She knows she’s not going to make it. The pain from her ankle has climbed into her calf and is twisting up her thigh. Hair is plastered to her face with sweat. The palms of her hands are scraped raw so she uses the back of her wrist to clear grit and dust from her eyes. They’ve been running along the tunnel for long minutes now but her ears are still ringing from the explosion. Jagged streaks of light swim across her vision when she closes her eyes. She tries to keep them open.
“Al,” she gasps. “I can’t-“
The man in front of her turns around, his face stricken. He’s holding a toddler in his arms. Her green dress is dusted in a white powder but she appears unharmed.
“Is she-“ She can’t finish the sentence.
The man glances at the girl’s face, grips her tighter.
“She’s alive. Stunned.” He’s gasping too. “Probably for the best. She won’t remember any of this.”
He shifts her a little so they can both gaze at her face. Her eyes are wide with fear and she’s sucking her thumb, but she’s quiet.
“We can’t stay here,” Al says and shifts her a little higher on his shoulder.
She starts to cry. “But there’s nowhere to go.”
He’s silent for a moment and she feels the certainty of it drop into her stomach and spread through her limbs. She wants to lie down and rest. Rest with her beautiful, innocent child wrapped in her arms.
With his free hand, he tucks a matted strand of hair behind her ear. She keeps crying, almost silently until he drops his hand and squeezes her shoulder. “We have to take her to them,” he says.
She snaps her head up. “No.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“But that means-“
He stares at her silently. His eyelashes are caked in ash but his gaze is steady. She thinks her own eyes are a misery of weakness and despair.
“She doesn’t have anything to do with this,” she says. “We can’t do that to her. What kind of life is that? So dark-” She shivers.
“We knew what we were risking,” he says.
The woman nods slowly, pulls herself up and takes a shaky breath. There’s no point in crying now. It’s not going to change anything. It will only make it harder.
“We have to go.” He looks at her for a moment and then turns away, taking her daughter with him. She feels her chest empty onto the floor and wants to scream at him to stop, to just stop. But he doesn’t stop. He jogs away from her and she forces herself to follow.
Chapter 1
I’ve never seen a dead person before. I always imagined a dead person would look like some one sleeping, still and pale, but it’s not like that at all. The dead woman I’m looking at is a mottled grey color. Her mouth is hanging open. A half chewed glob of food is stuck to her chin and her tongue is a deep purple. She looks like a grotesque puppet, something from an old world horror film. But this is no fantasy; she’s sitting right in front of me.
I’m not sure how I feel about this turn of events. I’ve been spying on this woman for three months, and each previous time she was alive. She was old, yes, but I didn’t know death was creeping up on her, like a ghoul coming to scare her in the night. I’m surprised and repulsed but more than that, I’m fascinated. People don’t just die in Osiris. There’s a process for everything, death included. At end stage people are taken to palliative care and made comfortable. They’re ushered out of life with morphine and the hushed tones of care workers. It’s a restful and dignified ritual.
Death is a rare and momentous affair in Osiris. The common cold, disease and infection have been cured, fatal maladies – accident and homicide excepted - are rare as natural sunlight.
Not many people die these days. All one million Osirians live long and harmonious lives. Lives dictated by the code, by the exacting balance of space and resources. One million survivors of a dead planet, bound together under our miraculous perimeter. It’s a scary thought, that we are the last of humanity, but I try not to dwell on it.
I shift my position by the window and scrub grime from the glass. I peer closer, as if a clearer view will provide answers, will reveal evidence on her decaying body. The woman’s sitting at a plastic table. Propped up really. I can tell she’s been there a few days because the rigor mortis is wearing off and her head is starting to droop. I wonder why the city sensors haven’t noticed her, a function of our completely wired metropolis. I’m starting to think the system isn’t as good as they report. The dead lady in front of me is proof enough of that.
