Cody jolted up, surprised. Apparently, she wasn’t the only One who’d had a brick shatter her window. It made her feel better and worse at the same time. She turned to James, who was leaning against the wall next to her. They hadn’t talked since he’d taken her home after the quarry. She mouthed a question to him, and he shook his head—his house hadn’t been hit.
“In light of these events,” Ms. Bixley continued, “we want you to know that we will do everything in our power here at school to preserve a safe, welcoming environment. To ensure that, we have decided to give all of you special school ID cards. Margie?”
Ms. Bixley reached out to Margie, who scurried around her desk with several lanyard necklaces attached to plastic ID tags. Ms. Bixley took them and started to walk around the room, holding each necklace open and placing it over the head of every student as if they were part of some sad Olympic-medal ceremony.
“We’ve put sensors on the school doors, and these cards will let us know when you enter and exit all the buildings. That way, if there’s any trouble, or if your parents are looking for you or something else comes up, we’ll always know exactly where you are. Just make sure to wear them at all times!” she explained.
When Ms. Bixley got to her, Cody didn’t bow her head. “I’m not wearing a tracking collar.”
“It’s for your own protection, Cody, and it’s not a choice. You won’t be allowed in school without one.” She reached up again to fit the lanyard over Cody’s head, but Cody grabbed it from her quickly and stuffed it into her fraying jeans.
“Then I’ll keep it in my pocket.” Cody glared at Ms. Bixley but just got that same wide smile in return.
“All right, then, back to class, everyone.” She held her gaze on Cody. “And stay safe.”
* * *
Cody sat through her next class in a fog of anger, the ID card burning a hole in her pocket. Sure, every student had a school ID that they used to check out library books and register for classes and things like that. And if the Ones and their families and their property were in danger, Cody understood the need for precautions. But Ms. Bixley’s insistence that they wear the IDs around their necks drove her crazy. That wasn’t a safety measure; it was a scarlet letter, a piece of plastic that practically screamed out the word genny.
When her history class ended, Cody started to file out with everyone else, but her teacher waved her over. Mr. Oberlee rarely got up from his desk, which was understandable considering that he was shaped like a penguin and equally unsuited for walking on land. Yet somehow Mr. Oberlee also coached the cross-country team, an irony that had always delighted Cody. She thought he was the best teacher in the school and even enjoyed his passionate reenactments of Winston Churchill speeches, so she let him slide on being clueless about the biomechanics of long-distance running.
“Hi, Cody, I wanted to catch you before practice. I imagine you’re pretty excited for the meet on Friday?” Mr. Oberlee said.
“Of course,” she said. Even more than running on her own, Cody loved the chess match of the actual competition. Her main tactic was to bolt hard right from the start, making the rest of the pack nervous and forcing them to exert themselves too early. But the smarter girls stalked her, assuming that Cody would eventually fade. Cody’s secret was that she always saved a hidden gear for the final stretch and would open her stride when the other runners made their move. She loved seeing the surprise on their faces when she let loose—loved imagining it, rather, because she never actually saw their faces.
“As you know, we can only enter five runners in the race,” Mr. Oberlee continued. “And I thought that this week might be a good chance to give some of the other girls a shot.”
“I don’t understand,” Cody said, genuinely not following him.
“You’re not going to run this week.”
“But I’m our fastest runner.”
“I know that. And I get that this might seem unfair. To be honest, I don’t like it, either,” he said, looking down and then out the window, and Cody could tell that this ridiculous idea hadn’t originated with Mr. Oberlee.
“Then why can’t I run?” she asked.
“Because, well, that’s just how it has to be this week,” he said, and started fiddling with some papers. “I’m sorry, Cody.”
Cody stumbled out of the classroom, crushed about not being able to run, but even angrier about the new reality that she had to acknowledge: Reed v. NIH had changed things. Technically speaking, it applied only to banning the technology for future generations, but practically speaking, the whole world was against her now. Maybe they always had been, but now they had permission from the government. And as she walked into the cafeteria for lunch, Cody discovered that she wasn’t the only One suffering for it.
