Chapter 15

The next day I’m sitting on the stoop when Cenric arrives.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” he asks.

“No, I need a graphics card.”

“Well, you’re not going to find one here.”

He walks past me up the stairs to the access panel. The door slides open.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” I ask.

“No,” he says and door closes behind him.

The day after that he doesn’t come to the building.

The third day he sees me sitting on the stoop and he stops at the foot of the stairs.

“Why won’t you give up?” he asks.

“I never give up.”

“I’m not going to help you,” he says and lets himself inside.

On the fourth day he reluctantly invites me inside.

“I’m still not going to help you,” he says. “But if you’re going to be here I don’t want you sitting on the street where a monitor-bot can find you.”

There’s a new painting on the easel, a portrait of an old man leaning against a lamppost.

“Where’s the other one?” I ask.

“I decided to work on something else,” he says.

I circle the studio but I don’t see it. I wonder if he’s hiding it on purpose.

On the fifth day, he doesn’t say anything, just lets the two of us into the building, turns his music on and starts working on the portrait. I sit on the floor behind him and rest my back against the banister. He paints for an hour and twenty-three minutes before the curfew alarm goes off and we leave.

On the sixth day, I sit and watch him fidget with the paintbrushes, the oils, the volume on the music. He doesn’t actually paint.

On the seventh day, I settle into my spot by the banister but Cenric just stands by the easel looking at me.

“Okay, fine. I’ll do it,” he says.

I jump up. “You will?”

“I’ll try. I don’t even know where they store those components and there’s no guarantee it will work even if I do get it. But I’ll try.”

A surge of relief runs through me and I clap my hands. I’m grinning foolishly. “Thank you!” I want to hug him but he’s standing awkwardly, his hands clasped in front of him.

“When?” I ask.
“Arela,” he huffs at me. “It’s going to take a few days. This is serious stuff. I can’t just barge in there, pick up a graphics card and waltz back out.”

“Right, right. So, three days then?”

“Arela!” He opens his hands in surrender. “I’ll get it when I can get it. Now will you go somewhere else? I can’t paint with you here.”

“You’ve been painting just fine,” I say, looking at the man by the lamppost.

Cenric follows my gaze. “This? I’ve made no progress the last three days and it’s because you’re sitting there watching me. I can’t work with you in here.”

“Fine, fine,” I say, getting up to leave. “But I’ll be back in three days.”

I’m sitting in the cafeteria with Rosaline and the twins. We’re eating surprisingly good lasagna with a salad that’s just shy of soggy.

“If you hadn’t let that ball through, it would have been a draw on the match today,” says Jacobo. He’s talking to Jaela.

“I was busy getting up off the court!” she protests. “And what about your foul? If you hadn’t pushed Yakov, you wouldn’t have been suspended for two minutes when they scored three points against us.”

“I didn’t push him,” he says. “That was a false call.”

“Well you were off court. That’s why we lost.”

“Guys,” Rosalin says, putting her fork down. “Stop it. It’s just a game.”

They both swivel their heads to look at her. I agree with Rosalin but the twins aren’t taking this so lightly.

“Just a game?” they say in unison.

“What planet do you live on?” Jacobo asks. “This is the last year we’ll play the junior championship. Do you know they choose the Osiris players from the gradating minors? If we don’t make it to the championship, we don’t have a chance. We won’t even be in the running for the major league.”

I keep eating my lasagna. Missing a spot in an Osiris handball team sounds less than tragic to me, but this is a life or death moment for Jacobo.

“My whole career depends on it,” he says.

“Oh stop being so dramatic,” Jaela says. “Rosalin’s got a point.”

“You’re a girl,” he retorts. “You wouldn’t understand.”

He throws his silverware onto his tray and leaves the room.

“He’s touchy today,” I say. I shovel another mouthful of the vegan meat into my mouth. It tastes surprisingly real.

“He’s been touchy since Henrik got adopted,” Jaela says. “Since we started losing the handball games.”

“It’s not that big a deal,” I say. “It’s handball. He needs to relax.”

