PODs (9 page)

“So how are you going to prove it?” Beanbag Guy—George—asked. He leaned forward in his beanbag.

I shrugged. “What difference does it make now? The PODs are sealed.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, it sounds like a pretty damn good theory.” David moved back across the room and reclaimed his spot against the wall.

“Eva?”

“Yeah?”

“What was my nickname?” George asked with a grin.

I laughed.

Something banged in the tube by the now-sealed door. I jumped; the book I was reading fell to the floor.

“I’ll get it.” David walked over and opened a hatch in the tube, exposing a sealed plastic canister that he pulled out. The hatch closed with a small bang, and a chemical smell, which I recognized from quarantine, wafted through the room. “Time for blood check, everyone.” He took the container over to the table.

“What?” My heart, still racing from the noise, took a nosedive when I heard the words “blood check.”

“Blood check. We need to do it every two weeks. You’d just missed it when you came.” Tiffany twisted off the lid and searched through the little packets until she found the one with her name on it. She grabbed the packet with my name and handed it to me.

“Open your packet and take out the card. It has your name and number on it. Grab the lancet, too. Then you just have to prick your finger and put a few drops of blood on the card. When you’re done, seal it in the plastic bag with your name and number, and we’ll reseal the container and send them all back to the main POD.”

“I have to poke my own finger?” My palms started to sweat. I sank into one of the kitchen chairs, taking slow, deep, cleansing breaths to try and slow my racing heart. My fingers trembled trying to open the packet. It was bad enough having the nurses in quarantine draw my blood, but to do it myself…

Oh, this is so wrong. I hate the sight of blood, especially mine
.

I watched Tiffany place the end of what looked like a fat pen against her skin. She pushed a button and the lancet-pen made a loud snap. She jerked a little, but didn’t have any trouble squeezing out enough blood to cover the circle on the card.

I picked up the lancet-pen and twirled it in my fingers. It looked harmless—just a gray, plastic tube. I turned it upside down and peered in the hole where the little stinger was. I couldn’t see anything inside.

“See?” Tiffany held up her lancet. The scalpel-looking thing stuck out. It was much bigger than the little needle I’d imagined it to be.

My insides swirled, and the room began tilting. There was no way I’d be able to stick my finger and squeeze out blood to fill the card. “Uh, Tiffany? Do you think you could do it for me?”

“Sure. Give me your finger.”

I held out a finger. She opened the alcohol pad and wiped it. The smell of the alcohol made my head swim. The room was fading.

She held the lancet to my finger. I closed my eyes, squeezing them tightly. I braced myself. I heard a loud click and felt the metal cut my finger. It was more than a little stick.

Tiffany held my finger with one hand and squeezed with the other. Just the thought of what she was doing made me nauseous. I knew she was squeezing out dark red blood. I could picture it seeping into the card, filling the circle. The room tilted a little more. I felt off-balance. Tiffany’s voice sounded far away.

“Eva, are you okay? We’re all done.”

“It’s done?”

“Yep. You’re good to go for another two weeks.”

I have to go through this every two weeks?
I groaned at the thought. The blood tests in quarantine hadn’t been as bad as that.

Slowly, the room righted itself. I didn’t feel quite so dizzy, but I didn’t trust myself to get up. The room was still fading in and out.

I picked up the bloody card, trying not to look at it when I shoved it into the plastic bag. I sealed the bag and handed it to David, who looked at me with a grin. “You look white as a ghost, Eva.” He dumped everyone’s packets in the container, resealed the lid, and sent it back up the tube.

“Blood isn’t my thing. Why do we have to do that? Are they still checking us for the virus?” I asked.

“I think part of it is to check our nutrition and vitamin levels. The other is to check for the virus. They don’t know how long it can stay dormant in a host’s body. If one of us turns out to be a carrier then…” David let his words trail off.

“Then what?”

“Well, I’m not sure, exactly, but I don’t imagine it would be good.”

“Jeez, think about it, would ya?” Josh made a cutting sound and slashed his thumb across his throat.

“Knock it off,” Tiffany whispered through clenched teeth, her gaze landing on Baby.

Meals and blood check were the only times I’d seen her leave her corner. She didn’t need Mr. Antisocial scaring her any more than she seemed to be.

“You saw people test positive for the virus in quarantine, didn’t you, Eva?” Earphones Guy asked.

Kelly
.

My voiced cracked when I tried to answer. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Yes.”

“Do you know what happened to them?”

“I have a good idea, yes,” I said.

“Well, I imagine it’ll be the same here.” Earphones Guy—Aidan—rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and blew out a long breath.

M
onth One

Tiffany and I sat at the table eating breakfast. We’d made it part of our daily routine.

“What are you staring at? Do I have cereal on my nose?” Tiffany brought her napkin up and wiped her face.

I laughed at her expression. “You just remind me of someone.” She had so many mannerisms that reminded me of Bridget. It was bittersweet.

