The Lofties (The Echelon Book 2)

as the Dirt. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
“’Course I do.” His smile brightened. “What if it’s perfect, just like everyone says? Say it’s heaven up there, everything you ever wanted. What would that look like?”
Safe. Open to everyone. Gloriously Lazrad-free.
“Green,” I said. “Like in those old pictures, with the hills covered in trees. There’d be a park full of birds, and a lake you could swim in. You’d pick all the fruit you could eat, and there’d still be lots left. How about you?”
“Clean,” said Lock. He squirmed where he sat. “I can’t imagine what that feels like. No sand up my crack. No dirt under my nails. It’s all soot down here, and rats, and fleas. I want a tub big enough to stretch out in, and I’ll leave the water running till it drains away clear. And I’ll eat grapes the whole time, and melons, and apples.”
I snorted at the notion of a tub big enough to fit all of Lock. He’d been too tall for doorways at thirteen. Full-grown, he was a giant. “What are you, seven feet?”
“Six-nine.” He knocked his boot against mine. “I didn’t laugh at your birds. Let me dream.”
“Dream all you want.” I wiggled my toes and felt grit between them. I’d washed since I got back, but the sand had stuck with me, grimed into my socks. “It’s funny, isn’t it? I’m picturing a scene from the history books. You’re picturing a bath. But it could be anything up there. Anything at all. The walls are so high outside, all you see are the towers.”
Lock shot me a strange look. “That scares you?”
“It doesn’t scare you? A whole world you can only guess at? For all we know, they eat each other. Or they’re all like Prium Lazrad.”
“I doubt there’s many like him.” Lock’s lips quirked up. “Besides, you’re great with new people. They all loved you Outside. You should’ve seen when you got shot—they were scared for you, all of them, even that mean one.”
“Who, Starkey?”
“No, Jeena, uh... Jetha? Ben’s mom. She held your hand half the night, after I brought you in.” A shudder passed through him. “You were crying in your sleep, making sounds like it hurt. They all came to check on you, everyone at that base. If anyone can win over the Lofties, it’s you.”
I dredged up a smile, not wanting to spoil Lock’s mood. Win over the Lofties—as if. That Lock thought they could be won over spoke to Lazrad’s grip on him. He still wanted to trust her, to live in her dream. I’d be alone in my search for answers.
“I feel good about this,” said Lock. “That night in the vent, waiting for Sam to—” He stopped talking abruptly, and set his hand on my arm.
“What?”
“Don’t you hear that?” He got to his feet, waving me to silence. I could hear them now, voices approaching from the refinery.
“It’s not hard,” said one. He had a broad Lofty accent, hoarse with smoke. “They just—it’s like, you finish the coffee, you start a new pot. And change out the filter. It won’t kill you.”
“Right?”
I froze. That was Miron—I’d know his voice anywhere. I seized Lock by the belt and dragged him behind a pillar, crowding up next to him to fit.
“What—?”
“Shh.” I covered his mouth with my palm, waiting for Miron to pass by. I hated the thought of him finding me here, knowing I’d felt homesick.
“You know what’s funny?” Miron stopped where the bridge met the street, and I heard a lighter click. “I don’t even smoke these things. I’ll stand and watch you, and I’ll let this burn down, but it’s just a distraction. Something to do with my hands.” Miron kicked at the railing. “Ma calls it a nervous habit, but that’s not it. I don’t get nervous. You just need something to say ‘this is it. I’m on break.’ Without that...”
“Everywhere looks the same down here. Like the whole thing’s the office. Why d’you think I smoke?”
Lock made a sound, a low, amused whuffing. I kicked him in the shin. Miron tapped his cigarette, scattering ash.
“You on duty for the thing?”
“What, the Ascension ceremony?” Miron’s companion stepped into the light. He was security, I saw, blue vest for Sky. I’d seen him around—Kessler, or Keller. “Yeah, I’m on that.”
“Better you than me.”
“Those kids, though...” Kessler dropped his cigarette and lit another. “I heard one of them’s not even a Decemite. What’d they do, change the rules?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” said Miron. “That other girl, her sister, she only ran one mission. Got herself captured, to boot. The Powell boy earned it, more or less, but those other two are a joke.”
“Not a very funny one.” Kessler stepped out onto the bridge. He leaned over the railing and spat into the reservoir. “I mean, I’m up at five, down here by six. I’m patrolling all day, then I eat in the mess. I catch the sunset if I’m lucky, an hour or two of twilight. The sun might be our birthright, but when’d you see it last?”
“Last weekend, I suppose.”
“Yeah? Guess what I did last weekend. Really, guess.”
Miron made a humming sound. “Slept? That’s what I did.”
“Babysat.” Kessler cursed under his breath. “I’ve got three of ‘em now, and I swear they get brattier by the day—they scream just to spite me, that little one especially. And now we got those three heading up, like a slap in the face. They’ll see more sun than we ever will, more than our kids’ll see once they start work. What makes these kids so special, when mine get the factory?”
Lock shifted beside me, fists bunched at his sides. I touched his arm and his shoulders slumped. Miron turned away from us, dropping his cigarette between his feet. He ground it under his heel, like squashing a bug.
“Trust me,” he said. “They’ll lord it over us a while, but Lazrad knows what she’s doing. You couldn’t pay me enough to take their