The Initiation

by Chris Babu

  Drayden headed downstairs. Flight after flight. It was monotonous and numbing, which fit his mood. Twenty-second floor. Thirteenth floor. Eighth floor. Going down sure was easier. He was almost out when he stopped abruptly.

  Voices. Below him.

  He tiptoed down the metal steps to the third-floor landing, keeping his head away from the window in the doorway.

  A discussion in the hallway. Two men.

  It was hard to make out what they were saying. Drayden couldn’t resist a peek through the small window.

  A Guardian and a worker in overalls, like a plumber. The Guardian was older, bald, and overweight. He looked sweaty. The plumber handed over cash and the Guardian gave him a baggie full of…some herb. Hay.

  Drayden drew in a quick breath. He wasn’t supposed to see this.

  The Bureau grew marijuana in the Meadow, and other drugs too, strictly for its own use. They also produced alcohol and tobacco, as electives available for sale in the Retail Centers. Drugs were illegal for ordinary citizens. The Guardians transported them from the Meadow to the Palace. Some seized the opportunity to score a little side money, smuggling drugs into the Dorms. Usually they sold them to drug dealers behind the scenes, although Drayden was unaware of a Guardian ever selling them himself.

  The Guardian turned his head and saw Drayden. “Hey!”

  Oh shkat. Drayden bolted down the stairs, jumping four or five at a time. In an instant, he was in the lobby and burst out the doors. He turned left and sprinted west down Thirty-Fourth Street. Thinking ahead, he pulled off his backpack as he ran and stuffed his green hat inside. He tugged off his sweater too and shoved it in. He didn’t want to give the Guardian anything noteworthy to remember him by.

  “Get back here! Freeze!” the Guardian screamed from way behind.

  No way. Not only was he cutting school, he’d busted the Guardian selling drugs. That guy would need him gone. Where should he go? School! He could disappear in there. He turned left on Park, darting the one short block to Thirty-Third Street. The Guardian would hopefully only see a tall, skinny boy with brown hair. As he reached Thirty-Third and turned left, the Guardian was just turning down Park Avenue, a full block behind.

  Move! Drayden flung open the school doors and dashed inside. School was already in session and nobody monitored the door or lobby. He took a hard right and bolted up the stairs, two flights, into a hallway, and then an empty classroom.

  He was out of breath and shaking, but safe. For now.

  CHAPTER 3

  Drayden slumped at a desk in the back of Mr. Kale’s class, which would start in a few minutes, cold sweat coating his skin.

  He couldn’t believe his luck. The first time in his whole life he broke a rule, he got caught. Maybe the Guardian hadn’t gotten a good look at him. Hopefully the flunk would just forget about the whole incident.

  This day sucked already. Drayden couldn’t even look at his father earlier, but now that he’d settled into a dull misery his father’s parting words resurfaced. What had Dad meant? Drayden knew his mom. Of course he did. Better than anyone. He—

  An arm slinked underneath his neck to choke him from behind.

  Drayden instinctively tucked his chin. He pulled the arm down with his right hand, away from his throat in a textbook jiu-jitsu defense. His eyes followed the twisted arm up to the smiling face of Timmius Zade, his best friend.

  “Ohhhh, I totally had you there,” Tim said, releasing the hold. “You were mine, kid, done.”

  Tim was a blue belt in jiu-jitsu at a martial arts club, while Drayden was self-taught from a book. Yet Drayden dwarfed Tim, who only stood five foot seven. Even though Tim was more experienced, Drayden’s size gave him a distinct advantage when they grappled.

  “Knock it off, man,” Drayden said, sounding a little more serious than he intended. He shoved his friend away, only half playing. “I’m not in the mood.”

  Tim sat at an adjacent desk, his expression turning serious. “Hey, bud…I’m so sorry about your mom. I bumped into Wes this morning, and he told me. Think it’s gotten around the school now. That’s nuts. Where you been anyway? I been looking all over for you. You doing all right?”

  “Not really.” Drayden didn’t want to tell Tim about the Guardian, because he felt stupid. “Oh man, I don’t want everyone talking about my mom. Would you be all right?”

