Is It All Stripey?

Val smiled, teeth sparkling with her not-friend’s bad news. Soon his dirty hands and un-brushed teeth would stop infecting her room every day; he’d be gone. Elly flapped her ears and swung her trunk, mirroring Val’s happiness. Meanwhile, the ten-year-old pestilence called “Ryan” opened Val’s window so he could have a smoke.

“Do you hafta do that here?” Val asked.

“Well I can’t do it in my room.” Ryan flicked his lighter, inhaled deep, and let the smoke leak out of his mouth and through the window.

“It makes the curtains smell.”

Ryan smiled like he knew a secret. “And yet you always want one.”

Val glared at him and took the cigarette from his hand. The smoke filled her, made her head fuzzy and her body jitter.

“So when’re you leaving?”

Ryan took the cigarette back. “My parents plan to move next week. They said the building next door’s cheaper.”

“You’ll be living in a closet.”

Ryan didn’t answer, just stared at the building next door: soon it’d be his home.

Val sat in front of her computer, went to the Metaboards, and skimmed through the forums. Plastered on the entire site was one broadcast: Metapets, Inc. had announced a new addition to their line. Everyone wanted to know more about the newest Metapet, the tiger. Speculation filled every post. Mostly it was just “Sugei!” and “I wonder what it is?!” because there were no pictures and no one had actually seen it.

“A tiger? What’s that?” Ryan asked.

“I don’t know, but the rumors say it’s all stripey.”

“Maybe they’re like zebras?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Val said. “I like the zebras. They-”

“Bleh, they’re girly Metapets,” Ryan interrupted.

Val ignored him. He called anything without sharp teeth “girly.”

A squeal sounded, and Val left her computer to kneel down in front of her elephant.

“Kawaii!” She smiled and watched her elephant trumpet out little squeaks.

Ryan rolled his eyes and sighed. “Girls…”

Val gritted her teeth to keep from yelling at him and continued to watch Elly stomp around in her little Habitat, a thirteen litre acrylic unit set up for an elephant. It had a dirt ground with patches of green grass, scattered shrubs smaller than Val’s pinkie, a crowd of miniature trees and banana plants along the side, and a pool of water deep enough for Elly to swim in. The environment simulator in the lid warmed Elly with its artificial sunlight. Knowing Val was watching, the elephant wanted to play. The single finger-like protuberance on the tip of Elly’s trunk was great for delicate procedures like the one she performed now: she picked up twigs and tossed them.

“Hey Val, are you going to the Metapets Annual Convention?”

“I dunno, are you?”

“Yeah, probably,” Ryan said. “I wanna enter Rex into the tournament.”

They looked down at his lion, Rex, in its own little Habitat next to Ryan on the bed.

“Didn’t the last Metapet you entered into a tournament lose?” Val asked.

“I didn’t train the crocodile enough.” Ryan paused, concentrated. “Rex can win.” The lion relaxed on the ground and yawned.

“I hate the tournaments,” Val said. “There’s so much blood. And I don’t want Elly to die.”

“Baka, like people would actually wanna watch two elephants fight.”

Val huffed. Isn’t his mom here to take him home yet?

Rex, a lion of average size at 5.5 centimeters long and 3.5 centimeters tall, flicked its tail and watched Val.

Stupid lion. You can go away, too.

Rex yawned.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Time to feed Elly. The rain inside the Habitat slowed and came to a stop. Val held the cylindrical container of baby elephant formula; the palm-sized can was red with a gray cartoon elephant on it. Val filled a tiny elephant bottle with the white liquid. She pressed a button on the Habitat’s lid and the beeping stopped. Elly lifted her domed head to look up and something like a smile spread across her face.

Can elephants smile? Val wondered.

She opened the top of the Habitat. Elly watched, swinging her tail. Val held the bottle low enough for Elly to reach it. The elephant put her mouth to the nipple and sucked until there was no formula left.

Next Val grabbed the other food container, labeled “Digestion and Nutritional Supplement.” She hated this stuff. It smelled nasty. She held her breath and opened the canister. With a pair of tiny rubber tongs, Val removed one clump of the supplement. She tried to be quick while being gentle; the stuff was like a ball of mud and would crumble if squeezed. She mashed the lid back onto the container and let herself breathe again. Val wrinkled her nose; the air still smelled like poo. She placed the brown clump on the ground in front of Elly. The elephant ate it, and feeding time was over.

Val fed Elly nonstop, every day. She was only six months old, still all tiny and fuzzy. Val had seen older elephants before, and they were a lot bigger than Elly—some were almost 7 centimeters tall! Elly was barely 3 centimeters tall and 3 centimeters long.