“It’s more than that,” Jaela says. “He thinks that if he’s chosen for an Osiris team, a top team, everything else will fall into place. He’ll get the allotment he wants, the apartment he wants, the girl he wants.”

Jaela looks down at the table and I can see she’s trying not to cry.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” Rosalin asks, putting a hand on her forearm.

Jaela wipes her eyes and sniffles. She gives her head a shake.

“He won’t talk to me anymore,” she says. “He’s hanging out with Mattias, he’s busy practicing handball all day, he flirting with Selina. It’s like I don’t exist. I might as well be furniture.”

“Flirting?” I ask. “What do you mean flirting?”

Jaela smiles wanly. “You don’t know what flirting is Arela? I didn’t think you were that dense.”

“I know what flirting is! But what do you mean he’s flirting with Selina? He doesn’t even know who she is.” Selina is fourteen but looks seventeen. She’s blonde and blue eyed and pretty. She gets plenty of attention from the graduating class and a few of the male proctors. I try not to think about her. I turn to Rosalin and she gives me a “I told you so” look.

“He finds excuses to walk by her mod station, he talks to her in the corridors. I think he’s writing her love poems.”

“No he’s not!” I hiss. “Jacobo writing poetry? Since when?”

Jaela shakes her head again. “I don’t know.” She sighs. “He hasn’t been the same. He’s shutting me out.”

Rosalin squeezes her arm and then lets go. “He’ll come around,” she says. “You’ll see. He’s just trying to assert himself. He’s establishing his independence.”

“I wish he wouldn’t be such an ass about it,” Jaela says.

“He really has been a pain lately,” Rosalin says.

“You could try being a little less bossy,” I say. “He probably feels like you’re emasculating him.”

“I’m what?” Jaela says. “And since when are you on his side? You should be backing me!”

I hold my hands up in surrender. “I’m just saying. You’re always telling him what to do. He’s rebelling against you.”
“Wow, you make me sound like his mother.”

Rosalin and I exchange a look.

“I’m really that bad?” she asks.

We don’t answer.

We’re standing in morning line up and I’m trying not to yawn. My dreams were full of broken tablets and hidden components, I ran along endless corridors and hunted in empty draws and cupboards, but never found the pieces I needed. I finally got up at 4:23am and snuck to my mod station and surfed the network. Now I feel bleary eyed and tired.

Rosalin elbows me in the side. “You’re slouching.”

I straighten my shoulders as Head passes and I hold my wrist up without comment. He doesn’t say any thing, but I feel him staring at the top of my head. I shiver. He moves to the end of the line and I start to wonder if I can fit in a nap before the first mod session of the day.

“Malyssa,” Head calls out when he finishes scanning. “Report to my office. You’ve been selected for adoption.”

Everyone’s head snaps up in unison. This has happened exactly twice before in my tenure at TWOC. An excited twitter runs through the group.

“The rest of you, straight to your stations.”

The crowd streams towards the classroom and Jaela calls for us to wait. “Did you hear that?” she asks.

“Of course we did,” I say. “He was standing right in front of us.”

“Can you believe it?” Rosalin says. “She must be so excited.”

“I guess we aren’t all tainted,” Jaela says, raising an eyebrow at me.

I shrug. “It’s an anomaly.”

“What makes it an anomaly?” she asks.

“This is the third adoption in ten years. I’d say that’s an anomaly.”

She makes an exasperated sound.

“You’re just bitter because no one ever picked you,” she says.

“I’m not bitter!”

“Are you sure it’s only three?” Rosalin asks. “There’s definitely been more than that.”

“I don’t forget an adoption,” I say, frowning at her. “I don’t forget anything.”

“Maybe Head doesn’t announce all of them,” Jaela says.

“It’s been three months since I checked the adoption log and Malyssa’s the first since then.”

They look at me doubtfully.

“I swear!”

“What about Henrik? And Timothy, that little red headed kid?” Jaela says.

“And what about that girl with the gap in her teeth?” Rosalin adds. “Philis? Or Phillenne?”

