Breathe

by Sarah Crossan

  Her eyes dart from side to side, and she whispers, “The vaccines are poisonous.” She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

  I nod as though I agree, but really I’m trying to understand why she’d say something so weird. And instead of thinking through a cool response, I blurt out the first thing that comes into my head. “Do you have a phobia of needles or something?”

  “No, I don’t hate needles.” She sighs. Maybe she thinks I’m not taking her seriously, but I don’t know how to claw my way back into her favor and I have no idea why she doesn’t like the jabs, so I simply sit there staring at her. She turns away and eats her toast.

  “I might try the line again in a minute. You?” I ask.

  “I don’t think so. I want Nurse Kelly to do it. She’s gentle. You should try to see her. Whenever you can.” She stands up.

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Why?” For once she isn’t being rude. I think she really wants to know what I plan on doing with her name.

  “Just …” I shrug.

  “I’m Alina,” she says, and walks off, leaving her tray on the table.

  There’s no point in following her as she’s clearly decided she isn’t interested, so I polish off the toast, from her plate as well as my own, and go back to the vaccination line. Ferris and Riley are right up front by the nurse’s office. I make my way toward them, past the other kids who’ve been waiting all lunch period, and squeeze into the line.

  “You’re not pushing in, are you?” Riley sneers.

  “Get the hell out of my way,” I say, and elbow him aside to make room for myself.

  “We just saw Bea,” he tells me.

  Ferris sniffs and raises his eyebrows. “Nice, tight shirt she had on,” he says. “I don’t know why you’ve never gone for a piece of that.” He covers his mouth with his hand and snorts, so without thinking too much about it, I punch Ferris in the gut.

  He doubles over. “It was a joke,” he groans.

  “Cool it, Quinn,” Riley says, patting Ferris on the back.

  I look around to see if Bea’s still within sight, but she isn’t. I stand for a minute staring at the frosty glass in the door to the nurse’s office, then change my mind about getting the vaccination and walk away.

  4

  ALINA

  Silas beat me home from school. I watch him through the glass balcony doors, crouching to examine some sprouting lavender. He pats the earth around the plant and stands up. He cocks his head to one side, pleased, and moves to another plant. Six large boxes are arranged in rows on the balcony, all containing different cuttings. Silas is so absorbed in them, he doesn’t hear the beep as the inner and outer doors open and I step outside. When I tap his shoulder, he jumps, turns, and shouts, “Damn it, Alina, what are you creeping around for?”

  “I’m not creeping anywhere.”

  Silas looks from side to side and up and down at the grid of empty balconies surrounding our own and gestures for me to follow him inside.

  “Sit down,” he says. This is something I’ve only ever heard people say in films, so I don’t know what to do. Silas uses the remote to turn on the screen and flip to a music channel. It’s playing toxic dance music, which he hates. Even so, he turns up the volume and falls back into the couch. I sit next to him. “Abel’s missing,” he whispers.

  “What?” I ask, though I’ve heard him.

  “Abel. He’s missing,” he snaps. “He hasn’t been in school. I thought he was sick or something. I didn’t really get too worried until I stopped by his place today, to see what was going on. There was no one in. A neighbor told me she hasn’t seen him in a while. Did you know he lives alone?”

  “No.”

  “Anyway, the neighbor said she’ll file a missing person’s report. For all the good it’ll do.”

  “I saw him the day after the mission and we arranged to meet for lunch today,” I say, not mentioning that I was angry and jealous when he didn’t show up, not mentioning that I left school early because I couldn’t cope with listening to Mr. Banbury droning on about algorithms when all I could concentrate on was the feeling of rejection. “Maybe he left the pod,” I say.

  “I hoped as much myself. I went down to Border Control and checked the departure roster. He wasn’t on it. He’s vanished, Alina. Gone. Not only that, but they didn’t even have his name in the system. It’s like he doesn’t exist.”

  “What about the school directory?”

  “I tried that, too. He isn’t registered for any classes.”

