The Boy I Am

by K. L. Kettle

She leans in close. “She told me I could have you after. I’ll take care of you, promise.”

  My protests slur as I heave breath into my lungs. My calls for Walker, for anyone, echo up the stairwell.

  “No one’s listening,” Aspiner says. My suit jacket undone, she starts unbuttoning my shirt. “Walker’s gone.”

  Four of her officers pin my arms against the wall. Can’t fight them off. Can’t stop her from doing anything.

  You remember that skinny boy? The one who asked all those questions before they made him stop? He’s still there somewhere under this armour Walker fashioned for him. A boy who still hopes the House of Boys will keep the nightmares under the bed away. Who wants to believe that women are kind and beautiful, full of love.

  That boy wants to cry. But they want him to keep quiet. He can be quiet.

  She pulls her hand through his hair. Good boy, her gesture says, good boy.

  I can count every ache inside me. One day I’ll tell someone. One day they’ll believe me. Then what?

  My breath fills me up, burning in my chest. With my stomach exposed to her, I think how loose my belt is, how I’m too thin for the world.

  “This is for the hot tea you poured on me,” Aspiner says as she moves her hands to my belt.

  I won’t close my eyes. I’m not afraid of her.

  Aspiner wields her baton in front of me. I try to knot my tired body together. Close it down, become the plaster of the wall. Twist up my tongue, before she jabs me in the stomach with the end of her baton. I think she’s smiling.

  A switch flips. Click.

  Electricity drills into my stomach, up into my ribs, down through my fingers, into my aching groin. There’s the smell of fabric and hair burning, and the stab of the pins in my skin as I shake against them. Jolt and bolt my neck. Lights stripe past my eyes. Then – hands touching my skin that I can’t shake off. The Lice flop my body around on the cold floor. Laughing.

  Can’t even open my eyes. Am I still in the stairwell? I should scream and shout but the sounds bounce around inside my shell.

  There’s no boy under the armour any more.

  A croaky officer – I remember her voice from the appointment – nudges my foot with hers. “He’s not going to fight.” Silence. “She won’t know. The Chancellor. She won’t. Not with the Hysterics back there. Besides, who’d believe him?”

  “Olive, please,” one of them begs her friend. “He’s not worth it!”

  Is that what I am now? Worthless.

  “It’s OK. I can wait,” Aspiner says.

  “It’s really simple,” Kier said. “The more merits, the more their vote’s worth.”

  Worth. I knew that word.

  I’d been in the dorms for a month and, by my count, had just turned thirteen. Kier, the oldest boy from K-dorm, had offered to talk the new boys through some of the more interesting parts of his dorm’s Collection in exchange for news of which women were popular in the various prenticeships we had come from.

  We sat on the tables in the dining room in the green half-light of the emergency-exit signs. You were there, so I was there.

  “And a vote means?” you asked, twisting the ring Walker had given you round your thumb.

  That ring had got you in, and me. When the prentice came from the House of Merit, they approached you straight away. “Scholarship,” they said. “Mr Walker’s choice.” Never seen you so puffed up but I knew it was because of the ring. When they asked if there was anyone with the buy-in that passed the audition, I stepped up. Thought you’d be happy but you were too excited to notice.

  Kier sighed. “Saints, I swear each intake gets more stupid. It’s the hormones in the food. Don’t eat the sweet stuff, I swear. Every so often, the Council – that’s the madams who head the houses – bring the people in the Tower together for a vote. To make decisions … like, I don’t know, where to split the workforce between Maintenance and Entertainment, what to do with a glut of potatoes, or population control. Like how many boys get born each year – they voted on that one a couple of months back but the Gardener stopped it getting lowered again. Whatever gets the most votes wins.”

  Everyone talking, except you until…

  “And the more merits they have, like the Chancellor, or the madams—” you say.

  “You guessed it: the more merits, the more powerful their vote.”

  “And they get merits by being good, right?”

  Kier shrugged. “Yeah, I guess that’s the big one. Compliment a top-floor madam and a few extra merits might fly in their direction, but there are always other ways. Cronyism, blackmail, oh and then there’s inheritance. That’s a big one – that’s why most of the madams are from the old Foundation families. There are massive limits on how many merits each house member has to give to the Council every year and how many they have to give away to others for services rendered.”

