Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(2)
AL-MASIH: And you, Mr. Johanssen?
JOHANSSEN: Sarah and I were aboard different ships, of course, but I would say my experience was similar. There is a certain . . . wonder to being on board a living ship that is so hard to describe. It makes you feel both very privileged and also very insignificant at the same time.
WASHINGTON: And your favorite things?
JOHANSSEN: Setting foot on another world. I know, we can do that on Mars, and colonization of Io isn’t far off now, but the feeling of being quite alone on an alien world is overwhelming. It makes our own differences here on Earth seem very petty.
SIMMS: Absolutely. I suppose also the idea that the Leviathan sing to each other . . . that was truly something that captivated me too. We have a love of music in common.
WASHINGTON: I know this might be a touchy question, but it’s something so many people have messaged in that I have to ask: neither of you continued after your Honors year, going on the Journey farther out into the universe. Can I ask why?
SIMMS: For me, I knew from the beginning I would not go on the Journey. It was a family decision. I couldn’t leave my parents and my brothers and sisters behind, not for a lifetime. It was just too much to ask. [laughs] It was quite an honor to be chosen for the year, and quite enough for me.
WASHINGTON: And were you asked to continue?
JOHANSSEN: I would rather not answer this question. It was a very personal decision.
SIMMS: I was not, but I was happy with not being asked.
WASHINGTON: Sarah, can you explain why?
SIMMS: No, not really.
WASHINGTON: But I think our viewers really want to know—
JOHANSSEN: This isn’t what we came to discuss. Let’s go on to what happens once the selected names are received at the Selection Committee HQ. Of course, the Elder Leviathan choose the names from the database we send them once a year, but once the names arrive, the prior-year Honors are dispatched to do the formal notification—
WASHINGTON: I’d really like to return to this question of the Journey, about which we still, a hundred years in, know so little. Can either of you shed any light at all on—
AL-MASIH: [interrupting] Unfortunately, we’re just flat out of time for these fascinating questions, Kephana! Thanks to the biotech supplied by these amazing living ships, humans have not only survived a global crisis that threatened to destroy us, but we now have clean energy, safe food and water, and incredible advancements in medical care. We continue to be grateful to them, and excited about the annual Honors selection process.
WASHINGTON: Across the board technological gains have led to the booming space program and the shining beacon of hope that is Mars colony. And speaking of Mars colony, let’s get the latest gossip on what’s hot in the dome! [offline] What was that? You cut me off!
AL-MASIH: [offline] What did you think you were doing, Keph? You can’t go off script like that! Look, Ms. Simms, Mr. Johanssen, I’m sorry on behalf of my colleague—
WASHINGTON: [offline] Don’t apologize for me, you jerk. I was asking what everyone wants to know!
SIMMS: [offline] All right. You want something off the record? I wouldn’t go on the Journey even if I had been asked. And you wouldn’t either.
WASHINGTON: Why—
[recording ends]
CHAPTER ONE
Breaking Point
New Detroit
The Lower Eight
MY MARK MOVED with an expensive, high-heeled strut, the kind that said she’d grown up fed with a silver spoon. That tracked with the haircut and outfit that tried to look edgy but just looked money instead. Not much older than I was—eighteen, max. I’d been trailing her for blocks, but she’d never once looked around for trouble.
Dumbass.
This one, she belonged in Paradise on the other side of the invisible wall, where the suckers thrived—full of brand-name merch and clean, wide streets. Full of polite good mornings and how are yous.
But she was in the Zone, my Zone: gritty, dirty, the shops full of knockoffs and people Paradise didn’t fit. Like me.
My mark swaggered down the cracked sidewalk and clearly expected others to make way and . . . they did. An old lady hobbling on a walking stick flinched to avoid a shoulder check, and my target didn’t even break stride. The street, she felt, was hers. With a designer bag dangling, she looked like the tastiest score I’d seen in months. She deserved this. Plus, she had to be up to no good, slumming in my neighborhood: the Lower Eight, the only blight still remaining on the ripe peach of New Detroit. We could see the graceful old lines of downtown, preserved and refined, from where I stood. That didn’t mean we were part of it.
Moneygirl seemed to be aiming for a dive a block down. I moved faster, got closer, and before she could dodge inside, I flicked the knife open that I’d been holding ready in my hand. I quickly reached out and sliced the strap on her purse. Hardly a hiss of resistance, and no security cable in it at all. The prize fell into my hands like a ripe fruit, and I kicked off the broken sidewalk to a run.
I raced around the corner and pushed against the side of the building.
“Thief! You’re dead when they catch you!” Good luck with that. Enforcement drones were hard to come by in the Zone because people were always trapping and scrapping. She’d have even less luck finding a human patrol officer. Her shrill cries faded as I bounded over a fence and cut through an alley, high on success.