Lies a Place

PART ONE

2050

ONE

Leilani

I watched the nurse’s thick, calloused hands intently.

Her grainy, sweet voice sent an alarm to my head.

“You’ll need to give yourself a shot twice a day.”

With those hands, she produced a long needle. “When

the calendar tells you to begin administration, you’ll

need to do this…” She inserted the needle into the

vial, then filled the syringe to the 10mL level.

With her flowery scrub top raised, she

pantomimed inserting the needle into her hairy

stomach. “You understand?” Her head lifted. Her

asparagus-colored dreadlocks nodded at me. Before

I responded, she straightened and approached me

with her needle raised high.

I pulled back. Sitting next to me, Yam placed his

hand on my knee. I touched it, covering mine over

his, and our fingers interlocked.

The nurse cleared her throat, a scold was there.

Yam and I both withdrew. “It’s okay,” she said. I

met her eyes and she nodded at our hands. “You can

comfort her. I will allow that touch.”

Yam slid his hand back into mine. For a moment,

I closed my eyes, picturing his hand strumming the

guitar strings, him singing, us laughing. Since our

first kiss, back home on the island, I had hoped we

might kiss again, but such contact was not allowed

while we were in Ashyr’s care.

“Leilani.” I opened my eyes to find the nurse

staring at me. “Can you give yourself these shots?”

My fingers tightened around Yam’s. “I can.”

Without asking, the nurse raised my tank top high,

revealing my belly button and the lower edge of my

bra. Yam turned away, as if giving me privacy. But as

his hand felt like it might leave too, I gripped it firmly,

leading him back to look at the large needle with me.

“You will go like this.” With a mechanical

motion, the nurse drew her arm back and then

moved it forward toward my belly.

Unintentionally, I gasped. My body pressed

against Yam.

The nurse laughed. “I didn’t do anything.”

I protected my belly with my free hand. “Well…I

thought you were coming at me, like you…” There

was too much panic in my voice. “Like you were

going to do it now.”

“I’m not.” She laughed again. “But I need you to,

so I know you can.”

I closed my eyes, wanting the needle to disappear.

I pictured myself back on the eighth floor of my

secure living quarters. Since I’d been in Ashyr’s care,

each evening, around the same time, I watched the

colorfully attired people on the gray streets below

pairing up through some ritual between them. As

night came on, they disappeared. Lights spread out

like a fan through the city. Their ritual served as my

daily entertainment, watching their bright specks

dance below me. People living, while I waited.

Waited for this.

“Leilani.” The nurse called me back. “If you

can’t give it to yourself, Jate will.”

I realigned myself in my seat and tensely dropped

my protective arm to my side. “Let me see it,” I said

strongly. While my other hand stayed locked on

Yam’s, I reached for the syringe. “I can do it.”

My handler, Jate, smelled. On first meeting her, the

foulness made me want to lose my first meal in L.A., a

tasteless lunch of soda crackers and bland cheese. Yam

had warned me that the food here was not good. What

he hadn’t warned me about were the smells.

I stared at the needle now. On that first day,

when I had asked Yam if he had smelled Jate, or his

handler, Kandi-Greene, who also made me hold my

breath when we met, Yam had only grinned. “You’ll

get used to it.” Later he explained, “It’s the perfumes.

Hairspray. Deodorant. Those are the smells.”

“It’s horrible,” I said.

“It’s how everyone smells here. You’re going to

see a lot of new things. Smell a lot of unique smells.

Everything is different here. You lived in a bubble.”

In my imaginary discussion with Dad…in a

fantasy world where I had forgiven him for lying

to me…where I magically understood why he had

kept the truth from me, letting me believe the island

we resided on was on Earth and not his invention

floating in its own orbit in the sky, he would explain

by saying, “We know how to keep clean with little

impact to our sphere. The island has a huge impact

on us and we on it.” Something like that.

“Show me.” The nurse nodded at the syringe in

my hand.

Yam had explained I would get used to the

smells but as I stared at the needle and thought of

Dad, and the island, and what he would say about

the smell, between the nurse’s odor as she hung over

me and the needle in my hand, nausea stirred up the

bland roast beef sandwich from lunch. “I thought

you said we weren’t doing it now,” I said, trying to

push down the fear.

The nurse’s eyes shifted to the hand-holding;

a scowl formed around her lips. Then her eyes

returned to the needle. A look of sadistic glee spread

over her face. “Do it,” she said.

Between the syringe in one hand and Yam’s hand

in the other, I felt she was now punishing me for

our touch. “You said….” the fear kept resurfacing

in my voice, “I needed to wait…until the time on

the calendar…” I cleared my throat. “Wait…until

I start this.”

