Lu stared at the ridiculous portrait, searching for reasons to hate it. The painted person was ethereal, eyes downcast, watching over a flock of sheep. It was religious, he realized. That was why it had won. Clearwater loved anything that represented their strange savior complex and the review board had been full of Johns and Janes. 

“Do you like it?” Aphrodite slid proudly beside him, gazing up and evaluating her work.

Lu scoffed without looking at her, “did you need a ladder?”

“Don’t be jealous,” she waved, skipping down the corridor in vintage gravity boots, calling behind her, “I just had a better model.”

Lu snorted, rolling his eyes, “we can’t all make careers off fan art!” His bitter insult echoed off the walls of contest submissions, but Aphro was already through the vestibule door and out into the tunnels. He sighed one final time at the beautiful, unreal human, then dragged his eyes down to the second-place ribbon in his hand. He’d come to school on a district rest day just for second place. 

He tossed the ribbon in a waste bin on his way out, glancing one last time at the portrait, then pushed through the double doors and called a private car to ride the spiraling rails down to the Wells, where Pa lectured him on the importance of accomplishing goals by any means necessary, reminded Benny to track his training, and gifted him an illegal lighter for next time he was going to lose a competition that could have been conveniently bribed or ignited beforehand. 

☆

When Adon walked into the classroom, Lu froze, his chair falling forward onto four legs in disbelief. The model Aphrodite had teased was real, immediately blocked by flocking students, smiling with hounding questions and waving papers. Lu watched the pretty boy answer them, handing out tutor time sheets and counting invoices, waiting for his mask to slip, searching for an eye-roll, a frown. But he only made jokes and laughed with an arching back, as if he genuinely liked their worming classmates. The pretty boy openly winced when Asch hit his shoulder too hard in gratitude, and all the girls beat Asch away from him. His eyes crinkled in the corners and his vision never flexed past the crowd of students surrounding him. It made Lu angry. Uncomfortable. His eyes tracked the boy out of the room and down the hall through the row of windows, uncertainty itching at the back of his neck. 

At lunch, Lu wandered down the art hall. No one would stop him, none of the Janes would yell at him for it, and the thrill of his rebellious escape eased the irritable dread in his gut. He passed his own work without looking at it, but paused in front of Aphro’s enormous canvas. She was two years younger than him and they’d been competing in contests as long as he could remember. Caldera had survived the Suffering after all, and it was now their duty to celebrate with art and beauty and regulated emotion… or something like that, the boards changed the themes each year, but somehow they were always the same. He’d never been a good enough student to give it much thought. He painted what he wanted and Pa took care of the rest.

No one ever yelled at him for that either. 

“It really is my best work,” Aphro bit into a small purple fruit beside him, offering him another while staring at the portrait. 

Lu leaned back, pushing her hand away, “ew, no. Where’d you even get that?”

She looked at her fruit with a haughty frown, “my brother grows them. They’re really good, try it!” She pushed the fruit into his face. 

“No, stop,” Lu smacked her arm away.

“What, you can only eat fancy fruit?” She jumped on him, pulling him into a headlock with a loud giggle. 

“Ow, Aph,” Lu barked. He didn’t like her, but he didn’t flip her over his shoulder like he’d spent all night doing with grouchy uncles who were mad that Phaios kept losing. “Get off me,” he warned, “you’re going to get hurt.”

“Me?” Aphro teased, “you’d hurt me?” 

“Aphy,” A breathless voice made Lu straighten, easily pulling Aphrodite along with him, turning to face the voice and swinging her off him at the same time. 

“Whoa, careful,” the wheezing boy jumped up to catch her, pushing her upright.

Lu blinked at them, the clenched fist returning around his stomach.

“You forgot your quarantine pass,” Adon wrapped the oldest operable version of a district alert around a keychain on her bag, the light blinking green, allowing her passage despite the Ground district quarantines. He caught his breath, holding her out in front of him, “I can’t walk you back today. If it flashes purple, what do you do?”

She pouted, “...ask Mess?”

The boy rolled his eyes with a heavy sigh, “go to the school dorms.”

“Right,” she smiled guiltily, shrugging him off, “obviously.”

