by Imran Siddiq
He jumped up, darting to the rear section. Crimson jumpsuits lay on shelves, ready to be pinched. With one slipped on, he stuck down the rustling Velcro straps along his chest.
At first he inched down the ramp, then, back straightened for the short walk he headed to the slope. Not a single head face turned to question him. So far, so good.
A streak of light spread down the curving path, bringing a white glow to the grey walls. Staggering, blinking several times, Zachary edged onward. His fingers scrambled to undo the top two straps before his chest burst. With air so clean, his lungs struggled to contain the pleasure wafting through him.
Brighter light poured in around Zachary. His eyes shut in an instant. Slowly opening them, he begged for shade to absorb the daggers lancing into his head. Fighting the blurs, he spied the vast white, curved ceiling above him.
Overworld.
Advancing, not entirely sure of direction, his fingers felt tips of pointed wires. Zachary gazed down at the thousand blades of knee-high, green grass that he walked through. He touched the soft orange petal of a flower, and then tugged the stalk; it snapped. Guilt weighted his gulp, as he shoved the flower into his jumpsuit.
In a crowded region, crimson figures stood under cracks slicing into a horizontal section of the Base’s edge. Fear-inducing vehicles, sporting tyres the size of Gerry, rolled past masking the actions of the Muirne’s crew. The prospect to sneak away was his.
A hundred feet from the cracked hull sat a well-structured building with wide-framed windows and covered in a pitch roof. From the size of the building, Zachary guessed there to be at least forty rooms inside. Timber posts propped up the balconies over wispy-leafed trees. A curved dome, large enough to match the one he’d seen on the Intercom recording, rose over the far side of the building. Finding the ground underneath favourable, he dashed under the balcony toward the dome. On reaching the edge, he crouched and pulled open all six straps to air the sweat drenching his chest.
Zachary peeped into the dome. There was nobody dancing inside the elegant room. Empty. He pressed his ear against the glass. Not a single sound. No harps. No drums.
“What are you doing?” came a stern female voice.
Startled, Zachary spun round.
Several feet away stood a girl with straight, black hair.
Even without the blue tint, she resembled the girl from the Intercom.
Chapter 4 - Different
Hands clenched over her knee-length skirt, the girl stared.
Her green eyes tore through, silencing Zachary. Almost as tall as him, she was dressed in a flawless V-neck blouse, ironed with crisp lines. She possessed a sense of prestige that could bring the bartering camps to a standstill.
“What are you doing?” Her soft lips creased. She raised her finger at him. “I’m not going to ask again.”
Zachary’s back hit the dome.
The girl gestured toward the direction of the vehicles with large tyres. “Are you with the Pollutant-Demodifiers? Do you know how much my sleep was affected by the noise last night? Do you even care?” Her mouth formed each word with precision. “And tell the driver with the yellow hat that I find his greasy look abysmal. I’m surprised he hasn’t collapsed under his own weight.”
“No – I’m not,” said Zachary. He caught a glimpse of his dad throwing on a metallic jacket with two drill-heads attached along the shoulder pads. “What is a Polly-Demodi-feeler?”
“Are you kidding me? Pollutant-Demodifiers. The big truck things. They suck out Jupiter gases that have leaked through.” Releasing her hip, the girl back-stepped. “If you’re not with them, then who?” She raised her palm. “Is that smell … you?”
Zachary sniffed the unpolluted air. “I don’t smell anything.”
“You don’t? You smell like an overflowing waste-vat.”
He saw her palm press down onto a side pocket. Had she alerted others to his presence? The glittering diodes on her wrist bracelet could be linked to a security terminal. Looking past her to the path he’d used to enter Overworld, he exhaled, hoping that none of those white-suited people rushed to his position.
Zachary pointed to the grinding noise coming from the direction of the breach. “I’m with the team brought in to clean the shell. I snuck away. I was only looking. I’ve never seen a house like this.”
“This far from Assayer?” Her fingers clicked in the air with a frown of realisation. “Yes – I know the city’s full of bigger houses and more flamboyant gardens, but we’re happy here, and if anyone asks about the Kades, you can tell them that we’re fine.”
