The Unadjusteds

by Marisa Noelle

  Questions spin in my mind, and I cross my arms over my chest. “Were you going to leave without me?”

  “Never. But I can’t go with you now.” Matt uncrosses my arms and pins my wrists. “I need to go back for my family.”

  “So I’ll meet you there?” I shrug out of Matt’s grip and rake my fingers through my hair, trying to imagine a few days without Matt. Longer if one of us doesn’t make it. The thought of the separation sends a flare of pain to my chest.

  He lifts my chin. “Yes.”

  We huddle closer to the trunk of the tree, hoping the branches conceal us as a group of bulks charge by. I press him closer into the shadows.

  “Before you go, I have something for you.” He digs his fingers into the pocket of his jeans and removes a small wrapped box, the paper pink with flying fairies. He points to the fairies, a lopsided smile lifting one side of his mouth. It’s my favorite of his smiles, the one I once spent hours looking up silly knock-knock jokes for when he was sick one winter, just so I could see it again. “I thought you’d enjoy the irony.”

  “I don’t think there’s a cheerleading team in the country that doesn’t have fairy wings now.”

  Matt chuckles. “Overgrown, dress-up butterfly wings.”

  I finger the small package, wanting to savor the moment but knowing we can’t delay much longer.

  “Open it,” Matt whispers.

  I tear open the paper, ripping right across one fairy’s face. Inside is a black jewelry box. I lift the lid and my breath catches in my throat. I reach out to touch the delicate silver chain. The pendant is a single musical note, an eighth note.

  “On account of your last name, Melody,” Matt says. “And your love of guitar.”

  “It’s beautiful, Matt. Thank you.” My hand floats forward and rests on his chest. I feel his heart beating under my hand, slow and steady. “This is the nicest present anyone’s ever given me.”

  “You’re very welcome.” Matt kisses me lightly on the top of my head in a rare gesture that fills me with warmth.

  He plucks the necklace from its box and stands behind me. I lift my hair out of his way. Matt fumbles with the clasp but connects it on the second try. The pendant hangs three inches below my collarbone. It feels like it’s always been there.

  “And now we need to go.” Matt grabs my hands. “I’ll see you at the cave, right?”

  “Yes.”

  He presses his thumbs into my palms. “With your dad?”

  “I promise.” I wrap my hands around his thumbs and squeeze.

  Matt tilts his head, gives me his lopsided smile again. But this time it’s lined with tension. He takes a step backward, still hanging onto my hand. “I’ll see you in a few days. A week, max.”

  I nod, then he dashes out from the cover of the tree.

  “Bye, Matt,” I whisper.

  Gathering the courage to move, I lift the pendant to my lips and kiss it once before I start toward my apartment. Barking commands of distant soldiers and gunshots return to my consciousness. But for now, the park is empty. I’m going to have to run for it.

  Weaving through the bushes and trees, I end up on the quieter streets. I stick to the shadows as my apartment building comes into view.

  Here, at the edge of suburbia, the streets hum with silence. A curtain flaps in an empty window and a fly follows me, circling my head until I swat it away. A kid’s bike with four pedals lies abandoned on a front lawn. A face appears in a window, and I scuttle down the deserted street. The army must still be battling their way through the streets to detain unwilling unadjusteds and aid the Nanite Enforcement Agency.

  When a shout from a neighboring street makes me jump, I move toward the front doors of my building. But I don’t call the elevator to go up to our penthouse apartment. Instead, I dash down the stairs to the basement lab where my father works.

  Ignoring the lick of anxiety curling around my heart, I nod at the two armed guards flanking the heavy steel door. They grunt at me as I key in the ten-digit code to gain access to the lab. The doors whoosh closed behind me.

  “We need to—” I call as I burst into the room, then clamp down on my jaw.

  Instead of my father sitting at the workstation, it’s Earl, one of my dad’s remaining colleagues. His dark hair is slicked back and his broad face pores over papers on his desk. Computers whir around the room. Fridges and centrifuges line the back worktop while the low hum of the chairs provides an undercurrent as they heat or cool the fabric of the seats.

