Goodhouse (29 page)

But I was thinking,
Less than an hour.
That was how long I was going to remain free. I looked out the window. Manzanita trees with their thin, twisted branches flashed in and out of view. Thick clumps of sagebrush covered the ground. We were really off campus now. Our narrow road doubled in size, and Bethany accelerated to the point that I scrambled for my seat belt. I reached across her and buckled her in, too.

“The airbag will probably kill me,” she said. “But that's sweet of you.”

“Tell me what's going on,” I said. “What is the drug your father's testing?”

“Let's just start over,” she said. “I think that's the best way. Don't look back.”

“I'm not starting over,” I said.

She tugged at the zipper on her coveralls, and when it didn't move, she shrugged out of the top, freeing one arm at a time. “I just don't think you're going to react well,” she said. “And I have to say, I feel responsible. More than a little. It's not that I didn't believe you.” She hesitated. “Maybe I didn't want to know.”

“Just tell me,” I said.

“I'll wait until we're in a public place,” she said.

“I'm not going to freak out.”

“You say that now,” she said.

“I'm used to bad news,” I said. “Trust me.”

She took a deep breath. “The drug,” she said, “limits fear. Essentially eradicates it.”

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. “That's not the drug they gave me,” I said.

“It is,” she said. “And I know you had a reaction, because Dad was overjoyed. I read his notes. And he couldn't wait to plug you back into his Exclusion Zone experiment. It's why he's full of school spirit these days.”

“I don't remember being fearless,” I said. “I mean, right now, I can barely look out the windshield without being terrified.”

Bethany smiled. “That's just my driving,” she said.

I remembered the first night I'd fought—I'd felt titanically strong, righteous, able. I hadn't dwelled much on what had happened after it was done. Other than my guilt over Tuck, there was no residual feeling, no dreams. That night had happened and then receded—unlike the fire, unlike La Pine.

“Are you freaking out?” she asked. “It's all my fault. I'm so sorry.”

“It's not a big deal,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean, in the scheme of things. Everybody knows they test drugs on us. I thought it was going to be worse.”

“Not a big deal? Have you even been listening?” She turned to stare at me, and I had to point to remind her that she was driving.

“Don't kill us,” I said.

“Do you know how much a drug like that could be worth? Think about it. A soldier who doesn't feel fear? Come on. Billions of dollars.”

“But I
was
afraid,” I said. “At least, I think I was.”

“James,” she said, trying to get my attention, “billions of dollars.”

“I heard you,” I said.

“It's not about one or two doses,” she said. “It's about what happens over time. When you take it, you don't make long-term memories. That's why people don't feel the stress afterward. There's no trauma, because there's no deeper evaluation.”

“That sounds pretty good,” I said. But I remembered Harold, the way he'd been hunched over, his spine protruding like a snake underneath his skin. “What happens to the boys who don't come back?” I asked.

Bethany was silent for a moment.

“What do you think?” she said.

The lines of the highway slipped under the car, an irregular thread, one that seemed to pull us toward our destination. I leaned my forehead against the glass of the passenger's-side window. It felt cool against my skin.

“It can't remain a secret,” I said. “Not after tonight.” I remembered the stampede out of the Exclusion Zone, the students who'd followed me back through the fence onto campus. “The school will figure it out,” I said.

She gave me an incredulous look. “You really think they don't know? I can tell you, Swann Industries is definitely not suffering an ethical dilemma.” She shook her head. “Money,” she said, “is the worst drug of all.”

*   *   *

It was a beautiful, clear night, and we were somewhere rural, passing the occasional farmhouse and barn. A thick spray of stars dotted the sky. I hadn't seen anything like this since Oregon. There was a button on the armrest of the passenger door. I pushed it and was startled to see the glass of my window retract. A current of warm air filled the car.

