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‘How's my Josie going now?'

I look up to see Karla Devereaux leaning over the rickety fire escape of the building next door to ours, smoking an old fashioned e-cigarette. There's something broken inside of it and every time she inhales, it makes a raspy whirring sound. Karla owns the Crystal Cave and claims to be psychic. Technically, she's an unregistered TP. I say
technically
, because Karla is mostly a fraud. I know this because of two things: firstly, the ghost activity during her séances are mostly sneaky mechanical tricks. The second is because my talents are TK and TP, and from reading Karla, I know her TP is marginal at best.

I give her a reassuring wave. ‘Your Josie's doing just fine.'

Karla nods, then lowers her voice to a stage whisper. ‘We still on for tonight?'

I glance at the back door, making sure Bobby's not in hearing distance, then return her nod. ‘Regular time?'

‘Midnight is always the best time to communicate with the spirits.' Karla waves her cigarette about and the metal bangles on her wrists clink together. ‘See you then.'

‘Josie?'

Bobby's frame fills the doorway with his broad, crooked shoulders. The old joints of his mechanical leg grind as he steps outside to see who I'm talking to.

‘Just finishing up now.' I dust my hands for emphasis.

‘Hello, Bobby,' Karla drawls from the fire escape. ‘How's business?'

‘You're the psychic.' Bobby peers up at her. ‘Why don't you tell me?'

Karla chuckles. ‘Ah, Bobby dear. That one never gets old. You should come over and I'll do a reading for you.'

‘No thanks,' Bobby mutters. ‘This lone wolf is doing just fine.'

Rolling my eyes, I duck past him and go back inside. Bobby follows, closing the back door and bolting it. He looks pissed and I'm already rallying my defences for a well-worn argument.

‘I don't want you talking to her.' He stabs an accusing finger at me.

‘I can't say hello to our neighbour?' I ask.

Bobby limps over to the shop's counter, where the daily figures blink on the display monitor. ‘That woman is a phony and you know it.'

‘We don't know that,' I protest, though he's right.

‘She's going to get busted by the cops for scamming people with that crap she sells them.' He fixes me with a glare. ‘You've already got two strikes with the law, kiddo. You get one more and you can kiss your dream of getting a Citizenship goodbye.'

I roll my eyes. ‘I know, I know.'

But Bobby is on a roll. ‘You want your Citizenship? You want to swan around, all respectable-like, high up in a fancy skyscraper? Get away from being trapped down here with the rest of us? Then go get yourself a degree. Get sponsored by a small but reputable company. Earn your points in life. But let me tell you, kiddo, it's a cold, hard world out there. And once a government or corp has got you in its sights, you're done. Game over. They'll clip your mind, shave your thoughts, gut your soul. You're better off dead than stumbling around like a dead-head droid. You can't trust anyone, kiddo. Not even God almighty.'

I hold my hands up in surrender. ‘I hear you, I hear you.'

Grumbling, Bobby sits down in front of the computer to finish the daily figures, muttering to himself. I turned eighteen a few months ago, so you'd hardly call me a kid, but I let it go. And I don't mention that to get a job with a reputable company, I'd need a degree. Since I graduated school, Bobby's talked about how he'll pay for further studies at a university. That's the only way to get out of the poverty of the satellite towns, where those without Citizenships are crammed into. Of course, these townships are paradise compared to the downtown and ‘no man's land' areas that are filled with outcasts from genetic experimentation, lawless gangs and third strikers. Even the cops don't go there.

And once upon a time, the idea of further education had appealed. That was before Bobby's mild heart attack and the cost of the surgery that came attached with it. I know how much the shop makes and how much in debt we are for the surgery. There's no way we can afford for me to go to university. The figures just don't add up, even with me doing a few odd jobs for Karla.

Wanting to change the subject, I look around the store and see the front door locked, the closed sign up. ‘Was that creepy guy just in here?' I ask.

‘You'll have to be more specific.' Bobby frowns as he jabs at the visual display with two fingers.

‘That guy who wears a biker jacket and needs a shave?'

‘Nobody's been in here for the last hour,' Bobby mutters. ‘More's the pity …'

Frowning, I head towards the back room to collect my things. Did Bobby not see Leather Jacket? I've worried about Bobby since he left hospital last year, snapping and growling at the doctors. It was a startling revelation to realise that he wouldn't be around forever. My mother, Alice Ryder, died when I was three. Then my father, James, was killed in a car accident three years later. Since then, Bobby has been my whole world and I can't imagine my life without him griping in the background about one thing or another.

Out the back, I grab my bag from beside a screen Bobby always has on, slinging the ragged synthetic straps over my shoulder.

‘
Do you have a talent?
'

A woman smiles at me from the screen. Her eyes are clear, her teeth pearly white, her skin soft and unblemished. ‘
Here at the Helios Academy, we can help you fulfil your potential
.' She walks past a group of young people who look my age. They wear neat clothes with the Helios logo, a stylised silver and scarlet sun, and have crisp haircuts and carefree smiles.

I've seen this advert before, but my feet stay put. My eyes are riveted to the screen, listening as the woman talks about the Helios Academy and its founding corp, Galloway Industries. How, if you graduate, there's a chance you'll be awarded a Citizenship and a role within Galloway.

Bobby was right before. I want a Citizenship. Bad. To have one is to be top dog. You don't eat gross test-tube meat, you dine on organic steaks, cut bloody and fresh. If you lose your job, you're paid a supplement allowance until you find another. You don't starve on the street. You don't have your power cut from the grid when you can't pay your bills. Your sponsoring corp takes care of you. People respect you when you're a Citizen. The cops. Your peers.
Everybody
. It means you've arrived, that you're
someone
. For someone like me, there's only two ways of getting a Citizenship: university and then ten years' service to a corp. Or the more risky option of exposing my talents and getting accepted into an academy like Helios. From there, who knew what my future would look like?

