[Incubation 01.0] Incubation Page 5

  I go to stand, but my knees tremble so badly I sink down again. Get a grip, Everly. I push back up and make my way with the others—twelve of us total—to Room 104. Wyck gives me a thumbs up. I smell nerves the moment I enter the room. It’s small, square, white, and brightly lit, although one bulb is flickering. My first Amerada History class was in this room, and I flash on my seven-year-old self taking a quiz, trying to remember if the capital city was spelled “Atalanta” or ”Atlanta.” There’s still a series of maps projected on the plasma wall, showing the old United States and Canada with their states and provinces, a map of the country during the Between with its secessions and ever-changing alliances, and the current Amerada with its cantons and outposts. My gaze flicks off the maps to the other repos.

  Everyone is as nervous and excited as I am. We’re evenly divided, boys and girls, sitting in chairs spaced along the room’s perimeter. One boy’s foot jitters hard and fast enough to churn butter. Another gnaws on his cuticles. A girl is blinking repeatedly. No one talks. I know them all, of course. Some I like, some not so much. We know the drill. We’re to sit here quietly and wait for a summons. Someone will come for us and lead us to a room where our parents will be waiting. We have two hours to get acquainted. Two hours! It might as well be two seconds. Still, it’s better than nothing. We’re allowed to stay in touch with our families once we’ve been reunited, and can earn passes to visit them until we leave Kube 9 for advanced training and our first service posting.

  The door opens. Twelve pairs of eyes lock onto the proctor standing in the doorway. She pauses a beat to ratchet up the tension, I’m sure, and then says, “AC Danza Myring.”

  Danza, a delicate girl with flyaway copper hair, gasps, pops up, and hurries to the door. She trips, but catches herself on a chair. Then she’s gone and the door closes again. Click.

  We wait. I wonder if the waiting is to teach us patience, or if our parents are arriving at different times. Some of them have traveled from a distance, I guess.

  It’s at least fifteen minutes before the door opens again and another name is called. The remaining ten of us watch enviously as Bram saunters out, the tic under his left eye belying his seeming cool. Click.

  The floodgates open and six names are called within ten minutes. Six excited repos disappear through the door. Two more go half an hour later. There are only two of us left. Patam and I exchange sidelong glances and go back to staring at our boots, our fingernails, anything but each other. It’s been over an hour. My anticipation is turning to worry.

  A footstep sounds outside the door. My head jerks up. I watch the knob turn. The door sighs inward. A proctor steps in. There’s a rushing sound in my ears. I can’t hear what she says, but her lips move. Did they form the words “Everly Jax?” I’m sure they did. I lean forward, start to push up. Patam stands, relief lighting his face, and strides toward the proctor. Click.

  I am alone.

  Where are they? My tummy growls and I put a hand to it. Why aren’t they here yet? I push back my cuticles with a thumbnail, rub a smudge off my soft boot with spit, and climb on a chair to tighten the sputtering light bulb. I sit again. My gaze lights on the maps and I mentally reel off the key dates we had to memorize in Amerada History: 2020, First Wave of avian influenza begins; 2022, international travel suspended; 2026, official proclamation of famine; 2030, dissolution of United States; 2045, Pragmatists come to power. I recite the names of Amerada’s six premiers in order. I finally resort to counting off the minutes in my head: one-Amerada, two-Amerada, three-Amerada . . .

  I don’t know how long it is before I know. My parents aren’t coming. I know it long before the proctor opens the door, gives me a sympathetic look, and says, “I’m sorry, AC Jax.”

  She leaves.

  Click.

