"Yes," the executive said. "If you're not healthy, we need to do a lot more work with our quarantine alternate." Maybe she wasn't wearing nose filters, then. She went on, "It was an interesting discussion, I thought. But remember, freedom of speech is just a custom, too. It's a good one, but it's not a law of nature." Right then, Justin wasn't thinking about laws of nature. After three weeks of bland quarantine rations, he was thinking about the biggest double burger in the world, with French fries—no, onion rings—on the side, and a chocolate shake to wash everything down. He headed for the stairs. Somewhere within a block or two, he'd be able to find just what he wanted.
Home. Beckie had started to wonder if she would ever see it again. She and Gran went through quarantine in Virginia. Then they went through quarantine in Ohio. And then they went through quarantine in California. It would have been bad enough if she were cooped up all by herself. Going through quarantine with her grandmother really made her want to stay away from Gran for the rest of her life.
But she didn't quite go looking for blunt instruments. It was over now. She had her own room, and she didn't feel like a guinea pig going in and out of it.
No plagues. No guns going off. No bodies stinking in the streets. No humidity. Back with her family and friends. It all seemed like heaven.
And everybody made a fuss over her, too. "We're so glad to have you back," her mother said over and over again. "We were so worried about you, and we couldn't find any way to get through. E-mail didn't work, phones didn't work, even letters came back. UNDELIVERABLE—WAR ZONE, they said."
Gran sniffed. "I don't suppose anybody worried about me."
"Of course we did," Beckie's father said loyally. Beckie didn't know how he put up with Mom's mother so well. Mom described it as the patience of Job. Beckie didn't know exactly what that meant till she found it in the Bible one day. When she was in a good mood, she thought her mother was exaggerating. When she was in a bad mood, she didn't. After going through quarantine with Gran, she was convinced Job didn't have it so bad.
"Well, you could have called and said so, then," Gran said.
"I just explained why we couldn't. The phones weren't working." Mom had been putting up with Gran much longer than Dad and Beckie had. If that wasn't heroism above and beyond the call of duty, Beckie didn't know what would be. And Mom, growing up with Gran for a mother, turned out nice, probably in reaction. If it wasn't in reaction, what was it? A miracle? Knowing Gran wouldn't pay attention, Mom just kept repeating herself till something eventually sank in.
"What was being in a war like?" Dad asked.
"Scary like you wouldn't believe," Beckie answered. "You didn't have any control over where the shells came down. If they hit you, even if you were in a trench, that was it. Just luck. Same with bullets." She shivered, remembering some of the things she'd heard and seen and smelled.
Gran went off to call some of her friends. Beckie's mother said, "It must have been awful, stuck with your grandmother and stuck in that little town with nothing to do. Virginia!" She rolled her eyes. "I shouldn't have let you go."
"It. . . could have been better." Beckie let it go there. Some of the things that had happened to her, she wondered if she would ever tell anybody. She doubted it.
"Did you make any friends at all while you were there?" her mother asked.
"There was a guy named Justin. He was up there from Charleston. He was nice," Beckie said. "He was . . . interesting, too. He could get things. When we went down to Charleston, he got Gran the medicine for when she came down sick. I swear that was before the Virginia hospitals had it."
"I wonder how," Mom said.
"So do—" Beckie stopped. She snapped her fingers. Then she ran for her bedroom.
"What's going on?" her mother called after her.
She didn't answer. "I almost forgot!" she said when she picked up her purse, but she'd closed the door by then. Her family—except Gran some of the time—respected that as a privacy signal. She'd kept her promise to Justin: kept it so well, she nearly forgot about it. But she was home at last. She could finally find out what he'd given her.
She had to rummage to find the folded-up envelope. When she opened it, a brass-yellow coin fell into her hand. There were lots of different coins in North America, but she knew she'd never seen one like this before. Benjamin Franklin looked up at her—she recognized him right away. LIBERTY was written above his head. On one side of his bust were the words IN GOD WE TRUST, on the other the date 2091 and a small capital P.
Marveling, she flipped the coin over. The design on the reverse was an eagle with thirteen arrows in one claw and a branch—an olive branch?—with thirteen leaves in the other. Ice walked up her back when she read the words above it: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Below that, in smaller letters, were the words E PLURIBUS UNUM, which didn't mean anything to her right away. Under the eagle, the coin said, ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS.
"United States of America," she whispered, and turned the coin back to Franklin's portrait. Yes, it still said 2091 there. It was real. It felt real, not like some fake Justin had had made up. Why would he do that, anyway, and how could he? She'd asked him to explain, and he did. And if she spent the rest of her life wondering about the explanation . . . Well, wasn't that better than going through life never wondering about anything at all?