Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction
The Missing Ones
A Dystopian Adventure
by
Stephen Kelik
Copyright 2017 by Stephen Kelik - All rights reserved.
From a Declaration of Principles which was accepted and approved equally by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
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Contents
TC "Prologue" l 1 Prologue
TC "Prologue" l 1 Chapter 1
TC "Prologue" l 1 Chapter 2
TC "Prologue" l 1 Chapter 3
TC "Prologue" l 1 Chapter 4
TC "Prologue" l 1 Chapter 5
TC "Prologue" l 1 Chapter 6
TC "Prologue" l 1 Chapter 7
TC "Prologue" l 1 Chapter 8
TC "Prologue" l 1 Epilogue
TC "Prologue" l 1 Like, Follow, Sign Up
TC "Prologue" l 1 More from other LuvBoox authors
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Prologue
They say, long ago, there was enough water for everyone.
But it was not enough to quench the thirst of greed.
They say, long ago, that the spirits became angry at the way that mankind used the earth, polluted the air, sent toxins up into the sky to fuel their monstrous machines. The spirits sent storms, enormous, ravenous things that covered the earth in destruction and pain. After the storms came the sun, burning hot and glaring, that dried out the land and turned so much of it into nothing but dead, empty desert. The fighting that the people had among each other had poisoned the earth until even living upon it in many places would make people, animals, crops, sicken and die, sending any sound mind insane.
They say that in the chaos and confusion, the death and destruction, one bastion of hope and holiness emerged: Ulead.
They split the people into three. The Earthborn would be the lowest, beneath everyone’s feet as the earth was despite being the most numerous and industrious peoples. They would tend to the matters of the earth, to farm the greenhouses, to form machinery, weapons and other things that the city needed. The Airborn would be next, put there to rule over the Earthborn, to produce sweet music from their strange instruments, to make sure that the city was the haven that it was meant to be… for some.
Then there were the Skyborn, ruling by right of birth in their lofty towers, rarely fraternizing with the lower classes except to give orders and take what they wanted. While the rest of the city dealt with dead, dusty streets, rubble and meager rations, the Skyborn lived in comfort, thinking themselves closer to the spirits than anyone, thinking themselves worthy of worship, praise and luxury. Their opulent homes in the sky looked down with disdain on the rest of the city, the last of the civilized world, and they grew afraid.
They were afraid of the jealous, watchful eyes that might turn themselves upward and question, why? Why do they bathe in water when I cannot have enough to satisfy the thirst of my family? Why do they live among plants and sweet songbirds, while my world is nothing but sweat and aching muscles and the sound of children coughing in the night?
They were afraid, also, of death, and of what would become of their kingdom. So those among them that still had knowledge of the old world, either in their minds or in their books, devised a plan; to take one hundred of the healthiest and strongest children from the Earthborn, leaving those of the loyal Airborn be. To thin the ranks of those that would be able to oppose them, and to take apart those children, rebuilding their own bodies so that they might live on a little longer.
Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. But the practice lived on, for hundreds of years, as steeped in tradition and religion as the strict and cruel social structure that kept so many thousands subjugated by the will of their mysterious, lofty masters. But what they didn’t know, is that the spirits were stirring, tired of waiting for humanity to take it upon itself to grow, to prosper, to improve. The spirits stirred particularly in the broken heart of a young boy, so that they could see the people that did so much wrong and hurt in their name duly punished. They took everything from the boy, before giving everything and more back. They raised him up from his place of humility and gave him the will to fight.
This is the story of that boy.
Chapter One
He awoke as the sun cracked the far horizon. The view from his bedroom yielded nothing but the next crumbling tower block that housed a thousand other workers slowly pulling themselves from restless slumber, but the glass prism hanging at his window took the golden dawn and projected it against the whitewashed walls.
The crust that had formed on his eyelids was wiped away and a groan escaped him, feet instantly cooling as they stepped down on the bare concrete floor. He moved as though through thick mud, limbs heavy and ineffectual as he struggled to pull the lightweight, dust-stained shirt over his head. Across from his own bed, an empty one sat just a couple of feet away, and he stared at it for a moment, dry lips pulled down as the soft light turned harsher in little more than a few minutes.
“Sirius, come on,” his mother’s voice intoned on the other side of the flimsy door. “You’ll be late again.”
The young man finally stood, rolling his broad shoulders and feeling a range of painful cracks and clicks travel up his spine. His knees shook slightly as he took a few dubious steps before slipping his feet into his worn sandals. He ran a hand through a mop of thick black hair, straight and long enough now that it was falling in his eyes slightly, though he’d let it grow to his knees before he subjected himself to his mother’s hair-cutting skills again. The last time that had happened, he had been laughed at down the Chop Shop for weeks.
