Terra (30 page)

I open the door to the apartment to find Mica staring up at me from the kitchen table.

“Terra!” He leaps up and rushes over, wrapping his arms around me.

“Um, hi to you too,” I say, awkwardly patting him on the head. Since when is he so affectionate?

“Are you all right?”

“Huh? Sure, why wouldn’t I be?” I plop my scav bag on the table next to a pile of papers and straddle the seat backwards, resting my chin on the back. For some reason he’s pulled his computer out of his room and set it up out here. “Yeesh, Mic. This place is a tornado zone.”

He pulls his chair up and sits directly in front of me, searching my face. “Where have you been?”

“What do you mean? I was just on a scav run.”

He gapes at me, confusion etched into the creases around his eyes. I look at my baby brother carefully; something seems different about him. It takes me a second to realize what it is.

Huh,
I think.
I hadn’t noticed he’d been spending so much time outside.
It’s the only explanation for the smattering of freckles that now run across his nose and cheeks. His skin is darker and, come to think of it, his hair is a little longer than he usually keeps it, too.

“Why aren’t you at school?” I ask suddenly.

“It’s a holiday,” he says, a little too quickly.

“Right. What holiday would that be? National Talk Out of Your Ass Day?”

“Uh, I mean, a mental health day?”

I roll my eyes. “Whatever. I guess one skipped day won’t kill you. But you can’t make a habit of it, Mic. You’re too smart for that.”

He nods solemnly, looking genuinely guilty. I soften my tone.

“So I stopped at Copp’s on the way back. Picked up a new set of bath bars for each of us. I call the lavender. You can have your pick of the other two.” I pull the small box out of my bag and toss it at him. Mica catches it with one hand and stares at it for a long time. When he finally looks back at me, he is frowning.

“Stay right there,” he says, putting the soaps on the table.

“Uh, okay.”

He walks over to his bedroom door but pauses before entering. As if he’s giving it some serious thought, he eventually walks over to turn on the TV before retreating into his room.

“It was kind of weird actually,” I call to him over the noise of the TV. “Copp was acting strange. Stranger than usual, I mean.”

“Oh?” Mica’s voice is muffled through the door. “Why, what did he say?”

I debate repeating Copp’s less than hospitable words, but decide it’s not worth burdening Mica just because I got my feelings hurt. “Oh, it’s not important. He just seemed like he was in a really bad mood. Wouldn’t haggle with me at all.”

Mica doesn’t respond, though I can just barely hear him mumbling inside his room. There’s a dull thump, followed by what sounds suspiciously like swearing.

“Hey! What are you doing in there?” I walk over to his door, but Mica pulls it open just as I’m reaching for the knob.

“Nothing, nothing,” Mica says. He puts his finger in his ear and wiggles it absentmindedly. Standing face-to-face with him, I realize he’s grown a good two inches without me even noticing. When did that happen?

“So, is there a special coming on or something?” I ask.

“What?” Mica looks distracted.

“The TV,” I say. “You turned it on…?”

His almond eyes refocus on my face. “Oh. Right. Yes.” With stilted steps, he goes and sits down on the couch.

“You are being weird, little bro,” I say, ruffling his hair as I join him. “So what’s on? Anything I’m going to like?”

Mica mutters something under his breath. It sounds like, “I sincerely doubt it.”

Chapter 29

I’ve only just refocused my attention on the television when there’s a knock at the door. Mica jumps up and dashes over to the window. He peers out at the street below, then sprints into his room and slams the door behind him.

“Uh, okay, I guess I’ll get it,” I say, not bothering to hide my annoyance. A woman with graying hair and light eyes is waiting at the door. A small cloth briefcase dangles from one of her hands. Beside her stands a lanky guardsman who doesn’t bother to look at me.

“Hello,” I say cautiously. “Can I help you?”

“Terra Rhodon?” the woman says pleasantly.

“Yes?”

“I am Registrar Kilburn. This is Guardsman Clay. The Tribunal is conducting a census of registered scavengers. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Um, sure.” I don’t remember a census being conducted before, at least not since I’ve been old enough to participate. Is this the reason why Copp was so on edge today? I step aside to allow the Registrar and guardsman inside. Kilburn and I take a seat around the table while Clay stands stiffly by the door.

