FOURTEEN
F
rost has started to decorate the Nebraska grass overnight, and Elias is deep in practices and private coaching now. Personally, I think it’s weird, and he doesn’t seem too excited about it. But I think I know what’s going on. It’s hard for Ones to find a way to fit in and especially hard to figure out how to make our parents happy. Especially if they have crazy kickass twin Supersibs.
God knows the closest I ever got to appeasing Mom and Dad was driving Michael and Max to practice, getting out of the house, and accepting the transfer to Nelson without a fight. And if I didn’t like Elias so much, they’d be getting an earful about that, too, because these holo-lectures that pass as classes at Nelson are so boring they make me want to crawl out of my own skin.
So if this makes his dad happy, if it’s their thing together, then I’m not going to argue. Especially since working with the coach more often was part of the deal after Elias admitted to climbing that roof. Scaling historic buildings and not using a Super to do it pissed his dad off twice as much, and Elias picked extra hours in practice over being grounded. I think he’s nuts — I’d rather spend time alone in my room than do a forced workout any day — until he reminded me that he could stop by to see me on his way home from coaching.
It’s early November now, and we’re in the few weeks between autumn soccer and winter soccer for Michael and Max. Instead of going to practice, they’ve been spending a couple hours three nights a week at the Hub. I kind of freaked out when I first found out because they’re just kids. They deserve a break, and whatever they have them doing at the Hub has them coming home even more exhausted than soccer. But Mom explained that they’re starting the period of adolescence where Supers see the most dramatic changes, and they’re just going for checkups and testing of their abilities.
I wouldn’t know about that stuff. I was never an adolescent with a Super.
I’m hanging out at our house with the twins today since Elias is in another private coaching session anyway and has no idea when he’d be back. I watch them closely because they dragged an awful lot when they came home yesterday and had pretty big bandages on each arm. Blood tests, Mom said. They both collapsed into bed, which is strange for them.
But today, they’re mostly their normal selves. Compared to yesterday, “mostly normal” is good enough for me.
The three of us spread out on our worn brown sectional, each of us curving against a different part of it under throw blankets. I balance my reader on my lap and tap more organic chem models into shape on my tablet.
Some stupid cartoon show where the characters knock each other over the heads with stuff and make farting jokes blares on the TV. Max snorts, sniggers, and pops cheese balls into his mouth. Michael is absorbed with something on his tablet, and knowing him, there’s an equal chance that it’s a stupid game or some classic literature he’s plowing through at the speed of light. The only reason that Mom and Dad are more impressed with Max’s super and not his IQ is that mine is still way higher than his.
I reach over into Michael’s bowl, grab a cheese ball, and throw it at Max’s head.
“Whatcha doin’, nerdface?” I ask.
“Reading,” he says and locates the cheeseball, which bounced down and wedged itself under his leg. He pops it in his mouth for a second, takes it out, and lobs it back at me. I raise up my blanket and deflect it onto the floor.
“You are gross, Max,” I say, brushing my fingertips over my hair to remove invisible drool that didn’t fall there.
He shrugs and flashes a grin. “You called me nerdface. Besides, what you’re doing is way nerdier. Who reads textbooks that aren’t for class?”
I stick out my tongue and glare at him. He sticks his tongue back out at me and goes back to his book.
There’s a knock at the door, and I sit up straight, rubbing my lips together. Too late for a delivery guy, too frigid for door-to-door salesmen. It’s got to be Elias. I check the clock — 8:15 — still an hour before he has to go home.
Mom strides down the hallway to open the door. From the looks of her, she’s almost as excited to see Elias as I am — we try to avoid parents at all costs, with our limited hang out time, and she barely ever sees him.
Elias’s voice floats down the hallway. “Good evening, Mrs. Grey.”
“Come on in, Elias. Can I get you anything? Something hot?”
“Yeah, that would actually be good. Some coffee?”
“If you don’t mind the dregs.”
“Thanks.”
By this time, I’ve sat up and run my fingers through my hair, trying to smooth it.
“Yeah, Merrin, better try to look nice for your boyfriend.” Michael draws out the last word, and I roll my eyes and kick him under his blanket.
“’Try’ is the best she’ll be able to do,” Max cracks, and I glare at him before looking down to straighten my shirt.
Elias strides in and stands behind the couch over my head. I look up and back at him, grinning. He pulls his glasses off to wipe off the steam that formed there from coming into the warm house so quickly, and my heart stutters at seeing his eyes, open and bare, the way I normally only see them when we fly.
