by Quil Carter
“They’re fucking five!” Cristo yelled. I started to become scared at that moment. No one yelled at my master without getting hit.
And I then heard a smack. Cristo recoiled and stumbled, and as he tried to stop from falling over, Perish laughed.
“Remember yourself, sengil,” Silas said coolly. “Another outburst from you and you’ll be having to teach Elish sign language. Speaking of which…” My body froze. “Come down here, boys.”
I was caught! How did he know? But he thought my brothers were up here with me, I could probably run back to bed so at least he’d have to punish…
“Dammit.”
I whirled around and saw Nero and Garrett behind me, both of them dressed in their pajamas. Garrett’s face was all stitched up, a nasty bunch of silver staples going from the corner of his right lip to his ear and several in random places. They were all red and angry and it made him look like a rag doll. Nero was covered in black, red, and blue bruises and I could see a buckle mark on his arm.
I hadn’t even heard them. They’d snuck right up behind me.
We all walked down the stairs, our eyes squinting from the living room lights. Silas, Perish, and Cristo were standing there giving us unhappy looks.
“So the kittens were aroused from their beds,” Perish said crisply. He had been here for a day now and no longer smelled like greywastes.
~
At this point in time Perish was Imperial General and spent a lot of time in the greywastes trying to bring order to the lawless land. We didn’t see him that much. Perish was such a rugged, sharp figure, a man of nasty comments and barbed quips, so I disliked him. Perish, as you can see, was a world different than the broken shell of a man he’d eventually become. In a few years, Silas would slip deeper into his madness, and in that madness, he’d decide to alter Perish’s brain, his very personality, not only because Perish displeased him – but to get rid of the constant reminder of Sky.
~
My brothers and I walked to the bottom of the stairs and stood there, huddled together and staring at our bare feet.
“You’ll be leaving this house next month,” Silas said to us. “You’re all old enough now to be exposed to the world you will be helping me rule.”
Garrett sniffed and wiped his nose. Nero didn’t look happy and neither was I. Silas saw our reactions and walked to us. He put his hands on his hips and his eyes glared down at us like he was a titan and we were background characters.
“Am I mistaken? Do you need more time to be babies?” he asked coolly.
Behind him Cristo’s mouth was pursed and his eyes hard and unhappy; Perish didn’t have much of an expression but he was watching everything that was going on. I only looked at them for a second before my eyes travelled up to Silas.
“I’m ready,” I said to him. Cristo sighed and shook his head. “I want to go wherever you go.”
Silas smiled at me and put a hand on my head. “I thought so, little love.” His attention turned to Garrett and Nero. “And you two?”
My two brothers nodded at the same time. A tear drop fell from Garrett’s eye though and splattered onto the floor. Nero wasn’t crying, but since Silas’s punishment, he’d been really quiet.
“Yes, sir,” Garrett said, and Nero followed saying the same.
“Good,” Silas replied. He removed his hand from my head and patted Garrett and Nero’s heads next. “My boys grow fast, and my daughter is as well. I can see that now.” He turned from us and looked to Cristo and Perish. “It’s time for my chimeras to start living in the real world.”
CHAPTER 3
Garrett didn’t take moving well. He packed his bag quietly and occasionally I would hear sniffs and hiccups come from him. My brother didn’t want to move, and he didn’t have a problem at all making his feelings known through crying and whining.
I didn’t want to move either but I was King Silas’s golden boy, and to show that sort of weakness and displeasure over my orders was out of the question. I saved my feelings for when I was alone in my bedroom and I cried then, but only for a few minutes and then I washed my face so no one would be able to tell.
“We’re not going to have a yard anymore to play ball,” Garrett whined. He looked out our bedroom window, his suitcase open on his bed. We were moving today and Garrett was still in emotional turmoil over it. “We’ll have to take the elevator down twenty-seven floors to get to the ground.”
