Soft clicking interrupted the uneasy silence that filled the empty streets. Beryl forced herself to relax, telling herself that silence was a good thing. This meant that Zurks and rogue companions weren't an immediate threat. Regardless, she did not look forward to meeting either.
The clicking sped up; she could make out faint beeps now.
"How long is this going to last?"
Cyan, hunched over a black safe spattered in stickers, looked up from its dimly lit keypad.
"I have a few more codes that I can try." Her focus snapped back to the keypad. Leaning from her position on the building nearby Beryl took a look at the slip of paper in her sister's hands. The rolled piece of paper touched the floor
Beryl fought back an exasperated garble, knowing that it would not help her impatience, or be helpful to the guard nearby. The guard was looking her way now, leaning on his makeshift weapon at the border marker. He was probably on edge due to her feet shuffling and scraping the loose concrete under her feet.
"Got it" Cyan declared, swinging the safe door to the side and plunging in to find her prize. The border guard gave her that glare, but she ignored him as she unwrapped some scrunched fabric that had a lot of pockets. She held it up to her waist.
"Score!" She said through hushed speakers "This was totally worth it." Beryl watched as she put one leg in after the other. Cyan beamed a bit brighter as black cargo pants adorned her body.
"I can take so many art supplies with me now!"
" You horde like a dragon. " Beryl sassed.
Cyan swatted at her twin's poncho. "Think you're so funny don't yah?"
The two perked up when they heard the guard drone warning beeps at their antics. Hushing up quickly, Cyan turned to Beryl.
"We better make our way." She said quieter this time. "We will start where I last placed my marker"
As Cyan made her way Beryl trotted after her, finally happy to be moving. "I finally get to see everything my sister does in this big city. Breaking into abandoned apartments, maybe I will see some of your graffiti projects, and find what has been left behind by humans. I wonder what secrets this place hides?"
Cyan looked over from her map unfolding and saw glitter sparkling on Beryl's face. She gave her a smug grin. "Mostly trash and dead plants". The dead plants part alarmed Beryl. "But the trash is so worth it," Cyan added. Cyan stopped to adjust her backpack and looked at the map. "Where do you want to go? My last marker was over there," she said, pointing to a street. Upon closer inspection, she saw that each door was spray painted over. Each blotch had a hand forming a peace sign shadowed in it. When Beryl looked down at Cyan's hand she did see that it was, in fact, bright blue.
"Have you been making a sweep of the city?" Beryl asked.
"Left to right, although we don't have to do it in the way I have been doing if you have other ideas."
The map in Cyan's hands looked like a bunch of jumbled squares in her eyes, and frankly, Beryl was overwhelmed just by looking at it. Beryl had to ask.
"You sure you haven't seen any numbers where you have looked already?"
"Positive."
"What if we just did a sweep of the outer wall? That way if there are numbers we can follow the alleyway that had the numbers closest to mine."
"Seems fair"
Unfortunately for the pair, their ventures grew tedious. There seemed to be no numbers anywhere that matched their own. "Maybe it is a serial number?" Cyan asked while avoiding a stray can on the street.
YOU ARE READING
Automatic Heritage
FanfictionBeryl's daydreams tend to nag at her nowadays. As a resident of the slums of a sealed city, she seems to be one of the few who thinks it is worth thinking about the outside. But why, why does this thought seem so ingrained in her code when a majorit...
