City of Cruelty and Copper (Temperance Era) (4 page)

“Noon,” he drawled. He had one of those East side accents I could spot easily. It looked like his family was probably Western Earthly though, from a time the Earth had countries like North America. The stranger was taller than me by a foot, lanky in an athletic way with muscles protruding from the sleeves of his one piece. His shaggy brown hair tossed in the wind, revealing flecks of blond mixed with caramel.

“Noon,” I replied, stuffing my hands into my pockets.

“Isaac.”

“Milo.”

The crowd roared and we looked in the direction of it. I thought I was the first to walk away but Isaac surprised me with his long strides. He stepped in front of me just as I was turning to leave and I crashed into him, full on body smack. My nose collided with his hard chest and I fell onto my back.

“Sorry,” Isaac said, but he didn’t help me up. He stood there awkwardly while I brushed off the sand on my knees and then he was gone, entering the arena, ducking into the shadows under the bleachers.

Another thundering roar erupted and my heart leapt into my chest. The execution had started. I pushed myself to my feet and trudged through the sand back to the black box where I could celebrate the successful execution.

The girl didn’t die.

3328CE | 1308TE

Isaac was persistent. It didn’t take him long to find out who I was and where I lived in Central. Some say the Atlanteans had lived in Temperance before us and so all the formed marble shaped to look like stalagmites were really tributes to the world we left behind. I liked the intricate architecture but hated the way my shoes clacked against the floor when I went anywhere. Central was like a castle, if castles could meld into other buildings and seamlessly disappear. The only thing that really discerned Central from the other buildings was the cornucopia shaped turret pointing towards the Pleiades constellation. The eight families chose Central as their home a long time ago. Senate however, was elsewhere, in the bowels of the Arena. I was too young to attend Senate. At Central I had a modest room with quaint bluish gray furnishings, a single bed, a makeshift dresser, a mirror hanging on the wall and canvas covering the door. All I had to wear were the standard issue black one pieces, a utility belt for my communicator, tools and flashlight, and of course my boots.

I tightened my belt and brushed curly black hair out of my eyes. The screen on the wall next to the door beeped and my father’s face appeared.

“Seven hundred hours,” he said, pulling his eyebrows together. He was leaning too close to the screen on his end and so it looked like he was inside a fishbowl, his nose curving to either side of the screen. I pulled my sleeves taut over my wrists and rigidly moved towards the monitor. Isaac would have laughed at me if he saw me acting this way but this was how the founding families of Temperance acted. There was nothing funny about preserving life on Earth.

“Sir?”

“Leaving for Senate now. Will see you at ten hundred hours sharp.”

I nodded to confirm my understanding.

“Peaceful Temperance Day.” His warped face burst into a toothy smile that made me nauseous. I held my body firmly together and repeated him. He clicked the screen off and it faded to black leaving me alone. I didn’t want to go to another Temperance Day festival. The thought of it made my bones ache, made my head feel heavy, made me feel like everything I had grown up believing in was false. Everyone in Temperance died eventually, it was the product of bad genes and radiation poisoning. Five hundred years ago Senate approved euthanasia. Nowadays, if you didn’t want to live, you didn’t have to.

Fable had no choice. She was thirteen times older than any resident in Temperance and she couldn’t die. They tried every year and every year they failed. I always wondered what she did the other three hundred and sixty four days of the year.

I flopped onto my bed and piled my hands on my stomach. When I had met Issac a year ago the theme was fire. They tied Fable to a stake and attempted to burn her alive. She told us a story about witch burnings in a place called Salem. It sounded like a fairytale to me. When they were done, her skin was as milky white as it had been before the fire. Her fiery red hair had grown back almost instantly. The crowd whooped with envy. My eyes burned with sympathy.

Most of the people in Temperance wanted to live forever. They had labs in the lower levels, exploring ways to cure the gene pool, to fix the radiation poisoning, turn us all into Fable.

I didn’t want to be like her.

Rab was one of the few people that supported the Nuclear Expeditions and spoke out against the Immortality Research. He believed we had far too much of one and not enough of the other. It was one of the only things we agreed on.

A fist punched the canvas and I flinched, startled out of my daydream.

“Milo,” a familiar voice said.

I sat up. “Isaac.”

