I’m being followed. Why?
Ding!
The elevator arrived, and Urban ran inside. She pressed the 42nd floor, then hit the close button multiple times. With agonizing slowness, the door shut.
Why would anyone follow me? She thought of Angel’s warning. Is it her? Or does she know something I don’t?
Urban slumped against the wall as the elevator shot upward. It wasn’t until it dinged again and slowed at her floor, that her heartbeat calmed.
Glancing behind her, Urban quickly made her way toward the west wing.
“4200, 4201,” she read out loud as she walked down the tiled hallway. “Aha! 4202.”
With a swipe of her tatt, the door slid back. Urban quickly entered and locked the door behind her. She relaxed a little and took in her new surroundings.
The room was clean and smelled of paint. An air purifier in the corner filtered out the remaining fumes.
It was a room no bigger than her one back home but housed four girls instead of one. There was a window at the far side with a love seat in front of it, a sink and a mirror next to the door, one closet, a tiny foldout table, and two bunk beds lining either side of the wall.
Three of the beds had blankets, pillows, and suitcases stored above or below them. The walls next to them were already plastered with Key Opinion Leader posters.
She eyed the only free bed left on the bottom bunk near the door. “Convert to bed,” she instructed one of her suitcases. In an instant, it flipped inside out, regurgitating its contents onto her bed. The edges of her blanket, which contained programmed magnets, creeped across the bed where they secured themselves against the metallic bed poles.
She pulled out two of her paintings and a few photos from her suitcase and put them on the wall. Unpacking her art supplies, she placed them carefully next to the window, and an overwhelming urge swept through her.
Checking the time, she took out a weasel-hair brush and began painting the view from her dorm window. As colors slowly took shape on the paper, her heart lifted. This new life of hers was going to be okay. She just had to find a way to be an Artisan.
An hour passed before she completed the painting. She put her brush and paints away and went back to unpacking. She eyed her newly decorated wall. It was missing something. She pulled out the art museum ticket from Everest and hung that up too.
Wondering what he was up to, she was about to video him when two girls barged into the room, talking and laughing. They stopped abruptly upon noticing Urban.
“Well, who’s this?” the thinner girl asked. She was tall, with sharp facial features, thick eyeliner, and long dark hair. She wore a trendy metallic dress that clung to her perfectly proportioned body. Urban wondered what enhancements she might have hidden behind her golden eyes. “I’m Li Blossom,” she added.
Scanning Blossom with Gene-IQ’s software, Urban found the girl’s enhancements were on privacy mode. Urban straightened. “I’m Urban.”
“And your surname?” asked the other girl, pushing her way past Blossom. Her enhancements were obvious. The physical ones, anyway.
She had a round face with clear white skin, plump cheeks, enormous eyes, and a soft smile. Urban fought the urge to pinch those cheeks. The girl’s facial features were modified to evoke the same emotions from viewers as staring at a puppy or baby panda. The round helpless eyes, the soft nose—all of it a perfect mind trick.
Using Gene-IQ, Urban saw the girl also had a brain enhancement allowing for increased dexterity and fast response times. She wondered why her roommate needed them.
“What’s your surname?” the girl repeated impatiently.
Urban would normally be annoyed by the girl’s rudeness, but she wasn’t. Cute enhancements were the worst.
“Lee. Byronne is my father. And you are?”
The girl ignored the question. “Like the Lee who designed the underwater chain of shopping centers and housing units?”
Urban nodded, still fighting the urge to pinch those cheeks.
Panda girl pursed her lips. “You’re so skinny.”
“My parents have eclectic taste.”
“And I thought my parents were weird,” Panda girl said. “I’m Xiao Hazel.”
It was time to show Hazel two could play at this game. “Which Xiao?” Urban asked with a yawn, even though her palms were sweating.
“Xiao Yang is my father. He’s the industrial engineer who owns Park Way and the luxury hotel chains of XiaoYang, Inc.”
“Are you a single child?” Blossom wanted to know, still looking unconvinced that Urban was someone worth their time.
“I wish,” Urban replied lightly. “Two siblings. You?”
“Wow! You have two siblings!” Hazel exclaimed. “Your family must own a fortune.”
Blossom’s head nodded slowly in approval. “I have a brother. Hazel here has a sister. What do you do in your spare time?”
What is this? Twenty questions? But Urban smiled patiently. “I enjoy painting, studying ancient architecture,” she thought quickly, “and have recently enrolled in a martial arts course.”
“Architecture?” Hazel nearly snorted.
