by Tessa Elwood
Her cane smacks my thighs and her voice drops. “I saw your mother on the feeds yesterday.”
I freeze. Mom. The double power-out.
You will be held to Account.
The feed must have gone out of district to reach here. Maybe even planetwide. Mom’s face on every screen.
I’d forgotten. How the hell could I forget?
Mrs. Divs nods, secure in her hit. “Now, I can be your Guardian Sun and not tell the Records Office what your dad’s been up to, or you can march on out of this building and face the consequences.”
Breath disappears, words a whisper. “Please, Mrs. Divs.”
She pats my cheek. “Two can play this game, dear one.”
Without her, I won’t have a place to live if Dee gets chatty.
Without a job, I can’t afford to live, period.
“Mrs. Divs, I swear—”
“Mornin’, Mrs. Divs!” Happy, laughing.
Niles.
My face flames and my hands fist.
Weakest base. Strongest school.
“Why, Niles!” Mrs. Divs’s expression lifts, whole demeanor changing. “Where have you been keeping yourself? I haven’t seen you in an age!”
“Aw, come on Mrs. D. It’s only been a day and a half.”
He slides in beside us, fresh and put together. Hair combed, slacks sharp, shirt crisp with buttons. Not quite a suit, but close enough. The fabric glides with his frame as he leans forward to kiss Mrs. Divs’s cheek.
She beams. “Now, where you off to all fancied up?”
“Takin’ Kit to work and making a hash of it.” He throws me a grin. “Sorry, I’m late.”
I don’t say anything.
Mrs. Divs’s cane magically disappears. “Oh, so that boss of yours did call? How very grand. Off with you, then!” Her mouth takes on its no nonsense line as she looks at me. “And, of course, you’ll come right back.”
“Of course,” I say as Niles jogs to the lobby door and holds it open.
“After you,” he says.
“Did you find the power tech?” I ask as we hurry down the entrance steps. I hurry. Niles keeps pace. “Was he still in the alley?”
He laughs. Not a happy laugh, hands thrust deep in his pockets.
I stop midstep. “Oh God, don’t tell me he’s dead.”
“He’s fine, just a little preoccupied about your mom’s feedshow. Wouldn’t shut up about it. Don’t know why you were worried, he certainly wasn’t about you.”
“Oh.” I hug my arms. “Well, at least he’s not dead.”
His lips part, form a word or thought, but he thinks better of it.
I have no business looking at his stupid lips.
I kick the cracked pavement. “I’m guessing you saw it, too—Mom’s thing. You didn’t mention it.”
“And when should I have brought that up? In the hall outside your suite, or after I got you wasted?”
I wince. “Right. You’re right. Skip it.” I take off down the street.
Niles swears and catches up. “Where are you going?”
“Work. I’m late.”
He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Ride’s this way.”
“I don’t have reds for transit.”
“My ride. I’ve a hover. It’s shit, but it’ll get us there.”
I stop. “Wait, the offer was real?”
“Of course it’s real. And if we don’t turn around, you will be late.”
“But don’t you have to be somewhere?”
“This morning? Just your work.”
“But you’re . . .”
“What?”
All dressed up. Why is he dressed up?
Niles jams his hands in his pockets, only to tug them back out.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.”
“You’re late.” Mr. Remmings sweeps me away from the employee side door as if he’d been pacing the hall. There are no chairs to sit on this side, nothing but walls and doors. “You know when the early shift starts. I distinctly remember giving you the time.”
He clips his T’s the way he cracks his heels, footsteps weighted heavy. He looks like a T—broad shoulders, slim waist, narrow legs.
“I’m early, sir.”
Niles sped through the growing traffic as if his life was at stake. Or maybe just to get out of the silence. His whole focus fixed on the road, mine on the side window.
Mr. Remmings raises his wrist, shakes his cuff, and flashes an ornate digiwatch.
It backs me up.
“Five minutes hardly counts as early, Franks. Conscientious employees leave at least fifteen.”
No one’s met that standard as long as I’ve been on staff.
Assuming I’m actually on staff again.
“Does that mean I have my job?” I ask.
He doesn’t bother answering, spinning on his heel to trek down the pale hall. Doors face off at intervals, between employee notice screens. Staff meetings, tour schedules, random updates. Sari finally settled on the Market for her birthday party. Trent wants to start an amateur skidball team. Mac’s pissed because someone has stolen his lunch for a week straight.
For the first time, I want to stop and tap the screen. Type in: Pack cloudcakes for lunch, then pump them full of hotspice and agen. Remember that week Denze spent puking up his guts? Trust me on this.
Except no one would, not Millie Oen’s daughter. Or for that matter, Kit Franks. I didn’t circulate much. Everyone was older or in school, lived in High South or Blue East. No one came from West 1st, and no one read Gilken for the joy of it. This wasn’t a dream but a job to them. I didn’t fit.
But maybe I didn’t try.
Mr. Remmings pauses at the last door, which leads to the museum’s central lobby, and checks his watch again. We’ve a minute to spare. He reaches for the door handle.
