A Million Suns by Beth Revis Read Free Book Online Page A

fingers through my hair, snagging them on tangles. What am I doing here? Eldest might have suspected we were stopped, but it’s not like he hid the secret to reviving the engine in his bedroom.
    A floppy on Eldest’s desk flashes. The bright white words fade to black. The floppy beeps and reboots itself. After a moment, it shows the start-up screen as normal. Whatever Marae and the first-level Shippers did worked, and the hacker’s message is wiped from the screen.
    My wi-com beeps again.
    I start to answer the com when I notice something—another door. I silence the beeping in my left ear and move toward the door, stepping over piles of Eldest’s dirty clothes. Why is there another door here? There’s the one to the bathroom, of course, but I’ve never noticed this one before—I’ve only been in Eldest’s room twice, and both times I was focused on finding something else: first the model engine, and then later the alcohol.
    There’s a rainbow scratch along the floor; Eldest used this door frequently. My hands shake as I reach toward the old-fashioned knob—it’s metal, from Sol-Earth. It won’t twist, but when I pull, the door opens anyway. I stare curiously inside.
    A closet.
    Closets are rare; most bedrooms have wardrobes instead, but I must admit I was hoping for something more here. Disappointed, I turn away, but something catches my eye. A rag pokes out from the top box on the floor of the closet. It’s an odd sort of greenish blue, a color I remember in the deepest part of me.
    I suck in my breath, then forget to breathe out again. When I reach down and pull the scrap of cloth from the box, my hands are numb.
    When I first moved into the Keeper Level, one of the only things I brought with me was a blanket. Small, stained, and worn threadbare in spots. A particular shade of greenish blue.
    This blanket was the oldest thing I owned. At the time, I thought that it had come from my parents. As Elder, I was never allowed to know who they were, because otherwise I’d be biased toward them. Or so Eldest told me. In reality, I’m a clone, manufactured, not born.
    Eldest had me moved from family to family until I was twelve—six months with the shepherds, six months with the butchers, six months with the soy farmers.
    And with all that moving, I never knew which family belonged to me.
    But the blanket was mine.
    My earliest memory is hiding under the blanket when I was told I’d have to move again. I don’t remember which family I was with or which I was moving to, but I remember cowering under the blanket and thinking that maybe, when I was a little baby, it had been my mother—my
real
mother—who had wrapped me in it and held me against her.
    After the first few days on the Keeper Level, Eldest and I got in a fight, and he called me an impossible child, babied and spoiled. I promptly stormed into my room and punched the walls, knocking everything in sight off my shelf—and then I saw my blanket. The epitome of being a baby.
    I’d tried to rip it in half but couldn’t, so I chucked it in the trash chute.
    And, somehow, Eldest saved this piece of me. Kept it for years. I press it now against my face and think about all Eldest was, and all he wasn’t.
    Â 
    The only thing hanging from the rod in the closet is a heavy robe, the ceremonial robe Eldest only wore on important occasions. I drop the blanket back into the box and reach for the robe. It’s much heavier than I expected. Definitely wool—I’ve carded and spun enough from my time before Eldest began training me to recognize the waxy-rough feeling of the cloth. The embroidery spans the entire length and breadth of the robe. Stars dance along the top, crops grow along the hem, and between them is a band of horizon that never ends.
    The clasp opens at my touch, and I slide under the robe. The weight of it pushes my shoulders down, makes me hunch over. The hem