Numbered: Episode One of the Sister Planets Series Read online

  The declaration interrupts my menu perusing. “Huh?”

  I check the screen. The citizen number is 16. Not 60202820206.

  Just 16.

  I tap the screen, then give it a good slap. “Good one, you worthless machine. It’s Citizen 60202820206. I’ll take anything you have left.”

  “Citizen 16, your allowed withdrawal from any Scrum-Scrum Cafeteria Machine is twenty-three items. Please select twenty-three or fewer items from our menu, and they will be dispensed to you immediately.”

  “Twenty-three items!” I shout. “Hot damn! One of everything please. And let’s start with the hamburger.”

  The wide glass panel that guards the dispensed food flashes green and raises. I reach in and pull out a hamburger wrapped in wax paper.

  “Woohoo! Let’s keep going!” I dance, and the instruments dangling from me bang, wheeze, and rattle.

  A voice starts shouting from the lobby. “Goddamn it, Mav, you make more noise than any goddamn person I’ve ever met.”

  All four and a half feet of my other neighbor, Ms. Niemeyer, comes flying around the corner a few seconds later.

  “You little turd,” the old woman grumbles. “I heard you try and pawn Sam off on me earlier. I’m old as hell, but I’m not deaf, ya know. Mashed potatoes, pah!”

  I tap the screen with frenetic excitement. “Ms. Niemeyer, look.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do, you damn—”

  “Look!” I insist, and pound on the vending machine.

  “I’ll cut that tongue right out of your mouth if you ever talk to me like that again. You hear? Now what the hell is your malfunction?” she asks, eyeing the machine’s tiny screen.

  Her eyes go big as plates, then narrow into suspicion-filled slits. “What’re you trying to pull, missy?”

  “Does it matter? Pick something to eat. It’s on me.”

  “You idiot,” she snarls. “They’re watching you, waiting for you to take advantage.”

  “They?”

  “Then they’ll swoop in, and that’ll be the last anyone sees of you.”

  “Swoop? Can they fly? Are they birds?” I fake a gasp. “Are the birds after me?”

  “There’s something wrong here. Come here.” She grabs my arm with her wrinkled hand.

  “Hey, let go of me you old hag!”

  “Not until you get some sense into that brain of yours.” She digs her fingernails into my arm and drags me down the hall toward her apartment.

  I use my free hand to scarf down my dinner. With my mouth full of faux bread and what is most assuredly not meat, I shout, “You can take my freedom, you witch, but you’ll never take my hamburger!”

  3

  Ms. Niemeyer’s place reeks of cigarette smoke. That’s a testament to how much this old broad used to smoke; cigarettes haven’t been mass produced in ten years. I still remember the Net commercials where they had the Marboral Man’s funeral.

  Her apartment is a one bedroom with a galley kitchen. It has an actual living room—which is rare—but it’s barely big enough for two people and a couch.

  Ms. Niemeyer’s pad is organized, but everything inside is dirty. The carpet doesn’t look like it’s ever been cleaned, the countertops are dull and peeling, and the refrigerator is old and rusty.

  The old woman closes the door behind her, locks a series of five bolts that run down its edge, and slides a chair under the knob. Then she turns back to me.

  “Listen here, Music Girl. You’re in big trouble.”

  “How am I in trouble? All I did was scan my card, and the machine told me I could have whatever I wanted.”

  “You really are as stupid as you look.” She plops down on her ancient beige sofa. “I’ve never seen a number that low, and I’ve seen some low numbers in my day. Hell, I’m so old my number’s six digits. But two digits! That’s no accident.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m saying you’ve been set up. You use that number to buy anything, and the real owner is gonna say you stole it from them. The Guard will destroy you and throw whatever’s left of you in jail.”

  She picks up an unfinished glass of some amber liquid and downs it. Whiskey, if I know Ms. Niemeyer.

