Hard For My Boss

by Daryl Banner

  At lunch hour in the courtyard, he watches his younger brother Link eat alone at a wooden lunch table. The trio of bullies are tramping about the grass, and it takes everything in Wick not to hurl a stone at their heads. There’s several by his feet; he’s even picking which one he’d chuck. He’s hated them for years, ever since their voices changed and girls and boys became more interesting and hair sprouted in sensitive places. That’s when the new feelings came, the yearning and the anger. The most muscular of the bullies—his name’s Tide—has always had a fist ready for little Link—and Wick, two fists of his own ready to defend him. But he’s not an expert at defense and often did more witnessing than defending. But someday, Wick silently promised …

  “Hey Pink!” Tide calls out, passing the lunch table and laughing. Link’s Legacy is changing the colors of things through touch, but he’s admittedly not very good at it. Most often, he only manages to turn things a sickly pink hue, hence the unfortunate nickname.

  “Ignore him.” Wick takes a seat next to his brother. They’ve been through this a hundred times, but Link’s stopped eating. The anger that lives in his little brother scares Wick sometimes … the way Link has changed. “Tide’s just a meathead, bro. He just thinks he’s—”

  “Whatever.” Link rises from the table, trudges off.

  Wick sighs and slaps a hand to his face. In truth, he didn’t sleep well at all last night. “I don’t like him either,” says a friend of Wick’s at a neighboring table. “That Tide’s gonna learn, you can’t keep biting at everyone without someone someday biting back.”

  Wick smirks. “I think Tide’s a bit beyond learning.”

  The friend at the table is Rone, handsome, deeply bronze-skinned with buzz-cut hair and bright, sapphire eyes. He’s always been very comfortable around Wick, but never hangs with him outside school. His twin sister is a lot fuller of frame than he and not so pretty in the face, though she shares her brother’s intensely blue eyes and dark skin, always sitting with him and never talking. Both are known smart, note-takers, always in good graces with Professor Frey. They’ll get highest in life, those types. Maybe score a job up in the Lifted City … who knows?

  But the city isn’t always kind to those who deserve it. Just his luck, it’ll be a low-life like Tide who’ll catch the eye of Impis, the Marshal of Legacy, in some upcoming Legacy Exam, scoring fortunes from above. One day, he saw Tide walk a poor kid half his size into a wall, then burst into tearful laughter about it with his cronies, hysterical, rolling on the floor like dogs. Bad people don’t deserve good graces … but slum life is not known for being fair.

  “Tide couldn’t land a job in a wind factory,” Rone jabs.

  “What the hell’s a wind factory?” Wick asks back, and they both just laugh. Tide’s Legacy is pushing air. Or at least that’s how Wick likes to describe it, because it sounds not unlike farting.

  “Can you smell stupidity?” asks Rone.

  Wick makes a big show of sniffing the air, earning him a half-amused-yet-still-unsmiling glance from Rone’s silent sister, then responds: “And he reeks of it.”

  Everyone thinks Wick’s Legacy is that of acute smelling because that’s the lie his family tells. “He even smells fear,” his mom told their neighbor Iranda, “and sadness.” Wick can’t stand the lies, that his family won’t admit to people that he can sleep.

  But then there’s all of Sanctum and the Marshals with prying, greedy eyes who are on the lookout for strange and unusual powers among the citizens’ youth. If Wick’s dreamy secret were told to the wrong person, he might be abducted by Sanctum and studied, used, experimented on … or so say the rumors. But Wick thinks little of rumors or things he’s never witnessed himself.

  “You remember the first thing you ever smelled?”

  Wick shrugs. “Myself?” They laugh again.

  Really, what an awful Legacy. Sleep. You can’t even call it an “ability” like most Legacies; it’s a disability. Can’t avoid or control it either. That pains Wick the worst … He’s certain he’ll die in his sleep, neck slit or heart pierced at a blade’s end, especially in a world where no one else at all requires eight hours a night to recoup. That’s eight hours of possible death, that’s what it is.

