Pacifica, Page 2

  “At least your parents are having a good time,” Ross said.

  “Oh, they’re thrilled,” Adam grumbled.

  Adam’s dad was staunchly opposed to the Relocation Act and had been from its inception, five years prior. It was part of his Progressive Party mentality, according to Ross’s father. Noah Baker thought it was unethical to uproot people from their homes when those people were poor and hungry—the desperate didn’t make sound decisions. Ross supposed if the Shorelings, as they were sometimes called because of their proximity to the water, just got jobs like his dad sometimes let slip, they wouldn’t be so desperate.

  Noah supported what he called revitalization, not relocation—rebuilding the docks rather than sending away the occupants. It’s what the protesters, who claimed relocation was just a way for the government to kick out the poor, yelled and screamed about each night at the old hospital below the cliffline. It was a huge point of contention between their fathers.

  Adam, having finished his tomapple, picked up Ross’s and took a bite. “This morning Dad said there were riots as far up as the Oregon Coast last night. They had to call in the Armament.”

  “Nobody that far north can even apply to go to Pacifica,” said Ross.

  Adam scoffed. “That doesn’t mean they don’t think it’s wrong. People all over are protesting. Launch is only six days away. It’s only going to get worse until then.”

  Ross hoped so. Maybe the Shorelings would light something else on fire tonight. That would be neat.

  “We should go see it,” he said.

  “See what?”

  “The riots,” said Ross. Before the words were even out the idea had taken hold, rooting itself in his brain. He’d seen the people gathering at the old hospital on the news. The fights and fires. The chants they yelled at the cliff, hoping someone—his father maybe—would hear.

  It would be a hell of a lot more exciting than this.

  “No,” said Adam, seeing the change on Ross’s face. “No. Forget it. We’d be crazy to go down there. The place is practically a war zone. Especially after dark.”

  “Well, that’s very dramatic.” Ross rubbed his hands together, his wild eyes reflected in Adam’s wary gaze. “You know the broadcasts make it seem worse than it is. That’s how they get people watching.” He ignored Adam, who was now shaking his head vehemently. “We’ll keep a healthy distance from anything even remotely dangerous. I would go alone, but I’ve never been to the docks before. If I got lost … who knows what might happen to me.”

  “I know,” said Adam. “I know exactly what might happen to you.”

  Ross slung an arm over his friend’s narrow shoulders, causing Adam to almost lose his hold on the plate. “You know you want to see it.”

  Adam didn’t look up at him as he shrugged out of his embrace. After a moment, he swore again.

  Ross slapped him on the back. “That’s the spirit.”

  He was caught in the gaze of a woman with silvery-white hair, cut in a straight line across her forehead. Her dress was black, conservative, and adorned with a semi-ridiculous bow on her right shoulder. At the sight of her, Ross felt a familiar mixture of warmth and dread.

  She motioned him over.

  “Coat closet, twenty minutes,” said Ross quietly. “It has a street exit.”

  Adam nodded gravely and stuffed another appetizer in his mouth.

  CHAPTER 3

  MARIN PICKED her way through the debris and slush that lined the shore of Donner Cove’s abandoned northeast rim. The night air was thick and heavy, and sweat soaked straight through her threadbare sleeveless shirt. One arm remained bent behind her, supporting the bottom of a canvas pack filled with six jars of sloshing black liquid.

  With heavy steps, she climbed the sandy bank, wading through the heaps of gomi—plastic and metal trash that had washed up on land. It scraped the ankles of her taped-up boots, finally thinning as she reached the steep road that would take her above the cove. Boarded-up shops and small houses ran the length, some built straight into the alabaster rock, some sitting atop it, plaster fronts cracked from the pressure to not slide down into the water below. A few of the windows were dimly lit by flickering candle flames. Wariness of who might wait inside had Marin gripping the handle of her knife with her free hand and keeping out of the muted glow of the moon.