  I sit back into the couch and watch the half-naked dancers on the screen. The music is too loud. I can’t think. I want to turn it off and sit in complete silence. But we can’t risk turning down the music and anyone overhearing. I know better than most what it means for people to go missing in the pod. Missing means gone forever. Missing means dead.

  We sit for a long time without speaking. Occasionally Silas looks at me, but I keep my eyes on the screen and my mouth straight. I look like I am concentrating, and I am. But I am concentrating on not remembering my parents and how the same thing happened to them last year, how they simply disappeared and were never heard from again. Obviously we didn’t believe that they’d run away, that they’d somehow managed to bypass Border Control, but that was the story the Ministry gave the press, and so that’s what we had to say when anyone asked, if we didn’t want to end up missing too. Is Silas telling me that Abel is dead? “They’ve wiped him from the system?” I say.

  Silas sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “It doesn’t make sense. Abel doesn’t know anything. He just joined up.” He looks out at the balcony and I know he is thinking about whether or not he should destroy the plants. We don’t have a permit to keep them. Not only that, but they would want to know where we got them and there is no good answer to this question. At eighteen, two years older than me, my cousin, Silas, seems practically a man. If he has to destroy the plants he will. But he’ll look for an alternative first. He’s spent too long with this last set to let them go without a fight.

  “What will they do to him?” I ask. I am imagining Abel bound to a chair, being beaten until he bleeds. I am imagining him hanging upside down. Having pins driven up his fingernails. And naturally, I am imagining the obvious—Abel being pushed from the pod and starving of oxygen. Suffocating.

  I turn to Silas and must look petrified because he pats my arm and smiles. “We just have to be more careful,” he says. “We’ve been skipping too much school. We have to be as inconspicuous as possible. We can continue to meditate, but no more night training, it’s too dangerous.”

  “We have to help Abel. This is my fault. We should have abandoned the mission when the first rock failed.”

  “What first rock?”

  “The retrieval didn’t go exactly according to plan,” I admit.

  “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” He moves closer to me.

  “We thought we got away with it.”

  “Damn it, Alina! We follow procedure or we get out,” he snaps. He doesn’t need to be angry with me. I feel bad enough. “Let’s think about this.”

  “We have to get to Petra,” I say.

  “If we leave the pod so soon after our last trip, we’ll be flagged.”

  “We can’t do this alone. We’re all at risk and we need help, Silas.”

  “Calm down. For all we know, Abel’s just fine. Let’s lie low for a couple more days and see how this thing pans out. Agreed?”

  “Silas …” I try.

  “Agreed?” he repeats, more sternly.

  “Fine,” I say, but I’m not so sure the plan is a good one: we’re protecting ourselves, but what about Abel? The Resistance is a family and when one member gets cut down, we all feel it. But even if Silas is wrong, what can I do to help Abel? I don’t even know where he is.

  Silas nods to the balcony and we go outside again, where I look up at the ceiling of the glass pod. Silas bends down to rub one of the leaves on the lavender plant he
’s been tending to and brings his fingers to his nose. “It’s gorgeous. Smell,” he says. He puts his fingers up to my nose. I inhale deeply, to distract myself if for no other reason. I need to get the picture of Abel out of my head.

  “What if the neighbors see the boxes?” I ask.

  “They’ll think they’re as fake as theirs.” Many of our neighbors have plastic plants on their balconies, and there’s no reason for anyone to suspect that ours are any different.

  “Just don’t let anyone see you watering them,” I say.

  “What? Old Watson waters his plants. When I asked about it, he said he did it to remind himself of how things had been. Poor guy. He started choking up.” Silas stands and brushes some soil from his trousers as a speed camera momentarily lights up the street below. Someone’s been caught.

  I peer down into the shadows. A tram clanks along its rails and the pedestrians on the pavement shuffle along. It’s illegal to run in the pod without an airtank. It’s illegal to walk faster than three miles per hour. The speed cameras track movement. As do the stewards. That’s why Silas and I train at night, in alleyways and under bridges where no one can see us, where no one is monitoring the excess oxygen we use. Not that we want to be using excess oxygen; we’d prefer it if they turned the oxygen levels right down.