Jaela shrugs. “I don’t remember her, but it’ has to be more than three.”

I open my hands. “I don’t know what to tell you. The logs only show two adoptions.”

“So you’re saying Henrik wasn’t adopted?” Jaela asks. “Why would he have left? Where would he go? He doesn’t graduate for another two years.”

“I don’t know,” I say.

They both look at me.

“Alright! I’ll check again.”

I’ve been trying to stay out of trouble at TWOC but I’ll have to risk a quick trip to Head’s office tonight.

“Did you check?” Jaela asks when she sits at our breakfast table.

I look at her guiltily. “I fell asleep.”

“Arela! You never fall asleep when espionage is at hand. What happened?”

“I was so tired from the night before. I couldn’t help it. I was solving algebra in my head one second and the next, the morning alarm was going off.”

Jaela makes a disgusted sound.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll do it tonight. You can wait one more day.”

“To prove you wrong?” she says with a grin. “I guess I can.”

“Good luck with that,” I say and grin back.

We eat our oatmeal in silence for a few moments. I find something that looks like a raisin but could be anything and I push it to the side.

“Jacobo still MIA?” I ask.

She nods towards a table on the other side of the room. Jacobo is sitting next to Mattias and Selina. Jacobo is telling a story, his hands waving around his head. Selina is giggling.

Jaela’s shakes her head as she watches the trio. Rosalin’s mouth turns down.

“They’re not having that much fun,” I say. “Not as much as us anyway.”

Jaela looks back at me. “Oh right, we’re just dying from all the excitement right here.”

Rosalin and I laugh and after a moment, Jaela joins in.

It feels good to laugh, even if it is a little desperate.

It’s been exactly three days and twenty-one minutes since I visited building 936, plenty of time for Cenric to locate and steal a graphics card. I knock on the door, but there’s no music, so I know he isn’t here yet.

I sit on the doorstep and wait. I think about Jaela and Jacobo and the break in their relationship. Twins are extremely rare in Osiris. The Conservationists frown on this single child loophole and while it’s impossible to enforce on mother’s who conceive them, they don’t approve additional credits for the second child. Twins are considered back luck. Jaela and Jacobo are the only twins I’ve known and they’ve always seemed impervious to conflict or internal struggle. I hope their current rift is temporary.

I look at the rusted bicycle and wonder if it’s still in working order. There’s no rain in Osiris so items left outside decay over decades, not years. I get up off the stoop and test the wheel. It spins easily in my hand but the tire is cracked and deflated looking. I wouldn’t get very far on it.

I know I should go back to TWOC without entering but now that I’m here and there’s no Cenric, I decide it won’t hurt to look at his paintings. I’m curious to see what he’s been working on.

I let myself in and climb the stairs to the studio. It feels empty without Cenric. The man by the lamppost is resting against the bench with a few other recently completed paintings and the easel is empty. I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or bad. Maybe it means he’s been too busy finding my graphics card.

I circle the studio, examining the contents of the benches lining the walls. Clutters of oil tubes and containers of turpentine, the culprit of that acrid smell, jars of different shaped paintbrushes and color splotched pallets, trays of charcoal sticks and cases of crayons. It’s all ranged along the wooden top in a disorderly and beautiful mess. I’m itching to reorder the items, lay them out in neat piles but I restrain myself. I’m already trespassing. Cenric doesn’t need to know I’m interfering with his private space, as he so eloquently put it the second time we met.

I cross the room to a low, wide bookshelf. It’s stuffed with books and I feel grateful that someone else in Osiris appreciates the wonder of the medium. I pull one of them off the shelf and I’m surprised by the weight. This is different from the books I’m used to studying. It’s filled with twelve by fifteen prints. Portraits, landscapes, watercolors, oils, sculpture. I dip my nose into the book and inhale the smell of the resin-covered pages. I love that smell.

I put it back and crouch down to study the messy pile of notebooks on the bottom shelf. Paper is rarely used in Osiris these days. Our voice activated, touch sensitive mod screens have made it obsolete. To see so much of it stuffed in this corner feels like a small miracle. This whole studio with its pilfered art supplies and picture books is a miracle.

