Breeder Read online

  I come inside and drop my mask near the door. Then Ma hands me a bowl of food and I make a face. “Don’t start,” she says, and shoves a fork at me. We sit on the broken-down couch and before I can take a bite, she says, “So. It’s not coming.”

  She means my damn Crystal 8. Ma gets it from a Gray Corps smuggler at the desal plant, and it costs us a fortune. Over the last six months alone, the price has doubled—we’ve been skipping a lot of meals to pay for those pills.

  “Maybe they’ll come tomorrow,” I say, not looking at her, even though I know that’s not going to happen.

  “You’ll need to go out tonight, Will.”

  “Yeah,” I say, meaning Nah. I’m not doing it.

  “It’s been five days already.” Her voice is so calm. She could be talking about a shopping trip, rather than going down to the Gray Zone. I’ve gone there before, of course. But not for over a year.

  “I’m okay with waiting another few days,” I lie. “The withdrawals aren’t that bad.” Living without the drugs isn’t really an option. Then I think about what the Gray Zone entails, and that doesn’t feel like an option either.

  She’s on her feet and standing in front of me. Damn, she’s fast. “I can see the difference in you already.”

  I feel the heat in my face, and I look away. “Okay. Okay. I’ll go.”

  We sit there and eat silently. I manage to swallow my food only because I’ve made my mind completely blank. When I finish, she says, “Go have a nap first.”

  •

  I take a sleeping pill so I can pass out for a couple of hours. Ma wakes me at midnight, roughly shaking my shoulder. She hands me a shopping bag and leaves. Inside the bag is a new pair of black jeans and a long-sleeved black top—the clothes I wore to the Gray Zone last year are now too small. At least I have my usual thick, black boots. I tie the laces hard. I take my folding knife out of the top drawer but then remember the security post pat-downs and stick it back in the drawer. Ma hobbles back into my room—she broke her right leg badly a long time ago—and gives me an orange and a glass of water and another pill. This one is just a generic painkiller, but it’s better than nothing since the withdrawals are now making me ache all over. I swallow the pill, and we walk down the stairs together.

  When we get to the front door, Ma looks at me and her eyes are soft, which makes me feel worse.

  “Okay?” she says.

  I start to shake. It’s bloody embarrassing, and I can’t stop. I know she sometimes gets scared that I’m not strong enough to get through what’s ahead of me. It scares me too. You need to be as rough as guts in this world, Will, Ma always says. And yet she’s looking at me with those soft eyes.

  “Goodspeed, Will. Come home tight and right,” Ma says. She makes a sign on her forehead, on her lips, and on her heart. Then she makes the sign on my forehead. She does weird stuff like that sometimes, and mutters little bits of poetry—blessings from the West, I think they are. I shake harder.

  Her eyes go steely and she says, “Don’t fuck it up. Alright?” That’s better—I nod and the shaking stops. I grab my mask and go out the door.

  •

  I approach security at the Zone F Transit Station, raise my wrist to the scanner, and suck in my breath. I’m waved through without an interrogation. I guess it’s because I haven’t used any interzone visas for a while—no reason for them to suspect frequent or distant travel. Then I walk slowly through the body scanner and again breathe out with relief when I’m not pulled aside for a pat down.

  The security corridor opens out to the massive dome of the Transit. The perimeter has numbered doors leading to the buses outside, there are escalators going up to a food court, and the ground floor has a few disgusting restaurants and coffee shops. It’s crowded and the noise is unreal.

  I walk to the east side of the station and, while I wait for the local 42 bus to the Wall, I take a seat on a bench near a café. There’s only one other person waiting there—a Shadow, who is very beautiful. Both her Breeder scar and Shadow tattoo are visible, as the laws dictate. I try not to stare at the curl of the embryo brand peeking out from under the tattoo, a red check mark inside a circle. Living in a world comprised almost entirely of men and boys, I’m always entranced when I see a Shadow. Here in the Transit station, there are maybe four hundred people: all of them men and boys, and then there’s her. It’s not easy to look away. After all, there are only boys and Sir at school; only men and boys at work, apart from two older Shadows who work in the plant’s office. Since the Corp only allows Breeders to leave the Incubator either by being bought out or after they’ve paid off their unit debt through breeding, they usually don’t return to the world until they’re worn-out Shadows. This Shadow is actually young, or at least she looks young.

