Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
I’m as astonished and perplexed as he is. “I have no idea.” We turn and walk over to a kind of desk in the center of the room. It’s round with a cut-out in the middle. The actual desk part is flat with a slight curve upward on the outer edge. It’s made of glass and clearly it is some kind of control panel. “Do you stand in the center?” I ask Mitch. “How do you get in? There isn’t an opening.”
Mitch runs a finger along the smooth glass top and then pauses. He looks up to smile at me as he lifts a portion of the desk up, creating an opening. “Your throne, my king.” He waves a hand at me, inviting me inside the circle.
“You’re stupid.” But I do accept the invitation to walk in. Mitch joins me, crowding me, because clearly this space was made for one person, not two. “What are you doing?”
“I wanna see.” And then his fingers are sliding along the glass. Like he’s looking for something. But after we’ve turned in a complete circle, tapping every part of the surface he possibly can, nothing happens.
A pounding on the door makes us both jump, then laugh. Mitch lifts the glass up, goes to the door, and opens just a crack so he can speak, but not enough that anyone can see inside.
I make out Jeyk’s voice telling us time is short. So I look around the room, step out, and decide whatever this is—Looking Glass or not—the mystery will have to wait.
Because I’ve got a woman to Extract.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Attending the funeral is a drag. It takes up so much of the day. We had to board the large boat before dawn so that everyone would be in place by the time Finn Scott, the new Extraction Master, arrived, so we had to wait around for hours, then again after the ceremony was over. Which took sooooo long.
Everyone was complaining about the smell. Which, of course, turned into a whole tirade about how gross down-city people are because they breathe the air of dead bodies every night.
The five of us got a lot of side-eye attention after that little comment.
It wouldn’t have been such a bad experience if the boat was something nice. But there are seventy-five of us. The only boat big enough to transport all the Little Sisters at once was a mid-sized barge and we were packed in the cabin like canned fish for the ride down and back, so squished together I thought I was gonna suffocate.
Back in our little section of the dorm, everyone is feeling tired, and frustrated, and not the least bit beautiful because we’ve been wearing these dresses for two entire days now. Not to mention feeling dirty. Though, as down-city girls, we would not admit the last part. We grew up in the ash. It’s a part of us now. But being up-city full-time for couple of days is enough to make us question the practice of burning bodies like that so close to people.
“Look at me!” Britley is pointing to her sweat-stained dress. “My dress is a mess!”
“Look at mine!” Ceela points down to her feet. “Rosalit Bayner stepped on my hem getting out of the boat.”
All four of us look down at Ceela’s torn hem and gasp.
I walk over and put an arm around her shoulder. “Oh, Ceela. I’m so sorry. But it can be fixed.”
“Fixed?” She scoffs. “We’ve got forty-five minutes to be lined up and ready. There’s no time.”
“There is,” I insist. “Take it off and I’ll take it to the sewing room and fix it.”
Ceela pouts her lips. “But what about your dress?”
“Mine’s fine. It’s wrinkled and seen way too much action.” The bad mood breaks and we laugh. “But it’ll do.”
Harlow huffs. “I’m gonna burn mine when I take it off tonight.”
But Lucindy, ever the optimist, has a different idea. “We’ll just tear the seams, wash the fabrics as best we can, and turn them all into something brand new.” She beams a smile at us. Everyone but me groans.
“Come on, girls. She’s right. Think positive. Everyone take your dresses off. We’ll steam them and freshen ourselves up at the same time. It’s an Extraction. It’s… exciting, right?” I feel a little bad for calling it exciting for obvious reasons, but it is. I mean, I highly doubt a single Little Sister, in the whole history of Tau City, ever got to attend an Extraction. “It’s special, girls. And while I do understand that we’re here for a reason”—I shoot them each a knowing look—“we agreed to make the most of this experience, did we not?”
They perk up, just a little. Then mumble out agreements and start unzipping their dresses.
I take mine off as well, then hand it over to Ceela as I take hers. “Steam it. That’s how you can repay me. I’ll be back in twenty minutes and we’ll still have plenty of time to steam yours too.”