Firedown Sun

At the end of the day, when we were being piled onto our buses, I heard the kids my age bursting with excitement. My eyes narrowed as I tried to detect what they were saying. Then a boy with blond hair, a boy I didn't remember ever seeing, came up to me and said, "Aren't you excited?"

"For... for what?" I murmured, utterly confused.

"We're playing Hide-and-Seek at the hospital ruins! Sixteen-year-olds only. No other age groups allowed."

I grinned. "Brilliant!"

"Seem came up with it," a girl with two black ponytails piped up.

The blond boy rolled his eyes, blushing ever so lightly. So Seem was his name. It fit him. He seemed almost half-leader, like he could plan things, and actually... well, lead us. Maybe that was his talent. Leading.

Not that any random kid could be a leader. You could be a leader only if you showed REAL talent, if you actually led something and did something the city liked, that they thought would benefit the whole of Monten. Something amazing and heroic. I didn't know what type of act could do something that big and grand, but obviously it happened. Not for a while now, which meant all the leaders were getting old...

So maybe that was why Seem was doing this. To practice doing something heroic, to try and catch the leaders' notice. To try and be chosen for one himself.

It would have to happen soon, before they all started to die off.

"The game's tonight, right?" I asked, just to be sure. I didn't want to get anything wrong about this brilliant idea. Hide-and-Seek at night, at the hospital ruins? Amazing!

"Course," Seem said, "before the snow sets in. Isn't that right, Raxey?"

Raxey, the twin ponytail girl, agreed, "Before the snow comes and ruins everything. Goodness, I hate snow!"

Hopefully a game of Hide-and-Seek could bring a bit more happiness than an empty night of nothing to do, waiting for the ghastly weather the next day. It would be all over most channels on the Telo, too, and on the radio stations, maybe even whispered from the walls... Snow tomorrow, snow tomorrow....

The bus began to move ahead so I quickly hurried to the back of the rumbling vehicle. Jaz glanced up from the paper he was scribbling away at. Oh, right, he was an artist. Not to mention a really good singer. He might even be good at making crafts. He had a lot of talents.

Not like me, the future Fire Pit Manager.

I hated the Fire Pit, but loved flames. So, I might as well play along.

I turn and ask Jaz, "What you think of that stupid weather report in Gathering?"

Jaz snorted. "Snow in September. Leave it to Leirre, he'll make it sound as great and wonderful as possible."

Oh, yes, he was a professional with making the worst of times seem the best of times, so that no one would "freak out".

"Are you going to the hospital ruins tonight?"

He gives me a look that I've seen many times: a mix between despair and defiance, where they want to stand up and fight but would never actually consider it because on the surface, they're a perfect, obedient citizen of Monten.

Jaz whispered to me, "Do you think we really have a choice?"

And he absolutely had a point. We probably didn't.

*

I was reminded of the time and place by Seem- hospital ruins at nine o'clock- as I stepped off the bus, and I gave him a nodding smile.

"I promise. Nine, sharp."

Jaz waved me goodbye, then got off at the same moment my feet and all our feet hit the pavement. We walked up our own one-step leading to the front door, which we opened and closed simultaneously. Every one of us. Even me. The rebel. The future Fire Pit Manager.

Strange how time can change people. One day I'll purposefully do things a few seconds off, and then others I'm a mindless robot like the rest of Monten.

My mother was standing there to greet me.

Oh boy.

"You heard about the snow tomorrow?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yes. Leirre told us in Gathering about the weather control prob- er, malfunction." I leaned against the door-frame and watched dust motes floating in the air, wondering if they were even real. Or maybe they were synthetic just like the sun and moon we saw every night. "All the sixteen-year-olds are heading to the hospital ruins. Since none of the doctors use it..."

The comment made my mother's eyes melt into bright, sad gems the color of mud. I knew she knew the reason the hospital had turned into useless rubble. Why there weren't diseases anymore. Why the occupation she and my father held was more a laugh than actual work. Sure, they studied germs and viruses. But what was the use of researching something that didn't exist anymore?

"Sounds like a lot of fun, Kitten. Are you going?"

I remembered Jaz's comment.