A group of Ones was gathered around a single table. Weird, Cody thought, to see the Ones from different grades all together like that again—and to her irritation, all of them had their ID draped around their neck. The group huddled around Laura, who was sobbing. Cody had never liked Laura and thought she was an entitled brat who worried too much about matching her nail polish to her scarf. But Laura did seem genuinely distraught, so Cody sat down and tried to catch up.
“Understudy? He actually said I could still be the understudy!” Laura squealed, with tears and saliva falling onto her magenta silk blouse and skinny jeans. So much for that outfit, Cody thought. She made eye contact with James, and he walked around the table and knelt down next to her.
“She lost the lead in the musical. The drama teacher gave the part to somebody else,” James said, filling in the blanks. “And the same thing happened to me. I was supposed to deliver the final rebuttal for our debate team tomorrow. But our faculty adviser just told me I’m out. No explanation at all.”
The rest of the Ones each had a similar story, but Cody barely needed to hear them. She saw all too clearly that a systematic policy had been implemented to take away everything the Ones had earned. Cody stood up and bolted into the hall, heading for Ms. Bixley’s office.
She barged straight through the waiting area, past Margie, and through the principal’s door. “I know this is all your idea,” Cody accused her.
Ms. Bixley smiled, as if she was pleased at Cody’s agitation. “Is something wrong?”
Cody could have flipped over her desk right then, but she had already used up the benefit of the doubt when it came to suspicious acts of violence against Ms. Bixley. During last year’s homecoming weekend, Cody and her teammates had been warming up for their soccer game. Behind the field, Ms. Bixley was at the bake sale, and with a ball at her feet, Cody couldn’t resist ripping a shot in Ms. Bixley’s direction with the vague intention of startling her or knocking some cookies off the table. To Cody’s surprise and secret satisfaction, the soccer ball bounced squarely off Ms. Bixley’s face, and the blood that gushed out of her nose ruined every last baked good. Cody had apologized, of course, and the whole thing was written off as an accident, but any reasonable person who saw the location of the soccer goal might have drawn a different conclusion. Regardless, Cody knew she probably couldn’t get away with injuring Ms. Bixley a second time. So she tried her best to be civil.
“You are kicking the Ones out of the positions they earned,” Cody said. She assumed Ms. Bixley would deny it or play dumb, but her answer made Cody even angrier.
“Of course we are. It’s a new day, Cody, and everyone is focused on equality right now. The Supreme Court, Congress, the Board of Education—they all think it best if we are a little more vigilant about giving everyone equal opportunities. I’m just following their new guidelines. Don’t you think it’s fair for those other students to get a chance?”
“Not if they don’t deserve it. And not if they’re worse.”
“Deserve? Did the first group of students deserve it? Or were they just more fortunate?”
Cody saw where Ms. Bixley was going: She was implying that the Ones hadn’t earned their accomplishments. Cody understood the logic, but in
her case it just wasn’t true. Yeah, she was born with long legs and a strong heart, but those abilities were still totally organic to her. In fact, they might have existed no matter how she was born. There was no way to know, and Cody couldn’t stand being punished for that.
“What if you got fired because the school hired someone less qualified?” Cody asked. “Would that seem fair to you?”
“I earned this job. Through hard work and my God-given abilities,” Ms. Bixley said. “It wasn’t bestowed upon me in a petri dish.”
Cody stared back at her, wishing she had a soccer ball. Then Ms. Bixley walked over to stand right in front of her. There was a different look on her face; she had dropped the perfect-principal facade and appeared more relaxed than Cody had ever seen her. This caught Cody off guard, and she stepped back, stumbling and falling onto the office couch. Ms. Bixley kept walking forward until she was standing right over Cody.
