Read Cracked Dagger, Book One of Allies and Adversaries Page 6
He walked slowly down the darkened streets, a lone boy lost in a place of malice and despair. The water from the passing shower still sloshed against his clothes, soaking his sneakers, his socks, and creeping slowly up his trousers. A chill crept into the fetid air that circled him, slapping his face with a cold dose of unwelcome reality.
I know I’ll get there soon, he thought to himself. Not yet of age to receive the first implants, he could not cast for help from his parents, or CRODAM officers. He thought it would be fun just to take a different path, rather than the one he took for the past cas — something seemed to implant the suggestion in his mind, and he was powerless not to act on it. At first it was inviting and exciting; the neon lights flashed high above, three- dimensional ads washing over him, people doing strange things in windows of shops that made him laugh. But whenever he laughed in that grim wasteland, all he got were icy stares of disgust and hatred.
It wasn’t so much a fear that ran through him, as a sense of confusion. He had been told since he was little that the TELREC watched over him, knew his every move. He saw his mother and father chronicle every night, at the same exact time, no matter what was happening, He could remember once he fell down, on purpose, and cried out at the precise moment that they were chronicling, just to see what would happen — if they valued him, or the chronicling more.
Where are the TELREC now?
He heard at school about someone’s father who didn’t chronicle, and how the boy had no father any longer. He heard of people — monsters who avoided the chronicle — who lived below ground, in some tunnels or caves, some strange name beginning with an ‘I.’ He remembered hearing on the news (on an AV unit his parents only watched with him) about how the TELREC had caught some, and were put to death. He remembered asking his mother what death was, and getting only a cold reply.
I’ll tell you when you’re ready.
In another troa, I’ll be ready, he thought to himself. I’ll be ten, and I’ll get my implant. Then I’ll know everything, and they can’t hide anything from me anymore.
The sun sank lower in the sky, robbing the streets of their detail, and bringing a murky haze to the world around him.
Where is everybody?
No one had passed him in fifteen mroas. He tried to backtrack, but the section of Novan he was in was notorious for its cramped, twisting alleys, a blend of the old cities and the new. It was filled with service entrances, where the great towers emptied their refuse and took in sustenance for the masses above. Mostly meta ventured where he was, with only apathets and gangs of youths roaming in the darkness.
What’s that?
Behind him, he swore he heard something, some motor. But the Novan streets were filled with so much mechanical noises, it was difficult to tell where anything came from.
Is that a light?
Slowly, a small trans approached him, its brilliant light blinding his eyes. He put up his arm to shield him, but it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. And by then, it was too late.