by Jakob Tanner
Max and Sarah ended up going out for lunch at a nearby coffee shop.
They ordered grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, french fries, and big glasses of cola to drink. They sat by the window.
“So,” said Max.
He honestly didn’t know where to begin. He was so happy to see Sarah was alive and doing okay, but on the other hand, he’d hardened himself to the notion that he would never see her again.
With all that in mind, how did you even begin a normal conversation?
“So,” said Sarah, looking down to her shoes, she held her hands together nervously. “This is awkward.”
Max blushed and said, “Okay, well, I’m glad I’m not the only one. I just—I just don’t know where to begin. ‘How are you?’ seems too casual. ‘Tell me everything that happened since I last saw you’ feels too intense.”
Sarah smiled. “Okay, you go first. Tell me everything. Afterwards you can ask me.”
Max sighed. Where did he even begin?
He took a long sip of his soda and then dived right in. He told her about the climber academy, Samuel Archer’s coup attempt, the Hidden Vipers, the Fallen Angels, and the Elestrian civil war.
“And that pretty much covers it,” Max explained.
“But what about your sister?” Sarah exclaimed. “That was what you always went on about back at the group home. Have you found out anything more about her?”
Max’s retelling of his life in the tower-zone had been pretty thorough, but in the end he had chosen to leave out the bit about his sister being a rogue climber and potentially working for an evil tower terrorist group.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Sarah but he wanted to keep that information between as few people as possible at the moment.
So for the time being it was only Casey, Harold, and himself that knew that Elle might be working for The Fallen Angels.
“I haven’t been able to find much,” said Max, which wasn’t exactly a lie. “She’s somewhere up in the tower. I’m just going to have to keep climbing higher and higher if I want to find her.”
Sarah smiled at him, her eyes sparkling brightly.
“What?” said Max, suddenly feeling embarrassed. “Is there something on my face?”
“No,” she giggled. “Just hearing you talk about your sister again—you’re still the Max I remembered. All the accolades, rank-ups, and fame haven’t changed you.”
“What can I say,” grinned Max. “When you start out as great as I am—”
“And there it is,” giggled Sarah. “You have changed, you big egomaniac!”
They were soon done with lunch and continued their conversation, walking along.
“Okay, enough about me,” he said. “I want to know what happened to you. When did you unlock your profile and trait? Are you still at the group home? Is that bastard Mr. Grimes still there?”
Sarah’s face paled and she shook her head.
“Mr. Grimes is dead,” she said. “He died during the first monster-wave that attacked the outer-rim. The giant cyclops squashed him to death.”
Max’s eyes widened.
Part of him wanted to make a joke about how there should have been a monster-wave in the outer-rim sooner, but held back.
As despicable as Mr. Grimes had been...if he was dead now, best to just leave it at that.
“That must have brought some relief to the kids at the group home, maybe?”
“The Mr. Grimes we grew up with quickly disappeared after the night you left. He had become a walking ghost. Only attended to the bureaucratic and managerial tasks of the group home, but otherwise he left everyone alone. Whatever you said to him that night, he was never the same afterwards.”
“Good,” said Max. “That was my intention. Who replaced him afterwards?”
“It was a rotating door of social workers and government officials,” said Sarah. “Then with the city uniting there was so much happening that the group home was kind of left to its own devices. I ended up taking charge of a lot of the day-to-day managing of it.”
They walked across the city as the August sun beat down on them. They walked through the western gate that used to divide the two parts of the city but now remained always open.
There was a pedestrian sidewalk for them to walk through while there was a traffic jam of cars going in and out both ways.
“So wait, you’re the manager of the group home now?” said Max. “You’re the new Mr. Grimes.”
“Oh gosh, please don’t ever say that again,” said Sarah. “But yeah, pretty much. Someone else is going to be taking over soon. That’s been in the works ever since I unlocked my profile in the tower.”
Max’s mind was racing with questions. He didn’t even know where to begin.
“Well, I’m just happy Mr. Grimes didn’t have the opportunity to unlock a trait,” sighed Max. “Can you imagine?”
“Ugh, you can say that again,” said Sarah. “It probably would’ve been something horrible.”
“Like a snot attack or something equally repulsive,” said Max. “Hey—speaking of repulsive. What about Seth?”
Part of Max hated himself for even asking the question. He wished he didn’t care about his former high school bully, that he could forget his tormentor forever. But if the psychopathic teenaged bully was walking around the tower-zone, Max wanted to know.
Not because he was afraid of Seth, but Max knew how much more powerful he was than his former tormentor, he was afraid what he might do to the kid if he bumped into him.
At D-rank he could kill a normal human being with his bare hands fairly easily.
