“And all the while the Krita scientists, they were in deep, too. Successes were rewarded and failures were punished. That’s not the way science should work. It’s the process, not the outcome. The failures should be celebrated because that’s what we learn from. But we weren’t learning anything. Krita kept us from learning with incentives and quotas.”
She stopped talking and looked down at the ice cubes in her glass.
“So then what?” Amnah demanded.
“So I left. I left and came back here. MIT let me build my lab again and I got back to work. And I paid attention this time. No more animals. No more humans. I invented a way to get drinking water out of saliva.”
Tommy gasped. “No way!”
“No one was much interested in that.” She smiled at Tommy. “Then about two years ago, some Krita people showed up. They were going to revive the ALANA project. I told them no. Flat-out no. But when you sell your soul to a corporation, the way I did to get Old Harmonie up and running, you sell them everything. They owned ALANA. They didn’t have to come to me, but they wanted me to consult. I thought if I did, maybe I could influence it. Maybe I could keep it contained. That’s what I told myself. But maybe I wanted to see it through. Maybe I wanted to see my failure become a success. If I’m being honest, maybe that’s what I was thinking.”
She sighed. Outside, a siren blared by.
“They sent some scientists out to me. A dozen, maybe. Your parents were two of them, Ilana. They were the most concerned with the ethics. They had studies and research. They asked the questions. And so when they said the project was ready for the next phase, for in-house testing, I said she would need parents. I said it should be Meryl and Greg. At least they listened to me about that.
“You weren’t supposed to leave the lab. They were supposed to bring kids to you. I wrote out a strict protocol for the testing. The kids would need to be blind to the situation at first, but they would be fully debriefed after each session.
“That didn’t happen. Clearly.
“And here you are. Looking for my help. Well, I’ve helped you the best I can. I did what I could. And you won’t believe me, but what I did, it really was to help you. It’s the best thing I could do.”
Mouse opened her mouth. We could all see her stuck on that first word, that first syllable. Amnah touched her shoulder, and that seemed to let Mouse speak. “But you could’ve stopped it if you wanted to,” she whispered. She said what we all were thinking.
“You’re right,” Dr. Varden admitted. “I also knew that they would have done it with me or without me, and I really did think I could control it somehow.”
“What was the endgame?” Amnah asked.
“The endgame? I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Krita isn’t making buddies for their kids. I mean, I get that they think their kids are super-duper special and all, but I don’t think there would be a project this big just so the kids could have the latest and greatest toy.”
Agatha wrapped her hands around her glass. “True. It’s something we’ve been chasing for a long time. Since people first realized they would die, I suppose.”
“Immortality,” I said.
“Yes. We’ve been chasing immortality as long as we’ve been mortal.”
“We’ve always been mortal,” I said.
“Smart girl,” she replied. But it didn’t sound like a compliment. “Are you familiar with the singularity?” she asked.
“The ultimate merging of humans and technology,” Tommy said.
“That’s, like, the most basic level,” Amnah said.
“Good enough for our purposes. We’ve gotten so we can collect the memories. The consciousness. That’s what I was working on way back then. Now we need the vessel.”
Like that hard drive that ALANA had been sitting on all those years before it found a home in Ilana.
“I want you to know that right from the start of this second project, I really was thinking of where it was headed. I did my best. And I hope you’ll forgive me.” She didn’t give us a chance to answer. “I do think it would help if I could show you something. Let’s go for a walk. We could all use some fresh air.”
Nothing about this city seemed fresh to me, but we all stood up and followed Dr. Varden out the door. Her street was quiet, and none of us spoke to break the silence. I still held on to Ilana’s hand. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. I wasn’t sure what Dr. Varden’s plan was, if she even had one, or what the rest of us would do if she couldn’t or wouldn’t help her. I kept holding on to Ilana’s hand because I felt that, no matter how things played out, there was only so much more time that I would be able to hold it.
