Truancy Origins

by Isamu Fukui

  “Oh, those,” she murmured, taking a sip from her cup. “I never got one. I was never allowed into school at all.”

  The undisguised regret he heard in her voice struck a chord in Umasi. He knew that the student numbers weren’t anything to be proud of, nor were they a pleasant thing to bear—but on the other hand some students in the City were content with their miserable existence. With slight shock, Umasi remembered that he had once been one of them. But the girl before him would never get to decide for herself, never know what it was that she had been missing.

  Unless he told her.

  “You shouldn’t let school bother you so much,” Umasi said. “In this City, the price of knowledge can be steep.”

  The girl looked up from her drink curiously, her steely shell completely forgotten for the moment.

  “What’re you talking about?”

  Umasi sighed and poured himself a cup of lemonade. The last person he’d confided in had ended up in a fiery grave. Was he ready to share those secrets with someone else? No, Umasi decided as a lump rose in his throat, not yet.

  “I . . . know I promised to explain, but I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it now,” Umasi said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  The albino looked at him strangely for a minute, and then shrugged and downed the rest of her lemonade in one smooth gulp.

  “Well, as you said, you did promise to explain,” she said, setting her cup back down onto the stand. “I suppose I’ll just have to wait until you’re ready to do so.”

  Umasi blinked in surprise, and then found that he was smiling, of all things.

  “Well then, welcome to District 19, milady.” Umasi bowed slightly in his seat. “I hope that you enjoy your stay.”

  23

  WITHOUT A NAME

  The night sky had just been broken by a tinge of orange when two Enforcer patrol cars turned a corner and proceeded cautiously down an empty street. The Enforcers carefully scanned each crumbling house as they passed by, though they saw nothing moving in the predawn darkness. In other parts of the abandoned District 7, they knew that other patrols would be combing the streets just as they did. Though none of them expected to find anything, they kept up the tedious job until the eastern skies glowed in the dawn.

  Just as the two patrols passed by what looked like an empty soda bottle on the side of the road, an explosion ripped through the darkness, instantly reducing one of the cars to nothing but fiery wreckage. The two Enforcers in the other car scrambled out, frantically looking around for their assailants. Gunshots rang out, and before the Enforcers could even tell where they were coming from, one had already fallen. The other, panicked at the loss of his partner, ran for a nearby alley, desperate to escape. A moment later he was consumed by another fiery explosion.

  The radio left behind in the untouched Enforcer car blared with frantic queries, and then panicked shouts. All throughout the rest of District 7 more explosions and gunshots went off, and by the time the sun rose over its streets, not a single Enforcer was left alive in the whole district.

  All dead?” Rothenberg said incredulously. This was not the news that he wanted to wake up to.

  “Yes, sir,” the Enforcer replied, shifting uncomfortably. “We sent five patrol teams in to sweep District 7 as planned, two reported that they were under attack, and all of them are now missing.”

  “Then that might be where they’re hiding!” Rothenberg said. “Send in a bigger force, everything you can throw at it!”

  “Well, we immediately sent every patrol we had available, and even deployed a helicopter for aerial surveillance,” the Enforcer said. “They recovered all the wreckage and most of the bodies, but set off a few more explosives. Two more men were killed, one more injured, and no sign of any of these self-proclaimed Truants.”

  “Nothing? No sign at all?”

  “No, sir, they seem to have covered their tracks well. We simply didn’t have the manpower for a door-to-door search of an abandoned district, and if the group that did it is still there, it would be so small that it’d be like a needle in a haystack. Besides, I doubt that District 7 was intended to be their main hideout anyway.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “A single routine patrol in District 5 failed to report in on time. We sent the helicopter over the area. It wasn’t hard to find; great smoking wreckage in the middle of the street. It looks like it fell into the same kind of trap as the District 7 sweep. We didn’t dare approach that one on the ground in case we set anything else off.”