Their living space was beyond modest, long outgrown the five raucous brothers and sisters that had already filled up the rickety table as he padded down the small corridor. The baby, little Denna, was already taking umbrage to the fine gray paste that was on offer for breakfast, the three youngest boys having some sort of fight over a toy across the table. Sirius’ mother was trying her best to contain the din as well as pleading with Denna to eat the nutrient-fortified gruel. Over it all, the piping, overexcited voice of the second eldest child, Kora, could be heard.
“And then we’re going to go and drag the big pools outside the gates! I’m going to catch something we can eat for dinner, and then-”
Sirius silenced her by placing a large hand on her head and ruffling her hair, eliciting a shriek of annoyance and a battering of small fists against his gut.
“Stop tormenting your sister. Boys, please stop. If you can’t work out who it belongs to, then it belongs to nobody. Give it here.”
Sirius rolled his eyes and sat down to eat, silent. There were many days where he didn’t say much, but today in particular brought on a solemn silence that was only shared by his father, sat at the far corner of the room as he prepared his tools for the day. The large iron hamm
er, handle smooth and worn from use, the ancient wrench, the rusting chisel; these things had not changed since Sirius had pored over them as a child, once wide-eyed and full of excitement at these strange, adult things. Back then his father had sat him on his lap and talked about magical materials such as stone and cement and even precious wood, so rare in the world now that it was a spiritual abomination to fell one of the few trees left in Ulead without strict permission from the Skyborn council. Now they barely spoke. His father looked up under his thick brows, dark green eyes boring into Sirius’ for a moment, before the younger man cast his eyes down and pulled his lips into a tight, thin line.
His father left with little more than a few short words of farewell and a kiss on the head to each of the younger children, oblivious to the long, incomprehensible look that his wife gave him on the way out. Slowly, each of the children left to their respective tasks of the day. Yorick, Fen and Vivo were too young yet to be assigned a labor, so they sped off down the endless stairs to receive their day’s schooling with the other children. Kora readied her hooks and lines, kissing her mother goodbye and sticking her tongue out at Sirius before she too was gone, to join those that dragged the few near-toxic rivers that had not yet dried up in the city looking for game or salvage. Sirius, however, remained sat at the table, staring into the distance.
It happened to him often, an absent-mindedness that he himself privately put down to the exhaustion that he battled against each day. It took him away sometimes, away, out of the window, far from here to places that he could not quite recall once he’d returned. His father called it daydreaming, and he was liable to agree, because when he was shaken from the reverie it was as though he’d been awoken from sleep again.
“Sirius, please!” his mother snapped as she busied herself cleaning up, the battered tin plates on the table clattering as she stacked them in impossibly high piles. “I really don’t want three guards showing up to the door again because you were late for a third time in a week!”
She stopped for a moment, and took a proper look at him. His shoulders were slumped forward, still staring at the table. A small, delicate hand placed itself on his upper arm.
“It’s today, you know.”
“I know.”
“That means it was four years ago.”
“I know.” She rubbed his back slightly, bouncing Denna on her hip at the same time. “Come on. Just ten hours, then you’ll be back with us, and there’ll be nothing to do for three whole days. We can all go to the festival together, try and have a-”
“Try and have a nice time?” Sirius snapped, getting to his feet and towering over her the moment that he did so. She took a step back, swallowing slightly, which made him wilt with shame. “I’m sorry, Mama. Really. I just…”
“I know.” Ignoring the little princess” yowls of discontent, Helena set the baby down and wrapped her slight arms around her son, holding him tight. “And I know how much it hurts. But work hard enough and maybe you won’t have to do so much. Maybe they’ll put you at the head of the shop one day. I’ll be so proud.”
Sirius, faking a smile of comfort and gathering up his things, left with his bag slung over his shoulder. The long descent down the stairs was one that made his knees ache and his back scream. The dust of the street hit him the moment he stepped out onto it, the air already starting to warm despite most of this city within a city being covered in the shadow of the sky-tops. These colossal buildings, standing tall and proud still after the ravages of time long before Ulead became itself, would by now be bathed in sunlight on their eastern sides. High up there even greenery could be seen on the massive balconies and hanging in long beards from the broad windows, secret, unreachable peep-holes into a life of opulence and comfort. Some of those balconies even held pools of water, so he had heard, that one could simply bathe in without the guilt of waste. His eyes scanned those lofty windows with a shadow of discontent, jaw straining slightly, but he was careful to look down to the ground before him as three Earthborn bearing the colors of the city guard stalked past. It was heresy to stare too long with unworthy eyes at the spires of the highest.
The chop shop was one of the only places in the city that held those versed in the ancient art of mechanics. Although nobody born lower than the caste of air was permitted to drive a vehicle, the other young men and women that sloped into the wide-open doors of the garage were mostly his own people, Earthborn, the common and lowborn, the carriers of this small civilization upon their backs… and often privy to demands of those placed higher than him.
