Sputnik's Children

by Terri Favro

  “Debbie Reynolds Biondi.”

  The nurse clapped her hands. She was watching the needle on the gauge move. “Very good! You’re telling the truth! See how easy it is?”

  “Who was with you in the Z-Lands?” asked the policeman.

  “Linda. Dad,” I said. Then I remembered the Trespasser. Did he even count?

  The nurse shook a finger at me. “Somebody’s fibbing.”

  “I’ll repeat the question,” said the policeman.

  I didn’t wait for him. “There was a guy in the canal. A trespasser,” I said. “But I don’t know who he was.”

  Silence. “That doesn’t sound like a true memory,” said the nurse.

  “The polygraph says it is,” said the policeman. “What happened next?”

  “The Geiger counter made a lot of clicks and Dad said to leave. I got stuck on the barbed wire so he cut off my hair. Then we drove away real fast and got a flat. He said for me and Linda to run home while he fixed it.”

  “What did your dad tell you about the clicks?”

  “That he was surprised ’cause it hadn’t been that high since ’55.”

  “What did he mean by ‘high’?”

  I thought about this. “I don’t know. The, like, counts. The radioactive stuff, I guess.”

  “Did you or your sister, or the two of you together, hurt your dad?”

  “No!”

  “No? No what?”

  I sat for a moment in confusion, hearing his question as know what?

  The nurse said, “Where are your manners, honey? When you speak to Officer Smith, you call him ‘sir.’”

  The policeman leaned in close. His face smelled like wood chips and salt. Officer Smith used the same aftershave as Dad.

  He asked, “Are you or your sister a member of the Youth Anarchy Movement, also known as ‘Yammers’?”

  “No, sir.”

  The nurse clucked her tongue. “Watch your tone, missy.”

  “Did you tell anyone else about this?” asked the policeman.

  I wasn’t prepared for this question. I remembered Kendal and me on the stoop. How he said kids shouldn’t be expected to keep grown-up secrets.

  “No, sir,” I repeated.

  “You’re lying, Debbie,” said the policeman.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You just lied again, Debbie. Twice in under thirty seconds. Not nice. If you want to go home — ever — you’d better start telling the truth. Otherwise, I could find you a nice little hole in the ground where you can sit in the dark until you’re an old woman. I know the perfect one. We’ll feed you, keep you alive and give you plenty of company. You like slugs and worms?”

  I started to cry. I had a particular fear of worms and slugs.

  “Now, now,” said the nurse, handing me a box of tissues.

  “I told a boy,” I sobbed.

  “What’s his name? Where does he live?”

  Feeling sick to my stomach, I told them about John Kendal. Meanwhile, the policeman pulled a shiny black-and-white picture out of a manila envelope. He put it on the table in front of me.

  “Now, let’s get back to the intruder you saw in the Z-Lands. Is this the individual?”

  I stared at the photograph of a good-looking young man in an industrial army uniform. A Corporal Pipefitter, judging by the crossed wrench insignia on his collar. His fair hair was buzzed into a crewcut. He wasn’t the Trespasser, but he sure looked familiar.

  “No,” I said.

  “You know him?”

  I stared at the picture. The young man’s head angled to one side, but I could still make out a lumpy knot of tissue dangling from one ear. He was Linda’s carnie, Billy. If I told the truth, would they punish her along with him?

  “Maybe,” I said slowly.

  “From where?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What a fibber,” clucked the nurse.

  Before the policeman had a chance to ask another question, Dad’s boss walked into the room. He was wearing a plaid tie, just like the one Dad had on that morning, with the little red tie bar that told everyone he was a senior officer. He smiled at me unconvincingly.

  “How’s it going?” he asked the policeman.

  The policeman told Dad’s boss about Kendal. “We should get that kid in here, pronto.”

  “Let’s not be hasty,” said Dad’s boss, smoothing his tie. “There are better ways. Got a widowed mother to support. We can use that.” He gave me his el-fake-o smile again. “Your dad’s fine, dear. He’ll be home to tuck you into bed tonight. You believe me, right, kiddo?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said in a small voice.

