Prelude I: Life as a seedling

I’ve always lived my life not caring about what happens around me. It wasn’t my job anyway, but that wasn’t the point, I just didn’t wanna care, because I knew it would bring more problems to me, problems that weren’t mine to begin with.

I lived the first 10 years of my life with my parents who were always pushing their responsibilities upon each other like me and my brother were chores, because of this I often ended up doing most of the daily tasks, cooking, cleaning, shopping and taking care of my little brother. There were days they wouldn’t come home, sometimes they would come late, at times different from each other’s.

Before I was 14, they both left us with nothing than an apartment with overdue rent, some kitchen utensils, some books on the shelf, a bed, a little bit of undersized clothing and a bag of rice lesser than three kilograms. Everything they left was disorderly placed in the living room, the other two large rooms were locked, leaving us with the bathroom, toilet, the kitchen and dining area conjoined with the living room. My brother, Ricky, was probably too young to remember this, he was 6.

It was pretty obvious that I have to do something to keep us alive, but what was I going to do? I observed and investigated the crime-filled streets to know what the other children were doing to get by, that was when I first learned of H3 BATTERIES, Superbatteries that generate energy from existing external energy, kinetic and heat, while using the energy stored in them, they vary in sizes and shapes but one thing that makes it easy to recognize is its transparent compartment filled with a light blue liquid substance, the compartments are located between the terminals, terminals that are marked with a barely visible plus and minus sign. At that time I didn’t know what it’s used for, but I already knew how one looks like.

It took me five days gathering information on the batteries, other recyclable materials, where to sell them, where to get them and how much to sell them for.

On the sixth day, I cooked the last ration of the rice, no stew or anything to back it up with, just white rice and water. Through the previous five days, I had been taking Ricky with me to gather information, he would complain about getting tired and hungry, and ask where mom and dad were, normally I’d just dodge the question by ignoring him or saying something like “Mom said she wanted us get a cake for your birthday”, but He almost saw through my lie on the last day, I doubt that any simple story is going to cut it, plus, we would do more than walk a few meters. The previous day, I was lucky to find a partially empty notebook and a full pen, so I was hoping he would stay at home without doing much but remembering the broken door lock wouldn’t put my mind at ease.

“Ricky, uhmm… we will be going outside today…”

That was what I could say, I don’t know how to tell him we were going to walk kilometers picking up blue sparkly objects. He abruptly stopped eating, raised up his head and stared at me, his face sterned and focused unlike how happy his expression was at all times.

”…to meet mom” I added.

then suddenly his mood lightened up as he was shouting “yay, mommy, we will see mommy, is daddy there too?!”, fumbling each word he uttered.

“yes” I replied while I enlongated my mouth to express assurance.

“and we will be eating lots of food too, Vic?”

“yes, if you don’t trouble them much”

“I will be a good boy! oh and maybe we will get to eat cakes too”

“hmm, hmm”

As I nodded in agreement, I started thinking of an excuse to use when the day ends.

I Shouldn’t have lied to him like that, now I can’t think of any plausible excuse to use. Well it doesn’t matter as long as I can get him food, he would forget about them. The most pressing matter right now is starvation.

“are you done eating?”

“yes, Vic”

He didn’t complain about not getting full, even though today’s food is smaller than yesterday’s

“put the plates in the sink, and put the water bottle in the bag”

“Ok”

When I was done with the dishes, I put on my bag, a black backpack with an yellow honeycomb pattern lines having a single yellow hexagonal unit at the center, it looks valuable which made me think they forgot to take this with them or maybe they left in a hurry. Either way, I was happy it was left behind. I went through the rectangular metallic door frame and waited for Ricky to come outside.

I briefly scanned through the areas we would be going through, about twelve city blocks away, each city block having at least one sky-high skyscraper.

