A Shard Collector

The drawer was stuck again. Not just a little bit, but frozen solid. I pulled with both hands, my worn mittens slipping on the cold metal knob. My stomach growled, a hollow ache that the cold made sharp as a knife. Jay would have fixed it. He would have thumped the side of the bunk frame just right, and the drawer would have groaned open. But Jay was gone.

For three weeks, the top bunk had been empty. The blanket was still rumpled the way he left it, and sometimes, when the wind wasn't howling through the cracks in the wall-plasteel, I thought I could still smell the smoky, metallic scent of him. He was a fixer, a builder. He could make anything out of scraps. I was just… Lonnie.

I braced my boots against the bunk’s leg and gave one last, desperate yank. There was a crack, not of wood, but of ice. The drawer slid open a few inches, screeching. There was nothing inside. Nothing but the last of the ration wrappers, a bent nail Jay said he was saving, and dust bunnies that looked like tiny gray ghosts. My shoulders slumped. The hunger was a real thing now, a clawing animal inside me. I was about to slam the drawer shut, maybe try to break it for good, when I saw it.

Tucked deep in the back corner, almost hidden in the shadow, was a sliver of ice. It wasn't a random shard that had fallen from the ceiling. It was smooth, shaped. I reached in, my fingers numb, and picked it up. It was a bird. A tiny bird with its wings swept back, like it was flying so fast the wind was pulling it straight. The details were perfect—the tiny notch for an eye, the faint lines of feathers on its wings. It was so clear I could see the grain of the wood floor right through it.

Jay. It had to be Jay. He used to do this with bits of wood in the summer, back when there was a summer. He’d sit on the steps and carve little animals for me while he waited for his work shift. A fox, a fish, a bird just like this one. He’d never done it with ice. But he was clever. He was the cleverest person I knew. He wouldn’t just leave. He would leave a sign. A code.

The ice bird was cold, so cold it burned my palm, but I didn't let go. It was a message. My brother was telling me something. He was telling me where to go. Flying. He wanted me to fly. Or maybe follow the birds. But there were no birds anymore. Not in the Frost.

I tucked the ice bird into my pocket, the cold seeping through my coat, a small, painful promise. I pulled on my other pair of socks over the ones I was already wearing and wrapped the thin scarf twice around my neck. The room was the only home I had, but it was just a cold box without him. The real home was wherever he was.

Outside, the Frost was the same color as always: gray. Gray sky, gray buildings packed so tight they looked like they were huddling for warmth, gray slush on the ground that hid treacherous patches of slick ice. People shuffled past, heads down, shoulders hunched against a wind that scraped like steel wool. No one looked at anyone else. Looking meant you had something to lose.

I didn't know what I was looking for. Another bird? A direction? I just walked. I walked past the ration depot, where the line was already a hundred people long, their breath pluming in the air like hopeless signals. I walked past the steam vents where the oldest people sat, trying to steal a bit of warmth from the city’s guts. I kept my hand in my pocket, my fingers wrapped around the melting bird. It was getting smaller, its sharp edges softening. I had to be fast.

Then I saw it. On the other side of the square, hanging from a twisted piece of rebar on a fence, was another one. Not a bird this time. It was a fish, its tail curved as if it were swimming. It was bigger than the bird, and the light caught it, making it glitter. A fish. They lived in the river. Or they used to. The river was frozen solid now, a dead, white road cutting through the city.

Was he near the river? The thought sent a shiver through me that had nothing to do with the cold. The riverbank was part of the Glimmer Trenches. Unpatrolled. The Enforcers didn't go there, which meant everyone else did. Scavengers, runaways, people who had nothing left. Jay had told me a hundred times. 'Never go to the Trenches, Lonnie. You hear me? Never.'

But the fish was a sign. A bird flies, a fish swims. He was telling me a story. He was leading me. I looked around. No one was paying attention to me. I was just another skinny kid in a patched coat. I ducked my head and started walking toward the river, toward the edge of the Frost where the city got quiet and broken.

The line between the Frost and the Glimmer Trenches wasn’t a wall or a gate. It was just a feeling. The noise of the district faded behind me, replaced by the creak and groan of ice-heavy buildings. Everything here was coated in a thick, lumpy layer of ice that sparkled, catching the flat gray light in a million tiny points. It was almost pretty, if you didn’t know that the glimmer was just the sheen on top of the rot. Broken pipes had flash-frozen into strange, looping sculptures. The windows of the buildings were dark, empty eyes.

