A Circus of Eagles [An HG Fanfic]

Normal - Antonio

Antonio

"Where are we going?"

"The Tribute Tower."

"It was knocked down."

"It has been rebuilt."

"In six months?"

The escort responds by grinding his cigarette into the little glass ashtray on the dashboard. Outside the cab windows the stern regal buildings of Malachite have been replaced by bizarre creations that are less buildings and more works of art; we must have crossed into Graphene. The streets should be lined with busy people carrying blueprints backwards and forwards, full of eclectic outfits and strange hats. But there's nobody around. The few people who scurry down the sidewalk, all heading in the same direction, avert their eyes as we pass.

"They don't want to look at us," Verity says. "We could be their children." She sounds matter-of-fact enough, but I can tell she's affected by it. She's bright, even for a Malachite fourteen year old, and so she must know that she's got no chance. Though I don't plan on counting her out until I've seen what she's like with sharp things.

When tributes arrived from the districts things were different. They whizzed past on the huge viaducts and we'd wait in the streets for the first glimpses of them through the train windows. The viaduct leading in from Three came right past my street so the day after the reaping the other kids from the neighboring blocks used to skip school and mill around outside, waiting. The adults didn't mind. They were doing it too. When the trains went past we screamed so loudly that they must have heard us in there. When I think about it, we must have sounded like wolves howling for blood. But I'd still rather have that than this silence.

"This isn't fair," I say, and Verity shoots me a warning look through stern grey eyes and gestures to the escort in the front seat. He scowls - I see it in the reflection of the windows - and lights another cigarette.

"I had a daughter." When he talks, his voice is rough and earthy; one of the Agri districts. "Five sons and one daughter. Not one of them is alive now. You took her for your sacrifice."

"Not me personally."

"Your people."

"There wasn't anything I could do about that!"

Verity places a tiny, childlike hand on my arm and I realise that I'm starting to shout. Rightly. I've met a lot of rebels like this since they started running our lives and if you don't shout they just won't hear you. They punish everybody for the actions of the few, which doesn't sound like justice to me and living in Malachite, I'd know. People come and go but justice remains. Except it doesn't. Not anymore. Nothing will ever convince me that sending me to my death for something beyond my control is fair. It reeks of being a petty act of revenge. And revenge and justice, while easily confused, are not the same thing.

"What about your sons?" Verity asks, cross-examining him, searching out the flaws in his argument. Maybe he knows it, perhaps somebody told him what the people of Malachite are like. His reflection frowns.

"They fought against your people with me."

"My uncle was shot by rebels," I say. Verity sighs and turns away, removing herself from this lost cause. But I can't. "He was trying to get my auntie and my cousins to a safe place but one of your people mowed him down where he stood. And it wasn't self defence. He wasn't armed. He was no threat. The man who did it didn't even go to trial."

I have to stop because the escort has taken a long drag of his cigarette and the smoke is starting to drift around the cab so I have to try not to breathe too much. The smoke stinks of tar and cancer and makes me dizzy, or maybe that's the situation finally starting to dawn on me. I touch the panel to open the window but nothing happens. The escort must have locked the controls.