Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct) (15 page)

When the elevator opened, Bryce and his family entered a large white room full of cushy red chairs.  In many of the chairs sat Bryce’s extended family, while men and women in white lab coats drifted among them.

“Look honey, there’s Larson.”  Bryce’s mom pointed to a chair across the room.  “Why don’t you take the seat next to him?”

“If the doctors tell you to do something, you do it.”  His father gave him a stern look.

“Yes, sir.”  Bryce nodded obediently.  He then left the wheelie bags with his parents and hurried over to Larson.

“Hey Bryce!”  Larson waved and smiled when he saw him coming.  His teeth were perfectly white, except for an
eyetooth that was completely missing, leaving a black gaping hole.  Despite this hole, Larson looked like a golden boy.  He was tall for his age, with sandy blond hair and a lean, strong figure.  Bryce, on the other hand, was still short, and he was husky too.  So far, neither of them had to worry about things like girls, and pimples, but Bryce knew, deep down, that Larson would get the girls, and he would get the pimples.  On the surface though, Bryce didn’t see things like that.  In fact, he usually noticed that he and Larson had the exact same eyes, both in shape and colour.  Bryce’s mom and Larson’s dad were siblings born only a year apart, and both boys had gotten their eyes from them.

Bryce climbed into the big seat next to Larson; it was as comfortable as it looked.  He dropped his bag down next to him.

“Hey Larson, what’s going on here?”  Bryce hoped he would know.

“Not totally sure.  The adults aren’t saying much.”  Larson shrugged.  “But apparently we’re going to live in this place together.  Isn’t that cool?”

“Yeah.”  Bryce nodded.  “But what’s with the doctors?”

“Oh, them?  Apparently, before we can live here, we have to have a check-up.  I talked to Lisa,” one of their older cousins, “who got here earlier than us.  She said they take some of your blood, give you a booster
shot and you have to take a shower that smells funny.”

“But I already showered,” Bryce grumbled.  He had showered yesterday and usually he had to take one only every other day.  Unless he got really dirty, that was.

Larson shrugged.

As the doctors came around, Bryce did as he was told.  He disliked needles, but after seeing Larson not react to his, he tried his best not to react either.  He couldn’t look at it though, no sir, couldn’t see it go into his arm.  He might have thrown up if he did that.  The injection hurt a lot, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut to keep back the tears.

As the boys waited for their turn in the supposedly smelly shower, they tried to name everyone in the room.  Their family was big, and they saw each other a lot, but remembering everyone’s name and their relationship to each other was hard.  One relative, who Bryce recognized instantly, was his great-grandpa.  He was his mom’s dad’s dad.  The man was old, sitting in his wheelchair with an oxygen tube hooked under his nose.  He glowered out of his deeply hooded eye sockets, which judged everybody they fell upon.  The only times he spoke while sitting there, was to snap at people.  Bryce had never seen the old man smile and he was terrified of him.  He usually tried to avoid the man.

Larson noticed that one of their family members wasn’t there.  She was the one who was
half-black; who Bryce thought was his grandma’s sister, or maybe cousin, someone in her generation at least.  With her darker skin, she normally stood out in the family.

No one from Bryce’s dad’s family was there.  No Christophersons, just Taggarts, and their immediate extensions.  That was normal.  Bryce rarely ever saw the other side of his family.  In fact, he was pretty sure he had only met them twice, and one of those times was not long after he was born.  The other time, he could only remember in small pieces, and most of those pieces didn’t have the other family in them.  He mostly just remembered that it was near Christmas and their tree was pathetically small.  Bryce’s own Christmas tree had been several storeys tall, rising up the middle of the spiral staircase, and another sat in the two storey tall ballroom.  The other family’s just reached the ceiling of their one storey living room.  That’s what he remember the most, the smallness of everything they owned.  There was no space.

