CHAPTER FIVE
Nova
Two bruised ribs and five stitches.
I shuddered, careful not to grimace when Dr Orion poked my torso one last time.
Depending on my pain level, she’d said she might admit me, and that was the last thing I wanted.
I needed to check Skye’s schoolwork, catch up on my chem notes.
A million other things. Dr Orion smiled to herself, her eyes crinkling, and updated my MedChart.
‘You seem well enough to discharge now, Ms Williams. You’ve barely flinched.’
I forced myself to return her smile. She pulled down her glasses. ‘You remind me of other patients I’ve seen. Such high pain tolerance. You’d never know they were hurting if they didn’t say anything. Many end up having stellar tolerance levels for helical disease.’
I ignored the ache in my ribs as I sat up.
She handed me a prescription, murmuring that a half-dose of perceta (Dominion’s overpriced version of oxycodone) should be enough.
I didn’t argue. A half-dose sounded cheaper – then I reminded myself that Cas had offered his biosig to cover everything.
I smiled, remembering his embarrassed expression after I caught him staring – twice.
I doubted he’d think of me again once he got back to his cushy home in Crestview.
Dr Orion tapped her MedChart. ‘I’d like to run your blood work against our Freedom System screening process.
You signed off on it the moment you became a patient here.
It’s policy for Bay General and all public Alta Bay medical facilities.
It’s included in the expenses your friend covered, which is fortunate, because I believe you’d make an excellent candidate for pain-carrying.
If you download the Freedom System app and create an account with your biosig and identification, the results will forward to you directly.
If you screen well, we can schedule the next step. ’
If screening well for the Freedom System were as easy as holding in a flinch and a wince, more people would sign up. ‘My sister has sickle cell. I already know the odds of me being a trait carrier. No pre-existing conditions allowed, right?’
I grabbed my belongings, along with the small starter supply of yellow pills meant to tide me over until my prescription was ready. Dr Orion didn’t say anything more. I waved a thank-you and slipped from behind the privacy screen.
Leo and I always assumed we carried the sickle cell trait.
A few years ago, we’d sat in front of one of the library’s old solisDesktops researching the Freedom System after Daddy had gone too long without welding work due to his arthritis.
Bills had been too tight to budget for screening, and now those same bills were even higher.
We couldn’t spare a few hundred dollars on a test to tell us what we already knew.
And I knew my pain levels. Right now, it hurt like stars to breathe.
I pushed through the heavy, outdated doors of the hospital exit.
Walking wasn’t too bad if I kept my breaths shallow.
Luckily, the benches under the glassrail overpass were empty, and it was dark enough to wallow in my pain unnoticed.
Every inhale was a quick stab in my chest. I’d ignored it at the crash site, but with the adrenaline gone, I felt everything.
My solisPhone vibrated, and I closed my eyes, mad that I had to twist to wiggle it out of my pocket.
Estelle
Can I swing by after your shift to pick up any leftover garlic knots? I got hit with a craving.
Stars. I closed my eyes. How did I forget to update Estelle?
I groaned, a lovely duet with the glassrail as its brakes screeched to a stop.
It ran on a hybrid of solar and electricity, powered by a thin, glasslike panel covering its route.
Stepping into the driverless contraption, I flashed the BayRide app over the scanner, thankful I’d reloaded my account last week.
The payment screen flashed green, followed by a robotic solisAI voice thanking me.
Robotic Centaurus meant this was an older-model glassrail, which also meant potholes thanks to the horrible suspension.
I chose a hard plastic seat in the back, where pine-tree air fresheners had long since lost their battle against diesel exhaust fumes, and called Estelle.
‘Hey,’ she answered. ‘I thought Stephen had a rule about no personal calls during shifts? I expected you to sneak in a text during your break.’
‘Well …’ I cleared my throat (not recommended with sore ribs). ‘I never made it in. I got hit by a car.’
‘Very funny. Did you stay late at the mural? Unless you have stitches or are laid up in a hospital, I don’t think Stephen will believe that excuse.’
‘Five stitches and two bruised ribs.’
‘What?’ Estelle almost choked.
