Sam awoke in the predawn grayness, first light gathering at the open window. The apartment was silent and still. Had Kara coughed? He listened for a sound of movement from the next room. The faint burble of people talking floated up from far below, but he could hear nothing else. He had only been asleep a few hours and was still tired, his mind foggy. The bed felt warm and comfortable. Kara coughed again, clearly this time. He knew the sound so well, he could tell she was trying to be quiet.
He reached out for his percom and it popped to life. “Good morning, Samuel,” the message on the screen read. “It is 5:17 a.m., 7 August, 2038.” Just one more day to go, he thought, and then pushed it from his mind.
He forced himself to swing his legs from the narrow bed and sat there for a few seconds. The morning air from the window carried smells of summer
from the park a few blocks away, bright notes over the traces of smoke and
pollution from the city. In winter the apartment was bitterly cold, but that felt impossibly distant now in the gathering heat. Later today it would get hot, but not intolerably so. The downside of an apartment so near the top of the tower were the endless flights of stairs when the lifts were broken, which was often. But the positives were the view and the breeze, and the distance from the streets below.
He walked over to the window. The summer air washed over and around him, easing away his sleepiness. The streetlights were still on. The main roads of the city stretched away in rivers of light, almost empty at this hour. Later they would be thronged with hot, unhappy traffic. Between the roads were the vast, dim apartment buildings, gathered in rows to the horizon. Lights were starting to flicker on as the early risers began their days. He loved seeing the city like this. It was like an abstraction – not a place of people and struggle and messiness, but a higher-level thing, an overall creation in which the people were only molecules or cells.
Kara coughed again, pulling him back to the moment. In the living area he heard his father stir, the creak of springs loud and pained. Sam threw on a shirt and trousers and opened his bedroom door.
His father was sitting on the edge of the sofa bed gathering himself, just as Sam had done a few moments before.
“Good morning,” Sam said.
A grunt in response. William was not a morning person.
“I’m going in to her,” Sam said, and his father nodded.
Sam tapped gently on his sister’s door, and then opened it.
Kara was lying on her back so as not to disturb the tubes that led from her nose and arms to the medical device mounted at the head of her bed. The sensors placed around her body were wireless, but during the periods she was attached to the tubes she could hardly turn or move at night. Sam knew she hated it, but she never complained.
“Good morning,” she said to him. She was bright and awake. Unlike her father and brother, morning was her favourite time of the day. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“I have to be up for school anyway,” he said. He leaned over and helped her sit up straighter, then fetched another pillow from the chair in the corner and tucked it behind her head. She watched him with her clear brown eyes. Sam’s own eyes were blue, but when he and Kara were children people would remark on how similar their eyes were, like mirrors of each other in everything but colour.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“The new course is good. I feel stronger, I think.”
“Did you sleep?”
“As much as I needed.”
“We need to refill the machine today,” Sam said. “The package is in the fridge.”
“I know.”
“I’ll be back in time to do it. I have a class off today. It needs to be done at four.”
“I know,” she said, the barest flash of irritation. “I won’t forget.”
“Sorry,” he said. “You know I just…”
“I know. How’s Dad?”
“Not quite awake yet.”
“Any word overnight?” Sometimes the recruitment departments of companies gave answers from global offices at odd hours.
“Still nothing from Sinamech or A-mark. Elspin said no on Thursday.”
She nodded, and then coughed louder than before.
“I’ll get you some water,” Sam said, picking up the empty glass from her bedside table.
In the living area the bed was back in its couch form and his father was making coffee.
“How is she?” William asked. “I’ll be there in a second.”
“She seems a little better, maybe.”
Sam went back to her room. Kara coughed again and then again, waving the water away, concentrating on her breathing.
“Kara?” he said uncertainly. The coughs were merging into each other, and her slim shoulders were shaking.
William came in. “Sit her on the edge of the bed,” he said to Sam.
Together they lifted her out from under the covers, being careful of the tubes.
