Anomaly City Chapter Three

Seventeen year old Ishra is not from Anomaly City and it shows. His hometown of Industria is a world away and it is illegal to cross cities but he is determined to.

ISHRA  

“Dr. Winston I would like you to meet my son, Isaac,” Father says.  

I extend a hand, watching the man through jaded eyes. His grip is weak, like him, and he slides his hand away as though his fingers are far too delicate to hold mine. Wuss. Father shoots me a glare, for the millionth time this evening and forces a smile for the wealthy gentlemen he is trying oh so desperately to impress.  

Dr. Winston’s nose is shaped like a hook and his eyes are droopy and un-amused looking. His deep burgundy hair curls behind his ears in an orderly fashion, fading on top. And his chin rises high so that his eyes need to look down to see anyone, though they should be level with mine. If arrogance were a product he would be the factory in which it is made. 

His uniform, though standard, is slightly different from all the other gentlemen in attendance tonight. This goes against protocol but no one will chastise men that come from money. His cuffs and collar are white and his bowtie golden while ours must remain colorless and grey. Always grey. He rank is high, I can tell. No one else would dare break procedure like that. Not at the rank they hold. My Father is among one of the few that could get away with it. But he is non-too daring. 

Father clears his throat loudly and spins the white wine in his glass. I’ve hardly touched my wine, even though I’m allowed to have it on special occasions. At seventeen I maybe the youngest operative in this room tonight, and believe me that is not by my own free will.  

“Yes, Isaac here is top in his class in quantum physics, economics and advanced calculus,” my father brags.   

 

Whenever Father feels the need to redeem my presence he draws the academic card. In reality unless it was written on a sheet of paper I doubt he would even know that about me. But grades are more important than relative affairs in his eyes. Well, in Industrian eyes as a whole.  

“Is that so?” Dr. Winston asks. The two men beside him are regulars at Father’s gatherings. But I can never recall their names. I want to say Reginald and Malcolm; the larger one looks like a Malcolm. He looks uncomfortable, shifting on his feet and scanning the dining hall for something. A lady friend? A meal? I can’t tell.   

“Isaac?” Father says expectantly.  

I’ve missed something. It’s so hard to stay awake at these parties, even if I am standing up. I take a sip of my wine and it goes down like acid burning my throat, sour and bitter and all around unpleasant. I raise both eyebrows to show him I’m listening now.  

“I said,” says Dr. Winston, “Your education now will make you a fine heir to your Father’s company. How do you intend to-”  

“Actually,” I interrupt. It’s a common misconception that I am my father’s hand puppet. “I try to see the world through innovative eyes,” I say, “preferring occasionally to reminisce on the circumstances that could be, or could have been, instead of what is habitually presented at hand.”  It is the most honest thing said all night. But no one sees it that way. There is silence as everyone within earshot turns to frown at me. You could hear a pin drop. Even the violins seem to silence. 

Father grips my arm so hard I can’t feel my fingers as he pulls me away from the group, quickly and efficiently. I forget how strong he is sometimes. He is always hiding his large arms and brute force behind business suits and tuxedos. When we reach the bar, distance enough away from the others, his eyes are bloodshot and fiery like black venom.  

“You are not going to humiliate me tonight,” he says through clenched teeth, “not here.” 

I snatch my arm away but I can still feel his grip squeezing the life from my muscles. “Why don’t you just propose to him already?” I say even though it isn’t Winston he loves, it’s his money. 

“You know the rules, Isaac, and you refuse to watch your tongue,” Father hisses. He means the talk of innovation. I did not mention creativity, a mortal sin in Industria City, but I was lethally close to it. “Do you want me to send you to Corlen? Is that what you want? Because I swear to you I will.” Corlen is a notorious correctional education facility. But this isn’t the first time he’s threaded correctional education. I’m immune to those threats now.    

I hold his glare, daring him to blink. We stay this way, two frozen statues, for the longest time. But in the end I cannot match his intensity and my gaze hits the floor as he draws back his head. He expects me to apologize to his group of business partners for blatant creativity. But instead I brush past him, through chatting party members all in gray uniform suits and dresses and barge through the front doors.       

I would return home…if I weren’t already here. My father holds all of his social gatherings downstairs. It is more efficient to work, sleep, and gather in the same building in which you reside. But It can become rather irritating. I quicken my steps out in the hallway and punch the up button on the elevator. The twenty first floor, the very top floor, is where the bedrooms are. I brush past Yale, our housekeeper as I head to my room and the elderly woman watches me with worried eyes. She can always tell when I am upset. Not that I am making any effort to hide it. I slam my door behind me and collapse on my office chair, which swivels under my weight. Today has been exhausting. I rip off theses painfully harsh shoes and toss my bowtie to the garage bin because this is the last evening I spend with Father’s entourage.    

I pull out a binder full of papers I have been working on for the past few months and bring them to my touch screen desk. It is not school work, though I will say that to anyone who asks. It is my own personal project. There is a place I need to get to, soon. And these are my plans to do it.   

From the hallway I can hear Yale’s heels stop at my bedroom door, her steps sharp and annoying against the marble floor; Yale who has been like a grandmother to me for so many years. She pokes her head inside and I’m quick to shut down the map coating my desk touch screen. It exits just in time as Yale hovers over my shoulder, trying to catch me in the act of doing something erroneous. But now the screen is open to my homework page, all of the calculus problems already solved and checked off by my professor. 

“Hum,” Yale says, because that’s all she can say. Hum. 

I retrain any ill feelings for my father in dealing with her. It isn’t her fault. “Is there something wrong?” I ask innocently enough. 

