“It is widely believed that the United States Government, in some form or fashion, is now operating from a secure location. The National Guard has been dispatched to keep the peace, and citizens have been ordered to remain indoors under provisions of martial law. HA security forces have…what’s that?” The anchor put a hand to his earpiece, his eyes drifting away while he digested the new intelligence. “Okay, so now we’re receiving reports of rioting and civilian skirmishes in cities not directly impacted by these coordinated explosions. We have reports of fires, some burning on a large scale, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Little Rock, Arkansas, Providence, Rhode Island and Fargo, North Dakota. It appears that HA security forces believe these attacks are potentially domestic in origin. IT professionals are combing personal profiles in hopes of finding a common thread in these…”
The words ran together as the images on the screen unfolded. There were clips of U.S. soldiers opening fire on protestors in College Park, on the outskirts of Atlanta. There were shots of the HA’s army of private contractors doing the same on protestors on the Vegas strip and large groups of seemingly nonviolent citizens, many of them families, simply walking north out of Albuquerque.
All the while, the poor young man kept up a running dialogue on the reports and video feeds that poured into the station from websites and foreign news agencies and social networking applications. Somebody almost immediately detonated a dirty bomb in Belfast, Ireland. A group of radicals protesting solar energy in Saudi Arabia laid siege to an energy farm on the outskirts of the ad-Dahna Desert. There had been similar political attacks in London, Hong Kong, Sydney and Buenos Aires.
Ben paused the footage to refill his glass and settled back in front of the carnage, his heart racing. He watched until the time expired on the Super Bowl broadcast and then found the next bit of news coverage—a program recorded some twelve hours later.
Ben wondered about the lapse in time, but he figured the Winstons had put it to good use, fortifying the place and preparing for whatever would come next.
This program featured Anna Lee Brigham, a journalist who had once anchored the nightly news for one of the big networks in the years before the Human Accord took over the airwaves. She’d been given a desk at a station broadcasting out of Bozeman, Montana.
“…infrastructure has been destroyed. A refugee zone has been established here in the Pacific Northwest. A militarized border has been established, with the town of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, at the furthest western edge. The zone stretches as far south as Pocatello, and then as far east as Miles City, Montana. The border to the north terminates on the northern border of Medicine Hat, in Alberta, Canada. Canadian and American refugees with minimal levels of cesium exposure are welcome to enter the refugee zone to seek medical attention, protection and life-sustaining rations.
“And now, in returning to our top story, Patrice Clover has been detained for questioning in the attacks that are now colloquially being referred to as the ‘Reset.’ Clover worked on a ranch in Central Oregon where it’s believed that internationally renowned bioengineer Dr. Alex Calvin created the weapons that were unleashed on America in the last twenty-four hours.”
An image of Ms. Black flashed on the screen as Brigham talked about her involvement in the Reset. “It’s believed that the Seattle attack was carried out by Ariel Cook, an aerospace engineer who was employed at Boeing. At this time, it’s still too early to understand Cook’s involvement in the Reset. Clover is said to be cooperating fully with HA security forces, and a list of suspects and their profiles is slowly emerging. Among those suspected in the Reset are…”
The newsroom vanished as the images flashed on the screen. Their pictures—all nineteen of them—flashed by there. He saw his own photograph and shuddered. The last image coaxed a tiny sob from someplace deep in his chest. He choked on it.
She had blond hair and a sweet smile and eyes the color of robin’s eggs.
Coraline.
Brigham droned on about their developing intelligence. An image of a smiling Mr. Brown, his teacher and best adult friend growing up, appeared on screen.
“…thought to be their handler, now suspected of arming the devices that have wrought such destruction and misery on the American people. Of course, with the explosion in Bend, new information has been very slow in its development. As Clover continues to speak with authorities, we’ll keep you updated…”
Ben swallowed the rest of the cider in a couple of fat swallows and refilled his glass. He watched another two hours of footage, growing drunker all the while, until finally drifting off.
He’d hoped for darkness—had prayed for a dreamless sleep. Instead, when he closed his eyes, he found himself back on the ranch.
~
The boy was confused.
“Why so many operations?” he said, his thin arms clamped tightly against his ribcage, secured in place by the warm blankets piled on his chest. He peered up at the man in the surgical scrubs, a man called Mr. Brown.
“We want you to be healthy, Ben,” Mr. Brown replied. He held the boy’s hand beneath the blankets while Mr. Blue administered the final measure of anesthetic. “We want you to grow up big and strong, so you can help us with our work.”
“Big and strong,” the boy whispered. His eyes darted around the operating theater for a moment before fluttering shut.
With a sigh, Brown pulled the mask up over his mouth and nose. He locked eyes with Mr. Blue, whose response was a slight shrug of the shoulders. Just part of the job, man.
The door to the theater slid open and Dr. White strode into the room. “How many today?” he said, the impatience evident in both tone and manner.
“All of them,” Brown replied. “It’s the first of the month again, Doctor. We’re just doing upgrades.”
White sighed, wincing at the oversight. “So it is, Mr. Brown. So it is. Let’s begin then. Sooner begun, sooner done.”
