Class Zero

by Y A Marks

  A voice rang out in the dark void of the stadium. “Why don’t you kill all the noise, you old bastard?”

  Mr. Palmer wasn’t fazed. His voice rose. “If they mess with the people I love, I’ll kill each and every last one of those SOBs!”

  CHAPTER 7

  My eyes popped open. The ceiling lights were still off and would stay that way until six-thirty. I glanced at my PCD. Four-twenty-two glowed from the LCD.

  I could barely sleep, but I had to try. I had popped a few valerian pills before I laid down. I didn’t know when the next time would be when I could comfortably rest my head. There weren’t many places in Atlanta I could go. No one likes Lower-Cs, and everyone hates the homeless. I thought about crashing at Dhyla’s. She would put me up with no problem, but if the cops put my name in the system, she’d be harboring a fugitive and could lose everything. I couldn’t do that to her.

  My best bet was to take naps at the public areas like the park or the library during the day and stay awake and move at night. There was a huge difference between the homeless like me and the true penniless. The ones who couldn’t afford roofs over their heads could be vicious. I was ninety-six pounds of nothing. All I had were a few tricks up my sleeve.

  Besides the one time in the rain, I had lived in the Stadium for seven straight years, and it frightened me not to have a place to go at night. The last thing I wanted was to get caught up with someone who performed illegal organ theft. I had seen a few of the people who stayed at the Stadium go out one night only to return without a kidney or worse. Ms. Cooper told me about a lady, her blouse red with blood, who ran into the building. When they cleaned the wound, they found a battery-operated machine where her heart was supposed to be.

  None of that compared to the androids. Growing up, I heard horror stories about orphan kids and teens being snatched up and integrated into the beasts. The reasoning was that children didn’t have malice or perversion, which worked perfectly with the android programming. I giggled and laughed for years hearing those stories, until the Five-Day Restitution happened.

  I was nine and my mom was still alive. We lived in the Middle Tier, near the top of a building off Spring Street. Something happened; I’m not sure what. But all I remember was an android bursting into my room. It grabbed me, and my mom shot it. The android fell to the ground, but not before it pinned me underneath. The helmet casing cracked open, and I saw the face of someone inside the mask. The eyes were vacant like he was dead, and the forehead skin had been removed so that the sensors from the machinery could interact with the brain.

  I screamed until my mother pulled me out, and from then on I’d had a phobia of all androids.

  I sat up in my cot. My mind ran a thousand miles a second. I wasn’t going back to sleep. Mari and Miko were nestled in their beds without a care in the world. I wanted their life to be better than mine. All three of us were orphans, but I never wanted them to even know about the horrors that I had seen. Deep in the back of my mind, it was borderline insanity to believe they could have a better life, but the thought kept me going.

  I pulled my PCD from the wall. It stopped charging and displayed a note stating that it was 100% charged, and the estimated time remaining was one hundred seventy hours. I grabbed my backpack and squeezed through the tiny gaps inside the maze of cots to get to the concrete ramp which led to the lobby area. A few people were awake, going to the bathroom or chatting in small huddles with glow sticks or using their PCDs for illumination.

  I went down to the bottom level where the old locker rooms were. They had been reconstructed for daily use. Even at four-thirty in the morning, there was a small line of women waiting to take showers. Many of these women had visas so they could work in the top tiers of the city. It took extra time for them to make the trip, but it was better money than what they would find in the middle or lower tiers. Most of them had kids and were raising them alone. The fathers were probably either dead, in prison, converted into some kind of robotic slave, or used in scientific experiments for the government.

  Women like these, and the government’s promise to protect its youth, helped me survive after my mom died. I lived in an orphanage run by Ms. Cooper. When money started to die out, the foster homes, orphanages, and local homeless shelters combined into what became the Atlanta Wayward Home, but most people just call it the Stadium.

