Page 47 of Skyn
Lily’s smile drops. “The Ikus manage the societal purges.”
A ringing fills my ears. “Purges.”
“Oh my God, I can’t with her,” Lily groans.
Michael shrugs. “The controlled burns. Yes, sweetie. We orchestrate them. And this year, thanks to Ben’s incompetence”—he spreads his hands—“there’s nothing.”
A beat.
Then Michael smirks.
“Well.” He shrugs. “That’s not entirely true.”
I can barely whisper, “What did you do?” But I am looking at Ben for the answer.
Michael licks his teeth. “I wanted to show Mother my innovation. Because Ben had gotten too distracted with SKYN.” Micheal sighs. Shrugs again. “So, I had the brilliant idea to poison the meat supply.”
The controlled burn. Ben is meant to be the architect of the burn. And every sixty years, the Ikus play God.
For fifteen days, I have lived inside the numbers, let them crawl under my skin, let them whisper their secrets. I have followed the smoke back to the fire.
Every sixty years. Thirty percent of the population.
Not a natural disaster. Not even close.
It’s not just the mine collapse. It’s not just the earthquakes or the outbreaks. None of it was natural. Even the famine that turned my hair red.
It is surgical.
The memory of data pulses in front of me, rows of numbers. I sit with it, and it seeps into my bones.
For a moment, I do not breathe. Then, when I do breathe, it is shallow, careful. They don’t just let people die. They make it happen. To keep the numbers clean. To keep the sector “functional.”
I stare at Ben. They kill us. Belowground. To maintain balance. I don’t have to ask. I already know. But I ask anyway. My voice comes out strange, like it belongs to someone else. “Is it only us?”
Ben doesn’t look at me. And that tells me everything. A laugh bursts out of me, too broken.
And then I do something stupid.
I run.
I bolt upstairs to Ben’s console, hands moving fast, wild, and desperate. My heart pounds, my breath hitches, but my fingers do not hesitate. I send it. I send everything to the shopkeeper. He was right. So let it cause panic. Let it cause a revolution.
“Fawl.” Ben’s voice is urgent and raw. He followed me upstairs.
He steps toward me, hands outstretched, careful, like I’m an animal backed into a corner. “I alerted the authorities,” he says. “I didn’t let it happen.” His voice cracks on the last word.
I whip around, my breath coming too fast, too hard. “Fifty people died, Ben.”
He winces but his voice is steady. “Twenty thousand were slated to.”
I stare at him, pulse roaring in my ears. “You’re a monster.”
Ben flinches like I struck him. “I am a scientist,” he says “Not a killer. Fawl, please.”
His voice is raw now. Pleading. “I will not do it, Fawl. I promise you.”
“Ben—”
