by RD Hale
My lips curl inwards to stifle my laughter and Sylvie clenches a fist as she struggles to think up a suitable retort. 'Amelia, but I thought you were c-' Sylvie and I simultaneously say: 'Shut up!' as we plod past impatient parents shoving trolleys whilst bored kids run around ankles and throw tantrums.
I place items into the basket like any ordinary shopper but whenever people stand nearby I slide victuals into my pockets, concealing illegal actions from the hidden security cameras. Meanwhile, Sylvie flicks out her blurring arm like a frog tongue to snatch confectionary which she places into her coat and my hood.
The latest games console tempts me to reconsider priorities but I can hardly stuff such a large item into my hoody lining so I fight the urge to kick the stack of boxes over. A store assistant pushing a trolley causes my muscles to tense with apprehension, but the girl wanders down the home furnishing aisle to pick up a glass vase, forcing me to trot after her.
'Put that down, it's fragile!' I order, envisioning broken shards alerting security.
The girl replaces the luxury item and giggles as a tannoy announcer speaks like she is phlegmed up with a flu virus. Our new friend runs past several aisles towards a butcher's counter situated below an enormous model pig head.
'Their noses are squashed, what are they?' the girl asks and her question receives no response as she points over slabs of dog, horse and alligator meats to the curly-tailed captives playing in a straw-filled pen, which really should be a violation of hygiene laws. Placing hands on hot glass, the girl grins at every oink until her edutainment is once again interrupted by a grab of the arm.
'They're a delicacy and expensive. Please don't draw any more attention to us,' I whisper through clenched teeth like a frustrated parent.
'What's a delicacy?'
'It means people eat them,' I mumble.
'But they're alive.'
'That's because if you buy them, they're ritually slaughtered before your eyes.'
As I drag the stubbornly strong youngster by the wrist she plants feet to watch a wide-nosed fifty something in a flowery hat approach the till. 'I'll buy one, that one there.' Standing on tiptoes she points to a lively piglet oblivious to impending vivisection.
A plump man in an apron clanks a carving knife and meat cleaver together with a money-greeting smile, then he reaches over the small fence and grabs the piglet's hind legs. Pleading squeals provoke pen-mates to scuttle around in a snout-bashing muddle. Tears well in the girl's eyes as the butcher holds his carving knife to the thrashing swine's throat, muttering: 'In the name of the goddess…'
'Noooooo!' the girl yells, trembling.
'Argh!' the butcher shrieks, dropping his carving knife onto tiles along with the piglet, which strives to climb back into the pen as he shakes his hand. 'It burns!'
'You did that?' I ask and the plucky piglet guardian glares at the butcher whose fat face is flushed red. 'Come on. Time to go.'
Pockets bulge as we approach checkouts where queues of weary shoppers strum feet and I eye the exit, knowing hidden cameras could be watching teenage shoplifters considering escape. The podgy security guard nearby is distracted by a pretty young store assistant and as he mirrors her body language it is a laughable sight. She is in a different subspecies.
I nod at Sylvie as she zips her pockets and we near the furthest checkout, placing baskets beside a clothing rail situated behind the last shopper in the queue. Grey-skinned customers stare at the ceiling and nobody seems to notice as we march towards open doors. Despite past experience I feel belly-squeezingly nervous as we pass security sensors. An alarm beeps so we quicken our pace before the automated doors can slide shut and serpent-headed speakers hiss: 'Excuse me, maybe you did not realise...'
The girl looks over her shoulder towards the patter of footsteps as I tug her arm. 'Run,' I mutter and we leg it through a carpark full of vehicles with solar cell exteriors, swerving around a lanky old man pushing a trolley.
'THIS IS ALL ON CAMERA YOU KNOW! Your pictures will be sent to the security database!'
Midway to an exit which leads into the urban maze, I look back to see the pink-cheeked security guard wobbling along like he could topple with every stride. As the lasses flee with an unfounded sense of fear, I sneer at the best SuperMart have got, opting to save my breath.
'Actually, why are we running? What can he do?' I gasp but the girls disregard my confidence, running past the exit sign through an opening in the galvanised steel fence. Affronted by their needless disloyalty, I march on and when the security guard catches up, I face him in the middle of the maglev entry road.