  Meritocracy, Cook told us, means that the best people in the Tower are in charge. The kindest. The smartest. The most selfless.

  “Toppers can’t get demerited so much now; that went to a vote years ago. Here’s the trick, lads: get one of the top madams in your auction and maybe you can sway a vote.”

  “How?” You again.

  Kier grabbed his crotch and everyone laughed except you.

  “But we don’t get a vote,” you said. Everyone was still laughing.

  “Can’t vote if you’re in debt, mate,” Kier said. “But seriously the love of a good man in a woman’s ear can work wonders. Who knows, maybe one day we can change the world?”

  Smoke, sharp. A noise. It sounds like you in the stairwell; you calling my name. You saying it’ll be all right. Except it isn’t you and it won’t be all right. It’s a crowd of wild creatures, painted faces swarming, smoking out the Lice around me. Arms pull me up. Strong arms.

  “No!” I fight them off.

  I don’t want to be helpless. Not now, not ever. Never again. I don’t want to be saved by them, any of them. I can do this.

  Rolling on to my front, my body smacks against the floor. I suck in my aching stomach and pull myself up, dragging my skin along the concrete, hand over hand over hand, until I’m on my feet.

  Hello? says my brain but my mouth doesn’t move. It can’t.

  “You really want to be stubborn now?” says Ro, catching me as I fall. Blackout lights burning red behind her, making her hair seem white.

  But she was arrested. I’m imagining that she’s here, right? I’m imagining she’s here, and I’m shaking and half naked! Hardly dignity. Hardly grace.

  “I can’t get you out on my own – you need to run. The others will hold back the Lice.”

  “Others?”

  Ro blinks at me. Her face full and clear now through the red light, through the smoke. “Come on!” she calls, knotting the strips of her torn skirt, kicking off her shoes. “We can’t stay here.” There’s a dull whop-whop on the hard floor as something lands near my head. “You’ll need these.”

  Shoes.

  They smell of leather, worn and tanned.

  Don’t stare. It’s nothing. Just shoes. No big deal.

  Shoes mean I can run if I want.

  “Just shove them on – come on!”

  Move.

  Hopping into the thick leather shoes, I push forwards, everything still blurring. My hands are my eyes, searching their way down the stairs, step by step, coughing in the fug from what I guess must be smoke bombs the Hysterics threw. My spit as thick as tar, the air sharp. But…

  I’m still alive!

  The door swings open with a bang and I’m moving so fast my legs struggle to work, but I don’t stop. The fight behind is getting quieter, the sound of Ro’s breath clearer.

  “We have to get Walker,” I gasp.

  “No time.”

  “What about Vik?”

  “Look, you need to forget about him,” says Ro. “We have to get you out.”

  “Forget about Vik?” I say, the anger rising in me. “He’s my friend! I can’t
—”

  The Lice cry from behind. Boots slam. The metal of their weapons rattles in their hands.

  “I won’t let her hurt you,” says Ro. “Trust me.”

  “But—”

  “Choose. You can stay here, you can find your friend, but only if you want to get yourself killed or worse…”

  How do I show her I don’t want her to rescue me, don’t need her protection? But Aspiner’s burn aches in my belly, reminding me that maybe I do need help right now. Maybe we both do. I can’t save you if I’m dead. I’ve not forgotten you – I never will – but for now I have to run.

  Through the front doors of High House into the cold darkness, soft sand beneath my feet, the stars blurred above.

  My name is Jude Grant and I am Outside.

  A few weeks before Reserves I’d turned fourteen. It was my first year eligible for the docket. I wasn’t planning on putting myself up for it, but then you did.

  Most of J-dorm had flunked out of Reserves. I’d fluffed my intro onstage and got no bids. The morning after, my brothers and I were in the dining room, at our regular table, hunched over trays, slurping protein shakes and doing the calculations. There was an ache in my empty stomach because you’d got a reserve. What if you were bought at auction before me?

