Chapter 1: First Meeting

Times are different; everything's gotten more lenient these days. They no longer toss first degree felons into the radiation zone. The newest destination for Exiles is within the Protected Area; those wastes of food and water are now allowed to appear at the side of ordinary citizens.

The sky is fully dark by the time No. 329 wakes up. Slowly, he levers himself off the ground. His hand makes contact with something sticky. He wonders if it’s the corpse of some animal; it takes him a moment to discover that it’s a used condom. He throws that crap aside, steadies himself against the wall, and gathers his clothes and pants. His jacket’s missing two buttons, no way to close it around himself. No streetlights in this alley. 329 squints and searches for a long time, to no avail. He gives up.

His forehead stings and itches; the skin of his face feels tight. He wipes at it with the back of his hand, but sees little improvement—he’s been lying here for at least half an hour, and all the fluids have dried. His fingers are even dirtier than his face. There’s mud under his nails, and dried blood on his fingertips. All the fault of the rough surface of the alley, and the way he cut his nails too short. But if he kept his nails longer, he’d vastly increase the risk of breaking them. Last month, he’d accidentally sprung off half a fingernail. That had hurt like hell.

No. 329 limps out of the alley. The passersby outside glance at him, then quickly turn their gazes elsewhere. The collar around his neck winks its little lights even at night. So long as he wears it, no one would kick up a fuss about his face or anything else.

The second year after the new Exile Laws were announced, the serial numbers are already up to five hundred something. In fact, they’d reached the three hundreds last year, as you can see by this man’s serial number. No one’s born with this kind of dumbass number for a moniker—he has a name, but that’s not important, so let’s just call him 329. 329 is a first degree felon, an Exile, a thirty-something male omega. He’s basically healthy, nothing wrong with his leg—he’s just having some temporary difficulty walking.

329 drags his legs, hauls his still-dizzy head, sluggishly back toward his rented room. He walks so slowly, and has been so short on sleep of late, that he nearly drops off while still on the road. Only the thought of returning home and taking a shower keeps him from curling up on the spot.

The alley is half a block from his pad. 329 makes it back, and is reaching for his keys when he notices that the door is unlocked.

The home address of every Exile is registered in a government database, quickly searchable via any private wristcom. Citizens, considering even that insufficiently public, insist on using more primitive methods to single them out, like painting things on the doors of the criminals. Only people who don’t give a crap about their property would rent to an Exile; the place is certain to be in the most wretched condition, unable to be made worse by a few dead rats or buckets of paint, or a lock that needs replacing every month. 329 grips his key, staring at the lock on the door, astonished that it’s undamaged. This time, it hasn’t been smashed open. It’s been picked.

He opens the door, gropes for the light switch, and takes in the entire place at a glance. Nothing’s been taken from his rented room. On the contrary, something’s been added.

A pair of shoes, obviously expensive even at a glance, lies neatly beside the folding bed. A well-dressed girl, fully-clothed, lies sleeping on his bed. She looks like a purebred cat wandered in from somewhere, innocently curled up on 329’s narrow bed. 329 closes his eyes. The girl is still there when he reopens them, her hair neatly braided, a childish air to her small face.

More than anything, she looks like the lead role of some childhood fairytale, wandered onto the wrong set. But first of all, this is the kind of slum where even the toughest guys dread to spend the night. Second of all, she doesn’t smell like a child, but an alpha.

Pain pounds through 329’s head. He stands there for a minute, gripping the door handle, then decides to take a bath.

His apartment only provides a few hours of hot water a day; due to the delay on the road, 329’s already missed them. In another few months, taking a cold shower is going to get uncomfortable, but with the weather right now it'll be fine. He can take a dousing of cold water, no problem. He turns the faucet; the water sprinkles down weakly from the showerhead. It starts out reddish-brown, only gradually growing clear.

The streams of water are as limp as overcooked spaghetti, but they sting when they hit his injuries anyway. Clotted blood dissolves at his feet, clouding the water once more, the same color as the rusty water that’s spent too long in the pipes.

He spends half an hour cleaning himself up. The cold water numbs his areas of swelling, but the cold chases off his drowsiness as well as the pain. 329 dries his hair as he exits the bathroom, no longer as tired as before, once again able to think like an adult. With his powers of reason back in place, he’s forced to confront reality, instead of plugging his eyes and ears and pitching onto his bed in blissful apathy.

He’s got trouble in his bed.

He looks down at his bed. His uninvited guest probably presented not long ago, he thinks. She smells like green grass; he doesn’t know if it’s her natural scent or her shower gel. This alpha smells like an herbivore. Up close, she’s beautiful like a porcelain doll, beautiful enough to make 329 uneasy. In these days, beauty and intelligence don’t have to be bestowed by nature. Perfect genes, like everything else, are labeled with price tags and put up for sale among the upper classes, limited edition merchandise for the nobility.

“Hey, wake up!” says 329.

He doesn’t dare reach out a hand to shake her; touching this kind of strange visitor without permission seems like a terrible idea. He can only try to wake her from a distance of two paces, hoping she doesn’t have any overly inconvenient purpose in mind.

Sleeping Beauty rouses.

She gazes at 329, blinking sleepily. And then her eyes suddenly widen, the drowsiness gone without a trace like morning mist. She rolls off the bed, too quickly, banging against the wardrobe next to it. She sucks in a pained breath, but her eyes are watching 329 the entire time, not willing to part from him an inch. This alpha has emerald-green eyes. She stares at 329 so intently that goosebumps rise on his back.

Automatically, he touches his face. He just showered; there’s nothing on his face. 329 almost suspects she recognizes him from somewhere, but dismisses the thought a moment later. The look in the girl’s eyes is far too fervent. It’s not the look of someone seeing a familiar face. It’s the look a child gets, opening up a Christmas gift and seeing the long-awaited new toy.

“Hello,” the girl says hurriedly. “My name is Yasha. I’m delighted to meet you! I—I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but you returned home later than I expected—ah, I don’t mean to criticize you! I really am terribly sorry for falling asleep. Such a breach of manners, and on our first meeting! I’ve given you cause for laughter—”

She goes on and on in one breath, her face crimson, her smile timid, as if sincerely apologizing for falling asleep—and not for picking 329’s lock. She extends a hand toward 329. He stares for a moment, and only then realizes she’s not demanding anything. She wants to shake his hand.

Puzzled, 329 extends a hand. Yasha grips it, wags it up and down, then lets go crisply. A proper, formal handshake, not a trap or an attempt to ingratiate. 329 doesn’t remember the last time someone’s shaken his hand. The girl’s hand is warm and soft, no calluses, roughness, or cracks. Of course. She’s not from around here. If the door slammed open right then, and a heavily-armed squad charged in shouting at 329, he wouldn’t feel terribly surprised.

Silence has fallen outside. It’s getting late.

Yasha’s still speaking, courteously but endlessly, as if overly excited or nervous, her eyes shining. If it were some other time, 329 might be happy to listen to her, but he hasn’t slept much the past few days. He’s tired and sleepy, and all he wants was a quiet bed.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” he interrupts her, “do you have business with me?”

Yasha stops. Her receding blush climbs up her cheeks once more. She looks like she wants the ground to swallow her up. “I’m sorry, I got too worked up!” she says, bobbing her head in apology. “I’ve wasted your time with all my babbling, really…” She sighs. “It’s like this. If I may inquire, would you mind engaging in sexual relations with me?”

“… What? ” says 329, wondering if he heard wrong.

“Would you mind engaging in sexual relations with me?” repeats the young alpha, smiling bashfully, enunciating crisply.