House of Gold, page 10
For a time Jamal and I wander the streets, our hands in the pockets of our coats. I keep track of each landmark we pass, charting our route back to our building. The people around us are a river of printed fabrics, more color than I’ve ever seen, their eyes glazed behind contact lenses. It’s like they’re all trapped in their own little worlds, just cognizant enough to navigate without running into each other.
Strangely, they appear to give us wider berths, parting for us like we might be contagious. Even their static becomes more cautious whenever they notice us. I wonder if it’s because we seem to be unusually tall.
I expect to develop a headache the longer we walk, but surprisingly I adapt to the press of consciousness all around me, and soon it doesn’t bother me as much.
Next to me Jamal’s amazement has evolved into wicked joy, the wolf realizing he’s been locked inside a pen full of fattened sheep. “Do you see it, Hondo?” he says to me. “They’re wide open. Colors leaking everywhere. I can read them like words on a page. What is this?”
“I think they fear us,” I say, concerned by how they keep moving out of our way.
“It’s not fear,” Jamal says, then laughs. “Don’t you see the colors? It’s respect. Something is making them conclude we’re their social betters.” He frowns a little as we come to a stop at a pedestrian crossing, his eyes scanning the crowds of humanity flowing around us. “This is why, isn’t it? This is why the Custodians used dead-space tech on us. So we wouldn’t see them like this. We were never meant to know what we could do. They were . . . afraid of us.”
I blink at him, shocked by how much sense he’s making. Looking back, there were many moments I almost lashed out in anger against one particularly sadistic weapons master who presided over us when we were sixteen. I knew I was stronger, I knew I was stronger than all the Custodians, but the dead space stood like an impenetrable shield, and I never had the nerve to test it.
I study Jamal and the hungry way he’s surveying the people around us. “Do you really see colors?”
“Not . . . precisely,” he says, squinting as if to find the right word. “It’s like seeing colors that shouldn’t exist. They are there, I can see them, but not with my eyes.”
“That’s not what it’s like for me,” I say.
“No? What’s it like, then?”
“Noise,” I tell him, “but like you said, I can hear it, just not with my ears.”
Traffic stops, and we join the flow of people crossing the road. Once we reach the other side, Jamal starts singling people out of the crowds and pointing them out to me.
“See that man over there? He’s upset. Someone close to him recently betrayed him. That one is anxious about a debt. And so is she. And the man behind her. And those two people as well. Wow! A lot of people are worried about debt! That one is probably sick; I’d go to a doctor if I were him. That one just did something illegal. Ha! You see those four over there?”
I look where he’s pointing and see four young people seated at one of the outdoor tables of a restaurant, a blur of dyed Afros and braids and golden designs painted onto bald scalps. I never imagined real-life people could wear so many colors.
“What about them?” I say.
“Two couples, right? But they’ve all been faithless to each other with a person across the table, and their partners don’t know it! Shall I tell them?”
“What? No!”
“Why not? I’d be doing them a favor. Maybe they could even have a foursome.”
I nearly smack the back of his head, the idiot. “Don’t you dare.”
His shoulders shake with quiet laughter. “Oh, Hondo. I think I’m going to love this city. Let’s buy something.”
I fail to stop him before he veers into a store along the street. A sweet aroma tickles my nose as I follow him past a glass door and into a pastel haven of baked goods. A woman in a white apron was slouched and glassy eyed behind the counter; I feel a panicked burst of thought from her as she awakens to our presence.
“Ooh. Surface cookies,” Jamal exclaims, leaning down to gaze at the tempting selection.
“Ca-can I help you, boss?” stutters the clearly nervous woman.
Seriously, what is it with these people? I wonder. What is it about us that’s spooking them like this?
Jamal points at a chocolate-covered muffin. “How much for that one?”
“Five shillings, boss,” she squeaks.
He straightens and fishes out the steel-plated money card from a pocket. “I’ll take two.”
