They'd be mad not to buy you. Love you. Good luck.
We were lined up in rows, those of us sold into the family of ANRON Life Limited. Matching rows: our bone-white jumpsuits emblazoned with the blue helix logo, our freshly polished collars glowing around our throats like blood. I blinked until the colors bled together. It was early—too early—but I wasn't tired. For the first time in years I'd woken before my collar buzzed. And I knew I wasn't alone. The energy trembled around us like some giant invisible hand. After three weeks of testing and inspections, after eighteen years of waiting, we were finally going to our Auctioning.
Just ten more hours and I'd be free.
Above us, the screen over the stage flickered. We all straightened immediately. There was a brief, disorienting swoop as our eye implants focused, and then a man appeared behind a rich wooden desk in an office so high up it looked like it hung suspended from the sky. My UConn buzzed silently on my arm and his file came up on my display, just in case I was a drooling idiot who couldn't recognize the most important man in our Corporation. John Whittaker Charles Anron himself. The First Shareholder. In the moment before I dismissed the file, two of him stared back at me, one on the screen and one in my feed, all white hair and gravitas and hand-tailored suits. It was almost enough to distract me from the army of Testers who had appeared from behind the stage, rolling their trolleys toward us like tanks. Almost.
Ten more hours.
"Experimentals," he boomed, and everyone shut up. The Shareholder's badge on his lapel winked like a needle underneath his collarless throat. "I'll keep this short," he said, smiling. "I understand that you all have a long, exciting day ahead of you."
We cheered. Someone whooped. He waited patiently for it all to fade and then continued.
"Firstly, I want to thank you. Whether you were born into our family or joyfully bought, each and every one of you have been a vital part of our mission to 'Make Life Better.'"
He scanned the crowd slowly, just long enough that it felt like he was looking each of us in the eye. "Our world today is a dangerous one. It's easy to forget what lies outside the Wall, and why we built it in the first place."
The trolley came closer, piled high with its jostling syringes. My left knuckle began to itch. Usually by this point I'd have launched straight into Cat Trap or some other game to distract myself from the inevitable stabbing. I tried instead to concentrate on the speech, but Anron's voice was too smooth. Too compelling.
"Whichever Corporation you join today, you will take your place as full citizens of Unilox. You will hold the future and the security of our city in your hands."
The trolley was two Experimentals away from me now. My implants twitched. The gleam of a needle caught my eye, followed by a bright dot of blood on the girl's arm. She winced. I caved. I closed my eyes and dialed down my ear implants until Anron's voice was a buzz. Then, for the ninth time today, I pulled up Jake's message on my UConn. He'd programmed it with touch; I felt the ghost of his hand brushing against the sensors in my cheek. I'd checked my invoices when it first came and he hadn't charged me at all. That fact alone made his voice deeper, sweeter.
They'd be mad not to buy you. Love you. Good luck.
Gloved hands wrapped around my right arm, just above my embedded UConn panel. I gritted my teeth and tried not to tense. Even after eighteen years of getting jabbed, I still hadn't figured out how to relax into it. In fact it was worse, because now I knew intimately how each moment felt. The way the plastic ring pressed against my skin. The stabbing bite of the needle. And finally, the queasy, tingling cold of whatever was in the syringe diffusing into my blood.
They'd be mad not to buy you. Love you. Good luck. I tried to focus on Jake's voice, but it was a lost battle. Sure enough, I tensed just as two bright points of pain dug into my arm. It took me a moment to realize something was wrong. And then I quit out of my messages so fast that my sensors scrambled, leaving the sensation of Jake's fingers tilted on my chin.
The world swung back, white and sharp. I saw a coil of glossy black hair lying tame under a medical net. Dr. Yulisa. She was quick; she'd covered up my arm with tape and padding already. But I could still feel the two holes burning in my skin.
My free hand flew up to cover it. "What was that?" I hissed.
Dr. Yulisa gave my sleeve one last, sharp tug and looked up, eyebrows raised.
"Your morning dose," she said slowly, as if I was an idiot, and then she rolled her trolley away. I watched her go. In the background, John Whittaker Charles Anron was building up to the stirring end of his speech. But I wasn't listening anymore. I had the oddest feeling that the world had just shifted and I was the only one who hadn't caught myself.
U ok?
I turned. My display lit up and focused on a face two rows away, craning surreptitiously in my direction. Eleika. I tried to smile. Yeah. Just . . . did you get two injections today?
No, just the one. Why?
I frowned. We were in the same Experimental group. Never mind. I don't know.