  Her eyes turned to the sky, peering through the film of smog that clung to the harbor around Sacramento Bay. It was the final brink before the stormy season. She could almost feel the thunder gathering on the horizon, prickling the back of her neck with warning. The summer had been long and dry, but that time was ending. Soon the rain would start, just a sprinkling at first, but tinged with enough acid to scratch her skin. The growl of the clouds would follow, like the starving rumblings of a giant’s stomach. Lightning would whip the skies, striking again and again, until one storm smashed into the next with no reprieve between them. By Christmas, even the night would be bright as day.

  Her life used to depend on reading the sky’s moods. Now, it was merely a habit.

  Her thighs burned as she climbed the hill. The sounds of the slums grew louder as she approached the line where the electric started, and soon the haze grew brighter, and yellow, and gave way to blinking advertisements for drinks and dancers and gambling and every imaginable kind of kink.

  Noram City, the great metropolis of the Western Seaboard. The capital of the Alliance.

  Once, this had been a place she’d visited with her father, a trading port for supplies for her people. A dangerous place, divided in half by a jagged cliff that separated the poor Shorelings who lived on the waterline from the rich who lived above. Five years had passed since she’d come here to stay, and now her feet knew the steps by heart. Left turn at the bar. A right at the restaurant with the skinned cats in the front window. The way became crowded and hot, and it smelled like fry grease and rotten things. On every corner, people begged for food, more than a few of them kids, with empty cups stretched out before them. She passed a boy she recognized from the library playing some kind of electric fiddle, and watched while a little girl half his age made her way around the circle behind him, picking one pocket after another.

  They stood in front of a tattered poster of a tropical island surrounded by blue water. In the corner of the screen a Shoreling family waved, looking happier than she’d ever seen anyone ever look. There was an electronic countdown over their heads that said “6 Days to Relocation,” but someone had painted over the last word so that it said “revolution” instead.

  Before she could pass by, there was a loud clang, and the power on the entire block shut off. The lights of the countdown went dim as the dingy streets were bathed in shadows. A collective groan rose from those around her.

  “Not again,” a woman said behind her. Despite the dark, Marin automatically combed her short, knotted curls behind her ear with her fingers to hide the black “86” tattoo on the side of her neck.

  “How long you think this one’s going to last?” came a sarcastic answer. “Think the kanshu are dark too?”

  Marin smirked at the term. According to Gloria, the wealthy above the cliffline had been called kanshu, or jailers, since the malaria outbreak. It was an old joke. Something about the people who made the vaccine keeping it under lock and key.

  “Course not,” said the woman. “There’s no erosion up there. It’s just Lower Noram that’s falling to shit.”

  Bitter laughter rose around her. The blackouts were becoming more frequent. The fuel shortages were taking their toll. The kanshu liked to blame this on the overpopulation beneath the lower part of the capital, that the land wasn’t strong enough to hold everyone anymore, but most of the Shorelings she knew didn’t buy that answer. More likely, the kanshu were just hogging all the power for themselves.

  Keeping her head down, Marin made her way to an old stone library, and padded down the steps to where a guard stood outside, fiddling with a handheld electric game. The woman was as wide as the do
or, and at least a foot taller than Marin. A faint pink rash surrounded her mouth. Acid burns, from too much unfiltered water.

  “You’re back,” the woman grunted, tucking the device in her pocket.

  Marin adjusted the straps on her pack, and the heavy glass jars clinked together.

  “Miss me, Frankie?” Her voice was rough. She hadn’t spoken much since she’d left, two days ago, and it made her more aware of her own thirst. Gloria better have some clean water left upstairs.

  The woman smiled, revealing several missing teeth. “Not really.”

  “You’re a terrible liar,” Marin said. “You cried yourself to sleep every night. I could hear it all the way on the beach.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” said Frankie.

  “I will.” Marin stepped through the door Frankie opened to let her pass. “You beat my score yet?”

