Chipped Heartz & Broken Smilez

Future Husband

In U-grid, people lived among trees in soiled tents. Some sat around campfires, cooking food in metal pans of questionable sanitation as there was no running water or electricity. KanTVNews parked their vans on the dirt road before taking out cameras to record the prime minister's children.

While the news anchors adjusted their makeup, the doctors curled their lips in disgust. Errand boys from lower grids set up tables and tarpaulins for various vaccine booths.

Sima approached me, wearing a white lab coat. She paused to gaze at the tinted windows of a black van as it drove towards us. Its tires crunched the dirt as it parked. The doors lifted, and Alexander exited the car with a few friends tumbling behind him.

Sima's brother, Alexander, had always been a tall, handsome leader. Wherever we went, people had always been drawn to follow him. He was the perfect genetic copy of his father, who was now old and wrinkly.

Alexander had short curly golden hair and light grey eyes; his chiselled face made him an object many upper women would die for.

Alex walked over to us and placed his hand on my shoulder. When I had told him I was leaving for the army, he had asked if he could marry me upon my return, and I had shrugged and said 'yes'.

But after meeting Avah, his beauty and existence seemed empty, and though we had spoken many times, I realized he and I had never truly said anything. We simply went through the motions of conversing, speaking of our day, or minor political conflicts, but we never talked of anything we held dear. Our private thoughts continued to hide from each other.

Alexander studied the pox-filled gathering before us. The campsite smelled like human refuse, or so the errand boys from Grid T complained. The uppers, including me, wore oxygen masks that blocked the smell.

Most people from U had fine bumps covering their skin, from exposed arms to eyelids.

Sima's friend, Jay, who had travelled with Alex, signed. "Those critters better stay far from me." Jay's long black hair reached her waist. If a woman in Grid-T wore her hair that long, it would have been forcibly cut off.

Despite the summer heat, Jay wore long sleeves and jeans to protect her from the poor people's germs.

Alex fixed his oxygen mask; there was a low hiss as he leaned close to my ear, powered his mask off for a moment and whispered. "Let's take a few pictures with the actors, then leave."

I glanced at the poor people sitting on logs, coughing, or playing with little wooden toys. A man repeatedly knocked his head on a tree, muttering as if he had mistaken himself for a woodpecker.

Around fifty actors from Grid E exited a nearby bus. They wore the same hole-ridden clothes as the homeless but lacked the bumps and nauseating smell. Alex snapped his fingers, and everyone looked at him.

Someday, he would take over from his father, and it would be like he had always been in charge, especially since most people would never see the prime minister as he grew old and died.

Alex said, "Let's get the pictures and videos we need within ten minutes. I don't want to stay in this shitty place much longer than that."

Murmuring their agreement, the doctors laughed, invited the actors to their booths with broad smiles, and pretended to give them injections. Meanwhile, Sima, Jay and Alex comforted the actors by holding their hands and offering them food. Once we left, the errand boys would be responsible for the vaccinations, using whatever tips they had learned from the doctors.

I frowned, thinking of the disaster that would happen if the boys missed a vein or gave the wrong dose.

At his table, Doctor Gunter wore a big smile and nodded to me as if to say that this was my punishment for trying to change things. If anyone died, their death would be my responsibility because I had asked for this.