“It’s all right to be scared about what’s happening. You should be scared. Every last one of you.” Ms. Bixley kept staring at her calmly. “Now get the hell out of my office.”
* * *
“We’re in trouble, James,” Cody said as they left school together. She had filled him in on her chilling encounter with Ms. Bixley, and since neither felt inclined to participate in their respective extracurricular activities, they were leaving early to hit up their favorite diner. “The green light has been given to mess with us. And people seem pretty happy about it.”
“I think they’re just testing us,” James said. “They’re provoking us, and we’re failing.”
“We should let them do whatever they want? Come on, we have to stand up for ourselves.”
“The bricks, the ID cards, the demotions—it sucks, I’m with you. But what good does getting angry do? You almost died last night. And now you’ve got Bixley gunning for you. Fighting back has only made things worse.”
“So we shouldn’t even react?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. Just … react better. If they want to be violent, we can be peaceful. If they act petty, we stay classy. We do that, and this will all blow over soon enough.”
“All right, Gandhi,” Cody said. She was annoyed by how preachy James sounded, but she saw his point.
“Next time one of these idiots acts out, promise me you won’t lose your cool?” he said.
“Fine,” she said begrudgingly.
“Well, that doesn’t inspire much confidence.”
“I don’t have to like it, okay? But you’re right. They want us to overreact so they can justify doing something worse. I won’t give them a reason, I promise.”
James put his arm around her and kissed her temple, and then they walked up the steps to the Starlite, the local diner. It wasn’t busy, so they took seats at the empty counter. A waitress trudged over, weary but smiling.
“Hi, Mom,” Cody said.
Her mother, Joanne, reached out and squeezed Cody’s arm. “Hi, kids,” she said. Joanne was a small woman, her straw-colored hair half gray now after thirty years of working at this same counter. She was an eternal optimist, though, and was proud that her daughter wasn’t going to be pouring coffee for a living.
“The usual, please,” Cody said.
“Not so fast. What the hell happened last night? I saw the window.”
“Sorry, I thought James would get mad at me if I told you,” Cody said.
“What?” he said, surprised. Cody kicked his leg under the counter.
“He and his friends were in some stupid water-balloon fight all day, you know, like a prank war. They followed us back to our place and tried to hit us as we ran inside.”
“A water balloon shattered your window?” Joanne asked, dubious.
“Yes. It must have been a big one,” Cody said. She kicked James again, harder this time.
“Yup. A really big one,” he said.
“Wow. Are you all right?”
“We’re fine,” Cody said.
“And don’t worry about replacing the glass—I already made my friend pay for it,” James said, and stood up to pull his wallet out of his khakis. He counted out some bills and handed them to Joanne. “Sorry about all that.” James sat back down sheepishly, but Cody was the one feeling terrible. She felt bad taking James’s money, but she knew he had it and she didn’t.
Joanne took the bills, still a bit confused. “Well, thank you. I’d yell at you to be careful playing with water balloons, but that just seems crazy,” she said. “Fries and shakes, coming right up.”
As her mom walked off to the kitchen, Cody turned to James, ready to apologize, but he was sliding out of his seat. “Be right back,” he said, gesturing toward the restrooms. “Can you order a bag of ice for my shin?” James said, smiling as he faked a limp.
“Thank you. I’m sorry about that. My mom has seemed pretty freaked out lately. She doesn’t need to know bricks are flying through my window.”
“Water balloons, though?” James said, shaking his head. “Not your best work.”
Cody laughed as he walked away. She leaned back in her chair, trying to enjoy a rare moment of calm, when a stranger slid into the seat next to her. Pretty rude, she thought, considering the diner was empty. Then the person turned and looked her straight in the eyes.
“It’s Cody, right?” he said. He was only a couple of years older than she was but gave off an air of confidence and maturity, as if he had dealt with things that Cody couldn’t even fathom. And even as he made the most intense eye contact that Cody had ever experienced, he still managed to keep glancing quickly all around the diner, alert to every corner.
