Relocation Notice: Leave a Dying Earth, or Don't

The notice arrives at 4:12 in the morning, which is when most things happen now. Nobody goes outside in daylight in February any more.

You're on the roof of the Wexford Street cooling centre, swapping a burned-out fan motor by headlamp. It's thirty-four degrees with ninety percent humidity, and it's the coolest part of the day. You've kept this building running through six summers of wet-bulb alerts. The two hundred people asleep on cots downstairs would not survive a night without it.

Your phone buzzes.

RELOCATION AUTHORITY — FINAL ALLOCATION

You have been granted guaranteed passage to an off-world settlement of your choice. Report to the Northern Processing Centre within 30 days.

Residents who do not report will lose all legal right to live or work on Earth. Unregistered persons detained after the deadline will be transferred to an off-world penal facility.

This offer will not be repeated.

You climb down and find your sister Mara in the triage room, where she runs an unofficial clinic on her nights off from the hospital. She's still in scrubs from a double shift. She got her own notice last week. She hasn't reported, and you already know she isn't going to.

"Someone has to stay with the people who can't fly," she says, before you can ask. "You don't have to be one of them."