Part 4 (1/2)

”Support!” called the other half.

”Strength!”

”In numbers!”

The girls, despite being oldest like us, seemed to take some sick pleasure in being super coordinated and enthusiastic about these kinds of things. They also always seemed to look great for flagpole, like they'd been up for hours, while us boys had our hair pointing every which way. They all cheered and clapped to themselves when their routine was over, and all the boys around me had their heads hanging sideways watching.

”They're going to the ropes course today,” Beaker said quietly from beside me. I hadn't even realized he was there.

Claudia started making announcements about the day. ”I've checked in with Aaron up in the Eagle Eye and he reports that midday Rad levels will be slightly elevated, so everyone follow the two-hour application cycle.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Leech rubbing his hands all over his chest, like he was putting NoRad on girl parts, and making ecstatic faces while doing it. Mike and Jalen and Noah were cracking up.

The show was mostly for the Arctic Foxes' ringleader, Paige, who was smile-glaring at Leech from across the aisle. She flipped her sandy blond hair like we'd already seen her do a hundred times in two days, and then made a big show of whispering something to her friends that made them all laugh hysterically. Then it was Leech's turn to do the glare-smile thing.

Paige and Leech had apparently been going out last session, and now, even though there had only been one day off between sessions, it was suddenly this big will-they-or-won't-they-date-again thing for reasons that n.o.body really knew, and you had to wonder if the two of them were just doing it to keep all the attention on themselves.

I saw other Arctic Foxes looking at our cabin and whispering, sizing us up. I figured the kid with the clumpy white bandages around his neck probably wasn't going to interest them.

When announcements were over, one of the little girls' cabins, the Lemurs, did a skit about something to do with always remembering to wear your NoRad lotion, and we were released to breakfast. Everybody walked up the gravel path to the dining hall in a ma.s.s. Leech and his gang mingled with the Arctic Foxes, and there was lots of pulling sweats.h.i.+rt hoods over each other's heads, and then when we got into the dining hall there were lots of whispers across the aisle between Leech's end of the table and Paige's. I was at the other end, and noticed that there was a similar quiet end at the Foxes' table, too.

There was bread and margarine waiting on the tables, along with metal pitchers of bug juice. Today it was bright yellow and was supposed to taste like something called a pineapple. There were jokes about how it looked like pee, about how Beaker was drinking pee. Tables got called by age, youngest to oldest, so we had to watch tray after tray of millet pancakes and scrambled synth eggs go by. The food at each meal was still good, and there was plenty of it, but since that first night, there had been no sign of real wheat, or delicate leaves of spinach.

Now a piece of bread smacked against the side of Leech's head. ”Oh no!” he said, looking over at Paige, who was glaring wickedly, like she was auditioning for the part of ”bad girl” in a school play. Leech scanned the table, grabbed a square of margarine, pressed it onto the tip of a knife, then flicked it back at her. She ducked and it hit a poor girl named Sonja, who you could tell had a life in her cabin like Beaker had in ours. The margarine bounced off her cheek and fell down the front of her s.h.i.+rt and she started grabbing at herself, and all the girls cracked up and the boys went nuts.

”Knock it off, Carey,” said Todd, using Leech's real name.

”That's bloodsucker to you, mammal!” Leech shot back.

Todd leaned forward, slapping both hands on the table. ”Watch it, kid, or you'll be missing electives today.”

Leech glared back at him, smile unflinching. ”I think Paul would say that was unfair,” he said, like because he'd been here so long, he and the director were best friends.

”Not if I explain your behavior.” Todd's eyes narrowed; his jaw set.

”Try it,” said Leech.

Todd kept staring at him... then looked away. ”Food time,” he said, and everybody at the table knew who had just won.

We headed across the busy dining hall. I was glad to get away from all that table stuff, but also for the chance to walk by the CIT area. They owned one whole end of the dining hall. They had a normal dining table, but then also couches along the walls, and a Ping-Pong table. The CITs were all there, spread out over the surfaces like someone had tossed them carelessly, and yet placed them perfectly, legs in sweatpants hanging this way and that, heads covered by sweats.h.i.+rt hoods or backward mesh baseball caps. They leaned on each other's shoulders, their toes painted, their ankles and wrists wrapped in woven bracelets. They were like a portrait of perfection, like the ideal of youth that you'd see in holotech environments, who had that plastic feel and smiled at you and talked to you about the products they were wearing. Except the CITs weren't smiling, and they were more real, unnerving, almost dangerous feeling. You could imagine them never even having to speak, lounging there, communicating in glances and scents like the Turkish lions that roamed the deserts of France and Germany.