“Do I know you?” she asked. No, obviously. Cody surely would have remembered someone so striking, with his sharp features, tawny skin, and closely cropped dark hair. Even though he seemed to be hiding in a dark hooded sweatshirt and baggy cargo pants, his body appeared to be made up of tightly coiled wires. Whoever this person was, he looked like he had parachuted in straight from an army-recruitment commercial.
“No. But we know you,” he said. “We heard you were attacked last night. And we heard how you reacted.”
“What do you mean, we? And how do you know that?”
“I can’t get into it here, but I’ll fill you in later.” He handed her a slip of paper. “Come to that address tonight. We’re having a meeting, and you should be there.”
Was this guy serious? He was acting as if the greasy-spoon diner in Shasta was teeming with spies. “Dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.
“The Ones, Cody. We’ve decided to do something.”
Cody felt a chill go down her spine as it dawned on her what this meant. There were others out there, others like her who saw what was coming and realized they had to act. Cody felt vindicated. She wasn’t crazy, and she wasn’t alone. But even with that thrill, she remembered what she had just promised James. She would stop acting so recklessly, stop making things worse. He was probably right—every rash action of hers had only made people hate them more. Surely whatever group this guy belonged to was doing that to an even greater extreme. Cody took the paper and looked down at the address, but she knew she shouldn’t go.
“No, thank you,” she said.
He stared at her with piercing dark brown eyes and then reached out and grabbed her arm, his firm grip keeping her whole body in place. Cody knew she had every right to knock him away, to shout for help, to have her mom kick him out, but the power of his look stopped her. Cody saw a kindred spirit, someone equally as passionate and tempestuous as she was, but with a measure of self-possession that she had never been able to manage. She was shocked that such a balance could exist, that a person could radiate so much energy while staying perfectly calm. Even if she didn’t go to the meeting, she wanted to learn how that was possible.
“Who are you? What’s your name?” she asked.
“Kai,” he said softly after looking over his shoulder. “So you’ll come, then?”
She wanted to trust him,
was practically willing to jump out of her seat and follow him out the door to hop on the back of whatever motorcycle he surely rode in on. But she thought of James, the amazing boy she loved, who had saved her life, who knew her better than anyone, who was always trying to protect her, who had the dimples and the curls, and who was probably walking back to her this very second. She couldn’t do that to James.
“No. I can’t.”
Kai’s eyebrows furrowed. “I didn’t want to explain this here,” he said, frustrated, “but you deserve to know.”
He stood up and leaned into Cody’s ear, their cheeks practically touching, tiny bits of electricity tickling her nerves. His tone was cold, but his breath on the back of her neck was warm. “As we speak, the government is working on a program that they think will solve the equality problem. They’re developing a technology to reverse the genetic engineering of all the existing Ones.”
Kai paused.
“They’re calling it the Vaccine.”
CHAPTER 4
AS JAMES DROVE Cody home from the diner, she sat quietly in the passenger seat, staring out the window in a daze. James couldn’t figure out what was bothering her, but he knew from experience that he should probably be apologizing for something. It was never the small stuff that got James in trouble, like not holding open a door or forgetting that she hated cinnamon. In that sense, Cody was super chill. But if it was a mistake like not sticking up for her in front of his parents or disagreeing about something she thought was obvious, then look out, Cody was a pit bull. So as he drove along with the tension thick in the car, James racked his brain for something she could be mad about.
“I’m sorry I gave your mom the money,” he said, knowing Cody would probably resent him for paying his way out of trouble. “Your ridiculous story kind of backed me into a corner.”
“Yup.”
“What does that mean?” he said.
James looked at her and realized she hadn’t been listening. “Hey. What’s going on?”
“Nothing, I’m sorry. Just spaced out for a second,” she said.
The Ones Page 4