Hungry

by H. A. Swain

  Mom huffs. “Well I can. She’s only seventeen so I have jurisdiction over her.”

  My jaw drops.

  “We have a higher success rate with willing participants,” he tells her.

  Mom narrows her eyes and thinks for a moment. Then she turns to me. “So what’s it going to take, Thalia? What would make you willing to give this a try?”

  I’m so surprised that my mother is seeking my opinion that at first I’m speechless. But then I squeak, “No drugs. I don’t want to end up like some brain-dead zombie.”

  “We only make minor tweaks to your personal Synthamil cocktail designed to make you feel better, not worse,” says Dr. Demeter.

  “And second,” I add, before my mom can butt in. “I don’t want to be locked up. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You shouldn’t think of it as being locked up.…” Dr. Demeter tells me.

  “So I can come and go as I please?” I ask.

  “Well no, but…”

  “Then I’m not doing it.” I turn to my mom. “It’s like you want to get rid of me, the minute I’m not perfect Thalia anymore. Ship me off to a lab and let them fix me. If you’re such an expert, why don’t you take care of me?” A few tears escape and roll down my cheeks. I swat at them angrily.

  “I’m trying to,” Mom says through gritted teeth.

  We sit quietly for a moment at an impasse. I think of my alternatives. I could leave. Hide out for a while. Go stay with Yaz on the sly or live out of Flav-O-Rite—if I could find it again.

  Mom stares at her hands in her lap and takes a long, deep breath as if she senses my determination. “Would you agree to come as an outpatient?” she asks me.

  Dr. Demeter frowns. Deep lines from the sides of his nose to his chin appear, and he shakes his head.

  “You said she needs a controlled environment, right?” she asks him.

  “Well, yes, but…”

  “What if I can provide that for her at home, but she comes here daily for treatment?” Mom offers.

  I figure this is the best deal I’m going to get so before she can change her mind or he can talk her out of it, I say, “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  Mom looks Dr. Demeter square in the eye. “I think that would be most beneficial to us all. If I can follow your research firsthand in my own home, I might find that it would parlay nicely with a future One World project I’m considering for funding.”

  At this Dr. Demeter perks up. “Given your esteemed position, I suppose we could make an exception this one time.”

  “Excellent,” Mom says, straightening her jacket.

  “But,” Dr. Demeter adds, “only on the condition that if she’s not making enough progress after two weeks, we reconsider inpatient treatment.”

  “That’s reasonable.” Mom gives him a tight smile. “We’ll start Monday morning then.” She stands and extends her hand.

  Dr. Demeter pushes awkwardly out of his chair and reaches for her. “But Dr. Nguyen,” he says when they clasp hands. “I should warn you, this condition can change or progress quickly. You’ll need to be vigilant in your observations. If you notice anything out of the ordinary—say, personality shifts, mood swings, or erratic behavior—you must alert me right away.”

  “Of course,” Mom says, withdrawing her hand. “We’ll see you Monday.”

  * * *

  During the ride home from Dr. Demeter’s office, Mom craps on and on about how much she’s sacrificing for me to have outpatient treatment. How her integrity is on the line. How I better take this seriously. When her Smaurto pulls into the driveway, I can’t take it anymore, so I slam out of the car and into the house, but she’s right on my heels, shouting, “You should be grateful!”

  Dad and Grandma Apple look up startled from where they sit side by side on the couch.

  I turn on my mother and clench my teeth. “You should want to take care of me, not hold it over my head.”

  “Of course I want to take care of you.…”

  “Could have fooled me!” I yell.

  My dad looks from Mom to me and back to Mom. “Did I miss something here?”

  “Dr. Demeter…” Mom starts to explain.

  “She tried to lock me in his lab for a month!” I say. Grandma looks appropriately horrified.

  Mom throws up her hands. “Stop being so dramatic!”

  “You’re the one who’s dramatic. Acting like you’re some kind of martyr for making me one of your research projects. I’m not some petri dish of chromosomes in your lab!”

