The sky. I blinked, certain I was imagining it. But it was still there even as my vision blurred to black.
Beyond the clouds, larger than the sun, a huge, bright moon burned overhead.
I came awake slowly, engulfed in a fog of strange sounds. An electronic blipping in my ear. My breath, echoing strangely and artificially. Passing voices, snatches of conversation. And, above it all, an excruciating headache.
“How is she?” said a distant, familiar voice. Ceilos.
“Kyrin Nadin will be fine,” a woman’s voice replied. “Her exposure was very limited. The Enforcers say she lost consciousness just as they arrived, and they began applying oxygen immediately. Her companion, on the other hand…” It was silent for a moment, then she went on, briskly, “He is proving a bit more difficult to resuscitate, but based on initial System scans, he does not appear to have suffered any brain damage.”
My mind strained, trying to discern what it was she was talking about. What companion? I lost consciousness? I tried to draw in a deep breath and sit up, but it felt like I couldn’t get enough air, no matter what I did. After a moment of confusion, I finally realized that there was a tube over my nose and mouth, regulating my breathing.
“Have you been able to identify him?” Ceilos asked.
“No, kyrios. We are still running tests, though. Do you have any idea what Kyrin Nadin was doing with him, outside the dome?”
Reality crashed back in on me, and my eyes flew open in a panic. I immediately regretted it. The ceiling spun above my head, accompanied by an intense wave of nausea. I squeezed my eyes shut again and groaned.
“Nadin?” There was the sound of movement, and then I felt Ceilos’ warm fingers wrap around mine. More slowly this time, I opened my eyes. My vision swam, but after a moment, it cleared. Ceilos grinned reassuringly. “How are you feeling?”
“I can’t breathe. Can someone take this tube off my face?”
The woman—a medic, I realized, and this must be the hospital level—stepped forward. “Kyrin, you’ve suffered low oxygen levels. The inhalator is designed to help you regain optimal air intake.”
“How am I supposed to ‘regain optimal air intake’ when I can’t even draw a breath?” I snapped. The electronic blipping accelerated slightly, and Ceilos squeezed my fingers. Right. Temper. “Anger is your poison,” Gitrin had said. Thinking of Gitrin was enough to make me angry all over again, so I closed my eyes, and the beeps slowed back to their previous pace.
“Since Kyrin Nadin has regained consciousness and is speaking,” Ceilos said in a more diplomatic tone, “it seems to me that she no longer requires the assistance of the inhalator. If you wouldn’t mind?”
The medic looked as though she did mind, quite a bit; but she wasn’t in a position to argue with two patroi, so she smiled accommodatingly. “Very well. But if she shows even the slightest difficulty, this will have to go back on.”
I had never so thoroughly relished the taste of the cold, dank air of the caverns. I inhaled deeply, savoring it.
“How do you feel now?” asked the medic. “Any breathing trouble?”
“No. But my throat hurts.”
The medic had pulled a System panel up and was making notes on it. “That’s understandable,” she said when she was through, waving the panel away. “If you’d like, I can get you some water.”
Her smile was irritatingly unwavering. I could be as nasty to her as I felt like, and that smile would never fade. Of course, that would be very un-gerouin-like of me. So I attempted to smile back at her. “That would be wonderful. Thank you.”
As the woman bustled away, Ceilos snickered. “There. It wasn’t too hard to be civil, was it?”
I didn’t dignify that with an answer.
Ceilos perched on the edge of the hospital bed beside me. “I suppose your annual gift didn’t go as well as I’d hoped for,” he said, the hint of an apology in his voice.
“It’s all right. I wanted to see the sunset, and I got it,” I said. “I appreciate you covering for me with the geroi. They’d never have noticed a thing if it hadn’t been for that boy.” I frowned, remembering his prone form on the ground. “Is that who you and the medic were talking about?”
He tugged his earlobe affirmatively. “Do you know who he is, Nadin?”
“Not at all. I’ve never seen him before.”
