Prince of Gulbrania

by Lauren M. Flauding

  The boys started laughing and dancing in the chaos and raining ash, and amidst their merriment and Nana’s excited barking, Mrs. Carnivera voiced her extreme displeasure.

  “This is the most horrid establishment I have ever encountered!” She screeched. “You will be reported and shut down by the end of the week!” Mrs. Nancy followed the soiled woman as she left, pleading for her to reconsider, but Mrs. Carnivera marched out and slammed the door in her face.

  Chapter Three

  “Hey kid, this is my corner.”

  Peter peered up at the ancient man scowling at him. His beard was so long it brushed against Peter’s nose.

  “Your corner?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said, isn’t it?”

  “How’d you get it?”

  The old man snorted. “By being here every day for the last seven years!”

  Peter looked down the sidewalk at all of the others stationed with their signs and cups and wondered how long they’d had to sit there to claim those spaces. Sitting in the same place for seven years? It sounded like drudgery. They certainly had an odd way of getting things up here in the Grey World.

  “Move along, now,” the old man grunted, “you don’t want me to make a scene.”

  Peter stood and stepped away from the man with pirate breath. Sitting there with the sign hadn’t done him much good anyway. He had thought that girl might help him, the one with the tangled hair and the tease in her smile, but she ended up just giving him those two pieces of paper. He pulled them out of his pocket, wondering what they were. They had a woman’s face on them. Maybe it was a picture of someone who could help him? But how could he find her? Would she know where his shadow was? He studied the papers for a few moments, but then decided that the best thing to do was to find that girl. She could at least explain what the things meant. He pulled his fingerprint collector from his jacket and scanned one of the papers. The small screen displayed several sets of prints. He discarded his own and chose the ones that were the most fresh. Peter held the collector out as it scanned the street and surrounding buildings, then the screen duplicated the image and lit up several spots where the device had found matching prints, showing him the direction he needed to go. He was glad he had brought the collector with him, usually he only used it to find Slightly whenever he stole all the rum berries and hid in the trees.

  His collector guided him down a maze of streets, picking up the girl’s fingerprints in various places: on the side of a building, on a hand rail, on a sign hanging in front of a toy shop. Peter walked through an alley of tall buildings, shuddering as he quickened his step. The towering structures made him feel trapped.

  Peter had only ventured up to the Grey World a few times, but that was far more than the other lost boys, who had never come here. This was mainly because no one ever wanted to leave their home, and usually Peter didn’t either, but sometimes he had an unsettling feeling that he was missing something - that some great adventure was passing him by. He was also the only one who knew how to get to the Grey World, but he didn’t intend for it to be a secret. He would be happy to tell the others if they ever asked him.

  The last time he had come up here was... when was it? He couldn’t remember. He just knew that he had encountered something unpleasant involving a badger and had sworn he would never return to the Grey World again. But then his shadow had gone missing, and he tracked it up through the tunnels and into the alley that smelled like ginger until he lost the signal on that large, twisted bridge. He had to get his shadow back. He was growing anxious about all the points he was losing, which would surely compromise their winning streak against the pirates, and he didn’t want to... great lion horns, he thought, what was that smell?

  Peter doubled back to a window that displayed delicious looking pastries and breads. Nearly salivating, he walked into the small shop, eying a row of fruit filled doughnuts.

  “Can I help you?” Asked a stout man behind the counter.

  “Yes!” Peter replied, grateful for the man’s consideration. “I’ve lost my shadow. Have you seen it?”

  The man rolled his eyes. “Great,” he muttered, “another cracked one. Probably an addict.”

  Peter was about to ask what ‘addict’ meant, but the man had started talking to another person in the shop. Peter shrugged and plucked a blueberry doughnut off of the shelf. The man behind the counter started yelling something as he walked out, but he didn’t know why. He must have been shouting at someone else.

  By the time he finished eating his doughnut he had arrived at a door covered in the girl’s fingerprints. He turned the handle to let himself in and found someone inside. It was a lady. She was on a ladder painting the wall. It was a pretty lady, but it wasn’t the girl. And she wasn’t happy to see him. She whipped her head around and screamed. Peter backed up and slammed the door. He heard a loud crash. He considered going back in to see if the lady was okay, but a moment later his concern passed.

  He reprogrammed his collector to find the most recent of the girl’s fingerprints instead of the greatest quantity. He backtracked to the street corner where he had been sitting, and then continued on to an area where the streets were narrower and the buildings more crowded. Soon he was standing in front of an oddly colorful house sandwiched in between two dreary buildings. There was quite a lot of noise coming from inside, so he peered in the window and saw the girl sitting on the floor with two young boys who seemed very upset. Peter pushed the window open a bit so he could hear what they were saying.

  “But Miss Wendy, where will we go? They’re going to throw us out on the street and we’ll get eaten by the alley monsters!” Exclaimed a red-haired boy.

  “No, you won’t, Trevor,” the girl responded. “Mrs. Nancy and I will do everything we can to keep this home, but if we can’t, you’ll just go to another house where they’ll love you as much as I do.”

  “Will they love me?” The other boy asked piteously.