I hear a loud beep and the door to the room slides open. I duck away from the window and press myself against the brick façade. I’m twelve-stories up, balanced on the fire escape of building 736 – one of my usual haunts in the city. Needless to say, I’m not supposed to be here. No one has used a fire escape in fifty-six years, when city sensor was installed. The system is programmed to identify and suffocate fire in less than twenty-three seconds. I’ve never seen this happen but that’s what it says in the specifications manual.
I really should leave but I can’t make myself descend the metal ladder. I’m horrified and compelled by the dead body. I need to see it again, commit as much detail to memory. This might be the last dead person I see.
I peek around the window frame and come face to face with a man in a cryovac suit. I’m sure he’s seen me, but the grime on the window is too thick and he’s too busy prying the woman away from her chair. He’s gripping her under the arms and dragging her backwards, like she’s a sack of plasti-crete. He finally manages to dislodge her from the chair and her body tilts toward the ground. The food falls from her chin and rolls from view. The other man fishes her feet from under the table and they carry her like a half cooked noodle to a body bag on the floor. They wrangle her distended limbs inside and seal it closed. The black bag looks out of place in the grey toned apartment. Obscene. It’s too shiny, like an insect bursting from its cocoon.
They secure the bag to a cart and wheel her through the still open door. With a whoosh the doors close and the apartment is empty. She’s gone in two minutes and forty-six seconds and the apartment looks two-dimensional without her.
I didn’t know the woman, but I miss her already. I’ve climbed to the top of this building every week to watch her and her “eradication list” mouse. The little creature is silky grey, with a twitchy-pink nose. Mice are categorized as vermin in Osiris and city sensor exterminates them. But here was a refugee, holed up with a woman in her hundreds, enjoying a crumb abundant life. The woman ate her meals with mouse sitting on the table across from her, waiting as she tossed it morsels of food from her plate. She was never too clean, the lady, but the mouse was fastidious. After a meal of vegan-meat or toast or dairy-block, it would clean its whiskers and paws with long compulsive shivers.
I’ve explored a good portion of Osiris, looked in countless windows, spied on other unsuspecting citizens but this is the first live animal I’ve seen. I’ve grown to like it. I love the eager way it sniffs the air, the excited shiver of it’s tail as it runs around the table before meal times. It’s cruel to leave it stuck in a foodless apartment. It will die lonely and afraid, much like the woman died. I wedge my fingertips under the window sash and yank upwards. It doesn’t budge. I press my face to the glass and peer inside. No sign of the mouse. It’s in hiding after the cryovac invasion.
I hold onto the fire escape and lean away from the window. There’s nothing but concrete to my right, but I see another set of windows, looking into the food-prep room, to my left. I eye the gaps between the blocks. They’re shallow, but just wide enough for me to reach inside with the tips of my fingers. I feel the concrete grind against my skin. I don’t stop to think about what I’m doing. I step over the rail, jam the edge of my toe against the tiny ledge and reach as far as I can with my left arm. I hook my fingers around a corner and lean into the wall. There’s a foot between the window sash and me. A foot long gap I’ll need to shimmy across without loosing my grip. I take a breath and let go of the fire escape behind me. The pressure on my fingers and toes is so great I feel the concrete crumbling away, but before I can slip entirely I jam my right fingers and toes into a crevice each and then launch myself across the gap. I’m suspended in the air for a moment and then my foot lands on the ledge and I slam my hand into the metal edge of the window frame. I smear myself against the glass and grin wildly. I really hope this window opens because I hadn’t considered how I’d get back to the fire escape from my now precarious position.
I slide my hands down the metal rim of the window until I can hook my fingers under the sash. I jerk upwards. Nothing happens for a moment and then with a groan it slides open. A rush of fetid air gushes over me and I cough. Despite the stench, I lever myself through the space and slide the window down behind me.
I’m inside!
The apartment is eerily quiet and I realize they’ve turned off the air control unit. Without the hum of electricity, the space feels muffled and lifeless. I tip toe into the living area and scan the room. Still no mouse but it’s well past dinnertime so he can’t be far.