  “I practically offered to make that man my protégé so he would take you as an outpatient!” Mom shouts. “Do you have any idea how coveted my help is for someone like him?”

  I shake my head, fighting back tears of frustration. “I would hope,” I say quietly, “you’d believe in his work that much if you’re going to send me there.”

  Mom looks stunned. Then she stutters, “Thalia, that’s not … you misunderstood … I do…”

  But I’m not listening, because I stomp off to my room, fuming.

  * * *

  For the next hour, I lie on my bed with an empty feeling tugging at my belly while I search for any information about other people who feel the way I do. Astrid finds nothing. Like Basil and the Analogs, it’s as if they don’t exist online. Sometimes I feel like I must have conjured up the whole thing. It’s possible they could have an underground presence, I suppose, but since I haven’t been able to crack my OS on the new Gizmo, I can’t snoop around without giving myself away. I’ve never seen anything about this on the Dynasaur chats. I know they must be out there, though. Dr. Demeter claims to have a whole rehab facility dedicated to freaks like me. The only conclusion I can draw is that they’ve all been locked up or drugged up—a fate I’m going to do everything in my power to avoid.

  The next time I glance at the clock it’s nearly five, and for the first time today, my life doesn’t seem so bad. Silently, I recite the info one more time: “Analogs, Friday, six p.m., 1601 South Halsted.”

  In less than an hour, I will see Basil again! This thought fills me up and makes my stomach buzz with anticipation.

  “Good, you’re back!” Grandma says when I come into the living room where she’s sitting in front of the main screen with my parents. “I thought we could all play Scrabble tonight.”

  “I have plans,” I tell her and immediately feel bad.

  “But, but, but…” Grandma sputters.

  “It’s family night,” Dad says, finishing her sentence. “We’re all here finally. It was on the schedule.”

  “I have my parents’ old board with real tiles,” says Grandma.

  “Sorry.” I bend down to give her a quick hug. “You’ll have to do it without me this time.”

  “Where are you going?” Mom asks.

  “Just out,” I say.

  “I don’t think so,” Mom says, but no one pays attention to her.

  “Are you meeting up with friends?” Grandma asks, forcing a smile.

  I nod, even though I know that’s not how they would categorize Basil.

  “Well, okay then,” Grandma says, and this time she does smile at me, genuine and true.

  “No,” says Mom. “It’s not okay. Dr. Demeter said…”

  “I’m not his patient until Monday morning,” I remind her.

  She starts to argue with me, but Dad squeezes her thigh and says, “It’s okay, honey. You should go.”

  “Max!” Mom shouts. “You’re completely undermining me.”

  “I think you both need some space from one another,” Dad says calmly. He turns back to me. “Don’t stay out too late.”

  “I won’t,” I say then I hesitate. Part of me feels like I should tell them what I’m doing. I’m sure they’re imagining me at the EA with Yaz. But, I know my mom would never allow me to leave if she knew where I’m heading. I decide to keep the details to myself and get out before she harangues my dad into changing his mind. “See you later,” I say, heading for the front vestibule.r />
  “She can be so impossible, and you two let her get away with it!” my mom huffs.

  “Oh now, Lily,” Grandma Apple says in a rare moment of standing up to my mother. I pause in the vestibule to listen. “She’s seventeen. She’s supposed to be impossible. And she’s not supposed to want to be with us. It’s good that she’s going out with friends.”

  “Hmph,” says Mom. “My next research project is going to be further altering teens’ Synthamil formula so they’re less of a pain in the butt.”

  After hearing that, I’m happy to walk out the door.

  * * *

  In my Smaurto, I tell Astrid the address Basil made me memorize. If it weren’t for the fact that I have no idea where I’m going or how long it will take me to get there, I’d leave my stupid Gizmo behind. The only thing I’ve figured out is how to completely block the network signal so at least I can stop Astrid from constantly yapping at me. The problem is, if I want to use any of her features, like her GPS, I have to accept the signal again, which makes everything I do online trackable and traceable.

