by Tania Hutley
“The thing that stopped the mold from sealing was a coin.”
“A coin?”
“You know, old-fashioned money? My father gave it to me when I was little, supposed to be a good luck charm. Against the rules to have it with me while I was working, so the company wasn’t responsible for my accident. I had to pay my own medical bills.” I grimace, remembering how expensive it was. All the money Ma and I had saved, wiped out in a moment of carelessness. “Actually, I was glad not to lose my job. They transferred me to a different factory, and when I couldn’t afford to get my eye regrown, a friend gave me this one. He’d kept it as a souvenir for years, from when he used to work in the factory that made them.”
She’s gaping. “You didn’t even get it made in the correct size?”
“It wasn’t too far off. The doctor filed my eye socket to make it fit.”
“My lord.” Her voice is faint and she looks horrified. We really do come from different worlds.
“Sure it’s not pretty, but I couldn’t afford to do anything about the scars either, so it all kind of matches.” I try giving her another smile to see if I can lift the shock off her kind face. “Don’t worry, I’ve learned to live with it.”
“It’s unbelievable. And to think it happened in one of our own factories! It’s horrifying, Rayne. Unconscionable.”
When she frowns like that, her eyes scrunch in a way that reminds me sharply of Ma. My heart contracts again and I have to glance away. “It’s okay. Really.”
“Well, at least you’ll be getting a new Skin to play with.”
I try not to look completely blank.
She gets up to leave, and on the desk she’s left a bottle, which I guess is the sunburn cream she mentioned. She pauses at the door. “Not all the competitors have arrived yet, but Director Morelle’s planning to start your training tomorrow. If you’re well enough, of course, Rayne. For now, just get a good night’s sleep.”
What training? I have a million questions, but asking would give me away. As she leaves, I wonder whether I should have said something about the money and tried to get her talking about it. She called me a competitor, not a lottery winner, and the guy with Rayne in the shelter said something about a contest as well. Could Rayne have entered into a race? I’m pretty fast, but I’d be no match for a professional runner.
I wonder how many competitors there are going to be, and if they’ll be sleeping in here too. This room could hold about eight people, though there’s only one bed and this doesn’t seem like the kind of place where people spread mattresses on the floor. But just in case I end up sharing, I’m going to take advantage of the bathroom now while I’ve still got it all to myself.
Though I’m still weak and sore, as soon as I open the bathroom door, I forget my aches. It’s clean and shiny, like I’m the first person to ever use it. The whitest, biggest towel I’ve ever seen hangs on the rail. It smells like flowers.
Something makes me check all the corners for... I don’t know what. A camera? I can’t believe there’s no catch.
When I strip off and get under the shower, nothing happens. Sensor’s broken? Or do I need to use my band to turn it on? Damn, maybe that’s the catch. Then I see something on the wall. It’s a manual control panel. I can turn the water on myself and even choose my own temperature.
Does that mean the water will keep running until I turn it off?
There’s even a bar of soap, and I love the slippery feel of it in my hands. How long has it been since I held soap? The closest I’ve come in years is the foamy water the showers in the shelter shoot out for the first ten seconds. Not even close.
Still, I soap up and rinse off fast, just in case I’ve got it wrong and the shower’s going to cut off after a minute or two. When I’m clean, I adjust the water until it’s so hot my sunburned face can hardly bear the sting, and let it run over me. It feels so good I groan out loud. It almost feels like it’s washing away my fear and pain. If only it could.
When I finally, reluctantly, step out of the bathroom, there’s still nobody in the room but me. I touch the control by the window that makes the glass transparent. It’s night. I’m on probably the fourth or fifth floor of the Morelle scraper, and looking up I can see the sky. The moon looks close, and so huge I can hardly believe it’s real.
The dark shape of another scraper isn’t far away. My cybernetic eye’s not great at night, but when my good eye adjusts I realize what I thought was another building is actually part of the one I’m in. There’s an empty courtyard in the middle and the building surrounds it. The Morelle complex is enormous.
