by Harper North
“There’s a ton of EHC out there,” Sky says nervously, looking out the window.
My heart jolts. “Get back to the storage car. We have to jump.”
We run back and stuff our pockets full of more chocolate and jerky. I press the panel and the door slides back.
“Oh, this is gonna hurt,” Drape says.
“Tuck and roll,” I say, and dive out.
My body crashes to the earth and I land on bent knees, allowing myself to fall, tucking my arms and legs. Pain rushes in places I didn’t even know I had, and I tumble over on top of myself several times. I scramble to my feet and wheel around to find my friends. Everyone is mostly unharmed. The shuttle rushes ahead and eventually stops at the station a good distance away.
“We’re too visible,” I say.
The air is stifling, thick, even without the sun, and our boots tend to sink into the loose earth, making our trek doubly hard. Even so, we make it into the city in a few minutes and duck into a dark alley between two buildings. Metal ladders run the entire way up the face of the building, and a generous ledge with a railing extends outside each window.
“We need a better view.” I jog to the starting rung of the ladder and start to climb. My friends follow close. We reach the roof of the building, and from here we can get a good look at what living on the surface is like. We have to be thirty yards up.
“Wow, would you check that out!” Drape says, inching toward the ledge.
Several crafts go zipping through the air between buildings nearly as high up as we are.
“I never knew flying cars were an actual thing! Cars pre-Flip didn’t look like that.”
Lacy lays hand on his shoulder. “Easy there, Drape.”
The light pouring out of the hovering streetlights brighten the streets below, while keeping our roof concealed in darkness. I study the people walking up and down the street. Their clothes are all perfectly clean, wrinkle free, colorful, and the style is far from cargo pants and stained tank tops.
“First things first,” I say. “We need to find different clothes.” I watch my friends in amusement as they all examine what they’re wearing.
“What’s wrong with our clothes?” Sky asks.
“You look like a dweller, that’s what. Especially Drape, Lacy, and me. We’re covered in dirt, and Drape’s shirt has pit stains,” I say. Drape instinctively covers his armpits with his hands.
“Okay, so where are we going to get clothes?” Sky asks.
“Funny question coming from a scavenger,” Lacy says. “We steal them.”
With that, she joins me at my side and scans over the scene. I know what she’s doing. She’s scoping it out.
“What do you think?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer for a few seconds, then points. “There.”
I trace the direction of her hand and see a hover car, if that’s what you call it, parked in an alley between two enormous buildings. The building to the left catches my attention. It’s frightfully tall and narrow. It twists up, curving at the edges.
“What’s in there?” I ask.
“I don’t know, but we’re gonna find out,” Lacy says with a smile.
“It seems like it just arrived at the station,” I say. “There might be luggage with clothes inside. Nice, Lacy.”
One problem. To get there, we have to cross the street—a street that is filled with people, including EHC operatives, all heading home at the end of a long day.
“Well,” I say. “This should be fun.”
CHAPTER 8
We climb down the ladder to the alleyway. Across the street, the hover car waits, but pedestrians are all over.
“This will never work.” Sky says.
“We stand out like coal among diamonds,” Drape agrees.
“Really, Drape?” I say, smacking him.
“What?” He shrugs. “We do.”
He’s right. The thought that we could make it to the hover car unnoticed, even at night, is one of delusion. I wait patiently, studying the crowd from the safety of the dark alley. In the distance, an even larger group makes its way to us.
“Well, well,” I say.
There’s fifteen or so in the group, and they’re dressed much more casually. Though they still appear very little like us, they’re all drenched in sweat, and some wear baggier clothes. The women wear tight bras and sleek pants. The entire crowd jogs alongside one another, their eyes focused on the sidewalk in front of them.
“Feel like a quick jog?” I ask, crouching slightly as the runners approach. “Now.”
The four of us bolt from the alley and take up the rear of the pack, amazingly unnoticed. They lead us right to the other side of the street past the parked hover car. We split from the group, keeping our casual and steady pace to avoid drawing attention. It works, and we make it to the alleyway near the car without so much as a glance from the people on the street. Once it’s clear, we dart to the side of the car facing the alley. An overhanging structure provides us a bit of privacy from the main street.
I scan the vehicle, assessing the best way in. There’s a handprint scanner on the door, not that it does us any good.
Lacy doesn’t waste time. She walks up to the craft, looks around, and raises her elbow into the air, bringing it down to bash in the back window. My mouth drops and I hunch over, waiting for some sort of alarm to ring out, but nothing comes. Straightening up, I turn and cringe at the sight of such a lovely piece of machinery broken. It’s a sleek, shiny vehicle, long in length and incredibly narrow. Lacy rummages around in the back and pulls out a few pieces of clothing.
“Aww, sweet, there are clothes,” Lacy says with excitement. “Apparently someone did the laundry just so we could have pretty, fresh outfits!”
She tosses me a pair of blue pants that seems to be close to my size. I go and hide behind the car and empty my pockets of the food we stole. Dropping my cargo pants, I then wiggle into the new tight, borrowed bottoms. “Got a shirt for me?” I ask.