  There have been a few close calls when a steward has wandered down an alley and come upon us, and then we’ve really had to run, balaclavas covering our faces so the cameras can’t identify us even as the speed cameras flash and whistle.

  “Let’s go inside,” Silas says.

  The lights are on in the apartment and Uncle Gideon and Aunt Harriet are in the hall kicking off their shoes. They hug us both before collapsing onto the couch, exhausted from working twelve hours at the agriculture unit of the biosphere. This is a good placement compared to some jobs. At least they get to spend their days breathing in natural air and sometimes they manage to smuggle fruit or vegetables out so we can taste real food. Only Premiums can afford food that’s grown; the rest of us survive on vitamin-heavy synthetic breads and smoothies. Today their uniforms are covered in red splotches that can only mean one thing.

  “Berry picking?” I ask.

  “Dessert,” Uncle Gideon says. He delves into the front pocket of his trousers and pulls out a handful of ripe raspberries. Silas looks annoyed. He keeps his eyes on my aunt and uncle, tapping his foot impatiently, expectantly.

  “Especially for you,” my aunt says, and pulls from her bag a small raspberry plant cutting and three more raspberries. “Are there enough seeds in those to keep you happy?” she asks Silas.

  “Perfect,” he says.

  “God, what are you two listening to?” Aunt Harriet asks. She rubs her temples.

  Uncle Gideon reaches for the remote and turns off the screen. “What I need is a cold drink and some grub,” he says, looking at Silas. Silas wanders into the kitchen. I follow him, open the freezer, and take out a slab of frozen dinner cake. The apartment is quiet as my aunt and uncle doze on the couch.

  “Why didn’t you tell them?” I whisper.

  “They have enough to worry about. If it looks like the Ministry is on to us, we’ll say something. Until then …” He runs two fingers across his lips as though zipping them together. “Got it?”

  I nod and unwrap the dinner cake from its waxy paper. There’s no use grieving over Abel when, for all I know, he’s fine. This is the lie I feed myself.

  5

  BEA

  The hailstorm and heavy rain sound like a giant is drumming his fingers against the glass pod. After school, I’m waiting on a narrow bench at a tram station for Quinn, but suddenly wish I were at the world-viewing station, as I was yesterday, watching what the weather does to the world, how it creates puddles in the dips of the earth and rivulets where it’s hilly. No matter what happens outside, we are sheltered here: no rain or snow in the winter, no humidity or heat in the summer. The temperature is always perfect and the air always clear; the pod protects us from every element, saves us from suffocation.

  Quinn shows up a few minutes late. I see him before he notices me, nudging his way along the crowded platform. When he gets to my bench, he hurls his bag to the ground and plonks down next to me. Before I have a chance to ask him what’s wrong, he starts ranting.

  “Can you tell me why I need to be injected for the green flu when I don’t even know anyone with the green flu. Has anyone you know got it?”

  “Did you read the memo?” I ask. He pushes up the sleeves of his shirt and crosses his arms.

  “You’re the second person to say that to me today. No, I didn’t. And even if I did, they never explain why we need vaccines for illnesses no one has.” He has a point. The vaccines are mandatory, yet I’ve never met anyone with any of the things we’re constantly being protected from. Still, I’m not sure it’s worth taking the chance.

  “The green flu could kill you and it’s airborne, so unless you plan on living out there”—I point up at the roof of the pod—“you’ve got to deal with it.” When the tram pulls into the station, we hustle our way to some back seats with a view of the screen a couple of rows ahead. A woman jumps into the carriage just before the doors slurp shut.

  “Is this a clockwise service?” she asks.

  “Anti,” someone tells her.

  “Oh.” She sighs and slumps against a luggage rack as the tram races out of the station.

  “Where’ve you been all day, anyway? I sent you a million messages,” Quinn says.

