Generation M (The Toucan Trilogy, Book 3)

by Scott Cramer

  Doctor Hoffer thanked her and signed off.

  “That,” Sandy said with a wink, “was not the tooth fairy.”

  1.10

  BROOKLYN

  “I’m supposed to meet Toby here,” Abby said to the girl who, a moment earlier, had threatened her with a knife.

  Lexi pointed to a lump under the covers on a nearby mattress — someone sleeping — and brought a finger to her lips. “We have to leave.”

  Lexi’s mattress pulled on Abby like a magnet. She desperately wanted to lie down and rest after lugging the fish. If she could lie down and draw her knees to her chest, it might ease the pain in her stomach.

  “I’m staying,” Abby said.

  Lexi strapped on a leather belt with a sheath and slipped her knife into it. “Toby said you were stubborn.”

  Lexi navigated the narrow pathway among the mattresses and was soon outside.

  Abby decided to join the girl, but only to ask about Toby. If she didn’t get a good answer, she’d return inside.

  With one last look at the mattress, she struggled to heave the pack over her shoulder. A cloud of flies flew up, and then landed back on the fish to continue feasting.

  Abby took a step and grunted when her right thigh muscle cramped. She took another step and her left thigh cramped just as forcefully. Gritting her teeth, she kept moving, hoping the knotted muscles would relax.

  The crowd outside had grown bigger and noisier. Abby put the pack down and tried to massage her legs without being obvious about it. “Let’s talk here,” she said to Lexi.

  Lexi glanced around and leaned in closer. “Toby has a lot of enemies.”

  “Enemies?”

  All of a sudden, Lexi pulled out her knife, and Abby stumbled back, ready to protect herself the best she could.

  “Back away,” Lexi growled.

  She directed the threat at a boy reaching for Abby’s pack. He withdrew his hand, but otherwise stood his ground, eagerly staring at the fish. Abby recognized the look of desperation in his eyes.

  Lexi, still gripping her knife, picked up Abby’s pack. “We’ll go meet Toby.”

  “I’ll carry it,” Abby said, concerned that Lexi might want to steal the fish too.

  “You have the Pig,” Lexi said.

  “No,” Abby blurted. But by responding so quickly, she had all but admitted she was sick.

  “Let’s go,” Lexi said and slipped into the crowd.

  Abby hobbled after her because Lexi now possessed the two most important items in her life: the walkie-talkie and the fish. She followed her down streets and driveways, and through mazes of winding alleyways until they entered the front door of a building and exited the back. The inhabitants, girls and boys around ten years old, paid little attention to them, as if strangers parading through their home happened all the time.

  Abby settled into a strangely serene rhythm, skating her feet along the ground. The cramps in her stomach and aches in her joints seemed to have reached a peak.

  A fight broke out between two boys on the sidewalk ahead of them. Others joined in and soon a tornado of fists blocked the path. Abby wondered if she was witnessing a consequence of the epidemic — kids fighting each other for scraps of food.

  Lexi slung the pack to her chest, wrapped her arms around the fish, and reversed direction.

  Later, with the sun high overhead, they came to a pool of water at an intersection, the result of a clogged storm drain. The reflection of the surrounding buildings shimmered on the brown surface. Abby’s throat was dry from breathing through her mouth, but she feared that if she stopped for a drink, her muscles would seize up for good.

  She watched Lexi wade up to her ankles and cup her hand to slurp water. She told herself to keep moving and plodded ahead, raising her eyes high up to the rooftops. The sound of swishing and splashing reminded her of her mom shouting, “Get ready, get set, go!” when she and Jordan would race at the beach, seeing who could reach the water first.

  Still wading through the puddle, Abby stumbled and cried out as her right thigh muscle coiled into a knot. When she shifted her weight to her other leg, she felt a braid of searing pain from hip to ankle. Losing her balance, she flung her arms outward and tried whipping her right leg forward, but the limb was stiff and unresponsive. She crashed into the puddle.

  Abby had a frog’s view of the world, peering across the puddle. She opened her mouth to let the water soothe her tongue and the back of her throat. She swallowed and choked.

