“Lu-Lu!” Adon skipped through the balcony doors just as Lu had pushed them open to leave, arms wide, wrapping excitedly around Lu and bouncing wildly, “I got my score meeting!”

Lu jumped with him, hugging tighter and stepping back so the door closed behind Adon, equally excited. He rocked Adon side to side, smiling wide, “what’s a score meeting?”

Adon stopped, eyes narrowed at Lu, trying to determine whether he was joking or serious. “For… for the CAPT?”

Lu’s nose scrunched, still holding onto Adon, “don’t they just send it to you?”

Adon nodded, trying not to sound judgemental as he explained, “if you get the bottom fifty of your slot block they do. They send you a package with your options and you select them online. But the top fifty get a call for a meeting. They present your score and all the education program options for your bracket, they set up your timeline and stipend amount, assign housing, new IDs, everything.” Adon spun around in the narrow space of Lu’s arm, beaming at the sliver of sunlight. His cold gaze warmed at Lu, hopeful that all his lies to himself would soon be true.

Lu watched and smiled, letting go so Adon could fidget freely, marveling at the trick of time and how fast he’d grown desperate to see that warmth aimed at him. How obsessed he’d become with watching it, waiting for it. He reached for the small container in his bag, suddenly anxious and hesitating. 

Adon curled onto the cement ground, leaning against the cold brick without a care for dirt or debris as the city rumbled and shifted loudly above them, the rails clattering, rain pipes flooding, and gravity tunnels engaging to speed Caldera citizens from one end of the city to the next in seconds, past unheard sirens, alerts silenced.

“I…made you lunch,” Lu pulled out the small glass dish, then another because he knew Adon would make him share if he didn’t bring his own. 

Adon sat up, surprised, “you made me food?”

Lu nodded, holding out the dish and a sanitizer bottle, beckoning Adon closer to the dry sunpatch. 

Adon’s stomach growled on cue and he happily investigated the contents, genuinely impressed at the taste, which wasn’t difficult given the sight.

“I need to work on presentation,” Lu admitted with a laugh, “but the taste is okay.”

Adon nodded, shoving another spoonful into his mouth with a satisfied smile at the sun.

Lu wondered how long Adon had been hungry for, if he was smaller than their peers, if that was why he wore braces on his wrists sometimes after hours of grading on his tablet, because even his bones were fragile and tired. Lu watched Adon eat his food and his guts felt warm to the point of bursting. He tried to swallow his smile, but couldn’t help quizzing Adon on all his favorite foods and flavors, planning tomorrow's lunch in his head. 

Lu followed Adon to the greenhouse, scowling over CAPT worksheets and swiping between empty canvases on his tablet because Adon wouldn’t let him help with the tasks. Each time Lu failed to capture Adon, he scribbled the sketch into an Apple, hatching over the happy or stoney expression and shading mindlessly around the edges of the jaw. Within days, his sketchbook was full of surreal apple-faces and his tablet storage was begging him to reconnect and download. He didn’t. He didn’t want the Janes or uncles to see. They neglected and ignored him, but he knew they checked in, he knew the expectations rippled around him despite the silence. Eventually, he gave in and added the files to his student account, unable to delete them. Jane Periwinkle labeled it his Man in the Moon phase, though neither Lu nor the Jane had seen a moon before. Moons were for those above the lights and pollution line, where they told rumors of stars and fate. The Ground was muddy and cold, and their stories were always about falling. 

Lu followed after Adon to pick up Mess, where he proudly presented Ores’ old gravity boots and a worn out grav-suit coat that still had a few years left in it; he'd even replaced the air filters and pollution meter. Mess’ reaction was theatrical and appreciative, but it was Adon’s warm smile that made him follow them all the way home, unwilling to return to the cold silence of the Wells despite Benny’s endless warning texts to report to training. He saw Adon inhale to return his coat that was hanging on the hook and stuffed his mouth with the potato dumplings he’d insisted on grabbing on their way. 

They entered the small unity loudly, Mess jumping on Lu’s back to give him a dumpling too, kicking off his new boots and struggling to get out of the gravity coat. Aphro was seated at the low table with two friends, Calli and another girl who wasn’t in the art program, crowded around several photos spread out over the table. Lu paused in the doorway, balancing the groceries while Adon and Mess untied his shoes and hung up coats. Lu watched suspiciously as Aphro collected the photos, hiding them in Calli’s bag, all three girls staring guiltily at Adon.

Adon hovered over them, unsure what to do with their accusative glares, “what’s going…on.” Adon caught sight of a photo mixed in with a pile of homework papers, pausing with a heavy sigh. Lu bounced out of his shoe, tripping over the flood step and spinning around Mess, running into Adon stopped before the doorway of the galley kitchen. Mess ran into both of them with a matching yelp. 

