Float

Content Warning: This section contains discussions of ableism.

All of the major characters in Float have unusual abilities that straddle the line between superpowers and disabilities. Much of the language surrounding RISK factors is borrowed from the current state of disability rights law and activism in the United States. In contrast to many other stories about children with superpowers, the powers that the kids in Float are born with are usually very dangerous, unpleasant, and challenging to keep under control. Emerson can float, but he cannot return to the ground, so he lives in constant fear of floating away and dying. Gary can stick to things, but he cannot unstick himself and must sometimes have his hand burned off of surfaces with painful caustic acid. In Float, Martin draws a parallel between RISK kids and disabled kids in the United States who receive accommodations at school and are required to be monitored for their own safety and the safety of the general population.

Some of the laws surrounding RISK kids are generally positive in Float. Emerson notes that there was “a time before RISK kids were government-protected, when people born with a RISK were literally rejected from society” (188). Now, RISK kids are a protected class with civil rights. This timeline of events parallels the 1990 adoption of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in the United States, both of which protect the rights of people with disabilities in American society and schools. While Emerson recognizes the benefits of RISK kids having government protections, he also feels frustrated by the five-point RISK level system and the harsh rules placed on some RISK kids. Emerson, for instance, must wear both a weighted vest and weighted shoes that make it difficult for him to run around and participate in activities. Murphy has to provide time travel reports to the TTBI while otherwise maintaining strict confidentiality about future events. In the United States, people with disabilities still face legal and social challenges. For example, some people with disabilities cannot marry their partners without losing access to the benefits and medical services that keep them alive.

When Emerson, Murphy, and Gary travel briefly into the future, they meet men who talk about new legislation that has stripped RISK kids of their rights. In this future, people with RISK factors are considered a danger to society. Some people with RISK factors have fought back against this repression; one of the men notes that “one of their kind [is] responsible for exploding” the Lincoln Memorial (248). In this section of the book, the characters witness a potential future where the government has limited the civil rights of people with RISK factors—a threat that all marginalized communities (including people with disabilities) live with every day. The future reality in Float echoes the eugenics movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States and other countries, where people with disabilities were institutionalized, forcibly sterilized, and subjected to other injustices because of eugenicists’ belief that they posed a threat to society.