by Tessa Elwood
She didn’t have to see Mom’s stunt, either. Guess there’s an upside to everything.
No one comes to chew me out for Dee’s racket, so I ditch the lobby for the stairwell. I swear something died in the elevators once, and you can always spot visitors by who hits the call button.
The fifth-floor hallway matches levels one through ten—a universal drab brown except for the digiswitchprint walls with their stock designs. Stripes, dots, or florals that used to change every week. They’ve been dark since the first power-out after the Archive blew.
My suite’s the fourth door on the left. I swap the building’s keypass for my personal one and let myself in.
Yonni’s place opens on a mini hall that turns into a big living room. The suite is mostly living room, with a small open kitchen off to the right and a narrow bedroom door to the left. Minimal furniture, a couple of bare bookshelves that used to hold mementos. Tiny, pretty things that held surprising value because Missa, Yonni’s last lover, never gave shoddy gifts. They all reflected Yonni in a dozen little ways.
I would know. I pawned them all.
I round the island countertop and enter the kitchen. It’s small but smoothly compact.
My flipcom buzzes in my pocket.
Dee probably, needing a second last word.
I open the icer, slide out my flipcom, and press it to my ear as I reach for the juice. “What?”
“Miss Franks?” asks a clipped, professional, male voice.
Great.
I press my forehead against the icer’s chill inner shelf. It burns. “Yeah?”
“Is this Kreslyn Franks?”
“What do you need?” I ask.
“This is the Investigative Enactment Office. We have a few questions for you. Could you come into our main branch tomorrow at eight?”
I close my eyes.
This was coming. I knew this was coming. It’s been three days since the Archive, and no one’s come banging on the door.
I’m Millie Oen’s daughter and the last person to see her alive. Probably.
Not that they know that.
I don’t think.
My palms burn, but my mouth’s dry. “Okay. Yeah, I’ll be there.”
“Thank you, we appreciate your cooperation.” His pitch is perfect, a recording-level quality.
He hangs up.
The juice jug chills my palm, weighs as much as a tower. The flipcom in my other hand could double for a brick. I set both in the icer and close the door, which brings me face-to-face with my magnetized quotepad. A two-year anniversary gift for being the Gilken Museum’s most dedicated and reliable tour guide. I was on the fast track for a scholarship. The scholarship that would get me off-planet. Scholar Gilken set it up himself, two hundred and eight years ago, for anyone who wanted to learn. And the scholarship still has funds because Gilken built the data system our House still runs on—he founded and oversaw the creation of the official House Archive.
The one Mom blew up.
The quotepad blazes its cheery yellow. “All data, mundane and divine, is a grand investigative saga. Not to uncover why a man has died; but the darker secret of why he lives.”
“Easy.” I hit the power and the screen goes dark. “He never had the guts to jump.”
The city hates mornings, so I end up at the Market—probably the only open place in Low South. It buzzes with off-school kids, lunching professionals, and the ancient in their hoverchairs. The unending line of shop windows sport digital models that flex and smile, morphing from one outfit to the next. Overhead, stringed bulb lights bounce and shimmer under the massive cooling fans. Each fan doubles me in height, blades wide and near silent. Perhaps even sharp. Though at that height and speed, they wouldn’t have to be.
Huh.
I refocus on the street and almost run into the Brink kids. They’re out in full force today, huddled in a yellow mass near the Market’s arched entrance. Their digitized shirts blink protests across their chests, while a projector spins words against passing shoppers. Stop wasting energy, and You won’t gut us to fuel your markets.
The kids match the digital words with spoken ones. Energy is running out. We killed all independent planets outside House borders by extracting fuel from their cores. And once we burn through that garnered energy, where do we think the next batch will come from? Right now, planets on the Brink are rationed down to five hours of energy a day, while here we gawk at nonstop ad-screens and control the temperature outside.
And there’s the flaw. If our House was really amid an “energy crisis,” somebody would turn the cooling fans off. This may be an upscale market, but it’s not like lordlings shop here.
One of them spots me, a tall guy in a skin-tight black shirt and heavy eyebrows that flatline over his nose as he stares. And stares. He has that look, like the woman in the corner grocery yesterday, or the power technician this morning on the roof.
I know you. You’re her.
I duck into the nearest side street, then circle through an open-air restaurant toward the public elevators at the far end. The best part of Low South isn’t the hours or the shops; it’s the walkways. High glass paths with thin rails that crisscross from one skytower to the next.
Best of all, they hang above the cooling fans.
Up here the blades move too fast to track, creating an empty sheen that carries power. More, a promise. You won’t feel this.
I grab the silver railing. It’s thin and high, with no room to sit, stand, or waver. I’ll have to vault it, jump out just far enough. A beat and done. It’d be over.
Except for the breakfasting crowd below, who’d end up with blood all over their eggs.
And nightmares for life.
Wouldn’t that be a legacy? Maybe not quite the terror of Mom’s, but close enough.
My hands slide off the rail and I slide to the floor, cross my legs above the smudged glass. Below the fan spins, close, almost touchable. Taunting.
“Shut up,” I say. It doesn’t.
