Eye of the Storm (7 page)

“I know a place,” she says, “but I'll have to blindfold you to take you there; it's top-secret-super-classified.”

I laugh again, and my stomach grumbles.

“You guys have to come, too, okay?” She makes her top-secret-super-classified picnic eyes at Alex and Tomas.

“I guess.” Tomas gives her the lazy smile. “As long as Alex and geek girl put their killer DataSlates away.”

Risha laughs, but Alex doesn't. “I'll come,” he says, and puts the DataSlate into his backpack.

I reach over my shoulder to unzip mine, and a warm hand catches my fingers.

“Got it.” Alex lets go of my hand and unzips the bag so I can slip the DataSlate inside. He gives the strap a light tug, and I turn around. “Sounds like we're going to be in the met program together.” He takes a deep breath. “Maybe we can talk about being partners?”

I can't help smiling a little. I wasn't crazy that day in the auditorium. It was an invitation after all.

I nod and get on my bike. “Sure. We can talk.”

“Your top-secret picnic location looks kind of familiar, Rish.” Tomas weaves through trees to the fence, holding a cooler full of food from Risha's house out in front of him.

I scan the horizon for clouds, but the sky's all blue. My DataSlate in my backpack is quiet—no weather alerts for now—and the afternoon sun feels good after a morning of air-conditioned camp.

We climb through the gap in the fence, balance beam our way across a fallen tree stretching over the river, and follow Risha, who's run ahead through the trees, bracelets clinking on her wrist.

“Here we go.” Tomas steps into a field with neatly planted rows of grain, and we head for the gazebo on the other side. Its white paint is peeling, but Risha flies up the steps and perches herself on the fence as if it's her fairy-tale castle, and she's been waiting all day for the prince to get home.

“It's beautiful.” It's like I've fallen into one of the olden-days books Mom used to read to me.

“Yeah,” Tomas says. He looks a little sad.

“How long have you lived around here?”

“Since I was born. It's getting hard to take care of the farm, though, with my brother gone. My dad's not sure . . .”

“You can't sell, man,” Alex says. “No way.”

“Yeah, I know. Dad's all talk. I don't think he'll ever leave this place.” He lifts the cooler onto the picnic table.

“Jaden, sit by me!” Risha pats a spot next to her on the splintery bench.

I sit down and get a sandwich from the cooler. I'm starving, and for the first time since we left Eye on Tomorrow, I feel relaxed enough to talk about the Sim Dome. “Sure is nice to see blue sky after this morning.”

“I know!” Risha takes a big bite of her sandwich and goes on talking through the lettuce. “That sim was crazy-real.”

Alex sits down across from me. “Have you ever . . .” He pauses. “Never mind.”

I take a bite of my DNA-ture apple and look up at Alex. “Have I ever what?”

“Well . . . have you seen the equipment your dad has at work? I mean, you probably can't talk about it if it's classified and stuff, but I wonder if it's the same.”

I shake my head. “Never even been there.”

“It feels like . . .” Alex unwraps his sandwich but doesn't eat. He turns it over and over in his hands, as if the bread and turkey and cheese layers hold the answer to some puzzle. “We have so much equipment at Eye on Tomorrow—and I'm sure your dad has even
better stuff up there.” He nods toward the StormSafe compound in the distance. The sun is reflecting off its steel and safety-glass walls, making it glow. “It feels like we should be able to figure this out.”

I nod and look to the west, where the sky's clouding up. I know exactly what he means. How could we know everything we know, have everything we have, and not be able to live in a world where you can go for a walk without watching the clouds?

“I'm going to pick flowers.” Risha tips her head off toward the meadow. Before she goes, she bends down by the picnic table and plucks a dandelion that's gone to seed. “Make a wish!” She blows on it, and silver stars swirl all around our heads as she runs off. Tomas picks up the bag of
nankhatai
, the Indian tea cookies Risha's grandmother made, and follows her.

Alex looks toward the clouds on the horizon. “They better not go far. This isn't Placid Meadows.”

His voice has an edge.

