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apartment’s acid-proof walls is a blessing, even if it means being confined with Mica’s temper tantrums. As if life with a thirteen-year-old isn’t hard enough. At least it’s given us some respite from all the unwanted attention.
    “Seriously?”
    It’s three days into the storm. Mica looks down at the dinner plate I’ve placed on the table in front of him, his sand-colored hair falling into his face. “Three thousand credits in the bank and you’re still making me eat slop?” He prods at the glutinous brown lump in the middle of his dish, causing it to jiggle.
    “We’re done arguing about this. We have three days’ worth of food leftover from the last Rationing, so we will be eating Rations for the next three days. We can talk about what to do next after that. Suck it up, bro.” I grin at him, trying to alleviate the tension. “It was between slop and glug, so you should really be thanking me.” I eye the cans of D-T04U peeking out of the pantry and shudder. If I’d gotten to last month’s Rationing on time, I could’ve stocked up on some better stuff. Unfortunately, I had spent most of my morning retrieving a bent steel pole that was caught in the branches of a tree out in the Dead Woods, and it was slim pickings by the time I did arrive. D-B334, D-T04U, and food pills were the only things left. As it is, the slop vibrating on our plates is by far the lesser of two evils.
    Mica stares at me, his brown eyes squinting in scrutiny. People still tell us that we wouldn’t even look related if it weren’t for our perfectly matching eyes. Where his hair is a light, sandy color, mine is so dark brown that it’s almost black. Though my skin is tan and freckled from years of scavenging, he is still spotlessly pale. And where Mica inherited our mother’s flat Exodusian nose, I was the lucky recipient of our father’s: thin with a high bridge and rounded tip. But our eyes.
    Color-wise, everyone in Sixteen ends up with pretty much the same muddy brown. Even if they aren’t born brown-eyed, they end up that way as their eyes adjust to the atmosphere down here. It’s one of the many reasons skydwellers hate being assigned to jobs on the groundworld—eventually, their precious baby blues get affected, too. But even though all terrestrials share a similar eye color, people still point out that there’s just something different about Mica’s and mine. Almond-shaped, long-lashed, with the subtlest flecks of gold echoing out from the middle. Like little starbursts, Gran used to say.
    I roll my own eyes back at Mica and take a moment to listen to the rain hiss as it hits the solar panels on the roof, still audible over the low murmurs of the television in the next room. A new special is airing tonight, something about some skycity technology that the Tribunal is eager to unveil. I think Prime Morrigan Whitlock is making the announcement herself. I couldn’t care less about what goes on up there—it never affects us in any significant way—but Mica always insists on watching.
    “Besides,” I continue lightly, “I’m still not convinced that this is legit. Maybe that dinky little computer messed up, and our account will be empty again before we know it. What would be the point in getting accustomed to nice things if they just get repo’d in a week, hmm?”
    Mica is not convinced. He pierces a slice of slop with his fork and quickly shovels it into his mouth before it can slide off.
    “If it was just some computer error they would have told us by now,” he says, his words garbled by his full mouth. He swallows before continuing. “I mean, wouldn’t they want to keep that kind of steel for themselves if they could?”
    “Oh, just shut up and eat,” I say, exasperated.
    A few moments of tense silence pass.
    “It’s not like we don’t have enough to spare. You’re being selfish.” Mica’s eyes are dark as he glares across the table.
    “ I’m being selfish? How is it selfish to want to be smart