My heart hammered against my ribs. Every crunch of my boots sounded like a gunshot. I found a third shape, a star, resting on the sill of a shattered window. It was perfect, five-pointed and sharp. A star. In the sky. Bird, fish, star. Air, water, sky. It was a map. It had to be. I was getting closer. I could feel it. The hope was so strong it made me forget the hunger. It made me forget the fear.

I followed the edge of the frozen river, my eyes scanning every surface. He was clever, Jay. He’d hide them in places no one else would look. I was so focused on a promising shadow under an overturned cart that I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me until it was too late.

A hand clamped down on my shoulder. It was heavy and strong. I cried out, stumbling, and spun around. A man stood over me, tall and thin as a starved dog. His face was all sharp angles and shadows under a low-brimmed hat, and his eyes were quick and bright like a rat’s. He wore a long coat made of different kinds of scavenged fabric stitched together.

'Look what we have here,' he said, his voice a low rasp. 'A little frost-mouse, skittering all on his own. What are you looking for, mouse?'

My mouth was dry. I couldn’t speak. He squeezed my shoulder, his fingers digging in. 'Lost something?'

I shook my head.

His eyes narrowed. He looked down at my pocket, where my hand was still clenched. 'Or maybe you found something.' He reached out with his other hand, and I flinched back, but he was too fast. He pried my fingers open. The little ice star lay on my palm, half-melted now, losing its shape.

He whistled, a low, sharp sound. 'Well, well. Look at that. Haven’t seen one of these in a while.'

'Give it back!' I finally managed to say, my voice a squeak.

He ignored me, turning the melting star over in his fingers. 'Your brother make this?' he asked, his voice suddenly casual. I froze. My blood went colder than the ice in my hand.

'How… how do you know?'

'Jay? Sure, I know Jay,' the man said, a thin smile stretching his lips. It didn’t reach his eyes. 'Always fiddling with stuff. Whistling all the time. Annoying.' He tossed the ice star into the slush. 'My name’s Jesse. Jay and I, we did some work together.'

'He’s alive?' The words burst out of me, full of a desperate, stupid hope. 'Where is he?'

Jesse shrugged. 'Around. He's laying low. Smart boy. The Warden’s Enforcers have been grabbing people. Jay knew how to disappear.' He looked me up and down, a calculating gaze. 'He tell you about the code?'

I just stared at him.

'The ice carvings,' Jesse said, impatient. 'It's a code. A map. He told me he was leaving one for you, in case you were smart enough to follow.'

'I am,' I said, puffing out my chest a little. 'I am smart enough.'

'Yeah, well, you’re not smart enough to figure out the last part on your own,' he sneered. 'It gets tricky. Dangerous. You need a guide.' He let go of my shoulder and rubbed his hands together. 'Problem is, guiding is thirsty work. And hungry work.'

I understood. I knew how this worked. Everything had a price. I thought of the two ration bars in my inside pocket. They were meant to last me three more days. They were dense and tasted like cardboard and vitamins, but they were the only thing between me and that clawing animal in my stomach.

But Jay… I could find Jay.

I reached into my coat, my fingers fumbling with the wrapper. I pulled one out. Jesse snatched it from my hand and unwrapped it in a single motion, taking a huge bite. He chewed with his mouth open.

'The other one, too,' he said, crumbs spraying from his lips. My stomach twisted. I hesitated.

'Suit yourself,' he said with a shrug, turning to walk away. 'Hope you like being alone out here. Lots of things in the Trenches are hungrier than me.'

'Wait!' I called out. 'Wait!'

He stopped and turned back, that thin smile on his face again. Slowly, I pulled out the second ration bar. It felt as heavy as a brick. I held it out. He walked back and took it, stuffing it into his own pocket without a word.

'Alright, mouse,' he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. 'Let’s go find your brother.'

He led me away from the river, deeper into the Trenches. We moved through a maze of collapsed alleyways and skeletal buildings. Jesse walked with a purpose I didn’t have, his boots crunching confidently on the ice. He pointed out the next clue—a crescent moon, dangling from a frozen pipe high overhead. I never would have seen it.

