New Keepers. Jayne Bauling

as I leave my bed.

      The things in my seeing smoke are different. They feel urgent.

      “Hey! Here!”

      It’s one of the kids at the table, a slight boy with a small Skins patch grafted into the skin of his left forearm. It’s smooth, short fur, a gleaming silvery-white colour. Skins – another of the Sprawll’s crazy groups, if I’ve understood it right. This place confuses me.

      He’s standing up and looking at my forehead, at my Stain. Then his greeny-grey eyes slide away. I go towards them, with the dirty girl still following. He’s younger than me, I see, but the other boy is even younger. The girl is the oldest, probably my age, and she makes me uneasy. She’s a big girl, nearly as black as me, and her face is open and friendly, but her clothes scream Minder-class. She and the younger boy both have feathers sprouting from their wrists. I’ve seen it before in the Sprawll; I’ve heard it’s a simple surgical procedure.

      The younger boy is making this continuous noise, a wordless wailing.

      The older one’s light eyes find me again, find the dirty girl, skip away.

      “Our guide from the Margins?” he says, sounding distracted.

      “Yes,” I say as I reach the table. “Silver? And Lizwi?”

      I look from him to the girl. The other boy has started rocking backwards and forwards.

      “Right,” the older boy says. “We’ve just been introducing ourselves.”

      I suppose his patch is where his name comes from, so it’s probably a name he chose for himself, not the one his parents gave him. His own hair is dark blond, probably the same colour as the dirty Margins girl’s would be without its coating of dust and grease.

      “Jabz.” I pull out the fourth blue chair. “I should have asked when we were setting this up. Do you have your own texters, or were you texting from a CCC?”

      “I used my father’s private one,” Lizwi says.

      “Oh. Right. Minder-class privileges,” I say and she gives me a filthy look.

      Silver pulls a black-and-silver oblong out of his pants pocket, and I’m surprised because it looks nothing like any texter I’ve seen.

      “Where did you get that?”

      “I made it from pieces I found in the Repair Centre. There’s all this old stuff in the Occupational Therapy section. Really old, going back to the Contagion, or maybe even the Drowning … the Salting, you know?”

      “No way? I’ve heard people had their own super-smart texters and stuff until quite far into the Prosperity, like even in my lifetime. My childhood, anyway –” I stop, realising what he’s said. “You were in for Repairs?”

      “In and out all my life.” He jerks his head at the other boy. “Lizwi says it’s the same story with him.”

      Great, so they’re not just flawed, like I’ve heard plenty Sprawllers are; I will be going into the Wildlands with two people in regular need of Repairs, and this girl who probably comes with her own set of problems. A lot of use they’re going to be in a fight, or even if we have to run away (which will likely turn out to be our safer option, if the stories I’ve heard are true).

      “Doesn’t look as if the Repairs worked on him,” I say, to show them I’m not intimidated speaking to Sprawllers so they needn’t expect any polite niceness from me; I’ll be the guide and escort they’ve hired me to be, but that’s it.

      “Haven’t you heard of autism?” Lizwi demands.

      “I thought autistic kids got Parked,” I say.

      “Well, Meyi didn’t.” She moves her chair closer to Meyi’s. “Listen, I don’t want to be doing this, but Meyi … he’s obsessed with going out into the Wildlands. It’s like there’s something important there.”

      “Adventure,” Silver says. “And freedom.”

      That’s what he thinks, because that’s the idea I’ve sold him. Spoilt Sprawller. They’re stupid not to be more suspicious of someone from the Margins.

      “So you go along with whatever your brother wants?” I say to Lizwi, and I know I sound aggressive; it’s her Minder-class accent that’s getting to me.

      “What is all this?” the dirty girl cuts in; she’s been standing behind me, listening.

      “One fat mistake, maybe,” I suggest, because now I’ve met my clients, the thought of days or weeks in their company is making me regret I didn’t just push off on my own.

      “No, it’s not!” Silver is emphatic. “How can it be? Getting out of here and discovering what’s out there? And maybe Meyi is right and there really is something important waiting. It could be that his autism is a gift, letting him know things the rest of us don’t. I mean, before you got here Lizwi was telling me he says there’s a special way we have to go. A direction.”

      I look at his eager face, and move round to sit on the chair I’ve pulled out.

      “Crazy talk,” I say, but supposing he’s right, it would be no stranger than my smoke visions, because I think I also know the direction we have to go.

      The dirty girl hooks a chair from the next table and shoves it between mine and Silver’s. She slithers round to sit, and her ass is so bony I think it must jar, the way she thumps down.

      “Who’s she?” Silver asks me.

      “Just someone who followed me in from the Margins,” I say.

      “You can ask me.” The girl is aggressive and I can see Silver’s gaze flicker away from her face. “What’s the matter, Sprawll boy? Scared of me?”

      “Sprawll?” He frowns.

      “They call it Joto,” I tell the girl.

      Silver’s smile is as flickering as his weird eyes. I don’t know if I trust him.

      “Gauzi. Only Prayers still call it Joto. I think it’s had masses of names since the Contagion.”

      “I’ve seen Prayers,” I say. “I suppose those kids bleeding outside are another of your sects or cults or whatever you call them? What’s all that about? These groups you have here?”

      “We’ve always had them. Sometimes I think it’s just a fashion thing, but maybe it’s like a way of belonging to something, being part of a community. Because you can’t really say Gauzi is a community. Those kids outside are Bleeders. Probably too chicken to come in. Birdie Blue is a Feathers hang-out. Obviously.”

      “Meyi loves his feathers – don’t you, Meyi?” Lizwi is like a mother talking to a toddler. “Come Meyi, drink up for your Sesi.”

      “But what’s with the bleeding?” I ask Silver.

      “Something stupid.” He has turned vague. “Like this dead hero they’re honouring. The Bloodster or something. From the last uprising. That famous couple? He was their sort of sidekick, I think. I was still little. I don’t really remember.”

      “I do,” I say. “A bit.”

      “Me too.” It’s Lizwi.

      “They say he was put down, or maybe just Rinsed,” Silver says. “The Bloodster, I mean. Don’t know about the other two?”

      “Ricochet Thelezi and Leoli Leopara.” It’s like a light has come on behind Lizwi’s dark face. “Remember how Ricochet was too cool to go Feathers or Skins or anything? Leoli was Skins. Her graft was cultivated from cells from the last ever natural-born leopard. And there was that adorable baby, conceived out there in the Wildlands –”

      “And where are they now?” I break into the soppy stuff. “How stupid were they? Announcing their big homecoming rally, promising the people this awesome message they’d