A flicker of recognition illuminated Pelinda’s sunken, green eyes.

The kind of look Lenith’s brother had given when he knew he had done something exceptional.

Pelinda thrust the door the rest of the way open. Dark, bare arms wrapped around Lenith like a vice. A smile spread across her pink lips. It pushed her naturally tan cheeks into reddened balls, as Lenith had imagined.

The tired woman hopped back. “You are new room company Marlic send picture of! Come in. Where are your things?”

“I come with nothing.”

“Come in, I say, Lenith.” She was a moderate woman, dressed plainly in a black tank top and red sleep shorts. There was nothing of excitement about her. It appeared as though her hair had not changed at all since Marlic captured her photo. “Come in. Three times I say it.”

A purifier over the vestibule pumped fresh air into the den. The stench of an unfamiliar home overpowered the pleasing fragrance that filled the lobby and halls. Yet orange walls and blackwood floors persisted.

Once inside, Lenith noticed an alcove for shoes and coats. She spared no thought toward it, as closets were a nicety of the past.

A blanket and pillow were stacked next to a couch centered against the den’s inside wall. A foot table complemented it, no taller than Lenith’s shin. A stack of books tottered on the foot table. The top book had a plain white cover and an incomprehensible title in Strian, the language of Esterel: Us’mevani Ebil.

It seemed to be a small visiting area, accompanied by a wide view of the building across the street. A solid roof over her head, a sturdy floor beneath her feet, and unbroken windows.

“Oh. Please, you must take off shoes.”

Lenith stopped in her tracks, looking down to her new, checkered shoes and then back to Pelinda. “Why?” she asked.

Exchanging a mutual look of confusion, they laughed. Lenith did as her new friend requested and pushed her shoes under a pair of coats—for the cold and rain, respectively. Her bare feet touched the floor. It seemed unnatural. She had slept with her shoes on most nights in the Gray. Always prepared to run.

“First door on left is kitchen. See?” Pelinda pointed toward an interior window carved out of the wall to Lenith’s left.

She hurried over to the narrowest of the room’s five walls, barely wide enough to fit a door. It led to a corner room, hanging out from the uniform pentagonal design of the rest of the apartment. Pelinda tapped the door. “This is bedroom for me. And the one on right is bathroom. There is closet, too.”

Lenith approached a table between the bedroom’s door and the outer wall’s vast window. A framed screen caught her eye—somewhat rudimentary compared to the ones the Chimayri carried. A dozen metallic blocks known as chunks piled in front of the device’s empty slot. All small enough that she could fit them in her palm, if she wanted.

“What are these chunks of?” Lenith asked. She picked one from the pile and examined its blank, front cover. A perfect dust outline remained on the table. She chose to set the one back down, in the same dustless spot, and pretended she hadn’t noticed.

Pelinda took the same chunk and clicked it into the slot. “You play music with them. See?” The screen lit up with a blitz of vibrant colors, along with the device’s name—Etic—at the bottom right. A soft, swift tune dominated by string-play faded in as the animation faded out.

The chunks at Hidden Ash had authoritative men and women narrating historical and informative recordings. Lenith’s eyes widened with amazement. Music had been a rare indulgence. Her chest felt light.

The fast pace built. Colors danced on the screen. Pelinda bobbed her head. She moved in front of the wide window overlooking the street. The concise, skilled sound gave way to an unmetered beat, as if all the built-up beauty fell apart.

A baritone man sang in Strian. Lenith didn’t understand a word. It was a vulgar tongue, or at least it sounded so. He growled out words and spat others.

Pelinda clapped her hands and jutted her hips about. Her mouth moved to the words. Lenith smiled. This girl was a terrible dancer but at least she knew how to entertain.

“It is good?” Pelinda asked over the strums of loose instruments.

“It’s fantastic.” Lenith lied.

“Beautiful Esterel of old makes good music and good people,” Pelinda said.

The man quieted and the instruments abruptly crashed to an end. Pelinda struck a black circle on the screen and pulled the chunk out. A coughing fit caught her off-guard, tossing the chunk down. Lenith rubbed and massaged her back. She could feel spine through the shirt.

