Purebred - Ch1

I tapped my foot impatiently as they take another blood test. That’s the third this month. Weren’t they had been done with me when I was seven?

The woman initiating the sting at my elbow isn’t a nurse or a doctor of any sort because there isn’t anything wrong with me. Well, nothing that can be cured. She was a scientist and she was lovely in an off sort of way. Slight and plump with salt and pepper hair pulled back in a bun that made her small face seem severe and hostile. The look in her eyes was almost identical to the one on my uncle’s face when I threw up on his carpet.

“Finished,” she announced as she slipped the needle point into a plastic bag. “Stay relaxed this afternoon and don’t move around much. Have a drink of water too, please?”

Whatever. I’d heard it all before and I didn’t take it into account that time either. Anyway, I had PE that afternoon and I wasn’t going to miss that.

The woman sealed her kit and turned for the exit without so much as a word to my uncle as he held the door for her.

“Good, Kiddo?” he said after she had disappeared down the hallway. 

My uncle, Carlo, isn’t really my uncle -- we’re not even related. He’s my foster dad and although he is technically my parent, he doesn’t pass to be Dad so we settled for ‘Uncle’ and ‘Kiddo’. He’s a great guy and a good companion when he’s sober. 

I gave him a reassuring smile and replied, “Fine, of course. I’m going for a walk.”

“Going to see Will?” he asked in his gruff tone.

“No,” I said defensively. “Despite what you might think, my life isn’t narrowed to just you and that excessively meticulous juvenile. I have Sid as well.”

At the mention of his name, the grey ball of fur by the hearth raised his head.

Carlo tossed me a key and took one for himself. “Right then, I’m going to the centre,” he announced as he left. The centre, called in full a Diversion Centre, was a level a few beneath our cabin which had the sole purpose of keeping us entertained. There you could do all sorts of things, from swimming to playing cards. Each person is allotted an amount of hours and minutes in which they can go to the centre per month depending on your occupation. There are centres every few ranks for the thousands of people that needed diverting.

I nod and click at Sid who stretches and yawns before sliding to my side. Once we were outside, I shut and locked the front door behind us.

“Where to?” I asked him absently.

Sid looked up at me with those human-like green eyes and waited for me to lead. Picking left, we headed off down the blindingly white hallway. I was glad to have Sid with me in this impossibly huge place with its identical passages and vacant rooms. It’s easy to get lost in Haven, but with Sid’s strange, animal sense of navigation I rarely get lost.

As Sid and I walked the endless blank corridors, I tried to avoid eye contact with the security cameras every turn. I doubted they were monitored, but they were off putting all the same. They reminded my each time of how much I hate this place with it’s tiny residential cabins, the ranking of people based on wealth and its hateful Council of leaders who think all underneath them are dirt on their polished, black boots.

The Council is a small group of rich men and women who make all the important decisions, though they choose them wrong. Calling themselves our government.

Skirting a corner, I arrive at the library dedicated to the lowest ranks of Haven. This was one of my favourite places to visit in my boredom. As soon as we were through the white, windowless door, Sid made a B-line for an inglenook by the fire while I make for the shelves, running my fingers along the peeling spines. 

These, along with those of Haven’s other libraries, were the last existing books in the world. In the Old Times, that would sound like a wide statement, but now this underground bunker, Haven, is all that’s considered ‘the world’. They were the only books to be rescued from above ground by our ancestors before they took to the earth and safety of Haven, or be killed. 

“Hance!” Someone called me.

I turned to the sound to find Billy Holder sitting on a low stool in a shadowed corner of the library. His eyes didn’t quite focus on me, instead, they stared into the depths of the fire glowing behind me.

“Hello Billy, I didn’t see you there,” I remark, speaking slowly to make sure he understood. I found a seat on the table matching his stool.

He asked me after a moment, “Where have you been soon?” His thick, grey beard wobbled as he spoke.

Billy was created in a laboratory just as I was. Under almost identical circumstances, only his human-animal blood consistency is 9:1. His blood is 9 parts human and 1 part wild dog. Mine is 7:3: 7 parts human to 3 parts swan. 

His odd, hardly legible English is a result of growing up in a cage with roaches as his only friend. As a young man he was wracked by strange canine convulses every few hours involving him attempting to eat the fingers of his carers. So, also unlike me, he remained in his cage until he had matured into the ripe age of forty. I feel connected to Billy in a way, much because we are both shunned, part-animal freaks as well as orphans.

I smiled carefully and explained, “I’ve been busy. I’m almost finished school, you know? Not long to go.”