I picked up my packed suitcase and put it on the floor. I was already packed, ready to move all of my things into the skyscraper that would be my new home. “But we have the roof,” I reminded Garrett. “Silas has a beautiful garden up there and there’s the balcony too.”
Garrett rubbed his nose and then he closed his suitcase too. He had a miserable look on his face and his eyes were red and swollen from his crying. It had been a month since Prince had attacked him and his stitches were out, but there was still a red ugly scar on his face and three smaller scars. Perish says he was going to look through Skyfall’s storage for a machine to remove them from Garrett’s face. Perish was a jerk to us but you could tell from small actions like this that he did care for all of us. I think he especially liked Garrett since Garrett was a science chimera.
“It’s not the same,” Garrett sighed. He took his suitcase to the door and I followed him. “I like grass, not just concrete with plants on it. And we can’t run far until we fall off the roof. I want our yard, not the stupid skyscraper.”
We walked down the hall towards the staircase. “We’d have to move eventually,” I reminded him. “Silas is right; this place isn’t what the world looks like. It was just for us when we were babies, and we’re not babies anymore.”
“I still want to be a baby,” Garrett whispered. He looked down the stairs longingly, then his shoulders rose and fell. “Being a baby was easy, being an adult is hard. I wish I had been smart enough to appreciate being a baby. I would’ve enjoyed it more if I knew how much adulthood sucked.”
I shook my head. Garrett was so much softer than I was. He held his emotions on his sleeve and what was in his mind was spoken; unfortunately, a lot of things on his mind should remain there. Garrett had a lot of growing up to do and a long way to go, Nero too. I was lucky that I knew so much more than him.
Ellis was waiting for us by the door, the moving trucks, still being loaded, behind her. She was excited about moving to the city because King Silas had started a karate school just for her. Ellis always got her way, it wasn’t fair.
“Don’t cry, Garrett. Dad says we’ll get to come back here for holidays,” Ellis said when she saw Garrett’s tear-stained face. She began walking with us to the garage, all of us making sure we were out of the movers’ way.
“If Nero didn’t mess up… Silas wouldn’t have fought with the sengils and Perish,” Garrett sniffed. “It’s all his fault.”
I had nothing to say in Nero’s defence. We’d all been giving him the cold shoulder since the incident last month, and in response to us ignoring him, he was bullying all of us. Nero was also mad because Silas forbid him from owning his own pet until he was seven. Nero had been so mad he smashed a plate, and then he got a whippin’. We all liked watching that.
Silas greeted us by the car and we all loaded in our suitcases. The suitcases only contained our personal items, everything else was coming on the trucks. Most of our stuff was already in the skyscraper though, a lot of the truck stuff would be put into storage for when we were old enough to move out. That was years away though, so long it seemed like it would never come.
I was excited when we entered the vast city of Skyfall, usually only faint skyscrapers miles and miles away. I had been to Skyfall many times by now, but just knowing that I was going there to stay had me looking at everything differently. The big buildings seemed taller, and the abandoned ones more spooky, there were tons of people, more than I remember, and lots of food trucks and stalls selling everything from produce to hot dogs.
This city, the only city fr
ee of sestic radiation, was officially my home now; the prince had left his childhood home and had returned to his place of birth to rule.
As we carried on down the busy paved road, I filled with pride. Every man and woman walking down the sidewalks, every person in the buildings, the parks and shops, were my people and I would rule all of them how I saw fit. I was their prince, and when my king was indisposed, I’d be king, and whatever I wanted, I would get.
“All of Skyfall is eager for my loves to start living here full-time. You’ve been headline news,” Silas said. He put a hand on Nero’s head and stroked his hair back. Nero was riding up front with Silas, Garrett and Ellis were in the back with me. “You’ll be coming with me to Stadium soon, once we’re all settled. For tonight though, we’ll order pizza and have a movie night. How’s that?”
Movie night? Garrett and I looked at each other and smiled, Garrett’s tongue was sticking out as usual, and we both cheered. Ellis and Nero joined into this cheer and I saw a beaming smile on Silas’s face.
