All Good Children Page 20

  “—Stop!”

  I launched myself from the wall, hands out and grabbing her shirt, pulling, twisting around—how great her look of surprise, the force of the wall as I slammed her into it, and the heat of her throat beneath my hands as I gripped and pressed pressed pressed.

  “Shut up.” The words spit out between my teeth. Crying, always crying. “I hate you. Shut up shut up—”

  Faster than I’ve ever seen anyone move, even in the movies, she took hold of both my wrists and twisted, the pain electric and sure. She thrust one hand against my shoulder, the one that had already been shot, spinning me around while still keeping hold of my wrist, forcing me to the floor. A knee in my back and my stretched arm on fire until she got the zip-tie secure around my wrists. She went to the intercom on the wall and spoke into it, not even out of breath, as I lay there, trying to bury my face in the linoleum.

  So now I’m here, in “detention,” and I’m unsure how long it’s been. They keep the lights in the twenty-foot-high ceiling burning full power around the clock; it’s all the same day to me, and none of it really matters anymore anyway.

  I sit upright in bed when I hear a jingle of keys at the door. No one’s been to see me since some burly old lady tossed me in here. I haven’t eaten in…let me count the grumbles….feels like weeks. I stand up when the woman enters my room and places a thin sheet of paper between the door and the jamb so it won’t lock us both in here. It’s the woman from the infirmary tent, the resistance fighter. Marla.

  “Sorry it’s been so—Oh my god—” Her face contorts into worry mid-sentence as she turns toward me.

  The words swell in my throat but I choke them out anyway. “Okay, I want to do it. I’m in. I’ll join your mission.”

  “What happened to your face?” She steps a little closer, hands outstretched to examine my bruises.

  “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “Who did this to you?” A shadow passes over her eyes. “Did your Liaison do this?”

  “What? No. Who cares. Look, I’m saying I’m in, I’ll do it, be your puppet or whatever. Aren’t you hearing me?”

  “Yes, I’m hearing you, but I’m also seeing you. What have they been doing to you? Have you received any medical treatment at all? If I’d known—”

  “How would you have known?” She has no answer for me. “Anyway, didn’t you see a bunch of brand spankin’ new guards as you snuck in? With their shiny new toy guns. I acted up and they shot me down.”

  “They shot you?”

  “Rubber bullets.” Painfully, I rotate my shoulder. “I’ll live. Now, can we talk about what you came here to talk about?”

  She thinks for a minute, shakes her head to process what I told her, to make it jibe with whatever image she’s been holding inside of what goes on in these camps. Finally, she motions me to the spare cot. “Let’s sit down. We’ll get to why I came here, but first I’d like to hear about what’s been happening in here.”

  “Why?” I ask as I comply with her hand gesture. She sits next to me. “Things have gotten worse. But what can you do about it?”

  “You’re right, I can’t do anything. I just thought—”

  “How is it out there, in the world? They let us—forced us, more like—watch the carnage on TV when it happened, but we haven’t heard anything else. What’s going on?”

  “It’s chaos, but it’s a sort of controlled chaos. The Over have us at a distinct disadvantage, they always have. But it certainly brings down morale when we’re reminded of this. No one has done anything stupid, no counterattacks, no threats. Everyone is afraid but that’s nothing new.”

  “How many people died?”

  She swallows, makes like she is going to avoid my eye by delivering the number to the threadbare sheet, then looks back up at me. “Thirty-two hundred and twelve.”

  “Jesus….” My eyes fill up. It’s such a large number, I have trouble picturing it. Marla lets the silence go on for a moment, then says, “It gets worse. Three of the mentors thought to be the prime instigators of the attack on those Liaisons were released from the Feed Program into the custody of the U.N. There were several riots, hypocritically peaceful rallies calling for justice, for blood. The people wanted the three individuals to hang. The U.N. decided to grant the people their wish, more or less. The mentors were given lethal injections yesterday afternoon. It was entirely public. Local news stations rebroadcast the segment throughout the day.”