I wonder how big Elly will be when she grows up…

Elly looked up at Val and trumpeted a squeak. Val closed the lid and, with feeding taken care of, the rain inside the Habitat started back up.

The smell of warm dough thickened the air and teased Val’s tongue.

“Mom, aren’t the cookies ready yet?”

Her mom slid a pan of unbaked cookies into the oven. “Valentine, you can be patient.”

Val thrust out a pouty lower lip and huffed. Five minutes passed before the oven beeped and Val’s mom removed the sheet of cookies.

“Now can I have one?” Val asked.

“Wait until Ryan arrives.”

“Oh, Mom, why’s he gotta be here?”

“Don’t whine. This is the last time he’ll be over.”

Val glared at the front door in anticipation. The door glared back. Footsteps approached and Val sat up only to see her older sister, Chloe, step in. A walking need for booster shots, the teen’s clothes inspired an erection in every boy’s pants, and Val suspected Chloe’s skirt was actually a belt.

Val didn’t say ‘hi’; she never said much to her baita sister. Chloe tried to not be at home as much as possible, and Val had been fine with that ever since Ryan’s stupid question:

“Your sister screws every guy in the building, doesn’t she?”

Val and Ryan had almost had sex because she was nine and he was ten and that was all that mattered. But then he’d asked about that baka no baita, as if he hadn’t already been annoying. Now Val could stand him even less than before. Things between her and Ryan stung of missed opportunities.

Looking at Chloe, Val was pretty sure her sister didn’t know what a ‘missed opportunity’ was.

Finally Ryan arrived.

“Hi Mrs. Val’s Mom,” Ryan said, grinning as he sat down at the table.

Val spared a moment to give him a dirty look, but then the cookies were there and she forgot about Ryan’s annoying comments. Her mom placed a cup of vanilla soy malt on the table for each of them, and Val tried to focus on dipping her cookies. Nothing better than warm cookies dripping with malt. Ryan’s eyes followed Chloe; he looked hungry, but not for cookies. The baita swung her hips into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. Disappointment crushed Ryan’s expression. Val looked from the closed door to his face, picked up her malt, and smiled behind the cup.

“Do you have the newest issue of Metapets?” Ryan asked.

Val rummaged through a stack of papers and books and pulled out that month’s Metapets Magazine. Ryan grabbed it and began leafing through it.

“This is the last issue you’ll get to read here,” Val said. “What’re you gonna do then? Buy your own?”

“Nah,” he replied. “I’ll find some other bakamano with a subscription.”

Val rolled her eyes and turned her attention to Ryan’s lion. Rex wasn’t alone in his Habitat. Ryan glanced up from the magazine and noticed Val looking.

“Owen’s lending me one of his lions,” Ryan said. “Raina’s in estrus, and Owen said it’s good for Rex to have a companion once in a while.”

“I’m surprised your older brother lends you his Metapets.”

Val and Ryan watched the two lions in the Habitat. Rex mounted Raina and held on to the back of her neck with his teeth. Val’s wide eyes froze on Rex as the lion pounded away. A minute later he finished, and Raina snarled, lashed out. Rex jumped back, barely escaping her claws.

“Wha-? Why is Raina violent?” Val asked, shaken from the trance.

“I dunno,” Ryan said. “But she does it every time. I think maybe she doesn’t like it.”

“Why does she do it if she doesn’t enjoy it?”

Ryan shrugged. “What else is there to do?” He paused, then added, “I’ve seen him take her over thirty times in one day.”

Val’s eyes widened. “That’s a lot. Doesn’t Rex get tired?”

Ryan grinned. “I was talking about Owen and your sister.”

Val didn’t smile back, but that never stopped him. Then he moved to open the window.

“Do you hafta do that?” Val asked.

Ryan looked at her, and the routine played out for the last time.

Val watched the building next door through her window. She had always enjoyed looking out her window, just because she knew Ryan couldn’t. Ryan hadn’t lived in an apartment on the edge of the building, so his family had no windows. But now Ryan was gone, and Val couldn’t be mean and tell him about what she saw outside.

Patterns of steam danced in the hot air. The building next door was 500 meters away, and like Val’s it was 2 square kilometers in size. It filled her view with a fraction of its side. The sky darkened and windows lit up, frames for shadow puppets and their mundane performances.

Does Ryan have a window now?

Val looked at the windows, wondered if she could see Ryan, wondered if Ryan could see her. Something inside her ached, and she was confused.

