The Lofties (The Echelon Book 2)

by Ramona Finn

  “They’re ours for tonight.” I checked the next one along and found it furnished, just a bed and a dresser, but both of high quality. I felt lonely looking at it, picturing it empty. Picturing Mom looking in on it, Dad closing the door. Dust gathering over time.

  “They could still have more children,” said Ona. “They’re not too old.”

  I turned and saw she was crying, one hand pressed to her mouth. I pulled her close and held her, choking back my own tears. She shook in my arms, quiet sobs that tore through her just the same.

  “I’ll be with you,” I promised her. “Right there, no matter what.”

  Chapter Seven

  I slipped out late that night and headed to the Banks, to the bridge over the reservoir. I could see my old building from there, the rock garden out front. A few stragglers from the swing shift made their way along the bank, hunched shapes in the dark. I wondered how long it would take me to forget the sound of the water, the play of light on its surface. Or my own bedroom ceiling, with its canopy of cracks. I’d heard of people forgetting faces, even faces they’d once loved. I wished I could draw so I’d remember.

  I scrunched down as footsteps approached, tried to make myself small. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, not even hello. I just wanted to look, to drink it in and absorb it, the place I grew up.

  “Thought I might find you here.” Lock stopped beside me. “Okay if I sit?”

  I gestured vaguely at the spot beside me—be my guest. Lock eased himself down and swung his legs over the side.

  “I went home too,” he said. “Got me a souvenir.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a fuzzy something.

  “Ew. What is that?”

  “A toy mouse.” He dangled it by its tail. “There’s this lady who sells them downstairs from me. I always wondered who bought them. Now I know.”

  “They’re for cats.” I took a swipe at Lock’s mouse. He curled around it, protecting it with his body.

  “Toss Smedley in the reservoir, I’ll be very upset.”

  “You named that thing?”

  “Don’t mock. I’m sad.” He tucked his mouse back in his pocket. “Truth be told, I swung by your new house first. When Ona said you were out, I thought you might’ve made a run for it.”

  “I thought about it,” I admitted.

  “What made you stay?”

  “Ona.” I stared into the reservoir. The water had risen with the rains, lapping up to the footpath. A thousand lights glimmered on its surface, streetlights and bedroom lights, fizzing neon signs. “All she sees is the dream. Someone needs to be there for her, in case...”

  “I want to think there’s no ‘in case.’” Lock touched his pocket where he’d stowed his mouse. “Ascension’s not just a dream. It’s what gets you through, you know?”

  “Like in the pit?”

  “Sort of. But no. I meant when you’re just hanging on, when it’s down to life or death.” His breathing quickened. “I spent the night down a vent one time, with my leg crushed under a rock. Couldn’t move an inch. The steam just kept coming, boiling the skin off my bones. By morning, I’d stopped healing, just... even we have our limits, what our bodies can take.” He rubbed at a spot above his knee, as though it still hurt him. “That dream got me through, the thought of waking up to real sunshine, a song on the radio. Visiting my folks in the Stars. And now it’s all coming true, just like it’s supposed to. First the pain, then the gain. You’d have to be some kind of monster, putting kids through all that, if the reward’s just a lie.”

  Some kind of monster. I ducked my head to hide my grimace. “How’d you get out, in the end?”

  “Samson came back with a jackhammer. Busted that rock all to powder.” Lock sighed. “Most of us don’t make it. We fall or get shot, or our buggies flip over. There’s a hundred ways to die out there, but we hold onto that promise—see it through to the end, and we got you covered.” His whole face lit up, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “It’s all been true so far. They let my whole family move up, my aunts and uncles, all my cousins. It’s like a mansion, their place, a room for every kid. There’s a park out back, with swings. That makes it all worth it, whatever comes next.”

  A sense of sadness came over me, heavy as the Dirt. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

  “’Course I do.” His smile brightened. “What if it’s perfect, just like everyone says? Say it’s heaven up there, everything you ever wanted. What would that look like?”

  Safe. Open to everyone. Gloriously Lazrad-free.