“I, uh, apologize for the mess,” I say, pushing the papers Mica left all over the table into a sloppy pile. Registrar Kilburn smiles and shakes her head, dismissing my words. She places her briefcase on the table and fishes out a computer tablet; it chimes as it comes to life.

“Would you mind stating your name, age, and occupation for the record?”

“Terra Eryth Rhodon. Eighteen. Scav. I mean, scavenger.”

“And you live with your brother, correct?”

“Yep.”

“Is he here?”

“He’s…” I’m about to explain that he’s locked himself mid-tantrum in his room, but realize that might get him in trouble. He is supposed to be in school right now, after all. “No, he’s not home.”

Kilburn types in a note on the tablet. “Do you recall the amount of your most recent Collection payout, Miss Rhodon?”

“Don’t you guys have that kind of stuff on record?” I ask.

She smiles. “Yes, we do. This is more to get an idea of what kind of records you keep.”

“Oh.” I chew on my cheek as I try to think back to the last Collection Day. “Um, I actually can’t remember. I don’t really keep a good record of that stuff,” I admit, staring at the tabletop sheepishly.

“That’s all right,” she says kindly.

“I mean, I know how much steel we have right now,” I say. “That’s all that really matters around here, you know?”

“I understand.” She drags her finger down the computer’s screen, scrolling down. An image flashes across my mind; words and numbers scrolling across a flat screen. But the image is gone before I can make sense of it.

“Miss Rhodon?” Kilburn asks, looking at me with concern. I didn’t even realize she’d been talking. “Are you all right?”

I clear my throat. “I’m sorry, can you repeat the question?”

“I asked how many times you go scavenging on a monthly basis,” she says.

“Oh, I usually go out every day. Unless it’s raining.”

“I see. And how many times would you say you have gone scavenging since the last Collection?”

“I don’t know, how many days has it been since then?”

“Seven.”

“Then I guess I went out seven times,” I say with a shrug. I can’t remember if it’s rained recently or not, but I’m sure she can figure out the actual number.

She makes another note.

“Did you go scavenging today?”

“Yes.”

“What kinds of materials did you collect?”

“I, um…” My mouth falls open as I strain to remember. I know I went on a run this morning. I know I was in the fields, I know I climbed the wall. I just… don’t remember picking anything up. “If you give me just a second, I could tell you.” I reach for my bag, ready to show proof of my spoils.

She peers inside my bag and makes another note. “Thank you,” she says, “Is there anything of consequence that you remember finding during this last period in general?”

“I…” My mind goes blank as I try to recall my recent trips. I can’t even picture myself in the fields recently, other than today, to be honest. “Can you clarify the question?”

“Have you picked up anything unusual, anything noteworthy, on your scavenging runs since the last Collection? Plastics, tech, anything beyond generics?”

I stare at the table, my eyes wide. Why can’t I remember? I know that I’ve been scavenging—what else would I have been doing?—but I’m drawing blanks on the specifics. I interlock my fingers and squeeze my hands together to stop myself from fidgeting. “I don’t know,” I say finally.

“How about just in the past few days?”

I shake my head. She looks at me sympathetically.

“All right, thank you very much, Miss Rhodon. That’s all we need.”

“That’s it?” I say, bewildered.

She nods as she tucks the tablet back into her briefcase.

“But I couldn’t answer any of your questions.”

“We have all the information we need,” she says. “Thank you for your time.”

“Uh, okay, bye!” I call as they whisk themselves out the door. The floor creaks as Mica finally comes out of his room.

“Welcome back,” I say. “So glad you could join us.”

“Sorry, just didn’t feel like wading through all that.”

“It was just some survey thing. It didn’t really concern you anyway, it’s not like you had to run and hide.”

He chews his lip for a second. “Well, thanks for covering for me, about school. You didn’t have to do that.”

I shrug. “You’d have done the same for me.”

“Yeah,” he says earnestly. “I would.”

“Man, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. My mind is totally blank. I must have gotten some serious sunstroke today. Or I’m just going insane.” I laugh, trying to cover up my fear that the latter might be true. I plop down on the couch and switch the television back on as a distraction.