  People’s parents always show up for Reunion Day, unless they’re dead. Parents dying is not an unusual reason for kids to end up in the Kube, especially kids my age because there was still a lot of flu when we were young. It’s almost as common as parents being unlicensed or unfit. A few kids, like Wyck, opt out of Reunion Day. I suppose it’s remotely possible someone’s parents could die after their kid is repoed and Proctor Fonner not be informed, but DNA is logged for every birth, marriage and death, so it’s an extremely rare death that doesn’t get entered into the system. I try to think of others reasons for their non-appearance, but my brain won’t work. Heartbreak is short-circuiting my synapses. Tears prick behind my lids, but I will them back. I meet two of the repos who met their parents today and brush past, pretending I don’t hear their questions about my reunion.

  I’m going to the beach. I need the surge and splash of the waves to fill up this gaping hole that has opened within me, this emptiness that is like nothing I’ve ever felt. Sentries and being put on report be damned. What are they going to do to me now? They can’t take Reunion Day away from me. Someone’s already done that. I blast into the dome, planning to sneak out the east gate closest to the beach. I’m imagining the sand abrading my bare feet, when Dr. Ronan approaches, lab coat flapping around his knees. Damn the luck. I try to wipe the tears away with the back of my hand.

  “There you are, Jax,” he says. “Where the hell have you been? I’m afraid the data from the histocompatibility experiment were corrupted. I need you to re-run the last hundred samples through electrophoresis again. Come along.”

  My swollen eyes and dejected aspect completely escape him. Dr. Ronan doesn’t notice anything that’s not on a slide or growing in a Petri dish. Part of me is relieved, the other part hurt or maybe pissed off. I’ve spent more time with him than with any other single person in this Kube and my unhappiness should matter to him.

  “Today was Reunion Day,” I say pointedly, hurrying after him. We’re passing the tanks where other scientists are working on a new fertilizer and it smells rank. Holding my breath, I say nasally, “My parents didn’t come.”

  “Of course not,” he says tetchily, disappearing into a field of gold-tinged genetically modified wheat. “Really, Jax, use that brain God gave you.” He breaks off a head, pops it in his mouth, and chews it thoughtfully. Despite his height and leonine appearance, he looks like a cow working a cud.

  I stop dead. “What do you mean ‘Of course not?’”

  “Definitely bitter enough to discourage the locusts, I would think,” he says. “We’ll need to see if the flavor dissipates with cooking heat, however, like we postulated. We need to name the new strain—any ideas?”

  “What do you know about my parents?” I ask, stopping him by tugging his sleeve.

  “Why, nothing, of course. No one does.”

  “That’s ridiculous. The Ministry of Reproduction couldn’t have repossessed me without having a file on my parents, my mother at least.” It isn’t possible.

  “That’s just it,” Ronan says. “They didn’t repossess you. Your parents left you at the Kube when you were an infant. Abandoned you. Well, someone did, at any rate. We have no empirical evidence that it was your parents.” He breaks off another head of wheat and tastes it with his tongue, as if he hasn’t brought my world crashing down.

  I sway. “What?” It comes out as a whisper. I clear my throat and say louder, “You’re lying.”

  He turns an astonished face to me. “Lying? Leaving aside the impugning of my integrity, what would I have to gain by lying to you? I can’t recall that I’ve ever bothered to lie.” He pauses to consider, shakes his head as if nothing comes to mind, then continues. “Things that happen outside the lab don’t always catch my interest, but there was such a kerfuffle about your arrival, in such a way, that I took note. Why, it was the talk of the staff dining room for a month. Boring, I thought it at the time. Another baby. I failed to see why you caused such excitement. However, I’m pleased to report that you have turned out to be a most satisfactory addition to InKubator 9. Most satisfactory.” He gives me a small, approving smile, and begins to talk about the wheat again, as if the matter of my birth and arrival at the K
ube is now closed.

  “Why wasn’t I told?” I burst out. How many years had I spent looking forward to Reunion Day, imagining what my parents would look like, what they would say? Imagining the first hug from my mother, the way she would smell of gardenia or maybe vanilla. A day Proctor Fonner and Dr. Ronan and who knows how many others must have known was an impossibility.