  Earl swivels toward me in his chair. His eyes are greyer and colder than tombstones. “Silver! Back so soon? I know President Bear will be generous if you want a high-level nanite. He said as much.”

  “Like he was generous with my mother?” I snap.

  There’s a flicker in his cold eyes. A hint of emotion. “We all miss your mother.” Standing still, I scan the room for my father. I glimpse a figure in the distant glass office. He’s on a hologram call, and the 3-D image of the vice-president is hard to mistake. And not just because of his whip-like tail.

  Ignoring the remark about my mother, I focus on the problem at hand. “So, you’ve been involved from the start?”

  Earl smiles his bland serial-killer smile. “Of course. I’ve been the liaison between President Bear and the nanite reps. It’s such a great thing for our country. Personally, I don’t understand all the fuss. So many unadjusteds running around the streets. Honestly. How do they think they’re going to escape an army of bulks?”

  Bulks. Up to nine feet tall. Forearms bigger than my thighs. Heat resistant, fire retardant. Impervious to broken bones. A level ten nanite.

  Unadjusteds certainly couldn’t escape an army of bulk soldiers.

  “I assume you’ve already taken something?” I ask. Earl’s eyes skirt the length of me. I cross one leg behind the other to conceal the missing cuff. Earl doesn’t have one. He never stood up to President Bear. “But I always thought you were against self-experimentation.”

  “Maybe in my youthful, naïve days.” Something flickers in his pupils. My ankle itches and I long to reach down and scratch it. “But I’ve done my fair share now.”

  “I’m sure you’d be granted a level ten.” The abilities at the highest level run through my head. Invisibility. Telekinesis. Teleportation. They’re all formidable.

  “As would you.” He stares at me. I want to lower my gaze, but I’m afraid he’ll see all my lies. I keep my chin high and my lips tightly closed.

  With my mother in prison, I’d be lucky to be assigned a level one, despite what Earl says. I know Bear; he’ll never allow it. It’ll be horns or long fingernails tapered to points. Something useless.

  The predatory smile slips back onto his face. “What are you going to take?”

  “If I get a choice… intelligence,” I lie.

  Earl claps his hands. “Just like your dad.”

  I shift my foot, my bare leg aching with the weight of my treason. “I prefer the more human enhancements.”

  A phone chirps on the work top. President Bear’s face fills the screen. I try not to flinch.

  “Gotta go!” Earl says. “The president needs me.” He swaggers past me toward the door.

  He taps a photo on the wall as he walks by. The digitally enhanced photo widens the grins on all their faces. It shows my parents and the rest of their team back in the glory days. I recognize the one who was executed, the original pioneer of genetic modification. It was my parents who invented the nanite delivery method. Two of the other scientists were arrested with my mother. The four who remain also live under armed guard, escorted to their front doors like my dad and me. Apart from Earl. He’s willing to do anything the president asks.

  Dad comes out of the office. “Thank God you’re here.” He rushes over to me, grabbing my shoulders. His watery blue eyes are shiny. “You didn’t have to take one yet, right?”

  “Nope. Assessment first.” I shake my head. “But I ran before they could give me a ticket and put me in the
system. Not that that means anything. I’m sure President Bear will make a personal call for me.”

  “You might be right.” Dad sighs. “It’s chaos out there. Unadjusteds being gunned down in the street. I didn’t realize so many would run.” He squeezes me tighter. “You’re OK now.” Being held in my father’s arms, I can almost believe everything is OK. Down in the basement lab, away from the chaos of the streets, the world appears normal. But it isn’t.

  I step out of Dad’s arms. “Did you know about this enforced nanite business?”

  “Of course not,” he replies, one hand massaging the back of his neck.

  I jab a finger at the worktop. “We have to go. Now.”

  “Go where?” Dad spreads his hands. “Did you not just hear about the unadjusteds being gunned down? Rounded up and taken to processing facilities?”

  “We go away. I’m not taking a nanite. Matt says there are people meeting at a cave system beyond the Great Woods. We go there.”

  Dad frowns and sinks his lanky frame onto a stool. “We can’t leave your mother. If we escape, they’ll kill her.”

