The year is 2050. Ava and her girlfriend live in what’s left of Brooklyn, and though they love each other, it’s hard to find happiness while the effects of climate change rapidly eclipse their world.
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Yours for the Taking by Gabrielle Korn, a science fiction novel of queer love, betrayal, and chosen family, and an unflinching indictment of white, corporate feminism—out from St. Martin’s Press on December 5th.
The year is 2050. Ava and her girlfriend live in what’s left of Brooklyn, and though they love each other, it’s hard to find happiness while the effects of climate change rapidly eclipse their world. Soon, it won’t be safe outside at all. The only people guaranteed survival are the ones whose applications are accepted to The Inside Project, a series of weather-safe, city-sized structures around the world.
Jacqueline Millender is a reclusive billionaire/women’s rights advocate, and thanks to a generous donation, she’s just become the director of the Inside being built on the bones of Manhattan. Her ideas are unorthodox, yet alluring—she’s built a whole brand around rethinking the very concept of empowerment.
Shelby, a business major from a working-class family, is drawn to Jacqueline’s promises of power and impact. When she lands her dream job as Jacqueline’s personal assistant, she’s instantly swept up into the glamourous world of corporatized feminism. Also drawn into Jacqueline’s orbit is Olympia, who is finishing up medical school when Jacqueline recruits her to run the health department Inside. The more Olympia learns about the project, though, the more she realizes there’s something much larger at play.
When Ava is accepted to live Inside and her girlfriend isn’t, she’s forced to go alone. But her heartbreak is quickly replaced with a feeling of belonging: Inside seems like it’s the safe space she’s been searching for… most of the time. Other times she can’t shake the feeling that something is deeply off. As she, Olympia, and Shelby start to notice the cracks in Jacqueline’s system, Jacqueline tightens her grip, becoming increasingly unhinged and dangerous in what she is willing to do—and who she is willing to sacrifice—to keep her dream alive.
A group of tired, rumpled young people spilled out of the lab’s double doors and onto the glittering, gum-encrusted sidewalk. They rubbed their eyes in the hazy afternoon light, which was thickly speckled with floating white bits of who-knows-what, and though the city smelled of dirt and rot, the light was aesthetically pleasing, like a photo filter that turns everything grainy and sepia toned, like a memory. It was Friday, and the students hummed with unforetold promises of the weekend ahead. Among them was Ava, the teacher’s assistant for the plant biology class the kids had just fled. Students clustered into small packs around her, talking loudly about their evening plans. She wasn’t much older than most of them.
When Ava rounded the corner, breaking off from the group of students, she reached into her nose and pulled out the gold, horseshoe-shaped septum piercing that had been hiding upside-down in her nostrils since the morning. Her long, curly brown hair was parted down the middle, which she always felt made her look more approachable during the workday. She briefly stopped walking to adjust her part to the side, revealing an undercut shaved around her left ear. She took her glasses off and stashed them in her backpack, blinking as her eyes adjusted. Her students didn’t need to know that this was what she normally looked like when she wasn’t working. It was easier if they read her as a bookish academic.
Her stuffed backpack was pulling her shoulders down. It was hot out; well, it was always hot now in Manhattan, but it was an extra-oppressive kind of heat that afternoon, and Ava felt like she was moving in slow motion. Sirens wailed in the distance.
The lanyard with her employee ID was still around her neck, and the plastic was sticking to her skin. Her hair was electrified by the humidity, frizzing around her head in gravity-defying ways. She felt a pimple brewing painfully on her cheek, trapped by the grease on her face. Her armpit sweat was getting the best of her deodorant. There was nothing pleasant about being in Manhattan. She couldn’t wait to get home to Orchid.
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Yours for the Taking
She’d have to rush to get to the station before the next aerial tramway departed. Always creaking and moaning its way across the water, it was the only good way to get back and forth from her home in what was once Brooklyn (residents now called it Brook, an abbreviated name that suited the newly tiny, crescent moon–shaped land) to Manhattan; there were no bridges left, and the subways no longer functioned. There was a ferry, but the water was so choppy it made Ava sick, a feeling that always reminded her of being a kid trapped in endless silent car rides with her parents, nauseous and alone.
