“Fifty-fifty?” Dexter eyed his men and then started to chuckle.
“Yup. I did this freelance. No tips, no help. Consider it a gift.”
“A gift for old Dexter?” His features suddenly darkened and he stared daggers my way. “How about I just get rid of you and take the whole thing?”
The two henchmen I could see armed their rifles, grinning ravenously. There was no saying what the ones behind me were doing, and I didn’t have the nerve to check. I tried my best to ignore them.
“Dex, c’mon,” I said.
He continued staring for what seemed like half a minute, his face not shifting. Then he broke out into hysterical laughter, spittle spewing all over his beard. His men lowered their rifles and joined him.
“You should’ve seen your face!” Dexter chortled. “Oh, Kale. You always were fun.”
I laughed nervously with them but said nothing.
“I’ll tell you what,” Dexter said after gathering his breath. “I’ll do sixty-forty, and unless you’ve set up a shop and have a troop of back-channel dealers to get top credits for this thing, you’ll take it.”
“I know what it’s worth,” I replied. “Fifty is generous.”
“It’s very generous. And you’re welcome to see if anybody else is interested, but I think you’d have to go far away from Darien to find them. You leave us behind, we leave you behind.”
He was right, and he knew I knew it. If I wanted my mom to remain comfortable in the Q-Zone, I needed to take the offer. Her entire credit savings had dried up since she’d never earned much more from Tanner Saunders than what it took to pay rent and buy food.
“Why did you agree to meet with me, then?” I asked, not wanting to appear overly eager to accept.
“Curiosity, mostly,” he said. “I’ve heard two years on a gas harvester could give a Ringer wrinkles, and I had to see if that was true. Looks like you made it out smooth as ever. Like a baby.”
“Two more and I might not be so lucky.”
He smirked. “Look, I know you’re no Earther lover. You took the blame back then and kept your mouth shut when you got caught. Any of us would’ve accepted the same deal to stay out of one of their cells.” He shifted his chair and then drove it closer to me. “My real question is, are you back home for good?”
“I’m back,” I declared. “I’m ready to move on, tired of sitting around in high g getting ordered around and making shit credits.”
“Then don’t be an idiot and deny my offer.”
I maintained the ruse that I was still considering as best I could. “If I do agree, how long until the credits come in?” I said.
“Something this new?” He picked up the terminal again to examine it, licking his lips as he did. “Probably a week. Maybe longer.”
“A week? C’mon, Dex, you can’t be serious.”
“If I could sell it to some uppity Earther, no problem, but I’ve got to mask the product key, get it off the Pervenio network, and Trass knows what else just to make it Solnet-capable without it registering as stolen. You want instant gratification, strap your collar back on and return to the Piccolo.”
I accidentally groaned loud enough for him to hear. My job at the noodle shop might be able to hold me over, but my credit account was starting to be stretched as thin as my mom’s. Getting her placed in the preferable quarters of the Q-Zone wasn’t cheap, and I was paying the full rent on our hollow now too.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Say yes now, and I’ll have something else for you by tonight. Others said no because they looked at you and only saw a traitor. I see a worthwhile investment for both of us.”
I could tell by the glimmer in his eyes that I wasn’t a good enough actor and he’d already gained a clear picture of my desperation. Rather than hurt my cause any more, I swallowed my pride and extended my hand.
“Fine, Dex,” I said. “You’ve got a deal.”
“Outstanding!” he exclaimed. He grasped my hand and shook, his palms as rough as sandpaper. “Let’s start fresh, and maybe soon, we’ll find a way to make a little bit more than shit together.”
“Fine by me. I’ll be back tonight. Just try not to get me caught again.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Dexter’s lips lifted into a predatory smile, his chrome teeth shimmering like the icy rocks of Saturn’s belt against the black of his mouth. I faked a smile in return, and as I went to let go of his hand, he squeezed harder and pulled me closer. His breath made me want to vomit. “Oh, and Kale, a word of advice,” he whispered. “For Trass’s sake, lighten the hell up, or I’ll drop you so fast you’ll never step foot in Darien again.”
