that about? These groups you have here?”
“We’ve always had them. Sometimes I think it’s just a fashion thing, but maybe it’s like a way of belonging to something, being part of a community. Because you can’t really say Gauzi is a community. Those kids outside are Bleeders. Probably too chicken to come in. Birdie Blue is a Feathers hang-out. Obviously.”
“Meyi loves his feathers – don’t you, Meyi?” Lizwi is like a mother talking to a toddler. “Come Meyi, drink up for your Sesi.”
“But what’s with the bleeding?” I ask Silver.
“Something stupid.” He has turned vague. “Like this dead hero they’re honouring. The Bloodster or something. From the last uprising. That famous couple? He was their sort of sidekick, I think. I was still little. I don’t really remember.”
“I do,” I say. “A bit.”
“Me too.” It’s Lizwi.
“They say he was put down, or maybe just Rinsed,” Silver says. “The Bloodster, I mean. Don’t know about the other two?”
“Ricochet Thelezi and Leoli Leopara.” It’s like a light has come on behind Lizwi’s dark face. “Remember how Ricochet was too cool to go Feathers or Skins or anything? Leoli was Skins. Her graft was cultivated from cells from the last ever natural-born leopard. And there was that adorable baby, conceived out there in the Wildlands –”
“And where are they now?” I break into the soppy stuff. “How stupid were they? Announcing their big homecoming rally, promising the people this awesome message they’d brought back … Always going for the big display.”
“It never happened.” The light has left Lizwi’s face.
“Are you surprised?” I throw it at her like stones. “Maybe they were even put down.”
“The Minders –”
“Are benevolent, we all know,” I jeer. “So maybe they were just Parked or Rinsed. Whatever, they disappeared, cute little offspring included.”
But I’m sore saying these things. I seem to see and hear through the years, clearly remembering watching them on the free channel. Ricochet and Leoli. Their faces sharp and fiery with anger and belief, their voices ringing, promising the people. I was too young to understand what they claimed to be bringing, but I remember excitement sweeping through the Margins, whole families planning to enter the Sprawll for the rally.
I move my head around. I want to dislodge the memory. A promise that came to nothing is all it was.
The Sprawll’s soft piped air is too warm. I’m wearing clothes to suit the cold season out in the Margins, so I’m starting to sweat inside them.
I say, “You sure you want to do this? Go out?”
“Absolutely,” Silver says.
“I don’t want to, but Meyi does.” Lizwi gives me this look, level and sort of demanding, or maybe commanding. “We’ll pay extra if the direction he wants to go is different from the one you have in mind.”
“We’ll see,” I say, because I’m not ready to tell them about the way I believe we have to go. I mean, it is part of all that shit in the smoke, and how do I explain that to them?
I look at Meyi and wonder if his direction is the same as mine.
Man, I’m starting to think I’m truly messed up in my mind. Getting the Wildlands expedition idea in the first place, coming here, thinking Sprawllers will be any use on this insane journey I have to make. Hell, there was probably something wrong with the smoke that made me hallucinate: the mountain and humming and words and all those other sounds.
“Answering my text ad?” I say. “Were you thinking for yourselves, or did it have something to do with the chemicals you Spr– Gauzi people put into yourselves? Is it true you all wear slow-release patches somewhere under your clothes?”
“They’re not drugs,” Lizwi says. “Not the way you mean.”
“Shouldn’t we talk about the Wildlands?” It’s as if Silver’s mind has moved on while Lizwi and I have been speaking. “Are there special things we need to know?”
“What the hell is all this?” It’s like a small, crackling explosion from the dirty girl. “The Wildlands? Going there for like fun? An adventure? You’re all insane, take it from me.”
“Shut up,” I say.
Silver looks her way, his eyes steady for just a few seconds. “What’s your name?”
She glares at him, all ferocious, like she’s caught in a trap and ready to fight her way out.
“Orpa,” she snarls.
Meyi makes a series of sounds different from the intermittent wailing noise he’s been producing at intervals. He’s saying something, but the words are unintelligible. I see Silver looking at Lizwi, and I do the same.
She seems embarrassed. “He says she’s … dirty,” she mumbles. “Orpa.”
I laugh, but I know it’s not a good sound. “He’s got that right.”
“Really, like you ’re so clean and fragrant,” the Orpa girl hisses.
“Is this like a Margins thing?” Silver wants to know. “Saying just anything? Because you don’t wear patches, maybe? Isn’t it your job to be telling us about what we’re hiring you to do? Reassuring us?”
“I know. Sorry,” I mutter.
His eyes find me and flit away. I think of the dark mark spread across the left side of my forehead, seeping into my eyebrow. I try not to look into mirrors and other reflective surfaces more than I have to, but I’m reminded of it every time I see other Stains.
So the weird thing is that here in the Sprawll, where there are no other Stains to remind me of the mark on my face, I’m even more conscious of being Stained than I am in the Margins.
I don’t know how to answer Silver. I suppose the truth is that I’ve been coming on all aggressive with everyone because I’m … not scared, exactly, more like … uncomfortable. It’s the Sprawll. In the Margins, I know how things work, how people think. I can be myself there, and take the lead if I need to.
Not here.
I register something, a cluster of three backpacks on the floor beside the table. I noticed them when Orpa and I arrived, but they didn’t mean anything to me then.
I point at them. “All ready to go, I see.”
“Except I still need to draw tokens to pay you before we leave Gauzi,” Lizwi says.
“When do we start? Now?” Silver wants to know. “Listen Jabz, I don’t know how legitimate any of this is. What you’re doing, what we’re doing? What if the Minders don’t approve, and try to stop us? From the way you spoke, you know they aren’t truly benevolent, whatever they claim. Who’s to say Parking and Rinsing are really so … what do they call it?
