Split the Sun

by Tessa Elwood

  “The power tech.” I bolt upright. The room spins, but it doesn’t matter. “Hell.”

  Niles is on his feet, chair burning the carpet as he kicks it back, so there’s room enough for him and me. “What—”

  “You don’t understand. Greg dosed him before he dosed me. And now the residents have probably robbed him blind and the clerk kicked him out, and—”

  “Wait.” He takes my shoulders as I sway, the room refusing to steady. “Somebody dosed you?”

  I reach for the small bump on my neck, then let my hand fall. “Doesn’t matter. I have to go.”

  His eyes narrow and he gathers my hair over my opposite shoulder to bare the area I’d touched. Closes in, peering, neck craning to see, until my nose is practically in his hair.

  His scent has layers. Open with undercurrents. Like the city up high, at night on the rooftop, but more . . . boy. Probably the stuff from his bathroom counter. The gel or the cologne. Except—I close my eyes and breathe. Nothing astringent, there’s too much depth. A subtle core. A reality. I want it to be real.

  It’s not, or probably isn’t, but if it was—

  Maybe he’d taste of it, too.

  His thumb brushes my neck where the needle bit and I jerk, jarring us both.

  “Shit, sorry,” he breathes, and I feel that, too. Against my neck. Down my back. Even my toes light up. He pulls away and flicks at his hair with an irritated shake, leaving the full brown-black of his eyes front and center. “Who was it? Who dosed you?”

  I close my eyes to hide his. Focus.

  The sweetblue isn’t helping.

  Niles isn’t helping.

  “The power technician,” I repeat, almost chant in my head. “I have to find him. They said Greg didn’t kill him, but that’s not exactly proof. They said a lot of things.”

  “Kit?” A perfect balance of K and T. Everyone always overemphasizes one or the other. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. Not your problem.”

  “If it’s nothing, then tell me.” He’s too near, especially with the couch at my back and nowhere to go. Not that I want to go anywhere.

  “Wasn’t Dad enough for one day?” I ask.

  “Won’t know until you tell me.”

  “What do you care?”

  He halves the distance between us without actually touching. That shouldn’t be possible. “You buzz my door in the middle of the night with your face scraped up, your clothes half-torn and a hole in your neck. Call me curious.”

  And you stood me up, he doesn’t add.

  I shake my head. “I shouldn’t have buzzed you.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  His bangs fall again, and he swipes them back with frustrated fingers. “What the hell is going on?”

  “I got grabbed, okay? My cousin set me up.”

  “Your cousin?”

  I sigh. “I’m sure they paid him well.”

  He starts to say something, stops, and instead reaches for my neck, hand hovering an inch from my skin. “Can I?”

  He is heat even without contact, a gravitational force. My nerve endings cluster below his palm. If I were smart, I’d say no.

  So, of course, I nod.

  His hand is light, fingers skimming the puncture like he can’t believe it’s there. Except every pass underlines its existence. Proof that, yep, Greg did that. The same Greg who used to plan adventures into abandoned towers, and taught me to love rooftops in the first place.

  “Who paid him?” asks Niles quietly.

  “Brinkers. The kids from the market. You remember the girl with the knife? They want something from Mom.”

  His hand goes still. “Your mom.”

  I grin, except my lips don’t want to twist the right way. “Yeah. Apparently, she’s alive—and a god, by the way—and they need her for—their home or something.” Which is beside the point. All of this is beside the point, which is, “They fed Greg a line, and so he dosed this power tech before he dosed me, and now the tech’s probably lying unconscious somewhere, because I’ll bet no one shot him with Clarity to wake him up.”

  Niles blanks out.

  “That’s how the Brinkers woke me,” I say. “It’s an antidoser. It’s supposed to be regulated, or at least it was when Greg—” Was dealing, I don’t say, because there’s no way in hell I’m having that conversation.

  Niles is still a blank slate. My explanation must suck. I don’t know that I care. My head hums and my blood buzzes, and I’m losing time.

