Chapter 14

I’m in the locker room of the abandoned library. I’m staring at the tablet, resting on top of my collected junk, looking broken and beyond repair. I lift it off the pile and take it to the bench in the middle of the room. I sit with it in my lap. How many hours I spent pulling this device apart, mapping the components, figuring out how to turn it on. The screen is cracked in two places and the edges are dented but the worst damage is inside. The two halves sprang open some where on its journey down the eight flights of stairs and some of the components inside were jolted loose and damaged. Gingerly, I separate the two pieces and run my fingers over the memory card, the power pack, the wifi antenna. I can see the obvious damage, loose wires, the dented plastic, the cracked graphics card. Some of it I can fix easily, some of it, I don’t know.

I collect my tool pack from the locker and carry the two items to my work desk. Weeks earlier I had dragged a small table and a chair to the corner of the locker room and set up an old world lamp. I sit at the table and lay my tools out so they’re in easy reach.

I start working, first dismantling the pieces, checking for damage, placing the broken items aside and then reattaching the pieces that are in working order. When I’m finished, I have two pieces on the table, the graphics card and an item I can’t identify. I wonder if it will work without these and decide that’s not possible. The screen won’t work without the graphical component and it probably won’t work without the unidentified chip I’m holding in my hand.

I leave the tablet on the desk and drop the loose components in my pocket. I return to the locker, take the devices out and range them around me on the floor. I’ve already gutted most of these, testing components and connecting different parts in an effort to power the tablet. Most of the elements are rusted or water damaged and beyond recovery. I don’t find any pieces that match the ones in my pocket. I sigh in defeat.

It’s early in the afternoon and I don’t want to return to TWOC. I start walking and find myself following the streets that lead to building 972 and it’s chandelier. I know I said I’d stay away but I feel drawn to this building, as if the answer to fixing the tablet is inside.

I sit down on the stoop, pull the loose pieces from my pocket and start turning them over and over, studying the tiny metal rivulets, the raised nodes. I need to replace these components to get the tablet back in working order.

Maybe I should scrap these pieces and look for an entirely new device. I discard that idea. I’ve been scouring the city for years and most devices are so derelict their components are useless. Getting my hands on a Osiris comm-device undetected is impossible, the tracking component is fused into the plasti-mold case.

So I’m back to finding the individual components, but where? I don’t know if they’re even in use today. Maybe Osiris has no reason to manufacture them. And if they aren’t being manufactured I’m back to scavenging for the items. And round and round I go, looking for a solution and finding none.

“What are you doing here?”

I jerk my head up and see Cenric standing at the bottom of the stairs.

I open my mouth to respond and then shut it. I don’t know what I’m doing here.

“I thought you said you’d stay away.” He says it accusingly, like I’ve broken my promise. I guess I have but I still feel stung by the allegation. I’m not sure what I’d hoped to find sitting on these stairs but it wasn’t this.

I swallow my hurt and stand up.

“I apologize your highness,” I say. “I didn’t mean to besmirch your hallowed stairway.”

I get up and close my hand around the components. I walk down the stairs and don’t look at him as I pass. I’m three feet away when he calls out.

“Arela, wait. “

Something inside urges me to ignore him, to keep walking but I can’t help myself. I stop.

I feel a little pathetic admitting it to myself, but I want to look at him, to see him smile at me. I turn around.

“What?”

“Do you want to come inside?”

I feel a surge of happiness that surprises me. Am I that lonely, I’m grateful to Cenric for his company? I don’t even know him. By all accounts we should hate each other. He’s the destroyer of my future, the reason I have an unsolvable problem on my hands.

“Yes.”

He leads me up the stairs where he pauses to punch in the code and open the door. He pauses for a second and looks at me.

“How did you get in here? I added extra security and a personal identifier. You shouldn’t have been able to access this panel.”

I shrug lightly. “I can access all the buildings in Osiris. The codes all have a repeating pattern, even yours.”

“But what about the identifier?”

“I don’t know about that,” I say. “The pads always accept my finger print.”

He studies me for a moment and I wonder if he thinks I’m lying. I notice that the bruise on the side of his face is finally healed, the skin a smooth creamy color.

“Come on,” he says and we enter into the foyer. I’m struck again by the dazzle of the chandelier.

“Where did they get that?” I ask. “It’s incredible.”

“This building belongs to my family.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “No one owns buildings in Osiris.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he says.

Suddenly it strikes me. “You’re highborn.”

Cenric looks guilty for a second and then he lifts his shoulders, as if daring me to ridicule him.

“What does that matter?” he asks.

