“A car will be here tomorrow at 3pm to take you to the center to meet with your assigned advocate. Be down here on the sidewalk. They don’t like it if they have to go up and look for you. We’d go up and see you to your door, but, uh,” Ophelia exchanged an uncomfortable look with Tessa, “We’re not allowed.” She said then before she reached up to smooth a hand over her braid. “When they come to pick you up tomorrow, they’ll take you to get more clothing and stuff.”
“We should have bought him food…” Tessa mumbled, chewing on her lip.
Ophelia nodded a little with a troubled look before she smiled at me. “Go inside, get the dets for your apartment, and then-” She moved forward and took my shoulders to turn me so I looked down the street. “Just walk right down here until you get to a restaurant with bright blue chairs and tables and benches out front. Go in and tell them ‘Ophelia sent you, and there will be some food for you, m’kay?” Something on her chirped and she held her wrist up to her ear, listening to her watch, where a female voice was reporting a renegade juvenile throwing a tantrum at Edwin’s Grocery, and to watch out for flying jars. She sighed. “Okay – be good, Lawrence!” She said before she patted my arms.
“Yes, be good!” Tessa sang, lightly slapping my upper arm before the two of them went back to where Carla was waiting further down the street.
I called a thank you to them before I turned and looked back at the building where I would be living and thought it looked more like a clinic than a home. The front doors looked like they were made from iron fencing with glass panes between them and as I pushed them open, I found they were incredibly heavy. Someone was coming toward the entrance as well and I smiled at the person, moving back with the door to open it further so a second person and then another after her could leave. I stood there for a little longer before I went to the front desk, where a man with a tag on his shirt read ‘manager’.
“Colony boy.” He greeted, and I nodded a little and told him my name. “Yeah, I know who you are…” He said, giving me a once over before he reached back to grab a folder from the table behind him, his gaze locked on me. “One of those females you were talking to courting you?” He asked lowly, and I shook my head with a frown.
“No – they were just nice women kind enough to – to drive me here,” I said with a smile, suddenly very conscious of the face I had blood smeared on my face and clothes. He didn’t seem bothered by it though. Now that I thought about it, neither had the people that I held the door open for.
“Those girls aren’t nice – they get shit-faced every Monday without fail and used to sneak in here to slip intimate photos of themselves under the doors to try and entice the residents. Now they just hang around outside, but they’re always here.” He said flatly, “If one of them starts courting you, they aren’t allowed inside the building. There’s a restraining order against Miss Ophelia and Miss Tessa from this property and I’m very serious about upholding it.”
I just nodded at that, because I had no idea what else to say to that.
He nodded and jerked his head toward the stairs, leading me toward them. “Novus are allowed in the premise, but only one at a time is allowed in your room, so no parties, and no one under twenty either – I made an exception for you because you’re from the colony and the Regent paid me the big bucks, but I get whiff of anyone – male, female, Sapien, Novus – under twenty here, I’m evicting you, to hear? Kid cause problems and I’ll lose my insurance if they do any damage to the place.”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.” I didn’t know where I’d go when I got Joy, but I’d have to figure that out and soon, because I was going to get her soon. I would get her soon.
I would.
I would.
He grunted as we walked up to the fourth floor, going down a hall to a room with the number 84 printed in black on the door, no knob, not a peek hole toward the center. He open the folder he carried and pulled out a red piece of paper, pointing to the number pad on the wall next to the doorknob less door. “You put in the entrance code, which is different than the exit code.” He showed me the paper and I saw there were two numbers at the top, one reading the entrance code, which had four numbers. “You put it in wrong twice and I get a notice, I check the security camera, and if it’s not you, I call the peacekeepers. You might be tempted to share this with friends so they can drop by and see you or whatever, but don’t. It just takes one giving it to some horny Novus and then I’m having to go to court to be a witness about whether or not you knew the assailant and whether or not you encouraged it.”
I nodded a little, feeling uneasy. “Uh, yes. I’ll – I’ll keep it a secret.”
