Illegally Orphaned

The alarms go off with a loud racket. Max and I drop to the ground as the shooting starts. Damn those teens always trying to get out. One day they're going to get some innocent kid killed. The intercom turns on. Ire's voice booms out of the speakers.

"Children, please, we can't have you running amok out in the city. You must stay here within The Building. Surrender and return to your daily work or I will be forced to take matters into my own hands," Ire soothingly speaks to the renegade teens. The group is standing next to a wall of The Building. One is trying to use a laser to cut a hole in the five foot thick cement wall. The others urge him on in great urgency. They aren't going to stop and Ire knows it. "Very well," he sighs, "I didn't want to do this, but... guards arrest them and bring them to me!" Every bit of his soothing tone disappears and his voice sings with what his mother named him after... ire.

The guards start to gather around the poor kids. The boy with the laser tries to fight his way out. He even succeeds to cut one guard in half, but there is no way he can make it. Even if he could, there's nowhere to hide. When he doesn't put the laser down, one of the guards shoot him. Still, the boy doesn't give up. He fights back and the guard shoots him again and again and again. He doesn't move anymore, but he screams and screams a high pitched wail that should come from a monster, not a human being. The guard smirks and shoots him in the head. An eerie silence engulfs The Building.

The guards escort the rest of the group to Ire's lair. As they walk, the teens' shoulders shake from silent tears. They know. Everyone knows. They will never be seen again. Ire's voice projects out of the speakers in his soothing tone, "Children, do not report to work today. Today shall be a free day. You have just witnessed an excruciating scene and I am sorry for it," his voice hardens, " but NEVER try to leave the safety of The Building."

When the intercom turns off, everyone gets up slowly, as though their age had doubled in the last few minutes. The dead boy's body lies still by the wall of The Building. Max looks at it and then at me. "Alex, we have to get out," he whispers. I don't answer, but I think back at my life.

I was raised here, in The Building. Ire said he brought each and everyone of us here when we were little babies. He said we were abandoned. He said each our 499 comrades were orphans, too. He said we had to stay in The Building, because the city was dangerous and filled with evil things. He said The Building was the only safe place and it was only safe because he made it so.

I look around at The Building. The ceiling is a cyberscreen that projects a picture of the sky. The main, and only, street stretches from one end of The Building to the other. On either side of the street, there are buildings, five on each side, that house 50 people in each. Well, one building is only housing 46 people now. At the end of street is Ire's building. I see the three doomed teens climb the steps to the imperial looking palace and shiver. This isn't right. Nothing about this feels right. Yes, Max is right, we have to get out.