I woke up perched on the edge of my sleep shelf, still holding my digital link clutched in my hand. The last I remembered, I had curled up with it, waiting for the all-clear.
I stood up to stretch. I was stiff, but it felt different from atrophy. I must have paced five terraspans back and forth in my unit last nox. It wasn’t as though I could go anywhere after Jeb left. During a sweep, no one was allowed out of their units, let alone the building, until everything was wrapped up. I was extra wired since I hadn’t gotten out for my constitutional before Jeb showed up.
Thank goodness for Zonk. I don’t use it too often, but last nox, it was the right choice. I’m still a lightweight, half a tab, and I…well…I don’t remember anything else. Thinking more clearly now, it seemed obvious that if the sweep went on that long, it was because they were still looking for…whatever…
If it had been Jeb, he must have gotten clear.
I refreshed the digital link to check my messages, hoping by some miracle there would be something from him. Instead, there was a hit on one of my news alerts.
Jeb never made it home.
His body was found on the Expressway tracks along the souvern route through the Jericho suburbs. I reread the article stub frantically, as though new details might appear at my insistence, until an eerily familiar stillness settled over me.
Growing up, Marya called me her little robot girl because I was pretty stoic. As a child, I didn’t cry very much, I wasn’t fussy. I have feelings, they’re just not very intense. I can’t imagine what it must be like for other people – there were an awful lot of very emotional girls in my Academy dormitory. Seeing a girl in the throes of violent sobbing over a boy who no longer looks at her the same way made me think perhaps I wasn’t missing out on too much. My mood changes like anyone else if I’m tired or frustrated, but when something major happens, my default response is blank. The feelings show up later after they’ve cooled. I don’t think about how I feel in a moment like this. Instead, my mind jumps to what I need to do next. I don’t know any other way to feel than the way I do, but sometimes, it doesn’t even make sense to me why.
I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. I could almost smell Jeb’s embrace on my jumper.
I tried to remember his arms around me, now knowing it had been the last time…and still, nothing.
No rush of emotion, no surge of tears.
Just a weight on my shoulders and a lump in my throat.
I knew one thing: I couldn’t face the Hive this’ol. Before I thought too long about it, I redeemed a septad’s worth of leave passes. A moment later, I realized what a colossal mistake that had been; without the Hive to distract me, I would have nothing else to think about but Jeb.
For an entire septad.
Because there are so many of us, the Conglomerate is fairly lax on Processors using leave passes on short notice, but once they are redeemed, leave passes will not be reinstated. Nothing could stop me from reporting back for service before my leave ended, but I would forfeit the time.
A septad without service?
Let’s make the best of it.
One of the benefits of being Marya’s little robot girl is that I don’t spend too long beating myself up for mistakes either.
I started small: I straightened the linens on the sleep shelf and retracted it into the wall where everything would be sanitized.
Next, I cleaned my exerciser.
Why couldn’t Jeb just keep the scrip?
He could have stashed it out in the barn if he were worried about Marya finding it.
Surely they needed it.
How did he even find me, let alone make it here?
I took all my apparel out of the wardrobe, meticulously refolding each piece and organizing everything by category of use.
If he hadn’t come in the first place…
He wouldn’t have died if I hadn’t…
I scrubbed the tile of the commode and polished the basin and looking glass.
Slow down, Clem.
That’s two of my four rooms finished in less than a chron. This is going to be a long septad. I felt the pull of my oculars, the ease with which I could disappear inside another world. If I’m not serving, I could still hop on the exerciser and watch a few shows – slippery slope!
You’ve started cleaning, you should finish.
I dug out the vacuum hose and attached it to the wall, running its suctioned nozzle along the base of every wall, under the furnishings, and along the grates of the air returns.
When I opened the workbench to reorganize my toolkit, I found the URL bar waiting for me. I had a vague flash of stashing it in a panic after Jeb had left.
He said he was taking a risk by bringing me this.
Why?
I turned it back and forth, watching the little sensor glow green at my touch.
What are you?
Answering my questions about the URL bar was not going to be easy. Digging online for anything too close to “Subject Number One” would get me flagged: URL bars were associated with rebellion. I can’t have anyone looking too closely at me. While I have confidence in the invisibility of my mods, I don’t need to take the chance of raising suspicion, especially now.
I stared at the URL bar a moment longer before storing it in the workbench.
Like so many on the farm, deep cleaning the reconstitutor is a chore that cannot be skipped. Even though the units come with a cleaning cycle, if you don’t take the whole thing apart and pressure wash the components, everything starts to taste the same. I want the flavor to be distinct if it all has the same texture. At this point, I’ve taken apart so many different models I could probably open a shop.
What an adventure that might have been: a little storefront in the Junction, maybe with a room above it. I’d sell some Conglomerate basics and offer repairs. I would have spent every septend on the farm, helping Jeb and Marya. I can only imagine how much harder it must be for the pair of them to manage now. I could outperform them at twelve, and that was ten solarii back.
My breath caught in my throat, realizing that it was only be Marya now.
