Renegade Kingdom Ch 1- Fall From Grace

CHAPTER 1- Fall from Grace
(Velvette)

January 1, 2089

My ceiling is made of sleek marble, and I’ve long since gotten lost in its smooth gray veins sprouting outwards like mountainous creeks. I’ve spent the past hour memorizing the many trails and trackways in the patterns overhead, and by now I’ve managed to identify a singular imperfection: a crack where the gray of the stained marble momentarily turns to black. Were I to reach up and run a finger across the surface, it would be rough and chalky, single handedly sabotaging the illusion of sublimity around it.
I lay alone on my extravagant king-sized bed, sprawled out as if to form snow angels, but I remain stationary, although the mesh canopy cascades down from above like sleet, and my bedroom is numbingly cold. Some meters away lie the sealed casement windows, fogged up near the point of opaqueness, just barely allowing for the sight of the glittering city beyond coated in a thick layer of white. That and the nebulous reflection of the scheduled information hologram produced by my Juniper Lite, a soft red projection of numbers and symbols: 01/01/2089.
“The date is now the first of January in the two-thousand-and-eighty-ninth year of the Great Avant Syndicate.” The robotic voice emanating from the specular charcoal colored prism on my nightstand maintains its neutral informative tone as it sends its holiday wishes: “Happy New Year’s, Princess Velvette Yarden.”
The slight mechanical pauses between syllables really solidify the authenticity of it all.
“Thanks, Juniper,” I mutter halfheartedly.
I finally allow myself to sink under the satin sheets, rolling onto my side and curling up in fetal position. When the inevitable tears begin to dampen my skin, I’m partly surprised that they don’t immediately freeze solid. I feel them roll down the raised skin below my right eye, the scar I’ve had since I was little: A gnarled X with a straight horizontal line through the middle.
Another holiday spent alone, and where’s Elvira right now? Leaving me even further behind, spending New Year’s with her new riotous group of friends, no more need for the loyal companion she made at two years old. Elvira must be glad to finally be rid of me, having found people from the real world. People who break the rules and never worry about tomorrow, shooting up on Verascene and getting intoxicated off whatever else contraband is on the underground market these days.
I just wish she would at least pull together and tell me to my face what a sorry loser I am and how she’d rather leave me behind for good. For some reason, the lingering sense of unfinished abandonment hurts so much more, as if there remains a single fraying thread of what was our relationship, and I’m clinging on for dear life, anticipating the final fall all the time. I don’t know what’s down there; I have hardly an idea of what it’s like to be truly alone, and I’m not ready yet.
My crying quickly turns to pathetic hiccups and gasps, and no one can hear me anyway, so I let the sobs free. I allow myself to exploit the self-pity because this really is a crappy New Year’s, and it’s so damn cold.
“Lachrymation detected. Initiating comfort.”
“What?” I grumble from my hideout beneath the covers.
The Juniper isn’t programmed to take action without command. Father warned me against the dangers of trusting technology that can think for itself. Despite his anxieties, I suppose he was more interested in keeping appearances—the general public might find it suspicious if the creator of the Juniper didn’t keep the devices in his own home. Besides, the technology has never acted out before…
A machinelike whir sounds softly from the ceiling, and when at last I emerge from the safety of my thermal refuge, it’s to see a thin screen bordered in a hard black plastic, about half the length of my headboard and its height a fraction of that, unlatching at a controlled pace from the marble above at a ninety degree angle.
“Juniper, stop. Stop.”
Click.
A program begins. A vast field is projected on the monitor. Viridian blades of soft grass roll with the rhythmic gusts of gentle winds, petunias and daisies of all different colors rippling to a slightly different tune. Dandelion cypselae ride dreamily atop the breeze among occasional bumblebees and butterflies journeying across the heavenly scene. Everything else—corporeal and phantom alike—disappears. The only thing left is the image of a divine pasture and an undeniable feeling of tranquility. My head feels light and foggy, and my body becomes weightless. It’s as if the image is pulling me inside, and why shouldn’t I let it?
