1 Life at Zenith

I don't remember much of my parents. Glimpses of blurred faces I never knew. That warm feeling one feels when he or she is close to a loved one. Giggling at my mother's face. The cold fear and the blood curdling painful scream I gave out when I was wrenched from my mother's arms. My story starts in a little town, not too well known, not too far away from a famous town ruins called Alice Springs. See, before the war, I hear, the world was beautiful, well except these parts. This area was, and is still desert. Anyway, the world was beautiful, but then World War 3 broke out, and nothing was the same, everything was destroyed, it was a sad time. So, in a country named Australia, in the Northern Territory, in a little town not too well known, about 70 Kilometres south-east of Alice Springs is where my story begins, in the mid 2280's. Well, to be exact, on the border of the town, across the phillipson creek, in my home, that also happens to be my school and my prison.

This place I live, a prison for mutants, a cold place with walls of concrete and no roof. The only times we go through the holographic doors is after waking up and before lights out. After we walk through, they lock and turn solid behind us so that we won't escape, after that the only ones who ever make it through the doors are the guards. The only entertainment us kids have, during the day, is the scraps of wood, metal and other materials that the guards throw in for us to play with after school time.

This place has had an amazing history, from what I've heard. Built after the war, it was a guardian watch tower watching over the town, standing taller than the tallest paperbark tree, but somewhere along the line, between now and then, it was knocked down and rebuilt and re-purposed. So this is all I've known, I don't remember a time or place outside this roofless prison, and the years seem to blur, so I don't recall when I did what.All I have ever known are these cold grey concrete walls around me, and the guards watch our every move from the watch towers around. We can't see the faces of the guards because of their metal masks and their black tight clothes, they're very scary.

So, I live here with my fellow mutants, but I've always been a bit envious of them. There are those of us, like them, who can create fire, move air, control nature, move objects without even a touch and others that just get in your mind. Then there's those few, like me, just look different. My friend, Jack, is a young boy like me, but he has grey and pale blue fur, kinda like the mythical animal we learnt about in our history E-books, the wolf. He's even got the snout and the feet, but everything else about him is human except the fur covering his body. The only thing he doesn't share with a wolf is the long bushy tail. Soover, my other friend, has talon-like hands at the end of bat-like wings. He's got a strange beak-like face. I've always thought he looks a bit like another mythical creature, a flying lizard from thousands of years ago called the Pterodactyl. Then there's me who has long ears on the top of my head, orange and black striped fur from head to toe, white fur around my nose and belly, and pads on my palms, tips of my fingers, the bottoms of my feet and the tips of my toes, the claws I have that come out of the ends of my fingers are good for art on the back of dinner trays, and I have a tail.

Walking into the mess halls, there are rows of metal tables and chairs in a huge grey room. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of tables, yet there's only one table that is completely empty. Not wanting to sit alone, I get some food and sit with Jack and Soover, and a about six of their other friends. As soon as I sit down, I watch as they all get up and move away to the empty table. I'm now sitting alone, head down and eating. I look down at the rice and sludge and sigh heavily. Someone at another table gets up, turns to their friends beside them and yells at them, and before any of us could think, they're all punching each other. There's people being thrown around, tables melting and tables being thrown through the air.

The guards flood in and settle everything down, pulling everyone off everyone else and shocking them with their taser rods. When the kids are all calmed, either by shocking or just out of energy, the guards put restraints on us all and put collars around the necks of the kids who were fighting. I'm told to leave my food as we're all escorted out. Walking in the group of other mutants, I'm being pushed and crushed. Us kids are ushered through one door and corridor to the classroom, and the adults are taken through to another to the common area where we'll be soon.

Seeing the teacher at the other side of the class room standing there in her black and white striped dress. She gives us all a disappointed stare. "Well, now that your here. You can find your seats. I'm assuming you can all do that by yourselves. I'm assuming you don't need any help with the basics like that." She turns around to the holo-board and says a little quieter, "Unlike last year's class." I'm left wandering around the room looking for a place to sit that isn't already taken. She turn and sees me, still not in a seat. "Little creature, find a seat and sit in it!" She says angrily.