The coughing fit got worse, deep wracking sounds like a misfiring engine. Her father sat beside her with his arm around her, and she leaned into him for support. “It’s okay, my darling,” he said quietly, rubbing her back and rocking her gently. “It’ll pass in just a moment, just let it burn out. Let it burn out.” Sam watched from a step away, his own chest feeling tight and sore as if in sympathy. She seemed to cough forever, tears forming and rolling down her cheeks. William held her until finally the intensity dropped and slowed. She sat straight again by herself. Her breathing was harsh and laboured, but she was in control of it. She motioned to lie back down, and William lifted her gently into the bed.
“Sam,” she whispered, looking up at her brother.
He was beside her in an instant. “What is it?”
“Go to school. You don’t want to be late.” Her eyes drifted shut. Her chest barely rose and fell so shallow were her breaths, but she was breathing.
They both stayed with her another few minutes and then stepped outside.
“Dad,” Sam said. He felt a sudden rise in his heartbeat. “We need to talk tomorrow.”
His father stared back at him. His eyes were of a different pattern to his children’s.
“I don’t think we have anything to discuss,” he said.
“You know what day tomorrow is,” Sam answered.
“I know.”
“Well…” Sam felt his nerve begin to falter. He found himself looking at the floor. But then he forced himself to look up again. His father was staring out the window. It was bright outside now.
“We need to talk tomorrow,” Sam said again.
“Go to school, lad,” his father said. “Tonight you might help me with
another round of applications.”
“Of course.”
“All right then.”
The conversation was at an end. Sam showered and dressed and made his lunch on autopilot. When he looked in on Kara again, she was deeply asleep.
As he was ready to leave his father was sitting on the couch, moving
through pages of job descriptions on his percom, an older model than the one Sam had for school.
“I’ll see you later, then,” Sam said from the doorway, looking at the gray back of his father’s head.
William raised one hand in a backward salute but didn’t answer. Sam waited a second and then closed the door quietly.

The elevators were working but he took the stairs anyway, wanting to be in
motion. They spiralled down and down in a quadrangular curve, opening to a balcony on each level. The sounds and smells of the city got louder and closer as he descended – engines, traffic, noise, smoke, shouting, people. More people joined him on the stairs the lower he got, some nodding a greeting, others sliding eye contact away. He didn’t know anyone he saw –
there were more than twenty thousand people in this building alone, so he
rarely met friends by chance. By the time he got to the bottom, the trickle of
people had built to a throng pouring out into the street, their footsteps loud on the stairs, a hum of conversation. Countless more streamed from the hundreds of identical buildings that made up the sector. The shift was changing at the megafactories and the kids were on their way to school. The streets were at their busiest.
And at their most dangerous. A shout caught Sam’s attention, and then a
scream. He was too far away to see clearly what was happening. He tried to
look over the heads of the crowd but he wasn’t tall enough. A lot of people
appeared to be involved. Then there were gunshots, three together followed
by two more. The crowd surged away from the noise and carried him with it.
The sound of so many people screaming was horrible. Almost unconsciously he pulled the scarf from around his neck up over his face.
“It’s coming, it’s coming!” someone yelled, pointing to Sam’s left. He could see a disturbance moving through the crowd, but its cause was lost at first in the mist and dust of the morning. Then the Patbot came into view –
three metres tall, walking purposefully through the crowd, parting the people like a boat through water. The huge weapon in its right hand was pointed at the ground. The coloured strip of its eyes was glowing red. Over and over again it issued the same warning: “Stand down, citizens. There is nothing to fear. This disturbance will be handled peacefully.”
The huge machine picked its way carefully but forcefully forward. Its hips were well above Sam’s head. He was close enough to touch it as it passed by, heading for the source of the gunshots. He could hear the static buzzing of drones hovering low overhead.
He stopped and watched the passage of the machine through the crowd.
“Come on, kid, keep moving,” someone snarled, and he felt a push on his
back. He stumbled. Then there were more screams as more shots rang out.
He saw them impact the metal head of the Patbot one after the other,
powerful enough to rock the head back slightly but unable to do any damage.
In answer the machine raised its huge weapon and the high-pitched explosive whine of rail-gun bullets hammered into the morning. Now everyone was running; everywhere there was chaos and noise and dust and screams. Faintly he could hear the machine announcing: “This situation has been pacified. This situation has been pacified. This situation…” Sam ran with the crowd, skipping and dodging until he was three blocks away, his heart beating hard.
