by Chris Babu
“Okay. Hey, I heard about your mom, I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
A lump formed in Drayden’s throat. Don’t cry. “Thanks.” He looked down, picking at a loose thread on his sweater.
“Hey, I love that sweater,” Sidney said. “What is that, wool?” She reached over and touched his arm.
“Oh. What, this old thing?” Drayden smoothed out the undyed cable knit sweater. “Yeah, it’s wool, nice and warm.”
Wool was something special, given New America’s meager thirty sheep. The sweater was a gift from his parents for his fourteenth birthday. Lacking cotton, the Bureau made most clothing out of rayon, polyester, or more rarely, linen. The actual manufacturing, one of the least desirable occupations, occurred in the Dorms, employing many residents. Some clothing was dyed, usually red or green, using berries or plant extracts. Much of it remained undyed, just grays and tans, and none of it fit well. Kids often joked that if the school had a mascot, it would be a guy in a bland, ill-fitting outfit.
“I don’t know if you heard,” Sidney said, “both of my parents were exiled two months ago. Me and my little sister live with my grandparents now. So I understand what you’re going through.”
Drayden cringed. “I…I heard, I’m really sorry. Listen, um, I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to you, you know, when it happened.”
She waved him off. “No, it’s totally fine.”
“Is it okay if I ask why?”
She shook her head. “They were accused of dealing drugs. They had issues, and they weren’t the best parents, at all. There’s no way they were dealing drugs, though. I filed a complaint.”
“That’s insane. My mom was accused of conspiring against the Bureau, which is ridiculous. I don’t believe it for a second. I’m going to figure out the real reason, if there was one. Yeah, it sucks. I can’t even imagine losing both parents.”
“It’s been rough, but my grandparents are great. My sister is pretty happy there. They baby her.” She bit down on her lower lip. “I need to think about getting married now, with no parents left.” She scooted even closer and locked her arm inside his.
What is this?
“You know, we both had parents exiled. I’m just sayin’,” Sidney said, with a playful laugh.
Drayden stared straight ahead. “Uh, yeah.”
“I’m joking.” She slid her arm out and they both fell silent.
Drayden tried to fill the awkward void. “It is kind of getting to be that age for us, marriage and everything, isn’t it?”
In addition to not technically dating, at the age of eighteen—the earliest permitted by the Bureau—most got married. It was simple economics. Once married, a new couple would receive their own apartment, weekly paycheck, and food allocation.
“Sure is.” Sidney stood. “Well, hang in there, Dray. I’ll see ya.” She bounded away and into the school.
He watched Sidney go, thinking how kind it was of her to talk to him, especially since he hadn’t said anything when her parents were exiled. What would he have said anyway? Hey, you don’t know me but I’m sorry your life just got wrecked. That would have sounded dumb. Only it hadn’t sounded dumb, not when she’d basically said the same. Maybe he’d misjudged her.
Drayden got up and wandered to the sidewalk, unsure of what to do. Given the incident with the Guardian, he’d probably have to spend the rest of the day in school and visit Wesley after. He surveyed the streets, ensuring the bald Guardian wasn’t lurking nearby.
A dark-skinned boy wearing a familiar red bandana, like a pirate, approached with his head down.
Drayden deflated. Alex. Besides the Guardian stalking him, he couldn’t think of anyone he wanted to see less. Drayden faced the other way. Hopefully Alex wouldn’t see him.
As Alex passed by, he snatched the hat off Drayden’s head and tried to put it on. Finding it too small, he plopped it on top of his bandana.
Stupid flunk and his giant hooked nose.
Alex feigned anguish, mocking Drayden’s displeasure.
Drayden stepped forward. “Gimme my hat back, Alex.” He did not need this right now.
“Come and get it, wetchop,” Alex taunted, every inch of his wiry frame angling for a fight.
Adrenaline coursed through Drayden’s body. His peripheral vision blurred, leaving Alex the sole focus. “I’m not fooling around. My mom gave that to me.”
