Burn this City: A Dystopian Novel

by Brenda Poppy

  Some of his colleagues, like Grayland, viewed his acts of kindness with admiration. Most did not. A man who knows too much and doesn’t observe the established order is a risky man to have in charge. So one day he wasn’t. One day General Cross sent Arvense and his team on a mission from which they never returned.

  Burn didn’t know what one act or secret had led to his untimely demise. She had searched for months to uncover the truth with no success. But she was certain Cross was behind it. Sure, he acted contrite. He gave Arvense a hero’s funeral and made sure his daughters received a sizable amount on which to live.

  But it was all for show. It was the benevolence of a dictator.

  Burn seethed inside as she stood before Cross. Looking into the monster’s cold gray eyes was like staring into the depths of the Pit, but she forced herself to do it, keeping her face placid.

  “Thank you for your concern, General,” she crooned back. “I’m sure my father would have been pleased to know how much you look out for his daughters.” She couldn’t resist mentioning Arvense, and she thought she saw a dark shadow briefly pass over Cross’ face. In an instant, however, it was gone, and he was back to his smiling self.

  “It’s the least I can do for the family of one of our fallen,” he said, his tone cooling. “But you should take more care, my dear. This is a dangerous city. A lot could happen to a pretty girl like you.” Burn shivered as chills of unease trickled down her spine.

  “I’ll bear that in mind. But now I must be getting home. Good day.” With that she swept past the men, skirted between the bustling clerical staff, and pushed the front door open with both hands.

  Chapter 2

  Burn walked out into the courtyard and immediately shielded her eyes. It wasn’t that the city was bright; the pollution levels under the dome actually dimmed the light from the planet’s twin suns. But the city’s smog made her eyes sting, and the loosely controlled chaos of the Peace Sector was a lot to take in.

  Normally her goggles and mask would have provided protection from the sickening air. But both had been lost during her struggle in the Corax End. It was possible the Peace Officers had recovered them, but she wasn’t about to go back in and ask. So she wrapped the neck of her tunic around her nose, holding it in place while she made her way to the edge of the zone.

  Kasis was a sprawling city, the only one to exist on the planet that bore the same name. But, due to the constraints of the dome that protected them from the planet’s harsh atmosphere, its ground-level growth could only extend so far. So they had begun to build up. That was a few hundred years ago. Now the city was a vertical maze of shops and dwellings, tiered based on socioeconomic status and political importance.

  Those that lived at the top were the military elite, the ones that made the laws and dispensed justice. From their elevated perches they could look down upon the lower ranks, judging and punishing as they saw fit.

  Below them were the influential civilians – the ones who owned the factories and the supply chains that kept them running. They had less legal power, but all that meant was that the laws were made for them instead of by them.

  Then there were the highly skilled – doctors, architects, robotics specialists – who earned their money legitimately (in most cases). They possessed less political sway but enough money to make sure their voices were heard.

  Burn’s family lived on one of the tiers below that. Their sector was mostly comprised of mid- and lower-level military operatives, along with some aspiring craftsmen and tradespeople. Theirs was an intermediate zone – not quite rich but outside the boundaries of the poor. They worked hard, survived, and likely had a friend or two high enough to get them out of a tight spot if the need ever arose.

  Underneath them were a few levels of semi-skilled workers interspersed with shops and stalls. The lower you went, the shadier the wares. And the poorer the people.

  Inhabiting the bottom – and most packed – portions of the city were the menial workers, the factory hands, the cogs in the machine. And, of course, the scum of the city – both literally and figuratively. Their streets and alleys were gray with the haze of soot and pollution, and little light broke through from the upper levels.

  Disease and mutations were common there, creating a class that looked – and were looked upon – as subhuman. The utter poverty, paired with the peculiar deviations, bred an environment of grift and grit. It wasn’t a good place to be alone – or be at all, if you could help it.

  It was also home to the Corax End. The elements that made the area dicey were precisely the ones that made it a perfect place for an off-the-grid meeting. Well, until Cross had put the area in his crosshairs. Now Burn would have to find a new locale to conduct her business. It was a shame, seeing as how Corax had the best steamed buns in the city.

  That thought made Burn’s stomach rumble. Feeding prisoners wasn’t high on the Peace Force’s list of priorities. She should really be getting home.

  Although most of the influential Peace Officers lived “in the heavens,” as they liked to say, they ruled from the colony’s center – a middle tier in the middle of the city – from which they could easily access any level or sector.

  Traversing the city was…complicated. A maze of walkways and stairs allowed citizens to pass between platforms. The setup made any sort of vehicular transport difficult at best, and outright dangerous at worst. So walking it was.

  The route was second nature to Burn, as she had often traveled back and forth to visit her father or bring him lunch. She wound her way through the streets and alleys, ducking in and out of passageways in case she was being tailed, which was probable. It wasn’t that going home would look suspicious to anyone following her. It was more than Burn didn’t want to make their job too easy. And, besides, outfoxing one of Cross’ cronies was fun.

