Breathing In

Chapter 2

Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "For truly we are all angels temporarily hiding as humans."- Brian L. Weiss -An eight year old girl sits on a thick pipe in a water treatment facility, talking with her friend while water drips onto her head. Her name is Jane Phillips, but she hates her name.

It's because it was the name the traffickers gave her. She used to be a rat down south with her brother, Dixie, but she was rescued. Her new father tells her that most people who buy from Oscar Palermo 'want to do bad things to kids,' but these people just wanted to take her to Wisconsin. They said they were a charity, that they saved kids like her from getting abused and made sure they were adopted by loving families, but everyone was adopted in Wisconsin.

And Roy tells her that's because there weren't enough grown-ups wanting to work at the factory anymore. Her parents say the Grey Times was when everyone got sad, right before the Collapse when people realized they were losing their money and their houses and their lives. Lots of grown-ups got so sad, they didn't even wait to lose their lives. They took them themselves. Oasis didn't have enough grown ups to work the pipes anymore, so they bought kids. They bought Jane. Standing out like a sore thumb from her black haired, tan skinned adopted family, she has long red hair, jade green eyes and freckles that dot her face. A constant difference.

Oasis Incorporated may be the only functional institution still left over from before the Collapse. Jane's father always says that after all the gasoline ran out and the money ran out, the one thing people still needed was water... they'll always need water. That's what the Factory is counting on. They pull water up from the Great Lakes in pipes, then go through all manner of processes Jane doesn't understand to make it clean enough for shipping, and then they sell it.

"But if you owned a horse, where would you put it?" Roy reasons. "Horses don't swim; it wouldn't stay here."

"That doesn't matter 'cause I would own it," she tells him. "I could put it wherever."

He looks at her doubtfully. "Come on," he says. "We gotta work."

The two of them hop off their pipes and sludge through the inch deep water to wherever their station is today, Jane skipping and splashing her friend as they go.

People say it's impossible to walk, above ground, from one end of the facility to another without getting wet; Jane agrees, but it's better than the mosquitos. Roy's blonde hair sticks to his head and drips water onto his pointy little face with his big ears, which are most likely full of water as well. He's always reminded Jane of a little elf, Roy; small framed, small featured, but big eared. She grins.

"Are you gonna leave this place when you're older?" she asks him.

"Maybe. It depends if I can find another place to go."

"I'm leaving," she says decidedly, without any hesitation. "I don't belong here. You should come with me."

Roy raises an eyebrow at her. "We can only leave when we're eighteen," he reminds her. "And it's better that way. It's hard here, but it's harder for orphans outside the Factory. Besides, you have your family here."

Jane shrugs and looks down at her feet sadly, watching the water ripple by her shoes. "Not my real family," she mutters.

"Hey now don't say that, Small Fry," a disapproving voice admonishes. "Family is a relative term, remember?"

Jane grins and looks up to see her sixteen year old older brother, Xavier leaning against a post with his arms crossed, black hair dripping water down to the floor to join the puddle. "So is real," she chirps.. There's something wrong though, with her brother's expression. He seems upset... and Xavier is never upset. It unsettles her.