Cool. Real cool.

A group of his schoolmates walked by, on their way to Grub Grub for hoppers of their own. He didn’t look at any of them, but he could hear whispers, giggles, a pack passing him by.

Stars, he sucked. Everything sucked.

He saw Ras approach out of the corner of his eye. He had a spring in his step, a look that said I’ve got an idea. Kip took a long sip of his choko and sighed. He was still kind of pissed at Ras, but at the same time, there was nobody else coming over to sit with him.

‘Tek tem, man.’ Ras took his place on the bench and reached for Kip’s drink. ‘You look like shit.’

Kip let the bottle go without a fight. ‘Yeah, well, I spent my night boxing up all the food compost in the whole fucking hex, so . . .’ He let a shrug serve as the end of the sentence.

Ras winced. ‘They are really on your ass about this, huh?’

‘Are yours not?’

Ras shook his head as he drank. ‘They keep giving me shit, but I’m not in trouble-trouble.’ He handed the bottle back over. ‘Tika lu, man. I feel kinda responsible.’

Kip looked at his friend and felt some irritation slip away. Ras cared, and that . . . that felt pretty good. ‘Nah,’ Kip said. ‘It’s cool. Semsem.’

The smile returned to Ras’ face. ‘To make sure that it is, I wanna make it up to you. You think they’ll let you come out soon?’

Kip considered. It had been a tenday since it had all gone down, and Mom was being more reasonable. ‘Maybe. I got a job trial—’

‘Where at?’

‘Tailor shop. Y’know, stitching socks, whatever.’

Ras rocked his head, trying to look positive but undoubtedly unimpressed. ‘Cool.’

Kip gave a short laugh. ‘It’s not.’ He took another sip.

‘Well, here,’ Ras said, handing over his satchel. ‘You’ll feel even better about this, then.’

Kip looked at the bag, then looked at Ras.

‘Open it, dumbass.’ Ras turned his head toward another group from school. ‘Hey, Mago!’ he called cheerfully. ‘Porsho sem!’ Nice ink.

‘Go fuck yourself,’ came the inevitable reply. Mago had gotten a cheap bot tattoo on vacation and it looked straight up dumb. Like, the lines didn’t even move at the same time.

Kip unclasped Ras’ satchel as the sparring continued. Just school stuff, it looked like. Scrib, stylus, some pixel pens, a bag of candy, a lunch tin, an info chip, a— wait. He rifled back to the bag of candy. He wasn’t sure that it was candy.

‘Dude,’ Kip said, starting to lift the bag out of the satchel. ‘Is this—’

Ras pushed Kip’s hand down into the satchel without looking. ‘Stay stylish, man,’ he called after Mago’s back. Ras snapped to Kip. ‘What the hell,’ he whispered, more amused than mad. ‘Don’t let people see.’

That clinched it. This was not candy. Kip dropped his voice to match Ras’, his heartbeat kicking up several notches. ‘Where did you get this?’

‘Toby’s sister, remember? I told you.’

Kip looked at the clear pack, full of non-threatening bundles, each wrapped in a colourful bit of throw-cloth. He’d never smoked smash before, but he knew what it looked like. He’d played sims. Smash wasn’t illegal or anything – not in the Fleet, anyway – but you could only get it and use it in special cafes with bouncers at the door and patrol always hanging around outside. It was also yet another one of those things locked away behind the When You Turn Twenty seal, and he didn’t know any adults who were into it. His mom definitely wasn’t. She said it was ‘a waste of time, trade, and self-respect.’

‘Don’t worry.’ Ras gave him a reassuring look. ‘It only lasts a few hours, and it’s not like we’ll be sitting around your kitchen. We’ll go park ourselves in a garden somewhere after lights out, and it’ll be a real good time. And besides, Una makes solid stuff.’

‘Have you tried it?’

‘Well . . . no, but everybody says. You should’ve heard her explaining it to me as she packed it up. It’s some serious science. Look, if you don’t want to, it’s cool—’

‘Nah,’ Kip said. He closed the satchel definitively. ‘Let’s do it.’

Ras blinked, then laughed. ‘All right, man!’ He clapped Kip on the shoulder. ‘I thought you were gonna take more convincing than that.’

Kip swallowed the last of his choko, heart still quick but head as steady as could be. He shrugged again, as if he did this every day. ‘Something to do, right?’

Tessa

Somewhere in her head, she knew that she’d left the cargo bay, that she’d found someone to cover for her, that she’d taken a transport pod, that she’d walked (and run, in spurts) through the crowded plaza and into the entry doors of the primary school. She’d felt nearly none of it. Nothing but a furious blur existed between getting a vox call at work and her bursting into the admin office, where Aya sat sobbing on the couch, untouched tea and cookies on the table in front of her, a pair of concerned adults on either side.

‘Tessa, I am so sorry,’ one of them said, standing to make way for her. M Ulven, Aya’s teacher. ‘I don’t know how they got away from the group, it happened so fast—’