by Isamu Fukui
Three of them were former friends of mine. About two years ago, I worked with them one by one in a manner similar to how I am working with you now.
The last one betrayed me. He attempted to kill me, though I’m pleased to report that he failed.
Zyid slid the sunglasses into his pocket and bent his head, seemingly deep in thought.
Tack’s mind began reeling. He had never given those nameless three any thought before. But now … now it seemed horribly possible that Tack might have to face one of them. Tack frowned uncertainly; when he passed Umasi’s final test, he had felt like he could take on anything at all, but who knew how he would compare against another who had done the same?
The only thing that Tack knew for sure as the sun slipped over the horizon was that the war had just crossed a treacherous threshold. Tucking that worrisome thought into the back of his mind, Tack turned away from Zyid and headed off into the night in search of Noni; the rose remained to be delivered.
21
THE DEFINITION OF LOVE
“How we have deceived ourselves, Takan,” Zyid murmured.
“Huh?” Tack looked up, sensing that Zyid had more to say.
Ever since the Bar incident, Zyid had been growing increasingly moody. Lately he’d been given to strange pronouncements that Tack found difficult to understand and vaguely unsettling. Still, on the whole, Tack found it easier to endure Zyid ever since he’d determined to kill him, and so he waited patiently for Zyid to elaborate.
Instead of doing so, the Truancy leader stood up, reached into his pocket, and unfolded a sheet of paper. From what Tack could see in the dim lighting of the flower shop, it looked a lot like a report card. Zyid looked the card over carefully, as if examining a precious yet hated artifact. Zyid folded the paper, returned it carefully to his pocket, and turned to Tack and sighed.
“You and I, Takan,” Zyid said, indicating the two of them and then sweeping his arm around to encompass the world. “All of us—the Truants, the students still left in the schools. We all entered the classrooms confident that we would be rewarded. We were shoved into the school system, promised that if we worked hard enough, we could have anything we want.
“We were taught that we could earn anything we wanted so long as we sacrificed enough of our dignity to do so. We sold ourselves to the Educators, Takan, from the moment we stepped into the classrooms.” Zyid’s face darkened. “Security and happiness are by no means guaranteed to graduates, but the Educators would have us believe that they are. They school us into believing that their way is the only way.”
“But what about those that drop out? There are some,” Tack pointed out, gesturing toward the wall next door behind which was the Truancy’s main hideout.
“There are more than anyone would like you to believe, Takan. The Truancy has allowed them to make their presence known, but before, things were very bad for them.” Zyid frowned, the lines on his face becoming so pronounced that it looked like he had wrinkles. “They were the vagrants, the homeless, and they suffered more than anyone else in this entire City.”
“So, about dropouts … is it because—”
“It has nothing to do with intelligence,” Zyid said sharply. “Some people are not meant for school. All kids are branded as a single faceless mass and herded through school like cattle. Some of them may be as smart as you want, and yet still recoil at their freedom and dignity being stolen from them by the Educators. The Educators will make them beg and sweat for an abstract grade just as a dog might perform tricks for a bone—except that the dog might chew on the bone and taste something concrete while the student is left only with a bitter taste in his mouth.”
Tack was silent, brooding on Zyid’s grim speech.
“So … where does all that leave us?” Tack asked, though he already knew the answer.
Zyid looked at Tack piercingly. “Those of us who were never meant to be in school? We are offered few options. For us, all we have to choose from is death or revolution.”
“How … how many choose death?”
Zyid smirked bitterly. “Not as many as have chosen the Truancy, but also more than I would like … more, even, than the Educators would like.”
Tack frowned. He didn’t bother asking Zyid how he knew what he knew—he seemed too sure of himself to be wrong. But still, this was Tack’s sister’s murderer. He would love to hear Zyid’s explanation about what justified that, but he couldn’t exactly ask him.
Zyid’s words were weighing Tack down now, and he decided that he needed some balance. He rose to his feet and made for the door.
“Where are you off to now, Takan?” Zyid asked calmly.
“I’m thirsty; I’m going to go grab a drink,” Tack said. It was the truth, after all. Part of it, anyway.
