The Compound

  Again, I didn’t have anything to say.

  Then he handed me a toy car. “It’s broken.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s broken. Can you fick it?”

  His face was so serious. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I can fick it.” The wheel had come off. I pried it back on.

  As he leaned in to watch me, he was close, so close that I could feel his warm breath on my arm.

  Too close.

  My body tensed, waiting for my heart to speed up, my breath to become shallow. But it didn’t happen. I finished, handing back his toy.

  Lucas smiled. “Thanks.” He dropped to the floor, running the car back and forth until he seemed satisfied it worked. He checked behind him, and then whispered, “Eli, can you keep a secret?”

  “Yeah, of course.” Like there was anyone to tell.

  Lucas led me over to a door. Inside, shelves upon shelves held toys, puzzles, and games. He went to the back, tugging out a wooden box. “I keep this back here so no one else can see it. It’s special.” He beckoned.

  With one hand, he selected an item from the box. His grin showed a lot of teeth. “Look.” He held up a painted figure of an intricately carved clown.

  Great. It had to be a clown.

  He removed the top, which revealed another smaller figure inside the first.

  “Oh, they’re nesting dolls.”

  Lucas scrunched his nose up. “They’re not dolls. They were a special present. A secret.” He plucked one out of the other until there were six. He set them on a shelf in order, keeping the smallest in his hand. “This is the last one.” He held a finger to his lips. “It has a mystery inside.”

  “The last one doesn’t open, that is the mystery.”

  Lucas nodded. “It does so have a mystery.”

  Was I actually arguing with a four-year-old? “Okay, whatever.”

  He put them all back and hid them in the same spot again. “Do you hate us?”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Why would you ask me that?”

  “You never came to see us.” His eyes blinked slowly, like he was waiting for me to come up with an explanation.

  For a while, even before Terese had aroused my suspicions that day in the gym, I sometimes wondered if the staleness of our existence would slowly suffocate us. I finally understood why Mom and Terese and Lexie doted on the Supplements. Sitting with Lucas, my brother, I already felt different. More alive than I’d felt for a long time.

  I explained it to him. “It was dumb of me to stay away. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  He nodded. “I have to get my pie-jammas on now.” He skipped off to where Terese was helping a little girl with dark braids put on a nightgown.

  In the rocking chair, Lexie held the youngest one, a boy about a year old. I heard her call him Quinn. I’d always considered my older sister to be completely self-absorbed, concerned only with herself and what she could gain from any situation. Her actions usually proved my assumptions to be true. But as I observed her, she was unaware of being watched.

  Lexie held Quinn with a look on her face I’d never seen. If I had to describe it, I guess I could say she appeared happy. Not because she was getting her way or someone was doing something for her. She was just content in the role of observing Quinn, just waiting to see what he would do next. Mostly I was amazed to see her being so patient with someone.

  Then Lexie saw me. “What are you doing down here?” Before I could answer, her surprised look turned to one of annoyance and she stood up, shoving Quinn into my arms. “Hold him, I have to pee.”

  I tried to hand him back. “Wait, don’t leave.”

  She was already into the bathroom on the other side of the suite. Terese had her hands full. I was stuck. I wanted to let go, drop him, anything to get him out of my arms. But he was clutching me so hard. So I held Quinn.

  My hands on his waist, I tried to lean as far away as I could. He struggled to twist around and face me, patting my face with his hands. Blond hair curled around his ears. His footed pajamas were made of soft polar fleece, a blue and white print with moose and pine trees. His heavy, solid toddler body radiated heat. He smelled of baby shampoo and powder, not unpleasant in the least.

  I shifted him up a bit to get a better grip.

  He giggled, revealing two tiny front teeth.

  “Do you like him?” Lucas padded over dressed in similar pajamas. “That’s Quinn.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So do you like him?”

  Quinn patted my face and inspected my nose. I cringed, but still squeaked out a reply. “He’s cute.” He was.

