1 The Potential in Utter Trash #2
For some unfathomable reason, out of a lottery consisting of nearly four hundred eligible territories, X72 had been selected to send a contestant on the empire’s glorified dating show.
Love Galaxy ! Uniting humanity for over two hundred years!
Building bridges of diplomacy throughout the empire!
It was bullshit, of course. Just a bunch of shallow people from shallow homes pretending to fall in love so the empire could distract viewers from the shitty reality of their lives.
But this year’s season was extra special —it was an imperial consort year.
Those only happened once a generation. Instead of some bland lesser royal, rich senator’s son, or Expanese court member headlining, it was the actual imperial heirs, twin brother and sister, dating the same pool of women, at the same time. Incestuous much?
How did Temmi know all this? Because Ollie wouldn’t shut up about it.
And it wasn’t only him. The whole planet was buzzing about the opportunity .
Twenty-four contestants would be brought on to date both heirs.
With two winners, that meant an eight percent chance of someone from X72 becoming an imperial consort.
But Temmi considered her fellow countrymen idiots if they thought the show wasn’t rigged.
Temmi didn’t have time to waste watching it, and didn’t hate herself enough to try being on it .
She had no love for the empire, less for its self-important, overly privileged heirs, and she detested reality dating shows on principle.
Not to mention, the name Love Galaxy ? Deeply ridiculous.
Cradling her invention in one arm, Temmi opened the door. “My type isn’t royal assholes,” she said, stepping out into the chokehold of harsh cold air and ugly grey light.
“That’s right, just assholes in general,” Ollie shot back before the door whapped closed.
Ouch. But also fair.
A dense fog hung above the crumbling apartment buildings. Cour tesy of the many orrist basalt purification plants sputtering toxins into the air day and night.
Temmi threw her hood up, clutched Have a Lung against her chest, and jogged toward the Atmo-line station.
Her lungs burned. Running outdoors—doing anything outdoors, really—was a piss-poor idea and a great way to develop any number of respiratory diseases.
Pulmonary failure of some flavor took almost every X-er in the end.
Thanks to the shelter-in-place, the normally packed streets were empty except for an eerie, disquieting hum.
The rattling breath of a city with bad lungs.
Just ahead, the Atmo-line’s platform came into view, the signpost long since torn down.
The hover-shuttle idled along invisible tracks twenty feet above the ground.
Temmi huffed up the stairs, her breath condensing in white puffs before her.
At the top, she scanned her right palm over the entry reader and the metal doors slid open.
Every X-er had a unique barcode seared into their right palm at birth. Like products.
Only two other people were on the shuttle, both bundled up so tightly, they looked like mountains of rags.
One of them wore a heavy breathing apparatus, the expensive kind that filtered the air for them.
Not a native, then. No true X-er would waste their hard-earned credits on delaying the inevitable. No true X-er could afford it, anyway.
The second passenger chewed loudly on barley chips.
The sound was grating, spiking an unprecedented level of annoyance in Temmi’s brain.
She took a seat on the far side of the shuttle and dug hurriedly in her pocket for a pair of earplugs.
She never went anywhere without them. Popping the earplugs in, she leaned her head back against the grimy window. The shuttle’s engines revved to life.
The city of X72-1 passed below in a grey haze, the black tops of buildings barely visible beneath the smog.
The landscape beyond the city was barren and flat.
No wildlife roamed X72. Animals had, once, before the Expan Empire discovered the planet’s crust was rich in orrist basalt, a rare and toxic rock that could be purified to protect ships while traveling through jumpgates.
Over the last century, the empire had destroyed every biome on X72 in their greed to mine the rare ore. The bastards.
Slapped across the shuttle’s far window was a graffitied Medicine Guild poster decrying the dangers of orrist basalt poisoning: life-threatening vascular complications, bleeding into the interstitial lung tissue, airway, and pleural space, subconjunctival hemorrhage, and a laundry list of a million other ways a body could die.
Temmi tightened her grip around Have a Lung. If all else failed, she’d go to the mines herself before she let Ollie whore himself out to them.
The shuttle’s engines stalled once before sputtering to a stop. Probably a clogged filter. Temmi plucked out her earplugs, stuck them in her pocket, and followed the other two passengers outside, down the exit platform, and into the heart of X72-1.
