The Immortals

by Mary Hallberg

  There are a lot of things about The Immortals that the general public doesn’t realize. One of them is the sharp contrast between living as an Immortal and living as an ordinary citizen. Sure everyone knows they’re as different as night and day, but they can’t really comprehend it until they’ve had their feet in both worlds.

  For the first four or five years after the economy collapsed, people kept their electronics. They wanted to sell them because they needed the money, but nobody could really afford to buy them. So they just kept them until they were worn out, then threw them away. Now very few people have more than just a TV, maybe an old computer.

  If an Immortal doesn’t have at least two of every major electronic — car, phone, television, and so forth — they’re practically freaks in The Necropolis. The grants are a hundred thousand dollars a month, but things are a lot cheaper than they were a few years ago. The Immortals only make up a small percentage of the population, so electronics aren’t exactly in demand anymore, at least not like they used to be.

  The Necropolis is small by pre-collapse standards, but it is still the second largest city in the world. Other countries have their own system and cities that are similar, but they still can’t hold a candle to it. The largest is Los Angeles, where most of the pre-collapse celebrities still live. There are at least two million people living there as opposed to the nearly one thousand in The Necropolis, but being a former celebrity doesn’t give you access to TNV or lifetime grants, and none of The Immortals were celebrities before they joined. All the major music, movie, and TV studios went bankrupt post-collapse and a lot of those workers, just like the rest of the country, were used to blowing through money like candy. So they were all in the same rut as the rest of the country by now.

  So if you want to go to a place where luxury and wealth abound, The Necropolis is the place to go. Unfortunately, the only thing harder than getting in is getting out, and the price of staying is much higher than any lifetime grants could pay for.

  prologue

  I never thought I’d see so many people at a funeral.

  I haven’t been to many funerals, but the few I have attended weren’t nearly this crowded — not even my dad’s. The entire sanctuary was filled to capacity and people were standing in the back and along the aisles. A few minutes before the service started, the ushers came and spoke to them. I overheard one of them standing close to me say this many people in the building was a fire hazard and they would have to leave. I also never thought I’d see anyone kicked out of a funeral.

  Most of the people who got thrown out were reporters who probably didn’t want to be there anyway. They shuffled to the front steps of the church without much protest; they probably couldn’t see much through the stained glass windows but were just waiting for us to come out so they could snap our pictures or ask us questions. I guess I should have at least been glad there were so many people at my grandpa’s funeral, but it made me even more upset. These people weren’t here because of my grandfather, at least not because he was a wonderful man they wanted to pay their respects to (even though he was and they should). They were here because he was famous.

  It was obvious that the minister didn’t know grandpa very well because all he did was reread his obituary (which I had already read when it was posted online the day before) and talk about eternal life in heaven. Seems like the only place you can hear about heaven these days is at a funeral. He read John 3:16 and a few passages from Revelation, but I tuned him out. I hadn’t been to church in over a year and even when I had gone I hadn’t exactly paid close attention. I didn’t remember much about the Bible except from Sunday School lessons as a kid and they don’t usually talk about Revelation to little kids. But the little I have heard of it always makes my skin prickle. This passage talked about a new heaven and a new earth and how God would wipe away everyone’s tears and there would be no more death and no more pain. It wasn’t as bad as the bizarre imagery of three headed beasts and lakes of fire, but I still wasn’t buying it. There wasn’t much death where I came from, but there sure as hell was plenty of pain.

  It was a pretty typical funeral service, I’d imagine. Mom used to watch old movies where people went to funerals but only the graveside was shown and everyone wore black. Most of them were murder mysteries and some policeman would always come talk to the victim’s family and ask them questions like “did Johnny have any enemies?” We weren’t going to the graveside until later, most people wore dark colors but not all black, and if any reporters were going to question us at the graveside they probably wouldn’t ask us if grandpa had any enemies. Everyone knows he didn’t...well, except maybe for a few panel members he pissed off when he left The Necropolis. And why on earth would detectives question people at a funeral? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to bring them in for questioning at a better time? But it’s not like anyone else had any answers. I had a feeling that at least half the people in the room and more than half the ones attempting to peer in through the stained glass windows didn’t know much more about funerals than I did. Or, if they did, they never imagined they would attend the funeral of Dr. Fred Palmer. He was supposed to live forever.

  Afterwards, we all stood on the front lawn together side by side: Mom, me, then Luke. People came one by one, sometimes two by two or three by three, and told mom how sorry they were for her loss. Sometimes the old ladies would put their gloved hands gently on hers, which struck me as sort of phony. Touching hands is supposed to be a sign of affection — I thought about the way Gage always used to take my hand in his — and surely these people didn’t care enough about grandpa to be that sorry. Where had they been during the last few months of his life, when he could barely sit up on his own?

