FUNCTION DISORDER :: VOLUME ONE

5

Saturday was uneventful. Kaleva was tempted to ask Erkka to take him to the park in the Eighth Order, the one with the cool artificial lake and the nice view of the Lower City, but reconsidered after Erkka dedicated his weekend to practicing his dance moves. Kaleva shuddered, imagining the retribution that would ensue should he interrupt him. There wasn't any sign of his internet friends from the Lower City. Rain was having an intense weekend, sure, but where was Halley?

This made it all the more alarming when Kaleva awoke on Sunday, just before six in the morning, to a sharp rapping on the front door, followed by his mother screaming his name.

"Kaleva darlinggg!" yelled Hilja, standing shadowy in his doorway, her teeth touching and unmoving as she spoke. "Somebody's at the door and would like to speak to you. Don't make a fool of yourself. Good luck!". She retained her frazzled appearance as she left again.

Kaleva slapped on a dirty white bathrobe and hazily dawdled to the front door, only a few metres away. He found himself face to face with a trio of official-looking men clad in familiar green robes. The nearest, a male Outsider with a fancy complex version of the green uniform, stepped uncomfortably close over him, placing his hands on the doorframe to stand imposingly over Kaleva with his greater height, his spiky red hair gleaming in the predawn.

"Good morning, Kaleva Jaska. I am Captain Cayde Tunselous. We have a few questions for you."

Kaleva rubbed his left eye, too busy fighting back confusion to feel nervous. "What's this about?"

"We are concerned about certain 'media' that you have been sharing recently. This should be familiar to you." Cayde produced a photograph, printed as a glossy A4 hardcopy.

Kaleva peered at it. The photo displayed an unidentifiable pale pink demonic entity crawling out of a crater in the pavement. "Yeah I took that last Friday, I don't know what that is. Have I done something wrong, officer?", Kaleva asked.

"It's 'captain', young one.", Cayde said, trying to stare down Kaleva. "And no, you technically haven't done anything illegal, to our knowledge." The agent to Cayde's right, a short white man with thick bushy yellow hair, nodded intently at Kaleva.

"Ok... Captain, then.", Kaleva responded, still waking up, eyes blank with sleepiness. To Kaleva, Cayde looked barely 30. Certainly younger than the average Extraction Agent and definitely too young to be their... leader?

"First of all, we're going to need you to hand over your phone for a bit. We'll give it back, don't worry...", Cayde began, "...and secondly, after we saw that, we dug a little deeper and we are also concerned about the people you associate wth and what you do with your time. It doesn't seem safe for a child like you to be in such close contact with Lower City people, does it? It's kind of inappropriate."

Kaleva raised his eyebrows, still bemused, and silently stepped away from the doorway to fetch his phone. To resist would be useless. Cayde took the opportunity to invite himself and his comrades inside. Hilja glared at him with a hollow expression from the far corner of the lounge. "If contact with these lower city people continues, we may have no choice but to get the Innocence Agents involved."

With a sigh, Kaleva handed his phone to Cayde, who snatched it gleefully and began rifling though its contents. "Thank you very much. We just need to scrub this of anything potentially compromising. We suggest you stop conversing with... these people. We will be monitoring you closely in the coming weeks."

Cayde scrolled through Kaleva's phone, moved to some settings menu and began the process of doing a full wipe. Kaleva stood awkwardly before the front door, aware that his parents were now hovering uncomfortably behind him. They fortunately had the awareness to shut up in front of the Extraction Agents.