  Arvense had taught his daughter many things over the years, including his well-honed evasion tactics. Burn still wasn’t sure if it had been a way to groom her to become an officer or a way of protecting her from them.

  Well, becoming an officer was out of the question now, so protection it was. She took a couple sharp turns and backtracked a few times before stopping to pick up some bread and cheese at a mid-level stall.

  She picked at the bread as she climbed the steps between zones. Her eyes were stinging by that point, aggravated by the exposure to the fine particles of dust and grime floating in the unfiltered air.

  By the time she reached her platform, Burn had worked herself into a nice simmering rage. Sleep had been elusive in the cell, but she felt wide awake, pumped up by the exertion of climbing and the fresh energy from the large chunk she had eaten out of the still-warm bread.

  She used her thumbprint to unlock her door, striding in and letting it swing shut behind her. A small part of her wished a Peace Officer had been there, just so she could slam the door in his face. But this wasn’t the time for petty gestures. This was the time for a plan.

  And, possibly, the time for explanations. Burn’s sister, Scarlett, glared at her from the living room. Well, it wasn’t really a living room. Sure, it was situated where living rooms were supposed to be, right off the kitchen and adjacent to the hallway that led to their bedrooms. But most living rooms weren’t filled with scrap metal, discarded electronics, cables, power tools, and blowtorches. Then again, most families didn’t have a girl like Scar.

  Like Burn, Scar had been born special, with an extra set of skills beyond those of a typical child. It wasn’t a sensory enhancement like in Burn’s case. It was more an intrinsic understanding of the way things worked and how things operated, particularly machines and electronic devices. In a minute flat she could deconstruct a comms unit and rebuild it with added range, clarity, and GPS tracking for good measure. It was a skill set an elite engineer would have killed for.

  Unlike Burn, her sister’s special gifts were a little more difficult to hide. It wasn’t just the smoke and fumes consistently flowing from their windows – or the steady stream
of odd gadgets they bartered with. Scar’s mutation had a physical component, as well. Maybe it was because she had spent more of her early life in the city’s lower levels, or maybe it was just the way this gift worked. But whatever it was, it certainly made her stand out.

  You see, Scar was made of metal. Well, not fully. Probably not even half. But enough. She had beautiful, milky skin, which seamlessly transitioned into cold, hard metal at various points along her body. Her arms changed from smooth skin to metal and back, up the length and down her shoulders, with a wide slash of silver glinting across her chest.

  And some of her wiry red curls? Yeah, they were actual wire. And, if Burn wasn’t mistaken, they were currently sparking. Was that new? That couldn’t be a good sign.

  “Where the hell have you been?” she asked, her irritation making the question sound oddly threatening. “I waited up all night for you. I thought you’d been nabbed by the force or something.”

  Burn cocked her head and raised an eyebrow in response.

  “Shit. Really?”

  “The Corax End was crawling with Cross’ men,” Burn sighed. “They grabbed everyone they could find. I think they even ransacked the place and started a few fires for good measure. I was hauled up pretty early so I didn’t see the full extent of it. But it’s clearly not safe for ‘business’ anymore.”

  “Damn. That was one of our best sites. Was it a random sweep?”

  “More like a planned ambush,” Burn countered, shaking her head. “They seemed to know the time and general location, but no specifics. I got there early to scout it out, but they were already in place. I let the others know, but before I could get out all hell broke loose.”

  “I knew that new goggle patch would come in handy,” Scar said with a touch of pride.

  She was right – it was rather ingenious. Scar had taken their normal smog goggles and welded in an electronic patch that transmitted short coded messages between users. The message would pop up right in front of your eyes, given you were wearing your set. A retinal scan even ensured that no unauthorized parties would be privy to your communications.

  “That reminds me,” Burn said reluctantly. “You’re going to need to take mine offline, just to be safe. The Peace Officers got a bit rowdy during the roundup and my specs were a casualty. Got another pair?”

  “I’ll have one for you by tomorrow. I’m working on a few tweaks to the design. Good thing I worked in a self-destruct feature in the early stages.”

  “My glasses can self-destruct?” Burn asked incredulously. Scar’s unique inventions never failed to surprise her. She wondered briefly how she could use this new knowledge to her advantage. A small fire in the evidence room, perhaps, if that’s where her goggles had ended up?

  Burn shook her head to clear it. The lack of sleep seemed to be catching up with her.

  While she was thinking, Scar had whipped out her computerized tab, unfolded it, and made a few quick keystrokes. “Done,” she said before folding it up and stowing it in her back pocket.

  Scar’s speed and precision when it came to technology were remarkable. Burn often wondered if her mind functioned more like a computer than a human brain. She had a hard exterior – figuratively as well as literally – and although Burn knew her sister loved her, emotion and sharing weren’t her strong suits.

  “You look terrible,” Scar stated, not even looking up from her work. Tact was another area she wasn’t too adept at.