  “Probably not. Though your mom is way cooler than mine. That’s some serious shkat. Gotta be more to the story.”

  Drayden turned away and yawned, his eyelids heavy.

  Tim glanced around the room and cleared his throat. “Hey, uh, I know what’ll cheer you up.” He nodded in the direction of the door.

  She sat at a desk in the corner wearing a simple gray dress, her face buried in a book. With a delicate hand tucked up into her sleeve, she brushed a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

  Catrice Zevery, Drayden’s first and only love. Or at least his crush. Either way, she wasn’t aware of it. Time was running short to mention it to her as well. Tomorrow was Friday, the last day of school, and graduation and job placements occurred on Monday. He needed to make a move right away, but he knew he wouldn’t, especially given the circumstances. Girls were the last thing on his mind right now.

  Though she wasn’t popular, boys knew Catrice because of her ethereal beauty, like someone from a fairytale. She kept to herself and didn’t seem to have many friends.

  “Go talk to her,” Tim implored.

  Drayden appreciated his friend’s attempt to take his mind off the exile. This just wasn’t the time. “I can’t. We didn’t have power this morning and I smell.”

  “Dude, you do know if you didn’t have power then nobody else did either, right? Everybody probably smells a little today. I know

  I do.”

  “I’ve talked to her before,” Drayden said.

  “Following her around in the hall isn’t exactly talking. It’s more like stalking. And when you yardsale the contents of your backpack all over the hallway floor, it’s pretty ineffective stalking.” Tim chuckled.

  That one never got old for him. “It was one time. And I have talked to her. But she’s shy.”

  “That’s why you have to be the aggressive one. Give her something to talk about. You guys are both math nerds. Talk about—I don’t know—geometry or something.”

  Drayden rolled his eyes. “Yeah. ‘Hey, Catrice, I love the way the sun reflects off the angles of your head.’”

  “C’mon, man. I’m trying to help you.”

  “Or how about, ‘Catrice, you have nicer legs than an isosceles triangle?’ ”

  Tim shook his head. “You’re hopeless. You do want to actually kiss a girl at some point, right? Watch how easy this is. I’m gonna go chat up Clara.”

  “What about Michelle?”

  “She dumped me,” Tim said matter-of-factly. “Something about me flirting with other girls all the time. Apparently she didn’t appreciate that. I don’t think she was the one.” He winked. “Now watch and learn.”

  Tim rose, straightened his white linen shirt, and strutted up the row of desks, glancing back at Drayden with a sly grin. He tapped Clara on the left shoulder and zipped behind her to the right. She fell for it. She peeked over her left shoulder before looking right, smirking. Tim sat on the desk beside her and spouted his best rap.

  Drayden had long grown tired of Tim’s nonstop quest to prove how macho he was. Tim considered himself quite the ladies’ man, even if most of society didn’t. He was decent looking, a fairly athletic dude, with a shaggy mop of sandy brown hair and blue eyes. But a horrible four-inch scar arched down the left side of his face, from the corner of his eye to his mouth, like a sliver of the moon. Kids teased him about it years ago, which initially drove him to learn martial arts. A similar story to Drayden’s. These days, Tim carried on as if the scar didn’t exist.

&n
bsp; Mr. Kale finally strode through the door looking quite sharp, sporting a brown wool sweater vest over a white linen shirt. He adjusted his glasses, reinforced with green electrical wire, and called the class to attention. A tall African American man, his graying temples gave him the dignified air of a professor. Given the shortage of qualified teachers, he taught both math and social studies. He was the best teacher in the school, and one of Drayden’s only friends. Thankfully, he didn’t think being smart made you uncool.

  His classroom was a confused mishmash of education. Globes and half-torn posters of Egypt over here; signs of famous equations, like the Pythagorean Theorem, over there. What it didn’t have were computers. No one in the Dorms had them, since there wasn’t enough power. They didn’t have calculators, lacking batteries, which had expired decades ago. Even pens and pencils had gone extinct. Drayden’s generation used quills, made from empty ink cartridges from those dead pens. Ink came from raspberries and blackberries.