  Lexi helped her to her feet and slapped her hard between the shoulder blades until Abby stopped coughing. Then, she wrapped Abby’s arm around her waist and guided her forward. “We’re almost there.”

  “Where?” Abby asked, willing her legs to keep moving.

  “Toby’s car.”

  The news gave her a boost of energy and troubled her at the same time. Why had Lexi not told her their destination before?

  “Please keep the pack dry.” Unable to shake her distrust of Lexi, Abby stopped short of telling her about the walkie-talkie.

  She trained her eyes on the ground and focused on each step. The changing composition of the surface served as her measuring stick of progress. Patches of ash and cinders turned into a solid carpet of gray ash that thickened and made a soft crunching sound under their feet.

  Lexi steered her around objects that had burned or melted. “Just a few more blocks. You can do it.”

  Abby lifted her eyes. Fire had gutted many of the four-story brick houses on both sides. Some buildings were nothing but heaps of broken rubble. The only cars she saw had burned. The street was a graveyard of charred cars. “Where is everyone?”

  “Nobody lives here anymore,” Lexi explained. “After the night of the purple moon, a factory burned, and the fumes made everyone sick. Rumor is, the air can still make you sick.”

  Three blocks deeper into the wasteland of ash, Lexi led her to an alley entrance and looked around. Apparently satisfied that nobody was following, Lexi tightened her grip and started down the alley. Abby panicked at the high brick walls that bowed and bulged. They appeared ready to collapse at any moment. At the end was a car covered in ash and bird poop. The tires were flat. Abby’s shoulders drooped to her toes. She felt like the subject of an elaborate hoax or an evil joke. The punch line was a broken-down car.

  Between the front bumper and the brick wall were two overturned buckets. Lexi took off the pack and helped Abby sit on a bucket. So many flies alighted on the fish that the scaly surface was no longer visible.

  Lexi sat on the other bucket and pointed to the walls that Abby feared were about to bury them. “Toby likes this spot. No windows.”

  “Likes it?” Abby’s raspy voice faded.

  Lexi patted the hood. “This is your getaway car. The tank is full, and there’s food and water in the trunk. The tires are good. Toby let the air out so the car would look unusable.” She reached under the car and pulled out a bicycle tire pump. “He made lots of trades to get everything. He cheated some kids. That’s why he has enemies and has to stay away from the fish market.”

  Lexi explained how most kids survived in Brooklyn. “Almost everyone belongs to a gang. We don’t fight each other, at least not often. We share things and help each other out. When something happens, word travels fast. The word is out that Toby will cheat you.

  “I met him when he showed up at the fish market. That was about three weeks ago.” Lexi tugged on her sleeve. “He gave me this, and I gave him news. The more we talked, the more I liked him.

  “He told me about Colony East and said that you and his friend, Jonzy, were there. He thought Jonzy would try to escape. They had planned to meet at the fish market. He didn’t think you would leave the colony.”

  “Where’s Toby now?” Abby asked.

  “He’ll be here. He sleeps in the car at night.”

  Lexi pumped the tires with the bicycle pump. It looked like hard work, and Abby offered to help, but Lexi told her she had better take it easy. “The Pig ma
kes you weak.”

  “Did Toby say anything else?” Abby asked, accepting Lexi knew how sick she was.

  Lexi narrowed her eyes. “Is there something else he should have told me?”

  Abby paused. “Nah. That’s it.”

  She still didn’t trust Lexi. Toby knew the storm would bring AHA-B bacteria and that the adults had developed an antibiotic to defeat the Pig. For some reason, Toby chose not to share this information with Lexi.

  Abby quickly added, “I’m really hungry. Can I borrow your knife to cut off a piece of fish?”

  Lexi waved at the fish, scattering the flies. “You’ll get sick if you eat it raw. We have to cook it, but I don’t want to cook it here. The smoke might attract kids. More and more kids are getting the Pig.”

  After Lexi finished inflating the tires, she heaved the pack over her shoulder. “You stay here. I’ll go cook it, and then come back.”

  Abby wanted to go with her, but she didn’t think she could move yet. “Wait, there’s something I need.”

