Fragile Remedy

by Maria Ingrande Mora

  Everything was nicer than anything they’d ever known in Reed’s hideouts.

  “Why does she trust you around all this glass and tech?” he asked Juniper.

  She let out a high, sharp laugh. “Without all this ‘glass and tech,’ we wouldn’t have Remedy, and we’d die. Are you addled?”

  “Well, how did they die?” he asked, gesturing at the bloodstain on the floor.

  “They stayed hooked up too long. It’s not Agatha’s fault. She’s busy all the time, doing important things before the gates open up,” Juniper said, her words laced with pride.

  Nate inhaled slowly, steadying himself. Juniper spoke of the gates so casually, so matter-of-fact, that it had to be true. His pulse quickened at the thought of the huge gates lifting and what that might mean for all of them. “What happens when the gates open?”

  “More people.” She rolled her eyes and sounded each word out slowly, as if Nate was a little child. “More credits. They’ll all want our chem, because it’s better than anyone else’s. The city will build nicer places here, and we’ll have somewhere fancy to stay.”

  “What about the people who already live here?” Nate asked, trying to mask his concern. It’s not like Gathos City would welcome them to their towers. It’s not like they could grow wings and fly to the Mainland.

  “They’ll have to make room, won’t they?”

  People were already living ten to a room and sleeping outside in ragged tents. Nate swallowed against the dryness in his throat. He craned his neck to study the tangle of pipes and cables along the ceiling, wondering how far belowground they were. It didn’t feel right to be so cut off from the suffering above. “I guess so.”

  “We’ll have fresh meat again too. Not gull or sludge-rats. Goats. Chickens.”

  “I remember goat.” Even in Gathos City, fresh meat had been rare, but his mother had made a stew with it once a month. He tried to recall the way the spiced meat tasted so his mind wouldn’t drift back to the front room—to wondering what was happening to Brick and Reed. “I’m from the city too,” he added.

  “I know you’re from the city. Agatha said your mother worked there in the labs,” Juniper said, suddenly all venom.

  “She did.” Nate rubbed his arms, chilled. Agatha had known his mother? He’d never known anyone but Bernice who’d ever seen her alive. The connection made him ache, as if being here with Agatha made him closer to his mother somehow. “Did she say anything else about my mom?”

  “No. Nothing else to say. She was one of them. One of the people who made us to hurt us.”

  “We weren’t . . . that’s not what we were made for.”

  Juniper’s teeth clicked together. She massaged the hinge of her jaw.

  “She got me out,” Nate offered. His mother hadn’t been like the rest of them. She couldn’t have been.

  “She got you out. That’s why you don’t know.” Juniper’s nostrils flared. “You don’t know a thing. Don’t think you’re special just because you got to have a mother.”

  Guilt rose in Nate like sludge at high tide. It had never occurred to him that his parents had left others behind when they’d smuggled him out of the city or that other GEMs had grown up without a parent at all. His hand drifted to find Pixel’s—and he squeezed her small fingers gently, wishing he could make up for all the ways she’d been wronged.

  The relentless stress of the day hummed in his bones.

  Juniper blew her hair away from her face and put her hands on her hips, all the stormy anger already gone. “Do you have a real life here? Do you do things?”

  “I’m a Tinkerer. I fix things when they’re broken. It’s a calling.”

  “A calling.” Juniper’s expression grew wistful. She plucked at the hem of her dress. “I don’t know how to do anything. I can mend, some. And I know my letters.” Her gaze darted away, and her cheeks flushed. “I stayed in one room, mostly.”

  Despite what she’d done to them, Nate felt a raw tug of kinship. She’d known horrors in Gathos City, only because of what she was. What they’d made her to be. And no one had spirited her away before she came of age. He didn’t want to picture the mistreatment she’d faced from the people who had owned her. “I’m sorry,” he said, surprised to find that he meant it.

  “You should be.” Juniper pulled a greasy lock of hair between her lips. “Your friends hurt Agatha.”

  It’s not like they did it for fun.

