Chapter 1:
Plaid: The Glass Tower
KIAN
“Do you really expect me to buy you that?”
“I mean, it wouldn’t kill you if you did.”
Kian Kona was in the middle of a stare-down with his closest friend. The two loitered in front of a booth smelling of wet feet in dirty socks with neon-lit signs boasting “The Best Roasted Pork in Town!” Well, that was Kian’s opinion. Emi insisted that the horrid smell was actually wonderful, and that Kian’s sense of smell was broken.
Of all the things broken in Kian, he could attest that at least his sense of smell was safe.
“It damn straight won’t kill me because I won’t be the one eating it. The smell of that food can’t be right. It’s not edible, Emi.”
The girl clicked her tongue, a sign that her patience on the topic was running thin. “Kian,” she started, “just buy it for me! I’ll pay you back later. The money I have on me now is reserved for chip oil and the oil only.” She continued with a noise of exasperation when Kian continued staring at her in silence. “You’re the governor’s son, for goodness’ sake. What are five less bills going to do to your wallet? Ya’ll are practically made of gold!”
Emi always knew how to make Kian drop an act. Or lose his cool. Or both. “We’re not made of gold, you ass.” With no further discussion of the smelly roasted pork sausages, Kian turned to give the bewildered vendor five Vermillion bills from his wallet.
As the man handed Emi her smelly sausage with an even more unappetizing appearance, he turned his focus on Kian. “Did I hear right that you’re the son of one of our Plate governors, young sir?”
‘Young sir.’ Kian hated that. “Yeah, what of it?” He snapped, then he frowned before the words even left the older man’s slightly chapped lips.
“If you could find it in your heart to spare a few bills for an old man and his ailing wife, I’d be forever grateful. We have no money for medici—”
“Let’s go, Emi.” Kian cut the man short, slammed the money on the vendor’s stand, and started up the path leading further onto the festival grounds.
Both Emi and the old vendor tried calling after him as he made a quick exit, but Kian ignored them both. It was the same every time anyone discovered his upbringing and status; they wanted something from him: money, food, better living circumstances, a second chance at life. Kian didn’t give a damn about their needs.
Being selfless was a life sentence of pain and misery.
After about ten steps, Emi caught up, slowing from a trot to a walk beside him. “Kian…” she began, hesitance evident in her voice. Kian waited—to yell at her—but saw Emi from the corner of his eye think better of continuing, choosing to finish her sausage, instead. He blew out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
Emi pointed somewhere off to her left after they had passed several more booths and vendors screaming about low prices. It was a stall selling chip oil in little vials the size of the chips themselves. Emi jogged over. “How much for this?” she asked the vendor who held up seven thin fingers. The ring and pinky fingers on his right hand had been replaced with soda-lime glass. Why the man would choose to replace bone with glass rather than something more durable like a form of metal, Kian could never guess. He also wondered if something as small as two artificial fingers would have the Tabby Family on the vendor’s tail.
Not that he cared much either way. The man had nothing to do with him.
“Heartless, as usual,” was what Emi said when she’d brought the man’s defects up as they continued their walk toward the festival’s main event.
Kian shrugged, “Only my family needs my heart.”
Emi made a noise with her mouth, then unscrewed the top on the little vial of oil and tapped a few drops onto her forefinger. “Here, screw this back on, will you?” Kian took the vial and cap from Emi, watching as she flipped her long, crimson-colored hair over her right shoulder with a strong toss of her head. She applied the oil to a blinking red computer chip the size of a memory card where it was implanted in the left side of her head. It was identical to the other 2.1 billion the citizens of Vermillion Plate required.
“Need some?”
Kian shook his head and handed the vial back to Emi. It was his first time seeing someone besides a family member do that, especially in public. People were usually afraid to carelessly expose their chip to others who might harm them for it, use it to enhance or replace their own worn-out chip. But it was imperative to oil the chip regularly. Letting the skin around one’s Plate chip dry out meant welcoming a quick goodbye; thus, Kian had applied oil to his chip earlier in the day at home, with a premium solution sent down by the governor of Orchid Plate a few years back. He wouldn’t have to reapply for multiple days. Apparently, the governor of the second Plate owed his mother a favor, but whatever the situation was didn’t matter to Kian. His family still had at least nine vials of premium chip oil left in stock, which would last them much longer than a supply of regular oil. That left plenty for himself, his mom, his sister, Lely, and his brother, Zone, and that was all he could ask for.
The closer they got to the center of West Vermillion’s most active district—nicknamed the Party District—the more crowded the streets got, the more excited the multitude of vendors became at the sight of prospective buyers, the brighter the multicolor lights on all the clear glass buildings shone, and the louder the spectators’ roaring was heard for the pair of men currently fighting in the battle ring floating far overhead. Tonight was the second and last night of the 25th Biennial Promotion Festival. It was a ritual, of sorts, that the citizens of Planet Vidrio had developed to announce the approach of that three-year cycle’s Selection. Selection was a phenomenon that led throngs of unfit individuals and sometimes whole families to their death once every three years. So, living in homes on The Glass Tower as they all were, the Promotion Festival was the best chance that some ever got to leaving the terror of Vermillion Plate—the lowest of the tower—behind.