Adon didn’t seem to notice either of them, frowning and crouching to pull the printed photo out of the stack with a sad sigh, “not again Aph.”

Aphrodite jumped up to fight, “she’s my mom too, Doni!” 

Adon’s eyes widened as Aphy’s friends shifted uncomfortably, “is that who you’ve been meeting! Aphy! She’s a psycho!”

Lu helped Mess up, steadying Adon with a careful hand on his back, watching the way his knuckles flexed white from gripping the photo, unnerved by the shaking in his voice.

Mess tugged Lu’s shirt, gesturing for him to crouch and whispering in his ear with a knowing frown, “our mom is crazy.”

“Why?” Lu couldn’t hope but ask, the shock and confusion obvious on his face. He’d thought Adon’s parents must have died. But then, he wouldn’t have a sibling eight years younger than him… but how did all three end up with state-names? His own question soured in his mouth, realizing he’d asked a ten-year-old why his mother hadn't loved him enough to give him a name. 

Mess only shrugged, unbothered. 

“Did she find you?” Adon began frantically sorting through the pile of bills and notices on the table, half the red-stamped envelopes Aphy’s illegal download fees that he took on three extra students to pay. It had taken him five months to realize she’d been connected to the Old Internet on her school tablet and that the trackers were simply collecting fees instead of cutting her connection when his Asylum credits account was empty. He’d logged in to find a negative balance after years of careful and precise delegation, and it had taken him another two weeks to figure out where the fees came from. They’d get fee paint marking their door soon, the dreaded Sec-Off X meant to shame Grounders into compliance. It had worked once, before every door was covered in peeling layers.  Now it was basically a right-of-passage for Grounders, the same as getting randomly jumped by angry Sec-Offs, or escorted out of the Mids for no reason. 

Half of the Flock, the uncles and crews who took Pa’s most dangerous jobs for the biggest payouts, expecting them to be easy, were doing so because they were fine-poor, all their wages immediately sucked out of their account by the Asylum. Most of them opened private accounts with the Quartet, even the Flock offered loan recovery programs for new members trying to get out of the cruel Asylum payment schedules to at least survive long enough to climb out of the debt most of them were born into. Some of them Pa bailed out of the Chrome House and used their renewed debt to grow the Flock, and when he didn’t find them useful enough, he sold them to the labor camps. Lu didn’t like to think of Adon in a place like that. 

Adon had his CAPT meeting, then the rest of the school term, and then he’d be set, Lu didn’t need to worry. But the way dread clouded around Adon as he rifled through papers to busy his shaking hands, demanding answers, it made Lu nervous. He set a careful hand on Adon’s shoulder. 

Adon exhaled slowly, focusing on the weight of Lu’s hand, returning the papers and facing his sister, remaining calm, “Aphrodite, that woman may have birthed us, but she doesn’t have a motherly bone—”

“YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO REMOVE US, ADONIS!” Aphro screamed suddenly, her friends jumping away from her. 

Mess clapped his hands over his ears and buried his head into Lu’s side, wincing like it was a normal fight between siblings, but the fear in his eyes told Lu it could get much worse. 

“I didn’t remove anyone!” Adon gritted back, “I only kept us together!”

“WHO SAID I WANTED TO STAY WITH YOU?” Aphro screeched, refusing to lower her voice. 

Lu stepped closer to Adon, one hand on Mess’ back, the other on Adon’s shoulder because Aphy looked like she might launch the whole table at him, slowly piecing the story together between their insistent shouts.

“Heather!” Adon argued back, “when you told her mom hit you!” He was so tired of being Aphro’s bad guy.

“I WAS NINE!” Aphro’s voice echoed in the small room, cracking with a sob, “She’s changed!”

“No, she hasn’t” Adon pushed his hair back, “she won’t.” 

They glared at each other for a long, tense moment until Adon threw his hands up, “I guess you’ll have to find out for yourself then.” He stepped into the kitchen, clearing the path for Aphrodite’s awkward friends to finally escape, shoving past Lu and Mess without an apology. 

“I guess I will,” Aphy snapped, shoving clothes in her bag and shoving past Adon. 

Adon grabbed her arm, tugging lightly, his expression cold, “don’t you dare bring her back here.”

“I won’t.” Aphro yanked her arm away but Adon held insistently. She whipped around to face him, half a head taller, both hands clenched in fists. 

Lu moved his shoulder between them, his expression not nearly as menacing as Adon’s, but he blocked the kitchen doorway, and that was enough. 

