Into Darkness

10

Also, if one of the guests died sooner than he otherwise might have due to clogged arteries and high cholesterol, so much the better. There was always another citizen who’d aged out ready to fill his bed.

“Need the extra credits,” said Lu, taking her place beside Liesel at the long stainless steel counter. She’d already hung her coat in her locker and changed into her white apron. And changed her gloves for a disposable latex pair, perfect for kitchen work but a trifle too thin for Lu’s comfort. No push had ever leaked through yet, but she wasn’t entirely convinced that would remain the case forever.

Especially today.

The thought caused a tickle in her palms. Lu began immediately to hum.

She and Liesel worked in companionable silence for a moment, rolling, kneading, dusting flour over the dough, until finally Liesel asked, “What’s that song you’re always humming? It sounds familiar.”

“Just something my father used to sing to me. It’s from an opera called Song to the Moon.”

Liesel made a gentle grunt that managed to convey she’d never heard of it. Her grunts were many and varied, one as distinguishable from the other as the notes of a song. She often used them in place of words.

“My mother had a terrible singing voice. Could stun the birds right out of the trees, make them fall dead to the sidewalk.”

Lu grimaced, imagining a woman walking along singing while the sky rained dead birds.

“She used to tell me stories instead. At that, she was talented. She was Romanian, my mother, a peasant who married a farmer and had eleven children in twelve years.” Liesel shook her head, producing a disbelieving grunt. “Those were the days you could have as many children as you wanted. Can you imagine? No permits? Just breed away like so many rabbits?”

Lu couldn’t imagine such a thing. Only two children per married couple were allowed under the IF’s birth regulations, and only if the couple could afford it. The wealthy First Form families had no problem paying the birth tax. Everyone else saved or bartered credits or wound up indebted to the government for the remainder of their lives, paying down the astronomical tax through a work program.

And Thorne forbid if you had an “accident.” Unplanned, unpermitted children disappeared almost as soon as they were born, raised in State orphanages and ultimately conscripted into the IF’s vast, unpaid labor force known as the Drones.

Needless to say, the abortion business thrived in New Vienna.

Liesel said, “Well, there you are. That’s how it was before . . .”

Her hesitation was filled with the unspoken terror of the Flash. Of everything it triggered, the wars and turmoil, the food and water shortages, the scorched sky and the barren earth and forever after the lurking stink of death. Though Lu had never known any other sort of life, Liesel was old enough to remember life before the Flash, and to mourn it.

“Anyway, my favorite story was called ‘The Hermit’s Foundling with the Golden Hair.’ It’s about, as you might guess, a man who finds a child in a basket on a stream when he goes to fetch some water. A golden-haired child. Just like you.”

In the sticky dough, Lumina’s hands stilled. The light in the room seemed suddenly too bright.

“It was a boy, in the story, though.” A derogatory grunt, as if the s*x of the child offended her. Liesel worked the dough between her rough hands. “There was a note attached to the basket with the little baby boy. It said that the child was the illegitimate son of a princess, who’d sent the baby away for fear of her shame being discovered. That story always reminds me of you. Because of the name, I mean, not because your mother was a princess.” She laughed, as if the idea was profoundly funny. “Though his was the male version of the name, Lumino.”

Liesel brushed a wrist across her forehead to push away a strand of hair, leaving a damp smear of flour behind. “Was your mother Romanian?”

Lu didn’t answer. She couldn’t; her mouth was too dry. Liesel took her silence as a yes.

“Makes sense, I suppose. Naming you after the Romanian word for light.” Liesel’s friendly gaze flickered over her. “You’re so pale you probably glow in the dark when you take off all your clothes, eh?” Another laugh, and Liesel flipped the dough, punching it down and smoothing more flour over the surface.

Filled with an odd, chilling premonition, Lu whispered, “What happened to the baby?”

“Oh, well, the story was a fairy tale, so of course there were talking lions and dragons and elves, and the boy had to face many trials as he grew, including his father’s death, and flight to a new land, and battles of wit and swords. But he was a strong one, that Lumino. He had royal blood, which gave him courage. He never gave up, not even when his enemies killed his—”

“Did you hear the news? The Grand Minister is coming today! Can you believe it? Today, of all the days! We didn’t get any of the supplies I ordered because the delivery truck was attacked by those verdammt Dissenters, and now there won’t be fresh vegetables or those special sausages I wanted! Scheisse!”

Lars, Hospice head chef, burst into the kitchen with the heated intensity of high noon. Though small and wiry, with the furtive, darting eyes of a rodent, he possessed the energy of ten men. And the ego of twenty. His diminutive frame was topped with a shock of flaming red hair, in which he took great pride and had a habit of running his fingers through when agitated. Which meant his hands were almost always clenched atop his head.