The Biotechnology Board of Canada and Other Bloodsuckers (1.1)

I think everyone has the same dream, deep down. I know I do.

A world where you don’t have to run for your life.

Antoine locks the door and slides a few tables in front of it, grunting and sweating and swearing under his breath. He’s watching the street outside for the nightmare, the manifestation of the word staring back at us from our phone screens.

“Monster.”

People have been calling it a cliche for centuries. What the fuck else do you call them? It’s what they are. Whether it’s childish or not, they’ll kill you all the same. The warning’s been flashing on our screens for ten minutes now. That’s real.

They’re not supposed to be here in Montreal. I mean, we’re in Laurier-Est. It might as well be the center of the world. Canada has more superheroes—oh, or is that childish too? I sure need a hero right now—than anywhere else on the planet, and the Toronto-Montreal corridor has the most in Canada, and they’re nowhere.

It could be stalking or stomping or slithering up the street right now, murder in its hollow eyes, and we might not even know. It’d batter that door down and we’d barely have time to scream, Antoine or no Antoine.

“See?” he says, wiping his brow. “If I hadn’t gotten this sad, pathetic job slinging paninis, you’d all be out there with the monster.”

Four scared teenagers all react with various blends of derision and disgust, myself included.

“Yeah, we’d be getting boba downtown instead!”

“You’d have to open up for us anyway. It’s the law.” That’s me. I’m such a dweeb when I’m stressed.

“Fuck you, Antoine.”

Jimin’s hyperventilating, but heroically manages to roll his eyes anyway.

Antoine sits down with us behind the overturned table, taking his uniform hat off.

“Yeah, screw you guys too. Well, we’re gonna die together, so you’d better get used to me. Funny you guys come and visit me the day I get eaten, I mean, shit, Shay, we haven’t even talked since you changed your name and now we’re all gonna—”

“It’s your own fault for never visiting chez Shay.” Shay snarks.

Tixayo. ‘Shay’. ‘Xay’, I guess, if you want to keep the spelling. Look, they got to pick their own name, you’d get over-excited too.

“Guys, shut up!” I snap.

Everyone looks at me.

“Jimin’s f-freaking out, stop saying we’re all gonna die! You are so not helping!”

It’s true. I’ve never seen him this stressed before and he’s always losing his mind about something. He’s from Korea, and he acts like he’s going to get publicly executed if he doesn’t pass his midterms and eaten by wolves if he picks the wrong club to join. Looks like he had it rough. I don’t really know him that well; it’s Jet who took it upon himself to show him around.

And now I’m never gonna get to know him. Probably. But that doesn’t mean we have to say it. I mean, jesus, he looks like he’s gonna throw up.

“I’m okay!” Jimin says. It sounds like he’s talking through a mouthful of food.

“Can’t we all shut up!? What if it can hear us!?” Jet shouts.

“Yeah, that’s helping.” Shay mutters.

I can’t believe it. My idiot best friend Antoine and his idiot buddies from middle school are going to be the last people I ever see. I guess out of all the people in the world, all the fakers and the posers and the snobs and the people who sleepwalk through life never wanting anything better, the best group of people to end up in some giant cuttlefish’s stomach with probably is this bunch of starry-eyed losers.

And Jimin. Sorry, Jimin. If it’s any consolation, you’re actually more likely to die from a monster attack in Korea. I did a project on it last year. Statistically, you lived a day and a half longer.

The alert goes off on our phones again and we all swear and startle and scramble to get them turned the fuck off—except Jimin. Jimin looks like he actually is going to throw up. If this thing’s nearby, it’s quiet, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be outside on the street right now and perfectly able to hear the stupid alarm! I dive over there and grab his phone.

I gasp.

“Guys, it’s—”

Jimin throws up a mouthful of awful sticky white crap all over the floor. Or spits it up, I guess, but everyone reacts the same way.

“What the hell is that!?” Shay howls.

“Hey, you okay, bro?” Jet says, crawling across the dirty floor towards him.

Jimin holds back tears. Everyone’s frozen. I’m staring at the false-alarm message on the screen like a fucking idiot, speechless.

“I’m s-sorry. I couldn’t hold it in, it j-just builds up when I’m stressed… sorry…” he says, punctuated by sobs.

“You’re a mutant!?” Antoine says.

“Dude, what are you, bio-essentialist or something, he’s having an anxiety attack! At least call him para-bio or—or Class A!” Shay says.

Jimin nods, hands over his mouth, looking mortified. His breath comes unevenly. Tears well up in his eyes.