I sweep a hand across the tabletop until I have a small pile of crumbs in my palm. I lower myself until I’m cross-legged on the floor, staring at the gap between the sofa and the floor.
Five minutes and forty seconds later, I see a tiny pink nose twitch from the shadow of the gap. Two minutes later his head appears. We look at each other for a while and then he decides I’m not a threat. He scurries towards me and reaches his forepaws up so they’re resting against my palm. The sensation is so unexpected I almost laugh out loud, but I’m afraid I’ll scare him away so I clamp my lips shut and try to regulate my breathing.
I watch him intently as he clambers directly into my hand and lifts a crumb to his face. His whiskers twitch and tremble in delight. I can feel the heat of his tiny body, the softness of his grey fur. I marvel at this breathing, living animal. Watching him from the other side of a window is one thing, but this. This is miraculous.
The blare of a horn sounds from outside and I jerk my head up in surprise. I’ve been sitting here much longer than I expected and now I’m in danger of missing curfew. The horn goes off fifteen minutes before they shut the city down at night and unless you have special dispensation you are legally required to be indoors, preferably in your assigned apartment where the city sensors can keep an eye on you. I need to descend twelve floors and get back to my assigned ward. I have exactly seventeen minutes.
“Ok mouse, time to go,” I say as I drop him into the front pocket of my shirt. I worry he’ll try to launch himself back out, but he just peers at me, his nose twitching indignantly.
“I know, I know. We’ll be home soon, I promise.”
I rise to my feet and as I do, I notice a silver coated shape poking from beneath the sofa cushion. I reach forward and slide it out.
It’s an old world device!
I’ve been scouring the city for these and I’ve rarely seen one in such good condition. Most have cracked screens and dented edges. This one looks clean and smooth. I depress a few of the buttons but nothing happens. Dead. Just like the others. I make a face of frustration and then tuck it into the back of my waistband. It’ll go in the pile with all the others, until I figure out how to power it.
I know my time is ticking away so I scoot around the table, flip the window lock aside and slide it open. I clamber out, shut it behind me, and swing myself through the gap in the metal rungs. I’m usually quiet when I sneak around the city but now I’m in a hurry. I slide down the fire escape, my boots twanging every time I drop to a new level. Rusting metal peels off the metal bars as I run my hands along them and I know I’ll be picking red flakes from under my fingernails for days. I wonder how much it would hurt if I fell from this height and I grin at the thought. I’ve never fallen, and I don’t plan to start now.
I hit the street in four minutes and seven seconds and start running. I’m forty-two blocks from my destination and too far from the monorail to benefit from high-speed transport. I’m not the fastest Osiris runner but no one has caught me yet. I’m fairly certain I can make it back before lights out but I’m cutting it close.
I glance up at the sky. The perimeter’s cloudy surface billows above me, held upright by heat generators. It encapsulates the city, and lights it with an overcast glow. Osirians exist in a perpetual state of shadow. It doesn’t make for the most uplifting experience but considering the perimeter is the only thing keeping a noxious cloud of gas from killing us, I think it’s a pretty good compromise. It’s also convenient when I need to avoid the city guard and I want to spy unobserved. Sneaking around is easier with frequent pockets of gloom to hide in.
The perimeter is now pewter grey and fading fast. There’s no such thing as real sunlight in Osiris. I’ve never seen the sun, but the Originals say it was a daily occurrence - the rise and fall of light. The sunrise and sunset simulations are the closest we have to real night and day.
I’m down to three minutes and fifteen seconds when I slip through the door of building 621. We live in the Temporary Welfare and Organized Cooperative, or TWOC. It’s a sturdy, metal building of square rooms and no windows, dingy common areas and cracked plastic-crete. There are one hundred and forty-six minors living in the building, children whose parents are dead or missing. We are cared for by the Osiris state, which means we are housed in a public facility we call home until we’re released to the community. But TWOC isn’t really home for anyone. No matter how young we are when we arrive, the building feels like a temporary holding cell, a minor pause before we get on with our lives.