  Lexie came back out and took Quinn. “Thanks. Wasn’t that bad, was it?” Lexie set Quinn inside a playpen.

  My hands trembled as I wiped my sweaty face on my shirt. I wished my heart would stop pounding so hard.

  Lucas pulled on my shirt. “We can do Legos now.”

  “Yeah, okay. You go get ready and I’ll be right there.” I waited until he couldn’t hear me, then I said to Lexie, “We need to talk.”

  On the other side of the room, Lucas dumped all the Legos on the floor.

  Quinn squawked.

  Lexie reached down and hoisted Quinn out of the playpen. He grabbed a fistful of her hair. She winced, holding his hand so he couldn’t yank any more. Lexie hid her face in Quinn’s chest as he squealed.

  “Lex, you don’t have to go along with any of Dad’s plans.”

  Her reply was muffled. “And see how long it takes us to starve?”

  “I just had a talk with Dad. He showed me the lab.” She didn’t say anything. “He said he’d talked to you.” She nodded.

  “It’s true? Have you been to the lab? Seen what he plans to do?”

  Lexie fixed her dark eyes on me. “If it was the only way, I would do it.”

  I tried to make my voice sound as kind as possible, not exactly a practiced skill of mine. “Lex, even if there were more, you would come to love them, just like you love these ones.”

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek, then set Quinn on the ground where he crawled off toward Terese. “Meet me later. In my room, after Terese has gone to bed.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to know what you know. I have to decide what to do. Eli, we’re wasting time.” She laughed without sounding the least bit cheerful. “How stupid is that? We have all the time in the world, years and years. Yet it’s all so urgent.”

  “Eli!” Lucas sat amid a mountain of Legos, waving. “I’m ready.”

  Lexie left before I could catch her, so I stayed with Lucas. We built a tower halfway. I wanted something bigger. Digging in the closet, I lifted a container from the top shelf and discovered a shrink-wrapped, unopened box of Legos, along with other unused, brand-new toys.

  Another one of Dad’s stashes. I found a bag of balloons and told Lucas I’d be right out. I blew up a few, red and purple and green. I opened the door and freed them. They floated out toward the others and bounced along the ground.

  Lucas clapped. “Yay!”

  The little girl stopped playing and stared.

  Terese called out, “Go get it, Cara!”

  Cara kicked one, traipsing after to kick it again.

  Terese held Quinn as she picked up a balloon. She held it out to him.

  He grinned. “Bub-oh.”

  I didn’t understand. “What did he say?”

  Terese giggled. “Bubble. He thinks it’s a bubble, like in the bubble bath.”

  Bubble baths? Of course. Of course the children had bubble baths. Of course they had that part of childhood. What else had I missed all that time?

  Terese enunciated her words. “It’s a balloon, Quinn. Balloon.”

  “Boon?”

  Terese nodded. “Yes, balloon.”

  “Boon. My boon.”

  My face flushed. My upper lip broke out in sweat. I excused myself.

  In the hallway I squatted, leaning my head against the wall. As much as I’d tried t
o remain detached, unaffected, I’d been touched. Touched and affected. Because no matter what I might call them, no matter what the unholy reason for their creation, the simple fact remained: the Supplements were a part of me. They were part of all of us.

  As I sat there considering the Supplements and their intended purpose, Dad’s other repugnant solution for the food shortage, it made me wonder. Had we become godless?

  Were we so removed from the world of before that we would actually consider such things to be commonplace?

  Mundane?

  Another fact of life?

  God forbid: not immoral?

  I’d been a practicing selfish worm for so long. Basically my entire life. Why was I suddenly so opposed to doing the very things that would ensure my continued existence? Given the context, the circumstances that no one had ever faced before, there really wasn’t a precedent. We were it. Was it the right thing then? To do what was necessary, no matter what?

