by Brindi Quinn
“Hm. That’s good. And Nero would ALSO like an explanation as to where you were last night.”
Tide’s throat caught itself a second time. There was no way she could use Y as an excuse again.
“I was . . .” started Tide.
“You were?” said the lawyer, ever drumming.
“At the . . .”
“The?”
“Uh . . . Roof! I was at the . . . I was on the roof.”
The lawyer cocked his head. “What?” he said, amused. “You can’t be serious. The air’s hardly breathable up there.”
“No, sir. Not MY roof. I was on Y’s roof. In the garden.”
The Lawyer wasn’t convinced. “You left the apartment by yourself?” he said dryly. “How did you manage that? Do you even know how to use the lift?”
Tide found the question incredibly out of place. “What?” she said. “Of course I do.”
“Oh, really? Fine. We’re just going to have to tighten that leash of yours. I’ll speak to the lift keeper myself to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
That was the exact opposite of what Tide needed to happen. No lift meant no access to street level. No dome. No hunting. No Jobe. No Rye. Tide grew desperate.
“But Dad said I could go to Y’s sometimes!” she whined.
The lawyer glanced at his wristwatch. “Oh?”
“Yeah! On my birthday he told me I could leave! You can’t just go back on his word!” It was the truth. Tide remembered the conversation vividly. ‘You may go freely.’ – When she’d asked permission to visit Y’s, those had been his words. “Ask him! He’ll tell you it’s okay! Y even said he went to her unit to look for me yesterday, so that means he expected me to be there, right? Because he thinks it’s okay. Please . . . at least ASK him.”
The lawyer’s frown deepened. “Your father doesn’t know what’s best for his public image. After the death of your mother, it’s been imperative to maintain good standing, especially under the disagreeable circumstances under which she passed.”
Tide reviled the technical way he referred to her mother’s death. Fearing some sort of unintentional backtalk, she looked to the clock yet again. It was now three minutes past her appointment time. She had to get the lawyer out before Jobe got fed up and tried to send her a fax. If that happened, the creaky machine was sure to betray her.
Her lawyer was saying, “I suppose I’ll wait here, then, until Y comes so that I can verify-”
“NO! I mean, uh, I was thinking of a shower before she comes.”
“A shower?” The lawyer’s forehead folded. “But aren’t you already in attire for her?”
How the young girl thought that she could use her meager persuasion skills on an affluent lawyer was something even she couldn’t reasonably explain, but there was one thing she knew to be true more than anything: She couldn’t have her freedom taken away again. No matter how sparse it was, she couldn’t lose it. That was why, although it was doomed, she had to try her hardest. She straightened her face and looked the lawyer straight in the eye.
“Well, yes,” she lied. “But it’s just that I feel so dirty wearing things like this. I can’t stand it for more than a few minutes. I really tried them on for fit only. I’ve actually been meaning to ask Y if there isn’t some alternative.”
And somehow, someway, it worked. The lawyer bought it. He actually bought it! Or . . . at least, that’s what Tide perceived.
“Fine.” The lawyer stood and moved toward the door. “Just make sure that girl doesn’t publicize any images she produces. And if I find that she intends to, I’ll have her moved to a different complex. Somewhere across town. Somewhere with fewer floors.”
“Of course! Y wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Hm. And, naturally, I WILL be telling Nero.”
Tide responded, “Sure. Er- give Dad my love, would you?”
“No,” the lawyer said plainly. And he left the room with another slam!
“What an awful person,” said Tide.
“I heard that,” said a voice through the door.
Tide cringed and waited for the sounds of the eavesdropping lawyer’s footsteps to fade away. In reality, the lawyer wasn’t an awful person at all. He was only trying to keep Nero safe. That was what was important. Though he pitied the sheltered girl, it was in Nero’s best interest to keep her locked away. To keep her secure.
Tide, however, had other plans. No sooner had the footsteps faded than she stole out the door, pack in hand and demeanor stealthy. Who knew when the lawyer would be back for another ‘check-up’? It was imperative that she use the time to fly as freely as possible because something in the space behind her ribcage was telling her that it wouldn’t last much longer.