Yale draws her face away, her gray eyes match her standard uniform and her hair neatly combed and pinned up away from her jaw as protocol calls of any woman over the age of thirty-five. 

“You know perfectly well there is something wrong, Isaac,” she complains, her voice shaky and shriveled. She always does this and I’m thinking, here we go again. “Your father’s company lost 100,000 Points overnight and you don’t even bother to console him?” I groan and gather my things, hoping she won’t follow me into the living room. She does, heels still clicking.  

“It just doesn’t seem right, Isaac,” she says. I stop at the kitchen and grab a granola bar, my one allotted snack between meal hours. I hope she’s happy she’s making me waste it. 

“Father should be more careful about who he lends his codes to,” I tell her. I take a giant chunk of my bar.  

Yale sucks in a deep breath. “How dare you undermine your father’s accomplishments that way,” she says holding a finger at me. “That man put his heart and soul into creating this organization and supporting your way of life. And when you take up after him-”     

“Who says that’s definite,” I snap back, and almost immediately regret my actions.  

Yale doesn’t retaliate. He mouth opens and her eye twitches in attempt to hide her frustration but it’s all too obvious.  

“Goodnight, Isaac,” she says. Stiffly, she shuffles towards the door, crosses the foyer then turns to give me one last look. The pain in her eyes mirrors the pain I used to detect in my mother. “Your father is doing this for your own good…” she says softly this time. “Someday you’ll see that.” The door closes silently behind her as she leaves. And the air in my room still reeks of the tension she brought. Poor Yale. She has been listening to my father’s lies for so long that she perceives them as reality.  

 

*** 

 

I wonder if it is really possible to feel like everyone you run into is your twin. The following day at the Academy I am caught in this thought when I receive an ushering nudge from behind. I didn't even realize I’d stopped moving in the lunch line. The same gray uniform clothes every student at the Academy as we make our way in military style order down the lunchtime in the cafeteria, picking out exactly one milk, one orange, one ham sandwich with mayonnaise and lettuce, and one granola bar. I know this routine so well I don’t even remember getting my lunch. Behind the glass of the buffet I can see the different parts of robot arms and mechanical levers as Auto Chefs prepare the meals of exactly 500 students.   

I am relatively well known at the academy. Not for my grades, which I try to keep at a stable A, but because I’m the next heir to my father’s fortune, which would be perfectly suitable if I cared about this subject. Unfortunately his company, his success as they call it, is all anyone who see the similar face of his son coming down the halls, thinks to inquire of me. Even Grace Miller, who at one time or another was interested in me for what we at the academy call gross uniqueness. 

As I scan my wrist across the payment receiver and turn to find a table, I see a hand waving me down from across the cafeteria. Davis moves quickly through the traffic of students, backpack strapped over his shoulders and hand still waving as if I might miss him somehow. I say that because Davis isn’t hard to spot. He has always been…big boned let’s say, for all fifteen years I have known him, his carrot-colored hair a little too messy to abide with school dress code. Most teens try to stay active. An hour of exercise a day benefits all aspects of mind and body. I chastise myself mentally for remembering it. Another one of our academy’s memos.  

“Isaac!” Davis shouts. He’s already attracting attention. I quickly place my tray at a table and wait for him to plop himself down across from me. When he does, he slaps down a magazine provided by the school. It’s an academic publication highlighting the value of hard work. Work and nothing more. Work and perhaps you will have fun as your life is coming to its end. Perhaps.  

He slides it across the table to me and I slap a hand on it before it falls. I watch him with narrowed eyes. “More of my father’s propaganda?”   

“Just open it,” he says, all smiles. I turn it to the second page and find a second magazine, this one with a beautiful woman on the cover. Her makeup is exaggerated, lines painted on her face, around the eyes, clear red circles on her cheeks, her strangely violet colored hair pulled in two buns at the temple. It is shockingly captivating. It can only be…my eyes rack the cover for a name until I realize the name is the giant letters woven into the scene behind her. ANOMALY CITY, it reads. This magazine was intended for a whole other district entirely.  

My mouth nearly drops but I contain myself. Mask my emotions. “How did you get this?” I say to Davis.   

Davis won’t say a word. He’s too proud of himself. I flip through the pages of the Anomaly magazine. Everything is so bright and cluttered, it makes my eyes hurt. There is a photograph of a large tent with red and white stripes. Fireworks explode behind it and balloons fly through the air as it rains confetti.          

“I need to go there,” I say pointing to one picture. I remember it distinctly. My mother kept a photograph of it hidden beneath her bed in a shoebox where she kept most of her secrets from my father. 

Davis nods slightly. He knows I could get in so much trouble for this, and yet he’s backing me up 110%. He extends a hand to me as a farewell sort of jester, because he knows. He has known from the day my mother left what I have been planning to do. “Good luck, Isaac,” he says, his eyes glued to mine. I take his hand and shake it firmly. He is a charming friend that will be greatly missed. “Good luck.” 

 

 

 

Author's Note

What do you think? Any critique helps. Let me know if you'd like to read the next chapter.

Reviews

[Flarare Weet]

From what I've read of Anomaly City, the English is pleasant to read, and the characters and scenarios are believable. Although I may not understand the plot, you're story writing is great nevertheless.
Before the prologue, I think you should write a blurb for your book, so readers can get the gist of the plot. The first three chapters are settings that slowly lure in the reader, and later on does it seem that the plot entirety will be revealed. Finally, I wouldn't mind reading the next chapter to see how Isaac bumps into 'Arty'.

[SierraT]

So glad you liked it! I'll try to include a blurb like you said, that's a good idea. And the next chapter should be up soon. Also, let me know if it's too slow. Thank you! :)