The nurse nodded. “That’s saline solution.” The

gleeful look was still there, tight against the extra

makeup on her face. “It won’t hurt you. But you

need to show me you can do this. Can you?”

I tried to laugh it off, like of course I can. But

the sound, hollow and disgusted, turned against me.

“Do it.” The nurse’s large arm touched me, right

around my forearm.

I pulled back from her, letting go of Yam’s touch

too. He shifted to look at me directly.

“Can you do it?” he asked.

“Sure. Sure.” I couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

His hand pressed against my knee. “I can come

give them to you. Every morning, every night.”

“So can Jate,” the nurse replied.

“I can do it,” I said, speaking to the floor.

“Then,” the nurse cleared her throat, “go ahead.”

I touched the spot directly below my belly. Three.

Two. One. I jabbed it in and tried not to wince at

the pain.

“Very good.” She took the syringe from me.

“Begin once the calendar tells you to.”

* * *

Yam’s pacing reminded me of my dog, Huck. He

looked at the window like Huck looked at a fence:

a challenge that needed to be conquered, an exit to

somewhere else. I kept my voice level and cool. “A

bit anxious?”

He turned. “Just…”

I finished for him, “…ready to be out of here?”

After a short nod, he headed for the corner, for his

guitar that had saved us. Our daily ritual, him playing

for me, me singing along sometimes—even though he

sang better than me. A few days ago, he said he was

writing me a song that he wasn’t ready to share yet.

So I changed the mood with a teasing tone. “Is today

our day?” I asked over the strumming. “You finally

ready?” I gave him a hopeful smile.

But he didn’t smile back. “Ready for what? To

keep sitting here, doing nothing while Ashyr forgets

about us?”

These weren’t Yam’s words. The impatience, the

frustration—these had been my words countless

times. Other than our handlers, we saw no one else.

Other than my first visit to the clinic, we had never

left the building’s floor that housed our two little

apartments.

I tried to soothe the moment like he had done

for me countless times. “Play me your new song.

Please.”

In the oversized chair, with the black coffee table

between us, he shared no smile, just shook his head.

“Not yet.”

Usually I could spark a smile from him, but not

today. A few more strums from his guitar then he set

it down with a heavy sigh. He leaned back against

the chair and stared at his hand that bounced up

and down on his lap.

I missed holding that hand. Soon after our first

days, right after my lesson on administering my

own shots, we sat on the couch holding hands until

K.G., short for Kandi-Greene, saw. Then a long

lecture ensued. No touching! Jate was called in.

Immediately, I was put on birth control.

“In case you fall into archaic ways,” she had

said while her ankles bounced up and down. Jate

was like a dark purple bean. She was tall and her

limbs seemed to bend and curl constantly. Elbows

extended while wrists bent at her waist. Or a knee

folded to create an L-shape with her legs. Or her

moving ankles, up and down, like a human jumping

bean. Meanwhile, her face remained covered by her

dark purple hair. She hardly said anything and when

she did, it seemed more out of exasperation, like I

was a babysitting job that was taking its toll.

“We have strict instructions.” K.G. cracked his

knuckles while he spoke. Yam’s handler was a block:

a four-point square from shoulders to torso. He wore

a bright pink polo that fit tightly against his chest,

although it looked like he had a thin pillow shoved

underneath. Copper-colored bangs formed perfectly

looped curls against his forehead. More hair curled

around the chains that attached from the tops of his

ears to the gauges in his earlobes.

“And,” K.G. added, “we need to make sure

nothing goes against those instructions.”

“They’re worried,” Yam whispered, “that we’re

going to have—”

“Don’t say the word.” K.G. covered his ears.

His face cringed as if Yam had offered an obscenity.

Then he pointed back and forth between Yam and

me. “Do you understand? There is no touching!”

Yam shrugged as if K.G.’s words meant nothing

to him. So I nodded back. From then on, Jate made

sure that with every morning meal, a tiny pill was

waiting for me. When she first delivered it, it was

the first time I saw her smile through her long,

straight hair. “Once your cycle starts, there will be

more meds…plus the shots. But for now, we have to

ensure your cycle indeed begins.”

I didn’t like the way her lips curled up at me,

or the tiny little pill, or what was still to come—the

process, the huge demand on my body to create lots

of eggs for Ashyr.

Now, as I watched Yam’s hand bounce against

his knee, I hunted for our day’s conversation

topic. “What do you miss most right now…about

home?”

He shook his head like he didn’t want my help

over his grumpy mood. “You first,” he finally said.