“What's wrong with Placid Meadows?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing. I'd imagine it's great if you can afford to live there. But you must know what those places cost.”

I shrug, rather than admit that I don't. I wonder if our picnic spot is part of the land Dad's trying to buy for his Phase Two.

There's a rustling in the weeds then, and a golden retriever bounds out of the brush and up the steps to our table. It puts a paw up on Alex's lap and tips its head.

“Hey, Newton.” Alex scratches the dog behind an ear, then carefully untangles a burr stuck in its long reddish fur.

“Sorry,” he says, looking up. “I didn't mean to make you feel crummy. It's just hard to take sometimes. But what Risha said before is right. If it weren't for your dad, I'd be right here—and only here—this summer, pulling weeds and picking worms off tomato plants and running for the storm shelter every other day instead of spending half of it in a huge science complex.”

We sit for a long time, watching the clouds. Alex feeds Newton scraps of turkey from his sandwich, and I listen to Risha laughing with Tomas.

When Alex finally speaks, it's so quiet I barely hear him. “I'm frustrated, I guess. I thought I'd figured out how to stop them all together.”

“The storms?”

He nods and starts picking at the weathered wood of the picnic table.

“I'm starting to think it's impossible. My dad's been working on this forever. He's got some exclusive agreement with the government for his weather manipulation research. Anyway, Mom told me they were sure they had the formulas this winter, but when they did the simulation, it failed.”

“Did you see the formulas?” He leans forward.

“No. I probably wouldn't have understood them anyway. This stuff is out of our league.”

“No, it's not. Last summer at Eye on Tomorrow, I had a formula drawn up, based on the same theory, and it
worked
. At least on paper.”

“Did you run it through the Sim Dome?”

He sighs. “That didn't work, and I don't know why. It should have.” He jerks his hand back from the table. “Ow! Splinter.”

He pulls it out, and blood seeps out from under his thumbnail. He stands and shoves his hand into his pocket. “Look, I just . . . I feel like I'm out of ideas. That's why I was kind of hoping we could work together.” He doesn't look at me and doesn't wait for an answer. He starts gathering sandwich wrappers and picks up the rest of my apple. “Are you going to finish this?”

I shake my head. He looks down at the DNA-ture sticker and grimaces. “Is this stuff all you ever eat?”

“It's not bad. I'm not in the mood for fruit right now.”

“Oh no?” His dark eyes smile a little. “Come with me.” He takes off across the field with Newton at his side.

I look over my shoulder for Risha, who's plopped down in the weeds, showing Tomas how to weave daisies together into a chain. Behind them, the clouds are growing, but they're still a long way off.

There's time before our weather alerts go off, so I catch up with Alex as he reaches the barn. It smells like old paint and hay. A twisted copper weathervane with a rooster on top leans against the side.

“That's an old one, huh?” I run my finger along the W for West.

“It was already here when my grandpa bought this place way back,” Alex says. He looks up at the barn's sloped roof. “Came flying off in the wind Friday night.”

“That storm we saw coming from the fence?”

He nods. “Just missed us. We were lucky. Tomas says their
neighbors two places down lost their barn and almost their whole herd of Scottish Highland cattle.”

“That you, Alex?” a deep voice calls from the barn, and a man in a faded blue shirt steps out, brushing dust off his hands. His face looks like he's spent a lot of time working in the sun, and he has warm brown eyes surrounded by the kind of wrinkles you get from laughing. “You take care of the chickens yet?” he asks Alex. Then he sees me.

“Dad, this is my friend Jaden I told you about. From camp.”

His father nods at me and reaches out to shake my hand. His is warm and rough with calluses. “Very nice to meet you,” he says. But he doesn't smile. He looks back at Alex and raises his eyebrows. “Don't forget we have a farm to run.” And heads back into the barn.

“Sorry,” Alex says, turning to me. “He's . . . not thrilled with us being friends.”

“Oh.”

Goats or sheep bleat from inside the barn, and there's the sound of feed pouring into a trough. Alex looks at the barn door as if he can see through it. “He's really not cold like that. He's just—I made the mistake of telling him who your dad is, so . . .”

