When Copper Suns Fall (5 page)

“I, well, I don’t have any of those.” I
cooperated. This wasn’t the time to show off my anti-charmed
personality. How did I miss seeing a border guard standing so close
to the area?

He pulled out a compureader, frowned at it,
and focused his brown eyes back on me. “So, I guess you don’t have
a name, either?” Laughter from his partner who strolled over to
where we stood.

I smirked. “Chela Prizeon.”

“Shane Prizeon, for damaging property with
your—”

“It’s Chela. Not Shane. Do I look like a
boy?” So much for tongue control.

He gave me a long, dark look. “Do you really
want me to answer that question?” My cheeks heated. More laughter
from the partner. His pimpled face reminded me of a polka-dotted
photo enhanced by his red shirt.

“There are a lot of people out here. But you
choose to pick on me,” I said. He hesitated, as if considering my
brave accusation. So, I kept going. “You didn’t really see me do
anything, did you?”

“Funny thing is, I did see something,” he
said. I held my breath. My bluff tactic wasn’t working. “I saw you
standing there with your hands aimed at the store. And then, bam!
Glass was all over the place. What were you doing? Trying out a new
dance? Because I kind of thought, you were using magic. But stuff
like that is illegal, right?”

What was he playing at? “In case you were too
busy rescuing flowers to notice, I just saved someone’s life,” I
said.

“That sounds fantastic,” he said in a loud,
sarcastic voice as if using intimidation would frighten me. It
probably wouldn’t hurt if I gave in. I could play the scared-girl
role, if necessary. “Now, how about handing over the weapon you
used on those stores.” He was baiting me, trying to see if I would
confess to using an illegal power.

Panic rushed over me. I wracked my brain for
a quick response. “I—I got scared and, well, I threw the weapon
over the fence.” Stupid, insane response. What was I thinking with
that one? True, there was a fence behind the old wooden platform;
but it stood at fifty-feet high and twice that amount in distance
away from us.

“Is that the best line you could come up
with?” A smile crept across his lips. He knew I was lying and
wanted to play with me first. If he were a Thoughtmaster, I’d be on
my way to the Barrows. They could sense a lie better than any of
the other four groups. He exchanged glances with his partner, and I
stood there with my palms sweating as if tear ducts had grown in my
hands.

Metal clanged to the ground beside me. His
partner dropped a crowbar at my feet. I defied and lied to them.
Now I’d be paying for it. “That’s not mine, and you know it.”

“No, I don’t. But I do know there’s a store
that has broken glass all over the place. You said you lost your
weapon, right? Unless…” He hissed the last syllable. “You caused
all that damage by using something else.”

I stared the two older boys down. The leader
stepped closer to my face and cocked his head to the side. If he
didn’t have so many cockroach qualities, he’d be attractive.

“You seem to have a problem with authority,
Shane Prizeon. Maybe the SOCS need to have a word with you about
endangering its citizens.”

“It’s my crowbar. I damaged the stores.” I
forced myself to lower my eyes, as I studied his boots with the
laces undone. Images of old sneakers laced together flickered
through my mind. The border guard’s strings began to stir in a
breeze. I squeezed my eyes shut to clear the memory. Last thing I
needed was to be accused of injuring a guard.

“That sounds like what I wanted to hear. Feel
lucky this is costing week, or I’d have the SOCS haul your scrawny
body off to the Barrows. Now, for damaging Castle Hayne property
and working without proper ID, you’ve been summoned by Servant of
the Heart BP-56 to appear in, um…um, District Court number 14.” He
shifted his weight and glanced at his compureader.

Wonderful. I got carded by a boy who couldn’t
even remember his lines. One who given the nature of my citation
should be loading me into an airvan. But he didn’t. Why?

“Again, I saved someone’s life. That counts
for three points in the costing bowl,” I said, keeping my gaze on
the ground.

“Then, I’ll make sure to find a way for you
to tell them how super you are in person.” My heart cart wheeled.
Obedience was never my thing. I glanced up at him. No, I glared at
him. His lips twitched into a wry smile as he tapped the screen on
the silver machine he’d use to inscribe my court date into the
detention card.