Brown studied the surgeon as he set to work on the boy. He was a fastidious man with a medium build—fit and well groomed. He made sharp, precise movements when he operated, selecting instruments from the tray deliberately and without pause.
White knew his job well, not unlike a laborer who assembled cars or picked citrus, for he had completed the same operation hundreds of times over the last six years. There were nineteen children, and sometimes as many as a dozen upgrades in a given year. Early on, there had been even more than that.
Brown struggled to understand the man’s detachment. He watched White open the boy’s chest as easily as if he were going into his wallet to pick up the dinner check. Brown turned his eyes to Ben’s fragile body and felt the first pangs of a familiar sorrow.
The things they’d done to the boy! The things they’d done to all of them.
White had removed the two lowest ribs in order to make room. The device itself occupied so much space that it was no wonder the children labored just to run on the playground.
They lacked lung capacity, and therefore couldn’t enjoy one of the few remaining natural pleasures of youth—running for the simple joy of it.
White opened the device, stooping to observe the cultured organ that was growing inside the boy. “Fascinating,” he whispered, using the side of his scalpel to pin down a flap of tissue. “Do you see that, Mr. Brown? Self-replicating ATP! I think we’ll be able to cease these infernal upgrades soon. In fact, this may well be our last operation...well, for some time at least.”
The implications of the surgeon’s pause weighed heavily on Brown, but he was excited that the upgrades were finally taking. They’d been trying to synthesize ATP in the children for almost two years. Success meant the kids might be able to enjoy something of a normal childhood. He watched as White grafted tissue cultures to the interior of the device.
“Very well,” the surgeon said some twenty minutes later. “Sutures.”
The nurse worked quickly on the boy’s chest—an angry topography of scar tissue despite the cellular-healing accelerant—and White turne
d his attention to Brown and Blue.
“We’ve taken another step forward, gentlemen,” he said. Brown knew he was smiling behind the cotton mask. “Let’s keep them coming, Mr. Brown. I think we’ll be finished rather quickly today.”
The men slipped into the adjacent trauma room.
A small boy with red hair scowled at them from his bed. He had been crying, and Brown pulled the surgical mask down to his neck and gave him a smile.
“Hi there, Brian. Are you ready to be brave for me?”
The boy shook his head. The fear in his eyes was palpable. Brown found the boy’s hand beneath the blanket. He gave it a squeeze.
“Why so many operations, Mr. Brown? Why?”
Brown’s smile dissolved into a frown. “I know,” he whispered, smoothing the boy’s red hair on his forehead as Blue added the anesthetic to the IV, “I know, Brian. It’s frustrating, but Dr. White said that we won’t need so many in the future. He said that...”
The boy blinked his eyes once, twice. He closed them and offered a tiny snore, his fingers relaxing just a little as they wheeled him into the operating theater.
Brown felt the weight on his shoulders. It was still early, and the day would be long.
~
The children regained consciousness in stages, their surgeries staggered at roughly forty-minute intervals. Ben was the first to come to.
“Mr. Brown?” he called. He was resting in recovery and his voice was hoarse. “Are you there Mr. Brown? Please?”
His voice echoed through the monitor Brown kept clipped to his belt. He put down the book he was reading and quickly stole through the deserted hallways of the orphanage until he found himself outside of recovery. He steadied himself, scanned his identification badge and walked quietly to the boy’s bedside. It was forty minutes to midnight, and the soft respiration of eighteen sleeping children provided a pleasant backdrop to the room.
“Hey there, Ben!” he whispered. He took the seat next to the child’s bed, leaned forward and pulled the boy into a gentle embrace. “Way to go, Ben! It’s great to hear your voice!”
The boy smiled as Brown ruffled his hair. “Can I have some water?”
“Of course.” Brown poured him a glass from the pitcher on the table next to the bed. The boy drained it, panting, and extended it for a refill. Brown splashed another measure into the glass and Ben held it against his stomach.
“It’s healing pretty fast,” Ben said. “I can feel it—it’s itchy.”
Brown nodded. “Guess what?”
“What?”
“Dr. White thinks we might be able to stop doing so many operations. It seems that you little guys are growing up faster than he thought you would. How’s that for good news?”
Ben studied the glass of water balanced in his lap. When he looked up, there was a mixture of awe and hope in his features. “Really? Do you really mean it, Mr. Brown?”
Brown nodded and Ben put the glass of water on the table and threw himself forward, arms outstretched, yanking the man into a fierce hug.
“Hey! Hey!” Brown said, rubbing the boy’s back. “I’m excited too, but don’t go popping those stitches. You need to get some rest, Ben. I’ll be back to check on you in just a little while.”
The boy fell back against his pillows, absently tracing the ridge on his sternum beneath his pajama top. “Okay. Thanks, Mr. Brown. G’night.”
“Night,” Brown said. He dimmed the bedside light and crept out of the recovery room. He was almost back to his room when another meek voice echoed through the monitor clipped to his waist.
“Mr. Brown? Are you out there? I’m thirsty!” called the voice. It was Angela—little Angela, who despite her size always seemed to be one of the first to emerge from the post-op stupor.
