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EXCERPT 2:
“Did you notice people staring at you today in the city?”
“Yeah sort of,” I said. “I mean I figured it was because I should have been in school, and they were wondering whether to report me to the truant officers.”
Heath shook his head. “That’s not the reason. They stared at you because they haven’t seen anyone like you in a long time. About fifteen years to be exact.”
“Like me? You mean a teenager? There are no teenagers in Atlanta?”
“There are no teenagers anywhere–not outside the military bases,” he said.
“But… everyone our age survived the Calamity. We were the last.”
“No, everyone my age survived the Calamity. Everyone your age died.”
“But…”; My voice drifted in astonishment. “At school, they taught us–”
“At school, they told you what they had to tell you to keep you from feeling weird.”
Fat lot of good that had done me. Maybe if I’d known the truth, I actually would have believed it when I was constantly told how “special” I was.
“So then, how did the kids on the base survive?” And why hadn’t my newborn baby sister?
“You said there’s no way viruses aren’t making it past the base walls. If what you’re saying is true, we should have died like all the rest.”
“You would have,” Heath said. “But you got an experimental treatment… from Gideon Corp.”
My insides went cold. “What kind of experimental treatment?”
“My father said all the military base kids were injected with nanobots. The nanos repaired the cells that were being ravaged by the Zika Two virus. They saved your lives. The red pills keep your bodies from rejecting them.”
I rocked back on my heels, suddenly dizzy. “Nanos? In my body?”
I felt as if my skin was crawling. The thought of microscopic robots creeping through my veins gave me the heebie-jeebies.
Heath nodded and continued in a no-big-deal tone. “Yes, and they’re still there, repairing damage, keeping you strong and healthy. They’re kind of a small miracle, really, pardon the pun. Not that they’re perfect. They need tweaking every so often. In fact, my dad said there was a recall on the last batch.”
“A recall?”

The term brought my woozy brain back to full alertness. Mom and Dad had been discussing a recall last night before dinner when they had both been acting so strangely.
“What do you mean?”
“It happens. It’s nothing you’d notice,” he said. “As far as you’re concerned, you simply get an injection.
The fix would happen on a subcellular level. Really Reya, it’s not a big deal.”
“That’s easy for you to say–you’re not the one with a bunch of electronic spiders crawling around inside you”
A thought occurred to me. “Or do you have them too?”
“Me? No. One hundred percent organic here.”
He grinned as if he hadn’t dropped a life-altering bombshell on me.
As if he hadn’t informed me that I and the kids I’d known all my life weren’t “lucky” to have survived the Calamity–we’d been chosen to survive.

.