Fragile Remedy

by Maria Ingrande Mora

  With the credits he’d made selling tech, Nate filled a bag with stale bread, mottled red apples, and a musty rope of dried meat. A small table covered with fragrant fruit caught his eye as he left the market.

  “How much are these?” he asked the produce seller as he skimmed his fingers over the fuzzy pale-orange skin of a fruit he dimly recognized. He couldn’t recall what it tasted like or the name of it.

  “Peaches? Half-price. They ain’t wormy.” The man spat a dark stream of gunk into a chipped bowl of frothy liquid at his feet.

  Nate wrinkled his nose. “What will one credit get me?”

  “Three.”

  “How about four?” Nate asked, regretting not haggling with Judy.

  The man snorted and palmed four of the peaches with his fat hands. “Fair enough.”

  Nate dropped his last credit into the shopkeeper’s change bowl. The fruit smelled like wet sugar. Reed would love it.

  By the time Nate left the herbalist’s shop, the sky had thickened with dusk. He jogged along the cracked sidewalk, wary of the thinning crowds and creeping shadows. He’d lingered too long tinkering in exchange for healing salves.

  A hollow-cheeked girl stumbled out of an alley, tugging a scrawny child who fought her clawed grip on his hand. The boy’s gaze flew to Nate, wide—beseeching. “I don’t wanna,” he said, and it was little more than a rasp. As if he’d screamed his voice away long ago.

  Nate froze, and the girl turned wild eyes on him. Her lips curled to reveal gray teeth and bleeding gums. A chem fiend, deep in hunger. Furrows of raw skin striped her bare arms. She looked him up and down, no doubt sizing up the heavy bag at his back. He sank his hands into his pockets automatically, covering the clanging tins of valuable salve.

  He knew he should run. In a fight, he wouldn’t stand a chance against a fiend gone mad with want. Instead, he asked, “Where are you taking him?”

  Her laughter was the sound of rusted hinges. “The trappers. What’s it to you? Got a better offer?”

  The boy began to croak, eyes dry and sunken. Too thirsty for tears. “Mama . . .”

  Nate shuffled back, sick. She couldn’t be more than seventeen. And at best, selling her son to the trappers would offer her a few days of solace. At worst, she’d gorge herself on chem and her heart would stop before she had a chance to mourn him.

  “Wait!” She reached with a clawed hand, dried blood beneath her nails. “What will you give me for him?”

  Even if Nate had chem to offer, they couldn’t take another child. Pixel was already one little one too many.

  He ran from the boy’s fevered cries and her scraped-bone shouting. His bag thumped against his back, an echo to his thundering heartbeat, and he only slowed when he reached a crowded intersection and his frantic pace would draw too much attention.

  Gasping to catch his breath, he scrubbed his eyes, his face hot with shame. By morning, the boy would be in the trappers’ hands.

  There’s nothing I could have done.

  But that was a hollow comfort.

  He knew what it meant to be a commodity. Traded and shifted from hand to hand.

  Disposable.

  Nate left the main street and dodged between rain barrels in a space too narrow to be called an alley. His head ached like it did every time he let himself consider his origins. Despite his talent with tech, he couldn’t wrap his mind around Gathos City science. Creating life and changing living bodies didn’t make sense, but here he was. Living, more or less—and free of Gathos City.

  Freer than that boy would be come morning. He couldn’t shake the lingering grip of regret. He’d had a chance, in that moment, to do something—and he’d run away. More evidence that he was a coward.

  He couldn’t—wouldn’t—tell the gang what he was or where he’d come from. None of it. He was stolen goods, and the Breakers loved nothing more than hoarding contraband. The price for a child sold to the trappers was nothing compared to what the Breakers offered to anyone willing to turn in a GEM.

  Nate couldn’t force his friends to choose between loyalty to another street kid and the opportunity to rake in a huge bounty.

  Guilt formed a knot in Nate’s throat. His gang was sitting on a fortune. And they had no idea.

  Because he wasn’t brave enough to tell them the truth.

  What if they turned me in?

