by Isamu Fukui
Rothenberg wondered where Cross was now. Surely the Government wouldn’t be able to catch him without Rothenberg’s help, unless the boy’s battle with Umasi had gone badly. If it had, would Iris have him executed? The thought made Rothenberg bristle. Cross was his son. If anyone had the right to end that life it was Rothenberg.
“I’ll be free of this place again,” Rothenberg promised himself. “No more deals. Next time I’ll do it myself.”
Max let out a fresh yodel, and Rothenberg groaned. In here the days passed like years, more tedious than his time in the hospital. Bitterness gnawed away at the last vestiges of his reason. Rothenberg no longer saw any difference between the Government, the Truancy, or any other faction laying claim to the City. All of them, he knew, were against him. Everyone was determined to abuse him. He knew better now than to trust their lies.
More than anything, Rothenberg wanted justice. That meant getting his son back and getting revenge not just on Iris, but on the whole City that had betrayed him. If fate gave him another chance, he swore he would take it. Never again would he help someone else only to be betrayed.
For the foreseeable future, however, there was nothing Rothenberg could do but endure Max’s yelling and nurse his hatred in the comfort of his tiny cell.
* * *
Somehow the stars looked bigger out in the deep City, Cross thought.
Using his arms to support his body, he leaned back to better see the night sky. Maybe it was because there weren’t so many skyscrapers here, no man-made monoliths to obscure the heavens. Cross liked being able to see the strings of glittering lights hung high.
A warm breeze ruffled his hair, and Cross wrinkled his nose as it carried up the stench of the streets. The building he sat on was only five stories tall, one of the tallest here in the slums of District 47. Cross had never been this deep into the City before. Out here the people had always been poor. Before the war the streets had never been very busy. These days a flood of refugees had made the whole district overcrowded. People here were hungry, desperate, and angry. Fertile ground for a rebellion.
The Government’s presence was limited to a small base in nearby District 45. The soldiers couldn’t maintain order here, nor did they try to after the new resistance had blown a few of their patrols to pieces. Over the past two weeks that resistance had been formed from whatever Truants they could gather.
A few of them brought their parents, and some adult refugees had joined out of necessity more than anything else. No matter how indoctrinated towards obedience a person was, hunger had a way of bringing out a fighting spirit. Together they struck at the Government whenever they could, however they could. True to Jack’s vision, it was a citizen’s rebellion, albeit demoralized, outnumbered, and hungry.
Takan and Cross had officially split the responsibilities of leadership, though increasingly Cross found himself doing more of the work. Takan had anxiously waited for word from his father for days before finally accepting that Jack was probably gone. That loss, compounded by his mentor’s betrayal, had really affected the Truancy’s leader. He spent a lot of his time alone in his room.
Umasi’s betrayal itself had nearly ruined them. He had gone public as the City’s new Mayor a day after their confrontation. Cross dearly wished that they’d been able to finish him off—his face was plastered everywhere, his speeches broadcast to every corner of the City with functioning radios or televisions. Faced with hopelessness and starvation, many fugitive youths had been persuaded by the Mayor’s promises of shelter and safety. Hundreds had turned themselves in to the camps. Cross was sure that many more would follow.
As for Cross himself, all he could do was try to survive and fulfill his responsibilities as well as he could. The glittering sky seemed to wink at him as he stared up at it. Strangely, hardship and responsibility seemed to make him saner. Many of the Truants, once skeptical of the former student, now came to him instead of Takan.
Cross got to his feet as he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Sure enough, one of the recently arrived Truants stepped out onto the roof and saluted. Cross returned it.
“What now?” Cross asked.
“We could use your help, sir,” the boy said. “We’re, uh, hearing noises from Takan’s room again.”
Cross sighed. “That’ll be the fifth time this week, right?”
“Yeah.”
“All right, let’s go see what the problem is this time.”
Cross followed the boy down the stairs and into the apartment building, which had become their hideout. The wallpaper was peeling, the floors were stained, and dim illumination was provided by naked lightbulbs. The steps groaned in protest as they descended. Soon they reached the first floor. The Truant halted respectfully as Cross continued on.
Cross walked down a narrow hallway, finally reaching the door to the apartment that Takan had taken as his quarters. He didn’t hear anything. He tried knocking. There was no response. Cross frowned, then tried the knob. The door creaked open, revealing a completely dark room.
Cross stepped inside and found Takan slumped over on a sofa in the living room, a bottle of something in his hand.
“You alive?” Cross asked.
Takan nodded.
“You sober?”
Takan shook his head.
“You rarely are these days.” Cross frowned. “Well, just so long as you’re still breathing.”
Cross turned to leave.
“Wait,” Takan said.
Surprised, Cross turned around and saw Takan beckoning him over. He complied, walking closer to the Truant leader until he was looking straight down at him.
“You want to know why I killed Zyid, don’t you?” Takan whispered. “Let me tell you.”
Cross nodded—the question had been bothering him ever since the first time he’d brought it up.
