THE SOLARIUM

Every night, the alleys screamed. The cries were unending, like the heat, the crowds, the great, rumbling pride of a nation long at war. The parade of engines and violence never quieted, but the ears grew tougher, the heart hardened closed. Amethyst, scarred shut from the inside out, was numb to it all.

Rain pummeled down from roiling clouds through a smoke-roughened sky. Raindrops shone briefly as they filtered through the violet haze of standing lamps that lit the shattered streets. Warped reflections were caught in puddles, then splintered by the rolling drops that spilled off the red-leaved palm trees. Reality pooled in sidewalk cracks, opaque and waiting.

Amethyst ran. She wove through the crowd and launched over potholes, footsteps smashing through clouded panes of rainwater like gunshots through glass. Her prosthesis had just been overzealously recalibrated, giving every step an uneven mechanical spring. The left leg surged forward; the right was dragged along through sheer momentum.

Running. There was a thrill to it, a shadow of danger Amethyst like —as much as she could like anything, after the operation. The world sharpened when she was in motion. She felt like part of the harsh, wet wind, the writhing trees, the lightning crackling overhead. She usually set off for work late to get that rush.

This time, it hadn’t been a choice.

One of the many downsides of being Dr. Cavallo’s special patient was that he hadn’t begun Amethyst’s recalibration until his practice closed for the night. Dr. Cavallo’s building was further from the Erozo than her apartment—more than half an hour’s trip, on foot. Amethyst mentally calculated the time it would take to reach the Erozo, use the drypad, change . . . She would be at least ten minutes late, if she didn’t pick up the pace.

Even at a quarter past second ten, the sidewalks were congested. Workers fresh from twelve-hour factory shifts stumbled past in stained, singed clothes while those taking the night shift pressed forward with grim determination. Off-duty soldiers, ready for a night of drinking and gambling, roamed in packs, their shorn heads gleaming. Most were already intoxicated. Their ribald songs echoed through the streets as they reveled in their brief respite from the tightly regimented Soldier’s Quarter.

A glaring red motorcycle tore past. It shuddered as it sped over the cracked street, belching exhaust. Its wheels kicked up jets of putrid water. Amethyst jumped to avoid the spray. She bumped into an older woman carrying a grease-stained takeout carton. The woman glared, but Amethyst’s gaze was fixed on the motorcycle. Envy crackled in her chest as she watched its neon traffic signals recede into the gloom.

Amethyst had been saving for years to get a motorcycle of her own, but something always came up. Rent raises, shortages of everything from shoe soles to lightbulbs—and the requisite price hikes—replacement parts. . . .

A red-faced, black-bearded man shoved past Amethyst. “Move it, whore!” he grumbled, casting a dark look at Amethyst’s cheap, gold-plated heels.

Amethyst seized his wrist and whipped off her blackout glasses. Her pupils shrank to pinpoints, making her abrasively bright violet irises all the more startling.

“Touch me again,” she snarled, metal eyes narrowing.

The man paled, scurrying off the moment Amethyst released him. The operation was meant to render her kind harmless, but, especially in the Amaranza Quarter—why risk contact?

Amethyst put her glasses back on and kept running, golden shoes flashing in the semidarkness. They were the last shoes she had tried on after the recalibration. She hadn’t wanted to waste time changing out of them, or the gray drawstring shorts she had worn so Dr. Cavallo would have easy access to her prosthetic. It was a split-second decision she was starting to regret.

Stares started with Amethyst’s flashy shoes and worked their way up her mismatched legs. The prosthesis was bulkier than her remaining leg. While most prosthetics strove to mimic a natural limb, Amethyst’s was dense and blocky. Its sickly gray exterior clashed with the robust bronze of her skin. The knee joint stuck out in all but the loosest sweatpants, and there was an oddly puckered seal on her thigh where metal met flesh.

Ugly as the prosthesis was, Amethyst appreciated its efficiency. It was stronger than her right leg, and it contained a complex neural network that allowed for faster, more precise movement than standard prosthetics. This technology had been outlawed for civilian use, but nothing could keep Dr. Cavallo from experimenting.

