MY SAVAGE CELLS - First Chapter (YA Sci Fi)

[Brady Hart]

FIRST CHAPTER: Antagonist introduced. Tone and sci-fi setting introduced. A tragedy sets in motion the Protag's emotional arc and the mystery of the book.

 

 

CHAPTER 1 – DEEN’S DAD GOES MAD

 

 

 

It’s a shame to be losing my mind on such a good night.

As my ten-year-old son Deen hops carefully over the colorful reflections in a puddle, he looks up. I smile as his wondrous eyes track the multicolored glints that flutter around in the air like butterflies. Funny little balls of light, glints. Usually only yellow, green, and blue ones come out. But tonight, the air sparkles with the whole rainbow. Deen ignores my outstretched hand in a spirit of independence and hop-steps over the next puddle, this one painted with the reflections of oranges, reds, indigos, and even the rare violets. Means only one thing when all the colors are out—a big game is going on somewhere on the island.

I look up through the cloud of glints at Rami, my older boy, who’s waiting quietly for me and Deen to get out of the way before he follows. I try to catch his eyes, but he won’t look at me.

Lower Sanguine, or “LS” to those of us who call the hillside neighborhood home, has so many houses packed together on its sheer slopes that it breeds a certain kind of person out of its residents. A proud, salty kind of person who doesn’t mind scaling a sea of staircases many times a day. Staircase Mountain, they should call this place.

We turn and start down the next flight of white painted stairs slowly, bracing against walls that seem to close in around us. In a particularly dark stretch of the alley, there’s a broken flowerpot I nearly trip on. I turn around to warn Deen. When I do, I glance into the darkness behind him and see The Figure there, crammed into a dark gap between two walls. He watches me carefully, motionless. Though he’s been following me for weeks, I’m not worried for our safety. He’s only something I’ve created in my mind. You do that when you’re going insane… imagine things that aren’t really there.

A soft tone dings in my ear and a tiny voice speaks so quietly only I can hear. “You are experiencing a spike in anticipation and excitement. Chemical moderation has been engaged.”

Blasted Emotiv. I grunt and fiddle with the little device behind my ear, toggling it to a low update setting. Work requires us to run the thing with full notifications to manage stress, and I’ve forgotten to dial it down since I finished my shift at the trainyard. Anticipation? Excitement? No smuk! As if tonight isn’t what I’ve been clinging to for months. What I live for every day. The only thing tethering me to the ground.

“Are we gonna see any players tonight, Dad?” Deen asks casually. His voice is loud in the quiet of the vacant alleys. I look around as if to make excuse for his loudness, but of course there’s no real person there. Only The Figure, jammed in the blackness of the tight space behind us, uncaring that his pinkish-white broomstick arms are bent at strange angles in order to fit.

“I don’t think so, Deenamite,” I say. “The action tonight is mostly across the city over in Osteon. That’s why it’s so quiet here.”

He nods, looking deflated and we reach the bottom of the winding staircase.

Another cramped landing, indistinguishable from the dozens. Healthy potted plants stand guard at every window. I can hear the broadcast of the Crossbound game through one of them. I see green and blue glints hovering in front of the doors at eye level like guests waiting to be let in.

A green glint breaks apart on my chest as I walk into it, the individual light specks reforming into their shape when I’m through. I turn back and Rami is dawdling, trying to see the game through one of the windows.

“Rami, keep up. We can’t get separated,” I growl, wishing my natural way to speak to him wasn’t so gruff. He looks up to glare at me and I brace myself for what he’s going to say. It’ll be something expertly cruel, no doubt. Nobody’s tongue cuts quite like my Rami’s. We’ve already spat fire at each other tonight, but it’s been a whole thirty minutes so we’re due for another go.

“High reading: anxiety and anger,” my Emotiv whispers in my ear.

I wait for Rami to snap back, but he remains silent. I move on to the next crooked stairway, releasing a tight breath of air.

And on we go through an eerie quiet. Another landing to the right, another tight stairway to the left. Another tiny, overgrown courtyard lit by the colorful dancing lights in the air.