There was one other reason. The Promotion Festival, also nicknamed the Selection Battles, helped people who knew they would likely be gone soon blow of some steam, and lifted the spirits of others who loved them. These festivals had live music, cheap goods to splurge, great food, friendly competition, and was basically a giant social gathering. Vidrians knew that, looking around, they were standing among people who may be living their last year on Vidrio—more so on Vermillion Plate than on any other plate in The Glass Tower—and that it could be just about anyone. Themselves included.
It was this last thought that always got Kian’s head to throb. Who would protect them in my place? He wondered, thinking of his family. Kian’s most pressing duty was to stay safe and to keep his family alive. But for reasons Kian himself might be to blame for, this was proving more difficult each day.
“Look!” Emi shouted, her voice pulling Kian from his thoughts. He followed the point of her finger up toward the hovering battle ring far above their heads. They were close enough to see clear inside from all angles as, like most everything else on Planet Vidrio, the ring was made of reinforced glass. “Dr. Rallus just entered the ring. That’s him, right?”
Kian grunted, “If that is him and he accidentally dies up there, we’re doomed.”
“Or if it’s him and he actually beats that guy, we’re doomed.”
“That too.”
“Why’s that?” said a voice much too close to Kian’s left ear, the side his red Plate chip was on.
He had been snuck up on. It was a weakness that quickened his pulse and made Kian feel uncomfortable. It had him thinking about unpleasant memories that kept him up night after night.
He’d have to get that fixed, stat.
Kian danced away from the stranger, eyes trained hard on the person’s attractive and androgynous features, distrust pulling him away. Emi, though, always the people-person, explained, “Well, Dr. Rallus is our district’s only doctor. Like, the kind of doctor who can do anything. I mean, we have nurses and some physicians in training, but if Dr. Rallus dies or gets promoted and leaves us, we’re toast.”
“Hm,” said the stranger, red hair thick but loosely swooped against their forehead as long bangs and, on the top and sides, falling in large curls onto the ears. In back, it stopped at the base of the neck and curled every which way at the ends. Its hapless curliness gave the impression of careless disregard, but the neat, charcoal lines darkening their eyes told a different story. “That would be especially true six months before Selection.”
“Especially.” Emi was nodding.
Kian wasn’t. “Who, exactly, the hell are you?” He demanded, interrupting the odd moment. “And Emi,” he whirled around to face his friend, “don’t tell a stranger our damned secrets!”
While Emi’s face morphed into a cross between a look of guilt and one of offense, the stranger waved Kian off. “Relax, just a friend enjoying what might be our last days of festivities. I mean no harm! Unless… that’s a no to the ‘friend’ bit?”
Emi jumped on that word like a rat on cheese. Every time. Kian hated to remember why. “Yes, friends!” She rushed around Kian to envelop the stranger in a bear hug.
Kian felt his right eye twitch, “The hell we are!” He cried in protest.
Then, ringing in his ears were the stranger’s words: ‘…what might be our last days of festivities.’ Those words continued bothering him as Emi and the stranger, now known as Druce, continued a lively conversation, edging closer to the announcer broadcasting the fight. What the hell did they mean by that? No one just tosses that into casual conversation without meaning something, Kian thought and followed behind the pair.
Only to overhear Emi telling Druce, “We’re from way, way on the other side of Vermillion Plate. From Mid-East Vermillion, actually. District’s name is Chrome, God knows why. We’ve never been anywhere in West Vermillion before! It was so cool to take the hyper-speed foot train for the first time. I thought I’d fly off the tower!” She paused to cackle, “I was scared shitless. And to think they had these big, boxy vehicles like trains in the past to get them around super fast— Hm!” She shook her head. “Anyways, what about you?”
If Kian could facepalm Emi instead of himself, he would.
Druce’s answer caught both Kian and Emi off guard. “I’m from nowhere.”
A beat passed before Kian, surprising the living hell out of himself for showing interest at all, asked, “You mean, a place called ‘Nowhere,’ or…?”
Druce smiled, a row of teeth so straight the person could be a doll, and repeated, “Nowhere. I’m not from anywhere.” Then Druce delivered Kian a look of deep yearning that left him further in question and at a loss for words.
He found his gaze attached to Druce’s eyes, at first in the same way as he analyzed the eyes of others. Kian was good at finding truths in others’ eyes the way con artists found hundreds in their victims’ wallets. Whether they wanted to share or not, Kian was generally able to lift information from them. But Druce’s eyes… They were the color of dense fog, yet somehow clearer than a freshwater pond. It felt as though he could see right through them, right into Druce’s open mind; though, he couldn’t get a read on Druce at all. In fact—he leaned his upper body closer, just slightly.
Were those tiny blue currents swimming behind their irises?
Unnerving.
Druce’s mesmerizing stare was disarming to Kian in multiple ways. It feels like this person can see right through me, instead.
Passing a look between them in silence, Kian and Emi followed when Druce walked away. It was their first time meeting someone from ‘nowhere,’ someone who had no one and no origin from the beginning. With a few side glances at Emi as they walked, seeing her familiar pitying eyes on Druce’s back, Kian was sure Emi was hoping to help Druce in every way she could.
Kian, on the other hand, wanted to keep away.
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