“We can afford food that tastes like actual food now. Time to throw this garbage out!”
“Mica, stop!” I say, a little too strongly. I stalk into the kitchen and begin returning our Rations to the cabinets. “We’re not spending this steel until I figure out exactly what is going on.”
“Why do you have to question everything? Why can’t you just be happy that something good has
finally
happened to us?” he says angrily.
“This is not your decision, Mica!” I slam the last cabinet door closed. Mica stomps out of the kitchen and into his bedroom. He doesn’t come out for the rest of the night.
* * *
The rain starts the next morning. For the first time, I’m happy to hear the warning alarm; people are far less likely to come begging for handouts when they risk death or disfigurement by going outside. For once, being stuck inside this apartment’s acid-proof walls is a blessing, even if it means being confined with Mica’s temper tantrums. As if life with a thirteen-year-old isn’t hard enough. At least it’s given us some respite from all the unwanted attention.
“Seriously?”
It’s three days into the storm. Mica looks down at the dinner plate I’ve placed on the table in front of him, his sand-colored hair falling into his face. “Three thousand credits in the bank and you’re still making me eat slop?” He prods at the glutinous brown lump in the middle of his dish, causing it to jiggle.
“We’re done arguing about this. We have three days’ worth of food leftover from the last Rationing, so we will be eating Rations for the next three days. We can talk about what to do next after that. Suck it up, bro.” I grin at him, trying to alleviate the tension. “It was between slop and glug, so you should really be thanking me.” I eye the cans of D-T04U peeking out of the pantry and shudder. If I’d gotten to last month’s Rationing on time, I could’ve stocked up on some better stuff. Unfortunately, I had spent most of my morning retrieving a bent steel pole that was caught in the branches of a tree out in the Dead Woods, and it was slim pickings by the time I did arrive. D-B334, D-T04U, and food pills were the only things left. As it is, the slop vibrating on our plates is by far the lesser of two evils.
Mica stares at me, his brown eyes squinting in scrutiny. People still tell us that we wouldn’t even look related if it weren’t for our perfectly matching eyes. Where his hair is a light, sandy color, mine is so dark brown that it’s almost black. Though my skin is tan and freckled from years of scavenging, he is still spotlessly pale. And where Mica inherited our mother’s flat Exodusian nose, I was the lucky recipient of our father’s: thin with a high bridge and rounded tip. But our eyes.
Color-wise, everyone in Sixteen ends up with pretty much the same muddy brown. Even if they aren’t born brown-eyed, they end up that way as their eyes adjust to the atmosphere down here. It’s one of the many reasons skydwellers hate being assigned to jobs on the groundworld—eventually, their precious baby blues get affected, too. But even though all terrestrials share a similar eye color, people still point out that there’s just something different about Mica’s and mine. Almond-shaped, long-lashed, with the subtlest flecks of gold echoing out from the middle. Like little starbursts, Gran used to say.
I roll my own eyes back at Mica and take a moment to listen to the rain hiss as it hits the solar panels on the roof, still audible over the low murmurs of the television in the next room. A new special is airing tonight, something about some skycity technology that the Tribunal is eager to unveil. I think Prime Morrigan Whitlock is making the announcement herself. I couldn’t care less about what goes on up there—it never affects us in any significant way—but Mica always insists on watching.
“Besides,” I continue lightly, “I’m still not convinced that this is legit. Maybe that dinky little computer messed up, and our account will be empty again before we know it. What would be the point in getting accustomed to nice things if they just get repo’d in a week, hmm?”
Mica is not convinced. He pierces a slice of slop with his fork and quickly shovels it into his mouth before it can slide off.
“If it was just some computer error they would have told us by now,” he says, his words garbled by his full mouth. He swallows before continuing. “I mean, wouldn’t they want to keep that kind of steel for themselves if they could?”
“Oh, just shut up and eat,” I say, exasperated.
A few moments of tense silence pass.
“It’s not like we don’t have enough to spare. You’re being selfish.” Mica’s eyes are dark as he glares across the table.
