Fragile Remedy

by Maria Ingrande Mora

  Holding his breath, Nate let himself wonder if this was what Reed wanted—if he wanted to know what would happen if they got closer. How it would feel.

  All Nate had to do was lean over the little table. He’d never kissed anyone before, but he was pretty sure he could work out the mechanics of it.

  Reed abruptly turned his palm up and caught Nate’s fingers. “You don’t have to keep secrets from me.”

  Nate drew away from Reed’s grip.

  “I know.” Nate busied himself with the tech and kept his gaze low, afraid his eyes would spill over with tears if he looked up. He wanted a friend. He wanted Reed. But Reed wanted to dig up the truth—and that was more than Nate could give him.

  Reed lingered a moment, as if waiting for Nate to say something. Then he sighed and walked away.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Nate shrugged on his bulky coat. His skin prickled with sweat and itched from the musty fabric, but it was worth it to keep his belongings to himself. A coat was better than a backpack that anyone could grab and run off with. He filled his pockets with colorful wire and shiny buttons and, after a moment’s debate, left his tool belt. The walk to the port would take all day. He wouldn’t have time to barter his tinkering.

  “I’m off,” he said, hushed. The girls were already asleep.

  Reed came close, damp from scrubbing off the night’s grime. He smelled like skin and sweat, and Nate could barely make sense of his words. “You remember the password?”

  Nate closed his hand into a fist around small metal brackets in his pocket. The pinch sharpened his focus, helped him stop thinking about how he wanted to press his mouth to the gleaming places on Reed’s neck.

  “I always do.”

  Reed used a code of taps and knocks to spell words out. When Nate had asked him where he’d learned it, he’d gone quiet for a long time before answering. “I made it up. So me and Brick could talk when . . . when it was busy.”

  Nate had imagined Reed huddled under a creaking bed, hidden from customers who didn’t care if a whore was grown. That day, he’d worked with Reed for hours until he’d memorized the rhythm.

  Tonight, when Nate returned to the hideout at sundown, he’d tap out the password in Reed’s code—the code only the gang knew.

  Reed fussed with Nate’s coat, patting down the wrinkles and brushing dust and dirt off. Nate endured it without reaching for him, but he ached to still his jittery hands. To draw him close and see what it felt like to hold him.

  Once, warmed with a tangle of admiration and need, Nate had thrown his arms around Reed before leaving for the day, and Reed had stiffened and stared like Nate had a bad case of mouth sores. Nate had gone to Brick that night, asking what he’d done wrong.

  “He hasn’t had enough practice being loved on,” Brick had said, shrugging. “He doesn’t know what to make of it, s’all.”

  When Reed finished checking Nate over this morning, Nate gave a playful shimmy, imagining his pockets weighed down with small, heavy credits.

  “It’ll be a good day. I know it.”

  Reed made a dubious sound. “Keep your eyes open. And try to find more fruit at the market. I think it’s good for all of us.”

  “I will.” Nate would find fruit, not because people said it warded off rashes and sores, but because it made Reed smile. Nate turned to climb through the hatch, and Reed gripped his arm. He glanced back.

  Reed’s mouth opened and shut. And then he swallowed and lowered his eyes, his hold softening and not quite letting go. “Every time you leave, I wonder if you’ll come back.”

  Nate’s breath caught against his ribs. He knew that Reed suspected him of using chem, but Nate never thought he’d figure him the type to run off with the gang’s haul and never return. “I’m not a thief,” he said in a harsh, hurt whisper.

  Reed made an exasperated sound and let go of Nate’s arm. “That’s not what I meant. I mean I’m afraid you’ll . . .”

  “Afraid I’ll what?” Nate let out a tight, confused sigh. “I don’t know what to make of you sometimes.”

  Reed’s soft laugh broke the remainder of the tension. “I can tell.”

  Nate definitely didn’t know what to make of that.

  “Just be safe, Nate.”

