Generation M (33 page)

Abby held up two fingers. “Two. That’s it.”

“Five,” her sister repeated.

As Touk’s grin widened, Abby flashed back to the hundreds of bargaining sessions she had previously conducted, Leigh versus Leigh, a battle of wills, seeing who was more clever, more stubborn. Negotiating had always been one of Abby’s most advanced parenting skills.

“Fine,” she said, her heart melting into a puddle at her feet. “Five.”

Touk’s satisfied smile and the flash of victory in her eyes was all too familiar.

They took a seat at a table and ate their candy.

Toby, per their agreement, waltzed into the cafeteria and acted like he was surprised to see Abby.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Toby, this is my friend, Lisette. Lisette, this is Toby.”

“Nice to meet you, Lisette,” he said, extending his left hand to shake.

Abby glanced at her sister, looking for a sign that she recognized Toby. Touk’s bright cheeks and high-wattage grin remained consistent.

Touk grabbed one of Toby’s fingers and shook it. “What happened to your arm?”

“I had a little accident.” His tone was serious. “Actually, it was a big accident.”

“Abby knows how to fix arms,” Touk cried.

Abby gulped. Was it possible her sister had just remembered she was the first medical responder on Castine Island?

“You really know how to fix arms?” Toby asked, maintaining his serious demeanor.

Abby’s heart was hammering. “I have many talents,” she said.

They waited for an eternity, staring at each other in silence, Abby praying Touk had a little more to say. But her sister said nothing more on the topic.

Later that day, in another prearranged meeting, Abby and Touk bumped into Spike. Abby wasn’t sure Toucan would remember the boy who had driven them to Colony East from Portland, but Spike had a real soft spot for Toucan. Abby thought there was a small chance that Toucan, even though she had had a high fever at the time, might recall something about him —
anything.
A tiny strand of a memory could unravel more memories from which she could weave a tapestry of her life before Atlanta Colony.

“Spike, this is Lisette. Lisette, this is my friend, Spike.”

Spike went down on his haunches, so he was at eye-level with Touk. “Lisette, I really like that name.”

“Spike is a silly name,” Touk chirped.

“Not as silly as Arthur,” he said with a grin. “That’s my real name. Spike is my nickname. Do you have a nickname?”

Abby wanted to punch Spike in the nose. She had told him not to try forcing her sister to remember anything.

“Yep,” Touk said. Abby held her breath. “Lisette!”

Spike winked. “Nice nickname.”

“I like your drawings.” Toucan reached out and touched Spike’s forearm, which had purple moon and comet tattoos from wrist to elbow.

“Purple is my favorite color,” he said.

“Abby, what’s your favorite color?” Touk asked.

“Not purple.”

“I like green,” Touk said. “When my EM Light is green, it means I’m happy. When everyone’s EM light stays green, we get a longer recess time.”

Abby remembered Sandy describing the spirit drill the Generation M kids participated in.

“Green is nice,” Abby said, hearing the disappointment in her voice. Touk remembered absolutely nothing about Spike.

Spike excused himself, saying he had to help distribute pills.

“Want me to read a book to you?” Abby asked.

Touk’s wide eyes gave the answer. Her sister voicing, “Yes, please,” was mere formality.

Abby had heard there was a library somewhere. She loved libraries. They reminded her of her dad, who had worked at the Cambridge Public Library, and after that, at the Castine Island Library. As soon as Abby was old enough to sit still, he’d take her to the library on Saturday mornings and let her flip through the picture books. After the night of the purple moon, Abby had taken Toucan to the library on Castine Island, where she’d read to her by candlelight. She hoped reading stories to her now might stir some of those memories.

Abby asked directions, and soon, she and Toucan entered the library. It was empty, though judging from the pillow and dirty pair of socks on the floor, someone had slept here recently.

The CDC library was as Abby had expected it would be. There were more computers than books, and the books were on scientific topics. She never expected to find
Frog and Toad
or
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
, but she had hoped there would be books that the scientists had read for pleasure, stories that could also be enjoyed by a precocious five-year-old.
Robinson Caruso
or
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

With nothing like that on the shelves, Abby decided she would tell a story to Toucan. “What type of stories do you like?”

