“Tiera?” Kert’s voice came from just outside Tiera’s door, making her jump. She could see his fuzzy silhouette on the white door, blocking out the faint light of the hallway. “I won’t come in if you don’t want me to. I just need to know that you’re listening.”
Does he know about the balcony? Tiera looked around her scant and shadowy room, trying to think of any way to hole herself in with just her basic furniture, but her eyes kept returning to the balcony. “I’m listening,” she finally said, afraid Kert would come in if she didn’t respond. As he spoke, however, Tiera quietly crossed the room, brushed the curtains aside, and opened the balcony door, readying herself to spring for the escape ladder if Kert tried anything funny.
“You can’t speak to Parliament. You shouldn’t even go to Origin, if you can avoid it. They’re prepared to lock you away on even the smallest infraction if it means they can shut you up and keep their empire.” Kert’s tone went bitter on that last part.
“They want to shut me up?” Tiera, baffled, turned around to face Kert’s silhouette again. “What do I have to say that’s so important? I just want them to spare Earth!”
“So that’s how you say it! I thought it might be ‘eerth,’ because of how you said ‘hear’ in that audio sample I took.” Kert said this all very animatedly. “But that doesn’t matter now,” he said, returning to Tiera’s question. “It’s not just what you have to say, Tiera—it’s who you are! It’s what you and the Earth represent! I can’t tell you everything now—you obviously don’t trust me enough to keep it to yourself, and goodness only knows what they’d do to you if Origin heard about it . . . ” Kert trailed off for a moment, but what he had said sounded familiar to Tiera.
“You said something like that in your message, on the day you hooked me up to that computer,” Tiera said, frowning at her bedroom door. “You said that the Earth and I would be the key to Origin’s downfall. How? What did you put in my head?”
“Only information, and it will come out when it needs to,” Kert said simply. “But I digress. You cannot petition Parliament, Tiera. They won’t do anything to help you—but I will. I’ve already prepared so much to save the—the Earth.” He reverenced the Earth’s name like it was some sort of deity, and Tiera couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable.
“Like what?” she asked, looking down at her smart glass. Should I have called the cops? Tiera was starting to pity the old man. She wasn’t entirely sure that Kert wasn’t delusional, but he didn’t seem as dangerous as everyone was making him out to be. Tiera, he broke into your apartment. He knows private information about you and your roommate. He’s been evading the police for over a month. Of course you should have called the cops!
“I can’t tell you, but you’ll see. I’ll get everything started as soon as I can.” He paused. “I need to go now, Tiera. I probably stayed too long already. Goodbye.”
Tiera didn’t respond. Does he know the police are coming? She stayed put, unsure if she should go out and make sure Kert really left, or if she should stay and wait for the police. But a sudden bout of shouting let her know that she didn’t have to choose.
Hurrying as cautiously as she could, Tiera made her way through the hallway and toward the living room and front door. Since the shouts sounded farther away now, Tiera rounded the corner and entered her living room, still fully lit since Kert’s arrival. There she saw two figures in plum-colored uniforms on the floor. Oh my gosh he killed the police what do I do! Trying not to panic, Tiera ran over to the officers, but decided to check outside—where the yelling was coming from—before she checked them for vital signs. Please be okay, she prayed as she stepped carefully between the motionless officers on the floor and toward her still-open front door, then she poked her head outside.
At the far end of her floor’s walkway, a mess of several purple-clad bodies scuffled around a figure that Tiera could only assume was Kert. He didn’t even make it to the stairwell. Looking around the courtyard, Tiera saw that all of her neighbors’ doors were pulsing red, even on the upper and lower floors. Is that a warning sign or—?
A groan from the living room behind her interrupted Tiera’s thought—but she realized it meant that at least one of the officers in there wasn’t dead, so she hurried back inside to help. One of the officers was still lying face down, motionless, but the other’s eyes were open—it looked like he still couldn’t move though.
“Let me help you,” Tiera said as she pulled him into a sitting position, leaning him against the couch. He stared back at her, the pupils of his green eyes unnaturally large. Tiera noticed a fine, yellow powder coated part of his face, clinging to his light brown facial hair.
“Tiera!” Leon entered her front door, flanked by two other officers. One of them Tiera recognized from her first encounter with Leon—she was the officer with platinum blond hair. “What happened? Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I am.” Tiera was surprised at how calm she sounded. “I came home and he was just here. I think these two need help though. Do you know what this powder is?”
The platinum blonde officer knelt down next to Tiera to inspect the powder on the green-eyed officer’s face. She reached out to touch it, then froze before her hand made contact. “Don’t breathe too heavily,” she warned. “That’s beldon powder. Could you get a wet towel?”
“Y-yeah,” Tiera stammered, suddenly realizing she was still in danger, “just a minute.” Tiera held her breath until she had reached the hallway, but she wondered the whole way to her bathroom if she had accidentally breathed in the powder somehow. What does it even do to you? Are those officers going to die?
“Call for paramedics,” Tiera heard Leon say as soon as she was out of sight, and then, “Where did he get beldon powder?”
