Becoming Grey 4

Chapter Four 

July 1, 2017 | Late Evening 

By the time Callie had came inside, Hannah had stationed herself in the living room with the Nintendo, which Callie regarded as a minor gift from God. 

The familiar electronic music carried through the doorway as Callie crossed the dining room, accompanied by the occasional frustrated grunt from her younger sister. For the moment, Hannah was occupied. More importantly, she was occupied with something that did not involve following Callie from room to room, asking where she was going, what she was doing, who she was texting, whether Maggie would be there, whether Luke would be there, why Callie got to go somewhere and she did not, and approximately twenty-six other questions that Hannah could apparently generate without ever stopping to breathe. 

It was not that Callie disliked her sister. She loved Hannah. She would have defended that point immediately and with genuine offense if anyone suggested otherwise. 

She simply preferred loving Hannah from a reasonable distance. 

Having a younger sister was occasionally less like having a sibling and more like having a very small investigative journalist assigned exclusively to your life. 

The Grey family dining room opened directly into the kitchen, the two spaces designed in the farmhouse style Sally Grey had fallen in love with years earlier. The dining table was heavy oak washed in a pale gray finish, large enough to seat far more people than normally occupied it, though holidays had proven Sally correct when she had insisted they needed the extra space. A glass vase filled with freshly cut summer flowers sat in the center, a mixture of daisies and something purple Callie could never remember the name of. The padded dining chairs were upholstered in cream fabric crossed by thin muted red lines, giving them the sort of deliberately rustic appearance that Callie suspected had cost significantly more than genuinely rustic furniture would have. 

The kitchen continued the theme with white cabinets, brushed metal fixtures, a broad island topped in pale stone, and a gas range that her father treated with considerably more reverence than Callie believed any stove deserved. 

Callie had never thought much about any of it. 

It was simply home. 

Homes were like that. You stopped seeing the things around you because they had always been there. The little scratch along the side of the pantry where Hannah had rammed a toy stroller into it when she was five. The slightly crooked cabinet handle beside the sink. The floorboard near the refrigerator that sometimes clicked when someone stepped on it just right. Callie probably could have walked from her bedroom to the kitchen with her eyes closed and known exactly how many steps remained by the sounds beneath her feet. 

What she noticed tonight was the pie. 

It sat on the counter beside the stove, still in its metal pan, the crust golden brown around a filling dark with strawberries and rhubarb. Steam no longer rose from it, but Callie could smell the fruit and sugar from halfway across the room. 

She changed direction immediately. 

“How’s the pie looking, Mom?” 

Sally was standing near the cabinets stacking plates against one hip. Her light brown hair had been pulled into a neat ponytail, and she had changed from the clothes she wore at the store into a light cream skirt and an airy blouse that made her look far more put together than Callie believed anyone had a right to look after spending most of Saturday working. 

“It looks like pie,” Sally said. 

Callie leaned over the counter to inspect it more closely. “That’s encouraging.” 

“It should be cool enough by dessert.” 

Callie glanced at her mother, then back at the pie. 

“You know, there is a serious quality control issue here.” 

Sally continued gathering plates. “Is there?” 

“Absolutely.” Callie adopted the most sincere expression she could manage. “We can’t just serve this to Dad and Hannah without knowing whether it came out right. That would be irresponsible.” 

“I see.” 

“I’m willing to make the sacrifice.” 

“How generous.” 

“Just a small piece. We split it. Strictly for safety.” 

Sally looked at her over the stack of plates. “Or we could trust the recipe.” 

Callie frowned. “That seems reckless.” 

“We’ll pray it came together.” Sally handed her two plates. “Now go get your sister and wash up for dinner.” 

Callie accepted the plates with theatrical disappointment. 

“And remind Hannah it’s her turn to do the dishes tonight.” 

That improved things considerably. 

Callie headed toward the living room and raised her voice before she had even cleared the dining room. 

“HANNAH! MOM SAYS YOU HAVE TO DO THE DISHES TONIGHT!” 

“Callie.” 

She stopped and looked back. 

Her mother stood beside the silverware drawer with both eyebrows raised. 

“What?” 

“Indoor voice.” 

“I am indoors.” 

Sally gave her a look. 

Callie tried not to smile. “Sorry.” 

“If I wanted to shout across the house, I could have done that myself.” 

