Metamorphosis by mosylu

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Ryan’s mom gave him hell, of course. She’d been giving him hell on a more or less daily basis for the past two years, so he was able to tune it out. He knew it all anyway--behave yourself blah blah you don’t get a second chance to make a first blah blah blah I just don’t know what I’m going to blabbity blah blah.

He looked at the garage as they passed. It was standing open, and he could see a really cool little one-seater inside. On that thing, he could go rocketing away across those endless fields. Zoom, zip! All by himself. All he had to do was steal it. Those stupid advancers probably didn't even have it voice-locked. He shot his mom a crafty look and sidled crabwise away from her.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Nowhere," he said automatically.

"You’re coming to the hospital, aren’t you?"

"What? No."

"Yes, you are." She caught his wrist, just like he was six.

He wrenched it out of her grip. "I’ve got dirt and grass all over me," he said. "They’ll never let me in."

"They have sterilizers," she said. "Come along, Ryan. We’re going to see your sister."

Feet dragging, head drooping, he followed. If he got into it with her now, they’d be screaming until sunset, and he’d still have to visit the stupid hospital.

A nurse made him wash his face and hands even though he’d gone through the sterilizer, so by the time he approached his sister’s bed, his mom had been there for ten minutes already. She gave him a look like it was his fault he was late. "Say hello to your sister, Ryan," she ordered.

He looked down at the wasted figure. She was paler than the sheets, not that he could see a whole lot of her with all the hookups for monitors. They looked to him, as they always did, like tentacles sucking the life out of his sister. "Hey, Lynnie," he muttered.

Her eyelids just barely fluttered.

His mom saw it, of course. She never missed anything when it came to Lynnie. "Tell her what you did today."

"Walked around," he said.

"More than that."

He turned on her. "What's the point? She's in a stinkin' coma."

"She can hear us," his mom said stubbornly. "Tell her about this planet. Tell her about the sky, and the sun, and the ocean."

"What is with everybody and that dumb ocean? It's just a bunch of water." He’d looked at it and thought of a boat that he could use to sail away beyond the horizon and leave everything behind.

"Tell her about the grass, then." She looked down at her daughter. "There’s real grass, honey. It’s so pretty . . . and the forest . . . all the trees . . ." She turned on Ryan suddenly. "Tell her."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, staring out the window above his sister’s head. The beeps of her heart monitor drilled into his head like Chinese Water Torture.

"Ryan," his mother said warningly.

He said, "You’re not missing much, Big L. This place sucks." He spun around and stalked away.

His mother yelled, "Ryan! Ryan Anthony McNab! You come back here!"

He kept going, blocking his ears, speeding up his pace until he was practically running, because he’d never be able to live it down if he started bawling like a damn baby right there in the middle of the hospital.

John had a few choice words for Devon on the subject of ungrateful colonists, but when she dropped into the bench next to him, he swallowed them. She looked like she’d been through the wars.

"Told ya you shouldn’t’ve given out your gear channel," he said instead.

"I only gave it out to people who really needed to know," she muttered.

"And they gave it out to everyone." He slipped a hand under her hair and rubbed the back of her neck, which felt like one big knot under his fingers. "Congratulations, Adair, you got yourself a bouncing baby town."

She dropped her head forward. "As long as we don’t get colic, I think we’ll make it through the first few weeks. Don’t stop that or I’ll break all your fingers."

"Good thing for you threats turn me on," he said, continuing his massage. The knots were starting to unravel, but slowly. "So how many of those calls were from parents wanting to crucify you for putting their darlings on work detail?"

Her mouth slid into a pout. "Most of them."

"And I was . . ." When she clammed up, he leaned closer and crooned in her ear, "C’mon, gimme those three little words every guy wants to hear."

"You were right," she grumbled.

"Can I get a recording of that?"

She scowled at him. "All right, it’s not a very popular idea, but I stand behind it. They’re part of this community and they need to contribute. Besides, it’s the most efficient method of making sure they’re being looked after. For heaven’s sake, it’s not as if I asked them put their sick children to work--just the healthy ones."

"Get used to it, Madam Governor," he advised. "Speaking from experience, it’s not gonna be your last unpopular policy."

She widened her eyes in overdone surprise. "What? You mean some of these people are going to argue with every little thing I say? Gosh, I wonder what that’s like?"