Unsure if becoming so winded after clapping was a normal occurrence in the city, Lenith asked “Are you okay? Should I get water?”

Her new roommate straightened. The coughing fit vanished. She tried to hide a mischievous smirk. “You are good. I test you and you pass.”

Pelinda had a light dusting of freckles on her cheeks that looked like a perpetual blush of shame. Lenith gazed, bewildered at the trickster before her and how, because of that freckled blush and the smirk, she could not stay mad. Her stomach dropped and rose back up in an instant.

The gruff titter slipping from Pelinda’s lips eased Lenith into acceptance. In a way it reminded her of her father. A laugh that betrayed Pelinda’s chipper voice. A pleasant dichotomy.

A chirp sounded from Pelinda’s pocket. She jumped a little and produced a silvery pink device in the shape of a shell. It chirped again, much to Lenith’s bemusement. Pelinda pried the device open, tapped a button on the bottom casing’s screen and held the device to her ear.

“It is my communicator,” Pelinda said in excuse and shifted her attention. “Hello, Rubin. How is your time in Juptos? Yes. No. I have new companion here. Not that kind. What? You know I am not good with words.”

A panel on the windowsill snagged Lenith’s attention as Pelinda’s tone became more defensive. It offered the ability to tint the window and control volume.  She wondered if it was the same technology built into Chimayri helmets—or if their faceplates were permanently dark. A light grid divided the vast window into artificial panes.

All the cute ways Pelinda had spoken were slanting and spilling over into an angry pool of babble. Lenith wavered. She looked from Pelinda back out the window.

The room straight across the road had windows tinted, but the next one over was wide open. A thick wire—much like those holding directional signs—coiled around a feeble, dying light strip at the center of the room. Otherwise, the apartment appeared vacant.

The conversation ended with Pelinda’s breathy exasperation and the snap of her communicator shutting.

Ξ

A cloth sheet served as an interim door to the kitchen. The window was framed in blackwood over a spotless counter. The sink was white and overhead cabinets were also black. The other side of the slim kitchen had a glossy, black stovetop and oven, a thin fridge, and more counters. The ceiling light kept the room in hazy, perpetual sunset.

“This kitchen is for me and you. Both of us eat what we want,” Pelinda said. She cracked the fridge door ajar and rooted inside. “It does not matter who buys it. Now, I make good food.”

Lenith plucked a half-empty jar off the counter out of curiosity. Clear, bubbling fluid swished inside. Its dark red label read Salim Solem in white. Turning the jar around, she found a stylized, embossed Chimayri helmet staring back at her next to a warning: Excess means poor judgment. Poor judgment means the Silo.

“What’s Salim Solem?”

Pelinda returned, shuddering from the cold, with a wax-slick package tucked under her arm. The refrigerator shut automatically with a thunk. She placed the package on the black stovetop in order to take the jar from Lenith and coddle it like a newborn.

“It is named in Strian for ‘Live Love.’ Open it and you sip.”

The airtight cap came off with a pop. Lenith pressed the rim to her lips. The acrid fluid came out in waves—blazed a trail from the tip of her tongue down into her throat; burnt her nostrils. The aftertaste started as a spark then surged to an inferno. It squinted her eyes and drowned them in tears as some failed attempt to extinguish the heat.

She slammed the jar down and scoured the sink for a lever or a groove, only to remember she was far from the Gray Area’s old inventions. Her finger tapped a button beside the sink’s temperature sensor and a cool stream of water rewarded her desperation.

Lenith dipped her head under the faucet, oblivious to Pelinda’s deep laughter, lapping at the flow of water. Her collar was soaked.

“It is good. But it takes time to enjoy. Little bit is not enough for Salim Solem. You drink numb too fast, you die fast. You drink numb too little, you do not die fast enough.”

Distancing herself from the jar of numb, as Pelinda called it, Lenith swiped at her lips and rubbed bloodshot eyes as the sting turned to a tingle and then nothing at all.

“You could’ve warned me.” Lenith rang out the soaked collar into the curved basin. “Is it too hard to say ‘It’ll be hot beyond imagination’?’”

“It is hard for me. I can say ‘It is hot.’ Is that okay?”