He stopped to catch his breath, his hands on his knees. Helitransports were
arriving overhead, human patrollers fizzing down into the scene on ropes.
There were more shots, followed again by the sound of the Patbot firing its
weapon.
“It’s a goddam disgrace,” said an old man who was nearby, looking at
Sam, and then he was gone. Sam followed his lead, walking quickly for the twelve blocks to school

All the kids were talking about the incident before class started. Seven dead,
some people were saying. More – up to twelve. Maybe even twenty. The
shooting was over a gambling debt. It was a fight about a car. It was over a
woman. Sam’s friend Keith heard there were more than one hundred people involved in a pitched battle with ten Patbots.
“There weren’t,” Sam said.
“How do you know?”
“Because I was there.”
Keith’s eyes widened as Sam told him everything that had happened—the confusion, the shouting, the gunfire.
“Damn,” Keith said, wistfully. “I’d love to have seen it.”
Class was starting. The teacher came to the door, stopped at the scanner, and then stepped through. He mumbled a greeting, directed them to the relevant entry on their percoms, and started writing on his own screen, the
image projected on the wall behind him. If there was any connection between what he was writing and what he had told them to read, Sam certainly couldn’t see it. His attention wandered. He thought of his father, of Kara, the Patbot, the sounds of screaming.
“Hey,” came an urgent whisper from beside him, and he felt a poke on his arm. He turned to see Keith was staring at him openmouthed. “Isn’t tomorrow your…?” he hissed.
Sam nodded.
“Dude! Frick. Wow. So are you going to do it, like we talked about?”
Sam couldn’t quite trust himself to make eye contact. “Yes,” he
whispered.
“Gentlemen!” snapped the teacher, his voice unexpectedly loud. “Talk
later, okay?”
“Sorry, sir,” they said in halfhearted unison.
Sam tried to force himself to read through the equations on the screen of
his percom. He could practically hear Kara telling him that education was
how he would escape, and he felt a wave of drowning guilt that he was there in the classroom and she was not.

The day dragged on endlessly. He didn’t get another chance to speak to Keith – they were in different classes for most of the day, and any time they were in the same place there were other people around. His father sent him a message to say that Kara was awake and doing fine, but he didn’t hear from her directly. She often texted him in the afternoon if she was feeling well, but today her silence spoke for her.
The morning mathematics class was followed by law and economics, then science and mechanics, and then history. He sat through the classes taking notes mechanically, not saying anything. Most of the teachers didn’t interact with the students at all if they could help it; they just wanted to get in and out as fast as possible. Sam could let his mind wander without fear of being caught out. But the final class of the day was different. It was called Public Society, and was taught by Mr. Broer. He liked to talk and hear himself talk, and he liked to ask questions. And he particularly liked to ask questions to people he could see were not listening.
Sam knew he must pay attention in this class of all classes. Immediately after it was the free period, and he could leave school early. He was nearly there. He just had to get through this. He sat down and opened a new note on his percom and focused on what Broer was saying: “The invention of Prime Energy led to new laws in the Fourth All-World Senate, culminating in the resolution that passed the Committee for the Aggregation of…” “…deputy leader of the Azimuth Party, leading to a role in the Industrial Management Committee for the Eastern Region, which was to play a pivotal part in…” “In 2020 the Regional European Alliance agreed on the Strasbourg pact, which later began the process of…”
Sam could not keep his focus. Broer was short but powerfully built, with a deep, penetrating voice. To Sam it sounded like a low hum coming from deep underground, gentle and restful. He could focus on Broer only for a moment or two before he found he was thinking about something else entirely. Trying to keep his eyes open was a struggle in itself, never mind listen to boring stuff he couldn’t care less about.
In the end he wasn’t even surprised to hear his name being called and to find that he had not been listening.
“Mr. Hughes,” Broer said, lingering over every syllable.
Sam sat up slightly straighter in his chair. “Yes, sir,” he said. Everyone in the room was watching him. His mind had felt heavy and slow a moment before, but now it was sharp and focused on the threat. Just a little too late.