  As I wait for Astrid to calculate directions, I realize that I could have the address wrong. The numbers could have transposed themselves in my mind over the past few days. The name could have morphed into some other street rattling around inside my brain. Memory is a tricky thing and without a cloud keeping track of hard data, the edges of information become fuzzy. It takes Astrid longer than it should to find the address, which makes me worry that I’m wrong. If I am, I could end up anywhere. But then she says, “Got it!” and we pull out of the drive.

  I’m nervous and I second-guess myself as my Smaurto carries me west. What if my parents find out where I’m going? They never told me I couldn’t go to an Analog meeting. Then again I never asked. Do they even know about the Analogs? I’m in that murky territory of not exactly lying but definitely evading the truth. That’s something I don’t mind doing as HectorProtector, but real-time Thalia doesn’t like to disappoint her parents. Then I have a worse thought. What if Basil isn’t there?

  Then again, what if he is there? Will he be excited to see me? My pulse quickens and my stomach gets all jumpy when I think of him. Has he been thinking about me this week? Will there be a chance for us to talk? Could we find a quiet place to sit, facing each other, our knees nearly touching, so I can ask him all the questions that have been circling around inside my head since I first met him? While I run through possible scenarios, my Smaurto goes farther and farther west, until after almost twenty minutes it slows down and idles at a tollgate on the western edge of the Inner Loop.

  “Would you like to proceed?” Astrid asks, which snaps me out of my daydream, sweaty and a little embarrassed for getting lost in thoughts about Basil. Again. At least the patch is off my back so Mom can’t spy on my emotions while I sneak around.

  “1601 South Halsted is in the Outer Loops,” Astrid tells me. A map appears on the Smaurto’s screen with a red star flashing a few blocks on the other side of the wall. Usually when I’ve left the Inner Loops it’s been in my family’s helicopter on the way to a vacation center, but I’ve never crossed over alone.

  During the wars, the mega-highways lying like belts around the city were easy to convert into these reinforced steel-and-concrete walls during the worst of the fighting when each population center was fending for itself. Of course, being inland and to the north, our city lasted longer than those on the coasts, which were battered by decades of superstorms then eventually swallowed up by the encroaching seas. Since we were surrounded by farmland, our food supply lasted longer. And the fresh water on one side of us still has enough algae to keep oxygen in our air. Geography, my dad has pointed out, was more than half of the equation when it came to who survived into this century and who didn’t. Of course, having One World headquartered in our population center didn’t hurt either. Once governments failed, the world’s largest corporation cleaned up the mess, starting in their own backyard, which is why our population center recovered more quickly than others.

  The walls remain today, but they’re no longer sealed. Automated tollbooths every few miles segregate the Inner Loops from the Outer. The most privileged from the less so. When I question this, my parents shrug and say it’s not really any different than how it always was, just more clearly defined. My mother likes to point out that anyone can come in, to which I always add, as long as they can pay. And her retort: We foot the bill for automated roads, security, and a constant network connection in the Inner Loops, so why shouldn’t everyone pay for services they use?

  “Do you want to proceed?” Astrid asks me again.

  I hesitate. I could turn around and go home to play Scrabble or go find Yaz. The gate stays down, waiting for me to make up my mind. Then my belly speaks for me. It rumbles the answer: Go find other people who feel like this. I suck in a deep breath. “Proceed,” I say, trying to sound confident.

  * * *

  My Smaurto turns onto Halsted Street. The whole area is run down and dingy. Nothing much has happened here since this part of the city was abandoned. Other places in the Outer Loops, like the South, are starting to come back to life but this one looks beyond resuscitation with its crumbling buildings and rough roads. There are no solar panels and no Whisson Windmills. I think about heading back, sure that I’ve remembered the address wrong, or worse, that Basil gave me false info, but then I see a group of people clothed in shades of green and brown chatting happily as they file into a low brick building with 1601 above the door. Relief washes over me.