Ceilos sighed. “How do you suppose he could have gotten outside?”
“I’d very much like to ask him that myself when he wakes up.” I swallowed uncomfortably. My throat felt dry and raw. That water couldn’t come soon enough. “I didn’t see him at all on the System. If I hadn’t noticed him before I went in…”
“You didn’t see him on the System because he’s not connected to it.”
I struggled up onto my elbows and stared at him. “What? Was he offline, like—” I broke off, not wanting to say it aloud.
Ceilos knew what I meant, though. “No, not like that,” he said. “He didn’t even have an earpiece. And there’s no record of his DNA.”
Silence hung heavy between us. If the System didn’t have a record of this boy, then…
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps echoing off the stone floor. The medic with my water, I thought with relief. But a moment later, the tall forms of Gerouin Melusin and Geros Antos strode into view through the clear glass wall to the hallway. The medic trailed deferentially behind them, her smile visibly strained now. It wasn’t often that the leaders of our citidome interacted directly with anyone of the lower castes. To most, the geroi were like gods on a pedestal—distant and untouchable. Benevolent yet firm, judging yet forgiving. They could make one’s life or destroy it; but though they were strict, I’d never known them to be anything but fair. The geroi were more than just our leaders, they were the mother and father to all in Hope Renewed.
And biological parents to one person. Me.
Ceilos quickly stood and inclined his head, three fingers to his brow. My legs still felt too numb to rise myself, but I saluted from the bed.
“Hello, Ceilos,” Melusin said as she entered the room. “And Nadin, I’m relieved to see that you are awake and seem to be doing well.” Her face was serene, but her eyes were cold as they fell over me. I looked down at the sterile white sheet over my legs. She would never show it in front of an esotoin like the medic, but I could feel her displeasure, sharp as a knife.
“The medic informs us that you should recover quickly. That’s marvelous news, isn’t it, Ceilos?”
“Hm? Oh, yes. Marvelous.”
“Nadin, when you are feeling well enough, Antos and I would like to speak with you in private,” Melusin said.
I swallowed. “I’m well enough now.”
With just a look from Antos, the medic scrambled out the door, shooing Ceilos along with her. Through the glass, I saw her put a hand to her earpiece. A moment later, the clear glass of the walls darkened, obscuring the view to the hallway. The dimmed hospital room looked eerie, lit only by the blue and green phosphates embedded in the one natural cavern wall and stone ceiling of the room.
Once the echoes of the medic’s and Ceilos’ footsteps had faded into silence, Melusin turned to face me, her expression grave. “Nadin, who is he?” Her voice had lost all of its pleasantness.
I furrowed my eyebrows. “Who is who?”
“The boy you met outside.”
“I… I don’t know. I didn’t meet him outside, I just saw him. He’d fallen.”
Melusin looked as though she didn’t believe me, but there would have been no point in lying. The System would alert her immediately if I did.
After a long moment of silence, I said, “Gerouin, I couldn’t just leave him—”
“Iamos is on the brink of destruction, Nadin,” Antos interrupted me. “If our people are to survive, we must be united. That means obeying the edicts. No one is exempt from them, not even the geroi. You know this.”
I looked down again. “Yes, Geros. I understand.
I just… since it was my annual, I thought…”
“The anniversary of your birth does not make you above the law,” he interrupted. “Especially not this one. You are enilin now. You should be able to make intelligent decisions, Nadin. Don’t you understand how dangerous leaving the dome is, now? What if the seal had been damaged? The entire population of Hope Renewed could have been decimated.” His voice was low. It made the anger in his words feel even stronger.
The geroi were never angry, it seemed, except with me.
“The lives of the people are in our hands,” said Antos. “We are the guardians of this citidome. If even one life had been lost, the damage would be irreparable.”
“But isn’t it for the best, then, that I was there?” I protested. “That boy would have died if I hadn’t alerted you to him.”
