“The cured, incapable of strong desire, are thus rid of both remembered and future pain” (“After the Procedure,” The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook, p. 132).
The world is spinning by, people and streets a long, unfurling ribbon of color and sound. We run past St. Vincent’s, the biggest all-boys school in Portland. A half-dozen boys are outside playing basketball, lazily dribbling the ball around, calling to one another. Their words are a blur, an indistinct series of shouts and barks and short bursts of laughter, the way that boys always sound whenever they’re together in groups, whenever you only hear them from around corners or across streets or down the beach. It’s like they have a language all their own, and for about the thousandth time I think how glad I am that segregation policies keep us separate most of the time.
As we run by I think I sense a momentary pause, a fraction of a second when all their eyes lift and turn in our direction. I’m too embarrassed to look. My whole body goes white-hot, like someone’s just stuck me headfirst into an oven. But a second later I feel their eyes sweeping past me, a wind, latching on to Hana. Her blond hair flashes next to me, a coin in the sun.
The pain is creeping back into my legs, a leaden feeling, but I force myself to keep going as we round the corner of Commercial Street and leave St. Vincent’s behind. I feel Hana straining to keep up next to me. I turn my head, barely managing to gasp out, “Race you.” But as Hana pulls up, arms pumping, and nearly passes me, I put my head down and lunge forward, cycling my legs as fast as I can, trying to suck air into my lungs, which feel like they’ve shrunk to the size of a pea, fighting the screaming in my muscles. Blackness eats the edges of my vision, and all I can see is the chain-link fence that rises up in front of us suddenly, blocking our path, and then I’m reaching out and thwacking it so hard it begins to shake, turning around to yell, “I won!” as Hana pulls up a second behind me, gasping for breath. Both of us are laughing now, hiccuping and taking huge gulping breaths of air as we pace around in circles, trying to walk it off.
When she can finally breathe again, Hana straightens up, laughing. “I let you win,” she says, an old joke of ours.
I toe some gravel in her direction. She ducks away, shrieking. “Keep telling yourself that.”
My hair has come out of its ponytail and I wrestle it out of its elastic, flipping my head down so I get the wind on my neck. Sweat drips down into my eyes, stinging.
“Nice look.” Hana pushes me lightly and I stumble sideways, whipping my head up to swipe back at her.
She sidesteps me. There’s a gap in the chain-link fence that marks the beginning of a narrow service road. This is blocked with a low metal gate. Hana hops it and gestures for me to follow. I haven’t really been paying attention to where we are: The service drive threads down through a parking lot, a forest of industrial Dumpsters and cargo storage sheds. Beyond those is the familiar string of white square buildings, like giant teeth. This must be one of the side entrances of the lab complex. I see now that the chain-link fence is looped on top with barbed wire and marked at twenty-foot intervals with signs that all read: PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
“I don’t think we’re supposed to—” I start to say, but Hana cuts me off.
“Come on,” she calls out. “Live a little.”
I do a quick scan of the parking lot beyond the gate and the road behind us: no one. The small guard hut just past the gate is also empty. I lean over and peek inside. There’s a half-eaten sandwich sitting on wax paper, and a stack of books piled messily on a small desk next to an old-fashioned radio, which is spitting static and patchy bits of music into the silence. I don’t see any surveillance cameras, either, though there must be some. All the government buildings are wired. I hesitate for a second longer, then swing myself over the gate and catch up to Hana. Her eyes are lit up with excitement, and I can tell that this was her plan, and her destination, all along.
“This must be how the Invalids got in,” she says in a breathless rush, as though we’ve been talking about yesterday’s drama at the labs all this time. “Don’t you think?”
“Doesn’t seem like it would have been hard.” I’m trying to sound casual but the whole thing—the empty service road and the enormous parking lot, shimmering in the sun, the blue Dumpsters and the electrical wires zigzagging across the sky, the sparkling white slope of the lab roofs—makes me uneasy. Everything is silent and very still—frozen, almost, the way things are in a dream, or just before a major thunderstorm. I don’t want to say it to Hana, but I’d give pretty much anything to head back to Old Port, to the complex nest of familiar streets and stores.
Even though there’s no one around, I have the impression of being watched. It’s worse than the normal feeling of being observed in school and on the street and even at home, having to be cautious about what you do and say, the close, blocked-in feeling that everyone gets used to eventually.
“Yeah.” Hana kicks at the packed dirt road. A plume of dust puffs up, resettles slowly. “Pretty crappy security for a major medical facility.”
“Pretty crappy security for a petting zoo,” I say.
“I resent that.” The voice comes from behind us, and both Hana and I jump.
I spin around. The world seems to freeze for an instant.
A boy is standing behind us, arms crossed, head cocked to the side. A boy with caramel-colored skin and hair that’s a golden-brown color, like autumn leaves getting ready to fall.
It’s him. The boy from yesterday, from the observation deck. The Invalid.
Except he isn’t an Invalid, obviously. He’s wearing a short-sleeved blue guard’s uniform over jeans, and he’s got a laminated government ID clipped to his collar.
“I leave for two seconds to get a refill”—he gestures to the bottle of water he’s holding—“and I come back to find a full-fledged breakin.”
I’m so confused I can’t move or speak or do anything. Hana must think I’m scared, because she jumps in quickly, “We weren’t breaking in. We weren’t doing anything. We were just running and we . . . um, we got lost.”
The boy crosses his arms in front of his chest, rocking back on his heels. “Didn’t see any of the signs outside, huh? ‘No Trespassing’? ‘Authorized Personnel Only’?”
Hana looks away. She’s nervous too. I can feel it. Hana’s a thousand times more confident than I am, but neither of us is used to standing in the open and talking to a boy, especially not a boy-guard, and it must have occurred to Hana that he already has plenty of grounds to arrest us.
“Must have missed them,” she mumbles.
“Uh-huh.” He raises his eyebrows. It’s obvious he doesn’t believe us, but at least he doesn’t look angry. “They’re pretty subtle. Only a few dozen of them. I can see how you might not have noticed.”
He looks away for a second, squinting, and I get the feeling he’s trying to stop himself from laughing. He’s not like any guard I’ve ever seen—at least, not the typical guards you see at the border and all around Portland, fat and scowly and old. I think about how sure I was yesterday that he came from the Wilds, the solid certainty deep inside of me.
I was wrong, obviously. As he turns his head I see the unmistakable sign of someone who is cured: the mark of the procedure, a three-pointed scar just behind the left ear, where the scientists insert a special three-pronged needle used exclusively for immobilizing the patient so that the cure can be administered. People show off their scars like badges of honor; you hardly see any cureds with long hair, and the women who haven’t lopped off their hair entirely are careful to wear it pulled back.
My fear recedes. Talking to a cured isn’t illegal. The rules of segregation don’t apply.
I’m not sure if he has recognized me or not. If so, he hasn’t given any sign of it. Finally I can’t take it anymore and I burst out, “You. I saw you—” At the last second I can’t finish the sentence. I saw you yesterday.