Chapter 0:

Prologue

Thorns in Paradise


Alex finds himself sitting on the livingroom's bay window sill in his one bedroom apartment. The history book his grandfather had given him is laying in his lap. For his gaze is outside on the newly brought from the past group of kids heading to the high school. 

Being on the third floor let's you see most everything. The old wall in the distance around the city. The tram rails and shops. People and bots walking to random places. The taller building in the middle of town where "peace" is kept. 

Alex's attention drifts back to the high school kids. Most of them are wearing newly bought clothes from here. The athletic boys are wearing track suits with the built in heating and cooling systems. A few girls are wearing the smart skirts that are programmed to flutter a little but not all the way up. But two girls stuck out from the crowd. Near the back of the herd was a girl with straight longer black hair, a white tank top barely covered with a grey sweater and a short red and black plaid skirt with black boots. The other girl had a mess of shoulder length red hair, faded ripped up blue jeans, a grey t-shirt and cowboy boots. 

They seem to be enjoying their conversation with each other.

"Well aren't you two interesting." He says to himself.

He glances at the analog clock his grandfather insisted he have.

"And I'm running late for work." He says setting the book on a shelf in his minimalistic tan livingroom before walking out the door. He gets on his sleak electro magnetic bike that wraps him in protective black with red accented clothes and a helmet before he takes off.

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"Wow girl you really didn't try today did you?" Stacy asks Lizzy. "And fix your pant leg your boots look funny when only one top is showing."

"Well sorry I care about living creatures more than my own appearances." Lizzy says fixing her pant leg before trying to tame her mane of red hair with her hands.

"Calm down. I will fix your hair once we are at school. I knew you would look this way." Stacy holds out a hair tie. "Here. Use this for now."

"Oh you're the best friend." Lizzy grabs the hair tie and puts her hair into a low pony tail.

"I already know." Stacy gives her a smile.

"I wonder how many guys we will meet today." Stacy ponders out loud.

"You? Probably a few with that outfit. Me? I hope to stay invisible." Lizzy says watching an electro magnetic bike fly by. "I'm still not use to vehicles without wheels."

"Yea the explanation of how the electro magnetic thing worked went right over my head." Stacy admits.

"Yea me too." Lizzy agrees. She looks up to the windows that are the new style of solar panels. Hovering robots trim the foliage growing from the sides of buildings to keep the windows clear.

"I do like the greenery that this city has. Our town had a lot of trees but going to the big city with just cement, noise and smell." Lizzy shutters.

"What if some of us liked that? Huh?" Stacy jokes with Lizzy. 

Stacy wanted to move to the big city after high school to be in cosmetology. Lizzy? She still wants to be a large animal veterinarian.

"Well there's the school. Ready?" Stacy skips a head a little.

"Nope." Lizzy turns on the heel of her boot at the sight of new people.

"Oh no you don't!" Stacy grabs Lizzy's arm and drags her into the school.

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Alex does his best to sneak into the maintenance work area on the second floor.

"You're late." Alex's grandpa says not looking up from his work station.

"By a few minutes." He protests.

"Integrity these days must be lost." Grandpa mumbles to himself. "How about this to make up for it. Blue eye Bob broke his Soleil again. I need you to go get it."

"You would have made me go get it even if I wasn't late. Don't try pulling that one on me." He turns to go to the uniform closet after setting his lunch on the table he works at.

"Huh maybe it's my youth that is lost." Grandpa chuckles to himself.

Alex sighs and slips on the white one piece suit and white hat. He looks in the mirror to see tufts of red hair peeking out from under his hat. His pale green eyes are looking back at him. A small splatter of freckles covers his nose.

He grabs the control panel device before heading down to the paddocks. Alex wakes up the device with a shake. The touch screen glass lights up showing which paddock to go to. The metal around the outside edge is scratched bad from wear and tear. Caring for robots that care for animals isn't the funnest job but at least the pay is decent. 

Alex pulls up the camera feeds on his walk to the end of the cattle paddocks where the bulls are kept. Cameras show Bob outside grazing on some grass. With a few quick taps on the screen, gates shut to keep Alex safe while he retrieves the broken Soleil from the inside pen.

"Jeez you really had to smash it to pieces? How did you even manage that?" Alex asks pulling up the recorded camera feed. The video showed the bull bucking to the point he was almost vertical and the Soleil flying into a wall. Then there was a solid hour of footage of the bull rolling the Soleil around before stepping on it.

Alex picks up what he could find of the dead machine. Using his device he puts in the input for the pen to be cleaned and rebedded. Then a timer for the gates to open for Bob to make his way back inside later. Along with another robot to scan him for injuries.

Cleaning bots hover past Alex on his way back to the maintenance room. Alex throws his uniform into the bin that washes, dries and folds the uniforms. Then gets to work on salvaging the broken bot.

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"Lunch time!" Grandpa says happily pulling out a bologna sandwich. Then he does his normal flipping through camera feeds while eating. 

He does this even though there is no need to. The Soleils take care of everything for the most part. And it's all fed through the computer program. If there is an urgent problem they will get a message.

"Well look at that." Grandpa puts his sandwich down. Clicking and enlarging a video feed.

"What?" Alex asks from his chair not bothering to look.

"She just petted Blue eyed Bob." Grandpa is leaning into the screen quite a bit.

Alex bolts from his chair and stands behind his Grandpa.

"There ain't no one there." Alex scuffs.

"Hold on. Hold on." Grandpa says clicking around on the screen.

He pulls up the multi camera feeds. There is the same red haired girl Alex saw this morning walking through the next barn. She stops at a goat pen then hops the gate.

"Visitors aren't allowed in there! That is a bio-secured area! How did she not set any alarms off?" Alex throws on a clean uniform and nearly bursts down the door.

A Soleil named Amethyst appears on the video feed. Grandpa enlarges the video and picks up his sandwich.

"Oh this is going to be good." He says taking a bite and turning up the computer volume.

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