Sun Chasing
Aidan Wallace
Chapter I
It was a tradegy to be born a mutant in the Citadel. One had to keep to the quarters one was assigned, they where never allowed to leave them and they would have to apply for special jobs and wear masks or thick coats that hid their unsightly faults from view, of course this was not the only reason for wearing them, it allowed normals to point them out and more importantly, avoid them if possible. To be a mutant was the lowest and apparently lonliest life form that existed.
To be a mutant was to live life on the edge, a job was never secure, residence was never a given and the judicidal system took a dim view on any case involving a mutant. On a whole, we where opressed terribly. This was before Overseer Lytton passed. At least back then we where allowed to walk around our quarters freely, vanishings where not unheard of but they where not common place. We where allowed to play with normals up until we turned eleven, the age a muto, (as we were more commonly reffered to) began work in earnest, we could go to school and recieve a basic education, of course we were seperated from normal children though. We were also allowed a mutant newspaper to circulate, the Shadow Gazette, it was free standing as well. media censorship was not so extreme and it could be bought from any shop in the lower levels.
I lived in Precinct Seven, the smallest area of the underhive. There where probably around 8400 of us living in an space about six kilometres squared in area so it was still cramped but there was enough room for a main street, a row of shops, a Sun Church and some other comodities that I cannot remember. I was born into a family of three, my mother died upon giving birth to me so my Uncle Joe looked after me, I also had a sister, Harper, older than me by two years, she was working by eleven at Mr. Elam's chemist shop in the main street. She didn't live with us, she rented an appartment up above a run down gym and sent us a fair fraction of the meagre sum that she was paid.
Apparently Mr. Elam was a good man who had seen a burst of business in recent times with people worried about the air filters status of decay. He spent the day working behind the counter or stricturing Harper on the art of selling and economics but by night he was said to work by candle light creating his own bubbling concoctions and fantastic cures with a whip-up chemistry set. He was a very intelligent character and my uncle said that if it weren't for his ghoulification, he would be a prominent figure high up in the spire as a leading scientist.
One Sunday when I was nine and Harper was visting us in what would have been a summer's evening where it not for the destruction of the outside world, she told us that Mr. Elam had turned his attentions towards running a side project called the Purity Conundrum, he said that mutants where becoming sterile in increasing numbers due to the genetic imperfections that plagued our people and within five more generations, it would be impossible for ghouls (a crass term for mutants) to bear children. Harper said it was why the government allowed us to exist down here and that they knew better than anyone else that soon these slums would be free of mutated life. Anyway, Mr. Elam saw that the way to combat this was with a medical cure. It was complex and I couldn't understand the technicalities of the idea at my age but I managed to piece together that, with the help of a biologist, he would be able to create a injection that allowed mutants to bear children as successors to their families.Tthis would not, however, stop us from becoming more mutated which was a dire consideration that had to be made before even comprehending continuting the project.
"It sounds good to me, we should be allowed to have children, I'm suprised no one thought about this earlier," I had said.
Harper merely sighed like I was too young to understand,
"Eulogy, no one new about this problem until recent times, and besides, the government would probably be angry at Mr. Elam ruining the collpase of the mutants."
I stared at my sister for a second, "Do you think that...Mr. Elam will vanish?"
"No Eulogy, no one will be vanishing, anyway Mr. Elam would have to think very seriously about this as your sister said." My Uncle, who up until now had been reading a non-mutant paper quietly was sitting up straight and looking down at me kindly.
I nodded and contended myself with pondering the problem in my head while Harper and Joe continued to catch up.
"So, any luck with a raise?"
"Nome Uncle,"
"What do you think about all that talk of sending exploration teams outside?"
"Nonsense Uncle, what would be the point, the only way to keep going is to go upwards, that's what all the explanatory tapes in the library say anyway."
This was the gist of the conversation the two held, every sunday evening until dinner and it was almost tradition.
