Pulse

bliss of removing one of its bloodred petals and rubbing its velvety surface between her thumb and finger. To taste an apple was fine; but to feel its cool, slick skin against the side of her face as it glided back and forth, that was the really sweet part of an apple for Liz Brinn.
    Before meeting Noah she had long since made her dating decisions based on the way the other person felt in her hands. She would succumb to an invitation to go for a walk or watch a movie and find herself wondering from the very beginning what it would feel like to run her hand along the knuckles of the fresh, new hand that had arrived in her hemisphere.
    “I read palms,” Liz would say within ten minutes of meeting a guy. “I’m really good at it. Wanna see?”
    She had come to find this lie particularly useful given her curiosities, if not devastating for her reputation. By sophomore year she was jokingly referred to as a mystical witch creature from the Black Forest who could transform into a unicorn, a sphinx, or a boy-eating monster.
    It was inevitable that her long search would finally lead to Noah Logan, who was in possession of a pair of hands that were softer than a baby’s bottom. Liz couldn’t stop touching Noah’s hands morning, noon, and night. It was his best feature; but he also had touchable, wispy brown hair and a striking smile. She’d wander the halls of school, searching for those hands so she could feel them soft against her skin. Sometimes when they kissed, he touched the exposed part of her lower back with his fingers, and she would shiver, delighted at the electric energy he produced. He had the dreamiest sleepy eyes, always asking her to his room, where she could feel his touch all over her body as much as she wanted.
    Noah had a gentle personality that matched the hands, something Liz found unbelievably attractive. Everything about Noah was tender, from the way he touched her to all the words that he spoke. She was so completely head over heels for this boy that it nearly killed her when he was suddenly gone. It was like a violent storm had blown through and carried Noah up into the sky and far away. He simply vanished one day. That was the way it happened when people went to one of the States. It was like they’d never existed to begin with, and it usually happened without warning.
    His departure, so sudden and final, broke something inside of Liz Brinn. She wasn’t the same after he left. She was fragile, the softness she loved having turned against her in the end. Faith was the only friend who remained, and Liz needed her to fill the emotional emptiness. And so they held hands a lot. Once or twice Liz’s feelings had gotten confused, and she wondered if what she’d really wanted all along was the softness of another girl; but it always passed like a soft breeze. She liked boys; this much she was sure of. She simply liked them best if they were soft, and there would never be another boy who could measure up to Noah Logan in that department. “Why do you think he didn’t say good-bye?” Liz had asked Faith many times, often while they walked aimlessly.
    “Maybe he didn’t want to say anything that might hurt you. He was funny that way. It wasn’t in him to hurt people.”
    This made sense to Liz; but it revealed a possible cowardice in the person she had chosen, and this bothered her.
    “I think it was just sudden. He didn’t have time to tell me or he would have.”
    “You’re right. It happens that way if the parents decide to go. First they shut down the Tablets, then the white van arrives.”
    Unmarked white vans with no windows drove around the outside day and night. They were drones—no one drove them—powered by solar cells atop their roofs, ever waiting for someone to summon them. All a person had to do was contact one of the States, say they were ready to leave the outside world, and wait. A white van would arrive, sometimes within minutes, to whisk them away to a new life.
    White vans were easy to spot but eerily quiet because they were all electric. Liz had nearly been killed once when she’d walked in front of one while staring at her Tablet. The van swerved and missed Liz, but it ran over the Tablet. Four hours later the Tablet had repaired itself, or been “reengineered.” That was one of the amazing things about Tablets. Not only could they stretch and snap into different sizes, they could regenerate. Like a cut finger, a broken Tablet could heal itself. Hawk had said it