  After the old ladies talked to mom, they would ask Luke what he was doing right now. “Working as a photographer,” he would say, smiling. They didn’t have to ask me what I was doing, or at least they didn’t think they did. Most of them asked how The Necropolis was. All I told them was that I was moving back to Rochester. They didn’t know the rest of the story. They tried to hide their surprise but some of them ended up gasping as if they had just learned that that old singer from the 1950’s, Elvis Presley, had just come back from the dead or something. Nobody came back to Rochester from The Necropolis. Nobody came back to wherever they came from after living in The Necropolis. Well, nobody but grandpa. And look where it had gotten him — lying in a pine box, most of what was left of his small fortune gone. I really could have used a drink after about the tenth person unintentionally reminded me of that, but unfortunately I was only 17, and the drinking age was actually enforced here. I could have asked Luke to buy me something after the service, even something non-alcoholic like coffee or soda, but I didn’t want to use up his money.

  We were on about the twentieth old lady when I spotted Corrina Girard in my peripheral vision. I turned away and focused on some guy with his back to me talking to mom, sort of hoping that she wouldn’t be able to see me if I couldn’t see her. It was late afternoon and the sun was bright in my eyes; I couldn’t stand it after a minute so I turned back around and there was Corrina. She was coming from the opposite direction as mom so while she continued to talk to the strange man, Corrina just started rambling. She sort of reminded me of Jacey in that sense, which made me miss her as well. I would have to give her a call after the graveside service.

  “McKenzie, can I talk to you?” Corrina asked.

  “I’d really rather not.”

  She sighed. “Look, I know I’m probably the last person you want to talk to right now. But I have something to tell you and I think you’ll want to hear it. It’s about my book.” She motioned her head toward the open front doors of the sanctuary. “Can we go some place private?”

  “Wa
it…how do you know that I know about your book?”

  “Please Kenzie, I’m not stupid. My notebook mysteriously disappeared out of my bag right after I had lunch with you. After what I did to you guys, I probably deserved it.”

  Mom stopped talking to the stranger, apparently overhearing us. “Go on, honey,” she said. “We can handle this.” I glared at her but she'd already turned back to the stranger and didn’t see me. I groaned and followed Corrina.

  The sanctuary was empty but we still slipped into the back where the choir comes in. “McKenzie,” Corrina said, “I really am sorry about your grandfather.”

  I scratched my eyebrow. “The notebook is at my house. I can go get it if you want.”

  She tapped the messenger bag at her side. “No worries. I’ve got a copy here.” She reached into the bag and pulled out the manuscript. It was thick but not as thick as I had expected, and it looked professional. She was probably getting ready to send it off to some publisher. “Everyone’s in there, even you.”

  She handed me the manuscript and I fumbled with the pages in my hands. “You haven’t…added anything to it, have you?”

  “Only what you told me. Why?”

  I shook my head. “No reason.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Kenzie, what did you do?”

  I wanted to tell her that she had no right to call me Kenzie, that only my friends and family could call me Kenzie, but I didn’t. “Nothing,” I replied. “At least, nothing I’m going to tell you.”

  “That’s understandable. I wouldn’t tell me anything either.” She snickered. “But Kenzie, you should know, and this is really the reason why I wanted to talk to you in person...I’m not publishing it.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “What’s the matter? I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  “Of course it is. But you’ve been working on it for months. Years, maybe. And if it’s published then you’ll be...well...you could be Immortal.”

  “Immortal? Come on, McKenzie, wake up. I’ll never be Immortal and we both know it. Even if it got published, the panel wouldn’t look twice at me. It’s all a matter of luck. Even if you know all the right people there’s never a guarantee of getting in.”

  “I got in,” I said. “If I can do it, you probably could too. Now that I’m leaving, you could even have my spot.”

  “Oh give me a break. You got in because of who your grandfather was and because Jerome Glen’s wife kicked it at just the right time so there was an open spot. I’m almost 21 and I’ve lived in The Necropolis my whole life. If I haven’t gotten in by now, I never will.” She sighed. “But it’s okay. Because of the stuff you did, people are going to remember you. Even if I don’t publish the book, which I’m not. And even if you stop taking the TNV and never come back to The Necropolis again. And you deserve it a hell of a lot more than I do.”

  I cringed when she said ‘hell.’ Wasn’t swearing in church supposed to be some sort of taboo?“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “What is it that sets me apart from the other Immortals? What makes me so special?”

  “You’re a good person, Kenzie.”

  I snorted. “Yeah right. You don’t know half the stuff I’ve done. I am not a good person.”

  “Yes you are,” she said.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  She grinned. “You know why.”

  chapter one

  I was dozing off in front of the TV when my phone rang. I had no idea what I was pretending to watch; Luke had put on one of his stupid crime shows and I hadn’t cared to look for something else. Apparently it wasn’t enough to distract me from all the terms I had to study for my biology test the next morning. Mitosis, meiosis, anaphase, telophase, telephone…

  I hadn’t bothered to change the ringtone from the default one since I got it a month earlier, so it took me a minute to even realize that strange noise I heard was my phone. And when I did, I still wasn’t sure which button to press. Back home, all we had one of those phones they used a hundred years ago; the only thing you could do was call people, and you had to press a bunch of buttons. This one was entirely touch screen. What if I touched the wrong part of the screen and accidentally sent the person calling — according to the display, it was Jace — one of my embarrassing old photos? Last week I was trying to send in an English assignment and almost sent the teacher a picture of me sitting in my high chair at age three with face paint covering my forehead and cheeks. Jacey was my friend, but I wasn’t quite ready for her to see stuff like that. Why had I even let Luke put those pictures on my phone? And how could he already work the damn thing better than me? One of his Immortal friends must have let him practice on theirs.