THREE
As I rode the inter-block tram to the visiting area of the Darien Quarantine Zone, I couldn’t imagine a more depressing place in all of Sol. Every seat in the car was occupied by a Ringer like me off to visit a sick loved one. It was easy to tell who was making the trip for the first time—their eyes were wet with tears. Mine weren’t. I’d been to the Q-Zone every day for the last month since returning to Darien and I was out of tears. My mom had already been stuck inside for six months.
The tram emerged from the Lowers and ascended to Titan’s surface. Outside, a midday storm whipped up the ruddy sand covering Titan, obscuring most of my homeworld. It made it hard to avoid focusing on the bright red Pervenio Corp logos—a helix wrapping around a tree branch— reflected in every window. Each of them had a mark above them with the date the Q-Zone had been built, 2285 A.D., just a year after the Great Reunion between Ringers and Earthers.
After Darien Trass sent the earliest Ringers to Titan, the Earthers who survived the Meteorite rebuilt their world, all while seeking new ones so that Armageddon could never happen again. They spread from Earth to Mars, to the asteroid belt, and then beyond. Fifty years ago, they reached Saturn, where my people had already been focused on establishing a new, peaceful civilization for humanity based around Titan for over two hundred years. It was supposed to be an incredible moment of unity after centuries apart, but with the Earthers came all the sicknesses our weakened immune systems had forgotten about. No measure of precautions could stop it: Thousands upon thousands of my people died off, peace died, and the Earthers had to step into our cities and establish order with quarantines and separated living areas before the rest joined them.
The one I was headed to was the oldest, to go along with Darien’s being Titan’s earliest settlement. That meant that countless Ringers had succumbed to illnesses within its unsanctified halls.
It didn’t seem right that my mother could wind up as one of them. She’d always been rigorous about cleaning her body, about wearing her gloves and sanitary mask no matter where she was. She’d taught me to be the same way, to keep them on even while I slept aboard the Piccolo, despite its living quarters being segregated. That was probably the only thing I was ever smart enough to listen to her about when I was younger.
In the end, none of it mattered. She caught something, same as everyone else thrown into one of the many Q-Zones dotting Titan’s frozen surface had. Didn’t matter what the disease was either.
Sure, they’d separate people with different ailments, but most of the diseases had no names, or did once but were lost in the annals of Pre-Meteorite Earth. All I knew for sure was that getting the right medicine through Pervenio Corp cost a fortune in credits. I’d already put aside all the money I’d ever earned, and it barely scratched the surface.
I wasn’t going to give up, though. I owed my mom everything. From first giving me life, to later helping me straighten it out.
It grew dark as the tram slipped into the Q-Zone’s entrance, carved into a lonely plateau rising from a plain of bleached sand. After it came to a screeching halt, Earther security officers garbed in the red and black of Pervenio Corp marched up and down the aisle, letting each row out one at a time. When my turn came, I fell in behind a somber line consisting almost entirely of masked Ringers, shuffling along as if they didn’t actually
want to get where they were going.
Security guided us into a long, bright lobby with sterile white walls that tended to give me headaches over time. It seemed like every other Ringer on Darien had the idea to arrive in the Q-Zone at the same time because it was taking even longer than normal. On most days, I tried to visit when opening hours commenced rather than toward the late afternoon. My date with John in the Lowers had destroyed that possibility.
Enhanced security measures never helped things move along either. Every visitor was patted down twice. Life in Darien was more tense than it had been when I’d left for my last gas-harvesting shift. There was news of a bombing back on Earth carried out by an unknown faction of offworlders while I was away, as well as multiple riots that had taken place throughout Titan’s colony blocks during M-day a few months back.