I refocused on my task and finished disconnecting the various lengths of tubing that linked to the central stabilizer of the reconstitutor, dropping them into a sink full of sudsy water. While they soaked, I attacked the housing with a thick-bristled brush. Like anything that processes emulsion, the valves are prone to collecting debris. Once it starts to coagulate, it doesn’t dislodge on its own.
There aren’t words gross enough for what came out of my first reconstituter.
Besides, Marya would have never let me open a shop in the Junction. If I hadn’t started sneaking away, I might still be on the farm, restricted to the back fields and hiding in the attic. Looking back now, it must have been some instinct inside me to survive that kicked in.
Jeb and Marya didn’t own the farm outright, it was theirs under the terms of a “land grand-exception.” An ancestor of Marya’s paid the Conglomerate for a deed to five plots of land. Exceptions were no longer offered because the Conglomerate wanted it all back. On more than one occasion, agents came to offer ever-higher sums to try to buy the farm from Jeb and Marya.
I shuddered, remembering hiding out by the well for almost an entire sol because the agents were surveying the property to make a new offer. It was a small space, and I swear I always felt a spider in my hair or on my neck.
I understand Marya only wanting the best for me, but she was so shortsighted. She could only think of keeping me safe in the present moment.
But life is always changing.
Once I learned about exceptions at the library, I knew I would not be able to stay on the farm in the event of their deaths. There were no records to establish me as a member of their family, and no other relations could claim the farm. That meant the land returned to the government, and I would have nowhere to go. Most orphans become wards but somehow, Marya got me to their farm, but she would never explain how she managed it. She refused to talk about how she had done it but was explicit that I was not now nor was I ever to be registered for a Conglomerate identity. The trouble was, without one of those, I didn’t exist in the virtual world.
“You know, kiddo, this talk about Antioch has me concerned,” Pauly told me one of the first times I spent the nox in the library’s basement workshop. “I have never asked you anything personal, nor am I about to start; a librarian never pries! I do, however, feel compelled to point out that in order to enroll in classes and earn knowledge credits, you will have to register for a Conglomerate identity. Unless you already have one, that is.”
My heart sank.
“As far as the Conglomerate is concerned, someone without an ID doesn’t exist.”
I swallowed hard.
“It is rather common, I suppose, for Exurbers to put off registering children,” Pauly added. “Few can afford it and, sadly, far too many don’t make it to school age, let alone adulthood.”
“What would I need to apply for an identity?”
“Digital records that show you are who you say you are.”
“Any chance a librarian knows how to get those records?”
“If you were born in a Suburb or a center, you would have been registered at birth,” he said, his eyes twinkling again. “If there’s no record of your birth, we’ll have to use an Academic Identity request, which is exactly what they’re for. Since you don’t have any, we can use coursework to verify your identity. So, we just need a name.”
I abandoned picking at the loose threads on the worn sofa. I didn’t mind that it was shabby; at least it was a place I felt at home. I thought for a moment before deciding, “River.”
“River…how about…hmm, Mason. There are plenty of Masons in 31.”
I resisted the sudden urge to gag as one of the reconstitutor’s tubes vomited up a clot of milky beige pre-sustenance that splattered across over the pile of tubes in the sink. Having scrubbed the nozzles, I was now running a round brush through each of the tubes. Averting my eyes, I used the sprayer to do my best to break up the clot so it would disappear down the drain.
This is exactly why I do the deep clean!
Once I finish this, there are no other chores unless I take apart the air filtration system.
My mind returned to the URL bar again: Jeb said there was more to learn.
There’s only one person I can think of who might know.
And she doesn’t want to see me.
I can’t go out there. It’s my fault Jeb is gone, and I can’t bear to hurt her again. The first time I hurt her was more than enough.
For two solarii, I snuck off to the library at dusk and holed away to study. I worked the farmland as quickly as possible and slept as little as possible to have as much time as possible. Once “River Mason” had enough knowledge credits, all that was left before admission to Academy was a practical exam.
With Pauly’s help, I spent two lunerii on a project—a replicable method of the proxy relay I had set up to extend service to the farm. My innovation would extend Conglomerate signals, allowing them to carry one another instead of relying on a single direct connection. It took a lot of effort and required me to set up some tech on the farm.
I could blame the series of one late nox after another, but I got sloppy. I was halfway through my presentation to the examiner when I spotted Marya entering the library. Pauly stopped her before she came close to the exam room, and after a short exchange, she walked out. I still don’t know how, but I finished—with a perfect score, no less. Once the examiner linked my credential to River Mason’s identity, I flew out of the exam room, towards the desk.
“It seems your secrets have caught up with you, kiddo. Someone came in asking if I’d seen anyone matching your description. Said they were her kin, a little Jones girl. I won’t get in the middle of anything between you and your folks, but you should get on back home. I told her I had no Joneses in the library.”
“What makes you think she was looking for me?”
His look was answer enough. I remember feeling crestfallen as I turned for the doors, the excitement of my success overcast by looming clouds of Marya’s anger.
