Moon (Glimpsing Stars, 1.5) (4 page)

After
work, I hurry out with the rest of the crowd. I hop on the bus, my mind teeming
with what I will say, how I will approach this.

I
let myself into Miss Adams’s apartment with the master key and wait in darkness
for what seems like an eternity. Unsanctioned free time is not productive. I
cannot stop my mind from reeling with unbridled optimism as I consider what
Mercury has told me. After an entire year of waiting for one slip, one
opportunity, could it really be that this is finally
it
? My chance?

Though
I cannot be sure, I have an idea that the government chooses one person from
each department to emigrate. It’s clear that everyone expects Vika to be the
chosen one in ours. Her mother is powerful, she is Matched, and now she is
pregnant. Pregnancy is a woman’s most coveted condition. Every healthy woman in
New Amana is expected to produce healthy progeny in three tries. If they fail,
they are gassed. If they succeed they receive, as a reward, a seat on a ship to
China.

What
could have happened to make Vika throw her only opportunity for freedom away? I
shake my head, try to clear it. It doesn’t matter what caused her to act this
way. What matters is that I act quickly to claim her seat on the ship. It must
be me.

Finally,
when every muscle is trembling with the need for action, when every nerve is
screaming at me to do
something
, I hear Miss Adams’s key in the door and
she steps in. Anxiety begins to churn deep inside me. Just the scent of her—a
tinny, dark thing—is enough to make me perspire. But I force myself to stand and
face her.

Miss
Adams’s teeth gleam in the dark as she smiles. “Ah. I thought you’d hear the
news. Not much stays secret from Mercury.” She comes forward and lights a
candle on the table. Then she trails her gaze up and down my body.

Miss
Adams is old enough to be my mother. Her chin-length black hair is threaded through
with strands of gray, and her pale brown skin is like crepe paper. When she
smiles, a dimple appears on her cheek like a punctuation mark. I do not love
her. I do not even like her. When I think of her vast and almost insatiable
needs, all I can conjure up is a deep sense of revulsion. But I need her in
order to survive. I need her if I am to escape on a ship.

And
so I do what I do. I’m not ashamed of it; I don’t know a single person in my
boots, with intelligence as shrewd as mine, who wouldn’t indulge in
any
activity—bar none—to ensure their survival. So while my mouth is kissing and
licking and tasting, while my body is doing what it must, my mind is elsewhere.

I
dream of the future, of plentiful food, of air with healthy levels of oxygen. I
will be leaving soon; my time has come. I must play my hand carefully now if Vika’s
mistake is to be my step up and over the wall.

Once
Miss Adams is sated for the moment, we get dressed in the near dark without
speaking. Then she offers me a cup of tea and we sit on the sofa. She waits in
silence; she knows why I am here.

“Vika
Cannon is missing.” The words from my mouth sound like they are being spoken in
a tunnel; just an echo and a far away meaning. I cannot believe they are the
truth as it now stands.

But
I watch in absolute wonder as Miss Adams nods, stirring her tea. Yes. Yes, she
is missing. Vika really has run away.

“She
was with a group of Rads.”

She
nods again and sips, her dimple appearing like a magic trick.

My
heart speeds up. I am so close. I can taste the salt of the sea; I can smell
the tides. “Were they all captured?”

“No.”

“But
you must want them. For information.”

Miss
Adams cocks her head to one side, just slightly. “We do. Vika Cannon’s group
has been under surveillance for a while. We have cause to believe a significant
number of them have escaped to a refugee camp near the port.”

My
hands tremble as I clutch the tin cup to me, hardly daring to hope. “Let me
help. I know her. I worked with her for over a year, sat right beside her that
entire time. I could be a great asset to your efforts.”

She
looks me over, considering. Then she sets her tea cup down. A small, thin smile
plays across her lips. “We
are
putting together a special team to find
the camp...”

I
stop breathing as I wait for her to finish.

“I
do think you’d be a good fit, Moon.”

I
exhale in a rush, smiling at her as she stands. When she walks to a small storage
cupboard in the hallway, my smile begins to fade. I know what she keeps in
there.

She
returns, holding in her hand an electric prod. It is used to subdue children in
the Asylums. But here, in her apartment, it is used for other purposes.

“I
think you’d be a good fit for the new team...but I might need a little
convincing,” she says, walking slowly forward. “Why don’t you undress for me?”