I’m glad his mom can’t dump him here anymore, Val thought, forcing her anger up. She remembered one of the last things Ryan said to her:

“Owen said he’ll miss your baita sister. Said it’s too bad I never got my turn.”

Val’s jaw clenched. “Baka,” she muttered, thinking of Ryan.

She was mad, and happy he was gone, and still something ached.

It had been days since Ryan moved. Val’s window no longer held that spiteful pleasure; now it was just lonely.

“Kawaii!” Val squealed, watching Elly in her Habitat. Elly stood by the pool and used her trunk to suck up water and spray it on her back. Val read the Habitat’s digital readout. It was a hotter day than usual in there, and she was happy the temperature in her room was much lower.

Val opened the top and dropped in a bright blue ball she’d bought for Elly. It bounced and rolled and immediately caught the elephant’s attention. The ball was almost half the elephant’s size, reaching up a little past her belly. Elly chased the ball, kicking it along with her legs and pushing it with her trunk. Five minutes passed and Elly’s desire to see it roll was sated: now she looked for something new to do with it. She put her front legs on top of it for a moment, then flowed over the ball and trapped it under her belly. She collapsed on top of it, forced it to support her weight, and tried to get comfortable. Finally Elly came to rest on her side; she looked ready to nap with the ball as her bed.

Pop!

Gravity yanked Elly to the ground and she crashed on her side. Val laughed as a startled Elly struggled to regain her composure. What used to be a bouncy ball was now blue rubber flattened on the ground. Val opened the Habitat and removed the dead toy. The elephant watched and stared up at Val expectantly.

“You killed it,” Val told her. “I don’t have another one.”

Elly obviously didn’t understand; the elephant looked like she was smiling.

“You’ll hafta play with twigs again,” Val said.

Impatient, Elly stomped and sent dirt clouds up around her feet.

Val decided to let Elly pout and went back to her physics homework: so far this trimester science class was focusing on mesoscale and nanoscale physics. But learning about the nanowebs on electric paper was tedious, and Elly swinging her trunk and raining dirt down on herself was a fun distraction. Reading took twice as long because Val kept pausing to watch the elephant. As the sky outside darkened, so did the one in Elly’s Habitat. The elephant calmed down, and Val finally finished her homework. Then she checked the Metaboards, read speculations about the tiger, and got into bed. She curled up under the covers and hugged her purple elephant plush toy to her chest. She lost her fingers in its soft fur. The plushie was as big as her torso, filling her arms with cuddles. The room was dark and the Habitat was dark and Val and Elly both fell asleep.

The next day Val got up, got ready, and rode the elevator up to the Sixtieth Floor. Legions of children and teenagers in dark blue uniforms flowed from the elevators and filtered to their schools. Val found her friend Shika waiting for her and the two ambled to Zone Two, Primary School. They talked in their homeroom until the bell rang and then they split to their assigned seats.

All Class 4-C talked about was the tiger. A new ad had played during the Metapets cartoon and renewed everyone’s curiosity. No one knew what the new Metapet looked like, just that it was supposedly “stripey.” After each break the instructor had to refocus the class all over again. As the students participated in science, calculus, moral education, social studies, they strained to stay on task. After school the students cleaned their designated areas as fast possible, then hurried to go idle in the hallways and gossip. As Val and Shika walked to the elevators, Val noticed her class wasn’t the only one focused on the tiger: all the Primary School students—and even many of the Lower-Secondary and Upper-Secondary School students from Zones Three and Four—were conjecturing about the upcoming Metapet. She wondered if Ryan’s new school was the same way, overflowing with tiger rumors.

Val got home and ran to her room. She slung her book bag to floor, tore off her uniform, and changed into her loungewear. She looked into Elly’s Habitat and found the elephant over by the trees eating bananas.

“Valentine, I have a surprise for you,” Val heard a cheery voice behind her say. She turned to see her mom standing in the doorway.

“Ooh, what is it what is it?”Val bounced as she waited; then she saw the gift and bounced some more as she hugged her mom.

It was a new elephant toy! The bright orange ball sat in its blister card packaging. A happy cartoon elephant played with its ball on the red card backing. Val rent the packaging to pieces and ripped off the plastic blister to get to the ball inside. She opened Elly’s Habitat and held the ball over the elephant.

“Now don’t pop this one,” she told the now-excited Elly.

Val dropped the ball into the Habitat and Elly ran after her new toy, chasing and kicking it. Val’s mom watched with her for a moment, then wished her fun and went off to do housework.