  “We don’t even know if she’s still alive,” I whisper, picking up a glass paperweight on Dad’s desk. I turn it over in my hands. Inside is an etched figure of a spider mashed into a centipede. “They haven’t given us proof of life for over a year.”

  “But if she is…” His hand flies to his chest. “President Bear promised if I…”

  I narrow my eyes. “President Bear makes lots of promises. None of which he keeps.”

  “But it’s your mother.” Dad rests a fisted hand on the desk. “I have to hold hope that one day she’ll come back to us.”

  “But she’s been gone two years already, and we haven’t been allowed to visit her once!”

  “If I keep making the pills, keep doing what I’m told, maybe that will change,” Dad says.

  “Maybe?” I want to punch something. “Maybe? You’re willing to bet it all on a ‘maybe?’”

  “It’s all I’ve got.” Dad dips his head. “President Bear promised—”

  I scowl. “How can you believe anything that vile man says to you?”

  Dad slams his fist down twice. “Dammit, Silver. It’s not always about you.”

  I take a step back. My mouth drops open. I can’t remember the last time Dad raised his voice. “I know that,” I hiss through my teeth. “I know that very well. It’s about all the unadjusteds. We all need to make a stand. Not just Mom on her own. Maybe then something will change.”

  “I wish it was that simple.” Dad lowers his head. “If I fight, then they’ll take me too. I can’t leave you here alone.”

  “I already am. You’re here eighteen hours a day,” I say. “I hardly see you.”

  “Because I’m trying to make up for what your mother—”

  “Mom did the right thing!” I slam the paperweight on the desk, where it breaks in half. Dad glances at the soundproof doors. “Nanites are the devil’s work. She was right to refuse making them.”

  Dad picks up the two halves of the paperweight and absently fits them back together. “I need more time…”

  “Dad!” I stick out my leg. It takes him a moment to see what’s missing. “I have to run. Even if you don’t come with me.”

  His hand darts to his mouth. “Oh, Silver. What did you do?”

  “I’m not taking a nanite! Besides the fact I could foam out, just like Diana. And another kid at school this morning. I won’t let something like that define who I am. I am enough, just how I am.” I struggle to keep my voice even. The anxiety hovers, so I press my hands hard against the worktop, seeking reassurance from its solidity.

  Dad stands and stares at my bare ankle. “What are we going to do?”

  I take his hand. “We have to run. Together. Please.”

  I watch the deliberation play out on Dad’s face. He stares into my eyes. First his cheeks sag, then he runs his hand through his hair. Finally, a spark ignites in his pupils.

  Dad nods and lets out a shuddery breath. “I didn’t think it was ever going to get this bad. Not really.”

  “With President Bear in power, it was always going to get this bad.” I kneel at his feet and start fiddling with his cuff. “Right, let’s get this thing off you.”

  Dad shakes his head. “There’s no way, it’s set with anti-tampering shocks…” I stick the tip of the knife where Matt showed me. “Where did you get that knife?”

  “Claus.” I grit my teeth and apply pressure. “Wait for it.”

  “Ouch!” Dad says as the cuff drops to the floor. I copy Matt’s earlier actions: shake the shock out of my fingers and suck the burn out of them.

  Dad gapes. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  I smile. “Matt.”

  “Of course,” Dad sighs. “So now what?”

  “With both our cuffs now dark, they’re going to come after us.” I jump to my feet. “We need to go.”

  Dad scurries around his desk. “Let me grab some stuff.”

  “We don’t have time.” I stomp on the cuff until the flashing red light dims to nothing.

  Dad jerks toward me. “We’re never going to get out of here alive without nanites.”

  I back toward the main doors. “I don’t understand. That’s why we’re running.”

  Dad shuffles through the work top, sticks a key in a locked cabinet and pulls out a drawer. Stuffed inside are vials of pills. “Temporary nanites.”

  I whip around on my heel. “You’ve been planning on escaping?”

  “Not planning, as such. Just preparing.” He stuffs pill bottles in his trouser pockets.

  We don’t have a lot of time, but I want to vanquish as much of this lab as possible from existence. So while Dad’s stuffing his pockets, I rip a fire extinguisher off the wall and throw it at a computer monitor. I smash it repeatedly until it’s nothing but parts.