'See?' he said. 'He’s clever. Hiding them high and low.'

'What does it mean?' I asked, staring up at the moon. 'The bird, the fish, the star, the moon.'

'It's not about what they are, it's about where they point,' Jesse said dismissively. 'Each one points to the next. The last one… the last one points to the safehouse. Where he’s waiting.'

Hope beat in my chest like a frantic bird. A safehouse. Jay was safe. He was warm. He was waiting for me. I hurried to keep up with Jesse’s long strides, my empty stomach forgotten. We walked for what felt like hours. The gray sky began to darken, the shadows stretching out like grasping fingers. The Glimmer Trenches were even scarier in the fading light. Every groan of shifting ice, every whistle of wind through a broken window, sounded like a monster.

Finally, we stopped. Looming over us was a massive building, bigger than anything else around. It was a factory, its smokestacks like black, broken teeth against the purple-gray sky. Most of its windows were gone, leaving it with a hundred vacant stares.

'This is it?' I whispered. It didn’t look safe. It looked dead.

'The last clue is inside,' Jesse said, nudging me toward a huge metal door that was hanging crooked on its hinges. 'The big one. The one that tells you the room number.'

He pushed the door, and it groaned open into a vast, dark space. The air inside was colder than outside, and it smelled of rust and ice and old machinery. The only light came from the doorway behind us and a few high, grimy windows that let in the last of the day. The factory floor was a graveyard of silent, hulking machines covered in frost.

'Where?' I asked, my voice a small echo in the enormous room.

'Up there,' Jesse said, pointing. I followed his finger. High above, on a steel beam that crossed the width of the factory, something glittered. It was much bigger than the others. It looked like a key. A key made of ice.

'The key,' I breathed. 'That’s the last one.' It was perfect. A key to the safehouse. A key to finding Jay.

I was so busy staring up at it, a real smile on my face for the first time in weeks, that I didn’t notice Jesse stepping back. I only heard the sound. A huge, booming slam that shook the whole building, followed by the screech of metal on metal. I spun around. The giant door was shut. We were plunged into near-darkness, the only light now those dim, high windows.

'Jesse?' I called out. My voice trembled. 'What was that?'

He didn’t answer. A different sound started. A slow, rhythmic crunching. It wasn't Jesse’s footsteps. It was heavier. More than one person.

From the deepest shadows at the far end of the factory, figures started to emerge. They were tall and broad in thick, dark uniforms. They carried long batons. Enforcers. Four of them.

'Jesse, run!' I screamed, grabbing for his arm. But he wasn’t there. He was standing several feet away, by one of the silent machines, not looking at me. He was looking at the Enforcers.

'A good day's work, Jesse,' one of the Enforcers said, his voice flat and metallic. 'The Warden will be pleased.'

'Just give me what I’m owed,' Jesse said, his voice no longer raspy, but clear and cold. He didn’t sound like a scavenger anymore.

I didn’t understand. I couldn’t make the pieces fit. 'Jesse?' I whispered. 'What's happening? Where's Jay?'

Jesse finally looked at me. The rat-like quickness was gone from his eyes. There was just a flat, dead emptiness. 'There is no code, kid,' he said. 'There is no safehouse.' He gestured up at the ice key on the beam. 'I made that one this morning. A real work of art, don’t you think?'

The air left my lungs. The hope that had kept me warm, that had kept me moving, vanished. It was like falling through ice into freezing water. The cold was absolute.

'My brother…' I stammered. 'You said you knew him.'

'Oh, I knew him,' Jesse said with a little laugh. 'I’m the one who told the Enforcers where to find him. Whistling little fool. Made it too easy.' He pocketed the payment one of the Enforcers handed him. 'The Warden wanted him, and then he wanted you. Something about sending a message. Don’t know, don’t care.'

He didn't even look at me as he walked toward a small side door I hadn't noticed. The Enforcers started to move toward me, spreading out. Their boots were so loud on the concrete floor. My legs wouldn't move. The little ice bird in my pocket was just a wet spot now, a cold dampness spreading through my coat.

A heavy boot crunched on the frosted concrete just behind me, and I knew it was over.