“I haven’t seen him since the outer-rim’s first monster-wave,” said Sarah. “The city was in chaos ever since that happened. Sakura’s breaking of the wall has only added to the chaos, so much is in flux. School isn’t even mandatory at the moment, as the curriculum changes to fit with the new united city directives.”
Max looked around the streets of the outer-rim as he walked Sarah home.
There was loads of construction as defense and city climbers worked on installing defensive runes and wards to protect the city’s infrastructure in anticipation of the next monster-wave.
They were upgrading the outer-rim to the standards of the tower-zone.
So much change, Max thought to himself. This is not the same place that I left almost a year ago now.
“Well, this is me,” said Sarah.
Max froze, feeling a chill tingle up his body.
They were standing in front of the orphanage where Max had grown up.
The place did not hold a lot of fond memories and Max suddenly didn’t feel very good being back there.
“Do you want to come in?” said Sarah. “There’s something I want to show you.”
Max hesitated.
His mind flashed with all sorts of painful memories. Of Mr. Grimes beating him, yelling at him, calling him “Useless.”
“Trust me,” smiled Sarah. “You want to see this.”
Max nodded his head.
His throat was too dry to say anything.
His heart thumped in his chest.
All he wanted to do was run away from this place.
They stepped inside the building and immediately a little girl ran up to Sarah and hugged her leg.
“Sarah’s back!” cried the little girl.
The little girl then let go of Sarah and looked up to Max.
“Who’s this?”
“This is Max,” said Sarah. “He used to live here too.”
The girl’s eyes widened.
“You’re the boy on the wall!” she said, excitedly.
Max looked to Sarah, awkwardly. “Um, I’m not sure what this little girl is talking about.”
Sarah smiled once more and walked into the living room area of the group home.
On one end of the wall was a huge corkboard with pictures of Max.
Some of them were pictures of him growing up at the orphanage or school photos, but then there were mor
e recent photos—newspaper clippings from the tower-zone. One of the headlines read: “Young Climber Helps Save City!”
“What is all of this?” asked Max.
“After you left, I wanted Mr. Grimes to never forget about you,” said Sarah. “But then this wall took on a life of its own. What started off as a threatening gesture to Mr. Grimes, an act of defiance and defense, quickly changed into a symbol of hope. That even the scrawniest orphan in here—that most of the world had given up on—would be able to achieve his dreams.”
“You’re a hero,” said the little girl, smiling up at him.
Max felt a wave of relief. He couldn’t believe he had been scared a few moments ago to come in here.
Tears filled his eyes.
“Don’t cry dummy,” said the little girl. “Look.”
She pointed to the wall once more and above the pictures of him was the title the other kids had given him.
The Orphan Hero of Group Home 12-C.
Max wiped his eyes.
The place where he grew up—the place that haunted him in his nightmares to this day—had always been a place he’d never wanted to return to after he left. There had been no good memories that would have made him want to return.
That was, until today.
11
The following day, Max got up extra early and headed straight for the tower-zone library.
As he marched across the city in the cool summer morning air, the words of his sister kept echoing in his mind.
You’ve been lied to. Even more than you think.
What the heck did that mean? What was his sister trying to tell him?
Hopefully, a little bit of research and studying at the library might get him closer to answering those questions.
Yesterday’s events had completely derailed him from his goal—first the challenge, then the mission meeting, and then the afternoon with Sarah—but he wasn’t going to let that happen today.
Also, if they were setting off into the tower the day after tomorrow, it was worth getting his research done before then, as he might not get a chance to come back down to Zestiris until the mission was completed.
When Max stepped into the library, he realized he was the first person to arrive that day.
The librarian looked up and flashed him a bright smile.
“Good morning,” he said as he approached the clerk’s desk.
“You too,” she smiled. “You’re here bright and early. How can I help you? We have lots of great new arrivals from the outer-rim. Something called Fifty Gray Tones or something like that, I can’t remember. And then another one called The Starvation Games! Can you believe all this great fiction had been lost to the tower-zone for decades? Just goes to show why erecting a big wall across your city might not be the greatest idea, huh?”
Max smiled at the girl.
“Of course,” she continued. “You probably knew about all those books since you’re from the outer-rim originally. Gosh—sorry if I’m talking your ear off.”
“No, not at all,” Max smiled. “Glad to see you’re as enthusiastic about books and libraries as ever.”
“Okay, but seriously,” she said, her cheeks blushing from the compliment. “How can I help you today?”
Max looked furtively back and forth and then lowered his voice.
“Do you have any books on the founding of Zestiris?” Max asked.
He knew that the wall that separated the two cities had been designed with incredible magic runes that warped people’s memories, but he was too scared to bring that up directly. He figured he’d find the answers to such questions if he started with the founding of the city itself.