"I'm sorry ma'm, I can't find an empty seat."

She points to a seat. I look, it's between Jack and Soover, "There, take that one!"

"Thank you, Miss."

She starts the lesson by introducing herself, "Good morning, you little parasites. My name is Mrs Bernbleton. You may address me as such, Miss, or Mrs B. I will be your maths teacher. This term, we will be going through trigonometry. I'm assuming you know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. This is what we will be using in trigonometry." And this is the way class continues. "Trigonometry is used to find the angle and the height of angles and sides of a triangle. I'm assuming you know what a triangle is." Before some of us can say anything, she cuts us off, "A triangle is one of the basic shapes, along with the square, the rectangle and the circle." Class continues and I sit there taking everything in. Jack and Soover sit there and talk and laugh the whole time. I put my hand up. Miss points to me, "Ah, Miss, can I please move somewhere else? My friends are talking and laughing too loud, and I'm finding it difficult to listen."

"No, you may not. What is your name?"

"Jam..." I answer.

She cuts me off, "Yeah, I don't care. Orange furry boy, you may not move. That is your seat now and you are sitting there for the rest of the year." I put my head down on the desk with a thud.

When class finishes, we all go out to the court yard, where we see the big pieces of metal, wood and rope. I run over and grab some rope and wood. I tie it together and throw it up and over a piece of metal. As I planned, it gets caught on the other side. I tug on it to make sure it's secure, then I climb up it. When I'm on top of it, I lay down and look at everything everyone else's doing. They're all running around and playing with the materials, the grown-ups are all sitting in a corner, just talking. Curiously, I stand up and try and see over the wall. I stand up taller, but I still can't see over. I stand up on my toes. I see the top of a mountain and a tree. I lose my balance and fall off the metal beam. Falling towards the ground, I stop in mid air. I raise my head and see Sandy there with her hands out stretched towards me. As she lowers her hands, I get closer to the ground. "Thanks Sandy." She moves her mouth, but nothing comes out. She Nods.

The guards come in and split us all up, but they leave the grown-ups alone. They come and take us back to our next class. They take us back to the same room as before. Everyone moves to the seats they were in before. I'm again sitting between Jack and Soover, though they've switched spots.

A new teacher walks in and introduces herself. "Good morning class, My name is Mrs Nerbit. I'll be your history teacher. I believe, everyone needs to learn history, the past mistakes made by past people, because if man doesn't learn from history, man is doomed to repeat it. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're not true humans, and to this I ask, why do you say this? Is it because that's all you know? is it because it's what the guards tell you? Well, to that I say, we're all human," Then she adds, "...in some way, shape or form. This term we will be going through the ancient romans and greeks." As class goes on, Jack and Soover continue to talk and laugh. I put my hand up again, hoping this teacher will be kinder to me than the last. The teacher points to me, "Yes little one, you have a question?"

"Yes miss, can I move? These two on my side are talking and laughing."

"No, I'm sorry. Sorry, what is your name?"

"James, miss."

"Sorry james, I can't let you move, the guards will have me thrown out, and I need this job."

"Yes miss, sorry miss." I put my head down on the desk and close my eyes.

The doors turn back into lights and the guards step through and stand at the doorway, two at each of the four doors, wearing their uniformed black metal shoes that go up their leg from under their pants, the shoes have plates bent around their ankles and riveted into place so they can still move, black tight long pants, buffed up shirts and full head metal flat mask that attach to the shirts me a hood. We all know what to do, we all line up, not in any order, single-file at each door and the lines slowly moves. I look up at the navy blue sky and all the stars and sigh and wonder, "Is there more to life than this." I look back down and step up to the door and the guard on my right yanks my arm that's closest to him and scans my wrist with a small handheld machine, a small spinning disc glows under my skin. He then looks down at the machine in his hand. He looks up at the other guard on my other side, "Hey Jony, look at this, it's James Regit, tiger boy." He chuckles. The mask doesn't move as he speaks.

"Yes Jimmy, I see." He bends down to be at eye-level with me, "Oh 8627, before I forget I wanted to wish you a happy birthday for tomorrow. I won't be here tomorrow." He laughs. My eyes rapidly grow wide and my mouth drops as I realise they're right.