  “Yes, Zachary, I’m sure they will.”

  “But I don’t want to go away, Miss Wendy, I want to be with you!” The first boy pleaded. “How will I find you?”

  The Wendy girl pulled the boy called Trevor into her lap.

  “Do you remember the story of Hansel and Gretel?” She asked.

  “Handsome and who?”

  “Hansel and Gretel.”

  “Are they the ones who got eaten by the wolf?”

  “No. When Hansel and Gretel were sent away from their house, Hansel dropped white pebbles along the path so they could find their way back home.”

  “I remember!” Piped Zachary. “ They got lost in the woods and found a house made out of candy and a witch wanted to eat them!”

  “I’m going to get eaten by a witch?” Wailed Trevor.

  “No,” soothed Wendy, “I just think you’re so clever that you’ll figure out a way to find me.”

  The boy buried his ginger head into Wendy’s shoulder and she wrapped her arms around him. The scene made Peter smile.

  Just then a large black dog jumped at the window and barked in Peter’s face. He stumbled back and fled down the street. The dog reminded him too much of that crazed badger from before. Peter resolved that he would go back to the house later. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but he wanted to take that Wendy girl to Neverland.

  Read on for a sample

  of The Amplified, the

  first book in The

  Amplified series.

  Chapter 1

  My brother would make fun of me.

  I picture his playful yet condescending expression and manage a smile despite my labored breathing. I run in time to the music coming from my ancient device, pushed along by the rhythm that is so seldom found in our current songs. I try to decide which offense he would attack first.

  “Mari, why do you use that relic to listen to music? The Adhesives are so much easier and you don’t have to carry anything...”

  True, the Adhesives are easier. One small patch placed on my temple allow
s me to listen to an hour of music or watch a movie without the hindrance of wires, attachments, or receivers. But I don’t care much for the Adhesives. Once, my friend Alia made me adhere some awful movie about cat-people in love, and I couldn’t make it stop. I just had to let it play through my auditory and optical systems until it ended and the patch dissolved into my skin. I much prefer seeing movies on our old holograph machine.

  I pass the school, noting with some satisfaction that I’m just now starting to feel the burn in my legs. Some of the students are having their outside hour. Even from far away I can tell that it’s the older ones, probably 11 or 12-year-olds, lounging on the play equipment and chatting with each other. Younger students would be running around, playing games, and generally expending the energy not yet stifled by years of absorbing information.

  I run a little faster to get the school out of my view. I’m glad that I finished all my curriculum last year, trading in the endless barrage of images, educational films and holographic lectures from the Governor for a few months of labor before going away for training. A lot of 15-year-olds complain about the labor. The tasks in the factories and on the farms are a lot more physically demanding than the lethargy of school, but I welcome the change. Plus, it’s nice spending time with my mother when we harvest.

  I’ve left the paved streets of our compound, and now my feet thump on the welcome expanse of soft dirt. I take in the landscape, so dry and vast, stretching out for miles with the occasional jagged hill jutting out defiantly to break up the flatness. I suppose it’s a good reminder that even though we’re all trying to be the same, there are still some of us that stick out. Sometimes it really is incredible to think that we’ve managed to survive in this environment for so long; a feat that likely would not have been possible without the Amplifiers.

  I try to hold my breath as I run through a cloud of dust, but some particles find their way into my nose and I choke anyway. I dig into the pocket of my shorts to find my Hydration capsule and swallow it between coughing fits. Immediately the dryness in my throat subsides and I feel the simulated liquid spreading throughout my body. I’m glad, I need the energy I lost from hacking the dirt out of my lungs.

  Peering ahead, I see the culprit of the dust cloud; that huge, stupid, Mall-cruiser. I never take it to the city if I can help it. I guess the arenas, capsule bars and sleeping pods would seem like an attractive way to travel for some people, but to me it just seems dull; lumbering along at a snail’s pace, watching everyone try to entertain themselves. It’s for people who like to waste time. And I rarely have time to waste.

  I’m running parallel to the Mall-cruiser in no time, and I hear some children shouting insults out the open windows.

  “Where are you running to, chicken legs?”

  “Hope you’re racing off to find a shower, you dirty clam!”

  I put on my most menacing face and sprint right up to the windows. The children scream and cower beneath the glass, their insolence now completely extinguished in their fear. I beat on the panes a few times for good measure, and hear some strangled yelps as I pull away. I would laugh if it didn’t throw off my breathing pattern, so instead I settle for a feeling of smug satisfaction.

  I can just see the outline of the city, the towering center of what some call our spider Community. From the air barges, you would be able to see the Mall-cruiser tracks stretching out like skinny legs from the metropolis to the surrounding eight compounds, all labeled by one letter of the word “equality.” I remember seeing all the images of the compounds in school. They all looked pretty much the same, but when the image of our compound, Compound Q, would come up, somehow we recognized it, and we would all cheer. It seems an odd thing to have done, especially now that I’m feeling less and less attached to my compound.

