EXODIA
by
Debra Chapoton
Book 1 of the Exodia Ledgers
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover art by Magali Fréchette
Copyright 2015 by Debra Chapoton
Smashwords Edition
Available in paperback
Other works by Debra Chapoton
OUT OF EXODIA
A SOUL’S KISS
SHELTERED
THE GUARDIAN’S DIARY
EDGE OF ESCAPE
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EXODIA
Part I: 2093
Chapter 1 The Red Slum
From the first page of the Ledger:
The black voice said, “Live in fire, wild, souls howl here.”
There are two paths to every man’s life. Some choose hell …
IT’S AS IF I too am running for my life.
I sit transfixed by the scene outside the smudged window. A scrubby looking boy races away from a statehouse guardsman barely out of reach of the angry soldier’s whip. I clench my fists, press closer to the window, and let the pounding in my ears cover my idiot tutor’s droning voice:
“… after the Eurasian Nuclear War of 2049 when North America united into 90 states and declared trade independence from the rest of the world …”
The kid reaches the fence and scrambles up the chain links. The frayed end of the guard’s whip catches him on the ankle. Two small oranges spill from his pockets as he lurches to scurry over the top unfazed by the lashing or the broken barbs. He casts a casual, nonchalant glance over his shoulder and disappears out of sight.
My posture relaxes and my pulse returns to normal, but then my eyes fall to the words the tutor has scrawled on the wallboard: Eurasian Nuclear War. The letters jump around in my head and rearrange themselves into I aware casual runner. My heart skips a beat. I’ve been having more of these strange distractions lately. Words change in my head and I miss several minutes of time.
I slump down in my seat and glance at the three other boys forced to sit through this drivel with me. Not one is paying attention. We’ve heard it a thousand times.
“… post-apocalyptic immigration changed the culture of our new nation. Tattoos on the left elbow, red or blue, were given at birth to differentiate the two classes. Intermarriage is punishable by death and so is killing or breaking the bones of someone of the opposite tattoo.”
I fight the urge to cradle my left elbow even though it doesn’t matter since I’m wearing a long sleeved shirt. I can never draw attention to my fading tattoo. As grandson of the most powerful man in the nation, Executive President Bryer Battista, there should be no doubt that I am a Blue.
But I have a doubt. Something isn’t right. No one else’s royal blue tattoo has purpled like mine. For months now I’ve secretly dabbed blue dye on my skin, as much to hide the suspicion from myself as from anyone else, that maybe, just maybe, the tattoo I was given sixteen years ago was red. And maybe I, Dalton Battista, grandson of the cruelest tyrant ever, am not a true member of the elite ruling class. That maybe I belong to society’s religious outcasts–those poor hoarders, low class rejects, slave labor.
It takes a moment before the silence registers on my ears. The tutor is no longer speaking. Four sets of eyes are turned on me, watching, waiting.
“Excuse me? Could you repeat the question?”
“Certainly,” the tutor smirks. “What is the name of the resistance leader who tried to claim all of Exodia for the Reds?”
“Um,” I clear my throat. I love history actually. Half my life I was raised by a Red nanny whose tales of Ronel captivated me. “Ronel, David Ronel, he, um …” I run a hand through my hair, long by current standards, and simply stop talking. My fear of public speaking muzzles me even in this small group.
And now my mind swirls around the fact that this morning I ran out of blue dye.
* * *
“What is it with that guy? Does he think we’re morons?” Jamie kicks at the stones in the path as we walk along the fence after class. “When are they gonna get us a decent tutor? He’s what, the fourth one this year?”
I nod, spy a patch of orange color beneath some overgrown shrubs, and think of the thief who would have braved a consequence far worse than the tip of a whip if he had been caught. I reach through the scraggly patch of weeds and pull out the fruit, rub them on my jeans and drop both into one of my linen belt bags.
We pass a guard, the same guard who chased the kid. His whip is wound up and clamped to a utility belt that also holds a Nano-gun. Nano-guns are prized since the Suppression of 2071. There have been a lot of changes since the nuclear clouds did their damage to this half of the world, or so I’ve been told countless times.
“No,” I adjust my answer, “he’s the fifth one. You’re probably forgetting about the old, skinny guy that kept checking his fly. He only lasted three days.”
“Oh, right. He was the one who had taught in a real school, before the Suppression.” Jamie gives a quick laugh, kicks another stone, and asks, “Do you ever wonder what it would be like to spend all day with hundreds of other kids, girls too?”
He is obsessed with girls. Before I can answer I hear the shout of the guardsman we just passed. We turn to see him running after a boy, the same boy, I’m sure, who earlier escaped. Scrubby looking, thin, tattered brown vest. Running for his life again – and suddenly I’m rooting for him to succeed.
“Come on, let’s follow,” I say. I don’t wait for Jamie.
We race back in the direction we just came from and easily catch up to the guard, who has stopped to unbuckle something from his utility belt.
“No! You can’t shoot him.” I plant myself directly in front of the guard, giving the thief a couple extra seconds to reach the same spot in the fence as before.