“All right, Takan, but be back by tonight at eight.” Zyid inclined his head. “I have another job for you.”
Tack managed to nod and left the flower shop. Walking down the street, head bent, Tack was startled when something bumped into him. Snapping back to his senses, Tack looked up to see a pair of icy blue eyes searching him. An unreasonable nervousness gripped his stomach as it had before when Noni had beamed at him after he’d given her the rose.
“He’s been giving you the talk, hasn’t he?” Noni said, flicking a strand of loose hair behind her ear.
“Huh?” Tack responded dumbly, still entranced.
“Yeah, that’s always how I felt afterwards,” Noni said wistfully. “You know what I’m talking about. It’s kind of enlightening and confusing at the same time.”
“Yeah … yeah exactly,” Tack said slowly.
“I always used to enjoy it. Made me feel better about … about being kicked out … and everything else.” Noni cocked her head. “But Takan, now that you’re Zyid’s protégé, how are you liking it?”
Tack wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It wasn’t entirely bad to be in a position where he could fight for a cause he believed in, and yet there was the inescapable fact that he had to kill Zyid. Noni, however, took his hesitation to mean something else.
“Don’t worry; I’m not bitter anymore,” Noni said, pulling down her scarf to reveal a faint smile. “I don’t think I’m even jealous.”
“How come?” Tack asked, perplexed and yet pleased.
“After some time on my own and with you, I learned something,” Noni said, flashing Tack a grin. “I don’t have to rely on Zyid’s strength anymore.”
And with that, Noni clapped Tack on the shoulder and walked past him, pulling her scarf back over her face as she did. After a moment, Tack resumed his walk, grinning and feeling very pleased with himself.
* * *
“Do you want anything, Gabe? Soda? Chips?”`
“No, no, I’m fine, Alex; just buy quickly and get out.”
Gabriel’s eyes darted around the pharmacy, scrutinizing everything that moved. One elderly man stood in front of a rack of greeting cards, another was in the soda aisle inspecting some bottles of sparkling water, and a third had filled his arms with boxes of batteries. Gabriel knew that another also lurked out of sight behind a display of painkillers. Except for the four men and the clerks, the five Truants milling about the snack aisle seemed to be alone in the pharmacy.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything? These corn chips are great, I swear,” Alex said, nudging Gabriel in the side.
“Yes, I’m sure, Alex,” Gabriel muttered, still looking vigilantly around the room.
“Lighten up, Gabriel; we’re in the middle of the living City,” Alex said exasperatedly. “I don’t think that we’re going to find any Enforcers hiding behind the popcorn.”
“Keep your voice down!” Gabriel hissed as the old man briefly looked up from the greeting cards towards them. “And you’re right; we are in the living City; that’s what I’m worried about.”
Alex looked at Gabriel in surprise.
“Well, we’ve been here all the time before, haven’t we?”
“Yeah, but you
can’t be too careful nowadays,” Gabriel cautioned. “Remember what happened to The Bar?”
“What’s that got to do with corn chips?” Alex asked brightly.
“The word is that the Enforcers have a new chief,” Gabriel said as the elderly man vanished down an aisle with his greeting card.
“That’d be for what, the twentieth time?” Alex snorted. “He’ll be just like the rest of them—old and stupid.”
“Maybe,” Gabriel conceded, now staring at the man who seemed to be comparing brands of sparkling water. “But maybe not. In any case, I think it was a bad idea to come here.”
“There’s not much else to do on patrol,” Alex pointed out, piling his arms full of corn chip bags. “And anyway, wouldn’t we look more suspicious if we just walked around all the time?”
Gabriel scowled; Alex had a point. Regular Truancy patrols had resumed since The Bar incident, and patrols in the living, inhabited parts of the City were especially dangerous—a task Zyid usually assigned to Alex and Gabriel, both capable officers. With all the Enforcers on the lookout for suspicious children, walking around looking for Enforcer stations could be suicidal if Truants failed to blend adequately with students. Telling himself that corn chips could be part of their disguise, Gabriel waited in silence as the four other Truants picked out their snacks.