“So he figures I'm here to make another offer on your farm?” My face flushes hot, and I turn away from the barn. “I . . . I should be getting home anyway. It's—”

“Jaden, wait.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. It's tentative, barely there, but it keeps me from walking away. “I want to show you something.” He steps onto a low stone wall that runs along the barn. “Follow me.”

I hesitate.

“Please?”

I climb up and follow him to a patch of garden on the south side of the barn. Mounds of green grow out of straw-covered soil, and ripening red spots peek out from each plant.

“You
grow
strawberries?” I've never seen strawberries growing outside, as far as I can remember. They were one of the first DNA-ture products. Dad used to bring home cartons full of fat, smooth, seedless berries. “These are so much smaller than real ones.”

Alex laughs. “These
are
real ones.” He squats down, gently brushes aside some leaves with one hand, reaches deep into the heart of the plant with the other, and pulls out a perfect red berry.

No. It's not perfect.

The berry is asymmetrical. One ripe, red side bulges higher than the other, and raggedy green leaves stick out the top in every direction, like some crazy puppet hat. The dimple at the base of the fruit looks a little like the one on Alex's chin.

He holds it up. “
This
is a
real
strawberry. Look.”

“It looks great,” I say.

“No.
Really
look.” He rests one hand on my shoulder and with the other, holds the strawberry out about a foot in front of my face. “Tell me what you see.” I try to ignore the warmth spreading down my arm and look, really look.

“It's red.” But even as I say it, I know it's more than that. It's not red like the strawberries in Mirielle's refrigerator at the house. Not the perfect, crayon-box red, the same on every side. This one is a million shades of red, from the deep rich color of new blood to
the blush that must be creeping up my cheeks. “It's a lot of different promises of red.”

“What else?” He turns the strawberry slowly, but doesn't move his hand from my shoulder.

“The seeds are different colors, too.” I can't compare them to the seeds on DNA-ture strawberries because they've been engineered out—people who took the “build-a-better-fruit” surveys complained they got stuck in their teeth—so they're gone now. The skin is perfectly soft and smooth. But this strawberry has tiny hairs that catch the sun and raindrop-shaped seeds spilling down the sides, around all of its uneven curves. “Gold and pink and brownish.”

“Now.” Alex smiles a little. “Close your eyes.”

I look at him.

“Don't worry.” He laughs a little and takes his hand off my shoulder. “I want you to taste this.
Really
taste it.”

I close my eyes. I can still feel the warmth of his hand on my shoulder, or maybe it's the sun getting warmer.

“Ready? Open your mouth.”

I do.

The soft-rough seeds brush my lips first. Then that same surface—alive, I think—settles on my tongue, along with the warmth. It feels like this berry still holds the heat of the sun inside it.

I am almost afraid to bite down, but Alex's hand rests on my shoulder again, and I am painfully self-conscious of what I must look like standing here with my mouth around a strawberry, so I take a bite.

And I taste the sun.

All of the warmth, the sweetness, this imperfect outdoor berry has collected explodes in my mouth. And eyes still closed, suddenly, I am three years old, sitting cross-legged in a garden or field—I don't know where exactly—but I am picking berries with Aunt Linda. Dropping them into a big wicker basket in the dirt between us, and my hands are stained red, and my chin is sticky with sweet red juice, and Aunt Linda is laughing in the sun.

I had forgotten what strawberries felt like until now.

I open my eyes. Alex has dropped his hand from my shoulder again, and the one that held the strawberry hangs at his side, still pinching a clump of leaves and a bit of berry with my teeth marks.

“Now are you in mood for fruit?” he asks.

I would answer, but I'm afraid it would come out a million kinds of stupid. So I nod, and bend down to pick another berry. It's rough and imperfect, and perfectly warm, in my hand.

“You
have
to partner with him at camp. You guys look so cute together!” Risha's cheeks are flushed as we hurry back to the fence, and I'm not sure if it's because we're rushing now that the clouds are rumbling closer or because she was having her own picnic moment with Tomas and the daisy chain.