“It was Zyid himself who killed my sister,” Takan said. “I joined the Truancy to get revenge on him. It turned out that he knew all along I planned to kill him. He let it happen so that I could take his place, so that he could be free.”
Cross blinked. Of all the answers he had imagined, that hadn’t been one of them. Zyid had allowed himself to be killed?
“Noni loved Zyid,” Takan rambled. “Not the same way she loves me, you know. He was her stability. Me, I was selfish. I killed him without thinking what it’d do to her. Now because of me, she…” he trailed off. “Well, that’s beside the point.”
Cross suddenly felt that he really didn’t want to hear this. Awkward didn’t begin to describe listening to the leader of the Truancy talk about his failed romances.
“Listen, Cross,” Takan said. “I know what Zyid felt like now. It sucks. So, I have a request. I haven’t murdered your sister, but I would really appreciate it if you would do me the favor of killing me and—”
“You’re drunk,” Cross said firmly. “I’m not going to kill you.”
Takan sighed and dropped his bottle. It clattered to the floor. “Maybe you’re right. Sorry for being so pathetic.”
Cross couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so he patted Takan’s shoulder and left him on the sofa. As he exited the apartment he thought he could hear snoring.
Dispirited, Cross decided he needed to take a walk out on the streets, away from the headquarters. He slipped outside through a side door and began wandering through the narrow streets. The air down here was repressive, and the streets stank of human misery. There was garbage everywhere, and then there were the people—the people with nowhere else to go.
Their clothes were tattered, their faces dirty, bodies thin and sometimes emaciated. There were no food shipments to District 47, only what could be obtained through dangerous smuggling or the black market. The people here had come to know Cross, know that his rebellion gave them protection and food whenever possible, and so they did not harass him as he walked.
Was this what it all had come to? Cross wondered. Were they all doomed to rot here in the squalor of the City? Would Cro
ss put up a fight for as long as he could, like Takan and Zyid, only to collapse under the strain? Or would they all be hunted down, one by one, by Iris or the Mayor?
Cross found himself standing in an empty alley. He wasn’t even seventeen yet, and he felt that his life had already been exhausted, that he was at the end of his rope. Their resistance had only existed for two weeks and already it seemed to be crumbling from the inside. Cross knew it was only a matter of time before it fell, either to the Government or to itself.
“What are you doing, Cross, looking so defeated?”
Cross jumped, then spun around. He stared, disbelieving. The albino stood before him, smiling, holding hands with Zen. She hadn’t changed at all, save perhaps for her Student Militia jacket—the blue fabric was now more worn and frayed than ever.
“That’s no proper greeting,” she chided. “Do you know how hard it was to find you all the way out here?”
Cross realized that his jaw had dropped open. He shut it, feeling embarrassed. The albino’s presence was a welcome delight that he hadn’t dared to hope for, and yet it confused him.
“I-I’m happy to see you again, teacher,” Cross said. “But why are you here? I thought you weren’t going to follow me.”
The albino’s face turned serious.
“I wasn’t,” she said. “But things have changed. There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.”
“Who—”
Then Cross saw him, standing at the mouth of the alley, hunched over. The boy was almost unrecognizable, his hair frayed and unkempt, his face drawn and haggard. Sepp staggered over to Cross and dropped to his knees.
“Cross, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I failed.”
“What are you talking about?” Cross asked, mystified.
“Your orders. I failed.”
For a few moments Cross wondered what Sepp could possibly be talking about. Then it hit him, and he seized the boy by the shoulders.
“Sepp,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm, “where is Floe?”
“She was taken!” Sepp cried, staring up at Cross with moist eyes. “The Government took her—to the camps!”
* * *
Floe winced as the handcuffs dug again into her wrists. The soldier dragging her along was none too gentle, and each time he tugged the chain attached to their handcuffs it hurt. She was being escorted down a dimly lit hallway, painted sickly green like the rest of this part of the camp. In front of her there were two boys, both Truants, neither of whom she knew.
Floe had spent the past couple of weeks in general confinement, unassigned to a class while the Government checked her records and decided her fate. They had eventually discovered that she’d been a member of Cross’ personal unit and a former Truant. That meant an automatic assignment to an intensive reeducation program.
Dressed now in a gray student’s uniform not unlike the blue one she had worn during her time in the Student Militia, Floe quietly followed the soldiers into her new classroom. A fat and unpleasant-looking woman stood at the front, presiding over the class. The kids at their desks were all hard at work. No one spoke. No one even looked up from their papers.
The soldier led Floe to a desk of her own. He uncuffed her, then recuffed her to the desk. Floe accepted it all without complaint. She felt like a little girl again, frightened, hating herself for it. The weeks of helplessness, of languishing in her cell, had crushed Floe’s spirit.
At the front of the class the teacher was now introducing herself as Ms. Obeita. For the first time the other kids looked up from their work, giving the teacher their undivided attention, but Floe found that she couldn’t concentrate as the woman went over the rules of the class. She sadly wondered what camp Sepp had been sent to, and whether or not Cross had managed to evade capture.
