The day began like it always did: with the sound of the apartment door slamming shut. I groggily opened my eyes and made the effort to roll off my bed — well, "bed" was generous it was just a beaten and stained old mattress sitting directly on the cold floor. I glanced over at the table — it confirmed what I already knew: my mother had left for work, the slamming door her not-so-subtle reminder that she considered it time for me to wake up. I grinned at the thought of her: a short, stubborn woman, leaning into the door with all her weight to make sure the slam echoed through the apartment.
I shuffled over to the table, my bare feet sticking to the grimy, cracked linoleum. On the table sat a solitary glass, filled to the brim with lukewarm water. Next to it, my breakfast was already laid out: a small plate with a soft piece of bread and a smear of cheap margarine alongside the carefully folded napkin — a clear sign of my mother's handiwork. I took a long drink, the taste of rust in my throat, and then headed to the bathroom. I looked at myself in the cracked yellowish mirror: a scrawny, dark ratty-haired teenager. I was small for my age—well if I was being honest I wasn't short—just skinny. I splashed some water on my face and pulled on the clothes I had worn yesterday before heading out. As I opened the door I grabbed the piece of bread and ate it in one bite. The greasy film it left on the roof of my mouth was a familiar sensation, as much a part of the morning routine as the slam of the door.
I stepped outside, the heavy metal door groaning shut behind me. The smell of engine oil and old metal brutally assaulted my nose. I pulled my jacket tighter around me — however it did little to alleviate the bitter morning chill.
School wasn't on today, but that didn't mean I had time off. If anything, it meant more work for today. For residents of Sector 107, days off were a fantasy, something only afforded to the elite. To be so rich that you could afford to not even work every day was truly a magnificent thing, I thought. The corporate towers of the SKYLINE DISTRICT glittered in the distance — glass spires where people with names on stock tickers slept past sunrise and sipped real coffee. I could almost see them now, lounging in padded chairs, completing a day's work without ever lifting anything heavier than a stack of papers.
Snapping out of my daydream, I shook my head and started walking. I had places to be. My "day off" was just a chance to earn a little more money doing backbreaking work as a labourer at the local scrapyard — and, of course, study. Study was the most important.
The alleys narrowed quickly, shadows clinging to the walls like oil slicks. A drone hummed low overhead, its red optic sweeping for unpaid tolls. I ducked under a sagging power line, boots crunching over shattered glass. Two kids huddled by a fire barrel, roasting something that might've been rat—or boot leather. They eyed my pockets but didn't move, clearly judging I had nothing worth stealing—and they weren't mistaken.
Don't get me wrong — I didn't pity myself. In fact, I had it pretty good. My mother worked as a bathroom cleaner for a small corporation and earned a respectable, four-figure yearly salary. It was stable work, and despite the long hours, the pay was good. Over the last ten years, she may have even been able to pay off the mortgage on our little flat — if she hadn't reinvested nearly every credit into my education. She believed education was the only way to truly succeed. The brightest students were occasionally hired as low-level execs by small corporations, and that was her dream for me. That's why she spent all her money on my education. That's why studying was so important.
The scrapyard gate loomed ahead—a warped sheet of iron hung crooked on one hinge, the faded letters SALVAGE barely legible. I slipped through without touching it; rust flaked off like dead skin.
Before I knew it, the scrapyard sprawled around me—a massive sprawl of salvage stitched together from metal and grime. Rusted hulks of sand skimmers leaned against each other like drunken giants, their paint peeling away in jagged flakes. Old machinery lay half-buried in dirt and scrap, and the air smelled sharp with oil, rot, and something vaguely acidic that made my stomach twist.
A slight buzz prickled the back of my head as my neuro chip detected something toxic—probably fatal radiation or chemicals in the air. It itched briefly as it neutralized the threat, then stopped buzzing within seconds. Lately, it had been doing this more often. It was a little worrying, but it still seemed to do its job, and replacing it wasn't a viable option.
The neuro chips were a necessity for survival. According to my history tutor, Mr. Brooks, after the great war the world was so polluted with dangerous chemicals and viruses in the air that breathing unfiltered air was fatal. That was why at birth everyone had to be implanted with a neuro chip. Luckily they weren't too hard to get your hands on, the real problem came in the vast variety in quality of chips and the dangerous surgery required to implant them. Those unable to afford the procedure — which was most people — implanted second rate chips into their children in back-shed surgeries with high mortality rates.
For the last few years, my chip had been acting up a little. While my mother worried, I was certain it wasn't a big deal. Occasionally it hurt, but it still did its job. Compared to many people I knew, I was lucky.
I picked my way deeper, weaving between teetering stacks of circuit boards and gutted drone chassis. Marta was already at it in the sorting pit, her mechanical arm whining as she crushed a hydraulic piston into scrap. She gave me a nod, sweat carving rivers through the grime on her face.
I nodded back and kept going,
According to Silas, every piece of scrap had a story. He claimed, to anyone who would listen, that some of the older pieces came from the time of the Ancients—back when the sky was blue and water fell from it. Of course, he also believed the Ancients had machines that could think like people, and that cockroaches were an advanced alien species destined to take over the world. Needless to say most people didn't put much stock in what Silas said.