  Nate bit the inside of his cheek until the urge to argue became manageable.

  “They weren’t my friends—we were in a gang. It’s different.” He elbowed Pixel gently when she started to sit up, indignation on her breath. It wouldn’t do them any good for Agatha and Juniper to think they still cared about Brick and Reed. “They didn’t want to give us up, because they could’ve used our blood. And I stopped them from hurting her, didn’t I?”

  “I stopped them,” Juniper said, lifting her chin. “I might not have a calling, but I saved Agatha.”

  “You did.” Nate offered her an indulgent smile. “And you showed me what’s really important. Our kind, sticking together.”

  “You’re not my kind,” Juniper spat out. “And you don’t know what’s important.”

  The door swung open, and Nate wrapped his arm around Pixel instinctively. Agatha walked in with a girl trailing after her. As the door swung shut, he spotted two tall, broad-shouldered people carrying pipes. A guard.

  A sound of surprise died on Nate’s lips. The girl was Val.

  “You’re sure he’s still there?” Agatha was asking.

  “Pretty sure. I mean, nobody’s seen him leave.” Val caught sight of him. “Nine! You made it.”

  “I made it,” he echoed, unable to return her crooked smile. Goose bumps peppered his forearms. He couldn’t shake the eerie feeling he was missing something.

  Agatha walked to the dangling prong in the middle of the room and pulled it down, eyeing the height from the floor to the gleaming tips. She drew a rag from her pocket and polished the tip. Val dragged a heavy chair on rollers from the corner of the room. It was like the one on the dentist’s front stoop—high-backed with a built-in footrest. Except this one had fraying straps attached to the armrests.

  Both of them watched Nate expectantly, and a cold tendril of dread wrapped around him.

  “Right to work, huh?” he asked with a breathy, nervous laugh. His fingers wrapped around the rail of the bed involuntarily.

  “If it makes you feel better, I’m next.” Val rolled down the waist of her loose pants and showed Nate a bandage at her hip.

  “But you’re not . . .” He would have known—would have smelled the honey scent that lingered on other GEMs. The unmistakable sense of comfort, home.

  “A GEM?” Val barked a laugh. “No.”

  “Valerie gives us her serum,” Agatha said. “In exchange for letting her live.”

  The wry amusement faded from Val’s face. She scratched the back of her neck and met Nate’s eye before looking away. “Couriers aren’t supposed to pick sides, but Agatha’s folks don’t take kindly to that.”

  “Quaint, but true. We’ll control all of the chem trade before the season turns. I can’t have clever Couriers like Valerie slowing our progress down, running chem for the last holdouts in a dying business.”

  Alden.

  “You’re loyal now, aren’t you, dear?” Agatha asked.

  Val ducked her head, shoulders slumping. She offered a faint nod and wiped her nose.

  Nate struggled to keep his expression blank. His thoughts buzzed like a dust storm. Val had called him by his full name up on the rails when she’d saved him from getting smeared by the train. She’d asked too many questions after he’d left the bank.

  She must have guessed that he was a GEM by then.

  Why hadn’t she turned him in to Agatha if she’d known where to find
him? She’d watched him walk into Alden’s shop. He longed to ask her, but Agatha was too close.

  Couriers only answered to the highest bidder. But Nate couldn’t imagine anyone able to pay more than the Breakers. Or why they would.

  “Loyalty is critical right now,” Agatha was saying, murmuring to herself as she adjusted wires on the still. “When the gates open, we have to hold the power. The chem. The flesh. I can’t have outliers undercutting me.”

  “But the people here didn’t do anything to us,” Nate said, ignoring the furtive shake of Val’s head. “Why make them pay?”

  “Do not underestimate the depravity of your fellow Withersons. Surely you’ve seen firsthand how they’d use you.” She turned to him, and he saw it again—the flash of hollow fear.

  “Not to cure lung-rot,” Juniper muttered.

  Confusion ached behind Nate’s eyes. Alden hadn’t hurt him—not terribly, not like that. But when Agatha said it, he wondered at his own memory, if he’d made himself believe they’d been friends.

