Roki loved it here. He was like a kid let loose in one of Gaard’s annual carnivals, and I stumbled behind him, giggling. His energy was contagious. I was bubbling over with excitement as we navigated through narrow streets packed with people, their skin tanned by the sun, their black hair somewhat lightened from long hours outside. No one paid me any attention. No one knew who I was. Only Roki knew what was in my blood, and he didn’t care. I was sure he liked me for who I was.
“Here,” he said. “Isn’t it marvelous?”
We had stopped in a crowded square. Everywhere I looked, people were selling fruit and vegetables from makeshift stalls that had been erected in front of the regular businesses—chic cafés, modern restaurants, and stores that sold expensive clothing and futuristic home decor.
“What are they doing?” I asked Roki. “Why are they selling fruit? Look, there’s a wooden stall with a man selling fish. Are those live fish? What is this place?”
Roki laughed as if I had asked him the dumbest question in the world. “It’s a market,” he said. “You really don’t know what a market is?”
I shook my head, feeling stupid. “No,” I told him, pressing my lips together tightly. “It looks old fashioned.”
“It is!” said Roki, so unabashedly happy that he grabbed a peach from the nearest stall and tossed it to me. “Look.”
I caught it and gasped. “What is this?” The peach was cold and hard in my hands and had none of the fuzz the fruit is known for. “It’s fake,” I said, baffled. “Why are people buying fake fruit?”
Roki let out a deep, satisfying sigh, his countenance glowing. His chest was out, chin high, and even though he was right next to me, he seemed to take up all the space, like he owned the ground we walked on. Something cocky about him. Was he trying to prove something to me? That was just another thing that drew me to him. Roki’s unpredictability and charm had kept me coming back to him for the past two weeks. I couldn’t get enough. I didn’t think I ever would.
“It’s Market Reenactment Day.” He spoke boisterously. “I can’t believe you’ve never heard of it. Your parents are the ones who permit—I might add, rarely permit—the common folk in Gaard to hold this event. It’s the same story everywhere in the world. You see, hundreds of years ago, people all across Geniverd set up markets to sell goods: fruit from the lush forests of Shondur, fish caught by the brave fishermen of Nurlie Island, herbal cactus extracts from the Surrvul Desert. They sold it all!”
I was surprised to hear of my parents’ role, as they’d never talked about market reenactment. Were they hiding something from me, or was I too protected?
I peered up at Roki, sucking in a quick breath. “But not anymore,” I stuttered, putting the fake peach back into its basket.
Roki hung his head. “No,” he said, “not anymore. Markets existed before the great plague that wiped out nearly half the population, before the rise of technology. It was a simpler time. A warring time, perhaps, but simpler. Now, monthly food rations are delivered by Protectors. The food is healthy, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that we’ve lost the way.”
I was stunned. How did I not know so much about my people, yet in a few years, I might be expected to govern them? Why was I being shielded from them?
Roki sighed and shook his head, looking nostalgic. “Life used to be hard,” he told me. “Hard but simple. Things used to matter. Now, instead of a hardworking population of farmers, businesspeople, bankers, construction workers, fruit sellers, all we have is robots. Human beings used to work for something, Kaelyn; we used to do something. Now big, clunky Protectors do all the hard work that we should be doing. The machines toil in the fields, deliver our meals, take care of our infrastructure, build our hospitals. They even work in our hospitals, doing medical jobs that humans used to do.”
I stared at Roki for a second. I had always thought him to be wise beyond his years, but now he was talking as if he had been around so many years ago to see these markets, as he called them. He spoke of the technological rise as though he had lived through it. There was such experience in his soft eyes, such knowledge. He was only sixteen years old!
“This market,” Roki continued, “is a picture of the old life. In truth, I think people love this day so much because it makes them feel like they have a purpose. I think that people want it to go back to the way it was, before they got lazy and complacent and jobless, shuffling through poverty while clans of rich people lord over the entire planet with inherited empires of—” Roki stopped and looked at me. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean …”
“I know.” I gave him a smile. “Don’t worry about it. I like it here. I like seeing all this old stuff. It gives me a sense of our heritage. Maybe you’re right, Roki. Maybe the world is too easy.”
I had to agree with Roki. What he was saying made sense. I knew more about wealth and boredom than I cared to admit, and now that Roki had brought me to the market, I saw the world opening before my eyes. Somewhere along the way, something had gone wrong, and this was the result. Less than one percent of the population had everything they could ever want and were
