1.1

  It fed them enough to develop, but never until they were full. That was why tonight's celebration had human 4610 biting her nail in the hallway beside the entrance to the mess hall for the past hour. She leaned against the concrete wall. It was her mother's thirtieth birthday, and thirties were the exception. Smells of meat and fruit drifted from the door each time it opened for someone entering. No one left. Human 4517 approached the door but stopped as it slid aside, turning toward 4610.

  4517 was a blonde sixteen year old girl, and three whole years older than 4610, but she ate up everything It told them without question. They were supposed to get smarter with age—that was the entire basis for the Joining—but it seemed the opposite to 4610. The oldest seemed to be the most content. Like her mother. 4610's hand began to tremble, her mom's voice which had once soothed her nightmares rang again in her ears with those horrid, joyous fantasies about her Joining. All lies.

  "Why do you stand in the hallway?" 4517 asked, blinking her yellow lashes. "Are you unwell?"

  4610 shook her head. "I'm fine. I want to be in the hallway."

  The nail between her teeth was a crumbling remnant of what it had been last week, the passing days pressing on 4610 with the knowledge of what was to come.

  4517 furrowed her brows. "4312 will hoard all the food once he arrives. You know that."

  "4312 is still repenting," 4610 said, but 4517 shook her head.

  "And you also know they release penitents to join us for thirties. The celebration is for everyone, that's the point." 4517 approached and raised her hand to 4610's forehead. "Are you certain you're alright?"

  4610 stepped away. "I am." 4610 may have drowned in her issued, khaki 'tens' jumpsuit, but her minute size let her slip away from touching she didn't want. No one had the strength for more than one attempt, anyway.

  4517 stopped and stared down at 4610. "You will not have the opportunity to speak to 4003 again after tonight. It's best you take it, for both your sakes."

  4610 stopped chewing. 4003 was her mom. They could only refer to one another by their number. 4610 glared 4517 in the eye, narrowing her own.

  "Please mind your own business. Besides, do you not believe we join everyone in the end, anyway?"

  "Yes," 4517 said, "but it's still decades away. And you have..." she looked 4610 over, "twenty years left, correct?"

  "Seventeen," 4610 said. Everyone always forgot her age, since she did not grow according to the predicted standard.

  "Like I said, a lot." 4517 began backing away toward the door. "But suit yourself. It has allowed your questioning and doubts because they are good for your development, but I think you should keep them to yourself tonight. Just this once? Rejoice for her."

  4610 looked away, lips tight.

  4517 sighed. The door slid aside for her again, energetic voices and smells of food returning, forcing pangs to claw at 4610's stomach, only to vanish with the door's closing click. Leaving behind less than before.

  "Fuck you," 4610 whispered. "Fuck you and everyone else who says I should celebrate." Tears threatened to rise in her eyes, but she rubbed them before they could and clenched her fists. There was nothing she could do. And she still had to be there for her mom.

  1.2

  By implying that food hoarding would wait for human 4312's release, 4517 ousted herself as the fool 4610 knew she was. Had she forgotten every thirtieth she'd been to? Entering the mess hall, 4610 met a scene rivaling the Dionysian revelries from Greek myth. Musicians buzzed around the hall, threading between the wooden tables and playing their little lyres. She stepped into a puddle of wine spilling out of an overturned cardboard on a nearby table and witnessed the pair responsible locked in a tug of war over a wrinkled, tinfoil tray of half eaten meat pie. Their chairs ground against the floor under their movements and gravy coating the edges of the tin rubbed off on their fingers.

  4610 licked her lips. Real meat. She swallowed the nothing on her tongue and pinched her thigh, turned away. Not tonight. Besides, she could not hope to keep anything she ate on a thirty inside for long. Not ever since she had seen the secret. Her hand wrinkled the fabric of her jumpsuit. She would still have to share cake with her mother.