  “I will.” Nate avoided Reed’s gaze as he slipped through the hatch and climbed down the duct. A blast of rancid air from the street below stung his throat. On a good day, the Withers smelled like steaming shit and gasolex.

  There were rarely good days.

  The duct emptied into a hollowed-out air-conditioning unit hidden behind a pair of rusted trash bins. Gagging on the thick stench of rot, Nate slid down and landed in the stuffy cylinder. He crouched there long after he’d caught his breath. His head ached, but maybe it wasn’t anything. Just a normal headache.

  Or Reed twisting my guts inside out.

  On this block, no one paid much attention to anyone else. Foot traffic moved steadily, as if everyone had somewhere better to be as soon as possible. Nate couldn’t afford to stand around, trying to untangle his feelings. He took a deep breath and squeezed out onto the crowded street.

  Three small children—around Pixel’s age—played on the front stoop of a building that leaned slightly to the left. Barefoot and shirtless, they grappled and dragged the biggest toward a sloped basement door.

  “Why do I always have to be the GEM?” the biggest kid whined out, half-heartedly fighting the little ones off. They ignored the protest, shouting and scrappy.

  “The Breakers have you now!”

  “We’re rich!”

  A skeletal woman with thinning hair like old straw leaned out the open window behind them and smacked the closest child with a broom handle. “Quit that now,” she said, pale gaze darting out into the street as if she was worried someone had overheard the children. Her eyes met Nate’s, and he turned away, dodging deeper into the crowd.

  He pulled his coat tighter.

  Of course the Breakers would want GEMs. He’d seen the rapture on Alden’s face enough times to know how valuable he was. Even in the decay of the Withers, people would find a way to pay handsomely for what the elite of Gathos City experienced. A wave of revulsion chilled him.

  Everyone knew someone who knew someone else who swore they’d seen a GEM taken into one of the Breakers’ hideouts. Brick had told them her version one night as they huddled around the stove, rags tied around their faces to keep the worst of the smoke out.

  “Three went in, two came out—two and enough credits to buy meat for a year. Fresh meat. Meat still bleeding,” she’d said. “We could find a GEM instead of all this rotting tech, and we could buy housing papers. Stay in one place forever.”

  “That sounds boring,” Pixel had said, biting her lip.

  “And I don’t want to stay here forever.” Sparks had spoken with raw conviction. “I’m going to the city to make a real living when they open the gates.”

  “You could make a real living as a Courier right now. Secrets don’t weigh much.” Brick had barked out a laugh when Sparks punched her arm. “But I’d rather sell a GEM.”

  Nate had watched the fire that night, unable to look at Reed—too scared he’d see Brick’s bloodthirsty want mirrored in his eyes.

  A barking voice announced fresh steamed buns, and Nate’s attention rapidly shifted to the thought of a greasy, hot breakfast. A man bumped into Nate while eating one, oily juice dripping into his beard when he mumbled an apology with his mouth full. The tech in Nate’s coat could buy dozens of those pillow-soft buns full of spiced gull.

  At least the sickness wasn’t affecting his appetite.

  Nate ambled toward the rails with his hands stuffed in his pockets to keep stock of the wire and rattling buttons. An approaching train hummed in the distance—the first of the morning. The trains passed at a regular enough cadence that as long as
he got up on the track soon after one had gone by, it was a safe bet that he could get to the next ladder before the following train arrived. Once in a while, people miscalculated and jumped to avoid being struck.

  It never ended well.

  There was no sense in climbing halfway up the ladder to wait for a train to go by, so he paused in the breeze below the rails. It whipped between the buildings, cooling the sweat at his neck and stirring his hair. He brushed away the tickle, and something lifted him from his feet and tackled him into the gravel.

  He didn’t have time to scream.

  Dirt and dust filled his open mouth, his nose. His teeth rattled, and his bones shook, and he lay there, helpless and terrified, as pain rammed him like blows from a hammer.

  A hollow crack sounded, and another, each reverberating through his body, shaking him apart. Heat and light flared behind his eyelids and seared his skin. He managed to roll and cover his head, dimly aware that he was still alive and nothing was really hitting him at all.

