Let Art Be Our Weapon: Frerard/Killjoys Epic

The Kids From Yesterday

I sit on the edge of the table waiting to be cleared. I didn't wait the full week but 6 days is close enough. I don't think I could recover any more than I already have. Connors comes back in. "I half expected you to run off before I finished again. Glad to see you've stuck around this time, Way," he says.
"Yeah, I have no reason to go wandering off," I laugh.
Connors fills out a paper and shakes his head without looking up at me. "You're clear to leave," he says.
I head up to the diner and the others are sitting at a booth. I slide in next to Frank and we exchange small smiles. "Doctor said I'm all good," I announce. The others start cheering. Mikey slides a water bottle over to me. "So I'm cleared and you guys got permission. What are we waiting for?" I ask smiling.
"We should take the Kemia out, start heading in the zones?" Ray asks. We get up and go over to the garage.
Luke hands Mason the tools he needs and sees us. "You guys leaving?" he asks.
"Yeah, we'll be heading out there," Ray says, shaking his hand. "It's Mikey's first ride out so probably come back in a week or something."
"Yeah, well, I'm sure he'll do just fine out here. I've seen the way he fights," Luke laughs, he shakes Mikey's hand.
"Thank you for driving them," I say.
"Yeah? No problem, Gerard. It's a sweet ride. Little too fast for my taste." I shake hands with him. "Take care."
I get in Kemia and turn on the engine as Mason starts opening the garage door. Yes, let the walls come down and the engine roar. I pull out of the driveway and start heading down the little ramp. The dust spins up in the tires and I floor it, the engine accelerating and my back pressed firmly against the seat. Ray let Mikey sit up front with me. He looks a bit concerned but there's a smirk on his face that shows he's enjoying himself. I'm glad he is with us.

Deep in the zones and far from the base, I pull over and we hike around, the sun directly overhead. I search the area for a direction that promises adventure but not death.
"Hey, Gee!" Frank calls out to me. "Alec said there's a chase going on in Zone 16. If we go east right now, we can catch them in Zone 20 in almost two hours. You interested?"
"Hell yeah," I cheer. "Tell Alec we're taking this mission and I'll make it in one hour." I run down the small mound and jump over the hood of Kemia, sliding over the top, I make it to the driver's side. Ray opens the door and gets in the back. Mikey joins him, taking the other seat. Frank looks at me and I give a shrug. Frank gets in the passenger seat and I take off. I slam on the accelerator and the engines rev. The tires find traction and take off flying. My hair is too short to whip around my face, which is a new thing for me. I hope this isn't too long of a mission because I want to go to a store and raid it for the dye. In stores, they stock packages of highly concentrated dye as an indicator. BL/ind keeps everything white and black, there's no color but they do have an indicator in very small packages out in the zones. I'm not entirely sure what they have it or why. The society is so against art but they package it makes no sense. They use it for marking the zones. They have all the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. They all have a different meaning, I'm not sure what. The indicators are highly concentrated so when they break the package, it stains the dirt and when it rains, the dye trails downhill, leading to BL/ind supposedly. The theory is so they can figure out what's going on but logically, it doesn't make any sense but then again, it makes no sense to suppress art. The good thing about it is there's always indicator and all the many different colors so we can dye our clothes, hair, get tattoos, paint, draw, color the cars, blasters, and the base. It's our source of color and it doesn't wash out or fade in any way. Painting is a luxury but if we have the freedom to do it, then we should use it. The citizens of the Society live under harsh rule. There's barely anything documented in the records about the citizens but one of the few things stated is that the indicators are not distributed to the public and it's classified to them. The children born there grow up without having art. It's almost sad to think about. The little things we have like singing, dancing, creative writing, and coloring are illegal in the Society because of BL/ind. It's sad and what we know is the bare minimum about the citizen's lives. What they are actually living like is something we don't know a lot about. There's no way to know the extent of how bad it is. The few Killjoys that made it out and were able to tell us didn't know that much. But they all escaped before the lack of freedom really hit. Now that things are extreme, we haven't found any refugees in years.