Ethernet

Phase Three: Part One

Phase Three: Part One

Report: The rule violators have been banned. We can not proceed.

_

Kade and Zander stood over the open faced grave to the only cheap coffin the Hale family could afford which also happened to be reused. Every four or five years, in order to keep the profit in dying, lower class citizens, the city would dig up the loved ones buried in the economy priced graveyard, rid themselves of the bodies, and re-sell the coffins for twice the price to a new, sorrowful family. The Hale’s were no exception to this cycle.

Caleb’s deceased name was changed to Kai-Mung. It was party of a dying Japanese tradition to rename the dead so that they could not rise again. While most families didn’t bother with it, Zander had insisted. He remembered years ago, during one of the wars, that his grandmother held dear the traditions of the new superpower and he wanted some resemblance of a family to remain.

The boys wore all black as they stood over the hole, alone in the cemetery. Caleb had not been the most popular boy in the city, and to be honest most were disappointed they hadn’t the chance to kill him themselves, and even his mother didn’t bother actually coming to the burial site. Zander while the eye of most of his rage, still felt that Caleb deserved better than to be covered alone.

Kade stood by him, silent, as the boys watched the empty pit sit there. The clouds started to grow dark above them as a haunting feeling overcame the two young teens. They knew this was the fate of many who rode in gangs and they were on the eve of their own recruitment. The feeling that this was their fate, the devastating reality, started to set in far worse than it ever had before.

They didn’t even know if they would be recruited into the same gangs either. So many brothers and friends were torn apart by the rivalries of the under city that you couldn’t predict who would sink their teeth in. And if you tried to run and avoid recruitment you were a nomad and left on your own. While dangers came along with taking a side, a certain protection came with it. No matter where you were on the food chain if there was blood spilled revenge would be sought and that alone kept a lot of the murderers and villains at bay.

Alone, without a gang symbol painted on your door or a tattoo across your back, you were easy prey; like a lion to a young, newborn lamb. This was how many families, during the change, were cast into underground slavery chains and black-market meat swaps. Men with pride were left to rot while those, in fear of their families safety, made deals they couldn’t refuse to keep food on their tables and the knives from their backs, even if it only be temporarily.

Kade’s hands were becoming bloodied at the sight of his best friend’s older brother in that dirty hole. The ground had been so polluted that the soil was a dark, almost black, green color and the entire cemetery smelled of decay. Even just this cemetery was a small square of land dead center in the cities worse neighborhood. He thought about what it was like for those who came out on top during the revolution. He thought about the politicians, criminals, corporate thieves who had managed to screw the world over enough to end up riding the trains, protected from the rot of starvation and survival.

He knew it was their fault. Anyone who was anyone knew it was their fault, rich and poor alike. While the poor had no voices, the rich would not risk retaliation and false imprisonment to speak the injustices they knew. Instead, the world carried on just as it did and nobody and nothing could change it.

That reality hit Kade hard as he fell to his knees, wondering where the Hale family would be right now if it were not for this digital disaster which had washed over the earth.

“Before we were recruited, Caleb liked to draw a lot.” Kade, still on his knees, looked up at Zander, eyes red and stinging with both tears and pain from the poison earth, “He wasn’t very good, don’t get me wrong. But he really liked to draw. After Kane Z sunk his teeth in though, he never drew again.”