Hands reach through the bars. They moan, the unclaimed. They babble. They can’t really talk, most of them, maybe just a word here and there. Nothing that makes sense. Their fingernails, ragged and dirty, scratch at the cement with a sound worse than if they were dragging them across chalkboards. They clutch and grasp at me, and I know it’s my own agitation that’s riling them up. The ones in here have all been neutralized. They’re not dangerous. They might grab and clutch and groan, but even if they get ahold of me, they’re not going to rip open my flesh with their teeth and eat my organs. They’re not going to kill me.
And then at the end, just before I duck through the doorway, one of them catches me. I’ve dodged too far out of the way of a pale, curling hand on one side, and the woman in the cage across from it snags my shoelace. I don’t fall, but I do stumble. I grab the metal bar to keep myself from hitting the concrete, and the metal rings out with a flat, hollow sound. She shudders at the sound and looks up at me, slack mouth and dull eyes. Matted hair falls down her shoulders and over her back.
They give them clothes to wear, though most of them would gladly go naked and not even know it. But this one wears a flowered blouse, many buttons missing and not replaced. The flowers are daises, yellow and white, with green stems. It’s an ugly shirt made more disgusting by the dirt and stains on it, and it shows off how thin her arms are.
I can see the collar from here. It’s black, about two inches wide, and circles her neck without any visible end. Two of the three tiny bulbs at her throat are dark. The other shines faintly, steadily green, like the point of light on a battery charger for a cell phone or camera.
Her fingertips, raw and sore-looking, have tangled in my lace. Either she’s not trying to get them out, or she can’t. She tugs. My foot moves. I look down at her, the world swimming as my eyes burn with tears. I’d walked past this cage before, two days ago. Just now I’d passed it twice. I’d looked at this woman and not known her.
But I do now.
My fingers slip on the metal bars as my knees become jelly and fold. The cold, damp concrete bites my knees through my jeans. I gently take her hand from my shoelace, and her fingers grip mine so tight, they leave white marks on my skin. I hold her hand, and I try very, very hard not to be afraid.
“Is this the one, hon?” Jean asks from behind me. “Did you find her?”
“Yes,” I say, without looking at her. “Yes. This is my mother.”
TWO
I CAN’T BRING HER HOME RIGHT AWAY. THEY have to take our DNA samples. A swipe with a sponge inside both our cheeks, and it’s done. I wash away the taste of the sponge with water from a bottle Jean gives me. It has the government seal on it that’s supposed to prove it’s clean, but I guess at this point it doesn’t really matter anymore. I don’t think my mom notices or cares.
They have to take the DNA to prove this is my mom. That I’m not some random stranger coming off the street to take her home. I don’t want to think about why anyone would want to claim one of the Contaminated who doesn’t belong to them—it’s hard enough to take the responsibility for a loved one, but a stranger? I shudder, wishing I were still too young to know the reasons why anyone would do something like that.
“The tests usually come back pretty fast.” Jean is smiling. Happy. Maybe just to be rid of one of her charges, maybe she’s really glad for me, I don’t know. “By next week everything should be cleared, and you can take her home.”
I’m not smiling. I hand her the cash for the test, a crumpled pair of twenties that are all I have to last until payday, which isn’t until next week. It wouldn’t be the first time Opal and I have lived on ramen noodles for a few days. Or weeks. But I’m glad the assistance check is due on Friday.
“She’ll be okay until then, right?” The words drop, hard like stones, from my mouth. “Nothing’s going to happen to her? She won’t be returned before then? I mean, you have the paperwork all settled and stuff.”
I’ve heard rumors that even though some of the Contaminated have been claimed, screwups with the files returned them to the labs before their loved ones could take them home. Or worse, the person claiming them wasn’t a blood relative, which meant the process of proving the Contaminated’s identity took so much longer that they got sent back before it could be finished.
It was supposed to be a good thing, releasing the Contaminated from the labs and letting them go home to their families. When the government announced the claiming procedures for the Return Initiative, they made it sound like it would be so easy. So perfect. But just like most everything else that’s happened since the Contamination, the process is complicated and slow, and it doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. People haven’t been stepping forward to claim their lost family members. People who do want them can’t find them. The posters and the pamphlets and the special announcements on the news haven’t done much to help, either. There are thousands of Contaminated being released into what were supposed to be called “interim shelters” but what everyone calls kennels, and nobody’s claiming them. Where else can they go but back to the laboratories that had already kept them for months? And what happens to them there, after that, when it’s clear nobody wants them… well, that’s something else nobody talks about.
But we all know.
I can’t imagine it, finding my mom after all these months, only to lose her for good. But then… at least I’d know what had happened. At least I’d know she was dead, not just missing. But I shake myself out of that thought. She’s not dead, and she’s not missing anymore. She’s still Contaminated, though. She always will be.
But she’ll also always be my mom.
“She’ll be fine,” Jean says gently as she takes the folder of paperwork out of the OUT bin on top of her desk. “I know what you’ve heard about some of those other shelters, but… I care about my girls. I do. I’ll make sure she’s all right. Keep her fed and clean as best we can. Nothing’s going to happen to her while I’m here. I won’t let them take her back before you can get her, I promise.”
I want to cry again at Jean’s kindness. I want to let her hug and rock me, shush-shushing while I press my face into the front of her shirt. She usually smells like laundry detergent, and I’d like to clean my nostrils of the sickly stink. I don’t cry, though, even if I’m sure Jean is half hoping I will.
“My son Dillon’s about your age,” she says suddenly. She’s never given him a name before. Of course she knows my age because I had to write it down when I filled out all the papers, along with everything else about my life.
I pause, her pen still in my hand as I sign the last form. I look up. “Huh?”
“What school do you go to?”
“Cedar Crest.”
She smiles. “He went to Annville-Cleona. He graduated last year. Dillon Miller?”
I don’t know her son. I shrug, put the pen down. I’m not going to graduate, not on time, anyway. Not unless something changes, and with the way the world’s going, that doesn’t seem likely.
“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t know him.”
“You’re a nice girl, Velvet.”
This startles me into looking at her again. “Huh?”
Jean shrugs. She looks a little sad. “That’s all I’m saying. You’re a nice girl. A good girl. Doing what you’re doing.”
My throat burns the way my eyes did a couple of minutes ago. I swallow hard, but it doesn’t get better. Jean knows everything about me because I had to write it all down on those papers, because I’ve been coming here for months, since the first day they announced the Return Initiative, and because it’s her job to know it. But she doesn’t have to pity me; that’s not part of her job.