My feet tapped nervously as the line slowly trudged along. Warm, Earther-comfortable air had me sweating. By the time I reached the reception window outside of the decon-chamber, I was one of the last few Ringers who would be permitted through until the next morning.
“Name and ID,” the elderly Earther woman sitting at the desk on the other side said. She was so short I could barely see her frog-like face over her computer screen. It was obvious she didn’t recognize me despite how often I’d been visiting. Hundreds of masked Ringers passed by her every day.
“Kale Drayton,” I said as I handed her my card. She glanced up at me from her computer a few times while she looked it over. Satisfied, she gave it back.
“Visiting?” she asked.
“Katrina Drayton.”
“One moment.” She typed so speedily that her stubby fingers became a blur. It made my stomach turn to imagine how many times she’d probably searched for a name in her files. It was a job that nobody should have to do, Earther or not.
When she was done, she extended her palm and requested my hand-terminal.
Pervenio security didn’t permit handheld devices in Q-Zones. They didn’t approve of pictures of the suffering leaking onto Solnet without context or consent. Of course, that didn’t matter to me. I’d already sold mine so I could help pay for my mom to stay on one of the higher levels of the Q-Zone, one where she’d get a soft mattress.
“Got none,” I said.
“Proceed.” She waved me on and then turned back toward the line. “Next!”
I took a step forward. Two Pervenio security officers immediately signaled me to spread my arms and legs. They left no part of me unsearched.
“Clear,” one of them grumbled.
I was beckoned into a boxy decon-chamber. It was amazing anybody ever got sick given how many of them were sprinkled throughout Darien. They were at the Q-Zones, between the Uppers and Lowers, outside of every tram to another colony block, along every dock and hangar— everywhere. All it took was a single germ, though. Or so I’d been told by myriad ads throughout the Lowers preaching safety and cleanliness.
“Clothes,” an automated voice announced.
I removed all my clothing, even my undergarments. After depositing them through a chute, I stood in the center of the room completely naked. The decontamination process initiated. As usual, I waited nervously.
A whistling sound met my ears as balmy air rushed through air recyclers into the chamber. Then a tight web of pinkish beams that made up the electrostatic cleaning matrix spread across the room. They gave me a tingle as they passed across me, once through the front and then again in the other direction.
“Clean,” the automated voice announced after a minute, easing my concerns.
My clothes, now warm from being washed, appeared on a shelf by the exit. I put them back on and hurried out of the decon-chamber, and they were instantly cooled. Like most exclusively Ringer-occupied places on Titan, the air in the Q-Zone was chilly enough that I’d see my breath if I wasn’t wearing a sanitary mask. That was the only comfortable thing about the place.
“Visiting room C-7,” an officer indicated from behind a glass screen just inside the Q-Zone. He wore a full helmet and a visor so dark he seemed faceless. No Earther was permitted to enter the Q-Zone without clearance and an insulated suit. It was one agreement between our peoples nobody had the nerve to ever break.
A middle-aged Ringer woman exited as I approached the entry of room C-7. She stared blankly forward, tearless. All I wanted to do was place my hand on her shoulder and tell her everything was going to be all right, but I wasn’t in the mood to lie. I shuffled silently past her and into the contained visiting room.
The walls were white and shiny, but through a glass divider in the center, I could see the dreary adjoining visiting area within the quarantine proper. It was bright enough for me to be able to tell that the metal-clad walls were in disrepair.
I sat in the single chair set in front of the glass. Shortly after, my mom hobbled over to a seat across from me. The centimeter-thick transparent divider separating us might as well have been a kilometer.
Like all full-blooded Ringers, she was tall and lean, with white-as-paper skin and knobby joints that appeared more delicate than they really were. The first sign indicating something was wrong with her was that her brown hair was uncharacteristically frizzy. Frayed strands stuck to her soaring, sweaty forehead and clung to the tip of her flat nose. She’d always kept her hair clean and straight. The second sign was her bloodshot eyes and the dark creases wrapping around them, which only made them appear redder. She looked worse than she had just a day earlier. Like a salt sniffer hankering for a fix.