“Pirate stories,” Touk said.

Abby’s spirit soared. On Castine Island, that had been Toucan’s number one request.

Abby picked up the pillow, fluffed it, and rested it against the wall, where she sat and invited Toucan to sit beside her. “I’ll tell the story of Peter Pan.”

As she proceeded, Abby took breaks to ask Touk how she liked the story, and if she had any questions. Her little sister loved the story and had plenty of questions. “Where is Neverland?” “How can Peter fly?” “How much does Tinkerbell weigh?”

Abby resisted the urge to ask Touk any questions that might trigger a memory, but then, out of frustration and impatience and anger at what the adults had done, she broke down. “Do you like underdoggies?”

A swing set constructed of heavy metal pipes, with three long pairs of chains connected to seats, was the highlight of the Castine Harbor playground. Every kid on the island, young and old, loved getting an underdoggie, where a pusher would run ahead and extend their arms straight to launch the swing on its highest arc while they ran under it. Jordan had specialized in giving underdoggies, and Touk had specialized in pleading with her brother to give them to her.

Toucan scrunched her eyes. “What’s an underdoggie?”

Abby wanted to say, “You’ll find out soon enough,” but instead, she explained how you gave someone an underdoggie. Toucan lit up and said it sounded like fun.

“Have you ever owned a pet?” Abby asked.

A cat had followed Abby home the night of the purple moon. They had named it Cat, and Touk had loved to chase Cat.

Touk shook her head, saying she had never owned a pet.

“Do you like smoked fish?”

Touk used to hate smoked fish more than anything in the world, and when that was all they had, Abby typically bribed her to eat it by promising her a tiny piece of chocolate. “No fish, no chocolate,” she’d say.

Touk said she liked fish.

Abby continued to prod, but Toucan eventually stopped speaking, replying only with expressions of confusion. Eventually, she looked for a way to escape the interrogation, the way she had when Jordan had asked the questions. She was frightened again, exactly what Abby had vowed she would not let happen.

“I want to see Mother,” Touk pleaded.

Abby held her breath and tightened her stomach muscles to keep from crying out in anguish.

After dropping her sister off at the Generation M living quarters, she counted the day as a failure, but she was ready to work with Touk for as long as it took.

If necessary, Abby would take Toucan to Mystic, no matter how frightened her sister was. Touk would calm down as she remembered more, and one day, she would thank Abby for rescuing her from Atlanta Colony.

Abby climbed out of bed in the morning when her internal alarm clock went off — a growling stomach. Her appetite had returned, and it thrilled her to think she could simply walk to the cafeteria and get something to eat. She thought about getting Touk first, but then decided she’d use breakfast to plan how they would spend the day together. In thirty hours, she, Touk, and Toby would board the truck heading to Mystic, and there was a lot to plan for.

Abby used the toilet, dressed, brushed her teeth with toothpaste — another small thrill — and opened her door.

A package, leaning against the door, tumbled inside. It had Abby’s name on it, so she picked it up, sat on her bed, and opened it. Inside was a note from Doctor Ramanathan and some type of thick report with Touk’s picture on the cover.

She read the note:

Every member of Generation M has a profile. It includes information gleaned from databases that existed long before the first epidemic, test results, and observations recorded by the staff.

You might be shocked by the extent of the information we’ve collected. You have to remember that we wanted to build a society for the future, and the more we knew about each child and their family, the better we could meet their needs.

I do not know if Lisette will ever regain her memory, but maybe you will find something in here that might trigger a memory. I am wishing the best for you, your brother, and your sister.

Doctor Chandra Ramanathan

Clutching her sister’s profile under her arm, Abby walked by the cafeteria and went straight to the CDC library. It was empty again, and she cleared a space on a table.

On the cover of the profile, beneath Toucan’s picture, was the number 944. That was her sister’s Atlanta Colony ID. Unsure of what she would find, but excited by the promise, Abby opened the cover.