  Three months ago Marin had found the game in the heaps of garbage—gomi, her people called it—that lined the shore. With spare wires and a new computer chip she’d taken from an old e-reader someone had traded for canned food, she’d restored it to life. Fixing things was more a habit than a hobby, and it kept her busy on the days she wasn’t cooking down in the cove.

  “Twice over,” said Frankie with a grin.

  Marin snorted. “She upstairs?”

  “For now.”

  That cleared some of Marin’s fatigue. Two days poking at a fire, stirring a pot, and dozing on a broken lawn chair had come with a decent payoff. Gloria would be pleased.

  The door closed behind her, leaving her in a dim foyer. She climbed the stairs to the right, knowing Gloria always took the high ground, keeping an eye out from the top-floor window. A few guards played cards on the stairs, giving her nods and calling out their hellos as she passed by. One of them reached out a hand, which she gave a short squeeze. He’d been security for Gloria since Marin had first come with her father, when she’d been seven. He’d never asked why she’d come back without him five years later.

  Hushed voices came from above, and when she reached the third floor she found the glass doors already open. Inside, a dozen kids curled up on blankets on the floor, ranging in age from thumb-sucking to knife-wielding. Orphaned Shorelings, whose parents had been arrested in the nightly riots outside the relocation center. Dim lantern light stretched a yellow glow over them, a gentle blanket on a hot night.

  “Marin!” A girl about six jumped up from the floor and raced toward her, jolting her from her memories. Her shirt was too big and her pants were too short, but her smile could rival a pirate’s. “What’d you bring back this time?”

  “Nothing for you, Lila.” From around the supply racks came a woman with corn-silk hair, thin arms loaded with clean towels. Sylvie, one of Gloria’s friends. Her northern accent was slightly different than the rough tone of the other Shorelings. Longer, gentler, even in scolding. Marin’s mother’s mother had been from the far north, and whenever she heard it, she felt that absence like a blade in her chest.

  Lila pouted.

  “Sit down,” Sylvie said, pointing to the blankets with the toe of her shoe. “I told you, it’s bedtime.”

  Before Lila could turn, Marin dug into her pocket, and pulled out a plastic figurine she’d found near the water. Most of the paint was gone, leaving the doll wax white, and a little misshapen from the heat, but Lila didn’t seem to care.

  “Whoa,” she said, turning the toy in her fingers. “Gracias.”

  Marin nodded as Sylvie ushered the girl back to the blankets.

  “There’s more of them.” Marin nodded to the horde as Sylvie passed.

  The woman hummed a quiet agreement, tilting her head toward two young boys with tearstained cheeks and black, clipped hair. “They came last night. Tim and Sun Lu’s boys. Said la limpieza got their parents coming home from the store.”

  Marin’s mouth formed a tight line. She’d seen the Lus around. They weren’t trouble. The City Patrol didn’t seem to care, though; they swept up everything and everyone in their way, claiming they looked like threats to Noram’s security. That was how they’d earned their name, la limpieza. The clean-up crew.

  Kids whose parents didn’t come home generally ended up at the library, where they stayed until their parents came back or Sylvie could find them another place.

  So far no one’s parents had come back.

  “Tell us a story,” called Lila. Marin narrowed her eyes at the girl, the bag still heavy on her shoulders.

  “I’ve got to see Gloria,” she said. “Another time.”

  “Please,” whined Lila. The others took up the charge, sitting up and begging. Sylvie tried to hush them, but it was useless.

  “The one about the whale,” Lila called, grasping the doll tight in her right hand.

  “The whale!” called another boy.

  One of the Lu boys—the older one, who had a neat scar running down the center of his chin—muttered something Marin couldn’t make out.

  “What’s that?” she asked. The other kids went quiet.

  “I said there’s no such thing as a whale.” His gaze stayed pinned on his lap, where he picked at his thumbnail. “No one’s seen one in fifty years.”

  She scoffed. “No one you know, maybe.”

  The boy peered up at her through long, dark lashes. She wondered how long he’d waited before he realized his parents weren’t coming back. How hungry he must have become. How scared.

