CHAPTER 3

  Ran ran. Snaked through groups of talking people and lines of walking people. Wordheal was bursting with Given from all over set to celebrate Gift. Most of these ignored him, until he crashed into one.

  "Oof! Hey!” a man barley taller than himself cried from his back. Ran had knocked him over, and not he rolled like an upturned turtle.

  "Kid laid you out!, B.” laughed the man’s tall, barrel-chested friend. Ran realized with horror they both were in his estate. Berea, Ikon. If Kiyo hears about this. . .

  "S-sorry!” Ran croaked, rebounded off someone wearing an odd, shiny coat as he stood. "Sorry again!” People chuckled and muttered about "playing kids”. Idiots. He was not playing. Am wanted to kill him. Ran looked over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of Am’s pimpled face scowling.

  What is with this dude? I didn’t even touch him! For some reason Am had, since the day Ran arrived in Wordheal, looked for any and every reason to embarrass/torture him.

  Kiyo said Am was a sad boy who needed a real Given friend. Sarge said Am was a shithead. Ran agreed with Sarge.

  Tek’s assessment was even starker, and unrepeatable. At the end winter term, on the last day before Gift break, Am had put Ran in a headlock as he exited school. Tek savaged the older boy, twice his size, hopping atop his back like a tiny, insane cheetah. It had taken Ran and three teachers to pry him off, and even then Tek had taken skin from his Am's face with his nails. Ran smiled. Tek was crazy. He was also the best.

  Running once more, Ran looked up at the awnings and ledges he passed under, seeking a route to scamper onto the roofs as Tek had tried to teach him. Nothing he was willing to risk. Ran was not near as coordinated. "Crazy little shaker!” he screamed. "I need you!”

  Instead of the roofs, Ran turned, thundered into one of the narrow alleys so common in Wordheal’s south. It would feed into the next street, it had to!

  Early in his time in Wordheal, Ran had read in the absurdly titled Against the Narokkish and Antihuman Firsts: A Definitive and Absolute History of the True First City of the Valley, that Being Wordheal, and not First, that the southern section was the city’s oldest. Given the work’s obvious bias in so many other areas, Ran would not have trusted it had he not lived in the south. The streets were smaller, for feet, not motor-hansoms. Buildings were brick, not glass like near Central. The people too seemed older, an extension of the city. Its wriggling fingers and toes.

  Ran turned left, for the alley gave him no choice. It had to open.

  Dead end.

  Surrounding buildings formed small lot fit, it seemed, for nothing more than the growing of weeds in cracks and possibly his own violent death. The first windows were well above his jumping ability. Don’t panic, Tek scolded from the safety of memory. Panic is the enemy! You are strong! Through your. . .

  "Shithead!” a screamed echoed around the turns behind. "I’ll skin you!”

  Of course. Ran looked up into the deep field. Bard, Heir, you couldn’t give me just one teeny break?

  Ran turned, pulled off his satchel, tried to hide it fully behind him. Maybe he'd save the books at least.

  Four others fanned out from Am across the alley’s mouth, stared, glared, grinned at him

  Ran swallowed. His throat was sore. Always was anymore, it seemed. Old books. Rare books. Books Cree’s clients paid for. His job at Cree’s was over. No more free reading. That should have made him angry.

  He closed his eyes, sought in vain for the rage Sarge told him everyone had inside them, ready-made for life and death. All he felt was weak. On of the gang taunted him to open his eyes. It’s coming either way, he thought. Alone. Alone. Alone. Ah, not now! I can’t deal with that now!

  Something hit his head, and Ran yelped. It had begun.

  "Open your eyes, idiot! And I heard you curse! I’m telling Kiyo you cursed!”

  Ran's eyes opened; he looked up to the roof to his left. "How long were you gonna wait?! Did you just throw a rock at me?! Get me up there!” Another pebble hit him in the forehead.

  The fair-skinned, blue eyed ten-year-old with the wild, mop-hair laughed. "What you think I am, a shiner? Pull you up here with my brain-powers like Oski?”

