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She clenched her fist. She’d been right at the edge of seeing something in her mind’s eye. She could get there if it weren’t for her stupid implant. She just knew it.
But until they could afford the surgery to get their implants taken out safely, she was stuck with it. There wasn’t any point in getting angry about it.
The only thing that she could do was work towards the money that they needed to get the surgery.
They weren’t doing it through the government-funded channels; they weren’t supposed to take the implants out, so they’d have to accept a black market surgeon. Anything could happen, but Xuan was desperate to get the implants out of their heads. She figured that she’d go along for the ride. She didn’t have a better idea.
She could smell something. Their den was mostly one space, but their “rooms” were little alcoves on each side. They were a little too regular to be there by chance, but when Phuong had asked Xuan about it, he’d just shrugged. She’d let it drop.
Her sheets were pure silk, the kind that they definitely should’ve sold a long time ago. It was strange how her brother insiste
d on having the best things even when they couldn’t afford much.
The silk sheets had been a gift from her brother. Well, a “gift.” He’d given them to her when she’d gotten him into a Drakan boutique with a little suggestion.
She put on her slippers, which, thankfully, weren’t absurdly luxurious for their circumstances.
She went out into the main area. On their “stove,” such as it was, she could see some pots with steam coming out of them.
“What are you cooking?”
“Amila stalks and lagoon-fresh greens,” Xuan said.
Phuong pressed her lips together. Those foods were way too expensive for people who couldn’t actually afford to feed themselves regularly.
She folded her arms. She counted to five. She was still mad. She counted to twenty.
She couldn’t stop herself from saying, “We can’t afford this.”
“Or the wine.”
“Xuan!”
He gave a wide grin, the one that had gotten him out of sticky situations without any silver-eye mojo. Her brother was a charmer, no doubt about it. It worked on random strangers and it worked on his sister. She just shook her head.
“Come on. Live a little.”
“You’re so focused on today’s pleasures that you don’t see that we’re not going to have enough food tomorrow! I feel horrible when we steal fish from the aquarium.”
“We won’t be doing that for long.”
She shook her head. “We don’t have that Illinium yet.”
“We’ll get it. I’m sure of it.”
“If you quote that motivational speaker one more time…”
“You have to believe it to achieve it. Positive thinking works, Phuong. You just have to believe it.”
Phuong knew better than to argue with someone who was delusional. She’d never win a fight with her brother. He didn’t like to see reality, and it was hard to be the realist. She wished that she could get a good dose of his optimism, but she was depressingly pragmatic. She went to their constantly packed trunk to get out some dishes. She went over to their water spout to rinse some of their dishes off.
One of the other escaped orphans from Heritage House had given the dishes to Phuong, and she treasured them. Gifts meant much more from people who had nothing.
Like so much that they owned, it should’ve been sold for money to buy food, but they kept it still.
It was a reminder that even when they’d had their backs to the wall, when they’d owned only the clothing on their backs, that kindness had meant everything to them. They’d had to move on — their friend wasn’t in a position to help them indefinitely — but shelter for just a few nights had meant everything.
Phuong tried not to worry about the cost of the Amila stalks — easily a day’s wage for the average hardworking member of the middle class. The wine…imported from off-planet, since they didn’t have the right land or climate for growing grapes for wine…was also absurdly expensive. The fresh greens could be an absurdly expensive price or just swiped from a garden.