“Oh.” She gave me a little smile. “I’m sorry.”

Jai Li tugged on my sleeve to get my attention. She spent a lot of time with Tiffany and me, but it was hard creating a bond when we couldn’t communicate very well. We’d been able to understand enough to know that Jai Li was the daughter of Chinese immigrants, but her English was stunted from only speaking Chinese at home. In California, she’d been in a private school, one that had been giving her a traditional Chinese education. But her English seemed to be limited to memorized words; she didn’t put them together into sentences, and didn’t seem to understand us when we did.

Still, we tried.

She pointed at the milk carton sitting on the table. The “milk” was some kind of ultra-pasteurized stuff that stayed good for years, but it tasted weird on its own. I only used it for cereal, whatever generic knock-off brand came in the air-tight bags of thick, blue-tinted plastic.

“Milk,” I said slowly.

“Milk,” Jai Li repeated.

“Water.” I pointed to the glass in David’s hand as he walked by. He held it out so Jai Li could see it before taking a long drink.

I smelled the faintest whisper of his scent as he walked by—citrus and patchouli.

Geez, he smells good
.

“Water,” she repeated, sticking her finger in the water pooling around the carton of milk from the condensation running down its sides.

“She’s a quick learner. What level is she up to now?” Tiffany asked.

“We’re almost finished with the first module.” Jai Li’s laptop had language software installed, and she sometimes asked me to help with her pronunciation as she progressed through the ESL—English as a second language—lessons. “That’s like a year of language class in high school.”

“I wonder why she doesn’t try to teach us Mandarin.”

“I don’t know. Maybe because everyone here speaks English.”

“Cereal,” Jai Li said in her thick accent, pointing at the bag.

I smiled and nodded. “Cereal.”

“Baby.” She lay her hand on Tiffany’s protruding belly. “Oh!” She jerked her hand away, a funny look on her face.

“Baby,” Tiffany pointed at her stomach. “Move.” She wiggled her fingers around.

“I want to feel.” I placed my hand across Tiffany’s belly. Little ripples moved under my palm. Her skin tightened and loosened, stretched and relaxed under my hand. It felt odd. “Does it hurt?”

“Not really. Sometimes the kicking hurts, but the rolling like it’s doing now doesn’t hurt. Watch.” She pulled up her t-shirt a little and pointed at her belly. “See it?”

I always wanted lots of kids. A big family to make up for the siblings I never had. Now I’ll be happy to live long enough to have kids at all
.

“Doesn’t that feel weird?” I watched in awe as her stomach rippled with the baby’s movements.

“Sort of, but I hardly notice it anymore.”

“Well, it looks like something out of that
Alien
movie,” I said, my eyes never leaving her belly. I reached out my hand again and felt the baby rolling beneath it. “Do you know what it is?”

“Nah, I didn’t want to know. Had I known I’d be stuck down here when it was born, I would have found out so I could’ve told my parents. It’s their first grandbaby.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I wish I could tell them somehow.” She rubbed her belly, staring at the floor. “Anyway, I also would have been able to buy boy or girl clothes. The poor kid is gonna be sick of green and yellow by the time it’s two.” She laughed, but there was sadness reflected in her eyes.

“Who knocked you up, anyway?” Josh called from the other side of the room.

I rolled my eyes and shot him a dirty look. “Geez, do you have a filter on that mouth?”

“No. Do you have a filter on your attitude?”

“My attitude is fine.”

“Yeah, if high-and-mighty is your thing,” he said.

I waved him off and looked at Tiffany. “So, how far along are you?”

“Middle of my second trimester—five months.”

“And where are your parents?”

“Illinois.”

“The baby’s dad wasn’t chosen?”

“The baby’s dad was a colossal mistake. He didn’t want anything to do with the baby and I don’t want anything to do with him. I guess now I won’t have to deal with him.” Her smile was bitter.

“Sorry, I’m being too nosy.”

“It’s okay, Eva. You’re not.”

I smiled. I’d never really thought about what other people had to give up. Tiffany was not only going to be a single mother, but once she left the POD she wasn’t going to have any help from her family when she needed it. They’d all be dead. Jai Li had given up being with people who could understand her, people she could talk to about her fears. George had given up nursing school, and Aidan had left three younger brothers behind—he had their picture up by his bed. Everyone had lost something, some more than others.

I looked over at Tiffany, trying to lighten the mood. “Did you bring toys?”

“Hmm?”

“For the baby. Did you bring toys?”

“Yeah, but I couldn’t pack much. The baby’s locker had some toys in it already, though.”

Well, I guess the people who fixed the raffle aren’t all bad
.

“Is anyone as sick of the white walls as I am?”

We all stopped what we were doing and stared at Baby. I stood at the sink, pouring milk over my cereal. I wasn’t paying attention and overfilled my bowl. Milk ran down my fingers and dripped in the sink. I threw some sliced strawberries on my cereal and rinsed the milk and sticky juice from the berries off my hands.