“I have class,” Lu announced to no one, striding down the long corridor and ducking into the first empty study room, not even bothering to kick the door closed or turn  on the light, crouching around his nauseated stomach. 

“Since when does he care about class?” Aphy scowled. 

“I saw him earlier,” Adon followed her gaze down the hall, “I think tutor his whole class.”

“His name is Lu. Lu-Bird,” She cocked her head, waiting to see recognition, but her brother walked beside her down the hall, oblivious as always. Aphy nodded at Lu’s portrait, pausing and turning to face it, Adon beside her, “that’s his work…. He usually beats me.”

Adon gawked, “wow. It’s really good.” He leaned closer with an awed whisper, “look at the colors, those wrinkles.”

Aphrodite nodded, then barked a laugh, nudging Adon toward her work looming above them with a cruel smile, “but I won this time!”

Adon gazed up at himself, unimpressed, “it’s such a strange thing, to compete in art.” His eyes returned to the smaller canvas in front of him, infatuated by the obscure image of a middle-aged woman walking through shades of red, as if leaving him behind without even looking back. “Is she someone famous?”

“No,” Aphro pouted at him, dropping her theatrical arms and pulling another small purple fruit from her pocket, “you didn’t say anything about mine.”

“That’s because yours is ridiculous.”

“Say something nice,” Aphro stomped.

“Ahhh,” Adon nodded, bumping into her as they walked, “your work is very… big. You must have used so much paint to cover it. You have,” he glanced back to make sure, then pet her head proudly, “the biggest canvas, so of course you should win.”

She ducked away from his hand, clenching a glaring fist, “try again.”

“Yours is so good that… it…” Adon floundered for compliments, cringing at the sight of himself even at the end of the corridor, “won?”

Aphy punched his shoulder with a whine, “that’s because I painted you. People here are so weird, they think you’re pretty.” She scowled at him, pretending to throw up, “gross. The water probably damaged them, the rest are Dusters. Now say something actually nice,” she kicked his butt, hand outstretched, waiting for her deserved compliment. 

Adon high-fived her sorrowfully, “I was taught not to lie,” then continued toward the cafeteria. 

Aphro followed, kicking him again and again, her loud objection echoing, “by who? Not our parents. They didn’t teach us anything. Say a lie, I don’t care. Just something nice!”

Adon laughed, unbothered, hefting his heavy bag with a forced smile as he held the door and waved Aphro through it, his eyes wandering one last time to the portrait of the woman. There was a melancholy resonating from it, a camaraderie of sadness and blame he felt with the artist. He let the doors fall closed as Aphy pulled him behind her by the strap of his bag.

Later, when his stomach settled and every muscle was stretched and warmed up enough to trek home and face whatever punishment the uncles had waiting for him, Lu emerged from the study room. He was surprised to find Adon standing by his work, returning to the hall, or perhaps he’d never left. Lu approached hesitantly, studying the man. Boy. Person. Each angle presented a different expectation. “Do you…go to school here?” Lu ventured. It was a stupid question, they wore the same Navy uniform standing in the connector hall to Navy Academy. 

“Can you sell these?” Adon asked at the same time.

Lu shoved his hands in his pockets with a shrug, “who’d want a picture of my mom?”

Adon’s shoulders fell, his gaze drifting mournfully to the portrait of himself with a sigh, “right. I didn’t think of that.”

Lu pursed his lips, following the boy’s gaze, “someone might want that big one though.”

“Really?” Adon perked, “because it won?”

Lu shrugged, “there’s always a buyer if you have enough time to find them.”

Adon nodded distantly, biting his lip and counting off on his fingers, holding up nine of them, “is nine days enough time?”

Lu sneered down at him, “I’m not her agent.”

“Right, yeah,” Adon smiled, waving away the thought, “...what’s that? An agent?”

“Someone who sells your work.”

“Oh,” Adon nodded along, “do kids have agents?”

“No. Artists have agents. Some kids are artists.” Lu narrowed his eyes, his gut twisting in that uncertainty again. He wasn’t used to being  a person with answers, let alone a person who was asked questions.

