Recompense (Recompense, book 1)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  I’ve never actually tasted chocolate cherry ice cream before, or any ice cream, for that matter, but if it made Opie’s happy list, it’s got to be good.

  I close my eyes as the flavor melts on my tongue.

  It is that good.

  Ethan fiddles with the food panel again and withdraws a sandwich from the magic door. He bites into it absently as he looks over a report. “Let’s review the details on each of the girls. I want to look for every similarity we can find to tell us what to watch for when we get to school.”

  I continue spooning the chocolaty goodness into my mouth and listen as he reads through countless disjointed facts. My thoughts focus much more intently on my tongue than my ears, but when he finally finishes the girls’ files and starts in on the boys’, one thing jumps out at me right away. “Wait, you said…what’s his name?”

  “Lane Turnkey?”

  “Yeah, you said Lane transferred in.”

  Ethan checks the file. “He did. From Settlement 14.”

  “And so did…who’s the other one?”

  “Flynn Piney.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  “The Beldon district, here in the city.”

  “I can’t answer to intra-city movement, but how did a kid from a settlement end up here?”

  “Good question.” Ethan speaks into his holoband. “Give me the residency records for Lane Turnkey, age seventeen, Epson City, Coastal Zone, and Flynn Piney, age eighteen, Epson City, Coastal Zone.”

  Within seconds, the printer is spitting out pages.

  Ethan scans one, then another, and looks up at me with a rare expression of approval. “They’ve both moved multiple times. Both raised through Children’s Domestic Services. Both adopted.”

  “Are any of the girls orphans?”

  He flips through the files. “I don’t think so. I can’t find a mention of it.”

  “Could it mean something?”

  He shrugs. “It could be a fluke. Though it raises flags in my mind. It could point to them as suspects.”

  “Just because they came up through the system?” I object. “We’re not all delinquents.”

  “One way to find out.”

  A few minutes of sleuthing gives Ethan his answer. “Neither one of them has any demerits on his record. They were adopted young, did well in school. They’re well-liked.” He blinks off his holoband. “Looks like you’re right. But I’m going to make a note to check the pattern more thoroughly against the girls and against the school rosters.”

  He goes back to the magic door and fetches himself an orange, which he carries to the sofa beside me and begins to peel. I eye the fruit covetously. The ice cream left in my bowl has turned to soup, and my stomach feels queasy from the larger amount that made it inside of me.

  He catches me watching. “Want half?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He hands it over and we each bite into a juicy section. Despite the size of the room, we’re shoulder to shoulder again. The storm of disagreement has faded, and we’re moving back toward being allies.

  “So how does electromagnetic radiation fit into all this?” I ask.

  “I wish I knew, but it seems an even greater coincidence than your fellow orphans. You see, at low frequencies, electromagnetic waves are very useful for communications and such. But at higher frequencies, such as in the case of gamma rays, x-rays, and ultraviolet light, they have the capacity to damage living tissue.”

  “And these rays have a damaging frequency?”

  “No. Their wavelength has increased, but not to the point of causing physical harm.”

  “But possibly enough to manipulate living cells? And, say, cause behavior changes?”

  His glance is quick and sharp. “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

  I pop another orange section into my mouth. “No, it just made me think of something Dr. Skynner said.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He was talking about ways to manipulate brain cells.”

  “And this was one of them?”

  I squint, peering back into my memory. “Controlled substances, disease, and false implantation,” I come up with. “You should probably talk to him.”

  He clicks on his holoband. “I’ll get Caedmon on it right away.”

  “Tell her hello for me,” I say, rising. “I’m going skinny-dipping.”

  ELEVEN

  I feel like every eye in the school cafeteria has focused on me and Ethan, guessing the secrets beneath our normal exterior. As the new kids, we’ve generated a lot of stares. Especially Ethan. Every girl who walks past gives him an admiring glance. He doesn’t seem to notice, but I have.