A sketchbook with a red cover is slipping from the bottom of the pile and I tug it from underneath its neighbors. I blow the dust from the cover and start flipping through. It’s filled with sketches of buildings and hands, arrangements of fruit and pieces of furniture, a few faces. The pictures are well formed but clumsy, the charcoal blurred at the edges, the perspective not quite right. I slide the book back into its spot and pull one from the middle. It’s filled with the same style of drawings, but the lines and curves are stronger. As I turn the pages, I can see Cenric’s talent evolving. The pictures become three-dimensional and beg to be rendered in color. They aren’t as powerful as his oil paintings but I can see the promise of that magic.

Just one more, I think.

I take the sketchbook from the top and open it at the middle. I find myself staring at an image of a naked woman, propped up on one elbow, her top leg dipping over her right. Her breasts are small and the circles of her nipples hold my gaze. I run my eyes down to the patch of shadow between her legs and along the curve of her hip. Heat rushes to my face.

I flip the page. A sketch of a woman perched on a windowsill, gazing outside, her face turned away from the viewer. Her shoulders rest lightly against the frame so that her breasts are lifted. Her hair falls in dark waves down her back and her lips are parted as if she’s about to call out.

I turn the page and I’m surprised to see it’s a man. He’s standing with one foot resting on a stool so that I can see the curve of his thigh and buttocks, the line of his torso and the ripple of abdominal muscle. He has his hands on his hips and his shoulders thrown back. Despite his nudity, he looks like he’s challenging someone to a fight. My blush intensifies.

I know I should put it back but I can’t bring myself to put it down. I’ve never seen a naked person before, not even a picture of a naked person. I’ve seen glimpses of nudity in the TWOC bathing rooms but the stalls are designed for privacy and we’re all encouraged to practice modesty. Rosalin and I have shared a room our entire life and I’ve never once seen her undressed. I’m fascinated and a little horrified by the brazen images. The curves and ridges are beautiful and grotesque at the same time.

I’m close the end of the sketchbook when I hear footsteps on the staircase. I slam the cover shut and shove it and it’s companion back on the pile. I spin around and Cenric is standing by the banister looking at me. When he sees my face, he bursts into laughter.

“What?” I demand and feel my face burn with humiliation. “Why are you laughing at me?”

Cenric laughs for a moment more, slaps his thigh and then sighs. “You’re red as a tomato!” He’s grinning broadly at me.

I’m flooded with mortification. I know I deserve his derision and the description is probably accurate, but I hate that he sees it. That he finds me laughable. Tears sting the back of my eyes and I scowl to hide them.

“Why are you so mean?!” I blurt it out and wish immediately that I could take it back. I sound like a five year old.

Cenric looks surprised. He raises an eyebrow at me. “Mean?”

“You’re laughing at me,” I say and I hope he doesn’t hear the quaver in my voice.

The laughter leaves his face and he looks genuinely surprised.

“I wasn’t trying to be mean,” he says. “It’s just, I know what you were looking at and when you turned around… you looked so guilty and embarrassed. I just couldn’t help it.”

The corner of his mouth twitches and I see he’s trying to suppress a smile.

I want to throw something at him.

“How do you know what I was looking at?”

His eyebrow shoots up again. “You found the life drawings. The nudes.”

I don’t answer and he smiles, a Cheshire cat smile.

“You know it’s rude to snoop through someone else’s stuff don’t you?” he says.

“I’m not snooping, It’s sitting right there!”

“Behind a locked front door, Arela.” He looks at me seriously, the blue of his eyes darkening to a deep navy.

“How did… are they…” I’m struggling to ask the question.

“I copied them from an art book,” he says, saving me from myself. “They taught life drawing in old world art courses. Drawing the human body was a way to learn perspective and form. Some of the greatest artists-”

“So you’ve never actually seen a naked person?”

He laughs. “No, but if you’re willing to volunteer…”

I feel the heat rising into my face again. “Did you get the component?” I ask to change the subject.