  The polygraph needle jumped. I might as well have called Dad’s boss a liar to his face, but he patted me on the shoulder.

  “That’s all right, you’re a good girl. Off you go now. Have fun at the picnic.”

  “Not finished, sir,” said the policeman. “The girl saw an intruder. Might be a known anarchist. We should get her to dig into that memory. Dotty here could give her a light injection of truth serum to move things along. And we’re still trying to track down the kid’s sister for interrogation.”

  “Check the manual. She’s a minor. There are limits,” said Dad’s boss. “As for the sister, forget it. We’ve got what we need.”

  The policeman shrugged. “Your funeral,” he said to Dad’s boss, then turned to me. “Don’t tell anyone about this. We don’t want to have to bring you back in or put you in that place I told you about before.”

  The nurse nodded. “That certainly would be a shame.”

  And just like that, the nurse unhooked me from the machine and bustled me out the door. My knees felt all jangly, like a broken walking doll. In the outer room, the nurse told me to wait. She opened a cupboard door. Inside, there was a little freezer. I watched her lean into it and dig around. Over her shoulder, she said, “You’re an exceptional girl, Debbie; you cried only once. So I’m giving you two scoops.”

  I could hear the carousel. Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true . . .

  “Scutterbotch. Double scoop. As promised,” said the nurse, handing me an ice cream cone. “All better now?” She opened the door and pushed me outside, slamming it behind me.

  I felt queasy, my jaw stiff, as if I might throw up. I walked jerkily to a garbage bin and tossed in the ice cream cone. Then I started running. I’m not sure where I thought I was going. I wanted to tell someone what had happened to me, but who? If I told Linda, they’d put her in a hole for the rest of her life. Mom, too. Maybe all three of us. The only person I knew I could tell — had to tell — was Kendal. To warn him. Because they knew that he knew what happened in the Z-Lands. If they stuck him in a hole in the ground, it would be all my fault.

  It was starting to get dark. A crowd was gathered at the bandstand just ahead of me, but somehow they seemed far, far away. Shivering despite the warm evening, I made myself walk toward them, past the carousel and the hot dog tent and the playground where I’d been playing Shoot the Neighbours with the twins just a little while ago.

  I could see Mom now with Claudia Donato, both of them standing with their arms crossed, looking up at the bandstand. A troop of managing officers in ShipCo dress uniforms — sports jackets, hard hats, plaid ties — were standing at attention behind the managing commander, Dad’s boss, who was at the microphone holding a big white envelope.

  I tried calling — Mom, Mom — but nothing came out of my mouth. When she finally saw me, she threw her arms around me in a hug. I wanted to hug her back but my arms hurt when I tried to lift them.

  “Oh, Debbie, cara, they found Daddy. He took the car to the plant to clean it and the door locked behind him in the decontamination bay. Someone heard him yelling, finally, and got him out. He’s on his way here right now. Isn’t that great?”

 
; I nodded my head. Up on the bandstand, John Kendal was walking up to Dad’s boss, shaking his hand and taking the big white envelope. The other managing officers on the bandstand saluted Kendal. A photographer took their picture.

  “What are they doing with John Kendal?” I whispered.

  “ShipCo is giving him a scholarship,” said Mom.

  Oh no. Not a scholarship.

  “Where to?” I asked weakly.

  “The Industrial School for Boys out in Bramborough.”

  This was even worse news. Bramborough was farm country, a good hour from Shipman’s Corners. No one who went to Bramborough on scholarship was ever seen alive again. “Being awarded a scholarship” was another way to say that a kid was a goner.

  “At least his poor mother will be looked after. I’m sure it’s for the best,” Mom said, sighing. “Such a nice boy, though.”

  Mrs. Kendal was sitting on the stage, her hands clamped over her mouth. Kendal’s head was down as he took the paper from Dad’s boss. I couldn’t see the expression on his face.

  “If it’s for the best, why’s Mrs. Kendal crying?” I asked.

  Mrs. Donato lit a du Maurier off the butt of the old one. “Tears of joy,” she mumbled.

  Mom was scanning the crowd: “Now, where on earth did your sister get to?”

