The black parade of titles continued forever. The seeds of revolution just chapters away. I pulled one book at random from the shelf. Engineering an Epidemic, its cover read. It was dog-eared in several places.
The floor creaked behind me, and the book fell from my hands.
“What exactly are you doing, Mr. Bradbury?” Madam Revleon snatched the book from the floor. “Engineering an Epidemic? Heavy reading for a boy who should be getting his rest, don’t you think?”
“I—well—you see the thing is—I just thought it might be fine if I—er—just looked around?”
She traced the book’s blue spine with a bony finger. “I admire the occasional sleuth. It’s not often one is offered the truth. At least, not readily.”
Her eyes flashed to the disheveled desk—she knew. “Phoenix is waking Miss Vachowski. You’ll leave for Club 49 within the hour. You don’t have long before midnight. You’ll need to be in the club by then, at the latest.” She looked at my soiled outfit and grimaced. “Grab a new gown from my closet. Wigs are in the cupboard across the hall. Though I expect you’ve already found those, too.” She dropped a ball of something that felt soft like velvet in my hand. “Synthetic skin,” she explained. “You’ll need it again for tonight—the wrinkles and all that. Mila will do your makeup when you’re done.”
“Madam Revleon?” I asked.
“Yes?” She slid the book back into its place on the shelf.
“How long ago did you buy this place? I—I think it’s really nice.”
She smiled and straightened the pages I’d spread across her desk. “Oh, I didn’t buy this place,” she said. “It was given to me by an old friend.”
Chapter 14
Club 49’s bright lights flashed on the gold pavement. The golden road ran from the city’s center to the nation’s most infamous nightlife destination. Club 49 was a nightclub, euthanasia clinic, and mortuary all wrapped up into one.
Its slogan—People Are Dying to Get Into Club 49—flashed across its main entrance in silver letters. Throngs of people waited outside its grand doorways, vying for a chance at entry, eager to see the forty-nine-year-old volunteers—victims—who awaited certain death and spectacle.
I wondered what sort of person would choose this flashy building as the place to spend their final moments. I suppose it offered people without families an opportunity to claim their fifteen minutes of fame.
I glanced at a clock by the club’s entrance. It was only eleven.
“The club lifts off the ground at midnight,” explained Phoenix, when I asked what happened inside the club. “Euthanasia is administered to the forty-nine-year-old guests turning fifty tomorrow via their Daisies—glowing necklaces with thick white beads—at exactly midnight. The crowd then lifts their corpses to ‘Heaven’—a white conveyer belt lowered at 12:01—in a process called ‘Rapture.’ After Rapture, you’ll be moved on to another conveyer belt, where an attendant will check your pulse to make sure that you’re dead. From there, management disposes of the bodies in an incinerator. Some are even turned into little green wafers.”
I must have looked worried.
“I’m kidding about that last part,” he said, chuckling. “And don’t worry—we’ve sewn a tracking device into your new wig, so we can keep an eye on you at all times. The building’s blueprints are highly confidential, which is why we need a body—you—on the other side. Sparky can hack the system remotely once the signal’s been moved into the nightclub’s classified areas. We’ll intercept you once he’s secured your coordinates. Before you hit the incinerator.”
Mila smiled. “At least that’s what we’re aiming for.”
“Are you ready?” said Phoenix.
I nodded, but my shaking hands said otherwise. I curled them into fists. I wished I had on my cheeseburger socks. Now wasn’t the time for nerves.
Mila straightened my wig. “You’ll be fine.”
Phoenix nodded. “We wouldn’t have brought you with us otherwise.”
“Where exactly in the club is the Indigo supply?” I asked. “You’re sure it’s here? Why would they even have it here?”
I felt sick to my stomach just talking to them about Indigo. I knew now that they didn’t want to simply steal it and sell it—they wanted to manipulate it. Put some sort of virus in it, then redistribute it. I wanted to run from them right then. But I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to save Mom and Charlie. It was stay with the Lost Boys or die. And a dead Kai was slightly less useful than a live one.
Slightly.
“Don’t be afraid,” said Phoenix. “You swam into a megalodon’s mouth. Club 49 is kindergarten in comparison.”
I chewed my lip. “They don’t kill kids in kindergarten.”
The two winced. They thought I was being difficult. Either that, or they did kill kids in kindergarten. And I highly doubted it was the latter.
Nancy Perkins had scheduled her euthanization at Club 49 for tonight. She’d intended to enter the nightclub through its side entrance—the one reserved for Daisy wearers—and enjoy the copious amounts of attention lavished on her as a result of the necklace. Celebrate both her fiftieth birthday and death. The last night of her life.
But it wasn’t Nancy Perkins who’d be entering Club 49’s side entrance tonight and given a Daisy. It was me. Celebrating a fiftieth birthday instead of a fifteenth birthday, thinking all the while that I was far too young to die.
“Bertha made you a device,” Phoenix said as he slapped a metallic sticker to my neck. “It emits a signal that will neutralize the euthanasia at the time of the Daisy’s injection. It’s a simple device, really. It can’t fail.”
Just like a Wet Pocket, I thought. I winced, thinking of the pain I’d felt in my shoulder. Madam Revleon had rubbed one of her many odd healing creams on it, and the burning had since subsided, but the failure of Bertha’s previous invention didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
“Neutralizing euthanasia injections,” I muttered. “So simple.”
Phoenix ignored my remark. “We’ll join you before long,” he said. “We have to wait in line at the grand entrance. Only you can use the side one. We’ll meet you inside.”
Lucky me.
I patted my face. The synthetic skin was remarkably real to the touch, but in my head I knew I was still just wearing a glorified pancake.
A host smiled at me as I approached the side entrance. His hair shined with a sheen only possible after being smothered in gel. “Good evening, miss,” he said brightly. The preferential treatment started early. “First and last name, please.”
I cleared my throat, raising my voice an octave. “Nancy Perkins,” I said. For once it wasn’t so bad being a late bloomer.
“Welcome, Miss Perkins. If you’d be so kind as to place your eye against our retina scanner—standard protocol to verify identity, of course. I’d be more than happy to hold your sunglasses.”
I blinked hard behind my polarized lenses. Phoenix hadn’t said anything about a retina scan. I wasn’t vaccinated—if the glasses came off, the game was up. My eyes were brown, not blue. And my retina signature certainly wasn’t Nancy’s.
There had to be another way.
A woman with red hair wrapped in a sparkling bun leaned against the retina scanner at another station. She wore orange horn-rimmed glasses and didn’t take them off for the scanner. It beeped loudly and flashed green. Her host ushered her in.
Like kindergarten, I thought. Phoenix was right—this wasn’t supposed to be difficult.
“It’s not fair,” I whined, pointing toward the woman. “She wore her glasses for the scanner, but I can’t? That ain’t right.”