  No one knew what happened to escaped GEMs who took up with the Breakers, but no one ever saw them again once they did.

  Chased by his thoughts, Nate squeezed between one last set of rain barrels into Heights Square. Here, the skeletons of long-burned benches rose from the ground, and a mangled playground tilted against the pavement. Broken streetlights hunched over the packed-dirt lot. He fought the urge to linger beside a crackling bin-fire, but he wasn’t the only one drawn to the soothing heat. A lively crowd gathered—a marketplace of transactions Nate wanted no part in. He kept his head down and hurried.

  As he weaved his way across the square, a honeyed scent stopped him short. Only one thing smelled like that to Nate—other GEMs. He whirled, bumping into the person walking behind him and mumbling an apology as the man pushed him away with a muttered curse. He was flotsam on the sludge-channel—too short to see where he was going and small enough to be jostled around.

  When he gained his balance, the scent was gone. A hollow thud of loneliness took his breath away. Or maybe that was hunger. Maybe the achingly familiar scent had been the peaches in his bag, overripe and sweet.

  He wasn’t far from the hideout now, and he broke into a shuffling run for the last block. Darkness deepened the alley he turned into. His skin crawled as he left the bustle of the street for the darkness between two buildings. He felt his way along trash bins and moth-filled air-conditioning units.

  Nate left the bag at the bottom of the secret entrance to the hideout and crawled up the duct slowly, fingers sweaty against the creaking ladder. He needed to shake off the mess of his thoughts and focus on what he’d accomplished: the Remedy had soothed away the tremors, and he had a good haul.

  Reed won’t suspect anything.

  If he told himself that enough times, maybe he’d stop going hollow with dread every time he got back to the hideout.

  Nate banged out the day’s entrance code.

  The hatch opened immediately, and Reed’s hand jutted out, catching onto Nate’s coat with a clawing grip. “You’re late.”

  Nate had never seen anyone quite like Reed—with dark-brown skin, coppery freckles, and bright-green eyes. Reed was beautiful, even with his face lined with worry. His concerned expression made Nate’s belly do a little flip.

  “It isn’t night yet.” Nate gestured down the duct with a nod. “Brick better get the bag. I’m done climbing for the day.” He crawled out of the hatch and lost his balance.

  Reed caught him with both arms and went still, eyes darting to the press of their bodies. The warmth of his hands seeped through the rough fabric of Nate’s coat. He searched Nate’s face, lips parted gently like he couldn’t remember what he wanted to say. Nate shivered and stared at his mouth.

  Brick bumped them on her way down for the bag of food. Her red hair stood on end around her freckled face like a halo of fire, and her cold blue eyes honed in on Nate. “You look like a starved cat.”

  Flushing, Nate pulled away from Reed’s grip and let Brick pass. He wobbled toward his bed, trying to shake off the wooziness Reed’s touch had given him—or Reed would think he was chem-struck on top of being late.

  Fiends weren’t welcome in the gang. No exceptions. None of them were immune to Reed’s keen observations, the sweeping gaze that seemed to notice every bruise and scratch.

  Reed always paid especially close attention to Nate. “No trouble?”

  The words lingered between them, heavy with something between suspicion and concern.

  “All smoot
h.” Nate sank into his nest of blankets and unlaced his filthy boots. He forced himself to meet Reed’s gaze, wondering what Reed saw when he studied him. “Really.”

  Softening, Reed crouched and nudged Nate’s hands away, taking over with the knots. “I believe you.”

  Nate watched Reed’s nimble fingers make quick work of his fraying laces. “Miss Judy gave me bread. I think she wants to take me in.”

  “Tell her she can’t poach my Tinkerer.”

  His.

  A hoarse, strange laugh bubbled out of Nate’s mouth. He tried to cover it with a cough.

  That got Reed sharp all over again. “Did you find medicine?”

  Panic flared in Nate before he remembered telling Reed he had a headache the day before. He nodded, throat dry from the thought that Reed knew how sick he really was—and why.

