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Risa has come to realize that train stations like this one have two layers that don’t mix. They don’t even touch. The upper layer are the wealthy travelers like the mother and daughter down the bench from her, taking high-speed trains with every amenity to get them from one exclusive place to another. The lower layer are the dregs who have nowhere else but the station to hang their hat.
“I said I wanted to learn violin, Mom. You could have gotten me lessons.”
Risa knows she cannot board any of these trains. There’s too much security, and too many people know her face. She would be met at the next stop by a phalanx of federal officers who would be thrilled to take her into custody. The train, just like any other legitimate mode of transportation, is nothing but a dream for Risa.
“No one wants to learn an instrument, Rachel. It’s grueling repetition—and besides, you’re too old to start. Concert violinists who learn the traditional way begin when they’re six or seven.”
Risa can’t help but listen to the irritating conversation between the well-dressed woman and her fashionably disheveled teenaged daughter.
“It’s bad enough they’d be messing in my brain and giving me a NeuroWeave,” the girl whines. “But do I have to have the hands, too? I like my hands!”
The mother laughs. “Honey, you’ve got your father’s stubby, chubby little fingers. Trading up will only do you good in life, and it’s common knowledge that a musical NeuroWeave requires muscle memory to complete the brain-body connection.”
“There are no muscles in our fingers!” the girl announces triumphantly. “I learned that in school.”
The mother gives her a long-suffering sigh.
The most troubling thing about this conversation is that it’s not an isolated incident. It’s becoming more and more common for people to get vanity transplants. You want a new skill? Buy it instead of learn it. Can’t do a thing with your hair? Get a new scalp. Operators are standing by.
“Think of them like a pair of gloves, Rachel. Fancy silk gloves, like a princess wears.”
Risa can’t stand it anymore. Making sure her hood is low enough so that her face can’t be seen, she gets up, and as she walks past them, she says, “You’ll have someone else’s fingerprints.”
Princess Rachel looks horrified. “Ew! That’s it! I’m not doing it.”
Leaving the train station, Risa goes out into the steamy August evening. She knows she has to look like she’s occupied. Like she’s going somewhere with purpose. Looking indolent will make her a target for Juvies and parts pirates—and after her last run-in with a parts pirate, she does not want to repeat the experience.
She has a pink backpack she stole from a school playground, featuring hearts and pandas, slung over her shoulder. A police officer is coming down the street in her direction, so she pulls out a phone that doesn’t actually work and makes fake conversation into it as she walks.
“I know. Isn’t he just the cutest! Oh, I would die to sit next to him in math.”
She must appear to have a place to go and vapid people to talk to about her vapid life. She knows the look of an AWOL and has to give the impression of anything but.
“Ugh! I know! I hate her—she is such a loser!”
The officer passes and doesn’t even glance at Risa. She’s got this illusion down to a science. It’s exhausting though—and as the night ticks away, it will be too late for any respectable girl to be on a downtown Omaha street. No matter what image she tries to push forth, she’ll draw suspicion.
The train station was good for about an hour, but it’s a classic hangout for kids on the run. She knew she couldn’t stay very long. Now she reviews her options. There are some older landmark office buildings with old-fashioned fire escapes. She could climb up and find an unlocked window. She’s done that before and has always managed to avoid the nighttime cleaning staff. The risk is being spotted while breaking in.
There are plenty of parks, but while older vagrants can get away with sleeping on park benches, a young fugitive can’t. Unless she can break into a maintenance shed, she wouldn’t risk staying in a park. Usually she’ll scope out such places earlier in the day. When the shed is open, she’d replace the lock with one that she has the key to. Then when the groundskeeper locks up, he’ll have no idea he’s only locked himself out. But she was lazy today. Tired. She didn’t do her due diligence, and now she’s paying for it.
There’s a theater on the next street playing a revival of Cats, which mankind will likely have to suffer through for the rest of eternity. If she can pickpocket a single ticket, she can get in, and once inside, she can find a place to hide. Hidden space high above the flies. Basement crannies filled with props.
She cuts through a back alley to get to the theater. Mistake. Halfway down the alley, she encounters three boys. They look to be eighteen or so. She pegs them right away as either AWOLs who lived long enough to outgrow the threat of unwinding, or maybe they were among the thousands of seventeen-year-olds set free from harvest camps when the Cap-17 law passed. Sadly most of those kids were just hurled out into the streets with nowhere to go. So they got angry. Rotten, like fruit left too long on the vine.
“Well, well, what do we have here?” says the tallest of the three.
“Really?” says Risa, disgusted. “â??‘What do we have here?’ Is that your best line? If you’re going to attack a defenseless girl in an alley, at least try not to be cliché about it.”
Her attitude has the desired effect. It catches them off guard and makes the leader—a prime douche, if ever there was one—take a step back. Risa makes a move to push past, but a beefy kid, fat enough to block her way, eclipses her view of the end of the alley. Damn. She really hoped this didn’t have to get messy.
“Porterhouse don’t like uppity girls,” says the Prime Douche. He smiles, showing two of his front teeth are broken.
The fat kid, who must be Porterhouse, frowns and solidifies his mass like a nightclub bouncer. “That’s right,” he says.
It’s kids like these, thinks Risa, that made people think unwinding was a good idea.
The third kid lingers, saying nothing, looking a little bit worried. Risa marks him as her possible escape route. None of them have recognized her yet. If they do, their motives will instantly compound. Rather than trying to have their way with her, then leaving her there in the alley, they’ll have their way, then turn her in for the reward.
