17.6 grams flash dust
I HAVE NEVER seen so many genetically modified humans in one place before. Well, actually, I’d never seen a single Gem before the sands, but they fill the tents here. According to Gabe, their service in the cordons is part of our alliance with Ordinance.
The way I can identify the non-Gems is that the rest of us wear our terror like it’s part of a uniform. We all belong to the society of the soon-to-die.
But not the Gems.
“You resent them,” Dram says, following my gaze.
I empty my nutri-pac into my mouth. Everyone gets purple foil here, even Winn. The Congress must want to fatten us up before we become the glittering dust beside the curtain. I crumple the packet in my fist.
“Rye?” Dram asks. “You know they’re not here by choice, right?”
“Don’t ask me to feel sympathy for them,” I say.
“So they have a biological Radsuit and we don’t,” Dram says. “You want to hate them for it? Should Winn hate us for being Subpars—because we can survive exposure that she can’t?”
I give him a dirty look. “They can actually live here.”
“This isn’t living. Not for anyone.” Dram steps into his suit. Together, we assist Winn into hers. She hasn’t spoken since we watched Graham die yesterday. Her small body shakes as I draw her arms through the sleeves.
“I won’t leave your side,” I tell her. I have nothing to offer but inadequate words.
The first buzzer sounds.
“Quick, now,” Dram says, guiding her foot into Graham’s suit. We hurry to fit it around her. I tuck her doll safely inside. Winn stares at nothing.
Lenore would know what to do for her. The thought tears at my heart like a knife.
“You still with us, ore scout?” Dram asks.
I drag my thoughts to the pressing concerns of the moment—a corral and a mining sector and an impossible task in a furnace.
“Mere,” Winn says, her face brightening.
Mere whisks into our tent and gathers the child in her arms. “Is there a little girl somewhere under all this?” Winn smiles. “How about I carry you on my back like a monkey?” She kneels, and Winn clambers on, holding tight.
“I’ll look after her,” Mere says to us. “Go as far as you need to.”
My eyes lift to the little girl clinging to Mere. “Her doll’s name is Len,” I whisper.
Mere smiles. “She told me.”
Something heavy lifts from my shoulders. I guess Winn found her words, after all.
Reeves waits for us with his back propped against the fence. He wears Lenore’s tie in his hair and a smirk on his face. “We need to discuss our escape plan,” he says. “I feel like I’ve experienced all that Cordon Four has to offer.”
“Agreed,” Gabe says beside him. “I’m not sure how many more sandstorms I can outrun.”
“The flash wand is half full,” I murmur. “We need more dust.”
The second buzzer sounds.
“Let’s go find some,” Dram says.
I pull my headpiece on and push through the turnstile. I am back to weighing my freedom one gram at a time.
* * *
Our determination evaporates over the course of the day, until it’s all we can do just to keep moving—keep breathing—out there beside the curtain. Especially Reeves. He’s fading faster than all of us. From watching the scale at night, I’ve learned what 2 grams of flash dust looks and feels like. I made certain no one was looking when I dropped it into his bucket.
Freedom will have to wait. We’re barely mining enough to survive.
We come back from our assigned sector covered in sand. It penetrates our suits so that the clothes beneath catch the crystalline shards. We leave them outside the tent and climb inside in our underwear. Radiation poisoning comes in many forms here, so we must avoid exposure however we can. Dram crouches to seal the tent flap. He’s not wearing a shirt.
At Outpost Five, men and women dressed on opposite sides of a curtain inside the Rig. Here at Cordon Four, we just tear our suits off and stagger into our tent. No one has the energy to care about privacy. We have persevered through too much to die for modesty’s sake.
“Here.” Dram tosses me two foil packets. I’m too tired to ask who he swiped them from. I’m not sure the guards around here even care if Dram robs them blind. The curtain will take us soon enough. I tear into a packet with shaking hands. I’ve never been so hungry.
He drops a bolt gun on our mattress and turns to take his pants off.
“Where did you find a light bolt gun in a place with no tunnels?” I ask, ripping the second nutri-pac open.
“It’s not a bolt gun.” Dram tosses his pants outside our flimsy shelter. He turns back and my eyes stay too long on parts of him I never see. I study the words on the packet as if I care what vitamins and nutrients it’s supplying me with.
“You stole a weapon?” I ask. “What if the guards find out?”
“Says the girl carrying a half-loaded flash wand.”
I sigh and toss the empty packets on the ground.
My eyes stray back to Dram’s chest. I long to touch him, to see if his skin feels as smooth and hard as it looks. He kneels beside me, and I make room for him on the floor pallet. He lies down, and I feel every part along his side where our bodies touch. We touched all the time in the tunnels, but this is different.
His memorial pendants hang down his chest, green and gold. He should have a third, for his father, but Arrun Berrends was given no Burning Day. His ashes are out there somewhere, beyond the thin walls of our tent, swept along with the burning sands.
Under the cover of our shared blanket, Dram and I examine the flash wand. Our Radbands glow, pale green and yellow.
“We need 9.2 grams more.” He taps the indicator on the side of the reservoir. “We could go closer to the curtain—past the assigned sectors, where no one else has mined. There will be dust there.”
“Only one of us needs to go that far,” I reply.
I wait for him to protest. To say that I can’t take the risk and to announce he’ll be the one to fight through radiation to mine the sands we need. But he doesn’t. He just holds my gaze steady with his. I am Outpost Five’s lead ore scout. If anyone has a chance to find what we need, it’s me.
I’ll be the one to go.
The moment the thought settles in, a sense of peace envelops me. It’s as if my whole life has been leading to this task—a final test that will lead to freedom, one way or another. But just in case our weapon doesn’t work and we die out there, there is something I need to do at least once in this life.
I turn toward Dram, and he reaches for me. He kisses me, and my breath catches, like I’ve got a faulty Oxinator. He smiles, and I feel it against my mouth. I don’t need breath—not for this. I throw my arms around his neck, and he makes a sound, a hum and a sigh mixed together. I lose myself to his touch, his taste. I’m floating, outside myself, like Serum 129, only I’m aware of every sensation, anchored to this moment by Dram’s touch.
He pulls back, and I catch my breath. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” he whispers.
My eyes widen. “But I thought—”
“How could you not know?”
“You and Marin…”
His smile fades. “She and I aren’t … We don’t have that kind of…” He sighs. “We were just a distraction for each other, Orion.” He frames my face with his hands. “She isn’t the one I crawled into the tunnels each day for.”
His words unlock something inside me. I know the cost of the tunnels. Especially for Dram, squeezing himself through the neck of nine. Not just for cirium. For me.
This time, when we reach for each other, he angles his head. It brings us closer, closer than before. I’ve always been the one out front, leading him into the unknown—but this time I let Dram guide me.
He captures my mouth on a breathless sigh. I’m reminded of the first time I felt his lips, when we shared a breath outside the air cave. I saved his life—right before he turned around and saved mine. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve done that over the years. Surely I can do it again come the morning.
He pulls away to press kisses along my neck. I close my eyes and thread my fingers through his hair. “I didn’t know,” I say.
“You were distracted by flash bats and orbies and tunnel gulls.” A soft smile lifts his lips. “We were too busy saving each other’s lives to figure out what it all meant.”
“Then we should make up for lost time.” I let my hands wander the hard planes of his chest, the way I’ve been wanting to, and he takes my hands in his.
“We have all the time in the world,” he whispers.
His hands caress my back, slip down to my waist. My palms find the dip and swell of his muscles as he leans over me. We take our time learning each other like there’s no hurry, like his words are true.
Like this moment isn’t our last.