Adaline Read online

  Adaline

  Denise Kawaii

  © 2017 Denise Kawaii

  All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced without expressed permission from the author. Requests for use may be directed to www.KawaiiTimes.com

  Adaline, Book One

  First Edition: September 2014

  Second Edition: December 2016

  Second Printing (2nd Ed.): March 2017

  ISBN: 1541000560

  ISBN-13: 978-1541000568

  For Beth and Debbie.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Adaline would not have been written without the encouragement of a throng of people. I am most grateful to my husband who lets me write at the front desk instead of doing more important things like talking to people, and to my son who somehow finds ways to entertain himself while I'm buried in books.

  I'd like to thank Susan and Kati for their enthusiasm for beta-reading. Thank you to my Mom for pushing my books onto her friends as if they were the next "miracle drug", and to the rest of our family and friends who support my endeavors. Thanks to Tara, Elise and Kendra for not thinking I'm too crazy, and to Alison for telling me it's OK to be too crazy.

  Many thanks to everyone who has ever read my work. Every purchase, review, and reader who stops me in my tracks to tell me about how much they enjoyed one of my books makes me feel a little bit more like a writer.

  Table of Contents

  Adaline

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  It had been 2,920 cycles since Boy 1124562 was animated. The scrolling sign posted outside his cube counted each moment of his life, showing statistics of weight and height almost identical to the other Boys in his pod.

  Only 35 of those cycles had been spent at the Career Aptitude Testing compound. Before this cube, with its steel walls implanted with sensors, he lived life in the Nursery with the others. The Nursery was open and airy. He had been able to sleep soundly, snuggled against the warm bodies of the other Boys.

  In the testing compound he was still among Boys he knew, but they weren’t allowed to play with each other the way they used to. Each had a cube of their own. It was bearable during the day, but sleeping alone was scary and strange to 1124562.

  He tossed and turned in his cube, careful not to touch the sensors on the walls that alerted the Nurses to his restlessness. The first night he had pushed against a sensor in sleepy frustration as he fought with his blanket. Almost instantly a Nurse had come to the cube door. It wasn’t like when the Nannies came into the Nursery to gently lull the Boys to sleep with the rhythmic clicking and humming of their gears and circuits. The Nurse sprayed something into his cube that made his eyes heavy and caused him to him gasp for air until he fell to the floor in a deep and strange sleep that made his head ache the next morning.

  Instead of thrashing about and alerting a Nurse to his sleeplessness, he learned to lie quiet and still on the warm floor covered by his blanket. There was nothing to do but stare out across the hall at the pale blue scrolling statistics of Boy 1123856.

  Cycles since animation… 2,920… Height… 114.3 centimeters… Weight… 25.945 kilograms … C.A.T. Result: unknown

  1124562 wasn’t sure what the Career Aptitude Testing compound was for, or what the C.A.T. Result was supposed to mean. All he knew was that aside from the quiet sound of dozens of chests rising and falling in unified sleep the pod lay silent. The stillness made him afraid.

  It seemed as if he waited in silence forever before the bright tubes of white light flickered and began to glow through the thin clear panels above him. He rubbed his eyes to adjust to the bright light but continued staring at the statistics board of the Boy across the hall. It flickered and updated to read: Cycles since animation… 2,921. Boy 1124562 pushed the blanket off and sat upright in his cube, wiping the dryness out of his tired eyes.

  Although his body was exhausted from another night without sleep his senses were alert to the sights and sounds of the other Boys waking in their cubes. He heard each of them stirring from beneath identical white blankets. He imagined each of them putting away their blankets and sitting cross-legged without touching the walls as they patiently waited for breakfast.

  1124562 folded his own blanket and put it away neatly behind the small square door marked Blanket before taking the same position in the center of his cube. He closed his eyes and listened for the familiar sounds of breakfast rolling through the steel. His mouth watered as the noise of hundreds of meals tumbling through tubes grew louder. The almost invisible door above him swung open and then clicked shut, depositing three perfectly round breakfast tablets into the bin on the wall marked Food.

  “Remember, breakfast is the most important meal of the cycle. Eat up Boys, so that each of you can grow up to be big and strong.” A cold as steel voice repeated the greeting the same way it had every morning since the Boys arrived at C.A.T. Boy 1124562 wasn’t sure where the voice came from, but he imagined it was seeping out of the dozens of Nurses that patrolled the halls.

  Dutifully, 1124562 picked up the tablets from the bin, put them in his mouth and chewed them until they turned into a sticky paste against his tongue. He reached up to the ceiling of the pod and pulled down a thin retractable hose, biting the end until the cool liquid forced its way through the slit at the end of the tube. With a few silent sucks from the chute marked Drink, he was able to swallow his breakfast down and feel the satisfaction of a full stomach.