I frowned as he moved the canvas aside and stepped into the room. Isaac wasn’t the sort of boy that people swooned over, but there was a definite swoon factor for me. I think it was his unassuming nature, the way he hunched his shoulders and tried to seem shorter than he was. And it was his smile. It was a cross between goofy and lazy. It drew me in more than any of the usual boyish features did. He hooked his thumbs into his belt and I felt envious of the way he could make the one piece look fashionable. He had a piece of fabric tied around his upper arm, and one of his pant legs was rolled up to his knee. He did it to show off the tattoo on his leg, a serpent wrapping from his ankle and seeming to take a bite out of his knee.

Something the people on the East side were known for was their artwork. It made Isaac an individual whereas I was just another face in the crowd. I liked it that way, because the moment I introduced myself, people knew exactly who I was.

“You’re going to say no again aren’t you?” He leaned against the wall beside the door and eyed the screen beside him. He went to tap it when I held up a hand.

“I have to go to the festival.”

Isaac continued looking at the screen instead of at me. “But?” he goaded.

He always did this, trying to make me see that even though my father made the rules there were exceptions, technicalities. He wanted me to use the loopholes at my disposal to weasel out of any and all responsibilities tying me to Central. I couldn’t say his intentions weren’t honorable, but I wasn’t a damsel in distress.

I sighed. “I don’t need to report to the black box until ten hundred hours.”

He frowned. “That’s not enough time to get to where I want to take you.”

Something stirred in my stomach, a mixture of pangs and nerves and warmth. I shook my head. I had only kissed one boy, Isaac had kissed tons. The East side was so open about people being gay. Temperance had no laws against it, but the heirs to the Senate? The founding families had to live on, especially the Ketterlings. One of the reasons Rab and I didn’t see eye to eye was because I wouldn’t try dating a girl. I squashed the feelings and stood, my hand moving to my flashlight. Even in the daytime there were some places in Temperance that were underground. Everyone had to carry one.

“Let me check in,” I said, an idea forming in my mind. I never sat in the stands with the commoners. Isaac and his family, the Blackwells sat up there along with all the other common families. I stood in the black box and had perfect view of the Arena. Isaac pushed off the wall and stood a few feet away from me, he wasn’t really smiling but he looked hopeful. “I’ll ask to sit with you in the stands. We can probably slip away from there.”

He gave me one of his famous cheeky smiles and clapped me on the shoulder, heat spreading into me where his hand touched. “I knew you had it in you!”

“What?” I asked, a laugh tickling my lips. “Deceitfulness?”

“Bravery.” He winked and pushed the canvas aside with a loud whoosh. I followed him down the carved steps into the hallway and around the center of Central. I glanced at the round marble pillars and at the endless cavern above. This hallway was shaped like a horseshoe, and at intervals were pillars that showed off the center of Central. It was like a courtyard, different levels of circular stones intertwined with individual stepping stones. They taught us about the rituals the first founding families performed there, but years ago they stopped using it.

Isaac entered the tunnel that wound upwards to the surface, white rays of sunlight blinding us before we emerged, ending up on the back roads of the South Side. I led the way towards the Arena, my short staccato steps hurrying alongside Isaac’s long strides. He tilted his head to the summer sun and took in a deep breath of sea misty air. The South side was closest to the ocean, a tumultuous wild thing rimmed by stone walls. Nobody was permitted to jump over the ledge. They had signs posted everywhere: PROBABILITY FOR DEATH: 100% DO NOT JUMP. Temperance was like that, balanced, mathematical, scientific. But then Temperance was also naïve, foolish and unrealistic. To believe that one day we would know the secrets to immortality was a joke.

The backside of the Arena came into view. It was something that had been left for us by the Atlanteans or whomever occupied the southern continent of Earth before we did. Temperance didn’t believe in teaching us things they weren’t sure were facts, so everything was up for debate. It was one of the things I liked about my upbringing. I was taught to believe what I wanted to believe. I never had to regurgitate facts. I only had to remember the regime of our family’s traditions. We rounded the large stone Arena - oval in shape with layers of stone benches for the public to conglomerate on. The founding families made improvements as the years went on; installed the black boxes, the grates, and various other Fable killing contraptions.

I glanced at Isaac as we neared the main gates. “I won’t be long.”

