The Daybreak Bond

by Megan Frazer Blakemore

  I relaxed as best I could, but then I said, “How long have I been in here?”

  “Three days.”

  “Three days! Did they—” I began. I wanted to ask her if I’d been dampened again, but I got the sense she wouldn’t answer that question directly. “Did I undergo any procedures?”

  She shook her head. “It’s primarily been monitoring. Your white blood cell count was a little elevated and they took care of that. You were exhausted, hon. Mostly, you’ve been sleeping. A regular Sleeping Beauty.”

  Sleeping. I couldn’t remember any dreams. No nightmares. That had to be a good sign, I thought. When they’d messed with me before, I had nightmares. Terrible ones that bled into my waking life.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She smiled. “No worries, little one.”

  My hand was shaking, but I wrote carefully:

  Please do not change me.

  I handed the paper to the orderly. She read the words and frowned. But she clipped the paper to my chart. I could only hope that the doctors and my parents would read it, too.

  25

  The hospital was a research and teaching hospital, and it was connected to the main Krita building by a covered walkway and a shared courtyard. My room overlooked the courtyard and so the day I was released I waited for my parents by the window and looked across to the Krita labs. Some of the windows were tinted. Others had brightly colored bars across them—red and yellow and blue. But some I could see into. People worked in little cubicles. Two men adjusted mirrors and then sent a laser ricocheting around the room. What could that be for? I wondered. I tried to look in each window that I could, hoping for a glimpse of Ilana. But nothing. Of course, this was just one side of one building. They could have her anywhere.

  In the courtyard below, there were small tables where people sat with their tablets and their coffees. None of them looked concerned that a group of us had left Old Harmonie and returned. None of them looked concerned about what might be happening to one of our friends.

  The door slid open with a whooshing sound and my parents pressed in together. My mom had a stuffed bear with a bright red heart on its white chest and my dad had three balloons that bounced in the air. They wrapped me tightly in their arms so that my face was smashed against the bear.

  “You gave us such a fright!” Mom said, as if she had not ridden in the van or come to see me in the hospital.

  “Honey,” Dad said, his voice strained.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, we weren’t going to stress you. We weren’t going to talk about—well, but you did scare us, Mori. You did!” It was like she had hit the REDO button and expected us to start over. How far back had she rewound? Back before I had left? Maybe she was just pretending I had been sick again. Maybe that was easier than the truth.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as I disentangled myself from them. They wouldn’t hold my gaze. After that, I wasn’t brave enough to ask them about Ilana. I’d have to ask someone else. Someone who would tell the truth.

  “You’re all clear now,” Dad said. “You were exposed to some particulate matter out there, and after the reaction Benji had, we wanted to be sure.”

  “And it’s a good thing, too, because it seems you caught a cold out there. Just a small one.”

  I rubbed my throat, which was, I realized, a bit sore. “So I was just resting here, right?”

  They glanced at each other. “We didn’t do any dampening, if that’s what you mean,” Mom said.

  “Though after this stunt—” Dad began, then stopped himself. “There’s a KritaCar waiting out front.”

  On the way out of the room, I passed a mirror. It was the first time I could see my new short haircut. It swung at chin length. It made my face look a little longer, my eyes a little bigger. I looked older. Before, that was all I wanted: to be older, to get my latency, whatever it might be. Now I only wanted to stay the same.

  “We’ll take you to the salon and get it fixed,” Mom said.

  “Maybe take you to Sal the barber and go really short,” Dad tried to joke. It fell flat as a pancake between us.

  “Can we just go home?” I asked.

  Mom and Dad exchanged a look. “We need to do one thing first,” Mom said.

  “Tova Staarsgard has arranged a meeting of the families involved.”

  “Oh.” My voice cracked on the single syllable. “Is Theo okay?” I asked.

  “He’s fine. Strong kid,” Mom said, and smiled. “This is no big deal, really. We just need to get the story, get out ahead of it.”