"Think of me as boot camp."

"I think you’re a lot of things," she said. "Boots enter into most of them." He snickered, and she grinned at him. "How was your tour group?"

He thought. "I didn’t kill anyone," he offered. "True only maimed one person."

"Oh," she moaned.

"The kid deserved it. He was running his mouth the entire time. I almost sewed his lips shut when we were in Bess’s shed."

"Who was it?"

"Ryan something."

"Ryan McNab," she said, relaxing. "In that case, he probably did deserve it."

"Wow," John said. "Kid must be a pill and a half."

"He’s--um--a challenge."

"Right. Help me out here; are we talking after-school detention challenge, or juvie court challenge?"

"Let me put it this way," she said. "Given a few more years on the stations, his record might have rivaled mine."

When it came to Devon’s teenage exploits, the phrase as long as your arm wasn’t so much metaphorical as literal. It made John’s own trouble-making days look like a choirboy’s adventures. He took his hand off her neck. "You’re kidding."

Devon tipped her head back in a yawn and said at the end of it, "For his mom’s sake, I wish I was. You name it, he’s done it. Shoplifting, possession, destruction of property, drinking, hacking, and that’s just since he turned fifteen." Belatedly, she realized her massage had ceased. "Hey, don’t stop."

"Quit whining and explain to me why you’re letting a kid with that kind of rap sheet near my garage."

Her brows snapped together. "What am I supposed to do, chain him out on the cliffs? This place is about second chances, John. Everyone deserves one."

"Sounds to me like he used his up, along with his third, fourth, and tenth chances."

"Then we’ll give him an eleventh," she snapped. "As many as it takes."

"Yeah, what if he takes himself off a cliff in the process?"

"These people came here for their children, John. A lot of them came for both their children. This is a place to start over."

He raked his fingers through his hair. "Things are hard enough already, and there’s going to be a bunch of fucked-up little punks running around, creating havoc?"

"The term is emotionally disturbed," Devon said dryly. "And it’s not as if we can do anything to change it."

"No, it’s not, is it?" But he still would have appreciated some advance notice.

She looked down at her knees, then back at him. "I should’ve told you before." There was an apology in the words, unspoken.

That was enough to make the ire subside. He thought about letting it stand at that, but found himself saying, "You’re telling me now. That’s something."

She smiled a little. "Ryan’s the most extreme example, I’ll admit. But the Syndrome siblings don’t have it easy. They’re confused, they’re angry, they feel helpless--even more so than their parents--and they’re trying to cope as best they can. Raising hell is a very healthy reaction to their situation."

"Now you sound like one of the shrinks."

"I should; I’ve spent enough time with them."

He considered the situation and finally shrugged. So, another bump in the road. Like it had been so smooth before. "I won’t coddle them," he warned. "They push me, I’ll push back."

"I’m depending on it," she said.

They sat for a few minutes, watching people straggle into the gathering space for lunch. He turned his head to study her. She had a little more color to her now, but she still didn’t look a hundred percent. "Got your pills on you?"

She patted one pocket. "Right here." Her voice was bright, as if she were trying to lighten the mood between them.

He took her hand and pulled her up from the bench. "Brace yourself, gorgeous, I’m taking you to lunch at the ritziest joint in town."

"Oh, boy," she said in a sultry voice. "And me without my mink."

Predictably, she was mobbed almost as soon as she stepped foot into the gathering space. John glared until most of them cleared out, and it was a measure of how tired she was that she didn’t bother telling him off for it. When they were finally left to themselves, he looked around. "Y'know, I was picturing this place full of kids rollin' around in suits and chairs. Most of this crowd, you'd never be able to tell."

She crossed her arms. "I know. The holos kept showing kids that were more like robots than--"

"Whoa, hey! I'm on your side here, lady."

"Sorry. Old reflex." She smiled at him and continued in a less strident tone. "The Syndrome’s degenerative. They don’t need the suit until sometime in the second-to-last year. They don’t need the chair until a year to six months before--ah--before the end."

John scanned the tables and found Uly, chattering away to a crew of his immuno-suited buddies. Some were in chairs. Suddenly, the accouterments didn’t seem like funny clothes or machinery to him. They looked like countdowns.

The end, she’d said, so determinedly casual. The only end to the Syndrome--at least, on the stations.