  With the excitement of breakfast gone, there was nothing to do but wait for one of the Nurses to let him out of the cube so that he could get ready for class. 1124562 sat perfectly still, closing his eyes and regulating his breathing to stay as quiet as possible. He craved the moment when the Nurse would tell him what a good Boy he had been and let him out into the Dressing Hall. Not only did being a good Boy make him happy, but he’d also get to finally relieve himself and change into a fresh set of clothes.

  Not long after he first arrived, 1124562 discovered that Boys who fussed or complained weren’t let out of their cubes. Instead they were sprayed down with the sticky fog that forced them to sleep. The second time he got the fog, it was because he begged the Nurse to let him out before the scheduled time. During the night he drank too much liquid and had to relieve himself so much that it hurt. The Nurse didn't respond to his cries with help and concern; it merely sprayed him. Almost immediately, he’d fallen into a crumple on the floor only to wake up later covered in his own soil and stink.

  “Bad Boys aren’t allowed in class,” one of the Nurses had told him when the sen
sors in his cube alerted it that he was awake the next cycle. Unlike a few of the Boys in his pod who were sprayed many times before learning their lesson, 1124562 vowed that he would never act out again.

  The time finally came for the Nurses to roll across the hard floors on their shiny polished wheels to open the doors to the cubes. One of them stopped in front of 1124562’s door and put its arm into the data lock just outside. The Nurse's eyes blinked yellow and blue as it downloaded the data from the previous night, and then shone bright green.

  “You’ve been a very good Boy, 1124562. Welcome to cycle number 2,921. Please make your way to the Dressing Hall and prepare for class.”

  The Nurse unlocked the door and moved away from his cube before 1124562 felt comfortable leaving the tight space. Once he heard it speaking to the Boy in the next cube over he crawled through the low door and stood up straight in the hallway. He stretched his arms and legs as far as they would go and nodded a silent hello to the other Boys spilling into the hall.

  A shrill scream cut through the quiet bustle of the morning as a Nurse sprayed mist into one of the cubes. 1124562 and the other Boys pretended not to hear and silently began walking away from the cries coming from the Boy who had not behaved. It was only a moment before the fog silenced the Boy. The hall fell silent again aside from the muted voices of Nurses unlocking doors and the quiet shuffle of bare feet against cement.

  The Boys spilling into the hall began to flow quickly towards the dressing area. As 1124562 followed the mass of brothers ahead of him, he looked up. High above them was the long tube system that had brought them breakfast. The delivery system was beautiful; dozens of tubes running the length of the hall at just enough of an incline to keep the food rolling towards the cubes. A scanner at each intersection counted portions for each meal before allowing the tablets to fall into the feeder of the Boy below. It then signaled the tiny trap door to shut so that the tablets behind it could continue their course to Boys farther down the line.

  The tube system ended abruptly at the door to the Dressing Hall. He entered one of many lines for fresh clothes, still deep in thought about the feed system. The line moved quickly as each Boy passed through the scanning system that identified their number, checked their body for injuries or illness and then dropped fresh clothes into a bin at the front of the line.

  Obediently, 1124562 took the clean clothes assigned to him and moved farther into the cavernous room. He filed into another line for the shower. When it was his turn, he slipped out of his tunic and stood rigid for 120 seconds while he was washed vigorously from head to toe by a Shower Assistant. The moment the icy cold water stopped, a blast of hot air engulfed him to dry him off. Scanned again to ensure he was clean, he stepped into the lightweight pants and smock and moved toward the exit so another Boy could do the same.

  1124562 wondered what happened to the dirty clothes when he dropped them into a bottomless basket near the Dressing Hall’s exit. He didn’t have time to ponder the fate of the soiled clothes for long though; the moment he passed through the narrow opening he was crowded by his brothers as they pushed along the long and dimly lit tunnel that led to the school.

  The tunnel was narrow with a ceiling so low that Boy 1124562 had to fight the urge to reach up and touch it. He knew if he did, the sensors would react and Transportation Aides would emerge from their places hidden behind panels that blended into the walls. They would search him out of the group and whisk him away to an unseen corridor where he could be reprimanded. That was the problem with the grey mist; it was hard for the machines to direct and could easily be breathed by good Boys on accident if they stood too close. The threat of the Machines kept 1124562 from acting out many of his urges, and prevented him from exploring the hidden corridors and shiny contraptions that piqued his curiosity.

  His skin crawled at the thought of the Machines touching him with their spongy rubber hands. Their fingers were covered in silent sensors that seemed to pull data from him as they hovered over his skin. A shiver ran through him as he thought about the feel of their cold breath, fanning out from their faces with a metallic smell. Some of them were almost indistinguishable from Men until they came close enough to smell hydraulics lurking beneath their synthetic skin and see the ticking gears move through the glass of their perfectly formed eyes.