Today, there was a young Skyborn man, regal in dyed fabrics of blue and red, stood with his arms crossed and a withering look on his pale face. Like most of his caste he was tall, pale from a lack of exposure to the angry sun, and sharp-featured with a look of absolute disdain on his face. It was rare for one of the Skyborn to be in their midst, so everyone in the chop shop was on edge. Sirius could tell. It was affecting production, and that made him angry. These people just wanted to work. Why couldn’t those sky-suckers just let them?
“You said that it would be ready today.”
Sirius’ Overseer, a stocky Airborn man named Tamir, stood with his back straight and his face pulled into an incomprehensible mask of politeness as he replied.
“Yes sir, today. There are still tune-ups to be done, safety measures, you see…”
Sirius knew exactly what they were speaking of before he had even set eyes on the piece. An enormous beast of a machine that had become his own personal project, something that Tamir was using to test his mettle as one of the few truly promising young mechanics under the Overseer’s watch. The bike’s tires were taller than his brothers and wider than all three of them together, the paint a brilliant, angry red. It was made from quite possibly the cleanest selection of scrap that the outer city could offer and the engine rumbled like thunder. A beautiful design, carved with flowers and vines, spread across the great metal flanks of the beast. Sirius was infinitely proud of it.
“What, on this thing?” the Skyborn walked over to the bike and gave it a kick. The resulting clang of metal rang out over the commotion of the working day slowly starting around them, and several of the mechanics turned to see what was going on. Sirius gritted his teeth. “Can’t I just take it?”
“That depends, sir, what are you--”
“I’m taking it to the dunes, not that it’s any of your business, meddler,” the young man snapped. “You’re just trying to make excuses for your incompetence. I can see it, you know. You’re not smarter than me.” The young man drew himself up to his full height, towering over Tamir.
“Take it out to the Dunes now, and the suspension will fail.”
There was a collective drop in sound and activity as the attention of everyone in the room was suddenly snapped to Sirius. He stood, face impassive, as Tamir and the Skyborn looked at him with abject shock on their faces. Stepping forward, he flicked the front tire, which made a stressed ping sound. “They need to be taken down. Otherwise the whole thing will be bashed to pieces in a few hours of use. There’s other things, too, but I shan’t go into them and bore you, sir. We are not working with fresh parts from the Old World, here. Most of this has been made by hand, with scrap. Everything needs to be taken into consideration. Of course, this is all for your safety, sir.”
The Skyborn stared at him for a long while, the air ringing with a deathly silence, before deftly stepping forward and slapping the taller boy square across one cheek, snapping his face to one side. Despite barely leaving a sting the insult made Sirius’ blood boil. He could feel the heat rising at the backs of his legs as rage made his hands shake with the effort of not wrapping them both around this jumped-up little lord’s neck.
“So, so sorry for this one, sir.” Tamir shoved Sirius roughly towards the far end of the shop, a snarl in his ear to “get those scraps sorted, now”. “He isn’t quite right in the head, you know. Tends to take things very literally. It makes him forget his place. Left out in the sun
too long as a baby, you know that sort of thing.”
“Well, I take it that he won’t be touching my machine again until you give me what I’m owed,” the Skyborn sniffed, massaging the hand that had contacted with Sirius’ broad jaw with a dramatic wince. “God, Earthborn have such solid faces. No wonder they’re built for all this hauling things around and banging pieces of metal together. Say, mechanic, what can you do to make it go faster…”
Sirius kept his head down, sorting nuts from bolts, shards from fragments, tossing the identified pieces of metal into boxes and crates as the creases in his hands slowly filled up with grease and oil. Those hands would not stop shaking, even when the Skyborn had wheedled and whined enough for Tamir to relent and hand over the finished machine… of course, after managing to get the boy’s signature on an unofficial document stating that should the bike fail and collapse, it was, entirely, his own fault. Sirius had no doubt that he would, and he had no doubt that the young man’s (probably decrepit and centurion) parents would send an armed group of guards down to the chop shop tomorrow to punish them all for their precious offspring scraping half his face off in the sand. The thought made Sirius smirk for a moment, but the blackness of his mood soon killed it.
“Listen, boy…” Tamir began as he reached Sirius’ side, but the younger was quick to interrupt him.
“I know. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” His voice came in a low mutter. Tamir sighed.
“Look, you sure you’ve chosen the labor that best suits you, lad? I’d be sad to see you go, you’re good at what you do… you just never seem happy to be here.”
Sirius turned. His look was incredulous, insolent even, for just a moment, before any expression fell behind a long-practiced mask of obedience.
“I am happy, sir,” he intoned. Tamir shifted uncomfortably. “Well… Just get back to work. The festival’s tonight and you’ll get to lay about for as long as you like.”
Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction: The Missing Ones: A Dystopian Adventure Page 1