Chapter 1: Candy from a Little Girl
Place: Central Station, in New
Eden, deep under the Earth.
Year: 2071.
Time: 7:25 P.M.
Throughout
the mammoth marble lobby, complete strangers walked to and fro, in their dark,
wrinkle-free suits. The chatter on glossy phones reverberated off the walls like
multiple ball bearings in a frantic game of pinball; it was a game lasting as
long as there have been rich and poor, kings and queens. The artificial sunset
coming through the glass dome above made these pieces of technology glitter
like gold, when they were destined to be nothing but dust at their days’ end.
The only thing to break through that senseless pool of words competing to be
heard was the hissing and squeaking of the monorail as it slowed into the
station, just outside the marble balcony above the glossy tiled floor, stories
below. Its sleek, chrome shell reflected the smallest rays of light, so that
the entire train blazed like a phoenix. On one car of the vehicle, in bold
letters the height of a typical human being, there were painted the words, “Art
Transit, Inc.”
A marvelous marble stair case
descended from the balcony. At the stairway's foot was a life-sized, bronze
statue of a mighty African elephant positioned next to a meek, docile donkey.
The elephant's trunk held a stalk of grain, which the donkey also gripped onto
with its mouth.
The majority of those present in the
building, if not all of them, did not bother to look at the chandelier hanging above the east end,
with its beautifully organic diamonds hanging from the supporting gold ring. If
they had, they would have noticed a human-looking figure, clothed in black,
perched upon the ring. Its face was concealed in a dark balaclava; the eyes
were shrouded by a pair of bulky, orange ski goggles.
“Alright, alright,” the black figure
muttered to himself. “Who shall be my victim for today?” Raising a small pair
of binoculars to the flat surface of his goggles, he zoomed in on potential
targets.
“Hmm, how about, that guy, right
there? Clean shaven, nice haircut. He’s got a couple bucks to-”
“Carl! Carl!”
A blond woman embraced the man,
followed by two kids in their starched school uniforms.
“Darn it, he’s got a family. I guess
he’s out. How about, hmm, scanning, scanning, so many Mr. and Mrs. Smiths
here.”
A lion roared from inside his
stomach. He put a hand over his rumbling belly. “Starving. I hope I get a good
score today.”
Through the binoculars, he saw the
legs of a woman, seated upon a marble bench. The body tow which those legs were
attached was clothed in a white fur coat.
“What did those baby seals do to
deserve being skinned like that? Okay, I think I’ve found my victim.”
The stranger tucked the binoculars
inside his black sweater. After a daft leap, he was skittering across the
ceiling, and he was undetected by those individuals drowned in the details of
day-to-day life. When the black figure set his face parallel to the ceiling, he
shot out his tongue. Like a yo-yo, he lowered himself down with the sticky,
bubble-gum-pink bungee chord. Landing on all fours, he dropped down behind the
woman. Grunge rock blasted from the sky blue ear buds of her headphones.
“Thank you excessively loud music,”
the stranger uttered.
He scanned the landscape of the
woman’s body. Her hips easily protruded from underneath the shiny,
silvery-white pelt that clung tightly to her contoured body. Her shimmering
hair was luxuriously long and jet-black.
“Well, she’s hot. I’ll give her
that.”
His stomach started gnawing at his
liver.
“Shut up, hormones,” the stranger
grumbled to himself. I have some cash to steal.”
Her ruby red handbag was laying
right beside her on the bench. She was intensely tapping on her tablet device
with a manicured finger. It was Facebook, as far as the masked figure could
tell. Facebook is going to suck her soul if she’s not careful.
He had just placed a gloved hand
onto the bag when—
“But it’s MINE!”
The stranger glanced over to the
source of the shriek. A teenage-looking boy with purple hair and a red sports
jersey was attempting to wretch a rainbow-colored, all-day sucker from a
four-or-five year old girl in a sky blue dress.
“Finders keepers,” sneered the
teenager, as he tugged the sucker free from the girl’s grip with one final
yank.
The girl’s face wrinkled up.
“Oh, crud,” moaned the stranger,
shaking his head. “Please don’t start crying.”
The stranger’s whole body froze. His
hand was right on the bag, but he couldn’t budge it. Got to stay focused on
the prize, he thought. Got to stay focused on—but stealing candy from a
little girl? How low could you possibly get?
The girl started wailing.
Bucket-sized tears fell from her eyes and pounded the ground.
“MAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”
The attractive woman pulled one of
the headphone buds from her ear.
“What is it this time?”
“HE—he—“she pointed a tiny finger at
the teenager. “He stole my candy!”
The woman grunted. “Is that all?”
The words escaped the stranger's
mouth before he could stop himself. “Wuddaya mean 'is that all?'”
In a split second, the woman’s head
turned, and her eyes met the stranger’s orange goggles.
‘Uh,” the stranger chuckled
nervously, brushing his hand against the bag. “There was a huge
cockroach crawling on your purse. “
Who is this masked stranger? Why does he have a frog tongue? What is in the Art Transit, Inc. car? Why are you still reading this? Download America 2.0 Part 1 now!
