Before the Explosion

Part 1

"You didn't come down for dinner."

Shakaru, mostly known as Ru by his friends, jumped about five feet and almost dropped the laptop on his lap before staring up at the intruder. "Jesus, you nearly gave me a heart attack! Ever heard of knocking?"

"I did knock." His guest was the fourteen-year-old Raya, who had perched herself on his bed, seeing as he wasn't using it. Her hair was down and reached her collar bones. In the shadows of this dark room, the brown looked almost black. "You didn't answer. How long have you been in here?"

Ru shrugged, stretching. He could feel the disks in his spine stretching, popping a little as he tried to force the chinks of pain out. How long had he been in here, hunched over this laptop, working on this problem? He could remember getting up this morning at the normal time and he could remember joining the masses this morning for breakfast. From there, his mind blanked into a series of lines of code.

The same had happened the day before.

And probably the day before.

"You need to get a better hobby."

"A better...?" The words made no sense.

"Something that gets your body working. Something where you're not hunched inside all day." She swung her legs on his bed. It may as well have been her own; all beds in this orphanage were the same.

Raya was, of course, referring to the recent surge in encouragement for fitness. It had come from the government, as most encouragement for change did. It had stuck at their orphanage in particular, to the point that even Raya had started something. Ru couldn't remember what. Something involving wheels. Biking?

"I'm good."

"You're not good, man." She didn't need to say anymore. He was aware of how sunken his eyes must be, how his usually greasy hair must be almost dripping, how he had to stink after sitting here for three days.

"What do you want?" He was snappy. She was keeping him from work.

"I'm just checking in on you, Ru." She rocked forward and tipped herself off the bed, down to where he was sitting. "What are you working on?"

"Important things."

"Didn't you have a job interview to go to?"

He scoffed. It was true, he had three lined up, but none of them were worth preparing for. He had been turned away from the one thing he had any interest in, and now he had to go and prove them wrong. "I guess."

Raya's face turned from whatever it had been to something else. He didn't see it happen but could hear it in her tone change. "You only have a week until you're signed onto residential blocks."

"I know."

"So what are you doing to stop that?"

He tapped on his keyboard, finger stabbing at the control button over and over. Anyone who didn't know him may have assumed he was anxious. He trusted Raya to know better, to pick up on the cue that he was impatient. "Working."

"Glad to hear it." She rocked back to lean on the bed, like he was, either ignoring or not seeing the cue. "Is it worth asking what you're working on?"

"Probably not." He wanted to boast to someone, and given Raya's past track record, she was probably the person he could trust the best to keep this secret, but still – was it worth it? No.

"Alrighty." She heaved herself up and made her way to the door. "You still okay to check on the firewalls tonight?"

"What?" Ru had forgotten about his usual daily ritual. It had only just logged in his head this second that Raya had said he'd missed dinner, not something else like lunch. Now his stomach was rumbling, and he'd have to get up to get food which would waste more time.