Chapter 18

I take the tablet to building 972 and wait on the stairs for Cenric to arrive. I could have reassembled the device in the library but it felt wrong, doing it without Cenric there. When I see him turn the corner, I can’t stop my smile or the flare of happiness in my chest.

“Hi,” he says when he gets to the building. “I should have known you’d be here.”

“Don’t you want to see if it works?” I ask.

He smiles at me. “Surprisingly ,I do.”

“Surprisingly?” I cock an eyebrow at him.

“That thing almost got us caught and exiled. I’m not sure I want to see it ever again.”

“And killed,” I say.

“Don’t remind me.”

“Who do you think they were?” I ask as Cenric opens the door. “Who has guns in Osiris? I thought they confiscated all of them in the fifties.”

“Not anyone I know about,” he says and steps inside. “I’ve heard of the black market but I didn’t know they were selling weapons.”

“Black market?” I ask.

“For someone who knows everything, you’ve got some serious gaps,” he says with a grin. I punch him lightly in the arm.

“Just tell me.”

“There’s not much to tell. If you want to buy certain items that aren’t on the allocation list, you find a disreputable person, pay a small fortune in credits and hope you aren’t tracked.”

“What would people want that badly?”

“Guns, alcohol, drugs… other items.”

“What other items?” I persist.

He turns red. “I’m not telling you.”
“Now you have to tell me!”

“You know… pornography,” he says it reluctantly.

I look at him skeptically. “That’s impossible. How would they even make it any more?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s just what I’ve heard.”

“So you haven’t seen any of this… illicit material,” I say teasingly.

“No!” he says and I can see a flush creep into his cheeks. I grin. It’s nice to know I can embarrass him as easily as he can embarrass me.
We start climbing the stairs.

“What do you think they were doing in there?” I ask. “And how did they get into the storage room? I thought you said I was the only one.”

Cenric glances down at me. “I don’t know. I guess they were looking for some thing.”

“The person in the storage room was taking components from the back row. Lots of them.”

Cenric shakes his head. “Arela, you should have run the minute the lights came on. I don’t know what you were thinking, following that person. When that gun went off, I thought they’d shot you.”

“And that’s when you abandoned me?”

It takes a moment for Cenric to answer. “I wasn’t going to abandon you. I was… I don’t know what I was going to do. Look for help, I guess.”

“Right,” I say.

We get to the top of the stairs. He turns around to face me.

“What would you have done? It’s hard to win a fight against someone with a gun.”

I laugh. “Don’t be so serious. I would have done exactly the same thing you did. I knew the risks going in. And you ended up saving my life in the end anyway.”

“Well, you probably wouldn’t have died falling six flights.”

“Right, I’d just be a crippled invalid the rest of my life.”

“But you’d be alive.”

I shiver. “That’s not living.”

“Don’t you want to see if that thing works?” He motions to the tablet I’m holding in my right hand.

“I do.” I take the tablet to the bench and clear a space so I can lay it down. I pry open the two halves and pull the graphics card from my pocket. I turn it until it’s facing the right direction and then I clip it into the slot. I close the two pieces and depress the on button. The screen is blank for a moment and then it lights up. The device comes to life and I cheer.

“It works!” I do a little dance and Cenric laughs.

“What are you going to do with it now?” he asks.

“Access the network.”

He frowns at me. “Why?”

I pause before answering. Should I tell him the truth? “I need to change my allotment.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“Technically, but they can’t do anything if they don’t catch me. And this device isn’t tracked by Technology so it’s not like they will.”

“What about geo-location? They’ll know where you’re accessing the network.”

I nod, thinking of the monitor-bot from the library.

“I’m careful to cover my tracks,” I say.

He raises an eyebrow at me. “Well don’t think about accessing it here. I don’t need a monitor-bot in this building.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”

I power the device down to conserve the battery and slide it into the waistband of my pants. I cover it with my shirt.

“What are you painting?” I ask.

“I haven’t started anything yet,” he says. “I’ve been too busy helping you get that card.”

“So then, what will you paint next?”

“I don’t know,” he says and looks away. I think he’s hiding something but I don’t press. I have work to do accessing the network and I can’t do it here.

“Alright, I’m going, I’m going.”

I take the tablet back to the library and hike to the rooftop. I access the network, carefully, and navigate to the allotment files. I check to make sure the twins are still in Education and Rosalin is in Horticulture. Their names are still listed where they should be and I feel a sense of relief. I’m still missing from the records but there are seven weeks until graduation and it’s too soon to add me. There’s too much time for Head to discover my plan and reverse the changes. I just have to be patient.

I’m about to shut the tablet down when I remember I’m supposed to check the adoption logs at TWOC. I navigate through the network until I find the secure files for welfare. It takes me seven minutes to crack the security algorithm and another four to cover my hack, but then I’m in the system and browsing the files freely. I tap through to the adoption records and pull them up on the screen. Johan in 107 and Kelina in 109. No Malyssa, no Henrik and no record of the others Jaela and Rosalin were so sure had been adopted. I feel a certain smugness at being proved right, but then I start to wonder. What happened to the minors not listed as adopted? I try to remember if we ever saw those kids after they left. I know we haven’t heard from Henrik and while it’s not strange for him to be busy settling into his new life, it is strange that he wouldn’t leave a note for one of us to say he was going.

I browse through more of the TWOC files but I don’t find any evidence of where they are now. They could be listed in another Osiris file, but I don’t have time to peruse every iota of data in the feed. That would take millennia. A universal search function would be useful here but the Osiris programmers didn’t code it into the system.

Amateurs, I think.

