Hungry (21 page)

We hear rustling on the other side, then two slats of the blinds are lifted apart. “Who is it and what do you want?” a deep voice calls.

“Fiyo, it’s Yaz. I need your help.”

“Yaz? Don’t you own a clock?” The voice has changed to a higher lilt. “I’m cleaning up now.”

“It’s an emergency,” Yaz pleads, rattling the door handle.

“An emergency, huh? Somebody desperate for highlights? Hang on, don’t get your panties in a twist!” We hear locks turn then the door swings open. Fiyo stands in a halo of warm yellow light, one arm up the side of the door, the other hand on his, or should I say,
her
hip. The last time I saw Fiyo he was a short trim man in a white lab coat with a blue goatee and long red hair pulled back into a sleek braid. This person is a petite woman in work boots and a white Tyvek jumpsuit with pert breasts and curvy hips. Like lots of Spalon workers, she’s tricked out in all the latest fads. Purple eyes that contrast with her white-blonde crew cut and warm brown skin that is as smooth as a baby’s butt, as my grandma likes to say. “Ever heard of calling ahead for an appointment?” she asks. The three of us look at each other dumbly. Why didn’t we think of that? But then she smiles. “No worries. You’re here, might as well come in.”

*   *   *

Basil and I sit side by side on a little couch in Fiyo’s waiting area while Yaz talks to her in another room.

“You sure about this?” Basil asks me.

“Yaz trusts him, er um, her,” I say.

“That’s not what I mean.” Basil looks at his hands, folded between his knees. “I mean, maybe you want to go back home now. Since we’re even. You saved me, I saved you, your friend saved us both.” He peers up at me with those beautiful dark eyes. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

I shake my head. “I have too many questions to go home just yet,” I tell him, not mentioning that he’s more than half the reason I want to stay.

“Like what?” he asks.

I turn and sit cross-legged to face him on the couch. Like the night we first met, I feel as if I could get lost in a conversation with him and talk for hours without ever getting bored. “Like what are the no-food laws? And who is Ana, really? And how long have the Analogs been around? And what do corporate resisters want? And…”

“Slow down.” Basil grips my knee. “One thing at a time.”

My inner thigh quivers beneath his touch, and I lose my train of thought. Part of me wants to stop talking altogether and climb into his lap. Run my fingers through his hair and press my lips against his like we did earlier tonight. These thoughts make me squirm, and thinking that I’m uncomfortable, he pulls his hand away. I draw in a breath and move back, self-conscious and embarrassed by the visceral reaction I have to his touch.

“Do you…?” I start to ask if he feels the same way about me, but then I worry that he doesn’t.

“Do I what?”

I look down to hide my embarrassment and mutter, “Do you understand the Universal Nutrition Protection Act?” Then I cringe. What a stupid question!

“That’s a doozy,” he says. “First you have to understand the Population Stability Act.”

He seems almost excited to talk about this so I go along. “You mean the one that says everybody gets nutrition and inoculations for free from the government?”

“Not exactly,” he tells me. “The Population Stability Act originally said that every person, regardless of birth circumstance, would receive inocs and nutrition from the government. But after One World cornered the market on synthetic nutrition and became the government’s sole provider of nutritional beverages, they pushed a resolution through the government called the Universal Nutrition Protection Act, which does two things. First, it says free nutrition is only available to the first, legally born child of a family.”

“Right,” I say. “That helps keep the population in check. That’s why if parents want a second, they have to prove they can afford it before they can procreate. Makes sense, don’t you think?”

Basil blanches. “But what about seconds who are born illegally? What happens to them if their parents can’t pay?”

I scoff. I’ve never heard of such a thing. “Who would go to all the trouble of having a second if they couldn’t afford it?”

“What if it’s an accident?”

“But the inocs and Synthamil take care of that, right? They suppress more than the urge to eat.” I blush a little when I say this.

Basil’s quiet for a moment, then he says, “Maybe it doesn’t always work that way for everybody.”

“But that would mean…” I try to work out what would happen to babies born without families to support them, only Basil’s already moved on.

“The other thing UNPA did,” he says, “was make it so that every individual has to sign a contract in order to receive free nutrition from the government.”

“I’ve never signed a contract,” I point out.

“Until you’re 18, your parents do on your behalf.”

