Fighting Gravity

by Leah Petersen

  Fighting Gravity

  LEAH PETERSEN

  Copyright © 2012 Leah Petersen

  Cover Art © 2012 Charles Bernard

  Edited by Gabrielle Harbowy

  All rights reserved. Reproduction or utilization of this work in any form, by any means now known or hereinafter invented, including, but not limited to, xerography, photocopying and recording, and in any known storage and retrieval system, is forbidden without permission from the copyright holder.

  www.dragonmoonpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing a book ended up being harder than I thought. Many thanks to all the writers and readers who encouraged me along the way, and showed me how to make something of the pile of words I’d strung together. These include but are not limited to: Rachel, Pete, Moses, Roberto, Robert, Liz, Catherine, Joline, Missy, Nichole, Jessica, Jaimie, Brad, and a mean-spirited, sarcastic, unhelpful, and counterproductive group of bored and unhappy women. Also J.M. Frey who swooped in at the last minute and made sure I tortured Jake enough.

  Special thanks go to the sadist who insists I write my best every time. Richard, all those insults were my way of telling you that I couldn’t have done it without you.

  And I will forever be grateful to Gabrielle for getting my guys and loving them as much as I do. Oh, and for being a really amazing editor, too. This book wouldn’t be what it is if not for her, and I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am that my journey in this industry started with her as my guide.

  Dedication

  For, Shane, who said “why don’t you just write it?” and for Bren and Aria, who want to be writers now because “all you have to do is write and make money.”

  fg1

  I was eight years old when they came for me.

  I opened the door to them myself. In the hall were two men in a kind of uniform I’d never seen before. The cloth was heavy, whole, and clean. Never-been-worn clean. I think that’s what scared me. I’d never seen clothes like that in my life.

  “I’m Director Kagawa from the Imperial Intellectual Complex,” one of the men said. “Is this the Dawes residence?”

  My mouth fell open. I almost laughed, but there was something about the way he looked—the way his nose was wrinkling in slow, measured increments, and the way he seemed to be cringing away from the growing crowd of spectators—that made my hands clench into fists.

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  “And you are Jacob Dawes?” He looked as if he might be sick.

  “Yup.”

  “There must be some kind of mistake,” he said, the wrinkles in his brow sagging in relief. “What is your citizen number, young man?”

  “J174966523ES.”

  The other man flicked his thumb over a palm-tablet and the display blinked into view in the air above it, large enough for both men to examine at the same time. I didn’t care anymore what they were there for. It was the most fantastic thing I’d ever seen.

  The hopeful look on the director’s face dissolved. He was starting to look green again.

  My mother emerged from our only bedroom, where she’d been patching up my sister Carrie after another playground fight. Ma’s hair was lopsided, as if she’d started to cut it but forgot to finish. Her dress was faded and worn in all the expected places, and wrinkled too. It was too big, and maybe it always had been. All of our clothes were cast-offs; we couldn’t exactly be choosy. We didn’t always eat so well, either. And I knew that Ma went without more often than we did.

  She stood there, staring at the director, her face slack and blank. He cleared his throat.

  “You must know why I am here,” he said to me. “Get your things. There are others waiting below.”

  I knew exactly what the Imperial Intellectual Complex was—though I was probably the only one for miles around who’d even heard of it—but what anyone from the Empire’s own center for intellectual and scientific advancement was doing in my neighborhood, I couldn’t even guess. The IIC wasn’t a place for unclass kids like me. Most of the people in Abenez, our infamous slum in the human-landfill that was Mexico City, were lucky if they knew how to read.

  “Get what things? Waiting for what?”

  “Did you not get the notification?”

  I shrugged. “No vid.”

  His eyebrows hit his hairline, a feat I found rather impressive. He was quiet for a moment, no doubt considering this fascinating case study of poverty.

  “Mr. Dawes, you have been chosen in this Selection for the Imperial Intellectual Complex. You should be very proud of such an honor.” His tone made it clear that one such as me should be particularly honored. “Your notification was sent weeks ago so that you would be ready to depart today.”

  The director’s eyes cast about, as if there was an answer to this unfathomable situation painted somewhere on the apartment’s grimy walls.

  I couldn’t breathe for a minute. The realization of what he’d said washed over me with the most incredible feeling of rightness; and was dragged away in the receding tide of the next realization: I was abandoning my mother and sister.

  At least my father had been taken for Resettlement two years past, so I didn’t have to worry about what he’d do to them without me there to look out for them. Still, it wasn’t much of a comfort. Acid-guilt and fear churned in my gut.

  Then, so suddenly that I jumped, my mother screeched and flew at the director, claws extended like a maddened bird of prey. Her fingernails carving bloody runnels into his cheeks.

  He yelped like a stepped-on dog, threw up his arms to protect his face, backing into the watching crowd outside. The wall of people absorbed the impact with barely a ripple, pushing him back into the apartment, and went back to watching. Like a herd of cows, curious but unconcerned.

  I had been frozen in shock, but I rushed over and grabbed her. “Ma! Ma! Please! Ma, calm down! Ma!”