With a smile, he turned and made his way back to recovery.
It was late, and it would be a long night.
~
True to his word, Dr. White performed fewer operations on the children over the years. They matured within the confines of the orphanage, growing strong in the body and wise in their studies.
There were nineteen of them: Ben and Brian and Angela and Coraline and Damon and Baxter and Ariel and Stuart and Karl and Sharon and Denise and Neil and Gwenn and Sky and Declan and Alice and Lewis and Roland and Elizabeth.
They loved each other as siblings, and although they invariably clustered in pairs, trios and groups of their own design, they were fiercely protective of one another as a group. They were brothers and sisters.
Such love was the result of their shared burden.
On a cool day in autumn, shortly after they had begun the ninth year of their education, the children took recess on the secluded campus of the orphanage. The sky was overcast, pregnant with clouds that threatened rain over the high desert and snow in the mountains.
Ben and Coraline were walking along a path through the pine barrens, cataloging plants in a journal they were keeping for biology class, when the first plump raindrops fell from the sky.
“I know a place,” Ben smiled, taking her hand. Her touch excited him, and he felt a sudden warmth in his chest and in his cheeks. They left the path, dashing into the woods as the clouds opened wide. They darted through the trees and down a small embankment to a copse of granite in the bottom of a steep ravine. “Down there!”
They ducked beneath the rock just as the storm erupted in earnest, pelting Central Oregon with frigid water. It fell in torrents, drawing a curtain of water over the entryway to the cave.
“How did you find this place?” Coraline said. She swiped damp hair her from her eyes, which were a shade of very light blue. They sparkled in the gray afternoon light, and her lips curled into a heart-shaped smile. “It’s wonderful!”
“I just stumbled across it while I was exploring one day, maybe a year ago. I come here sometimes to do my homework. Dr. White says it’s important that we all find our place in the world.” Ben looked into her eyes. “Now...well, now I guess it’s our place. Promise you’ll keep it a secret, Corr.”
“I promise.”
“Good.” Ben smiled at her while they suffered through an awkward silence, which was mercifully interrupted by an annoying chime. Bing-bing-BONG.
“Darn,” Coraline muttered.
“Yeah,” Ben agreed, secretly thankful for something to talk about. “Time for the daily doink.”
They rummaged for their kits. Coraline’s was the color of her eyes—a pale shade of robin’s egg. She’d decorated it with sunflower stickers. Ben studied his kit. It was a plain dingy white, scuffed from years of rough play.
Coraline removed the syringe. With thin, elegant fingers, she quickly administered the shot. “You too, now,” she prodded, and Ben followed suit.
When they’d stowed their kits, Ben said, “Do you ever think about skipping a dose? Just to…just to see what happens?”
Coraline shook her head. “Huh-uh. No way, Ben. I’m pretty partial to breathing—and to staying upright. Why? Do you?”
Ben shrugged. “Sometimes I do, I guess. I mean, we always just do everything they say, right? We never disobey. We never ask questions. Don’t you ever wonder what would happen if we missed the shot?”
Coraline smirked. “You’re such a boy.”
“Well, you’re such a girl,” he shot back, cheeks flushed.
“I’m a woman. There’s a big difference.” An edge had crept into her voice, but she was smiling.
“Is there such a difference?”
The smile still in place, Coraline looked past him. She watched the waning storm. The Three Sisters Range had become visible through the rainfall, their snow-capped peaks like the head and shoulders of some distant mountain god.
An airplane passed overhead and Ben looked skyward.
“Where do you think they’ll send you when it’s time to leave?”
“New York City, I suppose,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Someone needs to give the world pretty clothes. It might as well be me.”
<
br /> Ben thought about how she’d decorated her kit, instilling beauty in such an ugly object. “That would be nice. You’d do a great job, Corr.”
“Thanks. How about you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Someplace warm, I hope. I love Oregon, but I’d like to see the sun more often. I’d like to be near the ocean.”
“Miami.”
“Miami,” Ben said, trying the word on for size. “Miami.”
The rain dwindled and finally stopped altogether. Ben picked up the botany journal, paging forward to the next entry. “Coprinopsis atramentaria,” he said, sounding it out. “Also called the ‘Inky Cap.’ It’s a mushroom. Here’s a picture.” He held the journal out to her, but she ignored it.
“Aren’t you even a little bit curious?” she said. There was something in her eyes—something that thrilled him at the same time that it frightened him. “You never got your answer, Ben.”
“My answer?”
“About the difference between a woman and a girl.” She darted forward and gently kissed him at the corner of his mouth. Her lips, soft and full, lingered there for a long moment, and then she turned her head and grinned at him. “The difference is a girl won’t do that.”
She stood and, without another word, walked out into the ravine and started up the hill. Stunned, Ben touched the spot where she had kissed him. A smile spread slowly on his face.
“Hey, Corr!” he called. “Hey, wait up!”
He scrambled after her and they spent the rest of the afternoon searching the hillside for mushrooms.
~
“Why?” she said. Her voice sliced through the memories, yanking him hard from the forests of Central Oregon and back to the miracle farm. “Why on earth did you put yourself through this, Ben?”
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