New Keepers. Jayne Bauling

Minders –”

      “Are benevolent, we all know,” I jeer. “So maybe they were just Parked or Rinsed. Whatever, they disappeared, cute little offspring included.”

      But I’m sore saying these things. I seem to see and hear through the years, clearly remembering watching them on the free channel. Ricochet and Leoli. Their faces sharp and fiery with anger and belief, their voices ringing, promising the people. I was too young to understand what they claimed to be bringing, but I remember excitement sweeping through the Margins, whole families planning to enter the Sprawll for the rally.

      I move my head around. I want to dislodge the memory. A promise that came to nothing is all it was.

      The Sprawll’s soft piped air is too warm. I’m wearing clothes to suit the cold season out in the Margins, so I’m starting to sweat inside them.

      I say, “You sure you want to do this? Go out?”

      “Absolutely,” Silver says.

      “I don’t want to, but Meyi does.” Lizwi gives me this look, level and sort of demanding, or maybe commanding. “We’ll pay extra if the direction he wants to go is different from the one you have in mind.”

      “We’ll see,” I say, because I’m not ready to tell them about the way I believe we have to go. I mean, it is part of all that shit in the smoke, and how do I explain that to them?

      I look at Meyi and wonder if his direction is the same as mine.

      Man, I’m starting to think I’m truly messed up in my mind. Getting the Wildlands expedition idea in the first place, coming here, thinking Sprawllers will be any use on this insane journey I have to make. Hell, there was probably something wrong with the smoke that made me hallucinate: the mountain and humming and words and all those other sounds.

      “Answering my text ad?” I say. “Were you thinking for yourselves, or did it have something to do with the chemicals you Spr– Gauzi people put into yourselves? Is it true you all wear slow-release patches somewhere under your clothes?”

      “They’re not drugs,” Lizwi says. “Not the way you mean.”

      “Shouldn’t we talk about the Wildlands?” It’s as if Silver’s mind has moved on while Lizwi and I have been speaking. “Are there special things we need to know?”

      “What the hell is all this?” It’s like a small, crackling explosion from the dirty girl. “The Wildlands? Going there for like fun? An adventure? You’re all insane, take it from me.”

      “Shut up,” I say.

      Silver looks her way, his eyes steady for just a few seconds. “What’s your name?”

      She glares at him, all ferocious, like she’s caught in a trap and ready to fight her way out.

      “Orpa,” she snarls.

      Meyi makes a series of sounds different from the intermittent wailing noise he’s been producing at intervals. He’s saying something, but the words are unintelligible. I see Silver looking at Lizwi, and I do the same.

      She seems embarrassed. “He says she’s … dirty,” she mumbles. “Orpa.”

      I laugh, but I know it’s not a good sound. “He’s got that right.”

      “Really, like you ’re so clean and fragrant,” the Orpa girl hisses.

      “Is this like a Margins thing?” Silver wants to know. “Saying just anything? Because you don’t wear patches, maybe? Isn’t it your job to be telling us about what we’re hiring you to do? Reassuring us?”

      “I know. Sorry,” I mutter.

      His eyes find me and flit away. I think of the dark mark spread across the left side of my forehead, seeping into my eyebrow. I try not to look into mirrors and other reflective surfaces more than I have to, but I’m reminded of it every time I see other Stains.

      So the weird thing is that here in the Sprawll, where there are no other Stains to remind me of the mark on my face, I’m even more conscious of being Stained than I am in the Margins.

      I don’t know how to answer Silver. I suppose the truth is that I’ve been coming on all aggressive with everyone because I’m … not scared, exactly, more like … uncomfortable. It’s the Sprawll. In the Margins, I know how things work, how people think. I can be myself there, and take the lead if I need to.

      Not here.

      I register something, a cluster of three backpacks on the floor beside the table. I noticed them when Orpa and I arrived, but they didn’t mean anything to me then.

      I point at them. “All ready to go, I see.”

      “Except I still need to draw tokens to pay you before we leave Gauzi,” Lizwi says.

      “When do we start? Now?” Silver wants to know. “Listen Jabz, I don’t know how legitimate any of this is. What you’re doing, what we’re doing? What if the Minders don’t approve, and try to stop us? From the way you spoke, you know they aren’t truly benevolent, whatever they claim. Who’s to say Parking and Rinsing are really so … what do they call it? Benign?”

      “And their tiny spy-drones are so powerful, they don’t miss a thing,” Lizwi adds.

      “You should know,” I say, and see her face darken. “Minders for parents, right?”

      A few people have come in and chosen tables while we’ve been talking. Their left wrists all sprout feathers. Birdie Blue is retro, so there are waitrons, also Feathers. One of them has come over to our table and is looking enquiringly at Orpa and me.

      “What can I get you?” she asks, and I see Lizwi bite back whatever she was going to say to me.

      I hear something in the waitron’s voice. Contempt, I think. She looks at my forehead quickly, and looks away again.

      I stare at her feathers, wondering why anyone would want to choose to have quills inserted under their skin. I’ve heard they’re all fake feathers these days. Skin grafts like Silver’s are mostly grown from the preserved cells of long-ago real animals, but something went wrong for the feather industry.

      That’s why Skins are cooler than Feathers. They’re real.

      “Don’t those get in the way?” I ask the waitron in my most aggro voice, to get back at her for the contempt. “Like when you’re waiting tables or having sex or sleeping? Do you ever moult?”

      “You got a problem with Feathers?” she comes back at me. “So what are you doing in a Feathers joint? That’s what this is. Birdie Blue. Get it? Or does that Stain go right through to your brain?”

      “Hey!” Orpa erupts from her chair, while Meyi starts up with his wailing again.

      “Stop it,” Silver says. “Jabz? Orpa? What I was just saying? I don’t think we should hang around, but if you want something to drink before we –”

      “Forget it,” I say, because even if I wanted something, I’m not wasting my tokens in this place or anywhere in the damned Sprawll. “Nothing for me.”

      “Nor me,” Orpa rages. “I’d probably be sick.”

      “Fine.” The waitron stomps away.

      There’s a rush, a clatter, at the door, and two more people enter Birdie Blue.

      “The expedition, the expedition?” A girl’s voice, laughing and breathless. “Adventure people? I know I’m s’posed to find you here! I saw the messages you sent each other.”

      I’d guess she’s about seventeen, but tiny, small enough to be a Pet, cute enough too. She’s not a sepia, but her skin is way lighter than Lizwi’s, Meyi’s and mine, light enough for a scatter of dark freckles to be visible across her nose and upper cheeks.

      Little flecks of darkness,