The Other Side Of Gravity (Oxygen, #1) (10 page)

I took her hand once more, noticing how she didn’t clench up as much this time when I touched her. I put her in the end of the alley we’d just come from behind an old charging dock. These were stationed all over the place, in intervals for people to charge their handhelds, electric scooters, and bots. Back before we used solar power. This one being in the alley like this, not out in the open, I didn’t think anyone would come near it. Most people used the public transportation system anyway, which was a hover rail system that covered the entire planet and sat high above all the buildings going six-hundred-sixty-seven miles per hour. That was deemed the safest and fastest top speed and got you around pretty quickly.

“Just stay here. No one will bother you. I’ll be back soon and then we’ll find somewhere to stay for the night, okay?”

She nodded again slowly with that look on her face that said she didn’t believe a word out of my mouth. “Okay.”

“Soph, look—”

“Don’t call me ‘Soph’,” she said, looking at something behind my head. “My mother called me that and…” She shook her head. “Just go. I’ll wait here.”

I took a deep breath, knowing that I would normally regret it outside the buildings where they had their own oxygen provided, but right then I just didn’t care. This girl was making me manic. “I
will
be back.” I pushed her shoulder so she’d sit down on the granite street behind the charging station, hidden from the street and all that passed by it. “Look at me.” She did immediately, which surprised me. “I know you don’t know me. Yet,” I added on, though I didn’t really know why. “But when I say I’m going to do something, I do it. I
will
be back.”

She said nothing, just looked at me, letting all her doubts be known. This girl who had been dumped into a system that showed no mercy and took no prisoners was just being what she was made to be—skeptical and untrusting.

I turned to go, but stopped and took out the disarming spray from my bag that I had taken from the guard. They hardly ever used it anymore. It had been introduced a years ago, but quickly died out when everyone learned to hold their breath and not breathe in the mist. I handed the can to Sophelia. “Use it if you have to.”

She took it and held it against her chest. “Go,” was all she said.

I had given her all the reassurance I could. I realized the best thing I could do for her was to come back and show her that I wasn’t ditching her. I would be quick. Being alone on the run on this planet was practically a death sentence. You needed a lookout, you needed someone to keep watch sometimes, you needed to use the wiles of one when the other’s wouldn’t work, you needed to have each other’s back.

As I reached the first vendor, I began to show him the items I wanted as I put them in my bag. He punched the numbers in on the screen under the skin on his forearm as we went. I got food enough for four days. I needed room in my bag for other things, too. I had no idea what Sophelia liked, but she’d only ever eaten beans so I definitely didn’t get any of those. I wanted to kind of…give her an experience. I smiled as I showed him an airtight sealed package of pancakes and slipped it into my bag, then a couple more things before showing him my forearm. He swiped his forearm over mine to make the exchange of money from me to him before I moved on to the next vendor.

Chapter Five

fas·cism - a very harsh form of controlling and authoritative government. A way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator, political party, or group controls the lives of the people and in which they are not allowed to disagree with the government or control their own lives.

Sophelia

I
watched Maxton walk away and knew he wasn’t coming back. He had saved me and done his part for me. He put me in a safe place, away from harm, given me something to defend myself, gotten his prize, and made sure I was okay. We both won. And though it stung, just a little—okay, maybe more than a little—I was okay with that. He had gone above and beyond for me already. He didn’t have to do any of that for some girl he didn’t know. I was grateful and would accept what I had been given as payment for services rendered. Or…grievances rendered, I should say. His debt to me was paid in full and I was out of here.

And I knew right where I was going.

The stacks weren’t far—right smack in the middle of everything. It was getting darker by the minute and I kept to the shadows in the alley as much as I could. The heat from the granite still sweltered up to me and I wiped the sweat away from my forehead with the back of my hand.