  The grief he’d pushed down swelled once more, spreading like an ink stain. But he had to focus. He couldn’t let her get to him.

  “All right.” Agatha patted the chair. “Come here, Nathan.”

  Pixel burrowed against Nate, and he wished he could take her fear away. Not that he was unafraid. The more he studied the huge prongs in Agatha’s hand, the more he wanted to crawl under the blankets with Pixel.

  Val fidgeted with the straps on the chair.

  He dragged himself off the bed, haunted by how submissive Val’s behavior was when he’d seen her so confident and carefree up on the rails. “What does that mean? Serum?” he asked, wishing she’d at least look at him.

  “It’s an element of blood.” Juniper shot him a smug grimace. “Agatha makes Remedy with it.”

  “With the same machine?” Nate failed to hide his surprise. The still had to have interchangeable parts somewhere—some way to convert for different outputs. His fingers itched with the desire to find tools and pry open the gauges and cylinders to understand how it worked.

  “Do you see two of them?” Juniper asked.

  Nate exhaled a laugh. He’d never played dumb in his life, and the wrongness of it prickled up his backbone. Legs shaking, he approached the big chair, feigning childlike curiosity. “Guess it’s magic.”

  “I’m sure it seems like that.” Agatha twisted a valve on the thin tube attached to the prongs. “In Gathos City, we used a synthetic serum. No mess, no need for volunteers. But I make do.”

  “We?”

  Agatha made a sound like a rusted hinge. “There was a time I had freedom to work alongside the Lands. I’m surprised you don’t remember.”

  “You worked with my parents?” Nate blurted.

  “If you could call them that. Enough reminiscing. Pull up your shirt. Let’s see if you have any flesh on those bones.”

  Nate swallowed hard against a knot of emotion. She wasn’t going to tell him anything. And even if she did, she’d mete it out like tastes of her GEM-laced chem until he craved more and more. He inched his shirt up, exposing his belly and shivering.

  “Not much to work with. Hope you’re feeling strong today.” Agatha batted at his hand. “That’s enough. I don’t need to count your ribs.”

  “What’s the story with the new runners?” Val asked, awkward and loud, like she wanted to change the subject. She turned a rusted metal crank, and the chair lifted with the squeaking cry of dry gears.

  “They’re former associates of Nathan and Pixel. Carlos took them to the port. We’ll give it a week, see if they can keep up. The girl is strong. The boy is quick.” Agatha frowned. “And sharp. They’re both clear-eyed, and we need more reliable runners.”

  Nate wavered, his knees shaky with relief. Brick and Reed were alive. They hadn’t mentioned Sparks, which hopefully meant she was tailing them—keeping an eye out. He had to stop wallowing in thoughts of his parents and focus on that.

  “Nine must be something special,” Val said. “You’d think that door was secure enough without a couple of trappers waiting to brain somebody for knocking.”

  “There’s no harm in being extra cautious these days.” Agatha met Nate’s eye, daring him to say anything.

  He pressed his lips together.

  “That’s no joke. Wouldn’t mind my own personal guard.” Val let out a snort and stoked the furnace beneath the big copper tank with a long poker. Coals glowed white-hot inside and cast a flickering red light, boiling water inside of the tank, as far as Nate could figure. He’d seen systems rigged for distilling fermented fruit, but didn’t know exactly how they worked. Something about boiling water and steam. He’d always preferred the instant gratification of electricity over the slow game of alchemy.

  A wide chimney rose from the furnace and up through the roof.

  Nate looked away from it quickly, startled by a thread of hope he knew better than to tug on.

  What if . . .

  “Is this the room we’ll always stay in?” Nate asked.

  Agatha’s hand snapped out and caught Nate by the hair, twisting it hard enough to drive him to his knees. He gasped and grabbed her wrist, but he couldn’t shake her off. She yanked his head back and forced him to look up.

  His pulse thundered, and his head spun. She was so fast.