“Perhaps you could elucidate for us what the Five Forces are, Mr Hughes,” Broer said, lingering on every word.
Five Forces… It rang a distant bell. Sam thought he had heard the phrase before but nothing was coming back to him now. His thoughts jumped ahead to the free class, so near and yet so far away, and he felt a mild spike of adrenaline.
Broer was staring at him. He was good at making people feel small and stupid, and he knew a perfect opportunity when he saw one.
“Mr. Hughes,” he said again, his voice quiet and measured. “I don’t know what it is about you that makes you think you are exempt from the basic requirements of knowledge that even the humblest among us must
meet.” Sam’s heart was beating in his ears now, and his breathing was loud. Each word Broer was spitting at him was clear and stinging.
“Certainly this special quality is not evident to me,” Broer continued. “It’s not your physique, surely, or an unusual aesthetic perfection, or a razor intellect. Perhaps you have an astonishing singing voice? Or a gilded step on the dance floor? Perhaps you have some remarkable talent you could come up to the front of the room and demonstrate for the rest of us mere paeons?”
He was clearly enjoying himself.
There was total silence.
Sam sat with his eyes down and didn’t move.
“No? Nothing to share?” Broer said. “No special talent for us to marvel at? Just a perfectly ordinary child?”
He let the silence hang and hang. Sam felt himself turn a deep shade of red, heat rising off his neck and face. Then the whole class jumped as Broer
roared: “WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD BLOODY WELL LISTEN TO YOUR BETTERS THEN!”
The room seemed to reverberate and echo.
“Five Forces! Science, mathematics, the law, the army, and the state!” Broer rattled off. “How hard is that to remember? Even a dullard should be able to manage it.”
Broer glared at Sam, and then finally, mercifully, the bell rang.

Sam ignored messages from Keith and went straight home. After the run-in with Broer he didn’t want to speak to anyone. When he thought of the teacher’s sneering voice he felt he might cry, but in an instant it was replaced by anger.
When he got to the apartment he paused to settle himself, and then opened the door with the thumb scanner.
His father was just as he had been when Sam left that morning, sitting on the couch working on his battered percom.
“You’re home early,” he said, without turning around.
“Yeah.”
There must have been something in Sam’s voice because William twisted to look at him.
“Everything okay?” he said.
“Yeah, just a long day at school.”
A surge of nerves. The silence felt suddenly heavy.
Then he just blurted it out. “Dad, I’ve decided. I’m going to do a tour in the mines.”
William didn’t answer at first. Then he said, “You’re not.” He was looking away again, staring down at his percom.
“Dad, tomorrow I’m going to–”
“You are NOT!” His father was on his feet now and shouted the last word. “You are my son, and you will do what I say!”
Sam took a step forward, glaring back.
“Dad,” he said quietly. “At midnight tonight I’ll be fifteen. Not a child in the eyes of the state any more. And I’m–”
“YOU WILL DO WHAT–”
“AND I WON’T BE SHOUTED AT AND BULLIED! I’M NOT A CHILD!”
Somehow they were standing almost nose-to-nose now, breathing as if they had just been running.
With a force of effort, William took a deep breath.
“Look, Sam,” he said. “I know you’re not a child. But the mines have a mortality rate of forty percent. At least forty. Mrs. Ridgerow’s son died there
two months ago. Ellen and Mike from two floors down lost their son a year
ago. Esteban and Chantel had a daughter who–”
“Dad, I know. I know it’s dangerous.”
“It’s more than just dangerous, Sam, it’s tantamount to–”
“We need to get out of this, Dad!” Sam said, his voice rising again
despite himself. “We need to get out of here. We need to get better treatment for Kara. In the off-world hospitals they have all kinds of treatments and programs to try, they’d have–”
“She’s on a new treatment already,” William cut in. “We’re doing everything…” He trailed off.
“It’s not working,” Sam said. “You know it’s not. Look at this morning. That was the worst attack in months.”
“I think it’s working,” Kara said from the door of her room, making them both jump.
“How long have you been there?” asked William quietly.