Nevertheless, I liked listening to the old man's wild stories, and I was grateful he let me work at the scrapyard for a few nearly expired credit chips whenever I could.
I had known Silas for as long as I could remember; he was a wiry, balding old man whose only goal in life seemed to be digging through the junk in the scrapyard he owned.
"Boy, c'mon here," he grunted from underneath a tangled pile of wires he was wrestling with—I thought it looked like the wires were winning.
He was standing atop a precarious-looking mountain of scrap metal, his silhouette stark against the hazy sun. He squinted down at me, his face a roadmap of wrinkles and grime. "Get that engine from the sand skimmer over there." He pointed a grimy finger at a rusted, skeletal vehicle half-buried in a pile of twisted metal.
The engine was heavier than it looked. I wedged a pry bar into the mounting brackets, muscles straining as rust gave way in a cascade of flakes and sparks. My boot slipped once on a loose panel; I caught myself on a jagged fender, tearing my sleeve. Finally, with a metallic groan, it broke free—a solid block of corroded iron that thudded into the dirt like a corpse. Dragging it clear took another five minutes, my arms screaming, breath coming in ragged bursts. A cascade of smaller, rusted parts rained down around me. I flinched, shielding my head as a jagged piece of metal grazed my arm.
"Be careful with that!" Silas yelled. "These ain't just junk—they're history!"
I was pretty sure my tutor, Mr. Brooks, and old man Silas had very different ideas of "history", and probably "junk" too for that matter but nevertheless; I mumbled an apology and dragged the heavy engine block toward the designated sorting area. My arms ached, my back was a knot of tension, and a thin sheen of sweat slicked my skin despite the morning chill. This was the reality of my day off.
Silas clambered down, nimble as a scavenger rat, and joined me at the sorting area. He kicked at a stray bolt, sending it skittering. "This one's from a pre-Accord hauler," he muttered, half to himself. "Pilot fried in the cockpit when the rad-storm hit. Found the log once—said the sky turned green before it all went black." He paused, wiping his hands. "Stories in the metal, boy. Listen close."
My chip buzzed again—faint, insistent—as I wiped sweat from my eyes. I ignored it.
"Hmph." He spat on the ground and went to work on the engine. "Gimme the screwdriver, boy," he said, gesturing to a rusted toolbox. As I handed him the tool, he made a tsking sound. "The flathead, stupid boy."
I passed him the correct tool, and he started working on the engine. "So you got a big test this week, eh?" he said without looking up.
I suppressed a grin. Silas would never admit he cared, but he was practically my surrogate uncle. "Yeah. The entry exam for the executive program. The very best performers may even get picked for an internship."
Silas paused for a fraction of a second, his knuckles white around the screwdriver. "Hmph. Stupid waste of money if you ask me." He returned to his work with renewed vigor, the screwdriver screeching as it bit into the rusted metal. I wasn't fooled by his cold dismissal—he didn't want to get his hopes up any more than I did. Silas had known my mother long before I was born and had helped her however he could throughout the years; I knew he cared about her dream almost as much as she and I did.
We fell into rhythm after that—me handing tools, him prying and cursing. Marta shouted over from the pit about a jammed crusher; Silas yelled back without looking up. The sun climbed, turning the yard into a furnace. An hour blurred into two, my hands black with grease, mind drifting to formulas and case studies I'd review later.
Silas straightened abruptly, tossing the screwdriver into the box. "Y'know, boy, I think we should have a drink," he declared.
It wasn't like Silas to let me have a single second of rest while working for him, let alone share any of his precious alcohol. I glanced over at the old man, but he had already turned his back and was heading toward his little shack. Silas lived in a small hut made out of corrugated iron, hidden deep in the scrapyard. As I stepped through the sheet of metal that served as a door, I was immediately hit by a wall of smells—boiling leaves, hot metal, and the distinct scent of cheap gin.
Silas was already pouring two cloudy glasses of the liquid. He shoved one into my hand. "Sit down."
We sat at his little table. He was staring at me with his one good eye, the other a milky white orb that always seemed to be looking somewhere else entirely.
"So it's nearly time, eh?" he grunted.
"Yes," I mumbled.
"And you're gonna win?" he continued.
I stared dejectedly at the table. On an average year, the combined corporations of Landfall (the wider region where we lived) only selected about three interns. And my biggest fear was that this would be one of the years when the quotas were already full and no one was chosen. "There are a lot of others," I said quietly.
Silas took a long pull from his glass. "So what?" he spat vehemently. "You just gotta be better than 'em. Smarter." He slammed his glass down on the rickety table. "You're the smartest kid I know, boy, and you know how much this means to your mother, how much she's sacrificed," he continued. "You'll be chosen for sure, boy. Remember old man Silas when your a fancy exec in Skyline."
I nodded in agreement. Silas had never praised me like this before, but they were empty words. No matter how much we both hoped and dreamed, the odds of being selected were nigh on one in a million. Honestly probably even less.
"I will," I promised.