Patrick Griffin's Last Breakfast on Earth (22 page)

“Thanks,” said Patrick.

“Now you'll just need to swallow this,” she said, handing him a silver pill.

“What is it?” asked Patrick, glancing at the little shiny capsule.

“It's your PB.”

“My what?”

“You don't have personal beacons on Earth?”

Patrick shook his head.

“The beacon contains a transponder that inertly knits to the wall of your small intestine, monitors your vital signs, and, in the event of a medical emergency, allows you to be located by an MHY, especially in the event you lose your binky or are incapacitated.”

“So is it, like, permanent?”

“The beacon? This latest model has a hundred-yie lifespan. Should you live longer than that, you will be issued a replacement.”

“Everybody has one,” said a voice behind him. He turned to see Oma had entered the curtain-partitioned exam chamber.

“That's precisely right,” said the woman. “Now would you like to wash it down with wheat grass, tomatillo, kale, celeriac, yucca, or grapefruit juice?”

“Uh, grapefruit, I guess,” said Patrick.

“We have a sweet tooth, I see,” said the woman, smiling woodenly. As she turned to retrieve the proper beverage from a small refrigerator behind her, Oma quickly grabbed the pill from Patrick's hand, passed it through the loop on the ankh pendant she was wearing, and handed it back.

“It's okay now,” she whispered. “I'll explain later.”

Patrick looked down at the pill in the palm of his hand as the woman rummaged in the fridge for his drink. “Where's Kempton?” he asked.

“My brother wanted his oat snacks and smoothie—and I guess he felt he'd weaseled his way into enough vidfeeds with you already today—so he agreed to let me take over for a bit. Why? Would you rather we switch back?”

Patrick started to blush. “I just meant—”

“Well,
he's
not happy with the situation; I can tell you that much. But that's what happens when you don't think things through. I mean, I suppose it was slightly unkind to suggest his Lasters treats
might
have been sent home for him, but I certainly didn't say for sure that they had.”

“You mean he thought he was going to get his dessert from the school and it wasn't actually there?”

“What's worse, the Code Crimson means he's confined to our house with my parents and without any Interverse access. He's probably having a nervous breakdown as we speak.”

“Here's your juice, Patrick Griffin,” said the assessor, handing him a plastic specimen cup filled with a dingy yellow liquid.

Oma winked and whispered, “Time to become one with the Deacons!”

Patrick didn't much like the idea of swallowing something that would stay in him for the rest of his life but it was just a dream, after all, and whether it was Oma or the assessor who was on the level, he guessed it wouldn't kill him either way. He put the pill on his tongue and swallowed.

The assessor looked up from her binky and nodded approvingly.

“It's transmitting just fine,” she said. “Now, no solid food for one dunt.”

Patrick nodded and decided against asking her to remind him how long a dunt was. Provided it was shorter than a week, it didn't really matter—he was far too queasy and tired to even think about food.

“And don't forget your garment,” she said, indicating the ruined T-shirt.

“Oh, yeah,” said Patrick. He picked up the singed piece of clothing and, in something of a daze, followed Oma out of the examination chamber.

 

CHAPTER 34

Loco Parentis

Rick Griffin had been prepared for his wife, Patrick's mother Mary, to be worked up, and even devastated about Patrick's situation. But, finding her sitting on the damp front steps, staring at the sky, he hadn't quite imagined her to be so quiet.

“Where are my children?” she whispered, more statement than question.

“He'll turn up.”

“You didn't listen to my message, did you?”

“Oh,” he said, folding his hands, “sorry, no, Neil and I had a bit of trouble getting home and, well—”

“You can always listen to it later,” she said with a weird little laugh.

“I'm sorry, honey. What was the message?” His heart seemed to fall into a lower chamber as it occurred to him that something bad actually had happened to Patrick. Could he have
really
gone missing?

“Cassie and Paul are gone, too.”

“What!?” said Rick, startling to his feet.

“I expect,” she said, “that they're probably just fine. Laura Tondorf-Schnittman apparently left the back door unlocked and they wandered off.”

“What?”

“With her kids, too. You may want to go over and help them look. She thinks they're probably just out on the golf course.”

“What?” he said, not knowing what to do beyond sitting back down and giving her a hug.