She made it into the Brook-bound tram just as the doors closed behind her. Packed in with dozens of other nine-to-fivers, Ava finally breathed a sigh of relief. She’d soon make it home, to the air-conditioning, to the sweet little living room she shared with the woman she loved.
She took out her phone. Its background was a selfie of her and Orchid; Ava’s whole face was buried into Orchid’s neck while Orchid squinted in the sun, looking just past the camera’s lens with the kind of half smile that Ava adored. As Ava settled into her seat on the tram she examined this photo, even though she’d seen it a million times. She could have spent the rest of her life looking at it.
They’d met by chance. Now, though, as Ava considered the millions of decisions that had led to the exact place and time when her life intersected with Orchid’s, it felt more like an inevitability than an accident.
Ava had been walking down the street between classes. She was lost in thought, much as she was now. But in that moment, her daydreaming was interrupted when a voice out of nowhere said, “Oh shit, watch out,” and then a warm hand grabbed her by the arm and pulled her sharply to the left just as a drone carrying a box labeled Refillables zoomed by.
“Oh my god,” Ava had exclaimed. The hand was still locked onto her arm, and as Ava caught her breath she took in the tall, broad-shouldered woman it belonged to. She was white and appeared to be around Ava’s age. Her short, reddish-brown hair shimmered with sweat. A smattering of freckles danced between pitted acne scars on her cheeks, which gave her a roughness that negated what would have otherwise been a disarming prettiness. She was wearing a toolbelt slung low on her hips and an orange reflective vest. An active construction site churned and beeped behind them.
“Those things are such a fucking hazard,” the woman had said, shaking her head. She dropped Ava’s arm, though where she’d grabbed still felt tingly and hot. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Ava said. And then, she added, “You saved me.” As if on cue, the woman turned pink, holding Ava’s eye contact for a beat longer than necessary, telling Ava everything she needed to know about what was going to happen next.
Despite herself, Ava had laughed. The stranger grinned. “I’m Orchid,” she said, and extended her hand. She didn’t ask Ava’s name; she knew Ava would tell her.
They shook hands, a warm squeeze. Ava had giggled more. She couldn’t help it. Meeting like this, being so clearly on the same page about what this was; being so attracted to someone that it rendered her uncharacteristically bold; having that attraction clearly be so mutual, and so random. If Ava had used the bathroom after class (and she almost did), they would not have met at all.
“Like the flower?” Ava said, immediately regretting it. It was probably what everybody asked her.
Ava had never seen an orchid in real life before; the wild ones had been wiped out by a virus. She knew that they had been known for their beauty and that the most beautiful among them were also the rarest. Some people still kept them as houseplants, but they were delicate and finicky, prone to root rot.
“Something like that,” Orchid replied, and then gestured to the nearby science building. “Did you learn about dead plants there?”
Ava nodded.
“Cool,” Orchid said.
Ava laughed. “Is it?”
“I think so,” Orchid said.
There was a pause. Ava, anxious to keep the conversation going, said, “So, are you building something?”
Orchid nodded toward the construction site. “We’re putting the campus on stilts because of all the flooding. Apparently this whole avenue is going to be a canal soon. I’m just an assistant carpenter, but, you know.”
Ava did not know, yet she had nodded again. She’d never done much work with her hands. But she wanted badly to understand the person standing in front of her. She felt impatient about it, like the parts of her life that happened before meeting Orchid had all been a waste of time. She handed Orchid her phone. “Give me your number.” Orchid did as she was told.
Remembering this moment on the tram, Ava smiled to herself. Now, five years later, Ava was, for perhaps the first time in her whole life, something adjacent to happy; adjacent because it was that very happiness that worried her, as she obsessively followed the news of the climate crisis and wondered, often, if the world was truly ending, and what that would mean for their future together. Their love gave her something to fear losing. She couldn’t remember feeling this worried before she had someone.
