The Thousandth Floor

It wasn’t long before she learned some of these kids took xenperheidren—the anxiety pills, the same ones her mom took—as a study aid.

Getting her mom’s pills had been far too easy. Leda’s parents were so trusting that they’d never activated the biosecurity on their new apartment’s touch surfaces. That night, Leda had slipped into their bathroom while they were watching holos and grabbed her mom’s xenperheidren from the medicine cabinet. She shook two of the pills into her palm and was back in the hall in a matter of seconds. The next day, before school, she took one of them.

Instantly the world had become brighter, more focused. Her brain was moving at warp speed, mining her long-term memory for facts she’d forgotten, watchful and alert for every detail of the world. She felt more confident than she’d ever been. When she walked up to Avery at lunch and asked to sit at her table, Avery had just smiled and said sure. Fueled by the xenperheidren, Leda laughed at all the right jokes, said exactly the right thing. She knew in that moment that she was in.

She took more and more of the pills over the next few years, eventually buying from a dealer named Ross so she wouldn’t get caught stealing her mom’s. She had tried to space them out, to take them only before exams or big parties—she didn’t need them socially anymore, now that she was friends with Avery. But she loved the Leda the pills brought out. That Leda was sharper and cleverer and more insightful, able to read the nuances of a situation and manipulate it to her advantage. That Leda figured out how to get everything she wanted.

Except, of course, Atlas.

Leda startled to sudden attention, aware that everyone around her was standing up, chairs scraping the floor as they paired off into lab partners. She turned to Avery, but Avery had her back to Leda and was talking to Sid Pinkelstein.

“Avery?” Leda said, reaching around to tap her friend on the shoulder. “We’re partners, right?”

“I just promised Sid,” Avery apologized. Sid stood there looking a little bewildered by his good fortune. “Junior year, college applications and all. I need to really ace this,” she added quickly. “I’m sorry.”

Wow. Avery was so desperate to avoid her that she’d rather hang out with the kid they’d always called Sid Pimpleface? “Sure,” Leda said. “Risha?” She grabbed the other girl’s arm and dragged her, seething, to the lab table.

“Here it is.” Risha pulled up the lab instructions on her tablet. Her eyes darted back and forth between Leda and Avery, who was working with Sid two tables away. But Leda had already started to mix things, throwing powders and chemicals into the bowl at random and grinding them with a pestle.

“So according to the instructions we don’t actually need magnesium …” Risha said warily, lowering her goggles over her eyes.

“Too late,” Leda replied. What the hell, she thought a little wildly. With any luck maybe she would create an explosion.



RYLIN



SATURDAY AFTERNOON, RYLIN stepped into Cord’s bedroom and pulled the door quickly shut behind her. She’d been waiting for this chance all day. Cord had been gone since she arrived this morning—come to think of it, he hadn’t been home much at all this week, though she had no idea where he went every afternoon. Maybe he was avoiding her after that weird moment on his step, she considered, then felt foolish for even thinking it. Cord Anderton had probably never made a decision based on a girl in his entire life, let alone a girl who worked for him.

But even with Cord gone, Rylin didn’t feel comfortable enacting her plan until Brice left the apartment. He’d skulked around for hours, watching her clean, until ten minutes ago when he finally left to “hit the cardio,” whatever that meant. She shuddered at the memory of how he’d looked at her on the way out, the way his eyes had traveled over her form and he’d wet his lips, like a lizard. Small wonder Cord was so messed up, when the only real family he had left was a debauched twenty-six-year-old who did nothing but jet from one expensive playground to another.

Rylin had dealt with worse than Brice, though; she could put up with him for a while longer. Truthfully she owed him, for being the reason she’d kept this job all week. She was starting to dread her inevitable return to the monorail snack station, with its screeching train cars and endless flow of angry customers. But her options as a seventeen-year-old high school dropout were kind of limited.

Working at Cord’s was a nice change. His apartment was cool and quiet, and she could get things done at her own pace, alone with her thoughts for once in her life. Cord paid better too.

And if her plan worked, he would be the reason she and Chrissa didn’t get evicted.

Heart racing, Rylin knelt down to pull open the bottom drawer of Cord’s dresser and grabbed three of the individually wrapped Spokes, their paper thick and waxy in her hands. Cord doesn’t need these the way I do, she reminded herself. He had so many already; he’d never notice a few missing. Besides, if he ran out, he would just go see his long list of doctors and get a refill prescription.

Suddenly all she could think of was the look on Cord’s face when he’d been watching those old family vids. There’d been something so earnest, almost young, in his expression, his face clear of its normal skepticism and sarcasm. And here she was, stealing the drugs that he’d been prescribed right after his parents’ funeral. How would her mom react, if she knew what Rylin was up to right now?