“O-of course.” I watch her straighten out the limb of a scanning device on the counter. Her hands are trembling. “Can you please scan your code here?”
Jamal glances at me, then back at the woman. “My . . . code?”
“For your privacy filter,” the woman replies, her heart rate climbing even higher. “I can’t verify Scree with your filter on, so I need your code . . .” The poor woman’s eyes widen with fear. I can almost see the circuitry of her contacts. “Do you not have a code?” she almost whispers.
“Of course I do,” Jamal lies. “I simply don’t have it with me right now.”
The woman blinks. “I’m so sorry, boss. I need to verify Scree before purchase.”
From the way she’s practically wringing her hands, one would think she expects us to attack her and eat her face.
“This card has five thousand shillings,” Jamal says. “The cupcakes are five shillings each. I want only two. Why can’t you just take the money and give me what I’m here to buy?”
The woman shrinks deeper into herself. “Boss, no Scree, no purchase. I sell and I lose my job. Please. I’m sorry.”
I notice a sign on the wall behind her and almost kick myself for not being more attentive. Turns out we need a minimum of three thousand Scree to be able to buy anything in this store.
“Jamal. Let’s go.”
He’s not happy, but he follows me out of the store. And just as well. The woman’s heart might have failed if we’d stayed there a second longer.
“What the hell is Scree?” Jamal asks me outside. I shrug, because I sure as shit don’t know.
He tries again at a food vendor we encounter farther down the street. The man is initially excited when we stop by, but like the woman he becomes fearful when Jamal tells him he didn’t bring his code, whatever that is.
“Forgive me, boss. I sell with no verification, and I lose my license. Sorry.”
Jamal gets turned away from three more food vendors. At the fourth he finally loses his patience.
“Just to be clear,” he fumes. “I can’t use any of my perfectly valid money in this fucking city unless I have the right amount of something called Scree.”
The food vendor is a plump man who dyed his beard to match the swirl of colors on his apron. Similarly colorful holograms dance on the side of his food cart. He gawks at Jamal, his static becoming frantic, and I begin to think he might bolt at any second.
“Pretend I have amnesia and I’m relearning everything for the first time,” Jamal says in a less frustrated voice.
The vendor’s static mellows, and he breathes out in relief. “Amnesia? Bad implant or something?”
“. . . Something like that,” Jamal says, playing along, though I practically feel the shiver of disgust that goes down his spine.
“That’s rough. You’re lucky you’re alive, boss.”
“Believe me, I know. So back to the Scree.”
“My boss, you need Scree for everything,” the vendor explains, waving his grill tongs around with his gestures. “You want to buy it? Scree. You want a job? Scree. You want to sell things? Scree. Hospital? Scree. You need it like you need the blood in your veins.”
I sense Jamal’s thoughts racing. “And how do I earn Scree?” he asks.
The man spreads his arms as if to take in the whole city. “By being good for society, of course! Be good for ZimbaTech! Impress the Oloye! Do well in your job. Don’t be lazy. Work hard. Provide the best service. Don’t be late. Don’t complain. You see me? I was born with nothing, but I work hard, and soon I’ll have enough Scree to get a proper job, and maybe one day I’ll be uptown, like you! Or maybe I’ll be Oloye and have you work for me!” The vendor gives a belly laugh, like he just told a joke.
“That’s . . . interesting,” Jamal cautiously says. “But what about people with no Scree? How do they survive?”
The vendor whistles. “It’s tough. You ask your family if they have some to spare. Maybe your church or your mosque. Else try your luck with the skelem shylocks. They can loan you Scree for money, but if you miss a payment, they put you in a Hive. Not worth the trouble, I say.”
“Sounds awful.”
“Ah, but that should not trouble you, boss. Your kind never has to worry about Scree.”
“My kind,” Jamal slowly repeats.
“You know. Uptown folk,” the vendor says, like that’s supposed to be sufficient explanation.
Jamal feigns a self-deprecating smile, shaking his head. “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice. What keeps giving me away?”
