Locally required information:

Ship: Asteria, Exodus Fleet Address: 224-324

Standard date of birth: 23/292

Age: 20

‘There we go!’ Ras said. ‘Damn, finally you look like you’re having fun.’

Kip couldn’t help but smile. He could get in so much trouble for this, and yet . . . yet he felt like he’d cut the line, like he’d been granted a reprieve from the agonising wait between birthdays. ‘Do I look twenty, though?’

Ras pursed his lips and nodded. ‘Totally.’ He cocked his head. ‘Maybe don’t shave.’

Kip didn’t have much to shave yet except his upper lip and a patch on his chin, but he didn’t feel like sharing that. ‘So, now what?’ he said. Now that the scary part was over with, the lack of plan felt kind of anticlimactic. ‘We could go get some kick, or . . . redreed? Do you wanna get some redreed?’ Kip had tried it once and didn’t like it, but he could get it now, and that was the important thing.

But Ras shook his head. ‘I have a way, way better idea.’

Sawyer

Compared to the brightness and bluster of the rest of the plaza, the job office was a rather humble spot. Still, it was welcoming in its own way. There were benches outside where people could skim through listings on their scribs, and calming plants in neat boxes, and pixel posters cheering the reader on. Need a change? We can help!, read one, the letters glowing above a loop of a relieved-looking man setting aside a vegetable-gathering basket and picking up a stack of fabric instead. Another poster featured a teenage girl standing in a semblance of a hex corridor, surveying doors printed with various symbols – a leaping fish, a magnified imubot, a musical instrument, a shuttle in flight. You never know where a job trial will take you, the pixels read.

Sawyer took a seat on the bench beside the girl with four lives ahead of her. He’d just left the office, and done what the compost woman had suggested. Going back in armed with advice had put a spring in his step. Coming back out . . . he wasn’t sure what he felt. He hadn’t talked to the same clerk as before, so he’d missed out on the satisfaction of returning to say aha, look, I have passed your test! Learning that there was an expected order of vocational initiation had felt significant to Sawyer. The clerk hadn’t conveyed the same, but why should he? What was significant about filling out the same formwork he probably filled out dozens of times a day? What had Sawyer expected? A knowing nod? An approving smile?

That’s exactly what he’d wanted, he knew, and he felt stupid about it. But then again, he’d been given no next step, no direction beyond ‘thank you, we’ll contact you when a shift becomes available.’ When would that be? Tomorrow? A tenday? More? In principle, Sawyer didn’t mind downtime, especially when he didn’t have to worry about food or a roof, but the idea of rattling around that big empty home until some nebulous point in the future arrived didn’t sit well.

He set his jaw. Getting down about everything he didn’t know yet wouldn’t do any good. Maybe he could try making inroads with his hex neighbours again. Maybe they’d be more than distantly polite if they knew he was going to clean up the same messes everybody else did. Maybe he’d go out there at dinnertime today instead of going to a cafe or hiding out insecurely in his room. He’d never really cooked before, but he could chop stuff, at least. He could help. He could—

‘Working up some courage?’ a friendly voice said.

Sawyer found the speaker: a stocky man with an infectious smile and a mech arm. Such implants were common among Humans back home, but Sawyer hadn’t seen many in the Fleet. ‘I’ve already been in,’ he said.

‘Needing some comfort, then, judging by your face.’ The man raised up a canteen, signalling the intent to share. ‘Want some in liquid form?’

Sawyer smiled and put up his hands. ‘I better not,’ he said. ‘I’m kind of a lightweight.’

‘Then you’ve got nothin’ to fear here,’ the man said. He waggled the canteen. ‘Just tea. Lil’ sugar boost, that’s all.’

Sawyer’s smile grew, and he nodded. ‘All right,’ he said, joining the man. ‘That’s very kind.’

‘I’ve been in your shoes,’ the man said. He filled the canteen lid and handed it over. ‘Not a comfy thing, having idle hands, huh?’

‘No,’ Sawyer said, nodding in thanks as he took a sip of tea. Stars, but this guy wasn’t kidding about the sugar. He could already feel it clinging fuzzily to his teeth.

The man stuck out his hand. ‘I’m Oates,’ he said.

Sawyer returned the handshake, a kick of happy adrenaline coursing through him. ‘Sawyer,’ he said.

‘And where are you from, Sawyer?’ He pointed toward Sawyer’s mouth. ‘We don’t grow Rs like those in the Fleet.’

Sawyer laughed. ‘Mushtullo.’

‘Long way from home.’ Oates pulled a redreed pipe and a tiny bag out of his jacket pocket. Sawyer knew what was coming next: ‘You got family here?’

‘Nah.’ He had the reply down pat by now. ‘Just trying something new.’

Oates nodded as he filled his pipe – redreed in the hand he’d been born with, bowl in the one he’d chosen. ‘Good for you.’ He hit his sparker and took one puff, two puffs, three. The smoke rose steady. ‘You been here long?’