“Ava,” Halton says to me with a formal nod. His stare lingers, as if he expects me to pick up a conversation in the middle of the song.
I close my eyes again, pretending not to notice.
It’s seen as a great honor to have Halton’s favor, and he damn well knows it. I don’t care how powerful your family is. Power won’t win my attention.
The heat of his gaze on my face becomes too much. I open my eyes again and turn to face him. Usually he’d have backed off by this point, but Halton just stands there staring at me in his quiet, privileged aura, not bothering to sing with the rest of us.
What do you want? I challenge with my eyes.
The choirmaster gives a loud clap clap clap in my direction. “Goodwin, eyes to the front!”
Angry with myself for being publicly reprimanded, I snap my head around just as the music abruptly cuts from the speakers with a wave of the choirmaster’s hand.
“Thoroughly unremarkable. If that performance is to enlighten the Texas Legislature on the importance of art programs, I pray you are all geniuses at math and science. Memorize by tomorrow. Dismissed.”
For the first time in half a century, Strake is reestablishing its choir program. The performing arts were deemed an unessential use of money while millions of people were starving to death and dying from superstorms. Singing belonged to the past.
This year is different. In an unprecedented, lavish affair, Governor Howard S. Roth, the influential leader of Texas, envisions a grand spectacle for the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Gala commemorating the Rule of One. Our youthful voices raised in unified song will surely lull the people into forgetting we are celebrating that we are controlled to the point we can’t even choose how many children we have.
The governor will spare no expense. Next week distinguished delegates from every state will all converge onto Dallas to celebrate, including the president himself. The Lone Star Network speculates this momentous occasion will culminate in the president announcing his support for Roth’s own presidential bid next year.
Roth is the longest-serving governor in Texas history, and he rules his state with an iron fist. Despite his controversial methods, leaders all over the world have taken note of Texas’s prosperity. The world is so warped you now need iron instead of air to stay afloat.
My classmates silently depart the stage in an orderly single-file line, their concentration already jumping to the next round of grueling classes as they move out the auditorium doors. I hang toward the back, enjoying the stillness of an empty room.
Lingering a few moments in the quiet, I nod respectfully to Choirmaster Dashwood before facing the overcrowded hallway that leads to my next scheduled stop. Since it’s illegal to cover identifiable marks on your body, Mira or I visit the same bathroom every day so I can privately reapply concealer to the star-shaped scar on my neck.
Head down—we always stare at our feet—I push my way through the Great Lawn and up to the second-floor hallway of the Union. I enter the women’s restroom and sit in the stall farthest from the entrance, but as I pull out my makeup compact, there’s suddenly a shout from above.
“Using unauthorized makeup? Oh dear.”
Startled, I jump from my seat and look up to find a girl staring down at me from the top of the other stall. Recognizing her face, I rapidly search my brain for her name, but it’s hard to memorize and identify tens of thousands of classmates.
“I’m going to have to report you to the Dean.” She clicks her tongue disapprovingly, and her head disappears.
Terrified, I burst from the stall. “Please, you can’t report me!” I plead. “I just—” My appeal is abruptly cut short when a group of influential girls with famous last names erupts into loud, stinging laughter.
“You’re such a prig, Goodwin,” another girl bites. Smiling, she joins their leader (What is her name?) in front of the mirror. High-ranking purple and blue are blazed across their uniforms.
“Whatever you’re trying to cover up,” she continues, “it’s not working.”
In the mirror I see the girls move, not to primp their perfect hair, but to place square patches on each other’s chests, just above their cleavage.
Tape. The chosen drug of the rich.
“If you’re going to break the rules, Goodwin, do try and live up to the possibilities.”
One of the girls holds out a patch of Tape for me on the tip of her middle finger, bending her finger back and forth in a welcoming gesture. She winks. Another girl attempts to pull up my shirt, but I throw my head down and push my way out of the bathroom to another onslaught of laughter.
I proceed directly to the crowded dining hall, their laughter still ringing in my ears, and sit at my usual bench by the window with only Rylie Sparks for company. There’s an unspoken understanding between us that while we both prefer to eat alone, it’s better to have someone across the table than not.
I wish I could have friends. I wish I could feel a real connection with others and discover the different types of love that exist in this world, but I’ve built up such high walls to keep our secret—to keep us safe—that it’s impossible for anyone to get close to me. I’m alone inside my own defenses. Except for Mira. I’ll always have my sister. If she were to die before I do, I know she’d search through all of time and space to find me again. And I her.
I shake these thoughts away and scan the long line of students queued up in front of the glossy 3D printing machine. The next person in line scans his wrist and chooses the item he desires from the menu. A tray consisting of a simple, lean protein paired with a side of steaming vegetables pops out instantly in front of him. The girl behind him selects her item, and her plate—the same ingredients but prepared in a vastly different way—appears ten seconds later. I pull out my home-cooked meal from my lunch pail—Tuesday is lemon chicken and broccoli—shove a hearty bite into my mouth, and set to work on my tablet.
I have half an hour before advanced chemistry. Mira already perfected our assignment last night, so I have this free time to get a head start on the physics homework assigned in my first class this morning. The workload is immense, but my fingers glide nimbly across the screen as I easily solve complicated equation after complicated equation.
My single-minded focus is broken when I hear a shout from a machine. “Insufficient ration credits, Mr. Wallace!”
I raise my head to see Aden Wallace, clothed in his faded white uniform with its telltale yellow stripe, attempt to scan his wrist again. A student’s color rank curiously tends to correlate with their family’s economic status.
“Are you sure? I haven’t used all my rations, I know it,” he implores.
“Insufficient credits, Mr. Wallace. Leave the line at once.”
With his shaky chin held low, the thin boy begs for his meal, muttering, “Please. I’m hungry.” But the machines do not care how empty people’s bellies are. Insufficient credits are insufficient credits.
Aden doesn’t look to anyone for help—he knows no one is likely to share. When he sees a Texas State Guard coming to escort him from the line, he withdraws from the dining hall to judgmental whispers and pointing.
I return my attention to my physics equations and catch Halton observing me from a nearby table.
He’s surrounded by purples and blues, at the center of his personal court, but no one talks to him. He sticks out among his brawny, handsome peers, with their easy, charming laughter and smiles. It’s clear he inherited these so-called friends instead of earning their friendship on his own merit.