Farther down, at ground level, everyone gets on with their lives. Everyone unconcerned, or else desperate and hiding it well. Enjoying the cooling fans while ignoring the blades. No one looks up, except a dark-haired guy by the fountain who stares or seems to. A thick mop covers his ears and his eyes, but his neck cranes back as if he’s blissed out or asleep or both. Either way, he’ll wake up starved.
Come to that, so am I.
Market breakfasts try to rival cloudsuite prices, but Mr. Remmings did count out the money he owed me to the last red before kicking me out. A methodical chant in front of the whole staff, so no one could say the museum didn’t do right by their employees.
Even me.
“You’re Kreslyn Franks.”
I look up from my plate of eggy noodled joy. Mr. Skin-tight Shirt with Abs has tracked me down and brought company. They flank my perfect cube of a table on all sides except mine.
I don’t think there’s anyone behind me. I don’t turn to look.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” says T-shirt guy, sliding into the chair opposite, “But I’m not wrong.”
A blonde girl with the double topknots slips in the chair to my right, while a skinny guy takes the left seat. Skinny’s yellow shirt flashes save the brink in neon red. It’s not a good look on him. The girl has more muscles than both boys together, which is an excellent look on her. The trio lean back in casual coordination, sharing looks and tap-ping fingers.
I lay down my fork.
Skin-tight Abs leans in, both elbows on the table. “Your mother is a god.”
My mouth opens and I—have no idea where to go from here. “My . . . mother blew up the Archive.”
He grins. “Yes. She did.”
Waking up this morning was a bad idea. Or was it yesterday morning? One of those.
Ordering breakfast was
definitely stupid.
I lean back in my seat. “What do you want?”
“Millie Oen.”
Him and everyone else.
“She’s dead,” I say.
His smile gains an edge. “You sure?”
Here we go.
“What do you want?” I repeat, slower this time.
“She cleansed us,” says the skinny one. He’s got a pretty mouth and an open face and eyes that are almost reverent. They spark.
My heart jabs the terror button. “Cleansed.”
“The bloodlings,” says Skinny, “we don’t know who they are anymore. They don’t exist.”
“No, they just haven’t been found,” I say.
Abs presses close enough that he could eat my noodles for me. “Don’t worry, we’re on your side.”
Oh, good. I have a side.
“Can you reach your mother?” the girl whispers, her elbows on the table, too. “Without them noticing?”
Them?
“We need her,” says Abs.
“She can save us,” the skinny one chimes in. The kid can’t be that old. His voice sounds like he’s six, but his eyes look fifty.
“The Brink needs her,” Skin-tight adds.
The girl’s elbow brushes mine, her breath licking my hair. “Can you get her a message?”
“Absolutely,” I say. “Find me a spirit talker, I’ll slit my wrist, and we can open a death channel.”
The girl growls, and I can almost feel her teeth grind. “This isn’t a game.”
“What, really?” I face her head-on, and our noses brush. Perfect kissing distance. She flinches, unprepared. Apparently, she is the only one who gets to breathe down people’s necks. I lean that much closer. “Mom’s a murderer and you’re calling her a god, so tell me—what exactly is this, then?”
She shifts, straightens. Something flashes silver in my peripheral, though her eyes never leave mine. Something that hums like a spark blade.
That was fast. Impressive. She could give Greg a run for his money.
She’s assuming I have something left to lose.
A massive clatter rocks the pavilion. Everyone jumps, turns—the girl, too, twisting around. I lean sideways for a better view.
Three tables over, an overturned chair barricades an upended tray, which rattles against the courtyard’s interlocked stone tile. A guy, the mop-headed guy who was watching the fans, stands amid the mess, swearing. A couple seated nearby pull their shoes away from the pool of his drink, while he apologizes profusely and grabs napkins—knocking over another chair in the process. Boy is definitely blissed out. He tosses his bangs and glances up across the dining pavilion, straight at me.
Our eyes lock.
Strike that, the boy is stone sober and knows exactly what he’s about. He glances behind me, then back. Two seconds. Then he’s yelling for more napkins and trying to pat down the closest couple’s shoes.
Everyone at my table is riveted, the girl’s eyes narrowing as her knife hand dangles at her side under the table. Forgotten.
Gutted in the Market by crazy people probably isn’t a prime way to go.
I slide from my chair and bolt.
I swing into an alley off a side street, press into the wall, and peer around the corner like I’m in some feed-network show. The thoroughfare races with street-hovers, low-level flightwing traffic, and a suited group of striding people with their flipcoms out.
No guys flashing abs or girls in topknots. No mop-heads, either.
I sink into the alley wall. The stone burns.
Everyone is crazy.
“You set that up?” I ask the tower-cluttered sky. “Seeing as you’re a god and all, want to tell me which contingent was yours?”
Mom doesn’t answer, but my money’s on the Brinkers. Mom would probably get a kick out of being considered divine. She had the looks for it—dark hair, dark eyes, and power. Sharp chin, sharp shoulders, sharp suit. She’d sat at her desk when I walked in, her Archive office twice the size of Yonni’s suite. She didn’t stand or fidget or cross her arms. Didn’t even register surprise, as if I was still the bawling nine-year-old she’d abandoned eight years before.
