Pills and Starships (16 page)

So that meant there was zero chance of getting my parents’ approval. Not that they would have given it anyway, but I’d been considering trying to sabotage their pharma or something so they might be more receptive.

But no. It was too high-risk for the people in the camp, I got that—especially when I remembered how quickly my mom had ratted Sam out to service. All he’d done was go off-plan for a few measly hours. This was a lot bigger than that.

For now, Sam had told me before he left the waste room, we had to act like everything was on track and keep saying goodbye.

We had a little Personal Time on the plan before lunch, so I settled down in the living room of the suite with this journal while my parents put earbuds in and hooked up to their favorite music. Music’s a big part of Final Weeks, as you may have noticed. Normally they would have held hands doing that, they’ve always been pretty affectionate with each other, but I noticed that this time they just sat side by side on the couch, expressions peaceful and slack.

Like holding hands would be too much work.

We had the sliding doors to the balcony open, and a nice breeze swept in off the ocean and lifted the curtains.

But then, while I was writing the section before this one, there came a knock on the door. I must have been the only one who heard it—Sam had earbuds in too and was listening to his own music in an armchair and jiggling one leg—so I got up to answer, passing Sam on my way. He didn’t glance up or take his earbuds off, maybe because he didn’t want to seem vigilant. Maybe they’ve put hidden cameras in the living room now too.

And at the door, when I opened it, was Rory.

He smiled and everything, as much as you can with a face like that. But it wasn’t a smile I liked, exactly.

“Good morning, Nat,” he said. “Happy Goodbye Day. May I speak with your brother, please?”

It wasn’t really a question.

“Sure,” I said, casual and friendly. “Come in.”

So Rory entered and walked over to Sam, whose chair happened to be facing the other way, toward the balcony looking out, and tapped him on the shoulder.

Well, it was more like he grasped him on the shoulder.

My parents had their eyes closed to the music and didn’t open them right away.

Sam turned around, playing it cool, and looked up at Rory and took his earbuds out, one by one, very chill.

“We need to have a little talk, Sam,” said Rory. “Just you and me. Man to man.”

And then my mother did notice—I guess the sound of Rory’s voice filtered through her purple haze—and she sat up and took her own earpieces out, looking disoriented. And my father must have felt her movement on the sofa and opened his eyes and did the same.

“I’ll talk to you, dude,” said Sam. “But you don’t have to be so bossy about it.” I guess he figured if he was too friendly that’d be suspicious also. In its own way.

“I’m stealing your son for a minute,” said Rory, all smiles directed at Mom and Dad. “I’ll bring him right back, I promise.”

“Oh, yes,” said my mom, but she was also shaking her head, kind of confused.

“Nothing the matter, though,” said my dad. He might have meant it as a question but didn’t seem to have the energy to say it like that. The opposite of Rory, who said commands like he was asking politely.

“No, no,” said Rory. “Just making sure we’re all on the same screen here.”

“Where are you taking him?” I asked as they headed for the door. “Can I come with? I mean, shouldn’t I be on the same screen too?”

“You’re fine. Sam and I are just going outside for a real quick powwow.”

Powwow
?

I don’t think my Seminole ancestors would have liked Rory.

The door closed behind the two of them.

I stood there wondering if I should go after them. And then I thought, but why? In a fistfight between Rory and me, it’s pretty clear who would prevail. The guy must weigh like 150 kilos.

Plus he had the whole corp on his side.

But that felt gutless so I did run to the door and open it again, and I stuck my head out into the hall in time to see them disappear around a corner.

“Nat! Nat,” said my mother, urgent at first and then trailing off. “Are you . . . doing something, honey?”

“I was trying to see where he was taking Sam.”

“Taking him out for a real quick powwow,” echoed my dad, nodding to himself slowly, bobblehead-style. “That’s all.”

“Relax,” said my mom. “You want to listen? There’s extra earbuds there . . .”

And they were already putting their earpieces back in.

Just like that. They lay back, rested their heads, and closed their eyes again. In that second, I didn’t regret at all deceiving them.

I wanted my real parents back. Or nothing.

And maybe it would turn out that I couldn’t have them, I saw then. Maybe I’d end up with nothing. Because it struck me, with a shiver of recognition, that it was more than just this past couple of weeks, more than this trip. It was ever since they bought the contract a couple of months ago. Ever since then, they’d been a little bit different—a little more
generic
. As though someone had flipped a switch in them. And this was the most extreme I’d seen them, but in a way it made me see the subtler changes that had come before.

Like when they told us about buying the contract, in the condo with Jean. I hadn’t heard them argue a single time since
weeks
before that. Maybe months. And my parents love each other a lot, but they’ve always fought now and then. I hadn’t heard my father tell an off-color joke, which he always liked to do. I hadn’t heard my mom swear. She was kind of a potty mouth, my mom. In bygone days.

And I hadn’t heard them laugh, either. Not a real, raucous laugh. Of course, before I’d chalked that up to them being about to die.

But now I’m not so sure.

Whether I would ever see my real parents again or not, I knew—after they let Rory the man-mountain hustle Sam out of there and went right back to their music without so much as lifting an eyebrow—that if all there was left of them was these pale imitations, I’d have to take my chances.

