Morning sweeps its eyes over the Surface. Heat beats down, forcing light through the dim, dusty windows of Yana’s shack. Fin lounges on the top bunk, shoulders squeezed into the corner of the room. Alex rouses, heaving himself up to sitting. The couch groans beneath him.
“So, you want to enlighten me as to why I haven’t been eaten yet?” He runs tired hands through his sleep-addled mess of hair.
“Skyreen really thinks we’re all cannibals down here, don’t they?”
“Yup.”
Yana rolls her eyes, letting them land back on the old motherboard in front of her. Shay stretches under the table, resting his head on her knee.
“One of my old buddies told me I’d burn down here. Made me imagine being roasted. I wouldn’t like that I don’t think.”
“I thought you didn’t remember any of your friends?” She looks up. The light streaming in through the window behind her makes her look like an apparition.
“I say ‘buddy’, but he was more of a boulder dressed up in a Skyreen guard uniform, who just seemed to like throwing his weight around. And a few punches.”
Turning up her sleeves, Yana settles back into a rhythm of frustration and prodding.
But still, he continues, “It’s got to be one of the worst ways to go. Being eaten. Roasted and picked clean. Someone gnawing at you, clawing the meat off your bones. You kno-”
“I probably don’t know, but I also don’t want to.”
Alex smirks, looking over her shoulder. “You know what you’re doing there, wolf tamer?”
“Not a clue.” She sits back, letting her hands cup Shay’s cheeks.
“Looks familiar,” Alex says, peering closer.
The white-blended blue seems to blink a pattern at them.
“I can’t work out what it means. But I’m sure it’s trying to communicate something.”
Alex scoffs, but moves his face even closer to it. “Could be an oracle.”
“Oracle?”
“Well, yeah. Same colour. It’s got to be one.”
“What’s an oracle?”
“I don’t know. But I know it did something to me before I was blackballed. It was in the same room where I woke up. Before they sent me here.”
“You’ve seen one of these before?”
“I’ve seen that colour. That pattern. But the oracle I saw, she was… I mean, it was more human. Had a human face. Made of metal, but still human. It even blinked.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me this sooner? I’ve been staring at this for days.”
Alex raises his eyebrows. “What does it matter? You look adorable when you’re thinking. I’ll have to provide something else for you to puzzle over.” He moves a stray strand of hair away from her cheek.
Yana’s eye flit in the direction of Sasha’s house. “I’m, um, kind of, you know-”
“Married to him?”
“No.”
“I don’t see a problem then.” He grins.
Yana frowns. “Do you really think you can just wake up and-”
“Knock, knock!” Yeren comes barrelling through the cloth-hung doorframe.
“Yeren!” Yana jumps out of her seat, relief flooding her face.
Alex side-steps, skirting to the corner of the room. Eyes widening in disbelief, Yeren stares at him.
“Hi there,” he says, leaning back against the wall.
Yeren looks from him to Yana, back to him. “Hi.”
“Yeren, Alex. Alex, Yeren.”
Alex steps forward, startling Yeren into taking a step back. He holds up his hands, “I won’t bite,” he says, painting the most dazzling smile he can muster onto his mouth. He steps forwards again, but much slower, as though he is approaching a delicate, easily scared child, and reaches for her hand.
Yeren stands, stunned.
Shaking her hand, he half-whispers through his charming grin, “Lovely to meet you.”
Yana rolls her eyes, annoyance flitting over her face. But Yeren seems placated.
“Oh, it’s lovely to meet you too.” She sounds a little bit breathless. “Must be quite a change for you. Down here. From up there.” Gesturing as she speaks, it looks like she’s insinuating that Alex had some sort of fall from heaven.
Yana’s forehead furrows. “How did you know he-”
“Sasha.”
“Can’t stop talking about me, can he?” Alex smirks.
“Well, it’s big news,” Yeren counters a little defensively. “We, or I certainly, have never seen an Aetherian before.”
Alex knits his brows together. “But people get exiled all the time. For stupid stuff, really. Where do they go?”
Yana nearly smiles at the nerves in his voice; Yeren shifts uncomfortably.
Fin pipes up. “They end up wandering the Deadlands. Lost. Forever.” He flourishes his hands dramatically as he jumps down from his bunk, disturbing the dust motes that had been peacefully laying on the railing.
“Ancestors!” Yana starts. But she is met with a shrug of silence.
“Seriously,” Alex snaps, “what are the Deadlands?”
“Well, most Aetherians who are sent here just end up wandering out of the scrapyards. No one really lives in the north. And most of the scrapyards up there, where these guys found you, are surrounded by the Deadlands. I’m pretty sure they find other exiles though,” Yeren adds, trying to inject some positivity into her voice.
“And do what? How do they survive?”
“I’m not really sure.”
Alex turns to Yana, searching her face.
“Don’t look at me. I don’t know.”
“So, they just die? If you and Sasha hadn’t found me, I’d be… dead.” His tone is a cross between flat and hoarse. An odd sound that makes Yana cringe under his gaze.
“The Aetherians in the Deadlands are fine,” Yana says, but even as she speaks, she sounds unsure.
Alex shoots her an expectant look.
“What do you expect me to do about it? You’ve got to keep your head down and keep to yourself, if you want to survive here. Not go around playing saviour to every Aetherian stupid enough to get blackballed.”
“There might be people out there that I know. I knew loads of the memory forgers who were exiled before me.”
“You want to go live out in the Deadlands with them? Be my guest.”
Alex shrugs, his face drawn into a petulant scowl.
“You and Sasha have been out that way before,” Yeren says quietly. “Maybe you could go see?”
“Ancestors, Yeren! We only just made it back,” Yana bursts out.
“It was just a thought.”
“Yeah, I want to go.” The intensity of Alex’s statement hangs in the air.
Yeren curls her a twig of brown hair behind her ear, mouthing an apology to Yana.
“Fine. But it’s your best chance of getting eaten.”
“I thought you said you didn’t eat people down here.”
“No, I said that we didn’t. There are people out there who do. And they stalk the Deadlands for people like you who are moronic enough to venture up there.”
“They’re my people, Yana. They’re like me. Screwed over by whoever we all pissed off up there. I’m going back, even if you’re not.”
Quietly wringing her hands, Yeren makes towards the door.
“Hey,” Yana turns to her. “You started this shit, now go and get Sasha.”
She nods and disappears into the stifling, blind heat outside.