That confirmed her identity.
The sweet thought he’d imagined of the girl disappeared fast. She didn’t smile like the cheerful child of the hacked files, and her posture was rigid. She couldn’t have been the same girl who’d danced in the dome.
“Do you have a sister?” he asked.
“What? No.”
Zachary ground his teeth. “I shouldn’t be here. I need to go back to the ship.”
“Ship?” Her face screwed up. “What do you need a ship for? We’re not that far from Assayer.” She looked behind, up to a balcony. There was nobody there.
“Say,” she said, coming a few steps closer to him. “You’re not meant to be here. Right?” She lowered her voice. “Come with me. I want to talk to you.”
The girl ran to the underside of her home.
What did she want to talk to him about? Did she know that Zachary had found her Intercom? How would she know that? Should he tell her?
To his side, the area around the cracked hull was busy. The path to the ship was clear, and nobody knew he was here. Five minutes and he’d be back in his comfy seat. Even though he’d been caught out by this girl, there wasn’t an immediate risk to his safety. Instinct churned Zachary’s stomach. He walked under her home, studying the connective-joints without a trace of rust visible. Standing beside a black screen attached to a wide pillar, she gestured to him to stand ahead of her.
“I’m Zachary,” he said, shuffling his feet at the called-for spot.
“I didn’t ask,” snapped the girl. “Activate.”
A thud fizzled above his head, then a dark shade materialised around him. He didn’t have to think hard to realise that she’d led him into a trap. “Hey – let me out of here.”
“Not until you’ve answered some questions, trespasser.”
Zachary huffed. He should’ve known better than to trust a female. She was no different from the women of Underworld; charming the weak with their conniving promises is all they offered. And he’d fallen for it.
Fist tightened, he punched the edge of the near-invisible cell. A surge tickled his knuckles. He slammed another. This time a sharp jolt penetrated his arm.
“The harder you try, the more it’ll hurt,” announced the girl. “We’ve got fifteen of these dotted around to catch intruders, like you.” Green eyes narrowed at him. “I’ll start again. Who sent you? And don’t you dare feed me any garbage about being with the repairers.”
A circle gleamed overhead. That had to be the driver of the cell. Zachary reached for his screwdriver. Damn! It was in his coat pocket – at home. The lining of the crimson suit rustled under his curled fingers. She had him beat.
“This isn’t fair. You didn’t give me a chance,” he protested.
“I don’t care.”
Zachary gripped the air in front of his head. “My dad’s up there cleaning your infected shell. I was meant to stay on the ship in the docking bay below. You can go and check if you don’t believe me. I snuck out because I wanted to see,” he paused for a moment, “Overworld.”
“You’re from Underworld.” A stunned look filled her. “Nice try, snot-bag. Admit that you came here to finish off your game.”
She removed an Intercom, similar to the one he’d found in the box, from her skirt pocket. “I should have told mother and father when my Raptor was stolen. I saw you that night, sneaking around while I sat on the balcony. You got me with t
he smoke bombs in the fields. One lapse and my Raptor’s gone, but what I don’t understand is why you needed it before attacking us? There are no secret messages on there.”
“That wasn’t me.”
One crease dominated the others on her brow. “I don’t know why you do it, or what you actually think you gain by protesting in Assayer. My father has kept himself from politics and the city for years. What have we done to deserve this? Why did you want to kill us?”
Almost every muscle twitched on Zachary’s face.
“Hit a nerve, have I? Believe me, when General Sokolov, who happens to be very good friends with my father, gets hold of you …” she sniggered. “There’s hardly enough skin on you to harm. They’ll probably mince your bones and eject you into outer space.”
“Do you think I caused this? Do I look like a pirate to you?” Not that he knew what they resembled. “If you want to, go and speak to my dad. Over there, with the drills. He’ll tell you where we’re from.” He kicked a pebble forward. It bounced back off the cell’s barrier-wall.