Tiptoeing to the door, I hit the button that slides it open. Outside is a long empty hallway, brightly lit but silent. Lots of doors. I should take a closer look, but what if I trigger an alarm? I’m exhausted and sore, and the bed’s too tempting to risk stirring up trouble now. I let the door close, then slip between the crisp, white sheets, feeling so amazingly clean I should squeak when I walk.
What did the doctor mean I’m going to get a new skin? I have so many questions. But seeing as I’ve got no way to get any answers, at least for now, I’m just going to enjoy the sensation of lying in a real bed with a whole room to myself. Tomorrow I might get thrown out, arrested, or worse, but tonight I’m going to count my blessings.
I’m still alive and feeling better than I can believe, so whatever the doctor did to heal me must have used better medicine than I’m used to. I’m not hungry or thirsty. I’m not fighting sleep in the shelter, exhausted, but having to stay awake because it’s my turn to keep watch for sharks.
Switching off the light next to the bed, I catch my breath at how dark it is, until my good eye slowly adjusts to the moonlight coming through the window.
Rayne’s band vibrates, and I run my fingers over it, feeling how thin it is and how silky to the touch. Its golden sheen gleams in the moonlight. Is one of her friends ringing? Her parents wondering where she is? Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t answer it, and it won’t let me bring up a display to see who’s calling.
Is my thick gray band going off on the dead girl’s wrist? Is Ma trying to get hold of me? She must be frantic that I haven’t called. I really wish I could call her. I’d give anything to be able to talk to her and let her know I’m okay.
When Rayne’s band stops vibrating, I lie still, listening to my own breathing. Amazing how quiet it is in this room. No talking or laughing. No sobs or groans. Plenty of times I’d have given a week’s wages for a few minutes of quiet, so I can’t believe that now I’m wishing I could hear Tori’s loud snores, or even the annoying clank-clank-whirr of the conveyer belt at the factory. Anything at all. Who’d have guessed silence could feel so lonely?
One. Two. Three. Four. Five...
When Ma and I had to move into the shelter just after I turned fifteen, I was terrified. Nights were the worst, and I used to lie awake and count my breaths for comfort. I’d tell myself that if I made it all the way up to nine hundred and ninety-nine, Ma and I would be safe until morning.
But after I was burned and got transferred to a new job and a new shelter away from Ma, it wasn’t the counting that kept me safe, it was Tori.
If only she were here, she’d go nuts over this place. Over that bathroom, especially.
The thought makes me miss her so badly, my throat aches. I really hope she’s okay. She must be spending her second night in her new shelter, so she must have found someone to buddy up with by now.
If I still had my own band, I’d be able to call her, or at least look at a pic of her. Shit. All my pics are on my missing band and there’s no way to get them back. Not just the ones of Tori, but Ma and Papa, and my brother William too.
Two years ago, William was transferred into a military academy. It sounded like a good deal at first. Free education and board, in return for a couple of years of service when he finished his schooling. We were grateful to finally get him out of the rundown orphanage that was the only place that would take him after Pa died. But a
t least in the orphanage, we could call him. Ma and I spoke to him every night, reassuring him we’d get him out as soon as we could afford a home. Since he went into the academy, we haven’t been able to get hold of him.
And now if they finally let him call us, if he needs me, he won’t be able to find me.
Turning onto my front, I pull the pillow over my head and press my face into the mattress hard enough to hurt.
I lost my eye because of an impulsive coin toss and a moment of inattention, and I should have learned from that. But now I’ve lost my family the same way. An impulsive action, over in a heartbeat. No matter what happens next, I have nobody to blame but myself.
4
A knock from the door wakes me. I jerk my head up and stare at it until someone knocks again.
“Rayne?” It’s Doctor Gregory’s voice.
“Yes?”
I keep watching the door, expecting it to open, but nothing happens and there’s a long pause. Then she asks, “May I come in?” like I own the whole room and she needs permission to enter.