As it turned out Rory hadn’t been lying: he did bring Sam back, right before we had to go downstairs to eat. And Sam still had the same cocky-kid look he usually cultivated in Rory’s presence, so it must not have been too much of a torture session.

Or so I thought till Sam went into his room, while my parents were freshening up at their sinkbowl, and I followed him.

“He shot me up with a trank,” he rushed, under his breath. “It hasn’t set in yet but it should be about two minutes till that blood gets to my brain. So I’m going to be zoned really soon.”

“He can’t do that! It’s in the rules! It has to be self-administered!”

“Not if you’re a minor who goes off-plan,” said Sam. He was talking at high speed. “Fine print. What made them suspicious was me sticking my head into the waste room to talk to you—there’s cameras in that hall. But they don’t have anything solid. So you have to be extra normal this afternoon—and because I’m going to be tranking soon you need to have my back. There may have been some kind of sodium pentothal pharm in the needle—like, truth serum. So if I start talking weird, if I start talking a lot at all,
dose
me.
I mean, knock me
out
. Use all the pills in my Coping Kit. There’s not enough to OD. Promise! Any sign of talking too much. Nat, promise me!”

“But that could be dangerous, Sam! You mean over the max dosage?”

“Screw the max.
All the pills
, Nat. Put me to
sleep
.”

And he rummaged around in his kit and handed me a trank vial. It was still completely full.

“I’m scared of it, Sam. There’s so much
in
it.”

“Here’s the alternative—we miss our chance. Mom and Dad are gone for sure and who knows what happens to the camp and the animals. And those little kids? We go back home, if you can call it that—
I
don’t—and we can never come back.”

The door opened and we jumped.

“Nat? Sam? Are you ready for lunch, dears?” My mom stood in the doorway.

Sam was already getting a glazed look in his eyes. “
Promise
,” he said, softly.

“Okay,” I said reluctantly. “I promise.”

“Promise what, honey . . . ?” asked my mother.

But she was turning away already, and we didn’t have to answer.

And then we were leaving the suite, and Sam brought up the rear, walking slowly.

Lunch was a major drag, with Sam drugged like that. Rory must have given him a megadose, because five minutes after he gave me my instructions he lapsed into a stupor. He was silent and couldn’t hold his head upright and when he did say something it was slurred.

It made me angry.

And what was also frustrating was that my parents seemed not to see it. Or maybe they did see and just didn’t care, pharmazoned. I don’t know. It was strange to be the only one acknowledging that he was completely zomboid.

At least he wasn’t talky during lunch. He picked at his food with no interest and stared down at his plate. At a certain point these wandering dudes with black and gold-braid outfits and big hats and pygmy guitars came up to our table; they were going around serenading the diners in a more or less embarrassing fashion and suddenly we were it.

“Mariachis!” said my dad.

“May we play a request, sir and madam?” they asked my parents.

“Mmm, maybe ‘El Paso’?” suggested my dad. “The Marty Robbins classic?”

“‘Black Diamond Bay’!” said my mother.

So they stood there and strummed this song on their instruments and the main guy also sang—some kind of weird song about a volcano erupting and people gambling before the lava got to them. I would have thought my brother would like it but Sam didn’t even look up, just picked apart a circle of soylami into thumbnail-size fragments till it was shredded all over his plate like the aftermath of a bomb. He seemed completely absorbed in this deliberate, painfully slow process. And once I saw a line of drool string down from his lip onto the table edge.

It was yuck. I felt really bad for him, that he was in this state and also that people were seeing him this way. But more than that, it scared me. Because it was hitting me just then, watching him, how serious the service corps must be. To grab a smart, energetic kid by force, stick a syringe into his arm, and make him into a zombie.

They’re not kidding, I thought. But why do they need to get so hardcore?

That’s what I was wondering as the musicians in the big hats crooned.
“The dealer said, it’s too late now/You can take your money but I don’t know how/You’ll spend it in the tomb . . .”
Meanwhile my parents were swaying and smiling slightly and coming off foolhardy.

I was thinking, well, what if my parents
were
to back out of the contract at the last minute? How would it hurt the corp? I mean, people do it occasionally, and as far as I can tell they sacrifice all the cash they already paid—no refund at all except for funeral expenses—and then they usually go running back to the corps a few months later and pay for the whole deal again. So the corps shouldn’t mind at all, it seems to me.

In fact they should practically be
glad
when that happens and they can double their money! I mean, sure, it creates disruptions for the group, when contracts suddenly back out—I’ve browsed some sites that say it can have a ripple effect among the other contracts doing Happiness that day. They get spooked, then unpsyched, and there’s a bit of a stampede. Away from the Bountiful Passing.

But even in that case, the corp’s still making all its money, right? It’s not like they don’t get paid. So why do they care so much? Why do they want to be
so
sure my parents are going to die tomorrow, on schedule, that they decide they have to muscle into our room, shoot Sam up, and leave him there at a lunch table, in a public place with strangers looking at him, with spit hanging out of his mouth?

Maybe contract pullouts look bad for the corporate image. I guess the bottom line comes down to image, for them.

Still, I’d have to say a drooling survivor at a mariachi luncheon looks bad too.