So basically, I stopped sleeping.
That 280 hung out in the garage, heavy and burdensome as my dreams. I couldn’t do anything with it. Not now. It was a heap of junk, waiting for me to take mercy on it and scrap it for parts. What had I been thinking, taking on this ancient machine?
Ryan kicked the 280 on the way to sit next to me. His step was bouncy, and he was trying—and failing—to hide a big smile.
“Got some good news.”
I couldn’t look at him and his happiness. I was an awful parent. I exhaled smoke and waited.
“I got accepted to Becker.” He spread his arms in a flourish with a toothy grin.
Not a surprise, but it was great news. The kid was sharp, and my alumnus cred surely helped give him a boost. But it was impressive when my street trash ass got into Becker, it’s impressive when his does too.
Even knowing this, all I could muster was a meager smile. “Knew you would.”
His shoulders sagged, but there was more frustration on his face than disappointment. “Okay, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Huh?”
“You’re sulking. All the time.” He flailed his arms in a gangly teenage way. “You haven’t cracked a real smile in weeks. You’re not bringing women home, which—I’m okay with, but it’s weird for you. You’re moping, and I don’t know why! We have our engine! The Human Engineering Association is noticing you, I’ve spoken to more elite engineers these past few months than I have in my entire life, and you’re moping!”
“I am not.” Well… “I saw on a talk show that parents shouldn’t burden their kids with their problems.” Being friends with your kids just confused things.
Ryan gave me one of those looks usually reserved for when I was real drunk and not making any sense. “I know you’re technically my legal guardian, but El, I’m not your kid and you’re not my mom. Come on, now.”
The shot shattered my heart.
Ryan sat and stole a cigarette. I didn’t protest. “At most, I think of you as a grouchy aunt.”
“I’m not grouchy.”
He was right, though, about the adoption. I’d filed the legal guardianship paperwork when I’d take him on as an apprentice because it kept the Child Protection Force— the Kiddie Patrol—away. The Kiddie Patrol had started up to provide social services to the needy children in the Back 40, but they’d swiftly been coopted into grabbing up “unclaimed” street kids to send off to the manufacturing colonies. The pretense had been it was a career opportunity for deprived youth, but everybody in the Back 40 knew it was just a one-way ticket to a short, meager life among manufacturing bots. The companies probably paid the Kiddie Patrol good money for the labor. In any case, an official adoption kept them from snatching Ryan from me. So the paperwork was there. But he wasn’t my kid.
“Yeah, you are.” He lit up and inhaled like a delinquent. His Eldroon accent became more pronounced. “I got a mom and dad. They were shit. That’s why I left.”
“I thought you were a war orphan.” One of many thanks to last decade’s conflict. But thinking on it, that was just part of the elaborate backstory I’d constructed for him. I’d assumed he was a war orphan who had ended up in Eldroon, somehow, before migrating to the Back 40. A bright kid from Eldroon had just seemed so unlikely.
Was the kid with the Eldroon accent simply…born and raised in Eldroon?
“My parents weren’t anywhere near that war. Least, I don’t think they were.” He looked a lot older as he exhaled. “My dad left before I was born. I’m not even sure who he was. My mom loved her stardew more than she loved me. She just forgot about me most of the time. She probably hasn’t even noticed I’m gone.”
Stardew, uck. Nasty stuff that had set off a scourge of addiction on Ri, especially in Eldroon. It hollowed out the mind, turning users’ brains into gunky mush. The colony wasn’t near organized enough to do much about it, especially with a region so resistant to “invaders”. The general consensus was that the Eldroon folks’ brains were rotted away anyway from the toxic waste they lived in. A dew addiction couldn’t do much more damage.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
He shrugged like he didn’t care. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he’d detached himself from it and focused on the present and the future instead of being dragged down by his past.
“What about your parents?”
The sun burst from behind a cloud, flooding my garage with a calming, natural light. I’d never talked about my family with Ryan. Or anybody. Wasn’t something I liked to discuss.
But we were having a sharing moment. “My dad liked to drink. When he drank, he took his anger out on me. My mom let him.” The sentences were hard to get out.
“So you left?”
I nodded because I didn’t trust my voice. The sun fell behind a cloud again and cast us into the darkness of my paltry, artificial garage lighting.
Ryan stared at the 280, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He looked so much like an adult, but then, he’d never really acted like a kid, had he? He enjoyed the nightlife, sure, but he never shrugged off work the day after. He always kept on household chores. Worked well with customers. He was more adult than me sometimes.
“Your parents find you? Is that why you’re in such a bad mood?”
I’d never considered that as a possibility. Why had I never considered that as a possibility? In my head, my family was forever frozen as they were when I left at thirteen. They couldn’t even exist