“Hey,” I say, my voice way different than it was when I was yelling at my brothers. Lighter and softer. Just like I feel when he’s around.
He puts one of his huge hands on either side of my head and bends down to kiss the top of it from behind, then strides along the back of the couch and peers down at Max’s reader.
“Ah, awesome, man. Classic.”
Max beams. He ruffs Max’s hair, and the adoration on Max’s face is plain. He nods like Elias has just spoken the Gospel, and he’s hearing it for the first time.
Elias sits on the floor in the center of the semicircle the couch makes. Does he look thinner? It’s hard to tell when he’s got such a huge sweatshirt on. But he’s definitely pale, and big bags carve out dark circles under his eyes. Mom comes in with the coffee, in a travel mug of course — can’t risk staining the carpet — and Elias smiles at her gratefully.
When she walks out, he leans in toward me, lowering his voice and waggling his eyebrows like a conspirator. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Michael groans. “Aw, we’re leaving. Don’t wanna be here for this.”
“I’m not gonna kiss her, doofus,” Elias says, finding a cheese ball on the carpet and lobbing it at Michael’s head this time. “Surprise for all of you.” He pushes some buttons on his cuff, and mine beeps. “Check it,” he says, smiling.
I push up my sleeve and read the message scrolling across my wrist. “The Biotech Symposium?” I shriek, launching myself off the couch and into Elias’s lap, throwing my arms around his neck. “How did you…”
“Dad’s VP, remember? He got me five tickets to give to whoever I want. So that’s you, Leni and Dan, and…”
“My brothers,” I say, shaking my head and giving him a soft smile.
The Hub hosts a Symposium every two years where it rolls out all the new Biotech achievements. It’s for Supers only, and mostly only adult ones. Officials and insiders. The part that the press and general public gets invited to — what these tickets are for — is a two-day affair, super fancy. Even though Mom and Dad work there, us kids have never been, and me and Max are geeky enough to be really excited.
Max fidgets where he sits, grinning. He’s got to be totally psyched for this. Michael couldn’t care less, I know, but he’s no impolite kid, not by a longshot.
“Thanks, Elias,” he says.
“Yeah, man. No problem,” Elias says, but he keeps his gaze fixed on me.
I lean in to kiss Elias. Can’t help it. Retching noises fill the room in dual surround-sound, and Michael says, “Now we’re really getting out of here.”
I wave them off behind Elias’s back, mid-kiss. After a couple minutes of that, I draw back.
“Wanna…you know?” I make the swooping motion with my hand. “You could use one of my dad’s coats,” I say, shivering when I move my hands over his back and feel how cold his sweatshirt still is from being outside. Thinking about the Symposium energized me. I want to fly, even though I know the grass outside seizes with frost and the sun went down long ago. We’d probably get frostbite.
“Nah,” Elias says, wrapping his fingers around my waist. “Less than an hour till I have to go. I just want to see you.”
I peel myself off his lap and get back on the couch, pulling the blanket up and patting the space next to me. The same stupid cartoon still blares in the background, but I don’t care enough to change the channel.
We sit there, cuddled up together, and he stretches his arm across my shoulders and plays with my hair. He presses his nose to the side of my head and breathes in deeply like always.
Mom walks down the hallway, clears her throat way louder than normal, and says, “Just keep the lights on, kids.”
Elias turns around, grabbing the couch back with both hands to show Mom where they are without making her ask anything embarrassing. “I’ve gotta be home by 9:30 anyway, Mrs. Grey.”
“Good to see you here, Elias,” she says and walks up the stairs.
I sink further down into the couch cushions and slap my palm to my forehead. “Sorry about that,” I mutter.
Elias sinks his body down too, harder for him because he’s so tall. I pull the blanket up over our heads, and we are in a world of our own making, one I never want to leave. We talk and kiss and laugh, and Elias sneaks his hand around my waist, under my shirt this time, and I don’t shake or get nervous at all. I love it, all of it, being this warm and close to him. He kisses my eyelids, behind my ears, and my lips, lingering there for awhile.
“You make everything else go away,” he says, and I figure school or basketball was pretty stressful today, so I just put my hand on the side of his face and look at him as sweetly as I can manage.
We stay there so long that Elias has to speed home and call me on the way just to say “Goodnight” one more time.
-
Today’s session with Mr. Hoffman is different. Finally, something other than chem. Mr. Hoffman’s taking a vial of my blood so I can look at it under the microscope. He wants to talk about genes and knows me so well that he can tell I’m dying to see my own.