I’m dumbfounded for a moment trying to process this new information. The highborn are tightly tied to Government, an elite group of people, intelligent, beautiful and destined to lead.

“Are you a Conservationist too?”

“Are you accusing me of something?” He retorts. “I invited you inside my studio and you’re the one pestering me with questions? Are you highborn?”

I scoff. “Me? Do I look highborn to you? I’m certainly not a Conservationist.”

“Oh, and that makes you better than anyone else?” His eyes darken to lake blue and high spots of color appear on his cheeks.

“I didn’t say that.”

He laughs, a bitter sound. “You didn’t have to. It’s all over your face. You hate the Conservationist party, you think highborns are elitist and Osiris should be an anarchist, free for all.”

“No I don’t! How do you know what I think? You haven’t asked me!”

I feel the heat rise into my own face and I suppress the urge to shove him. This pompous, know it all, clearly thinks the world revolves around him.

“I know what people like you think. You hate the Conservationists and everything the Government does. You take everything for granted, you want to eat cake and drink champagne and watch tele-dramas all day.”

“You think that’s what we do? Eat cake? I never eaten cake in my life and champagne doesn’t exist.”

Something flickers in his eyes and I realize I’m wrong. Highborns clearly have access to cake and champagne and everything else we don’t have at TWOC. The realizations send a pulse of fury through me. I can’t stand looking at him for another second.

“You can take your fancy chandelier and shove it up your ass!”

He looks thoroughly shocked at the swear word and I hold the image of his face in my mind as I storm out of the building and down the street.

I stay away for a week. I check all the components in my collection of devices again. I rummage through office cabinets looking for a stray device I may have missed. I peruse the books in my dusty library. I don’t find an answer. When I’m out of ideas I cross the skywalk to building 947, let myself into Cenric’s store room and sit cross-legged in front of his paintings. At first I’m surprised he hasn’t removed them all and hidden them some place new, a place I don’t know about. But there’s too many in here, years of work, piled against the walls. Some of the paintings are on stretched canvas but most are on planks of wood, scraps of metal. Cenric has scavenged any flat surface to feed his obsession, because clearly it’s an obsession. There is so much work in the room I’m still finding new ones seven days later.

I’m looking at a dark landscape today. It’s a Osiris skyline I haven’t seen before, a bird’s eye view from the southern end of the city. He has painted this piece on a skinny strip of plasterboard with dark browns and reds and greys. The perimeter is a shimmering silver arc on the horizon, a small slice at the top of the board, and ranged below are the jagged clusters of buildings, the buildings of Osiris. I’m captured by the density of the painting. He’s used a material that imitates the texture of the brick and stone, a substance that glitters when my illuminator light hits it. He’s made Osiris beautiful.

I run the tip of my finger along the surface and feel the winding rivulets of paint. I drop my hand and sigh. There are no answers in here.

I leave the building and I’m about to return to TWOC when something stops me, the glimmer of a memory. Something Cenric said the last time I saw him. I switch direction and I’m on the doorstep of 936, four minutes and three seconds later. I can hear the music even before I’ve mounted the stairs to the front door. I knock as loud as I can and wait. No answer. I knock again. I wait another sixty seconds and then use the access pad to open the door. I bound up the spiral staircase, taking the steps two at a time. I’m breathless by the time I’m at the top. The music is deafening from up here, a strange howl of strings and flute, a rhythmic gong.

“Cenric!” I shout from the top of the stairway. He’s standing in front of his easel, a new image forming under his brush. I can see the emergence of a portrait, a girl in mid turn. The tension of her feet and shoulders makes me think she’s angry, spinning away from something.

“Cenric!” He still doesn’t hear me so I move closer, reach out to touch him and that’s when I see the face of his subject. He’s painting me. The image is still unfinished but the likeness is uncanny. He has captured the curve of my heart-shaped face, my halo of auburn hair. Even my expression is accurate, the small frown lines between my eyebrows and the jut of my chin. But I’m struck by something and it takes me a moment to realize. He’s made me beautiful.

I’ve stared for countless hours in the bathroom mirror, wondering which of my parent’s features I’ve inherited. I know the line of my nose and the sweep of my lips. I know I’m not beautiful. But here it is in Cenric’s painting, it’s me, but it’s not.

I feel suddenly embarrassed. Like I’ve intruded into Cenric’s most private place and I realize I’ve made a terrible mistake. I turn away from him to leave but he moves his head and catches sight of me. He jumps and drops the paintbrush on the floor. His eyes are wide and I see him mouth some thing but I can’t hear him over the music. He follows my gaze and he flushes.