And yet one pair of those silent eyes was looking at me, sky-blue irises peering through green-streaked bangs. She was sideways on the couch, legs draped over the armrest, her head against the fortress shoulder of Evan, who was reading a video sheet. CITs didn't have to go the whole ”no technology” route, like the rest of us.

Lilly's gaze made me freeze, and then almost trip, and I looked away quick, hating that she was seeing me with these ridiculous bandages on my neck, but then I glanced back, and she was still looking at me, and she nodded, or at least I thought she did. I wondered if I should nod back, or do nothing, like I was playing it cool, or- ”Lil!” someone called from the Ping-Pong table, and she looked away.

I hurried into the kitchen. On my way back with my food, I caught a glimpse of her playing in a doubles game. She was wearing someone else's purple-and-white mesh cap, maybe Evan's, her sweats.h.i.+rt sleeves pushed up, her gaze across the table intense. She didn't look at me, and I told myself not to stare.

Breakfast dragged on, and as we were finally getting up to leave, Todd said, ”Owen, you're supposed to go see Dr. Maria?”

”Oh, yeah.”

”Meet us down on the fields when you're done.”

I headed out of the dining hall and across a dirt road toward the infirmary. I didn't mind the idea of seeing Dr. Maria. She'd seemed nice. And I wondered again whether or not I should tell her more about what was going on with me. Maybe she should know about last night with the wounds and the shower. She was a doctor, after all. And yet, going to the infirmary also meant the possibility of running into Paul. That was something I definitely wanted to avoid.

”Hey! Owen!” I turned and saw Lilly pulling away from a little cl.u.s.ter of CITs, including Evan. ”Just a sec,” she said to them, and hurried over to me. ”Hey, I've been thinking about you.”

She had? When? Where? What about? Wait, she was still talking- ”How are you feeling?” Lilly was asking.

”Oh,” I said quickly, ”you know, better. Fine.”

She nodded. ”Cool, and what about your neck?”

”Oh, that,” I said, flapping a hand against my bandages like they were no big deal, except that movement made the wounds cry out and so then I tried not to wince. ”Something must have gotten tangled around me on the bottom, or a parasite got me or something. Did you, um, see anything when you found me?”

”No.” Lilly looked around, almost like she as checking to make sure no one was listening. ”So, that's it?”

”It?” It sounded like she was expecting me to have more to report. There was the whole thing with the shower. ”Well, actually-”

”Lil!” Evan called. He tapped at his wrist. ”We gotta go!”

”Right,” said Lilly. ”Gotta get down to the docks. Okay, listen...” She touched my arm. I looked down at that happening. She had teal-green nail polish with little glitter stars. ”We should talk,” she said, starting to step away, ”about your neck and stuff.”

”My neck?”

”Yeah, can you find me during elective time today? I'll be guarding free swim.”

”Sure, okay,” I said.

”Cool.” She smiled. ”Hey, until then”-she nodded over my shoulder-”mum's the word with them them, okay?”

I glanced back at the infirmary. ”Oh, yeah. Right.”

”And listen, if you get any strange urges,” said Lilly, ”just go with it.”

Strange urges-what was she talking about? But I just nodded. ”All right.”

”Good.” Lilly hurried back to her group. I looked down at my arm, where her fingers had been. I could almost feel little heat impressions there.

I turned and headed to the infirmary, thinking about what Lilly had just said. We were going to talk. She knew something about what had happened to me. It was already killing me not to know what.

Inside, I found the office door and Paul's both closed. I could hear a low, m.u.f.fled voice in Paul's office, like he was speaking to someone. I hurried over to the open infirmary door.

As I walked in, I heard the strained sound of vomiting. I found Dr. Maria in one of the exam rooms, sitting on the bed beside a little Panda girl who was bent over a plastic basin, her face red. Strands of her black bangs had gotten stuck by the corner of her mouth. There was brown goo on her pink teddy bear T-s.h.i.+rt.

”It's okay, Colleen,” said Dr. Maria gently.