out.

  They took seats and leaned against walls in the waiting area, staring at the closed office door of Principal Bixley. Ms. Bixley kept them waiting, the school day passing by around them, other students walking by and staring at them like animals in a zoo. Cody grew frustrated, knowing she was missing her chemistry lab now, where she had been looking forward to messing around with some liquid nitrogen. At least sweet old Margie shuffled around with her candy bowl at one point and whispered an apology. Cody smiled at her, trying not to make her feel bad. Other than that, they waited silently.

  When Ms. Bixley finally emerged, she had the usual fake smile plastered on her face. Cody had always felt that Ms. Bixley was petty and calculating, but apparently her trick worked on other people. She was young for a principal and carried herself with an eager but serious manner, like the daughter of a president, a perfect angel who had never made a mistake.

  “I hope you weren’t waiting long,” she said.

  “Why are we here?” Cody asked, not able to take it any longer.

  “I’d love to explain, Cody, if you’ll let me,” Ms. Bixley said cheerfully. “I’m sure some of you are a little anxious about the Supreme Court decision yesterday. It seems to have triggered some unintended and ugly consequences across the country, and I’d be nervous, too, if I were in your shoes. I understand, sadly, that even Shasta is feeling the effects of this new atmosphere, and I’m sorry to hear that many of your homes were vandalized last night.”