I stared at the sun from the 14 story building on which our apartment is located on the 12th. This was the first time I actually looked at the rising sun, casting shadows of dilapidated buildings opposite the building I was in, on the worn out roads that had most of its markings scratched off. It was an odd view I got used to.

I’ve seen it so many times but today it is beautiful.

“Vic, Vic!”

“Oh ok, let’s go”

“What were you looking at?”

“Nothing. Now, keep quiet, till we get to the bottom, just like we did yesterday”

We carefully made our way to the bottom of of the building, making as less sound as we can. If we are reported by the other tenants, we would definitely be locked out of the apartment. We finally reached the bottom, moved a few meters from the house and continued our pointless conversation.

My ready planned area of search shone in low light, few people walking across the streets in a disorderly manner, buildings with their paint shedding and walls cracked.

When searching for H3 batteries, the hard part about the job wasn’t really selling the batteries, it was walking for long distances to just to get one of them which could be sold, anyone would definitely find one over a short distance, 3km to 5km, but they worth according to how much reusable energy is left in it, therefore finding one that has little energy meant it will sell for less or won’t be bought sometimes. As for why they were thrown out, i did not know.

The streets has a mixed residence, the fairly rich and the fairly poor, some call it the middle class. They don’t have much physical separation from the poor, it’s easy to see that. but its also easy to see that they aren’t really friendly with the lower class. The middle class blocks, or clusters as the middle class refer to it, were surrounded by fences with bare electric wires lined up in them to prevent breaking through the fences and on top of them to prevent climbing over the fences. Their buildings also look cleaner and secluded than the other buildings around it as if it were to make a contrasting comparison between them and the other clusters on the same street. In a neighborhood like this, doors have to be opened only to people you fully trust. The neighborhood only redeeming quality would have to be the presence of the H3 batteries.

We walked and walked between tall houses, along dirty alleys and through subways that lead nowhere, picking up batteries from gutters and dumpsters, stuffing them into my backpack, Ricky was also helping out every way he could, he did not complain about anything even though we had been walking for hours, I started to feel even worse. A good excuse hadn’t come to mind ever since we left home, a normal lie will only make him distrust me more. 

At noon, I ran out of energy from walking and carrying a heavy backpack full of batteries and decided to just sell all we had to a buyer. We went to Arwald’s Place, a 3-story building just around the corner of its street, the walls were made of bizarre coal-black materials, the same as the middle class’. The building stuck out among the other buildings easily. Two ASP guards stood at the entrance armed with a stun gun holstered by their belt buckles.

With this much fuss outside, I wonder how much I will be paid. 50, 100 or even 200!

Arwald was a collector, he collects old technology and rare reusable materials. Arwald was my first choice because of how much of my competitors sold to him, I was hoping he has a much favorable rate. After minutes of going through the security checks at the door, He told me “They are all dead! Did you pick up dead H3s on purpose!?”, at that moment I felt a painful jab in my heart. I thought maybe he didn’t want low batteries. I tried out five other places I had as alternatives, three declined the trade before even measuring the batteries, two measured them but deemed each “negligible”. All in all, all my available options turned up false.

The sun started to set and I still haven’t found a place to sell the batteries. Time was running out and none of my problems had been solved.

On our way back home, we passed by a car repair shop, with a large rusty signboard that says “ZF Repairs”, the clean long light bulbs that formed the text suggests the repair shop is still in use, I decided to spend my last hope there.

I saw two men conversing with a desk between them, through the window glass panel of the office beside the service area. The man with a short dark hair below his nostrils and a brunette low cut hair on his head, wore a slightly grubby pale green service uniform, saving me the trouble of figuring out who to talk to.

I moved my sight to the service area at the left side of the office, it was empty.

Without receiving permission, my brother and I sat on the wooden bench right outside the front of the office, I put my backpack in front of me while my brother took the most space by sleeping on it.

“Vic, I’m tired”

”me too”

“My legs hurt so much”

“Me too”

“We are still meeting mom, right..?”