The ball rolled into the pond and Elly ran in after it. The elephant swam for the ball and with some effort managed to push it up onto land. A bit of chasing and soon the ball was in the pond again. Val laughed and watched Elly play until dinner. After eating Val did her homework; her inefficient process consisted of about ten percent working and ninety percent watching Elly. The elephant was still hungry after Val fed her. Elly pulled up grass with her trunk and carefully brought it to her mouth to eat. Once she had her fill of grass she began scooping up dirt and eating that. Val found it easier and more entertaining to focus on dirt-eating than on derivatives and integrals. Slowly, slowly, Val finished her assignments only to find it time for bed. She pouted at the darkness.

Why does homework always take forever?

Time was filled with lots of classes and homework and playing with Elly. Val stopped in the toy store, all smiles. She wanted to try something new. She skipped from the store to the elevator all the way to her room.

Val popped open the canister of elephant treats. Inside was a stack of plump, orange pumpkins. She took one out and placed it on the ground in Elly’s Habitat. Elly pushed it around with her trunk like it was a ball. Val told Elly it was food, but the elephant just flapped her small ears and rolled the pumpkin across the ground. Val looked at the treats canister: on the front was a happy cartoon elephant standing on a pumpkin and on the back was lots of small text. She saw ingredients and how to open the canister and then there were the directions for “first times.”

When Val first got Elly, she had to teach the elephant everything. She remembered how clumsy Elly had been; the only thing she could do with her trunk was trip on it. She even fumbled with the bottle Val held at her mouth. And then there was the Digestion and Nutritional Supplement. Val had to put the clump directly into Elly’s mouth to get her to eat it. Holding the supplement in the tongs without breaking it while forcing it into Elly’s mouth had been an ordeal. The stuff was gross and Val was thankful she didn’t have to eat it.

Now, reading the directions, Val discovered she had to demonstrate to Elly how to eat the pumpkin. Val used her fingers to imitate stomping on the pumpkin. She coaxed and she mimed and finally the elephant got the message to crush it. Elly’s feet came down on the pumpkin and it shattered. She ran her trunk over the shards of orange shell, curious, interested. She ate it piece by piece, and when she placed each chunk in her mouth and chewed it looked like she was eating her trunk. Elly, tail swinging, looked up with clear, bright eyes, looked at Val like she was the world, Elly’s world. Val smiled and stroked Elly’s fuzzy back with her finger. Then she picked up the elephant’s orange ball and and rolled it through the grass; a gray blur followed behind.

Classes droned on and Val’s mind wandered: Would tigers and elephants get along? Maybe Elly would have a new playmate. Val imagined Elly and the tiger smiling, romping through thick grasses. Not knowing what it looked like, Val’s tiger ended up as a black and white striped elephant. They romped and played; Elly and the tiger were bestest friends.

Lunch, classes, group activities, cleaning. Finally school ended and Val hurried home to play with Elly. She kneeled in front of the Habitat and the smile fell from her face. Elly looked drained. The elephant stood by the pond, not moving. Val opened the Habitat and rolled the ball toward Elly, but the elephant wasn’t interested. Was Elly just tired? Val gently ran her finger over Elly’s fuzzy back and tried to comfort her, but the elephant didn’t respond.

Homework was slow. Val read a sentence, then looked to see if Elly was okay. Then Val read another sentence and checked on Elly again.

She couldn’t finish her homework. She watched Elly, but still nothing had changed when Val got into bed. Even bundled under the covers she shivered. The cold wouldn’t go away. Val curled around her purple elephant and clung to it all night.

The next day Val saw a change: Elly’s head was swollen, she hadn’t eaten, and she seemed even more lethargic than before. Val hugged herself, chilled: something was wrong, very wrong. She searched through a stack of papers for the instruction manual that came with elephants. Its bright red cover made it easy to find. On the front a gray cartoon elephant looked way too happy. In big, bold letters across the top was the title, “Sammy the Elephant.” The book was square and thin, filled with colorful pages that told Sammy’s story. The book began with a chapter about baby Sammy: “Sammy likes to eat once every hour for his first year”; “As Sammy grows, he likes different formulas”; “Sammy loves his bottle. He drinks from it for years.” Sammy grew throughout the book, and on one page was a cartoon elephant with a big smile throwing peanuts into the air, and underneath it read, “Sammy loves his 6 p.m. dinner.” Every page had a happy Sammy doing happy things. There was no mention anywhere of a diseased Sammy needing help.

Val sat down at her computer and went to the Metapets Website. Pictureless advertisements for the new tiger made patchworks of every page. Val tore through the site. She looked at frequent questions and troubleshooting and the Metaboards. There was no mention of how to treat a sick Metapet. Metapet, Inc. only gave instructions on how to get a defective Metapet replaced.

