The Ones (6 page)

Joanne took the bills, still a bit confused. “Well, thank you. I'd yell at you to be careful playing with water balloons, but that just seems crazy,” she said. “Fries and shakes, coming right up.”

As her mom walked off to the kitchen, Cody turned to James, ready to apologize, but he was sliding out of his seat. “Be right back,” he said, gesturing toward the restrooms. “Can you order a bag of ice for my shin?” James said, smiling as he faked a limp.

“Thank you. I'm sorry about that. My mom has seemed pretty freaked out lately. She doesn't need to know bricks are flying through my window.”

“Water balloons, though?” James said, shaking his head. “Not your best work.”

Cody laughed as he walked away. She leaned back in her chair, trying to enjoy a rare moment of calm, when a stranger slid into the seat next to her. Pretty rude, she thought, considering the diner was empty. Then the person turned and looked her straight in the eyes.

“It's Cody, right?” he said. He was only a couple of years older than she was but gave off an air of confidence and maturity, as if he had dealt with things that Cody couldn't even fathom. And even as he made the most intense eye contact that Cody had ever experienced, he still managed to keep glancing quickly all around the diner, alert to every corner.

“Do I know you?” she asked. No, obviously. Cody surely would have remembered someone so striking, with his sharp features, tawny skin, and closely cropped dark hair. Even though he seemed to be hiding in a dark hooded sweatshirt and baggy cargo pants, his body appeared to be made up of tightly coiled wires. Whoever this person was, he looked like he had parachuted in straight from an army-recruitment commercial.

“No. But we know you,” he said. “We heard you were attacked last night. And we heard how you reacted.”

“What do you mean,
we
? And how do you know that?”

“I can't get into it here, but I'll fill you in later.” He handed her a slip of paper. “Come to that address tonight. We're having a meeting, and you should be there.”

Was this guy serious? He was acting as if the greasy-spoon diner in Shasta was teeming with spies. “Dude, I have no idea what you're talking about,” she said.

“The Ones, Cody. We've decided to do something.”

Cody felt a chill go down her spine as it dawned on her what this meant. There were others out there, others like her who saw what was coming and realized they had to act. Cody felt vindicated. She wasn't crazy, and she wasn't alone. But even with that thrill, she remembered what she had just promised James. She would stop acting so recklessly, stop making things worse. He was probably right—every rash action of hers had only made people hate them more. Surely whatever group this guy belonged to was doing that to an even greater extreme. Cody took the paper and looked down at the address, but she knew she shouldn't go.

“No, thank you,” she said.

He stared at her with piercing dark brown eyes and then reached out and grabbed her arm, his firm grip keeping her whole body in place. Cody knew she had every right to knock him away, to shout for help, to have her mom kick him out, but the power of his look stopped her. Cody saw a kindred spirit, someone equally as passionate and tempestuous as she was, but with a measure of self-possession that she had never been able to manage. She was shocked that such a balance could exist, that a person could radiate so much energy while staying perfectly calm. Even if she didn't go to the meeting, she wanted to learn how that was possible.

“Who are you? What's your name?” she asked.

“Kai,” he said softly after looking over his shoulder. “So you'll come, then?”

She wanted to trust him, was practically willing to jump out of her seat and follow him out the door to hop on the back of whatever motorcycle he surely rode in on. But she thought of James, the amazing boy she loved, who had saved her life, who knew her better than anyone, who was always trying to protect her, who had the dimples and the curls, and who was probably walking back to her this very second. She couldn't do that to James.

“No. I can't.”

Kai's eyebrows furrowed. “I didn't want to explain this here,” he said, frustrated, “but you deserve to know.”

He stood up and leaned into Cody's ear, their cheeks practically touching, tiny bits of electricity tickling her nerves. His tone was cold, but his breath on the back of her neck was warm. “As we speak, the government is working on a program that they think will solve the equality problem. They're developing a technology to reverse the genetic engineering of all the existing Ones.”