  “I have to go.”

  “Now?” Niles glances at the kitchen’s digiclock. “It’s three thirty.”

  “I told you, I have to make sure the power tech isn’t dead.”

  That my cousin didn’t kill someone. That he hasn’t become Mom.

  I remove Niles’s hand from my neck and don’t—do not—wrap my fingers through his. Instead, I squeeze between him and the couch into cold open space.

  The floor tips into the walls. I lock my knees, reach for the back of Niles’s chair—and get him instead. His arm wraps my waist. Solid, bare. I turn, which puts us chest to chest, his hand splayed on my back. “Seriously, Niles—”

  “I’ll find him,” he says. “Give me a description and tell me where. It shouldn’t be hard—if he’s dosed he’s probably still down.”

  What?

  Niles would—what?

  I mouth the word but can’t get it out. Nothing sticks. And it gets worse the more his lips quirk, skirting a smile, his smile. The real one, hidden and hinted and all the way to his eyes.

  He winks. “Trust me, I’m good at this shit.”

  “No, you can’t go and—you don’t even know him! Hell, I don’t even know him.”

  He shrugs. “Well, there you go.”

  “That’s not—don’t be stupid!”

  His grin hits, full tilt, both arms squeezing tight as he leans back and lifts me.

  My toes hang, dangle. I lay anchored to his chest.

  “But it’s fun being stupid,” he says.

  I clutch his shoulders. The room swishes with my feet, but his face keeps focus. Cheeks wide with his warm mouth, under laugh-scrunched eyes.

  How could traipsing through the city in the dark make anyone cheerful?

  “Why?” I ask.

  “I told you.”

  “Niles.”

  “We’re both from the neighborhood. Gotta stick together.”

  “Niles.”

  He grows serious. “I’m sober, you’re not. You can’t even stand without weaving—not that that’s stopped you.” He straightens, his hold relaxing. I slide, feet reclaiming the floor by inches, heart scattering beats against his chest. His smile scatters with them, catching on a whisper. “And maybe I’m only so much of an asshole.”

  “You’re not an asshole,” I say.

  “Yeah.” Unassured, disbelieving, fingers snagged in my shirt even as he slides back to give me space. His lips snag, too—pale, full, and catching the light. Soaking it in. “Do you want to crash here? Your dad really did a number on—”

  I lean forward to see if he tastes like his smile. He freezes, then pulls back just as my lips reach his. Almost jerks.

  The air tastes acidic, empty. His arms disentangle, and I’m alone.

  So neighbors who stick will kick out dads and search for strangers, but they don’t kiss.

  Or else they don’t kiss me.

  “It’s late,” he says.

  I hug my chest and feel his. “And I thought this day couldn’t get worse.”

  He flinches. “Kit—”

  “Skip it.” I walk toward the door without tripping. Mostly. Amazing what a steel ball in your gut will do.

  Niles reappears my side. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t
have given you that sweet—”

  “Find the technician and we’ll call it even. Here.” I stop and dig in my pocket for my transaction card. “I’ll give you the reds for his board.”

  Not like Dad needs them, he can stay with Annie.

  The card isn’t in my right pocket, so I try my left. My back pockets, the low side one.

  Then I try them all again.

  And again.

  “What’s wrong?” Niles asks.

  I smile. A real smile, that slips into a laugh. Then I’m doubled over, giggling, my chest ripping apart.

  “Kit?” High and wary, like I’m some alien thing.

  “They took it,” I gasp.

  He stares.

  “My transaction card. Those stupid—”

  Except it wasn’t the Brink kids. I’d bet all the reds I don’t have.

  It was Greg.

  I choke. Fall to my knees with the shreds of my soul.

  This is what I get for selling Yonni out. My just reward.

  Niles crouches close, hand on my shoulder. “Kit?”