  I cross my arms and turn up my nose. “What if my number really is sixteen now? Bet you’re sad you passed up on that free food, because that was a one-time offer.”

  Ms. Niemeyer frowns and slams her glass down the table. “Because I can prove it’s not your number, you smart ass.”

  She pulls out a holodisk—an old first generation model—and sets it on the table. Light emits from the top, and a glitchy projection appears in front of her face.

  She swipes her fingers at the projection. “All I have to do is look you up on the government registry. I’ll be damned if it doesn’t say …”

  She tapers off, her facial expressions frozen. She reaches up and rubs her enormous chin, stopping to massage the giant mole with three black hairs growing out of it.

  “I’ll be damned.”

  I come around to her side of the projection so I’m not looking at the inverse of what she sees.

  There’s my name with “Citizen 16” next to it.

  “Hell yeah!” I whoop. “Take that, Ms. N.”

  Ms. Niemeyer turns to me with actual concern in her eyes. “Girly, this isn’t good.”

  “What are you talking about? This is great!”

  “No, think about it. As soon as people know you have one of the lowest numbers in the country, they’re going to come for you.”

  “Come again?”

  “You remember when that old pervert that lived down the hall won big on the gambling unit out there? How everyone came looking for him asking for money?”

  Dread washes over me. “Yeah.”

  Ms. N. reaches up and takes off her glasses. “Girly, this is a million times worse.”

  Neither of us talk for what feels like an eternity. Before I’m cognitively aware of it, I’m turning to leave. “Swear you won’t tell anyone about this.”

  “Why would I—”

  “Swear it!” I shout.

  “Ok, ok! I swear.”

  I speed walk back to my room. I shut the door, deadbolt it, and shed my instruments like a kid sheds their clothes before jumping into a pool. I pull off my jacket and the collapsible baton strapped to my leg and toss them on the floor. Then I collapse on the bed.

  “Why would my number change? Did the senator do it for some reason?” I lift myself up on my elbows and look out the window.

  Eyes watch me in the shadows on the other side of the bars. The face they belong to is painted black and covered in a black hood. A split second later, whoever is watching me ducks below the windowsill

  A scream tears out of my lungs but catches in my throat. All that comes out is a muted gasp. I don’t move and focus all my attention on listening.

  I jump to the In-Between. Instead of being completely cut off from the world, though, I still engage my ears. I know there are objects in front of my eyes, but my brain doesn’t pick them up.

  Jules hums happily with electricity, the thin bedspread is scratchy beneath my palms, and the carpet smells like cooked food with a trace of cat piss from the previous tenants. But none of that registers. The only things my mind can focus on are the sounds this man might be making outside my window.

  I don’t perceive anything for several seconds. Or was it minutes? I stay frozen, tuned in like a bat to any noise he might make. Then I hear it. The small rustle of leaves, the scratch of a branch against synthetic fabric, then the distant thud of boots on asphalt.

  I could go to the window to catch a glimpse. I could decide it was some creepy Peeping Tom. I could do any number of things now that this man has left my window.

  I emerge from the In-Between to discover I’m running down the hallway of my building towards the back entrance.

  4

  I shouldn’t be out this late.

  I left the baton in the apartment.<
br />
  I’ll get mugged or raped if I don’t get inside right now.

  I need to stop, get a ride, and decide where I’m going.

  I’m not listening to this logical part of me, though. I’m listening to the screaming inner voice directing me to run full tilt down the street in a neighborhood where people are murdered daily. A man with a blacked-out face is coming after me, and I have to get away.

  I’m about three blocks from my building when I stop. I put my hands on my knees, gasping for breath. I hadn’t realized how fast I was running.

  Rational Me has a point. I need to decide where I’m going. There aren’t even any bars close by that I can duck into.

  I need to get a ride. I’m fifteen feet from the main street. I take ten seconds to gather myself and walk nonchalantly onto the empty sidewalk.

  Wheeled electric cars zip down the street. No one with a hovercar lives in this part of town, and all the automated ones will have moved on to more affluent neighborhoods for the night.

