HN201

16:41. Nineteen minutes until the end of the work day. Thank Gaia.

HN201 stared out the store's lone aluminum-plated corner window, watching the sun rays reflect off the line of magnets embedded in the center of the street. At this time of day, the reddish light transformed the magnets into fiery squares, creating red-hot paths through the city.

One of the first lessons HN201 had learned as a child was to stay clear of the magno-trails during afternoon hours — the heated magnets had once made short work of his thin, standard-issue moccasins. He remembered cursing the goddess Gaia all those years ago as the child-sized flexi-plastic moccasins melted onto the street, singeing the soles of his feet as they burned. He had ripped off the smoking shoes with his right hand and run to the group home he shared with twelve other Underlings. The berating he received from his caretaker that day was nothing compared to the year-and-a-half he spent barefoot, before finally receiving a new pair of shoes on Garment Dispersal Day.

HN201 shook his head clear of the memory. He stepped behind the sleek metal counter and began emptying the cash register, feeding the dull grey notes into the whirring machine that would record the day's income and report the data to the shop owner. He couldn't help but think of how he might pay eight months' worth of rent with the notes he held, but the thought of tucking the slips of dura-paper up his sleeve and fleeing the shop never crossed HN201's mind. He'd be caught long before reaching the edge of the Dome that separated his sector from the next, and the sentence was always the same.

Underling Order #005: the penalty for stealing upward of 20 notes shall hereby be 25 years hard labor outside the SolarDomes.

HN201 did not have much to thank Gaia for, but he knew he was blessed to live within the Domes. The dura-glass SolarDome that encircled his sector served not only to protect the inhabitants from the worst of the sun's rays, but it dramatically increased life expectancy as well. Outside the Domes, centuries worth of toxins would attach themselves to HN201's lungs with every breath, setting the survival clock back seven decades. The penalty for stealing was almost always a death sentence.

HN201 glanced out the window to where the apex of his Dome glowed blood-orange with the sun, and thanked Gaia for the small mercy that was his location.

Thought of the barren, pollutant-ridden world outside the Domes had slowed the passing of notes through HN201's hands. He resumed working, knowing that the small black camera above the window was always watching, each blink of its beady red eye a reminder. Underlings work. Blink. Underlings serve. Blink. Underlings are — and always will be — unnatural. Blink.

HN201 sometimes imagined that the lawmakers of New Earth were crouched inside the camera's eye, signing their Underling Orders into law and periodically looking down on him in disgust.

The curt beep of the motion sensor at the door dispelled HN201's bitter thoughts. He looked up as two high-society women glided in, gazing at the various pieces of jewelry on display. It was 16:49, a mere eleven minutes before the workday ended, yet HN201 would be required to stay late if the women lingered. He gritted his teeth and stepped out from behind the counter.

"Would you like me to bring that out for you?" he asked the shorter of the two women, gesturing toward an elegant necklace with a delicate blue stone at its center. The woman ignored him for a full ten seconds before deigning to look up. She pushed back her fashionably cropped waves and gave him a curt once-over. Her gaze lingered on his right arm, and she sneered.

"Yes." She turned to her friend to comment on the shop's lack of imported pieces in a lyrical voice that was at odds with her snooty manner. Despite her discourtesy, HN201 couldn't help but admire the woman's smooth, sun-browned limbs. When he handed her the necklace, she took it by the pendant, the piece farthest from HN201's hand.

"Oceana, come look at this," she beckoned, holding the pendant to the hollow at her neck. The necklace beautifully complemented the woman's daffodil-colored dress. HN201 had seen a picture of a daffodil on a digi-poster once. The advertisement had boasted one company's expensive patent on the growth and sale of daffodils.

"Oh, it's gorgeous!" Oceana exclaimed. "A natural piece if I've ever seen one. You can wear it to the Old Earth gala this weekend."

"Baudelia's up on D1 street had a similar piece," the woman said, unclasping the necklace and dropping it into HN201's hand. She motioned to her friend, and they exited the shop, boarding their hover in arrogant unison.

HN201 put the necklace back in its case, his hand passing through a ray of sunlight. The light glinted off the metal of his right arm, momentarily blinding him. He turned the metal arm over, tracing the natural fingers of his left hand over the embedded letters in the metal.

H-N-2-0-1.

The metal felt warm to the touch. HN201 could just make out the multicolored wires running through the prosthetic limb at the joints — one wire the color of Old Earth sky, another the green of Old Earth life.

He intertwined the fingers of both hands.

The flesh and the metal, the titanium and the skin. The stark difference that marked him an Underling. Unnatural. Part of HN201 was made of the same material as New Earth, the shiny dust-and-metal world that was built on the bones of Gaia, the ancient goddess Earth.

HN201 glanced up in time to see the women's silver hover speed away, the blazing magno-trail humming as it propelled the craft along.

Please leave your designated work stations and make your way to the housing quarter. The workday is now complete.