“A minute ago, yeah.”

Lenith spat at the drain. Her saliva was a light orange.

When feeling returned to the insides of her cheeks, she watched Pelinda at the stove. A wide, short screen was in place of the knobs and adjusters at the lip of the oven. The stovetop appeared to be made of a single, dark sheet of glass.

Pelinda swiped the screen. A simple overhead image of the stovetop faded in, along with a time and temperature indicator. She dragged her thin finger across the replica. A red line followed behind her fingertip until half the stovetop was radiating red heat in the same pattern. She brought a griddle from the under-oven storage and set it atop the heated area. Its handle was many layers of padding and wood.

Everything in the city was designed to be touched, yet nothing felt satisfying.

“You go to other room. It is long day.” She threateningly waved the grooves of the griddle in Lenith’s way. “It is done soon. I make good food fast.”

Thirty minutes later, the foot table divided them. Pelinda had pushed her stack of books to the left in order to make a decent dining place. Lenith sliced through the cooked, gray meat on her plate. Her eyes sealed shut and, for a moment, she thought they might not reopen. Juices flowed from the tender mess, over her lips and down her chin. The meat ripped apart in strings. The wash of acidity made for a subtle kiss at the end of each bite. She regained her composure and whispered, “What is this beauty?” toward her new roommate.

“It is good,” Pelinda said. “It is colisi leg.”

Ξ

Lenith sprawled out on the couch. Listening as Pelinda hummed and cleaned dishes in the kitchen. Black cushions depressed under Lenith’s head. Such tremendous relief had eluded her for twenty-two years. She slipped in and out of a blissful unconsciousness. The city felt like never-ending safety.

Every nerve in her body loosened. Her shoulders slacked and her mind shut down. For a moment, she thought it might be nice to move the couch under the window, to watch the sky and the stars at night if she could not sleep.

Her mind was unoccupied by pain or death. She fought to keep it that way, to avoid familiar faces lurking in the darkness behind her eyelids.

“What is time?” Pelinda asked over the noisy clatter of dishes hitting drawn water.

Lenith was happy to open her eyes and search the living room. When no timekeeper offered itself, she rose, grumbling. The bathroom had a sink, toilet, and tub. Nothing new. A cabinet hung over the toilet and a plain dresser was next to the bathtub and shower, though Lenith doubted either had the time inside.

Pelinda’s bedroom was dark and cold. Emerald bed sheets were in chaos, overflowing onto the floor. A shelving unit lined the bottom half of the far wall. Barely through the door, Lenith spotted the outline of picture frames in the tame light that seeped through a covered, tinted window. A mounted digital display was asleep in the right corner of the room beside another spacious window.

The fake light cut through the room’s errant dust. Lenith’s nose tickled.

Pelinda patted her back.

“Forgive me. It is easy to forget you are new.”

Back in the living room, Pelinda pressed a button on the windowsill. The bottom half of the glass modified and transformed into a translucent display. To the left was the time— ‘7/2:19’—in bold, light red numbers. An image of the two suns blocked by clouds rotated below, next to the outside temperature.

“Oh, you have luck. Torigens make speech tonight in five minutes,” Pelinda said. “Big news.”

“Marlic mentioned Torigens. Who are they?”

Pelinda took the open spot next to Lenith on the couch and pried a palm-sized remote wedged between cushions.

“Our Faceless Leader cannot work alone. All cities have them. Oh, what is it called? Marlic say this before. It is like… Chimayri limbs have Poralagets. Leaders, you know. Marlic is Sudbina Dehkie Poralaget and represents all Dehkie. Our Faceless Leader is like Poralaget of everything. Torigens are like subPors. Not as strong as Poralaget. You understand? It is many powerful people, yes, but not powerful as our leader.”

Lenith took a moment to absorb all this, repeating it in her head, or at least trying. “So, Torigens are a powerful council?”

“They try same system in Esterel many years before. The government structure is sound but Polits are bad. So, New Esterite Commerce rounds up bad officials and sends them on ship to somewhere else. To exile.”

“I read about that. Half the Polits died because the ship’s lower deck had its ventilation sealed off, right?”

“The rest die from poison powder in food.”