I fidgeted in my seat. ‘You know how no one takes the RRH at sunset because you can’t see anything?’
I didn’t have to see Estelle to know she was narrowing her eyes through the phone. ‘So you did stay late and tried to take a shortcut.’
‘Maybe a little one.’
‘Maybe a lit– Nova! A car hit you!’
‘Eh, it was stationary. He crashed into the guardrail, then I ran into him.’
‘You got hit by a CAR!’
I sighed. She wasn’t going to let me live this down.
‘If you cycle toward the sun while it’s blaring down at you …’ Estelle started.
I sucked in a sharp inhale as the bus rocked over a pothole. ‘Maybe we skip the lecture?’
Her voice softened. ‘Do you need me to come get you?’
‘With your little cousin’s hand-me-down escooter? No, I’m on the glassrail. But you can give me pointers on handling the pain. I’ve played it off, but no lie, this feels like death by a thousand stab wounds.’
‘Don’t play it off.’ She sighed. ‘What if I meet you at the stop and walk you home?’
‘No. I don’t want to get my dad and Leo worked up. I’m overreacting. You remember when I got that paper cut in third grade over my knuckle?’
‘And you used up every bandage in the first-aid kit? Yes. You’ll be fine.’
Another example of why I’d never be a Pain Carrier. ‘See? Bye, Estelle. Love you!’
I hung up and called my boss to explain the vague text I’d sent from the ambulance – got hit by car, gonna miss shift – and rehashed the last few hours with less sarcasm. I tried to convince Stephen I could come in. I needed to come in. Dr Orion hadn’t said anything about resting.
‘Tommy covered for you tonight,’ said Stephen. ‘He’s been looking for an opportunity to step up. I’ll have him pick up your shifts until you –’
‘But I feel fine. The doc was impressed.’
‘Nova, that’s a workers’ comp lawsuit waiting to happen.’
I gasped, half serious. ‘I’m not going to sue you!’
He went quiet, probably watching Tommy mess up an order.
‘How many tables has Tommy misfired already? Five?’
‘Only two. Rest up, Nova. I’ll check on you in a couple of weeks.’
I gritted out a goodbye and ended the call as aggressively as you could with an old, and now cracked, holoscreen. I couldn’t go two weeks without pay.
The bus stopped and three guys boarded with the same blue stripe across their chest as the protestors from the hospital, their flare shades tinted to match. I sat up, curious.
‘Educate yourself before the mayoral elections. Free yourself from pain,’ the tallest of them said, handing me a neon-coloured flyer.
It was an old advertisement for the Pain Carrier system: a young Black girl smiling while her body glowed, FREEDOM IN THE FREEDOM SYSTEM in bold, blocky letters.
Or at least that was what it used to say.
The headline had been crossed out and scrawled over with FODDER FOR THE RICH, exaggerated tears now falling down the girl’s cheeks. It was disgusting.
I crumpled the paper. Being a Pain Carrier was a choice – a respectable choice.
It allowed so many families to support themselves in an economy that otherwise ignored them.
Those families were the pillars of Alta Bay, my South Alta neighborhood full of them.
I hated the negative stigmas attached to it: the idea that Pain Carriers weren’t smart enough to recognize they were being used by the system – or that they knew but were desperate and greedy enough for easy money.
An old woman turned up her nose at the wrinkled flyer in my hand. I smoothed it out and stepped off the bus at the next stop.
Leo and Daddy were waiting in the family room, the TV streaming election coverage. Across the bottom of the screen, headlines scrolled about shifts in magnetic fields and updates needed for the satellite lightning grid. It was after ten, Skye already tucked in bed.
Daddy eased himself to his feet. ‘Let me get a look at you.’ He held my chin lightly, tilting my head to inspect the stitches. ‘I thought they’d use that fancy glue or some new laser.’
‘I asked for old-school so I could be like you.’ I nodded at the scar on Daddy’s arm.
‘Hmph. Well, I got my stitches fighting a coyote off your grandmama’s farm in Mississippi. It was damn near as big as –’
‘A grizzly with claws like a tiger,’ Leo finished, mimicking Daddy’s dramatic delivery.
Daddy popped him, lovingly, on the back of the head. ‘And that’s all? A few stitches?’