Bethany was quiet for a long time. Finally she said, “I have something for you.” She reached into the backpack, which was open on the seat beside her. “Here,” she said. She withdrew a single piece of quickpaper, one embossed with the Goodhouse logo, and handed it to me. I looked down and saw my name and ID number. “It's a scan of your intake form,” she said.

My grip on the paper tightened. I felt a bright spark of anticipation, something that was a little like the fear I reportedly could not feel. “What's in it?” I asked.

“It's you,” Bethany said. “Well, some of it has been redacted.”

I scrolled through the pages. It was a form that had been filled out when I'd arrived at La Pine. I'd been three years old, and there was a description of me at that age—quiet and serious. I read the notes. I'd had a toy car that I carried everywhere and would not relinquish. It said I liked drawing and puzzles, which amazed me, as I couldn't remember doing either. And then I felt a little jolt of surprise. “I'm already eighteen,” I said. My birthday was printed at the top of the sheet. “As of last week.”

At first Bethany didn't say anything. Then, after a long pause, she said, “Happy birthday.”

The second page detailed the genetic legacy of both my parents and myself. The language was opaque, talking about RNA polymerase and provisional synthesis. The names of my father and mother had been covered with a black, highlighted box that said
AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
I touched the black lines, but they were the same texture as everything else. “The school said it didn't keep any family information,” I said. “It's all supposed to be encrypted.”

“Yeah, they say a lot of things. You'd be surprised at what Tanner has on his computer.” Bethany smiled. “God,” she said, “even his porn is ostentatious.”

“We can find my parents,” I said. I laid my hand on the quickpaper as if it were a holy relic. “Thank you.”

Bethany was glowing with triumph. She reached over to me and I kissed the pad of her thumb and then tasted her palm, which was salty like the electrolyte drink her father had given me.

“It's strange how you just keep living and things keep happening,” I said. I stared at the halo around the moon, at the white moths that appeared and disappeared in the headlights, little bits of floating paper. I let my hand hang out the window. The warm breeze exploded between my fingers. We drove past a broken-down house with cows standing on the porch. The rusted hulks of ancient cars briefly lined the roadway like a fence, and then it was open land. A rabbit's eyes flashed orange in the headlights.

“Who was your mother?” I asked.

Bethany shrugged. “Mom was one of those back-to-barter tent-city people grinding their own barley flour and weaving ponchos,” she said. “She's dead now, of course. I don't really remember her. Dad met her when he was doing charity work up north.” Bethany shrugged as if the term
charity work
was ridiculous. “It was some roving-doctor thing, physicians without borders. Dad was full of idealism back then, everything he accuses me of, really. He didn't want to marry her, and Mom wouldn't abort the baby even though it was defective. The baby is me, by the way.”

“I got that,” I said. Just then, without warning, Bethany turned the wheel and the car veered off onto a dirt road. Rocks rang like buckshot against the metal frame. A wave of dust rose around us and she rolled up the windows, though I could still smell dust coming through the ventilation system.

“Dad told her I had a hypoplastic left heart and she'd better just flush me. I read all their correspondence. He deleted everything, but he never could scrub a hard drive. They gave me a ventricular pump, then a heart transplant, and then one of those new hybrid synthetic hearts that were supposed to be better than the real thing. Dad made me get the surgery. He said I could go off my medications, but then it came out that the hybrids were defective.”

I thought about the scar on her chest. They must have broken her ribs, I realized, to get inside. “Defective, how?” I asked.

“There's not really a pattern.” She shrugged again. But her casual tone was a little too disinterested. “Some people have normal transplant rejection, others have some kind of necrosis in the tissues that spreads out. Very nasty. Most just have a heart attack.”

“Most?” I said. “How many?”

“I'm supposed to avoid stressful situations,” she said. “Though, honestly, having a hybrid heart
is
a stressful situation.”

“But you don't feel sick, right? You don't have any symptoms?” I scooted closer and slid a hand onto her shoulder. I felt the tension there.