I wince and take in a sharp breath through my teeth as the lancet bites into the skin of my index finger. It’s not the pain that bugs me. It’s picturing that tiny needle attacking me at the click of a button.
He pulls out a slide and some solution while I set up the microscope he brought for the purpose. I run my hands over its surface, distracted by the high-tech brilliance, when he says, “You and Elias are together a lot.”
I nod, slowly. He hasn’t brought up Elias, hasn’t talked to me about anything but chem, since that first day.
Suddenly, Mr. Hoffman looks up from preparing the slide. “Why do you spend so much time with that boy, Merrin?”
I sit up straight, removing my hands from the scope. “Well, I…” I clear my throat. “He’s my boyfriend, Mr. Hoffman. I thought you knew that.” It feels weird to refer to Elias that way since we never defined our relationship as “talking” or “going out” or “together.” We’ve always just been “us.”
“And yet you don’t go to many school activities together.”
“We’re…uh…we’re both quiet,” I say in a rush. “We like to hang out at home, I guess.” I would tell him what we’ve really been doing in our free time. I would. I want to. Every cell in my body wants to get closer to the Hub, and I know this is the way to do it.
But the way he looks at me, his eyes burning, prying, desperate — it’s not okay. And I know it’s not okay to tell Mr. Hoffman from the Hub about us, about what we can do. Not here, not like this. Not without Elias next to me. This is the one thing about meeting with Mr. Hoffman I would have to tell him.
After all, he is half of it. Half of us.
Mr. Hoffman prepares a second slide with the last of the blood from the tiny vial and slips it in his bag.
“What’s that for?” I ask. I swear the twisting in my stomach makes my words waver.
“The last piece of your application.”
“You need my blood for me to work there?”
“Well, yes, of course. It’s for security, among other things.”
I laugh, and my stomach stops twisting so much. They can do twenty different tests for drugs if they want. I slide the stylus back into the side of my tablet and start packing up to go.
“Do you…love him?” Mr. Hoffman asks.
My heart seizes in my chest. I don’t know if it’s because of the question or the way he asked it, but I suddenly want to get out of there, more than I’ve wanted to get out of anywhere in my life. Even more than that summer morning in the kitchen with Mom and Dad when they told me about the transfer to Nelson.
“I…I have to go,” I mumble and start shoving stuff in my bag.
“I’m glad you’ve applied for the internship, Merrin. Glad you’ve been able to keep this quiet. You could help a lot of people by being at the Hub, Merrin. People like me.”
I catch my breath. “What? You’re a…”
He nods, sitting back, a small, sad smile forming on his lips. “I’m a One.”
I throw my bag over my shoulder and stand up abruptly, making the chair shudder as it tries to slide along the carpet. Some combination of Mr. Hoffman having kept that from me, the secret meetings, and the slide with my blood on it makes even his Oneness irrelevant. He’s gone too far, creeped me out too much, for me to care about even that commonality between us.
“Thank you,” I say over my shoulder on the way out. Tears burn at my eyes. I’m glad the application is complete now because I don’t think I could bring myself to go back to studying with him.
FIFTEEN
A
bout half an hour’s drive out into the cornfields of Nebraska lies a 100- acre plot of land on which nothing but tall grass grows. It waves unassumingly against the graying November sky. The hawks still circle above, waiting to pounce on any mice that have delayed going into hibernation.
The Hub is a city underneath it all.
“It’s completely subterranean for a couple of reasons,” Dad explains as we drive through the endless parking-garage-style ramps to the entrance, mostly to Michael and Max because I’m so obsessed with Hub that I’ve known this for years. “One is for security. Even if Nebraska was struck by a nuclear bomb — highly unlikely in the first place because not many people know exactly where the Hub is — it wouldn’t have much, if any, impact on the structure and lab materials.”
“Nuclear bombs. Awesome,” Michael mutters from the back seat, and I reach over to smack him. Mom rolls her eyes.
“The other reason,” Dad raises his volume, and I know he wants the boys to hear this one, “is for subtlety’s sake. There’s been a lot of money and time poured into this place, and we’ve come up with some amazing discoveries. But we’re not here to brag. Gifted individuals are no more important or valuable than anyone else. It’s important that we all remember that.”
I try to imagine what kind of building the Hub must be that, if it were built above ground on the Nebraska plains, would intimidate anyone enough for them to get angry.
A security booth at the entrance scans our cuffs, electronically bleating out “Verified: Grey” or “Verified: VanDyne” for each of the tickets that have been programmed there.