  “How’d it go this morning, Jack?” he asks. Willoughby only altered our surnames. “Meet anyone on your list yet?”

  We spent yesterday looking at the school roster. With over five hundred kids registered, Ethan used data analysis holoware to sort out the ones that most closely match the patterns we’ve observed among the missing kids. I have a list of female athletes I’m supposed to get close to, and Ethan has a list of the boys. He’s also made note of thirteen kids from the CDS system.

  “A few.” I shift uncomfortably. “I feel so weird. And I’m a terrible actress.”

  “You should have thought of that before.” He says it casually, and his eyes never let off scanning the activity around us. Two civil patrol officers in their distinctive green uniforms stalk the cafeteria, and others maintain posts around the school. No one’s taking chances after last week. “Besides, how different can it be, really? You just did this.”

  “Yeah, but I never owned a dress before.” I give the skirt another tug down over my knees. I can’t get used to the pistol strapped to my thigh, either.

  A girl approaches our table, dark-haired, dark-eyed, with a skirt that doesn’t come anywhere close to her knees. Her eyes skip right over me and land on my partner. Her smile makes a vivid contrast to her olive skin. “Hi, Ethan.”

  Ethan’s vigilance melts into warmth. “Hi, Melrose. Ready for physiology?”

  She frowns dramatically. “Never.” A flirty little smile reappears, and she slides a hand over his shoulder. “Well, only if you’ll be there.”

  “Melrose, this is my sister Jack.”

  She gives me a nod that indicates my importance level might reach the top of her high-heeled shoe. My scowl tells her to take a flying leap. The exchange takes two seconds of my life, both grudgingly given.

  Melrose turns back to Ethan and that bright smile flashes again. Her hand lingers even as she draws away. “I’ll see you then.”

  “Save me a seat.”

  I make a retching noise when she’s gone.

  Ethan scowls. “She’s on your list. You’re supposed to befriend her.”

  “It looks like you’re already all over it…or she’s all over you.”

  “Jack, this isn’t a game. If you’re going to come on assignment, I expect you to at least pretend to do your part.”

  I raise my hands. “All right. All right. I’ll catch the next bimbo.”

  His frown deepens. “Melrose actually has one of the highest grade point averages in the school.”

  “Yeah? She must take a lot of gym classes.”

  Ethan’s eyes harden as he stands and picks up his tray. “Just don’t forget why you’re here.”

  I make a face behind his back as he walks away and slump a little lower in my chair. Around me, the groups eating together form neat little social factions. Back home, my school used to divide into fringe kids and town kids—no great distinction because we were all basically the same. Here the differences are striking. Not as much between Middle and Upper. Middle is higher here than at home, and if it wasn’t for the superiority complex displayed by so many of the Uppers, they’d be hard to tell apart. It’s the Lowers that stand out so starkly. They’re a class altogether different from the Lowers back home.

  They sit together in a clump in one corner of the lunchroom. Instead of the
bright, trendy fashions of the other castes, they dress in dark colors. Lots of denim and thick-soled boots. A certain raggedness marks their appearance, and gauntness, with anger reinforcing every line of their bodies. Most of them scorn academics. Even the ones who take an active part in their studies carry a sullenness about them. They self-identify by dyeing their hair unnatural shades of red, blonde, and black and knife-cutting it into jagged shapes. Both men and women apply dark makeup around their eyes.

  My thoughts are interrupted by a slip of a girl with a light brown pixie cut and a dimple in one cheek. I’d guess Middle. She slips into Ethan’s vacant seat. “Hi, I’m Markay Peterson. Mr. Pringle asked me to introduce myself since we’ll be on the cross country team together.”

  “Um, hi.” I pull myself upright. “I’m Jack.”

  “I know. Mr. Pringle told me. Is that your brother?” Her eyes follow Ethan as he leaves the room.

  I grimace. “Yeah.”

  She giggles. “That’s how I feel about mine most of the time too.” She leans her weight on her elbows and catches sight of my holoband. “Hey, you don’t happen to play Galaxy Quest, do you?”