  "Stupid comics! Get me out of here.”

  Tek’s black and gray scavenging cloak billowed around him, from this he pulled two more rocks, juggled them.

  "Great,” Am leered at Tek. "I get to massacre you in front of your fake family.”

  "Shake off, A-mal-ric!”

  Am groud his teeth, "Little. . . Don’t call me that! I hate that name!”

  Tek made a face one might make were they trying to explain calculus to a duck. "That’s why I said it!”

  "I'll skin you!"

  "It's always skinning with you. You're such a loser."

  A rock, not a pebble but a rock, hit Am right between his eyes. It came from the roof to Ran’s right. Pym suddenly appeared, armed as well, smiled as Am howled. Her yellow eyes and blonde hair a radiance against white skin equaled only by the they-stand-nears, the lights-by-Rokk in the Field above, who shimmered in hammered skeel in old Ovoni paintings. . .

  Ran slapped his own face. I’m so small/smooth/awkward.

  "Am,” Pym said, her confident voice echoing around them, "you won't do a thing to Tek. Instead, I’ll just pelt you with rocks until your pimples all burst.” She was an empress. A star born anew in the glowing deep fields that were the abode of. . .

  Ran slapped his own face again.

  "Shut your face, hotness!” Am screamed back as he held his nose. "I’ll skin your boyfriend first and then we’ll have a nice, close talk!”

  Pym's frown was deep and furious, an intensity that she let slip in front of others only rarely.

  Something hit Am on the side of his head. Ran blinked. Who had thrown it? Am stumbled, went to his knees. He turned on Ran, and rage seemed to bubble out of him.

  Who had thrown it?

  Ran was surprised to find his own arm forward.

  He had thrown it! Picked up the rock Pym had thrown and thrown it again.

  SHIT!

  Am seethed. "I’ll. . .I’ll. . ..”

  Through laughter Tek said, "Ten bucks says he says 'skin you’ again!”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Pym laughed.

  "Sk--" Am began but didn’t finish. Rocks fell like rain now. His crew was already retreating.

  "Bye A-mal-ric.” Tek screamed. "Don’t worry about your face, A-mal-ric! Nobody’ll notice, A-MAL-RIC! Cause you’re already ugly! AAAA-MAAA--”

  "Alright!” Ran cried, and he trembled a little. "Jeez. Get me up there so we can get out of here.”

  "Watch your head,” Pym dropped a rope she’d pulled from her bag. She scavenged with Tek most days, outside the walls. They always had stuff like that.

  Once on the roof, through huffs and wheezes, Ran said to Tek, "You’re going to tell Kiyo I cursed? 'Shake off!’ Really?” They all laughed, and after rest and a drink began picking their way across the rooftops, which Ran only agreed to only because he still had deliveries, late deliveries now, to make. Tek’s roof shortcuts were faster. They scampered up tiled roofs and slid down pipes and gutters. Several times Tek would have to talk Ran up before he attempted a particularly dangerous, for him anyway, maneuver. In the end he did everything they did, just a lot slower and with heavier breaths.

  Could have been worse, Ran thought. He could have lost both his job and his books. Or been beaten raw... Ran thought about it. Losing the books would have been worse.

  The day was looking up.

  Alone. Ran almost stopped halfway down a fire-escape, hesitated, nearly fell to his death.

  Never far away. That mean thought. That old enemy.

  Ran felt his throat sting. Rubbed it. Alone. Wrong. Alone. It was never silent, he realized again. Not silent, just dull for a bit. Just in the background, for a bit.

  Tek finally noticed from below. "Dude, whatya doin?"

  Alone.

  An hour later Ran had completed his last delivery. A dusty tome to some dusty academic immigrant from rise. The copper-skinned, red-eye had placed the special-order months ago, and a good thing too, as books from that far rise were rare. The front and back covers had been worn so thin and the binding so tattered that anyone who didn’t know Cree could be forgiven if they thought it contained nothing but mold.