“Dad, why are we going in circles?” Deen asks finally.

I chuckle, amazed at how bright the boy is. I’m one wrong turn from being completely lost in my own neighborhood and Deen—at ten years old—can tell easily that I’m stalling, leading them in circles.

I whisper deviously. “Maybe it has to do with… the surprise.”

Deen’s frown is sharp. “Rami says you’re lying and there isn’t any surprise.”

I freeze at the top of a staircase and swivel to glare at my older son, feeling my anger boil. Behind him is The Figure, backed into another dark corner, watching me. I ignore it and check the wearable on my wrist.

It’s time.

I take a breath and pretend to be nonchalant. “Well… the delivery bots should be gone by now. Why don’t we go home and see what they did or didn’t bring?”

Deen stiffens, eyes wide. Rami actually looks interested.

Deen bursts. “The surprise! I knew it was real!”

I smile devilishly and take the stairs down two at a time, cackling like a villain. Deen runs after me, giggling.

Then suddenly we’re free.

Like mice climbing out of a bramble, we emerge from the tight alley onto a larger cobblestone street that slopes down the mountain, open to the night air on the downhill side. A breeze that smells like the ocean dances up to us, playing with Deen’s messy black hair and the loose Spectrum jersey Rami’s wearing. The street is nearly empty. Only a maintenance bot working on a nearby street lamp makes any sound.

I swallow some clean, ocean air and feel a little better about things. And when I glance back into the shadowed alleyways we've come from and The Figure doesn't emerge, my anxiety dims even more. Maybe the good night won't be spoiled after all.

“Come on, you two, home is just up that hill,” I point, but Deen’s already running in the right direction. I laugh and follow him.

 

 

“Are you boys ready?” I ask dramatically, standing in the dark, quiet alley outside our front door. My sons nod their heads quickly. I open the door and we hurry inside to find the dark shape commanding the center of our living room. The shock in the boys’ eyes is delicious.

A silverback gorilla.

The muscly, black animal is huge, hammocked in a storage frame with thick ropes and straps. The jacket’s eyes are closed and it’s not moving—there’s no mind in it, of course. It was grown cell for cell in a machine like any other animal jacket. I whistle long and slow. I’ve seen the beast already since it shipped in a month ago, but it’s still impressive. The thing is truly massive: its arms and legs look thicker than my waist.

Err—arm and legs. The gorilla’s left shoulder ends in a stub.

“Surprise!” I whisper, almost reverently. “What do you think?!”

It’s Deen who breaks the silence. “It’s awesome Dad!” he whispers, gazing up at the gorilla like a puppy looking up at an older dog. “A real ape jacket!”

I draw a headline in the air and say, in a pretend announcer's voice, “Rami Arnabbo, hotshot Redknuckle brawler from Lower Sanguine qualifies for The Seagarden Cup! What do you think of that, Ram? You could make us famous!”

Deen wanders up to the gorilla.

But Rami just frowns. “It’s junk. I hate it.”

I wish I wasn’t so weak that his words sting. But they do.

I sigh, “Look, Rami… It’s missing an arm, sure, but that's why I was able to buy him! He almost sold three different times while I was saving up for him, but the buyers kept backing out because of the arm. And it practically cost me my own arm—and a leg—to make the down payment, but he's worth it! The two cat jackets he shipped in with went for millions of thalas! Plus, I think we can probably build a replacement arm with parts I scrounge in the train yard.”

“I don’t like Redknuckle. I like Crossbound. And I wanted a lion bot.” Rami mumbles, then disappears into his and Deen’s bedroom.

I’m uncomfortable. I should’ve known he’d hate my gift. Any second my Emotiv is going to start yelling at me about anger because I can feel it boiling. I feel sick to my stomach. Only a moment ago things were looking up. And now, the darkness is back. Rushing in like—

“Woah! This says he’s older than you, Dad!” Deen blurts. He’s already flipping easily through the settings on the gorilla’s module.

I smile fondly. He’s such a sharp boy. Smarter than I was at his age. It’s in that moment, looking at Deen, that the realization thumps in my chest. Rami may never see things the way I do. But maybe it’s not about Rami.