“Hold on, I’m looking,” Lacy says as she tosses the boys a couple pairs of slim, black trousers.
“Why do they wear stuff like this?” Sky asks as he yanks them on. “It’s hardly functional. They’re tight and uncomfortable.”
“I’m pretty sure their clothes aren’t meant for comfort. They don’t have to dig in the mines all day long,” I say.
Lacy tosses me a black shirt.
I sigh and duck down to remove my working shirt. In the mines we never change with the guys. The bosses don’t want us getting any ideas. Not that I want any ideas. Having babies and making more slaves for them is not something I have any interest in. I flick up my gaze and ignore Drape’s roving eye—no time for embarrassment now. As fast as I can, I pull on the form-fitting top and yank up the neckline, if you can call it a neckline since it seems nearer to my belly button than my neck compared to what I’m used to. I give up. It is what it is.
“Okay, everyone dressed?” I ask, snatching up my chocolate and jerky from the ground and stepping out from the back of the car.
Lacy’s ready, dressed in similar attire as me.
“Whoa,” Lacy gasps, gawking my way. “Dang, Fin.”
Heat rushes up my cheeks as Sky and Drape stare in my direction. Drape smiles from ear to ear. “Wow.”
Sky quickly turns again, his cheeks reddening.
“Stop it, we don’t have time for this. We’re dressed like escort guards.” I yank up the top as far as it will go and point to an emblem on my chest.
“Escort guards?” Drape asks, his smile falling away.
“You know, probably like bodyguards,” Lacy says.
“You see a bag or anything in there?’ I ask.
Lacy peers into the vehicle and pulls out a satchel. I walk to her and grab it from her hand.
“Everybody put your food in here for later,” I say, inserting my supplies into the bag. “We have no idea when our next meal will come and might need to ration.”
Sky and Drape
both shoot me sheepish looks.
“Uh,” Drape mumbles. “I already ate mine.”
“When?” I huff.
“I donno,” He shrugs. “Maybe on the roof?”
I look to Sky. He only turns his body and looks away.
“Do you have any left, Lacy?”
She produces the chocolate and jerky and hands them to me. “Yeah, but only because it made my stomach hurt.” She glares at Drape and Sky. “But I’m not sharing later with these two pigs.”
“Stop!” a man’s voice echoes through the alley.
I nearly drop the bag as my heart leaps. A man and a woman with pistols pointed our way strut toward us. My first instinct is to bolt, but I don’t want to get shot. They’re dressed similarly to us, but their clothes appear closer to uniforms, and the woman’s isn’t so low cut.
“Whoa, what’s the problem?” Lacy asks casually, playing off whatever the guards believe they just saw. Over the years, she’s developed a quick wit which helps her get out of jams. She had to.
“The problem?” the woman sneers. “We just saw you stealing from the back of that hover car!”
“What? No.” Lacy gestures to the vehicle. “This is mine. I lost my key card and had to bust in the back window.”
They’re not buying it. I could have told Lacy they wouldn’t, but I guess she didn't realize the car has a handprint scanner. They don’t use key cards like we do in the technically-neglected underground.
“Lacy…” I grumble, releasing the bag and raising my hands up. My mind gets to work formulating an escape.
“Hands up, right now!” the man shouts.
Everyone obeys, but my friends are giving me the eye. Pleading for me to make a move. It’s like they just don’t get it. Sure, I’m modified now, but so is everyone else up here.
I scan the alley behind our attackers, but I’m coming up dry for a plan. Sweat pours down my right cheek, but I don’t dare move to wipe it away. This might be the end of the road.
“Hey! Easy! Calm down, you two!” A guy—I’d say, nineteen, maybe twenty—paces into the dim light of the alleyway. His voice is soft, almost calming, quite the opposite of his tall, muscular stature.
This changes things.
The dark-skinned young man wears a serious expression as he steps toward the guards, hands slightly in the air. His eyes meet mine for a beat, but he turns his head to the guards, running his fingers through his carefully trimmed, curly brown hair.
“Come on,” he says. “Lower your weapons. Look at the clothes they just threw down. They’re obviously homeless defectors.”
Defectors? What’s that? I glance at Lacy and give her a tilt of my head to follow my lead. As the young man continues to argue on our behalf, I slowly start toward them, moving inch by inch, hardly noticeable movements at all.
“Being homeless isn’t an excuse for breaking the law!” the male guard yells.
The guy, for some reason, continues to argue our case. “I’ll get them to return the clothes, and I’ll pay for the window myself, there’s no need to—”
“Oh, shut up,” the woman says, scrambling for a comm. “I’m contacting the EHC station right now!”
“You could stand to have a little pity for people like this,” the guy argues, keeping their attention from us as Lacy and I creep closer to the guards. I nod to her, and in one swift motion we bolt in their direction. The guys follow our lead. I grab the man, and she lunges for the woman. I snatch his weapon and throw the guard to the ground. Sky and Drape mow our innocent attempted rescuer down.
I swing around and find Lacy, weapon in hand, with the female in a head lock.
I train my gun at the male guard’s head. He freezes. “Get in the car.” I wave the weapon to the vehicle. “Now.”