  “Sorry. I’ve never even heard of it.” She has a holoband too. Most of the Middles and Uppers do. The Lowers have only school-issue holopads.

  She shrugs. “I thought I’d ask. Our club needs more girls, but not many of them like strategy games.”

  “I’m more into running,” I remind her. “Have I missed much of the season?”

  Her dimple appears again. “Our first meet is Friday. If you’ve been practicing on your own, you’ll be fine.”

  “I have.”

  “Great.” She rises from the table. “I’ll see you after school?”

  “Sure.”

  I carry my tray over to the trashcan then make my way to calculus and take a seat in a back corner of the room. One nice thing about having just graduated, classes like this one are all fresh in my memory.

  A dark-haired boy sits next to me and drops a gym bag on the floor between us. “Hi.”

  I look up. He’s decidedly handsome—nice physique, tanned skin, light green eyes, pearly teeth. Also a Middle by the look of him. I smile back. “Hi.”

  “I’m Emerson.”

  “Jack.”

  “I saw you talking to Markay in the lunchroom. She said she was going to introduce herself. I bet she tried to recruit you to our game club, didn’t she?”

  “As a matter of fact, she did. Galaxy Quest, is it?”

  He laughs. “She’s a little fanatical.”

  “What is it, exactly?”

  “It’s just a hologame. You sync your bands and compete against each other to form galactic empires. It’s pretty popular. A group of us hang out after school on Thursdays to play.”

  “This is a school-sanctioned club?”

  “It should be. There’s a lot of space science incorporated into the game, real galaxy maps and such, and economics, once you build your world. But no, we hang out in Pax’s basement.”

  “Pax?”

  “Pax Blakely. He lives a block from school.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “It’s fun. You should try it sometime.”

  “I have practice after school.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Markay said you’re on the team. She misses club a lot this time of year.”

  “You and Markay seem like pretty good friends.”

  “We have a history.”

  “She your girlfriend?”

  His smirks. “I’m trying.”

  The teacher enters and calls the class to order. After calculus, I have Capernican history and molecular biology, then Ethan is meeting me in the hallway by my locker. “Things go a little better this afternoon?”

  “I made a few friends.”

  “Good. Keep working your way in. You want me to stick around while you run?”

  “You don’t think that would look a little odd? My big brother keeping tabs on me at practice?”

  “I don’t want to leave you in the field alone.”

  “Haven’t you noticed? We’ve been on lockdown all day. What’s going to happen with so many prison guards on duty?”

  “All right, I’m leaving.” He turns back. “You’re sure you can get home using the autopods?”

  I cross my arms and give him the look.

  “Right. See you at home, sis.”

  Just as he turns away for the second time, a locker door slams, and Melrose’s voice rings through the hallway. “Get your hands off me, you filthy Leech!”

  Every eye whisks to the confrontation just as one of the Lower boys pulls a knife. I recognize the head of bleached blond hair, hacked off behind and left long in front. He was in two of my classes and acted loud and disrespectful in each. The teachers called him Lincoln. I can’t hear what he says to Melrose, but his hateful, mocking leer tells me enough.

  Ethan bolts past me, but Melrose is quicker. With a lightning strike to the wrist that would have done Captain Chase proud, she knocks the knife to the floor and follows with a knee to the groin. Lincoln doubles over.

  A Greencoat grabs the agonizing boy and drags him down the hallway while Ethan checks on Melrose. I’m still standing goggle-eyed, trying to figure out if I should laugh or scream or ask Melrose for self defense lessons when Markay sidles up to me. “Ready for practice?”

  “What just happened?” I splutter.

  “Just a caste skirmish. We see them all the time.”

  “He pulled a knife.”

  “Well, she called him a Leech.”

  “That hardly justifies a weapon.”

  “Yeah, he’ll catch it for that. But she should too.”

  “For calling him a name?”

  “For calling him a Leech.” At my blank look, she adds, “You know. A bloodsucker. A drain on society.”