  Dad grabs my wrist. “What are you doing?”

  I snatch a clump of paperwork from Earl’s desk. “Destroying stuff. Let’s make it as hard as possible for Bear and his nanite junkies to resurrect the program. Without you and all your notes, they’ll have to start a few squares back.”

  Dad nods. “OK, but hang on a sec.”

  He goes to his computer, where his fingers fly over the keyboard. A file window opens, and a thick green bar appears at the top of the screen. Files downloading. After a minute, he shoves a flash stick from the hard drive into his pocket.

  Dad winks at me, piling more pill bottles in his pockets. “Now you can destroy.”

  When I reach Earl’s desk, I scoop up another stack of papers. On top is a drawing of a beautifully sketched lion. Male. A tumbling, wind-swept mane, its mouth opened in a jaw-stretching roar, teeth dripping with saliva. Or maybe it’s blood. With a sudden shiver, I dump the paper in a metal trash can, lion on top, and look around for a lighter. Rummaging along the work surface with the fridges and centrifuges, I find a box of matches. The match strikes a small yellow flame, and I drop it into the trash can. The image of the lion disappears three seconds later, wilted and burnt, its power diminished. But it makes me wonder what Earl was working on.

  Dad waves at me. “Come here, I need your help.”

  He shoves pill bottles into my empty pockets. Once they’re secured, I scan the worktop and the flashing computers. Dad and I find more loose papers and feed them to the growing flames. A lick of smoke curls toward the ceiling. It won’t be long before the fire alarm goes off.

  Dad grabs a vial of something flammable from one of the fridges, opens the lid and squirts it all over the worktops and computers. I throw a chair, and glass shatters behind me. Crushed pills coat the floor like flour after a bake-off. A red light flashes in the corner. An alarm. Although the lab is silent, a siren could be blaring somewhere.

  Dad taps my shoulder. “Time to go.”

  We jog toward the door, pills shaking with each step. I hold the knife in my hand, bracing myself to deal with the two guards who flank the
door, but when we open it, the small hallway is empty. I point to the set of metal stairs that leads to the bowels of the building.

  “There’s nothing down there,” Dad says.

  I yank the sleeve of his shirt. “Trust me.”

  We clatter down the steps. At the bottom of the stairwell, we step into darkness. I fumble along the breezeblock wall for the metal cabinet. When my fingers slide over flaking metal, I stop, feeling for the top edge, and swing the door outwards. Inside are my backpack and my soft guitar case. I sweep my fingers lovingly over the case, realizing I was foolish to think I could take it with me.

  Above our heads a door slams. Several pairs of footsteps charge with a heavy tread.

  “We need to hurry,” I say, keeping an eye on the stairs.

  I pull out the backpack. Inside are two changes of clothes for myself and my father, dry food, full water bottles, orienteering equipment, two sleeping bags, a first aid kit, a coil of rope, and a few other essentials. I stashed the backpack down here over a year ago and refresh the water every week, waiting for the right moment.

  From a side pocket in the backpack I remove a flashlight and flick it on. A cone of light illuminates a second, bigger door, equally curling with dried paint.

  “The sewers?” Dad asks, splaying both hands.

  I nod. “The sewers.”

  Dad turns in a slow circle. “How long have you been planning this?”

  I yank the cords of the backpack tight and slip the straps over my shoulders. “A very long time.”

  There’s no going back now. We’ve slipped out of our cuffs and set the lab on fire. If Bear finds us now, he’ll arrest us both and throw us in prison with my mother.

  The footsteps grow in volume as I yank open the rusty door. The deep, dark tunnel brings a thread of warm, putrid air that weaves around us. Dad waves a hand in front of his nose.

  I step over the threshold into the moldering gloom. By the light of the flashlight, we pull the door shut behind us and try to avoid taking deep breaths. For a moment, the footsteps quiet, but I can hear someone keying in the code to the lab two flights above.

  I put the backpack on the floor and pull out a change of clothes for us. Army camouflage trousers, dark T-shirts, and bandanas to conceal our faces. Tied to the backpack’s outside strings are two brand new pairs of hiking boots. Armed with my knife, I hand him a flare gun.