anything to de-stabilize the Prag government, they get to reunite with their kid. Ditto for the repos. Behave, and you’ll get to meet your parents when you’re sixteen. Rock the boat and . . . My throat tightens. “You can’t—”
He steps closer so we are mere inches apart and I have to look up at him. “I can and I will. Don’t push me, Jax. You have potential, abilities Amerada needs if we’re going to rebuild our population and increase our food production. You’re a five-percenter. I’ve cut you a lot of slack because of it. However, if you set one foot—one toe —out of line from here on out, I will deny you the opportunity to participate in Reunion Day. Do not doubt it.”
His mouth is set in a grim line and a blood vessel pulses below his bony jaw. I’m getting a crick in my neck, but I can’t look away. “I don’t, sir.” It dawns on me that he isn’t taking Reunion Day away—yet. “My punishment?” Probably massive demerits. I’ll be churning the biodegradable nappies from the nursery into the compost heap all week and confined to my room when not serving, but I can live with that. I have before.
“To be decided,” he says. “You’ll be informed when I’ve made my decision.”
“Thank you, Proctor Fonner.”
“From here on out, do your thinking in the lab.” He turns to the window; I’m dismissed.
In the anteroom, an AC I don’t know is reporting the theft of a ring to Proctor Fonner’s aide. There’s been a rash of petty thefts recently and Proctor Fonner has admonished us as a group, directing the guilty party to come forward so “the fabric of our communal life can be mended.” I’m grateful now that he didn’t steal my Reunion Day and I jump into the elevator before he can change his mind.
Chapter Two
So relieved I feel like I’m floating, I collect my feather from Halla—I knew she’d save it for me—and tell her what happened. She seems anxious, edgy, but I’m too wound up to draw her out. Telling her I’ll see her during Assembly, I take refuge in the dome. Walking through the doors that whoosh open after an iris scan, breathing in the moist, loam-scented air, I feel like I’m home. My shoulders relax. Even though I’ve lived at the Kube ever since the government repossessed me from my unfit or unlicensed parents, except for the couple months I was fosted out, it’s only in the labs or the dome that I feel truly at home. I was first allowed in the labs when I was eight, after tests showed my aptitude for biology and chemistry. I’m sure that stacked against geneborn students I’d be nothing special. It’s just that in the Kube, where all the kids are nats—natural-borns—I have some sort of freak ability. I think in chemical equations the way most people do words.
The dome is cavernous—a hundred acres—and I hop on a battery-powered ACV scooter to get to the lab which is at the eight o’clock radii if the interior entrance I'm at is at six o'clock. Passing experimental rice paddies, a citrus grove, and the new strain of wheat we’ve developed with a bitter taste we hope the locusts won’t like, I arrive at the lab, a building all stainless steel and tile. Leaving the scooter at a recharging dock, I burst into the lab waving my feather. “Dr. Ronan!”
“Where the hell have you been, Jax?” Dr. Ronan looks up from the slide he’s preparing and glares at me from under bushy brows. Wiry hairs stab in every direction.
He always greets me like that, even if I’ve only been gone a few minutes. “Look what I found.”
“I’m busy." I get his white-coated back and a view of his luxurious, collar-brushing hair, dyed a dark blond that might have been his natural color a half-century ago. Now approaching ninety, with long, fleshy ear lobes and wrinkles to prove it despite the telomere stabilization processes perfected in the 2020s, the hair is a strange vanity.
“It’s a feather. I found it on the beach.”
I can tell from the way he
He steps closer so we are mere inches apart and I have to look up at him. “I can and I will. Don’t push me, Jax. You have potential, abilities Amerada needs if we’re going to rebuild our population and increase our food production. You’re a five-percenter. I’ve cut you a lot of slack because of it. However, if you set one foot—one toe —out of line from here on out, I will deny you the opportunity to participate in Reunion Day. Do not doubt it.”
His mouth is set in a grim line and a blood vessel pulses below his bony jaw. I’m getting a crick in my neck, but I can’t look away. “I don’t, sir.” It dawns on me that he isn’t taking Reunion Day away—yet. “My punishment?” Probably massive demerits. I’ll be churning the biodegradable nappies from the nursery into the compost heap all week and confined to my room when not serving, but I can live with that. I have before.
“To be decided,” he says. “You’ll be informed when I’ve made my decision.”
“Thank you, Proctor Fonner.”
“From here on out, do your thinking in the lab.” He turns to the window; I’m dismissed.
In the anteroom, an AC I don’t know is reporting the theft of a ring to Proctor Fonner’s aide. There’s been a rash of petty thefts recently and Proctor Fonner has admonished us as a group, directing the guilty party to come forward so “the fabric of our communal life can be mended.” I’m grateful now that he didn’t steal my Reunion Day and I jump into the elevator before he can change his mind.
Chapter Two
So relieved I feel like I’m floating, I collect my feather from Halla—I knew she’d save it for me—and tell her what happened. She seems anxious, edgy, but I’m too wound up to draw her out. Telling her I’ll see her during Assembly, I take refuge in the dome. Walking through the doors that whoosh open after an iris scan, breathing in the moist, loam-scented air, I feel like I’m home. My shoulders relax. Even though I’ve lived at the Kube ever since the government repossessed me from my unfit or unlicensed parents, except for the couple months I was fosted out, it’s only in the labs or the dome that I feel truly at home. I was first allowed in the labs when I was eight, after tests showed my aptitude for biology and chemistry. I’m sure that stacked against geneborn students I’d be nothing special. It’s just that in the Kube, where all the kids are nats—natural-borns—I have some sort of freak ability. I think in chemical equations the way most people do words.
The dome is cavernous—a hundred acres—and I hop on a battery-powered ACV scooter to get to the lab which is at the eight o’clock radii if the interior entrance I'm at is at six o'clock. Passing experimental rice paddies, a citrus grove, and the new strain of wheat we’ve developed with a bitter taste we hope the locusts won’t like, I arrive at the lab, a building all stainless steel and tile. Leaving the scooter at a recharging dock, I burst into the lab waving my feather. “Dr. Ronan!”
“Where the hell have you been, Jax?” Dr. Ronan looks up from the slide he’s preparing and glares at me from under bushy brows. Wiry hairs stab in every direction.
He always greets me like that, even if I’ve only been gone a few minutes. “Look what I found.”
“I’m busy." I get his white-coated back and a view of his luxurious, collar-brushing hair, dyed a dark blond that might have been his natural color a half-century ago. Now approaching ninety, with long, fleshy ear lobes and wrinkles to prove it despite the telomere stabilization processes perfected in the 2020s, the hair is a strange vanity.
“It’s a feather. I found it on the beach.”
I can tell from the way he
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