Trackers - Battle For Novu

chapter 2 - The Terror

CHAPTER 2

I was playing on my handheld while walking to the markets at the end of the street at least twenty minutes away from the flats.

“Hey Shi!”, screamed the always chirpy Uncle Boe.

Everyone living in the outskirts of the city knew each other too well and had a close relationship – literally – our houses were so closely stacked making it impossible not to know everything about your neighbours.

I gave him a close-mouthed smile as I turned into his arcade, I was one of the regulars.
It was a fairly large space with virtual pool tables, virtual ping-pong courts and all types of video and simulation games.

There was a blue vending machine in each corner of the arcade filled with sodas, hard candies and packets of marshmallows, even canned soup - which is disgusting, but most farms close to Novu were burned down and there is barely enough fresh foods for all the Humiwards to live off of - .

The arcade was the only place we could have fun away from the flats. All the kids and teenagers spent their free time in the arcade where the music was always pumped and neon lights flickered in all colours of the spectrum.

I went to my favourite machine and tapped my card on the machine barcode. I strapped my head into the simulator helmet and waited for the game to start up. I would spend hours in the arcade playing just this one game. It was a form of techno-therapy for me and the hard candies relieved me of the taste of preservatives on my tongue from the canned meals.

"PANDEMONIUM, enter your app ID and username", the game roared and I entered my details. For every "App" the user is requested to input their details or scan their card to verify who they are.

By the time I finished my third round of 'Pandemonium' on the simulator, I noticed that the sun had already started to set.

A lockdown was scheduled for today but I knew I could make it back in time before the officers arrive. I brisk waked to the markets and entered ‘24/7’ corner store to buy the coffee.

I grabbed the last bag of coffee and noticed a brown apple lying in one of the boxes on the lower shelf. I tapped to pay for both items but I was short one point. “Mister Kumar, I can pay you back tomorrow please! I…really want to taste an apple.”, I begged. Mr Kumar was a tanned older man with a prosthetic leg, always sharing his war experiences with the little kids to scare them.

“Look kiddo, you know business is slow and I gots’ to earn points. Take the coffee and leave! Damn kids. You think we can just give food away for free here huh?” , he shouted with his coarse voice, reminding me that I am not worth anything I can't afford.

A dark hooded figure was lurking in the store from the time I entered but I barely took any notice of the mysterious dark short figure.

The sun was no longer visible making the figure seem as though he was part of the night.

As I turned to walk out of the store I felt a heavy object being dropped in my purse and saw the figure walk past me. Before I could look down and check what was dropped in my purse…

“Get him! Damn thieves in the lower city too!” , yelled the angry Mr Kumar.

His son, Jon Kumar, started after the hooded figure and I found myself chasing after them both. The thief was cornered by Jon in an alleyway behind another block of flats. I stopped about six feet away from them and peeked inside my purse where I spotted the bag of coffee, a hairpin and the brown-spotted apple.

Jon grabbed the thief by the strings of his hooded jacket cussing at him to give the goods back but the figure didn’t make one sound. I reached for the apple and made an award-deserving throw of it against the head of twenty-year-old Jon Kumar. He slowly rotated his dark face towards me.

“You lookin’ for trouble too?!”, he threatened, making the mistake of letting go of the thief allowing both of us time to run from him. We passed three streets and turned in at the fourth vacated alleyway with several dumpsters placed in random assortment.

“Get in…quick.”, whispered a feminine tone, lifting me into one of the dumpsters before getting in themselves. “I cannot believe I’m in a dumpster…”, I  whined.

We heard Jon not long afterwards but after checking one dumpster, he decided to abandon his police ambitions and let us be for the night.

The thief and I both lifted the lid off the dumpster and looked at each other.
“You’re a girl?”, I gasped.

“What? Never seen a female vigilante before?”, she joked as she climbed out of the paralysing smell.

“Thanks for the apple…but sorry that it went to waste.”, I sighed.

“Thanks for the way you decided to waste it.”, she teased and helped me out of the trash.

“I’m Shilo by the way. What’s your name?”, I introduced.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to know my name. I doubt we’ll ever meet again.”, she riddled. She took her hood off completely and unzipped her jacket, throwing it into the dumpster; revealing her cropped black tank shirt and shiny, black pleather tights. She scrapped her dark brown boots on the floor, cleaning off the rubbish.

She looked no older than sixteen; being very petite and without a crease of age in her face.

“So you’re not from here?”, I asked in an attempt to start a conversation but she looked at me with such twisted confusion in her brows.
“Even if I were, you wouldn't have known me in any case.”, she started with her riddled statements once again.

“So you’re some kind of ghost then?”, I proposed.

There were shimmers of deep purple on the tips of her dark brown hair that moved like silk over her sweat-glistening shoulders as she walked out of the alley and into the busy market square. I ran out behind her but after looking left and right more than three times, I realised that she vanished into the crowd.

I started on home again and rushed through the crowd of people in panic, to make it to the flats before lockdown.

“Hey Charlie.”, I stopped on the rusted steps and combed my fingers through the thick and untrimmed fur of a stray dog the lives on our flat's staircase.

We tried shooing him away but after a few weeks, it was clear that he wasn’t willing to go anywhere. We couldn’t take him in since our brick-wall-mansions weren’t big enough and when law-enforcement made their inspections, they killed whatever animals they found inside the houses.

“Get in here!”, yelled mom in the doorway. 

I skipped a step and galloped up the rest of them, rushed through the door then slammed it behind me. Mom ran after me and locked all six locks on our door. I threw my purse down, tossed my jacket over the couch and pulled down our elderly pale blue curtains after shutting the windows.

“Everything set kids?” asked Jackie biting her poorly groomed pink nails.

“Mom, it’s been twenty-five minutes and there are still no sirens. Aren’t they coming?” fussed Fredd.

“I don’t know what’s going on…we should wait another half hour at least before assuming it’s safe out there.”, conceded Jackie.

“I guess the terrorists caught a case of stage-fright.”, I vexed.

“Stop with your crap Shilo. We don’t really need your attitude right now.”, argued Jack.

“Mom, I don’t think it’s going to happen tonight.” , squealed Fredd while trying to peek out of the window. We heard a few of the neighbours exit their homes and whisper their concerns. I ran to the window, peeked with one eye closed and saw people standing on their small-spaced balconies clueless, looking side-to-side; their heads like the swinging pendulum on an antique clock.

Suddenly I saw a building in the inner-city explode like a firework, bursting flames of burnt orange, and another next to it blew up too.

“Oh my…God.”, stammered mom when the sounds of the siren started. She clenched Fredd and I tightly and told us to keep our heads down.

The roaring echo of the sirens were deafening; numbing our hearts and pounding in our heads.