My Uncle was a dictat judge of the free standing mutated court. Since the normals did not directly want to get involved in the trivial day to day goings on of the ghoul world, they set up a free standing court with ehich we could settle any disputes we held. There was no jury, just a judge and two advisors, all selected by the council. If the case was serious, there would be a human observer who would answer back to the normal court with the verdict but usually, we were left to organise and punish ourselves. If a case involved a ghoul and a normal human, the matter was once of more immediate importance and therefore, was deemed unworthy of mutant court hearing, therefore, even if the crime was one commited in Precint Seven, it was taken up in one of the more veritable court houses outside our district, we mutants rarely won.
Since our precinct was a small one, a lot of people where friendly and most cases were very rarely worth even coming to court about. In these occurances, my Uncle had no choice but to force the offendor to pay a small sum to the case bearer, ther was little else to it and this was generally accepted as the norm by the populace of Seven.
Because of this set up, Joe was widely renowned as a good mutant while government accepted that his job was a trying one and therefore, he deserved a tiny increase above the average working pay of the lower level mutant.
This he invested carefully in my schooling, (school was always available to us but rarely could one afford it on prolonged stretches) I was expected to use this to escape the ties of lower life and to ascend to a prominent position in society as a chemist like Mr. Elam or even a representative of the mutant class in the parliament court way up in the fourth layer.
The day after that particular meeting with my sister previously mentioned was the first day back to school, I hated school because it was in the normal sector that was sided on to ours. I had to walk five miles to the train, a monsterous iron creation that billowed smoke and choked all the station goers. Once aboard I would sit until the next stop where some pasty commuter would ask for my seat and by law, I would have to give it to him lest I end up on the recieving end of a sentence. I would cover my face with a scarf and pull up my tattered coat and stand in the corner while the carriage rattled towards the stop four from mine. This was normal county and I had to buy myself a day pass which was checked by every policeman and even the odd citizen, who felt uncomfortable by my presence. The school was visible after another mile of walking through crowded streets and narrow allies.
Once I was mugged by a group of scavengers, I hadn't much on me bu nevertheless, the encounter meant I had to go hungry at lunch.
After I finally reached the grounds, I would line up with the rest of the mutant children and wait to be taken inside. The teacher, if non-mutant, would usually keep us waiting for at least half an hour while more important things arose such as finishing his or her coffee or attending to an urgent phone call. At nine, the age I was, the normal children where, on a whole to young to distinguish us any different socially from them. We weren't mocked much and sometimes we would whisper to each other from across our lines stricking up short friendships before they entered their cosy rooms.
The older kids where different, they didn't like us much and hurled abuse at us when the chance arose. Though it was supposedly wrong to do this, the teachers rarely prohibited them unless they turned to violence to gain our attention, (we weren't allowed to reply or talk like the others and silence was common place) then the teachers would have them away.
My room was dark and drab, decorated with age old posters about the integrity of the mutant people and to keep on going through the rough parts of our lives. These faded posters told of a different time when the government was sorry about the ghoulification of their people. Remember it was their fault.
One positive thing about school was that I could meet up with Still. A mutant boy who inhabited a precinct not too far from mine. Since it backed on to a non-mutant area however, we rarely saw much of each other out of school, on occasion he would sneak through the night and make it to ours by the morning, he would stay with us for a while and then Joe would drive him back to his family, he always insited they didn't have to pay for the fuel wasted nor the day pass that my Uncle would purchase to make the journey and a compromise was met seemingly when Still's father would smack him across the head, sending him reeling, almost on every occurence. Our families where friends and my Uncle met the assault with gentle acceptance.
As I sat in the class room, supposedly learning mathematics, Still came trundling in carrying his oversized rucksack, he was red in the face from the trek up and the class laughed.
"Sit down Still," sighed the teacher, a mutant that day, she was acquainted with Still's record of punctuality as was almost every teacher in the district and he was waved to his desk where I greeted him with a smile. He sat across from me but we where seperated by another boy so our conversations where logged on scrunched up pieces of paper until break.
"How long you staying for Still?" I asked at break,
"Not long, maybe two weeks until my Pa says I need to get back to working the hydroponic farm with him, the UV light dohickey keeps giving out and he needs the saved up money to buy a new one."