  His boss, however, never sold incomplete books. Never. He loved them like children. Restored them with skill and care. Ran liked the old black-eye.

  Pym’s desire to see each book before it was delivered was the only thing that slowed them. This annoyed Tek, who wanted to get to the high roofs to watch the midday bells ring on the older estates but Ran let Pym have her way. Ran’s collection of memories was not extensive, but of what he had only select ones from the last three months featured a girl, beautiful beyond belief who was not only willing to speak to him, but also loved books! Every time Pym turned a page, he’d watch her long, soft fingers tap rhythmically on the cover; watch her delicate blonde eyelashes flutter.

  Yeah, Tek would shaking wait.

  They stopped at Jack and Reuel’s 'Witches, where Pym bought Tek an extra cherry shake. Ran’s brother hugged her, screamed over and over, "I love the dame!” Ran wanted to die.

  Pym always did little things for Tek. Back in their bedroom the kid had an entire drawer of trinkets she’d either bought or gifted him over the last few months. She often spoke of how much Tek reminded her of herself. "He's spunky. Knows how to survive."

  Unused to public affection, Pym awkwardly patted the screaming kid’s head until Ran pulled him off.

  Bellies full of shake and sandwitch they ascended, made their way to the roofs in the part of the south section where the buildings were the highest outside of Central. Ran had never gone all the way up, but that day he determined to not let Tek go alone, not after everything the kid had done for him. That day and every day since they’d met.

  Tek’s favorite was the roof of a dilapidated school. A rusty plaque near the heavy metal doors read The Pallet School for--and the rest was illegible.

  A pround old brick monster that had beaten time, Tek especially loved it because it backed up against another smaller building to the north, making it easy to access via roofs. As it sat at the apex of the last hill inside the walls, down from which one could see over the wall and down into the valley on one side, and across all of Wordheal on the other, the view was peerless.

  Pym and Tek sat with their feet dangling over the floral cornice, and Ran clutched at the wall behind them and trembled.

  By degrees he became comfortable enough to sit, pulled himself to just behind Tek, pulled out the peppermints Kiyo had given him that morning. One for each.

  They sucked on these in silence until the sound of the holographic bells humming in the air between the three Central towers began to pump across the city. This triggered the smaller, older, real ones nearby. Tek shot up, howled into the din, jumped up and down while Ran screamed for him to stop. After the final peal was carried off by the stiff winds, Ran stared down at the city that had come to be his home.

  "Lots of red,” he said. He never had anything to say. Building banners, shopfront signs, even long strips dangling from the windows of speeding hansoms proudly displayed scarlet Given pride. Hanging over almost every street were lines of twinkling red ornaments. Near Central, where the three Cantons of the main estates were, the skyscrapers were all dotted with red lights that could be seen, so the Words said, even from the walls of hated First.

  "What did you expect? It’s almost Gift. Everyone wears red around Gift, right?” Pym seemed flustered for a moment. "I mean, that’s what we always did on the north side.”

  "It’s my first one,” Ran replied. "Sometimes I feel like I’m in a totally different world than everyone else.”

  "What?” Pym frowned, "I didn’t know you were a refugee. Where you from?”

  Ran took his eyes off of the sprawling city, thought on how to best answer. "Hard to say.”

  "All we know about where he’s from is folks don’t wear clothes there," and Tek laughed at himself.

  Pym frowned while Ran got up and moved toward the other side of the building.

  "C’mon,” Tek whined, "I was kidding!”

  "No, I’m not ticked, Tek. Just wanted to look into the valley.”

  Behind them, back towards Central, there was an explosion. Ran braced, afraid the school was collapsing, but no. A pillar of dark smoke snaking up into the sky told the truth. Another implosion. Making more luxurious buildings near the three Cantons.

  "Sarge is gonna love that. Be hearing about it all night.” Three months ago they announced the development, two months ago it was one a month. Seemed like one a week now.

  "’They destroy 'em faster than they can build 'em. Too damn much skeel-power for buildings we don't need!” Tek smiled. "I sound like Sarge?”

