“You want to recruit us.” The father stepped between Cass and his family. “We’ve heard the stories. We know what happens to people who accept your kind of help.”
“That’s not—I would never—”
“Get away from my family. Now.”
Cass scrambled backward, his vision blurring. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
The father took a step toward him, and Cass turned and fled.
He made it three blocks before he had to stop, pressing himself into a narrow alley, hands shaking as he covered his face. This happened more often now—the overwhelming waves of failure and shame that left him gasping in hidden corners.
You’re fine, he told himself fiercely.Get up. Keep going.
The third attempt was the one that drew blood.
Cass spotted them sitting alone at the edge of the market, their posture radiating a kind of furious misery that he recognized. They were around his age, maybe twenty-four, with close-cropped hair and the stillness of someone who had stopped expecting anything good.
“Hi,” he said, settling onto the far end of their bench. “I’m Cass. Do you mind if I sit here?”
The person looked at him with flat, exhausted eyes. “Let me guess. Spiritual enlightenment and community harmony and how my life could besomuch better if I just opened my heart to whatever you’re selling.”
“I’m not selling anything. I just thought you looked like you could use some company.”
“Company.” The person laughed without humor. “And this company comes with a recruitment pitch, doesn’t it? Find someone vulnerable, offer friendship, work in the propaganda.”
Cass flinched. Why did everyone think Elysian was something it wasn’t? They weren’t like Gensyn, or the scary people that came from SVI territories. They were a harmonious collective and Cass had never even seen money before his mission trip; they were nothing like the corporations that ran the government of the Incorporated States of New America. “I just want to help, because I care about people,” he said quietly. “And the people here seem so alone—”
“You want to know what caring looks like?” The person’s voice went hard. “Caring looks like leaving people alone when they don’t want your help.”
“I’m sorry. I can go if—”
“My sister believed people like you.” The words came out sharp and sudden. “She thought someone like you actually cared about her.”
Cass’s stomach clenched. “I’ve never met your sister—”
“No. But someone like you did.” The person stood, and something in their posture made Cass’s instincts scream. “She came back wrong, you know. Whatever your people did to her, she came backwrong. She smiles all the time now and talks about how grateful she is.”
“I’m sure the community was just trying to help her—”
The knife caught the late afternoon sun, and for a second Cass thought it looked so pretty, like this was the one possession this person took really good care of.
Pain burst across Cass’s forearm, sharp and immediate, followed by the warm rush of blood.
“That’s for my sister. That’s for who she used to be.” The person’s voice was shaking. “Stay away from people like me. Every time one of you approaches someone with yourhealingand yourcommunity, another person ends up like her—smiling and empty and grateful.”
They disappeared into the crowd, and Cass stood there bleeding, tears streaming down his face.
She came back wrong.
The words kept echoing, bumping against things he didn’t want to examine. His own struggles. The treatments that were supposed to help him. The people who came back from additional support were calmer and more settled and blinked at the wrong times.
It’s not the same, he told himself as he bit back a sob.I just need more help. I can’t get the words right. I can’t get any of it right.
The strawberries and cream smell found him an hour later, when he was already so lost he’d stopped caring.
Getting lost in the Neutral Zone wasn’t unusual; the streets weren’t laid out in any logical pattern, and one crumbling building next to a modified shipping container looked like all the others when his eyes were blurred with tears. This time felt different. The streets kept getting narrower, the buildings more decrepit, and the people looked meaner. His arm throbbed with every heartbeat, and he was so tired of trying, tired of failing, tired of being the person everyone looked at with contempt.
Maybe I should just stop, he thought, and the thought was terrifying because it felt right in his bones.