“Mr. Remmings?” I ask.
He jumps. “What?”
“You know that power technician you hired? I ran into him yesterday, and he looked pretty ill.” Or did after Greg got done with him. “I think he was going to the clinic, so if he doesn’t call in they probably have him drugged up.”
“Power technician?” Mr. Remmings asks. “What power tech?”
We just needed to talk to you without the Shadow, the Brinker had said.
The walls hem me in, my throat tight and thick and words come slow. “The one redoing the circuits on the rooftop.”
“I’m not diverting funds for the lunch break haven of an employee who isn’t even employed.” Mr. Remmings tries to loom, except he’s not tall enough. “Don’t assume I don’t know how much time you spent up there. We’re barely eking by as is. Another year like last one, and we may have to close our doors.”
A Shadow. My cousin dosed an Enactor Shadow. The Brinkers were right.
Mr. Remmings glares and autopilot kicks in.
“No, sir,” I say. “Of course not. My mistake.”
Mr. Remmings leans back and straightens his jacket. “If you want to remain under our banner, you must remember that good employees are dedicated to preserving the museum above all else.”
I keep my head up, shoulders back, and refuse to feel the hit. “Yes, sir.”
He opens the door. “Then get to it, Franks.”
I step through.
The grand lobby arcs in a perfect circle, vast and open. Staircases curve the walls between story-high windows and thin partitions complete with chairs and embedded wall-screens. Each a digistorage access point for a different historical record. Tiled stripes of green, blue, and purple spiral across the floor, radiating from the tower’s central golden sun.
A small crowd stands around the sun, almost full tour capacity. An odd mix of everyday adults in work clothes. Usually our tours run on students or the historically
passionate. The ancient interested in expanding their education, or simply in a way to spend an afternoon. Sometimes we’ll have visitors from different planets and sectors within our House—and once I even had a couple from the House of Westlet—but not often. This city is the central core of Galton. While Scholar Gilken is among our most famous historical figures, there are other things to see.
Not today, apparently.
Behind me, the employee door clicks closed. Mr. Remmings is gone. It’s just me and the fifty-plus people packing the lobby floor. Tired people with grim eyes and drawn faces.
Someone calls, “It’s her,” and my toes ice over.
No one’s here for Gilken. They’re here for a show.
And Mr. Remmings provided.
I want to turn around and walk out.
Can’t.
So I walk straight into the sun. Stand not to the side or behind like I normally do, but smack in the center of the vivid tile.
“Welcome to the Gilken Museum, where the official record of our House was born.”
The whole room shifts, darkens. They want to eviscerate me. They can get in line.
“Gilken first began his quest in the basement of an old digiwatch repair—”
“Really?” calls someone male, though I can’t pick him out in the crowd. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”
The shape of the group splits between those who shuffle and those who don’t. But this isn’t my first tour or even my worst one, at least not yet.
I don’t change tone or take the bait. “Would you rather start with the fifth-level balcony, instead? And the initial research on—”
“I’d rather start with you,” calls the faceless man.
Of course he would.
I make my smile stick. “As you like. I’ve been with the museum two years, but my fascination with Gilken began much earlier—”
“Why?” Female this time and less harsh. The crowd shifts to my right, front row rearranging to showcase a heavyset woman. Her hair is gray at the roots, round face soft, arms limp under loose sleeves. She looks ancient, a match for Mrs. Divs with her ringed eyes and weary mouth, but I don’t think she’s that kind of old. Closer to Dad’s age then Yonni’s.
I retrace the conversation, careful to answer the exact thread. “Because Gilken always has the perfect answer. Whatever the problem, he’s thought it through.”
“And my daughter’s passing?” asks the woman. “When they pulled her charred body out of the wreckage? What would Gilken say about that?”
Family. They’re not gawkers, they’re family.
He’d say I’m a stupid, careless idiot who doesn’t have a heart. No wonder they want to skin me. They’ve earned the right.
I grab my forearm behind my back and dig my nails in. Fight the sudden need to giggle, the buckle in my knees.
Stand, I will stand.
“Why did she do it?” the woman asks, and the words drip even if her face doesn’t. “Why did she have to involve my baby?”
Because Mom probably didn’t know her daughter, and if she did, she didn’t care. Nothing mattered more than the Accounting.
I certainly didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
Useless. No amount of “sorry” helped me when Yonni died.
The woman closes her eyes, and I can feel the tears that don’t fall. If I was Missa, I’d step forward and offer something—a hug? A shoulder?—but I’m Millie Oen’s daughter and haven’t that right.
“You call that an answer?” yells the man in back. “You think it’s enough that—”
Something clatters. Echoes off the ringing walls and we jerk, all of us, twisting for a better view. Bodies shift, the crowd opens, and through the newly formed gaps stands Niles. Hair gone messy, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, eyes wide with his shocked mouth. “Aw, hell, sorry!” he says to the man kneeling on the floor at his side. There’s a mess of gear on the tile, metal bits of black and gray strewn everywhere.
Niles fumbles to help and kicks a disc across the floor. “I really hope it wasn’t expensive!”
