The Lost Children of Andromeda: 2052 Ends With Z

Chapter 2

ALLISTER ADAMS

Riser Town, Suburbs of the District

Day 215

Allister's employment assignment was due to start before the afternoon was lost, and by the low position of the sun and long shadows stretching behind him, he knew that evening was on its way. He looked at the time-measuring app on the Cynque device embedded in his wrist to be sure. The days and hours and minutes glared back at him in the same neon-green hue. Nothing told time neutrally anymore. It just told them how much they had left.

A little under 215 days.

He dodged a few more lingering drones, moving building to building, ducking under hanging ladders, and sprinting through open stretches of pavement. He gave thanks when he reached the bottom of his building, trying not to let the exchange with Quigles sink in. But his heart was weighed down, his feet lifting slower and slower up the winding flights of stairs to his home. Less from fatigue and more from that same sense of loss as earlier.

Since then, he'd lost the game, the neighborhood, and his best for the rest.

He paused midstep and gripped the metal railing tightly with a mix of frustration and sorrow.

Maybe humans could never understand. Maybe it was only other Evolutionaries who could grasp the full weight of his burden.

"I wasn't trying to hurt anyone," he muttered, squeezing the rail.

The metal crumpled beneath his fingers.

Allister swore up and down about his enhanced strength, another one of his potentials he couldn't control, then resumed his journey to his doorstep. There had to be others out there like him. Evolutionaries not joined up with C20 who wanted to use their potentials to save humanity rather than hurt them.

He stood face-to-face with his front door and said to himself, "I gotta find a way to skip Riser Town. Better for Mom, she can stay put. Better for me, I can cynque up with peeps like me."

He turned and looked out over the barren alley behind his building. Nothing but trash blowing in hot wind.

"Gotta skip Riser Town," he repeated.

He'd planned to sneak by his mom and head straight to the shower pod to get ready. A decent plan, except as he reached for the transparent sliding panel door, he paused at the aluminum container full of junk next to his feet.

It wasn't like his mom to leave trash near the house. She liked to keep that little square slice of patio pristine at all costs, to the point he'd find her up sweeping it in the middle of the night.

Curious, Allister knelt down next to it.

He moved the already open lid farther back and rummaged through the box full of gadgets, trinkets, and printed photographs. It didn't look like trash to him, so he wondered why it was outside.

"You get into it with another one of those kids?" his mom yelled from in the house.

"Sort of. Hard to explain," he replied, picking up what looked like a small transmitter.

Is this my dad's?

He became more suspicious the deeper he dug.

"I told you about those boys up the block. They're killin' types."

Allister rolled his eyes. It was the same speech he always got in the afternoons. She'd been warning him to stay inside and away from the FBX crew, especially lately, with the drones on high alert and the raids happening more frequently.