It had just been the first couple of days that Uly had been suited and chaired. Then he'd been taken by the Terrians and returned, made new. It was easy to forget. Easier to underestimate.

"How long was Uly in the chair?" he asked.

"Three months." She tried to smile, and it was a piss-poor attempt. "He was never even supposed to get the suit. We were scheduled to leave before that. But red tape--you know."

He knew. His contract had been pushed back and back, forcing him to take last-minute jobs with crappy pay to make ends meet. Those had been thin times for himself and True, but he’d never given a thought to how Devon must have taken each delay, watching her kid get more and more frail as his body broke down.

Twelve to six months, minus three . . .

"You really almost lost him, didn't you?" he said quietly, stroking one hand down her back.

For a moment, he thought she wasn't going to answer, then she sighed. "I really almost did."

They were silent through the line. She put her hand in his, and he held it, thinking about narrow escapes.

Uly found most of his friends sitting at a table near the front. Their parents had all gone to get them food. "Hi, guys," he said, sitting down.

They broke off talking to look at him.

"Whuh?" he demanded with a mouthful of food.

"Nothing," Max said, in a way that really meant something.

"What?" he said again.

"What’s it like being healthy?" Angie asked.

Max said, "Angie!"

"It’s good," Uly said. "It’s great. I can do anything now."

"Like what?" Hari Bakshi demanded.

Uly’s mind went blank as he tried to remember what he couldn’t used to do. He could barely remember what it was like to have the Syndrome. It had all receded in his brain. "I went fishing the other day," he said. "In a boat. On the ocean."

"I saw the ocean today," Angie said. "What else?"

"I climb trees all the time. Like the one in the square? I climb that a lot."

Impressed looks bounced around the table.

Uly warmed to his subject. "I can work. My mom always says that. She says, ‘You’re perfectly healthy and you can help out.'" He made a face. "But that’s okay, that’s sort of fun sometimes actually. And I can talk to--" Uly broke off. His mom wanted to wait to tell everyone about the Terrian healing, and if he started talking about the Terrian parts of himself, well, his friends would never let up until they figured it out.

Max looked at him curiously. "Talk to who?"

"Everybody," Uly said, unable to come up with a good lie.

"We can talk to everybody now," Marie O’Connor pointed out.

"Not if they have, like, a cold or something," Uly said. He rushed on. "And swimming, I can swim. I swam in the summer. All the time. Like every day."

This, of course, distracted everyone right away. "Really?" Angie asked, bright-eyed. "Where?"

"The ocean," he said. "There’s these pools, see--"

"You can’t," Max said. "The ocean is really dirty. I read a book. It has this nasty stuff in it that’ll kill anybody even if they’re healthy--"

"That’s on Earth," Uly said when he figured it out. "You’re not on Earth anymore. Nobody’s ever dumped chemicals and things in these oceans." And they never would, he thought fiercely.

Max’s jaw jutted. "My dad wouldn’t like it if I swam in the ocean. I bet it’d make me sick."

"Everything makes us sick," Angie said.

Everyone laughed at that, but Marie started coughing mid-giggle. Over by the food line, Uly said her dad’s head turn, but she stopped coughing just as he stepped out of line.

He came over anyway, hovering over her. "Honey? How are you?"

"I’m okay, Dad."

"Here--I’ve got your inhaler--"

"I don’t need it."

"Just in case."

She sighed and submitted. Her dad listened to her breathe for a moment before he went away satisfied. He had to get in the back of the line again.

Seeing that reminded Uly that nobody else had eaten yet. He pushed his plate toward his friend. "You guys want something? I can get seconds."

Most of them said they weren’t hungry, but Angie reached out for a piece of fruit. "Bet my mom’s not going to get me any of this," she said, munching. "She doesn’t like indijus stuff."

"What stuff?"

"I don’t know, that’s what she called it last night. I love this," she added, and took another.

"Uly," Hari said. "How long did it take? Before you got well?"

"Yeah," Marie said. "Did it take a long time? Are we still going to be sick at the end of the winter?"

"No, no," Angie said. "I bet next week," she pointed at Max, "you’ll be out of your chair. And you guys’ll be out of your suits," she said to Marie and Hari. "And I’ll be swimming in the ocean."

"No, you won’t," Max said. "It takes longer than that, doesn’t it?" he asked Uly.

