“I just remembered I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. I had it before this even happened. I went last week and they need me to come again this week.”
“Why?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. Do you think you could come with me?”
“Would they let me?”
“I don’t know. Never mind. It was stupid—”
“No, I want to go. I just never thought of having a friend come to the doctor’s office with me. But get me in the morning. I’ll go.”
“Okay.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
But she didn’t come.
Theo found me waiting on her front step. “Hey,” he said as he came up the driveway. He looked like he’d just taken a shower, and his hair, for once, was combed out of his eyes.
“Hey,” I said back.
“So,” he said. “Yesterday was pretty weird, huh?”
“If we had told her, Julia wouldn’t have saved her. She’d be dead.”
“I don’t know if she can really die.” He looked up at the house, then held out his hand to help me to my feet. We started walking back to his house. The sun was already beating down on us, and the air felt like molasses. It was going to be another miserable day.
“But Julia gave her mouth-to-mouth. And it saved her. She breathes.”
“Respiration would be about the easiest thing for the AI people to re-create.”
“I pulled her out of the water without thinking. Once my brain caught up, I thought, This is silly. They’ll just reboot her. She’ll be better than ever. If I had thought for even a second, I wouldn’t have bothered. I would have let her drown.”
“But you didn’t, Mori.”
“I think we were wrong about her, Theo. Maybe they did create her, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t real.”
“Do you think we should go back to number nine and try to find out more about her? We can’t really solve this until we have all the pieces, and there’s probably more information in that computer.”
Just the thought of booting up that computer made my stomach sour. “I think I’m going to go home, actually,” I told him.
“Okay, sure,” he said.
I turned, but then he said, “There was something else I wanted to tell you. About yesterday.”
I pivoted back around to look at him, but he stared down at his sneakers.
“I don’t mean to be so cranky, you know. I asked them to dampen it. My temper. But they said I needed it. They said the temper was tied to quick thinking, and that was part of the problem solving and puzzles.”
“You asked them?”
“I say things sometimes.” As he spoke, his fingers drummed against his leg. “I say them and it’s like—” He blushed and looked down.
“What?”
“It’s stupid, but it’s like I can see the words coming out like speech bubbles in a cartoon, and I want to just cross them out, you know? I don’t mean the things I say. Not always.” He looked right at me. “I didn’t mean the things I said in the playground that day after my latency. I never thought that about you.”
I reached out and put my hand on his arm and his fingers stopped drumming. He looked at the hand there, my skinny fingers on his tanned skin.
Then he smiled and said, “Well, except for what I say about Benji. That kid really can be a numb nut.”
I checked him lightly with my hip. “Thanks for telling me, Theo.”
“I just wanted you to know.”
My hand was still on his arm. It felt both strange and natural at the same time. “I’ll see you later,” I told him.
“Sure, okay.”
“And I’m going to try. With Ilana, I’m going to try. I hope you will, too.”
He looked up at me, right in the eye. “I will, Mori. I promise.”
24
The next morning, the sky was bright red. I was up early enough to see the sunrise, and it burned the sky.
I padded down the stairs and into the kitchen. No one was up yet. We had some quinoa-cranberry muffins in the fridge, ready to go into the Jetsonator. I wasn’t supposed to use it on my own, but it was just a simple machine. I removed the package of muffins from the refrigerator and read the instructions twice before I put the tray into the side of the oven.
Watching and waiting was boring, and my mind wandered. I wondered if things really had been better before Ilana came, but everything that had happened had been coincidences. She didn’t put the yellow jacket nest in the field near number 9. She didn’t cause the mumps outbreak. What she had done was be a good friend to me. What she had done was listen to me about the forest, to share that with me, and to create Oakedge.
The Jetsonator kept ticking.
Theo could be right: maybe she hadn’t been in Calliope at all. She always had to think for a minute before she could tell you about it, like she was accessing her storage banks to pull out the information. So she had been in the lab. Just this girl alone in the lab. At night, did they turn all the lights off? Did she sleep? Did she know what she was?
I remembered what I had whispered to Prince Philip, that he and Ilana were the same. Both creations. Both programmable. But maybe Ilana had been designed to be more than that. She had been created to be like a person. To have ideas and feelings. To dream. She had told me about her dream, the one where she found the clearing in the woods and made friends with the animals. But if she was constructed, were all of those things constructions, too? Did they give her that dream just so she could share it with me and we would become friends? And so what if she had been designed that way? We’d always been told it didn’t matter how people were put together—natural or designed—so why should Ilana be any different?
The muffins popped out the other side of the Jetsonator. With a potholder, I tugged the hot metal tray out of the oven.
Once they cooled, I cut one muffin in half and spread cream cheese on both sides, then I sat in the picture window looking out over the lawn while I ate.
Mom came down first. She looked at the muffins on the kitchen counter, then looked over at me. “Mori,” she said. My name hung in the air between us. But then her face softened, and she said, “Thanks for making breakfast.” She took her coffee mug from the machine on the counter, pre-programmed to be ready when she came downstairs, then sat at the kitchen table.
I moved over to eat with her. “Are you still upset about what happened with Ilana?” she asked.