The vendor gives a snort. “Everything. No offense, but it’s obvious you’re bodymodded like crazy. And next time get an alias with fake info. Better than showing nothing, because then everyone knows you can afford a privacy filter.” He considers the both of us, and I sense his static stirring again. “But how do you not know all this? Are you pulling my leg or something?” He looks around like a nervous criminal. “Is this a test? Am I being watched?”
I decide we’re done here. “Forgive my brother,” I say. “I think he’s still hungover from last night. Come on. Let’s go.”
I gently pull Jamal away, aware of the vendor’s eyes on us as we leave. I keep my senses focused on him until his static settles down and we’re out of his sight.
“I don’t appreciate you handling me like I’m a child,” Jamal says, shrugging free of me.
“And I don’t appreciate you putting yourself in danger with your questions. Are you trying to get noticed?”
“This is bullshit, Hondo.” We come to a stop at a wide central intersection and take in the vastness of the city; the traffic, both on the ground and in the skies; the lights and holos; the flow and ebb of a civilization we did not know existed until yesterday. “Something is very wrong with this city,” Jamal says.
A worrying glint takes up residence in his eyes, and I recognize it as the same look he gets just before he decides to upend the dynamics of a war game, to throw a wrench in the machine and watch as it falls apart.
Ancestors. The very thought makes me shudder.
“We should head back,” I say. He doesn’t argue, but that look stays on his face the rest of the way back home.
CHAPTER 6:
NANDIPA
I was not built for monotony. There are only so many hours a day I can stare out the windows, wondering if the next aerial vehicle that passes by will be Counselor’s. Only so many times I can watch in envy as Hondo leaves the apartment with Jamal to go and explore the city.
Yet over the next half week I find myself having to endure being cooped up while Adaolisa practically melds herself to the terminal in the apartment’s library. She shoots me down the few times I gently suggest we go out for a walk, telling me there’s still too much she doesn’t know, that I should be patient. My only saving grace is the hollow-body guitar that was hanging on the wall in the living room as an ornament. I pass many hours practicing my arrangements of jazz and folk tunes I learned back at the Habitat, but even that stops keeping me from stressing after a while.
I get it. I really do. She can’t help her compulsive need to control her environment and know everything there is to know about the people within it—what they think, how they see her, what she can give them, how she can use their wants and needs to her benefit. This is how she operates, how she became the power behind the chair back in the Habitat, and I admire her immensely for it.
But our old home, treacherous though it might have been, was a small universe with far fewer unknowns. Right now she’s trying to grasp all the threads of a city and its centuries of history, and I don’t need the mind of a Prime to know that this is impossible. I honestly think she might be panicking a little, but I respect her, so I don’t push.
On our fifth morning in the apartment, I rouse from sleep just as she enters our room freshly showered and buzzing with calm determination. We were slower to claim space for ourselves, so the room is smaller than the main bedchamber, with only a bed, a closet, and a chest of drawers, and we have to use the bathroom across the hall. The bed’s comfortable, though, better than my single bunk in the Habitat, so I’m not complaining.
I yawn as I stretch, watching Adaolisa wrap a white microfiber towel around her wet hair. “You seem . . . back to yourself this morning,” I remark.
Her smile is restrained but confident. “I have a plan, I think.”
Which is music to my ears because I’m done living in limbo. “Are we finally heading out into the city?”
“Soon,” she says, and I wilt a little inside.
“Oh.”
“There are more pressing concerns right now, Nandipa,” she lightly scolds me. “You should get ready for breakfast. I have a few things I need to discuss with you and the boys.”
I sigh, but I wake up and do as I’m told.
After washing my face, I put on an oversize white dress shirt and shorts with strings I have to cinch tightly around my waist just so they don’t fall. We cleansed our jumpsuits in the washer and put them away for when we finally venture into the city, but while we’re in the apartment, we’re forced to make do with whatever garments are in the closets and drawers. I think we look ridiculous.