  I had never made a point of seeking out right and wrong. The right answer depended entirely on whether the outcome benefited me. Right or wrong, this outcome would definitely benefit me, more than any other outcome had before.

  This time, however, I felt it. I felt it in my head. I felt it in my heart. Dad’s solutions were wrong. And for once, I was not going to do the wrong thing.

  We had not become godless. The Compound had just distracted us. We still needed to live by rules of the old world, even if those rules didn’t exist anymore. They were a line that could not be crossed. For the first time that I could remember, I was going to take a stand.

  I wasn’t Eddy. Didn’t pretend to be.

  But I could still, for once in my life, do the right thing.

  LATER, I SHOWED UP AT LEXIE’S DOOR IN A T-SHIRT AND jeans. I was barefoot. My hair was down and I tucked it behind my ears.

  Lexie opened the door, wearing a white terry robe.

  I had one just like it. We all did.

  Her hair was damp and loose, looking like she’d showered recently. She seemed a bit unsteady. She ushered me inside, not saying anything. Janis Joplin was loud on the stereo.

  I hadn’t been in her room since the first night in the Compound, when Dad had taken us on the tour. There had never been a reason for me to go in there and she certainly never had a reason to invite me. The room looked different. The Arabian Nights theme had been replaced by abstract murals with earthy tones. They were skilled renderings that impressed me.

  “Did you paint these?”

  She rolled her eyes. “No, we hired outside help.”

  I studied the artwork more. She must have spent a lot of time on it. Strange to think such a change had occurred without my knowing about it.

  But then, the walls of my cocoon were thick.

  She sat down on her bed. The cover was a simple white crocheted bedspread over a pink satin comforter. Dozens of pillows in various colors, no doubt carryovers from the harem motif, covered the headboard. Lexie crossed her legs and stretched her robe down to cover them.

  “Dad told me … about his solution to the food problem.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll do it, you know. If that’s what it takes. I already decided.”

  I took a step toward her. “You can’t!”

  She crossed her arms and leaned back. “You don’t get a say.”

  I sat down on the edge of her bed. “Please. Just listen to me.”

  Her chin tilted down and she looked sideways at me. She shrugged. “Fine. Talk.”

  “Lex, everything about it is wrong. Cloning a human is … frickin’ twisted. In so many ways. It’s like playing God, creating another life like that.” I shook my head. “And the reasoning behind it, that’s even worse.”

  “Want to hear my reasons?”

  I did. “Yeah.”

  She held up one finger at a time as she said the names of the three children in the yellow room.

  “I don’t understand.”

  She sighed. “Don’t you see? If I start producing clones, I can save them. Lucas and Cara and Quinn. We won’t have to … use them.”

  I shook my head. “How do you figure that?”

  She shrugged. “Well, don’t clones grow faster than the real thing? So they would get bigger faster and …”

  My words were a shout. “There haven’t been any human clones before! No one knows what will happen. Maybe it won’t even work.”

  Her words were a whisper. “I have to try.”

  I leaned forward, staring at my feet. My hair fell around my face so that I was inside of a tent. A shelter of my own making where I could hide. But not really. “This is so messed up.”

  Something rattled. “Tic Tac?”

  I sat back up and laughed. Because at that point, it was laugh or cry.

  “What’s so funny?” Lexie poured some into her hand and tossed the container to me.

  I caught it as I pushed my hair back. “That’s what was in your special treat box. Tic Tacs.” I picked up the container and shook several directly into my mouth. The refreshing minty taste was a holiday for my sheltered taste buds.

  She waited.

  Was she expecting something from me? “I’m not letting you go through with this.”

  “Dad will make me, anyway, so it’s no use even—”

  “Dad can’t make you.”

  She chewed on her lip. “Hello. He can make us do whatever he wants. He’s in control here.”

  I was a little taken aback by how resigned she was, like she had no choice. “I thought you said Mom was.”

  Her eyes got teary. “He told me that Mom knows what he wants us to do. That’s why she’s not talking to him. And she knows she can’t stop him.”

