Colony East (16 page)

“We’ve been to Florida twice.”

Jordan almost fell out of his chair. “You’re kidding me!”

Abby tapped him on the shoulder.

The interruption annoyed him. “What?”

“Go see what Toby’s doing.”

“Huh?” He narrowed his eyes. “You go.”

Just then, Toby entered with a tray of snacks. The snacks were typical island fare: smoked mackerel and cold french fries with a special treat of graham crackers and peanut butter. To make sure nobody got greedy, Toby provided a toothpick to spread the peanut butter.

For the gypsy offering, the captain produced an orange from her pouch. The room quieted as the islanders stared. Abby hadn’t seen an orange in more than two years. They watched her peel it then break apart the wedges. The captain passed out the wedges, along with pieces of rind. The scent of citrus mingled in the air with the waxy odor of the candle. Abby dragged the rind across her lower teeth before chewing her piece. As much as she was looking forward to hearing news, she was in no rush to eat her portion. The wedge was thin and had a tough membrane. If someone had handed her this piece before the epidemic, she would have discarded it, thinking it was too fibrous and dry. Now, it was the freshest, plumpest, juiciest, orange wedge ever. She held it under her nose and slowly inhaled. It triggered memories of walking past oranges, lemons, and limes piled high at the supermarket. She placed the wedge on her tongue and let it sit for a moment before biting down to release the juice. If this single wedge had been her only payment for removing Nikki’s braces—for all the crazy drama at Sal’s—Abby would have felt it was a fair trade.

Toby cleared his throat and started reviewing the trading rules.

The captain cut him off, “Don’t worry. We’ll tell you everything we know.”

Abby glanced at Toby, but he skillfully avoided her gaze.

Typically, gypsies dribbled out tidbits at the beginning of a session, saving the most dazzling news—the big event—for last, much like a fireworks display.

The captain described kids in New Jersey who were generating electricity from solar panels. “They told us they want to trade electricity for food.”

Castine Island was too foggy for solar panels, Abby thought.

“An eleven-year-old boy flew an airplane,” the captain offered next.

Toby raised his hand. “Challenge.”

A challenge was a polite way to ask a gypsy to elaborate or provide more evidence that a news bit, was in fact, true.

“It happened in Miami. We confirmed the story with multiple eyewitnesses. The boy took off from Miami International in a small airplane and flew over the Miami Trading Zone. The plane crashed just offshore, and he swam back to the beach.”

“Figures,” Jordan said. “Eleven-year-olds think they can do anything.”

Toby gave a nod, indicating he was satisfied with the captain’s response.

She continued, “A fuel king in Connecticut set up tolls on the main roads to the trading zones. Other kings are starting to do the same.”

Fuel kings wielded a lot of power, controlling the local supplies of gasoline and diesel. Long ago, gas stations had either burned to the ground, or survivors had found ways to siphon the gasoline from their underground tanks. It left only one remaining source of fuel, the large tanks found near every port city. Toby had told Abby about Martha, the fuel king that he traded with at the Portland Zone. Martha assigned armed guards at the tanks she controlled.

The captain waited for a challenge. None came. “There was a zebra on the loose in North Carolina. Nikki spotted it.”

Monty, the new boy, spoke up. “They let the animals out of the Bronx Zoo.”

Abby suddenly pegged his accent. He was from New York.

Everyone accepted that a zebra was running free, she thought, because another gypsy crew had reported a camel wandering around the Providence Trading Zone.

“Do you know about the Pig?” the captain asked. They all nodded. Abby figured this topic was the big event.

“We heard about eight cases. Four in Florida, three in Georgia, one in Virginia. A boy in Connecticut died, but not from the Pig.”

Toby and Jordan issued challenges at the same time.

The captain lowered her eyes and spoke in a halting voice. “The boy was seven. We talked to his older sister. They lived in a commune outside Hartford. She noticed his appetite had increased. He was hungry all the time. He became like an animal when it came to food.” The captain hesitated longer and longer after each sentence, as if she were verbally struggling toward some horrific event she didn’t want to describe. “He wouldn’t stop eating. He gained thirty pounds in a month. He couldn’t help himself. At the commune, they rationed food as everyone else does, and his sister was giving him her portions, but he still wanted more. Others at the commune wanted to kick him out. One night, the boy broke into a shed where they stored potatoes and rice.” The captain took a deep, shaky breath and brought her hands to her face. Everyone in the room remained quiet.