“Aww, your mommy? The one who went bye-bye? Quit your crying, at least you had a mom the past sixteen years. I never had a mom to give me a hat. I think I’ll take this one. I think you owe me this.”
Damn the rumor mill. “Don’t be a shkat. It’s not my fault you decided to become a flunk.”
“Oh, that’s rich, Dray.” Alex couldn’t hide his outrage. “Whatever makes you sleep better at night.”
Other kids gathered around now. Charlie Arnold, Alex’s best friend, lumbered through the crowd behind Alex, grinning ear to ear. His bulky, muscular body all but knocked kids over until he reached the front.
Drayden should have known Charlie would be close behind. He followed Alex around like a huge, dumb puppy.
“Whoop whoop!” Charlie danced around behind Alex. “Fight, fight, fight, fight!” He pumped his fist, desperate to incite the crowd. He failed to spark a chant. “Man, this crowd’s deader than a fish in the East River.”
Drayden could easily go jiu-jitsu on Alex and tackle him to the ground, although that might be excessive if Alex was just being Alex—a jerk. Not to mention Alex was tough. Then Drayden might have to deal with Charlie too, and it wasn’t worth the risk of suffering a cut from a punch or the sidewalk. His jiu-jitsu was solid, but book-taught. He didn’t have much real-life fighting experience, so victory wasn’t guaranteed, especially two on one. He darted his eyes around. Where are you, Tim? “Alex, I’m not fighting. This is stupid. Just give me my hat back.”
Alex stepped forward, flexing, his hands balled into fists. “You’re not fighting because you’re a wuss, like you always were.”
Drayden knew he should scram ASAP, except he couldn’t leave without his hat. “Alex, we have one day of school left and job placements on Monday. It’s stupid to screw that up. Think about it.”
Alex inched even closer. He pulled the hat off his head and tossed it in the air, over and over. He caught it and swung it at Drayden’s face.
Drayden stutter stepped back, the swing missing his nose by inches.
Alex pointed at him, and cracked up.
“Just gimme the hat,” Drayden said. Why couldn’t Alex leave him alone? Today of all days.
Alex frowned. “We could’ve been brothers, me and you. Should’ve been. You want your hat? Fine.” He dangled the hat up high in the air with his left hand.
Drayden never even saw the punch.
It connected flush to his left eye.
A bolt of pain shot down to his jaw. He fell backward, and smacked his left elbow on the concrete. He reflexively raised his arms to defend himself.
Alex walked away.
Drayden sat up and touched his eye.
Warm gooey wetness. Blood.
Though it wasn’t deep, the punch had cut him. Panic set in. Breathe, relax. You can clean it.
His hat lay limply on the sidewalk, frosted with dust and sand. Alex had dropped it.
Drayden lowered his head in shame. That hat embodied some tiny piece of his mom, so brave herself.
Charlie strode over and paused above the hat. He picked it up, tossed it to Drayden, and hurried after Alex.
Drayden picked up the cap and dusted it off. He pulled it on tight, rounding the brim. The whole left side of his face throbbed. He couldn’t resist touching his eye again, examining the blood on his fingertips.
With the fun over, the crowd thinned.
Oh no.
Over by the doors, clutching her books a
gainst her chest, Catrice watched him. Her wispy golden hair blew in the light breeze, dancing like it was alive. She scurried back into the school.
Damn.
CHAPTER 4
I’m a loser.
After school, Drayden stood in the bathroom at Tim’s jiu-jitsu studio. He cleaned the cut above his eye again with soap and water. It was lush purple, and had swelled like a balloon.
While his father generally lived in his own world, he had taught Drayden all about bacteria, flexing the medical muscles he no longer used. Any cut needed to be cleaned often, but not too often. When you played with it, you risked infection, which meant you risked death.