  “See you in class,” says Rone, departing the table. His sister’s eyes linger a bit on Wick, then she’s off too. Feelings still sitting heavy, he stays a while staring at his hands until he convinces himself not to be late to class.

  When school’s out for the day, Link and Wick board the nine-two back home. Pushing through the front door, Link’s right out the back door and gets lost somewhere in the overgrowth of shrubs in their diminutive backyard, likely not to be heard of for the rest of the evening. Mom and dad are both still at work, so the cramped house is oddly quiet and seems to breathe for once, the sunlight cutting through the kitchen like a golden sword.

  Unmotivated as ever to get a start on his homework, Wick leans against the back of the sofa, still cluttered with last week’s dirty clothes and blankets, and stares out the window at the giant scrap metal disc thing in the backyard. It is a giant scrap metal disc thing because Wick has no idea what else to call it. Ever since it fell from the sky, it cut so deep into the ground that no one, not even dad, can manage a budge. It used to fascinate him, wondering what it is, what it’s used for … He peers up, squinting against the sunlight at the arm of the Lifted City that overhangs this part of the slums, about thirty stories in the air, give or take. From the window, he can see only two of the enormous pylons that hold the Lifted City up, of which there are copious. And this giant scrap metal disc thing, it’s probably just trash from that Lifted City, some large discarded thing from the rich and privileged above. How easy their lives must be … So casual, to let go a huge piece of metal over the brim, dropping it to the trash-laden slums below. It could’ve killed someone, cut a child in half … It actually did land unsettlingly close to the tree Lionis reads in. But what do they care, up in the sky, of those who struggle and starve below?

  Wick—Anwick Lesser of the ninth ward, by full name—has never known luxury or gold or height. His dad bangs iron at the metalshops and his mom rakes mud tirelessly in the Greens, all for scraps. Their bellies, all full of scraps. His oldest brothers Aleks and Halves live in the Guardian dorms now, working for them. And Lionis, older than him by only two years, is no help either; he just fills his head all day with science and nonsense at the library. Mom excuses his lack of income, since he also does laundry and cooks for them on the daily, but Wick doesn’t care. He can feed himself. Wick doesn’t need his brother soaping his socks.

  After flicking on the broadcast for half a minute and discovering exactly four boring channels on them, he finally makes way to his tiny room up the narrow stair, pushes the front window open and sits on the tiny porch roof outside, scribbling away his homework assignment in the steadily waning daylight. When he’s on the last page, mom’s come home and pokes her head in his room, face spattered in numerous hues of mud. “Coming down for dinner? Just us tonight.”

  With Halves and Aleks off defending the city in the name of Guardian and the Marshal of Whatever, the house is considerably quieter. Two less mouths to feed. And so he clambers down to the half-lit den to share a communal plate of dumplings, bean mash, and salted cabbage with his two brothers and mom until the sun’s been replaced by black and birdsong traded for crickets.

  That night, Wick wakes to the razor point of a sword at his lips. “Dead,” says the sword-bearer.

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  Want to read the rest of OUTLIER: Rebellion, the first book in the dystopian OUTLIER series?

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  Keep scrolling for a sample from Daryl Banner’s heart-gripping, darkly humored, and whimsical post-apocalyptic / young adult series: The Beautiful Dead.

  THE BEAUTIFUL DEAD

  (Sample Chapters)

  Daryl Banner

  The Beautiful Dead

  (A Sample of the Prologue an
d First Two Chapters)

  Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy / Young Adult

  Copyright © 2013-2016 by Daryl Banner

  Published by Frozenfyre Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  Prologue

  It’s so cold. It’s so, so cold.

  What you should know is, the first time a dead man opened his eyes, the twenty-seven doctors in the room screamed. The dead man did not bite them or foam at the mouth. He didn’t claw at them with his dirty nails nor did he grunt and moan like the dead were expected to do.

  The dead man just opened his tiny mouth and asked, “Where am I?”