If Max had any fear that his question was any way suspicious or wrong , the librarian’s reaction filled him with relief.
“Of course,” she said. “Just down there in the history section. You can’t miss it.”
Max thanked the girl and walked towards the stacks.
“Oh, Max,” she said.
Max stopped and turned around.
She called him by his name. He had never told her his name before.
“Sorry,” she said, blushing. “I know we’ve never exchanged names before, but everyone knows who you are, and I thought it was weird that I know your name and you—”
Max smiled. “Hey, my name’s Max. What’s your name?”
The girl blushed once more and smiled at him.
“Nice to meet you, Max. It’s Jessica.”
Max grinned and then headed for the stacks.
He had studying to do.
He stepped between the quiet shelves of books and perused the dusty history section.
It started with ancient history moving onto Rome then the dark ages then the renaissance. Max walked calmly between the books until he landed at modern history.
“Huh?” he said aloud and was quickly met with a harsh “shh” from another more senior librarian.
Max couldn’t believe it. They had history books going up to 2044 and then suddenly there were no books for the pivotal year of 2045.
The year the tower appeared on Earth.
What the heck was that about?
Max continued scanning the spines of the books, the next discernible date covered was 2065, which was ten years after the founding of Zestiris.
There was a clear and deliberate twenty-year gap in the history section.
Max didn’t have to think very hard to figure out what was going on.
The truth of humanity living inside the tower was still a guarded secret only known by climbers and top officials. They couldn’t have regular citizens looking into things and then causing a panic throughout society.
His sister’s words echoed through his mind: They lied to you. Even more than you think.
Part of him desperately wanted his sister to be wrong.
He wanted to dispute her words.
But looking at the gap in the history section, it was hard to argue with her point.
Max wouldn’t give up so easily though.
He grabbed the history books on Zestiris in 2065 onwards and plopped them down at a table in the reading area.
He began going through the books, one by one. First, checking the index to see if there were any other years included, then doing a quick skim of the introduction and prefaces to the books.
He had learned during high school history class in the outer-rim that occasionally you could find great summaries of previous eras in the introductions to the historical period after the one you were researching.
Obviously, professional historians might raise an eyebrow at this, but it was a good way to get a good authoritative capsule summary on a time period.
And in the case of researching the founding of Zestiris, it was his only hope to find out anything.
After an hour, he flipped the hardback books closed and sighed.
He hadn’t discovered anything he didn’t know already.
He took the pile of books back to the shelf where he found them and took another stack.
He did this all day.
Only late in the afternoon as the sun was setting, did he finally land on a piece of information he’d never heard before.
The Founders of Zestiris.
He had always assumed it had just been a collective action done by all of human society that had survived the monster-wave and destruction that had destroyed the Earth.
The page that mentioned the founders didn’t reveal anything more, but there was a small asterisks to indicate an endnote at the back of the book.
He quickly flipped to the end of the book.
His eyes beamed.
This was more than an endnote, he grinned. This was a paragraph of hidden history.
The founders of Zestiris were three S-ranked climbers who were able to safely protect humanity by lending their powers to create a city to protect all.
Max leaned back in his seat, grinning.
Three S-rank climbers, huh? Max thought to himself. I wonder wh
o they were? What powers could they have? And where were they now?
He’d have to look into them further. Max wondered if they had anything to do with what Elle was pointing him towards.
They lied to you. More than you think.
The words haunted him once more as the setting sun shone through the windows of the library.
What a beautiful sunset, he thought, before realizing something.
Oh crap!
Sunset!
What time is it?
Max checked his phone and couldn’t believe the time.
I’m supposed to be eating dinner at Casey’s in fifteen minutes!
He gathered up his things and rushed out of the library.
Casey looked out the window of her family’s apartment to the streets below.
Toto pressed his head against the window, glancing eagerly as well.
“Where’s your friend, honey?” asked her mom as she set the dinner table for four.
Casey bristled at her mom’s words.
Friend.
It was crazy to think she had almost kissed Max at the climber academy ball more than half a year ago now.
Why hadn’t an opportunity come up again since then?
She knew why and it came back to that awful word her mom had just said.
It appeared that after fighting countless monsters, saving a city from a coup, and stopping a civil war—Casey somehow landed herself in the dreaded friend-zone.
The more she thought about it, the more irritated she became.
She looked out the window once more.
Max you better not be late, she thought to herself. Or I’m taking you straight to the butt-kicking zone!
12
Max wiped sweat off his brow as he rang the doorbell to the Everton family apartment.
As he caught his breath, he looked through the window of the stationery shop they owned.
The window display was focused on back to school supplies while origami cranes hung from the ceiling.
So this is where her origami skills originated from, huh? Max thought to himself.
“Max, you’re here!” said Casey, out of breath, standing at the front of the door.