The girl studied him. “Thin. Very thin. Dirty.” Her weak guffaw strained. “You can’t be from Underworld. You’re not allowed. They’d never let your sort up here.”
“My sort? What do you mean by that?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” She cleared her throat. “It slipped out.” For the first time, she looked uneasy. “It’s unheard-of for an Underworlder to be here, unless they thought it’d be too toxic for our own repairers.”
Thin fingers traced down the side of her skirt. Her fiery attitude crumbled into a wobbling lip. Her quiet voice struggled to leave her mouth. “I’ve been so stupid. I’m sorry.”
Zachary scanned the girl’s fragile frame. Her eyes remained fixed on hard soil. He understood her angst. If his home were attacked, he’d chase anyone who aroused suspicion. It was unfortunate that she’d found him.
“Forget about it,” he said. “Please let me out.”
She swiped her palm against the black screen on the pillar. “Deactivate.”
The dark shade around Zachary evaporated.
“I’ve been uptight ever since my Raptor was stolen, then the attack, and my parents arguing,” she said. “It’s been too much.”
“Because of the anniversary?” Zachary froze.
Her even, white teeth thrust from her jaw.
Think quick, thought Zachary. Deceit was a trick a scavenger knew well.
“You mentioned the anniversary.” Anxious muscles tightened within his chest as she shook her head. “You did … you said it, earlier.”
She shook her head again, then sighed. “You really have no idea.”
“Should I?”
“My dad used to be an ambassador in Assayer – the capital of Galilei – that you’ve probably never seen, right?” She spoke to the pillar. “I can’t believe I’m talking to someone who hasn’t been to Assayer. Anyway, I don’t know the details, but he was kicked out, and we live here now. Miles from anyone.” She cleared her throat. “Sorry, deviated. What I meant was, although we are not in the city, everyone, I think, knows that we’re here.”
Her harsh tone had gone. “I’m Rosa.” She tugged the side of her skirt and curtseyed. “Rosario Emily Kade, if Mother was listening.”
Somehow the name fit the elegance of her strong cheekbones.
Zachary gave the underside of her home one last look. “I better go back.”
“What’s it like … down there?” asked Rosa.
How unusual that she wanted to know. Didn’t Overworlders look down onto them? Maybe they didn’t. It wasn’t like the ceiling had windows for viewers.
“It’s messy. If you took away the light, the grass, everything that makes your home special and chucked in years of waste and sewage, you’d have Underworld. There’s no space to live freely or to distance ourselves from the dirt we breathe. Then again, it’s not really dirt, or not to me.” He noted the beginning of a frown on her face. “We’re like bugs under your feet, but we’re still human. Someone once told me that you can’t have anything worthwhile unless you have something worthless to compare it to. I suppose Overworld wouldn’t be the place it is without us.”
Rosa’s expression absorbed his words.
“My dad doesn’t do repair work like that – always. He works on the Far-Wall in District Two. It’s a place that allows oxygen to seep in to keep us alive.” Zachary pointed to a tree. “I thought they were all extinct.”
“What do you do down there?”
Was she taking interest in him?
“I’m a scavenger in the Wastelands, which is a million times worse than what I described about Underworld.” He realised that she might not understand the locations he named. “I hunt for things that get washed up and dropped into Underworld, to sell.”
“For money?”
“For anything. Money, food, electricity.” Zachary rubbed his head. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, or even talking to you. Dad will go mad at me.”
“Why would he be mad? For talking to me? Do you have rules against that?”
“Talking gets me into trouble.”
“It’ll be another hour before they finish cleaning the shell. Tell me more about the Wastelands.” She clasped her palms. “It’s been so long since I’ve spoken with another person. Well, I’ve got my parents and Alice, but not someone young. How old are you?”
Zachary gazed at the glimmer in her eyes. “Sixteen.”
Her hands unclasped and snapped back together aloud. “Me too! The first person I’ve met in years, and he’s the same age as me. You really can’t make these things up, can you?”
What did she mean by the first person? Didn’t Overworlders meet one another, or did they have so much time and space that people became an afterthought?