  I look at the thin bed linen, the empty space between us. I think about my counselors here, the twisted face of Bullhorn Bertha with a needle in her arm, death in her eyes, not talking now. And all those people dead in the streets of Japan, filling it up like a flood.

  “Makes sense,” I say.

  “If you think that, maybe I shouldn’t be here.”

  “I’m not saying it was right, it wasn’t right, but what’s right anymore? No one can do what’s right, we’re too weak, they’re too strong.”

  “No. We’ve forgotten what is right. We’ve allowed ourselves to forget.”

  In the following silence, Marla looks down at her hands folded in her lap. Her thumb absently scratches at the wrist of her sleeve, pushing it up to reveal the edges of her faded tattoo. This too shall pass.

  “Tell me the story,” I say, pointing at the ink.

  “Oh. Right.” She rolls down her sleeve and holds her arm up to examine the tattoo, as if she hasn’t seen it before.

  “You know, Jordan, there is a lot of human history you will never have the opportunity to learn, even if you decide against joining the Resistance. I regret that.”

  “So teach me something.”

  Marla smiles, drops her arm back into her lap and sighs. “I’m afraid neither of us has the time for a proper lesson right now. The abridged answer is that it’s a phrase with multiple meanings, each applying to a separate yet interconnected piece of who I am, historically, culturally, and biologically.”

  I give her a quizzical stare. She laughs.

  “They had these camps when I was growing up, too, you know. They’d been around for several years by then; statistics were becoming very popular. I was one of the lucky ones in that I made it out, but was unfortunate enough to have gone through one in the first place. I’m sure their tactics have advanced in the intervening years, become more…efficient. But it was plenty unpleasant. No one left that place unscarred, one way or another. I was fifteen when I went through, sixteen several weeks later when I was released, and I didn’t know how to deal. I saw a psychologist or two and they concluded I was suffering from survivor’s guilt; why me? Why didn’t I die too? What makes me so special?

  “Eventually, I figured out the answer. Nothing. My suffering is no different from anyone else’s, except that it is mine. And it doesn’t have to be meaningless. To get yourself through the worst of any situation you have to convince yourself it will end, and that you will see it through to that end.

  “So these words are inked into my skin, which will decompose and become dust or soil or whatever after I die. My body will pass, if you will. The tattoo is a symbol, or a reminder, that there is something greater than me or my own suffering out there, something beyond the physical.”

  “God?”

  She nods. “Or another world, or an entire universe, or anything, really. I can’t prove it, no one can, but I believe.”

  “You believe that there will be an end?” I wave at her tattoo again. “That this will pass, life, everything.”

  “Everything.”

  “Then why fight?”

  “Some things require a bit of push to get to that end.”

  She turns to me, swinging one leg up onto the cot, bent at the knee so she can look directly at me. Her voice drops into serious minor tones.

  “Are you positive you want to join the Resistance and carry out this objective for us?”

  “Yes.” She waits, just staring intensely at me. I stammer. “Yeah, right, it’s like you’re saying, someone has to end it.”
>
  “Why should that person be you?”

  “What? You came to me, remember.”

  “Right. Why are you willing to lay down your life for this fight?”

  “I want to kill the Over. You said that’s what we’d be doing.”

  “Perhaps I was too vague. What you will be doing is a suicide mission, as you’ve termed it. You will go in with the knowledge that your life is the price for meeting your objective.”

  “Which is to kill the Over.”

  “Which is to bring about the eventual demise of the Over, yes.”

  “Eventual?”

  “I am going to administer to you a virus that targets the unique genetic make-up of these creatures. This species—they’re akin to pack animals, not only socially but on a molecular level. The process by which they reproduce essentially makes them all one organism; in essence, they can be viewed individually as limbs of one collective entity.”

  “Marla,” I say. “I got a C on my last science quiz, and I’d never even heard of genetics until you recruited me the other week.”

  “Right. I’m sorry. I’m unsure exactly how to simplify this for you.”