A Best Pet showcase is on TV. I smile a little; a pet owner is pulling on a leash connected to a curly-haired pink poodle as she tries to convince it to cross the arena floor. The owner is visibly frustrated—her cheeks are red, the sheen of sweat glistens on her forehead—as the pup plants its rear on the ground in defiance. It chirps angrily at its owner. The sound is strangely familiar. I cock my head to the side, trying to place the animal’s cry; I’ve never seen a pet in real life before, but there’s just something about the sound. Suddenly, Mica grabs the remote and turns the television off.

“Hey, what gives?” I say, trying to snatch the remote back from him.

He kneels in front of me and puts his hands on either side of my face. He stares unblinkingly into my eyes, his forehead inches away from my own.

“Ack, what are you doing?” I yell, throwing his hands back into his lap.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, slumping onto the sofa. “I was just checking for something.”

“Yeesh, for what? If there’s something on my face, you can just tell me, you know. Use your words.”

“No,” he says sadly, flipping the TV on again. “There’s nothing there.”

Chapter 30

“Wake up, sis, there’s something I want to show you.”

Mica stands against the doorframe in my bedroom, kicking my mattress with his foot. A quick glance toward the window tells me it’s that time of day that just barely qualifies as morning.

I groan and pull the covers over my head. I’m so exhausted. I’ve been working myself into the ground, spending every day in the field to prepare for yesterday’s Collection. Things have felt a little off over the past week. When I haven’t been scavenging, Mica’s insisted on taking me all over Sixteen for the most random reasons—window shopping in the North Q, walking the docks in the East, going with him to meet Juniper Coal—honestly, of all people—in the West Square. As if that weren’t enough to deal with, Copp’s sour mood seems to have spread through the rest of the settlement, and people have been even nastier to me than usual. I know I’ve never been the settlement’s most prized citizen, but even Mal has been curt with me lately. Channeling my frustration into scavenging has definitely helped, but given everything, I was really looking forward to sleeping in for once.

“Go away, it’s too early,” I moan.

Mica kicks the bed harder, actively jostling me out of place.

“Whaaaaat?” I flip the blanket off me and throw my pillow in his direction. “This seriously can’t wait a couple of hours?”

“Nope,” he says, grinning animatedly. He looks so excited; I have to actively fight against smiling. I don’t want him thinking that shaking me awake before the sun has fully risen is acceptable behavior.

“Get dressed quick, okay? We gotta go.” He shuts the door and I hear him rustling about in the main room. I think I hear him talking to himself, but when I listen harder there’s nothing. First, the weird memory problems, and now I’m hearing voices. The strange mental images popping in and out of my head haven’t stopped. I feel like I live in a constant state of having forgotten something important, only there’s no way to remember what it is I forgot.

I really am going insane,
I think.

As soon as I get out of bed, I stub my toe on the dresser. I swear under my breath as I pull out the first clean things I find. I can’t help feeling like this is some twisted revenge scenario for all the times I forced Mica to wake up early.

“Happy?” I mutter as I join him in the main room.

“Is that what you’re wearing?”

I look down at my worn teal t-shirt—one of my most comfortable—and navy pants. They’re not the most flattering picks, but it’s not like there’s anyone I’m trying to impress.

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” I ask warningly. Mica wears a dark hoodie and black pants. He’s not looking particularly fancy either.

“Your socks don’t even match.”

I look down to see two starkly different shades of blue staring up at me from each foot. “So? It’s the crack of dawn, Mic. Fashion is not my first priority.”

“Okay, okay, yeesh. Forget it.”

“This had better be worth it,” I say petulantly.

“I hope so too,” he replies, suddenly serious.

I lace up my boots and we amble out the front door. When we get outside, Mica immediately walks over to the motorbike still parked in front of the building.

“What are you doing? Don’t mess with that,” I warn.

He throws a leg over and straddles the bench in the middle.

“Mica!”

“Chill out, sis. It’s mine.”

“What?”

He turns the bike on; it hums loudly. “Hop on.”

I simply stare at him.

“Oh, come on.”

I don’t move, and after a second he fires up the bike.