The advert finishes and a Japanese game show starts up. Heaving a sigh, I head out, hoping Bobby isn't going to say anything more about Karla.

‘I'll be home late tonight,' Bobby calls out as I unlock the front door to let myself out.

‘You need dinner?' I ask.

‘No. The boys and I are hitting the pub. Frank Accardo's back in town after doing some off-world work and he's loaded, so it's his shout all night.'

‘Don't drink too much,' I say pointlessly.
The boy
s are men from Bobby's old army unit from the Corporate Wars, the last of which ended fifteen years ago. After all being discharged from the army for one reason or another, the unit now meets up for drinks every month, and when one of them prospers, that wealth's always shared.

‘Make sure you stop at Davey's on the way home,' Bobby says. ‘Get yourself some food. Tell him Frank Accardo's gonna fix him up later.'

I bite my lip. I don't mind street food so much, I'm not much of a cook. But I
hate
asking for favours.

Outside, the air is damp and muggy against my skin. Night has fallen in shades of dusty grey and bruised blacks, penetrated by flashing neon signs advertising the latest thing you have to buy with the credit you probably don't have. Garbage clogs the drains and the occasional burst of acid rain makes me pull up the hood of my jacket. People jostle by me, wanting to be home and dry, slick umbrellas pushed forward like battering rams.

While I've long gotten used to the rank smell of pollution, occasionally I can recall a time when I breathed clean, fresh air. A time when Alice and James were alive and we were tucked away in a lonely cabin, deep in the central north island of New Zealand. It's a happy and precious memory of my childhood, one that I hold close to my heart.

A whirring sound fills my ears as an air-car emerges from the gloom, tyres bouncing as it lands in the street. Its doors swish open and I duck my head, not wanting to stand out. Two cops get out and hustle into an arcade bar, jaws set under wide enforcement visors. I've had the unfortunate experience of being in the back of a cop car twice now. The first was for having contraband betting chips, a job Karla hooked me up with. The second time I was busted with a stash of illegally modified slates in the boot of my Honda. A simple transport job for some kid I knew in school who heard I did odd jobs. But bad luck had dogged me and I'd gotten busted in a random traffic scan.

Two strikes.

If I get pinched one more time, I'll be shipped off to the local detention centre. If I'm lucky and manage to avoid having my talents detected, I'll just be clipped with a neck monitor and doomed to countless hours of community work, shoving trash off the streets until my behaviour modification profile is complete. If my talents got discovered, I wasn't sure what would happen to me. Having one isn't illegal, but I'd read stories online of unregistered talents being snatched off the street by the cops and never being heard from again. I wasn't sure I believed them though, nor did I subscribe to Bobby's belief the stories were planted by sneaky corps, attempting to appear as safe havens.

But I
did
believe I'd do anything to avoid being clipped. It wasn't unusual to work a five year sentence of shovelling crap before an evaluation report stated you were rehabilitated. Three strikes also means no possibility of qualifying for a Citizenship at any stage, with the only work available being off-world. It means penalty rates off your income until you're dead. Three strikes destroys your life and there's no way to un-destroy it.

No thanks.

I duck inside an alley close to home and join a line out the front of a street-stall for some scallion oil noodles and juicy pork buns. At least, I hope they're pork.

Bobby and I live inside a tall block of residential apartments, sandwiched between industrial factories echoing with a cacophony of noisy machines and trade shops which are mostly fronts for black market produce. The population for the city and surrounding towns had reached its limit a decade ago and with the advent of corps terraforming off-world sites, the government has been offering free transport and relocation fees to anyone wanting to live off-world. The locals laughed when these adverts first appeared. No way was the government going to ship them off without a fight. Earth was their home and that was that.

When I get to the front of the line, the stall owner, Davey, frowns at me. He's a big Polynesian guy with a hair net and a stained apron over a red muscle shirt. The pork buns sit in an oil-slicked wok, bottoms being fried to a crispy finish. My mouth starts to water.

‘You got credit, cookie?' He scratches the stubble on his chin.

‘Bobby said Frank Accardo's back in town with some cash.' The words come out in a rush.

Davey shrugs and hands me a bowl of noodles. ‘You remind your uncle he also owes me for last week.'

‘Okay.' I gesture to the pork buns and he scowls, but piles two into a paper bag.

He shoves the bag at me. ‘Tell Bobby I'm in for the next card game.'

‘Will do,' I say, then retreat quickly back down the street before he can change his mind about extending me credit.

I stare at my monitor, light splashing over me as I sit in the dark, listening to soft music. It's late and Bobby and his friends are making a racket in the kitchen. They stumbled into our small flat an hour ago, stinking of sour beer and cheap peanuts. Now they're holed up in the kitchen, drinking blended whiskey and laughing like it's the first time they've heard each other's well-worn stories.

My eyes run over the list of institutions offering training for talents. The Helios Academy sits at the top of my list, even though it's in the States, a whole freaking country away. But it has the best reputation for training talents, offering education to applicants from middle school and up. It's also the country where my parents were born, so I was more than a little curious. According to Helios's information site, it offers a common first year of tertiary studies, before you branch off into a specialised field, of which the options seem endless.

A small Galloway Industries logo rotates at the bottom of the screen, along with their tagline:
Expanding Humanity's Horizons
. A multinational corp, Galloway Industries is known for advancement in the nanotechnology, health and security sectors. Not to mention being the first corp to begin terraforming practices on earth, an attempt to repair the radioactive crater that was now New Mexico, and then off-world on Mars. They're also one of the few organisations that emerged from the Corp Wars with a better reputation than when the bloodshed had started.