This was something they had in common: they were both alone. They’d discovered it on their first date, while they’d sat together at a beachside bar at the southern edge of Brook, the waves crashing urgently into the seawall.
“Where’s your family?” Ava had asked, between sips of beer.
“My mom left when I was a kid, and then it was just me and my dad,” Orchid said. “He had a heart attack a few years ago. It’s been just me ever since.”
“My parents died in the hurricane last year,” Ava said. Orchid placed her hand over Ava’s and gave it a squeeze as a mutual understanding settled over them.
The light pollution was less intense over Brook, and a few stars glinted above them. “I love being able to see the planets,” Ava said, pointing to Saturn’s soft glow. “It’s so comforting to know there are some things humans can’t destroy.” Orchid squinted up, following her gaze.
Orchid paid the bill and led Ava by the hand to her apartment. She unlocked the door with a retinal scan and said, “My roommates are out.” Before Ava could even look around, they were kissing. Orchid’s mouth tasted like ash and salt, and her arms felt solid and warm.
She guided Ava to her bedroom, and then she pushed Ava playfully onto her unmade bed.
On her back, Ava held Orchid with all of her limbs, her arms and legs squeezing as tightly as they could, and she imagined that if she could just touch enough of Orchid’s skin with a maximum amount of her own, they might fuse. It was just a matter of surface area.
There was a layer of dimpled flesh across the backs of Orchid’s thighs, and Ava dug her fingers into it. This feeling, she remembered with the utmost clarity; how it turned her on more, knowing that Orchid had cellulite and pimples and a stomach. She was real. She smelled like sweat and sawdust and when Ava bit her lip too hard, she winced.
Ava tried, a few times, half-heartedly, to get on top, but Orchid wouldn’t let her. “You don’t actually want me to get off you, right?” Orchid said, and Ava acquiesced.
Her first orgasm at Orchid’s hand felt like jumping off a cliff. Her second one felt like her body had turned inside out.
When Ava was so raw and reeling that she couldn’t stand to be touched anymore, she reached for Orchid, but Orchid moved her hand away, pressing herself into Ava’s thigh instead.
“I want you like this,” Orchid said.
They were still awake and kissing when Orchid’s alarm went off for work.
Ava spent the day sleeping in Orchid’s bed, her long curly hair spilling all over Orchid’s pillows. She was still there when Orchid returned that night.
She had wanted to be there every night when Orchid came home.
And from that moment on, she was. She’d be there tonight. She’d looked forward to it all day.
The windows of the tramcar were cracked open, but the sliver of fishy wind that came through did nothing for the heat. Sweat trickled down her back as she glanced through the news, which—as always—was bad. She hardly absorbed any of the information. Headlines blurred into one another. The tram swayed in the wind.
She was wearing a pink dress made from recycled bottles. The dress was so short she could feel the sticky plastic of the seat touching her thighs. Holding her phone in her right hand, she used her left hand to tug at its hem, trying to get the material to lie flat between her skin and the seat. It was no use; the fabric had no give. She longed for the days of cotton or even polyester. The technology that aimed to fix fashion’s waste problem hadn’t factored in physical comfort. The man sitting next to her made a performative coughing sound and she realized she’d been bumping him with her elbow.
“Excuse me,” she said, but he didn’t make eye contact.
As she scrolled idly, her phone screen turned red and began buzzing. All around her, phone after phone lit up the color of blood, the simultaneous vibration echoing through the tramcar. She jumped, her heart pounding loudly in her ears.
Congratulations. Your application for Inside has been approved.
Please await further instructions.
She pressed her phone to her chest, smiling up at the ceiling of the tram. Next to her, the man began to sob. She straightened, trying to conceal her excitement from his devastation. Besides, she was excited, but she wasn’t feeling relieved. She hadn’t heard from Orchid yet.