  It made no difference. A few of her wild, indiscriminate blows landed on my face and shoulders. I fought to hold down her arms every time I caught one, but it barely slowed her. We struggled, the three of us; the director whimpering, trying to bat away her vicious attacks, and me wrestling with my mother’s anger and fear-strengthened hysteria.

  After forever, there was a flash of blue in my peripheral vision. A hand clamped down on my shoulder and shoved me aside. The policeman grabbed my mother’s arms and jerked her so hard her neck snapped back and then forward again, and her teeth bit into her lip. She blinked in shock and was quiet for one stunned moment while blood welled in the cut. And then, shrieking, she went for the policeman with fingernails and flailing feet.

  His backhanded blow made a sickening crack against her cheek. She crumpled to the floor like a dropped rag doll.

  Fury rushed through me, a ringing in my ears, a necessity in my arms. I drove my fist into his kidney. My father’s boot had taught me the sensitivity of that particular spot. The man staggered back with an uphm. He cursed and I was grabbed from behind by his partner. I struggled, but when his arms tightened around me, I quieted. I’ve never been stupid. I’ve never confused an unwillingness to be defeated with bravery.

  Ma whimpered, but didn’t move.

  The policeman I’d punched looked at the director—a long, appraising look. “So, what’s the story here?”

  He sniffed. “I’m Director Kagawa of the Imperial Intellectual Complex. As a representative of His Excellence himself, I’ve come to collect this child. He has claimed the boy to do great things for o
ur Empire.”

  The policeman looked at me like I’d just tried to explain particle physics to him.

  “Huh. OK. Well, you should go on and get out of here. You’re drawing a crowd down in the street, too.”

  “Is there not some judicial action necessary now? This young man has struck a peace officer.”

  The policeman holding me chuckled, and the other snorted. “Nah. He’s all yours. What with the emperor claiming him and all.”

  Director Kagawa glowered.

  I jerked my arms out of the policeman’s grip and knelt beside my mother. Her eyes were closed, but she was breathing. Damp hair clung to her face and I tucked it behind her ear. “Ma?” She didn’t answer. She could have been asleep.

  “Get your things, then.” The director threw a look at the growing audience in the hall. “We have a schedule to keep.”

  Swallowing on nausea and a growing feeling of loss, I stood. “I’m ready.”

  Not that I had any choice in the matter. Selection was Selection. The Empire had claimed me and that was not to be questioned.

  But more important than that, I belonged there. I’d always known I was different. A kid in our neighborhood didn’t spend what little free time he had in a library booth reading texts too advanced for the eight-year-olds or even the eighteen-year-olds of the world. He didn’t spend the mindless vacuum of the school hours daydreaming in equations, or see the secrets of the universe where other kids saw bump-tag, or boomerball, or yard work for grocery money. I wanted to go, much more than I felt obligated to stay. And I hated myself for that.

  “Very well, then,” he said, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder and steering me toward the door.

  “Wait,” I said. “My sister.” I cast a look over my shoulder.

  She’d come out of the bedroom and was watching me with wide eyes, her thumb in her mouth.

  The director either didn’t hear me or didn’t care. He pushed me out the door and I only caught that one last sight of Carrie; small, quiet, and abandoned.

  fg 2

  The transport was the biggest I’d ever seen. It reminded me of pictures I’d seen of rail trains—long, sleek, and shiny—and it was much too big to travel on the old-fashioned streets in our ancient neighborhood. It had to have hover technology.

  The buildings on my block—always dirty, even in the rain—slumped around the gleaming vehicle like muddied children in the face of parental displeasure. With their washed out colors, indistinguishable from one to the next, they seemed to cower away from the shining hovercraft. Everything and everyone was subdued, deferential.

  It was pristine and bare, except for the IIC’s symbol on the large doors—a galaxy cupped in a great hand. The colors were fresh and impossibly vivid. I stopped in the middle of the street, shocked and intimidated. I’d never seen a hover vehicle and in moments my fear turned to fascination. My mind was too busy considering the workings of the anti-gravs to remind my feet to move.

  Director Kagawa stopped just outside the door of the transport and, with an impatient huff, gestured for me to get inside. I hurried forward.

  I cast a look back at my home, behind me now. I’d never realized how pathetic Abenez looked, but now I hated it. My last look at the place of my origins was blurred by tears of shame and relief.

  I followed the director down a short corridor. He stopped outside a set of double doors, as if steeling himself, and then opened them. I followed him into a large lounge.

  A dozen or so children were already there, though there were enough couches and plush armchairs in groupings around the room to accommodate at least twice that number. The far wall was mostly one large window. Even though I already knew that Selection happened once every five years and only considered children between eight and twelve, I would have guessed one of the girls was older than that. One looked younger, too, though I doubted she was.

  They were an interesting sight, even though I was under their collective scrutiny. Each of them wore what looked like new and uncomfortable clothes—some version of a jacket and tie on the boys and dresses on the girls, their hair pulled up or slicked back or styled. The entire tableau spoke of wealth and privilege, a life of comfort.