  It dawned on me. So that’s why Mom didn’t want Dad to know about the flour. She knew he was already considering extreme measures involving Lexie. The flour situation alone would have driven him to his decision. The results of the inventory did it instead. “I can stop him.”

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “How?”

  “Remember your little speech? You were right, I do have to choose. And I choose not to be on his side.”

  She shook her head. “What if we do run out of food? And this was our chance to save ourselves and we wouldn’t do it and …”

  “Lexie, he’s been lying to us, lying to us about so many things. I think I believe the world is not as he says. That it’s not that bad outside.”

  “I think I believe?” She rolled her eyes. “That’s supposed to mean something when we’re starving or dying from radiation sickness if we do get outside?”

  I hid my face in my hands and groaned. “I know. I know it sounds crazy.” My hands slid down, uncovering my eyes. “It means you have to trust me. You have to be on my side.”

  Her head dipped to one side. “I don’t know, Eli. At least Dad has a plan.”

  My hands slammed into the bed on either side of me. “I do, too!”

  “What is it?” She crossed her arms.

  Could I trust her? Trust that she wouldn’t go running to Dad? “I think … I think I can get connected to the Internet.”

  Lexie gaped at me. Her mouth fell open slightly.

  I nodded. “Dad told me it’s up, just a bit spotty. He won’t let me on it. I think he’s hiding something. If I can just get to his office when he has it powered up, I can find out.”

  Her hands flew out, palms up. “Find out what?”

  “I don’t know, just talk to someone. See what their situation is. If they’ve heard about the rest of the world …” I trailed off.

  It all sounded pretty lame, even to me.

  Lexie leaned back. There was an odd expression on her face. “One day.”

  What did she mean by that? I held up my hands. “What?”

  “I’ll give you one day, twenty-four hours, to find out what you can. And if this is just one of your stupid stunts to get what you want, you will be so sorry. I swear.” She frowned. “You can leave now.”

 
I headed to my room to figure out a plan. Just past the Supplements’ room, I narrowly avoided a collision with Dad.

  “Eli, you okay?”

  I willed my heart to slow down. For some reason, I was afraid he could read my thoughts. I lied. “I … I spent some time with the Supplements.”

  Dad smirked. “That Lucas is a kick, huh? Smart kid. I daresay, smarter than you even were at that age.” He scratched his head.

  My head cocked to the side. “You spend time with them?”

  Dad made a strange face. “What, I’m not supposed to go near them? That’s a little unrealistic, don’t you think? Who do you think watches them while the rest of you have music?”

  My mouth dropped open. I didn’t understand how he could be with them, take care of them, yet still … “But how—”

  He blew it off with a toss of one hand, as if it were nothing; a mere gnat on an elephant’s ass. “When the time comes, we’ll do what’s necessary. Until then, I wouldn’t go to the nursery too often. It’ll make it all the harder for you.”

  That conversation confirmed one thing: I really didn’t know my father at all. I watched him walk toward his office. Then I chided myself for just standing there. It was the perfect opportunity to try the Internet again. The laptop was under my bed. I also grabbed a legal pad and a pen and took a few seconds to put my hair in a sloppy ponytail.

  First I peeked around the corner. The office door was closed. Music was playing. Sounded like Neil Young. At least it was loud, which made this as good a time as any. I sat in the same place as before and switched on the laptop, making sure the sound was muted.

  My breaths were shallow.

  Come on. Come on.

  There it was.

  Wireless Network Now Connected.

  Holy crap.

  For a few moments, I sat there, not believing. The world was once again at my fingertips. What did I do first?

  My hands trembled. Partly from the words on the screen and the power they conveyed. Partly from Dad being so close. Before I could make my first move, my instant messaging icon popped up.

  Welcome TwinYan2! The following buddies are online:

  With a shaking hand, I scrolled down.

  TwinYan1

  Eddy?