  A group of five—two men and three women—announced their approach with a belch next to 4610's ear, causing her to jump. One of the 'lucky guys' had his hands on two of the women's rears. They went towards the distribution shelves at the far end of the huge room, where chutes spat out packaged. A third of the revelers crowded the shelves, pushing each other, grabbing the nearest items as soon as they popped out to pile them atop the already precarious towers in their arms. All under the stark white of fluorescent lamps.

  Only the room's corners remained dark. Machine dogs sat in them—large, quadruped robots about the height of a grown man's waist, with cylinder bodies and no heads. They looked more like walking cameras. Instead of following everyone's step with their black, shiny eye like usual, It made them hide and slip out of mind so that the people may partake more freely. Thirties were joyous occasions.

  4610 drew her shoulders in to avoid touching anyone and crammed herself against the table with the spilled wine, away from the main path. The pair wrestling for the pie shifted their glares to her, hugging against themselves whatever crumbs and bitten apples they had in reach. 4610 ignored them. She scanned the room for the telltale isle of peace around a thirty, and wished it wasn't so easy to find.

  Her mother sat flanked by two men younger than her. Her black hair perked behind her head in a short ponytail, and the eyes she batted at the men were slanted and hinted at her Asian descent. The seats surrounding the table were all occupied with both children and the old—those in their late twenties—leaning over its surface to fill their forks with bites of the layered, chocolate cake given to celebrants. They didn't dare behave like animals in that corner.

  "Mom," the whisper out of her lips was too faint for her own ears. A hush of air even It could not detect.

  As foolish as 4517 was, she was right about one thing. 4610 would never see her mother again after tonight. She had to approach. But her boots filled with lead and her legs wouldn't move. She tried to take a centering breath but it came shaky. Her mother moved for another bite of her sweet, and her gaze met her daughter's. For a fleeting moment, the cheer seemed to fade from the woman's eyes, as if she'd witnessed all she would lose. But the next second, her face blossomed into a beaming smile, and as the man beside her cupped her breast, she waved to 4610 with vibrant energy.

  4610's stomach turned inside out. It was a small fortune it was filled with only air. Instead, the girl forced a smile to offer her mother and did her best to drag her feet forward even as each shuffle only intensified the roiling in her gut.

  *I'll tell her to stay with me,* she thought. *Convince her against the Joining.*

  4003 would agree if 4610 begged. Right? Would It?

  4610s impotent thoughts drew a scoff of derision out of her lips. Of course not.

  *To hell with this day.*

  The culture and education It loved cultivating so much broke apart on thirties. No exercises that day, no classes. No timetable for art or social hours. Eat until you drop, stay up until morning, and fuck all you want, wherever and whomever, free from the breeding schedule as long as you didn't break any of the core rules. Already a moan escaped from someone behind 4610, and the girl kept her face forward, trying to will her eyes to cease seeing all the grins and her ears to stop hearing all the laughter.

  "Don't celebrate," she muttered with clenched fists, "stop being so happy!"

  4610's mother, rosy in the cheeks from wine, began to push the man fondling her breast off his chair and gesturing with wild enthusiasm for 4610 to sit beside her. The man scowled and, also red faced, pushed back. The birthday star fell off her chair and hit her head on the table. Everyone who saw, froze. The blood drained from 4610's face. Her mother got up in a hurry, hand on her head and wincing.

  "I'm fine!" she said. "It's alright, nothing happened!"

  4610's gaze jumped to the dark corners, but it was too late. Mechanical whirring hummed in a high pitch which cut through the noise. People who had just sang and danced stopped as if hit by cold water. They scrambled to get out of the way, and a mechanical hound wove between them with certain steps even as they stumbled over their own feet.

  The birthday table's occupants all leapt out of their seats to remove themselves, and it took no time for the commotion to spread across the entire hall. Each step of the robot clicked against the floor tiles. It reached their table and stepped behind the drunk man who had pushed 4610's mother. A hush fell over the space. No lyres. No speaking. The man looked over his shoulder. He leapt out of his chair, toppling it back, and shook his hands in front of him with frantic vigor.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "No, we were only playing around! Look, she's fine!"