  Everyone was complaining about how much the buy-in had gone up again this year, about wasted ‘promises’ from their appointments – women who’d hinted they’d reserve but then never showed up on the night. Some boys, the older kids in J-dorm, had promises of buyers from their appointments today. But then there was that risk, always, that someone might outbid them, someone they didn’t want. We’re meant to be graceful whatever happens, to act like gentlemen.

  On the next table E-dorm had started up the betting circles for the auction itself, keeping the books on the odds between the dorms. M-dorm were monitoring the rumours and the rankings, of course, mainly the new debs (top-floor girls just turned fourteen too, the daughters of the chiefs). Top three rumoured new debs were:

  Elean Valk – Madam Valk’s daughter. House of Amalgam.

  Reginda Neugent – top floor, House of Invention, but rumours her family out of favour with the Chancellor.

  Romali Vor – Madam Vor’s daughter. Not chosen a house yet. Rumours of vast wealth but also known for fighting and general avoidability.

  Odds were low for any boys to get their bids. Debs normally waited a few years to bid on their own ward but they’d sometimes put in a reserve to practise with a boy first. “I heard Miss Vor has actual horns,” says Rod.

  “And scales,” Stink adds with full confidence.

  “All the way down?”

  “Don’t be gross!”

  “Does it matter? She won’t bid,” I say. “None of them will.”

  My brothers rolled their eyes. But I wasn’t joking – most debs would wait until they got a good footing in their house before spending any merits on a boy they’d need to keep. We’re an expense, after all.

  Everyone would have preferred it if girls our own age would bid but normally it’s the older middle-floor women. Not likely to end up running one of the big houses without some help, they make lower bids, live less lavishly, and a good ward can look after their apartment while they’re out earning merits.

  When you arrived in the dining hall, you held yourself differently. Mr Scholarship, Slick Vik. Taller. Chest puffed out. You’d been working out and there were those boys: Vinnie from your dorm and the other beefers. I didn’t know their names, didn’t want to know them.

  “She wasn’t the right one,” I heard you telling your new friends as you passed. “I don’t need a bid from some desperate old woman on the twentieth floor.”

  The relief swung through me! We’d both flunked out of Reserves.

  Anyone would think you ignored me as you went by but I knew you’d waited until you were within my earshot to say you’d lost your reserve. I’m not stupid. There’s no way you could have told me straight out.

  Father Van had rules about his boys mixing with lower dorms, rules about V-boys showing weakness. He believed the women up top didn’t want some delicate man for a ward. They want to be a bit afraid of you, he claimed, wanted animals to tame. That’s the trick, he’d tell his boys: be the beast to their beauty. V-dorm boys weren’t allowed to cry, weren’t allowed to be kind, or weak, or humble. Then again, most V-dormers never made it past Reserves. Most of them were demerited for dishonourable behaviour, packed off to the mines, or worse. Not you, you said. You’d be Van’s best boy.

  I worried about you sometimes. But then I reminded myself you were strong in a different way. However many muscles you piled on, whoever your friends were, I knew you better. Behind their shield, you were still the boy that gave me his food that day, the boy that saved me from the dogs. You were doing what you had to, playing a part to survive. I could do that too.

  Ro clambers to the top of a dune, her dress gathered in her arms. Wiping sweat from her forehead, she pulls off her half-mask, drops it and catches her breath.

  The mask sinks into the mountain of sand beneath our feet. As I scramble to catch up, cold grains slide between my fingers like water. Fine as sugar. A film of it sticks, rough on my palm.

  The moon is round, bright enough to cast shadows as we climb; cold air bites at the top. I crane my neck in every direction to see the sweeping city. The Collections say there were paths once, roads that took the Saints to the Wetlands-that-were. There were water fountains, statues – people came from all parts of the earth to wonder at how the Foundations built such a place so deep in the desert.

  My calves shake with exhaustion. Walking in sand is hard – it keeps shifting and my legs are used to flat, hard floors. With every step, I can’t believe I’m not sinking. “Where are you going?”

