Truancy Origins Read online

  TRUANCY

  ORIGINS

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TOR TEEN

  Truancy

  FORTHCOMING

  Truancy City

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  TRUANCY ORIGINS

  Copyright © 2009 by Isamu Fukui

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor Teen Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Fukui, Isamu, 1990–

  Truancy origins / Isamu Fukui.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Prequel to: Truancy.

  Summary: Relates how Truancy, an underground movement determined to bring down the Mayor’s goal of control through education, began with the birth of twin boys who grew up to take divergent paths after being adopted by the Mayor.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-2262-3

  ISBN-10: 0-7653-2262-5

  [1. Brothers—Fiction. 2. Twins—Fiction. 3. Totalitarianism—Fiction. 4.

  Education—Fiction. 5. Counterculture—Fiction. 6. Fantasy. 7. Youths’ writings.]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.F951538Tt 2009

  [Fic]—dc22

  2008035627

  First Edition: March 2009

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  I dedicate this story

  To Francis Yuan

  For being my friend

  Through all the times

  When no one else would

  CONTENTS

  Prologue: Sibling Rivalry

  PART I: STUDENT

  1: Filial Piety

  2: Behind the Scenes

  3: Crossing the Line

  4: Parental Control

  5: The Origin of Truancy

  6: Learning a Lesson

  7: Standing His Ground

  PART II: VAGRANT

  8: Awakening

  9: Apples and Oranges

  10: Scarred for Life

  11: Run Away

  12: A Chorus of Screams

  13: Failure

  14: Personal Demons

  PART III: MAVERICK

  15: A Second Chance

  16: District 19

  17: The Color of Blood

  18: A Fateful Encounter

  19: Setting Traps

  20: The War Begins

  21: Make Lemonade

  PART IV: PACIFIST

  22: Fog of War

  23: Without a Name

  24: The Birth of Zyid

  25: Before the Storm

  26: Fade to White

  27: Edward

  28: The Price of Knowledge

  PART V: LEGEND

  29: Ultimatums

  30: Kindred Spirits

  31: Sides of a Coin

  32: Final Preparations

  33: Brother against Brother

  34: Original Sin

  35: The Beginning

  TRUANCY

  ORIGINS

  PROLOGUE . . . SIBLING RIVALRY

  The Mayor spared a glance out the window of his office. It was night now, but the lights of the City never died, defying the dark skies with their persistent glow. Night. City nights were usually chilly. The Mayor, who detested humidity and heat, always welcomed the nights. For good measure he also kept his office air-conditioned to the point where the air felt stale and metallic—but cool, at the very least.

  So where is this damn sweat coming from?

  Frustrated, the Mayor reached up to his forehead and wiped off the glittering drops that had accumulated there. He clenched his palms, only to realize that they were shaking. Mentally steadying himself, the Mayor prayed that the dim lighting would be enough to conceal his perspiration from the small, gray eyes that faced him. The eyes silently observed his every move, and as they did, the Mayor felt a strange, unfamiliar feeling in his gut. The Mayor grimaced. It was almost as if . . .

  And then it hit him. The sweat, the shaking, the feeling—could it be fear?

  The Mayor had not been accustomed to fear for many years, not since he had begun governing what he had always thought of as his City. But now those cold, unblinking eyes served as a reminder that it was not his City after all, that there were people out there to whom he was just a pawn.

  Taking a deep breath, the Mayor laid his folded hands down upon his desk. Across the polished wooden surface, in spite of the dim light, the watchful eyes glittered, and the Mayor recognized both intelligence and menace in their sharp gaze. For several minutes, the room remained completely silent, save for the low, consistent hum of the air conditioner. No words were said, and yet the silence managed to convey a clear message. The Mayor knew that he was not in charge here, not now.

  It was astounding, the Mayor thought bitterly, that an eight-year-old girl could exert such a presence.

  “I hope you don’t mind me saying that your visit, pleasant though it is, was . . . unanticipated,” the Mayor said, choosing his words cautiously. ”I had not heard that your father was sending his daughter on city inspections. In fact, I must confess that I didn’t know the government had been conducting any city inspections at all lately.”

  The girl’s gaze intensified at the breaking of the silence, but the Mayor was confident that he had chosen the right words. There was nothing malicious in that gray stare. Not yet at least.

  “My father has no illusions about my capabilities, and he believes that it’s best for me to expand them through firsthand experience,” the girl replied, her voice as slick as oil. “But I’m afraid that you have misjudged my purpose here, Mr. Mayor. This is not an inspection—we are quite aware of how well your city has performed. I might go so far as to say that your work has been exemplary.”

  The Mayor did not acknowledge the proffered compliment, though his eyes narrowed. He hadn’t really thought that it was an inspection, but if it wasn’t a reprimand either, what could it possibly be? There was something odd going on here, the Mayor knew, and it filled him with that unpleasant sensation that he now associated with fear.