Still not ready to act like a puppet, I tried
a different approach. “My father is a Historian. He’s on the
Tribunal’s panel. Wait until he finds out you did this to me,” I
said, shoving the sinking feeling down into my chest, hoping to
look a bit braver.

“We know all about your daddy and your
infected brother, too. What a waste of Castle Hayne’s money. Now
get on about your business.” Handing the card to me was probably
the height of his night. Still shaking his head and smiling the
handsome cockroach grin, he shoved his compureader back into a
pouch, and walked toward the other border guards discussing the
damage I’d caused with the storeowners.

Over by the damaged shops, four SOCS lingered
a moment longer. Holding taser guns the size of my arms, they
stared at me from behind black glasses, making me want to run away
in jittery fright. I squeezed my left fist until the knuckles
throbbed. The soldier on the left lowered his head and tilted it as
if my fidgeting distracted him. He took a slow step toward me. I
held my breath and wondered why the Sons of Created Shade never
said anything. After a few moments, he turned and walked away. I
did the same.

Father was going to put me under the
Q-train.

I studied the card as I walked. Under the
lights, the clear plastic gleamed. A black barcode plastered across
the centre held my fate. Jalen wrote the book on card hacking. He’d
be able to read my date, and the task etched in the band. I faced
one of two things—Minders camp or Swordfest. With most kids who got
carded, their parents hoped for Swordfest, a short but sometimes
mildly violent competition between both the accused and the
innocent ones. I’d been bitten by the fencing bug long ago.
Swordfest was the lesser of the two evils for me too.

Or was it? What did I know about wicked
things?

As government kids, Micah and me had
experienced sheltered lives.

Somewhat dazed from the trouble I found, I
wandered back toward the place where I’d left Jalen. I felt the
SOCS staring as I walked away, eyes hidden behind those black
glasses. Forget how people praised them, the soldiers known as
Castle Hayne’s most dedicated protectors. They were bad. I knew it,
and hoped I’d never experience it ever again. I didn’t glance back
as I hurried over to Jalen standing beside a ride called the Whip
Crasher.

He gave me a cheesy grin as I approached. Two
girls from school were chatting with him. I grabbed his wrist,
pulling him through the crowds and toward the exit.

“Want to tell me, who or what we’re running
from? Never mind you pulled me away from one of the greatest
conquests of my life back there,” Jalen said as I led him toward
the exit.

“Walk now. Make useless statements in a bit,”
I said.

Just before reaching the exit gates, the
creepy-neck tickles inched up my hairline again. I glanced to my
left. The glowing tourist girl stood by the visitor’s booth twenty
feet away from us. At first, she stared at me with a blank face.
Why was she at the park? Her group had turned in over two hours
ago. Then her inner beam, that creepy intuitive look clicked on,
and she smiled—the one that made her glow. She waved. I didn’t.

Outside the gates, Jalen walked beside me in
silence. We headed across the Metalwalk, and toward the Cradleshack
sitting on a sand dune at the opposite end of the walkway. In the
future, I would not be breaking anymore promises to me. Especially
ones I made to keep me out of Gargoyle Park.

After a while, he said, “I might need to
clean out my ears, but I thought I heard a dying bull back there.”
I stayed silent, because I knew he meant the border guard’s horn. I
was pretty sure not too many people missed the blast that was loud
enough to wake everybody in the city. He respected my stubbornness,
and didn’t say anything else as we neared the end of the
Metalwalk.

After the longest walk ever, we came to the
Shack’s entrance gates situated between two oaks filled with
crowbots. I turned to Jalen.

His face brightened. I guess he realized what
I wouldn’t say. “Come on, Chela. Stop treating me this way. Did you
get in trouble, or what?” I nodded, squeezing my left fist.

“I got blamed for busting up some windows.” I
pulled the card out of my pocket and gave it to him. “They didn’t
even want to hear about the girl I helped, though.” Muriel’s
angelic face and the strange rosy rock she wore drifted into my
mind. I’d seen a stone like that somewhere before. But where? Maybe
in a dream?

I gave him an edited version of what
happened. He glanced around, pulled a compureader out from inside
his vest, and slid my citation into the slot. He studied the screen
and frowned.