"Of course I'm going. Everyone is." I emphasized everyone. My mother understood the meaning immediately and looked away, gazing at the wall with an empty expression.

I turned to that wall and asked for a brownie sundae. Within moments, a bowl with a double fudge brownie piled with vanilla cream and three blood-red cherries appeared, already with a spoon gouged into its chocolate heart.

"If you eat so much," my mother said, looking appalled by my choice of after-school snack, "you'll gain weight."

"Your point? What? I won't be SKINNY anymore? So?" I glared at the frail, robot-like woman I called my mother. "I'm not Havva Twigley. I'm not just some girl from Monten, skin and bones and no brain! I'm me. My own person. I have a brain, I have a say in what I do in this world, and I'm not just some doll or puppet to be controlled. I'm ME. Kitten Zigbol, not the person you decide for me to be, or the city decides. I have a right in who I become and what I do. I don't care if I get fat. I like chocolate, and that's what I'm eating. Because I decide, NOT someone else."

Seeming completely unaffected by my speech, she sighed and just let me devour the fattening dessert without another word. Well, except for her last words before she left the room:

"If you gain too much and get much, you won't fit in as many hiding places."

And then my father trotted in. I turned my back to him and finished the brownie and cream. "Take it away," I told the white counter, setting the empty bowl down. The bowl was whisked away into the wall to be cleaned, then clinked into an invisible cupboard somewhere behind that wall, hiding away until someone else ordered a snack.

"Kitten," I heard my father say, "I meant no harm. Last night, I mean."

Too bad. He'd inflicted it.

"She won't come here again, and I promise I'll try. I'll try to be faithful to your mother."

"You won't," I respond curtly. "You have no control, Dad. The leaders do. And they've programmed you." My fingernails dig into my trembling palms. "We're all programmed."

Suddenly, he twists me around. I hadn't heard him come up behind me. "Now you listen to me," he hissed, glaring me in the eye. "There's no reason for you to talk like that. The leaders keep us alive, don't you understand that? Without them, we'd be savages just like the old ones before us. We'd hardly be human! So, unless you want to be treated like that, like an animal, then I suggest you start behaving like a good citizen of Monten!"

I refused to be fooled. I looked him square in the face, furious expression and all, and spat, "Was cheating on Mom being a good citizen of Monten? Was it? Did the leaders tell you to cheat on Mom? She may just be any woman to you, but she is MY mother!"

"You'll get in trouble talking like that," he shouted. "You'd better get that tongue of yours under control, Kitten before-"

"You raised me!" I scream. "You must have done something wrong! Or are you going to use the brain damage excuse? Is THAT it? Huh? My brain just doesn't work right? Because someone- like YOU- dropped me when I was little? That's why I'm so Outcast?" My voice had become nothing more than a hiss through my clenched teeth, and I felt fear as he grasped me around the shoulders angrily. Was he going to hit me?

Then he took a deep breath to calm himself, letting me go and muttering, "Go upstairs and get ready for the game tonight."

"But-"

"Just LEAVE!" my father ordered. "Go up to your room and practice your skills or something."

As if I even had one.

I spun on my heel and flew up the staircase, fighting the urge to cry. Tears would do nothing for me now.

But I did light a match. And as I curled up on the floor with a glowing flame in my fingers, I felt calm and happy, but half-delirious. I whispered for the walls to play me something, anything, and a soft, pleasing melody hummed and vibrated around me.

I did my numbing finger practice to ease my troubled mind and listened as the first lyrics were uttered:

"In the dark shades of midnight
Across the sea of grass
There's a sound softly coming
See through window glass..."

*

I smashed my fists against the door. It wouldn't open! "Open, please," I begged, "I need to get inside!" I kept jerking at the handle, but it wouldn't even budge.

Giving up, I growled at my hood, "What time is it now?"

"Exactly five minutes until nine," it told me in an extremely cheerful voice.

Did it WANT to die?

"Is there any way you can freeze time or magically transport me to the hospital ruins or something?"

A few seconds ticked by. Then:

"That data is not on file."

Oh, of course not. Because I was destined to be the only sixteen-year-old to show up to the ruins LATE. And then I would really be considered a freak.

