Green Jack

Green Jack

By Alyxandra
Harvey

Copyright
2016

Smashwords
Edition

Elysium City,
2086

Chapter 1

Saffron

The Taggers
were onto her.

Saffron had
finally found a decent clump of pineapple weed and, of course, the
bloody taggers showed up. Scavenging for plants was technically
illegal in the common areas, but surviving on the Directorate-issue
protein paste was miserable. She didn’t know how they’d even
figured out she was untagged, since she was crouched in the rain
with her sleeves down to her wrists. Bad enough the Directorate
opened up Tagging centres to test for numen, but it was just
insulting when other scavengers from the Core turned traitor to
become Taggers. She didn’t just want to escape, she wanted to break
some bones at the same time.

She ducked
between two rusted cars before they could get into range. One dart
from the tranquilizer gun and she’d wake up in a Tagging centre, if
she woke up at all. People from the Core went missing all the time.
She didn’t run south toward the Core, even though she knew the
streets and alleys there better than anyone. They would expect
that, and they’d have backup waiting. And anyway she wouldn’t lead
them to her Oona. She’d rather be tagged.

Actually, she’d
rather feed them their own darts and electricity.

“Stop her!” one
of the Taggers shouted. The other Elysians faded away into the
crumbling buildings. They wouldn’t help the Taggers. Of course,
they wouldn’t help her either, any more than she’d have helped
them. That wasn’t the way you survived as a scavenger.

“It won’t hurt,
sweetheart,” was the next shout. “It’s just a test and a
tattoo.”

She would have
snorted if she’d had the breath to spare. It wasn’t fear, it was
the principle. Leaves slapped at her as she ran. She was piling up
infractions: scavenging, untagged, and now breaking branches of the
trees that grew at all angles in all parts of the City. They were
protected, worth more than anything or anyone from the Core. They
emerged from broken windows and through the skeletons of abandoned
cars covered in moss and lichen and weeds. At this rate, she’d
anger a Dryad and have her intestines wrapped around a tree like a
yuletide banner. She had to wonder what the Directorate had told
the girls who turned into Dryads when they’d first started the
Green Jack experiments. Another version of “it’s just a test and a
tattoo, sweetheart.”

A dart flew
past her ear, nearly catching in the braid at the temple. She
ducked behind a door, grabbing for one of her knives. It sliced
between the sheets of rain, slamming into one of the Tagger’s
shoulders. The tranquilizer gun clattered to the ground. It didn’t
stop them though; mostly, it just pissed them off. Well, good. She
was plenty pissed off herself.

She was near
the Wall, and if she wasn’t careful she’d get stuck between the
guards and the Taggers. But if she went up into one of the
buildings she might be trapping herself. She didn’t know which had
stairs, which had bridges to other buildings, which had tenants who
would turn her in for the promise of a reward. The Taggers were now
offering packets of seeds for those who helped them. It was hard to
compete with that. Even if she had more than a handful of weeds to
offer as a bribe. Which she didn’t.

The rain ran
into her mouth; it was cold and tasted like metal. It had been
raining for five weeks and three days. Before the Rains, there
hadn’t been a cloud for over nine months. Everything was covered in
dust, which was just as deadly. At least when the rains came,
everyone had an equal chance.

That was how
you could always tell the poor folk from the others; Elysians grew
their hair into long braids to catch the rain, and the rich Enclave
folk cut theirs short as rat fur. The rain was a liar, though. It
slid down your face and you couldn’t help but hope. And after all
these wet weeks, the hope got stronger, so strong you’d swear you
were drinking whiskey instead. It muddled your brain. The Wall
couldn’t handle the constant water; that was the hope lured people
away from their cramped apartments hundreds of feet up in the air.
The electricity shorted out and the Wall looked like any other
wall, and someone always tried to climb over it.

Someone always
died.

Tonight was no
different.

Chapter 2

Jane

Jane hoped
there was still strawberry and avocado salad.

Her mother
insisted on arriving to all social events three hours late. She
claimed it showed that they were busy and important people but just
once Jane wanted to arrive when the buffet table hadn’t already
been decimated. People from the Enclave were meant to pick at their
food in public; enough to show that there was always plenty to be
had, but not enough to imply they might actually be hungry. Hunger
was gauche. But strawberries were rare, and in Jane’s opinion worth
any amount of disdain.

Somehow,
despite the dainty nibbling, the strawberries were always gone by
the time Jane arrived.

When the herald
announced them, Jane’s mother strode forward as though the party
was in her honour. “The Highgate family. Amaryllis with daughters
Ivy, Jane and Portia.” Ivy was dutiful, and Portia was eager. Jane
was just hungry. Her presence wasn`t required anyway; she wasn`t
quite exceptional enough. It didn’t bother her, she usually
preferred invisibility. It was the only way to enjoy what remained
of the mint ices, since it looked as though the very elegant
Enclave society folk had already licked the strawberry plate
clean.

“I knew I’d
find you here,” Kiri said. She wore a delicate beaded gown with a
matching bandeau in her short hair. Her black eyes were lined in
thick silver, the only hint of Kiri’s real personality.

“Why are you so
floofy?” Jane asked, reaching for a spoon painted with tiny
violets. “And pink. You look like cake.”

“I’d punch you
for that if it wasn’t true.” She plucked at the diaphanous petals
of her dress, glowing against her dark skin. “New designer. Mother
has decided to be his patron.”

The dress was
the exact colour of strawberry ice cream. “It’s making me
hungry.”