  The first couple of Lower-C years were bad, but tolerable. By the time I was thirteen, the government removed over fifty percent of the funding to the Wayward Home and its forty thousand residents. A few wealthy people and corporate sponsors helped out for a few months, each giving just enough of a donation for them to be seen on one of the television channels.

  A month after my fourteenth birthday, around the same time Mari and Miko started living here with their aunt, a small daily fee was asked of residents. In ten months it had grown to a mandatory amount of five credits. I didn’t have any money so I walked around asking for jobs and other things so I could keep a roof over my head.

  A waifish older lady stood at one of the ATMs a few blocks away. Her eyes twitched and her body shook. She tugged her black fur coat around her body and glanced more at the street than the LCD on the ATM.

  I understood her concern, being a fourteen-year-old girl, but the area was relatively safe with the sun still high. There were mainly homeless people, but not many thugs, drug dealers, or gangs. Most of the bad people lingered at the Lower and Middle-C border. There was no money around the Lower-Cs. We weren’t worth a gangster’s time. The gangsters were working their way up, and needed a steady flow of cash. The Lower-Cs literally died in the streets for lack of it.

  I sat against a wall a few doors down, my gaze fixed on the old woman. She finished and took a step back from the ATM. A compact mirror fell out of her purse and bounced on the spray painted concrete. I dashed to my feet and ran over. A moment later, it was in my hands. Placing the biggest smile I could muster, I held it out with both arms fully extended.

  If I was nice to her, then maybe she’d give me a credit or something. That was the way of the homeless. Taking any job, from helping to move a broken hovercar, to watching out for predators on a dangerous street, and even explaining directions, was part of daily life. Afterward, you put out your fob and hoped they’d tap it with a credit or two.

  The old lady paused, her arms frozen in the air. Her dark eyes peered into mine and her jaw clenched tight. She snatched the compact from my hand. Without turning from me, she strode backward. She spun around, breaking the tip of one of her shoes in the process. A second later, she hobbled off to her car. The door slammed. Electric arcs expanded before surrounding her rear engines. A moment later, she had disappeared into the sky.

  Red hot anger burned within my fingers. I should have robbed her. A swift kick was all it would have taken. Even the compact had to be worth two credits.

  She was worried I would hurt her, but just because she wasn’t willing to help, she could be killing me. The Stadium didn’t just put a roof over my head, they fed me. The Middle and Upper Classes had security that kept Lower-Cs from even eating out of their garbage and there was no food in the garbage cans in the areas around the Stadium.

  I stood there, blood steaming in my veins. My left side was toward the ATM. My right side was toward the street.

  A beeping noise spun my head around. The LCD screen on the ATM glowed.

  The words “Would you like to make another transaction?” printed in black letters, faded into nothing, and then reprinted.

  My mind tightened, and for a moment, I couldn’t think. The ATMs were supposed to be double-faulted, meaning they checked a person’s D-Tag and their class. I was Lower-C, but for whatever reason, the machine didn’t understand that. The woman left so fast she never ended the session, but the computer should have turned itself off immediately once a Middle or an Upper-C left the area, i.e. the double-fault.

  The computer didn’t shut off. I crept closer. My right hand reached forward toward the screen. A
beep sounded, and the machine shut itself off, leaving me with a statement that said, “Unauthorized Use Detected.”

  I shrugged and went back to the place I was before. My arms wrapped around my knees and I gazed out from under my hoodie for the next few hours. Five other people came and withdrew money. One of them was nice and gave me ten credits on my fob. The others left, not acknowledging I was even alive, or they quick-stepped away, thinking I had a weapon—as if I could afford one.

  The sun fell behind the buildings, and I had what I needed: two days of food and lodging. I stood and slapped the dust off my butt. A convertible hovercar sped over and jolted to a stop. Brand new, the convertible had six hover-rotors and two back jets. A blonde girl, no more than seventeen, wiggled out wearing an outfit that would put to shame anything I could even dream of. My gaze slammed onto her. Everything about her was beautiful, perfect, and comfortable. My fingers fumbled with my hood, making sure it covered my eyes. Only my nose and mouth showed my frustration. I watched her through the worn holes in the top of my hoodie.