  I’m so cold, but let me assure you, it was a quiet end. That’s what you should know above all else. Even with bombs all over the news. Mushroom clouds and calmly-reporting reporters. Debris snowing from the heavens, like winter. Bombs here, bombs there, bombs in your backyard and your neighbor’s living room. Smoke and liquid fire ate up the cities, the forests, the children.

  No one knew exactly what was happening, and by the time they did, it was over.

  And they were dead. All of them. Fire and smoke still covered the land like a blanket long after they were gone, the last of leaves and tree trunks burning on. The final blink of mother nature’s eye before she retired for a long, long sleep. Sweet dreams.

  I’m not sure where I was when all this happened. I may have died already, but it doesn’t matter. None of us were going to survive.

  At least, not completely.

  If time were an endless plain, this event is the chasm cut deep in the earth, its yawn spanning far beyond what light can reach. This awesome rift, we will never know for sure how wide it is. But on the other side, as sure as we are that there is another side, that’s where my story begins. Not when the world ended, but long after.

  After the trees have all but expired.

  After oceans burn and mountains fall.

  After the sky.

  It’s so, so cold, but before my life is gone … before I forget my mother’s face or my favorite flower or my name, I need to explain something, and it’s crucial that you pay attention. I’m so cold, but just let me say this one last thing to you before I’m dead, before I’m

  before I’m

  before I’m

  Are you paying attention?

  Chapter One:

  Winter

  I came into this world like most people do: screaming.

  “Don’t worry,” a kind voice tells me. “You’re just dying.”

  Everything hurts. My skin is all icy and bitter. My heart’s a heavy stone the earth is trying to wrench from my chest and my vision is an angry haze—I am blind.

  “Your eyes are adjusting, girl. Just relax.”

  Dying?—Did she just saying I’m dying?

  “Undying,” she amends. “You’re undying. But really it’s sort of the same.”

  I’m reaching out for my mom. I want to find my dad’s hands and pull them toward me, they should be there somewhere. I’m furious that no one seems to be helping me, that no one’s there.

  “No use in screaming on, you’ll just break your voice. You might need it.”

  Why would I need a voice if I’m dead? And for that matter, how’d I die? When did that happen? Shouldn’t I know?

  “No use trying to remember,” she murmurs sadly, her voice strangely accented. “That was your Old Life … a nothing life.”

  I can’t picture my mom’s face. Or dad’s. There’s a strange vacuum in my mind now, like I can’t even remember having parents. The idea of anything existing before this moment, that simple idea seems so difficult to understand suddenly.

  “You’re the worst I’ve ever heard! This awful screaming! Really, you should quiet down. You’ll wake the dead.”

  I don’t remember the last word I uttered. I don’t remember the last meal I had. I don’t remember the last hour I saw on a clock. I don’t remember …

  I don’t remember my name.

  “That was a little joke of mine,” she says with a squeaky snicker. “Wake the dead. You’re not laughing.”

  I’m panicked by the silence in my body where a heart should be racing. I’m gasping for air that isn’t there, with lungs that stubbornly refuse to fill. I’m in agony, I think.

  “Let go of my hair!—You’ll pull it straight off!”

  Her soft hair clenched in my fist, it’s the first sensation I have that isn’t horrible. It grounds me like an anchor. Suddenly gravity makes sense. My position of lying on cold hard ground makes sense. I’m aware of my ears for the first time and the information they helpfully lend … the ambiance of howling winds and whispers … the distant rumbling of thunder … the precise location of the strange accented voice that’s been speaking to me …

  “You’re coming to, at last. I feared there was no hope for you, screaming as you were. Now please, a finger at a time, let go of my hair.”

  My eyes have been open, but they only just now discover how to work. The furious haze of earlier releases me to my new world. Hovering over me is the face of a twenty-something-year-old with wide-set beady eyes and curls of black hair that gather atop two sharp shoulders.

  “Really, I’d hoped for a prettier Raise, but you’ll have to do. Oh, your skin is so tragic.”

  Who is this person?