A sourness formed in the pit of Abby’s stomach. She did not want to hear the details of what happened to the infected boy, but this was important information to know. God forbid someone on the island got the Pig. “Challenge,” she whispered.

The captain looked up with wet eyes. “They beat him to death.”

Abby gasped, even though she expected to hear that. She had become numb to so many types of tragedy, but cruelty among survivors always bothered her. If kids shared equally and helped each other, a group became stronger over time. Why couldn’t kids understand that?

The captain dragged a sleeve across her eyes and sat up straighter. “Are you ready for the big event? Monty, our newest member of the crew, lived at Colony East.”

The islanders traded glances, having no idea what Colony East was.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Colony East

Lieutenant Dawson counted down the seconds to the top of the hour. At eight p.m., the siren wailed, putting his neck hairs on end. For half a minute, the piercing alert penetrated glass, brick, and bone. He jokingly called it ‘The Colony East Lullaby.’

He had suggested to Admiral Samuels that they ring the St. Patrick’s Cathedral bells at bedtime rather than rely on a siren originally intended to warn New York City residents of a nuclear attack.

Samuels had passed the idea on to Doctor Perkins, who commissioned a study. They concluded the decibel level of the bells was insufficient. “Between you and me,” the admiral had confided in him, “I just think the white coats enjoy pushing the siren button.”

Dawson wondered if there might have been another reason. Doctor Perkins, who often quoted from the texts of the world’s great religions—who even acted like he was God on occasion—scheduled no faith-related activities for Generation M. Might the chief scientist have considered it some sort of religious endorsement if he had approved the church bells?

When the siren mercifully ended, he stepped outside the Biltmore. Two ensigns were pedaling down Lexington Ave on their way to patrol the Red Zone, north of Central Park Farm. He saw the shadowy outlines of their handguns, Navy-issued Colt 45 automatic pistols. The ensigns gave him quick salutes.

Seeing no suspicious activity, he returned to the lobby and picked up the intercom mic. “Lights out, no talking. Remember, you are Generation M, the seeds of the new society. Tomorrow is a new day. Always strive to do your best.”

He jogged up to the fourth floor. “Good night,” he said into the darkness of the first room.

“Good night, sir.”

Greeting and being greeted, Dawson moved down the hallway. If a cadet didn’t respond, he listened for the deep, steady breathing of sleep. After a grueling day of studies, IQ tests, a honeybee lecture, the consumption of four thousand calories, and possibly a work shift at Central Park Farm or the UN chicken coop, most kids conked out the minute their heads hit the pillow.

He stopped outside Cadet Billings’ living quarters and saw the boy was still awake, sitting up in bed. “Good night.”

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate you giving me a second chance.”

Dawson’s spirit soared. Billings understood he had made a mistake. It confirmed to him that Jonzy would make a fine leader someday. Leadership, however, demanded a sharp response. One must project authority at all times to maintain respect. “Who said anything about a second chance? Don’t let me and your fellow cadets down again.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dawson breezed through the third floor and started on the second. “Good night, Daddy,” a ten-year-old boy responded.

He expected more heartache. Mommy, Grandpa, Uncle, Grammy… Since the start of the colony, he figured the cadets had called him every type of family relation at least once.

Dawson’s heart shattered into smaller and smaller pieces as he moved from room to room.

He dreaded the last and final floor, the wing of seven-year-old girls. Halfway down the hall, he heard whimpering, and flicked on the flashlight to identify its source. The sound was coming from the living quarters where Lily Meyers and Tabatha Williams double-bunked.

The light beam revealed Lily’s empty bed. Tabatha was the one crying. Had the girls snuggled up together? He didn’t see any lumps in Tabby's bed. He got down on his knees and peered under both beds. Then he checked the bathroom.

