Splitting a Match

Loss

9.

[Time: 4: 10pm]

[Location: Castor Home, Seattle, Pangaea]

[September 3, 2097]

The rest of the shift on the top of the Court House finished with no other activity. I descended the long flights of stairs to street level and began to jog back to our house, which wasn't really a house. It was the half of the third floor of the Wells Fargo Bank building. The other half was shared with a shy family who almost never talked to us. I can't even remember their last name.

The third floor was split in half by a hallway that was created by two walls we had made, separating the stranger family's area from ours. We had knocked out most of the non-weight-supporting walls to open up the floor in our area. We had a kitchen, two bathrooms, and four bedrooms. Relatively comfortable, considering what some other people lived in. I had my own bedroom that was fairly large and bordered on one side by a concrete wall that had been put in the place of a window. I slept against that wall.

If I were to somehow push that concrete slab out of the building, it would fall some seventy-five feet to the street. The building was sort of built on stilts—big ones—that raised the level of the first floor to about thirty or forty feet.

For some unknown reason, we still had electricity and running water. Half of the buildings that were still standing didn't have either. For that, I was thankful to who knows who.

Once I got inside the building, I pressed the elevator button up to the third floor. A whooshing sound filled the tiny compartment and I floated up on the pressurized air below me up to the third floor, where the doors slid open and I stepped out.

This air hydraulic elevator had only been recently introduced before Alpha took over the world. Wells Fargo had been one of the first to install it. Several other buildings had it as well, but most still had the old-fashioned cable-pulled elevators. Most of those had rusted so badly they had snapped. Because of this, Mr. York had designated the Wells Fargo tower to be the Clan's living quarters. It housed every Clan member: about one thousand people.

I walked down the hallway and opened the door on the left—our front door. The house was quiet except for the small noises that came from Alessa's room. Probably telling herself a story with the lifelike dolls we had found in an old warehouse. Her high voice was muffled by the carpeted flooring. I would leave her alone for now.

Lukas' room was quiet as usual. He would be out helping people fix up their living spaces, maybe fifty floors above me. That's what he was good at—helping people by using his hands. He had an incredible love for other people that I could never quite understand. He would even make a special effort to try and say hi to our neighbors across the hallway.

I walked past his room and turned left to go down one more short hallway. An old lamp stood on an end table at the far end of the hallway, and on the left and the right of the hallway there were two doors—Krys' and mine.

I had pushed Krys out of my mind the whole day, not letting the dreary revelation Delta had given us earlier that day ruin it. But now all that pent-up emotion came back. I wondered if Krys was still in her room, staring at that particular spot on the opposite wall, motionless with shock and grave sadness.

Should I go in? Is she still even there?

"Krys? You there?" I called from outside her door.

No answer. Alessa had suddenly appeared beside me, her eyes confused.

"Krys hasn't come out all day. Is she okay? Sick, or something?" she asked. It was obvious she hadn't heard.

I grimaced at the thought of telling Alessa that Krys was being sent away. But I took her shoulder and led her to our little sitting/play room where there were several chairs or couches. We both took a chair.