  “Green,” I said. “Like in those old pictures, with the hills covered in trees. There’d be a park full of birds, and a lake you could swim in. You’d pick all the fruit you could eat, and there’d still be lots left. How about you?”

  “Clean,” said Lock. He squirmed where he sat. “I can’t imagine what that feels like. No sand up my crack. No dirt under my nails. It’s all soot down here, and rats, and fleas. I want a tub big enough to stretch out in, and I’ll leave the water running till it drains away clear. And I’ll eat grapes the whole time, and melons, and apples.”

  I snorted at the notion of a tub big enough to fit all of Lock. He’d been too tall for doorways at thirteen. Full-grown, he was a giant. “What are you, seven feet?”

  “Six-nine.” He knocked his boot against mine. “I didn’t laugh at your birds. Let me dream.”

  “Dream all you want.” I wiggled my toes and felt grit between them. I’d washed since I got back, but the sand had stuck with me, grimed into my socks. “It’s funny, isn’t it? I’m picturing a scene from the history books. You’re picturing a bath. But it could be anything up there. Anything at all. The walls are so high outside, all you see are the towers.”

  Lock shot me a strange look. “That scares you?”

  “It doesn’t scare you? A whole world you can only guess at? For all we know, they eat each other. Or they’re all like Prium Lazrad.”

  “I doubt there’s many like him.” Lock’s lips quirked up. “Besides, you’re great with new people. They all loved you Outside. You should’ve seen when you got shot—they were scared for you, all of them, even that mean one.”

  “Who, Starkey?”

  “No, Jeena, uh... Jetha? Ben’s mom. She held your hand half the night, after I brought you in.” A shudder passed through him. “You were crying in your sleep, making sounds like it hurt. They all came to check on you, everyone at that base. If anyone can win over the Lofties, it’s you.”

  I dredged up a smile, not wanting to spoil Lock’s mood. Win over the Lofties—as if. That Lock thought they could be won over spoke to Lazrad’s grip on him. He still wanted to trust her, to live in her dream. I’d be alone in my search for answers.

  “I feel good about this,” said Lock. “That night in the vent, waiting for Sam to—” He stopped talking abruptly, and set his hand on my arm.

  “What?”

  “Don’t you hear that?” He got to his feet, waving me to silence. I could hear them now, voices approaching from the refinery.

  “It’s not hard,” said one. He had a broad Lofty accent, hoarse with smoke. “They just—it’s like, you finish the coffee, you start a new pot. And change out the filter. It won’t kill you.”

  “Right?”

  I froze. That was Miron—I’d know his voice anywhere. I seized Lock by the belt and dragged him behind a pillar, crowding up next to him to fit.

  “What—?”

  “Shh.” I covered his mouth with my palm, waiting for Miron to pass by. I hated the thought of him finding me here, knowing I’d felt homesick.

  “You know what’s funny?” Miron stopped where the bridge met the street, and I heard a lighter click. “I don’t even smoke these things. I’ll stand and watch you, and I’ll let this burn down, but it’s just a distraction. Something to do with my hands.” Miron kicked at the railing. “Ma calls it a nervous habit, but that’s not it. I don’t get nervous. You just need something to say ‘this is it. I’m on break.’ With
out that...”

  “Everywhere looks the same down here. Like the whole thing’s the office. Why d’you think I smoke?”

  Lock made a sound, a low, amused whuffing. I kicked him in the shin. Miron tapped his cigarette, scattering ash.

  “You on duty for the thing?”

  “What, the Ascension ceremony?” Miron’s companion stepped into the light. He was security, I saw, blue vest for Sky. I’d seen him around—Kessler, or Keller. “Yeah, I’m on that.”

  “Better you than me.”

  “Those kids, though...” Kessler dropped his cigarette and lit another. “I heard one of them’s not even a Decemite. What’d they do, change the rules?”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” said Miron. “That other girl, her sister, she only ran one mission. Got herself captured, to boot. The Powell boy earned it, more or less, but those other two are a joke.”

  “Not a very funny one.” Kessler stepped out onto the bridge. He leaned over the railing and spat into the reservoir. “I mean, I’m up at five, down here by six. I’m patrolling all day, then I eat in the mess. I catch the sunset if I’m lucky, an hour or two of twilight. The sun might be our birthright, but when’d you see it last?”

