If I were born here, or if I were already made citizen, I wouldn’t get kicked out if I lost my job. I’d go to a career center that would give me training to fix the issue that got me fired, then give me listings for a new job. If I lost my job because I was sick or having a nervous breakdown, I’d draw a basic income until I was better. At worst, I’d have to move to a lower level where housing is free, though it’s usually reserved for retirees and students. But I’m not a citizen, so unemployment means nothing but a quick banishment.
“Do you miss it?” Dell asks, sneaking up on me the way I usually do to her.
The view isn’t even of Ashtown; it’s of a random spot in the desert on the other side of the city, but she wouldn’t know the difference.
“No,” I say. It’s the easiest question I’ve had to answer all day.
I don’t think she even cares about the answer. She just likes reminding me where I came from, why I shouldn’t know where she lives.
“You don’t seem like the kind that thinks deeply about the past,” she says.
“Because I’m a worker bee and we only think about the job?”
She shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Rather be a drone. They get to fuck the queen.”
That, she ignores. For some reason seeing her unsettled makes me brave enough to ask a favor.
“Hey, did you get Nelline’s medical records with that last pull?”
She looks at me again, showing a slight curiosity that would probably look like pure confusion on a more open face.
“Nelline?” she asks.
“Me. I mean, the me from 175.”
Understanding, she looks away. “That’s not really your concern.”
I haven’t actually asked to see the file, but apparently that’s not a necessary step in her telling me no.
“It’s just that Jean thinks…I just want to know more about how she died, or maybe her life before that. If you could just—”
“What good can knowing serve?”
“What harm can come from me seeing the file?”
She takes a breath, then looks me in the eye. “I know you were killed there, but if you plan on seeking revenge—”
“I’m just curious,” I say, though I’m not sure that’s it, not all of it anyway. “Did I try to get revenge over my last hundred murders? I’m the best in the universe at letting bad shit happen to me.”
When the last sentence comes out of my mouth we both make a sound—her because she’s done arguing, and me because it’s one of those truths too true to ever be said out loud.
“It’s time we start prep,” she says, even though it’s early yet.
I bite back a dozen arguments. Asking for access to the file in the first place cut me. Begging would kill me dead.
Dell has laid out everything I’ll need for this pull, little stacks on the prep table as sensible and organized as her whole life.
The clothes I have to wear today are monochromatic and androgynous. Subconsciously or deliberately, the people in this section of 238 have rebelled against their government’s surveillance by refusing to stand out. She turns away when I change, though I stay facing her. Not because I’m daring her to look at me, but because my attempts to be her equal would dissolve if she saw the tattoo on my back.
After I change, she installs the obscurer in the center of my chest, a small square that will disguise my presence from any electronic surveillance. When she reaches for a veil, a web of tape that will cross my face from chin to forehead and cheek to cheek, I stop her.
“I died here when I was four. I don’t need that.”
The numbers that could get me a permanent position I keep forgetting, but somehow I remember my death age on 373 worlds.
“But you’ve visited here before. Someone might recognize you and think your presence in the same place is suspicious.”
“It’s a remote area and the obscurer takes care of drones. No one’s seen me in person. Once I encounter someone, I’ll start using the veil here. But not before.”
All traversers hate the veils. We say it’s because they make everything look filmy. And that is the reason I dislike them. But the others fear the change. The tape pulls at your skin, changing its shape, then projecting a new image over it. Seeing a different face on yours in an unfamiliar world feels like you’ve become someone else and will never get back. The more superstitious traversers believe if you die like that, even Nyame in her dark and endless power won’t recognize you to bring your heart back to the world where it belongs.
But the practical higher-ups have never heard of Nyame, the unofficial goddess of traversers. If they knew the irrational reason traversers reject the veil, they would force it on us. So we talk about our vision and diminished effectiveness and longer pull times, because these are terms they understand.
Thankfully, Dell bypasses the veil and slips the Misery Syringe into the vest pocket nearest my dominant hand. We never talk about it. If something goes wrong, if I get sent to an Earth where I already exist or if there is a complication with my entry, I am supposed to use the syringe. It will give me two minutes pain free, so I can live long enough to tell Dell what happened. She will recall me, even though the snap of being pulled back so soon will kill me if I’m already badly injured. They say if you time it right, your watcher can pull you before the euphoria wears off. They say you’ll never feel a thing.
We walk out of prep and into the traversing room, a huge space with a domed glass roof. The sun is still setting, which means it’s not dark on 238 yet and we’ll have to wait.
“You’ll be going to 175 soon. It’s been a while since you’ve had a new world.”
She’s stalling, so I stay quiet until she gets to her point.
“Do you ever wonder what sets you apart?”
“You mean why I haven’t died?”
She nods, but won’t say it.
Why have I survived? Because I am a creature more devious than all the other mes put together. Because I saw myself bleeding out and instead of checking for a pulse, I began collecting her things. I survive the desert like a coyote survives, like all tricksters do.
“Luck, I guess,” I say, because the first thing a monster learns is when to lie.
When she steps beside me, the backs of our hands touch. She doesn’t react, and I try not to. Soon enough, the sun is winking out and she readies the last step.
“Deep breath,” she says, like it’s the first time. She injects the serum first into my left wrist and then into my right. Next she kneels, injecting just above each ankle.