  The Shadow shifts uncomfortably down the bench. I’m just a skinny kid, but I get why she would see any boy or man as a threat. I don’t want her to feel afraid of me—she doesn’t deserve that. And Ma would throttle me if she knew I frightened her. Even though it’s hard, I try not to stare.

  There are never any Breeders in the Transit. I might see a young Breeder—still with her family, under the Incubation age—in public maybe once a year, if that. Families keep Breeders at home because the bounties are so high, even CSOs will kidnap Breeders to sell. I look at the families in line for the buses and all the little kids are boys—most families these days send their Breeders to the Preincubation Program very early on. To be honest, that’s what I would do. The unit return is too high to pass up, and besides, it’s too risky and expensive to keep them until they’re twelve. Then you can invest those saved units into your sons.

  There aren’t many young guys like me in the Transit either. I’d never squander units by using the Transit outside work or school. It’s not worth hanging out with your friends like a Waster when you could be saving units for your future. Ma rolls her eyes at me when I say stuff like that.

  “You sound forty years old,” Ma says.

  “Well, how else will I be able to save up for a house and a Shadow?” I mean, she’s the one always telling me to be practical.

  She looks at me funny. “How do you see that happening?”

  “It happens,” I tell her. “Grandpa bought you out of the Incubator, didn’t he? I just have to save up.”

  “It’s different for you, Will. Obviously.”

  “Why?”

  She starts to say something, then changes her mind.

  “Ma? Say it.”

  “I was Shadowed a long time ago,” is all she says. “Go have fun with your friends.”

  Friends. I mean, that’s another issue.

  “I don’t want to have fun,” I tell her. “I want to save for my future.”

  Ma snorts and then swears at me in Westie.

  The local 42 bus arrives and I get on. It takes about thirty minutes to get to the Wall. It’s dark outside, so I can only see my reflection in the bus windows, but I know what’s out there—basic, broken-down houses like our neighborhood, just more run-down as we head closer to the Wall. Zone F is the outermost ring of the Corporation, and the zone that the Corp cares least about. It’s where Westies are sent when they’re first admitted inside the Wall, and where we must stay and work off our first level of unit debt before moving up to the better zones. Its lawlessness is both good and bad, depending on who you are, and what you need.

  There are six zones, A to F, spanning out in concentric circles from the Corp center: imagine the golden, domed Zone A in the center, which I have never, ever seen in person—Westies are banned from entering it. The other zones expand from there, with all zones holding a total population of about five million people, across 2,500 square miles. Around the outer boundary of Zone F, there’s the Wall. The Wall is the only thing that separates us from the burned-out Great Ocean that’s to the east, and the badlands to the north, west, and south.

 
Ma’s people worked themselves up from Zone F to Zone C over several generations, but Ma had to flee Zone C after my mother killed herself. She had no choice but to hide here with me. The alternative was to leave the Corporation altogether, which is never an option. The Great Ocean, which I can see from the desal plant, is a dead body of water with a shiny, thick oil slick across it. Flames break out across the surface spontaneously, sometimes building to a wall of fire that tears across the sea when the southerlies blow. The Corp has sent scientists out, lots of times, to search for signs of life. But there aren’t any. There are no fish or sea plants, no life at all. And the Corp has sent exploration crews in all the other directions too, to the rest of our continental land mass—to the north, the south, and the west. Not all come back, but the ones that do describe the dried shell of the world.