  “Last weekend, I suppose.”

  “Yeah? Guess what I did last weekend. Really, guess.”

  Miron made a humming sound. “Slept? That’s what I did.”

  “Babysat.” Kessler cursed under his breath. “I’ve got three of ‘em now, and I swear they get brattier by the day—they scream just to spite me, that little one especially. And now we got those three heading up, like a slap in the face. They’ll see more sun than we ever will, more than our kids’ll see once they start work. What makes these kids so special, when mine get the factory?”

  Lock shifted beside me, fists bunched at his sides. I touched his arm and his shoulders slumped. Miron turned away from us, dropping his cigarette between his feet. He ground it under his heel, like squashing a bug.

  “Trust me,” he said. “They’ll lord it over us a while, but Lazrad knows what she’s doing. You couldn’t pay me enough to take their place.”

  “No?”

  “No.” Miron’s laugh was unpleasant, a wet, guttural wheeze. “Trust me. We’re better off.”

  “If you say so.” Kessler checked his watch. “Either way, my break’s over. You in for cards later?”

  “Got my mad money right here.” Miron patted his pocket. The two of them turned back the way they’d come, footsteps dwindling in the distance.

  “We should go,” said Lock.

  I nodded, and we hurried in the opposite direction. It was the long way around, through the slums to the stairwell, then back to the Stars, but I led and Lock followed without protest. He was quiet jogging along the banks, past my old building. We cut through the market square and up the main road, Lock stopping to pick up a stray token.

  “I heard they don’t use these up there,” he said. “No paper money at all, just... they keep track, somehow, what you got and what you owe.”

  “Then leave that one here. Let someone else find it.” I took the token from him and let it flutter to the ground. “You’ve been quiet. You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just…I hate your boss.”

  “You and me both.” I looked around for cameras and didn’t see any. I lowered my voice anyway, just in case. “But that’s what I’m talking about. We need to be careful up there. Something’s not—”

  “Don’t.” Lock looked tired. “We’re headed up, no matter what. How about you give it a chance before you decide we’re all doomed?”

  “You heard him, though. Lazrad knows what she’s doing. He knows something we don’t.”

  “Or he wishes he does.” Lock sighed. “Remember what I said about Samson, how we weren’t exactly friends? I knew him better than anyone, and I still couldn’t be sure—he’d act like your buddy, then whatever you told him, he’d spread it around. If you kept quiet, he’d make something up. That’s what your boss is doing, telling the story he wants to hear. The one where he wins and you lose. I doubt he’s even met Lazrad, much less knows what she’s thinking.”

  I frowned, frustrated. I couldn’t argue with that, exactly—Miron did like to gossip, loved to seem in the know. He’d drop names like candy, but in the end, he was nobody, more Dirt than Sky. Still, even gossips stumbled on the truth every once in a while.

  “Promise me you’ll be careful,” I said. “Go in with your eyes open.”

  “I will if you will.” Lock picked up his pace, and I trotted to keep up. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “We’re in this together.” He reached the stairwell ahead of me and held the door to let me through. Our elbows brushed, and I felt lonely. Lock was physically with me, but in this together? He and Ona were the same, a rationalization for everything. They’d hide from the truth till it killed them.

  I followed Lock up the stairs and to the edge of the Stars.

  “This is me,” he said. He stopped outside a red door, decorated with leaves and twigs.

  “I’m further on.” I didn’t know what to say, so I hugged him instead, a quick, awkward squeeze.

  “See you tomorrow,” said Lock. He grinned, wide and cheery, barely a hint of worry showing through. I watched him head inside.

  “Tomorrow,” I whispered, but the Dirt-beat drowned me out, the pulse of the factory and the hum of the lights, the murmur of water in the pipes. I’d never hear it again, if Lazrad had her way. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  Tomorrow.

  Chapter Eight

  “Hold still.” Mom grabbed my shirt and tugged it down sharply. She’d been poking at me all morning, me and Ona both, smoothing imaginary wrinkles and slapping dust from our cuffs. Now, crowded into our dressing room, awaiting our grand entrance, her fussing had reached fever pitch.