  Ran turned, stared out into the green sea were Tek had found him. Down from the tabletop Wordheal sat upon, across the valley he could just make out the hazy, sparkling outline of the other city. The city by the sea. Ran was surprised when he sensed Pym beside him. He hadn’t heard her coming.

  "You ever been there?” she whispered over his shoulder, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood.

  "First?” Ran squeaked, coughed, squeaked again anyway. "No. No one’s ever been there. It’s the one place the Word’s ban immigration from.” And he thought, Idiot! Everyone knows that! Idioooot! "I wouldn’t mind seeing First,” Ran continued. "I’d like to see lots of places.”

  "Ran and I talk about that all the time!” Tek cried. "We’re gonna go out there and see everything in his books! Ran with his books and me with my stupid stick!”

  Pym pinched Tek’s cheek. "The wailers might make that hard.”

  Pym and Tek often wandered the valley in search of whatever travelers dropped on their way to one city or the other. Tek made some decent extra bucks. More than Ran, anyway. To hear the Words tell it, the wailer problem was far overstated, but Ran trusted Tek over the Words.

  According to the kid, they were everywhere out there.

  Pym’s normally saccharine golden eyes suddenly became distant and thoughtful, and she hugged her jacket closer, trying, Ran thought, to cover the bruises on her neck and wrists. He never brought it up with her, but Tek told him she tried to stay away from home as much as possible. "She gets real touchy about it,” the kid had said one night after lights-out. "Her mom ain’t good. She’s don’t like her at all.”

  I worry about a little anxiety. He wished he could comfort her, but she was more Tek’s friend than his. Maw, who was he kiddin'? He never have talked to her in a million years if Tek hadn't seen her stuffing some First coins into her pocket one day.

  "I get what you mean,” said Pym. "Wrong world. . .” The steel toe of her boot clicked rhythmically on the rooftop. "That sounds right." And she smiled. Not the I’ll-humor-you smile of the friend of a friend he was used to, but a pure smile.

  "Wailers," Tek screamed into Ran's other ear. "Blah! Just dumb, dumpy, ugs who don’t like cities. They don’t scare me. Not today, or ever!”

  "Don't scram into my ear!" Ran thought. "What do you mean 'not today?’You didn’t go back did you?”

  Tek’s ears turned red and he thought for a long moment. "No.”

  "What the maw did you take all that time for if that’s the best lie you can come up with!”

  "I didn’t!”

  "It’s so shaking dangerous!”

  "I know what I’m doing!” Tek’s eyes darted between Ran and Pym. "You’re not yelling at her!”

  "Leave me outta this, lads,” Pym giggled, ruffled Tek’s head.

  "Pym. . ." Tek whined.

  "Tek. . .” Ran whined.

  "She goes waaaay further out than me!”

  "I’m not responsible for Pym! I told you I’d tell Kiyo!”

  "Raaaaan!”

  Ran stared at his brother, noticed Tek’s milk-white skin. It was all his enemy need to rise from his mind's muck. Alone, it called dryly, mockingly. Alone. Futile. Meaningless. Smoke, just like the buildings that fall.

  Ran clicked his tongue. "I won’t say anything, Tek.” Alone. Nameless. Alone. Alone.

  "So what?” Tek asked trying to hide his relief. "It’s just another city. No different from Wordheal just they're narroks. We’ll go to cooler places than another Wordheal! Red Isle!”

  "Yeah,” said Rasn, but his enemy was really beginning to build a head of steam.

  Ran looked at his palm, pale compared to the chocolate on the back of his hand. Why do I notice stupid shit like that? Stop worrying about stupid shit! Tek brought you home. Kiyo and Sarge gave you a home. Tek gave you a name. 'You're fast, man. Like the wind.’ That’s what he said. You have so much to be grateful for to Rokk!

  But he didn't think Rokk, or even his mind, were listening. Man, his throat burned!

  Alone. Nameless. Alone.