phoenix

warnings: death

Val is an unacceptably energetic child, running down the street of his neighborhood in Battery City. There’s a local Crow- one tasked with keeping order within the walls rather than hunting rebels down in the Wastelands- half-heartedly following him. The Crow knows who he is, doesn’t have to look at his tag to call out that string of letters and syllables assigned to him, telling him to slow down and return home. Val (the name his mother called him in the evening, just before bed, my little Valentine, a perfect secret that had existed for almost two years now) stops and turns, looking the Crow up and down. They’re probably specifically assigned to this neighborhood just to keep Val in check. It’s an irrational thought, not one Better Living Industries would appreciate. Val thinks it anyway in hopes of getting proof that his headphones could read his mind. Their all-white ensemble glows faintly in the sunlight, like an angel from the old myths they learned about in school last week.

“It’s almost time for afternoon programming,” the Crow says. They’ve gotten closer now, bending down on one knee to speak to Val. “You should get home so your mommy doesn’t worry, okay? I’ll walk you.” Val knows this game, and that this is the end. He takes the Crow’s much larger hand, arm lifted slightly to keep hold as they stand back up and lead him to the fifth powder blue house on the road. His mother answers the door with a smile and takes Val into her arms, wishing the Crow a Better day and shutting the door gently behind her. She sits Val down on the couch and turns on the T.V. for him to watch Mousekat while she prepares one of the week’s pre-made dinners.

During dinner, his mother and father remind him not to run off so close to a scheduled daily event. No running off before meals, before school, before afternoon programming, before scheduled playtime when he was supposed to run around with other kids. But other kids wanted to play catch and appropriately gentle games of tag. They didn’t want to play hide-and-seek as Scarecrows against Rebels, and they weren’t allowed to play anything too physical. Val always ended up standing off to the side, and sometimes drifted off to tug on the local Crow’s jacket until they acknowledged him. He could tell them apart from their carefully pulled back white-blonde hair- as pale as his own- and the sound of the metal in their boots clicking on the pavement. He doesn’t know their name, doesn’t know if they even have one, but sometimes they leaned down like they had earlier and he felt like they cared about him. The feeling was brief, and quickly extinguished by his own doubt. They probably do that with everyone, he thinks bitterly.

Val is finally out of his first level of school, two years early. He’s gotten a growth spurt that he gloats about with the kids he knows won’t snitch on him for his bad attitude. Soon enough Better Living will prescribe him something to even out his sudden influx of emotions, and he’ll continue to excel in school and be Better than his peers, even the older ones.

He never liked them anyway.

That wasn’t a great thought. Val makes an effort to push it back, but can’t help agreeing with himself. His classmates, his neighbors- they’re either exceedingly dull or clinging too close to their childhoods. Val is stronger than that.

(Keeping his secret nickname didn’t count. That was different. It was.)

His teachers don’t seem to see him the same way. He’s special, dammit, and they treated him like some ill-behaved brat. He’s eleven, he isn’t a little kid anymore. He’s going to be important.

Mom and Dad had seemed more nervous lately. When Val finally gathers the courage to ask what was wrong, they sit down at the table with uncharacteristically serious faces.

Dad calls him by his City name, then pauses. “Valentine,” he says, voice low, “we know you want to be successful here in Battery City.”

Val nods slowly.

“And of course we support you, always,” Mom continues. Her hands are folded carefully in front of her. “But you should know, it can be… a challenge, to aim for a rank like Scarecrow. There’s no guarantee you’ll be chosen, and-”

“It’s fine if I’m not asked!” Val says quickly, a strategic smile on his face. Of course he’d be disappointed, but no one had to know that, it wasn’t relevant. “Whatever I can do to be useful, I’ll be glad to! I promise.”

Something foreign flashes across his mother’s face. His father watches her too, as she takes a breath and tightens the fold of her hands. “Val, you’re only eleven. You have time to think about things.” Another pause. She and Dad make eye contact; two near mirrors of furrowed brows and the slightest gleam in their eyes. Are they crying? Val tries not to stare. They really weren’t supposed to do this, much less in front of him. This would be something I should report. He knows it’s true, but he can’t bring it up, not now. He can let it slide, he reasons with himself; this is the first time he’s seen something so strange from them.

“Val,” Dad finally says, “are you happy here? In the City?”

That wasn’t a question Val was expecting. Is he happy? What did Dad mean? Had he been acting upset? Did a teacher see him glare at that student today and tell his parents? He hadn’t meant it; the girl’s chair had made a sharp sound as she scooted in. It was stupid of him to react like that.