  I see a dented yellow Scion barrel its way towards me, and I stick out my hand. For a moment, the car stays at a regular speed. Then it slows, jerks over to the side of the road where I stand, and stops.

  I open the heavy door, and it squeaks in protest. I climb inside and slide to the middle.

  “Where to?” the driver asks from the front seat. He doesn’t turn and address me. Instead, he stares at me through his rearview mirror, his presumably brown eyes turned black in the shadows.

  “Uh,” I stammer. I have no idea where I should go. The only places I visit outside of my apartment are the park where I perform my act, my local market, and the senator’s house.

  “Where you going’? I ain’t got all night.”

  “Government Row,” I blurt out.

  The driver turns and looks at me. He’s clean shaven and wearing a wrinkled purple button-up. His movement wafts the smell of cheap cologne and sweat my direction.

  “What kinda business you got on Government Row this late? You a hooker?”

  “Do I look like a hooker? Please, just go.”

  “Pay your fare, and we’ll get going.”

  I reach into my pocket. Nothing’s there. All my paper money is in my apartment.

  “Oh no. Oh no, no, no.”

  The driver looks at me in his mirror. “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” I snap. “Why would I say I didn’t have money if I really do?”

  He turns and flashes a smile of brilliantly white teeth. “Well, I’m not opposed to taking alternative forms of payment, if you know what I mean.”

  I feel a flutter deep in my stomach that’s quickly followed by a wave of fear.

  “Go to hell.”

  His smile disappears. “Listen, you either pay up or you get outta my car. Got it?”

  I look out the window, knowing a man with a painted face is waiting for me somewhere on the other side. It’s a miracle I got this ride. Going back on the street will get me caught.

  “Do you have a palm scanner?”

  “Do I have a palm scanner …” The driver sighs, reaches into his glove compartment, and pulls out a thin piece of glass.

  This may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but I don’t have a choice. I place my hand on the glass and hear a familiar beep. The driver looks down at the screen on his dashboard and recoils.

  “What the—” He whips around and looks at me again. “Who the hell are you??”

  “Someone important,” I lie. “Get me to Government Row, or I’ll have you killed. Understand?”

  The front passenger door opens, and a thin, wiry man gets inside. He’s wearing thick black glasses, a tidy half afro, and a tweed coat.

  I’m taken aback by how dark his skin is. My skin is brown, but I’ve never seen someone with legitimately black skin before.

  “Union Station, please.”

  He turns his head towards the driver, and I notice the one-inch line that connects the middle of his top lip to the middle of his nose. His cleft palette scar isn’t as notable as others I’ve seen, but it’s still obvious.

  “You’re gonna need to get out, man,” the driver replies.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Beg my pardon? Who are you, some kinda king? Don’t talk to me like that. I said get outta the car.”

  “I’m not trying to be a problem, but I’m entitled to a ride.”

  “No, dumbass, you’re not. This is my car. Now get the—”

  Without a word, the thin man with the cleft palette scar pulls out a shiny black gun and shoots the driver in the chest.

  5

  When I watch movies where a woman screams in the presence of gunfire, I always roll my eyes.

  So much of the time, my sex is stereotyped as weak. And I’m tired of it. I want to see a movie where a woman watches someone get shot at point-blank range like she’d watch someone get a haircut. Impassive. Strong.

  It’s different in real life, though. My scream fills the cab the instant the gun issues it’s muted blast. I now understand the problem isn’t that women in movies scream when someone uses a gun to take a life. It’s that the men in the same movies don’t.

  I also realize I can’t take my eyes off the dead driver. My body needs—not wants to but needs—to see the life slip away from him. Not to revel in some morbid over glorification of death. I can’t stop watching because this is the first time someone’s died in front of me. The gravity of that is too important not to see.

  As I watch the immobile body of the purple-shirted driver, it dawns on me that I’m in the same car as a murderer.

