Gifted (14 page)

Instead of backing down like anybody else would, Aimery steps up. He's at least three inches taller than Jude. A crowd has formed around us as people stop to watch, creating a bottleneck in the flow of bodies trying to get out the door. “According to the Corp X contract,” Aimery says, “employees are not required to work split shifts without twenty-four hours' notice, so get off her back.”

The crowd begins to murmur.

“Contract?” Jude puts his hands on his hips. “What contract?”

“The employment contract you made me sign when I was hired three days ago,” Aimery says. “Would you like me to pull up a copy on my HandHeld?” He lifts his arm and shows Jude his screen. Someone in the crowd snickers.

“I can ask any employee I want to work a split,” says Jude.

“Yes and any employee is entitled to say no,” explains Aimery calmly. “The problem is, you didn't ask her. I overheard the whole thing. You insisted she do it even after she turned you down.”

Jude shakes his head then takes a deep breath, no doubt calculating his response in case Aimery is from corporate as he suspects. Although I agree with Jude that Aimery isn't from around here, I'm sure he's no mole. He's too clueless to be a spy.

“So ask her,” Aimery says politely but firmly.

Jude swallows like he has a bad taste in his mouth, then he turns to me, eyes narrow with rage. “Zimri,” he says, his voice tight and every word enunciated, “would you work a split shift tonight?”

“Say please,” Aimery instructs him. I hear stifled laughter in the crowd.

Jude grits his teeth. “Please?”

I glance at Aimery who nods and I stand up straight, bolstered by his confidence but still worried what the consequences will be if I say no. Then again, I always stay when Jude asks, and right now Nonda needs me.

“I'm sorry,” I say. The whole crowd seems to hold their breath. “I can't work tonight, Jude. I have to go see my grandmother. But another time, I'd be happy to.”

“Fine,” says Jude. He meets my gaze for a moment, a mix of rage and disappointment in his eyes, then pushes through the wall of bodies and disappears into the crowd.

“Have a nice night!” Aimery calls after him, flashing his pretty-boy smile.

“You didn't have to…” I start to say to Aimery, but a swarm of people has subsumed him, slapping him on the back, punching his shoulder, and shaking his hand.

“I know!” he calls back to me as he's whisked toward the exit in the current of bodies. “But I wanted to.”

By the time I get outside, Aimery is completely surrounded and he seems to be enjoying the attention. Something about him draws people—they want to be near him. Touch him. Talk to him. I try to push my way in, but someone catches hold of my arm. I gasp and spin around, expecting to see Jude ready to drag me back inside, but it's Dorian.

“Oh my god, you scared me,” I say with my hand over my thumping heart. “What are you doing here? I thought you and Brie both had the day off.” We're jostled from every side by all the people pushing past us, hurrying to the AutoTrams that will whisk them to the PODPlexes or up to the Strip.

“What happened in there?” he says, glancing at the knot of people around Aimery.

“Oh, that. Well … I'll tell you later,” I say, not wanting to take the time to explain. “I have to catch a tram to the MediPlex before—”

“Wait.” Dorian motions me aside. “I brought you something.”

“Dorian, I'm sorry. I'm already late!” I step toward the trams that are beginning to fill up and pull away without me.

“The last time I talked to you,” he says and tugs me aside, “you said the tram takes forever to get to the MediPlex. I realized that you could go the back way, along the river path, and get there in fifteen minutes and so I thought…” He points to a red bicycle parked by the building. He tosses up his hands and says, “Ta-da!”

“I … I … I don't understand,” I say.

“I made it,” he says, “for you.” He looks at me expectantly. When I don't move he says, “I'm giving it to you. It's a present.”

My jaw drops. I walk all the way around the bike, whispering, “You made it? For me?”

He shrugs like it's no big thing. “It was my day off, I had spare parts lying around, and…”

“Wow, that's the nicest thing…” I start to say then stop because it's actually the second-nicest thing that's happened to me today. I glance over my shoulder to see if Aimery is still here.

“You're always helping everybody else,” says Dorian, pulling my attention back. “I thought it was time somebody helped you.”

“It's amazing.” I blush and smile. “I don't know what to say.”

“Maybe ‘thank you,'” he suggests.

