The Receiver

5 - T H R E S H O L D

I hold tight to Dad's chest, my arms locked around him on the back of the monocycle. I'm just tall enough to peer over his shoulder, a pair of safety goggles strapped around my head to keep my eyes from tearing up in the wind that whips around the solar-powered bike. I shift my weight in the tiny seat upholstered in cured human flesh. Dad says that, before, people used skin from animals when they wanted leather and not humans, but it's hard to believe him. The animals that run loose in the city may be feral, but there's an innocence in their wildness. It's not the same with humans. My backpack is loaded down with bits of scrap metal scavenged from the outer city, pieces picked over, pried loose, and pulled up from dilapidated structures lining the coastline-turned-junkyard.

The ride back always feels shorter than the ride there, but the closer we get to home the slower we go. The streets, like clogged arteries, are more difficult to nav through, but Dad is always careful, especially with me on the back.

Rounding the corner of Eighth and Lafayette, neither of us sees the old-school motorcycle careening around the same corner from the opposite direction.

Next thing I know, the world is all screeching tires and crunching metal and Dad flies off the bike. My heavy pack slows me down and, somehow, I end up under it, my legs crushed beneath. And there's flames and all I can think is: What are the chances we hit one of the only gas-powered vehicles left in the city?

I've never seen a fire spread so fast.

Light blazes everywhere, engulfing us, a thousand orange petals dancing around our bodies. A trail of flames slithers across the road toward me, a zigzagging snake flowing like water until it reaches my arm and my skin starts to melt. The pain blossoms into a crashing wave and I'm drowning in it.

The pain.

The heat.

Fire everywhere, thick and angry. And I realize this is it. This is how we die.

I lift my head from the cement and look around, searching for Dad, but I don't see him anywhere. The fire rages, cars honk, people yell, but nothing is louder than the searing pain blaring inside my body. I can barely see anything through the blackness narrowing my field of vision as my consciousness fades. I know I need to find him, know I need to get help, to fight my way out of the flames, but the blackness seems so much better, so much easier, as it presses down on me, heavy and welcoming.

I let it take me...

I wake with the ghost of the bike's pressure on my legs; luckily, it wears off as soon as I get up and get dressed. By the time I reach the monorail terminal the nightmare is a ghost as well.

The ride to the hospital is a short one. The skytrak spits me out right in front of a large, single-story room that has no ceiling, or at least the illusion of no ceiling. Every surface is the most beautiful I've ever seen, until my eyes land on something new.

I'm surprised to see human workers instead of machines, like in the shops yesterday, as I walk up to the nearest receptionist, a young man with the prettiest pink eyes, standing behind a counter that's advertising cheekbone sculpting. By the alien-look look of his cheeks, it's easy to see he's had some work done.

"Hello," he says, smiling sweetly.

"Hi," I say, my anxiety melting a little at his kind face. "I have an appointment with Dr. Breasal."

He makes a few taps on the counter's sparkling surface and my name appears upside down.

"Rhododendron Tesla Hesler?" he asks.