The knot in his stomach grew. He thought about M Rajan, who knew his order when he wasn’t even there, and Dad, who’d thought to go pick it up for him, and Grandma Ko, who’d been offering to take him for ‘an unofficial Sunside’ even though she one-hundred-percent did not have a shuttle licence anymore – and even Mom, who hadn’t given him any shit when he pulled out of the trial at the tailor shop.
He shoved the last of his hopper into his mouth. He kind of wanted another one, and he did kind of want to go out. Not to the sims or the vid shop or anything. He popped open the choko and washed the burn away from his mouth. He’d had a weird thought for the past tenday or so, one he couldn’t shake and couldn’t share. It wasn’t bad or anything. It was just . . . weird. A weird thing he wanted to do, one he couldn’t have explained to Dad or Ras or anybody. Definitely not to himself.
Kip folded the wrapper and picked up his scrib. He stared at it for a moment. Maybe this was stupid, but . . . nobody would know, right?
‘Public feed search,’ he said. ‘Saved parameters.’
The scrib chirped and did as told. He’d run this search probably a dozen times by now, but this time, a new result popped up. It wasn’t much – just three lines. He read them a couple times over. He took another swig of his drink, then thought for a minute, then took another. He noted the date (tomorrow) and the time (eleventh hour). He looked down at himself, wearing a holey shirt and pajama pants. He got up, opened his closet, and sighed. Most of what belonged in there was on the floor. Bit by bit, he gathered shirts and trousers and underwear, and threw them into the basket that often stood empty.
His dad – who hadn’t made it to the hex yet – looked surprised as Kip exited his room with laundry in tow.
‘Hey,’ he said, sounding confused. ‘You . . . doing laundry?’
‘Yup,’ Kip said.
‘Need any help?’
‘Nope.’ He headed to the hex’s wash machines without another word. If he was going to do this weird thing, he was gonna do it right.
Isabel
Funerals were never an easy affair, but Isabel was hard-pressed to think of one as uncomfortable as this. Not in a personal way. That distinction belonged to the funerals of her parents, her sister, Tamsin’s parents, close friends. This was a different sadness. A social sadness. It was a natural feeling to have when attending – or even hearing of – a funeral for someone you didn’t know. But this . . . this was exceptional.
In attendance were herself, of course, to make record, and Tamsin, who insisted on joining her for this one. Eyas Parata was the caretaker that day. Isabel had done ceremonies with her before, and she knew her to be the sort of compassionate guide a grieving family would benefit from. But there was no family today. There were no friends. Just three strangers, a body that had been thrown away, and a story that elicited plenty of public thrill but little sympathy. People had been horrified by the discovery of the body, and satisfied when the culprits were caught. There was a general buzz in the air that something had gone too far, something had to be done.
When it came to the victim himself, however, feelings changed. Isabel had heard everything from apathy to blame to indignation. The victim was an outsider. A leech. He’d come into their home, the party line went. He’d eaten their food. He repaid their welcome by attempting to steal. There was more to it than that, Isabel knew, but that was the story being told over tables. Sawyer Gursky had become an abstraction, an evidence file for whatever societal shift you hoped for. You want to encourage your kids to lock down a profession instead of heading elsewhere? Look at that poor dead boy, born of people who’d left Exodan values behind. He hadn’t had the sense to find honest work. You want resource management reform? Look at that guy who died on the Oxomoco. He wouldn’t have been there at all if there wasn’t demand on the black market. You want to tighten up entry requirements for non-citizens? Look at that thieving bastard who got himself killed. Why should we let people like that into our homes?
’Round and ’round the chatter went, at hundreds of tables with hundreds of families. Yet none of them seemed to care about the indisputable truth: a Human being was dead, and no one had come to mourn him.
Isabel and Eyas stood together in the privacy of the shrouding room, side by side next to the body. Neither said a word. Tamsin had pulled up a chair. Her legs were giving her extra trouble that day, so she was saving herself – ‘preserving her batteries,’ as she put it – for the walk up the ramp.
‘This is so . . .’ Eyas began. She shook her head. ‘I know how to do this with families. I’ve done this a thousand times.’
‘I know,’ Isabel said. ‘I’m feeling lost, too.’
They were quiet again, and still.
‘Can I see him?’ Tamsin asked, nodding toward the body.
‘Are you sure?’ Eyas said. In preparation, she’d made an understandable break with tradition: the body was already shrouded. Usually, that was part of the ceremony – the family lovingly wrapping the cloth together. In this case, though . . . ‘He’s not in the best of shape.’
Tamsin pursed her lips. ‘Is it bad?’
‘Not—’ Eyas’ face twisted as she thought, perhaps weighing the difference between what was ‘bad’ to her and what it was to people who didn’t do this every day. ‘Not gruesome. There’s no blood or disfigurement. But we didn’t receive him right away. He’d started to decay before I got him into stasis. I did my best with him, but he . . . doesn’t look like they usually look.’
Tamsin took in that information. ‘I’d like to see him.’
Eyas stepped forward and pulled the shroud from his face. She’d done her best with him, that much was clear. He was clean. He was peaceful. But yes, he was different, different enough to give Isabel a stab of adrenaline, a shiver of disgust. This wasn’t right.
‘Oh, stars,’ Tamsin said. ‘He’s just a kid.’ Isabel laid her hand on Tamsin’s shoulder. Her wife grabbed it. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, brushing at her cheeks.
‘Don’t be,’ Eyas said. ‘I’m glad someone’s crying for him.’ She paused. ‘I did, too.’
Tamsin nodded. Her tears continued to flow. She stopped wiping them away.
‘Do you want to read the Litany?’ Eyas said. ‘I wasn’t sure which of us should do it, so if—’
The door to the shrouding room opened, and they all turned to look. A boy stood there, a teenage boy in fresh-pressed clothes that didn’t fit quite right. Isabel didn’t know him. It didn’t appear that Eyas did, either.
‘Are you lost?’ Eyas said.
The boy’s eyes fell to the body, and he stared. ‘I, um—’ He cleared his throat. ‘I asked outside where to go, and uh, they said I should go here, and— I didn’t know you’d already started—’
‘Are you a friend of his?’ Eyas said, her words rising with a sliver of hope. ‘Did you know him?’