The kneeling man swears in the faceless guy’s voice. “Yes. It was.”
“Shit, hold up!” Niles snatches a bigger boxy piece from the tech-scattered floor. “This isn’t the Vidfire 9800, is it? The digirecorder all the big newsfeed stations use?” He looks up and across the crowd for half a heartbeat.
Our eyes meet.
“It is!” he continues, hitting the man with a huge enthused grin. “Aw, man, I’ve been saving up for one of these!”
The crowd straightens, glares finding a new target. A growing murmur of “He’s filming this?” and “I thought this was for family?” and “Who did he lose?”
I step back. No one notices. I could be out of the building before they realize I’ve gone.
Except they’re not gawkers, they’re family.
I stand, feet planted, back straight, and say, “I’m here.”
But Niles makes a racket with the man’s gear, and my voice is too tight. Too small.
“I’m right here,” I yell. It ricochets, ceiling to heartbeats to floor, and I command the room. Can almost taste their shock and their growing tinge of anger. Even Niles’s exasperation. What are you doing? he mouths.
I ignore him.
“You wanted me,” I tell the crowd. “And here I am. Shoot.”
The mother turns, eyes flashing, whole face set in a growl. She steps forward and socks me.
I stagger. My cheekbone screams. Dee never hit me with such strength, but then her hands were always open, not fists.
And hers didn’t imprint my soul.
The woman stands frozen, hand high from the recoil, mouth open like someone paused her midfeed.
Niles jumps to his feet, steps forward. I catch his eye and mouth a harsh Stay. He stops.
This isn’t his place. This is between me and the families.
I don’t have the answers they need or the people they lost.
I only have me.
I straighten, lock my hands behind me, and brace for the next blow.
The woman looks at her hand, the open-palmed emptiness of it, the soft fingers that belie strength. She lifts her head. I hold her gaze, but that feels like a challenge so I switch to the floor.
The woman wears practical shoes. Brown and low heeled, laced tight. They peek from under gray, practical slacks. Maybe her daughter’s shoes were practical as well. Maybe they were vibrant.
I hold my breath. Fight the scream, the waxing panic, the needles in my feet.
The waiting hurts.
She hurts worse.
Her hand falls to her side. I look up. The light catches in her too-shiny eyes. “You’re a baby, too, aren’t you?”
“No,” I say.
Today, I’m ancient.
“I can’t do this.” She turns and pushes through the crowd. Jerky steps and squeezed elbows. Her back a silhouette against the aching protest of the outer door, and then she’s gone.
The crowd’s fire goes with her, its spirit caught in her wake. Our silence a shuffle of fabric and feet.
Everyone dissipates, files out, even the man with the busted gear. Niles skirts the crowd’s shifting edges. He doesn’t pause or say a word, just takes my hand and pulls.
“That was a setup.” Niles burns his streethover around corners and down thoroughfares. “A goddamn publicity stunt. You know how expensive that digirecorder was? I’m serious about the newsfeed stations, I’ve seen their gear. How they’d know you’d be—”
“Mr. Remmings,” I say.
Good employees are dedicated to preserving the museum, and what better way to generate income? I’m sure somebody paid him. He was never going to hire me back.
And my daughter’s passing? When they pulled her
charred body out of the wreckage? What would Gilken say about that?
“Your boss set you up?” Niles asks.
“Skip it.” I lean into the heat of the open window, hold the ends of Yonni’s scarf so it doesn’t blow away.
Niles’s tiny streethover predates Mrs. Divs and has her taste in color. A tacky gold box with big windows, few curves and little heft. A strong gust could blow us away.
“No, this we don’t skip,” Niles nearly shouts. “Someone must have tracked down all those families to pull this job. Do you have any idea how bad things could have gone? God, when you just stood there—”
“You can stop yelling anytime.”
“I’m not yelling!”
I catch his gaze as we pause at an intersection and raise a brow.
He rolls his eyes. “Fine. I’m yelling.”
Traffic clears and he jumps us forward, anger humming with the engine. But with the windows down his hair is a mess, and windswept does not invoke rampage.
“What are you smiling about?” he snaps.
“What smile?” I so wasn’t smiling.
“This is serious,” he says.
“I know.”
“Do you?” Niles swings down a side street, where bulky residential towers glower above tiny well-kept shops. The fringes of Low South before it turns into grime. Niles pulls along the curb outside a pet shop, powers down the engine, and stares out the window.
We sit in silence.
“What if she’d been somebody else?” he asks.
“Who?”
“The one with the daughter. What if she’d been the kind who didn’t stop?”
“Then she wouldn’t have stopped.”
And I’d have a lot more bruises.
Outside, the pet shop sports a digitized window with a digitized puppy. Its neon ears bounce with its wagging tail. It wriggles and rolls happily across the glass for ten whole seconds, its world an open possibility.
Then the loop repeats.
“You don’t get it,” Niles says. “There were fifty-eight people in that group. If even half joined in . . . I’d have got you out, but it would have been bad.”
“No.” I face him. “You don’t get in the middle of that. You don’t ever—”