  It’s an explosion.

  When the sounds stopped, he registered the wheezing of his own breath and the high-pitched ringing in his ears. And the heat. Gods, it burns. He crawled away from it, coughing on dust and spittle, his eyes watering and each blink gritty.

  Everyone around him was white with dust. Someone stumbled by bleeding, the red on her face vivid against the chalkiness. Nearby, a body lay in the dirt, unmoving. And above them, a half a block away, the tall railway was just . . . gone. Obliterated.

  Rubble smoked and steamed below. Half of the station remained, flame creeping along the beams, the overhang. Anyone who had been on or below the rails must have died in an instant. The few windows that had remained on the buildings to either side of the rail were gone now. Glass glittered in the street, reflecting the flames.

  Nate gathered himself up, wiping the dust out of his eyes. He felt along his body, but nothing seemed to be broken. He’d narrowly escaped the worst of the explosion and the falling rubble.

  His hands trembled.

  He’d only been near an explosion once before, when an accident had rocked one of the workhouses a few blocks from Bernice’s apartment. That night, Nate ran to check on her, forgetting in his panic that she’d died days before. The fire outside shone through the open window and flickered on her empty bed. Unable to get back to sleep, Nate had picked the lock on Bernice’s safebox and found a faded ticker-paper clipping. According to the ticker, he’d died in the same fiery car wreck that had claimed the lives of his parents—Vivian and Tariq Land. The bodies had never been recovered.

  Overcome by the memory now, Nate narrowly avoided getting trampled by the crowd swarming away from the fire. He ducked behind a low wall and gulped wet breaths, trying to calm the sickening race of his heartbeat.

  A high-pitched wail pierced through him. He jammed his palms against his sore ears, but it didn’t muffle the frantic sound.

  What is that?

  And then it sparked.

  A train whistle and brakes shrieking in tandem.

  The oncoming train was crashing.

  Curiosity took over, despite the screaming instinct to stay hidden.

  Nate peeked over the low wall and gasped, his dirty hands covering his mouth. The train approached too quickly, barreling toward the flaming gap in the railway where the explosion had demolished it. He watched, frozen in place, as the train careened over the edge and crumpled like foil in the rubble.

  The sound of it was awful—he felt it in his jaw and clamped his teeth against the pain. Screeching and tearing. Metal against metal. The lead car lit up with a scarlet fireball and thick black smoke, and only then did the rest of the train groan to a horrible stop.

  Gathos City trains had a dozen cars. Only two were lost, and one more dangled from the jagged edge of the ruined track. Flames licked toward the rest, climbing the twisted wreck of the lead cars.

  Nate drew himself to stand, his knees shaking. The cars are full. They’re full of people.

  Heat blasted his face. A crowd began to gather at a safe distance on each side of the elevated rail. People were shouting about the Breakers, cheering for them.

  The train whistle gurgled and died, and Nate’s stomach turned when he recognized the muffled sound that replaced it.

  The surviving passengers were burning.

  Ragged howls ripped from burning throats, hands clawing against unbreakable windows, and the roar of flames flickering with the stomach-turning greens and blues of melting tech shook the air. The mangled cars groaned and vanished behind the smoke.

  Nothing to be done for them but hope it ended quickly.

  Nate wiped his nose. The dangling car wasn’t on fire yet. Fists pounded against the windows, and faces distorted with terror pressed against the glass.

  “Burn!” a Witherson yelled from a balcony nearby. “Burn, bastards! You left us to die!”

  The people on the train were citizens of Gathos City. By any Witherson’s definition, they were enemies for abandoning Winter Heights to disease decades before. But screaming and desperate, they didn’t look like enemies. They looked helpless. Hundreds and hundreds of people who would die in agony if no one helped them.

  Nate knew better than anyone else what people in Gathos City were capable of. But Bernice had always told him that it was the ones in charge, the ones at the top of the tallest towers, who established the systems that let them shit on everyone else.

  Not everyone could be bad.

