Kaden

Chapter Three

I wake up in the middle of the night, as usual. I think back to last night. By this time tomorrow, we'll be at war, and it's all my fault.

I sit up, nursing the wound on my thigh softly. I open up the flask Max gave me, putting it up to my mouth. A drop of water comes out. When I smack the bottom, grains of dirt fall out into my mouth and onto my upper lip. I spit out the dirt, deciding that I need to go back into the city to get supplies.

I think back to last night. The only time I saw anyone eating something was when Max was eating those cheap dry crackers with Souris. I think back to it. There was only two or three left in the bag, and he ate them so eagerly.

They have no food, no water, no supplies. This sudden realization is the final push that makes me get up and leave the camp. I sort out my priorities. We need water and food. Then the public needs to know that I'm alive, and that the Nation has failed. I walk up from the shore, slowly making my way back into the edge of the poor neighborhoods. Where will I get the food? I've got to steal it from a military storage building in a rich neighborhood. That'll have a lot of food. I begin to think. If I have a lot left over, I should give it to the people in the poor sectors, I realize, looking around me as I reach the edge of the first neighborhood. The streets are crowded with the homeless. You can't go five feet without passing two homeless people. Half of the tiny, run-down buildings are boarded up. I peek into one of the boarded up window. Shards of broken glass line the edges of the window and the sidewalk below me. I see people inside, huddled around a campfire, shivering. This isn't right, I think. This isn't right at all. None of this is. And they're going to war. I don't care how terrible the other place is, anything is better than this. I imagine sparkling cities, where there is no poverty. Where class division, racial division, and discrimination don't exist. Where people who the Nation deems unworthy because of their race or sexuality aren't pushed to the edge of civilization and forced into poverty and, eventually, homelessness.

Like me, I think. Like everyone here.

I walk for miles, and an hour or two pass. I pass the last block of the poor neighborhoods. Beer bottles are shattered in the street. Trash lies on the ground discarded. My eyes sting from the smoke, dirt and dust blowing around. I pause at the wall. I'll just have to scale it.

It's 100 feet tall. I've scaled it before. On this side, it's old, crumbly, and made of brick. That's loosely attached to a wall made of steel with a thin diamond coating on the other side. There are guards 24/7, but I can easily sneak past them.

I scale the wall, carefully picking my handholds. It only takes a minute or so for me to be at the top. I knock out one of the guards with a carefully placed punch to the throat and knock to the head. I realize that my scarf is still hanging loosely around my neck, and smile slightly when I realize that there was more behind that look of realization and shock than just the shock of being knocked out.

Stealing his grippy gloves, I slide down the other side until I start to go to fast. I forcefully drag the back of the grippy gloves, switching to the front when I'm at enough of a stop. I then let go of the wall. Falling five feet to the ground and rolling. I move away from the wall, tucking my hair back into my hat and tying my scarf over my face. I continue walking. I sneer at the difference between the poor neighborhoods and the old ones. Typical Nation, I think. The sidewalks are paved with anti-heat cement, and the top is painted a bright white. No dirt stains it. The roads are a soft blue color. The buildings are pastel colors, and are all giant. These houses are twenty times the size of the houses where I was just minutes ago, and they house a tenth of the amount of people, on average, I realize. These houses tend to have one or two people in them, maybe three or four if they're a family. The ones back in the poor neighborhoods all have families of five or six, not including the homeless people that always live in them. Those houses all in all generally have ten to twenty people in them.

I keep walking until I get into the skyscrapers. And then I see it. Military Nutritional Storage, the white and pastel blue sign reads. I frown slightly. I've stolen from here before. They won't see me coming, this time. I might be able to get a lot of food.

I replay the map of the interior over and over again in my head. I picture the rooms I need to get into. Canned goods, dried fruits, dried vegetables, dried meat, bread, water, other drinks, and dehydrated meals. I list the levels of the building over and over again in my head. Canned goods, I decide. Metal is always, always useful.

Floors 2-3 are canned goods. 4-5 are dried fruits, 6-7 are dried vegetables, etc. I scale the wall of the first floor and push open a window on the second. You would think this place would have high security because it's a military building, but it has very minimal security. Crime rates are almost non-existent. Those who do commit crimes here are sent off to the poor neighborhoods. And besides, nobody is thick enough to break into a military building.

Except me, I guess.

I enter through the window, knocking out the guard with one blow. There's one guard left on this floor. I take the key off of this guard, using it to open the first door. The first thing I see is a pile of pastel green sacks. Good, I think. I grab two, filling them with canned goods until they'll barely close. I swing one over each shoulder, opening the door and closing it again. When the second guard sees me, his jaw drops. He reaches for his walkie-talkie, but I pick up the other officer's gun and point it at him. He raises his hands into the air, dropping his walkie-talkie.

"Interesting reflexes," I say, nodding at the gun still on his belt. He takes it out, sliding it across the floor to me. "Destroy the walkie-talkie," I say. He hesitates before stomping on it. I pick up my sacks of food and the other gun, putting it onto my belt. "Thanks," I say, dropping my last leftover dust bomb from the break-in to the base a few days ago. I hear him scrambling to run away from it as I climb out of the building and attempt to blend in with the crowd as I make my way back to the wall.

I hear a whistle blow behind me and I break into a sprint. I think I've gone almost twenty mph once, so they don't stand a chance against me... or, at least, not until they get into their hovercars. Hovercars only work because of the magnetic sheet of metal under our feet in the rich neighborhoods. I count five tailing me. I smile as I look ahead of me and see the wall just under a hundred feet away from me. I break into a dead sprint, getting to the wall in a matter of seconds. My muscles are screaming with pain as I reach the wall and start to climb, carrying two large bags of metal and food straight up a vertical, 100ft high wall. Not to mention the police shooting at me.

I manage to reach the top, knocking out a guard and practically jumping off on the other side. I scramble to get a hand hold on the wall and stop my freefall, and I manage to grab the wall and slow my fall before my hand slips, and I am forced to try again. I manage to grab it before falling again, and I do this a few more times before I fall onto the ground and roll. I sprint until I know I'm in the clear. Every muscle, bone, and piece of flesh in my body is screaming in complete agony. I limp through the city, panting. "Well, that was fun," I mutter. My body is screaming for me to sit down, but I can't will myself too. My heart is beating too fast. I can't calm down. I can't slow down. I want to do it again. I want to turn around and sprint again, I want the rush of the wind against my face.

I start at the first house I see, and then I go around, dropping a couple of cans of food at each. Military food is so rich that I know that it will feed everyone in each house for a day with just the amount I'm giving them. I manage to get to about thirty houses before I have to stop myself. The rest is for the people back at the waterfront, I remind myself, but I still have to tear myself away from the other houses. I stop at a can of spray paint, picking it up. I know how to tell them I'm alive.

I pick the common buildings and write out a simple message on them:

I'm alive. We're at war. Prepare. Come find me. -Kaden