It's been five days.
I stare at the wall of the hell-hole I live in and try not to remember. My stiff joints creak and complain as I draw my blanket tighter around me to keep out the cold breeze that's sweeping through my room from the collapsed corner of the ceiling. God, my joints get worse every fall.
Mom's voice lecturing me about taking care of myself and my home drifts through my mind again, but I can't dredge up the energy to patch it now. At least the breeze takes away the smell of this old mattress.
The agony in my back, neck, and head never let up, and I feel like I weigh 400 pounds instead of about 130. The cannabis is helping me survive my whole world being freakin' annihilated, but it barely touches the pain that keeps me in this bed. The mental games Mom taught me aren't working very well either. Maybe Gina's moonshine would help.
As if summoned by my thoughts, my door creaks open my older sister peeks inside. Her hair is pulled up into a mess on top of her head, and her pale face is streaked with tears. She's got her tech dealer outfit on, so she's been out working again this morning.
Is it still morning?
I want to help, but I'm not well enough to leave home for even an hour or two most days.
"Arthur?" she whispers. "Are you awake?"
"Yeah." I roll over to give her space and she sits down on the edge of my mattress with a sigh.
"Rob says they already, uh ... He says ... they've already been cremated. They've probably thrown out the ashes too."
Shit! "Already?" God, it can't be real. "They didn't even wait to see if anyone would want the ashes?" Community assholes.
"It was obvious they were shirkers." She shrugs. "There's not much we could have done anyway ... I guess."
Our family's been shirkers for generations, and we're even stupid enough to be proud of it. Shirkers are paranoid, and either don't have GRID connections at all or don't use them anymore. Officially, the Global Fellowship labels us the disconnected, but everyone calls us shirkers because we don't contribute our skill or our literal brainpower to the capacity of the system that runs the world. Without a wetware connection, we've got no GRIDcoin. And apparently today, being a shirker means we forfeit Mom and Dad's remains to the very assholes they told us to fear. This may be the first time the Global Fellowship has actually succeeded in pissing me off.
I mean, it's really our fault we're miserable. We could join the Community at any time. It's not like there's anyone stopping us—me. Well, at least not with Mom and Dad gone.
"They should have tried to find their family!" I grind my teeth as the pain of sitting up shoots through my body. "They were our parents!"
"The Community doesn't think that way." Gina's beautiful two-toned eyes look glassy and hollow.
I know ... Goddammit! The Global Fellowship doesn't approve of long-term relationships of any kind. The morons believe they lead to mental anguish, emotional instability, and what used to be called domestic violence in the Old World. These days, Community citizens are raised by the University, not parents. They have no idea who their parents are. That's the biggest way that the Community is wrong.
"If they knew Mom and Dad were shirkers, then they knew they might have a family!" I don't know why I'm arguing with her. She didn't do it.
"It's probably for the best. There wasn't much left anyway." Her voice is so quiet I almost can't hear it.
My argument dies in my throat. I can't think of them that way. I wish we could bury them ... or send them to Dad's home on North Continent.
"Do you think Drustan will come home now?" Gina asks, and seeing the hope in her eyes pisses me off.
Ah yes—Drustan, the great white-knight, and our older half-brother. Never mind that he left us as soon as he was seventeen and hasn't bothered to send word home more than every couple of years since. I was only three, but Gina was six. She looks up to him like some kind of hero.
"Nah." I shake my head. "He's never come before."
"Yeah, but he knew we had Mom and Dad."
"Mom and Dad needed him too, and now they're dead." God, I sound harsh. "It's just us now."
Gina slumps over and stares at her hands. I notice she's developed dark circles beneath her green-brown, starburst eyes.
How can she possibly support us without Dad? I'm sure she hopes Drustan will help, but the ass doesn't care.
"We should still send him a message, so he knows," she whispers.
Now I feel like the ass. "How? Mom and Dad never said how they got letters from him."
"Do you think Joe at Southside knows?"
"Maybe," I lie.
Joe and Drustan were close, but he's run the Southside Brothel nearly since Drustan took off. Drustan hated the Community, so everyone was surprised that Joe joined. It's cool with me. He got a job and I guess with Drustan gone, he didn't want to hang around. I doubt he knows how to get a hold of Drustan anymore, but I decide not to say 'cause I don't wanna break Gina's heart.