They didn’t waste any time. The court date
was set for Monday morning, costing day number 1. And if Jalen
didn’t put his illegal reader away, he’d be joining me for a real
duel instead of a practice one. The border guard made well on his
promise to humiliate me. I would be standing before the Judges on
the most popular ceremony of the year. “Don’t worry, Chela, I won’t
let them ship you off to the Barrows.” He stuffed the box back into
his vest and adjusted the sleeves on his tee shirt.

“Okay. That’s wonderful,” I said.

“For real, though. This isn’t good.” I wanted
him to tell me something I didn’t already know.

I hated I couldn’t say anything about the
real reason behind my troubles. I used an old memory to change
something that happened in the present.

Four girls strolled by us standing at the
entrance. They giggled at Jalen who didn’t glance back at them.

“I’m messaging Lexa. We can get an idea of
which one of a thousand places she could be standing.” I pulled out
my cellereader, a card-sized thing with more attitude than me. It
was pretty much a text machine that read your thumb imprint,
another way for the Tribunal to track its youngest citizens. I
looked forward to receiving the talking version in two years.

“Some confidence in your friends, please. I
can just go in and get her,” Jalen said in a sing-song way.

I smirked. The idea of being in the crowded
Shack sent shivers up my spine. I’d already found too much trouble
tonight. Plus, I still felt a bit shaky since I didn’t get a chance
to use anything in the medroom. “Um, we’ll wait for her
answer.”

Wind gusted around us. Heavy bass vibrated in
my eardrums and chest. I prepared to message Lexa.

“Think you’ll get a signal under those?”
Jalen pointed above our heads. Lights danced in the sky like an
electrical storm with rainbow colored fingers reaching down over
the Shack’s rooftop.

“You’re so encouraging tonight, Jalen. Remind
me to send a thank-you cake someday soon.”

He shrugged. “Hey, I’m just making a
point.”

“Yeah, and that point would be why we should
go in the Shack, right?” He made praying hands and tilted his face
on them. “There’s not one innocent bone in your body.”

The cellereader’s screen blinked on and off.
Then the icons sprinkled back across it. My inbox had two new
messages. The first note came from Father and my stepmother, Bess,
certified bumblers of the memo arts. The next one was an old
message sent by Lexa earlier in the day, reminding us to pick her
up from the Cradleshack.

“Everything all right?” Jalen asked.

“Yeah. One is from Lexa. The other one is
from Father asking me to let my stepmother’s mush-brained daughter
in the house tonight,” I said.

“They act like Audrina’s younger than you.
Man, I know that’s annoying.”

“Truly an underrated word in this case,” I
said, wondering how Audrina the lollipop queen managed to avoid
getting carded, unlike me who already got one before my sixteenth
birthday.

I’d blown Father’s be-home-by-six o’clock
request by over an hour. The odor drifting on top of the salty
smell increased. A metallic scent added to the parade of stink,
now. Life in Castle Hayne meant getting used to odors: mildew,
sewage, something like dead fish. Tonight the air contained a crazy
mix of all those smells.

How much more drama could I handle in one
day? Micah’s movement, Dr.Van Meter’s removal notice, the detention
card in my pocket, curly blonde tourists stalking me, saving a
kid’s life, but then getting punished for it—a whole gang of
craziness.

I sighed and glanced at the cellereader’s
blank screen. Jalen folded his arms, whistling into the air, smug
in knowing he’d won. We’d have to go in the Shack.

Stupidity over intelligence…round ten.

Chapter Five – Shadow Knights

“Okay, we go in, find Lex, leave. That’s the
plan,” I said.

“Come on, Chela. Curfew is in a couple of
hours. This place is hot tonight.” He made a funny gesture with his
feet. Hair flipped over his eyes. Two girls strolled by, giggled,
and waved at Jalen who didn’t return the favor.

“News feed time. I got carded. Micah might be
facing an early termination. And did you catch that last part?”

He slumped. “I know. I’m just saying you’re
not on trial at this very second. Anyway, James the super Historian
dad can handle everything, right?” I shook my head. Would my super
father be able to have a citation removed? For some reason, I
didn’t find much comfort in the idea. Even those of us with parents
working for the Tribunal could push the Judges’ patience to the
extreme. And I did not want to be the one put on display as the
token girl.