  “Great,” Rothenberg snarled, “call off the other sweeps for now. If they’ve mined 5 and 7 to hell, I’d bet anything that they’ve done all the others as well. We’re going to have to rethink our entire strategy. We’ll need to go one district at a time with more men, more cars, we’re going to have to be thorough and—”

  “Having problems, Rothenberg?” a new voice asked.

  Rothenberg spun around and glared. He had been standing in his office with the door open as he received the bad news of the day and had not heard the newcomer entering the room. He was surprised to see that it was not another Enforcer bearing grim tidings, but rather a man in a brown leather jacket with short brown hair and a neatly trimmed mustache and beard.

  “Who are you?” Rothenberg demanded.

  “My name is Jack,” the man said. “I’m one of the Mayor’s aides. I was told that you would be expecting me.”

  Rothenberg’s heart skipped a beat. He was tired, and in the flurry of bad news and plans that had to be rethought, he had completely forgotten about the Mayor’s aide. The other Enforcer seized the opportunity to excuse himself, leaving the two men alone in the office.

  “You look tired, Rothenberg,” the aide said. “Have you been getting enough sleep lately?”

  “Of course!” Rothenberg replied. “And I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

  As a matter of fact, Rothenberg hadn’t slept more than a few hours a night since he had encountered that ghostly apparition in District 18. The pale figure had continued to haunt his dreams, each time worse than the last.

  “Well, the Mayor would certainly like to be assured that you’ve been well rested. After all, he seems to think that your assignment is highly important,” Jack said, narrowing his eyes. “On that note, what exactly are you doing, Rothenberg?”

  “Has the Mayor briefed you on my assignment?”

  “On the basics, yes, but not on what exactly you are looking for.”

  “Well, then, I can’t help you,” Rothenberg snapped. “It’s not a big deal anyway, just normal Enforcer business. We’ve got it all under control, don’t worry about it.”

  “Normal Enforcer business?” The aide raised his eyebrows.

  “That’s right.”

  “Then might I ask why you’ve been neglecting all of your other normal assignments?” Jack asked, gesturing towards Rothenberg’s desk, upon which a mountain of untouched paperwork rested.

  Rothenberg scowled. “The Mayor’s assignment takes priority.”

  “I was under the impression that you had the Mayor’s assignment ‘under control,’ ” the aide said.

  “We do!”

  “Then why not see to your other responsibilities now?”

  “How do you know that I was not about to?”

  “Is that the case? Well then I apologize for interrupting, please go ahead.” Jack sat down in Rothenberg’s chair and leaned back as though daring him to do it.

  Rothenberg knew he had been challenged, but he would not back down, especially not from this skinny, pompous assistant. With a look of pure malice, Rothenberg seized the first folder on the top of his towering work pile and stormed from his office. A routine foster child issue, Rothenberg realized as he opened the folder. He’d been assigned the case because it was in District 18, his home district. It would make for an easy break until he could get back and properly lead his men without any damn aides breathing down his neck.

  There was a
soft tinkling, then something whooshed through the air. Reacting instantly, Umasi dived out of the way just in time as the chain struck the ground he had occupied a moment before. Forcing himself into a roll as he hit the hard asphalt, Umasi smoothly returned to his feet a second later. His pale opponent twirled her chain around for a moment as she drew it back, and then abruptly lashed out again.

  Umasi ducked this time, feeling the wind on his hair as the chain passed an inch overhead. In the few hours that they had been sparring, he had accumulated both a great respect for the chain as a weapon, and a large collection of bruises. The girl’s eyes glinted scarlet in the bright sunlight, and her chain wrapped partially around her before swinging back and unwrapping in a powerful horizontal sweep. Umasi was forced to drop to the ground to avoid it, and before he could rise the chain had doubled back in an arc, slamming down hard on Umasi’s back. Umasi crumpled for a second, feeling the cold asphalt beneath him. He smiled wryly as he rose, rubbing his back.

  “Nice one,” Umasi conceded. “I managed to dodge seven strokes that time, I believe?”