"Oh yeah, that's right." Jimmy says.

"Hey guys, could you remind me how old I'll be tomorrow?"

"Well sure James. Tomorrow you'll be 14." He says kindly, "Now get down to your cell." He quickly adds with a flick of his hand.

I step through the door, followed by Jony and Jimmy. In front of me, at the end of the tunnel and between the double doors with two more guards standing by the doors, I see my cell float up through the large room of cells. One of the guards scans my wrist, just like Jimmy, "8627, your cell is here." He presses a button on the wall and the door opens. The bars of light and electricity open for me to walk through, then close behind me. The double door closes and my cell is pulled down into the large room full of a seemingly infinite number of identical cells. For as far as I can see, there are cells in front of white walls of light. As I sit in the middle of my bed the luminous walls turn off and the room goes back to being in blinding darkness.

Walking over to my bed, I hop up to sit on it's hard surface, bent over, looking at the floor, "Is this all that life is?" I think to myself

Walking over to my bed, I hop up to sit on it's hard surface, bent over, looking at the floor, "Is this all that life is?" I think to myself. Laying down, I roll over on my bed, staring at the ceiling. I wonder what I've done to deserve this sort of life. This is all I know, I've grown up here. But when I dream, I dream of freedom, other worlds as if I had been there before, I think, closing my eyes and...

Gently waking up, I open and close my eyes a few times, sitting up and look around, I notice the room is still dark, dimly lit by each cell. With that light, I see all the others still in their cells. So, I lay back down on my bed and close my eyes. As I close my eyes, I hear screaming. I clench my eyes closed until the screaming stops. When the it stops I open my eyes and see the door opening and light floods in. One of the cells floats out of line and up towards the door. One of the guards walks in and grabs the limp body by the long hair and pulls it off the bed. The body just falls off the bed without a fight and slides across the floor. The door shuts and the cell floats back down and deeper into the room. Sighing, I roll over on my bed and try to forget it, trying to think of something else, flooding my imagination with other things, other things like what I'm going to do if I ever escape.

Waking up, I rub my eyes tensely, and yawn. My cell is at the door, ready for me to step through. I step over, all sluggish and step through the door, trying to pick up my heavy feet as I am ushered to the door of the learning quarters by one of the guards. As I walk to the door, everyone sits and Mrs Nerbit starts the lesson. Almost immediately, one of my classmates, Jet, sneers, Mrs Nerbit stares at him, tilts her head down slightly and raises an eyebrow, he closes his mouth. Jet's the sort of boy you'd expect to be beaten and whipped almost every other day, but Mrs Nerbit has a graceful personality. She doesn't like getting people in trouble or violence if she feels they don't need it, and if she feels merciful she'll let us off without a beating, but we'll do something else for her. But for someone like Jet, who constantly needs a reminder of the consequence of trouble making, he almost doesn't look human. His body is covered with scars and bruises. Mrs Nerbit starts the lesson, "Okay class, unlock your touch tables and open you E-books to page 872, we're going to learn about the ancient Romans and their methods of war." We all look down at our tables, which have a glowing thick shatterproof glass screen in the centre with a small black non-touch border around the screen. Some of us start to chat. I remain silent, as I usually do every day. We all swipe our fingers over the screen and they turn. I swipe four fingers up the glass and the recently used applications show. I touch the closest one to the home screen. The text comes up and I scroll to page 872, and Mrs Nerbit quietens us all down.

"Okay, everyone, come on." She pauses. The text on the virtual page is about some strange ancient structure called a catapult. "Tom, can you read the first part of the text for us as we all read along?"

He nods and starts to read, "A catapult, the plastics weapon..."

Jet interrupts rudely, "It's Ballistics, you illiterate dumba..."

Mrs Nerbit shuts him up, "JET! I'm sorry but you can't talk to him like that in here. This is my classroom, you hear." She says with one eyebrow raised. "And for that, you can take over from Tom, and after the lesson I'll be speaking to the guards about your punishment. Continue reading Jet."