  She removed the two-way radio from the pack and tucked it in her waistband. She offered no explanation and was glad that Lexi didn’t ask for one. The less she spoke about Colony East and her plans, the better.

  Lexi reached into her pocket and placed a wrapped candy in her hand. “You’ll like this.”

  When Lexi left, Abby brought her hand to her mouth, ready to crunch the candy, wrapper and all. Practicing self-discipline, she peeled off the wrapper. Some wax paper stuck to the amber-colored candy, but she didn’t care. A shiver passed through her when she placed it on her tongue and let the candy sit there. Soon, a glacier of sweet, sugary butterscotch melted into her, creeping toward her throat and spreading warmth throughout her body that dissolved her pain.

  Climbing into the car, she curled up on the back seat, conflicted by feelings of sadness and exhilaration. It was incredible to think what Toby had accomplished and how far she had made it alone. If all went well, she would see Toby again soon, and, at midnight, they would contact Jonzy on the radio, and he would escape the colony, bringing antibiotic pills with him. She would take a pill, recover, and they would all travel to Mystic in the car to find Jordan. Afterward, as a team, they would figure out how to get to Toucan at Atlanta Colony.

  As the butterscotch worked its magic pain relief, Abby imagined their final destination in her mind: the cabin on the shore of a lake, deep in the Maine woods, far from this horror.

  1.11

  CASTINE ISLAND STRAIT

  Jordan moved to the bow to give Eddie a turn at the tiller. They’d switched places periodically since leaving the island three hours ago.

  They were a third of the way across the strait, and if the southwest wind stayed light and steady and the mast held firm, they’d reach the Portland Trading Zone by late afternoon.

  Eddie had said he was a little hungry, and his fever wasn’t getting worse, but Jordan didn’t know whether to believe him. Eddie hated to complain. He hoped that if Abby had found a doctor for Toucan at Colony East, maybe the doctor would treat Eddie too.

  It felt good to be moving, even at a crawl. Every second spent on the water put them closer to Mystic, where they’d use Wenlan’s clinic as a base of operations. Wenlan was a friend of the local fuel king, William. William would get him and Eddie a car, or they would rig a boat in Mystic Harbor and sail along the coast until they reached the East River to Colony East.

  First, they had to find Spike at the Portland Trading Zone to see what he could tell them about Abby, Touk, and Toby.

  Jordan gripped the mast. “Still looking good.”

  Not a perfect fit, but considering they had no other option, he was thrilled with how well it was holding up.

  Eddie grinned. “If it snaps, we can swim.”

  Jordan heard the strain in his friend’s voice. He dangled his fingers into the icy water. “Hey, how you doing?”

  “Where do you think Abby and Touk are?”

  Jordan leaned back, squinting at the sun through the haze. “All right, all right, you are fine.”

  “The Pig is no big deal,” Eddie said. “Drop it.”

  The image of the mob eating raw shellfish at the water’s edge was still fresh in Jordan’s mind, and he’d been shocked to learn how many others on the island had the illness.

  Jordan shifted around to get comfortable. Seeing how Eddie eyed the pack with the food, he moved it to the bow, and then positioned a lifejacket to serve as a pillow. “Let me know when you want to switch.”

  Eddie grinned. “You’ll wake up in Portland.”

  With his head resting on the lifejacket, Jordan closed his eyes and pictured Wenlan. If the Pig was widespread on the mainland, how was she coping with all the new cases? A knot formed in his stomach. What if Wenlan had the Pig?

  Telling himself that Wenlan was healthy and that Abby and Touk were alive and safe, he tried to relax. Sunshine covered him in a warm blanket and water lapped the hull, a sound he always found soothing. The centerboard vibrated as it kept Mary Queen of Scots on a true course. He listened for the repetitious shrugs of metal stays and turnbuckles as the bow lifted and dipped in the gentle swells. Erased of all thoughts of the past, his mind melted through the hull and into the dark, deep water.

  1.12

  COLONY EAST

  With clouds of dust from the ferry terminal explosion lingering, Dawson headed off to see Admiral Samuels. The streets were eerily quiet, as if the evacuation were complete. The first sign of life he came upon was a crew of ensigns roping off a sinkhole that had opened on Fifth Avenue.