“There… I want to go there…” I hear echoing around me in a voice that sounds eerily like my own, except I don’t remember uttering the words.
The pledge never stops, never ceases its repeating. I hear the desire bouncing around in my skull, reverberating in my ear drums, finding its way into my heart.
How do I get there?
“Submit. All you must do is submit, Princess Velvette.”
Somewhere near the back of my mind, I know the robotic inflection as Juniper’s, but all certainty seems to dissolve with the beginnings of each fleeting thought, and all of a sudden, it’s my father’s voice. My voice. Anyone I’ve ever known, ever trusted, they’re urging me to—
“Submit. Let your pain drain away.”
I close my eyes; I almost don’t for fear of the pasture escaping my vision. Luckily, the petunias seem to have sprouted on the backs of my eyelids, and it’s as if nothing’s changed. In fact, the image only intensifies, and now I can hear the pure chirping of songbirds—swallows, they must be, for their high-pitched two-note calls. The rustling of leaves and grass is now perceptible as well, and have I always been sitting cross-legged on this pillowy soil, tall strands of wheatgrass brushing bristly against my cheeks? Bleached clouds drift gradually onwards in the sea of baby blue above, casting soft grayish-indigo shadows upon the land.
When I fold my arms behind my head and stretch out on the meadow, it molds to my physique like memory foam. I identify in the shapes of the cumulus a butterfly, a teddy bear, and something else that I can’t quite place, but it carries a sense of nostalgia, of familiarity now gone to me… And then something else entirely—the very real face of my closest friend, Elvira Tudor.
I blink, and suddenly several things happen at once: a scream is heard from downstairs, resounding horrifically up stairways and through great empty rooms and halls. It’s the voice of my father, sounding strangled and rough and positively agonized. Next, there’s the oval face of Elvira, her hazel eyes crazed and pupils microscopic. She wears a ridiculous pair of crimson-tinted goggles atop her head, two shallow cylinders bound together by a metal bridge and wrapped around her crown in leather—perhaps she was just at a theme party. Her straight brunette hair flows down into my face from her position over me in the bed. She’s been shaking me hard by the shoulders, and my head snaps back with the force of the movement, bruising surely developing on my traps.
The screen behind her has gone dead. Not only that, but it’s been smashed. Iridescent fissures travel across its surface like oil spills on water, and shards of thin black glass are scattered at the end of my bed and across the marble floor. The sharp Juniper, about the size of a tissue box, lies not far from the scene, apparently the offender’s weapon of choice. The offender being Elvira.
“What’s happening? What are you doing?!” I whisper urgently, greatly disoriented. Then, forcing my upper half upright with a struggle, “What’s wrong with my dad?”
Elvira looks relieved, just for a moment, and the craziness in her eyes morphs into a steely expression of intensity. “We need to get out of here. Right. Now. Come on.”
With the same violent grip that was just possessing my shoulders, Elvira pulls me to my feet and tows me by the forearm towards the casement on the wall parallel to the bed. The windows are open now, and the polyester curtains billow in the howling wind. My stomach flips as I bid a dizzy glance out towards the city and down the sleek perimeter of the castle.
“We’re not actually going down there, are we?” I gasp, seizing the windowsill to hold myself steady.
The castle is five hundred feet tall with over thirty floors, many of which have twenty-foot-tall ceilings and large Palladian windows. It boasts a thirty-foot-tall entrance with an extensive staircase leading to the main atrium, at which point the rest of the structure looms over the summits of oak trees, reaching up into the sky. Above the grand entrance, the palace branches off into several gleaming towers. The whole castle is fortified by graphene off of which the sunlight glints handsomely on bright summer days. In the night, the graphene and the glass of the tall windows offer a dreamlike glow to mimic the waning light of the moon and stars. The colorful radiance of the distant city illuminates the night as well, just barely.
“Hold on tight,” Elvira says emotionlessly, as if she’s done this a million times.