The commoners were already crowding the front, waiting for their moment to grab their seats. I slipped past them and sought the eyes of a guard. He nodded and pushed the gate open a foot to let me through. It snapped shut behind me. I pulled my flashlight out and clicked it on as I quickened my pace. My boots didn’t clack on the sandy floors as I wended my way through the tunnels towards our black box. The door was open. I stepped inside and immediately my senses were assaulted by the strong smell of cinnamon and burnt aluminum. I glanced at the shiny black table in the center of the room. Two black leather couches rested on either side of the black table. My father was sitting on one of them, the aluminum and cinnamon coming from the burning stick in his mouth. It was some new fad they were trying. He was dressed in regal military uniform, all brass buttons and tassels and stripes. He wore a crew-style hat and polyester slacks.

“Do you want one?” he asked, taking it out of his mouth while the burnt ends of aluminum fell into a growing pile on the gray carpet.

“No.”

“Good, they’re not very good for you.” Rab leaned forward and smushed it into a dish on the table. He stood and paced the room, looking through the iron bars into the Arena. “You came early.”

“I had a favor to ask.”

“You don’t want to be here.”

“No—well it’s not that I don’t want to spend time with you, but I wanted to sit up in the stands with a friend.” I was the worst liar ever. I closed my eyes and pressed my tongue between my teeth, clamping down slightly. Rab didn’t turn around. He clasped his hands behind his back but otherwise showed no emotion.

“Is the friend a boy?”

“Yes.”

Rab sighed. “Everyone will be here soon. You’ll miss seeing them.”

He meant the rest of my family. I had three sisters, seven aunts, two uncles and about fifty cousins. Not all of them were permitted access to the black box, but my mom and sisters, whichever aunts Rab wasn’t fighting with, and one of my two uncles. The other one never left the house.

“I’ll come down before it’s over to say hello.”

Rab turned and nodded. He was just as unreadable as he always was, his brown eyes cast to the floor. “Aunt Caroline is dying. Make sure you say something to her.”

I took a step towards the door. Someone was always dying in Temperance. We didn’t mourn them the way other cultures did, we used them for fuel. During famines we used them for food. Then we developed greenhouses and harvested the genes of cattle from the old world. We raised livestock and grew vegetables on the West Side. “I won’t be long,” I lied again, taking another step towards the door. Rab nodded and turned back to the Arena. His attention was on the hoses they were using to soak the ground in kerosene. I had seen this stunt before, ten years ago. I stopped at the doorjamb.

“What’s the theme this year?” I tried sounding nonchalant.

Rab only turned a fraction. “Scullery Massacre. You can pick up a smoke bomb apple at the front gate if you want.”

“So they’re dressing her up as a chef?” My throat burned with indignation. Every year they tried to make Fable’s death seem like a glamorous event. Dress her up in costumes, make her perform impossible feats. Some of the themes were easier to stomach than others.

“No, a bar wench.”

I didn’t want to hear more. “I’ll see you later.” I slipped away from the room and clicked on my flashlight, following the darkened tunnels until I reached the front gates. Isaac was leaning against the railing watching people as they entered. I wondered if any of his friends from the East side had shown up. He saw me approach as I clicked off my flashlight.

“He really let you do it?”

I shrugged. “I have to be back before it’s over.”

Isaac shook his head. “He doesn’t really think we’re going to sit in the stands does he?”

I looked back at the Arena, the sandy floor being populated with things from an old world kitchen. Counters, oven, utensils, dining table, chairs. Vertigo washed through me and for a moment it was hard to stand up straight. I let my eyes drift over the barrel of smoke bomb apples. “He doesn’t have to believe me.”

Isaac raised an eyebrow like it was a challenge. He had known me for a year and he knew how hard it was for me to break the rules. This wasn’t me throwing caution to the wind, this was serious. I had explained it to him over and over how important it was for the founding families to be unanimous in their convictions. As a family, the Ketterlings stood for the rehabilitation of Earth, restoring what was once a fantastic place to live according to our link to the past and central archetype to our culture: Fable. The other families each stood for something as well, most notably the Crays. They supported the pursuit for immortality and were the protectors of the Fountain of Youth. “You sure Jonathan won’t mind?” He said it with a mocking edge to his tone and I slapped him on the upper forearm.