Markom

13: Further Instructions | Perri

Making friends was easy for Marked ones, Perri soon learned. She was a curiosity that people wanted to have around. It was quite the pivot from her own upbringing, where her Mark loomed like a curious disease. In the Towers her strangeness only fueled further gossip.

They were a pack of Marked ones, with Atlas as their all-knowing leader. She liked to tell them - order them - that she was their map, they needed her. Perri had to agree. Atlas seemed to know things before others, to hold onto knowledge like her own personal form of currency.

When they went down for breakfast in the mess hall that united all the Towers, seas of Fives seemed to part just for them.

"Is this what it's like to be cool?" Becca had gushed the first time the pair of them headed to Breakfast after placement. They fell into ranks behind their peers, the line moving at a crawl as those ahead took bowls of food back to the cafeteria tables.

"Mush, delicious," Perri mumbled predictably, her jaw dropping to the floor as she spotted the bulk servings of processed cereals, assorted fruit, rye toast, and even a giant carafe of mysterious orange liquid. She stalled for a moment as Becca pushed her forward.

"It's like you've never seen food before, go on."

Eagerly, she plated as much food as possible onto a tiny tray. One of the workers scowled at her and told Perri to return her second serving of cakes back into the serving tray. Perri obliged.

"Back home -- I mean, my grouping, all we ever had for breakfast was mush."

Becca blinked at her. "You're kidding." She filled her own plate and they found an empty table. Perri didn't wait for Becca to sit before gorging herself.

"Slow down, you're going to make yourself sick."

"You d-don't understand. I'm so h-hungry." Perri said between mouthfuls.

"It's like your grouping starved you half to death." Perri stared at the most colorful fruit she had ever seen before shoving it in her face.

"We just didn't have the funds for anything beyond government sanctions. Excess of Science reducing the supply and all that..."

Becca pursed her lips. "Weird. I remember that from my childhood actually. Empty bellies, fights with my grouping about who got the last bit of beans, and all that. But in recent years production has gone way up." Perri reached the end of her meal before Becca had gotten started, the brunette sat uncomfortably as she realized her mistake in eating so much new food so quickly. "At least that's what Papaa said. He used to work the fields. It was slow for a while but it's picked up."

Perri nodded, she dotted her lip with a cloth napkin. Her chest faltered as she spotted Atlas carrying her own tray lazily.

"What's up losers." She said, dropping the tray on the table and taking the seat across Perri. Becca looked up at her disdainfully. "You've got to be kidding, if that counts as a question I'll be dead before Tuesday." Perri smiled. She couldn't help but like Atlas. She was everything Perri wished she could be: cunning, smart, daring.

"I hope you slept well," Perri said kindly. She hadn't seen her since the bus, but that didn't mean she hadn't thought of her.

"Could have been better," Atlas said with a wink. "All these plebes with their snoring, I'm counting down the seconds until I get my own room."

Becca cleared her throat. "You'll never get your own room. Figures you don't pay attention to anything. You'll be paired as soon as the algorithm gathers enough data on you. Science knows if your intended snores."

Atlas rolled her eyes. "You'd think that as Fives we could have just one advantage. But no, Markom, gets to make all my major decisions because I'm not capable of picking a pot to piss."