“My guess is from somewhere on Zura—or from someone who used to live there,” the blonde officer responded. “The plant is only allowed to be cultivated there, after all—for pharmaceutical purposes of course. My parents used to . . . ” Tiera had a hard time hearing the rest of what the officer had to say once she entered her bedroom. When she got back, dripping towel in hand, they had already fallen silent. Tiera figured she could ask her questions now.
“What does beldon powder do?” Tiera asked, offering the blonde officer her towel. “They’ll be alright, won’t they?”
Leon just frowned at Tiera, but his much more amicable and blonde associate filled Tiera in without even blinking. “It can kill you, but it looks like it was only concentrated enough to paralyze these two, so they should be okay,” she responded, taking the towel and carefully wiping the powder from the green-eyed officer’s face. “I’m surprised it worked so quickly though. There must be more to it.”
“How did you know it what it was?” As soon as she had said it Tiera wished she had asked a more important question. I probably don’t have much time before they’ll want to question me—I can’t know everything.
“I joined the Police Bureau when I lived on Zura,” she explained kindly. “In some of their political squabbles, the Zuran elite have been known to—I don’t know if there’s a good way to put this.” She frowned. “Let’s just say that when things get heated, some of them try to assassinate their rivals.”
“Which is illegal,” Leon cut in, frowning.
“They know that,” the blonde officer reassured Leon dryly. “And we took care of it.” She pointed at the other officer, who was still lying face down, then addressed Leon and the officer who had come in with them. “Can you two help me flip Ferrer over? They might still be breathing this stuff in.”
That name sounds familiar . . . and did she say “they”? Tiera was a bit confused until the officer was turned over—she recognized him—or them—as the gender-ambiguous officer that had returned Tiera’s cell phone to her while she was in prison. That reminds me; I never found out what he—or they—meant about not being able to reproduce. Tiera almost asked, but then decided against it. Important questions first.
“Um,” Tiera began,
drawing everyone’s attention to herself. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to know this, but what’s going to happen to Kert? Is he just going to jail? Will he be executed?”
“What? No!” the blonde officer said, and at the same time Leon said, “Of course not! Execution—any form of violence—has been illegal for millions of years.”
Maybe that’s why Kert had such an easy time getting past these two. Do they give their officers combat training here, or do they just give them those batons? Tiera shook her head. Important questions first. “So what’s going to happen?” Tiera asked again.
“He’ll be tried and prosecuted,” Leon responded simply. “It’s not up to us what the judges decide.”
“But he’ll likely end up in the maximum security prison on Hyran,” the blonde officer said much more helpfully as she wiped the last of the powder from under Ferrer’s nose.
“Right,” Tiera said, feeling conflicted about the news. She knew it was only logical for Kert to be locked up, considering he was an insurrectionist, but she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Maybe he just needs a good therapist. Tiera knew that thought was too optimistic even as she thought it.
“Tiera? We’ll need to take you to the station to talk about what happened tonight, alright?” Leon tried to use a soothing voice, but Tiera thought his normal, professional tone would have sounded more natural.
Wait. He called me “Tiera,” not “Tiera Jasperson.” Tiera wasn’t even sure when that started—or even what it meant. Are we friends now or something? After a pregnant pause, Tiera realized she still hadn’t responded. “Oh—sure.” She looked at her smart glass. “Would it be possible to do it here though? It’s after 19 already.”
“I’m sorry, but protocol says we have to use the police station for matters as serious as this.” Leon looked at Tiera’s tired face, then added, “I’ll be sure your interview is the first thing we do.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Tiera left with Leon soon after that. She noticed that her neighbors’ doors had stopped flashing red as she stepped out of her apartment—and she only noticed because half of her neighbors were looking around with their doors wide open. It must have been some sort of police alert system then.
She and Leon made their way to Leon’s police car, passing a few paramedics in the stairwell, and soon after that she was being interviewed at the police station. After tiredly relating everything she had done, seen, and heard—including everything she could remember Kert had said—to Leon and another officer, Tiera signed a few forms with her handprints and went home.
She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit her pillow.
Chapter 16
“Xana?” Tiera turned from the large, mounted smart glass on the living room wall to look at her roommate. The display was currently playing a news story about everything that had happened to Tiera the night before, and Tiera had watched similar stories all afternoon, but she was hoping for updates about Kert or the officers he attacked. Which made her remember something—or re-remember something.
“Yeah?” Xana looked up from the software project she had open on her smart glass tablet.
“You know how I told you about the officers who were poisoned last night?” After Xana nodded, Tiera continued, “Well, when I first met one of them they said that they wouldn’t reproduce, so their gender didn’t matter. Do you know what they meant?”
Xana looked away and thought for a moment. “I’d assume they weren’t allowed any progeny under the reproduction law. Have you learned about that yet?” Since they started living together, Xana had become pretty good at anticipating what Tiera might not know about this galaxy and its culture—and Tiera really appreciated it.
“No. How does it work?”
