C James - Dome Six

Tosh hoped no one would ever talk to her Legacy. If ever got back in the Nexus somehow, she’d delete all her data. She certainly wasn’t going to tell IDA any of her secrets. She’d never once talked to her parents’ Legacies. If Hideki did, he’d never mentioned it.

Tosh had barely entered when Owen felt her presence and turned around. He immediately turned off the display and his mother’s image blinked out.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Tosh said. “I need a scrub anyway, so just pretend I’m not here.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I was done anyway.”

Tosh glanced at the clock. Her walk with Art took longer than usual on account of the drill, so she only had half an hour. It would have to be enough.

Tosh padded into her room and closed the door behind her. She peeled off her clothes and tossed them into the laundry bin, then studied herself in the mirror. She looked older than her 37 years, doughy and pale. She needed a haircut and more exercise. She used to walk all the way across the Agora and another half mile to work, but lately she’d opted for the train and it was starting to show.

She unfolded her scrub box and got in, then opened the jar of Scrubbers and poured them over her body. The synthetic black beetles sprang to life and methodically chewed off accumulated detritus. She hated scrubbing as a kid but now she relished it. Like Macros, the little bugs were one of the few things that still worked well. Some people preferred sponge baths, but she usually saved her water rations for drinking.

As they cleansed her, she allowed herself some calmness. The fantasy she’d shared with Art about floating was sincere, but she could only manage to conjure it here. She could almost feel the water on her, so clear and pure that she could sink down and drink it if she wished.

The Scrubbers worked on her hair, tickling her scalp. She loved that. Others ventured lower, and she enjoyed that even more.

Twenty minutes later, the Scrubbers dutifully returned to their container. She felt and smelled a thousand times better. After she dressed in a fresh uniform, she came back out to the living room. A man she’d never seen was on the screen, talking to Owen. At least it wasn’t Penny again.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

“My great-great grandfather,” Owen said.

“Benjamin Welsh,” said the man cheerily. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Toshiko.”

She threw up in her mouth a little and checked the clock. She had two minutes to spare. “You want me to sit?” she asked.

Owen shrugged and turned off the screen again. “Whatever.”

Tosh took a seat in the chair opposite Owen, its worn upholstery now the same exact beige as their clothes. Twenty-one years earlier, she sat in an identical living room with her family, along with her friend Elle and her parents, to receive their Placements. They all got what they wanted then. Hideki went to bioprinting, Tosh to central information systems, and Elle, improbably, to the Authority. It was as happy as she ever remembered being.

But after her parents died, everything changed. She and Elle drifted further and further apart. Hideki got caught supplying black-market Macros. Elle eventually became the Dome’s youngest-ever Administrator. And for no apparent reason other than being a Yamamura, Tosh got reassigned to teaching.

Elle’s placement into the Authority proved it was possible to overcome the inertia of family history. Everyone in her family, going back to the Originals, had worked in the Towers. Her Placement directly into the Authority didn’t jive but she’d certainly made the most of it.

Owen had excellent marks in school and deep technical ability, but Tosh feared her family name might cast a long shadow. In theory, IDA’s decisions were based on data alone but the Authority had the final say. With luck, he’d be a technician like her father, or even a medic like her mother. He was too smart and capable for anything less.

At precisely 6 p.m., IDA’s soothing voice said, “Your attention, please. Stand by to receive placement information for Owen Welsh.”

Tosh smiled and shifted forward in her seat, doing her best to feign excitement. Owen’s arms were folded tightly against his chest as though he might compress himself into a diamond.

“Owen Welsh,” IDA continued. “Congratulations on your placement to the Directorate of Production, working in Tower 1. You will report to Dormitory 4, room 131, at 8 a.m. tomorrow.”

Tosh closed her eyes, willing it to not be so. Some 70 percent of the Dome’s working-age citizens wound up in the hydroponic Towers. If you were average, that’s where you were likely to wind up. But Owen wasn’t average. She was ready for some bad news, but not that bad.

He didn’t react at all.

“It’s just your apprenticeship,” she said quickly. “Two years, then you can be reassigned.”

He remained staring down at his feet for a long while. Anything she thought about saying sounded phony in her head.

He rose suddenly and announced, “Whatever. I’m gonna go hang out with Dek.”

“Do you want to, like, talk about it?” Tosh asked.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” replied Owen, making a beeline for the door. “Don’t wait up.”

“Just be back before curfew,” she said as he left.

The door closed behind him and she was alone again, left to wonder if his shitty Placement was somehow her fault. She pulled her shoes and decided she’d better eat before the cafeteria closed. Owen would probably skip dinner. Oh well. It wasn’t the first meal she’d eat alone, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

The small crate that bore Owen’s few possessions sat beside him on the train. Unlike people, it could remain silent as he stewed in his own bitter juices.

Statistically, the Towers were the most likely outcome. The Authority liked to say there was no more important job in the Dome. Without the Towers, there was no food.

So why did it feel like such a betrayal?

The next 50-plus years of his life stretched out before him like the tracks of the commuter train. The Authority used to shuffle people around back in the day, but the algos learned from their mistakes. These days, a Placement was more like a sentence. His grandfather spent almost 60 years in the requisition office of the Stores and now he would do the same in the Towers. If he was lucky, planting and harvesting would do enough damage to his body that by age 50 he’d be more effective making clothes or shoes. That was just 34 short years away.

“Where you headed?” asked the woman across the aisle.

“Take a wild guess,” he mumbled.

She returned his weary smile. Any encouraging word would’ve rung false. The train slowed for the Agora station and she rose to leave. Owen took his crate and followed her out.

The transfer train that ran in a constant counterclockwise circle around the outer edge of the Agora was about to leave. The clock over the station read 7:48, meaning he couldn’t wait for it to come back around in 20 minutes. And so he found himself trotting toward the open train with his little crate when all he wanted was to run the other direction. He got on just as the doors slid shut and immediately turned his back to the other passengers. The last thing he wanted was to explain, again, where he was headed.

A few minutes later, the train stopped at Rad 6 and he stepped out, noting the decades of dust and grease accumulated in the recessed tracks. A boy and a girl his age emerged from other cars, also carrying their crates. They bore the same grim look. None of them took a step until the train had left again.

They shuffled down Rad 6 together like shackled prisoners. In the Time Before, the Rads that radiated out from the edge of the central Agora were called streets. The curved, narrower Arcs that connected them, sidewalks. Viewed from above, the city would’ve resembled a spider’s web. Now he was just another fly.