  He was not the only one who had watched a parent disappear.

  “My dad saw one once,” she said. “Outside the California Islands.”

  The sea called to her from her memory, the slap of the waves against the hull of a ship. It brought an ache to her chest, a quiet longing that made the walls seem too close, and the ceiling too low.

  She swallowed the feeling down.

  Sylvie had set the towels on a rack of boxes and blankets, and moved to a cabinet beside the window, where she retrieved a glass jug, a purification filter fixed around the mouth. She poured half a cup and handed it to Marin, who nearly groaned as the liquid touched her lips.

  “What was he doing out there?” asked the boy. “Fishing?”

  Nothing edible swam in those dirty waters; everyone knew that. You had to go deep, past Noram’s nautical borders, to cast a net, and even then chances were it would come up empty.

  “Sure. Fishing.” When he snorted, she held up her hands. “Okay, okay, hiding. He’d had a misunderstanding with the Armament over a crate of whisky.” She stepped closer to the edge of the blanket, smirking down when Lila giggled. “See, they thought it cost something. He said it didn’t. How was he supposed to know it belonged to the admiral?”

  Now Lila wasn’t the only one giggling. Several others joined in, but not the two new boys. They stayed somber, cheeks red, wary they were being taken, probably.

  “How did he escape?” prompted Sylvie, taking the empty glass from Marin’s hand.

  “He plowed straight into a hurricane,” said Marin, slicing her hand through the air before her. “Winds lifted his boat clear off the water and shattered it into a hundred pieces. How did he survive? Standing on a plank, holding his sail in one hand.” She balanced on an imaginary board, lifting her arm overhead while the sea and sky swelled in her imagination. “But the worst of it…” She knelt down, bringing her voice to a whisper. “The worst of it he weathered in the belly of a whale.”

  Laughter erupted around the room. Even the boys in the back glanced at each other, cracking a smile.

  “He lived?” asked one of the girls, a small thing with fire red hair. “It didn’t eat him?”

  “How you think I heard this story?” Marin asked.

  “Where’s your dad now?” asked Lila.

  Instantly, Marin’s gut tied in knots. It had been five years since she’d seen him and she missed him, like she missed the open sky and the sea, and the gentle rocking of her boat. Like she missed her home.

  “Still fishing,” she said, strong enough to convinc
e herself.

  Almost.

  CHAPTER 4

  PLASTERING ON his best smile, Ross cut his way across the floor, stopped only three times for a pat on the back on his way to his mother’s side.

  “There you are, sweetie,” she said, as if she hadn’t just waved for him to come. She held a flower in her hand, a red, frilly thing, and immediately began fastening it to his lapel. “A flower for each citizen Noram will help through relocation. They’ll be announcing the first five hundred names soon. Exciting, isn’t it?”

  Although anyone could apply to go to Pacifica, those who lived in Lower Noram where the ground erosion problems had been the worst—who were running out of water and dealing with daily blackouts on account of the crushed pipes and broken power lines—would be considered first. Ross wasn’t sure how a flower was supposed to help, but it didn’t matter because in the next breath she said, “I’d like you to meet Ms. Roan Teller. She works with the public safety commission.” Across from her stood a stocky woman whose chest was busting out of the neckline of her dress. Ross fixed his eyes on her face, and adjusted his shoulders to accommodate the weight of his mother’s expectations.

  “Pleased to meet you.” He shook the woman’s cold hand. “I suppose I should be thanking you for keeping our streets safe.”

  Cue irresistible smile.

  Roan Teller gave him an amused grin, but the look seemed practiced, and didn’t reach her hard, green eyes. “You can thank the City Patrol for that,” she said, and Ross was surprised to find her voice familiar. “I deal more in project funding and management, I’m afraid. I represent some people who’ve made it their number one priority to invest in our continued safety.” She waved her hand. “Uninteresting, I’m sure, to a young man your age.”

  Yes, thought Ross.