  Drayden often fantasized about the days of computers and the internet. Everything was destroyed when cyberterrorists crashed the web, as well as communication systems, power grids, and satellites. Their unprecedented global attack was one of the four major simultaneous events of the Confluence. That not only killed the internet; it ceased all phone communication, radio, television, and GPS.

  Mr. Kale taught social studies today. “The Bureau believes it’s essential that new generations of the population understand the Confluence. Today we’ll be talking about the Inequality Riots of the 21st century, one of the four main elements of the Confluence. Who can tell me about some of the causes of inequality in the United States back then?”

  Becky Jennings in the first row shot her arm up like she was trying to crush a bug on the ceiling.

  She was so annoying. Usually the one dying to answer questions to which everyone knew the answers. The Bureau made them study the Confluence every year in school. Becky was simply a suck-up.

  Mr. Kale pointed at her. “Yes, Becky?”

  “Well, social and economic inequality was getting bad. Lots of people were out of work.”

  “And why were they out of work?” Mr. Kale asked.

  “Well, globalization provided cheaper labor overseas. Because of all the technological advances, computers and robots took over peoples’ jobs. Companies needed less workers, so labor costs dropped and profits skyrocketed.” Becky beamed. She glanced around the classroom, seeking approval and admiration. Instead, other kids gave her the stink-eye or didn’t pay attention at all.

  Discussions of the Confluence always reminded Drayden of his mom, who was only thirteen when it happened. Three years younger than he was now. It wasn’t just that she survived; it was how she survived.

  “Thank you, Becky,” Mr. Kale said. “Those lost jobs, particularly in manufacturing, would never return.”

  Mr. Kale droned on about the one percent and the ninety-nine percent, but Drayden didn’t give a damn about any of it. For him, it only mattered because his mother belonged to that ninety-nine percent. That was why her family lived in a humble apartment in Queens. She shouldn’t have even survived the Confluence since she wasn’t in Manhattan. She should have died along with everyone else.

  Apparently, Mr. Kale had asked another question, because Becky couldn’t contain herself. She practically jumped out of her seat, thrusting her arm so high it was hard to believe it was still in the socket.

  Mr. Kale let out a long breath, with his eyes closed. He looked up at the ceiling. “Go ahead, Becky.”

  Stupid Becky. Yes, please tell us for the hundredth time why raising taxes on the wealthy and hiking the minimum wage didn’t work in a recession. Drayden jabbed his quill into his palm just short of breaking the skin. He tried to tune Becky out, her words still passing through his ears in bursts.

  “…unemployed…disincentivized even to look for work…heavily taxed businesses…employed less people…wealthy people and businesses…moved to other countries with lower taxes…”

  Drayden eyed the desolate city out the window. Moved. People moved, or rather fled, Manhattan in droves during the Confluence to escape the chaos and the city’s quarantine. Not Mom. She and her brother Dan decided to sneak into the city, despite being ridiculed. The quarantine was already in effect, the government having blown up some of the city’s bridges and guarding the border. Under the cover of darkness, in a tiny rowboat, Mom and Uncle Dan paddled across the East River and landed in East Harlem, avoiding detection. That was years before the Bureau built walls. They started a new life, while everybody who stayed behind died.

  Mr. Kale was still yammering. “The economy tanked. The government had no money to pay for the ever-increasing entitlements, leaving it no choice but to cut services. Support for education and housing ended, programs for the mentally ill and elderly were shuttered. Becky, what happened next?”

  Becky appeared overjoyed to be called upon again. “People had been aggressively protesting already, each protest more violent than the last. Eventually, an epic class war erupted. Like, an actual war. Mobs of angry people, many of them armed, stormed Wall Street. People trashed nice apartments. The defining moment of the war was Zak Hann’s murder. You’re going to ask me who Zak Hann was, so I’ll just tell you!” Becky laughed to herself. “He was a billionaire software businessman, a self-made one, from Brooklyn I think. Rioters broke into his apartment and beat him to death.”

  “Literally anyone else besides Becky. What happened next?” Mr. Kale pleaded.

  “Shkat went bad!” someone screamed from the back of the class. The whole room burst into laughter.

