ALSO BY VIRGINIA BERGIN
The H2O Series
H2O
The Storm
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Books. Change. Lives.
Copyright © 2017, 2018 by Virginia Bergin
Cover and internal design © 2018 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by D. Elle
Cover images © laflor/Getty Images; Zdanka Darula/Shutterstock
Internal design by Travis Hasenour/Sourcebooks, Inc.
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
Fax: (630) 961-2168
sourcebooks.com
Originally published as Who Runs the World? in 2017 in the United Kingdom by Macmillan Children’s Books, an imprint of Pan Macmillan.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bergin, Virginia, author.
Title: XY / Virginia Bergin.
Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Fire, [2018] | Summary: Sixty years after a virus wiped out nearly all men on earth, fourteen-year-old River finds a sick boy, Mason, and helps restore his health while learning dark truths behind the lies she has been told.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017020844 | (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: | CYAC: Science fiction. | Virus diseases--Fiction. | Sex role--Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.B452214 Who 2018 | DDC [Fic]--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017020844
Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
The Global Agreements
A Beginning
Chapter 1: Consciousness
Chapter 2: Man
Chapter 3: Boy
Chapter 4: Protocol
Chapter 5: Unicorn
Chapter 6: Alarm
Chapter 7: XY
Chapter 8: Geography
Chapter 9: Poo
Chapter 10: Code of Honor
A Boy On Planet Girl
Chapter 11: Not Normal
Chapter 12: Boys Don’t Cry
Chapter 13: She-Wolf
Chapter 14: A Chat
Chapter 15: Sanitary
Chapter 16: Thump, Thump, Thump
Chapter 17: Stew
Chapter 18: Games
Chapter 19: Swamp
Chapter 20: Dreambird
Chapter 21: Harvest
A Decision
Chapter 22: Trade
Chapter 23: It Is Agreed
Chapter 24: Right and Wrong
Chapter 25: The Chill
Chapter 26: British Rail
Chapter 27: Pink and Blue
Chapter 28: Ascent
Chapter 29: Descent
Chapter 30: Words
A Note From the Author
A Conversation with the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Cover
Have you ever had a book dedicated to you?
No? Neither have I.
Let’s fix that.
This book is dedicated to:
_________________________________________
THE GLOBAL AGREEMENTS
1. The Earth comes first.
2. Every child is our child.
3. We reject all forms of violence.
4. We will all help one another.
5. Knowledge must be shared.
6. We Agree that we need to Agree.
7. Everyone has the right to be listened to.
To these Agreements, we are committed.
Signed on behalf of the people of the former nations of:
Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
Andorra
Angola
Antigua and Barbuda
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belgium
Belize
Benin
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
Brunei
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cabo Verde
Cambodia
Cameroon
Canada
Central African Republic
Chad
Chile
China
Colombia
Comoros
Congo
Costa Rica
Côte d’Ivoire
Croatia
Cuba
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Djibouti
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Fiji
Finland
France
Gabon
Gambia
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Grenada
Guatemala
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jerusalem
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kiribati
Korea
Kosovo
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Malta
Marshall Islands
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mexico
Micronesia
Moldova
Monaco
Mongolia
Montenegro
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Palau
Palestine
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russia
Rwanda
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Samoa
San Marino
São Tomé and Príncipe
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Serbia
Seychelles
Scotland
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
Somalia
South Africa
South Sudan
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Suriname
Swaziland
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Thailand
Tibet
Timor-Leste
Togo
Tonga
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Tuvalu
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States of America
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
Venezuela
Vietnam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe
She is riding through the woods on what was once a road. The dotted white line that used to separate the comings from the goings is crumbling. The asphalt is slowly being destroyed by tree roots, and small plants—so strong—sprout up all over, wherever they can. In another few years, there won’t be any road left at all.
Too bad, so sad, bye-bye—that’s what her granmumma Kate (who refuses to be called Granmumma) says about all the things that once were and are no more. Too bad, so sad, bye-bye.
The horse, a gentle giant of a Shire horse the granmummas call “My Little Pony” (Milpy, for short), pulls a cartload of cider apples: small, hard, bitter things that will be fermented into some fun. The girl has a backpack stuffed with harvest produce on her back; it is easier to carry it than to have to clamber off and then back on the huge horse just for a drink of water.
Her name is River, and she is daydreaming about the exploration of outer space.
It is an autumn evening.
Dark is coming soon.
She is miles from home.
She feels no fear.
Why would she? There are no predators. No such thing as ghosts.
Fear belongs to another time. It lives on only in the memories of others.
She feels no fear at all.
Not even when she sees it: the body lying in the middle of the road.
• • •
She feels surprised. The surprise finds its way into her hands, and she pulls back on the reins the second she spots it, the body in the road. Then there’s alarm. A jolt of it. She knows right away it isn’t anyone from the village. She’s known them, all of them, her whole life, and this person is not one of them. But the jolt of alarm isn’t about that instant of seeing; it’s about whether the person is hurt.
She slips off the horse and runs to the body.
And stops.