I nodded. It was my job today to bring some

positive vibes, but as I started to answer a longing

grew in intensity. “The water. I miss the water,” I

said. “And my time of being with it every morning.

The smells in the air.” Even though Yam had been

right, because once I started using the soaps, lotions,

shampoos, conditioners, candles, air fresheners, and

everything else that existed in my secured living

quarters, I not only got used to the smells, I stank too.

And that was what I missed, the breeze of fresh air.

“They can’t fix it.”

His words cut right through my memory—

me standing in the water, the waves lapping over

my calves, the feeling of awe rushing through me.

Instead, his tone brought the fear, the wrong note,

the unfixable state of the island.

“I thought you said they could?” I asked lightly.

“You said Ashyr gave our dads what they needed to

repair the oxygen levels, right?”

“Something keeps happening, so they can’t keep

the levels balanced long-term.”

“They built the islands.” It still felt funny to say

those words. “They’ve kept both our homes running

for all these years.” In secret from me…but I left out

the self-commentary. Instead, I remained calm for

Yam. “They know how to make it work, so they’ll

get everything working again.”

“This is different.”

“How do you know that?”

“I talked with Baba today.”

My eyebrows shot up. “When?”

“Earlier this morning. I haven’t been able

to reach him for days.” Yam spoke as if his focus

had turned somewhere else. “He’s been too busy

investigating this.”

“How did you talk to him?”

“Just…” he shook his head. “Let me relay the

information.”

Once before, he had said that. He asked if I

wanted him to relay information to my dad—just

like that, so matter-of-factly, like he had another

phone with him that was different than the device

he’d first given me, which died after our second

day.

Apparently, that phone required a special charger

that was in his drone, which our dads were currently

using to fly back and forth between their islands. So

now I had silence, no communication with my family.

But he still had a working one. When I asked to

see it, he dismissed me. “It’s just something my baba

made for me.”

“Can I use it to talk to my dad?”

“Not yet. Besides, they’re busy.”

“Just let me talk to my dad.”

“I’ll let you know when you can.”

And that was it. Once before, when I had asked

why Jate and K.G. looked so odd, Yam had dismissed

me, saying “Everyone looks different here.

It’s the accessories. Just accept it.” It was this same

tone, this attempt to silence me. He used it whenever

he mentioned communicating with his dad. So here

it was again, another moment where that unrest

inside grew—at Yam, at my dad, at all the people

who wanted to control my life.

Before I even knew I was stuck inside a giant

bubble, I had felt trapped. But now, outside the

bubble, I felt even more trapped. Like I’d been thrust

inside tight, lead-laced shoes, trapped and bound.

Ashyr handing me off to Jate, forcing me to wait

until I gave him my eggs. Me waiting for Yam to let

me talk to my dad. My parents not reaching out to

talk to me and make sure I was okay.

“I should be there with him. Helping him,” Yam

said.

“Not here,” I said quietly, the unrest growing

stronger inside.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Waiting.”

“Waiting,” he said.

He looked around my living quarters. I did too, at

the gray tones on the cupboards, walls, ceilings, sofa.

Other than the black coffee table and the white drapes,

as well as a white vase and a black table and chairs, the

room just held a palette of grays. Color came when Jate

or K.G. entered the room. Same with when I looked

out the window in the evening. As the dusk settled on

the people, the gray streets and gray buildings were

offset by the brilliant colors of reds, blues, oranges,

greens, pinks, magentas, teals, turquoises, peaches, and

yellows that moved through the streets.

“Something isn’t right. I can tell,” he said.

“So let’s get out of here.”

His eyes questioned what I had just said.

I turned my head. “Or…” I focused on the black and-

white checkered board on the gray end table.

“Let’s play chess.” How sick of this game I was. As

I moved the board onto the coffee table, I redirected

the conversation again. “Have you noticed there

aren’t children here?”

“Leilani,” he said slowly. He waited until I glanced

at him. “We finish what we came to do.” I looked

back at the board, turning it to give him the white

colors this time, only to hear, “Then we go home.”

I jerked my head toward the outside window and

kept focused on my new conversation. “Whenever I

watch the people, I never see any children with them.”

“They are at the nursery.” He picked up a pawn.

It was his turn to go first. “Or the care center, or

whatever they call it.” He sounded so frustrated.

After he placed his pawn, I moved mine. “I want

to see the children.”

“Yes. Let’s see the reason we are here.” His frustration

shifted to sarcasm. “Let’s see the ones we are

helping.”

“Maybe I’ll ask Jate or K.G. to ask Ashyr. Maybe

he’ll let us see the children.”

“Sure.” He moved another pawn. “Maybe he

will.”