  She wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I’m not as ignorant as you take me for,” she said, a growl beneath her soft words. “You’re here, and you’re here to stay. Keep the girl company. Keep your mouth shut. Learn your place. Stop asking questions. Do you understand?”

  Juniper laughed, hoarse and quiet.

  “Yes.” His eyes pricked up with tears as she twisted her hand, tugging every hair on his head at once. It stung like spitting embers. “Got it.”

  “If you give me cause to question your motives, I will feed your friends to the sludge.” She let him go, and he caught himself against the rust-speckled floor.

  Not rust—blood.

  “I understand.”

  Val helped him up with a cold and clammy grip, nothing like the assured strength she’d used to save him on the rails. She patted the ripped cushion on the seat and didn’t meet his eye when she gave him a little push. “You’re first.”

  In her bunk, Pixel crammed her body against the wall. Only her eyes were visible, the rest of her wrapped in sheets. Nate climbed into the chair and shook his head, willing her not to watch.

  She didn’t look away. Her eyes widened, and she trembled, but he recognized a gleam of fierce wonder too. Pixel looked at tech like that, especially when she wanted to know how it worked. How she could make it work better.

  Out of habit, he began to roll his sleeve up to expose the place where Alden’s Diffuser had left silvery scars and the recent, fresh scabs. Agatha pushed his hands away and reached for the waist of his pants instead. He squirmed away, making a senseless sound of protest.

  “Hold still,” Val said—more a plea than a warning.

  Shaken by the undercurrent of fear, he froze, his hands balled into fists at his sides. Agatha pulled up his filthy shirt and exposed the skin at his hip. She prodded him delicately, finding the fleshy place above the bone. The muscles at his belly fluttered from the tickle.

  Nate began to tremble. The Diffuser tip had always hurt, but it had always felt good afterward, when the lethargy took over and he wanted nothing more than to sleep, warm and safe with Alden.

  This was different. He didn’t want to keep still. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to be here.

  Reed.

  “Do I need to restrain you?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. His teeth snapped together, and he clenched his jaw to stop the chattering. “It’s fine.”

  She wasted no time. The prongs slid into h
is flesh like a bite. He cried out and scrabbled at the chair, more panicked than in pain.

  “Nate!” Pixel cried out.

  The tube in Agatha’s hand went dark with his blood. Nausea flushed through him. It didn’t hurt any more than it ever had at Alden’s. His fear was getting the best of him.

  He had to learn to let go of it, to accept this—or it would be torture every time. And Pixel would spend every second fearing the time when her blood ripened.

  “It’s okay,” he said, head lolling to the side. His arms went weak. Agatha bent over his hip and adjusted the prongs. It didn’t hurt anymore.

  A new, different pain came instead. He exhaled a silent, rueful laugh.

  I miss Alden.

  He needed to find Alden, to tell him that the Breakers didn’t want anyone else pushing chem. Maybe Alden already knew. He always had a plan. He’d have a plan now, something clever.

  Val crowded his line of sight, watching his face. She pushed his hair out of his eyes. “You’ll pass out real soon.”

  The huge Diffuser began to whir, buzzing like flies on a body.

  She was right.

  Nate was drowning. Cold water filled his mouth with every breath. He tried to turn his head, angle toward the surface, toward air.

  “Stars,” Juniper swore. “Quit that squirming.”

  The water shifted to Nate’s middle and became more of an annoying splash than a torrent. He forced his eyes open and saw her standing over him with a hose attached to the ceiling. The water tasted like metal and smog.

  He was naked except for the thin shorts he wore under his pants and the bandage taped to his hip. “Hey,” he said, shoving his hands between his legs where the fabric wasn’t thick enough to give him any privacy.

  “I don’t see why I have to wash you,” Juniper said, waving the hose indiscriminately.

  They were in the corner of the distillation room, where another drain below Nate whisked the water away. He pushed up onto his elbow and reached for the hose, his arm shaking and leaden.

  He could barely remember where he was or why, but he knew, to the core of his being, that he did not like Juniper. “Give me the rotted hose then.”