Amethyst frowned when she realized she would have to go back the next day. Her everyday shoes were still in the dank apartment over Dr. Cavallo’s practice. She also had to return the lab coat she snatched on the way out. It flapped around her calves as she ran, the lightweight fabric offering little protection from the rain. If it didn’t also reek of gasoline and formaldehyde, it might have been slightly better than nothing.

Amethyst saw an elderly man detach himself from the crowd and rush beneath a motel’s red awning. The owner, she guessed, come to inspect his property. His features were out of focus, blurred by the brightly lit red nanoshield that curved over his head, but Amethyst noticed several rings embedded on his swollen fingers. There were few other reasons for a man wearing genuine rubies to set foot in the Amaranza Quarter.

The old man waited for the last of the raindrop to slip off the nanoshield, then reached for his generator ring. He twisted the grape-sized imitation gem, and the shield vanished. He entered the motel.

Amethyst grit her teeth. She bet his generator ring never flickered out when the rain was too intense. He never had to yank the imitation gem halfway out of its setting to activate the shield. The generator ring she had dug out of the garbage a few months ago would have done little to protect her from the storm, but still. It was stupid to leave it at home. There hadn’t been a cloud in sight then, but she should’ve known not to trust the sky during the wet season.

Amethyst ran past another motel, seedy restaurants with flickering signs, a bar. Off-key songs and raucous cheers drifted through the door as a young soldier stumbled out to puke. He splattered the sidewalk before rushing back in, desperate not to miss a play in the combat soccer match.

“GOOOOOOAL!” The collective cry seemed to shake the walls.

Combat soccer. A lot of grown men beating each other bloody over a ball. Amethyst rolled her eyes. Motorcycle racing—now, there was a sport worth watching. The speed of the gleaming machines tearing down the track captivated her. Most Thursday nights, Amethyst would catch races at one of the less discerning bars in the area, one with sticky seats and broadcasts that often fizzled and died at the most climactic part of the event. At least those dives let her in. She had heard of bars in nicer parts of the city magnetizing their doorways to maintain a more exclusive clientele.

As she left the bar behind, Amethyst mentally counted her scant savings. Another week’s wages before she could afford a ticket to the racetrack. Then she could disappear into the crowd, become part of the noise, the speed, the chaos.

An alley loomed ahead, a gaping maw, screaming with a girl’s voice. The cry cut through the night for only a moment before being absorbed into the city’s dense fog of noise. Amethyst slowed. The scream was nothing unusual, but the crowd thinned around the alley. People veered into the street to avoid getting too close. Intrigued, Amethyst drew closer, moving as quietly as her high heels would allow.

Then Amethyst heard the song. She froze. The seal around her prosthesis itched, then burned.

Harvesters always started with the legs. Legs first, then the arms, then the slit down the stomach, the removal of organs, the eyes, the lips, the neck. A noble sacrifice to Celestine. The procedure never changed, and neither did the song—that terrible song where every note was an agonized screech or wavering moan, entwined with the cries of the victims in sickening harmony.

Sweat clawed down Amethyst’s face. Her heart smashed against her ribcage. Her hands twitched as if electrocuted. She was painfully aware of the cold weight of her metal eyes pressing against the inside of her skull. Her head throbbed, phantom pain jittering through her nerves as her eyes tried to latch onto someone—anyone.

The first hot flashes of empathy struck.

The woman with heavy eyebrows was anxious. The man with the crooked nose was grieving. The child clinging to his sister’s sleeve was terrified but trying to act brave. Amethyst felt it all, their anxiety, grief, and terror magnified a thousandfold in the surging crowd, rumbling through her consciousness like thunder.

This hadn’t happened in years. The operation should have fixed it. They took part of her brain and both of her eyes. They should have taken the curse, too. It was all supposed to go away. . . .

Bile crept up Amethyst’s throat. She forced herself to choke it down. Her slick, trembling hands clenched into fists, sharp fingernails digging into the calloused skin of her palms. Fury—her own—burned through the miasma. It made her heart pound. It tasted like lightning, acid, ozone. It was too much, too terrible, too exhilarating not to want more.

