Truancy Origins

by Isamu Fukui

  “I didn’t wish for this conversation any more than you, Mayor,” she said. “Procedure requires me to warn you that you have forty-eight hours to surrender yourself to Government custody and yield control of your City.” She smiled wryly. “If you refuse—and I expect you will—then you will be detained and the military will achieve control by itself.”

  “Good luck with that. You’ll need it.” The Mayor laughed bitterly. “I take it that you’re camped just across the river, then?”

  “I’m afraid that’s none of your business.”

  “Well then,” the Mayor growled, leaning forward, “all I have to say to you and your wretch of a father is this—come and get me!”

  Iris brushed her forehead with her knuckles in a mild show of annoyance. The Mayor sat stoically, clearly expecting an additional outburst of some kind. But when Iris spoke again, her voice was oddly hushed.

  “Where are the boys? Are they still alive?”

  At that, the Mayor’s face flushed red with anger.

  “I’ll die myself rather than tell you anything about that.”

  The screen went dead. Iris slammed her fist against the desk.

  “Yes,” she muttered. “You will.”

  Who was that?”

  The Mayor sighed and turned to face his guest, a boy sitting on the other side of his mahogany desk.

  “A representative of the true Government of this City,” the Mayor replied, “and someone I had hoped you would never meet. It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got time.”

  “But the City doesn’t,” the Mayor said sharply. “It’s too late to explain the entire history of the Government, and frankly I don’t know it all myself. What I can tell you is that they cannot be crossed. They are powerful beyond your imagination; their rule encompasses thousands of cities, and their military makes our Enforcers look like a joke.”

  “And this City is one of the many under their control?”

  “Yes and no,” the Mayor said. “This City is special—one of a few that the Government isolated decades ago.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of a storm of civil unrest that nearly destroyed them.” The Mayor flicked his lighter open. “It was before my time, so I don’t even know what the riots were about. But I do know that in the bloody aftermath, the Government decided to take extreme measures to make sure that nothing like that would ever happen again.” The Mayor smiled now. “The only problem was, no one could agree on which extreme measures to take.”

  The boy inclined his head.

  “So they created the Cities as experiments.”

  “That’s a bit misleading,” the Mayor said. “The Cities were already there—the Government merely isolated them from outside influence and implemented a different philosophy in each. Until four years ago, this City was considered the most promising of all.”

  “And what was the philosophy behind this City?”

  “It was simple.” The Mayor clicked his lighter shut. “The founders believed that education was the key to controlling a population.”

  Strapped across Iris’s back was a black pole about three feet in length, which she now removed as she emerged from her tent. Pressing one of two buttons on it, she smiled as two metal ends instantly extended from either side of the pole, effectively forming a staff. Tapping one end against the ground, she glanced over at the shade where a colonel, a member of her staff, had been waiting.

  The Mayor’s guess had been correct—her tent was one of hundreds that formed a temporary encampment at the riverside. A mercifully cool breeze rolled across the water and over the camp as Iris approached the saluting colonel.

  “All units are ready for immediate deployment, ma’am,” the man said. “Will we observe the forty-eight hour grace period, or has the Mayor rejected it?”

  “The Mayor rejected it, but I don’t intend to let him set our schedule,” Iris replied, watching a beetle crawl across the ground. “Order a stand down from full alert.”

  The man looked surprised, but nodded anyway. “Yes ma’am.”

  Iris glanced at him. “Something on your mind, soldier?”

  “I was wondering why we don’t just overwhelm them, ma’am.”

  Iris nodded as the beetle stumbled over a rock. Some commanding officers did not appreciate having their orders questioned. She, however, made a distinction between disrespect and curiosity, and felt that satisfying the latter—though never the former—could make for a more effective army.

  “Combined, the Educators and the rebels in that City have an estimated fighting force of twelve to fifteen thousand,” Iris said. “It’s enough to be a problem if we rush in blindly. We have only ten thousand ground troops to subdue any resistance and secure all fifty-seven districts against insurgent attack.”

  “But what do we gain by waiting?”

  In response to the colonel’s question, Iris gestured toward the river, and the man turned to look in that direction. Across the glittering water, the ominous shapes of skyscrapers loomed like giant tombstones. Many of them showed obvious signs of damage, and rising smoke plumes indicated that fighting was ongoing in the City.

  “What you are looking at is nothing less than the complete breakdown of society,” Iris explained as the beetle examined her shoelace. “That City was built upon education. Now that the very foundation of their lives has been challenged, those people don’t know what to do with themselves or their newfound freedom.”

  “Freedom?”

  “Anarchy, to put it plainly,” Iris said. “It was inevitable the moment the rebellion gained traction. That City is in the middle of tearing itself apart. Once both sides are exhausted, we will move in and pick up the pieces at our leisure.”

  “So what are your orders, ma’am?” the colonel asked.

  “Keep all forces on standby. No airstrikes, nothing that risks giving away our presence,” Iris said. “However, cut all shipments into the City by another fifty percent.”

  The colonel looked surprised. “Why not cut them completely?”

  “With no supplies, there can be no war,” Iris said. “But if we reduce their supplies rather than cut them completely, they’ll become desperate and go for each other’s throats. By the time we move in, they’ll be both exhausted and out of resources.”

  The man nodded. “And what about our assets within the City?”

  For the first time, Iris hesitated. The beetle began skittering away. “Still no sign of our primary objectives?”

  “None.”

  “Then tell the assets to keep looking.”

  “What happens if they’re found?”

  With precise restraint, Iris swung her staff, pinning the beetle to the ground without crushing it. She pressed the second button on the grip, and the staff discharged an electrical shock that instantly fried the insect.

  “If either one of them is spotted,” she said blandly, “inform me immediately.”