  “You’re gonna infect these things, using a virus that you first infect me with.”

  “Close. The virus will not infect you. It will lie dormant in your blood until they feed off of you.”

  “Wait—I thought I was getting out of the Feed Program.”

  “Their reproductive process involves feeding off of their human vessel—”

  “I have to mate with one of them?”

  “Okay, I am clearly not explaining this right. Let me try again.” She talks with her hands, sometimes pointing to things that aren’t there, or demonstrating things I can’t see, or lightly touching my knee, or her own knees. “The intel we’ve gathered from studying our specimen, as well as other sources, has provided us a fairly solid picture of how these creatures reproduce, which is known to us humans as the Seed Program. Are you following me?”

  “Yeah….”

  “The specifics are not entirely clear, but what is evident is that an exchange of fluids takes place—”

  “Ew.”

  “—involving the transference of your blood into their systems, and vice versa. How long this process takes or how many times it is repeated is inconclusive, but once the process is complete, you will, in effect, be dead. At the very least, you will no longer be human. You will be one of the Over.”

  “Holy fuck.”

  “I know. Everyone is given a cursory break-down of the three programs—Breed, Feed, and Seed—when they enter middle school, if not before, but the specifics are left to your imaginations. But, Jordan, it isn’t…As far as we can tell, this process, it isn’t as though you necessarily become one of them. It’s more akin to a parasitic relationship: your body is the host, but eventually, the parasite takes over completely. There’s no…there’s no you left.”

  My pulse has accelerated and I can feel a flush creeping up to my face, but I can tell it’s anger and not anything stupid like embarrassment or whatever. All these things attacking us, tormenting us, practically enslaving us—they were once human. And now she’s asking me to become one of them, however softly she tries to phrase it. It’s really too much to even absorb— right now, or maybe ever. It’s like those numbers; it’s like thirty-two hundred and twelve new pieces of information I can’t possibly fit inside my mouth to swallow all at once.

  Marla shifts and reaches into the pocket of her sweats, pulls out an old pocket watch, glances at its face, and shoves it back inside her pocket.

  “Listen, I don’t have much time here, very little in fact. We have to wrap this up. I’m not going to let you decide definitively to join us yet; you’ll have another week to be certain. But if you’re inclined, then there are a few things I need you to do.

  “You have to ensure that you are selected for Seed. They probably will not select you for Breed but if—”

  “I can’t,” I say. “I mean, really. My period hasn’t started.”

  She looks at me and nods, almost sympathetically. “Good, one less thing to worry about. We also have to keep you out of Feed and reduce your chances, however small, of being sent home entirely. Candidates for Feed are, statistically, imbalanced individuals who demonstrate an irrefutable lack of cooperative social intelligence coupled with a diminutive desire to contribute meaningfully to a community.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Don’t be glib, this is important. You’re not too far gone but you are dangerously straddling that edge and you need to be more discerning. Pick your battles. Carving your name into yourself and standing up to your mentor in group were probably beneficial actions; they demonstrate an awareness of your inferior position and a desire to elevate yourself to common ground. But whatever you did to earn those bruises, not that this forgives those who inflicted them, but whatever it was certainly demonstrated a stubborn disobedience and desperation that the Over will not wish to tolerate. “

  She stands up and walks toward the door, still talking.

  “You need to show them your strength and your individuality, but only to a point. After all, if they take you for Seed it’s because they want you to join their collective. So setting yourself too far apart will only alienate them. You have to show your intelligence, your awareness not only of your situation but of your limitations within that situation, and then you have to push those limits—within reason.”

  “Yeah,” I say, standing up and following her to the door, as if it’s my house and she’s some guest who dropped by and I’m just being casually polite. “Sure, right. Push limits, don’t break them. Cake.”

  “I know it sounds impossible.”

  “It does.” We stand there in silence for a second. She looks like she wants to say something reassuring but she can’t find the words because there aren’t any. “I guess you chose me for a reason, right? So, I’ll try.” I shrug.