Amethyst’s body shut down. Eyes first. Darkness. Emptiness. No emotions. No empathy. Just the cold, black space behind her eyelids. Her limbs became unbearably heavy. She fell to her knees. Her heartbeat slowed. Her breathing weakened.

Then, as if a switch had flicked on, she stood up. She felt nothing.

It took Amethyst a moment to remember where she was. She saw the world in snapshots: strangers rushing past, raindrops bursting on the ground, a white man with a shaved head stalking into an alleyway, singing.

The heady rush of anger had faded, but Amethyst remembered the sensation. She chased it, running again, tearing through the crowd, shoving her way toward the song, the prayer, the scream. She entered the alley.

Plaster-coated walls lined with dumpsters loomed over Amethyst on either side. Rain no longer fell in drops but torrents, hurtling down corrugated roofs and creating curtains of filthy water that further narrowed the alley.

A girl was flattened against a wall covered in graffiti, no longer screaming but silently mouthing pleas. Something flashed around her hips in a metallic jangle—coins, a red sash inlaid with gold. Even without the sash, Amethyst would have guessed she was wealthy: she had the loose black curls, petite mouth, and smooth, light skin girls in the Amaranza Quarter were taught to envy.

Light glinted off the harvester’s head. It was bereft of the usual tattooed emblems, marking him as a recent convert. He wore a large, dark coat, but Amethyst knew his back would be covered in scars inflicted during his initiation. He carried a bucket filled with the traditional eleven knives, the smallest clenched in one bloody hand. He wore clear plastic shoes, their thick soles filled with water that sloshed as he stalked toward the girl.

The girl with the sash whimpered. “Please, I’ll do anything. . . .”

Amethyst’s impassive face shifted into a smile. She had said please, too. She cried. She screamed. She begged for her life. But the only thing that stopped the harvester’s singing was the sight of her metal eyes.

A former empath. Cursed blood. An unworthy sacrifice.

Amethyst hadn’t been noticed yet. She kept still, considering the best plan of attack. The harvester was too big to knock out in one blow, and she had no weapon. The best she could hope for was a moment of surprise before he started fighting back.

Lightning struck. Scalding light illuminated the overflowing dumpsters and glanced off the contours of a bottle of grainy amber liquid near Amethyst’s feet. She kneeled, curling her fingers around the bottle’s neck. Another flash in the sky. She shot to her feet and hurled the bottle at the harvester.

Thunder roared. The bottle smashed against the back of the harvester’s head. He staggered forward, then turned. The water in his shoes sloshed with every step. Amethyst’s blackout glasses had slipped when she dropped to get the bottle; he saw her eyes.

“Tainted,” he snarled, raising the knife. He noticed her prosthesis and narrowed his eyes further. “Mekana.”

Amethyst blinked twice, turning the brightness of her eyes to the highest setting. The harvester hissed. He stumbled back, shielding his face from the light. As Amethyst’s eyes defaulted to their usual setting, she shot forward.

Amethyst grabbed the harvester by the shoulder and drove her knee into his groin. He groaned. Amethyst tried to pry the bucket out of his hand while he was distracted by pain. His grip was too strong. Amethyst grabbed a knife instead—the longest in the bucket, the bone saw.

The serrated blade was slick and red where she had grabbed it. Her hand was bleeding. She couldn’t feel it.

The harvester growled, lunging for the saw. Amethyst grabbed him by the arm and

pulled until she heard something crack. The harvester howled, swinging his bucket. Knives shot at her. Amethyst leapt back, breaking through a sheet of water. She skidded further than expected, under the jutting roof of the building to her right. The harvester lunged forward, dagger in hand.

Amethyst dodged. She landed ankle-deep in sodden trash, her left heel embedded in something sticky. She glanced down and saw a large, rotting fish head, its eyes picked clean. She kicked, trying to dislodge the fish head, and stumbled. Her prosthetic knee twisted. The fish head flew down the alley, and the girl with the sash shrieked as it splattered on the wall inches from her head.

