Juno Vex's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

The inspector was three bunks away when Juno Vex heard the scanner click. She sat very still on the edge of her cot, feet not quite touching the floor, the cracked solar panel on her back pressing cold against the wall. Under the mattress, wrapped in foil, her notes waited: 14:32, forty degrees southwest, the moment her shadow stayed put while she moved left. She had two problems now. The inspector, and the other child she had not yet found — the only person in the colony whose shadow might also refuse to follow. The inspector wore a gray coat and carried a light rig on a strap. He pointed a lamp at each student and watched the wall. The rule was simple. Move. Shadow moves. Pass. A girl two bunks down raised her arm and waved. Her shadow waved back. The inspector grunted and moved on. Juno pressed her palms into her knees. The dorm windows faced the wrong way for her to fail cleanly. If he shone the lamp from the door, her shadow would freeze. She would be logged. Taken. She did not know where. That was the part that scared her most. A scuff at the far end of the room. Her cousin Fenn Hollis leaned in the doorway in his old flight jacket, a Copperstripe Armadillo curled on his shoulder. He was not supposed to be in the school. He grinned at the inspector like they were old friends. "Left my broom in here yesterday," Fenn said. He held up a sleek broom with a lit panel on the handle. "Cleaning contract. You want to see the paperwork, or you want to finish your rounds before the west light goes flat?" The inspector frowned. "West light?" "Forty minutes," Fenn said. He tapped the broom's panel. It chirped. "Angle drops. Shadows go long and soft. Your rig won't read clean. I'd hurry." The inspector checked his watch. He looked at the four bunks left, including Juno's. He waved the lamp at the boy across from her, saw the shadow twitch, and moved to the door. "Finish tomorrow," he muttered, and left. Juno breathed out. Fenn crossed to her bunk and set the broom against the frame. The armadillo blinked at her with one calm eye. "You knew," Juno whispered. "I know a lot of things, cousin." He crouched so their eyes met. "Get your notes. Whatever's under that mattress. You can't stay here." "There's another kid," she said. "Like me. I haven't found them." Fenn's grin thinned. "Then we look together. But not from this bunk. He'll be back with a stronger lamp." Juno pulled the foil packet from the hollow under her mattress and pushed it into her pocket. She stood. The solar panel on her back scraped the wall. She did not look at her shadow. She followed Fenn out the dorm door, into a colony that had just started hunting her.