  “Yeah,” Burn replied slowly, glancing over her disheveled state. “Turns out even those high-end, luxury jail cells don’t come equipped with hot water or breakfast. Next time I get arrested I’ll have to speak to them about that.”

  A small “hmph” was all the reaction she got from Scar, whose head was now completely hidden behind her current project – some sort of strange mid-sized robot with no head of its own. Burn knew better than to ask about it, so she gave up on the conversation and trekked down the hall to her room.

  Chapter 3

  It had come as a shock to her mother when Burn, at the age of 3, started to relay the goings-on of people several houses down with startling accuracy. And it came as a shock to Burn herself to learn that not everyone could hear everything she could. Like when the traveling baker made his way into their sector, his cart laden with breads and baked treats. Or when Mr. Strobin on the tier above them paid his weekly bribe to the Peace Officers so they would look the other way on his back-door gambling ring.

  But Arvense had never seemed surprised. It was as if he had been expecting Burn’s ability. After Scar, their parents knew it was possible that Burn would also be gifted. It tended to run in families, after all. But it was more than that. Despite having no special abilities himself, Arvense seemed to intrinsically understand how Burn’s gift worked.

  In the beginning, the headaches were terrible. There were times – if she went out onto a crowded street or into the market – that she thought her head would actually split open. She didn’t know how to block out the voices, so they all came crashing into her head, combining into an indistinguishable racket that she was sure would drive her mad. There were days, weeks even, where she couldn’t leave the house for fear that the noise would overpower her and leave her helpless.

  Her father knew she could get the better of it. He worked with her every day, helping her erect mental guards to tune out the commotion. At first it took every ounce of concentration she had to shut out the unwanted noise. Even just a few minutes of it left her feeling physically drained.

  As time went on, it became more and more effortless. She could start going out again, start interacting with people without constantly being interrupted by the noise. Eventually, she could even focus in on particular people and locations, almost as if she were tuning an internal radio to their specific frequency.

  Little by little, she began testing her gift, poking and prodding at the edges to see where the limits were – and if she could push them further. She began to shut herself away again, this time not to hide from the noise but to embrace it.

  Burn would sit alone in her room, cross-legged on her bed with her eyes shut, the gentle whoosh of her breath the only sound. Well, the only sound in that room, at least. Then she would send out her thoughts, gently rolling over nearby streets and houses, now and then alighting on a familiar voice or an interesting tidbit of conversation. As she went further, the voices became muffled and grainy, like she was hearing them through a broken speaker. Eventually, the sounds would stop completely, replaced by an uneasy silence just waiting to be broken.

  It was here, at the edges, where Burn returned day after day. She would grab onto those muted voices, those half-heard sounds, and coax them to life, stoking the embers until words and phrases burned to life.

  It was a tedious exercise, hardly ever resulting in anything interesting. Once in a while, however, she’d alight on a gem of information – an affair, a backdoor deal, an illicit cover-up – which her father had found useful. But more often than not, she only heard the normal occurrences of life: people cooking, cleaning, borrowing an egg, bartering for bread.

  At first she felt guilty for listening in to people’s private lives, like she was spying on their most intimate and personal moments. In a way she was. But, honestly, unless it concerned large-scale fraud or corruption, she wasn’t interested in the day-to-day lives of those she heard. She might take advantage of small things – like listening for when the local shop owners were in a good mood (and therefore more inclined to give her a good deal on merchandise). But other than that she didn’t linger on most houses or people. Their business was their own and she knew better than to get involved.

  Things had changed when her father died. Scar had been inconsolable, one of the few times that emotion of any sort had cracked her metallic exterior. Though younger, Burn knew she would have to be the one who took care of them now.

  Scar had never been much for interacting with others, preferring the company of computerized machines to unpredictable hum
ans. Outside, her peculiar appearance brought stares and whispers and sometimes even outright hostility. Even though she had now figured out how to strategically cover herself with specially made masks and long-sleeved clothes, she was never eager to go out, fearing people’s reaction to those who were “different.”

  And she wasn’t wrong to be afraid. Fear was, after all, a powerful motivator for hatred and violence. Especially in Kasis.

  So that left Burn to pick up the pieces of their lives and try to put them back together in a way that made sense in their new father-less reality. It had meant giving up some parts of who she was in order to make herself who she needed to be.

  By that time, she had honed her unique skill – and had accumulated almost as many secrets as her father had. But she had never been one to act, preferring to live a “normal” life while her father used the intel she accrued. After he died, that was no longer possible. Those secrets now belonged to her – and she had to figure out how to use them.

  Without the power of the law behind her, leveraging those secrets was risky. But, then again, without the badge she didn’t have to answer to the Peace Force – or help facilitate their corrupt machinations. There were still a few officers who had been friends with her father and looked on Burn and Scar as family. And the rest at least feigned support. It was enough. A little pity – feigned or real – came in handy. Like when you needed to get out of jail.

  So instead of waking up in a cold cell with an undetermined release date, Burn came to in her own comfortable bed to the sound of a baby crying. And a couple fighting. And a teapot whistling. And so much more.