Read Online The Line Book One: Carrier by Anne Tibbets - Free Book Online

work.”
    “Where?” asked the other lady from the corner.
    Several others glared at her, and she shrank slightly.
    “She already said she hadn’t found a job, Gretchen.” Shirel shot her a look of contempt.
    It took me a moment to realize Gretchen had been asking so she could swipe whatever job I’d found. “The markets, and a bar.”
    Shirel seemed in deep thought and didn’t answer. She scratched her chin.
    Oliv clasped her callused hands in her lap. “Stay away from them red-light places. You’d end up in the same boat you’re in now.”
    “Yeah. Figured that out.”
    “Look,” Shirel said, getting up and standing above me again. “I don’t know you, but you look like a real nice girl, and you was sweet to Evie.”
    The little girl gave me a soft grin.
    Shirel continued, “So I’m gonna give you some free advice, see? Get the hell out of Central. Head to South sector, or maybe West. They’s got some nice places out there that are always looking for girls to work. As, like, washers and maids and whatever. Maybe you can find one of them communes that help with the baby. They have them out in West. Or work for a rich family in South. They’s usually good to their people. Just don’t do anything stupid, keep your nose clean and don’t tell nobody you’re off the Line. You might get lucky. Sometimes they run ads in the bulletin. You should check those out.”
    “How she gonna get a bulletin without a job to pay fo’ one?” asked the other woman from the corner.
    “She said she had credits saved up,” barked Shirel. “Ain’t you paying attention?”
    “And how she gonna hide where she from? The moment they run her prints, they’ll find out,” said another.
    “I don’t know,” Shirel scoffed. “That’s for her to figure out.”
    “I’ll go,” Gretchen said to me. “Wherever you go. I’ll go with you. We could be a team!”
    Shirel waved her hands in the air as if fanning away a fly. “Go to hell, Gretchen. They’s don’t want no washed-up hag like you. They’s want young pretty things like her. Besides, you’d just screw it up by swiping from them, and you’d be right back here with the rest of us losers.”
    Oliv shook her head. “Isn’t that what you did, Shirel? Steal from rich people?”
    “Shut up, Oliv.”
    Fresh tears wetted Evie’s large blue eyes. “I want to go! Can I go too?”
    Her large doelike expression made me think of Peni, and I had to look away.
    Gretchen frowned at the girl. “Don’t be stupid, kid.”
    Oliv put a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “And how’d your mother find you?”
    Evie buried her face into her grey pillow. “But I hate it here. I don’t think she’s coming back.”
    None of the women spoke. It seemed they agreed. To their credit, nobody voiced it aloud.
    “I’m not kidding,” Shirel said to me. “You need to move on. There ain’t nothing here. Look in the bulletins for jobs in South or West. Sometimes they send the travel orders ahead so you don’t have to pay for a sector transfer. Or you can bribe a guard. It’s better than sitting around Central and starving to death.”
    She had a point. Maybe the reason I couldn’t find work in Central wasn’t all my fault, but the sector’s fault too. It made sense to move on. Nothing was really holding me here. But to leave, I needed travel orders, and that meant applications at Auberge headquarters, interviews with the security forces, and the very idea of it caused me to panic.
    What if they said no? What if they changed their minds and sent me back to the Line anyway?
    Still, Shirel was right. I had to try.
    It was a plan, albeit a weak one.
    But it was something.
    The more I thought about it, the more it frustrated me. I’d wasted nearly a week watching the waitress and had gotten no further in solving my many mounting problems. After checking out the bulletins tomorrow morning, I decided I’d talk to Margo that night and see if she would take my place on the Line. Then, I’d