Arms stinging, we filed out of the hall and into the main school complex. I scanned my timetable as I went, trying to psych myself up. After the last few weeks of math tests, coding problems, management simulations and chemistry formulas, today looked like an easy day. With just straight up physicals after lunch, all I had to do was get through the clinical test and sell myself in the interview and I'd be fine. Hopefully.
* * *
First up: the clinical test. We lined up as a horde, the whole year of us: ANRON, HARLIN, MERCE, PERCO, DRAYTH. Testers moved down the line, arranging us in random groups. At least I hoped they were random. I ended up in a cluster of kids I barely recognized, a mix of DRAYTH and HARLIN. The only other Experimental close by—just three students in front of me—was Aliss. She saw me looking and gave me a vicious smile. For what, being ahead? I rolled my eyes.
We waited. I didn't dare roll my sleeve up and check my arm out in public. Testers were funny about that sort of thing, as if we could somehow screw up a whole experiment just by looking at it. Instead, I bounced on my toes to try and see ahead. There were five mobile stations, each about the size of a cubicle. The lights on each one were flicked to red. I stared at them, willing them to change faster, trying to ignore just how long the line was. Three hundred and sixty-seven of us. We probably stretched out halfway to Unilox Hall.
It felt like forever before the next round of station lights glowed green and we shuffled forward. This close, I could hear the doors slide open on the other side and spit out the group before us. Someone was crying, low and muffled. The DRAYTH boy in front of me looked down at his feet.
We reached the front of the line. A Tester I didn't recognize, with shoulders so broad his lab coat looked like a door, directed us with impatient jerks of his hand. "You, to Station A. You, Station B. You, there. Yes, you. Strip."
Aliss and I were already halfway out of our jumpsuits. The HARLIN and DRAYTH kids hung back, horrified. Any sympathy I had for them was eaten up by the energy it took to distract myself from the fact I was getting naked in front of our entire year. Please open the door. Please open the door.
I kicked my jumpsuit off and grabbed it. The station door whispered open and I surged through. As I did, I stole a glance at my arm, but it was too late. Only the faint red pucker of healed skin remained. I hadn't even scabbed. Had I imagined that second shot? My stomach cramped. Maybe it was just nerves.
The door slid shut behind me and I blinked twice to adjust. The station was small: just large enough to fit the CQR Ultrasound Tube, myself, and the Tester with her screen projected up onto the wall. The light inside was a cold, pale white that made the Tester look like a corpse. She held up a scanner. "UConn, please."
I stuck my arm out. The scanner beeped and my full serial number scrolled across the screen. The Tester gestured me forward and I stepped into the open tube. There was a sucking sound, like an engine inhaling, and then it sealed shut. The machine hummed.
"This is going to be a little cold," she said, just as thin nozzles whirred from the ceiling and sprayed me down. I gasped. The freezing water hammered at me like bullets. Then the nozzles rotated. Thicker ones pumped out streams of clear gel. I squeezed my eyes shut. It felt like I was being covered in amniotic fluid.
Finally, that stream ended too. I wiped my eyes and shivered. "A little cold, huh?" I said. "That's a bit of an understatement, don't you think?"
The Tester ignored me. She was adjusting the controls of the machine. A sudden, eerie white-blue glow lit up the entire tube. I blinked. Data rolled across the screen on the wall. My data. Height. Weight. Eyes. Numbers. And then the scans—fresh images of my insides at different angles, rolling past so quickly it was like watching a poorly-cut horror Ad. I squeezed my eyes shut again.
A minute later, the nozzles rotated. The Tester didn't even give me warning before the same ice-cold assault of water battered the gel off my skin and left me shivering. Only this time, a wave of heated air followed. By the time I stumbled out, I felt like I'd been drowned and then lightly roasted.
The Tester was staring at my numbers. "You're . . . you're in perfect health, XKC2501," she said. She zoomed in on a graph and squinted at it, frowning. "Perfect."
I eyed her warily. "Does that mean I pass?"
She blinked, as if she'd forgotten I was still there. The numbers froze on the screen. "Oh yes, all done," she said in a rush. "You can get dressed now."
I pulled on my jumpsuit just as the door on the other side of the station slid open. I stepped out, blinking in the light. It felt like I'd been in there for half an hour. I glanced back. The door had opened on the other side; another girl stood there, trembling and naked, clutching her HARLIN pants and shift. Behind her, I saw the line stretching out, the Testers shepherding them forward like one vast conveyor belt.
I took a deep breath and turned away before the door closed in my face. One test down. Three to go.