"Uh," Uly said. "It was--kind of--sudden?"

"What do you mean?"

"Um--I don’t know if I can exactly explain." Yes he could, he thought grouchily. He could if only his mom hadn’t told him not to. It didn’t make sense to him. He wanted to tell them everything, and take them away right now, to the Terrians, so they could get fixed and then he wouldn’t be the only one anymore.

Angie’s eyes went wide with hope. "Did you just wake up one morning and you were better?"

"Something like that," he mumbled. "Kind of."

He was saved by Max’s dad, who came to the table with two plates full of food. "Dad," Max said. "Uly says he swam in the ocean."

"Don’t be ridiculous," Max’s dad said. "Uly’s mom would never allow him to do something so dangerous."

Uly stared at him. "She does, though," he said. "She lets me do lots of things now."

Max’s dad gave him one of those smiles that meant the grown-up didn’t believe you. None of the advancers ever gave him that smile. He hated it.

Angie whispered, "I believe you."

"Thanks," he whispered back.

"Can I have more fruit?"

He gave it to her. His appetite was suddenly gone.

More parents came, with food. They fussed and fluttered over their kids, asking them to eat, warning them that they’d go back in the hospital after lunch. His friends ate, not very much by Uly’s standards, but their parents spoke happily about their appetites.

Uly sat watching them like True looking at a new species for Julia. He’d known all these kids since he was little. He and Max had been diagnosed at the same time. But they all looked like strangers now--little and skinny and pale. And young.

Since when had his friends been so young?

Devon sent True over to help Uly with clearing up. As they made their way between the tables and then into the kitchen, heads turned as colonists stared at Uly, then quickly returned to what they’d been doing. Kids pointed and whispered to each other or their parents.

"Everybody keeps looking at you," True said to him. "What is with that?"

"Mom says it’s because I’m healthy," Uly said. "They’re not used to it."

"Doesn’t it bug you?"

"No," he claimed, but True could tell he was lying a little.

At the serving table, they helped Cameron pack fruit back into crates and scoop chowder into a container so they could put it in the cold room before it spoiled. The bearded cook sighed at the amount that was left. "These kids don’t hardly have appetites," he told them. "Not like you."

Uly grinned through the half a greenfruit he already had in his mouth.

"And the parents kept asking what I put in this. Sure, yeah, for flavor I used a pinch of arsenic and just a sprinkle of nuclear waste." He rolled his eyes and hoisted the container of chowder. "They got all bent out of shape because I used indigenous ingredients."

As Cameron walked away toward the cold room, Uly said, "Oh, indigenous," as if he’d just figured something out.

"What?" True asked him.

"Angie said her mom said not to eat indijus stuff. I didn’t know what she meant."

"It means it’s from G889."

"I knew that," he said.

"They think things from here are going to poison them or something," True said scornfully. "They’re such babies."

"They are not!"

"Are too. I was right yesterday. They’re all scared of everything."

"You shut up! They are not!"

Although taken aback by Uly’s sudden ferocity, True jumped right in. "You should’ve seen them this morning," she said. "It was pitiful. They should just go back to the stations, if you ask me."

"Nobody asked you," Uly said, shoving a big platter across the table so hard that it fell off the edge. Leftover bread flew and crumbs scattered in every direction, and when the platter hit the ground, it broke into three jagged pieces.

"Damn it, Uly, now look what you did!"

"So what," he said. "And you’re not s’posed to cuss."

"Are you going to tattle?" she mocked. "Are you going to tattle like a little baby?"

"I am not a baby!" he yelled.

"You are too, you and all those kids, you’re all--"

"Enough!"

Startled out of her rage, True looked up to see her dad looming over them.

"Enough," he said again. "Can it, you two."

They rushed to defend themselves.

"But she said--"

"He broke--"

"She called me--"

"I know," Dad said. "I heard. Most of the town heard. Who broke the plate?"

"Him," True said.

"Me," Uly mumbled at the same time.

"Okay. Pick up the pieces. Don’t cut yourself. You two done here?"

True looked up and down the table. "Almost."

"Fine. Uly, finish up. True, come with me. You both need to simmer down. Apart."

Most of the time, True would have protested being hauled away like a little kid, but the fight with Uly had shaken her. They fought a lot, sure, but not like this. He’d been really mad. Usually, she was the one who got mad, and he just sort of played along.