  Finally, I figured the ‘talk’ button was my best bet.

  “Hello?” I said.

  As usual, Jacey began rambling a mile a minute without so much as returning my greeting. “Are you getting any of this bio stuff? I have no clue what we’re supposed to do with this homework. And don’t we have a quiz tomorrow? Please tell me you get this.”

  I rubbed my eyes and looked at my notebook. “Um, sort of,” I said. “Do you need help?”

  “No, I’m just freaking out for the hell of it. Yes I need help! Can you come over? My mom’s not here, but I can make dinner and then we can study.”

  “Um, okay.” I wasn’t sure how to turn on the speaker phone, so I closed my notebook with one hand.

  “Oh, I have a friend over. Is that cool? He’s going to eat with us, but then he’ll probably leave.”

  “Oh, it’s a guy?” I said teasingly. “Do I know him?”

  She hesitated. “No, I don’t think so. See you in a few minutes.”

  Because it was still light out and Jacey’s house was only a block away, I decided to walk. Our apartment building was smack in the middle of a neighborhood full of Immortals’ houses. Well, I say full. There were only three houses between Jacey and me, but they were all bigger than my old high school. I had been in The Necropolis for almost three months and still hadn’t gotten used to that. I probably could have bought a small house with the grant money I'd already saved up, but I didn’t feel quite ready to move out yet. I didn’t even know if it was legal for a 16-year-old to be living on her own, though most laws didn’t apply to Immortals anymore. I’m sure nobody would have said anything. But for now, I was content living with Luke — even if he did have horrible taste in TV.

  Luke is a member of the Underground, the name given to people who somehow contribute to the Immortals’ lifestyle. The Underground is made up of maids, TV reporters, even dentists; anyone who serves Immortals. Luke is a photographer, and a lot of his clients are Immortal. Between the money he gets for his freelance jobs and my grant money, we manage to live pretty comfortably.

  There was a red convertible parked in Jacey’s driveway. Must be her little friend’s, I figured. She had already gone on several dates since the school year started six weeks earlier; I had never met any of the guys, so I figured she must really like this one. She had been hung up on one of her exes for awhile, so I took this as a sign that she was finally moving on.

  As I'd already learned to do, I walked right to the front door and opened it without knocking. “Jacey?”I called. The kitchen was quiet, but I saw a pot on the stove and smelled noodles. Jacey's an amazing cook.

  She came shuffling out of the living room, already changed from her school clothes into sweats. “Oh good, you’re here,” she said. Her brown hair was sticking up in odd places, and her cheeks were pink. “Matt’s already in the living room. We’re about to watch some TV.”

  “Um, okay.” It was weird that her new guy had the same name as her ex, but whatever. I guess names are pretty trivial once you’ve found the right person. “What are you cooking? It smells great.”

  “Chicken noodle soup.” She didn’t look back and walked faster down the hall. I followed her.

  “Oh good, that’s what I thought when I saw the pot on the stove. I’ve never had homemade chicken noodle
soup before. I don’t think my mom has ever made any kind of soup since…”

  We stopped outside the living room walkway. A dark haired boy sat on the couch, and he turned around as we came in. “Hi,” he said. “You must be McKenzie.”

  “Oh my God,” I said. “You’re Matt Cavanagh.”

  I had only been Immortal since the end of July — almost two months at that point. But even before that, I knew who Matt Cavanagh was. Even if I hadn’t heard Jacey ramble about her famous ex for the past two months, I had known who he was for years. Even among Immortals, the most well-known people in the country, Matt was something of a legend.

  He'd become Immortal when he was just eleven, when some panel members discovered what a talented poet he was. The panel insists Immortals are chosen for their honorable contributions to society; at one point, you practically had to have instigated world peace to be considered. But these days, when Immortals were chosen for stupid reasons or, in my case, mostly on connections, being a poet seemed like a pretty good reason to be selected. And the rest of his family had been selected for their charity work. His mother had been a social worker even before all this, and since Matt started getting the monthly grants, she didn’t have to work anymore. Even his dad, a doctor, wasn’t working as much, leaving them as well as Matt’s older brother free to build houses and feed the poor.

  Matt awkwardly propped his knee on the couch. “Well, I feel like we already know each other,” he said. “But it’s nice to meet you anyway."

  “Um, yeah. Could you excuse us for just one second?” I grabbed Jacey’s arm and led her back to the kitchen.

  “What the hell was that?” I hissed.

  She pulled her arm away. “What’s wrong?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me Matt Cavanagh was going to be here? Of all the people you brought over, it had to be your famous ex-boyfriend. Do you have any idea how awkward that is for me?”