Antos’ mouth was drawn in a tight line. “We know nothing about him. He is unknown to the System. Do you understand what that means? He is, in all likelihood, an anarchist. A terrorist. And you have given him access to the citidome.”
My face grew hot. “Geros, I didn’t—”
“Nadin, in light of this evening’s events,” Melusin broke in, “the geroi have decided to reject your appeal for re-evaluation.”
The breath left me. For a brief, horrible moment, I felt like I was outside the dome again, gasping in the cold, airless wind. “What? But… why?”
Antos scoffed. “Does that question really need an answer?”
I said nothing. My eyes stung, but I resolutely kept my features blank.
Melusin’s face softened slightly. “Nadin, I understand how you must feel.” She put a hand on my shoulder, gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry you had to come of age at a time like this. Things are much stricter for you and Ceilos than they were for other generations of patroi. In another time, there might have been more leniency. Room to let you learn, to make mistakes.” She let go of me, leaving a cold void in the place her fingers had touched. “But Antos is right. We cannot afford that now. This simply is the way things are. There can be no oversights. You are our daughter, Nadin, but you know that does not give you privilege over the others in our care. We have to do what’s best for everybody. Remember, unity through fidelity. It is the only way.”
I tugged on my earlobe and absently quoted the motto of the Progression: “‘All lives are one.’ I am sorry, Gerouin.”
I watched her as I spoke, standing there, hands clasped behind her back. As always, she looked collected, poised, as though she never had a moment’s fear or doubt. Not even a hair out of place. I’d always wondered how I was supposed to live up to a gerouin such as her. Now I wondered if I’d ever even get the chance.
“You still have more to learn,” said Antos. “If Gitrin believes there is nothing more she can teach you, then we shall simply have to find you another tutor.” He leveled his gaze on me. “You must prove yourself, Nadin. And the best way to do so is to not violate the geroi’s edicts. If you are to be one of us, you must demonstrate that you can work with us—no matter what.”
“Yes, kyrios.”
“All right, then. We will let you rest now. When you’ve recovered, we will see about finding a new tutor for you and Ceilos. Perhaps in a year’s time, you will be ready to take your evaluation again.”
A year’s time. By then, we might all be dead.
As they turned to leave, I realized that the geroi had said nothing about my disappearance from the System’s tracker in the moments before I called for help outside the dome. Surely they must have noticed. Maybe they hadn’t consulted the records yet. It seemed too good to be true that it would slip their notice entirely.
But it would be a glorious mercy if it did. Perhaps Ceilos would even forgive me for being so reckless, if it meant his unauthorized program would remain undetected.
My throat ached painfully now, raw from all the talking. Where was that medic with the water?
I sat up, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment until the wave of dizziness passed. She had probably gotten distracted by the geroi’s abrupt arrival. It had unnerved me, too. I hadn’t expected them to come here. Usually they saved their reprimands for the privacy of our villa, where they could discipline me without risking a scandal. This mystery boy must have been a particularly sensitive issue, if they were willing to risk the rumors that were sure to be flying through the hospital level now.
I have a particular talent for getting into trouble, don’t I?
The stinging of my eyes made my throat burn even more. I glanced up at the timepiece on the wall. Nearly dawn. There was no point in lying around feeling sorry for myself any longer. If the medic wasn’t going to bring me water, I’d go get it myself.
The glass walls of my hospital room were still darkened, so the bright artificial lighting of the hallway was jarring. I winced, blinking it away, waiting for my vision to realign. When the sand cleared from my eyes, I saw that the room across from mine had three beds inside, each of them filled with people I didn’t recognize—plivoi, obviously, since patroi would warrant their own private rooms. I watched them for a moment, a small pang of sympathy clawing its way inside my chest. Then I shook it off and continued down the corridor.
There were three beds in the next room as well, but two of these were empty. The room had been dimmed inside, and the eerie blue phosphorescence made the lone patient’s skin appear to glow. I took an involuntary step closer, my hand on the glass, peering at the prone figure on the bed.