  The Wall is fiercely guarded because it protects us from the badlands and from the Westies. Just beyond the Wall are millions of desperate Westies—some of them have been there for generations—waiting to get in. If security at the Wall broke and all the Westies got through, they’d swarm the Corporation. The delicate systems that keep us alive—the systems that desalinate and purify the ocean water, the aquaculture and hydroponic plants that create nutrition, and that grow protein from our limited and finite supplies, and our basic housing—they would all be overwhelmed. Within weeks, we’d run out of food. Then we’d run out of drinkable water. We’d all die, fast. That’s why the Wall has a megapresence of CSOs.

  The exception to this airtight security system is the Gray Zone. The Gray Zone hosts one short section of the Wall, a secret and illegal opening that only some people know about, which we call the Gate. It’s a gap in the sandstone perimeter of the Wall, about a hundred feet long, bracketed by the usual security posts, except that the CSOs at these posts are really corrupt Gray Corps affiliates. The Gate is porous—it’s the only place where Westies can get into the Corporation outside official channels—and a whole ecosystem of activity exists alongside it. This is where I’m heading. The bus lets me out about a mile away, and then I walk down a winding road.

  The road opens up to a highway where I can hear the whine of tricked-out cars. It’s a Waster playground out here—guys who don’t give a shit about saving units, who spend everything they have on their cars, attaching massive speakers or velour seat covers. They go out “hunting,” they call it. Reports of missing Breeders and Shadows are mostly due to violent Wasters, who sell them to the Gray Corps or keep them for themselves as prisoners. I stay out of sight of them, behind the trees along the side of the road. I hear drunken shouting and laughter, low voices close by, and my heart starts to race. Alongside the Gray Zone, there’s a man-made reservoir. It goes on for miles and, frankly, it terrifies me—Wasters will beat up and kill anyone; they could dump me there and nobody would ever know. I stop at a park at the edge of the reservoir—it’s just a length of artificial grass covered in ciggie butts. Next to the park there’s a strip of buildings: a 24-7 supply shop, a diner, and at the very end, the security post that leads into the Gray Zone.

  I walk up to the post, my stomach cramping. I hate this moment the most, because once I go beyond this point, anything can happen—I won’t even have the dubious protection of the CSOs and the Corp Laws.

  The window opens as I approach, and I offer up my wrist and wait for the Gray Corps affiliate to scan my chip. He takes thirty units. He’s a young guy but heavy, and sweating in the heat. Without a word he comes around and frisks me, reaching into each pocket of my jeans and turning it inside out until he’s satisfied I don’t have anything of value for him to take. He’s slow, and he stinks of breath mints—at least he doesn’t go in for a free feel.

  “Have a great night, eh?” he says when he’s finished, and slaps me on the ass.

  “Sure,” I say. He starts whistling as he heads back into the booth, because he hasn’t realized yet that while he was frisking me, I lifted his gold watch. I’ve got quick hands—a skill Ma insisted I learn early in life.

  There are a lot of Wall Kids here already, and it’s only 1:35 a.m. The cars won’t start coming till two. The Wall Kids are in small groups, talking and laughing with each other, but they stiffen as I approach and watch me carefully. Everyone knows everyone down here, and there are strict cliques. Each has its own style—their own code words and jokes, their own tattoos, their own way of dressing and cutting their hair. You need to belong to a clique for your own protection—protection from the Gray Corps, and protection from the other Wall Kids. I’ve never spent long enough at the Wall to belong to a clique of my own. The Wall Kids live in the Gray Zone—it’s their world. They’re all undocumented—all off the Grid. I’m not one of them, so I’m a soft target.

  I walk up to a clique of four kids that have short, spiky hair that’s been bleached completely white and they’re wearing tight black jeans and bright blue runners. My heart’s banging, and I’m planning to ease things by saying hello or asking them how business has been, what kinds of Gray Corps affiliates have been showing up this week. But as I get close, I change my mind. They’re looking with absolute hatred at my black jeans. I’m wearing the same jeans as they are, which means I’m treading on their turf. The kid closest to me, who has a tattoo of a silver gun on his forehead, meets my gaze and says, “Take off your mask and keep your eyes down, fuck stick.”

