Page 2 of Skyn
I burst through the door of the Lamb Place; I must have rubbed my canvas overalls on every machine I passed because, by the time I get to the restaurant, I look like I just left an engine room.
Josh is sitting at our table, his head bent as he stares at a small oily screen. He is the most determined man I know. The first day I met him, he told me he was getting out of the mines, and I believed him. He never stops thinking of his next step.
And he doesn’t belong down here anymore, not since the augmentation. That shining new shoulder is a symbol, a ticket out of this place. I’m so proud of it—displayed by a cut out of the smart blazer, twinkling in the candlelight.I count three women elbowing each other when they pass him.
Sorry, girls, that boy is mine.
I slip over to our table, holding my certificate behind my back.
Josh meets my gaze, and whoa—something in his face makes the elation drain from my body.
I open my mouth, but he speaks first.
“Fawl.” His voice is soft, tired. “You’re late, and you look a mess…”
“I know, but let me tell you why?—”
“Fawl. This is the nicest place in the sector.” It is. The tables are small, the chairs mismatched, and the ceiling hangs low. But by God, it’s one of the few spots belowground that serve Iku MEAT. Which, despite it killing nearly sixty people, It’s too high status for Josh to stop wolfing it down.
“This is the type of thing I’m talking about. We make plans—youshow up when you want to.Dressed…how you want to. I just”—he glances over my shoulder to the painted mirrors pretending to be windows—“don’t think we’re aligned about what’s important to us.”
No, this… This isn’t right. The world around me narrows, and my vision tunnels to a pinprick.
The Soap Paradox—that’s what this is. It’s one of the defining features of my life in the mines, really. You squeeze a bar of soap too hard, and it shoots right out of your hand. Hopes and dreams? Just as slippery.
I thought I’d beaten it. I really did. Ten years ago, back in secondary school, there was this field trip aboveground. I wanted to go more than anyone else. To see the sky, feel real air on my skin—God, it was all I could think about. And then, on the day, I was the last to be called. The final name on the list. But when my turn came? They’d run out of space.
It seemed the universe was having a little joke at my expense. Again. Because I know what comes next.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” Josh says slowly, but doesn’t look at me. “Listening to these radiocasts…I’ve realized I need to grow. To become more.” He pauses, and for a second, I think he might finally meet my eyes, but his gaze stays fixed on the door. “I can’t keep doing this. Being with you. I can’t keep…holding myself back.”
Chapter2
The President of Iku Foods Does Not Eat People
He’s leaving. Oh my God. He’s leaving me.
His voice sounds like feedback, and I can’t hear any part of his long-practiced speech. I keep hearingholding myself back.
“ButI gave you all my lottery tickets. We all did. We had a plan.” When we found out about my nickel allergy, my family pooled their lottery tickets—all of them—to increase Josh’s chances of winning. So we could be secure aboveground. Then we would pool for my younger stepsister. That was the plan.
“And you’re holding it over my head.” Josh sighs, running a hand through his limp hair as though the act of breaking my fucking heart is exhaustinghim.
“You’re scamming us!” A strange, hysterical laugh bubbles up in my throat. I do this—laugh at the worst time. I want to cut to a flashback of me losing my shit at my uncle’s funeral when my aunt’s cybernetic teeth fell out, but my life is currently falling apart, so we don’t have the time.
“My family’s gonna flip. My mom, my stepmom—Josh, they’ll be crushed.”
When he seems unmoved by that argument, I switch tactics. Going aboveground has been the only thing I’ve wanted for so long. I can just let it go. “I just got allocated a diamond.” I snatch down my shirt collar to shoot him the angry-red, bruised skin and the diamond carved into it. I sound crazed, and my eyes are watering. “Do you understand what that means?” My voice cracks, but I can’t stop myself. “I have status. We can do this together.”
Josh looks at me and shakes his head slowly likeI’mnot getting it, likeI’mthe one being unreasonable. “Who knows if they care about our useless certifications aboveground?”
Useless?
The room tilts. I grip the back of a chair. My chest is tight, so tight that it hurts to breathe. “You’re throwing us away,” I finally say.
“Fawl, I…” His voice trails off into the clanking of servers bussing trays, and the machinery in the distance. The sound of the mine is always there, like a heartbeat pulsing in the background.
All my IS coworkers warned me—men change when they get augments.They said he’d leave me for some sleek, modded girl with polished limbs and synthetic nerves that never misfire. I laughed in their faces, called them bitter, jealous, wrong.
