by Quil Carter
I personally didn’t want Morosians in Skyland either. Even if they were rich Morosians it was still a blight on what had been an elite, high-class district. It would muddy clean waters, and we did love our class system.
Silas continued to argue with the council members and I grazed over Silas’s proposal. He wanted about eleven hundred greywasters in Moros by July, and in the next two months wanted to make the announcement that another thousand Morosians would be moving to Skyland.
It was going to be a shitshow.
“There’ll be riots!” a female council member, Kayleen Zhou-Johassen, An-Mei’s aunt, said exasperated. “The Skylanders are going to be up in arms! And the rich Morosians who haven’t been picked are going to be angry as well for being passed up. King Silas, with all due respect, you’re dipping your finger in a clean painter’s palette and swirling everything around. It’s best to forget the greywasters, or integrate them slowly into the factory towns over the next several years.”
I tried to stop my eyebrows from raising. The council was there to actually council so they could talk to Silas in this way, but I still always mentally held my breath, waiting for King Cobra to strike.
He would get what he wanted in the end. Silas was seeing Skyfall long-term, and it was difficult for the mortals to do the same. Technology was accelerating and with that technology came better ways to make food, better healthcare, and better ways to support Skyfall in a world that seemed to be doing everything it could to kill us. Yes, Skyfall could use an injection of fresh residents… the Skylanders just didn’t want it on their backdoor.
They were elites! And why should elites have to live amongst the lower class? That was an insult to them.
‘Bring in as many people as you want, Silas, just make sure we don’t have to look at them, okay? Maybe once the displaced Morosians have boughten some nice clothes and have learned acceptable manners… but until then? Not in my backyard!’
Just think of how chaotic it would be if the Morosians spoke a different language.
I smirked at this while I kept reading Silas’s proposal. Skyland and Moros were as different as night and day. It was Silas’s fault for making the class system so incredibly divided. If I was king… I’d just blur those lines a little bit. Send the Morosians chosen to upgrade to some abandoned part of Skyfall and make them toil there.
Unfortunately, that wouldn’t happen. Restoration was one of the most plentiful of jobs in Skyfall but the workers, construction, electrical, loggers, heavy machine operators, you name it, they were all busy right now just trying to keep Moros and Skyland functioning and not falling down. Unlike the greywastes, Skyfall was clear of radiation which meant the buildings deteriorated naturally. We had to keep up with the restorations constantly and there were just no people to spare. Yes, the Skylanders made great foremans, and great people to run these companies, but the bones of restoration lied in grunt work, and you needed Morosians for that, and they were busy.
Then, as I stared at Silas’s proposal, something occurred to me. It was like I’d discovered a small silver thread, and once I pulled on it and followed where it led… I realized it led to a spider’s web of ideas and even more solutions.
The answer was right there in front of me. It was the perfect solution.
I looked up from the proposal and saw the seven councilmen and women looking at Silas as the king basically told them where to stick it. I waited until he was done then I laid Silas’s proposal in front of me and tented my hands.
“Can I propose something?” I asked.
The room went dead quiet and all eight pairs of eyes were on me. The council members looked at me with curious gazes, and when I glanced over at Silas for permission to speak, he gave me nothing but a small nod.
I rose to my feet, and surprisingly I didn’t feel nervous at all. I didn’t know why… my guess would be I just burned out all of my emotions and now just didn’t feel anything. Or perhaps I just didn’t care what people thought of me anymore. I’d already disappointed everyone, what did I have to lose?
“It is obvious what the problem with this proposal is,” I started. I tapped the paper with my finger and scanned the council members faces. “You don’t want Morosians in Skyland. You’re elites and they are the lower-class; the slumrats. Come up with all the excuses that you want… that’s the truth.”
There was silence, and every council member’s gaze that had met mine dropped, almost at the same time.
“Moros and Skyland might’ve worked for many years when Skyfall was still small, but we’ve grown now. It isn’t as cut and dry as it was fifty years ago… Skyfall is evolving… and we have to evolve with it. Skyfall has grown above having two classes, having only black and white, rich and poor. You’ve already said we have a lot of rich Morosians. I’d even go as far as to say both Skyland and Moros have their own inner class system within the districts, yes?”
Mayor Charleston and Mayor Chicago of Skyland nodded. They didn’t look too pleased agreeing with me. Even though they had no idea what I was about to say, they seemed to be hesitant agreeing to anything I was saying.
“If you’re going to say move them to an abandoned part of Skyfall…” Mayor Chicago said slowly, his words seemingly guarded and unsure.
“I’m not, at least not right away,” I said to them. I turned a few pages on Silas’s proposal until I got to a photocopied map of Skyfall. I turned it towards the council members, got out a pen, and divided Moros and Skyland right down their middles, separating both of them so they now made up four districts.
