Species Traitor: A Science Fiction Dystopian Novel by Kate Mary (universal ebook reader .TXT) 📗

“Ava!”

I turned at the sound of my name.

Rows and rows of mirrors stretched out in front of me, encircling the tower that fed electricity to our city. The mirrors harnessed the sun’s rays, and the tower turned it into energy, which was distributed to the city. How, I didn’t know. All I knew was they needed to be cleaned every day to keep them free of sand, which was where I came in.

A figure stood two rows away from me, dressed in a suit identical to mine—yellow plastic that trapped the heat inside but helped protect us from radiation. I knew it was Donna even though I couldn’t see her face. She waved behind her, motioning toward the autobus, and I returned the gesture.

Quitting time.

I grabbed my bucket before following her, dumping the water on the dry ground and watching it get sucked up. It happened in seconds just like it always did, so that by the time I’d turned to head after Donna not even a speck of moisture remained.

The autobus was already full when I climbed in, but Donna had saved me a place. I took a seat beside her, waiting until the door was shut to finally pull my hood off. There was nothing quite as refreshing as taking that first breath after removing my hood. Except maybe a cool shower.

“God, I need a drink,” Donna said when she’d removed her own hood. She ran a hand over her closely cropped dark hair, her brown eyes moving to me. “I think I have enough in my account. You in?”

“Can’t. I have to go see Ione,” I said as I wiped my hand down my sweaty face.

Donna pressed her lips together in an expression I’d seen many times before. “Your momma must be spitting fire.”

“You know her,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Donna’s only response was a grunt, which I knew meant she was biting back some pretty harsh words about my mother. Not that I hadn’t heard it before.

The second I was old enough to get a job with the cleaning crew, Mom had insisted I drop out of school. At the time, I’d thought it was so we’d have a little extra money, but it wasn’t until after I’d gotten hired that she announced she was retiring.

When Donna—who’d considered my mother a friend—found out, she’d raised hell, even visiting our house to try to talk my mom into going back to work and allowing me to continue school. My mother had refused. She’d done her time, according to her. It hadn’t mattered that I was only fifteen or that she had a younger child depending on her. Needless to say, she and Donna were no longer on speaking terms.

The drive back to the city was a slow one, but not because of traffic. There was nothing but sand and ruins in the wastelands. Very little could survive out here, both because of the heat and because the ground had been poisoned by radiation centuries ago. Even the suits didn’t protect us from it completely, something we all knew. While a person going into the dry desert wouldn’t immediately get sick, long-term exposure meant many of us on the cleaning crew would eventually succumb to some kind of illness. Cancer, most likely. But there was nothing we could do about that. We needed jobs, and this was the kind of task a person with no education or skills had to do. Plus, cleaning the mirrors was essential to keeping life in the city going. Without them, we’d have no power, and without power, everything would stop.

Donna must have been more tired than usual, because she didn’t say anything else during the drive, so I occupied myself by watching the sandy landscape fly by. The city was in front of us, less than a mile away and seemingly tiny compared to the vast nothingness, and to the right the Veilorian ship gleamed, while a few miles out and to the left sat the massive crater that served as the city’s landfill. An explosion or possibly even a natural disaster had left it behind centuries ago during the cataclysm, but for decades now it had served as a place for humans to dump unwanted items.

Being on trash detail might have been the only job worse than the cleaning crew. The people working out there didn’t have to stay outside the city limits as long as we did, so they were exposed to less radiation and didn’t require the bulky yellow suits, but they were more exposed to other dangers. While not many creatures lived in the wastelands, the few that did kept close to the landfill. The animals inhabiting it were mutated versions of what they’d once been, evolved to survive the harsh conditions of this new world, and they were lethal. While a lot people on the cleaning crew eventually died from long-term radiation exposure, those on trash detail usually succumbed to an attack before they ever had a chance to get sick. Although I wasn’t sure which was a worse way to go.

Donna still hadn’t uttered a word by the time the autobus pulled to a stop at headquarters. She and I walked to the decontamination room in silence where our suits were rinsed off, then to the changing area so we could strip. All around the room, other women were doing the same, some of them pulling their own clothes on without bothering to get cleaned up, while others moved to the sinks or showers. I headed for the latter, stripping out of my undergarments outside the stall before stepping under the stream of lukewarm water, closing my eyes and lifting my face to allow it to rinse the dirt and sweat from my body. It was a fast shower, but enough to make me feel not just cleaner, but recharged as well.

I headed back out to the bathroom once I was dressed where I found