The first twenty pages provided information on her sister’s health, with charts and graphs of her temperature, oxygen saturation, blood pressure, white blood cell count, and more. None of it was helpful to Abby.

She turned a page and gulped at a photograph of Toucan taken when she had first arrived at Atlanta Colony. Touk, on the verge of death, was pale and thin and her curls hung limp, greasy, and caked with dirt.

Abby scanned the pages of test results, three types of IQ scores, and notes made by Touk’s teachers.
“Shows curiosity,” “Strong class participation,” “Respectful of other students.”
Doctor Martin, her History of Science teacher, wrote,
“Mind wanders easily. Spends much of class staring out the window.”

The next section took Abby’s breath away. It reported on the Leigh family, listing, among other things, the places where both her mom and dad had worked, and precisely how much money they made. Abby’s school grades were there and so were Jordan’s. She found it very strange that she had grown up with Jordan and had gone to the same schools, but she had never seen his grades until now, sitting in an underground research library, a thousand miles from their home.

The next page showed a family tree that went back three generations. There was information on her grandparents and great-grandparents, all her relatives, with their ages at the times of their deaths, and what illnesses and diseases they’d had.

Abby spent little time on this section because it made her sad.

She read notes under the title “Field Observations.”

“Intervened to settle a dispute.”

“944 demonstrated strong leadership potential.”

“Generation M members often seek her advice.”

“944 doesn’t back down if she believes she’s right.”

“Can be stubborn at times.”

Abby realized she was smiling, proud of what others had seen in Touk.

The final section showed entries made by Doctor Ramanathan.

“Wants to call me Chandra, saying she already has a mother.”

“Caring, friendly.”

“Lisette can make the other girls laugh with ease.”

Abby paused, thinking that so far, in the entire report, this was the first time that anyone had referred to Toucan as “Lisette,” and not “944.”

She continued skimming Doctor Ramanathan’s notes.

Page after page, the comments were remarkably similar, and Abby learned as much about the scientist as she did Toucan. Doctor Ramanathan truly cared about her sister, in the way their real mom would have.

Abby’s eyes widened as she read the next entry.

“Emotion Meter light registered yellow, then red. Lisette said she was waving the light around, and it reminded her of chasing fireflies with her brother and sister on Castine Island. Said it made her sad. She misses them very much. Evaluation with Doctor Perkins today. Must work with her to improve her emotional state.”

Abby’s blood chilled when she came to the end of the thick document, accepting there would be a long, rough transition period for her sister until her memories started bubbling up.

She raced back to her room and stuffed the profile into the bag she was packing for the trip to Mystic. The profile belonged to Toucan, not the adults who ran Atlanta Colony. When Touk was old enough to understand what the profile contained, Abby would give it to her and let her decide what she wanted to do with it.

She found Doctor Ramanathan alone in her office.

“Thank you for Touk’s profile,” Abby said.

“Was it helpful?”

“Yes, I’m keeping it.”

“I hoped you would,” Doctor Ramanathan said. “There’s valuable medical information inside on your sister.”

Abby had expected an argument from the scientist. “May I ask a question before you get Toucan?”

“Of course.”

“Can you tell me more about the Emotion Meters?”

The scientist explained how Emotion Meters were used during spirit drills.

“Can I borrow two?” Abby asked.

Doctor Ramanathan gave her a quizzical look. “In the unit, the EMs connect wirelessly to a monitoring station. The station won’t be operational.”

“Will the lights work?” Abby asked.

“Yes,” the scientist said. She went to a cupboard and got Abby two of the clip-on devices.

Touk stepped through the door, grinning. “Hi, Abby.”

“Did you wash your hands?” Doctor Ramanathan asked.

“Yes,” Touk chirped politely.

Abby took her sister’s hands and inspected them close up. “Did you wash them well?”

Touk gave her a big nod.

“Want to see where I live?”

Touk immediately tensed her shoulders, and Abby quickly added, “It’s only around the corner.”

Her sister’s face brightened. “What unit?”