Boy 2.0: Chapters 24–27

Door whistled. “Wait. Does that mean that she...she’s the one who...” He twirled his fingers in the air above Coal’s head.
“She didn’t bippity boppity boop me into existence,” he said. “It wasn’t magic.”
“But did she like centrifuge you together or something?” He looked at Isadora for confirmation.
“Uh, that is not a thing,” she said.

Isadora opened Tom’s laptop and pulled up the secret files from the year that Coal was born. There were photographs. Pregnant selfies. Sonogram images. Baby pictures. Lots and lots of baby pictures.

“Okay, fine. You two have been helping me,” Coal said. “I appreciate that.”
“Not just us,” Door said. “You had the whole McKay conglomerate in the soup today.”
Isadora laughed. “You have a very interesting way of phrasing things.”

“This is attempt number one,” a woman’s voice said. “Combining the melanoma cells with healthy rat skin cells to see if we can replicate the kind of alteration in the subject’s anatomy.”
The hair on Coal’s arms stood on end. It was her voice. He was sure of it. His mother’s voice. The first voice he’d ever heard. The voice he had forgotten.

“This is attempt number one,” a woman’s voice said. “Combining the melanoma cells with healthy rat skin cells to see if we can replicate the kind of alteration in the subject’s anatomy.”
The hair on Coal’s arms stood on end. It was her voice. He was sure of it. His mother’s voice. The first voice he’d ever heard. The voice he had forgotten.

“In these first attempts the combined cells became cancerous as expected, but there was no other change in cell anatomy.” Coal’s mother’s voice sounded flat and a little frustrated.
As they clicked through experiment after experiment, Dr. Wright’s voice got more and more dejected with each failed attempt.

“In these first attempts the combined cells became cancerous as expected, but there was no other change in cell anatomy.” Coal’s mother’s voice sounded flat and a little frustrated.
As they clicked through experiment after experiment, Dr. Wright’s voice got more and more dejected with each failed attempt.

What happened, what clearly happened to the subject’s skin cells, seems impossible. Which means I have no idea how it happened.” She breathed hard. “I’m disappointed, but I really think this is for the best. If I can’t re-create it, that means no one else can.” She looked straight into the camera. “Silver lining.” Then she reached out and ended the video.

“I don’t think so,” Isadora said. “Your mother was meticulous. Careful. She wrote down everything, kept impeccable records. If there was some way to manipulate things to make a kid like you possible, she would have found it.”

“I don’t think so,” Isadora said. “Your mother was meticulous. Careful. She wrote down everything, kept impeccable records. If there was some way to manipulate things to make a kid like you possible, she would have found it.”

“Exactly,” Michelle said. “Successful Black people would find themselves lynched, their businesses burned, their families broken from terror and loss the moment they started to get ahead.”

He just started running. But they were bigger and faster, and he skidded down a slope to a little rivulet. His father had taught him to pray. He’d told him about the time he had survived a lynching because the Lord saw fit to change his skin somehow, so little Jonas did the same as his father. He was down in the dirt, and those boys came stampeding toward him. But when they got to the top of the slope and looked down to the water, not a single one of them saw him.

He pulled his hoodie tight around his face and felt the weight of his backpack against him, filled with Tom’s laptop, his mother’s notebooks, the files, and the scrapbook. He turned down the next street and started the trek across town. He was a boy who could disappear when there was danger. His family had done that. But his family also had people who loved them and who would look for them. He didn’t. He really could disappear.

A bushy plant partially obscured the entrance into Dr. Achebe’s office, allowing Coal to peek through. Doc and Jackson yelled at Dr. Achebe while Dr. Carroll watched them sullenly. A small woman with short straight hair, wearing a military uniform, stood by. A pair of soldiers waited stiffly at her back.

“You believe he’s just going to disappear into the ether like his mother,” Dr. Achebe said. “How convenient.”
“He’ll turn up,” the military woman said. “He has to.”
“He’s not your experiment!” Doc said.

Everyone turned toward him at the same time.
“Coal!” Hannah yelled.
Doc and Jackson looked pained. Aaron’s shoulders slumped.
“I surrender,” Coal said.
A smug grin spread across General Knox’s face.

“Coal!” Doc said. “Why are you here?” She walked quickly toward him, but he lowered his hands to deflect her hug, only allowing her to get a side squeeze in. The girls didn’t give him the option of pushing them away. Mari hugged him around the chest, while Hannah got him around the waist, and they wouldn’t peel off.

There was no phrase to describe Dr. Achebe’s face. Coal might have called it calm gloating. The kind of gloating you do when you win and you’re glad, but you’re trying not to be too much of a jerk about it. Coal was looking forward to wiping that look right off the doctor’s face.

Isadora kept texting him videos of people’s takes on the military’s involvement in science, which ranged from totally bonkers conspiracy theories to surprisingly informative facts from laypeople, complete with reliable sources.

He pulled his backpack on his shoulder. “It’s called disruptive camouflage, by the way.”
Clearly, Door’d been talking to Mari and Han. He even said it the way Mari would have.

Door slung an arm around his friend and walked him toward the exit. “You know I’m supposed to be the brains of this operation. I should handle all the negotiations.”
“Yeah, no. No negotiations. Thanks.”

When Coal had finally told Doc and Jackson how he’d discovered his ability, they shared a brief moment of shocked silence and then jumped into action. While Doc peppered him with questions getting the date, address, and a full description of rifle guy, Jackson was on the precinct website looking for the photo they had posted with the request for more information.

“You need to get desensitized to the hugging,” Aaron said. “You don’t want to be all weird when you meet your family, do you?”
“I think I can handle it, thanks,” Coal said.
Aaron let him up. “You sure?”

Dear Coal,
You have no reason to read this letter, but I hope you do....After going through all of Michelle’s files, I’ve come to realize something. You have a natural evolutionary gift, designed to protect you. Adaptations passed down through DNA only exist for survival. But you were made for more than survival alone. Coal under pressure makes diamonds. Diamonds are one of the toughest substances on earth, and one of the most coveted.

Dear Coal,
You have no reason to read this letter, but I hope you do....After going through all of Michelle’s files, I’ve come to realize something. You have a natural evolutionary gift, designed to protect you. Adaptations passed down through DNA only exist for survival. But you were made for more than survival alone. Coal under pressure makes diamonds. Diamonds are one of the toughest substances on earth, and one of the most coveted.