  That’s when I saw a picture in my mind. Linda with Billy inside a kaleidoscope — no, that couldn’t be right; they were inside the drum-shaped space in the middle of the carousel with its tiny reflecting mirrors and organ pipes. He was kissing Linda so hard that her back pressed against the lever that started the carousel going.

  Daisy, Daisy — the tune played in the distance, even though no one was riding the painted horses at that time of the evening. The world began to move up and down around me: the crowd, the bandstand, the puzzled face of Mrs. Donato, Mom mouthing words I didn’t understand, round and round, up and down. I felt myself falling backwards. Grass prickled the back of my neck.

  A man’s voice said, “Give her air.”

  I opened my eyes. A face was looming over me. Heavy, black horn-rimmed glasses, a ginger-coloured crewcut and the worst sunburn I’d ever seen. The man wore a plaid tie and a stethoscope around his neck. His fingers pressed the inside of my wrist.

  “She’s coming around now,” he said. He grinned down at me and made a V shape in front of my eyes. His middle finger ended at the knuckle, just like the Trespasser.

  “How many fingers?” he asked.

  “One and a half.”

  “Good. No concussion.”

  “Who are you?” I whispered.

  He smiled. “Dr. Duffy, but my friends call me Duff. Company medic. Biogeneticist, really, but I have basic medical training. Subbing for the regular ShipCo doc. Dr. Welby twisted his ankle on manoeuvres, so they sent me up to fill in tonight. Didn’t think I’d earn my keep, ’til you fainted. Low blood sugar, I’ll bet. When was the last time you ate, young lady?”

  Mom was stooped over looking at me. “Oh, cara, with everything going on, you didn’t have lunch.”

  “Case closed,” he said. “Mom, this girl needs an ice cream cone. Two scoops. Doctor’s orders. What’s your favourite flavour?”

  “Banana. Like that bus I saw you standing on,” I whispered.

  He frowned as he slipped a penlight out of his pocket. A point of light shone in one of my eyes, then the other.

  “I thought you said no concussion, doctor?” said Mom, hovering beside us.

  “Give me a moment, ma’am,” he murmured in a brisk who’s-the-doctor-here voice.

  Taking the hint, Mom moved off toward the trees, arms crossed, to talk with Claudia. Once he was sure she was out of earshot, Dr. Duffy bent low to my face.

  “What bus?”

  “In the Z-Lands,” I whispered back. “Except you were old and you had long hair, like a girl. You were melting.”

  “Melting?”

  “Your hands fell off.”

  I heard him take a sharp breath. “Did I say anything?”

  I nodded. “You said, ‘you’re it, Debbie.’”

  Dr. Duffy swayed back on his heels. “‘It.’ As in ‘I.T.’ I said you were the Ion Tagger? Not your sister?”

  I shook my head. “I dunno, you just said ‘it.’” I hesitated. “A policeman was asking me questions about you. He’s probably looking for you.”

  Dr. Duffy nodded and pulled a cotton swab out of his shirt pocket. “Open wide.” The tip of the swab scraped hard at the inside of my cheek as he explained in a low, rapid voice: “Listen closely. I’m from the future, helping my partner identify the Ion Tagger. Sounds as if an older version of me thinks that’s you. Which means you’re going to have to collapse time and migrate the entire population of Earth into a parallel world that’s weakly coupled to ours. Otherwise, humanity is doomed. Understand?”

  Tears leaked from my eyes again. After the day I’d had, the last thing I wanted to hear was that I was responsible for saving the world.

  “How can you expect me to do all that? I’m only twelve years old!”

  “Age is irrelevant. It’s your DNA that matters,” he muttered, half to himself, half to me, as he slid the swab into a plastic tube and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “If your epithelia check out, I’ll be back.”

  “Wait! What’m I supposed to do? And what’s gonna happen to Kendal?”

  He looked down at me. “Save John Kendal or the world is doomed.”

  I watched him walk off into the darkness beyond the park lights.

  QUEEN ELIZABETH HOTEL, MONTREAL

  May 2011, E.S.T.