Aphro ripped her hand away, but again Adon caught it, wrapping the new district alert band Lu had given them around her wrist, “this is your home. With us. You can always come back, and don’t” Aphy tugged, but Adon pulled her determinedly toward him, Lu bracing the fighting siblings on either side of him as Adon hissed, “don’t let her hurt you.” 

Adon let go, reaching his hand up to smooth her hair with pity, but Aphy smacked it away, Lu catching his arm before it hit the doorframe. 

Aphrodite turned on her heel, “Come on Mess, let’s go. She’s waiting.”

Mess remained hidden behind Lu, turning panicked eyes to Adon, shaking his head in proclaimed innocence, “I didn’t mean to meet her.” He turned to Aphy, voice soft, “I don’t want to go.”

Adon knelt gently in front of him, taking Mess’ hands from Lu’s shirt, “Messenger, if you want to meet her… if you want to go with Aphy, you can. It’s okay to be curious—”

Somehow this made Aphy more enraged, “SHE’S OUR MOM!”

Aphro’s friends excused themselves, hovering in the hall while Aphy snatched Mess’ hands and dragged him toward the door, “she wants to see you, that’s all.”

Mess dug his heels in, but his socks slid easily over the peeling linoleum as he tried to squirm out of his sister’s vice grip. Lu took Aphy’s wrist gently, raising it until she was forced to let go, Mess dodging back behind him. 

“Why are you even here, Duster,” Aphy snarled. 

Lu inhaled to answer, unoffended, but Aphy shoved him with both hands, sending him stumbling backwards. He kept Mess from hitting his head, but ran into Adon, slamming his side into the counter with a painted grunt. 

“What is wrong with you, Aph,” Adon wheezed, slumping against Lu and glaring. 

“I WANT MY NAME BACK!” Aphrodite sobbed, any guilt evaporating into hatred, “you had no right to take it!”

Adon blinked away tears, letting Lu pull him upright, his voice low and tired, “I didn’t take anything, Aphy. She didn’t give us anything. She didn’t name us, she didn’t keep us.”

“She didn’t mean to!” Aphy defended, grabbing Mess’ hand and pulling him behind her to the door. 

Again, Mess resisted, real fear in his face as he twisted out of her grip and ran to Lu, who picked him up so she couldn’t grab him again. 

“Mess,” Aphy tsked, irritation and betrayal written over her face as he wiped tears from behind his glasses, “I was three Aphy.” Mess looked down at Adon’s wincing face as he inspected the green bruise blooming on his hip, thinking of memories that weren’t his: glances of their file in Heather’s office, the pictures of bruises, the long list of places Adon had been picked up after being locked out, the scar-record they updated every year, checking on the gash down his back that he didn’t remember getting, but knew had involved broken glass and a fight between parents he never knew. The fear in Adon’s eyes when he’d asked about their mom, about the scar on his back, was enough evidence for Mess to believe that his mother remaining unknown was for the best. Aphy had been hurt, but not the same ways Adon had. He knew that because he’d asked Heather why Aphy still cried for their mom, and Heather had told him that what their mom had done to his sister might be forgivable, but the list of things she’d done to Adon was not, and Heather was always telling them about forgiveness and trying their best. He kept his head tucked into Lu’s shoulder, wiping more tears as he looked at his sister’s tantrum, leaving marks on Adon’s body, flinging papers over their house and yelling like their neighbors wouldn’t call the Sec-Offs to get a fee-reprieve. 

Mess sniffled, “just because she didn’t hurt you, Aphy, it doesn’t mean she didn’t hurt us.” He didn’t remember the scar, but it was still his to suffer at their ARC check-ins each year, with the pitying smiles of blue-gloved nurses asking if he felt pain or anything at all here? Here? How about here? And then sighing and telling him he was okay, but they’d keep an eye on it still. 

“Just because she hurt you, doesn’t mean you didn’t deserve it,” Aphrodite hissed, stomping out the door and slamming it behind her.

Adon let out one folding sob and swallowed the rest as Lu sank beside him, pulling him to his chest in a hug he hoped was warm, Mess buried between them. Mess snuggled tight, Lu’s shirt tangled in his small grip as he cried an explanation, “I didn’t mean to… I met her on accident, Doni. During your test, when Aph… took me to meet her. I didn’t want to.”

“It’s okay,” Adon soothed, caressing Mess’ hair and tucking them both against Lu’s chest with a grateful smile.

Mess shook his head angrily, glaring at his feet, his words wet and gummy, “I thought she was a Jane. I didn’t recognize her at all…. She just… hugged me and cried and said she was sorry and Aphy kept saying it was okay but…” he looked up at Adon, eyes wide and sorry, welling with more tears.