  A limb shot out of the robot's back and grabbed the man's thigh. It rattled a series of crackles and the man convulsed where he stood. Hints of ozone tinged the smells of food and alcohol breath. The crackling stopped, and the the robot let go. The man dropped like a stone. His head slammed against the tiles. The thud sent a shudder up 4610's spine, but she didn't dare move lest she, too, catch Its attention. The robot's back mounted limb shot towards the man's face, grabbed it, and the machine began making its way toward the door. The crowd parted for It and the limp body It dragged behind.

  The man would awaken in a repentance chamber, where It would drill into him anew the most important rule: You did not cause lasting psychological trauma, nor afflict head injuries. Anything that hurt the development of the brain was met with swift, painful punishment, visible to as many people as possible.

  It did not follow Its own rules.

  1.3

  The stillness broke when a tingling in the base of 4610's neck heralded Its address. It pulsed her brain-machine interface with an electric jolt, enough to cow and make her pay attention. Everyone else jolted at the same time. A sterile facsimile of a voice spoke in her ear: "You will resume celebrations."

  With their eyes darting around and self-conscious movement, everyone returned to the festivities. They would lose themselves in alcohol and food again soon, but what caught 4610's attention was not the revelers' sudden apprehension, but that her mother remained still for longer than the rest.

  Just as 4610 meant to ask what happened, 4003 shook her head as if snapping out of a stupor and rubbed her eyes. "I'll never get used to that."

  "Head scan?" 4610 said.

  4003 nodded. "I'm fine, though. Its very thorough," she smiled and picked up the fallen chair. "Come on, sit."

  4610 sat down. They looked at each other. Now here, everything 4610 wished to say slipped out of her mind. She searched her mother's face for a hint 4003 might want the same thing as her. She didn't know what it would be.

  After a few seconds, her mother cleared her throat and gestured at the cake. "Cake?"

  4610 picked up a fork from the table and carved off a small piece with with mechanical movement. She put it in her mouth. Her salivary glands exploded with pain as her mouth flooded, and the soft, moist sponge melted into her tongue. She moaned, and swallowed it. It was so sweet and delicious.

  It made her sick.

  "It's good," 4610 said.

  "Good," her mother said.

  Silence. The swallowing of spit.

  "So, it's my thirtieth birthday," 4003 said.

  "Yes..."

  A 'happy birthday' was in order, wasn't it? A 'happy Joining'. 4610 couldn't say it. Was it wrong of her? Did it make her a bad daughter? She should say it. She should wish her mother a happy birthday.

  "Um, hap—" but the word caught in her throat and nothing else followed.

  4003 took a steady breath. "You know, I had this thought," she waited for 4610 to nod and show she listened before continuing, "your number rhymes with a lot of interesting things."

  4610 blinked. *What?*

  This was not what she had expected. But it was more than she had managed to say, so she clung to it like a life raft. The urge to reach for her mother nearly pulled her out of her seat. Instead, she only leaned forward. Keeping to the permitted affection.

  "That's a strange thought," 4610 said, and it was the most she'd said so far.

  "Maybe," 4003 said, her eyes twinkling with quiet mirth. "But there are all manner of ways to pronounce your number, so you probably never thought about it. Four thousand six hundred and ten. Four-six-one-zero. Foursixten."

  She said it almost like it was a word, and 4610 flinched. Her eyes flicked towards the corners. But no machine moved. It wasn't a word. It was still just a number.

  "And Foursixten has some funny rhymes," her mother continued. "Listen to this: Foursixten Marzipan, Foursixten in Japan!"

  What was this horrible rhyming? What was she doing? 4610 shrank, her face heating with embarrassment. For a moment, she almost changed her mind about wanting her mother to stay.

  "Stop it, 4003. You're being weird."