“Since you two started screaming at each other,” she answered. She looked at her brother. “Sam, please. I know you want to save me. But the way to do that is through school. Through education. Education is the key to–”
“Kara,” Sam said, taking a step toward her and reaching out, then pulling up short. “I can’t do it. I’m not smart like you. If we’re relying on my education to get us out of here, we are all completely screwed.” He looked at them hopefully, but they didn’t laugh. “I know people who’ve been to the mines and come back and got out of here. Six months and you can buy a house in the country, with money left over for” – he looked at Kara – “all
kinds of things.”
“But do you know these people really, Sam?” asked his father. His voice
was gentler now. “Or have you just seen the propaganda?”
“Well, Keith’s uncle knows a guy who–”
“It’s all lies, Sam,” William said. “Hardly anyone makes money. The work is so filthy and dangerous they can’t even find a way to get machines to do it profitably, so they throw life at it instead. The lives of people like us. We’ll find another way. I know you want to help the family, but not like this. What happens to us if you die? We’re screwed then. For real.”
Sam looked from one to the other and could hardly bear the hurt he was causing them.
“Dad, Kara, I love you both so much,” he said. The words meant he could just barely hold back the tears that gathered in his eyes. “But I am going. Only for six months. That is the best thing I can do for us. All I can do for us. And when I come back, we’ll get out of here.”
He put his head down and walked straight into his room without giving them a chance to respond. He closed the door softly, lay down on his bed, put his head in the pillow, and let the tears flow quiet and uninterrupted.

It all happened both faster and slower than he could believe.
He filled out the form just after midnight in his first few minutes as a
fifteen-year-old, and the next morning he had a message waiting for him
from the Tricium Group:

Mr. Hughes,
Thank you for your application to the Tricium Group Off-World
Exploration Program. After a detailed review of your records, we are
pleased to provisionally welcome you to this incredible opportunity.
Please present yourself for testing and evaluation on 11 August at
8:00 a.m. at Tricium Headquarters. On successful completion of the
process, transport will commence immediately.
Yours,
Susan Blake
Tricium Recruitment

It was still early when he saw the message, and he had to read it a few times to be sure of what it meant. He had thought it would take weeks or months before he heard from Tricium, and was completely taken off guard at the speed of the response.
And then only a few minutes later he got another message, this one from his school. Pending his employment by Tricium, it said, his education was on hold, and he was not to return to school until the matter was resolved.
Not having to go to school felt less good than he expected. None of what was happening felt real.

All of the four days before the Tricium testing were long, but the final day of waiting was the longest of his life. He and his father were hardly speaking. The silence between every word was sharp and painful. Nobody mentioned the mines. Doubt was eating at Sam, and he tried to hide it. He could picture exactly what it would be like if he backed out, if he told his father and Kara he had changed his mind. There would be such a rush of relief, for them and for him. But he had to force away those thoughts. He was going. He had
decided. That was all there was to it.
About noon he got a message from Keith: “U LUCKY GIT.” He could hardly bring himself to answer. Word had obviously got out at school about what he was doing.
Sam went to bed early but hardly slept. He lay on his back staring upward, feeling older than he ever had before. He wanted to toss and turn but forced himself to be still; he didn’t want the others hearing the creaks of the springs and knowing he was awake. He could hear Kara coughing now and then, soft sounds that were loud in the quietness of the night. He didn’t want to cry any more. It was as if some part of him had been disconnected so that he could get through this.
When morning finally came they ate breakfast in silence. It felt very much as if someone had died. Then finally he stood. It was time. He picked up his small bag.
His father stood too. They faced each other. There was a long moment.
Then William held out his hand. “Good luck, son,” he said.
They shook, incongruously formal.
“Thanks, Dad,” Sam said.
He went over to Kara’s chair and leaned in to hug her good-bye.
“Be safe,” she whispered, “and wear this for me.” She slipped something
into his hand. “It’ll bring you luck.” She turned her head and kissed him on
the cheek. “Now go.”
He straightened.
“Six months,” he said, looking them both in the eye. “I’ll see you then.”
He turned and walked out the door and closed it without looking back.