I was still upset about Ilana, that much was true. But I couldn’t tell my mom the whole truth of it. She rubbed at the corner of her eye and then took a sip from her coffee. “Mori, I’m not sure,” she began. Then she shook her head.
“What?” I asked.
From upstairs, we heard a thunk. Mom said, “Dad fell asleep with a book again. There’s going to be a dent in the floor from all those books dropping, eventually.”
“What were you going to say?” I asked.
She broke a piece off her muffin and then broke that piece in half. “You’re a good friend is all.”
“I’m not, though.”
“You are. Some people . . .” She took a long sip of her coffee. “Some people are just harder than others—it’s a different kind of friendship. Or friendship has its ups and downs. Like you and Julia. You were always together, then this summer you started hanging out with someone else, and now you’re spending time together again. It all evens out. It will happen with Ilana, too.”
I had no idea what she was trying to tell me, but just then Dad came clomping into the room in his day-off attire.
“Mori made us breakfast,” Mom said.
“Oh, yeah?” he asked. He looked at her and looked at me, then back at her as if asking if they really were okay with me using the Jetsonator after all.
“Yep,” she said. “Terrific muffins.”
“Terrific indeed,” Dad said. “Maybe you can make dinner tonight and I’ll set up the hammock for a snooze.”
&nb
sp; “I wouldn’t take it that far,” Mom said. She stood and kissed both Dad and me on our cheeks, then went upstairs to finish getting ready for the day.
“How’s our hero this morning?” he asked. “Plans to rescue anyone today?”
I shook my head, and I guess my face must have looked panicked, because he said, “Oh, hey, I’m just kidding.” He took a big bite of his muffin. “These muffins really are good, Mori. You did a great job.”
“I didn’t make them,” I said. “I just put the tray into the machine. It wasn’t hard. Anyone could do it.”
“I think they taste extra good today.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No, really, they’re lighter than usual. More airy and moist.”
“Dad!” I said, standing up. “They’re not made by us, by anyone. Every single family that’s having these muffins today, they all taste the exact same. The exact flavor. The exact texture. The exact nutritional value.”
“Hey there, honey, what’s this about?”
I shook my head and said, “Nothing. I need to go.” I stomped out the front door, and when I turned to shut it, I saw Mom at the top of the stairs, but I didn’t say anything to her. I hadn’t meant to blow up at my dad, but he was just making a big stinking deal about those stupid muffins and all I’d done was press a button. I didn’t know the first thing about making a muffin. There were cranberries and quinoa, but other than that I didn’t have a clue what you would use to make muffin batter. They were little factory-formed nutrition-delivery systems as far as I was concerned.
I had turned right out of my house, heading toward Julia’s, but I stopped in front of Ilana’s. I had told Theo I was going to try, and that’s just what I was going to do. So I marched myself up to the door and rang the bell. As if she’d been waiting for me, she threw open the door and said, “My hero!”
“Don’t,” I said.
“Okay, but you are. You really are my hero.”
“Don’t,” I said again. How could I tell her that if I had thought for even half a second, she would still be at the bottom of the pool.
“Okay. Want to go to Oakedge?”
I hesitated. “No. Let’s just go over to Theo’s.” I wanted to keep my promise to try, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to be alone with her.
Julia and I lay side by side in the grass outside Theo’s house. The sun warmed our skin and made us sweat just a little bit. Theo himself was shooting baskets on the driveway with Ilana. Benji was with them, but then trotted over and sat beside us. “This is boring,” Benji said. “Let’s go swimming or down to the park. I’ve finally mastered the ollie, and I can show you all.”
I was perfectly happy just lying in the sun next to Julia, but she sat up and said, “If I sit still for even one more second, I think all my muscles will turn to mush and you’ll have to push me around in a wheelchair for the rest of my days.”
Theo sank one more shot, then grabbed his bike, so I guessed that meant we were all going. Ilana dawdled to get ready. The rest of us were astride our bikes, and Benji had already pushed off on his skateboard and was heading around the block.
“You coming?” I asked. Part of me hoped she would say no. Maybe Mom was right and what we needed was a little more time. And then things would smooth over between Ilana and me, and we could pick up where we left off. Eventually I wouldn’t feel so weird around her.
“You can wait here, if you want,” Julia told her.
Ilana looked at me. “No, it’s fine. I’ll go.”
Benji waited for us in front of number 9. “We need some honey to fortify us,” he said, and started down the path.
“Just honey?” I asked. I didn’t want Julia and Benji to get back on the computer, especially not with Ilana there.
“Sure,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “Unless you want to try some of those pickled eggs.”
I wrinkled my nose, and Theo said, “I dare you to eat one, Benji.”
“No way, no how,” he said.
“I don’t know,” Ilana said. “It’s such a nice day, don’t you think? We should stay outside. Enjoy this sunshine.”
“In and out,” Benji said. He was stopped on the path, waiting for us. “It’s a honey extraction mission.”