Blossom ignored her friend. “Martial arts, you say?”
“Jiujitsu.”
“That’s interesting.” Blossom cocked her head. “There’s a KOL party tonight. We have an extra invite . . . do you want to come with us?”
Excitement shot through Urban’s veins. “Sounds fun.”
“Here, let’s link,” Blossom said, extending her wrist toward Urban. “That way we can meet up later.”
Urban touched Blossom’s wrist with her own and saw their tatts light up in gold.
Hazel linked with Urban too.
Now that they were linked, in the corner of her retina display, Blossom and Hazel’s profiles appeared. Urban discretely pulled up her roommates’ landings.
Hazel’s avatar was an adorable racoon with giant innocent eyes. She had no sosh yet since she was seventeen. Her highest key word was fashion.
She was followed by many fashion-industry influencers, along with a few media sources. She’d even published several videos of her own. A quick scan of her check-ins showed her attendance at all the latest fashion events across the globe. There were also several promotions to what seemed to be her own clothing line featuring vintage formfitting qipao dresses. There wasn’t any info as to her other enhancements on her landing.
Urban expected the same sort of landing for Blossom but was surprised. Blossom looked very much like her real self only older, wiser, and sterner. There were very few photos of her or her avatar, but the few that were displayed were of her holding beakers and wearing goggles. She must have some sort of brain enhancements. Her key word was genomics—one of the most competitive words to get, since it was always a topic of interest in the Metropolis and among the scientific community.
“Wow, how’d you get a key word like genomics?” Urban asked, impressed.
Blossom smiled tightly. “Hard work.”
“She’s also working on some genetic-engineering research,” Hazel gushed. “Once her work is published—”
“My driver is waiting,” Blossom cut her off. “We’d better get going.”
“Ai ya so impatient,” Hazel complained. “Your driver is a machine. Don’t blame a bot for your lack of patience.”
Hazel turned apologetically to Urban. “We’ve just come here to drop off our shopping bags. But we’ll be back.” She held up several bags. They were all reusable mesh from Croix, the most exclusive athleisure brand in the world. Each purchase probably cost more than an autonomous car.
With their purchases tossed onto their beds, Blossom and Hazel left to do more shopping.
Once they were gone, Urban pulled up her own landing page, wondering what Blossom and Hazel had thought of it. Online, she was a beautiful redhead with bright-blue eyes. It was what she dreamed of looking like. It was nothing like her.
Her top key word was historical research, and there were lots of photos of her red-headed avatar posing next to pagodas, decrepit walls, and ancient Asian Federation architecture. Her check-ins included a variety of exclusive opening ceremonies for museums, the reopening of the Terra-Cotta Army, the restoration of the Great Wall, and several other big-name events.
Her own series of vlogs were pretty popular and had been widely shared, some even picked up by a few of the media outlets. Overall, not a bad landing page. Because of it, she was hopeful, come her eighteenth birthday, her sosh would be ranked in the upper 60s.
For now, Urban’s stomach growled loudly and refused to be ignored. She changed her retina displays to magenta, making her eyes pop, then pulled her hair into a loose ponytail.
On her way out, she noticed something on the floor. It looked like a badge of some sort.
Urban picked it up, then dropped it as if she’d been burned.
The badge was white with wispy silver letters that spelled SAS—Supers Against Soups. Underneath the title, in dark black letters, was the word member.
In the story her mother had read to her, the students who had murdered the last Natural at uni had been a part of SAS.
She stared in horror at the badge lying faceup on the ground. Whose badge was it? Was one of her roommates a part of the murderous group?
I’m going to have to be on my guard at all times. Especially when I’m in the dorms.
She considered flushing the awful badge down the toilet but thought better of it. Whoever it belonged to might come looking for it. Better to let them think she hadn’t seen it.
Stepping cautiously over it, she made her way to one of the many food courts. Lillian had told her the best one was at the center of a giant underground mall with exclusive access for PKU students. Her retina map led the way.
The center was huge—a labyrinth of restaurants, boutiques, tutoring shops, and XR domes, smelling strongly of cilantro and noodles. Consulting the maps directory, she pulled up all the food options.
There were noodles, pizza, fried jiaozi, traditional Chinese food, burgers, salads, bubble-tea shops . . . basically anything she could possibly want. And for the Enhanced, they could eat all they wanted with no weight gain. Fortunately, Urban had a fast metabolism and didn’t have to worry too much about it like some of the other Naturals in the Outskirts.
