1

Liv

This had better be worth it.

With a grunt, I help Celeste push a piece of warped sheet metal aside to reveal a rusted drone. It’s almost half her height.

“No way is that going to hold my weight,” I say, rubbing my arms. The sun’s not up yet. Wind whips across the skyscraper’s cluttered rooftop.

“I know it doesn’t seem like much,” she says, chewing the inside of her cheek. “But the specs are good. These drones used to carry nets full of fish, and those are heavy! You’ll be fine, Liv. I’m pretty sure, anyway.” She mumbles to herself as she does some math on her fingers. My nerves flicker. Celeste’s inventions can border on genius—­for anyone, let alone a nine-­year-­old—­but this wouldn’t be the first time her enthusiasm outpaced her calculations.

I eye the flaking LifeCorp logo on the drone’s hull. “Surer than the compost incident?”

Her face twists in disgust at the memory before she switches topics. “Check out this harness! Kez helped me make it from old fishing nets.” She slips one strap over my shoulder.

“He did? Doesn’t really sound like his—­ugh!”

The stench of fish guts overpowers me. I hold on to a tiny sliver of hope that the scent won’t set into the fabric of my EmoProxy uniform: a thin amber jumpsuit with a wide hood and long sleeves that end in fingerless gloves. I sniff the front of the jumpsuit, right above the stenciled LifeCorp logo, and grimace. Celeste’s flying machine better work, or my client Mr. Preston won’t pay, and I’ll end up smelling like a cannery droid for nothing.

Celeste takes a step back from her handiwork and nods, satisfied. She’s wearing a jumpsuit like mine—­except hers is dark gray—­under a worn fuchsia puffy jacket two sizes too small. She reaches into the jacket’s pocket and pulls out something that looks like two cans of jellied VitaBar soldered together.

“And here’s the remote,” she says proudly. I bite my tongue as I eye the crude contraption, but sure enough, when she switches it on, the drone comes to life, humming against my back.

“Can I please ride along? I’m small; you won’t even notice!” She peers up at me with round dark brown eyes, the wind gently blowing the tops of her Afro puffs.

I shake my head firmly. “No way. For one, Thea would kill me. Two, this isn’t a joyride, it’s my job. Mr. Preston says he wants his Scraps ‘pure.’ I can’t have you wriggling and screeching when I’m trying to channel my emotions. And thirdly, after Thea kills me, she’ll have a droid replica made, Liv two point oh, so she can kill me all over again.”

Celeste pouts. I do feel the teeniest bit of guilt; she did all this for me. If this works and Mr. Preston likes the Scrap, I’ll get her something nice with my earnings. After LifeCorp takes its requisite cut, of course—­forty percent off the top.

In the meantime, the least I can do is give her a good show.

“Fire it up, Celeste!”

She beams as she mashes the remote’s buttons, and I’m airborne. One foot, then three, then five, hovering above the western tower’s rooftop junk pile. Celeste squeals with delight, her jacket a bright spot surrounded by the dingy gray remains of decades’ worth of furniture, clothing, and other forgotten LifeCorp purchases. At fifteen feet above the roof, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

I shake out my hands and lift my wrist screen to my mouth. “Nero, begin Scrap,” I tell the screen’s AI software. The device chirps a confirmation that my EmoProxy neurochip is now making a Scrap: a recording of everything I see, smell, taste, hear, and feel, and all the emotions that go along with those sensations.

I push past the fish smell and center myself on the thrill of weightlessness, the excitement of flight. The wind whooshes in my ears as Celeste zips me from one edge of the Fenway Towers to the other, and I marvel at the labyrinth of winding walkways and bridges that connects the cluster of buildings. A self-­made community, built by the Lowers—­the people who carry the Metro on their backs but enjoy almost none of its progress. My people. My home.