Elly had been so happy when she got her new ball. It wasn’t fair. Val wanted Elly to be playful. Her elephant was supposed to be happy and running and not looking miserable. She saw an email address to contact Metapets, Inc. but couldn’t find a phone number. Phones had to be answered, couldn’t be ignored, she wanted a phone number. Val went through the entire Metapets website again, but there was only the email address. Val wrote, said her elephant was sick and she needed help, Elly needed help. She rewrote it three times before sending it off. Moments later she received a message; it said they’d respond within six weeks.

Homework seemed unimportant, but Val forced herself to look at it. She piled the books on her desk and grabbed her plushie from the bed. She looked at antiderivatives with her purple elephant sitting in her lap. The numbers blurred together and she gave up without attempting a single problem. When she put down her pen to read about nanotechnology, Val strangled the plushie in a tight hug. But the jumbled words didn’t make any sense, and finally she abandoned her homework and packed it away, out of sight. Unable to focus on anything else, she again searched the internet for anything that could help Elly.

“My elephant, there’s something wrong with her,” Val told the man at the toy store.

The man behind the counter looked into the Habitat at Elly.

“You been feedin’ it the right stuff at the right times?” he asked. “There’s plenty of food here if you need to buy more.”

“No, I have food. Anyway, she’s stopped eating.”

“Well, if it’s broken you can buy a new one,” he said. “We’ve got lots here.”

Val glanced at the wall behind him; in the case were rows and rows of frozen baby Metapets in their little round capsules. Val looked from the man to Elly and back to the man.

“Can’t you fix her?” Val asked.

“Maybe it’s lonely,” he suggested. “You could buy it a new friend: a giraffe or another elephant.”

“I- I don’t think so.” Val glanced at the people wandering in the store. “Do you know anyone in the building who could fix her?”

The man took a moment to think. “Nope. Have you checked the Metapets website?”

“Yeah.” Her shoulders slumped. “They only have instructions for getting a replacement.”

“Well, I can help you pick out a new one here,” he said.

Val’s voice caught in her throat so she just shook her head no. She turned away and walked through the store, carrying Elly’s Habitat at her side. She wandered down aisles and ended up at the elephant toys. There were all different kinds: bouncy balls, metal barrels filled with food, rubber donuts, balls that jingled. She looked down into the Habitat. Elly’s ball was an orange tumor in the grass. But Elly loved that ball. She had chased it and smiled and been happy. Val’s eyes watered and her vision blurred. She wanted Elly to be happy. She grabbed a blister pack with the metal barrel and took it up to the counter. Even though the corners of her mouth were twitching, she tried to smile at Elly.

“This is a gift…” Her voice wavered, she struggled to talk. “For when you feel better.”

“Please Dad, I hafta go.”

Val’s father gave her one of his stern looks, one of those looks that told her she couldn’t win. But that never stopped her from trying.

“Valentine, the water rose higher than we’ve ever seen it in our Geocord,” her father said. “Some of the older buildings have had problems with flooding, and it’s not safe for you to go by yourself.”

Anticipating Val’s continued pleading, her father unrolled his map. It showed their Geocord, 40/-73, and the nearby 40/-74. He flattened it on the kitchen table for her to see. Val looked and her heart sank like dead weight. She could see areas of water turning a darker blue, indicating an increased depth. Not only that, but her dad was right about the buildings: red X’s marked the ones with problems, and some were between her and the convention center in District 4-0, 40/-74.

“Please, can’t you take me Dad?”

“Valentine, your mother and I have a wedding to go to,” he told her. “You know that.”

Val paused to think and her face brightened. “What if Ryan’s going? Can I go with him? His dad or brother will be taking him, I can go with them.”

Her father rolled up the map. “Maybe.”

Val ran to her room and started a new message on her computer.

“Hi, Ryan!” she said. “You said you’re going to the Metapets Convention, right? Is anyone else going with you?”

Val sent him the message and hoped she hadn’t spoken too fast. Then she waited. She watched sixty seconds pass. Then five minutes. She turned and looked at Elly. Pink stained the elephant’s trunk and front legs like splashes of blood, and her mottled ears were more red than gray. The purple elephant plushie was in Val’s arms, but she couldn’t recall grabbing it. Ten minutes. Val took out her homework and tried to concentrate on it. She stared at the words in her textbook—twenty minutes—rereading the same paragraph over and over—thirty minutes—and never remembering a bit of it. Val tried to focus—forty minutes—by staring at the words harder. Still, she kept looking up at the screen—fifty minutes—to see if Ryan had answered yet—sixty minutes—even though her computer would beep at her when he did.