  “As you know, we like to protect experimental cities like yours from exposure to potentially contaminating influences,” the child continued. “That is why we have not formally conducted inspections for years now. As far as your citizens know, your small operation is the only government they are subject to, and we’d prefer it stay that way. But we do appreciate your success—it has been thoroughly documented by our agents in the populace.”

  The Mayor leaned back in his chair in an attempt to appear relaxed, even as a few more beads of sweat trickled down the back of his neck.

  “Then why are you here?” the Mayor asked bluntly.

  “My father has sent me as a courier, Mr. Mayor. I’m here to drop off a . . . sensitive package,” the girl replied, and the Mayor reflexively drew back as he saw something unsettling stir across the child’s features. “I know of your reputation for respecting secrecy, so I believe it safe to tell you that my father has recently sired two sons. Twins.”

  The Mayor forced a smile to conceal his dismay. If these new brats ended up anything like their older sibling, it could only mean more trouble for him and his City.

  “You must convey my sincere congratulations to your father. I couldn’t be happier for him,” the Mayor lied.

  The atmosphere of the room abruptly changed. The girl’s head snapped forward, her face contorting as her small hands gripped the armrests of her chair so ti
ghtly that her knuckles turned white. The Mayor instinctively recoiled, and a stir at the far end of the room reminded him that the girl’s bodyguards were present, prepared to kill at the child’s command.

  “The twins are illegitimate,” the girl snarled. “They have no father.”

  The Mayor was taken aback as the girl’s composure suddenly slipped, malice echoing in her voice, fury clearly etched on her young face. In that one moment of shock, the Mayor briefly wondered how anyone could possibly be so serene one moment and so feral the next. But as swiftly as the outburst had come, it had gone, and the child was again calmly collected, staring at the Mayor with those stormy eyes, her voice as cold and as smooth as ice.

  “Unfortunately, my father and I have had a disagreement about the infants. He has refused to . . . properly dispose of them.” The girl’s eyes glinted. “After some . . . debate . . . it was decided that it would be best to entrust the children to the care of another.”

  Upon hearing those words, the Mayor felt a sudden wave of panic threatening to overwhelm him. He was not a stupid man; he knew where this was going, and he definitely did not like it one bit. Grinding his teeth together, the Mayor waited as the girl continued.

  “The children need to live comfortably. They also need to be kept from causing trouble. And who could possibly be better suited for both tasks”—the girl smiled faintly—“than the Mayor of the Education City, whose system has never failed to control a child?”

  The Mayor blanched, his calm façade in ruins.

  “If I may—” the Mayor began hoarsely.

  “I’m afraid that you may not,” the child interrupted as she drew two rectangular pieces of plastic out of her pocket and placed them on the Mayor’s desk. “You needn’t worry about finances. My father has set aside a generous amount of funds for their personal use. These cards will grant access to accounts containing one hundred million each in government currency. Two hundred million in total. It’s enough to maintain a small army, and should be more than enough to assure that they will live comfortably.”

  “Money is not an issue . . .”the Mayor began to protest.

  “Then there should be no problem,” the child said. “The decision is final. You will find these . . . orphans . . . outside in the hallway. You will adopt them and raise them. You are expected only to keep them in good health, out of the way, and, most important, out of trouble.” The girl smirked now as she rose from her chair. “Allow me to convey my sincere congratulations to you, Father.”

  Before the Mayor could renew his protests, the girl had already turned her back to him and begun walking away. As the girl reached the door to the Mayor’s office, she was flanked and then followed by the two armed bodyguards that, up until that point, had been doing their most convincing impersonation of statues. The Mayor watched their shadows recede out of sight through the open door, dazedly wondering how he had been left speechless by a child barely taller than his own desk.

  For one suspended moment, the Mayor remained motionless in his padded armchair, wishing that he could sink into the soft folds of leather to escape the troubles that had so suddenly been foisted upon him. But before he could convince himself that the girl’s visit had been a bad dream, a shrill, wailing cry from the hallway cut through the chilled air of his office. Unmistakably the cry of a baby.

  The Mayor forced himself out of his seat, and, in an almost dreamlike stupor, stumbled over to the doorway. Blinking as his eyes adjusted to the brighter light of the hallway, he found that the shrill wail doubled in volume. The Mayor forced himself to stand straight. Then he saw it—the source of the cries, a crib resting in the hallway, containing two infants that looked to be about six months old. The noise came solely from a baby lying on his back, bawling as loud as his little lungs could manage. The other child, in stark contrast, was completely silent, but not at all inactive. He was crawling around the edges of the crib, exploring the bars with his fingers, and occasionally reaching outside them with tiny arms as if by doing so he might escape.

