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Signy [16:46]: of course

Cora [16:46]: and how are they

Signy [16:46]: wonderful

Chapter 18 Cora, Fortune

Leaving a person outside when there’s space inside is murder,” Aunt Maisie always said. It wasn’t just true; it was the law. Every street in the Berth was outfitted with emergency pylons that flashed blue and screamed something awful when a shelter-in-place hit. If you were outside, you ran to the nearest airlock, no matter where it took you. If you were inside, you counted the heads that came through your door until you reached the limit printed on the sticker attached to whatever air supply rig you had installed, and you did not turn anybody away until you hit that.

The law said nothing about how comfortable the people sheltering in your place had to be, but Cora didn’t know anywhere—apartment block, grocery store, dance club, you name it—that didn’t have at least a cupboard of blankets on hand for when strangers needed to stay. The Flytown dorms were one of the Berth’s official evac sites, and so they had a whole storeroom for that exact purpose, filled with thin mattresses, tolerable pillows, and bundles of basic bedding. There were comfort kits, too, each containing a throwaway toothbrush, a pair of plain socks, a tiny bottle of all-purpose soap, a single-dose huffer of airway relaxant, a pocket tube of eyewash, a blindfold for sleeping, and a pack of cheap earplugs. All things considered, it was a pretty nice handout to get if you found yourself in a bad sitch.

Cora wrote her name on the honor system form tacked onto the wall beside the shelf where the kits were kept, letting Red know that yes, she’d taken a kit outside of an emergency, and yes, he could charge her savings account five bucks for it. She wrote her name on the forms beside the mattress shelf, the pillow shelf, and the bedding shelf, too, for the sake of tracking inventory. It was fine for residents to use this stuff for guests even when the lights weren’t screaming blue, so long as you said you’d taken it. And besides which, if this had been an emergency, Twig was currently the sort of person who would get a floor mattress and a tiny soap anyway, because she didn’t have anywhere else to go.

“All right, dingus, you take that end,” Cora said. She’d placed the mattress flat on the floor and set the sundries in the middle.

“You’re the dingus,” Twig muttered. She knelt down, ready to pick up the back end of the mattress.

“Sometimes!” Cora agreed, lifting the front corners of the mattress up behind herself. “But not tonight!”

“Must be nice,” Twig replied, sulkily.

They carried the mattress down the hall together as they’d done many times, a two-person parade weaving through the dorms. They passed by the gym, the showers, the meditation room. As they neared the hallway that led to the cafeteria, Cora raised her voice and said, “Have you had dinner?”

“I’m fine,” Twig said.

That meant no. Cora stopped walking and craned her head over her shoulder. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m fine,” Twig said again.

That meant yes. Cora knew better than to ask Twig if she had enough money to get herself something to eat, because undoubtedly she’d already spent it on a ferry ticket and a deep-fried peace offering. Cora set her end of the mattress down and walked the short remainder of the way to the cafeteria without a word or a glance back. They were still serving hot food, but were only open for fifteen more minutes. Cora didn’t want dirty dishes in her room, so she grabbed a prewrapped sandwich, a bag of chips, an orange, and two bottles of Hop Pop—Lemon Twist for Twig, Cherry Vanilla for herself. She sighed as she confirmed the charge to her savings account on the checkout screen. It was fine. It was a sandwich. It was fine. Plus, some aspect of the unholy combination of ginger, aspirin, and beer appeared to be making her headache fade, so at least there was that.

Cora dropped the food into the middle of the mattress alongside everything else. Twig scrunched her lips into the underside of her nose as she noticed the bottles of soda, her cheeks turning a bit red. She looked up at Cora with a conciliatory smile.

Cora frowned in response, both frustrated and fond. She turned away to pick up the mattress once more.

On the outside of Cora’s left ankle, in ink seven years old, she sported a hand-length tattoo of a fizzing-over bottle of Cherry Vanilla Hop Pop. Twig’s right ankle bore its twin, in Lemon Twist. Twig had been too young to get ink then, but the shop they’d gone to hadn’t cared, not when they explained the situation. Cora’s modified kinship adoption of Twig had been finalized earlier that day. Months prior, the kid had been scared of aging out in a few years, saying she wouldn’t have a family anymore. Cora put her foot down over that idea, did the paperwork to prove it, and after the last stamp had been stamped, she and Twig decided to mark the occasion, quite literally. Once their wounds healed up, Cora and Twig developed the habit of knocking their ankles together in lieu of a high five, or, if the mood were less warm-fuzzy, kicking each other while shouting Cheers! (That move confused anybody who might be watching, which made them all the more likely to do it.)

Twig had still been living at Heartwise then. Things had been a little simpler.

“Hey!” a voice called from across the hall. It was Smokey, stepping out of the elevator, presumably on a snack run. “Lydia got the game!”

“No shit?” Cora said. “Did the rain let up?”

“No, but Adam’s booster came in clutch. Not gonna get him laid, though.” Smokey glanced past her. “Hey, Twig, what’s up?”

“Hey, Smokey,” Twig said, in the friendly but sheepish tone of someone who did not want to be perceived.

“You crashing here?” Smokey asked.

“Yeah,” Twig said.

Smokey gave Cora the briefest flick of their eyes, but had the tact to not inquire further. “Wanna join us for handball night? Strikers versus Comets, it’s gonna be good.”

“Oh, uh . . . yeah, sure.” To anyone else, Twig would’ve just sounded aloof, but Cora detected her reluctance. There was a predictable arc to whenever Twig fucked up: lie, dodge blame, get sulky, feel bad, suck up, feel worse, lick wounds, wallow. They were entering the “suck up” stage, Cora could tell, because Twig didn’t like handball, and also, she probably didn’t want to answer casual questions about why she was there.

Cora managed to not sigh this time, even though—dammit, it was gonna be a good game. “Actually, we’re just gonna head back to my room,” she said to Smokey. She hefted the mattress and tugged them both on. “Impromptu sleepover. Sisters only.”

“All right,” Smokey said in a shrugging tone. “Have fun.”