But the stairs were colorful too, pale beige, with bronze designs. Nothing about it was man-made, nothing about Sonhadra was grey.
Grey was her color. It was her place. She was used to grey and murk, and smog, where the sun could only be seen as a blurry ball behind industrial clouds. She could hide within that grey and vanish, become a part of the world she’d been raised in.Why did my creator make me fall here and leave me?Her belly dropped further as she remembered judgment day.
A digital courtroom, her handler and her department watching from behind a camera she couldn’t see, the voice of the prosecutor, the condemning questions that went on and on and on. There had never been a time when she had felt more exposed than that day, even hyped up on drugs from being in medical for over a month. She hadn’t been ready, hadn’t had time to come to terms with what had happened, and hadn’t even remotely begun to heal before she was sentenced to theConcord.
“Did you shoot to kill William Ere? Was it in self-defense? Is that you in the video? What about this one? And this one? How long have you known that your father was involved in drug smuggling and sex trafficking? Why hadn’t you come forward before now? Why did you stop contacting your handler?”
The questions had gone on for hours.
“Is it true you only joined the police force to provide intel for your father?”
That was the question that haunted her the most... No matter how she answered it, it still wouldn’t be the full truth. Regardless of the threats, the brainwashing, the trust, and her own wills and desires, that question always stumped her.
Her calves burned but she kept moving forward.
On one hand, the truth was yes, yes she did join for her papa, but on the other hand, no. No, because she joined for herself, and before she became entrenched, being able to do some good was better than nothing. Being able to hunt down and apprehend criminals made her feel good at night when she tried to sleep. It was never enough to equalize the evil, but it was better than nothing. Even desk duty and paperwork made her feel like she was doingsomegood in the world. That she was more than William’s eldest daughter.
That was all before the police force knew the business her family was in, and long before they had intel about a drug and trafficking ring in their midst.
Her mama knew, knew from the beginning what her papa was, and wasn’t bothered by it. Some women prioritized money and power over humanity and decency. Mama had always been her mama though, and even after everything, she missed her with each bleeding beat of her heart.
And her sister, her baby sister, who was born with a brain defect. Yahiro envied her sister for grasping onto her innocence so tightly that even after she emerged into the grey world of Earth, she was able to keep it. William and Mama never sent her sister off, never abandoned her, never abandoned either one of them, and even in her darkest moments of hate, that knowledge always pulled at her emotions, always gave her a glimmer of hope that there was good amongst the evil. It messed with her head.
Because, after all, her parents were still her parents and never tried to be anything else. Not even when she joined the family business, and not even when she’d been caught.
“Here,” Sundamar’s voice broke through her thoughts and a hand filled with her orange, torn up jumpsuit appeared at her side. “You’re shaking?”
She took them with a nod, her pulse fluttering, and quickly put them on.I’m human once again.It was oddly satisfying to be back in her prison clothes.
“Thank you,” she said, righting the material.
“You’re still shaking.”
“My heart feels heavy.”
“Why? Is it engorged with too much blood? Light?” His misplaced concern was sweet.
“No, it’s a saying. I have a lot on my mind. And what’s on my mind makes my heart feel... spoiled.”
He nodded. “I know what you mean then.”
Yahiro turned to continue climbing, looking up and sighing at how far they still had to go.
“What’s on your mind that makes your heart so?” Quist asked.
She pursed her lips and wondered what to tell them. “I was thinking about the place where I’m from. It’s very different from Sonhadra.”
“How?”
“There’s a lot more people. So many people thatthat,” she waved her hand at the landscape, “no longer exists. It’s all been killed off to make room for all of us and even when that wasn’t enough to sustain us, we built structures far up into the air. My world is one giant ball of tarnished chrome.”
“How’s that possible?”
She shrugged. “We kept growing and having families, kept needing more and more resources and took those resources from the Earth. Eventually, even before I was born, we’d run out of a lot. Space travel was a thing, privatized though, and some years back Earth thought of a great way to get rid of a lot of its people.” She gulped. “I was one of them and that’s how I ended up in space—”
“—which brought you here.”
“No.”