Dinner time. Val ate so fast it made her throat raw; her stomach churned and gurgled at her. She jumped up from the table and raced back to her room and-

Ryan still hadn’t answered.

Val watched cartoons on the screen in the media room. Her purple elephant was in her arms, watching with her. In this episode of Metapets, someone new had just moved in. Oscar—a crocodile with round teeth and a plump body—and Sammy the elephant visited their new neighbor, but before the newcomer could appear the show faded and went to a commercial break. An ad for the tiger ran first. Lots of promises, lots of hype and insistent reminders about preordering, but the tiger was never shown.

The cartoon continued. Sammy and Oscar met their new neighbor, Fawn, a deer with pencil legs supporting a cannonball-like body. Val’s friend Shika had owned a deer, named her Rin. Rin was brown and soft and didn’t really look like the deer in the cartoon. Her Habitat had been all high green grass and blossoming trees. Rin’s liquid body flowed in graceful movements. There was grazing and there was dancing, but Val’s most vivid memory of Rin was her death.

Shika held the funeral in the hallway, in front of the incinerator shoot. The ceremony was a congregation of Shika and Val. Shika’s mother had given her an old cardboard jewelry box to put Rin in. At the funeral, Shika let the box sit in the palm of her hand, the expression on her face pained as if she held glass shards. Red and blue swirls of glitter stretched over the box’s surface like ocean waves. Curly ribbons, bow-tied ribbons, even knotted ribbons were glued to it in a cacophony of colors. The casket smeared trails of glitter on Shika’s hands.

Shika paused and peered inside the box to take one last look at her deer. Then she let the box go, and Val and Shika listened to it slide down the chute. The echoes died and Shika stood, and she stood, and when she finally walked away she still didn’t seem ready. Val walked home with her, but neither of them said anything. Shika’s head hung, strands of hair falling to cover her face like cerements. She hid her tears behind her hair and Val pretended not to notice.

Would Shika come to Elly’s funeral? Would Val decorate Elly’s casket with glitter and ribbons?

A trumpet sounded and Val’s spine snapped to attention. On the screen, Sammy bounced up and down, causing the ground to quake and Fawn to topple over. Sammy blushed and the three Metapets laughed. They laughed and looked happy.

No, no funeral. Val’s only option was to attend the convention. She had to. She would attend the convention and get Elly better.

She had to.

The Submerged Transit website was as user friendly as a labyrinth paved with broken glass. Val plodded through a maze of pages crusted with data until she finally found the maps and schedules. She needed the shinkansen route from her building in Residential District 4-5, 40/-73, to the convention center in District 4-0, 40/-74. Val had to decipher the strange language of the Submerged Transit, with its “Yellow Line” and its “southbound.” Loud colors scrawled crooked lines across the maps and circles marked each stop, too many circles and too many crossing lines. The tangle of routes burned her eyes with its garish chaos.

Val rifled through her book bag, ignored her untouched homework, and found a scrap of paper to write down the directions to the convention center on. The Orange Line would take her most of the way there, and the Blue would take her the rest. She just had to remember which stops to get off at and all those numbers and-

Val squeezed her eyes shut, hugged her purple plushie, and hoped she didn’t get lost.

Val and Chloe sat at the kitchen table as their parents ran in circles preparing to leave. The girls’ mom wore a black glittering dress that could’ve substituted for the night sky. On the wall was a long map of the building. Details of the wedding marked the garden on the One Hundred and Nineteenth Floor and said it started soon. In a few minutes the map would change to say, “Wedding in Progress.” Most of the floors between Seventy and One Hundred and Thirty were labeled with some sort of special occasion, and with the building being 2 kilometers by 2 kilometers, many of the floors had more than one event going on.

“And there’s the hospital,” the girls’ mom said, pointing to a floor marked with a giant red heart.

“We know, Mom,” Chloe interrupted.

“And here’s the doctor’s card.” Their mother tapped a business card on the table and ignored Chloe’s impatience. It was almost time for the wedding to start and Val’s mom hadn’t even gotten to the don’t-open-the-door-for-strangers talk yet.

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Kuso…”

Their parents left for the wedding. Minutes later, Chloe opened the door and let in some guy Val had never seen before. The two went directly to Chloe’s room and closed the door.

At least the baita’s predictable, Val thought.

Val waited in her room, heart pounding, body trembling. She waited and made sure her parents were gone, made sure Chloe was busy in her room.