“Hi, Mom,” I whispered through the two-way intercom system built into the glass.
“Kale... You didn’t have to come again,” she responded, appearing as heartbroken as I imagined I must’ve. Her voice was muffled by a sanitary mask far more extensive than mine, but I could still tell it was uncharacteristically raspy.
My mask lifted as I forced a smile. “I wasn’t about to let you be alone.”
“You don’t need to fake anything with me. I know where I am.”
I took her advice. “So how are you feel—” I was cut off when a racking cough seized her.
She turned away and bent over so I wouldn’t be able to hear it clearly through the intercom. It didn’t work. The struggle of her lungs was evident, and before long, she was dry-heaving. There was nothing left inside of her to regurgitate.
No matter how many times I’d heard the sound since I’d started visiting her, it still made me cringe. By the time she was finally able to withdraw her skinny arm from her mouth, she was laboring to breathe.
“I’m fine,” she grated, as if nothing had happened. I decided not to draw attention to it. “How are you, Kale? Shifts are starting up again soon, right?”
“Yeah. In a few days,” I said. I paused and took a measured breath. There was no reason to keep hiding the truth from her, since I was going to keep visiting anyway. “Look, Mom, I’m actually staying behind this shift. I’ve already told Captain Saunders. I don’t want to be trapped in Saturn for four months while you’re in here.”
“Stop that,” she said. “Good work is hard to find these days.”
“It’s only temporary, I swear. I found a job sweeping up a noodle restaurant in the Uppers, and I plan on finding something else for nights. Maybe the engine factory by home. With both, I should at least make the same as I did on the Piccolo.”
“Kale.” She said it the way she used to when I came home late, and she’d known I’d been out getting into trouble. “The proudest day of my life was sending you off to board the Piccolo so you could see something in the universe beyond the enclosure of Darien. Don’t throw that away for me.”
“Mom, really, I’ll be fine. After we figure this out, I’m sure Captain Saunders will take me back—he gave me a shot in the first place. For now, we just have to think about getting you out healthy. Have you talked to Tanner about helping?”
“I told you not to worry yourself about that.”
“You served him for two decades! By Trass, his clan
-brother owns the damn Piccolo, so he’s got to have something lying around. It’s worth trying.”
“Always the optimist.” She exhaled, so congested that she sounded much like one of the faulty air recyclers in the depths of the Lowers. “Fine, I’ll message him, but for now, I want you to focus on you. You need credits too, you know.”
“Of course. How else am I going to convince a woman as good as you to give me a chance?”
“Still after Cora, are you?”
I blushed and shot a playful glower her way.
She chuckled for as long as she could manage, then began coughing again. Once that abated, she said, “Please, Kale, just think about it.” She regarded her bony hands and shrugged. “It can’t get any worse.”
“After all these years, you must know you can’t stop me. As long as I’m still breathing, there’s no way I’m letting you be reduced to ashes.”
I meant that literally. The Ringer dead were almost always cremated, ever since the days of Darien Trass’s first settlers, when the dead were burned for energy... recycled into the wealth and majesty of Titan. After the Great Reunion, when sickness became prevalent, cremation was required by mandate.
“Better than anybody,” she admitted. She raised her hand to place it against the glass divider, wincing during the entire effort, as if even that small task was a struggle.
“As long as you promise to keep fighting, I’ll be here trying to get you out.” I pressed my long, latex-clad fingers on the glass across from hers. We held them there for as long as possible—a minute, maybe two—until her weak arm started shaking. It was hardly long enough for me, but that was the closest we could get.
“Would you mind...” she began before hesitating. Her lips drooped into a frown, and she stared straight into my eyes. I could tell immediately that my least favorite part of every day was arriving early. “Letting me get some rest?” she finished.
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