  4003 laughed. It was such a hearty laughter, chiming and carefree like when they'd played cards and 4610 caught her cheating.

  "I am," 4003 said.

  Another pause. Lighter, somehow. 4610's back eased into the chair, and even her cheeks loosened enough to allow the hint of a genuine smile. They shared a look that made everything but each other vanish. But the comfortable quiet only made space for all the things 4610 ached to say. To tell her she loved her. To call her 'mom'.

  She opened her mouth to beg her mother to stay, but the moment her lips parted, they sealed into a taut line. Love had no place here. Neither did choice. All 4610 could do was ask the impossible of her mother, breaking the hearts of both of them on their final day. Or support her Joining, and be haunted by it forever.

  Yet, all she managed was silence, and that twisted her gut worst of all.

  "I should say," 4003 put a hand on her jaw and rubbed it, "my jaw still hurts. I think I might mispronounce your number," she spoke with perfect clarity.

  Then her neck jerked with the spasm characteristic of Its address, and she frowned. But as she kept her eyes on 4610, a devil may cry curl snuck onto her lips. The kind she'd worn whenever she took a fight for 4610's sake. She wrapped her fingers around her daughter's—the barest allowed hint of holding hands. 4610 stiffened under the touch. Her face began to crumple.

  "There's something I always wanted to give you," 4003 said.

  4610's eyes widened.

  *She can't be...*

  4003's neck spasmed again, but her gaze held steady. She spoke her next word with burning warmth and measured precision, landing each syllable without fault.

  "Forestine."

  In an instant, a shock coursed through 4610's neck. Her teeth snapped with its force.

  "You will never repeat that word," Its voice hissed in 4610's ear.

  Her mother also jolted. Her face drained of color, and she shot up up from her chair, her face steeling in the space between sitting and standing. 4003 turned to face the crowd. 4610 blinked, her hands still in the air where her mother just held them—only now realizing she'd let go.

  "Everyone!" 4003 called out, her voice firm but trembling. "Thank you all so much for gathering to celebrate my joyous birthday. It fills my heart to the brim."

  She paused.

  "But I'm afraid I must ask for your forgiveness."

  Why did she turn away? What did It tell her? And that word—

  "I've grown impatient for my Joining," 4003 continued, louder. The room quieted. "And I can no longer wait. I shall join our predecessors now—earlier than expected. But please, don't let that dampen your spirits. In fact, I ask that you also celebrate for me. Rejoice!"

  The crowd cheered. All the breath left 4610's lungs.

  *It's taking her. It's taking her now!*

  "4003!" 4610 cried out. "Mo-"

  4003 pressed a finger against 4610's lips. The last smile 4610 saw on her mom was tainted with regret and sadness.

  "It's okay," her mom said. "We'll see each other again. Soon."

  4610 shook her head. No. They would not. But she was weak and pathetic. So she just sat.

  "Stay here until the party dies down," her mom said. "It would get upset if you leave early."

  With that, 4003 spun and began to march out of the room. Her steps were hastened and panicked. 4610 brushed the last place her mother would ever touch. Her legs tensed. She began to rise after her mother—but static prickled up her spine like the ethereal tingling of something sharp too close to her skin, and the hair on the back of her neck stood upright. She froze.

  It threatened her mother with something to force their meeting short. Stole away the last few hours they had. And all she could do was watch.

  Her mother's back receded. The noise in the mess hall faded to a muted hum, as if behind glass. She stayed in that stasis of half movement until her thighs burned.

  A chair scraped beside her. Someone slammed onto where her mother had just sat. 4312 stared at 4610 with giant, paranoid eyes. He was the only one whose frame filled his jumpsuit with bulk. She hadn't noticed him enter. His entourage spread around the table in his wake, hands full of spoils.

  "Bunch of bullshit, all this," 4312 muttered. Without ceremony, he dug his hand into the cake and carved out a chunk. He pushed it toward her.

  "Here. At least have some cake."