“I thought you were saving your voice for later, when Dad tries to sneak a second piece of pie.” 

From somewhere outside came the muffled scrape of the patio door. 

“Hey,” Stuart called. 

Callie laughed and escaped into the living room before either parent could recruit her into setting the rest of the table. 

Hannah sat crosslegged on the carpet less than four feet from the television despite having been told approximately ten thousand times not to sit that close. Her attention was locked on the screen, where Donkey Kong was attempting a jump between two platforms and failing with admirable consistency. 

“Come on, small fry. Dinner.” 

“Wait.” 

“Hannah.” 

“I almost have it.” 

On the screen, Donkey Kong missed the platform again and vanished. 

Callie folded her arms. “You are so far from ‘almost’ that saying almost is basically lying.” 

“I did it before!” 

“No, you didn’t.” 

“Yes, I did.” 

“You landed on the thing underneath it.” 

“That counts.” 

“It really doesn’t.” 

Hannah restarted the attempt, tongue pressed against the corner of her mouth in concentration. She mistimed the jump almost immediately. 

Callie sighed, leaned down, and plucked the controller out of her hands. 

“Hey!” 

“Watch.” 

“Callie, give it back!” 

Hannah scrambled to her feet and reached for the controller, but Callie held it comfortably out of range with one hand while maneuvering the character with the other. She waited for the moving platform, jumped at precisely the right moment, landed cleanly, and hopped to the next ledge. 

“There.” 

Hannah stared at the television. 

Callie tossed the controller back to her. “You’re welcome. Save it and wash your hands.” 

“I was gonna get it.” Hannah said assertively 

“Sure.” Callie replied with a skeptical tone as she eyed her sister 

“I was…..Eventually.” 

Hannah gave her a shove in the arm that barely moved her. Callie returned it with a gentler shove of her own, steering her toward the hallway. 

“Go.” 

“Bossy.” 

“You’re welcome again.” 

Hannah saved the game, shut off the Nintendo, and hurried after Callie, catching up before Callie had made it to the bathroom. 

“So did you go to the creek?” 

Callie groaned inwardly. 

There it was. 

Hannah had apparently spent the day storing questions. 

“Maybe.” 

“Mom said I couldn’t follow you.” 

“Probably because following people when they tell you not to is annoying.” 

“I wasn’t following. I wanted to go.” 

Callie turned on the faucet and put her hands beneath the water. “Those are not different things when the person you want to go with says no.” 

“You said I could come next time.” 

Callie looked at her sister through the mirror. “I did not.” 

“You did too.” 

“When?” 

“Before.” 

“Excellent evidence.” 

“You said if I kept acting like that, you’d never let me come.” 

Callie reached for the soap. “Correct.” 

Hannah stared at her triumphantly. “See?” 

Callie paused. 

“See what?” 

“That means I can come.” 

Callie slowly turned her head. 

Hannah smiled. 

Callie pointed a soapy finger at her. “No. That is not what those words mean.” 

“It kinda is.” 

“No, it really, really isn’t.” 

“You said if I keep acting like that, you’ll never let me come. So if I don’t act like that, then I can.” 

Callie stared at her. 

There was a terrible moment in which she realized Hannah had constructed an argument that was, at minimum, grammatically defensible. 

She hated that. 

“That is not what I meant.” 

“But it’s what you said.” 

“Why are you like this?” 

Hannah grinned wider. “So when can I come?” 

“Never.” 

“But you just said…” 

“Never is now a complete sentence.” 

“That’s cheating!” 

Callie rinsed her hands. “It’s not cheating if I’m older.” 

“That doesn’t even make sense.” 

“Doesn’t have to.” 

Hannah shoved past her to reach the sink. “Mom!” 

“Oh my God.” 

“MOM!” 

“Hannah, don’t.” 

“You said I could go!” 

“I literally did not.” 

Hannah ran her hands beneath the water for perhaps two seconds, a performance so offensively inadequate that Callie stared at her. 

“That isn’t washing your hands.” 

“Yes, it is.” 

“You didn’t even use soap.” 

“I used water.” 

“Congratulations. So does a fish.” 

Hannah wiped her hands on the towel and darted out of the bathroom before Callie could stop her. 

Callie followed, already knowing exactly how the next five minutes were going to go. 