Trying not to think about it, the huntress traveled the lift and met up with Jobe – who’d grown inpatient at her lateness but waited nonetheless – and together they set off for the mines in pursuit of their mark. Tide didn’t know it then, but there were two presences waiting for her there, and neither of them were the tartaroise.
“Your dad’s lawyer, huh?” said Jobe. “What’d he want?”
“To ‘check up’ on me. I just about died. I was so worried he’d stay! And I had to tell him so many lies, too. Now my karma will be all out of whack!”
“You don’t actually believe in causality like that, do you?” Jobe asked wryly.
Tide shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “Anyways, how’s your hand?” The limb was now wrapped in a discolored white bandage.
“Fine. After I pulled out the remaining barbs, it was okay. I can pretty much put pressure on it as long as I keep it covered.”
“That’s good,” said Tide. The word ‘barb’ freaked her out. She tried not to think of the pointy ends that had been lodged deeply into layers of skin, but the image invaded on its own and made her wince. Jobe smirked.
They traveled in silence awhile through the market district. The street was crowded and busy. Seconds and Mains and regular people walked on errands. The city’s gears cranked and hissed. The princess and her hunter kept going, and eventually they passed the café where Tide and Rye had met. Trying to be discreet, she searched the dusty windows for a familiar face, but she couldn’t find his. The princess suspected he might be hiding in the back, but it was just speculation because really, he wasn’t there.
The truth was, he wasn’t anywhere.
“So, your dad’s big invention,” said Jobe after a spell. “The invention that made him kin-”
Tide squirmed and Jobe shivered out of bliss, but he ultimately fought the urge to terrorize her. He continued, “The invention that made him you know what. What exactly IS it? I’ve seen so much about your dad in the papers these days, but they never really explain what it is he’s done. I know it’s a new drill of some kind that’s pouring all sorts of pollutants into the air, but . . .”
“Something to do with Mekanix,” said Tide.
“Of course it is, girl. Isn’t it always?” Jobe laughed scornfully. “Sorry,” he said, “but I really hate inventors. They’re responsible for most of what’s wrong with the world nowadays.”
“Huh!?” Tide took it personally. “How can you say something like that, Jobe? Because of people like my dad, the fuel crisis was solved! Without inventors, how would we-”
Jobe fanned her argument away with the back of his hand. “Sure, sure, tower-dwellers like you have it easy, but for the street-dwellers, life is shit. Even for successful people like my parents . . . it’s pure shit.”
“Whaa-?”
“Pay attention, girl. Let me get this out. If we’re going to be ‘friends’ it’s important for you to know where I stand on the Mekanix debate. Fair enough?”
“Ehh . . . Sure?” The young girl was too sheltered to debate. She feared naivety, but Jobe was in that sort of mood, it seemed, so she could do nothing but listen.
“Before the age of inventors,” rambled Jobe, “everywhere was like the wild south. You know, there’d be trees and grass and bugs and animals all
over, even in the city. You can appreciate that, right? Seeing as how aroused you get at the sight of a dried up, crusty old field?”
“I-”
“But since they started drilling and pulling up that damned Bororore, they’ve completely fumbled the natural ecosystem. That’s the only reason that Seconds exist too. I mean, who cares if Bororore makes tower-structures last forever? Who cares if it makes undertrains that can go on for miles on a single grain of fuelstone? Once they started messing with the structure of the earth itself, that’s when nature started to die. Mech cities aren’t the future. They’re the end.”
Jobe was working himself up – starting to fume – but he’d lost Tide at ‘Seconds’.
“Red,” muttered the young mouth of the girl.
Jobe wacked her on top of the head. “Geez! You’re spacy as ever, I see.”
“Huh?” Tide shook the spaciness away. “But Bororore is a good thing, right? You can add one gram of fuelstone to any food and it’ll keep forever. It’s like a miracle!”