  “My name is Helena Trim,” she tells me, “and yours will be—Oh, I hadn’t noticed your hair! It’s so … white. A snowdrift in a dream. Almost makes up for your face. I’ll call you Winter.” She smiles for the first time. It sits oddly on her stiff, pointy face. “There, that was easy. Now are we ready to try standing?”

  I push myself off the damp ground. Curiously, I find all the pain and torment I’d only a moment ago felt is gone, leaving an empty ringing in my ears that echoes down my body like a bell. I feel hollow. I feel weak. I feel like a vacuous shell holding nothing, not even air.

  “Where,” I say, startled for a moment by the sound of my own voice, “am I?”

  “The Harvesting Grounds,” this person called Helena informs me. “This is where the dead are Raised, girl. This is where everyone’s Final Life begins … if this can be called a life.”

  “I’m—I’m dead?”

  “Undead.” She delicately moves a strand of hair out of my eyes, wrinkles her face in pity. “We should get you to the Refinery straight away. Death hasn’t been kind to your—ah, never mind.”

  I don’t remember leaving the murky field. I don’t remember being guided down a winding road that cut through an endless array of dead trees and into a city. I don’t remember walking crowded streets or being steered into a squatty pink building, but now I’m leaning back on some kind of doctor’s table and there’s a large flush-faced woman with green eye shadow looming over me.

  “Her hair is just exquisite!” she squeals, taking a handful of it into her puffy palm. “I’ve never seen hair like this, the color of pearls. And coming straight from the earth, no less! Her skin, however … oh, help us all.”

  “Will someone,” I whisper quietly, “please show me a mirror?”

  “Not a chance, sweetheart. Roxie, dear precious, hand me my Chromo and a two-inch carving blade, will you?”

  I’m not sure what is happening, but it reminds me of prom night. The large lady starts working on my nails while gossiping sweetly with the others. Another girl who couldn’t be more than twelve years old starts scrubbing my legs for some reason. The one called Roxie takes to my hair, combing it and applying some pungent formula that makes my nose recoil. Helena keeps stealing my attention away, talking her little head off and, I suppose, trying to distract me from looking at myself. Despite her efforts, I catch a glimpse of what looks like an arm missing half its flesh, the bones of the hand visible. Of course I don’t recognize it as my own hand because, well, denial’s a powerful thing. And I’m still pretty sure I’m dreaming, except I’m not sure where I’d wake up. The idea of having a bed, or even a home to return to seems strange.

  “Have I lost my me
mory?” I ask finally. “For good?”

  “Oh, here we go,” the large lady sings.

  Helena faces me quite seriously. “Yes and no. Your Old Life is gone. Your memory of it and all the memory you had in your previous life is no longer. It’ll come back someday, sure, but it’s best not to think of it at all. Just let go now and never again look back.”

  “But—But I remember how to speak, obviously. I know language. I know how to walk. I remember concepts like … like prom night!—of all things. How is that possible if I lost all my memory?”

  “Some things stay, most things go,” the large lady chimes in, working some tool into my foot. “It’s not ours to decide. Do you prefer cherry or coral toenails?”

  I move my eyes back to Helena. “But you said it would come back someday?—my memory?”

  “It’s called a Life Dream,” she answers. “Or Waking Dream. Or the Dreaming Death. It has many names, but it’s when everything rushes back all at once, the memory of your Old Life returning to you in an instant. It will happen someday, but I assure you, it will be like an unwelcome enemy arriving at your doorstep. It’s best to forget it and leave it in the dust behind you, girl.”

  The large lady murmurs agreement, kneading something gritty into my skin like I’m dough. The one called Roxie winces in her own form of concurrence. The twelve-year-old just purses her lips, like the idea of remembering her life tastes bad.

  “That looks like it should hurt,” I point out, staring at the large lady and the tool she’s poking into my foot. “I feel it, but I don’t. Is that normal?”

  “Perfectly,” one of the girls behind me mutters. “Now keep still.”

  The questions start coming like a wave of nausea, I can’t help it. “What are you doing exactly?—Where’s half my arm?—Are those my bones?”

  “Helena,” one of them grunts, annoyed.