  “Children,” Director Kagawa said, “this is Jacob Dawes.” He turned on his heel and left the room. Some of the children gaped at his retreating back and I got the impression that his introductions were usually much different.

  We all stood where he had left us, evaluating and measuring each other. A small, dark-haired girl stepped forward. “My name is Kirti Sachar,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  I thought that was an odd way to greet someone, but what did I know about this sort of life? She raised her hand and touched my upper lip with a finger. I mimicked her gesture and my fingers came away with flakes of dried blood.

  “Bathroom?” I asked.

  She indicated a washroom and, mumbling my thanks, I retreated there.

  The image in the mirror was worse than I’d expected. I was dirty, tousled and bloodied, and my shirt was torn. Instead of attending school that day, I’d worked in Mrs. Frann’s garden—she was nice and patient, and paid well. My skin was coated with dirt, and there was a collection of it under my fingernails. I’d acquired a bloody nose in the scuffle, and a solid line of dried blood ran down to my chin and decorated my shirt. The seam at my shoulder had ripped.

  I attacked the whole mess with soap, stepped back and confronted the mirror again. I was cleaner than usual. There was dirt I couldn’t get out from under my fingernails, and my efforts had done little more than lighten the color of the blood on my shirt.

  I was even more nervous and afraid than I had been before. I no longer looked like a tomcat fresh from defending his territory, but still, clean or not, I looked nothing like the children out in that room. I wasn’t like them. I wasn’t one of them.

  Riding a rush of anger and fear, I rallied all my courage and left the washroom.

  Kirti looked up from her chess board and smiled. She stood and approached me again with determination. I got the impression that she was shy by nature, but not allowing herself to act that way.

  “So you’re Jacob?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She smiled again.

  The eyes of all the children in the room were on me and it wasn’t polite interest. Children do rejection very well; very clean and straightforward. None of the pretense adults muck it up with.

  I stiffened, strode forward, and plunked down in a comfortable armchair in the middle of the room. I looked back over at Kirti, daring her to join me.

  She started toward me, but a boy—nine or ten, I guessed, with night-black hair and pale skin—plopped himself down in a chair across from me before she could get there. “So, was it a good fight? Tell me it was a good fight. And you won, right? What did the other guy look like?”

  This wasn’t right. Almost all of the children were reacting to me as I expected them to. This boy’s open and casual friendliness didn’t fit, but I trusted his sincerity for some reason I couldn’t name. Probably not astute character judgment on my part so much as a desire to be accepted; throwing a bone to the gnawing loneliness in my gut.

  “Well, it wasn’t really a fight,” I shrugged. “Just stupid shit.”

  The other children gasped and it took a moment for me to figure out why. But I saw it on their faces, the self-righteous censure. I’d clinched it in one of the first dozen words out of my mouth. It didn’t matter what I said now, nothing could win them over. I’d always be that kid, the outsider. A destabilizing force introduced into a precisely calibrated system.

  The thrill of control shivered through me. Whatever I chose to show them now was what they would believe of me, so long as it was close enough to their expectations. There was power in that—the general choosing where to make his stand.

  So I told them.

  The boy in the chair leaned back, a huge smile spreading across his face. “I wish I’d been there to see you punch a poli
ceman.”

  I’d been right about this boy. The other children were disdainful, but this boy had seen me for what I really was and accepted me anyway.

  The other children melted away, talking or making rude noises. Only Kirti and the friendly boy stayed.

  “I’m Wong Chuk Tsuen,” he said, reaching across the space between us with his hand extended. I shook it. His grip was firm, sure. “My friends call me Chuck.”

  “Jacob Dawes. My friends call me Jacob.”

  “Good to meet you, Jake.” He grinned.

  The easy chatter with Chuck soon made me forget being angry or sad or afraid. He had a way about him that made me feel as if I’d known him forever, like the way he’d already assigned me a nickname.

  Chuck got up and wandered off and Kirti settled into a chair at one of the chess boards near me.

  I sat across from her. She watched me, though not like the other children. She seemed to be looking for things about me to like, rather than the other way around.

  It wasn’t that she made me feel uncomfortable, but I felt like I had to say something, to be polite. To give her reason to stay.

  “I had to leave my sister with my ma.”

  She didn’t even look confused at that odd wording. “Is she older?”

  I shook my head. “She’s five.”

  Kirti nodded. “My sisters are older than me. Teresa’s twelve and Jane’s fifteen.”

  “You got along with them OK?”

  She made a noise of agreement. The kind of noise you make when you don’t want to speak because you’re trying not to cry.

  I picked up a rook. “I’ve never played real chess.”

  “My dad’s a local champion,” she said. Her face brightened, then clouded again.

  “You like your dad?”

  “Yeah, my dad’s the best.” She swallowed hard, like she was fighting back something and started to talk about her family. She spoke of her sisters and her mother, her voice warm and wistful, but there was a special something when she spoke of her father. I wondered what that would be like, a father you weren’t afraid of, that you liked, who was nice, even.