I was awoken in the morning to the smell of bacon and the sound of laughter, which was new and also kind of nice. After washing as best I could in my ration of water and dressing, I made my way into the communal area.

Sunny was in the kitchenette, her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, frying up breakfast. Hope, Ghoul and Kobra sat at the table; Jet stood next to Sunny, buttering toast.

"Morning, Poison!" Hope said excitedly, beaming at me as though all her birthdays and Christmases had come at once. "We can eat now you're up!"

"Take a seat and help yourself to coffee," Sunny said, every inch the hostess. I followed her instructions, however, noting that the table was free of clutter and had been wiped clean for the first time since I could remember.

"So what do you actually DO?" Hope asked Ghoul. "Like, at night, when you work?"

"Oh, I'm just a guard at the android factory. I watch it at night, make sure that nobody breaks in. It's really nothing that interesting, kiddo," Ghoul answered.

"What kind of android?" Hope pressed.

Kobra snorted. Jet laughed out loud. Ghoul turned a vivid crimson. I almost choked on my coffee, and had to suppress a laugh myself. Sunny was horrified, and said quickly, "don't ask too many questions, Hope. Grub's up!"

We all sat down and began to devour eggs, bacon and toast. Food I'd paid for, obviously, but in that moment I didn't care. I was ravenous; it had been days since I'd had proper food, food that wasn't dehydrated and packaged in silver foil.

I wondered if Sunny was offended by the idea of Ghoul working for the android factory that he did, even if he wasn't directly involved. After all, quite a lot of women were, and it wasn't difficult to see why. Fem-bots, sex-bots, whatever you called them: women robots specifically designed to 'satisfy' a male audience. Due to all of the droughts, famines, nuclear explosions and the like, the population had been hard hit. Weirdly, the female population had been the hardest hit. A living human woman was a hot commodity, which was probably why only high up officials and rich men living in the centre were married. Still, why bother with girls when you had fem-bots? Ready for hire, whether it's for an hour or several. Richer men bought them for years, making them clean and wash too. It was offensive, of course it was, but what else were we supposed to do? In my year at school, there had been thirty males and eighteen females. It's the opposite of the imbalance we were always used to.

Only Jet was aware of this little... secret... but a year previously I had finally succumbed to everything and spent a portion of my wages on a fem-bot, hiring it for two hours. As amazing as it was at the time, I did feel weird and quite dirty afterwards.

That wasn't to say I'd never slept with a human girl - of course I had - but those experiences were few and far between as most were married off to centre-dwellers at an early age. It was a miracle that Sunny hadn't been caught yet.

But I didn't want to think about that.

"What do you do? For jobs?" Hope asked Jet, Kobra and I, more excited than I had seen her in a long time. The kid was practically bouncing in her seat.

"I work in the lazer gun factory. I make sure the machines are all working and I check up on workers - I'm like the manager, I guess," Jet said, shovelling bacon into his mouth.

Hope's eyes widened. "Cool! Do you get free guns?"

"Sure do," Jet told her, grinning widely.

"Can you get me a gun?"

Sunny gasped, shocked, but Jet just laughed. "I'll get you one for your twenty-first birthday, how does that sound?"

"That's ages away!" Hope groaned.

"Poison and I work as car mechanics; we own our own garage," Kobra said quickly, to distract her.

This, however, seemed to work the opposite way. She bounced up and down a little bit more, then said, "can you take me into work today with you? I want to see how cars work!"

"Not today, Honey; you have school," Sunny shot in breezily, standing up. "Go and brush your teeth and then I'll walk you over."

Hope, after shooting her big sister an injured look, jumped up and raced off to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her.

"Go easy on the water, Kiddo, don't leave the tap running!" I called after her.

"Ok, Poison!" She yelled back.

Sunny began to throw the paper plates from breakfast into the trash. It was particularly helping the already screwed environment, but washing up was basically impossible with the lack of water. I stood up to help her, but she waved me away.

"You all work. This is the least I can do," she said. Then she sighed heavily. "I used to have a job, you know - I was a secratary to an accountant and training to be an accountant myself. Then... well, all those new rules came in. I wasn't allowed to train any more. At least I get money from the government, though."

"That's something, at least," Kobra muttered.

She shrugged. "It's a single allowance; it gets stopped when I'm twenty-five unless I'm married, did you know that? They need to encourage women to repopulate."

The four of us exchanged awkward glances, unsure of what to say, and were all grateful when Hope charged back in, curls flying about haphazardly and backpack on.

"I'm off to bed, then. I'll be up when you get back from school, Hope," Ghoul said, standing up and stretching. He ruffled Hope's curls, smiled at Sunny, and strode off into the room he shared with Jet.

"Do I really have to go to school?" Hope whined, sticking out her bottom lip.

"Sure you do!" I said, "you need to learn stuff." What she needed to learn, if she was going to end up in the same situation as Sunny, I wasn't sure. Keeping her from school, however, might alert them to something being amiss. It wasn't good to arouse any attention.

"Come on, Honey, school isn't so bad," Sunny cajoled, rubbing Hope's arm. "They give you a free lunch there, now, don't they? There's always positives."

Hope didn't look convinced.

"I'll walk her," Jet said, standing up and pulling his jacket on. "It's on my way into work anyway. Does that sound good, Honey?" I'd never heard Jet call anyone "Honey" in my life, but the endearment rolled off his tongue as naturally as any other word. Hope, in response to his suggestion, practically combusted with excitement. Sunny, too, seemed delighted, and gave Jet such a huge grin that anyone would think he'd made her week.

"Would you? That'd be amazing!" She exclaimed.

He smiled at her, then winked at Hope. "Anything for a pretty face."

Hope giggled and let him take her hand. They got three steps closer to the door before Sunny had stopped them. She hugged Hope tightly, kissed her forehead and zipped up her jacket. "You stay really close to Jet and listen to him, OK? And don't leave school tonight until one of us is there to pick you up."

"Yes, Sunny," Hope sighed, rolling her eyes.

"I love you," Sunny said earnestly, hugging her again.

Hope, instead of squirming as I'd expected, hugged Sunny back tightly. "I love you too, Sis."

Sunny straightened up and saw the pair of them out of the door. As she watched them hop down the stairs together, still holding hands, I saw her laugh slightly with them. That said, the worry still hadn't completely faded from her face. I wondered, for the first time, what kind of demands were expected of the teenage girl, raising her sister in such a hostile new world.