“Run, girl! What’s wrong with you?” Amethyst yelled, trying to pop her knee into place.

The girl, too shocked or scared to move, only stared.

While Amethyst was stuck in place, the harvester threw his bucket, aiming for the head. On instinct, she lashed out with the bone saw. She caught his bucket on the end of her blade. It sank a few inches with a metallic groan.

Amethyst was trying to pull the bucket off when the harvester struck again. She blocked his dagger with the bucket, then lashed out with her prosthesis. She heard something crack. Her blow connected. Kneecap.

The harvester crumpled to the ground. The impact broke his shoes. He sucked in a quivering sob as the water in his soles bled out, then gazed up at Amethyst. She noticed him lingering on her left leg. The kick had sent her inadequately adjusted knee joint spinning. Her leg pointed sideways. His own leg was at an unnatural angle. He met Amethyst’s eyes.

Anger—a white-hot flash.

Amethyst tore the dagger out of his hand and plunged it through his eye. She tore it out. Plunged again—the other eye. Blood spurted out, staining her stolen lab coat. She stabbed him in the neck. She took her time pulling the knife out of his esophagus and drove it through his chest, where the heart would be. The knife didn’t go in as smoothly as she expected. Ribcage—she had forgotten about that. Amethyst pressed down with all her weight, twisting the blade until she heard a crack. With a sickening pop, Amethyst pulled the dagger out of the harvester’s chest.

But as Amethyst wondered where to strike next, the thrill of victory faded. She had killed the harvester too quickly, too easily. No matter what Amethyst did to this body, he wouldn’t feel it. His face was motionless—A stranger’s face. This wasn’t the man who had taken her leg. Killing him wasn’t revenge. It was nothing.

All that, and she felt nothing.

Amethyst lowered the knife. There was no point in going on.

She heard a shaky breath from behind. The girl with the sash was still standing against the wall, watching with horrified eyes. Up close, she looked older than Amethyst would have expected from her high-pitched cries—somewhere in her early twenties. Old enough to know better than to set foot in this part of the city, especially at night, and especially not without a bodyguard, or at least a set of stun bracelets.

If Amethyst had to guess, this girl was a runaway—rich and disaffected, tired of her father or husband telling her what to do, looking for a little adventure. That was what desperation, filth, and crushing poverty looked like from a distance: adventure. That was what brought her to the Amaranza Quarter, where half the goods displayed in storefronts had been stolen, harvesters roamed the streets with bloody buckets, and prostitutes with golden smiles beckoned passersby into tea parlors, bath parlors, fight parlors.

In Amethyst’s opinion, any outsider foolish enough to wander in got what they deserved.

“Might wanna head out, princess,” said Amethyst, jerking her head toward where the alley met the street. “Police won’t bother showing up before the rats do, but if you’re still here, it won’t look good.”

Disgust twisted the girl’s delicate features. “You—you just killed him!”

“You’re welcome.”

“You just murdered thomeone!” She had an upper-class lisp.

“Sure did,” said Amethyst. “Glad your eyes work.”

The girl shook so hard, her curls trembled. She ran her thin hands down the length of her long black skirt as if trying to smooth it. The hem was torn and stained, but Amethyst could tell that it was made of fine material.

“You’re a monthter!” the girl cried.

Amethyst was almost amused by the audacity. It could be fun to prod her some more, maybe scare her a little. Still, no sense in being later for work than she already was. She started walking away.

“You’re nothing but a—a killing machine!”

Amethyst’s footsteps slowed, then stopped. She whipped around, pressing the edge of the dagger against the girl’s throat.

“What did you think he was gonna do with this?” she whispered, tracing lines on the girl’s pale skin. The girl squeaked, and Amethyst stepped back. “I saved your life,” she said, wiping the blade on her lab coat. “You should be thanking me.”

The girl’s lips trembled, but her eyes were dark with hatred and defiance. “I’ll die before I thank a filthy mekana.”