My thoughts came back around to Maxton whether I wanted them to or not. What if he hadn’t turned me in? What if I had actually believed that he was going to come back for me? To be honest, I almost did. Maybe it was just me wanting to believe. Maybe that was just my messed-up belief in people because they always betrayed me. But he
did
betray me.

I pushed away all thoughts of men and betrayals and…Maxton, and focused on what I needed to be thinking about.

When I came to the end of the alley, I searched for the signs in the sky like I used to do as a child to get home from school. It was the only way to know how to tell one building from another and know which way you were going when they all looked the same. Dark. Tall. Towering. Dilapidated. That’s what downtown looked like. That’s what the stacks looked like.

I always knew it was my building because it had two holographic billboard screens in the sky that met almost like a ‘V’ right above my building. The commercials were different, but they were still there. I sighed, letting out a painful breath of precious air I hadn’t known I was holding.

To be honest, I didn’t know where my next breath was coming from, once these ran out. I was going to have to find someone to buy it from illegally. That was going to be…different.

I moved my hair around my face like Maxton taught me and moved swiftly, walking straight and slow, trying to seem like I belonged there, the can of spray tucked snugly in between my breast where it wouldn’t be noticed but I could grab it quicker than my pocket. I mean, who would think a boob-grab would produce a weapon? I could think quick, too, Maxton.

People were out and about in the stacks. They always were. People milled around and hung out, conversing and laughing in small circles outside each other’s doors. Mom and I never did. We were loners and kept to ourselves, but I could always hear them out there, laughing or playing music sometimes. I had always wondered what it would be like to have real friends, like Maxton. But then he seemed to act like they weren’t his friends at all, that they were just acquaintances who were all stuck in the same circumstances. But even that sounded better than being alone.

I made my way through the first wave of people and the first building. Only seven more to go until my building would loom over me and I would be in the clear. Well, until I had to climb the ladder to my floor and somehow get inside my pod that I was sure another family lived in, and persuade them to let me inside without calling the Militia. No biggie.

There were some rougher areas in the stacks, but most everyone kept to themselves and didn’t bother others. We all knew that we had enough problems and didn’t need more. It was a strange kind of alliance that had formed since the government shift. We were on the bottom and the bottom was tired of it. We were too tired to fight each other.

No one really looked at me as I made my way through the wide dirt paths that separated our buildings. A few glanced my way, but most just minded their business and paid me no mind.

Memories smacked into me hard when I reached the corner of the last building before mine. I remembered being younger, shorter, more naïve, optimistic that life would get better, looking up at this building and looking forward to seeing my mother at the end of the day.

My bottom lip began to quiver and I bit down on it. No. She told me to be strong. She said for me to be strong and fight, and that was what I was going to do. I was finally free.

I walked faster as I made my way across the paths between both buildings. When I reached mine, I looked up. All the ladders lined up along the building’s side looked almost like a painting. I remember my ladder by instinct and didn’t hesitate. I hooked my belt on and began to climb.

One rung after another, my heart beat faster and faster. I tried to think of what to say, what to do, what to ask of these people when they answered the door. Could I just say, ‘Hey, I left something here before they made me a slave, mind if I grab it?’ I think that might work. When I reached my door, I was out of time and options. I raised my hand to knock on the metal door gently. When I heard movement inside, my heart kicked into high gear.

When a little girl answered, I all but laughed in relief.

“Um, hi,” I said, so eloquently.

“Hi.” She looked a little put out.

I smirked. “Are you home alone?”

“That’s your first question?” I felt my eyebrows rise to my hairline.

              “How old are you?”

              She rolled her eyes. “I’m ten. And I’m old enough to be by myself. I do it all the time. So what do you want anyways?”

              “I used to live here, in this pod.” She continued to stare dully. “I left something here. I wanted to grab it real quick.”

              She thought about it for a second. “What’s in it for me?”

              I did laugh this time. “Okay, okay. We’ve obviously gotten off on the wrong foot. I’m Sophelia.” I waited. “Come on,” I goaded. “I know you want to tell me.” And I knew she did, because when I was little no one ever asked me my name. Even now, for that matter.