  The Mayor found himself inexplicably awestruck by the sight, so much so that he barely heard the cries of the first baby. Then he was snapped out of his reverie by the rough sound of the clearing of a throat. The Mayor looked up, and was surprised to see the girl and her bodyguards still standing at the far end of the hallway, watching him strangely.

  “I trust that everything is in order?” the girl called over the cries, dislike visible on her face even at a distance.

  The Mayor didn’t answer, but instead looked up at the girl’s purely light complexion, and then down at the babies, who clearly had a yellow tinge to their skin.

  “What are their names?” the Mayor suddenly demanded. “Tell me their names!”

  At this, the girl slowly approached the Mayor, still flanked by her bodyguards. No longer caring if he was in any bodily danger, the Mayor patiently waited until the eight-year-old stood right under him, exactly level with the Mayor’s waist.

  “Their mother named them,” the girl explained, gesturing towards the crib. “The noisy boy is Umasi. The restless one is Zen.”

  With that, the girl spun around and walked away as though she had just completed a casual errand. The Mayor didn’t know whether or not he would ever see the girl again, but in that instant he swore to himself that he would do everything within his power to make sure that the children called Zen and Umasi would never meet their half-sister. He looked down at the crib again, and for an instant was unpleasantly surprised to find the child named Zen staring up at him with dark eyes that already seemed to be assessing, analyzing, sizing him up. The infant’s stare reminded the Mayor altogether too much of the vicious gaze of his older sibling. Rattled, the Mayor looked instead at Umasi, who was still crying loudly. Gingerly, the Mayor picked Umasi up and cradled him in his arms as best he could. Almost instantly, the wailing subsided, and the Mayor found another pair of dark eyes looking up at him curiously, and in them the Mayor saw intelligence, yes, but also innocence that sparkled so clearly that it was unmistakable.

  The Mayor swayed his arms, rocking Umasi to sleep. As he did so, he couldn’t help but notice Zen’s eyes tracking his twin’s every movement. Only when Umasi had finally fallen asleep and been placed back in the cradle did Zen stir, crawling back to his brother’s side, where he also promptly fell asleep.

  Maybe this wouldn’t be so unpleasant after all, the Mayor thought as he watched the sleeping babies. But already guilt encroached upon his conscience. These children would have to be put through school. The City’s schools. Schools meant to ensnare the children of others would now be used on his own. If he could, he would have saved them from that hell of his own design.

  But that was impossible. Education in this City was absolute.

  “Forgive me, you two, for what I’ll do to you,” the Mayor murmured quietly. “You will suffer, but it’ll be for your own good.”

  On that day, the City’s schools had all reported perfect attendance. It was a day when the City knew no truancy. But that night, the Mayor willingly accepted two unfamiliar children as his own, and welcomed them into his City, a City that he also valued as his child. He had no way of knowing that in that crib slept the inevitable undoing of his City.

  When death lies ahead . . .

  . . . it’s natural to look back.

  You looked . . .

  . . . didn’t you?

  Yes. Yes I did.

  So did I.

  1

  FILIAL PIETY

  The fifteen-year-old boy slowly turned a page of his textbook, relishing the crisp sound of the shifting paper. He had never really liked social studies, though this passage on the subject was not actually an uninteresting one. The topic was agriculture, something that one did not often observe within the City. The student couldn’t help but find something whimsical about the idea of vast spaces with no buildings and few people. Small garden terraces were one thing, but large areas that existed solely only to grow plants? It was an alien notion
, though obviously a necessary one; after all, the City had to get its food from somewhere.

  The boy absentmindedly took a sip from his bottle of lemonade and sloshed it about in his mouth. Produce imports into the City had increased by five percent in one particular year . . . grain shortages had occurred on three separate occasions due to rural drought . . . the City had once issued migration permits allowing select citizens to move out onto outlying farmlands . . . that program had been canned the next year owing to an excess of volunteers, and the existing volunteers were forbidden to return. The boy inscribed notes on all of it into his binder mechanically, sipping his lemonade as he went.

  He paused only once, taking the opportunity to zip up his jacket and adjust his glasses. Chilly winds had begun making their way through the concrete ravines of the City, and the student was seated outdoors, upon a backless bench in his school courtyard. Thumbing down the pages of his book to prevent the wind from ruffling them, he watched idly for a moment as leaves flew by in a flurry of ruby and gold. He had always been fond of the fall season, as it was rarely ever hot or cold enough to be truly uncomfortable.

  Satisfied with his fleeting break, the student returned to his textbook, taking another swig of lemonade as he did so. The chapter he was reading hadn’t been assigned by his teacher yet, but he found that working ahead of the class schedule often paid off. Besides, he never did have anything better to do during his free periods.

  The boy was soon completely immersed in the text, lost among the figures, statistics, and historical minutiae. He became so focused on the reading, in fact, that he didn’t notice the sound of running footsteps behind him . . . until one of the feet connected squarely with his back.