  “Get out ahead of the story?” I echoed. I had no idea what she meant.

  Dad was still holding the balloons. They bobbed above his head. “What you guys did—taking Ilana out of here—it violates quite a bit of protocol, and we need to make sure we dot our i’s and cross our t’s so we can get everyone home.”

  “Everyone?” I asked.

  “We should really be going,” Mom said. “Tova likes to start on time.”

  “Mom, Dad,” I said. “What about Ilana?”

  “I think it’s better if we wait until the group’s all together,” Dad said. “We’ll sort it out, I promise.”

  But that didn’t sound like a promise to bring her back. It sounded like a promise to do nothing. Mom put a cardigan over my shoulders and helped me get my arms through the sleeves, then they led me outside.

  The KritaCar was a new one: slick black with purple-tinted windows and shaped like a pear on its side. Benji would think it was so dope. “Is Benji okay?” I asked.

  “He is now. It’s lucky he got out of there when he did. His lungs couldn’t handle the stress and the air.”

  “It wasn’t all bad.” I thought of the night in the woods with Amnah, the way the pine scent had filled my nose.

  “There was a lot of pollution in that first town you found,” Mom explained.

  “They still drive fossil fuel–powered cars,” I told them, and then winced. All we’d ever been told about the outside was the bad. “But they keep them going forever,” I said. “They don’t just junk them. They fix them over and over. Mouse and Tommy and Amnah, they’re really good about that. About finding ways to make use of old things.” I wanted to tell them about the tree sculptures, but wasn’t sure how I could describe the way the joy had bubbled up inside of me as I watched the trees and smiles grow.

  “They seem like nice children,” Mom said. Her voice, though, was flat, disinterested.

  Our KritaCar pulled out of the complex of buildings and onto the main street of Center Harmonie. The light reflecting off the buildings bent and glared at us as we drove by. They were all so high and oddly shaped. Like the lab building at MIT, I realized, which made sense, since so many of the Krita people had started there. We drove past the green, where people were working. Oblivious. Or not. They all seemed ominous to me now. What dark projects might they be working on? What unintended consequences?

  We had barely driven five minutes when the car turned and parked in front of the Biltmore, the nicest hotel in Old Harmonie. A porter opened the door of the car. Mom and Dad got out. The building loomed up behind them, and it made me feel woozy.

  “Mori?” Mom asked. “Mori, are you okay?”

  “Yes,” I said, making my voice sound firm. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  I got out of the car. I was not fine at all.

  Ms. Staarsgard had gathered us all for breakfast in a dining room with a high, glass ceiling. Potted plants with long, thin leaves circled the room. The tables were set with white tablecloths and purple napkins. Fresh flowers were at the center of each table. There was orange juice poured for each of us, coffee for the grown-ups. Waiters brought around blueberry pancakes and fresh fruit cups.

  “It’s a lovely solarium, isn’t it?” Ms. Staarsgard said as she snapped her napkin over her lap. She and Theo shared a table with my family, Mouse, and Amnah. “I love the way the interior and exterior worlds are mixed together so completely.”

  “It’s quite nice,
” Mom said. “Thanks for arranging this.”

  “Thanks for arranging this”? Like we were all on a lovely vacation together.

  Theo cut his pancakes into square bites and poured maple syrup over them.

  There was one empty chair at our table. I peered around. Julia’s and Benji’s families sat together. Julia saw me and gave a small wave. I think we both knew we were expected to stay in our seats. Tommy was at that table, too, and he and Benji were deep in discussion about something—I’m sure Benji would have all sorts of thoughts on Tommy’s saliva plan. The two of them would make quite a team.

  “Is this seat taken?” Dr. Varden asked, though she was already settling herself into the chair.

  “We’re honored to have you with us, Agatha,” Ms. Staarsgard told her. “It’s been too long since we’ve seen you.”

  “I’ve kept myself busy,” she replied.

  “I’m sure you have.”

  Next to me, Mouse sipped her orange juice. She was calm and still, quiet as ever.