With shaking hands, she texted: I got in!!!!
She watched Orchid start and stop typing several times. At last: I didn’t.
They’d first heard about Inside one evening a few years ago. Ava was lying on the couch with her legs in Orchid’s lap, when suddenly everything changed.
They got the alert at the same time; a push notification that overrode whatever else they were looking at, expanding and flashing urgently.
Announcing: The Inside Project.
Please swipe for more information.
“The fuck?” Orchid said.
“No idea,” Ava said, sitting up. They both swiped on the message.
Their phones were immediately flooded with words about the need for this new level of protection, and about what might happen to those who weren’t accepted.
A summer hailstorm raged outside; every now and then the wind hurled pieces of garbage against the window, making Ava jumpy and on edge as she read about this strange new initiative.
“We should apply,” Ava said.
Orchid shrugged. “I guess it can’t hurt.”
The enrollment office for Inside was at City Hall. They’d waited in line for two days, nestling together in Orchid’s tattered sleeping bag on the sidewalk and eating protein bars for meals. The weather held up, somehow, though they’d packed raincoats and, at Ava’s insistence, hard hats, in case it hailed more. They took turns using the grimy public bathroom in the park, while the other held their spot in line.
Once they got through the door, it was as though they’d hit fast-forward, a flurry of signatures and stamps before they were rushed off to the Inside techs, who took their blood and gave them passwords to the Inside mobile app, unlocking the hundreds of pages of forms to be completed at home. The whole application process would take months thanks to the thorough psychological evaluations needed. Nobody knew when acceptances—or rejections—to Inside would be announced. Probably not for years.
But Ava wasn’t even thinking about that as she giddily clutched Orchid’s hand, sweaty with anticipation and with a new prickling sensation in her stomach that felt weirdly romantic, or maybe just like hope.
She had reason to feel optimistic about their chances because they already had a connection to the project—Orchid was one of the thousands of people helping to construct Manhattan’s Inside. She was hired through the union, and then was quickly promoted on the site from an assistant to a foreman. (“Forewoman,” Ava liked to correct, while Orchid rolled her eyes.)
Orchid came home from work full of stories for Ava about the looping tunnels and endless, windowless rooms that made her feel dizzy, leaving her constantly nauseous as she fortified the glass against the gale-force winds.
“I’m actually not sure if this whole thing is a good idea,” she told Ava one night, eating piece after piece of pizza. And then, grinning with her mouth full, she added: “But I guess there’s a reason it’s not up to me.”
Ava shrugged, not wanting to be confrontational, but the truth was that she thought Inside was a great idea. When she wasn’t guiding small groups of students through other peoples’ curriculums, Ava began to spend her free time obsessing over Inside, and about their chances of being accepted. She’d streamed the mayor breaking ground on her phone, and then had watched in person as the walls went up, squeezing to the front of the crowd on her lunch break.
Inside felt like their best bet for survival. They would both get in, she decided. They had to.
Though, sometimes, if she was being honest with herself, Ava felt a small, creeping doubt. Inside’s screening process seemed to be looking for certain markers of intelligence, and while Orchid was street-smart, she wasn’t educated. Ava worried it would hurt her chances.
She shook these thoughts off whenever they came. There was only one option, and that was being accepted together.
But now, with Inside’s final decisions about her and Orchid’s future still warm in her hand, Ava exhaled, the last bit of hope leaving her lungs. They had decided long ago that they would only go if they could do it together. There had been no promise that unmarried, childless couples wouldn’t be separated. They were evaluated as individuals. But it still came as a shock. To not be able to move Inside meant… Well, who knew what it meant? That was the scary part. There would come a day when Brook would no longer be livable. Everything they knew was about to become something else entirely.
Besides, they were in love, and that was the most important thing. Ava knew they’d figure it out. They always did.
Ava shivered. She wasn’t sure she felt relief or terror. Perhaps both. At least they finally knew.
