Truancy Origins (14 page)

Red didn't panic, but rather watched amusedly as the clueless woman walked on, still chattering into her phone. The man attempted to get her attention again, but as he did Red suddenly jerked his arm free and made a run for it. The man let out a shout of outrage and ran after him, but Red could tell that he would never catch up. He was old and fat, and Red still prided himself on being able to run pretty well.

Dashing down an alley that Red knew would lead back to District 8, he spared a glance behind him just in time to see his pursuer skid to a halt. Red grinned to himself. None of the citizens of the City were willing to pass into the abandoned districts; only the Enforcers ever pursued vagrants into those forbidden areas.

As soon as Red was safely standing back upon the empty, noiseless streets of District 8, he drew the wallets out from his pocket and inspected the contents. He was pleased to find a decent bundle of cash in both wallets, but less pleased to see a number of account cards. He knew that the cards probably had access to more money than he could ever dream of getting his hands on, but attempting to use them could easily tip off the Enforcers even if it worked.

Still, the cash suited Red just fine. Hopefully he could make it last him through winter, though he doubted that it would. At worst, he could always attempt the same thing again. He'd always gotten away with it so far, and besides, he found the art of stealing to be a refreshing escape from monotony.

But as the adrenaline and the excitement faded, Red abruptly realized that his stomach was still grumbling. He didn't feel safe spending the stolen money just yet, and that still left the problem of what he was supposed to eat.

 

Z
en chewed the piece of beef jerky slowly, enjoying the juice as it ran down his throat. It wasn't anything he'd order in a restaurant, but it tasted all right, if a bit on the salty side. In any case, he wasn't really concerned about the flavor of his rations; the most important thing for him was that the stuff took forever to go bad and was fairly nutritious.

After taking a swig from his water bottle, Zen reached inside his backpack and seized a bag of dried apple slices. He popped a few into his mouth, then washed them down with more water before standing up straight to survey his surroundings. He had slept quite comfortably in the interior of a run-down car he'd found in District 7. There was evidence of someone having slept there before, but whoever it was had long since moved on, and Zen wasn't about to be picky about his bedding.

Zen slung his backpack back onto his shoulders and left the car behind, walking along the empty streets, carefully examining each building he
passed. Finding a small shop with its windows and doors boarded up, Zen drew a hammer out of his bag and smashed the boards to pieces until he could get in. The interior was a crumbling mess, but it was roomy enough and would serve for Zen's purposes. Taking a can of red spray paint out of his pocket, Zen methodically sprayed a small symbol inside the doorway of the building, where no one would spot it unless they were looking for it.

The symbol was a red circle, with the letter
T
slanted clockwise contained within it. Zen marked the exact spot of the shop on his detailed map of the City, and then proceeded to search. Soon he would fill all the safe houses he had marked with supplies, so that the Truants would never have to remain still. They would be able to strike without warning and vanish into the abandoned districts, hiding in any of a hundred different locations.

As he worked, Zen felt an airy, liberating feeling within him, an excitement stemming solely from his newfound independence. It wasn't a sudden or fleeting sensation, but rather the lightening of a spirit that had finally freed itself from bondage and had begun forging its own fate.

Zen found himself so caught up in his blissful work that he never once gave a thought to the brother he had left behind. Zen stood completely alone and felt all the more powerful for it. Others would join him later, he knew, but for now it was just him against the City, and he couldn't wait for the first battle to be fought.

 

H
ey, Rothenberg, sir!”

“What is it now?” Rothenberg grumbled, ambling over to the patrol car with a paper cup of coffee in hand.

“We've gotten some complaints in from District 5. Looks like there's a vagrant running loose there, pickpocketing people right off the street.”

“In broad daylight?” Rothenberg raised an eyebrow.

“Looks like it, sir.”

“Those animals get bolder every day.” Rothenberg smiled, his grip tightening on the coffee cup. “Do we have a description?”