During the early 21st century, despite all the warnings, doctors had overprescribed antibiotics. Through natural selection, only bacteria resistant to antibiotics would survive, which led to far deadlier strains. They became drug-resistant. Killer strains of salmonella, MRSA, and E. coli emerged. As a result, routine infections, food poisoning, and even simple cuts were potentially fatal. They were called superbugs. Ultimately, all bacteria grew fully drug-resistant. Every one became a superbug. Viruses like Ebola had gotten all the attention when bacteria should have been the focus. Antibiotics, arguably the greatest medical achievement of all time, became obsolete. Eventually a strain emerged that rocked civilization.
Enter Pseudomonas Aeruginosa. People referred to it as “Aeru,” because once you became a superstar bacteria, you needed a cool name. It was never one of the big-name bacteria, just a bit player in the old days. In humans, it often caused a respiratory infection and could attack the digestive tract or open wounds.
Yet Aeru had two unique properties. One, it could exist in nature without a host; you could unknowingly touch or inhale it. Two, it infected both humans and plants. Though not all plants, it wiped out sweeping swaths of crops, destroying the food supply for both people and animals. It affected some animals as well. Once it mutated and grew more virulent, like the plague, it was game over.
Aeru comprised one of the four components of the Confluence. Independently, none of the four would have destroyed the world. Driven to their worst-case scenarios, however, the confluence of these events ultimately did. Some people contended only three catastrophic events comprised the Confluence, lumping Aeru in with overpopulation. They argued overpopulation only became a deadly problem once Aeru gutted the world’s food supply. Everyone agreed that inequality and cyberterrorism made up the other two distinct causes.
Drayden walked into the main room of the jiu-jitsu studio, which was just a spacious area with a soft mat on the floor. He slumped against the wall. He wasn’t here to “roll” today, as they called it; he needed Tim’s company. Despite Tim’s frequent invitations to train here, Drayden didn’t come much. He preferred the privacy of his room where, if he messed up, no big deal. He could perfect techniques, visualizing his opponent. There’d be time for more full-contact grappling later. That’s how he’d usually rationalized it. Wincing from the cut on his face, he wasn’t so sure now.
Without Mom around, Tim was basically all Drayden had. He loved his big brother, but they were brothers, who fought like brothers do. Seeing Dad and Wes would only remind him that they weren’t Mom, which made him angry at them.
A few other students were warming up on the mat. Tim hadn’t arrived yet. Unless Tim had fallen into a coma, he’d heard about the fight. While Drayden had been bullied for years, it rarely escalated to physical violence. Tim would give him grief about it, and Drayden wasn’t in the mood today. He knew he shouldn’t let Alex bully him. Obviously he shouldn’t get beaten up, given his self-defense training. Still, Alex wasn’t just any bully.
Tim walked in and marched right up to Drayden. He cast his disapproving eyes downward, and took an audible deep breath.
Drayden averted his eyes. “Don’t say it.”
Tim sat, facing him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
“I could’ve tackled him to the ground. I just, I hesitated. I always overthink these things. I didn’t want to overreact. If someone gives you a wet willy, you don’t shoot them with a gun. I thought he was messing around. I never dreamed he would throw a punch.”
Tim punched his fist into his palm. “I’ll kill that shkat flunk. But dude, you could destroy Alex. I’m sure you were worried about that meathead Charlie too. Honestly, I think you could take him as well.”
Drayden half-watched two girls grappling behind Tim. He’d spent his whole life avoiding confrontation, never getting in trouble. He lived under the radar, because it was safe. He began learning jiu-jitsu to defend himself from bullies. If he was being honest, he knew equipping himself with self-defense skills only served to provide a toolkit he was still too afraid to use. It wasn’t enough to know the techniques. It took confidence to use them. Confidence he lacked. When the time came, he either feared his skills wouldn’t work in a real fight, or he’d go overboard and break someone’s arm over harmless teasing. In both cases, he froze up.
