The droids shoved people aside as they zeroed in on her location. More rayonette pulses tore past her, rippling and bending the air. It was only a matter of time before another one found its target.
Chatine knew she needed a distraction. She spotted a crate packed with chickens directly in front of her. She shook out her left arm, trying to chase away the numbness that was spreading toward her fingers, but it was no use. The paralyzeur was quickly working its way through her muscles.
Favoring her right hand, she gripped the railing as tightly as she could and pumped her legs until she’d built up enough momentum to reach the crate. She arched her body and kicked her legs out hard. The crate crashed to the ground and busted open. The chickens squawked and tried to fly away, but their useless wings barely allowed them to get off the ground.
The commotion was enough, though.
People were screaming, the stall owner was desperately trying to wrangle the loose birds, and the Policier droids fought to barrel through it all. But their efforts only managed to rile up the birds even more. They fluttered about, scraping people with their sharp claws.
The droids started firing with abandon. But with all the chaos below, their aim was poor. They hit more chickens than anything else. The birds absorbed the stun of the rayonettes and fell limp to the ground. They wouldn’t be able to move again for a few hours.
With the droids distracted, Chatine was finally able to pull herself onto the catwalk and crawl, one-handed, across the rusty metal plank before shimmying down a support beam next to Madame Dufour’s stall.
She glanced back to see the bashers still trying to push their way through the crowd to reach her. But with the number of people in the Marsh today and the riled-up chickens, it wasn’t an easy task.
Madame Dufour glared at Chatine, her wrinkled arms folded across her chest. “Like father, like son,” she said, making a tsk sound with her teeth. “Mark my words, boy, you’ll be rotting on the moon before the end of this year.”
Chatine flashed her a goading grin before swiping a loaf of chou bread from one of Madame Dufour’s crates and darting toward the exit.
“Arrête!” The old woman’s command sounded like a croak. “Get back here, you wretched croc!”
“Thanks for breakfast!” Chatine called back in a singsong voice.
And then, before the droids could track her or Madame Dufour could catch her, Chatine was gone.
Once she’d put a good distance between herself and the marketplace, she slowed to a walk and massaged her dead arm with the opposite hand. It wasn’t the first time she’d been shot by a rayonette. And it probably wouldn’t be the last. The sensation would return soon enough.
Chatine reached into her pocket and pulled out the pendant she had lifted from the Second Estater. She sucked off the sweet apricot juice and held the medallion in her open palm, studying it. For the first time, Chatine noticed the ornate golden Sol carved into the surface. It was unlike any of the three Sols that hung in the sky of the System Divine. This was a First World Sol. Its brilliant, fiery rays flared out to the edge of the medallion. Chatine reverently clasped the pendant around her neck, a rare genuine smile creeping across her face.
She hadn’t seen the light of a Sol in nine years.
This was definitely a sign of good things to come.
- CHAPTER 2 -
CHATINE
AS CHATINE WALKED THE MUSTY, cold hallway that led to her family’s couchette, she was bombarded by the familiar sounds of the Frets: people fighting over scraps of food, children’s footsteps scrambling across the grated metal floors as they played games of hide-and-seek and crocs-and-bashers, the sporadic cluck of a lost chicken that had wandered away from the Marsh.
She called this eighth-floor corridor of Fret 7 the “No Way Out hallway.” Partially because every time she walked under its low, rusty ceiling, she was reminded of how trapped everyone was here. But mostly because of the various corroded signs on the wall that said, NO WAY OUT.
At least, that’s what Chatine had convinced herself the signs said. The truth was, she had no idea. She couldn’t read them. No one could. They were written in the Forgotten Word. A cryptic code of slanted sticks and swirling lines that had gradually vanished from the minds of Laterrians shortly after the settlers arrived from the First World.
Along with their hopes for a better life.
Chatine slowed, tucked a wayward strand of light brown hair back under her hood, and pulled the loaf of chou bread she’d stolen from Madame Dufour out of her pocket. She tore it in half and immediately stuffed the second half into her boot so she wouldn’t be tempted to eat it.
She supposed she could always tell her parents she’d had no luck in the Marsh today. But she knew if she wanted to keep her other score a secret—the First World medallion—she’d have to have something to distract them with. Her mother would never believe that Chatine would leave the Marsh empty-handed. Unless she had something to show for her morning, her mother would immediately grow suspicious. And if her mother was suspicious, then her father would start snooping. And nothing good ever came from Monsieur Renard’s snooping.
She stared down at the paltry half loaf in her hand, her stomach growling at the mere sight of it. She took a single bite, forcing herself to go slowly, make it last, chew. But her hunger instantly took over. She swallowed the partially chewed lump, feeling the disgusting cauliflower dough pushing its way down her throat, and immediately lunged for another bite.
But before she could sink her teeth into the bread’s tough exterior, she heard a piercing wail cut through the dark hallway. Chatine glanced up to see a woman seated on the floor outside one of the couchettes, trying unsuccessfully to coax a fussing baby to her breast. The baby squirmed and let out another shrill cry that tore through Chatine like a dull knife through stale, overcooked meat.
Would she ever be able to hear a baby cry and not feel like she was being ripped apart from the inside?
She attempted to block out the sound, but it was as if the harder she tried, the louder that baby screamed.
“Argh!” Chatine groaned. “Can’t you shut him up?”
She expected the woman to explode right back at her. That was just how things worked around here. Anger in the Frets bounced around like light in an endless corridor of mirrors.
But she didn’t. The woman looked up at Chatine with dark, hopeless eyes, and she started to cry.
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, burying her face in the baby’s tuft of black hair. “He won’t eat because there’s nothing left. The milk is all gone. My body’s too hungry.”
Shame warmed Chatine’s cheeks. She turned her back on the woman and child, preparing to flee, to find another route to her couchette so she wouldn’t have to walk past them. But her legs refused to move. It was as though the paralyzeur had somehow spread from her shoulder, all the way down her body, settling into her feet.
“My husband works in the potato ferme,” the woman went on, sniffling, “and makes a good wage, but he’s been injured. My tokens from the fabrique just aren’t enough.”
The remainder of the half loaf was heavy in Chatine’s hand. She stared down at it.
Stolen.
Because she, too, was starving.
Because this woman was proof that even when you played by the rules, you still starved.