I barely have time to slide into a pair of fur-lined slippers before I’m clutching onto my best friend and leaping thoughtlessly out of the window. Suddenly we’re whisking through the brisk night air, traveling the four-hundred-and-something feet down from my bedroom on the highest floor to the roof of the main atrium which extends outwards from where the rest of the towers emerge. Elvira holds onto a lustrous sort of black rope, and I feel my internal organs drift from their usual places as I glance down to see the end of the cord flapping away in the wind.
“Good God,” I cry, a small sample of the full-scale panic ensuing in my brain.
The rope looks to be made of plastic or some other slippery, strong material, the cord itself reflecting some of the night’s glow. Looking up turns out to be minimally less mortifying than looking down, and it appears as though the rope’s been attached by a magnetic binding above the frame of my bedroom window, hitching to the metal sturdily. I finally steal a glimpse at Elvira. For the positively helpless manner in which I’m holding onto her, she seems impossibly unfazed. She bears the cable as she might a broom or the arm of a friend, gentle and casual.
“Bioelectronic rope,” Elvira explains, as if reading my thoughts, although I haven’t the slightest clue as to how the gibberish is meant to clear up any confusion. “Harmonizes with your center of gravity, so you can do this.”
Wildly, Elvira swings theatrically outwards with just one hand still holding on to the rope, and we swivel around its axis. Wind rushes against my freezing ears like the pounding of a great propellor, and my hazel eyes begin to water. Lower now, the city is hardly within view anymore, great splotches of thousands of condensed forest green fronds scattered below. The stars are dimmer from down here, the sky more blackened.
Beyond the ten or so miles of trees surrounding the castle, I can see the colossal man-made metal poles that reach up higher than any tree, morphing at the top into huge horizontal rectangles; signs left unfinished. Father says that they were meant to become billboards, large screens to project advertisements to passersby, but he put a pause to the destructive project. Artificial light was known to cause headaches and even migraines, and the widespread ads were one of the issues that his campaign promised to put an end to.
We slow to a stop as we reach the end of the cord, and we gracefully drop the six inches or so between the rope’s end and the solid roof of the main atrium. Releasing Elvira, I feel every muscle in my body relax mercifully, and I nearly collapse from the mere realization of the trip’s exhaustion, however short. Elvira presses her body to the wall stealthily, and I do the same, mimicking her cautious glance up towards windows and balconies.
“Look out,” is Elvira’s next command, still so routine and experienced.
At the rope’s end is a solid block of hard material. She unsheathes a button by flicking its small lid upwards, and it responds to the light tap of her finger by demagnetizing the binding hundreds of feet above, causing it to swivel rapidly downwards and connect with a small clack to the block in Elvira’s palm, now perfectly compact. Covering the button again, Elvira packs the device away in a duffel bag that’s been left on the roof.
Elvira and I met in the site of Middle Oaks at two years old when we attended pre-school together. The establishment was the finest of its kind; parents often didn’t send their children to institutes of such early education, as they wanted to ensure that they were raised up right, not influenced in any which way by the values of teachers. This of course was never a problem in the Great Avant Syndicate—it’s one of the core principles on which the country was founded.
However, in earlier civilizations before the settlers arrived, historians recount the days in which schools were “public”, and curriculum was decided by charters rather than the morals of the parents. Students, if one could even call them that, were processed through years of targeted education meant to weaken their minds rather than strengthen them. Ideals which deterred them from patriotism and channeled them towards destructive thinking were forced upon their impressionable intellect. Teachers in the Old Times were so foolish as to preach about the imperfections of their primitive society, practically begging the youth to detest their heritage and turn against authority.
Such a general and unfiltered form of what was laughably called education was snuffed out by the beginnings of the Great Avant Syndicate. Schools are all their own private entities specializing in various areas that align with the ideals of each family in the respective schools. Every official educational institute is overseen by EduCorp, based in Middle Oaks, a site in the center of the country bordered by the site of Mohani to the right, home to PoliticaCorp, and the site of Dominga to the left, where ArchCorp is based. Each corporation has its own CEO that exercises the highest level of authority over their firm during their life terms.