  Pushing his fingers into his pockets, Nate squeezed the thin wires and sharp edges of buttons until his palms stung. He could leave now—run in the opposite direction. He wouldn’t have to watch them burn.

  He thought of the little boy dragged to the trappers by his mother. Reed’s gang, unaware of the danger they were in by crossing the Breakers and hiding a GEM. Nate spent so much time convincing himself that there was nothing he could do—no way to make things better. But this time, that wasn’t true.

  I can help them.

  Biting his lip, he tore out of his coat and crammed it into an empty fire bin, brushing soot onto it to make it look like trash. A dirty coat beat having the entire haul stolen.

  He’d never forgive himself for that.

  Nate ran toward the flames.

  Thick, oppressive heat pushed him back. It smoldered in his throat, sucking the breath from his lungs. He stumbled to a stop beside an older man and a girl skirting the edge of the violent flames. The man wore a tool belt. Another Tinkerer.

  “We’re not gonna get to it this way!” he called out to the Tinkerer, shouting over the roar of the fire. “What about the next ladder?”

  The man nodded, and they took off running and climbed the rusting rungs along the next support piling. Here, the cars remained upright on the track.

  Nate tried not to look down. The wind whipped smoke in curling tendrils around his body.

  The fire in the distance wasn’t as loud, but it gurgled—an eerie sound like metal brought to a boil. Nate climbed onto the narrow ledge beside the car and startled when the emergency exit hatch opened. He braced himself, not sure what to expect from a Gathos City commuter.

  A man with blood on his hands helped a younger woman from the hatch. Both were dressed in monotone form-fitting clothing. Blood ran down her face from a split at her forehead. She looked at Nate like she could see right through him and limped onto the narrow ledge beside the train.

  The man hesitated. Others climbed out behind him, each as dazed and bloodied.

  “Come on!” Nate shouted, gesturing to the ladder he’d climbed up. The man and woman flinched. “You have to get down there, before the fire spreads. Get down to the ground!”

  They began to move, and relief softened the edge of Nate’s frustration. The passengers could get out on their own. As long as they moved their rotting feet, they’d be all right. But he st
ill needed to get to the cars where the exit doors were jammed against the guardrail and light posts, trapping the passengers inside.

  “Nate! Nate!”

  Reed and Sparks pushed through the growing crowd below, waving him down frantically. Reed’s skin shone with sweat, and the whites of his eyes were big. He had on one of Brick’s shirts. Backward.

  Nate pictured him grabbing whatever was nearby to get out of the hideout as fast as he could. Goose bumps rose up on his bare forearms despite the heat.

  “Nate!” Reed shouted. “Get back from there!”

  It felt good that Reed was worried about him—until Reed got close enough for him to see the terror in his eyes. He was afraid of fire. And here Nate was, trying to walk into it.

  “Do you have tools on you?” Nate yelled back. No sense in apologizing. He couldn’t stop now.

  Reed’s eyes widened more, and he opened his mouth, looking like he wanted to pluck Nate off the railway and shake him silly. But Sparks took off up the ladder, pulling off her backpack. She reached Nate quickly and handed him a wrench she used as a weapon and a rusted set of wire cutters she used to cut findings for the clothes and jewelry she made.

  “That’s all I have,” Sparks said, breathless. “You’re crazy. Let the rats burn, Nate.”

  “They’re people. I can do something.”

  Sparks grabbed Nate’s sleeve. “Do something smart and get out of here. Do you want to burn up with them?”

  The other Tinkerer and the girl with him had already climbed atop the nearest car and walked along it carefully, toward the fire. Tinkerers weren’t Servants. They didn’t have a code of conduct or a mission. But knowing how to fix things when no one else did still meant something. It had to mean something.

  “I’ll be careful.”

  Sparks sucked in a breath and took Nate by the back of the neck to pull him close. “Don’t get killed.”

  “I said I’ll be fine! Get these people down the ladder, okay? Maybe they’ll listen to you and Reed if you don’t snarl so much.”