The Firefly Code by Megan Frazer Blakemore

Author:Megan Frazer Blakemore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2016-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

We lined up from youngest to oldest. Julia had to hold her little brother, Caron. He’d never been very good at getting shots. “We can do it at the same time, maybe,” she suggested.

“Mary,” the first nurse called to the second one. “Take this one.” The first grabbed another syringe before scanning their eyeballs. “Energy a little low?” he asked Julia.

“I feel fine,” Julia replied.

“In bed by eight tonight. I’ll message your parents.”

Julia scowled, but there was nothing she could do about it. The nurses stood on either side of Julia and Caron and pricked them in unison. Julia bit her lip but didn’t complain. Caron started crying immediately.

The nurses got through the rest of the little ones, and then it was my turn. The nurse scanned my eyeball and made some notes on her tablet. “Please don’t say I have to be in bed by eight o’clock, too,” I joked. “I’ve been cooped up since the lockdown.”

“It wasn’t a lockdown,” the nurse said. Her hair was pulled up so tightly it yanked the edges of her eyes back. “It was simply a precautionary measure.”

“Right,” I said.

“Your father should have explained it to you,” she added.

“He was a little busy.”

She looked up from her tablet. “Yes, of course, Mori. Now then.” She selected a syringe from a different tray than she had for the others. This one had a blue band around it.

“Um,” I began. “Is that—”

“What’s the problem, Mori?” she asked.

“It’s just that it’s different from everyone else’s.”

The nurse pointed over to Benji, who was about to be pricked by the second nurse. His had a blue band as well. “There are slightly different variations based on individual biology. This is the one you need.” Her voice was clipped and sharp and made it perfectly clear that I was being rude.

“Sorry.”

It seemed to me that she took a certain pleasure from driving the syringe deep into my arm, where the pain bloomed like a bruise below my skin. I winced, but I wasn’t about to let her see me cry. “Thank you.”

Next to me, Benji yelled out, “Holy holy he—”

“An ice pack is available,” his nurse said, and gestured to a bin.

“I’m good,” he whispered.

Next up was Ilana. The nurse scanned her eyeballs and then said, “You’re all up-to-date. Must have done it at Calliope.”

“Calliope?” Ilana asked. “Back in California?”

“Yes, of course,” the nurse said.

“Lucky,” Benji said, still rubbing his arm.

Ilana looked at the nurse a moment longer, and then at the tray of syringes.

“This way,” I said, and we walked out of the inoculation room together. My arm ached like I’d been stung one last time by a yellow jacket, but all I could think about was how far away Ilana seemed.

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