‘Just a little sore.’ It was a half-lie. I didn’t want him fussing over me. He’d make me stay in bed for the rest of the year if he knew about my ribs, and I’d never get back on schedule at Caféology.
‘I’m glad you’re in one piece.’ Leo rubbed the spot Daddy had tapped. ‘I’m assuming your bike is not.’
‘You assume correctly.’ I caught a clip of the coverage on-screen. Journalist Yvonne Meadows was talking about what could be a pivotal election, with the two opposing mayoral candidates neck and neck. ‘Since when do you all watch political coverage?’
‘Since I marched back in –’
Leo groaned. ‘Don’t get him riled up.’
Daddy huffed. ‘I went down the bay to pick up Ms Johnston’s grandson from his shift at the opioid treatment center and got caught at the tail end of a protest. The police tried to break it up with smoke canisters and pepper spray.
One almost got me, but I wiggled my way out of there.
A little tuck and roll.’ He nudged me. ‘I thought the news would cover it, but they only ran a small segment about a different protest at city hall. Those conspiracy theorists predicting a second major flare this anniversary.’
‘The news only covers what fits their narrative,’ mumbled Leo.
‘Now, don’t you get riled up,’ I echoed.
‘I’m not,’ he said as his phone buzzed. ‘I’m voting for Brenson Moorehouse.
His family owns the barbershop next to Charlie and Rox’s place.
Brenson’s a pioneer for the new Legacy Party, and we need change in the mayor’s seat.
I plan to stop by his town hall next week.
The People’s Astrum Party hasn’t been about the people in decades.
Stanley Whit has been in office since I was in diapers. It should be illegal.’
I wasn’t used to Leo being into politics.
Daddy was a little different, always ready to remind us of the Los Angeles riots and the time he went to Washington, DC, for the Million Man March.
We all joined the Lift Black Voices protests last year, but Daddy’s arthritis had gotten worse, and Skye had been in the hospital three times since then. Our focus had changed.
‘I’ve gone to hear that young man speak.
He has much to say that needs to be heard.
Especially his critique of the accessibility statistics around Pain Givers.
Only those rich folk in Crestview and Westlake make the cut when it comes to Alta Bay.
The government might pay for transference, but the people foot the bill for those monthly Pain Carrier paychecks.
You got to have money to give your disease away.
It’s classism on full display.’ Daddy crossed his arms. ‘Moorehouse speaks from a place of activism, like your mama did.’
I smiled lightly while Leo cursed under his breath as he read the notification on his screen.
‘What is it?’ I tried to peek.
‘There are whispers a few of the solar-electrical crews might get turned away from the site tomorrow. Budget cuts. Keem thinks we’re on the chopping block.’
I kept my face still, not wanting Daddy to see my worry. Neither of them knew I wouldn’t be able to pull a shift anytime soon. ‘Let me check on Skye.’ I needed the distraction.
‘Don’t forget her back-to-school project,’ Daddy called after me.
I nodded, leaving them to the news. Skye and I shared a room, her side nowhere near as messy as mine.
I stepped under the glow of the luminescent constellations I’d painted on our ceiling.
I folded the flyer into a star and added it to the growing collection on her nightstand.
Her outfit for tomorrow – some of my old clothes I’d re-hemmed – hung on the closet door.
Her friends loved them, especially the embroidered stargazer lilies I’d stitched to cover rips in the jeans.
No one knew they were hand-me-downs. Leo and I did everything we could to keep Skye untouched by our struggles.
I hid most of the bill notices under her art projects pinned to the fridge.
If Leo was cut from the site and I missed two weeks of work, bills would pile higher.
I’d learned you could be three months late before utilities cut the lights, a few weeks for water and gas.
We already struggled with minimum payments.
Daddy needed his medicine. We all needed food.
The only silver lining was Cas pressing his biosig to those insurance papers.
As kind as that was, it wasn’t enough. Still, I always found a way.
My gaze lingered on the faded ink of the crumpled flyer-turned-star.
My family was resilient, but we could only do so much.
‘Freedom in the Freedom System.’ It wasn’t an option for me, but I’d find a way.