“Got all your stuff?” Gabriel muttered to Alex, who alone seemed to still be examining the rows of snacks while all the other Truants gathered silently around Gabriel.
“Yeah, I guess this is enough,” Alex said, lifting his arms up so that a mountain of snacks obscured his head. “Let’s go pay for this stuff.”
Gabriel didn’t argue, and all the Truants quickly headed for the checkout counter. Once there, however, they found that all of the cashiers had vanished. The Truants froze for a second, and then Alex stepped cautiously forward, dumping his snacks onto the counter to free his arms.
“Where did they go?” Alex whispered, suddenly alert.
“I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling about this,” Gabriel murmured, suspicion in his voice.
Before Alex could voice his agreement, something crashed to the ground and the Truants looked around in alarm to find an old man pointing a gun at them, a greeting card lying at his feet. Before they could react, the three other men in the pharmacy swiftly emerged, forming a semicircle around them, backing them against the counter.
“Get on the ground, with your hands where we can see them!” one of the men barked loudly.
There was a suspended moment of silence as the Truants weighed their options. It wasn’t long, however, before Gabriel opened his mouth.
“To hell with that, you bastards!” he snarled, whipping a pistol out from a back pocket.
The four plainclothes Enforcers opened fire. Two Truants went down instantly, while Gabriel, Alex, and the other dived for cover. Gabriel landed behind the counter and quickly brought his gun up to fire at the nearest Enforcer. The first bullet caught the man in the arm, and the second finished the job. At the same time, Alex drew his own gun and leaned around a display of deodorant to aim a shot at another Enforcer, cleanly landing a head shot. By then the third Truant had managed to draw his gun and leaped out from cover, which proved to be a mistake. One of the Enforcers turned at the first sign of movement and fired, catching the Truant in the shoulder. The Truant squeezed the trigger by reflex, and his gun sent a bullet into the belly of his attacker before his partner unloaded three other shots into him, killing the Truant on the spot.
Taking advantage of the Enforcer’s distraction, Alex and Gabriel simultaneously aimed and fired. The Enforcer crumpled to the ground with two holes through his head, and suddenly the only sound that could be heard in the pharmacy was Alex’s and Gabriel’s heavy breathing. The previously white linoleum floor was now covered with blood from the seven bodies that lay sprawled upon it. Alex and Gabriel looked at each other, wondering how things had gone so horribly wrong.
The sudden, sharp sound of clapping cut through the silence, and Alex and Gabriel turned to the entrance to see a kid standing there, ominously framed in the sunlight of the open door. The boy was grinning widely, clapping enthusiastically as if he’d just finished watching an impressive play.
The boy was wearing what looked like a bulletproof vest over an Enforcer uniform, and was armed with two pistols. Alex and Gabriel instantly bared their teeth as they saw the boy’s hair—platinum blond.
“Well, what have we here?” the blond boy said loudly, stepping forward as the doors slid shut behind him. “Five children wandering around the City with guns, and two of them apparently know how to use them. Would you care to explain yourselves?”
“Shoot first, ask questions later, is it?” Gabriel snarled.
“I know better than to negotiate with the Truancy. My name is Edward, by the way—nice to meet you,” he said casually. “No, really, it is; you have no idea how many unfortunate and innocent groups of five children we had to arrest before you came along.”
“Why are you helping the Enforcers?” Alex demanded. “Haven’t you ever been to school?”
Edward laughed coldly. “Yes, I have been to school. But I’ve put that behind me, and now I have my own future to think about. Speaking of which, why don’t you surrender? It’ll look good on my report if I take two Truants alive. Hell, I just might even get you amnesty in return.”
“We won’t sell out like you, traitor,” Gabriel growled.
“Who, me? Oh, I’m no traitor.” Edward grinned. “I was never loyal to anything to begin with.”
“That so?” Gabriel raised his gun. “Well, we aren’t surrendering; what’re you gonna do about it?”
“There is a SWAT team and several Enforcer patrols waiting outside right now, on the off chance that you manage to kill me,” Edward said. “But if you do resist arrest, I’d prefer to deal with you myself.”