Sooner than Bryce would have liked, it was his turn for the shower.  Larson looked glad that it was him going first.  Bryce listened to the doctors and followed them into a little room off to one side.  They took his bag from him and after he stripped, in a private space of course, they took his clothes as well.  Wrapped up in a huge towel, he padded down a short tiled corridor into a large, tiled shower.  There was room for several people to shower at once, but Bryce was alone.  Lisa had been right; it did smell funny.  He tried his best not to get any of the water in his mouth; he couldn’t imagine it tasting any better than it smelled.  Again, he thought of cheese, although this wasn’t really a cheese smell.  When he finished, he found a big standing dryer on the opposite wall from the showers and turned it on.  The air was pleasantly warm, not too hot, and with the big towel, he dried quickly.

The doctors gave him back his clothes and bag, which also appeared to have been cleaned, although they were completely dry.  That cheese-yet-not-cheese smell was stronger on them.  After the doctors instructed him not to touch anyone else who hadn’t had a shower, he was sent back out into the room of big chairs.

Once everybody had arrived and showered, they were allowed deeper into the building.  Larson and Bryce split up to walk with their respective parents with promises to meet up later.  Bryce’s dad led them through a winding maze of hallways that was almost solid white.  Bryce was fascinated by the walls.  It seemed that they were all huge, solid TV screens under glass, and lighted arrows appeared as they walked.  He figured out that the pale blue arrows were the ones he and his family were following.  As they walked, the extended family peeled off down other corridors, following their own arrows.

At the end of their journey through the bright halls, they came to a door.  Bryce’s mom let him have the honour of opening the door, which used a hand scanner like back home, but it didn’t also require a key.  The door slid open silently, disappearing sideways into the wall.  Bryce stared with wonder; it was just like Star Trek!  Inside was a large living room, already furnished with their things from home.  The living room blended into an open kitchen, and beyond that was a large bay window looking out to the sea.  This of course was impossible; not only were they really far underground, but they were also far from the ocean.

“Just like being above ground, isn’t it?”  Bryce’s mom commented.  She crossed the space and pressed a few buttons on a panel next to the window.  The view faded and changed into a tranquil rainforest.

Bryce’s jaw nearly hit the floor.  The window was also a screen, which could be changed to several
pre-set sceneries, times, and weathers.

“I personally like the ocean the best.”  Bryce’s mom pressed another button and the view changed back into the sea.  It even sounded like the sea, but it didn’t smell like it.  That cheese-like smell was
also in here and clinging to their things.

Bryce’s room was on one side of the living room, with its own fake window.  Becky had her own room on that side of the space, with a shared bathroom between them.  Across the space,
there was a room for Bryce’s parents and a work office.  It was like being in a super hotel with all their own stuff.  It was great!

Nevertheless,
like anytime you stay in a hotel, Bryce began to get bored and homesick.

***

The first few nights, Bryce woke up from bad dreams.  Waking up didn’t reassure him though, because there were weird shadows where there shouldn’t be any.  This, of course, was just because his stuff was in a different layout than it was back home.

The fake window had lost its amazement too.  Bryce found out that the effect broke if you stood too far to one side.  He also missed being able to open a window and stick his head out into the air. 
Little fans were in the frames of the window that tried to simulate a breeze if you pushed a button, but it wasn’t the same.

Bryce was surprised to find that he missed Tony.  Tony had been his bodyguard for as long as he could remember.  He had always been around, but in this
place, he wasn’t needed.  Although they never spoke, Bryce could always just look to a corner and find Tony standing there, watching over him.  In this place, which Bryce heard people calling the White Box, he had to wear a big watch, which was cool, but he was never allowed to take it off, even when he showered and slept.  It was his new bodyguard, he had been told.  It let his parents and some other people know where he was at all times.  It also kept track of his body temperature and heart rate, and when he was trying to get somewhere, it’s what allowed the walls to light up and direct him.  He still couldn’t find his way to Larson’s without it.  Larson had to wear one too, and little Becky had a smaller version strapped around her ankle.  She didn’t seem to mind though.

Currently, Larson and Bryce were in Bryce’s room drawing on the wall.  One of the walls in his room was a big touch screen, and with special pens, they could draw whatever they wanted on it.  It was still pretty cool, but even it was losing its lustre.  They had been in this hole for two weeks.  Bryce liked hanging out with Larson and some of his other cousins, but he missed his other friends, the ones not related to him.  There wasn’t even a phone around this place for him to call them.

