chapter 2

The rain finally stopped two hours later.

After reluctantly paying another four credits, I hurried home.

An airship descended nearby.

It had a simple, streamlined shape, like a shuttle I had once seen in a documentary.

An enormous glowing yellow character for “pancake” pierced the pale haze left by the acid rain.

The warm scent of wheat drifted from the cabin.

I knew it was only wheat-scented fragrance, but my stomach still growled.

“Evening, little K. Want a potato-and-cabbage pancake?”

“The potatoes and cabbage were grown in real Upper City soil. No synthetic vegetables, I swear.”

The pilot was my landlord, Lily.

I glanced silently at the price on her sign.

1,458 credits for one.

I shook my head without hesitation. “My grandmother just died.”

The world belonged to Xian, and the Lower City was no exception.

By law, when a citizen died, Xian reclaimed the body.

From the corpse of an elderly woman, the company could recover three reusable organs: the corneas, heart, and lungs.

It could also render fifteen kilograms of nutrient paste.

The Xian employees who collected the body kept the organs as payment.

The remaining paste, however, could feed two people for well over a year.

I therefore had no reason to buy food from Lily’s airship.

She understood immediately.

She nodded and stopped trying to sell me her homemade pancakes. Her tone cooled.

“Remember to pay this month’s rent.”

I had braced myself before entering my rented room, but the sight still made me suck in a breath.

The free light-screen by the door was crammed with colorful payment notices.

Rent for a five-square-meter room: 3,000 credits.

If I didn’t pay, I would end up on the street.

I pictured the pits that acid rain had eaten into the pavement and sighed. My hand passed over the bracelet.

Water and electricity came to 235 credits.

The water bill could wait.

Electricity could not. Modern life required power everywhere you went.

I swiped again.

Security and property-management fees totaled 347 credits.

I ignored those and opened Xian’s tax demand instead.

The Upper City had been sealed away from the Lower City for centuries, but the divide between the Middle and Lower Cities was not quite so absolute.

According to Middle City residents, everyone in all three cities had to pay taxes every month as long as they were still breathing.

On that point, Xian enforced a harsh form of equality.

“In the Three Cities, only death and Xian’s taxes are unavoidable.”

The famous saying supposedly came from a Xian tax officer in the Middle City.

Now everyone accepted it as common truth.

Aside from a lucky few, most Lower City residents had replaced so many parts that the brain was the only original organ left.

Even if Xian wanted to strip the poor to the bone, there was little left worth taking.

That was why each Lower City resident paid only six hundred credits in monthly head tax.

I swiped without hesitation.

Paying taxes earned you no services from Xian.

Refusing to pay brought androids with particle-laser rifles crashing through your door, followed by prison, trial, and exile.

I heaved another sigh and opened the inner door.

A young blonde woman lay curled on the narrow bed.

She was Peipei, my own younger sister and the only family I had left.