“Where have you been?” Rosalin hisses at me as I skid down the hallway to line up. She already has her night smock on and her hair is a shiny black wave down her back.
“I’ll tell you later,” I whisper. I’m trying not to grin but I can’t help it. I’m flushed with the exhilaration of my run through the city and I can’t wait to show her the mouse.
The head proctor, Nevin Smit, or Head as we call him, is already scanning wrist codes at the other end of the line. He looks up briefly each time and his nose twitches like he smells something fetid. His skin is a pasty white and even though the building is temperature controlled, he always looks sweaty.
I tear the elastic from the end of my braid and shake my hair out until the ginger curls – really a giant frizz – fan around my shoulders and hide my shirt pocket from view.
“Arela, you better stop smiling,” she cuts her eyes towards Head. “You look like a loon.”
I smirk and shrug, watching as Head gets closer. He approaches Rosalin and she holds out the underside of her wrist. Head holds a flat metal device over it until it beeps and then he moves onto me. The corners of his mouth turn down.
“You’re filthy,” he says and I stand there staring at him, the smile still on my lips. Now we’re in a staring contest, my arm firmly at my side.
“Arela, don’t push me,” he says. I drop the smile and lower my eyes. I hold out my wrist. Head always wins these altercations, but I can’t stop myself from taunting him just a bit.
When he gets to the end of the line he turns to address us.
“Thirty minutes until lights out,” he says as if we haven’t heard this every night of our lives.
I grab Rosalin’s hand and drag her down the corridor behind me.
“Arela! What’s the hurry?”
I rush us into our room, a utilitarian space with bare walls and a single set of bunk beds. A small cluster of plants and vitamin lamps, a small indication of Rosalin’s ongoing obsession, are tucked into one corner but otherwise the space is empty of clutter. I slap the inside panel so the door slides shut. I spin around to face my friend and scoop the mouse out of my pocket.
Rosalin shrieks and jumps back.
“What is that?” She has her hands over her mouth, her blue eyes are so round she looks like her avatar.
“This is mouse,” I say and hold it out to her. “Look, he won’t hurt you.”
Rosalin lowers her hands and steps forward to peer at the creature. She holds the tip of her index finger towards him and he sniffs at her in shy little bursts.
“Hold out your hands,” I say and drop mouse into her open palms.
Rosalin breaks into a smile.
“Right?” I say, knowing exactly how she feels.
We stand there for long minutes staring down at mouse as he turns slow circles in her cupped hands.
“What are we going to do with him?” she asks. “If Head finds him-”
“We’ll keep him in the dresser. I’ve got an old smock we can use for his bed. We just have to smuggle in a little water and food. It’ll be perfect.”
I push against a raised panel in the wall and the dresser draw slides open.
“See? Deep enough he can’t jump out.”
Rosalin peers in dubiously as I pull out all but one wrinkled smock.
“You really think he’ll be ok in there?” she asks.
“If he survived the city sensors, he’ll be fine here.”
The lighted ceiling flickers.
“Arela, you’re filfty. You need to wash up,” Roaslin says. “It’s lights out in ten minutes.”
“Plenty of time,” I say and throw one of the smocks over my shoulder. I toss the rest on the top bunk. “Don’t do anything while I’m gone.”
Rosalin raises a dark eyebrow at me as I leave and I can’t help laughing.
The common bathroom is empty, the illuminants casting a sallow glare on the tile and metal sinks. I shove my clothes into the dispenser - they’re labeled with my number and will show up in my delivery cube after laundry day - and wave on the water. I watch as a dirty stream of water sluices down the drain. I take a threadbare towel from the rack, dry off and pull the smock over my head.
I study myself in the mirror. Even wet, my hair is a tangle of curls and my pale face, which never colors under the vitamin lamps, looks wan in the light. I can’t help comparing my colorless features unfavorably to Rosalin’s deep olive complexion.
I chide myself for the unnecessary vanity. Pride in one’s appearance is considered a luxury reserved for the high born, for those lucky enough to live with their biological families.