She pursed her little lips, looking angry and hopeful all at once. “Amber.”

              “Amber.” I smiled. “That’s pretty. Well, Amber, I used to live here, when I was eight, with my mom.”

              Her eyes widened. “I’ve lived here since I was born. That means that…”

              She knew what it meant. Everyone knew that a child that didn’t live with their parent was a slave.

“Yeah.” I swallowed. “I had to leave a couple things here, hidden. Can I grab them? And then I’ll leave.”

              She squinted. “Dad would skin me alive if he knew that I let someone in here with him gone to the mines.”

              I smiled, unhooking my belt from the ladder. “I won’t tell him if you won’t.”

              She rolled her eyes again. “If I get caught—”

“You won’t.” I pushed inside and shut the door behind me.

“Hurry. What is it anyway?”

I was hit as I looked at the pod around me. It was exactly the same as when I lived in it, except for a few sparse items strewn around. I had to mentally push my memories aside to focus and not buckle up against the wall and just cry as I remembered the way I heard my mother scream, the way the men watched her fall, the way they told me I would be a slave.

She told me to be so brave…

I wiped under my eye once and sighed loudly, grunting. “Enough, Sophelia,” I whispered to myself before taking another deep breath.

“Hey, watch it, oxygen hog,” I heard her mutter.

I pulled the chair over and reached up into the panel of the ceiling, praying so hard to my mother’s God that it was all still there. When the panel clicked away and I saw golden hair, I laughed out loud as I pulled out the doll and then the book. I replaced the panel, wasting no time, clutching the items to my chest tightly.

I slid the chair back into place and looked at the girl. She was looking at me almost sadly.

“Those were there this whole time and I never knew?”

“I’m sorry. And I wish I could leave them with you, but I can’t. They aren’t just normal things. They’re special to me.”

She nodded and kicked her shoe into the wall. “Sure.”

“What—”

The door to the pod started to open and I froze. She looked at me with eyes that said
This is all your fault
!

“Dad! You’re home,” she said and ran to him as he came in. I went to stand beside the door, putting the items on the floor beside me, my back to the wall, and got ready. I hated to do this, but there was no other choice. I hoped that Amber would forgive me.

As soon as he came through the door and shut it, I hit him with the incapacitation spray. Then I put my hands over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream because that was next. And it was. She screamed and kicked as her father fell to the floor, his eyes open, watching us, so scared.

Gosh, I’d never felt so awful.

“He’s just asleep. It’s not hurting him. Amber, stop!” I hissed. “Stop. Stop. He’s awake. He can hear you and see you. He just can’t move.” She stopped moving, but was breathing heavily. “I just didn’t want him to alert the Militia before I could explain.” I looked at him. “I’m sorry.” I looked at her over her shoulder. “I’m going to release you. Don’t scream. I’m not going to hurt you.”

She nodded and as soon as I let go, she dove for her father.

She looked up at me from the floor. “Why did you—”

“I told you. He would have alerted—”

“No, he wouldn’t have!”

“Yes, he would’ve.”

She looked back at him and he was looking at me like I was the Earth’s commander in chief himself standing in his pod. If I were made of flint, this whole place would be ablaze. She puffed a little huff from her lips, her cheeks red with anger. “You still didn’t have to do that.”

“He’ll be fine in a minute. In fact, I need to get going before he gets up.” I leaned down to be eyelevel with them. “Thank you, Amber. I lost my father when I was just…” I couldn’t even finish that sentence without choking up. I smiled and let the tear pool in the corner of my eye before using my knuckle to rub it away. “When I was little. My mom died when I was eight. So I know how much he means to you. Believe me, I’m not here to hurt either of you. My mom gave me something for my last day of birth with her, hid it here, and…I just had to get it. I’m sorry.”