He pushes his bottom lip up, scrunching his mouth, swallows, clears his throat and releases to read out loud, "A catapult, the ballistics weapon of the ancient Roman and Greek Empires from circa 27 BC  to 395 AD. It was used in battle to throw fiery balls over enemy city walls and to fling large rocks far distances at the enemy. It was also used to launch Christians over the Roman cities as punishment for their faith."

Mrs Nerbit looks at Jet with a smile, "Thank you Jet, but as for your punishment, don't think this will excuse you from your consequence." I keep my head down and half smile, listening, this gives me an idea for an escape plan. "Would anyone else like to continue the text?" The class remains silent. "Okay then, Jessica, you can read the next part for us." Jessica nods. I stare at the picture of the structure called a "catapult"...

Mrs Nerbit shakes me, I open my eyes and genteelly shake my head as I blink a few times and yawn.

"Hey James, are you alright?" She said with her hand on my back.

"Yes miss. I'm sorry, I don't know what happened. The last thing I remember is hearing Jessica say she'll read and looking at the picture of the Catapult in the text."

"I didn't wanna wake you, I noticed you fell asleep in class, but I didn't wanna wake you, especially after what you told me about what happened last night. We're just about to go watch Jet get his flogging."

"Ok miss, I'll come down. Just give me a moment, please." She nods, turns and walks out the door to the centre square courtyard. I get up out of my chair and follow her. As I walk through the door my eyes adjust as the bright white light dims and everything comes into focus. As I walk to the centre square, I see in the middle of the courtyard a metal stake, Jet tied to it with his arms chained and tied around the post. Four guards lined up in a semi-circle around Jet with luminous, heat light whips in their hands. With each crack of the whip, the skin on his back is torn open. He laughs, "This tickles. I could do this all day." With each crack of this whip his skin is torn open, he laughs and the skin joins back, the wound closes up, he's left with a scar. I can't watch any longer. I look around to see what else I can do and I see Sandy staring at the guards, with her straight blue and black hair, yellow eyes glowing, pale skin paler than usual, left arm stretched out and two fingers pointed up and her thumb out. She's standing a few metres away from the back of the group. I walk over to her.

"Sandy, what are you doing?" I whisper. She looks at me, she moves her mouth but nothing comes out, then she looks back at the guards whipping Jet. I look in the same direction to see one of the guards fighting an urge to drop his whip. He drops the whip and I look back at Sandy as she looks back at me, still posed as before.

She moves her mouth but nothing comes out, instead I hear a soft but angry voice in my head that seems to be in synchronise with her mouth, "James, those like us have to stay together, those with abilities have to protect each other. That's what I'm doing."

"But I don't have any abilities, and Jet is fine, he'll just keep healing himself." I whisper towards her again.

"Doesn't matter, I need to do all I can to save his strength, though. Healing himself takes a lot of energy and strength." I look back at the guards. Another is putting his whip away. I glance back at Sandy then back at the guards. The chains that Jet is tied up with snap and fly off, pieces of metal fly off to the side, and the other guards are hit by the rest of the chains. The guards fall to the ground as Jet runs away from the post. More guards flood in and grab Jet and take him through the light doors, some with the chains in their hands tightly grasped, others behind him jabbing him in the sides and in the back, and a few others just escorting them. The rest of us are taken back to the school quarters for the next lesson.

I'm sitting at my desk with Soover and Jack around me. Mrs Hurbert walks in, wearing her hair pulled up, black long skirt, white top, and black high heeled shoes, all of this to try to make herself look taller than she actually is. The lesson starts.

With a high pitched droning voice, she says, "Can anyone tell me what we were doing last week?" There's a quiet murmuring as we all look around at each other.

Kiran hesitantly puts his hand up, with a shaky voice he says, "Weren't we learning about persuasive writing?"

"Well done Kiran." I listen, but start to zone out as most teenagers do.

"Please come up the front here Kiran," She says. He gets up out of his seat and walks up to the front. He stands right beside Mrs Hurbert, she stands only as tall as his elbow. She looks up at him, "And where do we use persuasive writing or persuasive language?..." I hear them say as the sound drones out and my eyes fall shut.