“What's wrong with your truck?” she said, noticing its missing rear bumper.

“Somebody ran into us on Benedict. That's why I was late. Everybody's okay.”

“Three missing children and a car accident in a single morning,” she said.

“What a day,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, the flatness in her voice cracking. “I've been sitting here, Rick, trying to figure out what to do—should I go help with the Twins, should I stay here for Patrick, should I worry about the other kids—but, really, more than that I'm just wondering if it's even really happening.”

She buried her head against Rick's chest and began to cry. “Maybe we just never woke up this morning,” she choked out between sobs. “Maybe it's all just a nightmare. And, honestly, I don't know why, but
Patrick
's the only one I'm worried about.”

 

CHAPTER 35

Talking to Girls

Unlike most girls Patrick knew, Oma was not a big talker. And the strange thing was, he wouldn't have minded if she had been.

It wasn't just that she was pretty—she certainly was, at least in a weird, big-eyed way. The thing that got to him was that she seemed to have more expressions, and combinations of expressions, than anybody he'd ever met. He kept finding himself staring at her as if she were saying something really interesting—telling a great story, perhaps—only she wasn't saying anything unusual, or even necessarily speaking at all. But the movements of her dark eyebrows, the flickering tension on her cheeks, the different ways she could shape her mouth … he found himself constantly wondering and guessing what was going on inside her head, like she was a book he'd been reading but whose final pages were glued shut.

And so, as they walked back toward her house across the school grounds, he kept trying to think of things he could say to get her talking.

He'd already asked her if it was normal—since there was kind of a state of emergency going on—that they were being allowed to walk home by themselves. She'd explained that they only had a few blocks to walk and that the entire area was in lockdown. So, really, nothing bad could happen to them.

But she'd said it all very flatly, clearly not interested in the topic. He wondered if he should talk about something more personal. Maybe he could ask why she wore less makeup than most people. Or, maybe he could inquire how had her own game of kill the carrier been? But that just seemed stupid. He toyed with the idea of finding out whether she liked any music—she'd seemed interested in Neil's They Might Be Giants shirt—but that was the cheesy sort of thing teenage boys were always asking teenage girls.

“So what was the deal with the silver pill?” he finally managed. That, at least, seemed a reasonable question. After all, he'd swallowed the thing.

“It's a PB, like the technician said,” replied Oma, offering a bemused sideways glance.

“Right, okay.”

“Why do you ask? Didn't you trust her? Or, is it
me
you don't trust?”

“Oh, I didn't mean it like that.”

She laughed. “I'm just messing with you. You absolutely should be curious about the fact that a machine was put inside your body.”

“A machine?”

“Yes, one that broadcasts your vital metrics to the government.”

“I guess, when you put it that way…”

“And that mechanically adheres to the wall of your small intestine for the
rest of your natural life
.”

“Well, she was a medical expert—and you yourself said it was okay to swallow it, right?”

“But think about it. It really does make you want to ask a whole bunch of
questions
, doesn't it?”

Patrick recognized the same line the superattendant had used and gave her a quizzical look.

“Hey! What's that on your arm?” She grabbed his wrist and examined the burn.

“Oh, yeah, I bumped it against this hot pipe at home. The letters kind of transferred, only backward—”

“Does it hurt?”

“That's the weirdest thing—it doesn't really at all unless I pinch it or something. I keep forgetting it's even there.”

“What's it say?”

“Now? I mean it reads backward from the pipe like I was saying, but I guess it spells ‘Ya Way.'”

Oma let go of his arm. Her eyes, he noticed, were glistening.

“Do you want to know why I put the pill through my ankh before you swallowed it?”

He had noticed her doing this and thought it strange, but hadn't exactly been dwelling on it—in terms of weird things that deserved some thought, his mind had lately become a crowded place.

“Okay, why?” he asked.

“Well,
if
I tell you, you have to swear not to say anything to
any
body, and especially not to Kempton.”

Patrick nodded. And promptly had his mind blown.

 

PART III: IMPRESARIOS

Keep smiling is what I say, it's better

to laugh than to do the other thing.

—A
NTHONY
B
URGESS,
The Wanting Seed,

bcp §3¶356

 

CHAPTER 36

Situational Assessment