I should keep moving. There was no reason for this. It was none of my affair. My role in his story was over. The geroi had ordered as much. There was no point in me lingering here, staring.
But I just couldn’t make my eyes move away from him. He was so different, so strange—so impossible.
The boy from outside the city.
I hovered in the hallway a few moments longer before finally glancing over my shoulder. The corridor was deserted; the medics in the plivoi’s room were preoccupied with their own patients. I was alone.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I had shoved the sliding glass aside and slipped into the boy’s room.
The artificial lighting flickered on as I entered the room, illuminating his strange features. His eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling slowly. There was a breathing tube over his mouth and nose, like the one they’d fitted me with. His face had been cleansed, and a System scanner fitted over his cranium, monitoring his brain waves. Where the rust-red dirt had obscured his features before, I could now see that his light brown skin was even and smooth. Not blotchy like exposure poisoning. This must be his natural skin tone.
My brows furrowed as I ran a hand across his forehead, brushing soft, dark hair away. I had never seen these traits before. I couldn’t begin to guess as to which city would have selected them. There couldn’t possibly be enough melanin in this tone to protect against ultraviolet photodamage…
His eyelids flickered under my touch, and I jerked my hand back in alarm. Before I could move away, he’d opened his eyes, blinking at me with eyes as dark as his hair.
I stood transfixed, mouth agape. I don’t know what it was about this boy that drew me in. I couldn’t explain it—it was like a planet’s gravity. The pull had been strong enough before, when he was unconscious. To see him awake, moving, breathing, was even more unnerving. It made him more real, somehow.
He said something, words I didn’t recognize. I waited a long moment for the System’s auto-translator to whisper his meaning in my mind, but it never came. All I had were disjointed syllables and a look of confusion on the boy’s face.
“I-I’m sorry,” I stammered, not sure what else to say.
The boy’s face scrunched up and he repeated the words again, more slowly. His voice came out like a croak, parched-sounding and cracked beneath the echo of the breathing tube. I swallowed involuntarily, reminded of my own aching throat.
“Perhaps you need some water,” I said, backing toward the door. “I’ll see about a medic—
”
The boy sat up as I moved out of his line of sight, jabbering something else. The lack of response from the System panicked me. Hearing his words but not their meaning was like being thrown into the dark. I stumbled about, blindly.
“Kyrin Nadin! What are you doing in here?”
I whirled around. The medic who had treated me stood in the doorway, an amphora of water in her hand.
“I was looking for you,” I answered automatically. “But as I passed, I saw he’d awoken, and…” It was only a small lie, a harmless one. She was low-ranking enough that the System wouldn’t alert her, but I’d learned to watch my tongue, regardless, from my years of missteps.
“He—” The medic broke off, noticing her patient, fully alert, staring at her in confusion. Quickly, she hurried over to him, handing me the amphora as she passed. “We weren’t expecting him to regain consciousness for a few hours still. The System was supposed to keep him in a medical coma. Why didn’t it…?”
She began examining him while I drank, my parched throat greedy. The boy glanced back and forth between her and me and said a few more words. Once again, I habitually waited for the translation, but it still didn’t come.
“Why can’t I understand him?” I asked.
“His thought patterns are unfamiliar to the System,” replied the medic. “It could take up to a week for it to finish decoding his brain waves.”
I frowned. “But how—”
The boy interrupted me with a cry of alarm. The medic had pulled open a System panel to mark down his vitals, and the boy was staring at it, wide-eyed. He reached forward, poking the air idiotically.
“What is wrong with him?” I asked. “It’s just the System.”
The medic waved the panel away, and the boy gasped. She tugged her earlobe thoughtfully. “It’s more than the System not having a record of him. He does not appear to recognize the System at all. That could be why it was unable to maintain his bodily functions—his brain is unaccustomed to working in tandem with it.”
The boy was staring at me again, making my stomach clench oddly. I ground my teeth in irritation.
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