  “You look better now.” The tips of Reed’s fingers skimmed Nate’s bare ankles. He smiled, but concern tightened his mouth. “I guess.”

  “You guess? I better wash up.” Nate pulled his hair free of its tie. It swept forward in a greasy curtain, and he wrinkled his nose at the smell of sweat and street.

  “I think that’d be best for all of us,” Reed said, blowing Nate’s hair out of his face.

  They were too close in that moment. Too much. Nate wanted to crack himself open and tell Reed everything—that he wasn’t a chem fiend, that it was worse.

  The hatch slammed shut with a clang that made Nate jump right out of his thoughts. Brick emerged with the bag of food. She let it dangle from one finger, her wide bicep flexed. “Too heavy for you?”

  “I got it that far, didn’t I?”

  Before Brick could answer, Pixel leapt up and swung from Brick’s arm alongside the bag, her bright grin tugging a reluctant smile onto Brick’s stern face. Pixel dropped to her feet and grabbed the bag. She was small and wiry, with deep-brown skin and hair pulled tight into three ponytails that blossomed into tight curls. Her dark eyes lit with joy. “Apples!”

  “Apples?” Reed asked, brow raised. His fingers still rested on Nate’s ankles, and Nate shivered. The weight of the day eased, as if Reed had plucked it from him, and for the first time in hours, he drew a full breath.

  “They’re probably wormy,” he said.

  “Are you trying to distract me?”

  Nate laughed as Reed took off to investigate the fruit. “That’s what the peaches are for.”

  Ducking behind a makeshift sheet-metal wall, Nate washed up in sour rainwater. He scrubbed the grime from his hands and fingernails. The water chilled him, and he focused on the iciness to ward off the heat Reed had left coursing through his body. By the time he returned, wrapped in a rag quilt, Sparks was finishing putting the food away under weighted lids that kept the rats out. Mostly.

  Her hands moved swiftly, glossy brown curls in ringlets that brushed her shoulders. Without sparing Nate a glance, she asked, “How are you?”

  His breath sucked in. At that, she looked up, one delicately plucked eyebrow arching. She had black eyes and a full mouth and a way of using silence as a weapon.

  It’s a normal question. She’s not that suspicious.

  But Sparks knew better than anyone else what sickness and lies usually meant. She’d kicked chem before she joined the gang.

  He steeled his voice. “Tired. Had to take the long way back around a fight in the street.”

  She hummed, the sound too low for him to know what to make of it, and climbed into her bunk. She pulled a blanket over her shoulders, dismissing him.

  “You can’t distract me forever,” Reed said, startling him. He sat on the stained concrete floor beside Nate’s blankets and tossed a rag at Nate’s face with a thin smile.

  Nate caught it and dried his hair. “A girl on the rails asked me where I lived.”

  Reed frowned. “A girl on the rails ought to know better than that.”

  His response confirmed Nate’s suspicions. It had been strange of her to press. “I didn’t tell her anything.”

  “Of course you didn’t. What kind of medicine did you find to make your head feel better?”

  “The herbalist on 57th gave me a tincture.” The lie slipped out smooth as a breath as he sat beside Reed. “There’s some tins of salve in my pockets for that scratch on Pixel’s ankle too.”

  Reed’s smile faded. “Did the herbalist say what’s the matter with you? Why you’ve been feeling bad?”

  “I told you it’s not catching, Reed. I won’t get any of you sick.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about.” Reed cupped the back of Nate’s neck and pulled him close to examine his face.

  “The herbalist said I’m not getting enough greens.” With Reed’s face so close and his hand so warm, the controlled tone of Nate’s lie slipped. All he had on was a thin bath sheet that wasn’t going to hide a thing if Reed got him riled up. “I bought some. And the tincture helped. It’s fine, Reed.”

  “None of us eat enough of anything,” Reed said. “But you’re the only one around here who looks half dead half the time.”

  Embarrassment swelled in Nate’s chest. No matter what Nate did, Reed was only going to see him as a liability. A lie waiting to get found out. And he wasn’t even wrong about that.