“In short, no disobedience of any kind will be tolerated,” Obeita was saying. “All of you sit before me because you are former rebels with a history. Let us get one thing out of the way: I don’t care where you came from or what you’ve done. In here, you are all the same.”
Floe repressed an urge to scream and cry. She wanted to protest that she didn’t belong in this program. She didn’t intend to cause any trouble at all. She only wanted to see her old friends, to make new ones. If in that moment she could have relived her life, she would have never joined the Truancy or the Militia.
“As proof,” Obeita continued, “I would like you all to turn your attention to the back of the room. There you can see what was once one of the Truancy’s highest ranking leaders. She decided to continue being a rebel, and now she serves as an example.”
As one, the class turned in their desks to stare at a pitiful figure sitting in a corner. Floe gasped as she recognized Noni, the girl she had so admired as a Truant.
Noni’s arms had been locked in a straitjacket, her body completely limp. Her head lolled back to rest against the wall. Her eyes were glazed over, though silent tears flowed steadily from them—the only sign that she was even alive.
Floe felt cold horror grip her. She couldn’t even imagine what had to have been done to destroy so strong a spirit.
“The same fate awaits any of you who also wish to continue misbehaving.” Obeita smiled. “There is no hope here. Soon enough, every one of you will be broken.”
26
MODEL STUDENT
“Our target is here.” Cross pointed at a map of the City spread out on a table. “It’s a Government reeducation camp built on the docks of District 13.”
He stood over a wooden table in a room on the third floor of their hideout. Sitting across from Cross was Takan, who was bleary eyed but completely sober for a change. To his left sat Sepp, who cracked no jokes and looked sullen as he stared at the map. To his right sat the nameless albino, calm as ever, following his words with interest.
Three days had passed since Sepp arrived in District 47 bearing his grim news. The story of the raid on his house, the imprisonment of his family, and the capture of Floe had galvanized Cross and in turn, the rebellion itself. As if taking on his determination, they had become more aggressive in ambushing Government patrols, their headquarters were now a flurry of activity, and recruitment was up.
The presence of the albino and her son had also boosted morale. Some of the Truants had heard of the legendary vagrant ghost, and viewed her support as a good omen. Aside from Cross, who was pleased to have her around again, she had acquired a following of sorts. Many of the boys found her beautiful—which Cross privately thought she would be, were it not for her unnatural paleness. Little Zen, meanwhile, had made the base into his playground and could be found romping all over the building.
It was amazing how much of a difference morale made. Things had begun to look up so quickly that Cross felt confident enough to put his bold rescue plan into action.
“Why is it built in District 13?” Takan asked, glancing at the map. “That’s an abandoned district. There are no suitable buildings for the Government to use there; they must’ve constructed it from scratch.”
“I think the location was convenient for them because of this.” Cross pointed at the river. “The camp can receive shipments of supplies directly from the water.”
Takan frowned. “I just don’t see it, Cross. It’s too deep in Government territory.”
“With the right plan, it’s possible,” Cross insisted. “A strike that close to the heart of the City would be a powerful symbolic victory, and besides…” He turned to Sepp.
Sepp nodded glumly. “The soldiers that captured me mentioned Floe was being taken there. I’m sure of it.”
Takan sighed. “Look, I know how you two feel about this, but is it really worth risking all of our lives for one girl?”
“You Truant, of course it’s—”
“Sepp, quiet.” Cross hushed his fellow student. “Look, liberating the camps was always on our to-do list. A camp closer to the core will actually probably have less security than one of the closer ones.”
�
��We’re still talking about over a hundred soldiers stationed on-site, with more reinforcements nearby.” Takan shook his head. “Realistically, I don’t think we can get more than fifty of ours in that deep without attracting attention.”
“Fifty will be enough,” Cross said. “I have a plan to create a disturbance within the camps before we attack. In the chaos, the guards will be overwhelmed.”
Takan raised an eyebrow. “All right, let’s assume that’s possible. What are you going to do if the Mayor gets involved?”
Cross clenched his jaw. That was the big question. Memories of him and Takan being thrashed by the newly appointed Mayor were fresh in his mind, and the Mayor was even more dangerous as a symbol than as an opponent. His interference could ruin everything.
“If the Mayor shows up, we’ll kill him,” Cross said. “If we can’t handle him, we’ll never have a hope of overcoming the General. Together, I think we have a chance.”
“We might have a chance,” Takan allowed. “But by no means is it a sure thing. I wouldn’t want to risk that fight.”
“Isn’t it hopeless then?” Cross demanded.
Takan creased his brow. “Quite possibly.”
“Well, is there anyone who can stop him besides us?”
At that Takan gave Cross a pensive look. His eyes clouded over for a moment, and then a strange look of sadness flitted across his face.
“There is one,” Takan said.
Takan turned slowly to look at the albino, who had up until that moment remained silent. She and Takan stared at each other, amber eyes meeting blue. It took Cross a moment to understand what Takan was implying.
“No.” Cross shook his head. “She is not a soldier, we can’t ask her to—”
“Cross,” the albino interrupted. “It’s okay. I’ll do this.”