by Lu, Marie
Let down my guard. That’s when I notice, with some irritation, my stiff back and straight posture. Of course June had sensed my anxiety and my forced politeness. Had I really forgotten what it was like to be around her, how she’d always manage to figure out everything and everyone around her with a few quick glances? If I could look into her head right now, I know I would see organized lists of observations and reactions.
But that’s what makes us different. She can figure me out in an instant, but I can’t do the same back.
A waiter approaches us and pours us some more sparkling water. I remember how long it’d taken me to even understand the concept of sparkling water. My gaze lingers on the bubbles rising now in my drink. Across from me, June’s eyes rest on the paper clip ring looped around my finger. It’s catching a glint of light right now that makes it shine, for just a moment, like a rare gem. She gives me a hesitant smile, and my entire heart tightens with hope.
A place where we can let down our guard. Where we can find our way back to how we used to be.
Suddenly I perk up and give her a quick smile. “I know a place. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
At that, June’s entire demeanor changes. Her eyes light up with a warmth that I recall from our younger days, and a brightness fills her face until all I can do is stare at her, completely entranced.
“Sounds perfect,” she says, already pushing away her chair.
It’s winter down here, and the biodome’s simulation has started to disappear, giving way to the sheet of glittering stars overhead. I lead June across a walkway toward an unfinished skyscraper. It’s far at the east side of Ross City, in a development complex that has never been finished. Now the skyscraper stands alone and unoccupied, a strange dark structure among the others that are lit from top to bottom. Ivy has crawled all over it in the year since it was abandoned.
“Watch that step,” I say over my shoulder to her as I climb up the side of it into an open window. She follows close behind.
We land in a bed of lush vegetation and ivy, flower buds shut for the night against the cracks in the floor. Overhead, past the green trails hanging from the open ceiling, ribbons of southern lights dance across the blanket of stars.
“This might be the only quiet place in Ross City,” I tell June as we sit on the edge of the building and look out at the never-ending sea of lights. “Sometimes I come here to think.”
June has her eyes turned up to the stars. She can’t see them like this in the Republic, and the serene wonder on her face is breathtaking. “About what?” she asks.
I tear my gaze momentarily away from her. Down below, the floors vanish into slants of shadows. “I wonder if coming here to Ross City was the right choice,” I say. “For my brother. For me.”
June turns to me. “It seems like it’s treated you okay,” she replies.
“Maybe. But I can feel Eden’s discomfort with our life. He’s drawn to the streets of his past—he spent less time there than I did, so he’s curious about it in a way that I’m not. Sometimes I can feel him pulling away from me and back toward the Republic.”
At that, June nods stiffly. There’s a look of understanding on her face. “Are you afraid of the Republic?” she asks me.
“Maybe. I don’t know. When I think too long about the past, I get nightmares. I lose my appetite. That sort of thing.” I shake my head. “I don’t think Eden gets the same. If he does, he doesn’t talk to me about it.” I look at her. “And you?”
June hesitates as she gazes at the sky. Finally, she says, “Do you know the real reason why Anden came here to see your President? It’s because the Republic needs money.”
“Money?”
“We’re deep in debt. Anden’s trying to rebuild everything—fixing the infrastructure in the poor districts, tearing down the Trial stadiums, replacing them with new buildings. It all costs far more than we have. So he’s been trying to make deals with as many countries as he can.” She pauses. “I’m glad. It needs to happen. But protests have been happening too. There are times when I look out at the Republic and feel afraid. Afraid of where we came from. Afraid of what might happen in the future. Nothing ever feels secure, you know? I’m so used to our lives falling apart that it makes me nervous when it hasn’t happened in a while.”
Her words hint at a part of myself that I haven’t revealed to anyone in years. It’s the part of me that still looks across Ross City and expects to see everything crumble. It’s the version of myself that wakes, gasping, from a nightmare of me back on the streets of Lake. I’m not the only one afraid of my past.
I reach out to touch her hand with mine. The warmth of her skin jolts through me, both new and familiar. “I know,” I tell her gently. “I remember enough about that time.”
She smiles sadly at me. “Do your memories still haunt you like they used to?”
“It’s not all back, but I remember most things now. Sometimes there’s a peculiar slant of light or the scent of smoke in the air, some small lingering thing that reminds me of something I can’t quite place.” I shake my head. “It’s like a dream of a different life.”
June turns to me. Her hair is shorter than it used to be, cut straight to her shoulders, and now I find one of those lost memories tugging at the edges of my consciousness. My fingers combing through her hair, my whisper against her ear.
She can tell I’m struggling. Nothing has ever slipped by her. “Near the train station that evening,” she murmurs, “when you said you remembered me and shook my hand, what was it that triggered that first thought?”
This part of us, too, feels stuck between being an old relationship and the beginning of something entirely new. I smile and look away. “The light in your eyes,” I reply. “Not everyone has the ability to draw people in with a single glance, June, but you have a very specific glow about you. Even if I hadn’t known you, I would have stopped and looked back. I would’ve introduced myself.”