Billy scratched ferociously at his scalp and I couldn’t help thinking that it was more likely flees then lice. 

“Bit cold in here, right?” he mumbled.

I thought of Sid and his spot by the fire. “What can you expect when we live underground?”

“Thinks it’s getting colder. Kira was ask almost for a fur coat,” Billy said with a toothy grin. 

I smiled along with him.

“They have probably turned the heating down on us,” I reasoned.

“Not put it through them,” he said.

“Past,” I told him.

“Past.” Billy nodded. Then he drawled on, “They have us less food. None chicken nor apples.”

“That isn’t fair. If you need extra, Carlo and I can spare some,” I offered.

Billy shook his head at me. “No. Barely is none everyone getting food, you and Carlo need all.”

I frowned, but he wore a stubborn face so I gave up for the moment. 

My thoughts drifted to Kira, Billy’s guardian and caretaker. She was very beautiful and could have made it up a rank if she had time aside caring for Billy.

Taking a deep breath, I smelled the musky scent of the ancient books. That motivated me to rise of the table and find my most recent read. I reach the fiction section and pull it down. It’s titled Oliver’s Twist. I liked it because it talks of a long lost city called London where you can find the smell of freshly baked bread and horses, neither of which I have ever experienced.

When I take it back to Billy, he smiles a little smile and nods happily, inclining that he too had read through Oliver’s yellow pages.

“Has Kira read this to you?” I asked him.

He nodded again. “Good,” he said.

Holding the book to my chest, I wished again that I could take it with me back to cabin 1179 so that I could keep safely it under my pillow. Taking the books past the libraries’ heavy, metal doors was considered a criminal offense -- stealing apparently. I’ve learnt from these books about libraries from the Old Times, where you could come and go as you please, taking any book with the promise of return. Haven’s books were all but chained to their shelves.

I sighed and said a quick goodbye to Billy before I slid Oliver’s Twist back into its place, careful not to fold any pages. I left Sid as well, snoozing by the fire. He can find his own way home. 

Outside it was colder and I pulled my jacket tighter around me.

Setting off, I find myself face to face with Will. Well, not face to face technically, since he is at least a foot taller then me.

He was leaning, arms crossed against the wall with a broad smile.

“Why so happy?” I asked him.

He put his arm around my shoulders and we set off at a steady pace.

“Why can’t I be happy?” he said. “It’s a beautiful day.”

I gave him a blank look.

Something glinted from my shoulder that stopped me in my tracks. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to his hand.

He showed me his perfect teeth again. “I’ve been admitted. I’m going to train to be a justicemen!” he explained excitedly, pulling off the ring and passing it to me.

As I studied the curved H against the white base colour I snorted, “Why in hell would you want to be one of them? Hated by us poor people and held responsible for stealing possessions and taking people’s children. They are the Council’s pack of lapdogs, their law enforcement.”

Shrugging, he replied, “There’s good pay and besides, I get all these cool gadgets.”

Will lifted his foot slightly and knocked his ankles together. A tiny blade shot out of the toe of each boot, razor sharp. He looked pleased when I raised my eyebrows. Knocking he feet together again sent the blades away.

“You look like you’re dancing,” I sneered.

Will rolled his eyes at me. Next, he pulled a small, blue pen from his pocket and passed it to me. “Click the top,” he told me.

I clicked it to no avail. “Nothing,” I stated flatly.

Will took back the pen and clicked it again. Nothing, came a tiny voice, my voice.

“Wow,” said sarcastically, still teasing, “the oldest trick in the book. The recording pen.”

Will narrowed his eyes at me. “Why don’t you have more respect for the little things?”

“Don’t talk to me about respect, justicemen,” I said.

He smiled. “Fine. That was a good call.” 

We walked for a while before he said, “Can I have my ring back now?” 

I had almost forgotten that I was still holding it. There was something about it that felt like bad change. I didn’t want him to have it. Finally, I handed it over.

“The sergeant would not be happy if I lost it. We have to wear it everyday you know?” he said.

I gave him a sidelong glance and said, “You’re scared of him, Sergeant Clayman, the head of the justicemen.”

“Not exactly. He’s,” Will struggled for a word to fit, “very powerful.” 

“What a wide vocabulary you have.” I paused then said, “Definitely scared.”

Will shook his head disbelievingly. “I’m going home before you think of something worse to call me.”

We split at the next corridor intersection. Will headed for the nearest elevator while I turned towards home, there wasn’t long before school started again for evening lessons.