Strange Country Day Page 5

  “Alex! Hello!” Sophi was almost all the way across the street, waving her arms. I jogged to catch up and as the light turned red. Don’t ruin this. She’ll tell you when she wants to tell you.

  We arrived at our destination: BarCode—apparently one part arcade, one part bar. Obviously, the bouncer took one look at us and directed us downstairs to the arcade.

  “Video games?” she asked skeptically.

  “No good?” I asked back.

  The reflection off a blacklight on the staircase revealed a curious smile. “Pick your poison,” she said.

  Our first stop was racing head-to-head at the Grand Prix while sitting in simulated cars that shook every time we hit a wall or bumped into each other. As I managed to get my car around the final turn for an easy victory, I looked over at Sophi and saw her screen black out.

  “No fair! That’s a glitch!”

  “I was so far ahead, it wouldn’t have mattered!”

  Next, in an epic battle of air hockey, Sophi beat me seven to six. No, I didn’t let her win, though her final goal threw me off as the table stopped sending air through the holes as she leaned over for a hard shot off the right side.

  I began to feel like I was being hustled.

  “Let’s play something together,” she announced.

  I scanned the arcade, looking for something that fit the description. My gaze landed on Dance Party. But I didn’t dance. Ever.

  It was too late. Before I could open my mouth to protest she practically dragged me over to the machine, which had just been vacated by a couple of what looked like third graders. Sophi threw in a few tokens, selected “cooperative,” and turned to me as I shied away from the elevated platform.

  “Come on! This’ll be fun.”

  “I don’t dance.”

  “Don’t be such a downer.”

  “I’ll sit this one out.”

  Sophi hopped down and looked me in the eye. “How are you ever going to throw a football in front of hundreds of people if you’re too much of a wuss to play Dance Party?” Sheepishly, I stepped up to the game. Sophi then threw me for a loop, choosing the “Impossible” level.

  As booming bass music began to play, I realized why they called it “impossible”: the directions telling us which part of the grid to step on scrolled by so fast I didn’t have time to process them. I looked over at Sophi, with her flowery dress flopping everywhere, and saw she was getting most of them. Left, up, left, down, down, split left/right, up, up. I was falling behind and getting flustered. I missed another set of moves and got so frustrated that I prepared to jump off just to watch what Sophi would do, but the aroma of toasted marshmallows wafted in.

  Squeeeeeeeee

  My feet began moving. I looked back up at the screen in time to see the pattern change, and my steps moved along with it. Left-right-left-left-split right/left-split up/down … I was on autopilot. I heard some shouts behind me and turned my head a bit to see a crowd of teenagers and adults had formed behind us, cheering us on. I began laughing, and I heard Sophi giggle too. As I turned back to the game to finish my epic performance, I saw the face of one of our fans reflected in the screen. He didn’t look amazed, and he wasn’t looking at the screen. He was staring right at me. I could have sworn there was a circle of white hair among the black. My legs continued on autopilot as I searched the reflection in the screen to confirm it was the same Mr. Patch from the train and, potentially, the gallery. But as I squinted, I saw him walk away.

  And just as that happened, our screens went dark.

  The crowd groaned in disappointment but we jumped off the machine to applause. The screen indicated the game had re-set. … and somehow, I wasn’t surprised.

  Strangers high fived us and told us we were robbed as we walked out.

  “That was incredible! Too bad we couldn‘t enter our high score,” I said.

  “And you thought you couldn’t dance.”

  I remembered what she said a few days ago about seeing my muscles pop right before my amazing feat of athleticism in gym class, and wondered if that had happened again. I wanted to tell her everything about all these weird moments that didn’t belong to me and find out if the same thing was happening to her. But before I could open my mouth, I saw the face of my watch: 10:45 p.m.

  “When’s the next train?”

  “11:05, I think.”

  “Oh, no.” Game over.

  Chapter Ten

  We walked quickly out of the train and headed for Sophi’s house. I kept looking at my cell phone, expecting a furious call from my parents, but there was no sign I’d be grounded for the rest of the year.

  “Seeing that guy everywhere was really weird,” Sophi said, breaking the silence that had hung over us since we got off the train. So, she’d noticed too.

  “Maybe it was a coincidence.”

  We tried to forget about the mysterious man as we approached her house. Something else was on my mind when we stopped in front of the garden.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Yeah.”

  My mouth felt like cotton, but I closed my eyes and the words came tumbling out quickly. “I’ve noticed all this weird stuff happening. Like every time you touch me, I get a static shock. Or what happened at the art gallery. Was it really a wire that you put your hand on? And what about when we were near the arcade and … ”

  I opened my eyes to see Sophi leaning in. I smelled the minty gum she had started chewing on the train, and I felt her hand snake up the back of my head to pull me toward her. Her lips met mine.

  ZZZZSSSSTTTTTT!

  I stumbled back as an intense shock traveled through my limbs.

  “Night, Alex. Let’s hang out again soon,” she said as she climbed her stairs and went inside.