Probably she shouldn’t’ve called his friends babies. But he hadn’t even sat with her at lunch.

"Sorry, Dad," she muttered after a minute.

He grunted.

"Where’re we going?"

"We’re going to meet the ops crew and go see how bad the ship looks."

Struck by a sudden impulse, she announced, "I want to work on the ship with you guys." If she was on the ship, she wouldn’t have to be on work detail with those annoying colonist kids.

He looked down at her. "What? Today? That’s why I’m taking you."

"No, I mean for regular. Instead of work detail. C’mon, Dad, I’ll be a big help. You always say I’m a big help."

They rounded the corner of Downtown and the garage came into view. Most of the ops crew was already there. Mr. Braxton stood by the garage doors, his arms crossed. "We’ll talk about it later," her dad said.

Okay, fine. She’d be such an incredible help today that he’d have to let her come work on the ship.

As they walked up, Mr. Braxton said, "Talk to you?"

Her dad swung the garage door open. "Come on in."

True trailed along behind and heard Mr. Braxton say, "They didn’t find anything."

"I know," her dad said.

"They scanned us all. Like fucking criminals or something."

Her dad pinched the bridge of his nose. "I explained this. They scanned you looking for a compulsion chip, not criminal tendencies."

"Funny how your top-level twinkie latched right onto the drones, isn’t it?"

Her dad’s voice came through his teeth. "She is not a twinkie, and she’s not latching onto anybody. It was a member of the crew last time, we figured good odds it would be this time."

"Yeah, well, it wasn’t, was it?"

True eased back even further. O-kay. So apparently she was not the only one in her family who was in a fight.

On the way out to the landing site, True rode in the back seat of the dune rail, holding on to her dad’s big box of equipment, which took up the rest of the space. She hung her head over the side, watching the ground rush by underneath and letting the wind ruffle her hair and howl in her ears. It almost, but not quite, muffled the tense, low-voiced words between her dad and Mr. Braxton. When silence fell in the front seat, it was even worse.

She pulled her head back in and slid down in the seat, digging her chin into her chest. Everything was changing, and it all seemed to be changing for the worse. She wished the colony ship had never landed.

Lynnie struggled out of the darkness. She hated the comas that came more and more often now, dragging her down into their muddy depths until she was all alone in the dark.

The world came back in pieces--silence giving way to the mechanical beeps and twitters of the medical machines, emptiness replaced with the feel of sheets and sensors against her skin, numbness turning into the feel of the breathing tube in her nose, pushing oxygen down her throat.

It hurt to be conscious, but even that was better than the dark.

"Honestly, Ryan, what were you--"

"Mom, she’s waking up."

"Lynnie?"

Her mother’s hand closed around hers. Mustering all her energy, Lynnie tried to squeeze her hand.

"Her fingers twitched. Lynnie? Honey? Ryan, get the doctor."

Lynnie dragged her eyes open. The world wavered and swung, then her mother’s face slowly settled into focus. "Mama?"

Her mother’s fingers tightened around hers. "I’m here."

Her throat hurt. They must have intubated her while she was under. "Are we going soon?"

Her mother leaned closer. "What?"

Lynnie tried to speak louder. "Going soon?"

"Where?"

Where? Lynnie’s entire life had been about this trip for the past four years. "Planet," she managed. "New--planet."

Her mother touched her face, stroking her hair lightly so as not to dislodge her breathing tube. "Sweetie--we’re there."

"What?" How could they be there? She was still sick. G889 was supposed to make her better.

"On G889. We landed yesterday."

Familiar footsteps approached, and Lynnie looked past her mother to see Ryan and Dr. Vasquez. "Ry--" she said.

He gave her knee a rough pat through the blanket. "Took you long enough," he said with forced cheer.

"We’re here?" she asked him.

"Yeah," he said. "We landed. You’ve been lying around for a day, lazybones." His hand, still on her knee, trembled.

Dr. Vasquez said brightly, "Let’s have a look at your numbers, young lady!"

Lynnie let him pick up her arm for the blood sample and listen to her heart and do all the other dull and painful doctor things that always happened. She avoided her brother’s and mother’s gazes, staring up at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. They were the same as the lights in the station hospital, all white and glaring.

G889 was just like the stations. It hadn’t worked. And now she was going to die.

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