By the time they reached the dining room, their father was coming in from the patio carrying a platter loaded with grilled chicken, potatoes, and ears of sweet corn. Stuart Grey had apparently spent enough time standing over the grill that evening for the warm outdoor air to follow him inside, along with the faint smell of charcoal and smoke. Sally came around the opposite side of the table carrying a pitcher of lemonade and four glasses. 

Hannah immediately took her usual seat. 

“Mom, Callie said I could go to the creek with her, and now she says I can never go.” 

Callie stopped beside her chair. 

“That is not what happened.” 

Sally set down the pitcher. “Callie.” 

“Mom, seriously. I never said she could come.” 

“You did!” 

“I said if you kept acting like a brat, I’d never take you.” 

“Callie,” Sally warned. 

“What? That is what I said.” 

Hannah looked toward their mother as though presenting evidence before the Supreme Court. “So that means if I’m not a brat, she will.” 

“No, it doesn’t!” 

Stuart quietly took his seat and began arranging chicken on his plate with the strategic caution of a man who had been married long enough to recognize an approaching conflict and wanted no professional involvement whatsoever. 

Sally sat across from the girls. “Callie, you do need to be nicer to your sister.” 

“I am nice to her.” 

Hannah made an incredulous noise. 

Callie looked at her. “I am!” 

“You called me small fry.” 

“That’s affectionate.” 

“You said I was lying.” 

“You were bad at Donkey Kong.” 

“That’s not the same thing.” 

“You said you almost had it!” 

“Girls.” 

Both of them looked at their mother. 

Sally sighed. “Hannah, you need to respect Callie’s space. If she’s going somewhere with her friends, you cannot expect to be included every time.” 

Callie relaxed slightly. 

“Thank you.” 

“But,” Sally continued, “there is no reason she can’t come with you once in a while. Next time you go to the creek, take her along.” 

Callie’s relief vanished. 

“What?” 

Hannah smiled. 

Callie pointed across the table. “Mom, that’s not fair.” 

“It will not kill you to include your sister.” 

“I don’t want to babysit during my free time.” 

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Hannah protested. 

“Yes, you do.” 

“No, I don’t.” 

“You’re like Ten” 

“I’m Twelve” 

“Basically the same thing. We round down for pain and suffering” 

“Callie!” 

Callie turned desperately toward her father. “Dad.” 

Stuart immediately raised one hand. “Nope.” 

“Dad!” 

“I have learned things in my life, and one of those things is not to get between your mother and a decision she has already made.” 

Callie stared at him. “Seriously?” 

He took a bite of potato. “Your mother said you take Hannah next time. You take Hannah next time.” 

“You are unbelievably useless.” 

“Callie,” Sally said. 

“What? In this specific situation.” 

Stuart nodded thoughtfully. “That’s fair.” 

Sally gave him a look. 

He concentrated very intensely on his potatoes. 

Callie slumped in her chair and reached for the platter. “She always gets her way.” 

“I do not,” Hannah said. 

Callie stabbed a potato harder than necessary. “You absolutely do.” 

The argument faded once everyone had food, as most Grey family arguments eventually did. Dinner settled into the usual rhythm of passing platters, asking for butter, telling Hannah not to talk with food in her mouth, and Stuart insisting that the corn was better because he had bought it directly from the farmers and not some co-op or warehouse, a theory Callie suspected was based primarily on his desire to justify having stopped for corn when they already sold fresh corn at Grey’s. 

Callie mentioned that Mr. Peterson planned to bring strawberries to the store Monday morning. 

“If they’re as good as the last batch, I want two flats,” Sally said. 

“Tell him,” Callie replied. “He acts like I control strawberry purchasing.” 

“You work there.” 

“I stock shelves. Nobody should give me produce authority.” 

“You could learn.” 

“That sounds dangerously close to giving me more work.” 

Stuart smiled. “Speaking of work, you’re helping tomorrow morning.” 

Callie looked at him over her glass of lemonade. “Am I?” 

“You are.” 

“I thought we were still discussing it.” 

“We discussed it.” 

“You said, ‘You’re helping tomorrow.’ I don’t feel like my side was adequately represented.” 

“Your side was sleeping until eleven.” 

“That is a valid position.” 

“Rejected.” 

Callie sighed dramatically and took another bite of chicken. 