Still's family where farmers and had been since before the exodus into the Citadel according to him. Since there was always a demand for vegetables down here, Still was well off enough to attend school for a number of weeks each term. He was expected to become a scientist who would study in the field of biology and plant genetic alteration.
"Did you hear that the Overseer has fallen ill recently?" He asked, I had not and told Still that if he died things would only get better for us.
"Will you be able to make it to ours this weekend Still?" I wanted one of his regular visits and and he nodded,
"Probably, this time I'll try and get some money to pay your dad -"
"Uncle, Uncle Joe,"
"Your Uncle for the return trip to my parents,"
I looked at him with a sudden expression of enlightenment,
"Why don't you ride the train Still? It's easier 'n probably cheaper too since you aren't ten yet!"
"No, I can't ride 'em trains, too dangerous, I got held up on one once, guys, err mutants, stopped the train and said they where taking over, they let me get off but apparently they got locked up for killing two people afterwards."
"Oh," I said.
Still was infamous for not telling the truth and I took this as nonsense,
I liked trying to catch him out so I began "If this happened like you said, why was it never in the paper?"
Still looked up but without searching for an answer he said, "Well, Pa said if it was published, it might give other Mutants ideas 'n then they'd have uprising on their hands,"
"Who'd have an uprising on their hands?"
"Only the government, they'd wonder how people got guns and stuff and their'd be an equiry into it and I think a lot of people would get in trouble so it couldn't be published, besides," Still turned his nose up as if hurt my by my inquisition, "You wouldn't remember cause it was long ago and anyway, you don't read." He laughed and I punched him on the shoulder and ran before he commenced chasing me around the playground until his legs got tired and he called quits.
"We spent the week exercising rememberance of our past escapades; the time we got caught traipsing into the non-mutant district, when I traded Still a deck of cards for his new jacket and his dead had smacked him infront of me and the time we went by Statton Yard.
Statton Yard was an old oil packaging plant. The factory was run down by the time Still and myself became preoccupied by it. There were petrified oaks in the grounds, twisted and gnarled, we had seen only a few trees because there wasn't enough light or space for them to grow so we imagined this place was where the Citadel was first built up from.
The friday at the end of the week Still decided to stay with us until sunday when my dad brought him home. He brought money but didn't tell Uncle Joe until he returned.
We decided we would go by Stratton Yard since it was a fascination of ours at the time. It was unchanged since last time I came up there and Still clapped his hands happily.
"We should come here whenever we can," I had said,
Still nodded, he was still taking the place in.
"Hey Still, I dare you to go inside the fence."
He looked at me as if I was stupid for even suggesting so.
"You scared Still? Well I dare you and you can't go back!"
"No, I will go in, but you won't go with me because your too yellow."
I frowned a little and we walked in together. The yard was more haunted than outside. Old equipment was strewn about and most of the windows and doors had been barred up or taped over, some had the words; CONDEMNED and BIOHAZARD written on them.
"Shall we go inside?" Still asked excitedly.
I looked for an entrance with him and, within a few minutes we found a small passage just big enough for us to crawl through. Cracks ran up the building from the hole and we decided that if the factory had stood for this long, it was sound enough for us to get inside without crashing down around us. Inside it was dark and gloomy, lights still flickered on and off in some parts and the generators still hummed away, rattling loose from their fixings. We followed a pathway down a corridor to the central area. A vast room brimming with more red tape, bits and pieces of broken equipment, lockers and a few large metal containers, one of which seemed to be drawing up oil from below and spilling it from a gaping hole into a nearby drain. We were about to continue when we heard shuffling from inside.
"Careful Harper, you here that, sounds like someones here to!"
I listened but I couldn't here anything above the drone of the machinery.
"Shut it Still, probably just a bird or something that got trapped in here from up in the broken windows."
Then, we heard it again. Whatever it was, it was getting closer, we backed up before more shuffling commenced,
"There's more," I whispered.
Then, from out of the shadows, came a four legged creature that looked like a shaggy dog with jagged rows of teeth and bright white eyes.
"Oh God, look Still it's a howler," I moaned.
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Oh yeah, fair point. Maybe he was just tortured until he lost consciousness.
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