The Girl With Green Scales: A Gen M Novel

Chapter 1: Playing to win

Today is my first Testing Day, or what Amma, my mother, calls "an opportunity." That starts with making the right impression. I smooth the silky fabric of my rose dress; it's a needless gesture as it perfectly fits my thirteen-year-old form, but I've never gotten to wear anything like this, and I love the way it feels. Amma's on her knees, fussing with the hem. She's subtly padded my chest, giving me hints of cleavage, which I playfully accentuate by rolling my shoulders. I straighten the moment she looks up but continue to stare into the gilded mirror in the salon of our state-assigned townhouse, taking in my reflection.

The mirror's a rare remnant of what Amma calls "the before days;" before the war, before the Armistice, before her "first grey hair." Some mothers might say the last of these with a smile to lighten the mood or create a mother-daughter moment. I know better. She sacrifices too many credits for the dyes that keep her mane as black as mine—when such products are available—for it to be a laughing matter.

Amma stands behind me. She wears a floral dress made from a thick, synthetic linen. The cut is crisp and form-fitting, with a matching dropped-waist dress jacket. Beneath the left collar is an emblem in a circular patch; it's a compass, representing the four directional points of a stable populace—duty, earned reward, social standing, and, True North, society before the individual. It's the symbol of the socialista, ever ready to keep the communal organism on the right path.

Amma's thin lips pucker. She's judging me. The essential oil behind each of her ears fills the room with the smell of jasmine.

"Turn," Amma says.

I do. The dress makes me feel like a gong-ju, a princess, from a storybook. I pretend our townhouse is an imperial palace of myth. The socializing room has a few touches that lend themselves to the fantasy, including a statue by the sliding door of a warrior in armor and a painting of colorful butterflies with swathes of gold that match the flecks in my brown eyes. I curl my nylon-covered toes into a plush rug. Everything else in the salon—from the polished "wooden" paneling and columns to the built-in shelves with faux books are created out of the malleable resin produced by the recyclage plant at the factory.

Amma often instructs me to be grateful for these luxuries, reminding me that in the tenements, entire families share bare, one-room flats—as if I have time to think of them or their plight. Amma's painted my face with lipstick, eyeliner, and blush—another first.

"I'm beautiful," I murmur.

My self-praise is met with silence. Her hard eyes spear my soap-bubble reverie. My smile grows brittle; I've flubbed one of my socialista lessons.

"Never display arrogance, narcissism, or vanity," Amma says. "Superiority speaks for itself."

She points at a neat bundle of paper strips on a beverage table with five different board games in-progress. Together, they are the cornerstone of Amma's tutelage. I ignore the games, even though its my move, and dutifully pick one of the crisp sheets, and write on it, Never display arrogance, narcissism, or vanity. I drop it inside a porcelain urn with a blue, nine-tailed fox on it. Amma calls it the wisdom jar. There are hundreds of these sayings written on pieces of folded paper inside. I pick up the urn, toss the papers around inside, then follow the usual drill. I reach in, scrounge amidst the strips, and pull one free.

"Always play the long game," I read out loud. It's written in faded crayon in a childish print with a few backward letters and misspellings. I've been transcribing, and reading aloud these bits of socialista mantras since the day I began learning my ABCs and 123s.

Mostly, I have enjoyed pulling from the jar. It's an act that earns me rare and subtle nods of approval as I parrot Amma's sayings back to her. This morning, my jaw clenches, refusing to apologize for my "vanity" to the most looks-conscious person I know.