“Wild brown hair and ragged clothes, that's all that the guy got a good look at, sir,” the Enforcer replied.

“It's a start.” Rothenberg nodded as he got into the car. “District 5 isn't too far away. Let's go.”

“Do you think that the vagrant will still be hanging around there?” the Enforcer asked skeptically as he started the engine.

“You don't know these kids like I do.” Rothenberg chuckled, a deeply disturbing sound. “If this one successfully pulled off something like this, he won't be satisfied with just a few wallets. He'll strike again, maybe even today.”

“And if he doesn't?” the Enforcer inquired, navigating his way through tight traffic.

“Then we'll do a sweep of Districts 7 and 8,” Rothenberg said. “Flush him out and maybe nail a few of his dirty little friends too.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rothenberg leaned back in his seat and watched the buildings on either side pass by. He loved doing this, actually getting out onto the streets and participating in the hunt for vagrants. Desk work reminded him too much of his old stint as a teacher, an experience that he did not remember with much fondness. While he had enjoyed being able to lord over rooms full of uppity teenagers, he had taught drawing.
Drawing.
Few things bored Rothenberg more than watching kids scribble away without any semblance of talent. He had hated the subject with all his guts, but his limited talents hadn't allowed him to teach anything else.

Fortunately, his notoriously strict treatment of his students attracted the attention of the local Disciplinary Officer, who had facilitated a career change to the Enforcers. From there he had served with distinction and enthusiasm, quickly rising through the ranks until he had earned the prestigious position of Chief Truancy Officer.

Rothenberg took a sip of coffee. If only his private life had worked out as well as his professional one. His wife just hadn't understood that being a parent meant being a City official. The Mayor had said it himself: The role of a parent in the City was to enforce the will of the Educators upon each individual student. Rothenberg believed to the core of his being that this duty meant keeping them in line and making them constantly mindful of their place. His wife, on the other hand, had strongly objected to Rothenberg's ideas about discipline.

It was all that damn kid's fault, Rothenberg thought as the car stopped at a light. When Rothenberg became an Enforcer, he began spending much more time at work, leaving his wife at home to spoil their son. Then came the daughter, and when no agreement could be reached about her upbringing his wife actually took the girl and left. Even worse, she'd left their worthless son behind.

Rothenberg's grip tightened on his coffee. He didn't want to have anything to do with that kid. The boy had ruined everything—and Rothenberg had told him so, many times. But with his wife gone Rothenberg was free to experiment with his brand of discipline, and as far as he was concerned it had definitely made progress. The boy didn't talk much anymore, didn't get into trouble, and generally took care of himself, leaving Rothenberg free to do what he really loved—hunt the vagrants.

Rothenberg grinned wolfishly. There was something incredibly satisfying
about identifying, tracking, and finally dealing with a vagrant. Mere truants simply weren't as fun; they were still students, so you couldn't shoot them, and what fun was hunting down rebellious teenagers if you couldn't administer the ultimate punishment when you caught them?

Rothenberg took another sip of coffee. He had always thought that students were treated too softly, almost like equals. He was determined to remind them that they had no rights, and he would put them in their place by force if necessary.

The patrol car screeched to a halt, and Rothenberg's partner unbuckled his seat belt and stepped out of the car and onto the sidewalk of District 5. Rothenberg quickly followed suit, feeling his heart start to beat faster at the very thought of a chase. Rothenberg grinned again, fingering the handle of his gun and the hilt of his knife. It was time to put a miscreant in his place, six feet beneath the ground.

 

U
masi slept fitfully. With no blankets to cover him, the winter's chill managed to reach him in his dreams, where he found himself standing in the midst of a strangely silent blizzard. His head throbbing, Umasi struggled against the snow, but found only an infinite expanse of white all around him. Freezing winds battered at him cruelly, ice melting at his touch and seeping into his garments. Never until now had Umasi, who had never lacked for warmth, realized just how much he hated the cold.

