Free Unmade by Amy Rose Capetta

said.
    Cade raised her eyebrows—and the bottle.
    Ayumi happy-sighed and hugged it like a lost cousin. She lofted it high. “To the fleet.”
    Cade went still, waiting for Lee to insist on a different toast. Instead, a smile tugged at Lee’s cheeks and snuck into her eyes, without ever forming on her lips.
    Ayumi pulled the drink down in remarkable gulps. “This­isfantasticwheredidyougetit?” she asked. Less than a minute later the green was gone, and it had turned Ayumi into a warm blanket of a girl. “Fantastic,” she said, and hugged Lee so hard, for so long, that it looked like dancing. “We need music!”
    â€œYes yes yes.” Lee turned to Cade. “Music.”
    Cade rushed to get Moon-White. She could almost feel the curve of the guitar against her body.
    â€œNo!” Ayumi’s eyes stopped Cade, then stretched serious-wide. “I have something to show you.”
    Â 
    Ayumi led them into her shuttle and sacked the hold for ten minutes. At least, Cade thought it was ten minutes. She couldn’t feel time anymore. Dregs—she couldn’t feel her own face anymore.
    â€œHere it is!” Ayumi shouted. Cade and Lee leaned over her cupped hands.
    â€œWhat in the name of all things shiny is that?” Lee asked.
    Ayumi offered up a fat metal rectangle, stubbed at the corners, with a small glass inset window. Another rectangle, this one of clear plastic, was fitted inside, and housed a thin spool of film strung between two toothy circles.
    â€œOne of my artifacts,” Ayumi said. “Electrical, so I can’t bring it onboard. But I’ve been waiting for a reason to share it.” Her finger sought one of the buttons along the top.
    â€œListen.”
    She held up a foam-coated pair of headphones and stretched the old metal so Cade and Lee could each use one. The arc of the headphones drew them in, and they huddled close.
    A song crackled into Cade’s left ear. Well, it fit the basic definition of the word
song,
although it stretched that definition as far as it could without cracking the concept. All she heard was a simple bouncing bass line, the scratch-and-shine of primitive percussion, and a man’s voice, moving over simple lyrics. On the chorus, men’s voices doubled and tripled.
    Singing about dancing.
    About dancing and moonlight and warm and bright.
    Terrible
—but also fantastic.
    â€œThank you!” Cade shouted, and it felt good to shout. She could feel her throat when she pushed the words. And the more she felt, the better everything felt.
    Oh, dregs. She really
was
fuzzed.
    â€œThank you for what?” Ayumi asked.
    Cade knew, but she couldn’t say. The green had locked away her words and set her feelings loose.
    Ayumi took the headphones and set them down, pushing the volume all the way up. The music came out small, like a few streams of light on a dark, dark night. Just enough to dance by.
    Cade and Lee and Ayumi claimed a small patch at the center of the hold, which only a few days ago had been stuffed with the survivors from Res. Ayumi balled her hands and shook them in the general vicinity of her shoulders. Lee shuffle-jumped through the chorus. Cade dropped back and kept it simple. But the more she moved her hips, the more she felt the lack of certain other hips.
    She ran back toward Renna.
    â€œHey!” she cried. “Wait here.” But Lee and Ayumi didn’t look like there was one place in the universe where they would rather be.
    Â 
    The green was against Cade now. It had wiped the clearness from her head, and crashed her mission to change Lee’s mind. Now it worked in partnership with gravity, making it hard to stand up. But that couldn’t keep her from her course. She threw open the door to Rennik’s room.
    â€œYou!”
    He looked up from his desk, his fingers light on the barrel of a pen.
    â€œCadence?”
    Looking at Rennik steadied her. She didn’t need