A GEM died in this room.
Grief hollowed him out, his heartbeat like an echo in his chest. But as long as they were stuck here, he might as well start learning about the basement and how Agatha’s operation worked.
He directed Pixel to one of the bunks on the wall, as far from Juniper as he could get. She climbed into the bottom one, and he sat beside her, shielding her with his body. He fidgeted, finding the folds in the sheets. The fabric shone, well-made. The mattress dipped gently under their weight, as inviting as an embrace. Pixel wrapped a soft blanket around her shoulders.
Everything was nicer than anything they’d ever known in Reed’s hideouts.
“Why does she trust you around all this glass and tech?” he asked Juniper.
She let out a high, sharp laugh. “Without all this ‘glass and tech,’ we wouldn’t have Remedy, and we’d die. Are you addled?”
“Well, how didtheydie?” he asked, gesturing at the bloodstain on the floor.
“They stayed hooked up too long. It’s not Agatha’s fault. She’s busy all the time, doing important things before the gates open up,” Juniper said, her words laced with pride.
Nate inhaled slowly, steadying himself. Juniper spoke of the gates so casually, so matter-of-fact, that it had to be true. His pulse quickened at the thought of the huge gates lifting and what that might mean for all of them. “What happens when the gates open?”
“More people.” She rolled her eyes and sounded each word out slowly, as if Nate was a little child. “More credits. They’ll all want our chem, because it’s better than anyone else’s. The city will build nicer places here, and we’ll have somewhere fancy to stay.”
“What about the people who already live here?” Nate asked, trying to mask his concern. It’s not like Gathos City would welcome them to their towers. It’s not like they could grow wings and fly to the Mainland.
“They’ll have to make room, won’t they?”
People were already living ten to a room and sleeping outside in ragged tents. Nate swallowed against the dryness in his throat. He craned his neck to study the tangle of pipes and cables along the ceiling, wondering how far belowground they were. It didn’t feel right to be so cut off from the suffering above. “I guess so.”
“We’ll have fresh meat again too. Not gull or sludge-rats. Goats. Chickens.”
“I remember goat.” Even in Gathos City, fresh meat had been rare, but his mother had made a stew with it once a month. He tried to recall the way the spiced meat tasted so his mind wouldn’t drift back to the front room—to wondering what was happening to Brick and Reed. “I’m from the city too,” he added.
“I know you’re from the city. Agatha said your mother worked there in the labs,” Juniper said, suddenly all venom.
“She did.” Nate rubbed his arms, chilled. Agatha had known his mother? He’d never known anyone but Bernice who’d ever seen her alive. The connection made him ache, as if being here with Agatha made him closer to his mother somehow. “Did she say anything else about my mom?”
“No. Nothing else to say. She was one ofthem. One of the people who made us to hurt us.”
“We weren’t. . .that’s not what we were made for.”
Juniper’s teeth clicked together. She massaged the hinge of her jaw.
“She got me out,” Nate offered. His mother hadn’t been like the rest of them. She couldn’t have been.
“She gotyouout. That’s why you don’t know.” Juniper’s nostrils flared. “You don’t know a thing. Don’t think you’re special just because you got to have a mother.”
Guilt rose in Nate like sludge at high tide. It had never occurred to him that his parents had left others behind when they’d smuggled him out of the city or that other GEMs had grown up without a parent at all. His hand drifted to find Pixel’s—and he squeezed her small fingers gently, wishing he could make up for all the ways she’d been wronged.
The relentless stress of the day hummed in his bones.
Juniper blew her hair away from her face and put her hands on her hips, all the stormy anger already gone. “Do you have a real life here? Do you do things?”
“I’m a Tinkerer. I fix things when they’re broken. It’s a calling.”
“A calling.” Juniper’s expression grew wistful. She plucked at the hem of her dress. “I don’t know how to do anything. I can mend, some. And I know my letters.” Her gaze darted away, and her cheeks flushed. “I stayed in one room, mostly.”
Despite what she’d done to them, Nate felt a raw tug of kinship. She’d known horrors in Gathos City, only because of what she was. What they’d made her to be. And no one had spirited her away before she came of age. He didn’t want to picture the mistreatment she’d faced from the people who had owned her. “I’m sorry,” he said, surprised to find that he meant it.
“You should be.” Juniper pulled a greasy lock of hair between her lips. “Your friends hurt Agatha.”
It’s not like they did it for fun.