He grunted as he put in the numbers, the door clicked and he planted a hand on it to push it open. “Don’t get attached. You won’t be here long. They never are…” He entered, waving me in as well. I smiled politely at him as I entered and saw the apartment was very small, something I could cross the length of in eight large steps and the width of in about four. “Young, handsome, dumb as a box of rocks.” I jerked a little at that, giving him a confused smile because him saying that out loud out of nowhere was crazy, but the older man just smirked at me like he’d won something. “Non-confrontational.” He rolled his eyes as he took a step back out of the apartment. “Oh yeah, I give it a month before I see whatever Novus fuck zipping in and out of here with your things.” He sighed and suddenly looked resigned. “You kids these days. It’s pathetic.”
It was a very weird reaction, but maybe not.
I had been pulled through a hole in the wall of my home and was now outside for the first time. Maybe this was how real world people talked with each other. My Dad would say ‘let him be in his mood, let him be’ but I wondered what made me as dumb as a box of rocks when all I had done is arrive.
I asked him just that.
His rueful smirk slowly came back as he stared into my gaze. “When you came into the building, you stood there holding the door open for six people.” He shook his head. “Little boys like you are so easy to manipulate by every sob story that a Novus can spit out-” He pulled a face, saying in a whiny tone “I’m in so much pain! My head hurts! I can’t think! I’m so alone and depressed! I’ll be such a good mate!” He rolled his eyes, his voice returning to normal as he said with clear distaste “It’s sad and pathetic how quickly you go. It’s almost too easy. If I was young and beautiful I’d be ensuring I got to fuck as many desperate little Novus bitches as I could and ensure I got a sapien as well to keep,” He clicked his tongue as his gaze dragged down my body in the sort of way one did when they were judging me, a look I remembered getting when I was twelve and met my first matchmaker-
Good body, handsome face, ah, but he flinches when you smack him! Not very good husband material, dear. Your parents need to toughen you up – but don’t be like your younger brother, he won’t get any girls either with a mouth like that!
“I see,” I said with a slow exhale. “Well, I’d be happy just to have a spouse, thank you. A nice one.”
I don’t know why, but apparently, that was funny, because the other started to laugh. “Oh God,” He rolled his eyes and turned away, shaking his head. “You’ll be gone in a fucking month for sure.” Which was wrong, because it’d be sooner if I could help it – the sooner I had a Novus mate, the sooner I’d have Joy. He started down the hallway and called out for me to read my pamphlet and I called back a thank you before I closed the door, scowling at it once it separated us.
So rude.
I blinked and lowered my chin as I slid my hands along the paper pamphlet in my grip, looking down at it before I opened it and saw little information other than the door locked automatically when it closed and the lock code was 49252, instructions on how to send my sheets and towels to get cleaned, and what time the cleaning team would be coming in each week to tidy up. It was on a Tuesday. Around noon.
I blinked at it before I turned to slowly look around the apartment.
Right at the front door was a couch along the wall to the right, and on the wall across from it was a black mirror that took up the top half of the wall, a shelf on the bottom. There was a wall where the black mirror – about five feet in length – ended and when I looked to see what was on the other side, I saw there was a small kitchen.
There was a refrigerator, and oven with a stove on top and counters on either of its side, cabinets above it all and beneath the counters. There was no food or anything to cook with, but that was okay. The door in the kitchen led to a bathroom that had floor to wall tiles, a toilet, a sink with a mirror, and a showerhead. There was a drain in the center of the room so I suppose the entire room was meant to be a shower, which was very curious.
When I saw my reflection, my face smeared with blood and skin an ashen gray, I washed up, taking off my sweater to wash the blood off of it, and though it still had dark stains against the bright white fabric, it was a little less obvious. I rang it out and put it back on, going to where the bed was tucked in a nook at the very back of the apartment to sit on it.
Directly across from where I sat on the edge of the middle of the bed was the front door down the short hall, and I noticed then that it was made out of metal. When I stood and went to it, putting in the code to unlock it, I pulled it open and looked at the edge to see had to be at least six inches thick. I ran my hand over it before I checked to make sure I had the pamphlet in my pocket as well as the blue pocketbook with my cards and ID before I closed the door.
As soon as it shut, it nosily locked and beeped.
I stared at it for a beat, looking to the room number to memorize it before I slowly made my way back down the hall and down the stairs.
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