The Girl With Green Scales: A Gen M Novel

Chapter 13: Mange Town

Ms. Karuthers revs the bike's engine. It's quieter than I'd expect, and it doesn't belch black fumes like most vehicles in the boroughs. Etch waves as we zoom out of the coach house. We whisk along a tree-lined path and out through a set of elaborate iron gates with the word EverMight overtop, leaving the school behind. Fresh air rushes over me and clear sunshine heats my skin; I won't say so out loud, but it feels particularly good on my scales as we race along a road of clovers lined with huge trees, tall grasses, and colorful wildflowers exuding a deluge of pollens. My nostrils flutter inside the muzzle, and the scales on my one arm vibrate with pleasure; it's intoxicating. The atmosphere is sweet and free of exhaust. As a child, I had the notion that the air on Jupitar Island would smell and taste like cotton candy. This is so much better.

And the sounds! Only now do I realize how starved my hearing has been from a steady auditory diet of thunderclaps from the roiling lightning storm in the Yellow Zone. On this side of the river, birds chirp and crickets hum. The hovercycle's engine doesn't grind or falter. It's as if I'm being whisked along on a cloud.

We're drawing closer and closer to the towers of Jupitar City. They cast domineering shadows on Restitution River's roiling current. Supergenic flyers zoom amidst the buildings of glittering glass. My heart thumps and shadows of guilt creep through the growing reeds of my excitement. I'm never going to see Amma or Appa again. Fear and mourning follow guilt. Bombarded by so much this morning, only now do I recall Ceph's words from last night.

Anton expired. My eyes water.

Ahead, the road forks. A sign points forward to Jupitar City. Ms. Karuthers veers left, following an arrow to a place called Mange Town. Wildflowers give way to crops of maize. A grain combine ploughs through the stalks, harvesting, shucking, and shelling then spitting out the remains.

A battered yellow bus sits on the shoulder of the road. People in coveralls move in the combine's wake. The workers have strange contraptions on their bodies.

Farming equipment? I wonder.

Metal gloves are screwed into a man's wrists. He winces as he collects and bundles shorn stalks. Another person is in what appears to be a deep sea diving helmet connected by a hose to a tank on wheels. He drags it behind him as he picks up stray cobs and puts them in a basket that a little girl balances on her head. She looks at me and waves. I wave back until I notice her mouth—its sewn shut with silver thread. My hand freezes.

Ms. Karuthers nods in satisfaction.

"If you fight the Manifestation," she says, "you could end up like them."

There's no mention of that in the Manifestation pamphlet.

We zoom away. The landscape changes, turning to bogs and marshlands. Partially submerged buildings rise amidst the cattails and swamp cabbage. I grimace at the smell from bubbling gases. Refuse litters the side of the road. Old tires, a fridge, and an overturned freight truck are surrounded by a sea of battered plastic dolls. I'm relieved to round a bend and leave their sad faces behind until I see what lies ahead.

A cement wall rises three-stories high, forming the base of a crackling energy dome. We pass a sign that says, WELCOME TO MANGE TOWN. We stop at a security gate staffed by several Supergenics in shiny blue uniforms with a yellow star on each of their chests. They remind me of the protectors in the boroughs.

"They're called pacifiers. They're peacekeepers. It's all in your reducation modules," Ms. Karuthers tells me, speaking as if I should've covered all this since arriving last night.

Sorry, I think. I was busy being gagged, chained, and processing that my best friend from childhood died here instead of being given the new life he was promised. The same new life I was promised but, from what I can gather, not guaranteed.