  What. Was. That?

  I couldn’t worry about that now. I shook my head to wipe away the shock and started running toward my house, praying Mom and Dad had gone to bed.

  Five minutes later, I tiptoed over to the second window to the right of the front door of our house. “I’m home,” I called out, barely above a whisper.

  A female voice that sounded like what I heard on my cell phone’s automated voicemail responded: “Voice identified as Ptuiac, Alexander. Welcome home.” I shushed the too-loud computer as the door unlocked. I opened it to complete darkness.

  Click. The lights in the kitchen, programmed with motion detectors, flicked on. Sitting at the kitchen table was my father.

  “What did I say before you left?”

  “Dad, I know. I’m sorry, but—“

  “When I say eleven, I mean it!” I had never seen Dad this mad. “What happened to your hair?”

  I walked over to the stainless steel cabinet that held the central processing unit for Morimoto. Sure enough, there in my metallic reflection, my hair was sticking straight up. What a first kiss.

  “Dad, I said I was sorry! It won’t happen again.”

  “Do you understand why I’m so mad? No, of course you don’t,” he answered himself.

  “I missed curfew, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  Dad got up and began pacing around.

  “Alexander … ” he paused to collect himself. He sat down again, put his head in his hands for a second, and finally looked up.

  “You were being followed.”

  All I could see was that white patch of hair floating in front of my eyes. “The man with the white patch?”

  He looked surprised. “You saw him too?”

  “But, wait. Doesn’t that mean you were following me?”

  He took a deep breath. “It’s time that I tell you everything.”

  ***

  Years before you were born, Alex, I worked for the United States government. I was involved in a project that was so top secret, the only people who knew about it were my teammates and about a half-dozen executives in various government branches. A group of scientists, including myself, were tasked
with trying out emerging technologies on humans, especially soldiers who’d been permanently disabled in war. We wanted to mix their DNA with other types of cells to see if we could restore their bodies to working order and, in the process, create super-fit soldiers for a futuristic army. But we were failing miserably, and the project was going nowhere.

  Only a few procedures showed the faintest promise, so we decided to try something entirely different. We started cellular therapy, experimenting on DNA in eggs donated by women. I didn’t feel right about doing that, but I kept my mouth shut.

  We concluded the cells and DNA we were trying to combine wouldn’t work unless we could try it on unborn children and let them grow to see what happened. To find donors, we brought in pregnant women who knew their child had some anomaly that would benefit from gene therapy and complex medical procedures. We could offer families the faintest possibility of hope that the baby might be born healthy, repaired genetically in the womb. My team knew this had been done to unborn babies with heart defects and other abnormalities.

  Amazingly, the experiments in gene repair actually began working. Still, we were worried about the government keeping such close track of the treated kids, and we feared our promising results might be kept from families who would benefit from the treatment in favor of using it to build a generation of super soldiers. We knew too much and thought there was no way out.

  After months of trying in secret to figure out ways around firewalls and alarms within the system, I finally found a way to hack into the government’s computers, erase my team members’ identities, and quietly leave one day after finishing in the lab. We changed our names and scattered throughout the country, our whereabouts unknown to anyone, including each other. We all feared for our lives, so we pooled the vast amount of money paid to us by the government and created a network of protection. None of us were ever found … at least, that’s what we thought.

  Alex, you’ve been shadowed your entire life. Before we moved, we had someone at school, in the neighborhood, everywhere. The number of protectors increased when we moved to our new home.

  There’s something else.

  When Mom was pregnant with you, prenatal testing revealed you would be one of the children who would benefit from treatment. Despite your mother’s protests over operating on her unborn child, we couldn’t bear the idea of you not having a normal life.

  ***

  Dad snatched a napkin from the metal holder on the table in front of me, whipped out a pen from his pocket, and began sketching. A silent minute later, he handed over the sketch. It looked like a small spaceship. “It’s called a nanobot, and it’s about the size of a blood cell. It had the ability to pick up and move objects around, use its own propulsion system to get around, and, when programmed like a computer, can function in a million different ways. In your case, the nanobots were commanded to work with your spine”

  I finally found my voice after being unable to speak as I processed the information that would change my life forever. After a long silence, I raised my eyes and looked at my father. “I think there’s something I need to tell you, Dad.”

  I told him everything weird that had happened. Fresh Meet Friday. The math class where I answered a question without a moment’s thought. Gym. Football practice. I even mentioned my date with Sophi and how I racked up the best score in Dance Party. “And it all happens with strange smells, blurred vision, and this ringing I hear.”

  Dad’s eyes were as wide as I’d ever seen them, and his voice was thick and choked. “We saw something was going on a few times, but this is still incredible.”

  He grabbed another napkin and began scribbling again. Then he handed me a drawing that looked like a sphere with an opening at the top.