“Oh. Sorry, yes. Come in.”
She’s hugging a tablet to her chest, and I was right, her smile is just like Ma’s. “Morning. How do you feel?”
“Better.” I ease up to sitting. “Hardly sore at all now.”
“You didn’t feel nauseated during the night?”
“No.”
She sits on the side of the bed and hands me the tablet. But when I touch the screen, nothing happens. “It’s a mind-pad,” she says. “You haven’t used one before? Then you won’t have an implant. Here, I’ll switch it to manual so it responds to touch.” She doesn’t reach for it, but writing appears on the screen. “These are the forms I mentioned. They’re mostly insurance waivers and permission forms. There’s one for the medical procedure involved with the Skin transferal.”
“Medical procedure?”
“Don’t worry, it’s minor. It was described in the info pack we sent when you applied for the contest.”
“Oh. I, um...”
“Never mind. I know it was a lot to take in, especially when you hadn’t been chosen yet. You can read through it while you have breakfast.”
After she leaves, I stare at the forms. Rayne’s date of birth is right at the top. She is—was—nineteen. The same age as me.
As I scroll through pages covered with tiny writing, my cybernetic eye starts to ache. If there are answers to my questions in there, I’m going to struggle to find them.
Zooming in at random, I read: “...whether or not the COMPETITOR is in breach of any one or more of the aforementioned CONDITIONS (sections numbering 1.2 − 9.0 inclusively), then the CORPORATION shall be entitled, at its sole discretion and under no obligation, to dismiss said COMPETITOR from the CONTEST and to entertain no further legal, moral or financial liability with respect to said COMPETITOR or any person or entity affiliated with...”
The door opens. It’s a guy in a white uniform with a steaming bowl of oatmeal, and I’ve never seen a better excuse to give my eye and brain a rest.
Doctor Gregory comes back in as I’m finishing, and this time she’s carrying a doctor’s bag. She examines the bruising on my torso, then asks, “Do you remember your birthday now?”
“November twelve, two thousand and fifty-six.”
“And, let me see, how about the year the Welcon baby boom started?”
“That’s easy. Two thousand and fifty-eight.” The year William was born.
“Very good.” She dimples at me. “And with such a healthy appetite, the prognosis is that you’re going to be fine.”
“Can I get up?”
“Absolutely. But first could you sign those forms? I’m sorry to press the point, but the President’s dead against this contest, and he’s looking for any excuse to shut us down.”
“Why is he against it?”
“You haven’t been watching the feeds?”
I shrug.
“Okay, well, I think it’s that such an advance in technology can be frightening at first. And you know there’s tension with Deiterra. President Trask is worried the Skins will violate the weapons clause of the peace treaty, which is clearly ridiculous.”
Triton used to be a single mega-city of several million people, surrounded by a little usable farmland. Deiterra had lots of smaller cities and more rural areas that weren’t contaminated by fallout from the food wars. Triton and Deiterra built a giant wall between them, and signed a treaty agreeing that both sides would limit weapon manufacturing. Only stompers are allowed to have guns.
Deiterrans blamed destructive technologies for the warming temperatures, and food and water shortages. People say they developed ways to keep growing their own food instead of manufacturing it. The only person in Triton who knows for sure is the Deiterran ambassador, because it’s been decades since the wall was built and anything could have happened since then. But it’s easier to feed less people, and Deiterra used to have fewer than us, even before the Welcon disaster pushed up the birth rate and exploded the population on our side of the wall.
Triton now has more than fifty million people crammed into both its cities, one built on top of the other. It’s hemmed in by the Deiterran wall, the sea, and the fallout zones, so the only direction we can build is up.
According to rumor, Deiterra still has farmland. I don’t believe it myself. It’s way too hard to imagine that farms could still exist.