“Yes, oh my gosh. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!” I give him a quick kiss on the cheek. Now he's blushing. Ever since the night of the concert, we haven't had a chance to talk about what's going on between us. First his dad interrupted, made us talk to Nonda, and dragged him home. Then Nonda went missing and now every evening I rush off to see her.

Suddenly, he grabs me around the waist and pulls me in for a long hug. “I've missed you!” He puts his nose into my hair and inhales.

“Oh, wow!” I say and jump back, my stomach in a knot. I glance over my shoulder to look for Aimery again, but the crowd has dispersed and he's long gone. My heart sinks a little because I didn't get to thank him properly for standing up to Jude for me. Then I feel bad. Why am I thinking about Aimery when Dorian is right here in front of me? Giving me a bike! I turn back to him. “This is amazing, Dorian. Incredible. And I wish I had more time but right now I have to go.”

“Of course.” He steps away, brushes his fingers through blond dreads, embarrassed. “You should go. I don't want to keep you from your grandmother.”

“You're sure?” I ask as I swing my leg over the bike, feeling shaky and uncertain. I haven't ridden one by myself since I was little.

“Of course!” he says and grabs the back of the seat to steady me. “Don't worry. Your body will remember what to do.”

I start to pedal, swaying left and right, overcorrecting then finding my balance again as Dorian runs alongside me through the quickly emptying lot toward the river path behind the warehouse.

“I'm doing it!” I yell, excited to find the rhythm. I pump my legs and grip the handlebars. Dorian gives me one last push and sets me on my way.

“Be careful!” he calls after me. “Ping me later!”

“I will!” I yell over my shoulder. “And thank you again.”

*   *   *

If the Security Office makes me paranoid because of what happened to my mother, the MediPlex breaks my heart into a thousand pieces each time I come here because this is the last place I saw my father. Nonda says children are wise. Mostly I think that's wishful thinking, but the day they fished my father out of the river, his pockets laden with heavy rocks, I felt old beyond my years. He was bloated and ashy gray, hair splayed like riverweeds across the gray sheet of the gurney, his mouth and eyes open in an eternal blank stare of a dead fish. In the plain white room, Nonda, Tati, and Brie's mother Elena huddled in the corner, gripping each other, trying to quiet their sobs while I climbed up next to my father's body.

He hadn't slept for weeks. I'd watch him through our POD window, pacing the Y.A.R.D. all hours of the night. I always imagined that he was waiting for my mom to return and I'd spin stories in my head that she'd finally come home, find Dad out in the damp night air, wrap her arms around his narrow waist, and lead him back inside. But, of course, she never came and Dad only got worse until he couldn't stand living any longer and he took the plunge like so many other workers had done before him and since. On that final night in the MediPlex, I leaned over and kissed his stone-cold forehead. “Sleep now,” I told him like he told me each night before bed, then I climbed down with the understanding that I'd be taking care of myself from then on.

Inside, the MediPlex smells sour, as if all the doors and windows have been closed for decades. The halls are busy, though, with people scurrying from birth to death. Sometimes I think my mother got it right when she left the Complex life, even though I'm angry that she didn't take me with her. Then I remind myself, if I wasn't here, who'd look after Nonda? I realize that I should have brought her something from outside. Yellow flowers, willow leaves, a bowl of her favorite soup, raspberries from the bushes ripening by the river. Next time, I promise myself, I'll come with gifts.

I maneuver through the slow-moving people, ducking and weaving my way to Nonda's ward, where I scan my thumbprint. A buzzer sounds and I'm admitted into a dim interior hall. Two of the lights overhead are burned out and the other one flickers. The place is eerily quiet except for a constant low-level moaning of machines and human voices that sends goose bumps across my skin.

Nonda's room is large and round, subdivided like a clock. Twelve beds, twelve patients, each one surrounded by a flimsy curtain the color of grubworm meal. Everyone here is slack-jawed, wild-haired, and sleepy. They look up at me expectantly as I pass. I try to smile at them but my face falters. They all look terribly sad. When I step inside Nonda's area, she's asleep. I always thought of her as strong, but that's just her personality. Now, she seems tiny and frail. Part of me wishes I could take her home, but another part is terrified of what I'll do when I have to. Who will look after her while I'm at work? What if she slips away again?