  “Really, Jax.” Dr. Ronan is impatient now. His bushy brows twitch together. After a moment, he shrugs. “Doesn’t really matter, does it? Either way, you got a first-class education, food, shelter, all the necessities.” He gestures to indicate the dome. “You’ve had access to the finest research facilities anywhere, as well as the most brilliant bio-chemist in the land, probably on the planet, to teach you, shape your thought processes, urge you to think past your first simplistic responses, to examine all the data and draw proper conclusions. You were different from your peers from the start. Where they saw what, you wanted to know how. You were worth my time.”

  I’m too gobsmacked by his news to appreciate his backhanded compliments.

  “So you need to put this behind you. Don’t waste effort trying to track down your biological parents, or worry about who they are, or were.” He dismisses my parents with a wave of one gnarled hand. “Clearly, they were highly intelligent people and probably attractive, because you’re not ill-looking. Your genetic legacy is the same whether you know their names or not, so let’s move on, hm? You can’t let this distract you from what’s really important.”

  He doesn’t need to spell out what’s really important: the work we do in the lab, trying to improve food production techniques and defeat the super locust. Nothing matters but the work, serving Amerada. Well, not today. I turn on my heel and stride away, not even bothering to make up an excuse. Anger seeps into the layers of confusion and disappointment gripping me. I become conscious of pain; I’ve been clenching my fists so hard my nails have left deep half-moons on my palms. I flex my fingers.

  I can’t sneak away to the beach now, so I return to the Kube proper, leaving the dome behind. My boots slap on the floor and an oncoming line of eight-year-olds falters when I pass. One thought blazes in my mind: they have lied to me. All my life I’ve been promised a reunion with my parents if I behave, study hard, contribute to the Kube and Amerada. Well, I’ve done all that and now the prize I’ve been promised—family—is wrenched away. Maybe it never even existed. I know who to blame.

  Chapter Six

  In the Supervising Proctor’s office, I don’t even slow down for the aide. He’s only half way to his feet when I blast past.

  “You can’t—” he starts. He squawks as I bang open Proctor Fonner’s door. I slam it behind me, cutting off the aide’s gobblings.

  Proctor Fonner displays no surprise at my entrance and that takes a little of the wind out of my sails. I halt three steps inside the door. He looks up from the screen he’s reading from, taps it closed, and raises his thin, dark brows a hair. “AC Jax. Apparently we need to re-work our etiquette curriculum.”

  The words are calm and measured, and in that instant I know he knows exactly why I’m here. He’s been expecting me all day. His flip comment about manners enrages me further and I’m suddenly at his desk, palms flat on the polished surface, leaning forward. This close I can see the fine lines mapping his skin, a hint of chapping on his thin lips. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think—?”

  He doesn’t try to make out like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. “I can see you’re disappointed by the outcome of your Reunion Day, Jax. I don’t altogether blame you.” He steeples his fingers and leans back, large head heavy on his thin neck.

  “You lied to me!” I slap a hand on his desk and my palm stings.

  He doesn’t flinch. “As with all decisions related to the upbringing and training of apprentice citizens, we did what we thought was in the best interest of the state and the apprentice.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means,” he continues with the same calm tone, “that we decided it would only unsettle you to know that your arrival here was in any way different from your peers’. We wanted you to fit in, to bond with the other apprentices; in short, we didn’t want you distracted or distressed by the knowledge that your parents—”

  “Didn’t want me.”

  “—chose, due to circumstances we cannot evaluate, to provide you with a safe life, a good life, by leaving you at this Kube.”

  His unceasing calm inflames me. “You let me sit in that room all morning, hoping they would come!”

  “I couldn’t know for sure that no one would come. I was hoping she—they—would.” There’s no hint of apology in his voice.

  Head cocked slightly, I study his face and I suddenly understand. I draw back. “It was punishment, wasn’t it? You let me sit there to punish me for—what? The beach? For not always keeping curfew? For not kowtowing sufficiently?”