  “You know I pawned Yonni’s pendant? The heart one that she loved? Used it to clear Dad with Decker, so Dad wouldn’t end up as dog bait.” Another favorite method of Decker’s for clearing debts. “I even got enough reds over to cover his room at the boarding tower.”

  Niles squeezes a half beat. “That’s what this morning was about?”

  I sit back on my heels to stare at the ceiling. “I had to clear it somehow, and I don’t have a job.”

  Except, yes I do. Mr. Remmings called this morning. Yesterday morning. Maybe the whole day wasn’t wasted. Worthless.

  I’ll take anything.

  “Just cover the tech’s room for tonight,” I say. “I have a shift in—” I glance at the clock. Oh god. “About five hours, and I’ll pay you back.”

  “No, you won’t,” says Niles. “Only so much of an asshole, remember? I’ll cover it.”

  “You’re not an asshole,” I tell the floor.

  He shakes his head and stands. “Say that when you’re sober.”

  The walls press in around Yonni’s skinny glass bed, heavy and gray. Metallic to match its metallic scent. A little sweet, a little burnt. The large slat of a headboard, coated in digiscreens and readouts, whirrs and blinks and monitors the tubes.

  My mother sits across the way, chair balanced on its two back legs. She holds a datadisc high over her head, between her thumb and forefinger, shifting as if to block the ceiling light.

  Yonni lies peaceful in bed, seems to have more color. The reprieve before the end.

  “Funny how the small things are often the strongest,” she says. “Maybe it’s the surprise, the power of the unexpected. You were unexpected.”

  “You mean getting pregnant?” I ask. It’s warm in the room, and I’ve sat here a long time, forever, and still Mom stays. I don’t get it.

  “That too.” Mom sighs. “I was very young.”

  This is probably where I should say, “It’s all right.”

  I don’t.

  “But I was thinking of your marching into my office,” she says. “Out of the blue after how many years? Ten? I never thought to see you again, and there you were—a force of nature. So much power in your hands, and you didn’t even know.” She clutches the datadisc in a tight fist. “You scared me. I’d forgotten what that feels like.”

  And here, I probably should apologize, but I don’t. I’d meant to be scary. Yonni needed meds—high-end, experimental. Dee wouldn’t help me, Greg had disappeared, and Dee wouldn’t say where, and Decker had laughed me from the room. I’d had no money and no help, and the only person who could offer both had dumped me when I was eight.

  “Would you really have told everyone about my connection to the Accountants if I hadn’t paid for the treatment?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  I’d have screamed it from the rooftops.

  I sit up, back straight, chest pounding. Bittersweet metallic in my nose and on my tongue, but this isn’t the medical room. It’s my room. The floor of my room. The carpet brushes soft under my fingers, scattered in blankets and pillows. Yonni’s thin wooden nightstand tipped sideways on the floor. Her bed looms crooked, caved in.

  Oh. Right.

  My head’s hollow, brain rattling as I scrub my face and take in the broken mess of my bedroom. I’d left the lights off last night, curled up on the floor. Knowing Dad, he probably started on the couch first.

  No, don’t go there.

  I push my hair from my eyes and crawl over to the bed. Pull the dangling sheet off the rest of the way. A long crack splinters the wood frame all the way down.

  Way to go, Dad.

  The sheet reeks of sweat and sex. I ball it up and there, on the floor where the fabric pooled, lies my Gilken digibook.

  The screen’s cracked.

  I drop the sheet for the slate. Press the thin power button on the outer edge. It’s sticky. The whole screen’s sticky and busted. It doesn’t light up.

  “Come on.” I lift my finger and press the button again, and again. “Please. Please.”

  This edition was a one-time manufacture. They don’t make it anymore. It’s annotated. A full digital collection with rare, unpublished articles. It was a one-time thing.

  I sold Mom’s bracelet with Yonni’s heart. I have nothing else of Mom’s—nothing that she gave me, that she owned. Everything else was lost or sold.

  The Gilken book was all I kept, and now it’s a spiderweb of gaps.