“It’s like a cancer. Who cares if food can be preserved forever? If the natural order of things is out of whack and food can’t be freely grown, then what’s the point? By having food controlled in conservatories, the government is given the ultimate control over the people. And with that power, they’re surely dividing society into a strict class system. That’s why the black market and places like the Weighted Dome prosper nowadays. Street-dwellers aren’t given squat by the feds. They have to scrounge.”
Tide didn’t know anything about that. As an heiress, she failed. She knew nothing about her kingdom’s politics and economy, but it wasn’t because she’d never learned it. It was more like . . . she’d forgotten. There was one thing she was staring to understand, though. Something she wanted to understand more than any other thing. Her mouth, ignoring everything else that Jobe had said, moved on its own. “Bororore. Responsible for Seconds? Jobe, what did you mean? Were you just kidding, or . . .”
Jobe stared at the olive-eyed girl, curious by her interest. “Exactly what I said. That ungodly stuff that’s being mined from the center of the earth – it’s what’s causing people’s personalities to split.”
“You really think so?” whispered Tide. “That’s what Seconds are caused by?”
“Well, it’s not like Seconds were around a hundred years ago, right? Why are you so interested in them anyway?” Jobe was suspicious. “Tell me, Ink, do you actually KNOW any?”
“I . . . did.”
“Did?”
“Never mind.” It depressed Tide to talk about the boy who’d left her.
“Okaaaay. Guess I’ll be dropping that one.”
The conversation ended there. Since there was nothing more to be said, they walked the rest of the way in silence. Jobe studied the young girl. She was fretting over something. Fretting attitudes were exactly the type of things that called to the darkness inside of him. He could’ve easily made it worse. He could’ve easily scratched at whatever wound was consuming her. There were all sorts of things he could’ve tried, but none of them would’ve work. He’d admitted the flaw to her. She’d be able to look past any of those attempts, and it took the fun out of even trying them. One thing he wouldn’t do, however, was offer her console. He wouldn’t make it worse, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t watch her suffer just a little.
And suffering she was. Abandonment like that wouldn’t mean much to most people, but Tide had experienced terrible loss in her life. Loss far greater than she even understood, and Rye’s disappearance had cut at the pain that still resided in the bottom corners of her heart.
“We’re here,” said Jobe.
Tide hadn’t noticed, but they’d reached their destination. A large cavern, like a mouth, sat unnaturally in the middle of the storage district. Though it looked the part, the mouth hadn’t the ability to growl, but a growl was required, so one of the two presences awaiting Tide growled in it its place. Low. Rumbling. Hungry. The unheard growl of the demon pricked at Tide’s skin. It watched her with black eyes. It had come to steal her again. The second presence watched her too. No, the second presence did more than watch her. The second presence fought to contain itself at the sight of her because the sight of her made it feel like melting into messy pieces. It struggled to contain the anguished bellow that longed to force its way out in the midst of her presence. It was tormented, but it held everything back and after a long, pressure-filled minute, it said,
“Hi.”
The greeting startled Tide. She swiveled her head to see a thin, bluish-haired boy in a gray t-shirt leaning against the inside of the mouth. He held a pair of boxy glasses in his hand. He was chewing on the end of them and staring. Yes, his presence startled the young girl, but she didn’t cry out, for there was something holding back all responses. Upon locking eyes with the stranger, a throbbing in Tide’s chest had started up. A violent throbbing that rammed against her chest and tried to break its way out. Had it gotten its way, Tide’s ribcage would have erupted into a myriad of tiny bone shards that would’ve escaped into the upper sky. The girl that was Tide struggled to breath. She struggled to stand. She was going to burst. That was the way she felt. The presence of the blue boy was that strong. She’d never seen him before, but she could sense who it was even before Jobe said,
“Fos . . . ter?”
“Hey, Chuck,” said the blue boy.
“FOSTER! Seriously? I haven’t seen you in . . . DANG, BRO!” Jobe ran to the shallow-looking boy and gave him a brotherly hug.
Tide stood limply with hands at her sides and mouth slightly agape. Rye’s Main. Rye’s Main was just standing there, and Jobe knew him? And he was having an effect on her.