When we park, the garage is just that — a garage, like in the airport or the hospital or any other place. I itch at the button on my cuff, impatient to get out and see the Hub. And hopefully see Elias, sooner rather than later.
We squeeze into an elevator and lurch up a few floors. I brush some lint off the black suit pants Mom made me wear and roll my ankle toward the outside of the black, pointy-toed pumps she handed me to go with it. The elevator dings, and we step out into the hugest, whitest, most glowing room I’ve ever seen.
Everything shines with its slickness, from the tiles to the walls. A solid white ceiling stretches down the wide corridor almost as far as I can see, and it’s tiled with rectangular fluorescent lights lined up in perfect diagonal rows.
“Welcome to the Biotech Hub Symposium,” a Hub worker greets us. “This is the center room, where we’ll be having the resources fair. Check out what’s available for the average Super and our scientists out there.” He turns and motions toward the stages. “On either end, we’ll have demonstrations.
“The Symposium schedule is programmed into your cuffs, and you’ll need to scan into each section of the building. Different clearance levels for each participant. You understand. They’re on high alert with so many non-personnel here.”
My heart sinks. I knew, of course, I wouldn’t be seeing the whole Hub. I guess I just didn’t think about it. But something in me knows that this might be the last chance I get, especially since I ditched Mr. Hoffman and haven’t heard from him since. All the formulas and equations and experiments of this place have been calling me since I was little. Ever since I wanted to be more than a One.
“Thank you,” Dad says to the worker and turns back to us. “Now, go anywhere, do anything you want. Anything you’re
allowed
to do, which I think…” He checks his schedule. “…is pretty much just the resources fair today. And a few demos.”
He clears his throat. “No leaving the Hub without us, obviously. You can text us as you normally would, so no excuses for anything. Meet back here at 4:00, boys, so we can take you home before the dinner, and so Merrin can go with Mom to change.”
Dad turns to me. “Merrin? You are staying here until the end of the dinner. You can ride home with Elias, but you must let us know if that’s what you’re doing, and you must go straight home. So you let us know when you’re getting in the car and when you arrive at the front door.”
I roll my eyes, thinking how if Elias and I really wanted to spend some alone time in the house, a requirement for texting wouldn’t prevent that. At all.
But I smile and say, “Sure, Dad.”
Mom gives us all hugs, seeming even more distant than usual, and hurries off to wherever she needs to be. Dad gives me a hug and walks off, too, and the boys start buzzing around the tables, checking everything out.
I stand by myself, Supers spilling in all around me, and the energy of this place is so intense, I want to close my eyes and breathe it all in. So I do. I must look like an idiot, but I don’t care.
A hand rests on either side of my waist. Elias.
I turn, and he’s in a dark gray suit with a white shirt, no tie, the top button undone. My heart drops into my stomach. I thought he looked good in his hoodies and jeans, but clearly I hadn’t imagined all the possibilities thoroughly enough.
“Uh,” I manage before he sweeps me into a bear hug.
“Excited?” he asks, grinning down at me, clearly just as charged as I am.
“I guess.” I let loose a small smile. That’s the understatement of my life.
Elias squeezes my hand as he walks me down the hallway along with hundreds of others Hub visitors.
About 40 feet down, right before the second security check, hangs a gilt frame with a painted portrait of a boy, about Michael and Max’s age. I drift over to look at it, bringing Elias along with me.
A name plate beneath it reads, “Charlie Fisk. Inspiring us to make the world a better place.” I run my finger over the letters, repeating the words under my breath, trying to grasp at why they’re so familiar.
I look up at Elias. “Fisk?”
He nods. “President Fisk’s son. He would have been in his mid-twenties by now. Died when he was a kid, about our age. Some fast-moving cancer.”
“What was his Super?” I wonder out loud, then feel guilty for being so morbidly curious.
Elias shrugs. “They, uh…they say they never knew. Hadn’t manifested by the time he got sick.”
I quickly do the math of years in my head. “Would have been late.”
Elias shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe they force the kids too quickly now. Especially with the Supers’ classes starting earlier… I don’t know. You want your kid to fit in, I guess. They never said it, but I think my mom didn’t want that for me. She never cared if I was Super. Just Dad.”
We stand there, staring at the portrait, ignoring the rush of bodies behind us. I squeeze Elias’s hand so he knows I heard what he said. So he knows I care.
He clears his throat and says, “That’s the slogan. The one they’ve been using ever since Fisk was elected. Fifteen years now. He thinks… Dad says he wants to be more than just a biotech service for the Supers. He wants to make the whole world better.”