I shut the tablet down and return it to the transmission room, where I reattach the power cord and tuck it out of sight. I know curfew is still an hour away but I’m exhausted from the previous night’s events and all I can think about is sleep.

Jaela, Rosalin and I are sitting at a cafeteria table eating an unidentifiable substance they’ve labeled curry. It’s spicy but bland, just a hot tingle as it rolls down my throat. I eat it because I’m hungry but I try not to think about the texture or taste.

“I was right, you know,” I say around a mouthful of what I think is supposed to be rice.

“So what’s new?” Jalea says. “You’re right about everything.”

“Right about what?” Rosalin asks.

“About the adoptions,” I say. “There have been two official adoptions since 0102. A boy named Johan and a girl named Kelina. Malyssa isn’t listed. And there’s no trace of Henrik or that other girl you were talking about.”

“Maybe they stopped recording the adoptions?” Jaela says. “Where else would they have gone to? It’s not like they just disappeared.”

I shrug. “Maybe. But there’s a file for everything in Osiris and they aren’t on any of them.”

“Maybe we should ask one of the proctors?” Rosalin says. “They could at least give us Henrik’s contact details.”

“Did you try pinging him on the message board?” I ask.

“He’s never online,” Jaela says. “And he hasn’t answered any of our messages.”

“Hey,” Jacobo says as he approaches our table and sets his tray down at the open spot. “What’s going on?”

Rosalin shifts over so he can slide in next to her.

“Nice of you to grace us with your presence,” Jaela says with a sideways look.

Jacobo ignores her and shovels curry into his mouth.

“We were just talking about Henrik,” Rosalin says. “And the other adoptions. Arela looked at the records and they’re not listed.”

“Maybe they weren’t adopted,” Jacobo says. “Maybe they’re dead.”

“What?” Jaela’s head jerks up and she drops her fork into her plate. “No one dies. How could they be dead? That doesn’t make sense.”

Jacobo keeps eating, his head down. “How else do you explain Henrik disappearing?” He says around a mouthful of food.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Jaela says.

“You asked me a question!” Jacobo retorts.

“Fine!”

“Why do you think he’s dead?” I ask to cut them off.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. But Henrik left without telling us he was going, he’s never online and he hasn’t answered a single one of my e-messages. He’s either dead or some where so shut off he might as well be.” He sounds bitter when he says it. Like he’s blaming Henrik for abandoning him. I guess he’s still mad about the handball tournament.

“That’s horrible, Jacob,” Rosalin says. “People don’t just die in Osiris.”

He shrugs, scrapes the last of the curry off his plate and gets up from the table.

“Gotta go,” he says, leaving his tray where it is. He doesn’t look at Jaela.

“You left your tray!” she shouts after him. “He’s such a slob.”

“He did that on purpose,” I say. “He’s trying to get to you.”

“Why would he do that?” she asks.

“Because you’re being a nag.”

“I am not!” Jaela says. “And why aren’t you on my side? He’s the one being a child! You should be picking on him!” Jaela jumps up from the table and storms away. Rosalin and I look at each other and I shrug.

“They’ll get over it.”

“I hope so,” Rosalin says. “Because living with her in that mood isn’t going to be fun.”

I stack the extra trays and take them to the dispenser. Rosalin follows me.

We head to the rec room and find an open spot on a recliner. We settle in and watch a few minutes of the medical soap, when Rosalin interrupts.

“I’m worried about you Arela,” she says. “You’re never here anymore and you always look tired. I woke up last night and you weren’t in bed. I waited for you to come back from the bathroom but you never did.”

“You were awake when I got back?” I asked in surprise. Rosalin had been snoring softly when I slipped into the room just before dawn. I assumed she had slept through the night.

“Well, I fell asleep waiting for you. But it was four o’clock in the morning the last time I checked. Where were you?”

“I had to get something,” I say, reluctant to give her details.

“In the middle of the night?” She turns towards me on the recliner, her eyes large and dark with worry. She has shadows under her eyes. She must be tired too.

“Yes,” I say. “In the middle of the night. Rosalin it was important and we can’t talk about it here. I promise I’ll tell you everything when we graduate.”
“What if you don’t graduate?” she says.

“That’s what I’m working on,” I say. “That’s why I’m spending so much time outside TWOC. I’m making sure we get the allotments we want and an apartment together. I can’t do it from in here.”

Rosalin is quiet for a moment while she searches my face.

“We won’t get any of that if you get caught and sent to Judiciary.”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m being careful. I’ll be perfectly fine.” I try not to think of the bullet that almost hit me the night before.

“It’s just that-“ she cuts off, looks down at her lap.

“What?”

“I miss you,” she says and looks back up at me. “I see the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “You’re never here any more.”

“Rosalin,” I say, “I promise this won’t take long. I just have to do this now, before graduation. Once we’re out of here, it will be totally different.”

I smile at her but she doesn’t smile back.

“Not funny,” she says, the corners of her mouth turn down.

“I guess my jokes never were that good.”

She laughs at that and I feel a small measure of relief.

“You’re right about that,” she says.

“According to Jaela, I’m right about everything.”

“Why do you have to go out at night?” she asks.

“I don’t. It was just a one-time thing. And I promise I’m being careful. You aren’t going to get rid of me that easily.”

“What are you doing out there anyway?” she asks.

I consider telling her about Cenric and the tablet, about the Technology facility, but something holds me back.

“Is it that man from the riot?” she asks.

I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “No, no, it’s not him. I think he’s avoiding me.”

She looks at me for a moment and then smiles slightly. “Good, he sounds like trouble.” There’s a twinkle in her eye when she says it. I’m grateful for the turn in her mood.

Next Chapter: Chapter 19