Page 31 of Mutant Mine

“No, I— I had a few friends, sometimes,” I say, thinking of Elena and her braids.

Roth says nothing. It leaves a silence for me to fill.

“…But kids would leave. Their debt would get sold to another owner, or they’d pay it down. You’d come back after your shift one day and your roommate would just be gone.”

Memories, faces I haven’t seen in years, drift back up intothe forefront of my mind.

“Other people would make you think they were your friend just to use you. Hungry kids will do anything to get an advantage, you know?”

“Yes,” Roth says tightly. “I know.”

Since I started speaking, he hasn’t moved an inch. Not looking at him made it easier for me to ramble on unselfconsciously. Too easy, in fact. I’ve never told a soul about my childhood before. Everyone looks down on bondaged workers — and no one admits to having been one, if they’re lucky enough to be freed.

God, I shouldn’t have blurted so much out. Now I have no idea what he’s thinking.

Nervously, I shuffle forwards a little. Just enough to peek round the edge of the table. I need to see the expression on his—

Roth is looking straight down at me, his eyes as bright and sharp as chips of blue flint.

“Little bird…” he says, low and intense. “This should not have been your life.”

Oh. He isn’t judging me, or pitying me. He’sangry. It’s not the volcanic rage I’ve seen from Roth before, but colder, more controlled. His voice makes me shiver.

“It wasn’t all bad,” I find myself saying, looking down and picking at the skin on my fingertips. “Sometimes I got to work out in the garden. The Cavaliers wanted their fruit and veg grown in real soil, rather than hydroponics.”

“Garden?”

“Yeah, we had an orchard full of peaches, cherries — and all these different colored flowers to decorate the house. We even kept animals, so the kitchen could use fresh meat and dairy rather than lab grown.”

Sunlight on my skin, soft earth beneath my hands, thesmell of cut grass… Sometimes I would pick a few flowers for myself and keep them in a jar of water by my bed. And no matter how carefully we fenced them in, the piglets would always end up escaping and need chasing off the vegetables.

“Lots of ugly stuff happened on the estate. But the garden… The garden was something real, and beautiful,” I say.

When I look up, I find that Roth has laid his cutlery down and is watching me. I blush, trying to iron the dumb, dreamy expression off my face.

A hint of that smile from yesterday is there, at the corners of his eyes. If I hadn’t seen it before, I wouldn’t even recognize it as a smile. But I know what to look for now.

It’s so confusing that I have to look away.

18

Roth

AFTER THEbrawl in the canteen, I felt exhausted. More tired than the physical effort deserved. It was my heart that was tired, not my body. I have spent far too long amongst hostile, violent people, always having to fight to keep my place.

In my past life, I was a soldier. Ichosea life of war. But that was back when I believed in what I would be fighting for.

This is different. If my younger self could see me now, he would feel ashamed. There is nothing noble about fighting animals — and for years, I have had no higher cause than my own small comforts. I have fought for food, for a decent bed, and to be left alone.

But I am not who I was anymore. That is why I left my name behind. I know that I am too fundamentally different now to ever be that young man again.

I feel no shame, now, for doing the things that I need to do. Only this deep, deep tiredness.

But suddenly, I do have a cause again. A higher purpose. Lives in my hands.

When I returned to our rooms, painted with men’s blood, the tiredness was weighing on me heavily. And Finch met me with judgment. I did not expect the sharp sting of disappointment, when I realized how easy she finds it to think the worst of me.

I know it is not personal. Like all children of Earth, she has been exposed to a great deal of propaganda and very little truth. How could I expect her to trust me, rather than all that she has ever been taught, after knowing me for just a few days?

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