Val crept closer to the door and listened. She heard flesh thumping against wood. Stories Owen had told and Ryan had repeated whispered in her ear. Chloe would be taking it from behind, her face and chest pressed against her desk. Next it would be in the swivel chair.

Well, she won’t be leaving her room anytime soon.

Val put her phone in her pocket and grabbed Elly in her Habitat. She listened a moment more to the sounds of Chloe and some guy curing their boredom, then was out the door and in the elevator. Jitteriness pumped through her veins. During the ride down it felt like time was freezing; every floor went by slower than the one before.

Val looked up. The people in the elevator loomed over her. She waited for one of the adults to tell her she shouldn’t be there, to take her back to her apartment and tell her parents and she would be in big trouble and Elly wouldn’t get fixed. But nothing happened, and she stepped off at the ground floor. She walked at the rear of a crowd of people through the large reception area.

The entrance took up most of the wall. Val walked through the first set of doors. They closed, and the second set of doors opened. Val walked out and left the building for the first time. On impulse she looked up at the tube’s ceiling. It was round—the entire tube was one long, transparent archway. Water surrounded her, dark clouds suspended throughout, swirling almost imperceptibly in a slow dance. Looking straight up, the water grew so dark she couldn’t see the surface. Her breath caught in her throat. Just recently her class had discussed the layered polymer nanocomposites used to create the underwater tunnels, but until now she hadn’t understood it, hadn’t appreciated it. Now that she saw the clear archways holding back the never-ending sea her heart and head swam, lost in the hollows. For a moment she felt crushed under the weight of the water, felt the ocean devour her. The only thing separating her from a charnel of salt was the plastic steel she could look right through, like it wasn’t even there. She couldn’t feel her dad’s hand, searched for it, tried to hold on tighter. But he wasn’t there. Val did the only thing she could to: she tightened her grip on the Habitat’s handle. Her pulse seethed with panic; she closed her eyes, breathed deep, and tried to quiet her heart before it bruised.

Val’s focus returned to the horizontal and she realized she was lagging behind the crowd. So much smaller than everyone else, she jogged to catch up. She felt better keeping up with the adults, walking at the back of the group. They came to a stop at the end of the walkway where it joined with the much larger shinkansen tunnel. Everyone stood around, waiting. Val tried to force her body to calm, tried to stand there like everything was normal and she was supposed to be there. But she couldn’t stand still. She looked back, expected to see Chloe or her parents race through the doors to get her. She took the scrap of paper out of her pocket and double-checked which line she needed to get on.

Orange, I need to get on Orange. Orange.

She repeated it over and over in head until a growing echo distracted her. Val looked out the side of the tube and could see the shinkansen approaching through the murky water. It sped through its massive tunnel and came to a violent stop. The shinkansen’s doors opened and people stepped off while others stepped on.

Which color is it which color is it?

Val searched the shinkansen’s side, searched for the one word.

Where is it where is it where is it?

Panic engulfed her. She couldn’t find the color. Then she saw, in big letters over every door, “ORANGE.” Her face grew warm and her cheeks reddened as she scurried on. Inside, the car was a neutral, colorless hue that drained the life from the large crowd of people, a crowd made mostly of men and women in stiff gray business suits. She couldn’t see an open seat from where she stood and was too embarrassed to go looking for one. Val grabbed onto a pole with her free hand just before the shinkansen burst into motion. She scooted her feet and shifted her weight until she stopped feeling like she might topple over. The shinkansen stopped in front of Ryan’s building. Her eyes scanned the crowd, searched for the familiar face. But there was no Ryan, and the doors closed.

Val looked around at all the people. Most looked like professionals of some sort, people who sat in those confining, geometric cubicles behind a tightly organized desk. Scattered through the crowd were girls painted with makeup; cheap lingerie supported breasts that could crush mountains. They smiled and made eyes at businessmen and women alike. Val had heard about prostitutes on the shinkansen: there were numerous stories of baita making their money without leaving the cars.

Her attention turned to the windows. She watched whorls in the blackish-blue water speed by in a blur; a little way out she could see buildings. Most were well kept and waterproofed, but occasionally there passed crumbled ruins, collapsed piles of dark metal beams and large chunks of concrete. The shinkansen stopped and some passengers left while new ones boarded, but Val paid no attention. Not far off stood a dilapidated structure, a grid of metal and giant blue X’s entombed in the water. Val was able to make out a marred sign on it that read “Port Auth . . . . . . Terminal.” She stared at it and shivered. Her fist tightened around the Habitat’s handle and she wondered how much longer it would be to her stop.