I could hear footsteps approaching from the back of bench we sat on.

The customer walked out, heading away from the garage in the direction we came from.

Before I could cook up a lie, a deep voice came out of the office behind us saying “Come in!”

I slowly stood up, steeled my heart and walked into the office like my day was going great.

Everything from the papers placed at both far sides of his desk to the toolbox on the left corner of the office shows orderly placement. His office appeared cleaner than his coveralls.

“You’re new around here, what’s your name, boy?”

I was too focused on selling the batteries, I forgot to sit on the chair.

“My name is Victor… sir” I answered Without giving out much expression from my face.

“you look so young” he remarked while raising his brown eyebrows up “so what do you want?”

“I want to sell batteries”

Immediately I replied, he had a more surprised face on, a face that says “I can’t believe it”.

He must have thought a kid wearing a plain black hooded Jacket bringing along a younger child with him to pick up batteries was weird, he wasn’t wrong, but I never thought anything of it.

I unzipped my bag to show him the batteries.

He scanned through them quickly.

“you must’ve gone a long way to get as much as this” he mused.

“Follow me to the service area.” he said in a more audible voice as before I got in his office.

The mechanic got on his feet and walked towards the door with long swinging strides exhibiting his towering height, I took my bags off the table and followed him to the service area.

The empty service area beside the office made the building cuboid in shape, giving it a modern stylish look. In the Service area, he took out the measuring equipment covered in dust, wiped it while I was taking out the battteries one by one, placing them on the same workbench the cylindrical equipment was on.

he must’ve finished a repair recently

He put each battery into a cylindrical machine separately, each time he connected two wires to it and scanned them through just like my previous fruitless options had done. This time I tried to figure out what the numbers on the front panel of the side turned barrel, his looked old but the screen was clear, and I could easily understand the numbers, but I did understand how it is calculated.

Then suddenly he paused, turned slowly and stared at me.

“Boy, Where did you get this?” He asked while having a more unfriendly expression like when one is suspicious of another. I looked away from the screen and up to see his face, the object he held up sparked my memory. The object that made carrying the bag a different pain.

He was referring to the heaviest battery I picked up, right after I left Arwald’s. Spherical in shape, the battery definitely looked a bit different from the rest. Most of the batteries I managed to find were either cylindrical or cuboid with different designs and labels. I did not take the shapes into account, which was why I thought it was normal to have a shape like that.

“I found it beside Caviar’s club opposite Arwald’s.” I answered nonchalantly.

He whispered to himself “Cavier’s club?”. His face seemed a little bit more relaxed after hearing my vague unproven reply, this eased me up a bit.

“You don’t know what this is?”

“It’s an… H3 battery?” I answered, getting more unsure about myself.

“Sheeesh…” he sighed while shaking his head side to side. Then continued “you see boy, you shouldn’t pick what doesn’t belong to you. This is an H5 battery, used by the big sharks to power M37s. If you’re caught with this, you’ll be kept in the juvenile detention center for longer than you’ve lived“

I gave him a blank expression, struggling to keep up with what he was saying. My stomach grumbled, waking me up from my confusion, I was more eager to eat than to learn about the battery at the moment.

“Uh, how muc…”

“I’ll buy it from you” he interjected, his words rang through me like a order, I felt delighted, while I kept my stoic face on, trying to play it professional.

He moved away from my view and went back into the office, I did not know what he was trying to do, so I followed him in. He took out a key from his coveralls’ pocket, used it to unlock the drawer opposite his chair, and took out some cash. He handed out 6 thousand Yen bills to me, which could buy us as much as 3 more days without starvation.

At that moment I knew it was pity but, I did not have any pride or ego to protect, I felt no shame for myself nor misfortune towards him, besides not taking it would mean starvation for the night. Therefore, I took the cash from him without hesitation.

“Thank you, sir..?”

“I am Zack”

“Thank you, Mr.Zack” I exclaimed while bending my heads towards him as a gesture of gratitude.