  “That’s what she meant?”

  “Golly, Jack, where’d you come from? Didn’t this stuff go down at your last school?”

  “Um, never with weapons.”

  Ethan appears on my other side. “Melrose is fine. Just a little shaken up.”

  I can see her across the hall, applying lipstick in her locker mirror.

  “Looks more like she’s done the shaking,” Markay drawls.

  “Markay, this is my brother, Ethan Potts.”

  He nods. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Markay’s on the team with me.”

  “Where do you girls practice?” he asks.

  “There’s a course around the athletic fields,” Markay answers. “We lap the perimeter a few times.”

  “Well, I’ve got some homework. I think I’ll take it outside on the bleachers. Find me afterwards?” Ethan says. “We’ll ride home together.”

  I nod, glad now for his presence. The encounter in the hallway has left me shaken.

  “So, does that kind of thing happen often?” I ask as we head to the locker room. “With weapons, I mean?”

  “Usually it’s just verbal. And Linc is usually at the center of it.”

  “Linc?”

  “Linc Lawson. You just had the pleasure of seeing him in action. He’s sort of the unofficial leader of the Lowers. At least he thinks he is. If you hadn’t noticed, they congregate together.”

  “I have noticed.”

  “Legally, we have to admit them if they want to come, because they can’t afford their own schools, but it’s trouble waiting to happen.”

  “You don’t think they should be allowed an education?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just don’t think they should mix with us. You saw what it leads to. They should have their own schools in their own districts.”

  We enter the locker room where three other girls are changing. Markay makes introductions, then I close myself into a bathroom stall. I need the privacy to remove my pistol without notice. When I’m done, I wad up the gun and holster in my skirt and stuff it all in my bag. Spandex doesn’t conceal a weapon very well. Then I dress, slip on my trai
ners, and take care to lock my bag in my locker. But I’m still terribly curious about the caste tensions in this place.

  “So are all Lowers as angry as Linc?” I ask.

  Markay looks at me curiously. “You really have been isolated, haven’t you?”

  “I went to a private school,” I evade.

  “Most of them have a chip on their shoulder. I can’t say I blame them. I wouldn’t want to be a Lower, either. But we’re freely offering them the one way to rise up out of their caste, and most of them thumb their noses at it.”

  “I’d think they’d want to come here and learn.”

  “Some of them do. Like Jewel Whitney. She’s really smart and tries hard, but she’s as approachable as a porcupine.”

  I decide to keep an eye out for her. Not because it’s important to my case, but because I’ve taken a personal interest in the castes. Had I grown up in the city, I would have been Jewel.

  Markay finishes tying her trainers, throws her school clothes into her locker, and slams the door. “At least there aren’t very many of them.”

  I meet the coach, a forgettable, sleepy-eyed man of about forty, as well as the rest of the team. Coach assigns us six miles at a moderate pace. It’s a new experience for me, running on a team. In 56, we had no athletic programs. Few people had the time, energy, or money for something so frivolous. Neither did we have neighboring settlements within walking distance to compete against. Those of us who trained for the Examination did so on our own. Or in my case, with Will.

  We were still three years out from the Exam when I started badgering him to begin preparing with me. He came along without complaint, as he usually did. Our first few weeks we spent running barefoot on the sandy stretch of shore within the cove. Neither of us owned trainers; Opal never could have afforded them. But I remained unwavering in my decision. So I ran up and down that sand all summer long.

  We took some ribbing from a few of the shopkeepers who watched us with amusement each evening. And I think I puked every day for the first two weeks. But as the weeks passed and I stuck faithfully with my schedule, Will came to understand just how determined I was to succeed. And he planned a little surprise.

  Actually, it wasn’t little at all. The Ransoms eked out a living only slightly better than ours. Hayden hired out on a trawler, and Will put in long hours at the dock to help out. Still, he made time to train. And unknown to me, he sent away for two pairs of running shoes.