“Nonda,” I whisper and stroke her wooly gray hair off her forehead.

She wakes immediately and blinks at me.

“Zimri?” she asks, and I smile because she recognizes me.

I lace my fingers with hers. Her hands have become tiny things, like bird skeletons we sometimes find near the river.

“Oh, good.” She lays her head on my shoulder and sighs. “Have you come to take me home? Why am I here? They're not very nice. Mostly robots. I hardly ever see a person, except for that jerk next to me. He's constantly peeing himself. Not that I can blame him. Takes forever for those dumb Robos to help us to the bathroom.”

I laugh, delighted to hear feisty old Nonda coming through.

For the next hour, I try to rub some warmth into Nonda's cold feet while listening to the same stories she's told me a thousand times, until a RoboNurse rolls in to check her vitals and dispense her medication.

“Hello,” it says in a soothing, preprogrammed female voice, “Ms. Layla Robinson.” There's a short pause as it scans my grandmother. “Your current vital signs are…” another short pause, “stable. Your last meal was at … 5:00 p.m. You are due for medication in … two hours. Your discharge date is…” The Robo checks its internal calendar then says, “Tomorrow at 1:00 p.m.”

“Tomorrow!” I blurt out and nearly fall off the edge of her bed. “She can't go home then.”

“Not soon enough, if you ask me,” Nonda mutters.

With complete indifference the Robo says, “Do you wish to request a different discharge date?”

“Yes!” Nonda and I both say at the same time, then she beats me to the punch and adds, “I want to leave right now!”

“Expedited requests must be processed by 10:00 a.m. for same-day discharges. It is currently … 8:34 p.m.” The Robo spins around and wheels itself away.

“Wait! Wait! Wait!” I run after it. “I need to speak to someone. A human being! Nobody told me this. I can't take her home tomorrow. I haven't made arrangements. I'll be at work!”

The Robo stops in the center of the room. Its head swivels toward me. “Do you wish to request a different discharge date?” it asks again in the same even tone that makes me want to short-circuit its CPU.

“Yes!”

“On what day would you like the patient to be discharged?”

Frantically, I pull up the calendar on my HandHeld and check for my next day off from work. “Friday,” I say, then I add, “please!” as if that would matter to a Robo. I hold my breath while it processes my request. The other patients in the beds have all sat up to watch through their parted curtains.

“Your request for Layla Robinson to be discharged on Friday is…” The Robo's green-light eyes blink. “Denied.” It swivels away.

“Wait, don't go!” I grab it by the cold metal shoulder but it's quicker than I am and wheels away from my grip. “Why was my request denied?” I call after it.

“Insufficient insurance coverage.”

“No, no, no!” I follow it. “That's not possible. We have Corp X health insurance. I need to speak with a doctor!”

“The next doctor's visit will be … Saturday, 3:00 p.m.”

“Not acceptable!” I tell it firmly, anger rising in me like rushing water. “I want to speak with a doctor, a human being. Right now.”

The Robo goes quiet. Green lights blink at me. I have half a mind to shake it until its bolts come loose and roll across the floor, but then it says, “Please stand by. Video conference to discuss denial of request with Dr. Garcia will commence.”

The doctor that appears on the Robo's face screen is younger than I expected. Her hair is pulled into a long black ponytail and there's a deep furrow between her eyebrows, surely etched there by exhaustion. She skips all niceties and doesn't look at me as she scans her screen. “The system shows me that Layla Robinson's coverage is good for only 60 hours in MediPlex care. Since she was admitted on Thursday at 1:00 a.m., her coverage will run out at 1:00 p.m. tomorrow.”

“No wait, listen.” I reach toward the Robo as if it's the human. It wheels back. The doctor glances up at me and I lay it on thick. No time to waste. I only have a few seconds before the Robo will disconnect us so I pull out all the stops. “She's my grandmother. She's all I've got. Both my parents are dead. I'm working at the warehouse to take care of her. And she's been so confused lately. Sometimes she thinks I'm my mother and she lives in the past half the time but can't remember to take her HandHeld when she leaves and then she gets lost. She was almost hit by a car in the middle of the night! I can't take her home yet. I don't even know what's wrong with her!” I force myself to get teary, shamelessly trying to evoke even a sliver of pity from the doctor who has no reason to do me any favors.