  I didn’t want to ask this girl for any money. I was desperate, but it just felt wrong to ask someone barely older than me. I needed an adult. In my mind, adults took care of teenagers. After fighting with myself for two minutes, I decided perhaps she’d have pity on me when she saw I was a kid like her. The last of the orange sunlight popped away behind a building, turning the horizon into a red glow that reached out with glowing fingers into the darkness. This was the last time I could ask for the night.

  My legs fumbled over. My mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out. She spun around and started laughing. Embarrassment ripped through my veins. I didn’t understand what I had done wrong.

  “Oh crix,” she said into her PCD. “Jessica, you should see this little no-c in front of me. God, she looks so pathetic.”

  I gritted my teeth and ignored the slur “no-c.” It was the worst thing you could call a person. It was a word that literally meant you were nothing, not worth even thinking about. Just hearing it made my skin crawl.

  The girl listened to the person on the other end, who cackled in high-pitched tones.

  A moment later, the blonde laughed again, shaking her head in amusement. “I know, right? I’d like die if I was a Lower-C.”

  I stood quietly, eyes toward the ground, hands tucked deep into my pockets. She glanced at me every second or so, but spent most of her time giggling and laughing on her PCD with some unknown Jessica-person. My legs locked in place and wouldn’t budge. It was one of those moments when your body doesn’t want to do anything because your mind is so caught up in confusion.

  Five seconds later, her eyes locked onto mine. Her words have always stuck with me since that day. She flung her hair over her shoulder and put her hand on her hip. “Jessica and I have decided that the world would be a better place without you in it. She says I should just run over you with my car when I leave, but I told her I didn’t want to dent it. So she checked her map-app and there is a bridge about two miles that way.”

  She pointed a long manicured finger south. Brain tight, my head craned in that direction. In my mind, the bridge she was referring to sharpened into focus.

  “Yeah, that way. That should be tall enough that if you jumped, you’d die instantly. I don’t want you to suffer. I mean, I am a nice person.”

  She fluffed her hair again and slid back in her car. The window buzzed as it moved down. She leaned slightly toward me and grinned, her gaze sliding up and down my body.

  An intense loathing for everything I was roared in my veins. I should have never been born. I was worthless, a piece of dirt or worse. I had never felt like that before. Right in front of my attacker, tears slid down my burning cheeks.

  “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Jessica says ‘Make sure you jump head first.’” A cracking sound came from her mouth, and her head locked into a position with her mouth wide open. She relaxed, took a second look toward the south, and smiled. The window rolled up over her face, leaving me with mirrored glass. I bit my lip as I watched the somber, pale girl’s face in the reflection. The car lifted up a few inches and floated away, taking my image with it.

  My bones trembled while my hands balled into fists. My skin tore from my body. I didn’t understand how someone could be so uncaring. For years, I learned to be at peace with people who refused to acknowledge me. But this girl and her friend Jessica did see me. They saw me as something to be eliminated like vermin. Anger boiled inside me as I stood and watched the car disappear into the distance.

  A high-pitched beep rung behind me. Throughout the day, I had heard the tone seven distinct times. With my fists balled, I spun and glared at the screen. A cold, thorny wickedness crept over my skin. It slid into my blood and pressed against my heart.

  Something within me kept this electronic door open, but I still didn’t understand what that thing was. Instinctively, my right hand lifted. An electric bolt shot through my brain—no, not the right hand. I withdrew my right hand and forced it behind my back. My left hand rose to my shoulder. I stared at my pink fingertips and then at the screen. My fingers balled, and I forced my fist forward, an inch every second while I gained confidence. A breath escaped me. My heart turned and spun. With a hard swallow of everything I was, I closed my eyes and slapped the machine with my left hand.