The city smelled like burnt plastic and rotten dreams. She hurried down a narrow alley, hopped over a sagging streetlamp, and darted through the back door of a nondescript warehouse.
She walked in on her boss, Gareth, kicking the underside of a sorry-looking trash truck. “Shitty, broken piece of crap.” He gave the truck one last solid kick before facing Temmi. He was a square man with ruddy cheeks, a greying bluish beard, and a mean glare.
“The fuck you late for this morning, Artemis? Not a good day for it, I swear to the foremothers—”
“I’m barely late. And I can fix that.” She nodded at the broken-down truck. “If you’re done having a hissy fit about it.”
He made a growly sound in the back of his throat but held out a diagnostic pad and socket wrench.
Gingerly, Temmi set Have a Lung on the cold cement ground, then retrieved the tools from her employer. She clicked on the diagnostic pad—easy fix. The kind of thing she could’ve done in her sleep when she was eight.
“Bring me a pair of pliers,” she said. Shedding her overcoat, she crossed to the truck’s hood and opened it.
Gareth grumbled something incoherent, but a moment later, a pair of pliers were thrust into her grasp. She fiddled with the engine, then dropped to the ground and squirmed beneath the truck. Ten minutes later, she stood up, dusted off the knees of her jumpsuit, and handed Gareth his tools.
“I wanted to talk to you about something,” she said.
“You never were one to do a favor without asking for a favor.” He crossed meaty arms over his chest. “Out with it, then.”
“How long have I worked for you? Five years now? I’m the most reliable driver you got and you know it. I need an advance on my next couple paychecks. Just enough to cover this month’s rent. You know my mom’s sick, and my brother can’t find a job that’ll take him—”
“Fuck’s sake.” He shook his head. “Everybody’s got a sick mom, Artemis.
You think I’d still be doing this shit if I were made of credits?
I’ll tell you what I can do. Jordie dialed in sick—the idiot’s taking advantage of the shelter-in-place if you ask me, but somebody’s gotta cover his route.
Get yours done and his , and I’ll scan you over his day’s wages.
Jordie had the central district, but be discreet; there’s press crawling around everywhere trying to get a glimpse of the damn heirs. It’s a fucking media circus.”
“One day’s wages? Come on. That’ll do fuck-all.” She turned her back to him to retrieve her overcoat and then Have a Lung from the floor.
Gareth called, “You’re welcome to find yourself a better-paying job. I ain’t keeping you here. Oh, wait, I almost forgot—with your record, no one else will touch you.”
Temmi gritted her teeth. Have a Lung felt heavy in her arms. She turned around slowly. “You’re an asshole, you know that, Gareth?”
He let out a gruff chuckle. “Like recognizes like. You taking Jordie’s route or not?”
“Yeah, obviously, I’m taking it.” Temmi stomped across the garage to where her assigned truck was plugged into the wall. She unplugged it, climbed into the front seat, and started the engine.
The Advancement Guild’s master lived in a narrow townhome inside the university district a half hour outside Temmi’s trash route.
She tucked Have a Lung under one arm, idled her truck, and hopped to the pavement.
The steps to the front door were well swept.
She knocked, three quick raps, and stood back.
When no one answered, she knocked again.
The panic she’d been forcing away all morning made itself manifest. It didn’t matter how self-confident she was—if the guild master didn’t answer, her sick mother and disabled brother would be moving into the Graveyard by sundown.
Temmi wasn’t worried about herself. She’d be fine.
She’d keep her job, pick up extra shifts, maybe find another job.
..but getting into a second apartment with a double eviction record and two unemployed dependents?
No landlord would take her. It’d be a death sentence for her mother.
If this didn’t work out, Temmi might genuinely have to consider the mines.
She knocked a third time. Desperately pounded a fourth. With her fist midair, the door finally swung inward.
“Who in the name of the nebula-maker—” The man who’d answered cut off to squint at her. A few strands of grey hair stuck rebelliously up from his balding head. “You look familiar.”
Temmi stepped back, sucked in a deep breath, and squared her shoulders. “Master Ynnan Huxo, my name is Artemis Ialan. I’ve come to request an audience to be evaluated for membership in the Advancement Guild.”
While scanning the empty street behind Temmi, Master Huxo made a halfhearted attempt to smooth his hair. “Guild applications run monthly through committee. And there’s a shelter-in-place. You’re gonna get fined.”