June’s silent for a while, her eyes lingering on me, and I feel suddenly shy under that searing gaze. In the month since that fateful moment, we haven’t seen each other again. We haven’t chatted. A part of me doesn’t even dare believe that she’s here right now, in front of me.
There are so many pieces of our story that I still can’t recall. My time in the Republic’s prisons feels like a blur of blood and chains, an overwhelming sun and an all-consuming pain in my leg. I barely remember any of our time in the Colonies that June claims we experienced. There are important people missing, faces wiped clean.
For a long time, that included June.
On impulse, I move nearer to her and touch her arm. I half expect her to stiffen and move away, but she doesn’t. Instead, her breaths turn shallow, and she allows herself to lean closer too, until we’re close enough to feel the warmth emanating from our bodies.
I want to ask her how she feels about me. But that old fear returns, that maybe she’s come all this way to tell me that we’re best as only friends. She’s about to move, I live in a different country, and neither of us is anything except busy.
I remember that I loved you, I want to tell her. I’m in love with you. I love you still. But the words don’t emerge from my lips. They stay buried, trembling in my throat.
For a moment, I think this may be as close as we allow ourselves to get.
Then June moves before I can say more. She leans toward me, stopping a hairsbreadth away from my lips.
I can’t hold back any longer. I close that remaining distance between us—and my lips touch hers.
And everything inside me breaks, every barrier and hesitation and insecurity, it all shatters as the feeling of her with me crashes through my chest. I wonder if it will be like this every time we touch. Everything in me wants to press us against the wall and kiss her harder, to make up for all the time we’ve lost. I want her arms to wrap around my neck, pulling me down to her. I want her so badly. All the questions unanswered between us—What do we do? Where do we go from here?—fade awa
y, leaving only the sharp present, her body warm in my embrace.
But I force myself to stay in the present, our kiss suspended in this uncertain zone between us, part of it a reunion, part of it a possibility that maybe this is as far as we can ever take it.
A pending call appears in my view, interrupting the rush of this moment. It’s from AIS, followed by a message and a map.
Crime scene in the Undercity. Come immediately.
Could there ever be a worse time for my job to get in the way? It’s almost as if life wants to keep us apart. I sigh and send a quick message back.
Emergency? Did we find the drone race location?
Yes, it’s an emergency. And no, we haven’t yet.
I whisper a silent curse.
June senses the break in the moment and pulls away. We’re both breathing heavily, dizzy from the rush of being so close.
“You should go,” she says, even though she doesn’t know what the message had read. Like everything else about me, she can probably sense that it’s something significant.
I don’t want to. I want to stay here, watching a star-filled night sky with her. The ache of being away from her for so long, the twinge of fear that, if I leave her side, I won’t be able to make my way back to her again, swells up in me with an overwhelming force.
Maybe she’s waiting for me to make the first move, to reach out and keep us from stepping apart.
You should go.
Those are her words, not mine.
Maybe I am misreading everything from her, then. I feel myself tearing away, my feet taking a step backward from her and letting the distance between us cool. I can’t tell if she’s disappointed or surprised. There’s so much that I’m unable to read about her now.
“Can I see you again?” I finally say.
She nods. The politeness has returned to her smile, the distance to her posture. But at least she doesn’t turn away and leave. At least she looks like she still wants to stay here and linger. That’s something, isn’t it?
“When are you free?” she asks.
When are you free? My heart lifts. “I’m attending the gala in honor of Anden’s arrival in a few nights,” I reply. “Will you be there?”
“I’ll be there,” she answers. My heart hangs on to her every word and gesture, every tiny step between us as I try to read her the way I once used to. She gives me a faint smile. “See you at the party.”
EDEN
I toss restlessly in a series of nightmares. My mother, getting shot over and over again. Me, locked in a glass cylinder in a forever-rocking train car, weeping and waiting for someone to let me out. The blurry haze that blankets my vision after the plague finishes with me. The man named Dominic steps out of that haze to talk to me. Drones zip by overhead as I run down strange streets, searching for a family that isn’t there. It all swirls together into one long, endless dream.
I wake in a panic, as I always do. I spend the rest of the night pacing in my room, scribbling down more engine ideas to distract myself, until the first light of dawn appears.
Then I head off to the university before Daniel’s even awake.
The final day of exams passes before me in a blur. I finish my tests early, even though I’m exhausted, and hurry out into the school’s halls as fast as I can in an attempt to avoid talking to anyone.
The halls are still pretty quiet, but some of the other classes have already let out, and a steady stream of students are making their way down the halls and out of the university. I walk down the path alone. My shoes echo against the tiles. Simulated afternoon light from outside the city’s biodome is streaming into the halls, painting everything in gold.
A few loud voices drift to me from somewhere up ahead. I stiffen, slow my walk, and listen more closely.
Damn. Emerson and his crew.
He’s laughing his head off at something that Jenna has said, and from the sound of it, they’re hanging out at the end of the hall, blocking the entrance of the university.
I stop in the middle of the sunbathed hall and try to figure out another way to leave the campus. On a normal afternoon, there would be two other entrances and exits in this building. But because of today’s finals, I know the back entrance is already locked. I think about trying the side entrance to see if it’s open, but it doesn’t connect to the elevators that lead back down to my floor. I’d have to take a long, meandering route down to the Mid Floors in order to get back home.