I
do as she asks. I transpose Vika Cannon’s face with Miss Adams’s and take
comfort in the knowledge that it’s only a matter of time before I exact my revenge.
For everything I have had to endure to ensure my safe passage, I vow: Vika
Cannon will pay.

Afterward,
I shiver as I make my way to the bus stop in the acid rain. Electrocution has
that effect on me—my body tremors for hours afterward. But it’s worth it,
absolutely. I’d do it over again, many, many times without pause for what Miss
Adams has offered me tonight.

I
have been assigned the lead position on the team that will track Vika Cannon’s,
and the other Rads’, whereabouts; the team that will put an end to at least one
refugee camp. All of those abhorrent relics of society—Nukeheads and Défectueux—who
should’ve been killed a long time ago, saved by deluded ingénues: the Radicals
and their helpers.

The
Rads and their pathetic underlings don’t understand the basic concept of
survival. Because of some twisted sense of righteousness, they doom hundreds of
us, healthy citizens, to a death we should not have to face. The refugees eat
food that could’ve gone to healthy citizens; they sneak on to the ships and
escape to China, souring our relationship with the Chinese government, making
life more difficult for the legitimate émigrés who go there. But now I can stop
them.

And
if—when—I am successful, when Vika Cannon is dead, I will be guaranteed a spot
on a ship to China. This is everything my mother had wanted for herself and for
me, her only faithful daughter.

I
stand shivering in the bus shelter but inside, my blood sparks as if the prod
has electrified it somehow. Before I travel to find Vika Cannon, there is one
loose end I must tie up. It has been a long time coming.

I
climb aboard a bus, letting its vibrations lull me as I ride into the gray heart
of Ursa. The bus pulls up opposite my mother’s apartment building. Clusters of
Nukehead children idle in the alleys, peeking out at me like crabs, only to
scuttle away into the darkness when I glare at them.

I ascend
the steep stone steps to Mother’s apartment and knock on her door. When she
answers, her hair is wild, her eyes are mad. Her uniform is rumpled and
stained; it’s clear she hasn’t washed it or changed in a few days. I wonder
what she’s been telling the people at work. Surely she hasn’t been going in in
this condition; she would’ve been reported by now.

She
grasps my arm and pulls me in, locking the door after us. I do not know why she
bothers; everyone has a master key they can use to gain access to any apartment
at any time.

“Is
there any more news? Do they have a spot on a ship for me?” Mother asks, her
eyes darting around my face. There is no stillness about her anymore—every
muscle twitches, even when it is supposed to be at rest. Her apartment has not
been cleaned in some time; there is food spoiling somewhere. I can smell it. When
I leave here, it will cling to me for days.

“Yes.”
I peel her fingers off me, one by one, and step aside.  “It’s why I’m here. You
have to be ready. Wash up.”

Her
face breaks into a smile, her small eyes almost disappearing into folds of
sallow skin. Her hands ball into fists and she hurries off to the washroom.

My
mother thinks that, because I work at BoTA, I will one day bring her a magic
ticket to the ships. She does not realize that there are other considerations.
Considerations she happens to be failing. It is apparent with a single glance
at her that she is not fit to emigrate.

My throat
constricts as I remember her eager face, her fevered eyes as she’d promised me
that the day we spied on Neptune would be one I’d remember forever. I remember
her shining pride the day I was accepted into BoTA. I push those thoughts away,
imagining a box deep inside my chest into which I dump them and turn a key. These
are thoughts that must never be revisited. Today is the day I bid goodbye to
them all.

I
wait a moment to make sure my mother is fully engaged, and then I stride to the
telephone. It is the same one I’d used to call the information line about
Neptune five years ago. My mother had stood eagerly beside me then, her hand
clamped on my skin, infusing me with her strength and sureness.

I
push the button and wait.

“Name
of dissident.”

“This
is Moon Stewart of BoTA requesting an emergency arrest for Venus Stewart.”

“Certainly,
Miss Stewart. Her crime?”

“Insanity.”

“Noted.
The Escorts are on their way. Thank you for your service to New Amana.”

I
put the phone gently back in its cradle and sit on the sofa to wait.

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A
huge fan of spooky stuff
and shoes, S.K. Falls enjoys alternately hitting up the outlet malls and
historic graveyards in Charleston, SC where she lives and imbibes coffee. Her
husband and two small children seem not to mind when she hastily scribbles
novel lines on stray limbs in the absence of notepads.

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World
of Shell and Bone
(Glimpsing Stars, book 1)

Possession
(Fevered Souls, Episode 1)

Secret for a Song