  His eyes shift left briefly before returning to mine. Ignoring my accusation, he rises. “Stand down. I will not tolerate this insubordination, AC Jax. I have given you some leeway because I understand—”

  “Who are my parents?”

  For the first time he hesitates. “I don’t know.”

  “The DNA registry. Surely you ran my sample through the database. Who are they?” I’m almost pleading. “You know my name, so you must know—”

  “Your name. Ah. Wait here.” He glides to the door and is through it almost before I register his movement. I turn. He silences his affronted aide with an uplifted hand and then says something I can’t hear. He returns to his desk, sits, and engages himself with Kube business while I fidget, unsure what’s happening. Just when I’m about to ask him why I’m still here, an older proctor appears in the doorway, holding a hinged orange cube. He’s elderly, and his arms are shaking. At Proctor Fonner’s nod, he sets the box down on the desk. “As you requested, sir,” he says, giving me a curious look from rheumy eyes.

  “Thank you. We’ll only be a few minutes.”

  The other proctor nods and shuffles out, closing the door.

  Curiosity overcomes my nervousness and I approach. Proctor Fonner taps in a five-digit combination on the lid’s lock pad, and a click signals that it’s open. He waves me forward. “You were curious about your name.”

  With the sense that I’m opening Pandora’s box, I lift the lid. Inside is a soft-sided olive-green bag with wheels and an extendable handle. I study it.

  “From before,” Proctor Fonner says, “when commercial air travel was popular. I had a suitcase like this, only red. You’ve seen images of airports? People used to hustle through them, pulling their suitcases, traveling from Texas to California, or New York City to Europe. Doing business, visiting friends and family, exploring exotic nations and cultures. Before we shut down the airports and international travel, of course.”

  He sounds uncharacteristically wistful and even though I’m anxious to examine the suitcase, I ask, “What was it like, sir? Flying?”

  “Efficient.” His brusqueness suggests he regrets his moment of openness. “An efficient way to get from A to B. Unfortunately, it was also an efficient way to spread disease. After the flu came over from Asia, the government had no choice but to ban air travel. Isolation was our only protection. Still is. You arrived here in that.” He points to the suitcase.

  At his nod, I lift it out of the box, lay it on the floor and kneel beside it. A zipper runs around three sides and I tug on it. It unzips with a metallic purr. Holding my breath, I flip the top of the suitcase back. It’s empty. The gray liner is faded and torn. I run a hand over it and tuck my hand into the mesh pockets. Nothing. The lid has an interior zippered compartment and I unzip that and search it as well, not sure what I’m looking for, but wanting to find something. Something personal. Something that would tell me even a little bit about my parents.

  “There’s nothing there,” Proctor Fonner says after I’ve already figured that out. He forestalls my
next question. “Never was. The suitcase was placed outside the main entrance, partially unzipped, with nothing inside it but you and that book. You had nothing on but a diaper. The doctors’ best guess was that you were perhaps a week old.”

  “But my name?”

  Proctor Fonner flicks a tag rubber-banded to the suitcase’s handle. I turn it over slowly. It reads “JAX.”

  “The old code for the Jacksonville airport,” Fonner explains.

  “So, it’s not even a name?” I’m beyond tears now, blank.

  Something like compassion flits across his face. “It’s your name.”

  “But it’s not a family name. It’s just . . . nothing.”

  He sighs, impatient. “Let’s not indulge in hyperbole. The immortal bard was right: there’s not much in a name. I’ve shown you this hoping that you’ll be able to move on, to accept that you are unlikely to ever know much about your biological parents. I know you think being part of a so-called ‘traditional’ family would complete you in some way—Oh, yes,” he says in response to my startled look, “I notice more than you realize. My point is that having a family is not always desirable. Surely you recognize that from your brief time with the Ushers. You were very young, but still.”

  Keegan’s lean, malevolent face flashes in my mind’s eye and I go cold. Fonner doesn’t notice.