A copy of your birth certificate was required at every annual Federal physical. They made notes on it each year and signed it. We were required to have it signed every year in order to be eligible for a vaccine at fifteen. They had to keep the supply controlled somehow; there were never enough vaccines to go around. Production couldn’t keep up with demand.
Each vaccine had a dose of Indigo that lasted for thirty-five years. When a person reached their fiftieth birthday, it expired, and they were euthanized. The Carcinogens affected adults even worse than kids. Kids just fell to the ground, dead, but the adults went insane and died a slow, terrible death. Doctors dubbed it “Madness.”
I thought back to the birth certificate copies I’d scanned and printed that morning. “Four,” I said. I pointed to my cargo shorts. “One for each pocket.”
“None in my purse?”
Okay, I’d lied. I’d hidden an extra copy in her purse that morning. In case I got mugged or someone spilled coffee on me. I couldn’t be too careful. The copies were my ticket to a vaccine, and a vaccine was my ticket to life. I couldn’t admit my paranoia to Charlie, however.
I shook my head and made a mental note to grab the extra copy from her bag later. “Nope,” I said. “Just the ones in my pockets.”
“So you’re really not nervous, then?”
Her eyes were blue, like the eyes of all citizens over fourteen, but there was something different about hers. They were brighter. Not a normal shade of blue like the others, but a shade I called “Charlie blue.” She squeezed my hand, and my palms got sweaty.
“Maybe a bit nervous,” I said, “but it’s nothing to worry about. I’m fine.”
I was terrified.
I turned to the screen that flashed with the green-eyed girl’s mug shot. A diamond stud decorated her nose.
Charlie rubbed my hand. “You don’t need to be nervous, Kai. You went with me on my birthday a couple months ago, and I was fine, wasn’t I? I didn’t pass out in the waiting room or anything.”
I nodded. She was right. She hadn’t passed out.
But I had. In the waiting room while she was getting vaccinated. The nurses had revived me with promises of dinosaur stickers. I still had a T-Rex stuck to my notebook. I didn’t tell Charlie. I wanted her to think of me as a man.
I sighed. “It’s just, well, it’s the whole needle and iris thing, really. It’s not right, watching a needle come straight at your pupil like a rocket to the moon.”
“Don’t think about it like that. You’re numb when they do it.”
“I know,” I said, “but it’s the whole idea of it. I mean, why hasn’t someone been able to put the drug in a pill or a mist or, heck, even a handshake at this point?”
“Oh yeah, because an Indigo handshake would be really effective.”
“I don’t know. We’ve got screens that bubble, right? The whole procedure’s a lot to stomach, that’s all.”
Charlie squeezed my hand again. It was still pretty sweaty. I should’ve wiped it on my shorts before she squeezed it again.
She grabbed my right hand and put my first two fingers below her cheekbone. “At the appointment, they just have you do the Federal salute, look up, recite the pledge of allegiance—‘The Federation must not fall’—and you’re done. You rinse your eyes out with some drops and you leave.”
“Oh, that’s it? Great, no big deal then, just shovin’ a needle in the ol’ retina. It’s casual.”
She poked my side. “C’mon, Kai-Guy.”
“You’re tougher than me, Charlie.”
It was true. Her parents had been euthanized four years ago. They were old when they’d had her—thirty-nine—so she’d always known it was coming. It didn’t make things easier though.
The state moved her to from her home in Kauai to Moku Lani to live in H.E.A.L., the Federal orphanage. H.E.A.L. stood for the Home for Emancipated Adult Leaders, but the place had a reputation for doing anything but healing its charges, who had only a fifty percent chance of living long enough to receive their vaccination. They just didn’t have the support necessary to make it.
“You think I’m tough?” Charlie straightened the chopsticks in her bun. “The boy who free dives less than a hundred feet away from the megalodons thinks I’m tough? Quick! Call the press, this is big news!”
I laughed. “Not big enough. If you want the press’s attention, you’ll have to find the Lost Boys.”
She winked. “If I found them, they wouldn’t be lost, would they?”
The bubbling screens signaled we were fifteen minutes from Kauai. Through the subway’s windows and the Tube’s glass walls, I saw a shadow move among the photosynthetic plankton.
Charlie sighed. “When do you think they’ll finish the new Tube?”
The old woman who shushed us earlier lowered her newspaper. “Lord knows, honey.” Her voice was husky, like she’d spent her entire life with a cigarette between her lips. False eyelashes lined her eyes like dusters, and a purple scarf was wrapped tightly around her neck.
She cleared her throat. “If the Minister of Transportation & Commerce pulled his head out of HQ’s anemone for five seconds, then the Feds might actually finish construction on it one of these days.”
I stared at her, stunned. People didn’t insult the ministers. Or the government at all for that matter. We lived in a democracy, but most people were too grateful for the gift of Indigo to speak up. The Federation had created a way for us to live, to beat the Carcinogens. Who wanted to argue with that?
The subway car fell silent. The woman shrugged and pulled a wooden fan from her purse. A fiery bird was imprinted along its cloth binding.
Charlie pulled my sleeve. “You’re staring, Kai.”
I could hardly hear her. I was too mesmerized by the fire that danced along the bird’s wings when the woman flicked her fan. The flames ran to the base of its neck, curled around its beak, and smothered the rest of its body with fire.
The woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Don’t you know it’s rude to stare at strangers? Why don’t you look at your girlfriend instead?”
Charlie blushed. “I’m—er—not his girlfriend. We’re just friends.”
“Yeah.” I wiped a sweaty palm against my cargo shorts. “Just friends.”
The woman shoved the fan back into her purse and returned to the newspaper.
I stared at the bag. “That’s a pretty sweet fan. Where’d you get it?”
Her eyes darted back and forth in the subway car. “You’re kind of nosy, aren’t you, kid?”
Charlie put a hand on my knee. “He’s just a little nervous.”
“Why’s that? First date?”
“He’s getting vaccinated today.”
The woman narrowed her eyes. “Pity.”
Charlie looked stunned. “What? How is that a pity? He’s going to live.”
The woman looked at me sideways. “You seem like a nice boy.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not. I’m a rebel.” I glanced at Charlie. Girls loved bad boys.
The woman’s eyes widened. “Okay, rebel. Whatever happens today, skip your vaccination. It’s the most important thing you can do. They’re not safe right now. There isn’t much time.”
Skip my vaccination? “Before what?” I asked.
The subway’s screens froze for a half second. The green-eyed girl’s face flickered across them again before the station cut to a reporter in the studio.
The old woman’s jaw dropped. “Too late.” She stood abruptly and pushed her way down the aisle. The doors to another compartment whooshed open and then closed. She was gone.