'What ya gonna do?' I ask, squaring my shoulders to emphasize superior physical fitness, but this imposing action fails to perturb hostility and the duty-bound butterball grabs my good arm. An entering hovercar is forced to land as we scuffle before its photovoltaic bonnet and I glimpse a gawping lady through the tinted windscreen.
'Hey girl! Sort him out for me, will ya?' I yell as my friends run through a patch of purple-flowered weeds towards terraced houses. A thicket of trees consumes the girl but Sylvie remembers where her loyalties lie and turns back to grab some stones. She launches badly-aimed missiles in a valiant rescue attempt, pressing forward as each throw falls short.
'Let him go before I ram a stick up your lard-arse!' Sylvie yells as a friendly rock strikes my cast, jarring my highly sensitive arm. 'Oww!' My trainers slide over the road surface in spite of my determined effort as the security guard pulls with a significant weight advantage and my broken hand means I cannot prise his chubby fingers apart.
'But I didn't do anything,' I protest as an incriminating bar of chocolate falls from my hood and lands at his shiny black shoes.
'You're coming wi... Argh!' A rock hits the security guard square on his forehead, causing him to jolt and I shoulder-barge him as my backup arrives with a branch virtually double her size. He releases his grip on my wrist as Sylvie chases him in a circle, almost falling with every committed swing. My outreaching foot catches his ankle and we erupt into laughter as he crashes down like a toppled statue.
Clothing accumulates sticky leaves as we flee towards tree cover, pausing to dig stones from the dirt. My left-handed throw proves almost as inaccurate as Sylvie's strongest arm, but the security guard shields his face as the pebble bombardment misses by a significant margin and two of his colleagues emerge. Although they appear no more capable than this aspiring employee of the month, a one-handed fight would be too risky, even with the help of the branch bringer.
'Byeee!' Sylvie yells as we head towards the general direction of the vanished girl. She emerges from behind traveller palms to follow us through the red-bricked streets housing Level Three Citizens, which have the bleakness of a near-endless open prison. We settle on a roadside bench, close to a firestation and after a foodless twenty four hours, my groaning belly can wait no longer so I dig into my pockets for a high calorie snack.
Sylvie pulls out cans of pop, chocolate, crisps and sweets from her jacket lining and my hood - all of which was concealed in a manner barely noticeable even to her accomplice. She hands a rainbow-coloured packet to the girl who I doubt has tasted candy before and I unwrap a bar of chocolate to gain a much-needed dose of blood sugar.
'Wow. They taste funny, they keep changing.' The girl smiles, putting another sweet into her mouth.
'Every couple of chews they reveal a different flavour,' Sylvie replies and the girl's lips curl in revulsion as she sticks the tip of her tongue out.
'Aniseed!' we shriek in unison. Unperturbed, the girl chews sweet after sweet; her eyes beaming with each newly discovered flavour until she reaches the bottom of the packet.
Energised by junk food we set off, entering an unlit pedestrian tunnel which leads below tramlines. Nicknames and years are graffitied onto interior walls which bear the stench of urine so I screw my nose as we plod through sliminess. When we emerge from the underpass only seconds later, crimson clouds have darkened the sky and poisoned rain is drizzling do
wn.
'It tingles,' the girl says.
'That's the acidity, caused by the bombs from the war. The sky's filled with dust and chemicals now. The temperature and sea level dropped as the poles turned to ice, revealed lost cities. They say it used to be too hot before the war. Here, wear my hoody again, it'll help keep you dry.'
I attempt to brush weeds from polyester but they cling on in defiance of my gentlemanly gesture. Yet when I hand the befouled garment over, the girl gently blows and every stubborn leaf and stem relinquish their grips to magically float away. She pulls my hoody over her overalls and we follow tarmac roads with barely a car in sight until we reach a metallic thoroughfare. It rises from the ground to join a spaghetti-like network where bright streaks whizz over terraces, following convenient routes for the Citizens who do not live in the shadows.
'Why is that road shiny?' the girl asks.