He’d obviously taken too long to respond; Mom is staring at him, that same strange expression on her face. Val decides he doesn’t like how people look when they’re sad. He isn’t ever going to look sad, either. He smiles wide and looks his father in the eye. “Of course I’m happy here! We learned some really cool stuff about the Wastelands in school today.” I know about the Wastelands. I’m two grades ahead. Please be proud of me. Please. Scrambling for information, he starts to bounce his knee. “The people out there kill animals to eat them! Isn’t that weird?”

“They don’t have food sent to them like us,” Mom replies.

“Why do they live out there?” Val blurts. “There’s plenty of room in Battery City! They could have food and houses and jobs!” Nothing is making sense, but he clings to his schoolwork like his grades can get him out of whatever terrifying conversation this is.

“The City doesn’t want them,” Dad says, a somber note in his voice. “They’re rebels, Val, they don’t like it here. A lot of them are former citizens that escaped.”

Escaped?

Mom stands up. Val watches as she moves next to him and kneels down, eye-level with him. “Hon, you remember what I told you about your nickname?”

“It’s secret.”

“Exactly,” she nods. “Because you’re only s’posed to go by your given name here. And I wasn’t allowed to name you Valentine, baby.”

“Wh-why not?” Val had never heard of rules about what you could name your babies.

“They told me it would make you stand out too much. It’d seem like I thought other kids weren’t as good as you.” Mom puts a hand on Val’s forearm. He looks over to Dad, who suddenly looks much older. More tired. Mom keeps talking, “Better Living needs us focused, to keep the city going. So they control a lot of our lives. But there are some lines they cross while doing that. Do you understand, Valentine?”

“But Better Living made the City!” Val protests. “We don’t have to live in the Wastelands!”

“The desert is actually pretty habitable,” Dad chimes in. “Rebels have lived there for quite a few generations.” Mom shoots him a hard look, but he only shrugs in reply. “I’m sorry, Val, but the school wasn’t honest with you; that’s what we’re trying to say.”

“We were trying to go slow,” Mom says, a venom in her voice Val had never heard. She turns back to him, though, and her eyes are as kind as they’ve ever been, though the sheen of tears remains. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, we didn’t know how to tell you something like this-” her words come out choked, but she keeps talking through the tears falling freely down her face now. “-but hearing you talk about the Scarecrow program, it made us realize we had to do it.” She reaches out and holds Val’s face- gently, so gently, like she’s afraid of hurting him. Like she’s afraid he’ll lash out. “We’re leaving the City, Val. Please come with us.”

Leave the City? Val can feel his mother’s hands tremble against his cheeks, and he leans into the touch if only to steady her. Dad moves to stand behind Mom, bent down slightly to put a hand on her shoulder. People have left. Escaped. Battery City- Better Living- didn’t want people leaving. His parents would be fugitives. Rebels living in the Wastelands. The Scarecrows would come after them. Val thinks about the blonde Scarecrow that still appeared in the neighborhood, though less frequently now. They were a Crow that stayed in the City. Would he be a City Crow? Or an exterminator? Would Better Living make him kill his parents, if they left and he didn’t?

“I don’t-” Val stops, realizing his throat has closed around tears of his own. His lip quivers, voice shaky as he speaks, “I don’t want you to die.”

Dad kneels down now, putting his arms around Mom and Val. “We won’t, not if no one finds out.” He hugs the two of them tighter, pulling Val to the edge of his seat. “We can take a trip to Zone Two, and go missing. I got permission for a ticket yesterday.”

They could be gone by tomorrow. Were Mom and Dad ready? Did they prepare for an outcome where Val reported them? Everything he’d been taught screams for him to find the nearest Crow and tell on them, like a little kid. He knows they’d take it seriously. His parents would be taken in for questioning the same day.

But if Val did go- abandon his life in the City to run away with his parents- what would happen? He’d worked so hard to feel special, important, like he was going somewhere. Is he really okay with ruining it all?

Would Battery City miss him?

Would Better Living even notice he was gone?

Val Velocity- not Valentine, not that mess of letters that never truly belonged to him- is a Killjoy. He kills Dracs as if he never saw them as a source of safety. He wears a white leather jacket stolen off of an exterminator, just to cement his fate as a desert-dwelling rebel with a target on his back. He doesn’t take shit from anyone.

He doesn’t keep any friends.

The child he was in the City is dead. He died in the breakneck run into the shadows, desperately keeping hold of his father’s hand, praying, someone, someone save us. Valentine is gone, too, was gone as soon as his parents- his protectors, his mythical guardian angels, his saviors, his only hope- hit the ground and didn’t get up. Alone in the desert, Valentine’s last words were a helpless, what will save us?

And from whatever pathetic ashes remained, Val Velocity emerged, saying, no one.