#2 - Trade City of Clouds

Words: Trade (award, bad, prestige, deny)

Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Steampunk

"Come on we are going to be late" cried, Jeremy

"Just a second, I can't find my Breather" his young brother responded.

It was a dusty evening. The Serenity was one of the last standing cities on earth after the Great World War. In 1918 unresolved battles spreaded around the world like a plague. Some called it the Darkest Plague. Not only the gunpowder was the reaper of the old world, but Haber Gas also did what gunpowder couldn't. A toxic gas named after the last Nobel Award winner killed hundreds of thousands of civilians during the end times. After all the governments collapsed, diseases and famine which had followed it destroyed humankind.

Haber Gas became a natural phenomenon across the world. Nobody was able to leave their cities because of the thick layer of gas. However, people remained alive after the apocalypse has learned how to use it soon after. It became the main energy source to make the machines go and food to grow. But still, people could have not evolved to be able to breathe it properly or travel long distances, except for a few exceptions.

Little Jim just turned thirteen last week. It was the age the residents of Serenity were gifted with the Breather, a steampunk gas mask with a tank of air. Therefore they could go out of their safehouses and work. Despite there was still some opposition to letting children work, Jim never thought it was a bad thing to be able to join his brother and others. He never knew the old world, but he learned that there were many child workers there as well. So, he never understood this dispute.

"Hurry up! It's coming" he heard his brother's voice across the corridor.

The other thing the little Jim was so impatient about being thirteen was a certain visiting, happens only every five years. After the resettlement of society, a company called HQ showed up with a huge walking city out of nowhere. They have gained huge prestige around the world, because of the technology they held to alter the Gas. The City of Clouds has travelled across the world ever since to maintain trade and communication between the humankind's last settlements.

"How is it look?" asked Jim out of habit.

"See it yourself, you are out now." Responded Jeremy with a big smile behind his mask.

Jeremy was six years older then his brother. Ever since, he became a semi-adult, Jim never shut up with his questions from the radio transmitter. To think this way, Jim already knew how the outside world looks like. He tried to imagine it thousands of times. But he never expected that a city in clouds would look even more magnificent than a ten-year-old boy's imagination. Today was not only the day he discovering his city but the entire world. On one condition though, only a few selected people would go up to the Clouds. And now two brothers were running to the main elevator in the southern leg of the city.

-ACCESS DENIED-

A red warning appeared before his goggles. It was only a couple of meters left to the que in front of the gate, he stopped breathing.

"No, No!" Jeremy cried, holding his brother.

"What is going on?" an officer of the HQ was standing next to them.

"Please sir, help him! He can't breathe, he is not thirteen! I didn't know-" the man has stopped him talking and started to remove the mask from his brother's face.

"Oh my God, its all my fault" Jeremy let himself go to the ground, his goggles were all wet from tears. He never understood what has happened next.

A few months ago, little Jim convinced his big brother to change his birth certificate. Jeremy was working in the mayor's office and had access to the database. It was a harmless fraud they thought, never knowing the mask itself would not accept anyone under thirteen.

While his goggles were cleaning the wet and steam, he did not realize the officers had already formed a circle around them. And miraculously his brother was moving. Without a mask. Haber Gas wasn't something to let you breath more than a few seconds. But apparently, his brother was fine.

"How could th-" before he blacked out, the last thing he saw was the officers taking him to the elevator.