“I don’t know.” Zachary inched to the path they’d taken to reach here.
“What’s the fashion down there? Do you all dress alike? Are women treated equally, or is it a man’s world? Do you have to pay lots to travel into space, like save up for years and then watch it waste away with a click? I’ve got so many questions.”
Rosa’s excitement scared him. What devices could be recording them now? What if they were shown to his dad? Evidence.
He snapped his teeth tight. “Can you just shut up and let me go?”
Rosa scowled. “I get it. You don’t want to talk because you think that we’re too good to be seen with. You’d rather stumble in the shadows than accept that we’re not terrible.” The harsh tone crept back. “Mother says Underworlders consider us to be the real filth of Galilei. If you only tried to be more civilised then our worlds wouldn’t be so separated. We could actually live together like they used to before the Reckoning-Age.”
Zachary shook his head. From what he knew, the Reckoning-Age of three hundred years ago was the catalyst that saw exploration into space outweigh the need to calm the civil wars that flattened the old world.
“It was your people that shoved us down there.” He didn’t know that for sure. “In Underworld, we have to struggle to survive. You never have to worry about where your food comes from. You only have to worry about getting any. My dad has been working all day, and he’s tired … but for your stinking money, he came to clean up your mess.”
“Our mess? We didn’t ask for this.”
Bracing his anger, Zachary thumped his thigh. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Yes – go back to washing in the sewage.”
Turning away rattled, Zachary rasped, “Hopefully next time the pirates will break through and leave your home in ashes. Then you’ll know how it feels to live in muck.”
Her fingers clicked causing him to turn.
Rosa slapped him. She jumped back, gasping.
Zachary clutched his cheek, unbelieving, as the sharp pain deepened. Seeing the slightest of movement is what saved scavengers from being buried under heaps of junk. Yet, here, without a hint of darkness, he’d been slapped by a girl.
“I shouldn’t have done that. I’ve never …” Rosa paused. She removed her Intercom-transmitter again. “Take it. It’s another Raptor model. They’re worth a lot.”
“You’ll say I stole it off you.”
“No,” she cried. “Please.” Her ‘please’ was more like ‘sorry’.
The hinges were all in place and the shine on the device’s circular rim dazzled, even in the gloom under her home. As an attempt to make up for the slap, it’d do. Zachary snatched the Raptor.
“Goodbye,” she muttered.
A firm hand seized Zachary’s arm. He twisted, trying to release the vice-like grip. It didn’t budge.
“Alice,” said Rosa. “Let him go.”
Zachary stared into the pale face of a girl with hair cut in a bob. The black pupils of her white eyes shrank.
“Who is this?” asked Alice.
“A repairer.” Rosa lunged forward and took Alice’s hand off his arm.
Zachary pulled back to see the new female’s perfect white tunic and pressed trousers. He’d uncovered similar parts in the Wastelands. “A working bot.”
“An Intuitive-Assist Android.” Alice turned to Rosa. “Did he harm you?”
“No, he’s leaving.” Rosa led her bot by the hand, giving him space to pass.
Sighing, Zachary walked away from the structure. Several times, he almost looked back. Was she still there with her bot? A bot could alert others to his trespassing status. He quickened his pace through the grass.
The repair work hadn’t ended, and the path back to the docking-bay was clear. Zachary smiled at the motion of the Intercom bouncing in his pocket. Something good had come from the trip, though he was sorry it was not her. Because of four files, he’d thought she was different. Gentle. Considerate. Eyes rolling, he cursed under his breath how she’d brought distaste into his mouth. Zachary moistened his lips. Rosa Kade. She had a name. Part of him didn’t care. As far as Overworld was concerned, he was tired and disgusted of it.
“Stop,” came a voice.
Zachary spun, hands up.
Nobody. He scanned across the grass. There. A grey-suited man aimed a handgun, but not at him. He fired a pinging shot in the opposite direction from where Zachary was heading. In the distance, a man in green swayed before dropping into the grass.