“Cenric! Turn the music off!”

He reaches around the easel and flicks the switch on the musicbox and silence crashes down around us.

We stare at each other for a heartbeat, two.

“You won’t go away, will you?” he says, placing his palette on the bench next to the musicbox. He no longer looks surprised to see me, just resigned.

“Why are you painting me?” I ask. I have so many questions burning a hole in my chest, but that’s the only one I can bare to ask.

“I paint everything,” he says and I feel deflated. I don’t know what answer I was expecting but it wasn’t one so perfunctory, so dismissive.

“Should I even ask why you’re here?” He asks. “Did you forget some scathing remark you wanted to add?”

I frown at him. “Cenric, no. I didn’t… I’m sorry. I…” I give my head a shake. Why am I always so flustered around him? “Look, you said something the last time I was here. You said that you added a personal identifier to the access panel. Most people don’t know how to do that. Are you in Programming or Technology? Is that your allotment?”

He draws back from me, his face closed.

“Why?”

I pull the two components from my pocket and hold them out to him. He hesitates.

“Cenric, I’m not going to bite you. Look at them!”

He clenches his hands at his sides.

“You punch me in the face, you break into my studio, you try to push me down the stairs, you yell at me after I invite you inside and you wonder why I’m wary? You’re like a venomous snake!”

I stare at him in surprise. When it’s summed up like that, I realize I haven’t been very nice to him.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “But they are not poisoned darts. They’re components from the tablet. The tablet you broke.”

He stands still for a second and then reaches up to take them from my hand. His fingertips brush against my skin and I feel something like pinpricks run up my arm.

He lays the components on the palm of his hand and peers at them. He turns them over and studies the other side.

“This is old world tech,” he says looking up at me. The pupils of his eyes are dilated with curiosity and I know I’ve got him.

“I know that,” I say. “How do I get new ones? These are broken.”

“This one you probably don’t need.” He holds up the piece I couldn’t identify. “It’s an audio codec. The tablet will work without it, as long as you’re not trying to access sound files or the radio stream.”

“Probably not,” I say. “What about the other one?”

He flips it over a few times, runs his thumb along the raised nodes.

“It looks like a graphics card, but it’s probably not compatible with Osiris tech. You could try, but there’s no guarantee it will work.”

I feel a glimmer of hope. “Can you get one?”

He frowns at me and his eyes darken. “You want me to steal a graphics card for you? How do you know I even have access to those elements?”

“Well don’t you?”

He stares at me. “I don’t,” he says but I get the feeling he’s not entirely telling the truth.

“Fine,” I say. “Then tell me where they keep them and I’ll get it myself.”

He raises his eyebrows. “You’re going to break into the Tech facility and steal a graphics card. Do you even know what you’re looking for?”

“You said it looks like that.”

He scoffs at me. “Do you know how many thousands of components they make and store? Thousands! And they all look alike. It would take you weeks to find the right component.”

“Then you’ll have to help me.”

“I’m not helping you. And if you try and get in there yourself…” He shoves the pieces back at me and I take them. “Do you know what they’d do to you if they caught you?”

“They’re not going to catch me.”

He shakes his head again. “You’re crazy, you know that? Tech is monitored twenty-four hours a day, cameras, trip lines. You’d never get in undetected.”

“So you’ve been in there? You know what it looks like?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Why won’t you help me? You’re the one that broke it in the first place. You don’t understand how important it is.” I consider explaining my plan to adjust the allotment files, but I don’t think that’s going to sway him in my favor. I’m just piling one illegal activity on top of another.

“I’m not breaking Osiris law! You don’t understand my situation. I don’t have that kind of clearance anyway.”

“But you have access to the building? That means you’re in Technology? Is that your allotment?”

“No.”

“Then how do you have access?”

He hesitates, avoiding my eyes.

“How?”

“My mother runs the facility.”

My mouth drops open. “She runs it? The entire department?”

“So,” he says. He stoops to pick up the fallen paintbrush. “That doesn’t mean I can help you.”

He turns away from me and takes the paintbrush to a shallow pan of water. I follow him. He starts working the paint from the bristles and the water swirls with a burst of red.

“Cenric,” I say. “You have to help me.”

He doesn’t look at me, just keeps working on the brush. “No. I don’t.”

I open my mouth to insist but the curfew alarm sounds above us. We both instinctively glace at the glass ceiling, at the perimeter.

I realize I’m not going to win this battle today. But I will. I’ll find a way to wear him down.

Next Chapter: Chapter 15