Death Thieves

by Julie Wright

  I smiled at a woman in the store, but she frowned, bent her purple head and scurried away as though I was a crazy. Maybe she thought I was. I frowned, too, at least until Jay waved for me to catch up to him.

  Future stores were definitely prettier than stores from my past. Everything looked more like a boutique or someone’s actual home, rather than a grocery store. The displays were beautiful—organic looking in their colors and setup. There wasn’t a lot of actual product on the shelf. The huge and elaborate displays didn’t leave room for too much product. Advertisements were more plentiful in the actual stores than they were on the sidewalks—which meant that they were everywhere—little screens advertising products and services flashed at us from every possible place.

  “I have never really seen pretty fruit before.” I picked up a nectarine. It looked so shiny, it could have been a gift from the queen to Snow White, even if it wasn’t an apple.

  “Or vegetables, either.” Jay had a couple of carrots in his hand. I looked around for those little plastic produce bags but couldn’t find any. No doughnuts, either. We finally gave up and went to check out, only we couldn’t find a cashier anywhere.

  “Maybe we should just leave?” Jay suggested.

  Eddie hurried to stand in front of the door and flung his arms open wide. “You’re not getting Summer in trouble with the law!”

  I had to smile at that. It was like having my own Doberman. “Heel, Eddie. He isn’t suggesting we leave without paying. As I moved closer to Eddie, a friendly female voice said, “Thank you for shopping with Day’s Market, Summer Rae.”

  I halted in my tracks and looked around. “Who said that?” I whispered.

  Jay pivoted, his eyebrows climbing halfway up his forehead. He slowly moved toward us, and when the door glowed green, the same friendly voice said, “Thank you for shopping with Day’s Market, Jay Savage.”

  Jay laughed and looked like he’d applaud if he hadn’t been holding the carrots. “Good to know that works, too.” He pushed through Eddie’s still outstretched arms and said, “Let’s go, guys.”

  “You have to pay!” Eddie said.

  “We did, Ed. Didn’t you hear the nice lady thank us for shopping with them?” With Eddie’s confused expression, Jay clapped him on the back. “You did not read enough comic books, Ed. Or all of this would be a little more comfortable for you.” Jay held out one of the carrots to Eddie who only shook his head in refusal and looked grumpy in general.

  “But how much did we spend? And how much is left in our accounts? For all we know we just bought four-hundred-dollar carrots.” I took a bite of my nectarine and smiled at how exactly right it tasted. Gratitude filled me for all the things that hadn’t changed. Nectarines still tasted like nectarines. The sky was still blue, and even if there was an overabundance of people whose hair was blue, too, maybe I could deal with that. . . I could deal with it if Tag was still somewhere under that blue sky.

  “In my IDR class, they talked about finances and how the IDRs keep track. They said something about pulse power. I’ll find out how we access the balance,” Jay said.

  I nodded. We walked along the shops more, noting how the shops all seemed very specialized instead of all-encompassing like the stores of my time. All the shops were in areas like malls, each store catering to one specific need. I did find a Dunkin’ Donuts and got me a Boston Kreme.

  Jay looked around at all the stores and the people moving in and out of those stores and frowned. “Do you guys wonder what the dark levels are like?”

  Sweat beaded up on Eddie’s forehead as he shook his head violently. “No, I don’t!”

  “What do you mean by dark levels?” I asked

  “The levels lost in the shadow of the skyscrapers. I’ve heard them called the dark levels because sunlight never reaches the ground. We could buy things in these shops here, where the businesses are doing okay for themselves, or we could go down and spend our money in the stores that are probably struggling. What do they call the people in the dark levels? Povs?”

  “It’s dangerous down there.” Eddie insisted.

  “How do you know? You’ve never been there.” Jay’s attention stayed pointedly on me. Whether we went down or not would be my decision.

  “We could at least look. If it feels unsafe, we can always come right back up,” I said.

  Jay grinned. “You’re outvoted, Ed.” And we walked to the nearest elevator, knowing he’d follow along.

  In all honesty, a part of me thrilled at the idea of seeing what lay beneath the city, and another part of me cowered in Eddie-like fear. But I wanted my feet to touch the ground—real solid earth. People weren’t meant to live in buildings in the sky like giants out of fairy tales.

  Going down, the friendly elevator said. And down we went, Eddie’s nervousness reflected in the mirrored panels of the elevator. My ears popped with our descent, and then the elevator stopped.

  The doors opened onto another sky garden walk. We were in shadow but definitely not darkness. Jay frowned and jabbed his finger on the requested level another time. The friendly elevator voice said, “I’m sorry, Jay Savage, but you are not approved for travel to the lower levels. Please make an alternate choice.”

  “Who says I’m not approved?” Jay grumbled and hit the level he wanted again.

  “I’m sorry, Jay Savage, but you are not approved for travel to the lower levels. Please make an alternate choice.”

  Eddie’s relieved sigh served only to fuel Jay’s agitation. The elevator doors had stayed open. With a frown, Jay got out. “C’mon, Summer. There has to be stairs. What would they do in a fire?”