Foster didn’t look at Jobe. His eyes were stuck on Tide and filled with despair. Complete, pathetic despair. His shoulders were hunched. His demeanor was frail. Everything about him embodied sadness. He was the complete opposite of Rye.
If anyone was despair in a suit of flesh, it was he.
Tide said nothing because she didn’t know what TO say. She was at a loss. There was nothing she could . . .
The demon laughed and sent a new shiver up the back of Tide’s neck.
Jobe released Foster and followed his gaze to Tide. In lieu of his excitement over the sudden arrival of his old friend, he’d hadn’t given thought to just how awkward a meeting like this would be. Awkward . . . because he knew a secret. He couldn’t let the secret out yet, though, so the best option was to act naturally.
“Foster, meet Ink,” he said. “Ink, this is Foster. We went to . . . um . . . school together.”
“Ink,” mumbled Foster, and he winced. Jobe whacked him on the back of the head.
“So, uh, be friends?” said the hunter.
Foster was frail. He looked like he’d disappear at any moment. There was no mistaking it – this was THAT Foster. Tide could feel it – that throbbing – and it . . . muddied her. The young girl liked Rye most of all. Foster was Rye’s Main, so that meant they’d shared most of their life together. In some ways – no, in MANY ways – they were connected. They’d been born as one.
The throbbing reached a new high.
“What is this?” muttered the mouth that was Tide’s.
“Snap out of it, girl,” said Jobe. “It’s rude to stare at people like that. Close your gapper.”
It was no use, though. The throbbing continued. Jobe gave Foster a dark look. The hunter blamed the Main for Tide’s muddled state. He walked to Tide’s side and placed a calloused hand on her shoulder. He neared his face to hers.
“You’re alive, aren’t you?” he said under his breath.
And with those words, the spell cast by Foster’s presence dissipated. The throbbing beneath Tide’s ribs ceased. But there was still something left in its place:
Fondness.
Before her, she saw a sad, gray boy she didn’t know, but her fondness for his Second carried over unto him. It wasn’t quite the same – she didn’t feel jittery and nervou
s around him – but she did want to help him. She didn’t want him to be wrapped in the despair that so clearly surrounded his being.
“Hi, Foster.” She smiled warmly. “It’s nice to meet you.”
And just like that, a little of the color returned to Foster’s cheeks – they brightened from gray to dull peach – and the left corner of his mouth twitched into something less than a frown. Something that was almost a smile.
“You too,” said Foster.
Jobe observed stiffly. He felt mixed emotions about the whole thing. The darkness inside him wanted to scoff at it, but the other parts of him wanted to do the right thing: to separate the two of them immediately. Nothing good could come from this girl meeting this boy. Nothing good at all.
Tide was quickly returning to normalcy. Those strange feelings were shifting to ones of curiosity. She wanted to ask about Rye and what had happened to him, of course, but she wasn’t sure if the Main held for his Second the same taboo-type feelings that the Second held for his Main. And besides that, there was the question of what Foster was even doing there in the first place. Tide was sure it wasn’t just coincidence, but she couldn’t make head nor tail of his purpose there nor her reaction to him. Jobe knew Foster. And Foster was Rye’s Main. And Foster had a strange effect on Tide. And he was there for some reason. And Rye had gone missing. It was all so confusing.
But because of the secret, Jobe understood everything, and he strived to achieve naturalness.
“So, Foster,” said Jobe, messing with the discolored bandage. “You’re here to return that thing you borrowed?”
“M-hmm,” said Foster, listless.
It was a lame attempt at an excuse, but Tide had no choice but to cling to it. It was better than wallowing in confusion, anyway.
“Oh!” said Tide. “You had to return something, huh?” She wanted to ask about Rye so badly that it hurt, but she held it in. It was hard, but she held it in. “I see. So, you and Jobe are friends from school, but you haven’t seen each other in a long time?”
“A very long time,” said Foster. The corner of his mouth twitched again. The longer he stared into her eyes, the more solid he felt.