We’re first to arrive in the kitchen this morning, and the freezer comes worryingly close to empty after we each take a box of frozen vegetables for reheating.
Jamal and Hondo, both in striped pajamas that achieve the mildly comical effect of being simultaneously baggy and too short, find us already at the dining table. The two boys would be almost identical if not for their different complexions and hair textures, neither as broad at the shoulders as David and Benjamin nor so thin they are gangling. Hondo gives me the barest hint of a smile when our eyes meet. I feel my lips twitch, and it’s one of those moments that pass between us without our Primes noticing.
I’m still . . . deciding . . . what I think of him. For the longest time I’ve known only his brusque edges, the callous smirks that sit easily on his sharp features, the undercurrent of violence barely restrained behind a cold-blooded gaze. But I’ve seen glimpses beneath this facade of a surprising vulnerability, a sensitive—
Actually, I think I’ll stop myself right here. I’m beginning to sound like those women in the serials who latch on to a man simply because he has a vulnerable side. Whatever softness he might possess, there is enough of Jamal in him to give me pause.
Adaolisa waits until we’re all done eating before she shares what’s on her mind. “Before you run off to do whatever it is you do out in the city,” she says to the boys, “I’d like us all to confront the possibility that Counselor isn’t coming back. It makes no sense that he’d bring us here only to leave us alone and unsupervised for as long as he has. Something must have happened to him.”
I was beginning to wonder as well, though it seems I have a much lower opinion of Counselor. “Maybe he ditched us,” I say. “He wanted to do so back in the mech bay, remember?”
Jamal gives a thoughtful hum, considering my words. “Actually, I agree with Adaolisa. If he wanted to make a run for it, I think he’d have at least taken his money and the documents for his aliases. He didn’t, which tells me he was planning on returning.”
“Fair point,” I concede.
“So what now?” Jamal says. “We’re running out of food, and we can’t buy anything in this damned city.”
“Which brings me to the other thing I wanted to discuss,” Adaolisa says, leaning forward and interlacing her fingers on the table. “Right now, we might as well be ghosts. We aren’t in any government database. We have no names, no dates of birth, no accounts, no records, nothing. I was able to insinuate us into this building’s security system even though it didn’t recognize our biometrics, but that won’t work everywhere.”
“It might not have to,” Jamal says. “People here pay hefty sums not to appear on the public social network, or the Nzuko, as they call it. So when people look at us and don’t see our details, they assume we paid for it. No one has caught on that we don’t actually belong here.”
She gives a shake of the head. “A stroke of luck. We can’t rely on an incorrect assumption to protect us forever. We need legal, proper identities, and I’ve arranged for us to get them.”
And here I was being a petulant child. I cringe inwardly at my own behavior. Adaolisa must think me foolish.
And I’m not the only one impressed. Beaming from ear to ear, Jamal leans back in his chair and folds his arms. “You’ve been very busy, I see.”
Adaolisa returns a weak smile. “Not all of us can run around a city knowing literally nothing about it.”
“You disapprove of my excursions?”
“It’s not my place to disapprove. We all adapt differently. I prefer to know all I can about a situation before I jump in. You thrive in the chaos of the unknown.”
“So you’re saying I’m reckless.”
“Are you reckless, Jamal?” she throws back.
He doesn’t answer the question, though his smile remains. “I assume we’ll need to be creative about our identities. We can’t exactly go around telling people who we really are. Whoever destroyed the Habitat is still out there, and they might be eager to finish the job.”
“Telling the truth would definitely be unwise,” Adaolisa agrees. “But any identities we create for ourselves have to be plausible. We can’t claim to be from anywhere on the surface; that would be too easy to disprove. Besides, we know far too little about this place to convincingly pretend. So the next best thing is to pose as immigrants from off-world. They are rare but not unheard of, and to be legally documented, all they need is for an officer of the starship they arrived on to vouch for them at the Citizen Affairs Office.”