“Four districts,” I said to them. “Moros, then new district one which would be middle class, new district two which would be upper middle class, and Skyland which can remain for the elites. If Skyland’s population is falling, they’ll fit nicely into the improved smaller Skyland, which would also please the elites since they would get to be even more exclusive. Those Skylanders whose houses remain in the new upper middle class can buy new houses, and sell theirs to the new residents of this upper middle class. So that’s Skyland happy. As for Moros… those richer Morosians can move up to the new middle class district or upper middle class, and any other Morosian who can impress us enough can do so as well. We can even hold raffles, lotteries, different creative ways for these Morosians to have a permanent place in this new district. It would vastly improve moral and the approval rating for the crown and council. The greywasters can be moved to the new Moros where they will be trained for restoration and construction. And the elite greywasters, if there is such a thing, can go to one of the new districts if we decide to let them. As for the greywaster Morosians, when they eventually get too big for Moros since as we know the poor love to breed… we’ll have enough workers to improve the northwest area of Skyfall, the abandoned area that Silas calls Cypress, and we can move them there.” I slid the piece of paper towards the council members and crossed my arms over my chest. “Everyone wins, the people, the crown, the city wins.”
My words lingered in the air before disappearing into the absolute silence that followed my proposal. It wasn’t uncomfortable for me though, I was enjoying the raised eyebrows of the council members and their orchestra of beating hearts.
“Well…” It was councilman Isenberg who broke the silence first. “I suppose that’s why they call him an intelligence chimera then? This…” He looked up at Silas and nodded slightly. “This might just work. He’s a smart young man.”
Inside I was exploding with pride, I kept expecting my head to hit the ceiling since I was sure I was floating. But I maintained my quiet countenance and looked to see what Silas was doing.
The king was staring up at me, and in his eyes I saw something that I hadn’t seen since I was a child.
Actual pride.
“Indeed he is,” Silas said when we made eye contact. He motioned for me to sit, and I did. “I told you he was a genius, did I not?” He’d said that? “I want everything that Elish proposed to be written down and the first steps to be taken.
” He was quiet for a moment, he looked deep in thought. “Nyx will be the name for middle class district, Eros for the upper middle class. I want a speech made for me since I’ll be making the official announcement in two weeks.”
The council nodded, and at that, Silas rose to his feet. “I’m pleased with this meeting and I assume you all are as well?” When there were nods amongst the men and women, Silas motioned for me to get up with them. “This meeting has gone on long enough then. It’s dismissed and I want to be informed about every step that is being taken. The application deadline for the greywasters is in two weeks, and in two weeks and one day, I want solid numbers on how many we’re getting.”
The others rose and bowed to Silas. “Everything will be taken care of to the letter,” Isenberg said. “We’ve been getting a lot of applications from the greywasters, more than I thought we would. It looks like things are improving in the greywastes, there’s a lot more of them than we initially thought and a lot more that apparently know how to read and write.”
I followed behind Silas as we left the meeting not too long after. We both got into the elevator and he pressed the button for Alegria, then took a step back to stand beside me.
“You made me proud in there.” The suddenness of his voice made me jump, and to my embarrassment, he noticed. His head turned to me and I heard him exhale slowly.
I kept waiting for him to turn away, but his attention remained fixed on me. The heat crept up my neck at his prolonged gaze and I resisted adjusting my weight. Even though my eyes weren’t on him, I could see and feel his gaze on me, burning holes in my brain in an attempt to look inside, peel back the layers to try and figure out just what was going on below the surface.
But what he ended up saying to me, took me completely off guard.
“You loved me so much as a child.” His words were but a thin whisper, and each cradled a sadness to them that increased my discomfort. “You always wanted to be around me, the first to run to me when I’d come home from my time in Skyfall…” The emotion was choking him, it was awkward, uncomfortable, and I didn’t want to be here with him. “I would stay up with you when you refused to sleep. I’d read and sing you songs… I remember one time you were sick with fever, I cooled you off with my hands and sung to you… only then did you fall asleep in my arms. I think it was that night that I realized just how deep my love was of this little golden boy.”
I wished for these elevator doors to open so I could run back to my room. I was scared to look up to see which floor we were on, he’d notice and he’d know. “And now…” Silas said quietly, “and now, every time I walk into the room your body freezes and your pulse jumps.”
That’s what happens when you beat someone almost to death, continually beat them, kill everyone they love who isn’t you, and constantly berates and torments them.
But… you don’t understand that… do you?
There are consequences for your actions, Silas. I’m not like my siblings, I’m not like Skyfall, nor the world you destroyed. I refuse to pretend none of this happened for my own safety.
Like everyone in the entire damn world.
“Elish… do you hate me?”
As my eyes stared at those elevator doors I saw Cristo lying on the floor of Stadium covered in blood, his horrific wounds bleeding out and filling the loud, chaotic air with the heavy smell of hot, irony cruor. Then I saw Ryan… I saw Ryan pleading, begging me to do something as his skin and body burned. A slow, torturous death that only a sadistic maniac could come up with.
And I saw myself lying in that lower living room my brothers and sister looking at me in terror and fear as Silas commanded them to leave me. Then their disobedience when they refused to let me die.
