“Take it,” I said, nodding to the smashed sandwich.
She grabbed it and the other two on the floor. She bit right through the wrapper and started eating, making feral sounds. Thin, with short, dirty hair, she had probably once been just a middle-class girl. Like me.
I’d been that hungry before, but no one had ever come to my building to feed me. And now I knew why.
She swallowed. “You.” She stepped closer and touched my hair. “So clean.” Then she examined my face. “Perfect. You’re a Metal, aren’t you?”
“A what?”
“You know, Metal. One of those body bank people. You’ve got that chip in your head.” She took another bite of the sandwich, peeling back the wrapper this time. “How does it feel?” She circled me to stare at the back of my head.
I wore the plainest clothes I had been able to find in Helena’s granddaughter’s closet. But I couldn’t disguise my now-flawless skin, shiny hair, and perfect features. It was too obvious to the world that I had become a kind of chip slave.
“Like someone owns me.”
The glittery mall was completely different from the harsh, lawless squatter life. Ender guards stood watch outside the shops, examining each passing Starter with steely stares. One guard spied some scruffy boys advertising their unclaimed status with dirty faces and stained jeans. He signaled mall security, and they roughly escorted the boys to the exit.
This had been a high-end mall even before the Spore Wars widened the gap between the rich and poor. Though not all Enders were rich and not all Starters were poor, it often seemed that way. But here, I passed plenty of hot Starters, shimmering in their illusion tops and jeans, which changed color and texture as they moved. They were like exotic birds, even the guys, wearing airscreen glasses, layers of scarves, hats with slim solar panels to charge batteries. Those who had temperature-control chips in their glistening metallic jackets kept them on. Others used insta-fold to compress their outerwear so it could be tucked into a wallet. People said they dressed this way to distinguish themselves from the street Starters. I had a closetful of clothes just like theirs, inherited from Helena’s granddaughter. But that wasn’t my style.
These were the claimed Starters living in mansions like mine. I couldn’t always tell them apart from people like me who had received makeovers from the body bank. “Metals,” that girl had said. These mall Starters were beautiful because they could afford to be. They had the best Ender dermatologists, dentists, and hairstylists and all the creams and beauty supplies their grandparents could buy. The Spore Wars had barely put a dent in their spending habits.
I stopped myself. There I was, judging them, but they’d lost their parents too. Maybe their grandparents weren’t nice to them, but cold and resentful, having to see faces every day that reminded them of their lost sons and daughters.
The Spore Wars had changed us all.
I scratched the back of my head and looked around, hoping to see a shoe store. I was supposed to meet Michael and Tyler at the food court, but since my mission to feed the homeless had been a failure, I was early. I swallowed hard, thinking about it. Michael was right—I shouldn’t have gone alone. I should have remembered my street smarts: Never take your hand off your bag. Never stand with your back to an entrance. Always be ready to fight. All that work and I’d only fed two Starters, who had run off without even thanking me.
I directed my attention to the airscreen display directory in the middle of the mall.
“Shoes,” I said to the invisible microphone.
The display pulled the shoe store out of the map and projected a holo into the air. It was the only athletic shoe store in the mall. Knowing Tyler, he was trying on every pair there. I needed to go rescue Michael.
I headed toward the store, passing an Ender grandmother leaning on the arm of a pretty Starter, probably her granddaughter.
She’s easy on the eyes.
I stopped.
It was that artificial, electronic voice in my head, and it set my teeth on edge.
The Old Man.
Hello, Callie. Did you miss me?
“No. Not a bit.” I struggled to make my voice sound even. “Out of sight, out of mind.”
Clever.
I then remembered he could see through my eyes. I put my hands behind my back so he couldn’t see that they were shaking.
I don’t buy that at all. I’m sure you thought about me every day. Every hour. Every minute.
“It’s all about you, is it?” I really wanted to scream at him, but the guards would think I was crazy.
I eyed the guards. Were they staring at me because I was talking to myself ? No, I could be talking into an earpiece. Maybe they had picked up on my nervousness. Not that they could do anything to help me.