Shine Read Free Page A

the fish.
    I pulled the wi-mo out of my pocket, unfolded it. The translucent sheet overlaid the walk before me with a few simple icons and live feeds: clock, calendar, local temperature. My roof-of-the-mouth unit noticed the new machine and prompted me to link the devices for file transfer and load-share. I declined. I'd gotten the same prompt at home every morning for the past week. There was a new computer somewhere in the flat, one my father didn't want to talk about.
    The password , I thought. It's garden .
    He came to us with promises of dirt. I was outside of the city that day, checking up on the outermost ring of accumulators, but I saw the whole mess on the network once it was over. I saw it from every angle, through the beady eyes of two dozen different wi-mo cameras. On some impulse that I didn't quite understand, I brought up the most popular video now.
    Xiaohao strode into Little Yunhe Square, right up to the Administrators' Quonset hut offices. He wore the black skinweave favored by the Ecclesia--likely the first of his many mistakes--and waved his arms like an attention-starved child. "It's time to return to our ancestral home!" he shouted. Xiao had never been a very good public speaker; he compensated for anxiety with breathtaking pompousness. "The day is today! The hour is this hour! Follow me, and we'll raise Yunhe from new soil!"
    With each word, more and more of the square's homeless raised their wi-mos to record the madman's performance. Two security officers outside of the Quonset hut exchanged uncertain glances and advanced cautiously, hands on the butts of their pistols.
    "New soil!" Xiaohao cried again. "Smart soil from the Ecclesia, soil to reclaim Yunhe--the real Yunhe--from the ash. I'm giving this to you. We will built it together. Look! Explore!" That last bit made no sense; did he carry some of the magic dirt in his hand? Xiao went silent as something approached from offscreen. The camera jerked to one side, zoomed in on the Little Yunhe Administrators as they emerged from their offices. Papa, dressed in his trademark gray suit, took the lead.
    "Father," said Xiao, barely audible now, "I've brought--"
    Papa moved faster than the wi-mo filmmaker could follow. When the camera found him again, the old man stood over his son, who was crumpled on the ground clutching his face. " I'm giving this to you ," screamed Xiao, and Papa reared back to kick him in the gut.
    I couldn't watch any further.
    My fingers shook as I folded up the wi-mo. Could I really say that Papa wouldn't kill him? I'd winced when I saw the video for the first time, but assumed the worst was over. After all, Xiaohao hadn't been the first criminal beaten by our father, and Little Yunhe had never executed anyone before. My brother had come here practically wrapped in the flag of Ecclesia; of course Papa would show him hard justice, give him a week or two in the Whale . But he wouldn't kill his own son.
    Would he?
    I tried to call Papa, got no response. Then I began to jog. Xiao's words played over and over again in my head: are you sure? I think they might put me on a pike. I cut through the Little Jingjiang Tent Quarter, which was quiet except for a handful of eateries. The smell of fried onion wafted from solar woks--I should have been hungry, but the thought of food made me nauseous.
    The route through the Tent Quarter was shorter, but Jingjiang had suffered a milder disaster than Yunhe, and its detritus was stacked outside of every tent. Bookshelves, defunct televisions, stainless steel cages. Coffee makers, lamps, the stems of wineglasses. Leftovers of another dead town, clogging the veins of the refugee city. Twice I had to leap over fallen stacks of boxes, and once I nearly toppled an old woman selling reusable cigarettes.
    Finally, the ways widened and the tents thinned. A squad of security officers in old, weathered hardsuits stood along the border of Yunhe Tent Quarter; they tensed as I approached and then relaxed when they