Adult Test by Julie Steimle (books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

“Hey Zormna! Get in an accident?” Anzer Tellovii called out from his vehicle.

Before she could bark back some kind of insult, to Zormna’s surprise, Salvar retorted for her. “Yeah? See you in the flight tunnels, you eater! Then we’ll see who is the tough guy!”

It wasn’t usual that Salvar challenged someone to a race, but then it was Zormna he was setting up, not himself.

Zormna shook her head as they flew off. “No Salvar. Too busy.”

She turned from her peers and stared listlessly out into the open commerce cavern.

Salvar slouched down and said the obvious, “You could have beat him, you know.”

“So?” She responded. Of course she could beat any Surface Patrol officer in a race, probably even Alea Tenngar and he was the Zeta district’s leader. But it really did not matter. She was still on probation for the pronuk scandal. The Kevin would not approve at all. 

Frowning, Salvar looked out into the crowd again. Silence accompanied them the rest of the way.

They stopped at a light not too far from their favorite hang out place. Sandi was sure to be on duty in the social bar. Zormna peered through the wide illuminated doorway. Three undercity teenaged boys stepped out, laughing, with Sandi following them. Sandi caught sight of Zormna and smiled, waving to her and then back to her undercity friends as they left the eating establishment. Zormna flicked a small wave in return to her, though she watched the undercity boys head back to the metro tunnels that would take them home. One of the boys glanced in Zormna’s direction, possibly wondering what a flymite was doing on a prison transport platform. His stare unnerved her at first—fixed, deep, and darker blue than she could ever imagine…and strangely familiar. Zormna felt like she could be swallowed up in his eyes. She would have taken him for a seer with his midnight black hair if it weren’t for his undercity attire and somewhat jumpy manner.

But the traffic started up again, and she could not get a good look. He went into the foot traffic and was gone into the metro lines. For a second she felt like she recognized him, seen him somewhere before, but could not finger where exactly. It seemed more like something out of a dream rather than reality. After all, where would she have had contact with an undercity boy?

Quite abruptly, the platform started again. 

“Scrapes!” Zormna cursed to herself, glaring back at the People’s Military officers driving the flying scooters. That stupid P.M.! Zormna sulked again on the platform as it continued above the crowd and entered the flight tunnels toward the uppercity.

The tunnel had an upward grade, and it grew wider and cleaner when they emerged into the first level of the uppercity. The trip itself was quick. Above them the false sky gleamed blue. It seemed to have a depth the lower caverns did not have, and that alone made her blood boil. State-of-the-art technology was at its best in the High Class living areas. It was unfair too since they were not the ones that manufactured the structures. Just like her uncle used to say, the High Class had all that luxury at the expense of the undercity dwellers.

The High Class had killed her parents, a fact she never forgot. And traveling among them gave her chills. Her parents’ last words to her repeated in her mind. “Don’t say a word or they will find you.”

They found her parents. And people from High Class killed them, just like they arranged her uncle’s death. She could not understand why they did it either. Was it so bad to be a Tarrn?

The Kevin didn’t think so. But like her parents he warned her never to talk about it. No one was to know she was a Tarrn. Not even Alea Arden.

But that wasn’t the only reason why being in the uppercity gave her chills. Flying through the clean streets of the wealthy parts of the underground city of Arras where the buildings sparkled and the green trees fluttered in a manufactured breeze fresh from the air generators with the people all around smiling and satisfied at their lives, she wanted to slap every one of them; so self-satisfied with being the rulers of the world that they sneered down at all those under them.

The majority of the city was under them.

Trying to fight the growing irritation in her chest, Zormna looked above at the pale blue sky. It looked almost real. However she had seen the real sky, flown in it. The real sky above the several hundred feet of rock was pinkish colored, and the air was thin to nonexistent. No. This world of false skies and fresh breezes was reminiscent of the world they destroyed millennia ago—a world with oceans, rivers, and lakes; high mountains that grew rice and flax on stepped plateaus, where goats used to climb where their herdsmen would guard them from wolves or as legends said, demons; valleys where flowers of many bright colors flourished, fields of grain, and gardens filled with the bounty of all sorts of vegetables; forests that were so dense and full of brightly colored birds that were plucked for their fine feathers and eaten during festivals; vast deserts with dunes, hills and dromedaries; and steppes, and hills, and areas covered in ice. It used to be a diverse, full and lush living place—ten thousand years ago. But the world Zormna knew personally was a lifeless rock of red dust and dry ice, circled by blue ice clouds and wild dust storms, so dead that even the people of Partha were convinced that life never even existed on Arras. Her heart ached looking at all the manufactured replacements for their lost civilization. Paper-thin facades, but it was all they knew since the day they were born.