“
I’m
being selfish? How is it selfish to want to be smart about this? We are not spending our steel unnecessarily just so you have something to brag about at school. I’m still in charge here.”
“You’re not being smart. You’re not
doing
anything! You do this every time something big happens, Terra. You can’t just freeze up on me anymore.”
I flinch at his words. The memories of the dark time that followed Gran’s death rush back to me. Overwhelmed with the burden of responsibility and the ache of Gran being gone, I had just… stopped. I did nothing beyond the basic, perfunctory motions required to stay alive. Every time Mica, not even ten years old yet, tried to shake me out of it, every time he cried, I would shut him out; I literally shut the door on him while he howled and pounded at it, and the days ticked on without me.
We ran out of money first, then food. It wasn’t until the guardsmen were pounding at our door to deliver my starving baby brother, who had collapsed at school, that I finally woke up. Seeing his body, limp and ashen against the guardsman’s uniform, shocked me back to reality. The way his wrist dangled lifelessly over the side… I swore then and there that I would never allow him to suffer like that again; the guilt alone would kill me.
I went scavenging for the first time that very day; I was too young and inexperienced to get a job doing anything else, and it was the fastest way I could think of to get credits. As luck would have it, I turned out to have a knack for it. By the following Collection Day we had steel in the bank and full bellies once again, but the scars of my failure are still there. To this day, Mica won’t sleep with his door closed.
“That was different,” I say. “When Gran died, I was—”
“I’m not just talking about her, I’m talking about—”
“Don’t.” I cut Mica off, clenching my jaw and staring him down. Mica’s eyes widen in response to my expression. He knows he’s toying with the line, if not stepping over it. It’s been over a year since Lee died, the last tragic victim of raider violence taken too far. Well, the last one publicized, at any rate.
I was never really that sad about it. Angry, yes, but not sad. It kind of felt inevitable. After all, raider violence had been on the rise. Scavs were getting pinged left and right. It was only a matter of time before something happened to someone I knew. Besides, Lee and I hadn’t even been together that long. We weren’t in love. I didn’t fall asleep thinking of the way his hair stuck up in the back, like he had perpetually just rolled out of bed. I didn’t dream of how he kissed me—softly, like he was always just a little shy.
Of course, after he died, I couldn’t stop thinking about those things.
Still, I had no idea if he was The One. And I never will. He was one more person snatched from my life before we even got our chance.
Where Gran’s death had paralyzed me with fear and sadness, with Lee’s it was all anger. Enough rage to keep me holed up in my room for a solid week. At least Mica was better prepared that time.
My nostrils flare as I inhale slowly, attempting to calm myself down. Mica is trying to distract me from the matter at hand, and I can’t let him.
“Don’t you think your future is
slightly
more important than getting Junie Coal to let you stare at her adoringly while she eats lunch?” I try to soften my voice, but can’t quite keep the jibe from slipping out.
“Oh please. You don’t even know her. She’s not like that.”
“Ha,” I scoff. “I know her sister. The apple doesn’t fall that far from the other apples, bud.”
“Let’s hope that’s not true,” he says, venom on his tongue. “This town doesn’t need another pariah to shun.”
Ouch.
I know he doesn’t really mean it; he’s pissed, he’s restless, and he’s a teenager. I do my best to shrug off his insult, and return my attention to my dinner.
“Ugh.” Mica shudders, shoveling the last forkful into his mouth and pushing his plate away. It may taste like dirt, but evidently it’s not disgusting enough for a boy in the middle of a growth spurt to pass up. He’s barely started growing and he’s already almost eclipsed all 5’8” of me.
“Put your dishes in the sink, please,” I remind him gently.
With a derisive look, Mica picks up his plate and cup, walks over to the sink, and places them squarely on the counter next to it before storming off to the living room.
I sigh. He just doesn’t understand. If moochers were the only threat, that would be one thing. Unfortunately, I imagine the Traders are also aware of our good fortune. It’s been a few months since the last credit theft, which means it’s only a matter of time until there’s another. And there are only two ways to obtain someone else’s steel: it is either gifted or… it is taken. The thought makes me run cold. It feels like targets have been painted on our backs now that we’ve become the richest orphans ever to grace the West Quadrant. If Mica didn’t have school, I doubt I’d want either of us to leave the apartment ever again.
