Free Numbers Game by Rebecca Rode Page B

fingerprints, and much too thin to provide its owners any sense of security. Everything was the same gray color. I felt an overwhelming urge to find a rag and start scrubbing like a crazy person.
    Instead, I tapped on the door, trying to look hunched over and miserable. There was no answer. A mixture of disappointment and relief flooded through my body as I moved on to the next door. No answer. If nobody opened up for me, would I fail the initiation? Or would I just have to do this again another day?
    At the sixth door, an eye almost completely covered with mousy gray hair appeared at waist level. “What?” a tiny voice whispered. A child.
    “Uh, I—just wanted to know if you have any extra nutrition pills? I’m really hungry.”
    The door opened a little wider, and I could see two eyes now. “You talk funny. Like the soldiers.” She—I assumed it was a girl—glanced at my forehead. “’Cept soldiers don’t have the red numbers. Just the green ones. Lemme ask my papa.”
    The sharp crack of the door slamming made me jump.
    “Treena,” Vance’s voice said over the feed. “You in?”
    “Not yet,” I whispered. “Give me a minute.”
    “Let me know the second you get inside.”
    “I will, I will.”
    “Lady,” the kid said through the door. She messed with the knob, and the door swung wide open. The girl couldn’t be more than six years old. “My papa still gots the sickness, you know? But he says you can have one of his pills. They taste gross anyway.” She held the tiny gray pill up for me to see. The material inside was coarse and cheaply made, like the ones Tali used.
    Part of me wanted to take it and run away. If this kid was a smuggler, I didn’t want to know. I accepted it, rolling it over in my palm. The outside was a little slimy from her hand, but she beamed up at me with a brilliant smile.
    “Thanks, cutie.” I forced a smile and started to turn away.
    “Wait,” she said. She leaned forward and whispered, “I have a potato. It smells bad, and it has the white pokey things, but you can have it. I’ll go get it for you.”
    The word no got caught in my throat as she dashed off again. A potato. We’d done a unit on illegal substances in school, and I knew it was some kind of root-based food. Smugglers grew a lot of them because they were easier to hide from scouting planes.
    Food. This girl and her father were smugglers. Or customers, at least. A sick feeling anchored me to the spot, and I felt numb. Could I destroy a family? Could I achieve my goal at the expense of a six-year-old kid? Did I have it in me to send an innocent child to the work camps so I could have my Rating changed? Was it right to take my happiness from someone else?
    I suddenly felt nauseated, and I swallowed hard. Of course it was right. I hadn’t written the law—I was just enforcing it. It wasn’t like she’d be harmed, exactly. Just sent elsewhere. Surely the work camps weren’t much worse than living in the Red District.
    The girl returned, hands cupped around something small and brown. Her face radiated excitement. “I like it because the white pokeys look sharp, but they’re not. See? It doesn’t even hurt.”
    “You can’t give this to me.”
    “Yes, I can. Papa said I could use it how I wanted, so you can have it.” She thrust it into my hand and pulled away.
    Smugglers were supposed to be evil-looking Integrants, violent and greedy men with scars and tattoos. Not little girls. I slipped the potato into my pocket. “Thank you. You’d better get back to your dad now.”
    Footsteps echoed up the stairs behind me, and I turned in surprise. Neb, Ross, Daymond, and Semias appeared out of the dim light and headed toward us. My heart sank into my toes.
    “Vance said you needed backup,” Daymond said.
    “Your first door, huh?” Neb said. “Not bad.”
    Before I could speak, they leaped past me and through the doorway.
    “Look out! There’s a—”
    It was too late. The shock on the girl’s face