Even the Sun

Idon’t regret what I did, Your Honor. Beatitude is fine, after all. You would have done the same thing if you grew up like me, a girl from the sewers. But all of you top-dwellers are so full of yourselves, you forget us bottom- dwellers exist. Not your concern, right? If you don’t see us, why should you care? Everyone out for themselves.

I was born a top-dweller, you know. My dad was an engineer at the Air Filtration Plant and my mom was a telesurgeon. I can still remember our apartment in Sector 108. We had access to the park on level 47. I loved going there. Sunlight—real sunlight—would come in through the tiny windows. I couldn’t see anything but I loved lying in those bright yellow squares. So warm. It was like I was glowing inside. That was the best hour of every week. I didn’t know there would be a day I would see my parents smile for the last time. When I was seven, dad took his own life. Couldn’t take it anymore was all the note said. To this day I can’t figure out what the signs were, whether he’d still be here if I had given him one more hug. Not even mom noticed. And perhaps she never forgave herself. To cope, she started taking extra sun pills. I saw her when she thought I wasn’t looking, and denied it when I asked her. Heliodor was her favorite. Extra potent. Could make you hallucinate for hours. HelioTech eventually pulled them off the shelves but not before they made their trillions and mom was an addict. She lost her job after almost killing a patient while high. No one would help. My grandparents were already gone. If there hadn’t been the one-child policy, we might have had aunts and uncles to depend on like in those old books. Friends and neighbors didn’t want to be accused of addiction, or worse, selling that stuff illegally. Hypocrites. Sure, a corporation can sell something addicting and that’s legal but some rando looking to make an extra coin is a criminal. What choice do people have? Sun pills are expensive. And sun booths only offer a minute of vitamin D.

Mom became a laborer and the only place we could afford was a coffin home down in the Barracks. When the company downsized, Mom lost her job and we ended up in the sewers. I was eight. I didn’t know darkness—real darkness—until then. In Sector 108 we might not have had direct sunlight all the time and the Bar-

Eric Odynocki

racks were a confusing maze of cages and doors lit in harsh LED but down there, in the sewers, we only had those flickering bulbs. At Curfew, I would lie down as close to one as possible so I could look at dad’s picture on his employee badge. It was the only thing I could slip out unnoticed during the eviction. The thing about the sewers is they lead to everywhere in the Trove: The Waste Recycling Plant: The Trash Compactor: The Composter. That’s how we survived, my mom and me. We’d sneak into those places and dig up what we could. Banana peels. Chicken legs. You could tell which chutes led up to the Outer Rim because that’s where the most delicious leftovers landed. One time I even found half of a strawberry cheesecake.

About a year ago, mom and I were in the Trash Compactor picking out whatever we could. Winter was coming and the gales outside the Trove made the sewers draftier. Mom found a bottle of Heliodor. It had been years. We got our vitamin D pills—knockoffs—by trading with the other bottom dwellers. I told mom to put the bottle down. That’s when the Compactor turned on. We must have misjudged the compacting schedule. I yanked my mom’s arm, screamed her name, but she had already swallowed one. I was able to get out in time. The last I saw, she was just standing there, on top of a pile of trash, looking dazed at that bottle of pills. I don’t know how long I spent wandering the sewers. Sometimes I slumped against the wall and wouldn’t move. Other times my eyes burned from all the crying. At one point, I bartered for Heliodor. I sat and stared at the gelcaps glinting in the dim light of the bulbs. That was when I made my decision. I wasn’t going to die like a rat. Or end up like dad, like those suicides lying in the gutter, dead because they couldn’t take it anymore either, couldn’t take the darkness anymore. And I was tired. Sick and tired of seeing all those kids. Bow-legged kids in the shadows with crooked arms because broken bones never healed right. A lot of them were born in the sewers and would die there. But not me.

So first I tried going to Assistance. Up top, I ignored all the stares along the way. Ignored how they covered their noses. At the kiosk, my case was denied. Because I couldn’t prove who I was. I dialed for a live agent. “Our funds are not for iDNA,” she said. One drop of my blood and five minutes of their time and they would have found my citizen number. But no, why spend tax dollars on bottom- dwellers? So I went to Employment, said I could work as a waste collector, livestock groomer, anything. They said they couldn’t help someone who didn’t have a citizen number. And in any case, all jobs were full.

It wasn’t fair. How was I ever going to get out of the sewers? What did I do to deserve any of this? Before I went under I passed a hologram that was talking about Beatitude Sherman. I stared at the feed. Heiress to trillions. The parties she

attended. The celebrities she was romantically involved with. Her home was a 10,000 square foot penthouse in Sector 1. Both of us twenty-three. Such different lives. It’s so nice when daddy’s CEO of HelioTech.

A childhood in the sewers teaches you a lot. Like I said, those tunnels lead everywhere. Even to the Air Filtration Plant. I used dad’s badge to sneak into his old office and unlock the computer. From there it was only a matter of time before I learned which vents go to the Outer Rim. Of course, when I found which penthouse was hers, I didn’t break in immediately. I waited. Learned her schedule. When the AI slept.

I made my move at Curfew. It was dark in her room but my eyes were used to it. She tried to scream but I shoved a few Heliodor pills in her mouth. Knocked her out cold. And then I lived the happiest few hours of my life. I took a shower. I hadn’t felt hot water in fifteen years. I raided the kitchen. I got crumbs everywhere, ate spaghetti by the handful. I let the juices of fresh fruit drip all along my chin. I didn’t care. But the best was when Curfew ended. The time called dawn. Or morning. I’m not sure what the difference is, just that besides sun, those are the two most beautiful words I’ve ever heard. Dawn. Morning.

I could not believe what I saw. Through those massive windows the blackness broke in half, the top half lighter—like wine—than the bottom half. I think the division is called horizon. And the upper part is the sky. And then I saw pink and orange and red. Colors I only saw on screens in school. And then I saw the brightest thing. It first peaked over the horizon and then slowly drifted up and up, all on its own. Turning the sky blue, exposing the scorched earth that, even in its emptiness, was stunning. And then I felt something I hadn’t in years. That glow. On the inside. I got so angry with the tears for blurring my vision.

They say the sun goes down at some point. I never saw it. I didn’t even hear Security come in.

I do have one last thing to say. I know the Law. I know the consequences for what I did. When the Council decides on how I’ll be executed, let it be by Exposure. That’s right, Exposure. So what if I’ll be incinerated the second I step outside the Trove? At least for that last moment, the sun will be mine.