  “Yes, indeed. Care to elaborate, Mr. Clark?” Mr. Kale called across the room.

  “Not really, Mr. Kale.”

  “Fine,” he said, giving the boy a sarcastic thumbs-up. “I don’t want to spend much more time on this anyway, so I’ll summarize. The one percent and the government finally had enough, resulting in a huge crackdown. The police arrested thousands and brought the National Guard in to restore order. But the city fell into disarray, and residents evacuated en masse. This coincided with the superbug showing up on U.S. soil in the Washington, D.C. area, our former nation’s capital. That, in turn, led to the closure and quarantine of New York City. That’s a whole other lesson, for another day.”

  Mr. Kale sat at his desk. “At the exact time of the quarantine, the National Guard presence was giant relative to the suddenly miniscule population of New York City. Many citizens had fled. It’s the reason New America has such a disproportionately large police force today. It’s also why they’re called the Guardians. Let’s move on to something more interesting. The American Revolution.”

  Drayden couldn’t do school today. His mother had made that gutsy decision when she was thirteen and saved her life, and the Bureau just threw it away. He peered out the window again. She was out there, somewhere past those buildings, over those walls. If she was still alive. The thought sent chills down his spine. Even if the superbug didn’t kill her, there couldn’t be any food or water. No way she could survive.

  His dad was an idiot. Carry on with their lives? Mom had been taken. Thrown outside to die. Nothing made sense anymore. The thought of asking his father to explain himself made Drayden so angry. Dad would probably shut down anyway, the way he consistently did when life got tough. Perhaps Wesley knew something about Dad’s last comment. He’d start with Wes.

  The bell rang, snapping Drayden from his thoughts.

  As he stood, Tim approached. “Hey, bro. You gonna be okay?”

  Drayden rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you come to jiu-jitsu this afternoon? We’ll roll a bit. You can blow off some steam.”

  “I…maybe.” Drayden shook his head. “I cut school this morning and got chased by a Guardian. I don’t know if he’d recognize me, so I don’t know if I’m in trouble. I gotta be kinda careful wal
king around for a while.”

  “Oh, shkat. Alright, man. I’m sure it’s no big deal.” Tim patted Drayden’s shoulder. “Hang in there, Dray. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  With the cafeteria three floors up, Drayden wished for the 586th time the elevators worked. No buildings in the Dorms had working elevators. He wasn’t hungry anyway, and he needed to get out of there.

  Drayden stepped outside the doors of Norman Thomas High School, scanning the streets for Guardians. Thankfully there were none in sight.

  Despite being one of the few buildings actively maintained, the brick structure’s dilapidated sign read “No—— T—— —— —c—ool.” It supplied a dependable source of jokes at school. Why didn’t someone just fix the sign? If someone pissed you off, the standard response was “not cool.”

  It was a classic April day where it was warm in the sun, but nippy in the shade, and the air was crisp. If his world weren’t crashing down around him he probably would have called it refreshing. Drayden pulled his hat down tighter and walked down the steps to the sidewalk. Groups of kids chatted, played cards, and rode the school’s few bicycles. Laughter saturated the air in bursts. With one day of school left, the upbeat mood electrified the whole building. For the seniors in the Dorms, even though menial job assignments awaited them on Monday, it still signified a major milestone. He plopped down on the steps.

  “Drayden!”

  Sidney Fowler jogged toward him in a gray polyester tracksuit.

  Watching people run amused Drayden. Some people appeared normal in daily life, but looked supremely goofy when they ran. Sidney wasn’t one of them; she was an athlete. She was a star basketball player, and was girl-next-door cute, with her brown hair and brown eyes.

  “Hey, Sidney.”

  “Oh good, I wasn’t sure if you knew who I was.” She sat beside him, so close their legs touched.

  “What? Of course I do.” There were two hundred sixty kids in their class and they’d never been friends, so her uncertainty wasn’t crazy. While Drayden knew her as one of the flirtier and most popular girls in school, he wasn’t personally the recipient of anyone’s flirting. He was an observer, always on the outside. It was shocking Sidney knew him. “We were in English together last year. How’s it going?” Butterflies formed in his belly. Sidney was so pretty up close.