He shakes his head and disappointment rises in my stomach.

“What happened?” I ask.

“I found where they store them but I can’t get into the storage facility. I need your help.”

“Anything. What do you want me to do?”

He looks at me for a moment, like he’s choosing his words carefully.

“I have to ask you a question,” he says. “And I need you to tell me the truth.”

“Okay,” I say slowly.

“You can’t lie to me. If you do, this won’t work.”

“Cenric, what are you talking about? Just ask me!”

He walks to the bench and picks up a stray paintbrush. He rolls it between his hands.

“How did you get in here?” he finally asks.

“I already told you. I know the access code.”

He shakes his head. “You need more than the code to get in. This building is programmed so only certain genetic identifiers are accepted. Essentially that means, me. You need my fingerprint to get in here.”

I shrug my shoulders. “It accepted mine.”

“But we’re not related! I checked. And that’s the only way you could get in here.”
“Cenric, I don’t know what to tell you!”

“And how come you don’t register on any of the scan points in this sector of the city?”

“I don’t? I always assumed I did.”

“According to Osiris programming, you barely exist. The only scans on register are from Temporary Welfare.”

I feel a twinge of shame that he knows where I live, that I’m an orphan.

He puts the paintbrush down.

“Arela do you realize what I’m telling you? Every citizen of Osiris is tracked and scanned everywhere they go. Everyone leaves an electronic trail as wide as 5th Avenue. They’re easy to find. You on the other hand, you’re a sliver.”

“Maybe you weren’t looking at the right Arela.” I never gave him a last name so maybe he has the wrong one.

“I lifted your print from the access pad. Arela Harkess, born in 98 to Alastair and Wilda Harkess. Admitted to TWOC in 100. Location of parents unknown.”

My mouth drops open.

“I can snoop just as well as you can,” he says with a smile.

“Did you find anything about my parents?”

“No, I barely found anything on you.”

“How did you get access to the information?” I ask.

He looks at me for a moment. “Never mind, I just did. And you didn’t answer my question. What’s going on Aerla?”

“I don’t know why I’m not tracked. Maybe the system is faulty.”

He tips his head to the side as if considering my point. “So you have no idea why you don’t register in the system. You aren’t cloaking your identifier?”

I laugh. “Cenric I know how to program, but I’m not that good.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

We fall silent and Cenric paces the room. I watch the graceful arc of his calves where they show through the fabric of his pants.

I blink and look away. Why am I looking at his legs? He’s accusing me of tampering with Osiris security, a crime punishable by exile. This is serious.

I realize I’ve never stopped to consider why I can roam freely in Osiris when other citizens can’t. I assumed that once I had cracked the access codes I’d solved that problem. I assumed I was smarter than everyone else.

Cenric stops pacing and stands by the easel. “If the government knew you were trespassing here, they’d have a monitor-bot on you in minutes,” he says.

“Doesn’t that mean they’d have one on you too?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer.

“Why are you being so mysterious?” I ask. “If you want me to be honest with you, you have to be honest with me. That’s how it works.”

“Honesty,” he laughs dryly. “There’s nothing honest left in Osiris.” A shadow crosses his face and I want to ask him about it, but he keeps talking.

“You were right when you said that I’m highborn.” He rubs the back of his neck. Opens his mouth, closes it.

“My parents are well connected to… certain programs and technology,” he finally says. “I’m not supposed to know any of this, but it’s hard not to when I live with them. I program simple commands. I can alter the scanning and security files to hide my location, or secure this building with an identifier.”
“Sounds a lot like breaking and entering,” I say with a smirk.

He glares at me for a second and then shakes his head. “That’s not the point. The point is you can go places I can’t. I can alter records to hide where I’ve been, but I can’t erase my presence entirely. You on the other hand are almost invisible.”
“So?”

“It means you’re the only one that can get into the component storage without setting off every alarm in the building,” He says. “It means you need to get that graphics card. Not me.”

“You want me to break into Technology?” I grin broadly. “Well, now we’re getting some where.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 16