  Boy 1124562 knew that the Machines were his superiors, and fought the urge to squirm or run away when they came near him. Anything that might be interpreted as disobedience was rewarded with the sticky sleep-spray. While most of the Boys found themselves returned to their cube when they woke, some Boys weren’t seen again in the pod.

  1124562 felt a wave of relief when he finally reached the door to his classroom and was able to break away from the crowd. He took a couple of deep breaths before ambling over to his desk and taking a seat.

  Until C.A.T., 1124562 had only seen a Man once before. The first day of class he was surprised when one entered the room. Each of the curious students fought back the urge to bombard the old human with questions, sitting politely in their desks with curiosity burning inside of them like roaring fires. His low number, 2871, was proof that he was very old. He would have been animated tens of thousands of cycles before the group he now taught. 1124562 was sure he wasn’t the only one staring at the Man's long black robe and wiry hair sprouting out unnaturally from his face instead of growing atop his head.

  This cycle, each of the Boys took their seats in front of their assigned tablets. One by one their faces relaxed and they began to talk openly to each other. 1124562 kept to himself though, consumed with watching 2871 as he scrolled through the cycle’s tests.

  The Man found what he was looking for and flicked his wrist to push it from the tablet in his lap and onto the wall behind him. The wall was not like the cold metallic walls in the other rooms. It glowed steadily white and functioned just like the tablets. 2871 touched the wall without fear or hesitation, and the wall responded by altering the projected image according to the direction of his hands. 1124562 ached to become as confident and unafraid as the Man before him.

  The last Boy was seated and 2871 turned to face the class. “This cycle, dear Boys, before we begin our tests I thought we would have a brief discussion. I am sure that by now you have become accustomed to the routine in your pods and learned to behave like good Boys.” 2871 sat down in the high-backed chair hovering at the front of the room and folded his arms against his chest. “But, I am also sure that you have had time to form questions, thoughts and concerns about what you are doing here.”

  Most of the Boys fidgeted, staring at their blank tablets and stealing quick uncertain glances around the room but 1124562 immediately touched the button on his tablet indicating that he had a question.

  “Before I answer any questions, let me say that I have no intention of calling you each by your very long identification numbers." The teacher looked briefly at the list of student numbers and groaned. "They seem to get longer with every class, and my mind just can't keep up. Instead, I will call you by your last two digits, and I ask that you please do the same. You, 62,” the Man touched his own tablet to quiet 1124562's blinking light on the projected screen behind him. “What is your question?”

  “What is Career Aptitude Testing?”

  “Ah, a wonderful question to begin our discussion.” The Man looked intently into the face of each student before speaking again, the silent pause making the Boys stare back at him in nervous anticipation. “Each of you has his own unique talents. Although we all look the same at animation, we each carry our own strengths and weaknesses. This compound is a place where Boys come to learn to live separately, and are tested to find what those individual strengths and weaknesses are. When you complete your testing and basic function training, you will be sorted into careers and will be trained to work for the betterment of Adaline.”

  Instantly the projected tablet began to flash with questions from the other Boys in the room. “18, what is your question?”

  A
Boy on the other end of the room asked quickly, “What is Adaline?”

  The teacher’s face broke into a soft, warm smile. The curves of his face were very unlike the rigid grins of the Nurses. His eyes closed as his cheeks lifted and his eyebrows rose, causing the Boys to smile automatically in return. “Adaline is everything, dear Boy. It is the ground beneath your feet and the nitrogen-oxygen blend in your lungs. It is the world we exist in, and no one in Adaline knows just how far it reaches. It spans many kilometers in every direction, home to thousands of pods and compounds just like this one.”

  The next Boy piped in, without waiting for his number to be called. “What is the Community?”

  “The Community is our governing body. It lays out the rules and structure that we follow. If you think of the Community as a giant Machine, we humans are the gears and pistons that make the Machine work. Each of us has a different function, but we all work together to keep the machine moving smoothly. The real Machines that guide us; Nurses, Assistants, Aides and others that you will meet are like the circuits that command each of the gears and pistons to move and sense when there is a malfunction in the system.” 71’s speech broke as he glanced at the wall behind him. “99, what is your question?”

  “What is a career, and how do we know what to do with it?”

  “A career is a job function. It is your individual contribution within the Community. My job function, for example, is that of Teacher. When I was a Boy…” A quick gasp filled the room, interrupting 71’s explanation. He burst out in laughter and looked around the room to the wide-eyed astonishment of the Boys around him. “Well, I may be old, but I was a Boy once! Yes, just like you I was young and full of my own questions. When it was my time to be tested, I was given the career of Teacher and I have performed my function for more cycles than I care to count.”

  The screen on the wall flashed again with questions from throughout the room. “Boy 57, let’s give your question a go.”