“We’ll be having a family meeting as well,” Silas said. “It’ll soon be time for you all to start shadowing your mentors a couple days a week, and we’ll be discussing who those people will be.”
Garrett’s smile disappeared and he succumb to nervousness. He put his arms around himself and leaned back in his seat. Ellis, however, looked excited, she was smiling really big and bouncing up and down in her seat.
“Is it Mr. Miasaki?” Ellis asked excitedly. “Is it, Daddy?”
That was her karate teacher. He made the mistake of calling Ellis a prodigy and she hasn’t shut up about it since.
“We’ll discuss it tonight, Elly,” Silas said. “Garrett, no need to frown, it’ll be exiting for you.”
Garrett rubbed his nose and squirmed in his seat. “I don’t want so many things to change,” he said quietly. “Can’t we just have one change a month?”
Silas laughed lightly. “Oh, lovely boy, I know it’s a lot of change right now but this’ll be the last change for a long time. Skyfall will be your home forever and your mentor will teach you how to do your job forever too. So you’re settling in for things to stay the same for quite a while.”
Garrett nodded but he still looked miserable. I didn’t care though. I was excited to see what my life as an adult was going to be like.
We all piled out of the car and the sengils grabbed our suitcases. I looked up at Alegria, the tallest skyscraper in Skyfall, and felt like a little ant in its shadow. It was twenty-seven-storeys high, with huge tinted windows on every floor and a big balcony covered with a glass railing. Its exterior was brick that was painted grey, and huge columns at the entrance that were white. The stairs and the ground around us were made from granite too, or it might’ve been marble, and our shoes made noise as we climbed up each stair.
I heard clicking and looked down the wall that encased the stairs. A man was down there taking pictures of us and when he saw me he smiled.
“Elish! Are you excited to be living in Skyfall?” As he spoke to me, the camera he was holding flashed, making my eyes squint.
“Yes,” I said as I rubbed my eyes. Then I felt Silas put his hand on my shoulder and direct me away.
“Get his camera,” I heard him whisper. One of the sengils put a suitcase down and started running down the stairs, then the man who’d taken my picture turned and ran too. Nero and Garrett laughed at this but Silas only muttered swears under his breath.
I was used to having cameras take pictures of me here. Garrett and I had even practised our smiles in front of the mirror to make sure we looked good when our pictures were in the newspaper or on TV. Ellis says we’re celebrities, like the movie and TV stars before the Fallocaust, but I didn’t know if a prince could be a celebrity since we’re already another title.
Everyone walked into the elevator and Nero and Ellis fought over who got to press the buttons. Eventually it was settled that Ellis got to press the two, and Nero got to press the seven.
Those two were such children.
I’d been inside of Silas’s top floor apartment before but like this entire trip, today it was different. This was our home now, up high in the sky.
Nero, Ellis, and Garrett ran ahead to the open double doors, but I stayed behind with Silas. We walked together down the hallway, his hand on my shoulder and his pace slowed to accommodate mine.
The top floor of Alegria was beautiful, mostly because there weren’t any little kids to smash things. It was an adult’s apartment with vases on polished wooden tables, adult books in bookshelves, and windows without prints and carpets without damp patches from the sengils continuously getting out stains. I’d loved being in Silas’s apartment because it made me feel adult and important.
When I walked into Alegria I smiled and looked around. It was just like I remembered, big and open, with floor-to-ceiling windows that covered the entire side of the wall, nothing else just windows, and then further on there was a balcony. The bedrooms also had big windows and the kitchen did too, it was bright, sunny, and welcoming.
“I have a surprise to show you guys too,” Silas said. He held out his hand for me and I took it with a smile, Silas walked us to the end of the hallway and I was surprised to see stairs leading down to another level!