  “Girls, tell us about yourselves,” Ms. Staarsgard instructed. “We know you hail from South Concord, but what else can you tell us?”

  “I like owls,” Amnah said, her voice flat.

  “Any owl in particular?” Ms. Staarsgard replied.

  Theo rolled his eyes.

  “Barred owls. Snowy owls, too, I guess.”

  “You have a lot of them up your way?”

  “Not as many as we did in Acton,” Amnah said, her words a whip.

  Ms. Staarsgard barely flinched. “Have you been to the reservoir? There is great birding there, I’m told. And what about you, Mercy? What do you like?”

  Mouse gripped her fork tightly in her hand. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

  “She likes fixing things,” Amnah said. “Solving problems. Making new things out of old things.”

  “A tinkerer, you could say. But won’t you tell us yourself, Mercy?”

  Amnah leaned forward. “It’s hard for her to talk to strangers, okay?”

  “Acute anxiety disorder, correct?” The smile never left Ms. Staarsgard’s face. “We could fix that. It would be the easiest thing. When your parents come, have them talk to me. You can come up to Old Harmonie or we can send a doctor out to you.”

  “No, thank you,” Amnah replied.

  She hadn’t noticed that Mouse’s mouth had opened.

  “Not everyone wants our fixes, Mom,” Theo told her.

  “Actually,” Mouse croaked. “Actually, that would be nice.”

  Amnah snapped her head to look at her. “What are you talking about? You can’t let them mess with your brain.”

  “Mori said it didn’t hurt at all.”

  “That’s not the point. You can’t—”

  “You don’t know what it’s like,” Mouse whispered. “Opening my mouth is like jumping out of the tree house, even around people I know. Strangers make it like skydiving.”

  I could see what she wanted. I felt the same way. I wanted to be brave again, and, in a way, so did she. Maybe she had never even known what it was like to not have that anxiety in the first place.

  “I’ll talk to your parents,” Ms. Staarsgard said. She smiled in a way that passed for warm, but I could see something cold and calculated underneath. “It’s the least we could do to thank you all for looking out for our children. They aren’t as savvy as you all.”

  “Thanks to you,” Theo said.

  She ignored him. Instead she turned to Dr. Varden. “I’m glad you’re all here together, Agatha, Ellen, Sean, and Mori. I have some exciting news about the latency. As the people closest to Lucy Morioka, you’ll surely be happy to hear it.”

  “Really?” Mom asked.

  “Do you girls know about the latency? Mori’s great-grandmother developed it, and it’s been a truly remarkable advance. You see, each of us is blessed with many talents. Clearly, Mercy, you have a mechanical mind. And Amnah, I can see the makings of a leader in you. But we also have talents that remain hidden. Dr. Morioka found a way to release them.”

  “More surgery,” Theo interjected. “More messing with our brains.”

  Ms. Staarsgard went on as if he hadn’t spoken. I guess she was good at ignoring people. “At first it was haphazard. We weren’t always sure what the talent would be. Then we started doing some testing that could predict the talent. From there we realized there could be some choice involved—so long as the latent talent was there, we could stimulate a particular part of the brain and bring it out. You see, the latency is emblematic of how we do things at Krita, always building on the advances of the past to move the world forward.”

  “Good line, Mom. You should’ve had that in the speech at my Thirteenth.”

  “Theo,” she said, the tone of her voice a warning. “At any rate, the choices were based on testing, which was based on aptitude. But we got to thinking, in Dr. Morioka’s original work, she was looking at patients who suffered a brain injury and then developed a talent where none had existed before. And so we asked, ‘What if we could look inside and see what was hiding?’ Our scientists have been working on this question for years, and we have finally found a way to scan the brain in order to identify—specifically—untapped potential. We’ll be entering testing in the next year. Mori, you’d be an excellent candidate for the first round.”

  “Me? I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Perhaps we could save this discussion for another time,” Mom said. “We’ve all been through an ordeal.”