The guard looks from me to Jamie to the kid who’s half way up the fence now. Of course the guard knows who I am so he’s careful about picking his words. He speaks with the accent of a northern Blue and says, “That one deserves a bullet. He doesn’t just steal food, he spies for Ronel’s people.” He’d like to push me aside. In fact, he starts to shove me away with his gun hand, then steps around me. The thief is gone. “Damn. Next time let me do my job.” He mumbles several curses against the Reds as he re-holsters the gun and marches back to his post.
Jamie speaks first. “When did you get so brave? I thought he was mad enough to shoot you. Heck, you should have let him shoot the kid. He’s just a Red. I wouldn’t … hey, where’re you going?”
I wave Jamie along, check again that the guard is out of sight, and examine the ground near the fence. “See all the footprints? That kid always climbs over right here.” I put my hands on the links and begin to climb.
“Why don’t we just go out the main entrance and walk around the fence? We could catch up to him.” He pounds one fist into his open palm.
I look down at Jamie from halfway up then glance over at the building. The roof is in disrepair. Our classroom window is one of only three that isn’t cracked. Sometimes I think there’s no difference between Blues and Reds, between the capitol buildings and the slum houses. But there’s a big difference between Jamie and me.
“No, you know they’ll make us take a guard for protection. Come on. You can be m
y body guard.” I don’t wait for an answer. I reach the top and pick my way over the missing barbs and rusted ends. I drop the last several feet and stare at Jamie through the fence. “Coming?”
I hold his eyes for no more than a few seconds, read the hesitation for what it really is, and snort my disgust. He often flips between bully and coward, tough guy and gutless weakling. It’s only circumstance that makes us friends. “At least cover for me if I’m not back by dark.”
* * *
The stench of rotting garbage and desperation not only fills my nostrils but makes my mouth curl. I spit on the dirt and step up onto the crumbling pavement that serves as the main road. I know it winds through the slums that surround the fenced capitol of Exodia. I’ve ridden through here in an armored truck many times.
A man in a torn shirt–red elbow revealed, muscles bulging–is pulling a cart mounted on an old solar car chassis. A line of women, only a couple with blue tattoos, are lined up to fill plastic jugs and glass jars with water from a public well. Half are holding solar phones to their ears, depending on the century old satellites to connect them with whomever, whenever. It’s a frustrating habit, but part of the tapestry that is Exodia. They tilt their heads and turn in line, trying to get the late afternoon’s golden rays. I’ve heard my grandfather speak about the issue of failing technologies, always arguing that our future lies in resurrecting the ancient arts–that we should let science and medicine be lost.
I look at the Reds around me. I’m sure that’s who most of these people are. Tan skin, glowing faces, strong limbs. These second class citizens are every bit as beautiful and fit as the Blues that I see every day. I can’t put my finger on it, but there is something… something familiar, something in these people that fascinates me.
I notice a small crowd gathering around two boys who are fighting. It’s not an angry fight, seems more like sport. I want to get closer to watch for a minute, but I catch a glimpse of a guardsman’s uniform on the other side of the crowd and I don’t want him to see me.
And then I see the most beautiful brunette girl. Hair as black as mine, skin several shades darker. Stunning. Tall and proud and completely unaware of me. I forget about the thief and begin to trail after this girl. Her clothes are skin tight, an iridescent pale green that shimmers as she walks.
I am only vaguely aware of the action around me–two soldiers beating on an old man, women barely dressed calling after me, children running in and out of store doorways–as I focus on the beauty who walks with purposeful strides, head up, eyes never looking right or left.
The main street narrows after a few blocks and we pass several side streets. I note the makeshift street signs, memorize the names, and follow the girl when she turns down Burnell, then Brookhouse, and finally Bancroft. I keep catching her scent, an earthy bouquet that’s not like any flower I know. Sensual, fragrant.
The houses we pass are mid-century solar with most of the glass walls boarded up. She stops at one that looks better cared for than the rest. I duck down behind some bushes and watch as a kid comes out and they greet each other by touching left elbows. He says something to her that I can hear–“you were right”–and points my way. They both march over. I rise up.
“Who are you?” she asks and the way her eyes hold mine I feel weak even though I know I’m as strong as that man who was pulling the cart.
My tongue is tied.
She waits a beat and asks, “How old are you?”
That’s such a strange question that my tongue loosens and a number spills out, “Sixteen. Why?”
She nods at the kid. Some secret knowledge passes between them. I glance away from her and focus for a second on the kid. I’m surprised to see he’s the thief I meant to track down. I concentrate on her again and wait for her to speak.
“So you’re a Blue. What are you doing in a Red neighborhood? Looking for trouble? All by yourself?” Her eyes, the kind that change colors in different light, flame brighter with each question. I’m mesmerized, but not so much that I don’t catch a certain little inconsistency. Why should being sixteen automatically mean I’m a Blue?
I reach in my belt bag and offer up the oranges to the thief. I realize now that he’s not as young as I had thought, maybe thirteen or fourteen, but scrawny. “Just returning these,” I say and he grabs them faster than a hungry monkey.