The place was abuzz with older students, freshly returned from summer break. Urban weaved through them as she followed her retina’s augmented navigation. The arrows vanished as she reached a restaurant called Lucky’s Dumplings, and she ducked into an entryway with stone dragons guarding it. She served herself fried chicken, steamed buns, and coconut juice before scanning her wrist to pay and grabbing a seat near the corner. From her vantage point, she watched the students.
Several Supers sat at the next table, talking and laughing loudly. Urban found this odd since Supers usually stuck to the north side of town where everything was bigger for them. It was the only part of the city specifically designed with only one enhancement in mind. Though, many of the upper levels of the Metropolis were Flyer friendly as were the underwater facilities—designed with Aquas in mind.
But at school all enhancements coexisted. No wonder everything is so big.
The Supers next to her also had wings—a combination Urban had only ever seen in XR. The Asian Federation made having more than one of the major enhancements that granted eligibility to one of the Eight Gene Pools illegal. These students were an exception made by the military.
Urban felt vulnerable sitting by them. One of them could take on five Naturals. What if the “no using enhancement” rules aren’t enforced here? What if one of them belongs to SAS? No amount of rolling around on the ground learning “defense” is going to help protect me against someone like that.
Supers had more than just strength and size going for them. Their resilient bodies could withstand extreme temperatures and take hard hits. They came equipped with night vision, enhanced sense of smell, lightning-fast reflexes, and some microexpression reading.
Basically, all the best enhancements were given to the military. Parents who couldn’t afford enhancements got these free if they volunteered their children for thirty years in military service with nothing but room and board paid for. Thus, the military was mostly made up of kids from the Outskirts whose only other option was to be a Natural.
But the Supers next to Urban weren’t poorer kids destined to spend their prime years in the military. Standard military enhancements didn’t include wings. A quick scan with Gene-IQ showed these Supers had brain enhancements as well. They were bred to be the military strategists and commanders that kept rival federations in check. They could serve of their own free will and get paid handsomely for it.
Urban finished the last of her tasty food and was almost back to the dorms when she got a ping.
[Everest: How are you?]
She wanted to tell him that she was blending in, that so far no one suspected anything. She also wanted to tell him about the hooded figure who had followed her. But she hesitated. What if Angel was still hacking her? What about the SAS member card? Could someone be monitoring her feeds, looking out for Naturals?
She decided it would be best to keep these things to herself until she could see Everest in person. Instead, she sent a generic update.
[Urban: It’s beautiful. Roomies seem normal enough. Tonight, I’m going to a party.]
A moment later Everest’s face appeared on her retina display in a video message.
[Everest: Hey, that sounds like fun, but ah . . . are you sure a party is a good idea?]
A prick of discomfort crept through her.
[Urban: I have to go to stuff like this to get my sosh up once it’s live.]
There, that was believable to anyone potentially hacking her. Even the Enhanced focused on their sosh, and there was nothing suspicious about that. They pinged back and forth until she reached her dorm. Bots were adding the finishing touches to Blossom’s and Hazel’s makeup as they jammed out to hip-hop.
Hazel noticed Urban. “You’re still coming tonight, right? It’s going to be so fun!”
“Party starts in the coliseum,” Blossom added without turning from the mirror.
Urban blinked. “The coliseum? Isn’t it closed until tryouts?”
“Not for students. This is like the prelim games.” Hazel smacked her lips. “Why do tryouts have to be so far away? I wish I could apply for the team right now. Are you auditioning, Urban?”
“Uh, maybe next year.”
“See, Hazel? No one tries out their first year,” Blossom admonished. “Usually only fourth years make the team. Anyway, this party’s sponsored by the Inceptors, and they get what they want, if you know what I mean.”
Urban didn’t know what she meant, but she could guess. If the Inceptor House was sponsoring the event, they’d used some heavy influencing skills to get it approved. She thought about her rules from Mother: avoid the Games and avoid Inceptors.
Her heart spasmed at the thought of how dangerous it would be if she encountered more Inceptors. Was it worth the risk?
But if she didn’t go, she’d miss out on a prime opportunity to meet top influencers. To avoid being discovered, she had to get a high sosh, and she wasn’t going to do that if she passed over the best, and potentially only, invite she got.
Curfew didn’t officially kick in until tomorrow, when school officially started. SCA would have no reason to alert Mother. She’d never know.
“Give me your dress for the after-party,” Blossom said to her. “It’s way too fancy for the Games, and I’ll have my driver bring it when he comes to pick us up.”
Urban nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
Games, here I come.