Kai paused.

“They're calling it the Vaccine.”

 

CHAPTER 4

AS JAMES DROVE
Cody home from the diner, she sat quietly in the passenger seat, staring out the window in a daze. James couldn't figure out what was bothering her, but he knew from experience that he should probably be apologizing for something. It was never the small stuff that got James in trouble, like not holding open a door or forgetting that she hated cinnamon. In that sense, Cody was super chill. But if it was a mistake like not sticking up for her in front of his parents or disagreeing about something she thought was obvious, then look out, Cody was a pit bull. So as he drove along with the tension thick in the car, James racked his brain for something she could be mad about.

“I'm sorry I gave your mom the money,” he said, knowing Cody would probably resent him for paying his way out of trouble. “Your ridiculous story kind of backed me into a corner.”

“Yup.”

“What does that mean?” he said.

James looked at her and realized she hadn't been listening. “Hey. What's going on?”

“Nothing, I'm sorry. Just spaced out for a second,” she said.

“Cody…”

He turned to her and saw that she was definitely not spaced out. He could tell by the tiny, tensed muscle in her jaw that her mind was working overtime.

“What do you think you'd be like if you hadn't been genetically engineered?” she finally asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, who would you be right now if the scientists hadn't messed around with your DNA? Would you still be the same person?”

James thought for a moment. It was a question he'd considered before, and the answer was obvious to him. Of course he'd be different. He'd look different, his body and mind would work differently, and every experience he'd ever had might have played out differently. Hell, if a butterfly had sneezed differently on the day his brother died, James probably wouldn't even exist. It was kind of pointless to get worked up over it, he thought.

“No, I wouldn't be the same,” he said. “I bet I'd be pretty similar, but who cares? I wouldn't even know any other way to be.”

James saw that Cody wasn't satisfied with this. It was different for her, and he understood why. If Cody hadn't been picked for the pilot program, there was a good chance she wouldn't be similar at all. There were plenty of kids in her neighborhood who were living proof of that, kids who had the odds hopelessly stacked against them by virtue of the block they were born on and the parents who bore them. James knew Cody felt guilty about overcoming this, but again, he thought, what was the point?

People were born with all kinds of advantages and disadvantages. You couldn't control it, so how could you feel bad about it? Nor did it make much sense to be proud of it. James knew he didn't possess any advantages because he was particularly deserving of them. And people born with birth defects, incurable diseases, lifelong handicaps—they didn't deserve that, either. As he saw it, that was the whole point of testing this new technology. Once the science was all figured out, no one would ever be born unlucky again.

James turned to Cody. “Why are you asking this?”

Her thousand-yard stare had returned, and James knew he wasn't going to get a real answer. He had come to accept that they would always feel differently about being Ones, always disagree about how much of it was a gift and how much was a curse. And since he was pulling up to her house now, he wasn't going to push her. He did, however, stop the car with an extra hard jolt to the brakes. Cody slammed back in her seat.

“Easy there,” she said, a little surprised.

“Just trying to wake you up. You sure you're okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. I think I just caught a food coma,” she said, then smiled at him playfully. “If I never come out of it, promise me that you won't waste your life sitting at my bedside. You have to live, James, promise me you'll live!” Cody collapsed on top of him in a poorly acted death scene.

James laughed and tried to hold her up, then grabbed her hands in mock seriousness. “I'll mourn silently for a year … then grab the first girl I see and head straight for the diner.”

Cody smacked his arm. “You would not!” She got her stuff together and started to get out of the car. “Sorry if I was acting weird. Talk to you later tonight?”

“Of course,” James said. Cody leaned in for a quick kiss, then shut the door. As she walked up to her tiny house with the faded paint and lopsided porch, James thought about shouting after her. He wanted to reassure her, to ease her guilt and tell her that if she hadn't been a One, he was sure she'd be exactly the same—just as smart, beautiful, fast, witty, and stubborn. That she'd be an identical and equally perfect version of herself. He wanted to shout it after her, but he didn't. Because James knew it wasn't true.