Across the table, Hannah had already moved on to describing her dance class in exhaustive detail, including who had forgotten which part of the routine, which girl had arrived late, and why Mrs. Daniels had made them repeat the same eight counts six times. Then, almost as an afterthought, she remembered something apparently more important. 

“Oh! I need my permission slip signed.” 

Sally looked up. “For Minneapolis?” 

Hannah nodded enthusiastically. “And the hundred dollars.” 

Callie nearly choked on her lemonade. “A hundred dollars?” 

“It’s for food and stuff.” 

“For one day?” 

“And stuff.” 

“What stuff?” 

Hannah shrugged. “Dance stuff.” 

Callie looked toward her father. “I would like a hundred dollars for creek stuff.” 

“No,” Stuart said. 

“You didn’t even consider it.” 

“I considered it very quickly.” 

Dessert was finally cut after dinner, with Sally slicing the apple pie while Callie watched carefully to make sure no piece was suspiciously larger than hers. Hannah received the first slice, which Callie objected to on principle, and Stuart received enough vanilla ice cream on top of his that Sally asked whether he wanted pie with it. 

Conversation had wandered by then, slipping between the harmless subjects families talked about when nobody was particularly interested in leaving the table yet. The television in the living room murmured faintly from where Stuart had left the evening news on before dinner. Callie caught fragments whenever the conversation lulled, something about travel restrictions, another reported cluster overseas, another government official standing behind a podium. 

Smallara. 

The word had been appearing more and more often lately. 

Callie glanced toward the living room before looking at her father. 

“Dad, did you hear Smallara’s getting really bad in Australia and the UK?” 

Stuart nodded as he broke the edge of his pie crust with his fork. “I saw something about Australia this morning.” 

“Do you think it’ll come here?” 

Hannah stopped eating. 

Sally looked toward Stuart. 

“So far they’re trying to limit travel from places with major outbreaks,” he said. “At least that’s what they keep saying. And Generitech supposedly has some treatment they’re working on.” 

“A cure,” Hannah said. 

“Maybe.” 

Callie frowned. “I thought they said cure.” 

“They’ve said a lot of things,” Stuart replied. “Doesn’t mean anyone knows whether it works yet.” 

Hannah poked at a apple with her fork. “Are the littles still people?” 

The table went quiet for just a moment. 

Hannah looked around at them. 

“I mean, they start out as people, right?” 

Callie answered before either parent could. 

“They’re like four inches tall.” 

Hannah frowned. “So?” 

“So they obviously aren’t normal people anymore.” 

“They were before.” 

“Yeah, before.” 

Hannah’s forehead wrinkled further. 

Callie leaned back in her chair, warming to the subject now that there was something scientific to argue about. “Think about it. You can’t just shrink a person down to four inches and have everything keep working normally. Their lungs wouldn’t work. Their heart wouldn’t work right. They’d lose heat ridiculously fast. Square cube law.” 

Hannah blinked. “Square what?” 

“It means if I shrunk you to four inches tall right now, you’d die.” 

Sally set down her fork. “Callie.” 

“What? She asked.” 

“You can answer without telling your sister she’d die.” 

“She would, though.” 

Hannah looked mildly offended by the hypothetical. 

Callie pointed toward her with her fork. “That’s my point. Whatever Smallara does, it has to change them. A lot. Otherwise they couldn’t even breathe.” 

“That does not necessarily mean they stop being people,” Sally said. 

Callie opened her mouth. 

Her mother gave her a patient look. 

Callie closed it again. 

Sally continued. “They were people before they became sick. Whatever is happening biologically, I think the rest is more complicated than that.” 

Stuart nodded slowly. “I don’t think anybody really has an answer yet.” 

“They should still get rights,” Hannah said. 

Callie looked at her sister. 

Hannah shrugged, suddenly self conscious. “If they remember being people.” 

“That’s part of what everyone’s arguing about,” Stuart said. “What they understand. What they remember. What they legally are afterward.” 

He glanced toward the television, where another silent image of an overseas hospital had appeared. 

“Seems to me they ought to have some kind of protections,” he continued. “But with the way the administration’s talking about it right now, who knows what happens if this ever reaches the States. The president’s been pretty hardline abou smallara and quarantine policy.” 

Sally gave Hannah a reassuring smile. “Hopefully it never becomes something we have to worry about here.” 

Callie looked down at the last bite of pie on her plate. 