Behind Bryce, Larson’s dog rolled onto her side with a groan.  She was a golden retriever that Larson’s parents had given him a year and a half ago, not long after Becky was born in fact, and Bryce suspected that had something to do with it.  Bryce didn’t like the dog.  He didn’t like dogs at all, but Larson had been bringing her everywhere lately.

“Want to go to the park?” Larson suddenly suggested, probably prompted by the dog.

“And do what?”  Bryce put the finishing touches on his drawing.  It was a dragon fighting Superman.

“I don’t know.  We can play cops and robbers.”  Larson tossed his pen into a corner.  The sound caused the dog, Maggie, to lift her head.

“Just the two of us?”  Larson always won when it was just the two of them.  He was faster.

“We’ll grab Harold, Robert, Thomas, and Jude first.  Maybe even some of the girls will play with us.”

“Yeah, okay,” Bryce shrugged.  He couldn’t think of anything better to do anyway.

The boys split up, Larson to get Harold and Robert, while Bryce was supposed to get Thomas and Jude.  Bryce was determined to find his way without the arrows.  The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of going to the park.  It was the biggest room in the whole place, with a TV sky and real grass, real sand, the best jungle gym equipment he had ever seen, and several big hills.  There was a baseball diamond,
tennis courts, and a running track for the adults.  There were even big trees they could climb.  The building no longer smelled like weird cheese, but the air was still kind of stale.  In the park, it smelled the freshest, and had a constant light breeze blowing through it.

Bryce realized he was lost.  All the halls looked the same, except for the name plaques above the hand scanners.  He didn’t recognize the names in this hallway.  Still, Bryce headed deeper, sure that he would end up back where he had started.  He wasn’t going to use the arrows; he was determined not to.

As he rounded another corner, he found himself in a dead end.  There was only one door down here, but it was different from the other doors.  This one had a fancy trim and was, in fact, a pair of double doors.  Bryce was curious about who lived here, and approached the doors, intending to read the name plaque.  It read Brian Taggart.  Brian?  Who in the family was named Brian?  It was awfully close to his own name.  Maybe it was someone from one of the older generations, and he had been named after him.

Suddenly, the two doors pulled away from each other.  Bryce was left standing face to face with his great-grandpa, who scowled deeply.  His dark eyes smouldered, burning holes into Bryce.

“What are you doing here?” the old man barked.  His body might have been frail, but his voice wasn’t.

Bryce did the only thing he could think of: he ran.

He didn’t know where he was running, possibly becoming more lost than before.  There was a door ahead with a normal push bar.  Bryce crashed through it, slamming the door closed behind him.  He was in a cold, grey stairwell.  After so much bright, sterile white, the bare concrete was startling.  Bryce wasn’t even aware there were staircases in this place; he assumed everything was on just the one floor.  Looking over the railing, he saw that the staircase went way up, and way down.  Bryce didn’t think they could get any deeper, so his curiosity begged him to head down.  Maybe the other floors were where all the parents worked.  Bryce’s mom didn’t work, but his dad was still going off for most of the day, and so were Larson’s mom, dad, and a bunch of the other adults.  Bryce headed down the stairs.

The doors that led onto the floors had windows in them.  Through most of these windows, Bryce saw just more blank hallways.  A few times, he saw some people, but they looked like military men.  He was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be where he was, so he didn’t go onto those floors.  As he neared the floor that Bryce decided would be the last one before heading back, he saw his dad walk by the window.  His dad was deep in conversation with some other men that Bryce had never seen before.  When they walked past, Bryce slowly opened the stairwell door and stuck his head into the hallway.  The coast was clear, so Bryce padded down the hallway after his dad.  He had always wondered what his dad did for a living.  He knew he was a scientist, but lately
, Bryce had been figuring out that was a very broad term.  It was kind of cool sneaking after his dad.  He felt like a secret agent, like James Bond.  He knew it was something he wasn’t supposed to be doing, which made it exciting.  Bryce’s heart was pounding.