  When I opened my eyes, the LCD glowed pale blue. Words animated on the screen, asking, “Would You Like to Perform Another Transaction?”

  A smile cut into my belly, a grin that knotted within me and turned my conscience cold. I hadn’t stolen anything since I was little. Usually, the thought of stealing made me sick. But today—today, I was going to take everything I could from that bratty, blonde bitch.

  I tugged down my hoodie. My eyes were covered, but my worn patches were a blessing for the first time. I slowly tapped the screen. It responded. I made my way through the navigation, figuring out, for the first time in my life, how to use an ATM. It was relatively simple, and I quickly discovered all of the blonde girl’s personal information.

  Her name was Sarah Graham, and she lived at T3 155 Peachtree. T3 meant that her house was on Tier-Three, the top tier of the city. I had never been to the top tiers. In my mind, I imagined every mansion I had ever seen on television, large rooms with marble floors and a study that had a single piano in the center which wasn’t played. It was simply used as decoration. I imagined a kitchen large enough to park three hovercars, and a swimming pool with an infinity edge so she and her friends could gaze into the city.

  The balance of her account appeared on the screen. I had never seen such a number in my life—50,000 credits. It was enough money for me to live on for the next 10,000 days.

  My lips twisted. It wasn’t fair. I had nothing, and Sarah Graham had everything. Tears welled in my eyes, a girl no more than three years older than me, had that kind of money—that kind of security.

  Without a second thought, my fingers tapped the screen. In two seconds the full amount was selected to be deducted. I yanked my fob from my pocket and screwed it into the jack. My left index finger hovered over the confirm button. Every part of me wanted to hurt this girl, to take everything she had and go on a wild shopping spree, buying myself clothes and shoes and food. I wanted it so bad my heart burned in my chest.

  I glanced away, my mind struggling to find focus in the midst of anger. I gritted my teeth and turned back toward the ATM. Gazing through the tattered fabric of my hoodie, I understood that at the end of the day I would be the one who would pay the price. She would complain to her daddy, who probably knew somebody important. They would somehow track me down and make a public example out of me. I’d be on the news and thrown into one of those fight-to-the-death prisons. In the end, Sarah would get her wish, and I’d be left as a memory to no one.

  That was not going to happen. My finger tapped the cancel button. A few moments later, a modest amount of 800 credits appeared on the screen. It was just enough for me to live the rest of the year and have a few ext
ras.

  I left the ATM and never returned. As I walked back home, I marveled at the way the computer reacted to me. My curiosity itched to learn more about the way my left hand worked and what else I could do. I tested a few things around the Stadium, but the only technology I could get to react was the Stadium’s Halo, which was a circular six-story monitor for hosting gaming activities.

  The computer for the Halo was upstairs in one of the abandoned control rooms. I was able to bypass the system’s security by simply placing my left hand near the screen. The Halo flickered to life, but only managed to light up for a few seconds before burning out, taking out half the power in the building at the same time.

  A quick flick to a few switches at a distant fuse box remedied the problem. The general manager said the system was simply old and probably had malfunctioned. He was sure I didn’t turn the computer on because there was no way a fourteen-year-old could have hacked the system. Though no one else cared, Ms. Cooper lectured me for three hours about what I had done.

  I only spent five credits of the money I had stolen a day, my daily supply to keep a roof over my head and food in my stomach. I thought that if I kept the money safe and I got caught, I could return most of it and get a lighter sentence. At night, I tossed and turned. I lost three pounds because of my anxiety. Any day, I expected the doors to burst open and for some stinking android cop to yank me out of the Stadium and take me to prison.

  The day never came.

  A month passed, and I started to feel safe. I had won. No one was coming for me. With a tingle inside of my stomach, I took the northbound train to the Perimeter and bought two new outfits, a gorgeous pair of boots, and some sneakers. I got my ears pierced with two holes in each ear. I bought a silver chain, a backpack, a brand new Allison Riley hoodie, and a thicker leather coat for the winter.