Out of the corner of my eye I catch a movement. Two other kids are creeping closer, but they’re small, not a threat.
“Who’s he?” one asks and the second one echoes the question.
“Shh, go back inside Lydia’s house,” the thief says and passes the oranges to them.
I catch the strange words that one of them whispers to the other: “Maybe he’s the one the Mourners want dead.” They scurry off to the house and I dismiss their words as part of a fantasy game. My attention narrows back to the girl. Darkly beautiful. And tall. I only have maybe two or three inches on her and I’m six feet one.
“Well?” She tilts her head and rests one hand on her hip.
I don’t know which question to answer first; it’s suddenly hard to breathe. “Dalton. My name is Dalton and yeah, I’m a Blue.” I let the rest of my breath escape. I’m well aware of the prohibitions, but it’s not like I’m here to marry her. I wonder if she’s ever had any Blue friends. It can’t be that uncommon. I suck in a humid lungful of air and nerve. “And your name is …?”
She doesn’t answer right away. She drops her hand from her hip as if she’s going to turn and disappear, but instead she gives the thief a signal of some kind and steps toward me. “I’m Lydia Sroka,” she says, her lower jaw jutting out, “and this is Barrett, Bear for short. And you are just who we’ve been waiting for, Dalton Battista.” She hooks her arm in mine and because she used my last name, which I’m pretty sure I didn’t say, I let her steer me back up the street. My throat constricts and I gulp a dozen shallow breaths.
I’m aware that there are people everywhere now. The abandoned cars that line the street are converted into huts. The garages and houses are multi-family dwellings. Men, women, children resume their lives and I hear the sounds I should have noticed were missing before. It’s as if the Red slum woke up when Lydia said my name.
“Where are you taking me?” We turn the wrong way on Brookhouse and the thief runs ahead of us, tapping his elbow and pointing at me whenever we pass someone.
“You’ll see. It’s not much farther,” Lydia says. She tosses her head and her jet black hair feathers over one eye like a dark curtain. She smiles at me and I know that I will follow her anywhere, anywhere at all.
* * *
I must have been six or seven when my mother left on a political trip with my grandfather. She acts as his first lady. I never understood why he dotes on her but mostly ignores me. Maybe because of my father. We never speak of him.
My nanny, my Red nanny, was delighted to have complete and total charge of me for the two months they were gone. One time she took me out of the capitol compound and through the dirty streets, maybe these same streets. We passed crumbling buildings that she named for me–library, courthouse, museum–words that meant nothing to me then. Words that are losing their place in our world. She wanted me to know about them so I could someday rebuild them. I was just a child, but I told her I would do it. Nanny Jacky smiled at me and I wished mother would love me like she did.
Only vaguely do I remember where we ended up that day. We visited a dark house. She sat in a small room on a wooden chair and cried. A man with a badly scarred face wept along with her while two older kids, a boy and a girl whose names I’ve forgotten, tried to teach me a game. The man never took his eyes off me. I had never seen a man cry, before or since.
By the time we left darkness had fallen and I complained that I was hungry. I asked her where our supper bag went. I knew she packed it; I remembered that she had carried it on her back because it was so heavy. She left it with the children, she said. Not to worry–we’d be back at the capitol soon.
Guards descended on us as soon as we got near the gate, scolding nanny, swooping me up into hard arms, swearing.
I’m remembering this now because Lydia is guiding me up broken steps toward a gate and several men are coming toward us like those guards, hard and cold and mean.
* * *
“Do you know where you are?” Lydia asks as we flow through the pseudo-guards and they close ranks behind us. The thief, Barrett, pushes open a set of doors, holds them as we pass, then leans against them.
“No.” I have no idea if this is an abandoned museum or library or church. It is dark and cold inside and smells musty. The people have begun to sing outside. The song is in English, but I don’t recognize a few of the words.
“What are they singing?” I ask, running one of the words over and over in my head: mo-shay, mo-shay. I think it means help or comfort.
“It’s … just a song,” Lydia says. “Do you know where you are?”
I guess: “Courthouse?”
She smiles. If I could make her smile like that all the time I would give up all I have and stay in the Red slum forever.
“Hardly. This was a birthing clinic. After the Culling Mandate of 2077 this was a pretty busy place. I was born here, but my twin brother was not allowed to live.”
I stand very still. That smile that captured my heart a moment ago now quivers at the corners, falls. I don’t want her to cry. I’ve never heard of the Culling Mandate. I’m afraid to ask.
She reads my mind and says, “You don’t know, do you? The mandate required the death of all boy children born to Red women in the year preceding the mandate and for twelve months after … by abortion or infanticide.”
Her words hit me like crisp slaps. How could I not know this most important and fairly recent bit of history? I realize that my head has dropped and I’m staring at my own feet, my mind swirling. The singing outside fades. I want to think that this is some kind of joke, but I know my grandfather is cruel. I know he murders whole towns.
Exodia Page 1
