Between Two Worlds: first chapter

Here’s the full, unedited text of the first chapter.

For more, see the book page for Between Two Worlds for all the links.

1

The guy who gonna tumble my life, he kicks dirt near the lock to the grey flat dome of Peba academy. He a fireskin like me, or a beerskin mix. Under a thick hand shading the sunstrip, his dark eyes, they scan the levels of the new block crowding tall and white next the dome. It like he counting rooms, or like he ent never seen a block before.

Reckoned for nother dull day of same same. Nother day of the sunstrip ticking across the hub, of lux sliding round the wheel sector sector sector, glowing the grass and the crops and the towns and the lakes as stars spin. Nother day of me and the other dumb rando assholes with academy chores yawning through Systems shit til lunch.

Nope.

All of us who trudged downtread from the clusters of cabin fours pimpling the fields, we gotta pass this guy like he a wolf at a sector wall. Cept he ent checking permit blocks or tipping carts for contra. He ent even looking us. Not the twos and threes stepping past, teeth and tongues, noising happy or faking it. Not the lones like me wishing they noses up in their bunks still, dreaming some else, some not Systems.

This guy, maybe he a build guy, fixing the path? It a weave of cracked and buckled slabs choking in dust from the new block. He gonna smooth it? He got the arms, thick and slashed with tats. He got the thighs. He got grass-green shorts tight for his ass and I ent sad of it.

I dodge over the slabs, care care, passing him. White rings in his ears swing heavy as his eyes catch mine then escape to the levels of the block, to his counting. His hair, it tightish to the scalp, a twist looser’n mine, enough for a dark sweep he gotta fuss over. Swirls pattern his neck, with a flash of red and green, under the start or end of a beard. He got lips for biz, curling in a grin. Teeth.

Lived a hand of winterbreaks more’n me, I reckon.

The academy lock, it a long spit past him on the path, blue-white lux bright inside.

Maybe thisday I gonna walk by. Maybe thisday I gonna come like thigh guy and scratch ass for coin. Maybe I gonna find grass and lie back and follow the stars circling ever ever.

I slow, thinking, mathsing. Capricorn, the wheel, he gonna know, is it. He gonna ask why I skipped, and I gonna shrug and shuffle, and he gonna spin angry and nope soap a week til I stink like a dead dog. Or he gonna do worse.

I push through the lock, me and it sighing.

This place, reckon it gleamed for the ansters. Thisdays the academy dome inside and out, it etched in dark lines cross-crissing the joins. Probly moss or mould between tiles faded to dead-grey shades, with drops of orange and green and blue. An old old place — noby builds domes now. They not work for stacks. They waste space in the tread and come dirty cos they a dog to clean. We probly keep this dome only cos some stoopy nelder runs it. When he recycs, sure sure his dome, it gonna follow a milli after — and some asshole holding dice made of sixes, he gonna build more boxes in the tread for a pocket of coin.

Inside the lock, coupla paintings hang on a long orange-dirt curved wall showing stars and galaxies, cold pale dots and smears, dead and still in the void. Front of the wall, a recep sits chin on fists at a warped desk of dull silver. Both scratched by time, is it.

I spin right, tracing the circ of the dome, then vector left to the mid of it. The tallest room. Teach hall.

It near sixty-seventy full of folk my age plusminus, stinking up. A hundred of bodies? Arms and legs scatter over a brown steep scuffed halfcirc of benches, focus a white circtable in the mid mid with the arc of a milky tall screen behind.

The dome above, it shades vom yellow-green, and spots of white lux dot across it. No pattern I can find and it mads me and I not know why.

Sprawled over the rows far side, a fist of boys laugh and joke. They tonguing sharp over coupla girls, I can tell it — mouths behind sly fingers, heads tilting, eyes pointing. Ent for me, fat nope on that. I target an empty row max away and scrape along the plass cracked bench to a clean view, no heads bobbing in front, no slivers poking my ass. And no level to lean on to write, but I dig sheets and marker from my pack cos Capricorn, he watching.

Lates drift in. A girl smiles, scoots along my row, and fixes to hello til down front some rando calls her name, hand wiggling the air. She waves me sorry and she scoots gone.

Nother day bitching to noby.

Some other sits behind me, huffing. A boot digs into the yellow faded old-sack cushion at my shoulder. Asshole. They nudge with it, and nudge again. Asshole.

I flare and spin, and think words I know my tongue ent gonna reach, and hope my eyes, they gonna say angry enough.

Harsh pricks of white from the spots frame his face. That face, it thicked my pulse before. It the guy next the new block, tats and thighs guy counting levels. Near-round eyes, big and black as, tugging me. A dazzle grin with a dark gap spacing two front teeth.

I not know what the hal my eyes say. My cheeks, they nova.

I spin back.

Why he nudging? A rush floods me, and my mouth, it dries to dust.

Teach, he pushes through doors far side, tail of a laugh on his lips. He fixing smart, his spine like a ladder to the hub, wearing a grey tight allover with a fancy collar showing blocks of bright shades. The hall, it mutes as he clears throat.

I gotta—

I turn to thigh guy again, pushing my brows in, tryna ask without noising.

Thigh guy, he winks me.

Only guy ever winked me, it cos of dirt in his eye. I winked him back and he called me an asshole.

Teach hall dims and the screen, it fades black. I turn to the front as the blah starts.

Thigh guy, why he nudge me? Why he wink me?

Teach, he says lotta words, and my sheets, they stay blank.