Kiri grinned.
“If you bite me, I’ll bite you back.”

“I’m aware,”
Jane retorted. “I still have the scar on my thumb.”

“I was six
years old,” Kiri scoffed.

“You were
fourteen.”

“Well,
whatever.” She claimed a glass of champagne off a waiter’s
tray.

The lights
flickered, but since outages were as common as rats in the Core,
the dancing continued. When there was a faint and familiar pop and
the lights went out entirely, the well-trained staff were already
lighting the candles and solar lanterns. “Here comes Micah,” Jane
murmured.

“He’ll want to
dance,” Kiri sighed and drained her glass.

Micah was tall
and lean, with coppery skin and enviable cheekbones. He was polite
and patient, two qualities Kiri had never possessed. She might have
liked him if she hadn’t been ordered to marry him. And it didn’t
matter that Micah was in love with a young man who’d just been
enlisted into the Protectorate. His lover was from the City, and
that just wasn’t good enough. The Directorate mattered, and family.
In that order.

The truth was,
Kiri was lucky; there were as many unkind options as kind ones. The
only reason Jane wasn’t betrothed was because her mother was
determined that only the best and most powerful sons would do for
her daughters. She’d managed to find a food engineer’s son for Ivy
and Jane was next. Portia was still at school, but only so long as
it served her mother’s purposes. Kiri joined the dance and Jane
went back to ferreting out rose-petal creams and candied
violets.

A familiar burn
at the top of her spine made her drop a violet into the tureen of
parsley soup. Spatters of green stained her dress. She smiled
weakly at the gentleman beside her, forcing her feet to obey her,
to bring her into the safety of the hallway. She pressed her
temples hard, as if it would alleviate the pressure. It never did.
Numen moved through her when she used it to read the omens, but
during moments like this it felt trapped, burning painfully. Her
head throbbed.

Stay calm.

She’d been
trying to find the reason behind her headaches for weeks now. She
couldn’t ask the professors at the Collegium; someone might accuse
her of numen poisoning. She’d be locked away, or carted to the
laboratories. And worse, yet, they might be right.

A pink moon.
Red dust on a rooftop. Blue eyes between green leaves.

She dug her
fingers into the dirt of the potted plants flanking the staircase,
pushing the excess numen into the earth, willing the magic to bloom
out of her like a cactus rose. Instead, roots of fire crawled up
into her brain. She had to remind herself that the pain would pass.
There was no pink moon.

She hadn’t
really thought too much about numen before the headaches; there
were too many other things to worry about: if the Ferals were going
to attack, if the Elysians were going to rebel, what her Mother was
planning, why someone else was being carted away by the
Protectorate in the middle of the night.

But lately,
with some kind of numen burning in the back of her brain, it
mattered.

She was finally
able to push away from the plant, wiping blood from her nose. She
had to get back to the ballroom before anyone noticed she was gone.
And by anyone, she meant her mother.

She was still
in the hall when the alarm pierced through the piano and cello. For
a long frozen moment, she thought they had come for her. That
someone had noticed her, despite the fact that no one ever noticed
her. Someone had called the soldiers to take her away. There was no
trial for numen-poisoning, no hasty explanations, only testing.

By the time the
soldiers arrived, Jane was already pressing her forehead to the
cold marble stones, exposing the back of her neck and the eye
tattooed there. Anyone with a talent for manipulating numen was
tattooed: an eye for the Oracles, a bee for the Bee Whisperers, a
see growing a spiral for the Seedsingers who worked plant-numen,
and lightning for the Weather Witches. Jane was studying to be an
Oracle, to divine the future of rain, droughts, and crops through
divination. She learned tarot cards and runes, how to read clouds
and the movement of insects, and the songs to sing to the full moon
for planting, and the dark skies for reaping.

The crystal
chandeliers rattled as Protectorate soldiers marched through the
ballroom. Jane’s heart raced in her chest. She could still see
their previous next door neighbour’s daughter being shot in the
front yard. Jane never did find out what her crime was, but the
adults spoke in whispers for days. Her palms dampened with sweat
when a boot clomped passed her head.

Up until she
was thirteen years old, Jane had lived in a tiny house under the
parapet that circled the Enclave. She made herself remember every
room, every detail of the faded wallpaper, the stones in the
garden, the sound of rain on the roof. Sometimes it was enough to
stave off the panic. She’d loved that house. But while it was
vastly better than living inside the City, it was nowhere near as
prestigious as the neighbourhoods closer to the Temple. When a
great aunt nobody knew about died and left her mother a house, as
well as a recommendation for a job in the Directorate offices,
everything changed.

“You are to
proceed in a calm and orderly fashion back to the bridge. Your
cooperation is appreciated.”

Clearly, the
ball was over. There was no reason offered, but that wasn’t
surprising. The Directorate didn’t owe anyone explanations, even at
an Enclave event. But at least they weren’t here for her. Relief
was so intense it made Jane nauseous.

They were
escorted to the stone stairs leading to the train. Gunfire was a
faint drumbeat in the distance. Unconcerned, women gathered up
their hems as the rain misted around them. The enclosed bridge
curved over the City, safely connecting the Enclave to the castle.
The glass was bulletproof and shatterproof and the drop to the
streets below high enough to kill on impact. The train was sleek
and black, with upholstered benches and solar lanterns made from
colourful glass swinging from the ceiling. The car was crowded,
smelling of perfume and cologne. Jane wished she could hold her
breath for the twenty minutes it took to get home.