  Ro points. “The old city. It’s a long walk.” She wants us to keep moving, get fog cover until it gets light. “We’ll need to building-hop, stay inside as much as possible.” She’s tearing strips from her skirt with her teeth. “When the fog comes in, you feel it prickle… It floods in fast, five maybe ten minutes before you can’t breathe. Cover your mouth, your nose; close your eyes if you can too. It’ll buy you some time to get somewhere airtight. OK?”

  The wind whips at the strips of Ro’s dress held out to me. I press them to my nose to dull the stink the Outside air brings with it. We climb the sands fast, towards huge metal boxes emerging from the dunes. They’re a lot higher and closer together than I imagined they’d be. Some have toppled against each other like the dominoes the cooks used to play with.

  Ro’s palm catches me, stopping me from falling as the sand splits underneath me. Her hot hand on my chest snaps back when she finds skin. “Sorry!” She creases her face with a flash of embarrassment. “Didn’t mean to – you should…” She points at my shirt. No one’s ever apologized for touching me before.

  My shaking fingers fumble to fasten up the buttons. “I’m not sure we can hide from the Lice in the city for ever – they’ll come looking.”

  “Yeah, but we’re not going to stay in the city. We’re going to find my mum. She’s out there – at the House of Exploration outpost is my bet.”

  We?

  “You really think she’s alive?”

  “Just need to find a buggy that works. There’s a bunch the Hysterics have stashed, then I … we can go.”

  There’s that ‘we’ again. “What about High House, the others?”

  “We have to look after ourselves now,” she says as she stomps down the other side of the dune. The sand slides as I follow. When I get to the bottom, she’s talking to herself, tearing away more layers of her dress to wrap round her own face should the fog come. “Couldn’t let me have it, could she?” Who does she mean? The Chancellor? “Had to send in the troops,” she mutters as I reach her side. She catches me looking at the knife I can now see strapped to her thigh. “I could’ve killed the Chancellor, you know?”

  “Ro, about back there, with the Lice…”
/>
  She doesn’t know where to look. “Olive’s just trying to prove something. She’s been after Vor’s job since she joined as a junior a few years before me. You OK?”

  Am I OK? It’s bubbling, that jaw-snapping anger. Does Ro really think Aspiner was only trying to prove something to the other women, humiliating me like that, stripping me apart? “I’m fine,” I lie.

  “Shit!” Ro rubs at her arms. There’s a bag on her shoulder, which I guess she was given by one of the Hysterics. She rummages through it and pulls out a torch, goggles. “We need to get inside. Now!”

  So that’s it. What her mother’s Lice did to me is forgotten? One ‘you OK?’ and that’s enough? How could I have told her I’m not OK, that I’ve never been OK? That I’ll always have that in my head – what they did, what they touched, how they made me feel.

  “Don’t you feel it?” she asks. “That tingle.”

  Does she mean the Lice or the fog? Does it matter? Both will kill us. I take a deep breath, let the dead smell of the air in, squeeze that anger down and wrap it in the fear of the strangling fog swamping us, the Lice giving chase.

  “This street. I know a place.” Ro moves fast.

  “Did you plan that? The raid?” I try to keep up.

  “I bet the whole Tower is talking about it,” Ro calls back, almost entertained by the whole thing.

  “What if they hurt someone?” I say, thinking of my brothers. The smell is stronger now, curling through the shreds of Ro’s dress.

  “They promised not to hurt anyone – just give them a scare, cover so I could finish off the Chancellor, then get out. Well, I didn’t get to kill her but –” she howls at the sky – “I can’t believe I’m finally out!”

  Maybe I should be happy too, right? Excited. I’m Outside!

  “No more, ‘It’s not safe, Romali; not until you’re older, Romali; we have to make it work here; it’s what your mother wanted, Romali.’” She makes a noise with her tongue and gestures at the Tower behind.

  And yes, despite the clawing air, it feels amazing, like the hundreds of hands squeezing my bones, my limbs, my throat, have all let go. My skin feels new, my tongue tastes dangerous air, even the dark looks different. So real when it’s been a dream for so long. But then there’s an ache, a naked feeling about this world without walls. An urge to head back inside the Tower and shut the door for as long as it takes for the world to feel small again.