22
“There’s so much I need to show you,” Dr. Varden said. “And not a lot of time. The key will be to find the pieces with the most impact.” She stopped at the end of her walkway and bit her lip. Bright tulips bloomed in planters. They were out of season, but still full and heavy. “Have any of you ever been on a boat?”
“A boat?” Tommy said. “Like in the water?”
“No, the other kind of boat,” Amnah replied.
“Well, there are other types of ships,” Tommy said. “Airships, for example. Spaceships.”
“But no space boats.”
“Not yet,” he replied.
“Your next great invention, I’m sure.”
“Children!” Dr. Varden’s voice rang sharply. We all fell into silence. “Follow me. We’ll take a water taxi.”
Dr. Varden started walking. Her strides were small but quick. She wore little black sneakers that bounced her along the sidewalk.
“Are we going?” Tommy whispered to us. “Because I would really like to go on a boat, but if this isn’t looking cool to you, I’ll hang back with you all.”
“We’re going,” Ilana answered. She tugged my hand and we quickly caught up with Dr. Varden. I walked awkwardly in the sandals Dr. Varden had given me to wear instead of sneakers because of my blisters.
Theo hung back behind the others like a bodyguard. I could practically feel him swiveling his head from side to side as he took it all in. I wondered if his latency made it overwhelming for him: all these new possibilities coming at him, his brain trying to compute them all, work out all the possible solutions for problems that hadn’t even presented themselves yet.
“Is this where you lived before Old Harmonie?” Ilana asked.
“Does it look familiar to you?” Dr. Varden replied.
“No, not really. I was just making conversation.”
“I lived closer to Inman Square before—a good healthy walk to work. Plus, there was the most amazing Portuguese place for breakfast. Closed ages ago. The owners got forced out when rents went up.” She stopped at an intersection, then turned left, back into the sea of people. I held on more tightly to Ilana’s hand. It was all too easy to imagine the vast swath of people separating us, her fingers slipping from mine, and then she’d be gone forever.
“Where do you think we’re going?” I whispered to Ilana.
“I’m not sure. It seems important to her, though.”
“But how is this helping you? We need to get you somewhere safe.” Each person passing by was a threat. Any one of them could be from Krita, ready to snatch her and bring her back to—to what? Dr. Varden’s story was heavy on my mind. They’d scuttle Ilana or change her or something else—whatever it was, she wasn’t going back to Firefly Lane, I was pretty sure of that.
Theo whistled. I turned around just as we were passed by a man flanked by two huge dogs. Their heads were up to my shoulders. One sniffed us. It stopped. Sniffed again. Sniffed Ilana. Then curled its lips.
The clock of my heart ticked so fast, it stopped. It exploded.
The dog snarled.
“Control your dog, sir!” Dr. Varden snapped at the man.
The man tugged on the dog’s leash and muttered a low, “Sorry.”
“Dogs!” Dr. Varden said, shaking her head. “I don’t know why
everyone loves them so much. They smell, they drool, they leave their droppings everywhere. They are foul and stupid beasts that can barely be trained. That’s man’s best friend? I think not.”
“About what you think of dogs, I’ll bet, huh, Mori?” Tommy said with a laugh.
“What?” I asked.
“This crew was attacked by dogs. Took one of their gang right out. She was a tough one, though, and my people patched her up. I bet she’s sitting pretty now.”
“Julia Sloane,” Dr. Varden said.
“How’d you know that?” Theo asked.
“I know all about your neighborhood, your friendships. I expected to meet both her and Benji. I’m sorry to hear she’s been injured. Right this way, please. And let me do the talking.” She steered us down an alleyway that smelled of mildew and urine.
Theo jogged up next to me and Ilana. “Did that seem suspicious to you?”
“Not as suspect as this alley,” I said, and sidestepped a puddle with a green-yellow sheen.
“I don’t like this,” Theo said, looking over his shoulder. “Something’s up.”