  The nameless girl nodded. “You’re getting better at reading my movements.”

  “Not by much,” Umasi said. “I can never tell what you’re going to do until the last minute.”

  “It’s a difficult weapon to predict,” she said, “but it’s better for countering. You’re just dodging right now; if you were attacking me it’d be harder.”

  “So how am I supposed to beat it?” Umasi asked.

  “Look for an opening after a failed attack,” the albino said, bringing her gaze back down to Umasi. “Do you want to take a break?”

  “That sounds good.” Umasi bowed, feeling worn out.

  The girl curtsied and walked off into the middle of the empty street by herself. Umasi watched her go. All they had done so far was duel, and occasionally discuss tactics. The topic of Umasi’s secrets had not come up yet, and Umasi could tell that the albino was patiently waiting for him to bring it up. Umasi had no doubts about her trustworthiness. He was not as naïve as he had once been, and knew that his physical attraction to her was only natural—but his admiration for her went deeper than that. Her philosophy, her strength, and her self-control had all struck chords in Umasi. Here was an individual who was truly at peace, ready to accept life or death as it came, content to go unacknowledged by the world.

  Deep in thought, Umasi moved to sit down on the doorstep of an abandoned building. Meanwhile, the pale vagrant launched into a flurry of graceful motions. A rapid clinking sound reached Umasi’s ears, and he looked up to see her chain flitting through the air so rapidly that it seemed to be everywhere at once. It really was like a dance, Umasi thought, the chain constantly in motion, striking down invisible enemies with its rhythmic movements. The chain glittered in the sun, and it almost appeared as though she were wielding a string of light. Umasi could only stare, mesmerized, realizing that the girl had her eyes closed.

  “How do you do that?” Umasi asked in awe.

  “Hm?” The pale drifter abruptly ceased her movements, opening her crimson eyes as she allowed the chain to fall like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

  “Move so perfectly without looking,” Umasi clarified.

  “Oh.” The girl looked slightly abashed, though not displeased. “My eyesight’s not very good. Sometimes it’s easier to rely on my other senses.”

  “My vision hasn’t been so great since I lost my glasses,” Umasi said. “Which senses do you use instead?”

  “Touch, mostly,” she explained, “though hearing helps too. If you practice listening for long enough, you can hear each individual clink in the chain. Then it becomes a bit like playing music, I suppose.”

  “You must’ve been practicing with that for a long time.”

  “I’ve probably had it for longer than I haven’t.” She nodded. “It’s a part of me now.”

  Umasi hesitated in asking his next question, but only for a second.

  “How long have you been alone out here? Out on the streets of the City, I mean.”

  The pale girl seemed to freeze for a moment, her red eyes narrowing as they stared at Umasi. Umasi tried to meet that crimson gaze but could not, looking down at the pavement as he awaited his sentence. But when she finally began to speak, her voice was not admonishing, but gentle.

  “I don’t know for sure anymore,” she said. “But I think it was since I was about eight. It’s been maybe six or seven years since then.”

  “How did you survive all that time?” Umasi asked. “A matter of days nearly killed me. I can’t imagine trying to last for so long . . . .”

  “For a while it was pretty bad,” the girl admitted. “Eventually, though, I found that most people were scared of how I looked. That kept me safe, so from then on I tried acting as scary as I could, and they’d all run away in the end.”

  “So that’s how the legend of the Vagrant Ghost got around,” Umasi murmured. “But didn’t anyone know who you really were?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Eventually there wasn’t anyone I couldn’t scare away. For the longest time I was . . . lost . . . in the role.”

  Umasi contemplated a life like that, forced into pretending that you were a monster in order to survive, unable to let anyone know that you were human. Umasi shuddered, realizing that he’d gotten off quite easy in life.

  “You mentioned that you’ve only been out here for a short while,” the girl said, her ruby gaze searching Umasi’s face. “How did you hear about me?”