Alarmed, he went over to Tabatha, training the flashlight on the ceiling to keep the bright light out of her eyes. He noticed that her pillowcase was wet, as was the top of her nightgown, an indication she’d been crying hard for some time. “Tabby, where’s Lily?”

The girl sniffled, “they came and took her away.”

Dawson thought of Tabby and Lily as identical twins with dramatically different personalities. They both had big brown eyes, brown hair, and were quick to giggle. But Lily had an adventurous streak. She’d try new meals the Navy cooks concocted and, because she charged into every activity with gusto, had twice as many scraped knees, bumps, and bruises as Tabby. Tabby was studious and cautious. Not surprisingly, Tabby volunteered to work at the public library while Lily always chose the active chaos of the chicken coop at the United Nations.

“Who took her?” he asked calmly, fighting a panicky urge to shout until he had answers for Lily’s disappearance.

“Two women in spacesuits,” Tabby said.

He flushed with embarrassment. He’d told the younger cadets that the scary looking hazmat suits were really 'spacesuits that astronauts wore.’ It was perhaps the only time he had lied as a company leader.

He realized a CDC quarantine team must have entered the Biltmore while he was saying goodnight to the cadets on the upper floors. Wondering if they had attempted to contact him, he checked his two-way radio. The volume was up. Scientists had the right to quarantine any child, using whatever means they saw fit, but they were supposed to inform him first.

“Lily’s going to be fine.” He soothed Tabby with his voice, hiding the building anger inside. “They took her to Medical Clinic 17 to help her get better.”

Tabby opened her eyes wide with fear. “I’ll never see her again!”

“Of course you will.” Dawson went to give her a comforting pat on the shoulder, but drew his hand back before touching her. Regulations prohibited making any contact with a cadet without another adult present. “Crying isn’t going to help anything.”

Tabby hiccupped. “Sorry, sir.”

He flicked off the light. “Go to sleep. Lily will be back before you know it.”

Dawson feared Tabby would be up for a long time. When he returned to his living quarters, he was quite certain that sleep would elude him, as well.

CHAPTER TWELVE
Castine Island

“Have you heard of Colony East?” Monty asked the group.

Jordan didn’t care that the gypsy boy had lived somewhere called Colony East.

“It’s in New York City,” Monty continued. “The adults built a fence around Manhattan.”

Jordan felt like a lightning bolt had shot through his brain. “You lived there?” he blurted out.

Monty nodded.

“Challenge,” Toby said.

Ignoring protocol, Jordan asked him, “Do they have a hospital?”

Just like that, the floodgates opened and the islanders fired off questions. “Why do they call it Colony East? Is there a Colony West?” Abby joined in, asking how many adults lived there.

“Did they really blow up the Brooklyn Bridge?” Jordan practically had to shout to make himself heard. “Other gypsies told us that.”

Saying nothing, Monty waited them out. In the first moment of silence, he suggested they hold their questions until he had finished telling them his story. “It looks like we’ll be around here for a while. If I don’t answer your question today, you can ask me later.”

Abby had invited the gypsies to stay on the island while Nikki recovered. Everybody seemed to like Monty’s idea.

“Monty is not my real name,” the gypsy boy began. “I changed my name in case the adults try to track me down someday.

“Over a year ago, I was living in the Bronx with my younger brother, Stone, and four of our cousins. Stone isn’t his name, either. We watched the adults build windmills in the East River. They parked a submarine across the river. They restored electricity to some of the buildings.” He turned to Jordan. “They blew up three bridges.”

The captain cleared her throat. “Monty, tell them how you got selected.”

“A year and a half ago, New York City was a Phase I distribution city and the scientists handed out pills at La Guardia Airport. I waited in line for four days. There must have been half a million kids ahead of me. When I finally got inside the terminal building, a scientist asked me a bunch of questions. I have no idea why he picked me. He wanted to know my age, where I went to school, what type of student I was, where I lived.

“Then he took me to a room and gave me a test. Other kids were also taking the test. It was multiple-choice, math and vocabulary. It was super easy. After that, I got the pills and left.

“Two months later, a scientist with a weird accent showed up at my door. She said her name was Doctor Droznin. She was in charge of Colony East admissions. Two Navy dudes were with her.