The elevator, thankfully, is empty. But it doesn’t smell as if it’s been empty for long.
In the Ward, there is some semblance of sanity. Yes, Victria and Bartie are kissing in the corner, and several of the acting troupe are pressed against the glass wall, but most of them are mostly clothed.
I half expect Amy to be like the rest of them when I knock on her door — I half hope it — but she’s not. She’s dressed, looking out the window.
“Why are they doing that? In public, everywhere…” she whispers as I walk into her room.
“It’s the Season.”
“This… isn’t normal. People don’t act like this. This is… mating, it’s not love.”
I shrug. “Of course it’s mating. That’s the point. To make a new gen.”
“Everyone? All at once? Everyone decides to have sex now?”
I nod. Maybe her parents never told her about the Season, but surely she was old enough to know. All animals go into heat. People have a Season just like the cows, the sheep, the goats.
Amy snorts. “Must be something in the water,” she says with a weak laugh, as if it were a joke. Her face grows dark again, though, and she says in a low whisper, mostly to herself, “But it’s not natural.”
I don’t answer. I’m too busy thinking about how when we’re twenty, we’ll be in Season. Together. Just us.
She’s said something. I shake my head to clear it from the thoughts invading my brain.
“Will you?” she asks.
“Will I what?”
“Will you go with me to see my parents?”
I take a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Amy… they’re still frozen.”
“I know,” she says in a calm, even tone. “But I still want to see them. I don’t think I can stand watch on that floor without first seeing them properly.”
So I go with her.
The lights are already on in the cryo level. Amy steps out first and looks around at the rows and rows of square doors.
I follow her as she silently goes down one aisle. Her fingers bounce on the metal doors. At the end of the row, Amy turns to me.
“I don’t even know which one is them.” She sounds lost.
“I can look that up,” I say. I go around her to the table at the end of the row and pick up the floppy on it.
“What were their names?” I say.
“Maria Martin and Bob — Robert Martin.”
I tap their names onto the on-screen keyboard. “Numbers 40 and 41,” I say. Before I can put the floppy down, Amy’s running up the rows, counting under her breath. She stops in front of the two side-by-side doors labeled with her parents’ numbers.
“Do you want me to open it?” I ask.
Amy nods her head, yes, but when I step forward with my arm outstretched, she grabs my hand. “I’ll do it,” she says, but she doesn’t, she just stands there, looking at the closed doors.
35 AMY
I WANT TO SEE THEM.
I want to trace Mom’s laugh lines with my eyes. I want to touch Daddy’s scruffy beard with my smooth cheek.
I want to see them.
But I don’t want to see them as frozen meat.
36 ELDER
“AMY?”
Amy and I both whirl around. Harley is standing at the end of the row.
“What have you been doing down here?” I ask.
Harley yawns as he walks over to us. “Standing guard. Like we said we would. No one’s been down here but you two.”
“I’ll stay tonight,” I say guiltily, looking at the dark circles under Harley’s eyes.
“Nah, you won’t.” Harley grins at me. “You can’t. Eldest would notice. I don’t mind it down here. It’s quiet and gives me a chance to paint.” I know Harley. I know how obsessed he can get. He’s probably spent more time looking at the stars than guarding the frozens.
I lean in closer, so Amy won’t hear. “But your meds—”
I’m not just talking about the blue-and-white Inhibitor pill we both take, that everyone in the Ward takes. Harley’s been on more meds than that, for his “episodes,” ever since—
“I’ll be fine,” Harley says and even though I’m not sure I believe him, I can tell from the way he’s looking at Amy that he doesn’t want to discuss this issue in front of her.
“Why don’t you come with us? Amy’s finding her parents,” I say.
Harley hesitates — he wants to return to the stars. But when he sees me staring at him in concern, he changes his mind.
“Okay,” he says, even as he glances toward the hallway leading to the hatch. There is something in the empty hollow of Harley’s eyes, a greedy sort of longing, that makes me worry about him. It’s the same sort of obsession he fell into last time.
“I’m done here,” Amy says from behind me.
“Are you sure?” I ask. She nods.
“But… don’t you want to get your trunk?” I ask her, glancing at the floppy.
“My trunk?”
“The one you packed before you were frozen? It’s recorded here that you and your parents each have a trunk.”
37 AMY
MY HEART THUDS AS HARLEY AND I FOLLOW ELDER PAST the rows of little metal doors to a wall lined with lockers.
I never packed anything for this. Mom and Daddy never told me that I could take anything with me.
Elder pulls open a locker; a stack of ten suitcase-size trunks lines the inside.
“Here you are,” he says, pulling out three trunks.
Harley and Elder stand over me as I push the button on the first trunk. The lid opens with an audible pop — the airlock preservation seal breaks.
This one must be Mom’s trunk. Her perfume wafts up as soon as the lid opens. I breathe deeply, eyes closed, remembering how her clothes smelled of this same perfume when I played dress up so many years ago. I breathe again and realize that all I can smell is the bitter preservation gas they must have filled the trunk with, and Mom’s perfume is nothing but memory.
I pick up the clear preservation bag filled with pictures.
“What’s that?” Harley asks.
“The ocean.”
He stares at it, open-mouthed.
“And that?” Elder asks.
“This was our family trip to the Grand Canyon.”
Elder takes the picture I hand to him. He traces the stone carved by the Colorado River with his finger. He looks incredulous, as if he doesn’t quite believe that the canyon behind my parents and me is real.
“This is all water?” Harley asks, pointing at the picture of me making a sand castle on the beach when I was seven.
I laugh. “All water! It’s salty, which is gross, but the waves are always going up and down, in and out. My daddy and I used to jump in the waves, see how far out we could go, and then ride them back to the shoreline.”
“All water,” Harley mutters. “All water.”
The other pictures aren’t as exciting. They are mostly of me. Me as a baby. Me as a toddler, in my grandparents’ garden, among the pumpkin vines. First day of school. Me at prom in my black slinky dress, standing next to Jason, accepting his cornflower corsage.
I root around deeper in the trunk. There’s something I know Mom wouldn’t have left on Earth. When my fingers close on something small and hard, my heart gives a little lurch. I withdraw the round-topped velvet box from the trunk and hold it in my palm.
“What’s that?” Elder asks. Harley is still staring at the ocean.