Funny how quickly things change,
I think humorlessly, as the wind whistles outside.
Chapter 4
I wake in the middle of the night to the sound of nothing. The rain, after three days of unceasing pounding, seems to finally have stopped. A couple more hours and the ground will be dry enough to walk on without eating through the soles of my boots. The silence is disconcerting, though, and I know I won’t be able to fall back asleep. As I wipe the sleep from my eyes and roll over onto my back, my mind begins to race.
What did I find? Why won’t the officials speak to me? And what do I do with all this steel now that I have it? In my solitude, I am forced to acknowledge the fact that I’ve been using Mica, mooching neighbors, and fear of the Black Traders as excuses not to take action.
What is wrong with me?
I shut my eyes, squeezing them tightly for a moment before I open them again. I am avoiding instead of confronting again, ignoring instead of planning. Receiving a large sum of money, no matter how suspicious, is nothing like inheriting the sudden responsibility of caring for your kid brother on your own, so what am I afraid of? Aren’t I supposed to be both older
and
wiser than when I was fifteen?
Mica is right. There’s no use just sitting on this fortune. I need to start considering how we’re going to spend it. And I need to be smart about it, too.
Mica will have all the supplies he’ll ever need for school. We can even start shopping in North Quadrant shops instead of bargaining over every pair of socks purchased from the Marketplace. Maybe we can even afford a transport of some kind. We’d be the first West Q’ers in a long time to have one. Four-wheelers are still too expensive, of course, but maybe a scooter or refurbished minicycle…
I force myself to take a breath. Food, supplies, new clothes, and a transport vehicle? I’m getting ahead of myself. 3,000 credits may seem like an insane amount now, but spread between both Mica and me, it won’t last forever. Steel only lasts as long as you can go without spending it. What happens when we start to run out? And am I supposed to just sit around and do nothing until then?
My relationship with the other scavs has always been tenuous at best. I can only imagine the endless stream of remarks I’ll have to endure if I try to return to the fields:
“Spent your fortune already, have you?”
“What, you need more steel to spruce up your wardrobe?”
“Here she is, fellas, ready to show us up again. You just can’t leave any for the rest of us, can you?”
No, the other scavs definitely won’t tolerate me after this, not when their own credit accounts have always been so much emptier. And a job in town is pretty much out of the question for me; I have neither the skill set nor the desire to work down at the docks or in the recycling center. And I suspect that my sunny disposition is not quite what they’re looking for to mind a shop.
I flip my pillow to the cool side and press my face into it, counting my shallow breaths. Had you asked me a week ago, I would have told you that something like this would be a blessing. I never considered how complicated it could be.
I start to recall how normal the events of That Day felt: scavenging out in the Dead Woods, my friendly conversation with Mal. I am recounting my terse chat with Emery when, suddenly, I realize why I remember the set of his shoulders, the shade of his hair. It’s from watching him walk in and out of my classroom, back when he came to speak to my class about his scholarship. Emery Garren: the first person in 50 years from Genesis X-16 who would be attending school in the sky.
Technically, the universities up top are open to anyone, citizens of the groundworld and skycities alike. At least that’s what the commercials say. Of course, the kids up there don’t have acid rain that prevents regular attendance, and their teachers actually like being assigned to them. Here in Sixteen, kids with test scores high enough and wallets deep enough to qualify for entrance are pretty much nonexistent. We don’t have access to the technology or the resources that the skydwellers have, so achieving those scores takes a particular kind of brilliance. And even when kids do make the grade, the cost is what really keeps us out.
Emery was a special case because he managed to land himself one of the exclusive Skyline Scholarships that are reserved for terrestrials who score highly on their tertiary examinations. Most years, nobody from Sixteen even bothers applying. Our chances are already low and the disappointment just isn’t worth the effort. Most years, no scholarships are awarded at all.