Val pressed her fingertips against her ear to see if it was bleeding. There was no blood, at least not yet. An onslaught of wordless voices mauled her nerves with claws and teeth and pain and just trying to focus exhausted her.

The convention swallowed her whole. People were packed together with no room to breathe. Bright yellows and grays and greens swam through the crowd, children and adults costumed as their favorite Metapets, with snouts and trunks and tails and claws. Val was lost in an endless maze of cubicles where toys and extravagant Habitats and colorful books were being sold. No booth was without signs screaming “Collectible” and “Limited Edition,” and no parent was without an armload of bags and plushies. A line of hundreds of people broke through the crowds. Hundreds of people signing up for the tournament, signing up to have their Metapets flayed. A dining area to Val’s right had round metal tables and chairs where families were enjoying Metapets cookies and vanilla soy malt.

Val’s heart raced, panic filled her. She didn’t know where she was supposed to be, where she needed to go. The information booths were loaded with people with lots of questions, none anywhere near as important as hers. Why couldn’t there be a booth marked with a big red heart, with a sign saying “Metapets Doctor”? A sepulchral chill clung to Val’s skin. She clutched Elly’s Habitat to her chest, her arms wrapped around the plastic, squeezing it, hugging it close.

A glimpse of disheveled brown hair and an annoying grin. Then the boy turned and all Val could see was the back of his head. Was that Ryan? It had to be Ryan. Maybe he’d been there longer. Maybe he’d know where a doctor was.

“Ryan!” Val tried to catch up to him, but the tide of people kept forcing her back. She could hardly see him, he was too far away. She tried to push ahead, but the current was too strong. But what if he knew where a doctor was? What if he knew? “Ryan!” Val was loud, but the convention was louder. Ryan didn’t turn around, didn’t see her. Now she couldn’t see him.

The crowd of people thickened, stopped the tide like a dam. Not even a trickle, she couldn’t move.

“Here it is!” Val heard someone shout. It was loud enough she could actually understand it, loud enough to catch her attention.

She looked around, turning in circles to locate the source. She saw a man standing above the crowd on a stage. His arms were in the air like he had something important to say. Next to him a tall, rectangular object hid under a shimmering curtain.

Not a doctor. Val searched for openings in the crowd, squeezed through walls of spectators. But more people poured forward, pushed her toward the stage.

“Here’s what you’ve all been waiting for!”

The crowd towered above her. Val was lost, couldn’t see over the heads, couldn’t breathe, would drown in a sea of bodies. She was lost in the people’s shadows. Even on her tiptoes, backs and shoulder blades flooded her vision. She stretched her spine, strained her neck, and winced at her pinched nerves.

Her vertebrae curled, tried to pull her head to her stomach. She blinked and found herself looking down, looking into the Habitat in her arms. Elly was on the ground, on her side. Her trunk writhed in small, dying waves. Val’s mouth hung open, her eyes wide, staring. She fell to her knees, barely felt the shock that tore through her, exploded in her legs, wrenched her neck. The Habitat slipped through her arms, touched onto the ground.

“An exclusive sneak peak-!”

Val’s hands were numb, her fingers clumsy. She fumbled to dislodge the latches, to open the lid. She scooped up her elephant, held Elly in the palm of her hand. She felt the warmness, the chest rise and fall. She didn’t know what to do, could feel Elly’s labored breathing, needed to breathe, put a finger on Elly’s chest, pressed down, so gentle, tried to help her breathe. No change, not better. She dipped her finger in Elly’s pond, brought it still wet to Elly’s mouth. But nothing. Felt her breath, the tiniest wind, felt her chest rise and fall, rise and fall. Fall. Fall.

“For the first time ever-!”

A weight was in the palm of Val’s hand. Just weight. Her entire body was still, Elly’s body, Val’s body. Nothing but stillness. Val was gone, couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t feel her heart beat. Everything was cold, her body was frozen.

“The tiger!”

Somewhere far away Val heard the crowd’s eyes widen, heard them smile. She was surrounded by strangers. The deluge of spectators moved forward, flowed around her. Unknowns brushed against Val’s skin. She heard the sound of movement. The crowd parted and people shuffled elsewhere. Val was still on her knees, still had the weight in her hands. But now she was alone. Everyone was gone.

Val’s eyes looked over the floor, a long stretch of floor, gray and empty. She raised her head, saw the stage. Distant echoes in her mind hinted at what the stage held, whispered what waited ahead. The world swam in and out of focus. Something was there, something she used to care about long ago. Her gaze crawled. Val looked up and she could see.