“Without calling for help?” Alex said skeptically.
“That’s right.” Edward grinned.
“I’ve had enough of this!” Gabriel said loudly, gripping his gun tightly. “If we’re gonna die, let’s take this bastard with us, Alex.”
Edward regarded Gabriel for a moment with venomous eyes, then without warning darted sideways into an aisle, swiftly drawing his guns. He fired off two shots at the pair of Truants before they could react. Both bullets missed, one sinking into the linoleum floor and another smashing into a refrigerator behind them, shattering the glass and sending shards scattering everywhere.
Gabriel leaped forward and cautiously moved down the aisle Edward had vanished into. Alex drew his gun and darted left and then down the beverage aisle. For a minute there was only the squeaking of sneakers on linoleum, and then, as Gabriel reached the middle of his aisle, four shots rang out in quick succession, smashing bottles of shampoo and conditioner that had been right next to Gabriel’s head. Gabriel ducked and wildly fired back, causing jets of shampoo to spew outwards as bullets passed through their containers.
“You should thank me; you can wash your hair now!” Edward called out from behind several rows of shelves.
“I would if I had any to wash, blondie!” Gabriel retorted as a bullet passed right over his shaven head.
Meanwhile, Alex stealthily crept towards the middle of his own aisle, aiming to get adjacent with the source of the commotion. More shots rang out, this time piercing bottles of soda all around Alex. Colorful jets of soda spewed from the pierced bottles, and Alex almost slipped on the resulting puddles as he fired back blindly.
“I think thirst must be affecting your aim!” Edward yelled. “Relax! Here, have a drink!”
Before Alex could respond, there was a great upheaval and the shelves began toppling like dominoes towards Alex. He had nowhere to run. Alex could only swear loudly as the shelves came crashing down on him, along with dozens of bottles of soda. Alex let out a pained yell from under the shelves, and then groaned as he worked to extricate himself from the mess.
Seeing wh
at had happened, Gabriel decided to imitate Edward and kicked the shelf nearest him, letting out a grunt of satisfaction as it fell and started a chain reaction of toppling shelves. Edward, however, wasn’t one to fall prey to his own tactic. He climbed up onto the shelf he was hidden behind, and with perfect timing leaped down from it as the next shelf came crashing into his own and tipped it over. Even as he jumped, Edward aimed up at the ceiling and fired, shattering the lighting directly above Gabriel. Parts of the lighting fixture came crashing down upon Gabriel, who fired wildly at Edward and missed. Edward smirked as he leisurely approached Gabriel, who now lay on the ground bleeding from a dozen cuts. Edward kicked the gun from Gabriel’s hand, and then raised one of his own to finish the job. But before he could pull the trigger, there was the sound of soda cans clattering, and Edward spun around.
Alex had finally extricated himself from the shelves, but seemed to have lost his gun in the process and was now soaking wet with soda. Unarmed and bedraggled, Alex clenched his fists and glared at Edward defiantly. Edward regarded the Truant for a moment, then flashed him a predatory grin and tossed both his pistols aside. Alex gaped slightly as Edward broke into a run, dashing towards him with the ferocity of a wolf. Alex stood his ground, but Edward leaped up into a powerful kick that caught him completely unprepared. Alex was sent reeling backwards, while Edward himself landed safely among the bottles of soda.
Gabriel, having shoved the remains of the fluorescent lighting off him, saw what was happening and rushed forward to join the fight. Edward was back up in an instant after his fall, and Alex too had managed to rise shakily to his feet. Gabriel wasted no time in snapping a kick at Edward’s thigh, but Edward seized Gabriel’s leg as it swung towards him and twisted forcefully, spinning Gabriel’s entire body and sending him crashing to the ground. Alex rushed forward in an attempt to land a punch, but Edward delivered a firm kick to his stomach that knocked him backwards. Gabriel lashed out at Edward from the floor with his legs, but Edward simply jumped to avoid the blow, landing a forceful kick to Gabriel’s back. Alex lunged forward again, but was in no shape to compete with Edward, who drove a fist into his belly, bringing him to the ground where Edward finished off with a kick to his temple. Alex went limp.