The Biotechnology Board of Canada and Other Bloodsuckers (1.2)

We’re already fifteen minutes into lunch break when Antoine finally shows up. The others didn’t say anything, but I can tell how they’re feeling. It’s not hard to deduce. Jet is telling himself his friend wouldn’t sell him out to the government, and Shay is hoping all that time they spent apart—hey, a summer is a lot when you’re in the tenth grade—didn’t ruin his relationship with Antoine so badly that they’re strangers now. Jimin is scared to death. All of them are looking at me, hoping I won’t notice. Hoping for an answer.

I don’t say anything on principle, not until he shows up. He’s the nicest guy in the world. You don’t trust him, that’s your problem.

“Where were you!?” Jet says.

Antoine holds up an iced coffee and smiles sheepishly.

“What are we, a secret society? Come on. Are you really that freaked out?”

“Yeah, Antoine, they are.” I say. “I did some reading, and after that thing with the FLQ in the 90s it’s super illegal to hide parabiology. If you get caught, like if you don’t get found in the screen and don’t register, the Biotechnology Board can basically do whatever they want with you. Screening, biopsies, cell cultures, the works, no waiver, no consent form. It’s fucked up. I was up all night researching. Hey, apparently there’s this—”

“You didn’t know that?” Jet asks, incredulous.

“I’m the wrong kind of nerd! Besides, who cares what happens to terrorists, right!? Innocent people don’t hide their gifts, right!? Don’t blame me, blame the—prevailing culture! Or… capitalism or whatever, jeez, I’m in high school, I’m a product of systemic social pressures. I’m on your side now.”

He rolls his eyes. Antoine sits down, his face turning serious.

“You guys could get hurt?” he asks.

Everyone nods, but I’m the most insistent about it.

“You’re my friends.” he says. “Shay, Jet, I—I’ve known you guys since seventh grade, I’m not gonna sell you out, why would I do that? I wanna help Jimin hide it. I live right by the river, I can take that stuff he makes and throw it in there in the evening. What are you doing with it right now?”

“It only happens when I’m stressed.” Jimin says.

“Oh, okay. So, 24/7? What are you doing with it?” Antoine says, deadpan.

Shay laughs. Jimin makes a face.

“My water bottle. It’s empty most days, and I spit it in there.” he says. It’s getting easier to understand his accent.

“Wait, is that why you never let me have any water!? I thought you were just being weird!” Jet says.

“Nobody wants your mouth germs, Jet.” Shay says.

“It’s normal in track!” Jet says back, slamming an arm on the table.

I giggle. I can’t help myself. What can I say? He’s cute and he says what he means. And Shay’s cool, too—makes me laugh more than anyone else I know, and I barely talked to them before this week. It’s really something, hanging out with people who actually like each other. Most of my middle-school friends are… insecure, honestly. I guess if none of us are like other girls, none of us are really like each other, either. So many fights. These guys are totally still idiots, but it’s kind of growing on me.

“Okay, okay. So, uh, we swap water bottles at the end of the day. It doesn’t stick to metal, then, I guess?” Antoine says.

“It does. I, um… I go through a lot of dish detergent.” Jimin says.

“That’s fine. Okay, so I’ll get rid of that stuff in the river whenever you need it, alright? Better than trying to flush it or throw it out or something and getting caught that way. And if they catch me, I won’t test positive for anything besides la Francophonie and they can’t arrest me for that anymore, it isn’t the 90s.” Antoine says.

He beams. Problem solved. Joke delivered. World set right. God, I love him. Not like that—that’d be weird—but I really do.

“What about Jet?” Jimin asks.

“I just have to make sure not to get hit by a javelin or break a leg or anything during track practice and nobody will ever know. It’s fine. Don’t worry about me.” he says.

We all look at him. Come on, say it. Tell us what you can do! Come on! What’s the point of being a Class A if you can’t brag about it!? You know you wanna!

He sighs. Oh shit, we’re gonna get it!

“If I go into a state of injury or shock, it doesn’t… get the instinct to heal normally. I don’t scar. It numbs the whole area and rebuilds the tissue instead. Like, from the ground up. It takes maybe… thirty times less time than healing normally, if that, and cuts and scrapes and things stop bleeding almost instantly. Something to do with my blood, I think. I’m not a scientist.”

“Holy shit. Is that why—?” Shay asks.

“Yes.” Jet says, gesturing at the past.

“And—?” they follow up.

“Yeah. That too. With the ski trip. But it sucks, dude, it’s not like, a blessing or whatever. You have no fucking idea how hungry I get, you know, during. And sometimes I can’t feel anything for a week if I cut myself bad enough. And I don’t know what the limits are. And nobody ever gets to sign my casts because the bones dissolve and grow back.”

We all stare straight ahead, grateful our bones never dissolve. Jet sighs. Birds fly overhead. Up the street, past the campus, Mount Royal looms over us like a big dark cloud proudly spoiling the sunlight. I know your secret too, it seems to say. You’re different now, and you always will be. The breeze blows over the schoolyard, drowning out the distant sound of other groups of kids talking and laughing and being normal, animating the flag hanging above our heads in blood red and sterile white. Above Outreach Secondary School, named after a hero with magic in his veins who would’ve ended up just like Jet and Jimin if he hadn’t cooperated. Hiding. Afraid.

Yeah. Just the five of us. Starship Misfits, ready to launch. It’s just a moment. It’s not my whole life. Maybe in a month I won’t even remember this. But right now, it kind of does feel like we’re the only people in the world.

Joke’s on you, existential dread. I was always different. I was always a nobody. All you did is give me some mysteries to solve and some parabiology to read up on, and some people I have an excuse to care about without it being weird. Charity cases. Totally. I’m not lonely at all.

Nothing the guys—and Shay, shit, I keep forgetting, they still dress pretty boyish—are saying to each other even registers anymore. Just then, at the peak of me zoning out, Steph Lavoie dashes across the courtyard towards us and practically grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me.

“Hey! Sylv! Holy shit, why are you out here hanging out with these guys, come on, they’re gonna close it off!” she yells, a giddy smile on her face that contrasts with the black eyeshadow.

Yeah, remember I said my friends were weirdos? This is Steph. She doesn’t know being goth hasn’t been cool since 2007.

“What, dude, what is it?” I snap.

“A kid got murdered! Come on, you wanna see the body!?”

Antoine stands up and dashes off across the field. I follow him.

I kind of do want to see the body.