Maybe even more than stupid, genius Lune Drumer. That really got my anger boiling...

I beat the door down again with my fists. This time it stung. Did a piece of wood just stab me? I jerked back and inspected my pinkie carefully. And there it was. A tiny wood sliver in the crease just above the knuckle.

"Ow, ow, OW..."

"Need a hand, Kitten?"

I whirled, spotting two familiar figures in the dark. Hexa and Resh, both with shiny, brand-new motor scooters.

I sighed. "You two'll be late now, too..."

"No way that's happening," Hexa huffed, jumping off her red scooter and exposing a long, jagged-edged knife that seemed to flash out of no where. Right. Hexa was professional at making- and disguising- weapons. She walked toward the basement door, pierced the blade through the old wood and it fell in two onto the pavement.

"Effective," I muttered. But how was I going to explain this to my parents?

Hexa bit her lip, realizing the outcome of her plan was pretty impossible to fix. "Um... sorry. I guess it's sort of... broken now, isn't it?"

"Don't worry about it. I'll get someone to fix it tomorrow. My parents hardly go outside anymore, anyway. They probably won't even know it happened.

Hexa nodded, relieved. She pressed the knife's hilt and it abruptly shrank in size, now appearing to be nothing more than a harmonica. I knew she didn't play, of course. No one in Monten bothered with musical instruments anymore, now that our hoods and walls could play songs from three hundred years ago up to modern days.

I stared at the little disguised knife in her palm. That would be an awfully useful trick... "Hey, Hexa, do you think you could-"

"I'm not teaching you," she sighed. "Even if you are my best friend. 'Sides, you've got your fire, I've got my blades. No need for more."

"I suppose." Sighing, I snap my scooter out of the basement. It came out, noticeably annoyed, halting a foot in front of me with a low moan. "Oh, you be good," I told it, stepping on and rolling to join my friends.

Resh rubbed her own black scooter lovingly, probably glad it wasn't old and decrepit like mine. "You two rebels," she smiled to me and Hexa. "You're really lucky you have me, you know. You wouldn't last a month with all the rules you break every day."

We both nodded. There had been several times already Resh had literally saved our necks when we came inches away from being dead meat. Most rebels had people standing at the side lines like that. Otherwise, all of us would die off before our third birthday. And then the leaders would be left with just easy puppets to control. And that would MORE than hellish.

"Welcome," Seem greeted as we sped down the last stretch of road leading to the ruins. "You're right on time."

Breathing out on relief, we set our scooters against a dark tree and I fastened mine there with my lock chain, wrapping it around the trunk and pressing the button to set the alarm so that if anyone tried to unlock it, I'd know. That alarm could SCREAM. I'd heard it once, and it was loud enough to be heard by all of Monten, maybe seven times that.

"Old-fashioned scooter?" Seem laughed. "I haven't seen one of those since I was a toddler!"

"Oh, trust me, they're still around. More than you'd think."

"Did your Dad give that to you?"

I nodded. "Family scooter."

I saw Resh and Hexa giving their scooters instruction if someone were to play a mean prank and try to take them. They wouldn't have an alarm like my lock chain could put off, but if someone touched them, something big would happen.

"Good job, Lyrick," Resh whispered to her scooter.

Right, they named them. Of course. I glanced at mine and thought it deserved a name, but then again, since it was so grumpy and miserable all the time, maybe not.

Hexa's scooter was called Trigonometry, also known as Trig. That had been an old class they taught kids way back when, and from what I'd read about it in those books of mine at home, it wasn't the greatest. But Hexa was brilliant when it came to mathematics, and if anyone tried to tease her about the scooter's name, she'd most likely do one of the following...

Possibility number one: Punch them in the face.

Possibility number two: Pull out one of her disguised weapons, stick it under their neck- so that they could even feel the icy metal edge- look them in the eye, and DARE them to say another word.

Well, if a teacher was around, it would definitely be the first, but if no one was around that had the slightest intentions of turning her in- or wouldn't actually cheer her on, anyway- then she'd do the latter in a heartbeat.

"Ready for the game?" Seem asked, seeing my dazed expression.

I nodded solemnly. "More than ready."