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FRAGILE REMEDY

bad. She gestured to the faded, torn lung-rot quarantine poster
on the support beam above them. Someone had drawn a dog
peeing on the swirling Gathos City logo.
“Very funny.” Nate rolled his eyes. No one had lung-rot
anymore.
As one of Gathos City’s experiments, he knew that better
than anyone. His kind had been developed by scientists to
fight the lung-rot outbreak, and later—when the lung-rot was
gone—to be used up. Harvested by the wealthy. Kept endlessly
asleep or left awake to participate in the horror of it. At least
that’s what people said when they whispered about GEMs.
Even that word was nicer than the truth. Genetically
Engineered Medi-tissue.
He wasn’t supposed to be here.
She arched a bushy eyebrow. “What then?”
The stray thought of this girl somehow discovering what
he was made him itchy to keep moving. He climbed back onto
the rail with a groan, wishing he had the strength to rip the
poster down, ball it up, and throw it at her face. “It’s nothing.
Just the dust.”
She swung her wiry body up onto the concrete rail plat-
form and tugged at the blue bandana around her neck. “You
should wrap something around your face when you run the
rails, kid.”
“I’m not a kid.” Nate wasn’t tall by any measure, and this
girl only came up to his ears. Irritation—and fear he didn’t
have time for—sharpened his tongue. “I’m older than you.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Only if you’re betting with sausage.”

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