“Dad thinks he's God,” she said. Her voice was suddenly thick with emotion. The tendons on her forearms stood out as she gripped the steering wheel. “And when you're a god, there are never any consequences. You can just do whatever you want.”

She looked so despondent, I wanted to comfort her—to communicate some level of empathy. “It's not your fault,” I said.

“Yes, it is,” she said. “Dad hit on this formula and he's been handing it out like candy, picking boys with different genetic profiles, pumping them full of it. Killing some of them. Cutting them open. He thinks he can save me, and now”—she took a deep breath—“there are billions of dollars.”

She drove faster even as the road narrowed and its surface grew more heavily pitted. We rounded a tight corner, nearly missing the remains of a wooden fence that a previous traveler had punched through.

“Slow down,” I said.

But she ignored me. “I know that Dad thinks he got tricked. He never wanted a kid, especially not one like me,” she said. “He really loves me, you know, but the feeling of it drives him crazy. He resents it.”

She suddenly pulled the car off the dirt road and into a field. I clutched at the armrest. We hit a pothole and my head grazed the ceiling as I bounced in my seat. A large tree loomed ahead of us, and I thought we were going to crash, but Bethany turned the wheel and we skidded to a stop a few feet from the trunk.

“And that,” she said, “is how you park a car.”

I let go of the armrest. My fingernails had left little impressions in the leather.

Bethany grabbed one of the backpacks, unzipped the top, and pulled out a handheld. It was the homemade one I'd seen the other night. She began to type a message. Inside the open pack I saw several plastic bags of pills—white powder-filled capsules. The image of a swan was screened onto the front of every bag.

“I take it these are not technically your property,” I said.

She smiled. “I'm afraid,” she said, “that Dad's secret is about to leak.” She finished her message and tossed the handheld onto the floor.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“The components are too distinctive,” she said. “You ready? This is kind of a big deal. Leave the file too.” She climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut.

I started to put the piece of quickpaper on the seat beside me, but at the last minute I folded it and tucked it into my pocket. I wasn't going to relinquish this document, not when my parents' names were here, inside that black box—assembled and whole, but not yet visible. And besides, I was no longer subject to proctors digging in my cuffs, pinching the seams of my shirts. I was a private citizen now, and I intended to act like one.

 

EIGHTEEN

As soon as we'd both stepped out of the car and closed the doors, the windows went opaque and the headlights blinked once. I looked around—at the night sky, at the quiet, moonlit hillside.

“Congratulations,” Bethany said. “How do you feel?”

“I'm a wanted fugitive,” I said, trying it on.

“It's an exciting development,” she said. The empty arms of her coveralls hung limp at her sides, the zipper so snarled in her shirt that it puckered the fabric. Bethany grabbed one of the backpacks and pulled out a fistful of clothing. “Turn around, please,” she said, and before I could ask why, she'd ripped her tank top in half and wiggled out of the coveralls, letting them drop to the ground. She wore only a pair of black underpants with a red bow on the front. Her breasts were small, the nipples a deep rose color. “You were supposed to turn around,” she said. But she sounded more amused than angry. “A gentleman would have complied.”

“You should've thought of that before you ripped your clothes off,” I said. I took an involuntary step toward her, but she pulled a black dress over her head, tugging and adjusting it.

“I have a shirt for you,” she said. “I think your pants are passable, although I'm a little disturbed to think you're wearing my father's clothes. I'm definitely going to need some therapy.” She passed me a dark-colored shirt. I held it up. It was made of heavy fabric. It looked expensive. “Hurry,” she said. I pulled off my old shirt and shrugged into the new one, buttoning it over the thick layer of gauze that was wound around my chest. “What's that?” she asked.

“A souvenir,” I said.

Bethany ducked down to look at her reflection in one of the car's mirrors. She was applying makeup to her face, drawing black lines on her eyelids and painting a bright pink layer of lipstick on her lips. “You don't have to do that,” I said.