  I study the crowd. For a moment every boy looks like Basil, except that when I look more closely, none of them are. As the Smaurto pulls up to the curb, I see men and women, old and young, even a few little kids. How will I ever find him? Of course, if he had a Gizmo I could ping him. While I agonize over whether I should get out or give up and leave, someone taps my window. I jump when I turn and see Basil. I command the window down with a shaky voice.

  “Apple?” he says, peering at me.

  Hearing him call me Apple immediately takes me back to Flav-O-Rite, and I start to smile. He grins as if we’re sharing a private joke. He’s even more beautiful than I remember, and for a moment I can’t talk because he looks at me with the kind of yearning I feel deep in my gut every day. Then he shoves his hands in the pockets of his brown pants and shakes the hair out of his eyes, looking uncertain while I sit like a moron on mute. I force myself to squeak, “I made it,” and cringe at the tremor in my voice. What the hell is wrong with me? I swallow hard and try to pull myself together.

  “I was afraid I might have scared you away the other night,” he says, his voice serious and concerned.

  “No!” I blurt out. “Not at all. I’ve been looking forward to this all week.” My skin flushes with embarrassment for admitting it, but Basil’s face lights up like the sun coming out from behind dark clouds, and I feel better.

  “Me, too,” he says and waits. We stare at each other, smiling awkwardly. “So, are you going to get out of your car?”

  “That’d be a good idea!” I say like an idiot. I command the door open then tell the Smaurto to go park, but when I look around, I notice that no one else who is going into the building is coming out of a Smaurto. “Where are all the other cars?”

  Basil looks at me out of the corner of his eye and sort of smirks. “Not everybody has their own automated transportation device, Apple. There are other ways of getting around.” Before I can ask what that might be, he touches my elbow. Tiny bumps flash across my skin, and a ripple goes through my belly, which for a moment quells the gnawing hunger inside me. “Let’s go inside.”

  We head for the door where people have formed two lines to pass between a man and a woman carefully scrutinizing each person before allowing them inside.

  “What’s that all about?” I ask.

  “Security,” he says.

  I almost laugh. “Against what?”

  “The wrong element.”

  “Titanium? Helium? Or
the dreaded sodium?”

  He barks a surprised laugh. “Was that a chemistry joke?”

  “Yes!” I say and my heart soars. “Hardly anyone ever gets my nerdy sense of humor.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been hanging around with the wrong crowd,” he tells me.

  “Understatement,” I say, and he laughs.

  We step up to the door. The woman nods to Basil, but the man holds out his arm, blocking my path. “She’s with me,” says Basil. The man glances at the woman, who gives a slight nod. The man lifts his arm for me to pass, and I follow Basil through the door.

  * * *

  The space inside the building is empty and crude. The floor is hard gray concrete and the walls are real brick. Actual wooden beams hang overhead. Weirder still, the room is lit only by the late afternoon sun streaming through a large bank of windows. There’s not a screen in sight or the low-level drone of tiny motors, and yet the place seems more alive and interesting than any PlugIn or EA I’ve ever been to. “Wow,” I say. “This place is beautiful.”

  “I love it here,” Basil says. “We used to meet in a dark basement below a machine shop in the North Loop like we were hiding, but then Ana found this.”

  “Who’s Ana?”

  “You’ll see,” Basils says.

  We walk around the perimeter of the room, and I put my finger on what’s so strange but compelling about this place. “Look,” I say, pointing at a group of people. “Everybody’s talking to one another. If we were any place else they’d all be murmuring to their screens.”

  “That’s why we don’t allow Gizmos here.”

  I stop myself from gaping at this information and blurting out, You mean no one here has a Gizmo! Instead, I slip my hand inside my pouch and cloak mine.

  Basil presses his hand into the small of my back. I want to lean into his touch. “Let’s find a place to sit.”

  There must be over a hundred seats and most of them are already filled, but we find a couple of rickety metal chairs, probably from my grandma’s era. I turn to Basil and whisper, “Is everybody here, you know…?”