“What’s the contract say?”

“That you won’t engage in any agricultural practices as long as you’re accepting free nutrition. Since One World is the only corporation producing nutrition anymore if you breach your contract, you’re out of luck.”

“So they’re afraid we’re all becoming farmers? With what?” I motion out the window. “Depleted soil and imaginary seeds?”

“Their interpretation of agricultural practices is broad,” Basil says with a sneer. “UNPA states, ‘Upon acceptance of your allotted synthetic nutritional beverages, you hereby agree that the growing, harvesting, selling, reproducing images of, and/or consuming food from other sources is strictly prohibited under penalty of law and will be considered a breach of contract.”

“But that’s not protecting universal nutrition!” I say.

“That’s why we call it the no-food law. And now you understand why all the people at the Analog meeting cooperated when security agents told them to stay. Better to do what they say and be put on a watch list then run away and get caught later because then you might lose your supply of Synthamil.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I say. “If people get cut off, they’ll starve.”

“First you’d have a chance to pay restitution to One World for breaching your contract. Which probably means paying them market value for every bottle of Synthamil you’ve ever received up to that point. Most of those people at that meeting are just workers from the Outer Loop. They don’t have that kind of money.”

“So then what happens?”

“Same thing that happens whenever someone can’t pay restitution after they commit a crime. They end up in jail, working off their debt. Except that the debt they owe is to the very entity that is threatening not to feed them.”

“But … that’s unfair!” I say in what may be the biggest understatement in history.

“Your choice becomes to either accept the status quo out of fear or organize to make change.”

“You mean like a rebellion? Like Svalbard?”

Basil flinches. “How do you know about the Svalbard Rebellion?”

“From my dad and the Dynasaurs,” I tell him.

“Dynasaurs?” He looks puzzled.

“They’re an underground hacking group that formed after One World suppressed the protests. I thought maybe the Analogs and Dynsaurs might be related. I saw a Svalbard tattoo on Ana’s neck.”

“Never heard of the Dynasaurs,” Basil says. “What do they do?”

“Nothing much,” I admit. “They’re just a bunch of people who resent how much power One World has, so they mess with them. Hack into games and product launches when they can find a weak spot in the code. They try to be a constant unreachable itch on One World’s back.”

Basil rolls his eyes, clearly unimpressed. “Analogs want real change. We believe people should have the freedom to seek nourishment from any source without punishment. We want universal food rights with multiple providers.”

“But Basil,” I say, and this time I’m the one who reaches out to touch him. “There is no other food.”

“You really believe that?” he asks.

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe not.”

“Then where is it?”

“Ana says that beyond the Loops, in the Hinterlands, we’ll find it.”

I withdraw my hand. “What if she’s wrong?”

Before Basil can answer, Fiyo strides into the room and stands over us, legs wide, hands on hips. “Yaz told me all about your predicament, and I just want to say that I am a friend and my services are at your disposal.”

“Wait,” I say, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. “Do you actually know who I am?”

“You’re Thalia Apple,” Fiyo says.

“And you know who my parents are?”

“Of course.”

“You’d be taking a big risk,” I tell her.

“I’m not a fan of corporate control,” Fiyo tells me. “One World this and One World that. As if any of the rest of us have a chance to make a buck. Anytime anyone is sticking it to them, I’m happy to lend a hand.”

Yaz grins at us from the doorway. “She’s a genius, I’m telling you! An absolute genius!”

“We’ll let my work speak for itself.” Fiyo steps forward and runs her fingers through my hair. She grabs my chin and lifts my face to the light. “But I can promise that nobody will recognize you two when I’m done.” She flips my hair over my shoulder, gives Basil a once-over, then nods. “Come with me.”

We push through a heavy blue curtain that leads into her treatment room. Movie trailers, product launches, and celebrity interviews pass by silently on a large wall screen across from a black reclining chair.

“Who’s first?” Fiyo asks.

Basil and I look at one another. We look to Yaz and back at each other. “I’ll go,” Basil says and steps forward.

“A true gentleman.” Fiyo leads Basil to a recliner. Yaz pulls up two little stools so we can watch.

“What are you going to do?” Yaz asks. “Eyes? Hair? Skin tone?”