'It's for the cars. Early hover technology depends on electromagnets and most cars still use it. They have to rely on wheels when driving over non-metallic roads, requiring additional fuel. Newer models have two hover types, one of which can fly over any terrain, but they are a lot slower when off-road. Many Citizens prefer to use the tram,' I reply.
'Why don't we use the tram?' the girl asks.
'Because we're not Citizens. We have to walk.'
Chapter Three
A Spectacular Introduction
After several hours away our arrival home feels disorienting... As though we are walking in low gravity in our light-headed struggle to believe we are introducing the others to the extraordinary... Cautious of the realisation she is a stage of evolution ahead of our fellow slum-dwellers.
'Now this bunch may be a bit boisterous but don't worry, their hearts are in the right place. Well sort of,' I advise as our transhuman guest stoops into the hoard, pinching her lip despite having no reason to be nervous under (ab)normal circumstances.
'This stuff is fantastic,' the girl whispers, unbothered by the smell of decomposition as she treads on a paint splodge, leaving pink footprints amongst nuts and bolts, a half built go-kart and an absurd quantity of food wrappers. She admires a wrench with a baby-like fascination and then she approaches two footballs, one of which is flat, lying next to an electric box with loose cables. The clattering, which follows her kick of the fully inflated ball, prompts her to jump as five years worth of crap is reorganised.
'Watch out for those wires, you could get electrocuted,' I warn to no response as the girl swings around a metal support post.
'What's this?' The girl approaches the main showpiece of the room - a mural which portrays a mean-looking quartet posing against the Medio cityscape, below the twin moons. Elaborate magenta lettering reads: Brothers 4 Life.
'It represents my friends, this is Oscar, Scoop, Killow and me.' I point to each of the glowering faces exaggerated by the artistic license of a midget with a spraycan.
'Oscar,' the girl mutters, analysing the representation of straggled hair and pointed cheekbones and then her attention is diverted by our proudest and most useless possession: a pitiful mass of pistons and yellow titanium plates slumped against a wall, which once represented the pinnacle of mechanoid technology and is now deemed redundant by the elites he once served. Only the machine's hulking torso and tiny head are visible as the girl wanders through waist-high piles of uselessness and reaches out to touch his blue visor.
'We found him at a junk yard, took eight of us to lift him into the van by his arms and legs. And ever since we brought him home last year, he's been drawing in the rabble, even though he's not working yet. When we finally figure out how to fix him up, we'll be the only slumdogs in Medio with a working mech!' I advise.
'Him? Is he alive? When are you going to fix him?' The girl studies every scratch and rust patch on the mechanoid's shell.
'He'll be sort of alive when he's fixed, which'll hopefully be soon. He's called Ivor according to the lettering on his chest.'
'You always say you're going to repair him, Arturo. I'll believe it when I see it,' Sylvie interrupts as I beckon our guest to the door of the main room, exhaling a shaky breath. An unusual quietness awaits on the other side, suggesting a potent batch of weed has reduced housemates to a dribbling state of semi-consciousness, but that maybe for the best.
'This room is a little more civilised,' I advise with an immediate temptation to retract those words as I push the nicotine-coated door of our living quarters.
Slobbish spectators are sitting on stools at the compuscreen, sharing a morbid fascination of a video-site called Sikvidz. Hisses break the silence as a workman's hand is severed by a circular saw in an industrial accident. 'Nasty!' the gang yell at once, enthralled by the gory spectacle providing the most edifying of welcomes. I gargle phlegm in my throat in a failed attempt to gain their attention.
'Guys, can we switch this off, please? We have a visitor,' I announce.
'Who's this?' Oscar asks as he spins around with a blushing grin, clearly pleased to see a pretty girl; even if she is a couple of years too young, unfemininely dressed and currently gore-shocked by their twisted hobby. A nervous smile creeps over the girl's face and her fading wound fails to depreciate her uncorrupted appeal. Oscar's speech impediment and fascination with the bug world have strangely enough, always acted as a deterrent to teenage girls.
The rest of the depraved websurfers glance at just another guest, before searching for some other appalling scene so I switch the compuscreen off at the mains, causing them to huff and pout as the electronic display goes blank.
'Hello Oscar,' the girl whispers.