I see you found me, she said.
Yeah. I’d marched right up and flattened both palms on her desk. And you’re going to wish I hadn’t.
She’d smiled. A beautiful, lovely thing. Very knowing, as if I’d be the one to regret.
A godlike smile to match the skinny kid’s eyes.
I rub my shoulders, sweat-soaked and sticky, and turn deeper into the alley. Head north toward home.
A man sits on the steps of my suitetower. Head bowed, elbows on knees, flask hanging between loose fingers. Sandy hair to match his sandy skin. Broad shoulders framed by the wide steps’ rusting rail.
If he doesn’t look up, maybe I won’t know him.
If I’m not here, he’ll go away.
I step back. He looks up, head lulling, eyes red and puffy.
My father grins. “There’s my girl.”
“Dad,” I say.
He beckons me closer. I don’t move.
He’s thinner than he was three years ago. Smaller. Or maybe I’m the one who has grown. His bones protrude from the wrists beneath his sleeves, knuckles bright under tight skin.
Last I’d heard, he was two planets over, with Melodie or Amalie or some other -ie with hair as dark as Mom’s. But that was long before Yonni died.
I tried to find him when Yonni got sick, when the money ran out and her meds were almost gone. I tracked him to a place he’d been six months ago, even got a flipcom number some past lover swore still worked. It didn’t.
Either that or he didn’t answer.
Dad holds out his arms.
I cross mine. “What do you want?”
“To see my baby.” He smiles. Sweet, open, and a little busted.
There are advantages to being Millie Oen’s daughter. My smile beats his to hell. “I’m sorry, visiting hours are over.”
I climb the steps, bypassing his.
He snags my hand, squeezing tight, arm stretching, until I have to stop. “Don’t be like that.”
I don’t squeeze back. Worse, I don’t pull away. His hands are as big as they ever were. He could lift and swing both Greg and me at once when we were little. From the intensity of his current hold, maybe he still could.
“I heard about Mom,” he says. His mom, not mine. Yonni.
When? I ask, almost scream in my head. When she died? When I sent message after message? When I would have begged on my knees for you to show?
I grab the railing for leverage, palm to rust to steel, and don’t say a word.
The “when” doesn’t matter. Not anymore.
“Must have been hard on you,” he says, “losing her like that. I’m sorry I—”
I yank free of him, push up the last two steps to the door.
Dad clambers to unsteady feet and reaches for me again. “Baby doll—”
I press back against the door, just out of grasp. “I’m not one of your girls, Dad.”
“You are my baby, though.” He goes for the patented Franks puppy-eyed look, as if I’m unaware of the con. His reaching hand finds my elbow. “I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you, especially lately—I mean, your mother. Who’d have thought?—but you can trust me, right? I love you, baby. I’m here for you.”
Right. Just like he was when I was nine, when I was alone in a house with no power and nowhere to go. I squeeze past him and slam my keypass against the security reader. Push through the door and slam it shut as his blotchy palms hit the glass.
“Kit!” Muffled through the glass. “Don’t do this.”
“Watch me.” I back up, turn for the elevator.
“I’m sorry!” he wails. The words b
reak and my step falters. I falter—heart heavy, breath shallow.
“I know I should have come back when Mom—when she—God, I know, Kit. I know. If I could take it back I would. You’re all I have, baby. You know that, right? You’re all I’ve got.”
Skin squeaks against glass, slides down. A hand? Fingertips? I half raise my palms to cover my ears, but that never worked years ago when Mom and Dad fought. Besides, I’m not a baby anymore.
Or a damn baby doll.
I glance over my shoulder.
Dad’s on the ground, and the glass is streaked from his hand or the snot from his nose. He’s shiny red as a marzinberri. Heaving quiet, sincere sobs that twist my gut. “We’re family, Kit,” he says, or I think he says. The glass muffles everything. “We’re family. I’ve nowhere else to go.”
We were family six months ago, when he wouldn’t call me back.
Dad crumples, like so much chopped meat.
I can’t let him in. Yonni would kill me. I’d lose the suite. She wrote it into her will, blocked Dad out right along with Dee and Greg. If I let any of my family stay overnight, the place is forfeited, the will rescinded. The Record Officials could march in and kick me out.
Dad’s crying. The sun catches every awkward tear.
The Records Office never makes random tower-calls. They’ll never know.
Yonni will know.
I can’t fail her any more than I have already. She’s dead.
We’re family, Kit.
I kick the carpet, spin back around, and open the door. Dad falls onto the lobby floor.
“One night,” I say. “Tomorrow, you’re gone.”
His eyes light up. He stands, pulls me in a hug of alcohol and sweat. “Oh, baby, I love you. I love you, baby doll.”
“Whatever,” I say. “Let’s get you upstairs.”
Mom and I bracket Yonni’s bed—her on one side, me on the other. Not a proper bed, but a raised tube braced with smaller tubes for fluid drainage. It takes up most of the tiny room, leaving us to squeeze into what’s left. The air hangs stuffy, metallic. A little sweet, a little burnt.
