promised them next year would be even better. She said they would ride the elevator to the top of the Spoke to see the stars—the ACTUAL stars—above the cloudscape. They would drink Sparklefroth and electrocute one another with happiness. They would take the long, dreamy plunge back to earth together in Drop Bubbles. And after, they would all mask themselves in Hideware and go down into the Carnival District—which was forbidden to anyone under sixteen—and everyone who saw them in their expensive new faces would fall in love with them.
Something stirs in the cloudy green globe. The mermaid looms up from the mucus-hued shadows and boggles out at her. The girl-fish is little more than a grotesque pink slug with a face and waving, mossy-green hair.
“You might want to do something adorable,” she says, “while you’ve got the chance.”
A black string of poop squirts from a hole above her tail fin. The mermaid gawps, as if astonished by the functions of her own body.
A hoop of eldritch jade light flares in her right eye, half blinding her, signaling an incoming message. She pinches her thumb and index finger together, as if squeezing a bug to death. Words appear in fey emerald letters, seeming to hover three feet from her face, a trick of the messaging lens that she puts in her eye first thing every morning, even before she brushes her teeth.
JOYCE B: WE HAVE PLANS FOR YOU.
AMY P: EVIL PLANS.
JOYCE B: WE’RE GETTING YOU INTO THE CARNIVALS TONIGHT. IT HAS BEEN ORDAINED.
Iris shuts her eyes, rests her forehead against the cool glass of the aquaglobe.
“Can’t,” she says, squeezing her thumb and index finger together to SEND.
JOYCE B: DON’T MAKE US FORCE YOU INTO A SACK & DRAG YOU OUT KICKING & SCREAMING.
AMY P: IN A SACK. KICKING. SCREAMING.
Iris says, “My mom’s new guy is off work in an hour, and Mom wants me home for cake and presents. I guess they got me some big-deal gift that won’t wait.”
This is a lie. Iris will decide what the big-deal gift was later. It will have to be something that could only be used once, something no one can prove she didn’t get. Maybe she will tell her friends she went on a hallucication to the lunar surface and spent the night in Archimedes Station, playing Moon Quidditch with the Archimedes Owls.
JOYCE B’s reply appears in lurid fire: HIDEWARE??? DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM GOT YOU A NEW FACE?
Iris opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again. “We won’t know until I unwrap it, will we?”
The moment it’s out of her mouth, she doesn’t know why she said it, wishes she could unSEND.
No. She knows why she said it. Because it feels good to act like she’s still one of them. That she has everything they have and always will. That she isn’t falling behind.
AMY P: I HOPE YOU GOT AN “OPHELIA” BECAUSE IT WILL MAKE JOYCE JEALOUS AND I LIKE TO WATCH JOYCE FAKE-SMILE AT PEOPLE WHEN SHE’S MISERABLE.
The Ophelia has been out for just two months and might’ve been too expensive even when her father was making tokens by the shovel-load in the Murdergame.
“It probably won’t be the Ophelia,” Iris says, then immediately wishes she could rephrase.
JOYCE B: THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH A BASIC “GIRL NEXT DOOR.” THAT’S WHAT AMY HAS AND I’M NOT EMBARRASSED TO GO OUT WITH HER. I’M NOT PROUD, BUT I’M NOT EMBARRASSED.
AMY P: WHATEVER IT IS, YOU’RE FREE BY 2100, BECAUSE YOUR MOM ALREADY SAID YOU’LL MEET US AT THE SOUTH ENTRANCE TO THE CARNIVALS. I MESSAGED WITH HER THIS MORNING. SO GO HOME AND SCARF CAKE AND UNWRAP YOUR SEXY NEW FACE AND GET READY TO MEET US.
JOYCE B: IF YOU DO GET AN “OPHELIA,” I WANT TO WEAR IT FOR AT LEAST A LITTLE WHILE, BECAUSE I COULDN’T BEAR IT IF YOU WERE MORE AMAZING THAN ME.
“I could never be more amazing than you,” Iris says, and Joyce and Amy disconnect.
Below her another cannon-train booms past.
4.
The disaster happens two-thirds of the way across the overpass.
The Monowheel is lightweight but big, bigger than she is, and walking it home is awkward business. It’s a drunken giant who keeps leaning on her or trying to sit down in the road. She leans in to guide it with a hand on the control stick, her other hand clutching the aquaball to her side. The overpass has a gentle arch to it and the ’wheel wants to speed up as soon as she’s on the downward