'Whoa, how d-did she know my name? I've never seen her in my life, I'd remember if I-I…' Oscar gasps, running out of words.
'She might be staying a while and I recommend being nice to her. She's not as harmless as she looks!' I caution.
'So what do they call you?' Bex yawns, patting her mouth as the girl looks to Sylvie for assistance.
'What did they call me at the Medicentre?' the girl asks.
'Dynah. Dynah Mite! Do you like that name? It suits you!'
The nameless girl pauses as though someone else has the authority to validate the sole suggestion with which to define her identity. Bex glares with feline eye makeup emphasising hostility as she taps her foot, clearly impatient to return to the web-browsing disrupted by the reality-shaping introduction she does not deserve to witness. Rudeness is met by my castigating scowl and she sighs upwards, blowing a few misplaced strands of hair away from her nose.
'Dynah,' the girl whispers.
'Is that what we should call you?' Sylvie receives no answer, but her tone confirms her eagerness for the no longer jokey suggestion to be adopted as the girl stares at cobweb-gathering rafters. Bemused glances are exchanged by Oscar and Lel who are trying to figure out the non-existent punchline. Meanwhile, Bex leans forward with her eyes bulging as though incredulity is overloading her synapses.
'Dynah, we should call her Dynah. She likes it, the name suits her,' Sylvie proclaims.
'Okay, Dynah it is,' I reply.
Bex jumps off her stool and holds her palms out, gawking with an inner-ugliness which despoils her usual prettiness. Her xenophobic display impresses nobody and if she could stop her dramatics for just a second to ascertain the reason for this naming procedure, she would doubtlessly readjust her stance.
'What the...? She doesn't know her own name. I don't understand. Who is she? And what is with that outfit? This doesn't make sense!' Bex whines.
'It's a looonng story,' I reply.
'Come and introduce yourself to our visitor,' I say as Emmi trundles downstairs, twirling strands of blonde hair around her index finger. She approaches the cluster of confusion wearing a green sweater with a logo which reads: Survival is Friendship. Bex's eyes again roll without reaction as the sometimes shy chatterbox half-smiles, offering her hand to our guest who is at last shown some courtesy of sorts.
'I'm Emmi, Arturo's sister. You're probably wondering how we can
possibly be related. Clearly, I inherited the better genes – the beauty gene, common sense gene, hygiene… Anyway, nice to meet you.' She smiles with a half-shrug, containing laughter in her belly.
'Hello, I'm D-Dynah.'
'You're not gonna believe what happened, Emmi. We were walking through the jungle when we heard a scream. I ran to help but Arturo just stood there. The soft shite wasn't even gonna do anything so it was up to me to save the day! There were these two huge guys attacking... er Dynah. The bastards cut her face, then Arturo came and punched one of them, but he broke his hand so I jumped on one of their backs to save him, because he was totally gonna get his arse kicked. I was flung against a tree but it didn't hurt. Anyway, I was getting back up when the girl attacked them with these powers. She sent them flying,' Sylvie recollects.
'What do you mean - with these powers?' Bex asks with continued stridence as she reaches for the plug socket to restart the compuscreen.
'It was like a bomb went off,' I reply.
'Yeah and then in the Medicentre they tried to stitch her and she sent the nurse flying. Then she healed all by herself. Then we went to the SuperMart. The butcher was gonna kill a pig and she made his knife turn hot and he dropped it. It was awesome, she's like a superhero or something!' Sylvie continues.
'Whoa... No way... I don't believe you... Prove it!' they yell.
'Th-they must be telling the truth, she read my mind. She knew my name before she was intr-troduced to me!' Oscar says.
Dynah shrinks as the gangs' doubts are cast aside due to their eagerness for a telekinetic performance. The claustrophobic ring formed by her audience looks set to invoke tears and I dread to think how she will react if she becomes truly afraid. My sister claws her way through the fervour to give a reassuring smile, knowing full well how intimidating these buffoons can be.
'Is your face okay? Does it hurt? You can't really do what they said you can, can you? I know those two, they joke like this all the time,' Emmi asks.
'I-I'm not sure.' Dynah withdraws her chin.