  I love hotels. The pocket rockets of whisky in the minibars. The thumb-sized bottles of rosemary mint shampoo. The treadmills of sales reps sweating off their complimentary breakfast buffet. The well-groomed gentlemen lounging in the lobby reading The Economist with their shoes off. Most of all, the anonymity.

  In the lobby bar, a red-vested barman with ruthlessly landscaped face-scruff smiles at me. Pretty sure he remembers me from the night before: I’m sitting on the same stool at the dark oak bar, sketching tiny black figures executing judo chops and flying dropkicks on the cocktail napkins. The solvents in my Sharpie mix with the civet cat musk in my perfume, making me feel slightly buzzed.

  “Madame?” he asks, eyebrows raised — his polite way of suggesting: Martini?

  “Bien sûr. The usual,” I answer. Testing him.

  The barman’s dimples are so deep, you could spelunk down them. “Double vodka martini. Stoli. Very wet, very dirty. Olives. Rocks. Right?”

  “You have an astonishing memory.”

  “You were here last night, drawing. I would not forget you so fast.”

  He slips away and comes back with a highball glass full of ice, a little tray of bar snacks and a stainless steel art deco cocktail shaker that sweats seductively.

  He shakes my drink, and I give an involuntary groan at the comforting sound of ice on steel. No one makes martinis like they do in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel Lobby Bar of Earth Standard Time.

  “Hard day at the office?” he asks, pouring.

  “Chained to my desk,” I answer.

  He leaves the shaker on the bar in front of me as I storyboard on a napkin. Sputnik Chick is wearing her trademark thunderbolt bustier and coming on to a guy sipping a cocktail:

  SPUTNIK CHICK (folded up like a jackknife on a high bar stool): What are you, anyway — a Normal, a Twistie or what?

  GUY (lifting his highball glass): Stockbroker. That’s about as normal as you get, eh?

  SPUTNIK CHICK (pulls out a shotgun, blasts him off the stool): That’s for screwing my pension fund, you fucker.

  Money is much on my mind. Although I should be economizing, I booked a suite on the twenty-eighth floor — the Gold Status level. I tell myself it’s a business expense.

  A
t the front desk, no one reacts when I hand over the staggering room rate in stacks of hundreds, although a kid going down to the pool, towel around his neck, stares at me.

  “You a gangster, lady?” he asks in a voice that’s all New Jersey and no tact.

  I shake my head solemnly. “Comic book artist.”

  “Wow,” says the kid. “You don’t look like Stan Lee.”

  “I’m a shape-shifter,” I tell him over my shoulder as I follow the valet carrying my suitcase and portfolio to the private elevator.

  Up on twenty-eight, the rooms have a rarefied air. If you’re sleeping in one of them, you must be hot shit. This is the hotel where the world came to interview John and Yoko in bed. Where Eurotrash royals hung out in the swinging ’60s. Buzz Aldrin slept here after he walked on the moon.

  Being able to make outrageous demands is one of the perks — that and the split of Veuve Clicquot chilling beside the king-size bed. I just wish I had someone to share it with. My mind slides back to the handsome barman, but it’s best not to take that relationship beyond flirtation. I don’t want to ruin his generous pour.

  When I booked the suite, I requested an elliptical machine, a digital scale for my twice-daily weigh-ins and a drafting table. The table is already waiting for me, facing a window overlooking Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral on Rue Mansfield. Perched on a stool, I can look down on the top of St. Anthony of Padua’s tonsured and guano-spackled stone head.

  I know how you feel, buddy. You think you’re on top of the world, but something unpleasant always threatens to rain down on you from above. If it isn’t the Bomb, it’s bird shit.

  I circle my hand on the paper, warming up to draw.

  Spunkies debate Sputnik Chick’s origins on fan sites. Most of them think she’s an orphan, a feral child from the future. A survivor, living on irradiated (and therefore unspoiled) garbage in atomic waste dumpsites and biohazard compost piles.

  Nothing could be further from the truth.

  So far, my pencil has revealed that she came from a close, loving family of Normals who preserved their pristine DNA during the conflagration by hiding out in a hardened shelter inside a hollowed-out mountain, cultivating hydroponic tomatoes, grapes, zucchini, peppers and other fresh produce.