I look at Antoine on instinct. He always knows what to do.

It’ll be alright, right? If you’re a Class A in Canada, they test you through the school system, screen you out early so they know what you are and what your parabiology lets you do. You go for special medical tests and cell sample harvesting, but it’s no worse than having allergies or epilepsy or something. Not for a kid. And it means you could be a superhero one day.

I guess I never thought of what it must be like if you come from somewhere where it’s… not like here. What, do they discriminate against Class As in Korea or—

“I-it’s okay.” Antoine says urgently.

“No it’s not. I heard that over here they… c-cut you up for parts and… and stuff… if you’re like me. I-is that true?” Jimin asks.

Oh, shit, it’s the opposite. Wasn’t expecting that. I mean, I know it pisses off India and the EU that the Biotechnology Board harvests cells from every Class A citizen, but that’s why we have the biotech industry we do. We don’t cut people up. It’s not like people go missing or are forced to become supers. I mean, not often. And they’re compensated. And it’s regulated, I mean, except with that JASPER scandal a few years back where it turned out they basically sliced up a twelve-year-old kid for parts after she died in super training. And that was one time.

“Hey, it doesn’t matter.” Jet says forcefully. “Nobody’s going to tell anybody about your parabiology. Nobody, unless you want us to.”

His dark eyes and strong jaw sweep across the room like he’s some kind of stage actor and not… an aimless track and field kid with vague dreams of going to animation school. He’s never looked like that before. It’s kind of hot.

Everyone else nods, stunned. Even Jimin does.

“Yeah, obviously, nobody.” Antoine murmurs. “Uh, you too, Sylvia?”

I swallow and nod as well, still too stunned to speak.

Jimin keeps breathing heavily.

“They aren’t gonna… t-turn me into a cell bank or something? What I’ve got, they call it one of the… ‘holy grail list’, or something, it’s… it’s…”

He gestures vaguely at his mouth like it’s a treasure trove, grimacing. I take a closer look at the stuff on the ground. It’s wet and sticky and… holding its shape. Like spiderweb. If that’s really what it’s most like, they’ve been trying to accomplish that for decades. Jet said you can’t even accomplish it with Common, and the Common cell lineage is all but outlawed now after it turned out to be made from a teenager who killed himself.

Okay, shit. I know it’s Jimin, I know he’s always scared of something or other, but maybe he’s got a point about Canada. Maybe you gotta reexamine your prejudices, Sylvia, Jesus Christ! This is serious! You’re supposed to be the smart one! He’s afraid for a reason! Think of something!

“W-wait, hold on, even if we don’t all die in the next fifteen minutes—this is—dude, it’s illegal. Like straight up illegal, kick you out of school illegal, federal illegal. And that’s bullshit, but—like—are you really asking us to…” Shay starts.

They trail off as everyone else slowly turns to look at them. Jimin starts crying again. Oh, god, this must be the worst day of his life. I want to do something but I barely know the kid! I look at Jet and hope he’s got some more of that fire in him, and—

“Shay, shut up. I’m a Class A too.” he snaps.

Every stare changes direction to him.

“Wh-what!?” Shay says. “What can you do!?”

“I can’t show it off here. It’s… it’s in extremis, that’s why they never found it when I was a kid, the point is you shut up about what the law says or you’re fucking me over too.” Jet says.

Shay takes a deep breath and stares at the floor, re-evaluating how screwed we all are. The rest of us keep looking at Jet.

“What?” he asks. “It’s Latin, it means it’s activated by trauma or extreme biological circumstances. Did you guys forget my parents are in biotech?”

“Yeah.” Antoine says. “It’s really easy, ‘cause you’re so stupid.”

Jimin laughs nervously. Shay starts as well.

Nice job, guys. Laugh it up. We’re keeping this secret for the rest of our lives. No choice about it. It’s that or be the worst snitch in the history of snitches and maybe get one of our friends packed away to a live-in laboratory. Or jail, or some kind of super-academy like the one the Kowalsky siblings died in. Or the ones Northshield runs where your best case scenario is a merchandising deal and a Netflix series and a five-year life expectancy. Or something else horrible. That you can’t do to someone. Not if you’re a real person. Not if you’re us.

None of us would do that. Guess that makes us fugitives.

Took all of ten seconds.

“Guys,” I finally work up the energy to say, “it was a false alarm. No monster. Crawled back in the river.”

I point at the update alert on Jimin’s phone. Everyone stares. He buries his head in his hands.

Jet squints. His jaw drops.

“Fuck.”