“I trust her,” Ilana said.
“If you want my opinion, I’m with him,” Amnah said. “She’s a weird bird.”
“Come along, come along. There’s a taxi waiting at the pier!”
We crossed over a strip of land that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a burned-out lawn or a gravel pit. Broken bottles sparkled in the sun. In front of us, a brown river. Beyond that, a city. I stopped short. “Boston.”
I recognized the city from our schoolwork, but seeing it in front of me was something entirely different. The buildings loomed, bigger than anything in Center Harmonie by a factor of ten, and my brain spun thinking of all the people each building could hold.
“Yes, dear. Boston. The Athens of America.”
“Maybe a million years ago,” Theo muttered.
An old shopping cart, twisted and rusted, poked out of the water. The river’s edge was dotted with cans and candy wrappers and overstuffed trash bags. Right up next to a bridge was a pile of stained blankets. It didn’t seem to me that flooding could be blamed for all the mess.
“Why did you want to show us this?” I asked. “What does it have to do with Ilana?”
“It’s important for you to see the problems we face. So you can see what we’re up against. Your world up there is so pretty. Even that little city they’ve made outside of Old Harmonie.” She turned to me. “You Old Harmonie kids think that everyone outside lives in poverty, but you have no idea. None of you do. You’re kept in your safe little bubbles, and never see that much of the world looks like this. Or worse. Unusable. We were supposed to fix it. We tackled little parts and did what we could. We congratulated ourselves. All the while, the layers below the surface eroded.”
“I still don’t understand how this will help Ilana,” I said.
“It won’t,” Amnah said.
“Part of me hoped that ALANA would help with this,” Agatha said.
“What, like a cleanup crew?” Tommy asked.
“No.” Agatha laughed. “No, our problems were escalating faster than our intelligence. We needed greater intelligence, but also compassion. That’s what I was going for. At least, that’s what I told myself when I questioned what I was doing. I still think we can save this world. I do. And I’d do anything to save it for you.”
I tried to understand what Agatha was telling us. Something by the blankets stirred.
“It’s the ‘do anything’ that causes all the trouble,” Amnah said.
“True,” Agatha agreed. She looked down at the ground. Broken glass glinted beneath her feet. “If you had seen this place before. This street, they closed it down and people would walk and bike and skate. They’d row and sail on the river. It was beautiful. And we let it slip away. The pieces we fought for—” She shook her head. “The demise of the Cambridge side of the Charles River was not actually the point of our journey, interesting though it may be. We are going across the river. To Boston.”
“No,” Theo said. “Absolutely not. No way.”
Dr. Varden shook her head. “Have you ever been to Boston, Theo?”
“No, of course not.”
“It’s dirty,” I said. “It’s unsafe. Everyone there is sick. There are so many people that they live practically on top of one another.”
“Ah, so you’ve been to the city, then, Mori?”
“No,” I said. “But I know all about it.”
“You’ve learned all about it. Which is to say you’ve been taught all about it. Anything that is taught can be a lie. I’d say a vast majority of it is, intentional or otherwise. Boston was, is, and shall be a grand city and I am taking you to one of its marvels, so please go down the pier and get into the waiting boat.”
Ilana made the first move. Right down the pier and into the boat. She helped me in. It shifted back and forth beneath my feet, but she steadied me. I sat down on a little green chair that folded down from the side of the old, rickety boat. It was maybe ten feet long, with a wooden bottom and a green prow. “Tessie” was printed along the side. The others got in and took their seats.
“The Mass Ave pier,” Dr. Varden said as she took her seat.
“Welcome to the Charles River Water Taxi.” The voice was computerized, but still had the telltale dropped r’s of the city: Welcome to the Charles Riv-ah Wat-ah Taxi. “Please remain seated at all times. You may love that dirty water, but do not touch it. Hands must remain inside the vessel. Do not dispose of any rubbish in the river or in the taxi. Enjoy your trip.”