  She smiles. “Jordan, you are a remarkable person. Thank you for your trust in me. I am forever in your debt.”

  “Yeah, well, if everything goes like you’re planning, I won’t be around long enough for you to pay up.”

  Without so much as a sigh or lingering look to give me some warning of what’s to come, Marla throws herself around me and squeezes tight. A hug. My arms hang at my sides. She smells like spices and fresh baked bread. I pat her shoulder a little.

  “I’ll return next week, sometime after your parents visit. If you still want to go through with everything, I’ll administer the virus then.” She smiles one final time and goes, locking the door again behind her.

  I’d forgotten all about the parents’ visit until she mentioned it. I can’t even begin to explain all the weird reactions my body has to the thought of seeing my parents again, after all this time and for the last time. Christ, I don’t even want to think about it. They’ll come in, all crying, at least Mom will be, and Dad will probably be all stoic and clenching his anger in his empty fists, as usual. And no one will say what they really want to say or what they really mean, even at the end, or because it is the end. And then they’ll be led out and…

  That’s right. Someone will have to lead them in and out. It’s not like a family picnic or something, no one gets to play kickball or have a barbeque. It’s more like prison, locked in a room, visiting hours. And she has to be there, because, after all, she’s not only my Liaison, she’s the Liaison for the whole blessed Fontaine clan.

  My pulse jumps again, the blood comes rushing back. I don’t ever want to see her, I can’t see her, I will not.

  Omalis. God fucking dammit.

  TWELVE

  JUNE

  IT’S EASIER THAN I IMAGINED, seeing them again. My boys. Maybe it’s the lingering affects of the sedative—something powerful, like a horse tranquilizer, and fast-acting, knocking Jay and me out for the better part of the day, as best I can judge once we resurface—that makes me simply stand there in that small room, three feet away
from Jeremy, closer than I’ve been in weeks, and closer than I will ever be again, with my arms hanging heavily at my sides and my eyes dry and irritating, and no words, no words, no words, for my brave, frightened, little boy. Maybe it’s the steadying presence of Jay—who threw up on the helipad outside, and I looked away politely only to find my gaze crossing paths with Omalis’s eyes as she, too, looked away—who walks ahead of me and, as my son rises to meet him, takes three bold strides into the room and locks Jeremy into a hug so engulfing I pray they’ll both be swallowed up by it. How can I follow such a naked display of need?

  What I really think it is, though, is this: Jeremy is no longer Jeremy. Whatever they have done to him in these short weeks has stained him. He looks the same, if a bit skinnier, a bit paler, but his back is straighter, his hair parted to the left instead of down the middle. But the stain is deeper than that; it leaks into the air around him, into the way he disengages from his father first, the way his hand doesn’t shake when he pulls the chairs out and motions for us to sit, the way he only looks at me and smiles like he knows he’s stained, he knows he’s leaking, he knows that because I am his mother I will want to help him clean it up, but because I am his mother he will not let me.

  “You have thirty minutes,” Omalis reminds us from her customary position next to the door. She has no watch by which to keep the time, but I imagine her with one anyway, subtly clasping her left hand to her right wrist to start the stop-watch counting down, stealing glances every two and half minutes or whenever there’s a long enough awkward pause in our conversation, the one she’s diligently pretending not to listen to.

  “How’s Jason?” Jeremy asks, his eyes flitting between Jay and me as we both cautiously take our seats. “And Jordan?”

  “We haven’t been to see Jordan yet,” Jay says. “Jason is well. He told us you don’t see each other much.”

  Jason is being held at the opposite end of a camp so large we had to take a helicopter over to this side. The room we met him in was identical to this one, and his appearance was identical to Jeremy’s—thinner, neater in a way he’s never made the effort to be at home—but without a stain. He hugged his father too, or his father hugged him, and he had the heart to cry, even just a little, even if he pretended to sneeze so he could wipe his face. He hugged me, too, as we were leaving, but I let go first because if I didn’t, I never would.