“Cure cancer,” I say.
Elias nods. For a second, I stare at the portrait of Charlie, his dark hair and evergreen eyes so alive. I wonder if Fisk wants to cure anything else. I wonder if curing cancer made him think about curing people like me, too.
After a cuff scan and a facial-recognition identity verification, we stand in another huge, cavernous white room turned into a maze of tables, vendors, and info booths.
“What do you want to do first?” Elias asks. I think he has gotten even more excited now that he sees my eyes roving and body itching to check everything out. “There’s a demonstration, we can watch some other kids test their powers against their parents,’ um, I think there are some lectures…” He taps through the schedule on his cuff.
“I think I really want to stay here. Is that weird?”
“Wanting to hang with the biotech reps all afternoon?” He wrinkles his nose, still smiling. “Yes, it is weird. But I should have known.”
“Yeah, you should have,” I say, punching him on the arm. The twins barrel over toward us, pushing through the crowd to greet Elias.
“I’ll drag these clowns around while you check everything out,” he says.
“They’re twice the trouble,” I tell him and give the twins a warning look, my eyebrows in the air.
“You think I don’t know? I grew up with twin Supersibs, too. Conniving ones. These guys are cake.” He slings a long arm around each of their necks, putting them in a lock, and both of them protest, laughing.
They walk off, and Elias yells over his shoulder, “Meet you back here at two, okay?”
I shake my head at the three of them, smiling. The boys’ dark curly heads bob up and down next to Elias, and they look up at him like they’ve just won the freaking lottery. Boys. They’ll probably find some incredible underground basketball court and waste a whole afternoon at the Symposium doing that.
After an hour of browsing the booths, stuffing flash drives full of information and other swag into my bag, and buying a t-shirt — magenta with an illustration of a drum set the artist has turned into an lab for liquid solutions, with every drum bubbling and half-filled with bright color — I realize that Elias has never really been to the Hub, just like me. So how does he know his way around here so well?
Finally, Elias and the boys find me. It takes everything I have not to stretch up and kiss Elias — I almost never wear heels, and I’m even closer to his face now — but there are too many people here. The boys decide to go to some static electricity demonstration, and I drag Elias to a lecture I’ve been eyeing on the schedule all morning titled, “New Horizons: Malleability of the Gene Structure and Real-Life Improvements for Gifted Individuals.”
The word “improvements” catches my eye. I could use some of those.
The presentation isn’t so much of an exposition as a teaser.
Like everything else about this building and this Symposium, the background of the movie playing glares stark white. Friendly figures show up on the screen, though, softening it. A woman in a cardigan and khakis that reminds me of Elias’s mom. A kid and her dad playing catch. She has a pink baseball mitt like the one I have stashed in my keepsake box at home. The girl catches the ball and then dashes to the other side of her dad in half a second, standing 20 yards from him.
“Getting faster every day, sweetie!” the man calls and then turns to grin at us from the screen.
This time, a middle-aged man sits reading a newspaper at a breakfast nook in a warmly decorated kitchen. A woman stands at the counter making pancakes in a waist apron. I snort, and Elias reaches over to hold my hand.
“Grab the milk for me, hon?” the woman asks.
Without looking up from his paper, the man flicks a finger at the fridge, and a gallon of milk floats out and goes straight to her hand.
The woman turns over her back to the screen and beams. “A year ago he would have dropped it.”
A little girl reaches for a candy jar, trying to grab a piece of chocolate inside, and starts crying when the tips of her fingers disappear. A teenaged girl who’s supposed to be her sister or her babysitter comes over to comfort her, and then gives her a pill. She pulls her hand out and the tips of her fingers rematerialize.
The older girl turns to the screen and says, “Without this patching solution from the Hub, this singly gifted little girl would have lost her fingers.”
I squeeze Elias’s hand hard. “They fixed her,” I whisper. “Now can she…?”
Elias shakes his head and sets his mouth in a hard line. He leans in and whispers, “Just a patch.”
The man in the suit steps to the front of the screen again.
“Genetic improvements are being made every day, thanks to new discoveries at the Hub regarding the malleability of the gene structure. Think of the implications. For the elderly gifted, for the worker who wants to step up in her career, even…” It switches to a photograph of a sad-looking young boy. “…for the singly gifted individual. The Hub isn’t only here to help. It’s here to make your whole life better.”
And for the first time in a long time, since I met Elias, I feel it, strong. I can see it in this man’s face. There’s hope for people like me, for people like Elias. We’ll be more than just Ones. I know it.