“Why would we love the dirty water?” Mouse asked. I could barely hear her above the chop of the boat through the water, but Dr. Varden smiled.
“It’s an old song about Boston and the river.” She sang a little of it, off-tune. “They cleaned the river up—oh, it was beautiful—but clean things have a tendency to get dirty again.”
We bounced along the river, westward, if I was reading the sun correctly. On the far side of the river were shells of buildings, some of them seeming to come out of the water itself. “What happened there?” I asked.
“Flooding,” she said. “Right up from the ocean and up the river. The Rejuvenation crew hasn’t been through yet. The plan is to take all the buildings down, use the pieces to build levies. It won’t be as beautiful, but the city will be safer.”
There were other boats on the river. Small ones, mostly, like ours, that traveled up and down.
“It used to be full of sailboats,” Dr. Varden said. “And crew shells. I can still see them sometimes. Or I expect to. My brain folds in on itself sometimes.”
“Everyone’s brain folds in on itself,” Ilana replied. The sun lit her from behind and made her newly washed hair glow and her clothing almost translucent. I half expected her to lift right off the ground, to fly above us as we floated down the river.
“Not yours,” Dr. Varden replied.
The boat veered to the left and docked itself at a sturdier-looking pier than the one from which we’d embarked.
“You have reached your stop: Mass Ave Pier. Please remember to take all of your belongings. And thank you for riding the Charles River Water Taxi.”
Theo got out first. He offered his hand to Amnah, but she refused. Mouse took it, though, and so did I. He looked away from me while he pulled me up.
When we were on the pier, Dr. Varden counted us all. “I can’t lose any of my ducklings,” she explained. “It’s not much farther now. Right this way!”
Another boat pulled up and docked at the pier. It was full of people wearing face masks and skintight outfits made of neoprene.
“Well,” Tommy said. “If we’re going to die of exposure to the city, at least we’ll have a story to tell.”
“Dead people don’t tell stories,” Amnah told him.
“But the stories people will tell about us!” His grin spread from ear to ear as he trotted to catch Dr. Varden. I was less certain, but we had no choi
ce, really. We fell in line and trailed after her through the city I had heard so much about and had been raised to fear.
The air on this side of the river smelled the same. The people looked the same. The sounds were the same. It was hard to trust my senses, though, in the face of all I had been taught. The washed-out buildings, those were real—real life and real to what we had learned. But this street we were walking down was not. The buildings were grand, with high, leaded windows. Small gardens were planted with flowers and tomato vines. One building had a stoop, and a group of children sat on it playing a clapping game. Julia and I had loved those when we were younger. I could still sing all the songs. My head swirled.
The farther we got from the river, the nicer it got. We passed a street full of stores with big glass windows and holograms that danced outside and invited us in. We passed restaurants that tempted us with their smells.
Where were the sick and hungry children? Where was all the pain?
Dr. Varden kept walking. “It’s not all like this,” she said, as if she had read my mind. Maybe it was clear on my face. “This is one of the nicest parts of the city. Always has been. I thought you should see it.”
“It is nice,” I said. “But we didn’t come here for a tour, Dr. Varden. We need your help.”
“I am helping you. You’ll thank me someday.”
“That sounds like a threat,” Theo muttered next to me.
“I’m not talking about someday help. I’m talking about right now. I’m talking about Ilana.”
Ilana herself walked close beside me, but said nothing.
“You aren’t patient. Your great-grandmother was always patient. With everyone, but with me especially. I suppose that happens when you know someone well. She knew that eventually I would come around to the point.”
I felt my cheeks flare. But this wasn’t the usual embarrassment at failing to live up to Baba’s legacy. This was something different. “We don’t have time for this!”
“My dear, if you want to help Ilana, then you will make time.” She turned on her heel down a side street. Looming in front of us was a huge, domed building. “Anyway,” she said. “We’re here.”
The Daybreak Bond Page 15