  “My friend,” Umasi said. “His name was Red. He’d been a vagrant for a long time. When I first settled down here in District 19 he was my only companion. He said that you saved his life.”

  “I don’t often do that,” she said. “When was this?”

  “It’d be just a few days ago, really,” Umasi said. “He had brown hair, and was being chased by a boy with a gun.”

  “Ah.” The girl inclined her head. “I remember. I’m glad that he got away.”

  There was a heavy silence. Umasi couldn’t bring himself to tell her that her efforts had been in vain, that he had gotten Red killed after she had risked her life to save him. Then comprehension dawned in her eyes, and she spoke again.

  “What happened to him? Why isn’t he still here?”

  “He was killed by my brother,” Umasi said bitterly.

  “Your brother?”

  Again Umasi found that he could not speak. The girl continued to look at him, a gentle wind stirring her snowy hair. There was silence as Umasi lost himself in dark thoughts, and then suddenly the spell was broken.

  “You’ve heard the story of my life, more or less,” the albino said. “Can you tell me the rest of yours now?”

  Umasi nodded, having expected the question and already decided to answer. It was only fair, after all.

  “It might take a long time,” Umasi said. “But I suppose that we’ve got plenty of that.”

  And so, taking a deep breath, Umasi related his story, from beginning to end, right up until the moment that he came across the girl without a name at his stand. For her part, the girl listened in respectful silence, though at times her eyebrows would rise in surprise, or she would bite her lip in concern, or her eyes would betray visible sympathy. The sun was setting and her eyes were blue once more by the time Umasi finished, but by then he was certain that he couldn’t have asked for a better audience.

  After checking his folder again to make sure that he had the right address, Rothenberg strode up the steps to the doorway of the brownstone apartment and knocked. Resolving issues between foster parents and their children was a mundane Enforcer duty, but that suited Rothenberg just fine after weeks of increasing chaos. From what he’d gathered from the case file, the subject was a fourteen-year-old boy living with a couple that had already made several complaints, though the child’s orphanage had vouched for him each time.

  The door swung open, and Rothenberg suddenly found himself staring down into a pair of v
enomously green eyes.

  “You must be Edward,” Rothenberg said.

  The boy blinked. His emerald eyes made a striking contrast to his short blond hair and long, thin eyebrows. His features were soft and his skin pale. He was clothed in an unremarkable gray student’s uniform, which struck Rothenberg as odd since it was dark now, far past school hours.

  “Yes, sir,” Edward replied. “May I please ask who you are, sir?”

  Even Rothenberg could find no fault in a question phrased so politely.

  “I am Enforcer Rothenberg,” said Rothenberg imperiously. “I am here responding to a complaint made by your foster parents. Where are they?”

  “If you would please wait a moment, Mr. Rothenberg, I will go get them,” Edward said.

  Moments later, two haggard-looking adults stood on the doorstep. Rothenberg introduced himself, and the woman turned to her husband.

  “Dear, could you please go keep an eye on the boy? Who knows what he might be putting under your pillow this time.”

  The man gave a grim nod and left purposefully. The woman introduced herself as Elli and hastily invited Rothenberg into the sitting room. He accepted the offer of coffee and sat down in a chair opposite her as she began to relate her tale.

  “Well, we’ve had him for a year now,” Elli explained. “But honestly we’ve been trying to get rid of him for months. The orphanage just won’t take him back, they say we’ve agreed to care for him for the duration and that’s that. They also stick up for him every time . . . every time.” Elli’s face grew furious. “He must’ve done a good job on those orphanage nuts.”

  “So his parents died, did they?” Rothenberg asked.

  “Yes, and he was sent to the District 18 orphanage. We thought . . . we thought we’d be doing good, you know? Taking care of a parentless kid. And we’ve never had children ourselves. Probably never will now, after all this.” Elli laughed bitterly.

  “The record says that you’ve filed over a dozen complaints about the boy,” Rothenberg noted, looking down at his folder. “And that the Enforcer in each case—”