  “The spots in the trial will go quickly, Ellen.”

  “Yes, of course, but—”

  The conversation whipped around me. Ms. Staarsgard wanted to scan my brain to see what might be hidden there? Would I have no secrets from the world?

  A waiter came and took my plate. My fork clanged against my knife. I had barely eaten anything. I put my hand on the fruit cup so at least I would have that, but I wasn’t hungry. What were we even doing here?

  “Thank you, but I don’t think you need to save a spot for me,” I said.

  Ms. Staarsgard reached across Theo and put her hand on top of mine. “Your mother is right. It’s been a trying time. Take a week or two to think it over. I’ll hold a spot in the trial for you. You and Benji both.”

  Benji. He probably had a million talents hidden in him, and each one would only make him better able to help other people.

  “Tova,” Mom said. “Is there any sort of agenda for this meeting?”

  “We’re beginning with breakfast. I thought the children might enjoy a nice meal after their escapade.”

  “Yes, of course, it’s just that we’d like to get Mori home. She’s been in the hospital all this time and—”

  “I’m well aware of where Mori has been,” Ms. Staarsgard said. She rose to her feet and nodded at a man by the door who wore a suit. A podium came up out of the floor at the front of the room. “And so we shall begin.”

  As she crossed to the podium, the room itself lifted up and up and up. It was like a giant elevator carrying us to the very top of the building. I grabbed on to the edge of my seat. Mouse whispered to Amnah something I couldn’t hear.

  When the room stopped moving, we could see all of Old Harmonie—and beyond: Nashoba, Firefly Lane, our woods. The reservoir shined in the morning sun. And beyond all that rose the hazy skyline of Boston.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Ms. Staarsgard asked. Her back was to us all, but we could still hear her clearly. “This little world that Agatha Varden built and Krita improved. It’s the way of science, isn’t it? One person builds it, and another person improves it?”

  “Not all projects need to be taken to the end,” Dr. Varden said, but I think only the people at our table heard it.

  Either way, Ms. Staarsgard didn’t respond directly. She turned around and stood at the podium. “It seems we’re in a bit of a pickle here.” She looked at each table in turn. “Our children, good children one and all, have been caught up in something much bigger than th
em. Why, they even dragged in some poor waifs from the outside.”

  I could practically hear Amnah bristle at that. And why shouldn’t she?

  “We’ve had a team working on the incident since it began several weeks ago.”

  Weeks? We hadn’t been gone two days. That plus the days we’d spent in the hospital didn’t even total a full week.

  “I must say I was eager for the project to succeed, of course, but I had my concerns. Concerns I made clear from the outset. I asked explicitly to be notified of any problems.”

  That was true. I had heard her tell the Naughtons to let her know immediately if something was amiss. Then I had thought she was talking about Ilana not fitting in or something. I’d had no idea.

  “I will shoulder some of the blame here. When Ilana first showed signs of going rogue, the day she injured our poor Mori, I should have put a stop to it. But I, like our children, had been won over by the project. I let my emotions get in the way.”

  Dr. Varden scoffed at that.

  “What is she talking about?” I whispered to Theo.

  He pressed his lips together. The red slashes had surfaced on his cheeks. He was angry, but he wouldn’t tell me anything.

  “The asset collapsed completely approximately five days ago. We believe that is the day that she launched a plan to leave for the outside world.”

  I turned to face Theo. He twisted his napkin in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Perhaps motivated by misplaced memories, or perhaps because of something more sinister in her design—a possibility we are still investigating, I assure you—she recruited our young people to aid in her escape. She removed their watchus as well as her own tracking device: clear evidence that she herself was the mastermind of this plan. Would our children really know how to remove a tracking device? How to find one?”

  “Yes!” Benji answered. “It was me. I made the app and I—”

  His mother slapped her hand onto his arm. “You don’t know what you’re talking about Benji,” she said. “Ilana confused you.”

  “No, that’s not—”

  “Stop, Benji!”