“President Trask allowed Director Morelle to build the Skin prototypes, but he doesn’t want her to start a full-scale manufacturing operation and sell to the public,” says Doctor Gregory. “Of course that’s exactly why she’s holding the contest. The publicity from the contest draw alone was beyond even the most optimistic predictions. Director Morelle says she’s going to create such a demand for the Skins, the president will be forced to let her go into production. Obviously not in the form you’ll be using them, but a more palatable, mainstream version.”
I’m dying to ask what the Skins are, but it must have been on the holo, so Rayne would probably have known.
“Advance orders of the Skin Hunter game are a hundred times what we’d normally get,” the doctor adds. “It’s very promising.”
A game? If only I could come up with a way to ask some questions without making her suspicious.
Doctor Gregory hands me a scribe. “Would you like me to leave while you finish reading, Rayne?”
I look down at the mind-pad. “Do I have to sign?”
“If you don’t, you won’t be able to compete. The lawyers wouldn’t allow it.”
“And if I don’t compete?”
“Well...” She seems confused by the question. “That’s why you’re here isn’t it? It’s why you entered? If you don’t want to compete, I suppose you’ll go home and the director will select someone else.”
Here’s a way out. If I don’t sign the forms, I leave. And then what? I can’t get my band back. Maybe I could find someone to hack Rayne’s band and recode it, but the guys who offer those services are seriously bad news, not to mention that they charge a fortune. And if I was caught recoding a band... I don’t want to think about that. Anything’s better than getting arrested again.
Besides, there’s the five million credits to consider. If that really is the prize money for the contest, I might have a shot at winning it. After all, working on the line has made me stronger than I look.
Although, what if it’s not a physical contest at all, but some kind of intellectual test? New Tritoners go to school until they’re eighteen, at least. I had half that amount of schooling, so if the contest needs any kind of book learning, I’m screwed.
“Take your time, Rayne. Read the forms and make sure you’re comfortable with them. If you want to pull out, that’s fine. The director will replace you.”
“I’ll sign.” I scrawl Rayne’s name every place the highlight tells me to, hoping they don’t know what her real signature looks like.
“That last one is a confidentially ag
reement. Make sure you read it closely. If you speak to any outside party about the contest or your training, you’ll be disqualified. And I’m afraid they’ll be monitoring your calls while you’re here.”
I stare at it for what I judge is enough time to have read it, then sign.
“That’s it,” she says with a smile. “Now, make sure you download all the forms to your band, so you’ve got copies for yourself.”
“Uh, sure.” I hold the mind-pad up so it blocks her view while I pretend to do a transfer to Rayne’s band. But the doctor bends anyway, getting something out of her bag. When she straightens, I see it’s a hypodermic needle.
“Nano transceivers,” she says, as though I’m supposed to know what that means. “They’ll bind with your neurons to make you receptive to the CTU.”
“The what?”
“Consciousness Transmission Unit.” She swabs my arm, then slides the needle in and pushes the plunger. “This is the first stage of the procedure.”
“Could you give me the version of that explanation that’s in English?” Then a wave of nausea hits and my skin prickles all over. My vision does something weird, and the room expands, all four walls pushing outward. I grab for the mattress, balling the sheets in my fists.
“It’s okay.” Doctor Gregory grips my shoulder. “The sensation should only last a moment.”
Sure enough, the prickling’s fading, the walls settling back into place. I take a deep breath, glad that my head’s stopped spinning, but still feeling unsettled. My vision’s still not quite back to normal. If I move my head too fast, the walls might start moving again.
“What was that?”
“It’ll make sense once you see the Skins and the director explains how they work.” Taking her bag and the mind pad, she heads for the door. “Why don’t you get up, and I’ll arrange something for you to wear. I’ll come back for you in an hour or so.”
After she leaves, I ease out of bed carefully and treat myself to another long, hot shower. When I get out of the shower, there are three pairs of jeans, six T-shirts in different colors, underwear, and even some bras waiting on the bed, all brand new, still with tags in. There are also some toiletries, including a toothbrush and comb.