Page 115

“Besides, someone here already vouched for you, Savannah,” Kylie said, completely unaware of the big bomb that had just gone off inside my mind. “Now, come on. We can’t keep them waiting!”

She grabbed my hand again and pulled me deeper into the Black Market, leaving me wondering exactly who in this dark place had vouched for me. I didn’t know many criminals—oranycriminals, for that matter.

Past a pair of women selling blankets and towels, Kylie stopped at an inelegant makeshift ‘counter’ formed out of old, dented shopping carts and lots and lots of duct tape. A stack of wooden crates stood as high as the very tall, very blonde middle-aged woman standing beside it. She had two customers—one woman dressed in burgundy, the other in tan—and when they turned around to face us, I gasped.

“Mom?” My eyes grew so wide, I thought they might pop out of my face.

Mom slipped something into her burgundy bag, which perfectly matched her burgundy Mixer uniform: a long lab coat and loose pants. “I’m so glad to see you, Savannah.” She wrapped me up in a hug. “How are you? How’s Dante?”

“We’re fine.” I stepped back. “But, Mom, what are you doing here?”

“Helping the people who can’t help themselves.”

That was basically my mom’s motto in a nutshell. And it was always getting her into trouble. So my own mother was the ‘someone’ who’d vouched for me? Mom wasn’t a criminal at all. She was just someone who couldn’t stand to see other people suffer.

“You sure make friends fast,” I commented, scanning the busy Black Market.

I only hoped she knew what she was doing, getting involved in all of this.

Mom grinned at me. “Speaking of friends, this is Elandra.” She indicated the woman dressed in a tan jumpsuit.

“My mother,” Kylie added.

Right. I remembered seeing her at the Tournament yesterday, standing with my mom.

“We’re collecting supplies for the people the Government has cast away. They call them deserters.” A crinkle formed between Mom’s eyes. “But they’re just people who didn’t want to die—or, worse yet, be cursed.”

“Lydia is helping us out.” Elandra smiled at the woman standing on the other side of the tangled shopping carts.

Lydia’s smile stretched wider. “How ya goin’?”

Her greeting was decidedly Aussie. It was something you didn’t hear that often nowadays, not even here in the Fortress. Our Government liked to keep the world pretty vanilla. All across the world, in every surviving pocket of civilization, people pretty much all talked the same, lived the same, and ate the same. The New World was big on conformity.

From clothing to jobs to food, the Government carefully controlled and classified everything. They’d assigned everyone a job class with a pretty self-explanatory—but totally boring—name. Just from her clothing, I knew Lydia was a ‘Distributer’, someone who distributed essential goods to the population.

People didn’t actually get tochoosewhat they got distributed to them, and Distributers like Lydia didn’t get to choose what people got either. Or at least they weren’t supposed to. I guess working at the Black Market was kind of a side job for her.

Like everyone else in the New World, Distributers didn’t get to choose what they wore either. They always wore pink. Lots and lots of pink. Lydia’s uniform consisted of a full pink skirt, a fitted pink sweater, matching pink heels, and a pink cloth headband that framed her face. Whenever I saw the Distributers, they reminded me of pictures I’d seen of women from the 1960s.

When Lydia spoke again, she’d switched to vanilla-English. “I was just telling Alara and Elandra about my new arrivals.” She spread her arms wide, indicating the goods at her stand. “I have one item, in particular, that you will find very interesting, Alara.” She plucked something black and slender from one of her boxes. “Utility belts. Very practical. I just started making them. This is the prototype. What do you think?”

“It looks just like the ones the Watchers wear,” I commented. “Only way cooler.”

Lydia beamed at me. “Such good taste. Like mother, like daughter.”

Mom’s gaze slid past the tower of contraband cupcakes. She focused on the belt, looking pretty tempted. “I’d love one, Lydia. But another time. Right now, I’m looking for string. Do you have any?”

Lydia set her prototype utility belt back into the box. “I just got some in actually. How much do you need?”

Mom passed a backpack to her over the counter. “As much as you can discreetly fit inside this bag.”

Lydia took Mom’s backpack. Then she turned and headed over to the nearby concrete column where she’d parked piles of additional supplies. She started sifting through her stacks of boxes. Meanwhile, I tried not to fidget with the lopsided wheel dangling from one of the shopping carts. Being surrounded by revolutionaries made me nervous.

“And I need some gardening tools!” Kylie added. “For the outcasts living out past the Village. They’re expanding their vegetable garden.”

Lydia waved at Kylie in a sign of acknowledgement.

“The Village?” I pictured the map of the Fortress I’d memorized a few days ago. “But that’s pretty far from here, and the train line doesn’t run to that district. Are you really going to walk all the way there?”