Human (Discontinued)

Chapter 11

Grandma stared at her in disbelief, not saying a word, until Meredith held up her wrist. I could see her shaking as she did; her closed fist twitching slightly in the air.
Grandma's face paled slightly in shock, and she gripped the arm of her chair hard enough for her veins to pop out.
I hoped her pacemaker wasn't about to give out.
"What...how...? This can't be...it shouldn't have happened again..." she whispered, half to herself. Her eyes had gone hollow, staring down at the floor at something we couldn't see. Meredith and I glanced at each other, before I reached out and lightly shook her arm.
"Grandma..." I said tentatively, hoping to call her back from whatever memory had resurfaced. She jumped slightly and glanced between us, her eyes lingering momentarily on Meredith.
"Oh...oh yes, that's right...I was..." she shook her head slightly and sat up, completely refocused at the task at hand. She took a deep breath before she began.
"Every so often...when a baby is born...their body rejects the watch that is assigned to their wrist..." She glanced at Meredith and want on, "I saw this happen myself...years ago, I helped deliver a baby who's watch would keep glitching and staying at zero. It took days before it would work, and by that time we'd poked and prodded him with so many needles, that the poor thing was bawling his head off." She took a deep breath, clasping her hands in her lap. I personally couldn't feel as tense as her, but Meri leaned closer, her face the picture of interest.
"Go on." I said, ignoring the disproving look Meredith sent me.
"That child...a few years later, when he was ten years old, came back to the hospital. He was feeling dizzy, and he had a headache, and then he fainted. When he woke...he found that his clock had stopped." She nodded sadly at Meredith's sharp intake of breath, and I reached out and took her hand. She clung on to me tightly, her hand warm and clammy, and I had to struggle not to pull away.
I guess now that she knew that she would finally get answers, Meri was nervous to hear them. It could potentially change her whole life. Or not, I thought, ignoring the painful twist in my stomach.
"We did as many tests on him as we could, and we couldn't come up with any answers. How could a body reanimate if it's clock had stopped and the person had died? He was perfectly fine, a little dazed by the situation, but still fine. We kept going and going, and eventually we came to a conclusion..." She glanced out the open window as a breeze drifted in, lifting a few wisps of her grey hair.
"What...what was it...?" Meredith asked, her eyes opening wider in anticipation.
"He was a human." She finished, not looking at us.
Meri and I glanced at each other.
"Grandma...we're all humans..." I reminded her gently, wondering if she was getting a little soft in the head.
She glared at me sharply, her pupil's narrowing into slits.
"No, you idiot. This was different. Our ancestors were human. They created and destroyed this planet. They were weak and almost brought themselves to extinction through war and famine. Their lives were rules by numbers; by their weight, by their height, by their population. They strived for perfection. They created things we can't imagine, and they almost ruined the world because of it. We are what's left; scavengers. Taking their waste and rebuilding, remaking. Tinker people. These watches that we have are reminders that we will perish, as they perished. And a person who can ignore one, resist having one, is like the human ancestors who once walked on this earth. Arrogant, unburdened by responsibility, a perfectionist," she paused to glare at Meredith, "an outsider."
Meri opened her mouth to reply, and I cut in before she could, mildly alarmed by the icy look in her eyes.
"Grandma that's not true. We're all humans, just because someone's body rejects the clock doesn't mean they don't belong in society. There has to be some scientific explanation-"
"Science? You want a scientific explanation?" She cut me off, "Here's the science: we have evolved to have these watches implanted into our wrists, have become sensitive enough to sense and respond to them. This boy's body was not like that. He resembled the humans who had lived in the nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first centuries. Not ours."
"Why?" I asked, "why was he different?"
Grandma looked down at her hands for a second, unwilling to tell us the answer.
"His mother, a woman I thought I knew very well, was of a family who had rejected the clocks. They said we were just as good as the humans who came before us, better even, for surviving on what they'd left. And we shouldn't have to stare our deaths in the face every day, this idea that we would all perish and therefore shouldn't strive to create perfection was meaningless to them. They'd found a way to stop the watches from functioning, and they would turn them off for whoever came forward. Of course, they were caught, but the people who they'd injected went on to live and have children. And a few generations down the line, whatever they'd injected reawakened and rejected the clock that was assigned to their body."
"What happened to him?" Meredith asked, "The little boy who's clock stopped?"
"He was taken away, we never saw him again. Of course, rumours spread, but we were told to get on with work and forget it." Grandma's face was grim, and she looked up wearily at Meredith. "You should get out of here before you're taken too. Who knows what'll happen."
I glanced at Meredith, who was pale as milk, and pulled her up to her feet.
"Thanks Grandma, but nothing's going to happen to her." I lightly tugged her arm, "Let's go Meri."
We walked down the hall, trying to absorb all that infornation, and opened the front door.
There was a man dressed in black leaning against the wall outside, twirling a knife between his fingers. He looked up as we stepped out, and grinned.
"Well hello there Meredith, I'd like to have a little chat with you."