CEO of EduCorp, Heather Roux, outlines the values of Middle Oaks as: the right to free speech, freedom from radical teaching practices, and the right of the family to protect their child from radical propaganda and unwanted information. While schools of Old were criminally used as weapons of conversion and force, today, it’s a national consensus that education is a useful system that borders on danger, and teachers are responsible for protecting students from the hazards of knowing too much.
Elvira and I attended Grace Academy together as toddlers. The school was a minimalistic one-story building that took on an organic shape and was surrounded by small gardens that the children helped maintain. The boys would dig the hollow excavations with miniature spades, and the girls would drop in the seeds, holding the precious things in both hands and laying them gracefully in the soil. That year, 2074, I helped plant apple blossoms along the perimeter of the school’s stubby wooden fence, and Elvira grew poppies in the flowerbeds below the windows. Later, we would sit together on the wooden porch swing, attempting to force the oscillations with our tiny legs, uniformed in white skirts and long socks extending upwards from our red slip-on shoes. The boys would wrestle in the dirt as we spoke and played, and sometimes one of them would come and push us on the swing, proudly displaying their strength. At Grace Academy, children were taught their proper roles in the Syndicate to provide them with a strong foundation for future growth and success.
Elvira and I would revisit Grace every so often as we grew older, checking on the gardens and reminiscing about simpler times. The sun seemed to shine brighter in those days, the sky bluer. We would laugh about the day that a garden snake (or a rat, we could never agree as the memories started to fade) scurried across the classroom and sent us exploding into the air, somehow landing atop cabinets from which it took us several minutes to descend, Elvira coaxing me gradually downwards after she navigated a safe way to ground.
“It’s okay Vel Vel! It can’t hurt you, see!” Elvira had lifted the dead thing, having had the life snuffed out of it by one of the boys who was still sniffling in a corner (“Now, now, boys don’t cry,” shamed the teacher with a disappointed tut, tut).
“Elvira, put that down right now!” exclaimed Mrs. Thorne then, aghast at Elvira’s lack of ladylike manners.
I always admired Elvira’s confidence, her ability to stand out despite what everyone else around her was doing, but it never quite infected me.
This year, I toured the school alone. The apples were rotting, infested with worms and flies, producing a sweet earthy smell. Meanwhile, the poppies beyond were as vibrant as ever, blooming towards the sun, forever reaching up.
Suddenly, Elvira and I are seventeen again on the roof of the castle’s atrium in the dead of night, and she’s grabbing me by the same bruised shoulder as before. She gazes outwards with a dazed sort of concentration, as if she’s not quite in this moment but rather occupying some period in the future when all of this is said and done, whatever this is. Her face has gone pink with the frigid cold just like mine.
“Come on, the others should be waiting just beyond those trees now,” Elvira whispers into the night air, her breath visible and white.
Indeed, I see two figures just past the furthermost part of the roof and down on the ground below the shade of a tall walnut tree, masked in shadow but just visible enough for Elvira to make out the meeting point. She tows me along the innermost perimeter of the roof’s surface with her duffel bag hoisted on her other arm, and we scurry like mice, unnoticed in the night.
The contractible rope makes another appearance as we slide down the side of the main atrium, bypassing the extensive staircase that precedes it. Once we’re on solid ground and I finally get my bearings, I decide to repossess my body, no longer a voiceless puppet for Elvira to command.
“Can you tell me what’s going on now?” I breathe, ripping my arm away from El’s grip and taking on a more demanding stance with my feet apart in the dirt and my shoulders squared.
We’re in the trees now, a little ways away from the castle’s entrance, likely hidden enough from any wandering eyes.
“There’s not much time, Vel. Just trust me, we need to get you out of here. I promise I’ll explain when I can.”
Apparently assuming that her attempt at appeasement satisfied me, she begins to turn her back, expecting me to follow like before as she leads me away from my home into the unknown dangers of the world outside.