“So… hypothetically, without an agent, would nine days be enough to find a buyer?”

Lu watched his classmate stare up at himself, his face wearing the same awkward and confused expression as Lu’s rippling stomach, “you don’t even know how much to sell it for…. Are you a celebrity or something? An AI kid?” There were plenty of pretty poor kids who got jobs filling AI roles in the Arcade, determined to get noticed by a small studio or diligently going to auditions with AIE partner agencies. They would all be discarded later, when their poverty couldn’t keep up with the Uppers’ cosmetics and surgeries, when their debts caught them or their families needed them, when they pissed someone off or made one wrong move and their net snapped. They all came tumbling back down to the Ground eventually, just like feeder fish, stocking ponds to feed the predators, and Lu hated them for it. 

“Me?” Adon pointed at himself, astounded at the idea, “I’m a tutor. Why….” He didn’t understand the intent of the question.

Lu sighed matter-of-factly, “if you’re not a celebrity, then who would buy it?” Lu lolled his head, glancing between Adon and the portrait. It really was ridiculous. Annoying, how similar they were in the details, but how different in tone and vibe. “Maybe those girls would buy it.” Lu offered, fascinated at how accurately Aphro had captured the outline of his face, yet somehow completely missed any ounce of his presence. He nodded, agreeing with his own idea, “I bet you could auction it off to the school at least.”

Adon shook his head, “Aphy’s friends all said it’s creepy.”

“Mm,” Lu grunted, tilting his head back and forth, “it is a bit creepy, yeah. Are you religious?”

“Not really. I have bigger problems than the next life.”

“Like what?” Lu mused, stretching the moment as long as it would last.

“Like rent, and worksheets, and dinner, and transport cards, and grav-boots, and—” As if to prove his point, the small dongle keychain hanging off his bag began to flash purple. He looked at it as if the entire world had fallen over him, holding it up between them, “and this.”

Lu nodded, “that is a lot of problems.” He wanted to ask why his parents didn’t take care of it. Wanted to ask his name, what he planned to make for dinner, what he thought of his work. Instead, he turned back to the portrait with a hidden smile, nodding at it, “plus you have this monstrosity to take care of.”

Adon groaned his agreement, then nudged Lu with a playful elbow, “hey, that’s my sister’s work.”

Lu laughed as Adon shuffled papers into his bag, starting toward the doors, not a mask or pair of gravity boots in sight. Lu followed him down the corridor with a soft wave, “don’t let her paint you next time.” 

Adon paused halfway through the door, “why?”

“It’s cheating,” Lu held the door for him, still confused, looking Adon over for a passkey or lanyard, “do you actually go here?” Caldera was strict about security, keeping people to their districts and levels, even the Arcade required coins, Navy was the most elite of the Grounder schools, most of the kids came down from the lower Mids, he should need a code to leave.

“Yeah,” Adon held up his arm, revealing a large bracelet, the school logo emblazoned in the rubber, “I even work in the greenhouse. See,” He pulled a handful of small purple fruits from his pocket, “want an apple?”

Lu frowned, he’d never seen a school-issued district key, most kids, even Grounder kids, had their own ID band that got keyed in for access. He picked up one of the soft fruits, “these aren’t apples. Apples are red… or green.”

“You’ve seen an apple?” Adon blinked excitedly, waiting for details.

Lu rolled his eyes, heading toward the upper deck of the school, pausing at the ladder. 

“Aren’t you going to class?” Adon followed. 

Lu shrugged with a sigh at the sound of Adon climbing the cold metallic rungs behind him.

“Adonis!” 

Adon froze, turning to see a Jane in advanced curriculum robes gesturing for him to get down, saying nothing to Lu above him.

“Yes Jane Blau?” Adon called, glancing between her and the boy who knew about apples disappearing behind the forbidden door to the access tunnels without looking back, just like the woman in the portrait.

Adon sighed, jumping down. He followed Jane Blau to his classroom, where Jon Citron was counting attendance. He pressed his fingerprint to his ID, marking himself present, then sat in the back of the classroom and discreetly cursed his ancient brick phone that couldn’t access the Old Internet Archive to look up red and green apples.

☆