  So am I. Can’t even find his words in my head. None that fit.

  I sink to my heels.

  “Really?” Mom asked, when she found out where I worked. “So you did read that old digibook I got you. Did you apply to the museum because of that?”

  Yes.

  “No,” I said, straight into her eyes.

  A high melody chimes through the room. Yonni’s favorite songbird clock, tumbled on the floor with its nightstand perch. Busted wing, cracked beak, its large digit eyes blink from 6:59 to 7:00.

  Early tours at the Gilken Museum start at eight, and it’s a good forty-minute walk.

  I grab my uniform from the closet, a sleeveless knee-length green dress with alternating blocks of purple and blue at the hem. Green for the Gilken Museum, blue and purple signifying me as an official House employee. The colors echo in the faint glow of the medallion pinned high on the upper right breast.

  Kit Franks, reads the small digiscreen planted between the medal’s blossomed vines. Information Guide.

  I scrub myself raw in the shower, rush through makeup and the disaster of my hair.

  Yonni was into scarves. Loud, glittery, flamboyant. I dig through the closet for the one that screams least—blue, yellow, and pink dotted—pull my hair tight and wrap my head. It takes some finagling to fold the worst of the color out of the way, but in the end it works. The dress shows off my hips, the scarf trails neatly over my shoulder, the makeup covers the worst of my undereye circles. I look . . . almost human.

  I stand straight and smile for the mirror.

  An awful, gutted smile.

  I exhale and try again.

  “Welcome to the Gilken Museum, where the official record of our House was born.”

  The words come easy, airy, backed by a hundred happy repetitions. My reflection follows, relaxing into habit. Face, posture, tone. “Gilken first began his quest to create what we now know as the Archive’s datacore in the basement of an old digiwatch repair shop, which is where we’ll begin ours. Mind your step.”

  She’s assured, the girl in the mirror. Bright and sleek. Pretty, well-versed, can pull out a quote with the snap of a finger.

  She’s even kissable. Very kissable, I would have thought.

  My stomach twists, and I flatten both hands on
the counter. The reflection cracks, poise lost. She aches inside and out. Eyes shadowed, chin set. But it is set. Her shoulders too. Set to keep the breaks from spreading, but still. There’s a strength to her.

  It’s the primary law of practical courage, Gilken once said, in one of his more famous political commentaries. Surviving the weakest base means graduating from the strongest school.

  That particular quote gave the Prime Enactor his title.

  Yeah, well. Time to test it.

  Past time. The songbird flashes seven twenty-two.

  The living room continues the bedroom’s mess, bottles and glasses. I ignore it. Move straight into the kitchen to grab my backup transaction card from its spot behind the PowerFlakes box—Yonni always put stuff there—and my keypass from the counter. The card’s empty, but this way Mr. Remmings can pay me for my shift.

  I lock up the suite and skip the elevator for the stairs. Hit the lobby at a run.

  “Kit!” calls a high, rickety voice.

  I skid, narrowly missing Mrs. Divs’s outstretched cane. She’s in bright gold today, with a big floppy hat and fuzzy slippers. She always wears slippers, even when it’s baking.

  She ticks a wrinkled finger. “How many times have I told you about running in the lobby?”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m late.”

  “Can’t be worth giving yourself a heart attack over. Now come here, I want to talk to you.”

  “I can’t, Mrs. Divs. Not now.”

  “Yes, now.” She lifts her cane and points it at her open door. “In.”

  “I’m on shift.” I try to inch around her, but like all the ancient, she’s surprisingly spry when she wants to be.

  She slides her tiny gold self into my path. “Don’t lie to me, girl. I know you got fired.” She presses her finger into my uniform medallion. “And don’t think this fools me for a minute.”

  “My boss called me in.” And if I’m any later, there’s no way I’ll ever get my job back—prior perfect track records notwithstanding. Mr. Remmings doesn’t tolerate excuses. “We’ll talk after; I’ll come right back.” I step forward.