  “You can’t charge about the way you do, up in Sky. Look at the Lofties—they’re never in a hurry.” She sauntered a few paces, swinging her hips side to side. “More like this, see? Let’s see you try it.”

  Ona gave it a shot, mincing about the dressing room. I stayed where I was, uncomfortable in Mom’s hand-me-downs. She’d deemed my best pants too frayed, my sharpest shirt too casual. Now I stood starched to the eyeballs, in a high collar years out of style. My pants were too tight, and they pinched at the waist.

  “You too, Myla. Give it a try.”

  “That’ll do.” Dad took Mom’s arm and guided her to the couch. “You don’t know what it’s like up there any better than she does. Stand back. Let her breathe.”

  “I heard bad means good up there—like, if you say something’s bad, that means it’s good.” Ona peered through the curtain, at the crowd gathered in the square. “But radioactive means bad, so—”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear.” Dad pulled her back from the curtain. I couldn’t read his expression, brows beetled together, lips turned up. He looked sad and proud, a little scared. I could see his hands shaking. “All you need to know—” His voice caught, and he swallowed. “All you need to know is, you’ve made it. This is security, for you and for us. So whatever happens, don’t worry about us. Be happy. Be proud. You have the world at your feet.”

  I hunched over like he’d stuck a knife through me. My stomach hurt. My heart hurt.

  “Myla? You okay?”

  “My pants are too tight.” I tugged at my belt. Forced a smile. It wouldn’t do any good, burdening Dad with my suspicions. What good would it do him, picturing an incinerator up there, or a prison, or a bullet? It’d just hurt him and Mom, and I’d done enough of that. “Sorry,” I said. “Just nervous, I guess. Never thought I’d see Sky.”

  “Have some water,” said Mom. “Come and sit with me, and—”

  Outside, the crowd roared. I peeked past the curtain and saw Prium had taken his place, dead center on the podium. To his left stood the elevator that’d take us to Sky. Behind him hung a glass panel, big and black and solid, like a door turned on its side. It looked out o
f place in the Dirt, with its clean lines and sharp angles. It made me nervous, though I couldn’t have said why—maybe Prium’s bald pate reflected in it, gleaming under the lights.

  Prium raised his hands for silence, and soon the crowd subsided. I spotted a few of my co-workers among them, and most of my old neighbors. Not one of them looked my way.

  “Citizens of the Dirt.” Prium spoke quietly, and the crowd leaned in as one. I moved closer, myself, without realizing it. Beside me, Ona did the same.

  “Citizens of the Dirt—you’ve come here today to see three of your own exalted. You’ll see them rise up on high, take their first halting steps into a world most of you will never so much as glimpse from afar... but why should that be?” Prium smiled, not his usual mean smirk, but a wide, delighted grin. “Why should it be that our most valued citizens—our prospective Decemites and their families, our workers, our bedrock—should never understand the paradise they aspire to?”

  A murmur went through the crowd, little confused twitterings, a flurry of exchanged glances. Prium raised his arms, and the panel behind him became a window. I saw the sky through it, and the towers of Echelon, the faint purple shimmer of the Dome. The breath caught in my throat as I realized what I was looking at—like the security screens in the refinery, only full-color and trained on Sky. The picture dissolved into an interior scene, a vast, open chamber, its glass doors flung wide. A bustling street lay beyond, Lofties going about their business—ladies with parasols, girls in frilly dresses. A man sat by a fountain’s edge reading a book.

  “Myla...” Ona grabbed my hand. I squeezed it tight. Someone was sobbing, then lots of someones. Laughter rose and fell, and the crowd roiled and jostled. A woman rose up on tiptoe and was knocked off her feet. She got up, brushed herself off, and stood on tiptoe again.

  “This is our gift to you, the first of many.” Prium drew himself up. “Soon, you’ll have screens in all your homes, in your streets, in your workplaces. You’ll be able to look up and see us, any time you want. You might glimpse Lady Lazrad, or spot an Ascended friend. You’ll witness what awaits you—what awaits more of you now than ever before. An opportunity for—”