  Nate swept Reed’s hand away, drawing on a flare of anger. It felt better than hurt and a lot better than longing. “If I’m not doing my job well enough, find another Tinkerer.”

  Pain flashed in Reed’s eyes before he went still. “I like my Tinkerer fine.” He stood and closed the makeshift curtain around Nate’s bed. “Get some sleep.”

  Hot with shame, Nate pulled his clothes back on, fabric sticking to his damp skin. He curled into a tight ball that didn’t make him feel any better about snapping at Reed for no good reason. As the others chatted, Nate struggled to get comfortable and shed the weight of guilt on his chest. Reed was the only person he wanted to impress, but all he did was disappoint him.

  The day lingered like grease on his skin, unease mingling with the reek of sweat still clinging to him. He rolled over and bunched up the blanket under his head, one ugly thought turning to another, until a little knot of fear in his belly made itself known.

  He’d gotten through today. But what would happen tomorrow? He’d never gotten so sick so soon after taking Remedy.

  Pixel pushed the curtain open and crawled into his bed. He drew her close and sighed out a breath that became a yawn.

  She couldn’t have been much more than five when Reed found her crammed in a duct while scavenging. According to Reed, it had taken an hour and several bite wounds to get her out. She’d only known her name—and couldn’t tell them how she’d gotten there or anything that had happened to her before. They’d had no use for a child in the gang, but she’d fallen asleep in Reed’s arms, and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to put her down anywhere but the shelter of their hideout. Brick said that for a few weeks, they’d talked about finding a family for her, somewhere she could grow up safely without having to run and starve and scavenge.

  But no one in the Withers wanted another mouth to feed.

  She was still small and fit neatly in Nate’s arms. “You’re shivering,” she said.

  “No, I’m not.” When she didn’t argue with him, he squeezed her gratefully. “Did you practice today?”

  “I got the crank-light to glow, but it stung me.”

  Nate chuckled. It felt good, a tiny release in his chest. “If it stung you, you’re definitely doing something right. I’ll show you how to make it stop doing that later. How’s your ankle?”

  “Better. Sparks put your salve on it. It stinks.”

  “I think you mean thank you. You should be more careful climbing in here.”

  “Reed won’t let me scavenge until I get good.”

  Reed will never let you scavenge, if he can help it. “Then get
good without hurting yourself.”

  She huffed, elbowing him, and he smiled.

  “Will you tell me more about Bernice?” Pixel asked, her whisper barely audible.

  Nate pushed up one elbow. Her eyes were glittering jewels, watching him closely—excited for a story. She was always listening more than anyone gave her credit for, paying attention—and learning. He liked telling Pixel about his life before joining Reed’s gang. His elderly aunt had been dead for years, but he could remember the feel of her thin skin and the smell of her heady perfume like it had only been days.

  “Bernice lived in Gathos City before she lived in the Withers.”

  “You told me that part already.”

  “Hush and let me tell my story,” Nate said fondly. “Bernice made the trains fast.”

  And then they passed her by.

  “How?” Pixel asked.

  “Because Bernice was a Tinkerer, like you’ll be someday. And she wasn’t only a Tinkerer—she was one of the first. She made me learn the name of every tool in her dusty old apartment. I got stung plenty of times too, touching live wires. I had blisters all over my fingers, and every night she’d rub salve on them to make them feel better.”

  “Like for my ankle.”

  “Exactly.” Nate pushed his hand into hers. “Feel the rough places?”

  His fingers were gnarled, with thick calluses from his tools and adjusting thin, sharp wires.

  Pixel scratched her nail at a callus. “Will I get them too?”

  “You will. And they’ll protect your hands.”

  “They’ll make me stronger,” she said, fierce.

  “Exactly,” Nate said. “Now rest, Pix.”

  The others prepared to scavenge in the night. Reed’s voice rumbled like soft music. Nate longed to go to him and apologize for pushing him away, but it was better like this. The closer they got, the harder it was to hide.

  And the more he’d hurt Reed in the end.

  The hatch opened with a creak and closed with a rattle. Nate untangled himself from Pixel.