  “When I injected you with those nanobots, I also threw in a group of what are known as respirocytes because there was also a possibility you‘d have asthma. They’re artificial cells that store and release oxygen. From what you told me, it sounds like you’re receiving more oxygen at certain moments. More oxygen in your blood stream creates better efficiency and accelerated brain and muscle power. Or perhaps they’re interacting with the nanobots. I’m as surprised as you are that this is happening. We’re going to have to do some tests to figure it out for sure.”

  Sounds like a bunch of needles and drawing blood. Not exactly my favorite activities. Dad got serious again. “Alex, all I wanted to do was give you a normal life, and I took that away from you instead. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m not sorry. This is so cool!” Who didn’t want to have powers like a superhero?

  But I also had bodyguards I didn’t even know about. That was what I couldn’t wrap my head around. What was this about someone following me tonight?

  “Now that we know you have these side effects, this isn’t cool. It’s dangerous.”

  “That’s why I was being followed?”

  Dad shook his head. “First off, we concluded the stranger following you tonight wasn’t a threat. But we’re always watching closely to see if we’re being followed.”

  I remembered the day Flab tried to hurt me and the dog walker stopped him. “Could he have been one of my protectors?” I asked.

  “I won’t identify our guards, for your safety and theirs.”

  I remembered something else from that day. “What about the weird red dots on Flab’s forehead?”

  Dad rubbed the back of his neck. “Sometimes the guards can get a little aggressive toward a potential threat. That won’t happen again.”

  This was too much.

  Dad saw my face and changed the subject to what we’d do now.

  I’d continue to go to school and practice with the football team, but I’d still be grounded for two weeks for coming home past curfew. During those two weeks, Dad would figure out what was going on inside me and the reasons for the weird smells and sounds that happened when my body “activated,” as he called it.

  My head was spinning. There were still so many questions.

  “Does Mom know about this? That you decided to tell me?”

  Dad grimaced. He looked up at the ceiling and pointed to the light fixture. “Wave hi to her.”

  “Huh?” I didn’t get it.

  “Just wave.”

  I looked up and waved at the square metal and glass fixture. Then, I heard a voice squawk out of the intercom system Dad installed when we moved in. “Hi, sweetie. I hate to tell you this, but I was on a security shift tonight. I kept in touch with everyone to make sure you were okay”

  Dad chuckled. “She put out her best team to make sure you made it to your first date safely.”

  Was this an invasion of privacy? Now I knew there’s no such thing anymore.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Are you sure you’re ready?”

  Dad and I stood in front of the basement door, ready to begin the search for what made me tick. It was Monday evening, just days until the first football game of the season.

  “I am.”

  He turned his attention to the door. He held out his palm and slid it on the unmarked wall next to the door. It took a minute before he found the exact spot, which lit up for a second and hummed. I heard a hiss as the door unlocked, and we went down the stairs.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d been in Dad’s workspace. He had brought me down a thousand times when we lived in my old town, showing me his latest projects surrounded by power tools, a few computers, and mounds of sawdust. This basement was basically the same, but bigger. I was expecting more.

  Dad walked over to the wall on our left. He moved aside a buzz saw, pressed his left ear against the wall, and then pushed, sliding it around. Another click, another barely audible hum. Nothing happened for a moment, but he stepped away and motioned over his shoulder to the wall covered in piping to our right. The pipes began separating and the boiler sank into the floor as the wall behind them opened, revealing a long metal-covered passageway. Lights flickered on to lead us furt
her.

  We walked down the metal corridor for what felt like a few blocks of our suburb before we reached a door. No ear or palm this time. Dad glanced at his watch and spoke loudly. “Aardvark-seven-oh-beta-centaur.” Another circular opening appeared. “The password changes every two minutes,” he explained as we waited.

  The room in front of us lit up. I could see all kinds of machines—some looked like treadmills or the weights I used to work out with at school. There were wires everywhere connected to a bunch of computers with enormous screens; some lit up as we entered. I felt my heart start to pound a little when I saw a silver table and a tray full of syringes.

  “Welcome to your new training center for the next two weeks,” Dad explained as he walked over to a keyboard. “Let’s begin.”

  On that first Monday, he got the needles over with. He took blood and put some of it under a giant microscope. Minutes later, he showed me the results on one of the giant screens. It looked like a bunch of red cells, with silver spots scattered between the reddish dots. He focused further. Staring back at us was exactly what he’d drawn on Saturday night: a metallic sphere with a small opening in it. We sat in silence, watching the sphere move around. “There’s plenty more where that came from,” Dad said.

  Tuesday was absolutely exhausting. Dad had me on a treadmill while I was connected to hundreds of wires and tubes. At first, I just jogged, and he took readings. Nothing seemed to be happening. Dad pressed a few buttons to force me to speed up, but there was no familiar burst of energy or strength. He tried a few different strategies. Once, he put on really loud, fast rock music while I ran. Then he added videos that looked pretty normal—a dog running down a street, a woman getting into her car—but a scary image like a disfigured face would randomly pop out and scream. That made me jump for a second, but still, even while running on the treadmill, there was nothing.