  We searched for stairs or fire exits for another hour, but could find no way down past the elevator police. Jay finally gave up, grumbling about the lack of safety, and led us to the library.

  The Coliseum Library was easily the most beautiful building I’d ever seen. The glass columns reflected light like huge prisms, casting rainbows on everything. Once inside the glass building, I turned to Jay and Eddie. “I’ve got some research to do, and I’ll get it done faster on my own. I’ll catch up with you guys in a little while, okay?”

  Eddie became visibly nervous. “But what if we don’t find you again? We don’t know any of these people.” He cast a quick glance at the rainbow-colored heads slipping around him and trying to avoid the evident stranger among them. The people worked hard to avoid all of us as if we were rabid animals ready to bite at any moment. He lowered his voice. “They aren’t like us.”

  “I’ll meet you right back here in two hours.” I pointed down at the spot where I stood. I wanted to disagree with Eddie’s assessment of the other people not being like us but still feared that maybe crazy law might not be as effective as the government hoped. The people acted so skittish around us, they all may very well be crazy. And at the first day of biology class, we’d learned about the disease that brought us to this future. Every person in this future who was not of the New Youth was tainted. We were not allowed to associate with them in any way that would allow us to develop relationships with them as they were beneath us. Any sexual relations that might transpire between a New Youth and anyone outside the New Youth would end in a trial and the severest of punishments. They never said execution, but they may as well have. No wonder Tag acted so weird around me.

  Keeping Doberman Eddie around might make me feel safer, but he’d never approve of the person I hoped to find. He bought into the idea that we were better than the rest of the world.

  “Hey, Ed.” Jay took ahold of Eddie’s arm and spun him in the other direction. “Those girls are from our history class, aren’t they?” Jay threw a wink back in my direction, and I hurried to slip behind the first set of book stacks.

  I walked the perimeter of the book stacks, looking outside the windowed walls to the city surrounding the building. Nothing called attention to itself as being the barracks. I did two laps around the coliseum and had determined I needed to go outside to the sky gardens to search the surrou
nding buildings directly when something caught my eye, and my heart skipped a beat. Tag!

  I touched my hand to the glass window and almost made myself look stupid by calling out his name when I realized the person standing outside next to a sign with a sideways eight on it wasn’t Tag. But he had on the silvery black pants and the black jacket. Another person dressed identically joined the first, and they walked off together. Not Tag at all, but definitely Tag’s people.

  I hurried outside, still with no actual plan in mind, just a deep and desperate need to see him for myself, to make sure he was fine. My head ached from trying to keep the words, he’s dead; they killed him because you made him late, from parading through my brain.

  I circled the outside of the coliseum until I saw the sign. Being closer and paying better attention, I realized my sideways eight was really the symbol for infinity. Not many people walked this way. The two soldiers previously by the sign had wandered into the building already. I made my way to the door, trying to be stealthy but needing to get to the actual entrance to see what color it would glow with my ring. If it glowed red and I didn’t try to enter, would it record that I’d strayed near the building without permission? Would it glow green?

  With a ragged pull for air, I closed the distance between me and the range of the door. It glowed red.

  I cursed under my breath and ducked back to the side of the doors where several trees were clumped together as part of the sky garden aesthetics, offering a small degree of shelter since they weren’t exactly big trees. As I stepped back, the red glow vanished, but no matter how many times I blinked, I couldn’t see anything but red.

  Stupid! Now what? I took a few moments to try to control my breathing while twisting my ring around and around on my finger. I finally slipped it off and tucked it between the roots pushing out of the ground. And then I waited.

  A lone soldier exited the building after I’d already counted to sixty four times and was halfway through a fifth count. I slipped behind him and slid into the building before the door closed.

  If my heart had been beating fast before, it now pounded at Olympian speeds. Inside, several hallways snaked away from the spacious entryway. “Stupid!” I muttered. Which way to go and how to get there without anyone noticing a random girl in a skirt meandering through their halls? And how would I explain why I took off my ring? How would I defend myself if they decided I was a renegade crazy?

  Really stupid.

  With no other plan in place, I picked a hallway and started walking down it. I didn’t try to hide from the first soldier who passed me, but instead acted as though walking through the off-limit barracks was no big deal. I hurried to address him as he frowned in confusion upon seeing me, and as the hand with his ring moved up to his face, likely to call in and report me.

  “Could I get you to help me?” I asked.

  His hand dropped upon being directly asked for help. “Sorry?”

  “Yes. I’m supposed to deliver a message from Professor Raik to Taggert.” Did Tag have a last name?

  The soldier’s eyes dropped to my hands, but I bent my head and forced him to look me in the eye.

  The confusion on his face filled me with dread. Please don’t say he’s dead. Please don’t say he’s dead.

  “I’m sorry,” the soldier said with that voice of finality that made my stomach plummet into my toes.

  I’m sorry could mean only one thing.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You’re sorry?”

  “I hadn’t heard Raik needed him. I sent him to off duty. Taggert’s in the game room.”

  I held in the sob and blinked back the tears of relief upon hearing he really was still alive. Alive! My Tag was alive! I swallowed the information to digest later. “Would you take me there?”