It is breathing, this body. A stranger in strange clothes. Under a filthy white T-shirt, an enormous, black tick shape on it, a flat chest without even the tiniest of breasts rises and falls. One arm has a horrible gash on it, an open, oozing wound on which flies are feasting. Long, skinny-but-muscley legs in skintight, shiny, red leggings end in cloven hooves: weird, rubbery, black shoes with pockets for big toes. She looks back up to the place her gaze skimmed. There is lumpiness in the crotch. And she looks at the face of the stranger: smudged with dirt, beaded with sweat, and hairy—a substantial crop of wispy facial hair, more than any person she has ever seen. And she looks at the throat…where there is also lumpiness.
It snaps into her head: Adam’s apple. That’s what Kate calls that lump in your throat. Because… The why of it she can’t exactly remember. Too bad, so sad, bye-bye.
In the few astonished seconds she spends staring at that body, River imagines the most extraordinary thing: that this is an XY, a person born genetically male.
But that cannot be. It simply cannot be.
Seconds of astonishment. Seconds of extraordinary. Then River, who nearly always tries to do the right thing, and not just because that’s what her mumma would expect, does the right thing: FIRST AID.
#1: She checks for hazards. Nothing dangerous lying about—not even a sun-basking adder—and the power lines that followed this road hang broken and long dead, so no threat of electrocution. There is only a bad stink in the air—from diarrhea and vomit spattered nearby.
#2: She checks for consciousness.
“WAKE UP!” she yells, clapping her hands. “WAKE UP!”
A single puffy eyelid rises. A bloodshot eyeball rolls. A pupil pinpricks against the pretty red and gold of dappled autumn light, focuses and—
A BEGINNING
Chapter 1
Consciousness
The person leaps up, there’s a hand across my mouth before I can even scream, the other arm wrapped tight around me, and my brain is exploding—instantly—with shock and horror and fear and anger and confusion CONFUSION CONFUSION because who would just ATTACK another person and—
“Who’s with you? Huh?!”
The voice! Growling and sick and deep and broken and stinking.
MAN
MEN
MURDER
GUNS
WAR
KILL
Every strange and scary thing I’ve ever half heard said about XYs comes bursting into my head, but it cannot be. It cannot be.
“Don’t make me hurt you, junior!” vile breath threatens.
The grip tightens. The grip HURTS.
WHY would this person be doing this?!
WHY WOULD ANY PERSON DO THIS?!
So maybe this person is crazy, so maybe this person has taken drugs, so maybe whatever sickness this person has got is causing this madness—
“STOP IT!” My cry muffled wordless by a stinking, sweaty palm.
“Shuddup!”
I get shaken. I get squeezed. It HURTS. So who cares who this is and why? So NO WAY. So I kick. Kick, kick, kick. Boot against shin. Boot against shin. I get another shake and squeeze, then dragged back so fast my boots can’t get to shins, but I stamp down hard on a cloven hoof, and the stinking breath lets out a growl that ends in a moan of pain.
“DON’T MAKE ME HURT YOU.”
Who would say a thing like that?
!
I plant another kick back hard. SHIN!
There is a roar of pain. And words that roar louder:
“Stop-or-I-swear-to-God-I’ll-kill-you.”
I go limp. It’s not that no one swears “to God”—some of the granmummas still do. It’s that no one, no one… Who would threaten to KILL a person?
“You on your own?”
The grip releases just a little—and I feel it: I feel how weak this person really is. One glance down at the bicep on the arm of the hand that’s pinned across my face tells me this body is used to hard work—but sickness trembles in those gripping arms.
“Are ya? Well, are ya?!”
I nod my head. My ribs hurt. My face hurts. My mouth is dry with fear and shock—but my eyes and nose? They’re running. With anger. I feel angry.
The strange, sick, nasty, wild person hesitates…then releases me.
I wipe the trail of tears and snot from my face.
“I do a mile in six point eight. I press sixty.”
I have no idea what this means. I have no idea how to respond.
“So don’t you bother trying to run, and you should definitely not bother trying to fight me. You will lose.”
The creature wipes my snot off the back of its hand, looking up and down the forest road. Then it looks at me. “Wait a second—have you got a transmitter in?! Your tag—”
It lurches forward, grabbing my upper arms and squeezing them.
“What, did they stick it in your leg? They did that to me once—”
“Get off me!” I pull away as it grabs at my thighs.
“Shut up! God, you little screecher! No wonder you’re not tagged. You ain’t even on T-jabs, are you? How old are you, kid? Hey! You’re okay now! Okay?”
The insane question settles it. This person is an unknown kind of person. A person who hurts and scares and then asks how you are. A person I must get away from. I nod at it, sniffing hard.
“Then quit with the blubbering, kid.”
No one, not even Granmumma Kate, would tell another person to stop crying. Anyone who doesn’t know that is definitely an unknown kind of person. Maybe not even a person at all.
“Name’s Mason,” the creature says, holding out a hand.
Courtesy dictates a hand held out is a hand to be shaken, that the cheek of the person holding out that hand is to be kissed. I take the hand and, swallowing revulsion with my own snot, lean in to kiss.
“What the hell are you doing?!” it says, shoving me away.
It. That’s what this is. No human being I have ever met would behave like this.
“Where did you ’scape from anyway? You weren’t hell bound, was you? Come on! What unit you from? What d’you call yourself? I’m not gonna tell anyone, am I? Who’d I tell?! Why’d I tell?! How long you been out for? You don’t look that sick. Did you get proper sick yet? Where’d you get that horse from? I mean, that is an actual horse, right?”
The XY Page 1