She got home to an empty apartment. As she paced around the living room, she texted Orchid a few times, but didn’t hear back, which was odd. When Orchid finally appeared in the doorway Ava jumped into her arms and they held each other tightly.
“Where were you?” Ava whispered into her neck, inhaling the smell of sawdust.
“I’m sorry,” Orchid said. “I got stuck at work.”
They sat down next to each other on their small sofa, their phones perched between them. The walls of their living room were covered in art and odd objects they’d found and mounted quaintly, a loving hodgepodge of pressed flowers that Ava had found, and unusually shaped screws that had no obvious partners from Orchid. Their apartment was small, but it was theirs, and it was Ava’s favorite place to be.
“Why do you think they picked you?”
Ava didn’t answer. She was picturing the endless forms and tests, how carefully she’d written her answers. She’d had a feeling she would be chosen but hadn’t paid much attention to it; it felt naive, like how a child might think she’s special. But still, she was not surprised that she was accepted.
Ava’s phone buzzed again. This time, the screen was pink.
Congratulations, from Inside.
Over the next month, we will be welcoming you and your new community in staggered groups.
At your designated time, please bring only yourself (no belongings of any kind) and report to the main entrance at 34th Street.
At check-in, please be advised:
For sanitation purposes, all hair will be shaved by our medical team.
You will be given a full panel of vaccines.
We will be drawing blood upon entry, and on the first of every month therein, to keep track of your well-being.
Upon entrance, you will be assigned a new address.
Once you enter Inside, you may not leave, for your own safety.
Double-tap to accept the terms of your residence.
Thank you, and welcome to your new, safer future.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ava said. “I’m not going.”
Orchid looked at the ceiling, picking a hangnail on her thumb. The silence in the room seemed to swell, and then Orchid said, “Ava.”
The urgency in Orchid’s voice made Ava flinch. “What?”
An infinitely long moment passed before Orchid met Ava’s eyes. When she finally spoke, she sounded serious, stern. “I love you more than anything, but I think you need to do it.”
“What are you talking about?” Ava stood up, wiping her palms on her jeans. They’d gotten so sweaty.
Orchid reached out and grabbed Ava’s wrist. Talking louder now, sounding more panicked, she said, “It’s the only way to make sure you survive.”
Ava pulled away from her. “We’ve been talking about this for, like, ever,” she said, her voice rising in frustration. “You can’t change the plan at the last second.”
“I can’t bear the thought of you not going because of me,” Orchid said, in a voice so small that Ava almost didn’t hear her.
“And what are you going to do?” Ava demanded. “Bike to Canada, and then live in the woods forever?”
“Yeah, I am,” Orchid said, brightening and sitting up straighter, as though the idea had only just occurred to her when Ava said it. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“You’re going to die.”
“I think I’m going to die either way.”
“Orchid,” she said, in that way she knew made Orchid bristle. “What is going on right now? I’m not going without you.” And then it occurred to Ava that although Orchid was saying one thing, what she meant was something else entirely. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?” Ava asked.
“Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
Ava felt all the blood rush out of her face. “What?” she said, and then said it again. “What?”
“I—I’m sorry,” Orchid stammered. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Ava started to cry. “You want me to go in there alone?”
“I want you to survive.”
Ava said, “If you wanted to leave me, you could have just said so.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Orchid said, but Ava had stopped listening. She was sobbing uncontrollably now, still standing, her arms wrapped tight around her own torso as though her organs were about to fall out. She felt certain they might.
“Is there someone else?” she asked.
“No,” Orchid said, offended. “Of course not.”
Shakily, Ava walked out of the living room and into their bedroom, flopping facedown on the bed. Orchid called her name a few times, but Ava didn’t answer. She didn’t know what else to say.
After a few minutes, she heard Orchid rummaging around in the coat closet. Then came the sound of the front door opening and clicking shut. And then—quiet. Orchid was gone.
Excerpted from Yours for the Taking, copyright © 2023 by Gabrielle Korn.