“And Victor, I don’t know for how long you’ve been doing it, but, I think you should stop it. If anyone else had gotten a Whiff of this today. you would’ve gotten in a serious trouble.”

Fuck! That must be why they rejected my trades.

Hearing this from him did not move my resolve a bit, because if I did not do this, I would not have anything else to feed from. I was prepared to leave when I heard the bench outside creak, Ricky must’ve woken up from the sound of the door closing earlier. Ricky stood at the door and stared at Mr.Zack, his eyes wide and mouth open admiring Mr.Zack tall and fairly muscular structure.

“Ricky, you shouldn’t stare at strangers” I suggested.

“Vic, Vic! he’s so tall!” Ricky exclaimed while pointing his finger at Mr.Zack.

Mr.Zach left the desk where he took out the cash, as he approaches Rick, He slowly bent down.

“Hello, there, what’s your name?” He said in a soft voice. I was surprised a voice like his could get that soft.

“Ricky. You’re so tall! What’s your name, sir?” Ricky replied merrily.

“I know, I know. I’m Zack.”

While they were having their conversation, I picked up my backpack from the workbench in the service area, and went back to the office. I had to cut their conversation short to save time and head home.

“We will be heading home now, Mr.Zack.” I said with a straight face, not to give off any hint of disrespect.

“I see”, he briefly looked at me before he concluded his conversation with my brother “Looks like your brother has somewhere to go, we shouldn’t make him late, hmm?”

“Ok” Ricky answered.

Mr.Zack stood up as gracefully as he did when he was bending down.

“Let’s go, Ricky” I declared.

“I have a vacant position for a helper…”

I turned my neck sideways, then he added “If you’re looking for a job, Feel free to come here”

I was in too much a hurry to accept the job offer at the moment. Furthermore, I dithered to accept such a seemingly generous offer from someone I just met.

“Thank you for the offer, Mr.Zack” I replied.

“Goodnight, Mr.Zack” I muttered as Ricky and I walked outside the office.

“I’ll be seeing you soon, boys” Said Mr.Zack in a higher voice much closer to the one he was speaking to me with. Ricky was waving back at him. Ricky seemed to have forgotten about what I said before he slept, that made me even more happier.

We left the repair shop with a much happier thought.

I thought back to how our day went.

Yeah… I’m glad they left, We never needed them anyway. Oh, It’s getting cold.

I looked up as the night lours, and the rain drops began to fall.

At night, flexible LCD panels and Neon lights feigned the sun rays, producing visually pleasing display of emissive colors in a dark background. I forgot the city was gloomy in the day. The city appeared much busier than it was in the day, pedestrians walking with little space left between them, cars horning and distant siren blaring, Butter Yellow and black striped taxicabs frequenting the wide dim lit wet road, everyone was out to go somewhere and do something. I could feel Ricky’s distress sipping out, he had always been fearful of crowded places, I held out my hand to him, and he quickly put his soft palm on mine. I held his hand tightly.

Many of the pedestrians had rain coats on, further emphasizing how important the night time was for them.

Finally, we arrived at a store with its name on a backlit board over the security revolving door. With my bag emptied, I presumed it was safe to enter the door. We got as much necessities as we needed for three days and exited with two white polythene bags both held at my left hand. Outside the Store, I put the groceries inside my empty backpack, and gave Ricky a packet of Chocolate, which he opened instantly.

We took shortcuts through the back alleys, although already drenched, we kept walking very close to the buildings under the eaves of their roofs, I started to feel uneasy myself. I stopped, held Ricky’s hand more tightly, slowly rolled my eyes along the horizontal axis to scan what was in front of me, then followed the movement of my eyes with my head, I felt like we were being trailed.

“Vic, Wh… why are we stopping?” Ricky stammered.