“All of the above!” Fiyo says as she studies Basil. Then she pulls on a pair of gloves and considers her options. “You have excellent bone structure,” she tells him. “And great coloring. Speaking professionally, I would say you are a beautiful human creature.” She winks a purple eye.

Basil squirms but Yaz and I both giggle because it’s true.

“Now tell me,” Fiyo asks as she pushes up Basil’s sleeve and swabs his skin with some antiseptic. “How has Ana been? I haven’t seen her in a long time.”

“She’s okay,” Basil says. “Except for the whole being in custody thing.”

Fiyo prepares the first syringe. “Well, the next time you see her, tell her to come to my Spalon. Some highlights around her face would really make her green eyes pop. She’d look better on camera the next time she gets arrested.” Another wink. She pushes a tiny bubble of serum from the top of the needle.

“How do you know Ana?” I ask Fiyo.

“Just because you’re only now getting wise to the ways of the
not
One World, doesn’t mean it hasn’t existed for a long time,” Fiyo says as she massages the injection point on Basil’s arm. “I might look young, but I’ve been around for a while and so has Ana.”

“What are you giving me?” Basil asks, staring nervously at his arm.

“Just a little genetic material to change your eyes,” Fiyo says casually as she prepares his next syringe. “We’re going light! Iceberg blue.”

“What’s an iceberg?” Basil asks.

“Who knows,” says Fiyo. “But the color is divine! Now blink for me.”

Basil blinks and blinks again. Each time he opens his eyes the brown of his irises fades as the melanin recedes, taking him from the phosphorescent yellowish green of algae to the grayish blue of a true daytime sky. I imagine his eye color alleles doing the do-si-do. G’s, T’s, C’s, and A’s temporarily changing positions. Fiyo watches the whole thing carefully. “Hmmm,” she says. “I think we’ll go just a touch lighter. Take away your smoldering stare.” She injects Basil again. And within a few moments, his eyes are the brightest blue I’ve ever seen.

Basil looks at me. “Do I look really weird?”

I nod, captivated by how different he seems already.

“Hair time!” Fiyo announces as she holds up the next syringe.

I nudge Yaz. “Can I talk to you?” I cut my eyes toward the waiting room. “Out there?”

“We’re going to step out for a sec,” she announces.

“Mmm-hmm,” Fiyo says knowingly. “Girl talk, huh?”

“Yes,” says Yaz. “Be back in a minute.”

In the waiting area I ask to use Yaz’s Gizmo. “What are you going to do?” she asks as she hands it over.

“I want to talk to my dad, but I can’t turn mine on or they’ll know where we are. I blocked your locator at the EA.”

“They must be freaking out!” says Yaz. “They think you’ve been kidnapped.”

“Please,” I scoff. “A million dollars says that’s just a story my mom and Ahimsa concocted so they can arrest Basil and cover up that I busted out of rehab.”

*   *   *

I take Yaz’s Gizmo outside to talk in private. In the darkness of the empty lot, illuminated by the faint glow of the small screen in my hand and the distant stars overhead, I command Jilly to call my father.

He answers immediately. “Yaz? Is Thalia with you?”

Tears sting my eyes when I see his face on the Gizmo screen. I know he must be worried and disappointed. “No, Dad,” I say, swallowing the lump in my throat. “It’s me. Thalia.”

“Thalia! Oh thank god!” he shouts. “Lily! Mom! Everybody. It’s Thalia!”

“Dad, wait!” I say. “I only want to talk to you.” But it’s too late. Over his shoulder I see Mom, Grandma Apple, Papa Peter, and Grandma Grace rush into the living room.

He turns back to the screen. “Are you okay? Where did they take you? What do they want? Did they hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” I tell him, crunching loose pebbles and clods of dirt as I pace. “Nobody wants anything. I left rehab on my own. I ran away.”

His face contorts. “But that boy you were with? They saw you at the EA.”

“Yaz and I got separated from him,” I say and realize this is the first time I’ve lied to my father. “I’m pretty sure they arrested him.”

“Not as far as I know,” he says and glances at my mom who bullies her way into the camera eye.

“Where are you?” she demands. “How dare you leave! Do you know what kind of trouble you’ve caused?”

“Lily, stop,” Dad snaps at her. “The most important thing is she’s safe.” He looks at me. “I’m not picking up your location. Tell me where you are so that we can come get you.”