  The man’s brow furrowed, and he almost looked like he might question my motives, but he finally said, “K.”

  Stupid skirt with no pockets. There was nowhere to hide my hands and the bare, ringless fingers. Who makes a skirt with no pockets? I missed my jeans more than ever before. Our feet clapped against the tile floor as we wound around the hall. I paid strict attention to detail, noticing every turn we made, mentally memorizing the path to Tag.

  I also noted other entrances. Or I should say, I noted the lack of other entrances. What would they do in a fire drill? Could the only exit and entrance really be at the front of the building? And to have no way to get to ground level . . . did these people not have any fire marshal standards or safety codes?

  The soldier shoved open a door and said in a gruff and suspicious voice, “Taggert, you got a guest.” He stood to the side so that everyone in the room had a full view of me. Tag, along with the eleven other soldiers in the room, looked up. They’d been hovered over a table of cards. How much I wanted to start bawling and run to him and make him hold me while I cried. Alive! You’re alive!

  His ice-blue eyes widened at seeing me. And his mouth opened as though he were going to say something before he snapped it shut with a click of teeth, the ice in those eyes melting into fear.

  I’d crossed my arms over my chest, tucking my hands into my pits where they couldn’t be seen. I hoped I looked like Aunt Theresa with my arms folded like that. I hoped I looked about to deliver a king-size lecture. My mind raced with all the things Professor Raik had said. We were the elite. We were better than soldiers. Better than all the diseased people of the future. Elite and they needed to respect us. We were never to feel lesser. We were never to—“On your feet, soldier. A New Youth came into the room. Don’t they teach you respect in this place?” I was surprised that my voice didn’t crack, surprised that it sounded strong and confident when fear raced through my veins.

  All of them jumped to their feet, though I’d been only addressing Tag. I heard a couple of them mutter, “Sorry.”

  “Professor Raik needs you, Taggert.” I said his name with a sneer, my heart breaking for acting so stupid and superior when he really was so much better than me, this guy who’d cried when he read A Sliver of Midnight.

  “When?” he asked, his voice sounding afraid, whether for me or for him or for us both, I didn’t know.

  “Now.” I jerked my head toward the door indicating he needed to get a move on and fast. I exited the room, assuming he’d follow, hoping he’d hurry before the rest realized something wasn’t right. The questions already formed on their faces with the narrowing of eyes as skepticism dawned on them.

  Tag followed me out, shutting the door behind him, the voices rising in the room we’d exited as the others left inside discussed the meaning of my presence. Tag grabbed my arm and shoved me along the hallway. “Move fast.” He swept me away from the room like a wave tugging at a sand castle.

  We made it down the hall and around the corner before he said, “What do you think you’re doing? You can not be here!” He glanced behind us. I did, too, afraid of what I might find. The hallway remained empty.

  “I had to know!” I whispered.

  “Know what?”

  I nearly tripped we were moving so fast, not running, not calling that much attention to ourselves, but moving fast just the same. “The general said you’d been silenced and then they questioned me about you like it was the Spanish Inquisition. I thought they’d . . .” I trailed off, trying to catch my breath and feeling rather foolish for charging into the barracks without any real reason other than my own paranoia.

  “The Spanish what?” He waved away the question before I could answer. “Never mind. They could have ex-ed me, and might have, but I assured them you and I are not friends. By coming here, you make me look a bit like a liar.”

  “Ex-ed you?” We’d come to another corner. Tag peeked around it before pulling me along again.

  “Executed.”

  “So by me coming here, will they execute you?”

  “I doubt it, but you can’t ever come back here.” He stopped and turned me to face him. “Not ever again, Summer.” He took my hands in his. At first, the ge
sture seemed romantic and my stomach fluttered at his touch. But his fingers searched over my hands. “Where’s your IDR?”

  “I left it outside. The door went red when I tried to come—”

  “How did you get in then?” He looked up and down the hall and, seeming to realize we’d stopped, pulled me along again.

  “Someone was leaving; I got in before the door closed.”

  He growled low in his throat. We’d made it to the front door, it turned green as Tag approached. He opened it and shoved us both through. “Get your IDR.”

  I went to the trees, he followed me, and for a moment I thought he meant to come with me. But he waited while I got my ring and glanced back. “I’ll have to report this to Professor Raik.”

  “You’re turning me in?”

  “You told the others I was going to Professor Raik. There will be trouble if anyone thinks you lied. We’d better get our stories straight because they’ll be questioning both of us. Why would you risk coming to see me?”

  His face was close to mine; the ice in his eyes had melted into the warmth and concern I’d grown used to for those few days we were together. “I came because I care about—”

  “No! Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”

  “But it’s true.” I wanted to slap him for being such a jerk.

  “Think, Summer. What will happen if you tell Professor Raik that you—” He couldn’t even make himself repeat the words as if completely repulsed by the idea. “Think. What would happen if a pureblood were entangled in the emotions of a soldier? The soldier would get ex-ed, and the pureblood would be quarantined until her mind was so completely wiped of independent thinking that she may as well be a toaster.” He took a deep breath. “So tell me again, why would you risk coming to see me?”