We rip off their comms and toss them down. The devices smack the hard surface, and I finish the job by crushing them with my boot. Drape reaches through the busted window, fiddling around, eventually unlocking the vehicle’s doors. We shove the two of them into the third row. Lacy squeezes in the back, the pistol pointed at the woman’s side.
“You’re flying.” I direct the guy who tried to help us into the driver’s seat and scramble into the passenger’s seat, continuing to threaten him with the weapon. Sky and Drape climb in behind us with the old clothes and the bag of food. At least the two of them are good for something.
A part of me wishes I knew how to operate this vehicle, but I don’t feel like killing us all today just because I want to test out my new cognitive ability.
“Let’s get this thing in the air. What’s your name?” I ask the young man.
He frowns at me, but quite frankly he doesn’t seem nearly as bothered as the two guards. You would think that becoming a hostage right after offering your assistance would make you much more upset, but he seems calm.
“Elias,” he says.
“Elias, I’m going to need you to get us moving.”
He sighs and awakens the machine.
“Whoa…” Drape says nervously as the vehicle lifts from the ground. Nausea spins in my stomach. I gulp to push it down as the lights of the city get smaller out the window.
Pull it together, Fin. You’ve made it this far. Puking isn’t the best confidence builder.
“Wow! This is incredible!” Lacy says from the back row.
Idiot.
“What?” the male guard snarls. “So dirt poor that you’ve never been inside a craft? Surely you scum have at least taken public transportation?”
“Don’t talk to him, Lacy,” I snap, knowing their insults will set her off. The last thing we want is for these people to find out we’re dwellers. They can keep believing we’re homeless defectors, whatever that is.
“Where are we headed?” Elias asks once we’re hovering high above the nearby rooftops.
Sky leans forward and growls, “EHC station. Now.”
“I don’t understand,” Elias says.
I know what Sky has in mind. The most likely place for the EHC to take his sister would be the nearby station the guards tried to radio.
“Do what he says,” I say. “Now.”
CHAPTER 9
“Alright, but it’s a long flight. It’ll be a couple of hours,” Elias says, a strange calm in his voice.
“Well, step on it!” Sky snaps. “We’re losing time.”
Elias eyes me and lets out a frustrated sigh. I turn back to Sky, keeping my gun on Elias. “We all want to get to Cia. That’s why we’re here. But the authorities are already searching for us, I’m sure, and jetting across the sky at breakneck speeds will make us stick out even more.”
Sky flops back in his seat and groans.
“Be quiet,” Lacy orders the two guards in the back row.
My stomach lurches at the fact that she’s back there waving her gun at them. I glance at the weapon I’m pointing at Elias and lower it a little. Amazing how quickly we went from common theft to kidnapping.
“So, Elias,” I say, trying to dump part of my guilt, “why did you try to save us?”
One of the guards scoffs.
“You need to be quiet,” Lacy growls.
Elias ignores what’s happening in the back. “You’re defectors, aren’t you?”
“What’s a defector?” Sky asks. I shoot him a dirty look. It’s like my friends don’t get the importance of not revealing who we are.
“What, do you live under a rock?” the male guard taunts.
You have no idea.
“Defectors are citizens who have opposed the way the government treats dwellers,” Elias says, staying cool. I have no idea how he’s doing it. “Because of their political views, most defectors wind up homeless or cast out of their families or chased away by local government officials. It never felt right to me.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Well.” He pauses. “I guess since my parents were Noble class, I just haven’t had to deal with poverty. I feel like I have the means to help, so sometimes I do.”
“Noble class?” Drape asks.
A quizzical expression overtakes Elias’s face. “As in top level citizens.”
“There are different levels of citizens?” I ask.
The guards snicker. They must think we’re absolute fools, but I don’t allow it get to me.
“Yes,” Elias says slowly.
“What are the different levels for?”
He shakes his head, still confused. “Nobles buy their way to privilege. Private schools, the nicest neighborhoods, and an upgraded modification—both strength and intelligence.
“So if you have enough credits, you can be a Noble?” I ask.
“No, not necessarily. You also have to be genetically compatible with the upgraded mod.”
“Okay,” I say, my ears perking up at the genetically compatible part. “Then what about everyone else?”
“The standard strength upgrade costs less. If citizens have the money, most of them will use it to become Century class. But Tenant class is normal, able to adapt to the climate and withstand radiation. No upgrades. They’re the working class. You know, like, servants. Defectors tend to escape out of the Tenant class.”
That’s why we were able to one-up the train employees so easily. They were just third-class citizens. No enhanced strength or intelligence. The real question, though, is how I managed to get improved intelligence.
“So, if Tenants are the working class, what do Century citizens do?” Lacy asks curiously, she must be realizing that her genetic modification would put her in that class if we were not dwellers.
“Mostly law enforcement. Police,” Elias explains.
I instinctively glance back at the guards. They’re probably level two citizens based on their careers. I can imagine what they would think if they found out a bunch of dwellers had been enhanced right into their citizen classification.
“And Noble class?” I ask.
“The designated leader class,” Elias says. “The rich snobs.”
