N is for New Day

Hola. Since it seems that some of you lovely people out there have enjoyed the story I have been writing, here is another short bit. Hope you enjoy.



The air cycle hummed as Jake sped along the quiet streets of Three Block. Leah's mind raced as she tried to process the gigantic piece of information that she had just heard. She had a brother! It was this person that she clung to riding this 'cycle to who knows where. Better this fate than the one that might have befallen her with the thieves at her house on half an hour earlier.

The streets were quiet and dark as it was past curfew in the Low Society quarters. Curfew was always at dusk. People didn't socialise much apart from the one day a year General Holiday. Being born into the Low Society meant that your birthday wasn't celebrated publicly. You were a worker and as such, to The Authority just a resource. General Holiday was the way you measured how old you were. People would save money from their allowances to buy each other gifts. Some were home made, some were just transfers of credit from one counter to another as everyone saved to buy a diamond or two so at least one member of the family was able to buy a free life, travel to other planets and to make their fortunes and in turn buy their families out of the Low Society. It was a very rare occasion though, seeing someone come back to the Low Society to buy someone else out. Leah had seen maybe fifty people leave the Low Society, only three came back to take others away too. She didn't know why.

The 'cycle started to slow to a stop. Jake turned his head.

"You'll have to get off here. We have come to the end of Three Block and if we want to get to In Between, I'm going to have to shut off a Keeper."

"What!" Leah exclaimed "You can't shut off a Keeper! You'll get electrocuted! Killed!" Leah was starting to think that her brother was a little unhinged. Keepers were the huge steel robots that were at the gates between blocks. They had Taser weaponry and if you tried to move between blocks after curfew, you got zapped and woke up in the slave farms.

"Glass half empty Leah," grinned Jake as he fished in his pack after parking the 'cycle against a wall in a dark alley. He pulled out a cube shaped plastic balloon about the size of a fist with a foil tab on the top. She looked at him quizically "What's that? Where's "In Between"?"

Jake grinned again. She saw for the first time the sparkle in her fathers eyes in Jake's. "This, little sister, is a Short Grenade. One of these will shut off a Keeper for good. Off to the repair shop for it after being hit with one of these. In Between, is where I and a lot of other people like me live. A change is coming and we are on the cutting edge."

She peeked around the corner of the alley and saw the Keeper. Four metres tall and terrifying. Made to look like a terrible steel giant on tracks. Huge arms with taser's on the end. Stingers, people called them. She turned back to Jake, but he was already past her, striding toward the middle of the street standing about ten metres in front of the Keeper.

"Hey!" called Jake. "Keeper!" The enourmous robots head swivelled and looked at Jake. It's monotone voice sounded like stones hitting the ground.

//RETURN TO YOUR DOMICILE. CURFEW IS IN EFFECT.//

Jake hefted the Short Grenade. "I don't think so, Keeper."

//RETURN TO YOUR DOMICILE. CURFEW IS IN EFFECT. THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING.//

Jake pulled the tab off the grenade. "Get bent, Keeper. Here is a little something from the New Day!"

Jake hurled the grenade at the Keeper's head.


Right, that'll do for now. Hope you enjoyed it.

Rocco's Random Number is 1564 which will take you to A Diamond in the Dark. Which has an amusing post about Machiavelli and Mini Golf on it on it.

Rock on,

W.