And right then it happens.

You pathetic failure of a father, The Whisper says in my head in a resonating voice. I freeze as the hateful words echo loud in my skull. Pitiful. Rami will never love you. I told you he’d rather be with his mother. Or with anyone else. You should give up.

Not now! Lately, I get The Figure on most days. But it’s only on really bad days that I get The Whisper, too. I start to panic. I can’t do this tonight… Not in front of my boys.

“Go away!” I mutter under my breath. And I immediately regret it. When I acknowledge The Whisper, it seems to get stronger. Deen looks at me funny.

You don’t tell me what to do! I tell you what to do! You’re nothing! You’re waste! You’re rot! You’re—

I hold my head, trying to squeeze it out.

I can make it end—the suffering. You’re so bad alive… why not try something else? Just come out and see me for a few minutes. We’ll take a nice swim!

Pacing furiously around the room, I notice Rami peeking out of the bedroom. He shares a worried glance with Deen. I should say something. I should reassure them. They must know what this is by now. They’ve seen it.

They have to know their father has lost his mind.

The Whisper starts to speak again and in a moment of panic I turn and point a violent finger at Rami.

“This is your fault!” I shout and he winces as if I’ve struck him. Immediately I regret it, hating myself. Rami disappears into his room. “No, Rami,” I backpedal, rubbing my face, “I didn’t mean that… I’m sorry… I…”

But when he reappears, he’s carrying his running away backpack.

“Where are you going?!” I whimper, blocking the wide doorway to our gardens.

“Wherever I can be free of you!” He growls, “You’ll never be a good dad! You’re poor! You don’t have a good job! You can’t even afford a normal jacket! I don’t need you. I’m leaving.”

He turns and heads to a window. Deen tries to stop his brother but gets pushed out of the way. Rami climbs up onto the sill and jumps out, landing in the overgrown, dried-up canal that bumps up against the back of our house. I hurry out through the archway into our garden.

“Rami, stop!”

My madness shows me The Figure crouched out in the bushes, watching us fight. Rami runs right past it, disappearing in the warm night air.

Before I can go after him I hear Deen crying. I stop and sigh. I’ve told him. I’ve tried to explain that Rami is growing up and doesn’t know how to express himself. That Rami and I will work through our disagreements. I walk over and sit on the floor by him.

“I’m so sorry, Deenamite. I lost my temper again.” As my Emotiv warns of spikes in anger and sadness, he sobs softly in my arms.

“It’s okay Dad. I forgive you,” he says, looking into my eyes with sparkling cheeks. “Rami is so mean sometimes.”

I never deserved Deen. I wish for the hundredth time that he had been the first, and Rami had come second.

“Why don’t you go get us both a drink of water?” I ask him quietly.

He nods and leaves the room and I take a few deep breaths.

The faucet turns on in the kitchen and then Deen shouts over the sound. “Dad? Who is that? Out in the canal?”

I shout back, tired, “Don't worry about him. It’s just The Fig—”

Wait.

I jump to my feet and hurry to the kitchen, heart thudding. Deen’s gazing out over the garden boxes to where Rami just jumped out into the canal bed. The Figure is there in the weeds, his misshapen form like a tree among the bushes.

“You—you can s—see him?” I choke. My chest is heaving back and forth, drawing tiny breaths that are too small to carry any good oxygen.

Deen’s curiously quiet. “Yeah, Dad. I saw him earlier too, but when I looked he ran away. Who is he?”

And then it starts moving toward us, clawing through the bushes slowly.

I grab Deen’s arm and rush him to the front door. I yank it open, pull him through and slam it shut behind us. The glass rattles loudly in the iron frame. There’s no one in our little alley. I’m panting, struggling to draw in breath, starting into a panic attack.

“Tamana,” I choke, pointing to the house next door. “Go to Tamana, now. I—I’ll be there in a minute.”

Deen nods obediently and goes. The neighbor woman has been kind enough to watch him on nights when I’ve been out searching for Rami. She’ll do it again. I go back into our house and rush to the kitchen. I look out into the garden, afraid of what I’ll see.