  Reaching the city limits, I glance up at the massive clock looming over the old hospital. 11:37. Right on time. The soldiers should be arriving in a few minutes. I run past the control tower and blow a kiss to the guards stationed there. They don’t react, as always. Stoic expressions and rigid posture are characteristic of this post. Once, when we were younger, my brother and I put hats and sunglasses on the tower guards. They didn’t move. But it was a particularly hot day so I think they might have been grateful. Luckily, nobody has to stay in that position for too long at a time. The motionless guards there today might be foremen at the factories or entertainers at the clubs next week, depending or their work rotation. Everyone alternates their labor positions. Except the Restrainers, of course.

  With the landing park in sight, I sprint the last hundred yards or so and collapse on a bench near the waiting zone. I breathe heavily and people stare at me, but I’m used to it. I already stand out among the workers in my T-shirt and shorts, but it’s also unusual to see anyone in the city exert themselves. Or sweat. I stretch out my legs and slump back on the bench, closing my eyes and turning my face to the sun. It’s a beautiful day, my brother is returning from Service, and in a couple weeks I’ll be Amplified.

  Life is good.

  Chapter 2

  I’m alarmed by the sudden darkness until I open my eyes and realize the air barge is flying overhead. The barge is about as big as the city and completely shuts out the sun. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust, but soon I can see them. Soldiers jump off the edge of the barge and plummet toward the ground. The sirens come on to clear the landing park, but there’s really no need. Anytime an air barge flies over, the slick, grated floor of the park is immediately vacated.

  I crane my neck and watch in awe as the soldiers fall, some performing intricate acrobatics as they fly through the air. As they near the landing park, the turbines start to whir, forcing massive gusts of air through the grates and sending errant pieces of trash left in the park shooting into the sky. If I watch closely, I can see the point where the turbines take effect. There’s a slight jerk as the soldiers hit the turbine’s threshold, which begins the slowing of their descent.

  I’ve watched people land in the park dozens of times, but it still fascinates me. The smallest movement of a hand or a foot sends them sailing or spiraling in a different direction. Soon, they’re all hovering about 40 yards up in the air where the force of the turbines hold them safely. Finally, the great machines power down and the soldiers, almost in unison, float toward the ground.

  The siren ceases and all of us in the waiting zone quickly step forward into the park. There aren’t many people greeting the returned soldiers. I suspect most of their family and friends are still traveling here on the Mall-cruiser. I search for my brother among all the unfamiliar faces. Somehow, all the soldiers look the same; immaculately fit young women and men, dressed in the same gray uniforms, carrying themselves with the confidence characteristic of the Amplified. It’s hard to believe they’re all only nineteen years old.

  How am I going to recognize him? I think. It’s been almost four years. The last time I saw my brother was in the week-long break between his Training and the beginning of his Service. He spent almost the entire time running up the walls, jumping off the roof, and generally scaring my poor mother to death. It was incredible. From that time on, I became obsessed with Amplification.

  I turn around and accidentally run into a tall female soldier.

  “Watch where you’re going, little girl!” She yells condescendingly. I feel my cheeks get hot, but I manage to mumble an apology before turning away. Little girl? I’m fifteen years old! But as I look at the hundreds of impressive soldiers around me, I realize how small I feel.

  I’m starting to get frustrated, wondering now if I should have just stayed at home and waited for my brother to get there. At this point, he may have already started heading out of the city. I catch a glimpse of a face that could belong to my brother. I start heading in that direction when I hear someone behind me.

  “Mari?”

  “Adrian! Wait... Adrian?”

  I turn and see the biggest version of my brother I could have ever imagined. He has my brother’s
dark hair and mischievous smile, but in the place of his once-lanky physique are bulging muscles. His young, 19-year old face looks out of place above his thick neck. But before I can fully process his transformation, he’s enveloped me with his massive arms and pulled me off the ground. I suppose this is what people mean by a “bear hug.”

  “Hey little sis!” He bellows in my ear, his voice markedly deeper. “You haven’t changed a bit!”

  “Sure I have! Maybe not as much as you... what did you do, swallow a lion?”

  Adrian chuckles as he sets me back down on the ground. He glances down at his body, clearly pleased with himself, but still attempts to be modest.

  “Something like that. Just a lot of Protein and compulsory weight training.”

  I don’t know what he means by “Protein,” it must have something to do with the different capsules they ingest during Service.

  “Well, it’s good to see you again ... all of you,” I say as I stand back and look at my brother one more time. “Come on, let’s get home. Mom and Daniel are so excited that you’re back!”

  “I’m excited to see them,” Adrian admits. We’ve started walking out of the landing park. “What’s Daniel like now? I guess he’s grown up a lot, huh?”

  “Yeah, he’s a fireball. Quite the independent 8-year old,” I respond. “Oh, you won’t believe this! Last week he took all of the blankets and camped out-”

  “When does the next Mall-cruiser get here?” Adrian interrupts.

  “Mall-cruiser? I don’t know, I thought we’d just run home.”

  “Run? Are you kidding? How far is that?”

  “About twelve miles. It’s not a big deal, I ran here.”

  “Sounds like torture.”

  “Well, sometimes it is, but then I just feel that much better when I’m done.”