“This is your new playroom,” Silas said. We all cheered and my brothers and sister jumped up and down behind Silas and I. They wanted to rush ahead but they knew better than to push past King Silas. “Upstairs will be strictly for quiet play; downstairs you can go nuts. Any rough-housing upstairs will result in punishment. Understand me, Nero?”
I looked behind me and saw Nero’s purple-blue eyes get wide, then he nodded his head rapidly. “Yes, sir,” he said.
Silas stepped back and let us all run loose downstairs. The entire living room had foam block puzzles and there were totes of toys and Legos everywhere, the kitchen had easels for us to paint on, and I could see an arcade game in one of the bedrooms! The dining area had a big television and there were bookshelves full of DVDs, VHS cassettes, game systems, and games. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen!
“I’m going to have my wedding here,” I heard Nero whisper. He had a look of awe on his face and he kept looking in different directions, like he couldn’t decide where to go first. His eyes eventually fell on Silas, who he ran to and hugged.
Silas laughed and patted him on the back. “My office is just several floors down. We’ll be able to spend a lot of time together now.” The expression on Silas’s face seemed like pure happiness. He seemed lighter now, not as angry as he was before. Rarely had I seen him this happy.
That evening, we all sat at our new dining room table with bowls of ice cream. We’d already eaten pizza and watched Indiana Jones, and now it was time for sundaes and soda pop. This was simply the best evening I’d ever had, although I was secretly wagering on how long it would take for Nero to throw up. He’d gotten permission to go all-you-can-eat on the ice cream and he’d taken that as a personal challenge.
“So how is everyone liking the new home?” Silas said, the warm smile still lighting up his face. “Pretty nice, huh?”
“Yeah!” we all said, Nero even banging his spoon against the side of the table, Silas gave him a quick look and he stopped right away.
“Since my lovely boys and my little lady are five and a half now, I believe it’s time for them to start shadowing their mentors,” Silas continued. My heart jumped at him mentioning this, we’re going to find out more about our jobs! I already knew what my job would be and I kinda knew what Silas was going to say, but I didn’t let that theory grow. I didn’t want to be disappointed if it wasn’t what I thought.
Garrett looked fearful, Nero hadn’t stopped shovelling ice cream into his mouth, and Ellis was excited. She was bouncing around in her chair, trying to contain her happiness.
“Ellis, as you already expected–” Ellis let out a shrill screech, loud enough for me to put my hands over my ears. I hoped her mentor was on mars. Wh
y did girls always have to scream about everything?
“– you’re going to be mentoring Mr. Miasaki. I expect you to put all of you into his teachings. Mr. Miasaki doesn’t deal with bullshit. Are you going to give him bullshit, Ellis?” Silas asked.
“No, Daddy,” Ellis said. She was grinning from ear to ear. “I’m going to make you proud. I promise.”
Nero snorted. “Kiss ass,” he muttered.
“Ellis.”
That was all Silas had to say, Ellis raised her hand and smacked Nero on the head. My little brother scrunched back and when he attempted to advance on Ellis, Silas cleared his throat. Nero’s nostrils flared like he was an angry bull, but then he remembered he had ice cream and took a spoonful of that instead.
Nero was simple, it was easy to calm him down if you had food around.
“Garrett,” Silas went on. “You’ll begin shadowing Dr. Zamir Viskov. He has a son a couple years older than you which I’d like you to become friends with. Zamir is quite the scientist and you’ll be too one day. Isn’t that right future president of Skytech?”
Garrett stood up straight, a beaming look on his face. “Yes, Master Silas. Thank you.”
Silas smiled at him, then turned to Nero. “Yours isn’t that much of a surprise,” he said. “General Rei Zhou will be mentoring you. You’re going to start spending two days and a night away at Cardinalhall, Friday to return on Saturday. Once you get older, you’ll continue your training at the Skyland base where I can keep an eye on you. Understood?”
Nero, his mouth full of ice cream, looked up at Silas and nodded, his eye squinting with contentment.