  Three blocks later, he reached Trump Tower. He pushed through the revolving door, into the lobby, and sprinted up the stairs to the sixth floor. He entered Admiral Samuels’s outer office, where crates were stacked on the floor and several filing cabinet drawers hung open. Ensign Parker was packing up.

  The same thought flashed across Dawson’s mind every time he saw the admiral’s aide. How did they let a fifteen-year-old join the Navy? Dawson knew that Parker had actually enlisted after he had attended college; he just had the boyish face of a middle school student.

  “You’re early, Lieutenant,” Parker said. “The company leaders’ meeting doesn’t start for two hours.”

  “I want to see the old man alone,” Dawson said.

  Parker gestured to the closed door of the admiral’s office. “He doesn’t want to be disturbed now.” The ensign crinkled his brow. “This morning, the admiral shuffled through here like this.” Parker glued his chin to his chest.

  Concerned, Dawson blew out a puff of air. Admiral Samuels perennially kept his broad shoulders pinned back and strutted around with his broad chest thrust forward.

  “We spoke earlier by radio, and he sounded …” Dawson searched for a word. Depressed came to mind. “… tired.”

  “Maybe you should disturb him?” Parker said.

  Dawson rapped on the door and pushed it open. The admiral stood by the window.

  “Permission to enter?” Dawson asked.

  He said it again, louder.

  The admiral seemed deep in thought.

  Dawson entered, saluted, and closed the door behind him. “Sir, the ferry terminal demolition was successful. Lieutenant Mathews and I worked together as a team.”

  The admiral turned and locked eyes with him, looking as if Mathews’s involvement was news to him.

  The old man lost focus. His expression went blank, and he lowered his eyes. “Good job,” he said flatly.

  Dawson’s blood chilled. “Is everything all right, Admiral?”

  Samuels turned and stared out the window.

  Dawson moved beside him. “As you know, sir, I worked at the Alpharetta pharmaceutical plant. I helped maintain machinery, and I supervised the shipment of the pills to Atlanta Colony for redistribution. I understand the processes. If you speak to any of the CDC personnel who worked with me, I’m certain they’ll vouch for the contributions I’ve made. If you assign me to the plant, I will hit the groun
d running.” He slipped in a quick, deep breath to steady his voice. “I’m prepared to step down as leader of Biltmore Company.”

  The old man still stared into the distance.

  “Sir, I’m making a formal request. I’d like to be assigned to the Alpharetta plant.”

  The admiral arched his shoulders and thrust his chest forward. The change in his demeanor and posture was both sudden and dramatic, as if someone had flicked a switch and sent electricity surging through his body. “Who gives the orders around here?”

  Dawson pulled his shoulders back. “You do, sir.”

  As if suffering from some unseen wound, Admiral Samuels seemed to crumble. He looked away and mumbled, “Do I? Dismissed.”

  1.13

  EMORY CAMPUS

  In History of Science, Lisette looked out the classroom window at the leafy trees and thought about which boys and girls she would let wiggle her tooth at recess. Charlie. Molly. Zoe. Tad. No, not Tad. She didn’t want a nose-picking finger to wiggle her special tooth.

  Lisette squirmed in her chair. The countdown clock showed she had to wait fifteen long minutes before recess.

  Doctor Martin was reading to the class. “By the start of 1856, Darwin was investigating whether eggs and seeds could survive travel across seawater ….”

  He looked especially silly today, with his dark brown hair sticking up on one side of his head.

  Doctor Hoffer entered the classroom. “Excuse me, Doctor Martin. I need Lisette Leigh to come with me.”

  Lisette drew in a sharp breath, afraid of what he wanted. The other students eyed her with jealousy, and she knew they wished Doctor Hoffer had called out their name instead so they could leave Doctor Martin’s boring class.

  “Remember we have a quiz tomorrow,” Doctor Martin told her as she followed Doctor Hoffer out of the room.

  “The communication link to Colony East is working again,” he said. “Doctor Perkins would like to hold your evaluation meeting a little earlier than planned.”