I see her wince as she stands up and realize her pain must be high. We were both born with Mom's genetic disease. Gina isn't as bad, but stress makes us worse.
"You okay?" I touch the top of her hand for a second. "You look like you need a nap."
"I wish." She sighs. "I have to go to work, but at least I'll get some booze from Tommy."
"Can you get some for me?"
"I'll try." I'd offer her some cannabis, but she's allergic.
Besides dealing tech in the black market, Gina's voice is amazing. She's got a long-term gig singing at Tommy's bar in District T. We checked Tommy out and the guy's solid. He won't push her into anything she's not comfortable with, and because he's a moonshiner, she can get what she needs to numb the pain a little. It would help if the Community didn't classify everything they consider bad for your health—cannabis, tobacco, alcohol, chems—as illegal. Because of that, we've been a family of criminals all our lives. Being shirkers, we can't get health care or real painkillers.
"Be careful." I sometimes worry some creep will follow her home.
Gina nods and trudges down the hall to the rooms she shared with Mom and Dad. I'm glad I decided to pick out my own place a few years ago. I can't imagine sleeping in there now.
I lean back against the wall, furious that we're so powerless. How's Gina gonna manage? Some days she's almost as disabled as me. Dad's had to support the whole damn family on his own since Drustan left us here to rot. Drustan sure as hell didn't care what was gonna happen to us if he died.
This is so stupid! I rip the blanket off my lap and struggle to my feet. If we were citizens of The Global Fellowship, like the rest of the world, we'd have free food, housing, transportation, medical care, and access to the GRID for life.
I pick up the holoframe beside my bed, watching as the picture of Mom sitting beside the window in their room fades into a picture of Gina and I playing in the street. I'd blame my parents, but it's not their fault. Our family chose the shirker life generations ago because they didn't trust the government. Well, that and we wanted to live as a family.
Gina will try to do it. I know she will. I set the holoframe down and start searching my room for my backpack. She'll work double shifts and worse to pay for both of us to keep living, but her health isn't good enough. She'll kill herself. And for what?
What the hell did I do with ... there! I pull the backpack out from under the pile of clothes in the corner and dump out the crap inside.
The Community has every advanced technology that exists. It literally has the resources of the world. No one can make us healthier or our lives better than they can. No one else can give me a way to contribute to the world, instead of merely surviving it. Working server duty is something I could actually do, even with my shitty health.
I'm nineteen. In the Community, I'd have my own apartment by now and be supporting myself. I'm not a little kid anymore. Although, it would help if I had gotten around to cleaning more underwear, and where the hell is my good t-shirt?
I'm glad I grew up with my family. I love Gina, but because I love her, I can't be a damn burden on her. She'll never make it if she has to support me. Sure, the Community will sort of run my life, but at least I'll be independent. I'm too sick to have options now anyway. It's the best thing I can do for both of us.
God, I need to stop trembling so hard! I'm only trying to stand for Christ's sake. There's a clinic with a transition center pretty close to here. I can be there in a couple hours.
After my bag is packed, I climb back in bed and lean against it like a pile of pillows. Gina knocks quietly but I pretend to be asleep, so she leaves without opening the door. She calls for Stella as they head to Tommy's.
I'm such a jerk to sneak out without saying goodbye ... but she'd stop me.
Fifteen minutes later, I lean on the front door and glance outside to figure out who's in range. Thank God! Crazy Rob's nowhere around. Yeon-Jae is asleep in her autorocker with one of the babies in her lap, poking her face. She's out cold, so no worry there. The few shrieks from the kids seem pretty far away. The barrel fires are going strong in their rusty old drums but the shirkers wandering through them aren't people I recognize.
I hobble out as fast as I can manage without spraining something. Looking back at the crumbling, graffiti-covered main door of our building from a safe distance behind an old burned-out autobus, I breathe a sigh of relief. A chuckle escapes me as I realize I must look just like Rob.
I swear to you, Gina, I'll come back for you. You'll see. I'll be okay. I'll be living like a man, and you'll be proud of me.