Ilana was right: it was a nice day. There’d been a quick thunderstorm the night before that had broken up the heat and humidity. Now the clouds in the sky were the big, white, puffy ones that looked like cotton candy, placed there so kids would have the game of finding shapes in them, no matter if Theo thought it was just our minds needing to tell a story.
“Come on,” Benji said.
We rode our bikes down the driveway of number 9 a bit so they would be less visible from the road. The shutter that had hung precariously for so long had finally given up and now lay on the ground, a black rectangle on the pale green grass.
When I got off my bike, Ilana stepped in front of me. “I’ll get you some honey,” she told me.
“I just want a little taste,” I said.
“I’ll bring a jar out for you.”
“It’s fine, I’ll just—”
“I said I’ll get it.” Ilana’s voice dropped at least an octave. “Stay outside.”
“I like the house,” I told her, which was still true. I just didn’t like the robot room, or what we’d found on the computer. “Anyway, I want to grab another one of Agatha’s journals. She writes about Baba in them.”
Ilana stepped closer to me. “You stay out here. I can get one for you.”
“What is your problem?” Julia asked her. “Mori says she wants to go in. Let her go in.”
But Ilana reached out and grabbed my arm. Hard. “You shouldn’t go in there. It’s not safe.”
“We’ve gone in before, Ilana. It’s fine,” Benji told her.
I tried to pull my arm free, and Ilana’s grip tightened. Her fingers were so long, they reached almost all the way around my biceps, and I could feel each one pressing into my flesh. “Ilana.”
“You won’t go in.”
“You’re hurting me!” I tugged back again, and she gripped still harder, like those dogs whose jaws lock down the more you pull against them. I could feel tears welling, but I didn’t want anyone to see. “Ilana, please.”
“No.”
Her eyes were different. Darker.
“Ilana,” I said softly.
She blinked, but before she could let go, Theo crashed his body into hers, knocking her off me. She stumbled backward, toward Julia and Benji.
“You can’t go in there!” Ilana yelled, and moved toward me again, but Julia grabbed her, holding her back.
None of us spoke, but we were not silent. Ilana’s breaths came heavy and hard as she struggled against Julia, who grunted with the effort of holding her. Theo’s breath, too, was fast, and I swear I could hear his heart beating as he stood just in front of me, blocking Ilana’s path to me. Benji had gasped when Julia grabbed Ilana, and now he slowly let his air out. His foot tapped an uneven pattern against the grass. And me, I was crying like the baby I was.
Ilana looked past Theo straight at me. Her whole face softened, and then she yanked herself away from Julia, grabbed her bike, and rode away.
“Ilana!” I yelled after her. “Ilana, wait!”
Ilana left a bruise on my arm that I couldn’t hide. It started to form right away. First it was just red marks, but the red gave way to a pale purple, and I knew it would be dark by that night.
“What am I going to tell my parents?” I asked, staring at the finger marks. One, two, three, four thin lines, and one from the thumb underneath.
“The truth,” Julia said.
I looked over at Benji, who looked away.
“She didn’t mean to do it,” I said.
“She didn’t mean to grab your arm and squeeze so hard it made you cry?” Julia asked.
“I wasn’t crying because of that.”
We were sitting out behind number 9, close to the bulkhead, but we hadn’t
gone in. Above us, the old power line swung back and forth.
“I wonder why she didn’t want you to go in,” Benji asked. “I mean, there was, like, no way she was going to let you into this house.”
“Maybe she beat someone up and hid the body in there.” Julia picked up a rock and threw it against the bulkhead door. The metal clang rang out around us.
“Not funny,” I said.
“You have to tell,” Theo said. He was sitting right next to me. He yanked some tufts of grass out of the ground. “I’m sorry, but you have to.”
“There was something wrong. I just don’t know what it was. But I know she wouldn’t hurt me unless she thought it was helping me.”
“That is messed up,” Julia said. “She’s hurting you to protect you? How does that make any sense? You wouldn’t even treat an animal that way, let alone your friend.”
She was right. I knew that. And yet I couldn’t shake the panic I’d seen in Ilana’s eyes.
“It wasn’t like this before,” Benji said softly. “I hate to say it, but it wasn’t this crazy before, with people fighting and getting hurt. Before Ilana came, that didn’t happen.”
He wouldn’t look at me.
“It’s a coincidence,” I said. But even to myself I didn’t sound too convincing.
I heard something in the grass behind me. Maybe it was a slithering snake. Maybe it was nothing. I looked straight at Julia. “Have you had your latency yet?”
“What?” she asked. But her face turned red right away. “I’m too young. You know that.”
“Was it one of the spatials? Mind-body awareness, is that what it is? I know it has to be sports related.”
“I haven’t done it yet.”
“Just tell me the truth,” I said.
She looked down. “We aren’t talking about me right now.”
“Otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to grab her and hold her, I don’t think.”
“It’s not strength. That’s not a latency.”
“No, but still—” I began.
“So what if she has?” Theo asked. “She’s right. The problem here is Ilana.”
“No, the problem is how everyone is reacting to her. She’s a better athlete than Julia, so Julia’s parents let her get her latency done early. That’s against the rules. Order, remember. We have to have order.”
The Firefly Code Page 18