The Figure is halfway to the house, long arms dragging through the carrots and potatoes.

You need to teach Rami a lesson, says The Whisper. His voice echoes through our home like it’s bleeding out of every wall. I’m petrified. My legs don’t want to move. I feel my mind and body losing their grip on one another. I swear I see The Figure’s fleshy limbs flopping and dangling at strange angles like there’re no bones inside but that can’t be, because it looks like a man—but no, it’s not a man, because it’s in my head and Deen couldn’t have seen it because it’s in my head and He COULDN’T HAVE seen it so he must have imagined it like me because I’ve just imagined it and—

You need to show him the kind of pain he causes you. Make him feel it. Amazingly, The Whisper’s sharp voice is the thing that rips me out of the next wave of my panic attack. I could do it. I could make him hurt.

I’ve almost got my legs to move. I’m so close! But my mind is a mud pit of bubbling emotions. My Emotiv must have failed—that’s the only explanation for why it’s gone silent when I can hardly think through the mess of panic, fear and anger.

Laughter. High-pitched.

The Whisper seems different tonight. Sharper. Harder. Angrier. I don’t know if it’s controlling The Figure or not—The Figure's mouth doesn't move when The Whisper talks—but I'm sure they have to be connected somehow. I yell, pressing the sides of my head in with my hands. I squint, hoping they’ll be gone when I open my eyes. “YOU’RE. IN. MY. HEAD!”

No, no, no. You couldn’t create me. Your mind is small and weak. It doesn’t create. It just ruins.

The Figure is two steps away from me. I feel hot liquid in my veins, the panic turning into pure adrenaline. Something snaps in my brain, and I finally summon enough strength to dash back to the front door. I burst out into the alley.

I glance frantically at Tamana’s house. Deen will be safe inside, drawing or playing a game on a screen. For a split second I want to go in and just forget about The Whisper and Rami. That boy is trouble. He’ll never listen… never respect me.

But I know I can’t do that. He’s my boy. Even if he hates me, I have to try to keep him safe. I know his favorite places to hide. I’ll check them one by one. I have to make sure The Figure doesn’t get to him before I do.

Swallowing some courage, I turn and run down the street into the darkness.

 

***

 

In the morning, Deen wakes up when he hears Miss Tamana open the front door. Stretching, he sits up and rubs his eyes. He can hear her talking to someone outside. Deep voices are telling her something and it sounds important.

Hmmm, he thinks. That can’t be right.

The voices sound like police bots, but Miss Tamana wouldn’t ever get in trouble. She’s too nice!

Carefully, Deen climbs from the bed and tiptoes toward the doorway. When he peeks into the main room, Miss Tamana has her hands on her mouth like she’s upset. Through the doorway Deen sees metallic body panels.

He listens as the bots ask her lots of questions about Daddy and Rami. They’re using big words like ‘tragedy’ and ‘investigation,’ and ‘guardianship,’ and it makes him confused. While he listens, he hears words he does recognize like ‘drowned’ and ‘eighteen citizens,’ but these words don’t make him feel very nice. When Miss Tamana starts crying, Deen feels like he’s heard something he shouldn’t have and scuttles back into the bedroom to snuggle under the sheets.

A few minutes later, the front door closes, and Miss Tamana comes into the bedroom.

“Deen?” she whispers.

When he pokes his head out, her eyes are red and she’s crying. He knows something is very wrong. He wants to ask but he’s scared. More scared than he’s ever been. More scared than even last night, when Daddy and Rami had a really bad fight, and that creepy man was outside in the canal…

Miss Tamana wipes tears from her eyes and sniffles.

“I n—need to tell you something very sad, Deen. I’m so, so, sorry.”

 

 

 

***NOTE: This chapter acts as a prologue. The next chapter begins six years later and Deen (now sixteen) will be our protagonist for the rest of the book. It was important to flash back to the night his father died mysteriously because the tragedy will 1) act as the driving force behind Deen's emotional arc and 2) tie into the modern timeline in the novel in which the murderous being Deen's father called "The Whisper" reemerges and begins tormenting the city for a second time.***