Australia and England felt impossibly far away from Ridgemont, Minnesota. 

So did three and four inch people. 

By the time the dishes had been cleared and Hannah had been reminded three separate times that yes, doing the dishes included wiping down the table, the conversation had already moved on. 

A few hours later, Callie sat crosslegged on the floor of her bedroom with a screwdriver between her teeth and absolutely no concern whatsoever for international epidemiology. 

Her room occupied the second floor at the back of the house, overlooking the yard and, beyond the neighboring rooftops, a thin strip of farmland visible where Ridgemont began giving way to countryside. By late evening the July sunlight had softened but had not disappeared entirely, leaving the room washed in the long amber glow peculiar to Minnesota summers. Her desk sat beneath the window, crowded with school notebooks, a soldering iron her father had made her promise not to use without opening the window, loose USB cables, two empty Coke cans, and a plastic organizer filled with resistors, jumper wires, switches, LEDs, screws, and components that made perfect sense to Callie and looked like electronic confetti to everyone else. 

Tonight’s project had spread beyond the desk and onto the floor. 

A small wire animal enclosure occupied most of the space between her bed and desk. It was the sort of thing sold for hamsters, guinea pigs, or whatever other small creature somebody had collectively decided required a house constructed from metal bars. Callie had found it in the basement, left over from a brief period several years earlier when Hannah had become absolutely convinced she wanted a hamster. Their parents had bought the cage before Sally discovered that Hannah’s definition of wanting a hamster did not include cleaning up after one. 

The hamster had never happened. 

The cage had survived. 

Callie had no intention of putting anything inside it. 

She wanted the door. 

More specifically, she wanted to make the door open by itself. 

A Raspberry Pi rested on the carpet beside her knee, connected by a chaotic arrangement of jumper wires to a breadboard and then to a small servo motor she had mounted against the side of the enclosure. The servo was attached to the cage latch through a linkage Callie had fabricated from stiff wire, two tiny brackets, and a considerable amount of stubbornness. Her laptop sat open beside everything, its screen filled with code. 

The eventual idea was simple. 

A sensor detected someone approaching. 

The Raspberry Pi computer sent a command. 

The servo pulled the latch. 

The door opened. 

Simple ideas, Callie had learned, were usually the ones that became infuriating somewhere around step three. 

She removed the screwdriver from her mouth, tightened the servo mount another quarter turn, then looked at her laptop. 

“All right.” 

She pressed a key. 

Nothing happened. 

Callie waited. 

The cage remained stubbornly closed. 

She leaned toward the screen. 

“Oh, come on.” 

She scanned the code again, one finger tracing down the lines as if physically following them might reveal whatever insult the computer had decided to hide from her. 

GPIO assignment correct. 

Pulse width correct. 

Timing looked correct. 

Probably. 

She changed one value, saved the file, and ran it again. 

The servo buzzed. 

Callie’s eyes snapped toward the cage. 

The little motor twitched, pulled the linkage, and dragged the door perhaps half an inch before stopping. 

Callie stared at it. 

The servo gave a final faint electrical whine. 

“That’s not open.” 

The machine remained unmoved by criticism. 

Callie shifted onto her knees and leaned closer. The code had clearly done something. That mattered. If the servo was receiving the command and attempting the movement, then she probably did not have a programming problem. 

Probably. 

She had learned to be suspicious of the word probably. 

Callie gripped the linkage between two fingers and pulled gently. The latch moved a fraction, caught, then released when she changed the angle. 

Her eyes narrowed. 

“Oh.” 

She pulled again. 

Catch. 

Release. 

Catch. 

Callie sat back. 

“You’re binding.” 

She sounded almost accusing. 

The cage did not apologize. 

She picked up the screwdriver and loosened the upper bracket, watching the angle change by only a few degrees. The linkage needed to pull outward before it pulled sideways. Otherwise the latch pressed harder against the frame and the servo wasted most of its torque fighting the cage instead of opening it. 

Callie adjusted the bracket. 

Tested it by hand. 

Better. 

She tightened the screw again, scooted backward, and reached for the laptop. 

A knock came from her open bedroom door. 

Callie looked up. 

Hannah stood there. 

Of course she did. 

“What are you doing?” 

Callie slowly closed her eyes. 

Thirty questions. 

She had known the reprieve would not last forever. 

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