  I forgot that nobody wears their masks down here—it’s important to be able to read people’s faces. I pull mine down and drop my eyes and keep walking, hoping I won’t start my first night back at the Wall with a gash to the kidneys. Straight away, I start wheezing—the air is so bad. I go past another clique of about seven kids who are all dressed in tight red clothes, but I don’t notice anything else about them because I’m careful to look down this time. I can feel their hatred radiating at me, so I go past them and three more cliques, until I’m at the other end of the Wall, where there’s a kid standing by himself, face mask hanging around his neck, smoking a cigarette. He’s short and thin and is wearing a massive, knitted, extremely crazy hat, which has two flaps over his ears. He looks like a total nutter. But when he glances up at me, he’s got the most intense and beautiful eyes I’ve ever, ever seen.

  “Hey,” I say to the kid.

  “Hey, yourself,” he says, and sucks on his cigarette. The little face inside the hat is spare and good-looking, with those big eyes and strong cheekbones. He’s wearing huge brown corduroys that he’s tied up high around his waist with a thick piece of red rope. He’s also wearing a sweatshirt and I can see he’s got a few layers under that. We essentially have two seasons—unbearably hot, and unbearably hot with torrential rain. Some years we have a short winter of a month or so, when it gets down to maybe forty degrees. Anyway, he must be boiling in there—just looking at him makes me want to itch. Maybe his Gray Corps contact gave him these clothes? This place attracts the extremely rich, people who can afford to be weird.

  The kid offers me his cigarette and I take a puff and pass it back to him and he sees my hands, which are shaking again. “First time?” he says.

  “No,” I say. He waits for me to explain, but I don’t say anything. It’s better if everyone minds their own fucking business in the Gray Zone.

  “Yeah,” he says, and shakes his head. “You never know what sort of ugly you’re going to get down here, do you?” His accent’s strong Westie—even stronger than Ma’s.

  “I’m Alex,” he says, holding out his hand.

  “Will,” I say, and take his hand. As I do, I realize that the kid is not a regular kid, but a fucking Breeder, and suddenly the layers of clothes make sense. It takes my breath away. I don’t know how I know, because it isn’t obvious—she’s even skinnier than I am, and you can’t see that she has breasts or curves or anything under all those layers—but somehow, I know. Then I notice the edge of a scar, a dark curl, on the right side of her face, partly hidden by one of the crazy hat-flaps. I can’t see the whol
e thing, but I’m sure it’s the edge of her Breeder mark. They brand it onto all of them in the Incubators. Ma has one below her Shadow tattoo. My mother would have had one. The Breeder sees me realize and drops my hand, jumping back, like I’ve given her an electric shock. What she’s doing is so dangerous—living as a boy, when she’s so easily discoverable as a Breeder. It’s not only Wasters who will trade Breeders to the Gray Corps or kidnap them for their own uses. Plus, she’s so young that there’s no way she’s been discharged from the Incubator—she’s either been bought out or she’s run away. But nobody who’s been bought out would be down at the Wall looking for work from random Gray Corps affiliates. And if she’d been bought out, she’d have a Shadow tattoo, so she must have run away, which means there’s a callout for her and if she’s caught, she’ll get sent straight to the Rator. I can’t help admiring her. At the same time, I feel a smack of disgust, deep in my stomach—I just touched a fucking Breeder.

  “It’s okay,” I say quietly, and she looks me in the eyes, and I watch her trying to decide whether it is or isn’t okay. I’m actually not sure either. I hold her gaze steady, wanting to show her that she’s safe with me. Meanwhile, she’s dropped her cigarette. “Ah, fuck,” she says, and reaches into her pocket. Then she drops the pack on the ground as well.