In the distance, the sun begins to rise over the Bay, transforming the glittering black water into a fiery orange. The whole of Sector Ten is ablaze. My neighborhood glows as molten gold spills onto the harbor, making the LifeCorp oil rigs off the coast look like gilded monuments. Celeste spins me south. From here, I can see all the way downtown. Sunlight bounces off Boston’s chrome skyscrapers. The Citadel—­home to LifeCorp’s police force, the Forcemen—­towers over the rest. I have to shield my eyes from the glare, but even I can’t deny the beauty of the polished high-­rises that house some of the Metro’s most wealthy—­the Uppers. An ache blooms in my chest. Someday we’ll be there, or in a lavish apartment in New York, Philadelphia, or any of the Metro’s other four boroughs, once cities in their own right. I’ve got six thousand credits saved up for proof of income already. Only nine thousand to go.

“Let’s have some fun, Liv!” Celeste shouts. Before I can respond, I’m hurtling out over the Perimeter, the wide pedestrian avenue that encircles the Towers. The empty road hugs the wall that LifeCorp built around the Towers to contain our sprawl, forcing us to grow in on ourselves—­tighter, closer—­instead of outward. Celeste whoops as she enters some elaborate combination on the remote, and I do a full flip in the air. We both yelp with glee. My heart hammers against my chest as she flips me over and over. I can hardly breathe, I’m laughing so hard. Mr. Preston’s going to love this. I can already picture his face as he experiences my exhilaration, feels his stomach do somersaults as if he himself were soaring over the Towers. Beats being stuck at a computer sixteen hours a day, that’s for damn sure.

Over my shoulder, the drone’s exhaust sputters.

“Uh, Celeste . . . ?”

I dip precipitously to the right. Below me, Celeste’s eyes become saucers.

“Do something!” I shout.

“I’m trying!” She fumbles frantically with the remote, but it’s not responding anymore. The Towers blur as I tumble toward what I think is the Perimeter. My eyes sting so much from the speeding air I can barely open them. I can’t find the breath to scream as the ground lurches closer. I’m only eighteen. My life can’t end like this. Can it?

Honestly, what a stupid fritzing way to die.

I’m not sure if Celeste figures something out, or maybe it’s dumb luck, but the right-­hand stabilizer suddenly fires just enough for me to reorient myself. I’m still falling, but now I can see my surroundings. Story after story of the Towers whizzes by, each fire-­escape platform another number in the countdown to oblivion.

Or maybe a lifeline.

Against every survival instinct, I unclip one strap of my harness. Clutching the drone with one arm, I sling the loose strap and pray to whoever’s listening that its clip will catch onto something.

It works.

With a thunk, the clip hooks around a railing, jerking me upward, before it slips loose again. My dismount onto the landing below is not gentle, and a protruding rusty bar rips a wide gash in the sleeve of my uniform. But it’s better than splattering onto the sidewalk.

Dozens of feet above, Celeste peers over a roof ledge at me, panting with relief. I wave to show her I’m alright, then bring my wrist to my mouth.

“Nero, end Scrap.”

Reality sets in. I almost died just now. . . .

If that doesn’t sell, I don’t know what will.

---

The clothing stall in the Towers is out of EmoProxy uniforms, so I have to settle for a plain gray Lower jumpsuit to replace the amber EmoProxy one I tore on my fall. It might have been faster to patch the hole, but making modifications of any kind to LifeCorp uniforms is strictly prohibited. Even an alteration that small would defeat the purpose of a uniform, I guess.

Now I’m half an hour behind schedule for my appointment with Mr. Preston, but even that can’t stop me from humming with excitement. The wonder of taking flight, the death-­defying plummet—­there’s no way my Scrap’s not exactly what Preston’s into. Last time we met, he told me he wanted something “pure.” I can’t think of anything purer than abject terror. Around me, Lowers of all kinds head to their first shift, wearing gray jumpsuits like the one I’ve got on. Most are on their way to LifeCorp’s warehouses and factories, to create and package everything from toothbrushes to televisions—­the goods that keep the entire Metro going. Among the sea of gray are a few pops of color: other Proxies like me, members of the lower class who have been mechanically modified to make the Uppers’ lives more convenient so they can squeeze every last drop of productivity from their workday. Each Proxy wears a colored jumpsuit based on their specialty. Unless, of course, you rip a giant hole in one trying to impress a client.