While of course I’ve been to nearly every site in the Syndicate, it’s always been to visit specific destinations in order to fulfill intentional duties. We travel by the Aspen cars that are kept at the palace, Father’s top of the line model, which travel pre-built routes at lightning speed, basically teleportation. So while I can technically say that I’ve traveled the country, it doesn’t mean I’ve actually seen it. And that’s a good thing—as the princess of the Great Avant Syndicate, it’s safer for me to stay fairly isolated. Although the Syndicate is led by kings and queens, we’re not like the monarchies of Old. Leadership doesn’t necessarily pass through blood alone; citizens (normally CEO’s) are allowed to contest for power, so it’s important for me to follow in Father’s footsteps and sharpen my leadership abilities in preparation for when the time finally comes for me to rule.
Power over the Great Avant Syndicate is a very desirable thing, and already at the age of seventeen, I’ve managed some pretty narrow escapes from those who sought to eliminate the competition. That’s how I earned the scar on my cheek—when I was just a baby, I was taken away by criminals still unidentified, demanding a ransom from my parents in return for my life. Willing to give up anything for their newborn daughter, they saw that I was returned, but not without a blade wound to my face. No one in the palace could identify the symbol or what it meant, but it reminds me that no matter the barriers built up around me, my life is fragile. Considering the danger and violence that lurks outside as well as the perfectly good lessons to be learned and skills to be gained within the palace, I’ve never felt the need to leave on my own, and have been strongly advised against it.
I feel a sudden wave of rage crash through my body like the aftershock of an earthquake—I know I was crying earlier tonight, but I don’t remember why. I feel confused, upset, and I have this feeling that Elvira has something to do with it, and why shouldn’t she when she’s been the source of my misery for months? I dig the soles of my slippers even deeper into the ground in defiance.
“You’ve barely spoken to me since September of what is now last year, and now you just expect me to follow you to who knows where? What’s stopping me from walking back to that castle right now and going back to the way things were? You can return to forgetting I exist, and I’ll go back to pretending not to care.”
The outburst leaves me breathless, heaving for air and shaking. Tears sting my eyes because they always do when I remember how my best friend forgot about me as soon as some stupid new kids came to town and introduced her to the joys of self destruction. The parties are like contained simulations for rebellion, allowing her to chase that thrill without anything real ever happening. I think her illegal dalliances are pathetic, but that might just partly be because I’m never invited.
“Vel, this is really not the time. I’m trying to protect you. And… we need your help for something,” Elvira responds, only minorly taken aback by my shouting, if at all.
As if summoned, El’s two friends emerge from the greenery. They wear the same crimson-lensed goggles atop their heads. Still not in whispering-distance yet, they sign something to Elvira that of course is exclusively comprehensible to them.
“This is Alaric and Maeve. We have to go now,” El says finally, flanked by my two replacements.
“Why the hell should I help you after all the ways you’ve hurt me these past few months? And better yet, why would I ever consider doing anything for them? I don’t even know them. I hardly even know you anymore, Elvira.”
My statements are those of defeat, words meant to cut without any hope for repair. My voice has been reduced to a quick sort of growl, the kind of tone that would scare me to death if my mom ever used it on me.
Maeve steps forward. She’s short and round with smooth black hair that stops right at the shoulders and deep brown eyes that seem to say I’m done with your crap.
“You two can settle your couples’ problems later. Velvette, they’ve already noticed you’re missing. They’re deploying a search party as we speak, so either you come with us right now, or we make you.”
I hate Maeve’s condescending tone. I hate the way that she makes me feel like an ant among giants, as if my struggle is adorable at best, but undeniably wasted. I hate the way that she manages to speak with an eye roll for an accent, and I hate how she stands next to Elvira like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“I hope the search party finds me. I hope they send us both back where we belong, which for one of us isn’t gonna be too—mmmph!”
The cloth is on my face, chemicals stinging my nostrils. The trees and sky blend together in a swirling impressionist rendition of night. I can hear male shouting in the distance, and I wonder if I’m about to be saved. For one strange moment, I wildly question which party I truly need saving from. Three young faces loom over me as my body meets the earth with an unpleasant thud, and then, I’m out.