  “I haven’t looked at my pad. What’s wrong? Did you hear from Professor Felling?” I ask. I know he can’t really be upset about the routine vaccinations, so maybe he’s heard that he failed the exam and that’s why he’s stewing. I elbow him when he doesn’t answer. “Quinn?” He stares out at the smudged rows of apartment blocks as we speed along.

  “I haven’t heard a thing yet. You?” He looks at me, his anger momentarily diluted.

  “I failed. So …” I trail off. I don’t need to explain what failing means for me and my family.

  “What? There’s no way. Bea, I’m sorry.” He squeezes my knee and leaves his hand resting there. My stomach tightens as I wait for something else, something more to happen between us. But it doesn’t. He sits quite still with his hand on my knee and stares at me. This is all that happens today and this is all that will ever happen. “It has to be some kind of clerical error. We’ll go down to the Scholastic Institute and ask to see the professor. We can go now. Or I’ll speak to my dad. Don’t worry.”

  “It isn’t a mistake, Quinn.”

  “It has to be. Your arguments were flippin’ flawless.”

  “Well, obviously they weren’t. It seems like we’ve both had a bad day,” I say.

  Quinn crosses his arms. “Tell me what the message said.”

  “I don’t want to go into it. I’ll just get upset. Do you mind?”

  He shakes his head. “Of course I don’t mind.” He pauses. “I guess that means I didn’t pass either.” He shrugs, trying to act as though he isn’t concerned about himself when I know that this was something he really wanted to do; he wanted to show his dad he could make the cut on his own merit.

  “If you haven’t had a message, there’s a good chance you passed,” I say. I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is that his father has influence and maybe his chances were always better than mine anyway.

  “It hardly matters. I don’t want to leave school and join the Scholastic Institute on my own. I’d never see you. The plan was that we both get into the program. Are you okay?”

  I press my lips together and nod. “I’m fine. Let’s change the subject. What happened to you today?”

  “Nothing,” he says. “But these vaccines … I can’t stand them.”

  I swallow and take a guess. “A girl?”

  He sighs and laughs at himself. “I don’t know what happens, but every time I meet someone, I turn into a cartoon.” I try smiling, but I actually wish we could talk about
the debate again. Anything but Quinn’s love life. “You can’t imagine how stunning she is.”

  “You said that about Tilly, and it turned out she was of goblin proportions.”

  “Tilly was short.” He laughs again.

  “Admit she was a goblin,” I say, though I know it’s cruel.

  “And she’s got these eyes.” He pauses and shakes his head disbelievingly.

  “She has eyes? Wow!”

  “No, really. She has these piercing green eyes. Now who do you know with green eyes?” It’s hard to believe. He’s looking right at me. He’s looking right into my eyes and he doesn’t notice their color. “Anyway, Alina thinks I’m an idiot,” he goes on. Alina. The name sounds familiar. I try to retrieve an image of this girl in my mind, but I can’t. Our school serves a couple thousand students, and it would be impossible to know every one of them.

  “Sometimes you are an idiot,” I say. I am trying to tease him, maybe I’m trying to flirt, but he’s so dejected all he does is nod in agreement.

  “It was Ferris and Riley. They’re never around when you need them, and when you don’t want to be bothered by them, they show up. God, I’m glad I didn’t invite them camping.”

  “You were going to invite them camping?”

  “Ferris never shuts up about you. Why don’t you give him a chance?” Now he’s the one teasing. Last week Ferris tried to put his hand up my skirt, and it was all I could do to stop Quinn from pulling Ferris’s arms from their sockets.

  “Give Ferris a chance to what? Humiliate and ridicule me?”

  “Poor Ferris,” Quinn says with a laugh. “He’s just so—”

  “He’s a pervert and an ignoramus,” I interrupt.

  “That’s harsh,” he says, but he’s still snickering, so I know he doesn’t mean it. He’s as repulsed by Ferris as I am.

  “What about the time he snuck into your house so he could do whatever he wanted with that girl without his family getting an excess oxygen charge? I don’t even want to think about that,” I say, though I am already thinking far too much about it.