The platform slowed down to a gentle stop. They were at the gates of the Internal Security Incarceration Compound, the Peoples’ Military base of operations. Without waiting for an order to step off the vehicle, Zormna hurdled lightly over the bar to the marble carved floor.

Across from the large metal doors of the gate stood a cluster of young high blood punks, wearing the latest fashions and jabbering on about silly things the High Class only cared about, like fashion fax pas and what kind of class Zormna had to be. One auburn haired male noticed her small lady-like figure and whispered something to his friends. There was a general snicker among them. They kept whispering between themselves as the boy left the wall they were leaning on to approach her. 

Salvar looked up when Zormna had hopped off and jumped off the platform to follow her. As she watched the two People’s Military officers dismount their flight scooters, she casually leaned against the outside wall to wait. The P.M.s typed in a code at the door pad, hardly glancing back at their human cargo. They knew the two restless flymites would follow them sooner or later once the doors opened.

Zormna turned with a twitch when she saw the High Class hooligan step closer in her direction, watching her with eyes she had only recently seen on men within the last year. It was a leer. Not a hateful leer either, which was what she expected from a High Class member, but a lustful one that ogled her figure, especially her newly-developed breasts. The redhead grinned then rolled up his left sleeve as he leaned toward Zormna.

“Do you want to improve your social station?” the man said, lifting his nose while exposing his family crest, which was tattooed on his left shoulder like all High Class caste members.

Her mouth dropped open first. Then Zormna seized the man by his collar and shoved him up against the metal arch of the doorway, as his eyes bulged and his arms splayed. Her eyes were aflame and her chest heaved in anger, responding instinctively to the insulting offer to marry him. “How dare you! I wouldn’t lower myself to such standards! You keep your shoulder covered, you disgusting roach!”

Salvar ran up as fast as he could to rescue the man—and Zormna, from a worse confrontation, prying her hands from the High Class man’s shirtfront. Zormna released her grip and jerked away towards the door with revulsion. 

Straightening his shirt with haughty distaste, the High Class man remarked sourly to Salvar, “Well, it is obvious you and your kind really do belong with the rats.”

Shoving the man back up against the wall, Salvar said through his teeth. “Watch it! I’m Guard Class and the Kevin’s son. You are lucky I didn’t let her take your head off.”

Salvar then turned from the man, tossing him aside in a rude manner, following Zormna to the doors.

The High Class man rubbed his neck as he turned back to his group, muttering to himself. “How come the good looking ones have to be Surface Patrol fleas?”

He tromped off to the outstretched arms of his friends for consolation, but he glanced back once more at Zormna before she vanished completely into the People’s Military headquarters, still checking out the curve of her posterior.

The broad People’s Military doors opened. Zormna entered through by foot, Salvar walking quickly by her side. The two officers that had come with them flew on ahead, leading the flight pad away.

Not that different from the Surface Patrol gates, the entrance of ISIC was brightly lit with three P.M. guards, creating an anteroom were they, like in the Patrol, could control who came in and who came out. The guards let the two Surface Patrol cadets pass into the main corridors with only a look at their idenit-cards. Zormna frowned a little when she stepped into the spanking-clean broad passage that reminded her just as much of the Alpha District corridor, though it felt cheerless and cold for some reason. Lifting her chin high, she squared her shoulders. While entering that den of monsters, she had to show no fear. Salvar copied her, though his reasons had more to do with being the Kevin’s son than facing a people he hated. They marched down the hall, following the two P.M.s that had brought them.

After walking half the length of the corridor they took a sharp turn where they faced yet another security post with guards. Both P.M.s and Suface Patrol cadets handed their identi-cards to that gatekeeper. Salvar looked back down the hall and then at the post, sighing a little as it was too much like the Surface Patrol Alpha District’s main corridor and like with Zormna it left him a little unsettled. It had been rumored that the ancient Guard Class of the last royal family originally built the Internal Security Incarceration Compound, though from their history lessons they knew that ISIC did not actually take on any prisoners until after the formation of the People’s Military, and that wasn’t until the entire royal guard was replaced in 5 Q.Z.R. P.E.[3]. With the added P.M. touches it certainly took on a starker look.

Once they were let through, both cadets took two steps before halting right in front of a rigid soldier in a dark green uniform that was trimmed with gold.  He peered down at the pair of them as the other two P.M.s saluted with a murmur of explanation to him what had on in the Alpha District. As he listened, his eyes flickered with a scowl, as if he was not sure if he should let in such poor results to their search for Surface Patrol help. Eventually he addressed the two cadets. “You two, come with me."

[1] Arrassian years

[2] Thirty four Earth years.

[3] Queen Zormna’s Reckoning Present Era