  I fling myself against the door closest to the sidewalk and pull on the handle. It flies open, but I find myself face to face with a man dressed in dark clothes and blackout paint covering half his face.

  He has a gun, too. And it’s pointed at me.

  All he says is, “Don’t.”

  I back into the car, my throat tight and my limbs tingling with adrenaline. He gets into the backseat with me. His muscular frame is intimidating; he’s the kind of man who could kill someone with his bare hands.

  I look to the front. The man with the glasses reaches over and pulls a dart from the driver’s chest.

  “He’s not dead,” I whisper.

  “No, he’ll wake up sore and angry that someone stole his car, but that’ll be the worst of it,” Painted Face says.

  Glasses reaches across the driver with a grimace. He opens the door and pushes the body into the street. He gets behind the steering wheel, wipes it off with a cloth he pulls from his pocket, and takes off down the road.

  “Don’t hurt me,” I say. It comes out more like a command than a request.

  “We won’t as long as you cooperate, Ms. Martinique,” Painted Face says.

  I startle. I can’t remember the last time a human called me by my last name, nor the last time someone addressed me as “Ms.”

  “You’re the man who was watching me outside my window.”

  Painted Face stares at me, his wide lips set in a frown. The small unpainted patches of skin on his face are the same deep black as Glasses’s skin. Beads of sweat run down his forehead as we stare at each other.

  He reaches into his pocket and says, “Esau, if you would.”

  The car lurches hard. I brace myself to keep from slamming into the front seat. As I turn to see what happened, I feel a prick in my neck. I reach up and turn back to Painted Face. He’s holding what looks like a huge ballpoint pen in his hand.

  My head starts to spin. I fight against serpentine tentacles of unconsciousness as my vision clouds, but it’s no use.

  The last thing I remember is a face streaked with black paint looking down on me like an unpleased god gazing down at a lesser being.

  6

  I wake up and—for a split second—I’m helpless. My eyes roll around in a haze as my consciousness boots up.

  Once I�
�m awake, though, primal instinct takes over.

  I scream. I thrash. I bite and kick. My eyes are open, but nothing registers in my blind rage.

  I fall from whatever chair or bed they have me on. Then I’m inhaling the fabric of a rug through my nose. My mouth is duct taped shut, and there’s a stinging sensation around my wrists and ankles.

  I roll to my side to find my hands and feet bound with zip ties, with a short chain of additional zip ties connecting them.

  I must look like an upended turtle lying on the floor.

  I slip into the In-Between. I have to calm down to get out of this. I close my mind and collapse on my own psyche until nothing remains but me. No yoga crap where I focus on my breathing. For all I know, my lungs stopped working.

  I relax to the point where I know I can resurface and think. When I open my eyes, I’m shocked to find myself lying on an intricate rug in a bedroom that must belong to royalty.

  It’s equal parts feminine and masculine. The hardwood floor and canopy bed are the color of a violin. The sheets are blood red. The walls are paneled, pained a creamy white, and decorated with old artwork.

  A stately brick fireplace stands cold and empty at the foot of the bed, but the mantelpiece is alive with tiny trinkets and vases of flowers. I crane my head and see the ceiling is squares of pressed tin, each an elegant starburst.

  The only light comes from the opposite side of the room. I look under the bed from my spot on the floor and see four pairs of feet: two pairs are made of wood and belong to what looks like a table. The other two belong to people. Men, from what I can tell.

  “She’s awake.”

  It’s Glasses. The one Painted Face called Esau.

  Both sets of feet round the bed. I see Esau first. He hasn’t changed: same enormous spectacles, same scar on his lip, same blank expression. His crisp tweed jacket has an apple-green pocket square that matches his bow tie and his eyes and complements his purple shirt and purple shoes.

  He pulls a comb compulsively through his miniature afro. The tight black curls stretch out to their maximum length before bouncing back, clinging a little less to his scalp each time.