Maybe I’ll be lucky today. It’s the last day, and he must be in a good mood, too busy celebrating with his friends to notice me slipping out of the university.
I hesitate there for a moment too long. In that instant, I hear his voice suddenly turn in my direction, followed by a shout that echoes down the hall. “Well!” he shouts. “Looks like the Wing boy’s out early, as always!”
My palms break out in a cold sweat. Emerson chuckles, the same sound I always hear whenever he’s thought up some new way to mess with me. I curse under my breath, then whirl around and start walking toward the side entrance.
But I can hear him catching up, along with the laughter of his friends. My eyes dart to the timer floating in the corner of my virtual view. Other students won’t get out for another fifteen minutes.
I’m only halfway down the hall before an arm grabs the back of my shirt and forces me to turn around.
Emerson’s cheery brown eyes are staring straight at me. He grins. “What are you in such a hurry for, Wing?” he says.
My eyes dart to the two behind him. Jenna and Alan smile back at me.
It’s the last day you’ll ever have to deal with them, I tell myself over and over again. Just get through this.
So I shrug out of his grasp and mutter, “I’m late to meet up with my brother.”
Alan grunts in surprise. “I thought you and your brother weren’t talking much these days,” he says.
“Doesn’t he have another brother?” Jenna pipes up.
Emerson’s face lights up. “He did! But I think he died in front of a firing squad.” He shakes his head at me in mock sympathy. “I remember seeing the leaked video of that online.”
John. I still in Emerson’s grip. My heart freezes. Emerson senses my tension and knows he’s hit a nerve, because the edges of his lips tilt a little in grim satisfaction.
I’ve never seen the video of John’s death before. But I’ve read enough descriptions of it in the news to visualize it. It happened in a prison courtyard with high stone walls and a dirt floor smeared with dark stains. Republic soldiers dragged in a struggling figure and chained him in place against one of the walls. John’s execution, when he had taken Daniel’s place so that Daniel could escape.
I can’t breathe. The world around me—their laughter, the footsteps of hundreds of students—sounds muffled. I don’t say a word.
Emerson, Alan, and Jenna are all staring at me, daring me to look away from them. “Poor thing,” Jenna says, her voice dripping with just a little too much sympathy to be genuine. “Are you okay? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring him up.”
The Level system doesn’t penalize them for talking about my oldest brother. The tech still can’t tell the difference between a hard heart and a bleeding one.
John.
I am standing in front of my brother’s broken body, and I’m delirious on a gurney as the Republic drags me away, and I’m calling for my mother as a soldier lifts his rifle to her head. The anxiety crowds my mind and swells to the surface.
The way John would walk with me to school. The way he stayed up struggling to read by candlelight.
Emerson leans so close that his nose almost touches mine. “It’s okay, skyboy,” he says, just loud enough so that others can hear. He pats my shoulder. “Why don’t you let it out? You can cry—”
One second, his face is an inch from mine—the next, he’s on the ground, and my fist is smeared with blood from his broken nose.
The students around us scream, some in delight. Fight! The word ripples
through the hall, and suddenly people are pressed in a tight circle around us. In my view, a red warning flickers, followed by:
INSTIGATING A FIGHT | −50 POINTS
I couldn’t care less. I swing down again. Emerson is so surprised by my attack that I manage to catch him on the chin again. Then his weight is overwhelming me, and he shoves me off hard enough to send me skidding across the ground. Still, he doesn’t attack. He doesn’t want the Level system catching him fighting back.
“Skyboy’s grown a pair, eh?” he says instead, his voice sharp. I struggle to my feet. My hands scrape raw against the ground. “Look at you, attacking someone unprovoked.”
I scramble to my feet and swing blindly for him again. Then people are prying us apart, and someone is shouting something in my ear.
“Hey! It’s okay. It’s okay.”
The voice belongs to Pressa. She’s still in her janitor uniform, and her hands are on my shoulders, shaking me. She looks up at the crowd around us. “What the hell are you all gawking at, anyway? Don’t you have places to go?”
The heat of the fight’s over, and the crowd’s already losing interest. As they scatter, Emerson dusts his shirt off and gives me a grim smile. So this is going to be how we part ways forever.
Pressa helps me to my feet. “Are you out of your mind, attacking someone like those guys on the last day of uni? You’re gonna get more point deductions, you know, if his parents file charges and the court agrees with them.”
But the memory of what had happened to John is burned too deeply into my thoughts for me to care. I swing my bag back over my shoulder and start stalking toward the exit again. “What does it matter, anyway?” I mutter. “If the system’s rigged from the start?”
Pressa doesn’t argue with that. She sighs and rests her hand on my arm. “You don’t have to explain it to me,” she says, her gaze distant. “Someday, we’re all gonna get out of here. Find adventure and happiness somewhere else.”
In gratitude, I touch her hand in return. At least there’s one person in my life who seems to understand, and of course she’s from the Undercity.