Without warning, a particularly powerful gust of wind slammed into him, knocking him off his feet. Within seconds, as though it had been waiting for him to fall, the blizzard had covered him with a snowdrift. Umasi fought, but could not stop the white from washing over him, and he cringed, expecting to suffocate at any moment. A second passed. And then two.

Umasi opened his eyes, finding himself warm and unharmed in an impossible landscape. Everything, absolutely everything was white, with not a shadow or a blemish to distinguish one patch of ground from another, nothing to indicate where a wall or ceiling might begin or end. This was no snow-covered landscape—just pure, infinite whiteness.

As the panic and fear slowly left Umasi, some rational corner of his mind told him that it was all a dream. As if on cue, a dark figure emerged from the whiteness, marring its perfect plainness. Umasi glared at the boy who seemed to bear his face. The boy, dressed in an overlarge dark green winter jacket, smiled in greeting.

“Well, I don't think that either of us saw that coming,” he said conversationally.

“Saw what?” Umasi demanded.

“Oh, come on, haven't you figured it out? Why you're here?”

“Because I'm dreaming.”

“Right, and why are you dreaming?”

“Because I'm asleep?”

“And, Umasi,
why
are you asleep?”

“What kind of stupid question is that?”

“One that you can't seem to answer,” the boy observed. “Why don't you get up now and take a look? Or are you going to let your brother have everything his own way?”

With that cryptic statement, the boy smiled again and pulled the hood of his jacket tightly over his head so that it cast his face into shadow. Before Umasi could respond, the boy waved an arm in farewell—the jacket's sleeves were long enough to conceal his hands—and Umasi could feel himself gradually rising into consciousness.

Stirring and forcing his eyes open, Umasi found his vision blurred and his head hurting terribly. Rubbing his eyes furiously, Umasi forced himself to sit up, feeling dazed but knowing that he was awake at last. Instinctively he groped around for his glasses, and as he put them on he realized that he was lying on the floor. Wondering what he was doing there, Umasi confusedly looked over at Zen's bed to ask his brother about it.

The sight of the empty bed brought it all back to him, like another blow to the head. Fully alert now and feeling a fresh surge of panic, Umasi forced himself to his feet. Zen was gone. Gone for real. This was no nightmare, and there would be no waking up. Zen had run away from home and was going to kill people, maybe a lot of people.

Umasi expected to be paralyzed by indecision, but to his surprise he found that he knew exactly what he would do. He would not stay here, wasting away in school as disaster brewed outside. He would not stay here to be interrogated by his father. He would not stay here, helpless as he had always been.

He would go after Zen.

He would make his brother see reason if he could, and stop him if he must, but Umasi knew he couldn't allow Zen to carry out his plans. Looking around his room, Umasi moved with unusual swiftness. He seized his backpack and turned it upside down, dumping all of his school materials out of it. He then approached the dresser to get his account card . . .

Only to find it missing, along with Zen's.

Umasi stared at the dresser in disbelief. He knew that the cards had both been there the night before. Umasi knew it was impossible that they could've just disappeared, unless . . .

Umasi's face hardened.
Zen.
Umasi found it difficult to believe that his brother could have resorted to theft, but there was no other explanation.

Swearing under his breath, Umasi opened a drawer in the dresser and seized a small bundle of cash bills. He stuffed them into his backpack along with a blanket before proceeding down to the kitchen. He threw a bunch of food haphazardly into the backpack as well, and then, after a moment's hesitation, also included a long, sharp kitchen knife.

He then quickly returned to his room, threw on some warm clothes, and slung his backpack over his shoulders. He was about to leave, but at the last minute a small tinge of regret stayed his hand as he reached for the doorknob. Father. The Mayor would lose not one, but both sons at the same time. Despite all that the man had done, Umasi felt that he owed him at least a final farewell.

Frowning, Umasi spun around and approached his desk, taking out a fresh sheet of lined paper and a bold marker. Hastily, he scribbled a brief note and left it prominently placed on the desk, where it would quickly be found.