When I climbed out of the ravine on the other end, Jeb had been there waiting for me with a sad look. “I should have stopped you long ago.”
“You knew?”
He nodded sadly. “I didn’t tell her, though. She found out on her own. You left some tech in your room.”
“I was studying so late…how much trouble am I in, Jeb?”
He put his arm around me, leading me to the house. “She loves you too much to think straight sometimes. Remember that, will you?”
Inside, Marya sputtered with rage, nattering on about how dangerous the Conglomerate was. “After all we’ve done for you, you go and give yourself to them?” she howled. “How long have you been sneaking around?”
“I have been studying for three solarii - real digital courses, too!” Figuring there was nothing left to lose, I continued, “I was in the Junction to pass the practical exam, securing a scholarship to the Academy at Antioch!”
“You what? By the stars, child, what have you done?”
Only Jeb waved goodbye after I packed my meager possessions and stormed out of the house. That stillness settled over me, and I just numbly boarded the Expressway. I didn’t even stop to say goodbye to Pauly. I just stopped being Clementine and became River Mason.
I realized rather quickly how hard that was going to be. My new identity existed virtually, but I never thought about how to answer personal questions. My first sol at Antioch, in a haze of anesthesia, I was shocked to find that I would share a tiny, narrow room with a gorgeous Assyrian girl named Sefu Betenda. My cheeks still burn with the memory of how I stumbled inside, so taken aback by the thought of not even having the tiniest bit of private space.
“You must be River. Hi, I’m Sefu, but everyone calls me Bets.”
She was tall, lean, and strong with intricately braided hair. Her lips were full; her honey-colored eyes danced among the shells and feathers woven through her hair. I had no idea what to say, so I sighed and pointed to my bags. She nodded, and I busied myself unloading my few possessions while my mind raced through questions I never thought to ask myself.
Like any normal person, Sefu wanted to learn about the person sharing her space.
Once I had unpacked and stowed my bag, I didn’t know what else to do but sit on the bed. Sefu sat down across from me.
“So, your parents make a big deal about leaving you here?”
Of all the places to start.
“Um… no, they’re um… uh, dead, actually…”
“Dang, I’m sorry. I put my feet in my mouth every sol, I swear. I didn’t mean anything by it, honest.” I kept quiet. She seemed to think about something for a moment before lowering her voice, “Does that mean you are…undocumented?”
“What? No, I have an identity…”
“Of course you do, now. You must have one…but if your parents died, why weren’t you made a Conglomerate ward? Orphans don’t get placed with families. They’re put into the system. Everyone knows that.”
Do they?
“That is not what happened to me.”
“Where did you grow up then?”
I couldn’t pretend to be from somewhere I’d never been.
“I’m from souvern Jericho, Exurb 31. There are a lot of Masons out there and…I grew up with, um, family.”
“Oh, so they kept you under the radar. You’re lucky, Riv. Sounds way better than being a Conglomerate ward.” She looked at me knowingly.
The weight of the conversation hung between us, threatening to pull me under.
“So, what are your favorite entertainments? I can’t get enough of Death Match, but I am also unable to keep from bingeing new chapters of The Valtarans. What about you? Do you have any favorite programs? Maybe a boyfriend back home?”
I chuckled before I could stop myself, quickly regaining my composure. “Actually, um, Sefu?”
“Bets, please. If you don’t mind.”
“Bets, right. Look, you’ve got me. I am a Conglomerate ward and don’t want anyone to know. So, do you think you could not, um, tell anyone about my, you know, circumstances? I’m afraid of what people might think, and I must study hard if I want to be able to pay off my scholarship.”
“Scholarships take a long time to pay back, but I get it if you don’t place well. I respect you for saying something. I won’t ask anymore, but I’ll do the same if you keep an eye out for me. Anyone who asks me, you’re alright, but keep to yourself. That work for you?”
Turns out, Bets wasn’t so bad in the end. She became one of the most popular girls in our class. We drifted apart, naturally. Often, girls like that aren’t faithful friends, but Bets was surprisingly true to her word. I exchanged pleasantries with most everyone, had no social struggles, and no one ever seemed interested in my background.
I fitted the last tube into the housing and reattached the face that covers the whole of it when in operation. I slid it back into place on the counter and wiped everything down one last time.
I looked around my unit for something else to occupy myself and I felt the pull of the oculars again. Under their spell, all of this would slip away for a while…
Service or no service, you promised, Clem!
I changed my jumper for one with a hood, taking one last smell of Jeb before the laundering press steamed it clean. I picked out my newest mask and a fresh pair of gloves.
Without really thinking about it, I started repacking my satchel. I haven’t carried it on my walks, but I used it to keep a few essentials on hand at the Academy.
Am I going out to 32?
No.
Yes?
If we are, we’re doing it right.
I retrieved the scrip from the workbench. Jeb said to use it to pay for the Expressway so they wouldn’t know if I used it. I’ll still need to bring River Mason’s identity to get back into my unit, but Marya hates tracking, so I’ll have to find a place to ditch it along the riverbed…
Like Jeb said: be careful.
Cover your tracks.