Alex presented a special case because of their history. One time, Alex and his winooze friends had chased him all the way home from middle school, pelting him with little pebbles. He’d made it inside his apartment, severely winded, and Mom was there. She didn’t even need to ask him what happened. She bolted down the stairs, out the door, and chased Alex and his friends down the block. And man, did they run, Drayden recalled, missing his mom so much. They wanted no part of that crazy little lady. Once school wrapped up tomorrow and they received their job placements on Monday, he probably wouldn’t see much of Alex anymore. If he did, he’d never let Alex beat him up again.
Drayden stood. “Hey, I need to head over to the FDC, talk to Wes about Mom. Dad said something weird this morning. Can you come?”
Tim got up and slapped him on the back. “Of course, bud. Let me just take a quick look at that eye.” He raised his hands to Drayden’s head and tilted it at various angles.
“Tim, it’s fine,” Drayden said. “We really have to do this?”
Despite lacking medical training, Tim had become the resident “doctor” at jiu-jitsu class. He insisted on tending to the injuries that inevitably arose.
“Yeah, just a bruise,” Tim said.
Drayden and Tim exited the jiu-jitsu studio on Thirty-First Street and Second Avenue, and both stopped in their tracks. Adults often reminisced about how loud Manhattan used to be, buzzing with different sounds. In contrast, New America was always quiet. There were no cars, no sirens, no trains, no airplanes overhead, no birds. Only the howling wind and random conversations occasionally broke the silence. Electric buses, the only form of transportation, were infrequent and silent.
Crowd noise up Second Avenue roared as if it was right on top of them. Several hundred people were gathered a few blocks north.
Tim pointed his thumb up the street. “You know we have to go check that out. Looks like a protest or something.”
“Keep a lookout for a sweaty, fat, bald Guardian,” Drayden said.
They walked four blocks and immersed themselves in the crowd centered on the steps of a historic church, one of the only houses of worship still maintained. Originally an Armenian Apostolic church, it now served as the primary place of worship for Roman Catholics. They represented the dominant religious group of New America. Although the world grew increasingly religious after the Confluence, Drayden’s family didn’t practice it. They followed Mom’s lead, and she preferred spirituality, as she called it, rather than formal religion.
A sprawling plaza in front of the church sat ten feet above street level. People crowded the plaza, its staircase, and the sidewalk below. A few Guardians hovered around the fringes of the crowd. On a raised podium in the plaza’s center stood Lily Haddad.
While the Bureau was the only official body of government in New America, Lily was considered the mayor of the Dorms. Though not an actual title, Lily had served as the primary Dorm advocate for
ages. The Bureau maintained an office in the Dorms a few blocks south, called the Council on Dorm Relations. Bureau member Thomas Cox headed it, and Lily represented the Dorms on the council. She was one of the few people Drayden’s mother admired. Mom even went through a phase where she dressed like Lily, wearing flowing, full-length dresses.
No sign of the bald Guardian so far. Drayden and Tim pushed closer to hear better. Some good news would be nice. Dorm residents desperately awaited the day the scientists would announce they’d contacted another civilization, or the Bureau was tearing down the walls separating the zones. If the zones were truly equal, why divide them?
The Bureau insisted living conditions were the same in all zones, since equality was the underlying premise for their autonomous society. Yet, nobody truly believed it, certainly nobody who lived in the Dorms. You couldn’t see for yourself because of the travel restriction. In addition, the Bureau prohibited anyone with knowledge of life outside their home zone from discussing it. You couldn’t even talk about it! To do so would break the law. Hidden surveillance cameras and microphones recorded activity across New America to capture crimes. Some people did work outside their home zone. All doctors lived in the Lab, but many worked in the Dorm hospitals, and some janitors who lived in the Dorms worked in the Precinct.
Lily appeared to be taking questions from the crowd. She spoke through an old-fashioned megaphone, her gray-streaked hair blowing in the breeze. “Yes, I’ve raised the issue with the Bureau. In the past month we’ve had a record ten power outages, each lasting longer than average. They’ve been brownouts, not blackouts. While power is off in the Dorms, we can all observe lights on downtown. So I’m pressing the Bureau to ensure that power is being distributed fairly amongst all zones. We—”