*   *   *

Back at home, James ate dinner with his parents at their regularly scheduled time. Michael was nowhere to be found, which had become common in recent days. James didn't know which way he preferred it. With Michael gone, at least he knew there wouldn't be a fight at the dinner table, but his empty chair seemed to create a tension all on its own. As they ate silently, James thought about how much these family dinners had changed. Before Michael went off to college, meals were loud, raucous affairs. The two brothers would be yelling excitedly about something that happened at a sports practice, Arthur would be trying to stump them with a math brainteaser, and Helen would snap her napkin at the boys as they fought over food and made a mess. Tonight, though, it was so quiet that James could hear his parents chewing.

When they finished eating, James helped clear the table, dutifully loaded the dishwasher, and tied up the full trash bag. Then he stepped out of the kitchen door and walked down to drop the trash at the curb. At the bottom of the long driveway, James stopped suddenly. In the darkness just ahead of him, he saw a figure sitting at the edge of the street. After a moment of surprise, James recognized the slumped silhouette of his brother. James crossed behind him and tossed the bag in a garbage can. It rattled loudly, but Michael didn't even look up. James was offended that his brother had ignored him, so he sat down right next to him on the curb.

They sat in silence for a minute, and then Michael reached over to a half-finished six-pack and offered it to James. “Beer?”

“No, thanks,” James said.

“Right, stupid question. Of course the perfect son wouldn't have a beer,” Michael said.

“What's that supposed to mean?” James asked.

“Look at you. Doing all the chores, getting good grades, captain of the debate team. What an impressive specimen!”

James looked at Michael warily, realizing how drunk he was. He didn't want to fight him and had no interest in provoking him, so he grabbed the beer and popped the top. “Happy?” he asked. “And, by the way, you did all those things, too—pretty well, if I remember correctly.”

“No, brother, you do it better than I did. That's the difference,” Michael said.

James shook his head, knowing it was pointless to argue. Michael had been his idol for as long as he could remember. James grew up following him around and copying his every move, from the stupid way they still tied their shoes to the part in their hair. If Michael was criticizing James, then he was really being critical of himself. So James just ignored him and took a swig of beer.

“So you agree, then? You do all that stuff better than me?” Michael asked.

“Shut up, will you?”

“You're better than me, James. It's okay to admit it. Not every person is equal.”

“Can we just sit here and enjoy—”

“Say it!” Michael shouted. “Admit that you're better than I am.”

“Better at holding my liquor,” James said, trying to keep things light.

“Better at everything,” Michael said. “Well, almost everything. I bet you still can't get out of a super-deluxe head clamp.”

Before James could react, Michael had pounced on him, reached around his neck and under one armpit, and locked his head into a painful position that James was all too familiar with. It was Michael's favorite little-brother torture device, a trump card that could put a stop to any fight. James was always helpless in the grasp of his stronger brother and would eventually concede the point rather than getting choked out. And now he was back in that excruciating position, with the full weight of his brother pushing down on him and the sound of laughter ringing in his ear.

“Still got it, bro!” Michael yelled. “Damn, that was quick.”

James felt the searing pain start in his neck and tried to squirm free. But he knew it was hopeless. “All right, you got me. Now let go,” he croaked.

But Michael kept leaning down on him, laughing joyfully. “Come on, buddy, you can get out of this, right?”

James began to struggle for real, getting angry now. “Loosen up, I'm serious,” he said, starting to get scared. Besides being drunk, his brother had been acting different for a while. This didn't feel like roughhousing. It just felt like James couldn't breathe.

“I know you can get out of this, Superboy,” Michael said, even as he tightened his hold. “Or did Mom and Dad not order this skill from the breeding catalog?”