“Yes,” I whispered.
The next thing that happened was such a shock to me, all I did was stare at him like he’d just grown an extra head.
Silas burst into tears. He… he just started crying.
This… what… what was going on?
I didn’t know what to do. I looked at the elevator and saw that we were almost at the top floor, but it wasn’t there yet. What the hell was I supposed to do? He’d… he’d never fucking cried like that before.
Silas had a hand over his mouth, his eyes closed while the tears pushed through his eyelids to fall down flushed cheeks. Should I apologize? Comfort him? My mind was going blank. This… wasn’t a reaction that I’d expected. I thought he was going to hit me; I knew how to handle that. But this? What was I supposed to do?
It looked like Silas didn’t want to be trapped in this elevator with me either… as soon as the doors opened he quickly walked out of the elevator, then disappeared into the apartment.
I was tempted to leave the skyscraper, go for a walk somewhere, but I decided instead to take the elevator down to the entrance of the second level. That way I wouldn’t even have to walk past his room.
There was no one downstairs when I entered into the apartment, but above me I could hear Silas crying and screaming something to someone. His screaming had made Ceph start to cry too, and I could hear my little brother howling in the living room.
I wanted to go up there to get Ceph, just so he didn’t have to hear it, but I knew if I showed my face in that apartment I’d probably get some sort of punishment.
He might as well get used to Silas yelling… we all had to.
I stayed in my bedroom for the rest of the day. I ended up having a few conversations over the remote phone with Perish. We were discussing faulty gene removal and implantation, since the new Chimera D’s had so much alterations to their genetics we would be working hard to isolate the areas of their makeup we’d need to alter.
I even told him about the plan I’d come up with for the new districts. He was impressed and said he was proud of me. It was nice to hear; another thing the old Perish would’ve never done.
In the month since the strange fleeting change in Perish, I’d never seen it happen again. I hadn’t told anyone either, it had been my own secret. I decided to just pretend it never happened, what could I even do to fix it? So I carried on my relationship with Perish as normal, but always was I vigilant of him.
Hours later, when night had sunken in and there were flakes of snow falling outside of my bedroom window, there was a knock on my door.
I knew that knock… it was Nero.
I decided to open the door for him. He had Ceph in his arm, my littlest brother was almost three months old now and could now hold his own head up. The young boy had a mop of reddy brown hair covering his head, a lot of it, and chubby cheeks that made his green eyes squint to slits when he smiled.
And the boy smiled when he saw me and held up a green container that rattled as if holding Cheerios or some sort of cereal.
“What happened with Silas?” Nero asked. He put Ceph on the floor and opened the green container. Ceph squealed when it was put in front of him, it contained Fruit Loops which he started attempting to grab. “Gare… followed him into his room and he’s been in there every since. Gare’s probably better at being supportive than me… What did you do to Kingsley?”
What did I do to him? I pushed down the anger that these words brought to me. “He…” I sighed as I closed the door behind me, then I sat down on my bed. “Everything was going okay… I solved the greywaster immigration problem they were having. But then…” I didn’t want to say anything… I really really didn’t want to say anything. I knew I could trust Nero at least. Perish and Nero were the only two people I remotely felt like I could talk to. They both knew Silas, and they knew the strained relationship I had with him. “He called me on being so tense around him, asked me if I hated him and… I said I did.”
Nero sucked in a breath, that hiss you made when you were either hearing something painful, or had touched a hot stove. “Poor Silas,” he said quietly. My eyes widened at this, and I watched him, growing all the more angry, as his face became concerned and sad. “It’s really bothering Silas that you despise him so much… a
nd you know, you recoil at the sight of him. Silas really wants you two to be close again.”
I stared at Nero like he was insane. “Are you kidding me?” I stammered. “After everything he’s done to me… he can fucking go to hell.” As I said this the anger inside of me grew. “He can cry as much as he wants. You just don’t treat someone like that and expect them to still love you.”
My knowledge of my brother had me assuming he would get upset and angry, but instead he stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked at the ceiling with eyes full of sadness. “You remember when he beat the fuck out of me for trying to get Prince to kill that stupid rabbit?”
“Yeah…” I said slowly, knowing I was falling into a trap.
“When he was done punishing me… he picked me up and held me. He rocked me and comforted me and told me it was okay and he was no longer mad. Then he told you… we don’t hold grudges in this family, and once they get their punishment… we move on.”
I’ve heard this damn thing before. I didn’t buy it then, and I wasn’t going to buy it now.
“He doesn’t fucking punish me. He tortures me!” I snapped. My mind reeled, Silas pulled the same thing with me, making it seem like I was the fucking bad guy for being upset that he fried my teacher, murdered my sengil. Cristo was pretty much my fucking father figure, since Silas sure as fuck never was, and Silas had beaten me countless fucking times.
I was the bad guy?
“All of those times… you were doing shit you weren’t allowed,” Nero countered. “If you’d just accept it as being the way things are in this family… and that it was a punishment and you deserved it… you’d be happier.”