After shifting herself diagonally on the red couch so she could see Tiera better, Xana explained. “Essentially, when you turn 17 you find out how many kids you can have. Geneticists and physicians go over your health and genetic potential, and demographists determine how many children need to be in the next generation to maintain each planet’s population. Government representatives then pool that information and decide how many children you can have.”
“The government decides how many children you have?” Xana had explained everything logically enough, but something in Tiera still revolted at the idea of the government having that much power over her family. “What if you have as many as you want anyway?”
“That depends on whether you were under or over your limit,” Xana explained, her voice completely calm. “If you fail to reach your limit by the time you’re 40 years old—and that’s as late as you’re allowed to reproduce—then there’s no consequence. If you have more children than you’re allowed, however, the additional children are relocated unless you pay a fine.”
“A fine?” Tiera asked. That sounds pretty reasonable. “How big of a fine?”
“Each planet’s government recalculates it every year, but on Faroa it’s usually about 500,000 marks. It can change though.” Xana shrugged.
“Five—but that’s!” Tiera tried to translate Original marks into American dollars based on how much she usually spent on groceries. “That’s like a million dollars! How is anyone supposed to afford that?!”
“Dollars? You pay for things with sea creatures?” Xana frowned and started typing into the tablet on her lap.
“What?” Tiera had no idea what Xana was talking about. And if the look on Xana’s face was any indication, the feeling was mutual.
“Never mind,” Xana said, then she finally addressed Tiera’s question. “And they aren’t supposed to afford it—that’s the point.” Xana tilted her head. “Although affluent families actually can. If my parents were at all interested, for example, they could have probably afforded a couple extra kids. But they didn’t even reach their limit—they only had me.” Xana shrugged again, as if this wasn’t a huge deal.
“But—” Tiera wasn’t sure what to balk at first. “What happens to the children then? What did you mean by ‘relocated’?”
“I meant they’re relocated. Taken from their parents and sent somewhere else.”
“But where?”
Xana was beginning to look annoyed. “It isn’t like they aren’t cared for, Tiera; calm down. Most of them go to Gemis, but a few go to Hyran since it isn’t at capacity yet.”
Tiera was still having trouble wrapping her head around all of this. She had been through foster care as a kid, but it was only because her birth mom didn’t have the means to take care of her anymore. But these kids are taken just because . . . because it’s the law? She decided to stop talking about the relocated kids, since she was having the hardest time with that. “I’m sorry, Xana, it’s just—Earth isn’t anything like that! Or at least America isn’t.” Tiera took a deep breath. “Okay. One more question?”
Xana nodded. “Okay.”
“Does each spouse just add their number of allowed children together to get their total family size, or are people only allowed to have children with people whose numbers match their own, or—well, how does that work?” Tiera wasn’t sure exactly how to phrase what she wanted to ask.
“Each couple can only have as many children as the lowest number between the two spouses. So if you’re only allowed one child, and your spouse can have two, you’re both only allowed to have one child.” Thankfully Xana looked less agitated with Tiera now. “So a lot of the time people only want to marry people who have their same number, unless they already know they want fewer children than they’re allowed.”
“And your parents only wanted one child? Even though they could have had more?” Tiera asked tentatively. She wasn’t sure if she was prying.
For once Xana actually smiled. “I was an awful baby. I scared them out of more.”
Tiera laughed, then let the conversation sputter out. She had enough on her mind without trying to decide whether or not Origin’s methods of population control were moral. She returned her attention to the news video, and Xana once a
gain became engrossed in the tablet on her lap. They only spent another hour like this before it was time to leave for Xana’s parents’ house.
Sitting in the car with Xana, Tiera half expected them to go somewhere like Daven’s neighborhood, which was still on this side of town, but they ended up traveling much farther. Tiera watched sparkling white neighborhoods fly by as their magnetic car went up and over the hill that afforded her such wonderful views of the southern part of the city, then continued north-northeast to a part of the city she had only ever seen from a distance: the high-rise district.
Dazzlingly white spires laced with winding steel raced each other to the clear and gray Faroan sky, their rounded and flowing designs reminiscent of their short counterparts throughout the rest of the city. Tiera craned her neck to get a good view of it all, which made Xana laugh. Tiera shot her a playful glare, then looked back out the car window. They were close enough now that she could see the bridges, flowing in and out of the buildings so frequently that Tiera suspected you could live here without ever stepping outside.
Their car entered a well-lit tunnel that cut straight through an especially wide building. On either side of them were banks for cars to stop in and entrances to the building above—and dozens of people. This is even busier than the shopping district! Or is this another shopping district? Tiera had always just assumed there was only one, but that couldn’t be true—the city was just too big.
“What are all of these buildings for anyway?” Tiera asked, turning away from the window to look at Xana.
“Hold on,” Xana said. Seated next to her, Tiera could see that Xana was trying to solve some sort of math puzzle on her smart glass. She had shown Tiera how to get games and puzzles onto her own smart glass a few weeks ago, but Tiera didn’t think any of them were very fun—they were too . . . educational, and Tiera only played games when she wanted something mindless to do. She had gotten Xana to agree to transfer all of her games, music, and pictures from her Earth phone to her smart glass at least. Xana just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
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