My eyes landed on a man wearing a dark plain hooded jacket, white lace hanging from inside the hood, a faint green light on his neck glowing through the fabrics and a white seamed track pants to cover his legs. He was leaning onto a Ramen shop with tarp at the front by the left side of the road about 20 meters away. What aroused my suspicion was that He was the only person outside the shop and his pose was similar to a person waiting to stand up.

I carefully bent down to my feet, reset the position of my backpack to fit my shoulders better, and acted like I was tying my laceless sneakers, I looked at Ricky with my face muscles loosely condensed and bent to the right side of my face.

“My shoe’s untied, I will be done soon” I answered at a normal speaking volume wearing a slight grin on my face.

“Listen, we’ll run when I say ‘run’, ok? Don’t answer that. Don’t worry, it’s a game.” I whispered it slowly with my face away from the pursuer to avoid being figured out.

I was hoping Ricky got what I was trying to tell him, his expression remained the same though. I rose back up, took Ricky’s hand and walked casually.

As soon as we took a corner to the right, getting out of our pursuer’s line of sight, I exclaimed sharply to Ricky “Run!”, letting go of his hand.

He did get it!

He dashed, slashing the water puddles on the road so loudly my heart started to race, I was sure the distant pursuer heard it too. Naturally, I ran fast enough to catch up with Ricky but slow enough not to outrun him. I checked my rear to know the pursuer’s status, the pursuer was in sprint, full sprint. Knowing running at Ricky’s speed would get us caught, I moved closer to the left side of the narrow passage and swiftly grabbed an empty plastic bottle crate on top of a stack beside the wall with my left hand. I accelerated to catch up to Ricky and slowly grabbed the hood of his jacket. Ricky looked at me in the back, his mouth opening up, about to say something making him misstep, I pulled him by the hood of his jacket, moved my hand to his wrist, gripped him by his fingers, and increased my speed. Still I wasn’t a match for the person chasing us, but with me leading Ricky by the hand, I could make sharper turns and faster acceleration or deceleration. I aim for the corner up ahead maintaining our position at the center of the passage.

Wait, wait, wait, wait… the green light on his neck, he has a communicator!

After realizing the pursuer had a communicator on him, I paid more caution to every step I took. As we arrive at the left corner, a figure popped out, in a crouch stance, spreading its arms wide, a faint green light from the upper part his body visibly giving him away at the last second, he was his accomplice. I immediately pulled Ricky to the back to prevent him from being caught in his arms and in my pre-emptive attack, then I flung the crate at him aiming for the second pursuer’s chest. The sound from the impact was satisfying to hear, a loud crack sound from his ribs, as he fell on his back.

No sensible human would assert his power on others without a weapon.

I made a quick turn in the direction he popped out from. Having passed by the route many times, I knew the ways with little fear of getting lost But with fear of the communicators being connected to more than two people, since I had used the only thing I had as a weapon.

We can’t just keep running, I need to shake him off. He won’t…

The echoes our footsteps made, I and Ricky’s were the only sound coming into my ears, I checked my rear again, both of the pursuers had already gone off our backs. I slowly stopped after a few more seconds of running, it appeared they stopped chasing us. Ricky shaken up by what just happened, breathing hard from exhaustion from all the running, especially when his leg tried so hard to catch up with the speed I gave it.

“Don’t worry, Ricky, they won’t come anymore” I uttered those words to clear out everything he didn’t understand without explaining, but I expected to hear him ask questions, He turned his head upward and said “that was exciting! Vic” pronouncing each syllable separately, he breathed in and continued “I almost thought they were going to catch us.”

The enthusiastic look on his face glowed bright in the dark alley, I had to respond with something pleasant.

I grinned lightly to straighten out the atmosphere.

“Our house is only a few walk away, when we get home I’ll cook up something special.” I said.

“Yay!”

We got home safely, took warm baths and prepared the promised dinner. Ricky fell asleep shortly after, and I stayed awake for a while thinking about the offer I got from Mr.Zack.

Today was normal… I guess