History Test by Julie Steimle (first e reader TXT) 📕

“Who is this? A new friend?” the officer asked.

Jafarr smiled with another laugh. “No, sir. This is actually an old friend—since I started school years ago. He doesn’t live in my district so you’ve never met.”

“Alzdar Demmon,” Alzdar said, bowing.

“Yes,” the police officer said slowly, recognition flickering in his eyes.

Jafarr smiled. “This is Officer K’ren. He used to patrol my neighborhood with that Officer Javer Clendar I told you about. He is a friend to everyone in my district.”

As they talked, he noticed that their metro had just taken off to the Surface Gate without them.

Turning at last to Jafarr, Officer K’ren asked, “How did your test go?”

Jafarr frowned slightly, sighed and said, “Well. It went well for the most part.”

Alzdar looked again at his friend and then exchanged glances with the policeman briefly.

“Well, keep up the good work,” the police officer at last said. The man walked off without another word.

Dzhon turned immediately to Jafarr, throwing his arm around Jafarr’s shoulder. “You knew he was going to come, didn’t you?”

Jafarr painfully nodded. “I expected him.”

Alzdar said nothing. He just looked at his friend, glanced down the metro tunnel, and folded his arms.

“Well, it was a good thing he was there. Those guys would have killed you,” Dzhon continued.

Jafarr nodded. “Possibly.”

“Possibly? Scrapes, are you a man for words. You barely got out of that alive,” Dzhon exclaimed.

“Usually do,” Jafarr said, gazing at the tile across the way.

Alzdar shook his head; thinking and still wondering silently about the police officer they met.

[1] Earth years.

The metro came soon enough. The three boys stepped on without another word. They grabbed onto the hanging hooks situated near the door, a practice the boys had picked up from living long in the undercity. It was always good to have a quick escape route.

The metro rumbled from station to station, traveling on a fast upward indirect slope to the Surface Gate. Each time the door opened for a stop, the boys leaned away from the door, making way for the surge of incoming and outgoing travelers. Once in a while a familiar face would enter the metro, nod to Jafarr and ask him how his test had gone. Every time Jafarr would respond that it went well, and the person would leave as if they had barely said a word to each other at all. Jafarr was slowly looking disgruntled.

“Scrapes, Jafarr. An awful lot of people seem to know you,” Dzhon commented under the deep hum of the metro.

Alzdar bit his lip with a glance at his friend again.

“No, Dzhon. They just know my father,” Jafarr replied, somewhat annoyed. “He brags when he shouldn’t.”

“Brags?” Alzdar interjected.

The metro pulled into another stop, rumbling ‘shugeda’ with hissing in the echoing tunnel. The door slid open.

Jafarr nodded, watching people exit into the station.

A new crowd stepped inside, along with a People’s Military officer. The boys stood back when they saw him, as did the crowd around them. The officer smiled at the effect he caused, even as he proudly squeezed into the car and started to walk up to the security post where a metro police officer stood. Just passing Dzhon, the P.M. looked down at the somewhat unkempt undercity boy as he uncomfortably clutched the pole.

“A little far from home, aren’t you rat boy?” the older man said. He laughed to himself as he continued up to the front of the cabin.

       Dzhon’s face burned but he said nothing.

The metro rumbled out of the station and back into the tunnels. Now that a P.M. was on board, the car shook in deadly silence. People clutched the hanging tethers and poles sullenly. A brooding hush clung to the air like clenched teeth holding their tongue. Everyone stared at the ground, the walls, the ceiling—anything but at the P.M. that was now conversing with the metro officer. Their exchange was not that friendly either. It seemed as though the People’s Military officer was trying to push his weight around, and the metro officer was not giving him any leeway.

The metro rumbled again into another stop before their conversation could conclude. The doors slid open and the crowds exited hastily out into the cavern. The three boys continued to cling to their individual hooks, waiting for their stop, which was still a ways upward in the transit tunnel.

“Hey, kid,” a man said upon seeing Jafarr as he entered the metro car.

Jafarr looked up, shallowly breathing at this unexpected circumstance. He did not recognize the face of the man, but he already knew the question.

“Heard you had a test today. How’d you do?” the man asked.

Jafarr shook his head and said through clenched teeth, “I did well, thank you.”

The man nodded and continued to step into the metro only to stop and see the P.M. at the end of the metro glancing over in his direction. The man immediately looked down and took his place on the car. The P.M. stopped his conversation with the metro officer. He looked down at the car at the three undercity boys, peering now at Jafarr, whom he had not noticed when he first entered. He seemed to sum him up in just a few glances. Jafarr held a blank stare, gazing out at the view of the metro cavern that was transforming into the slowly approaching darkness of the metro tunnel.

The officer turned from his present position and slowly walked down toward the three boys. The metro officer followed the P.M.’s journey with his eyes, wondering what the People’s Military officer had just noticed.

The metro rumbled through the tunnel, taking up the pace as it climbed upward speeding and passing cars echo within the tunnels. The P.M. stopped next to the door where Jafarr and his friends stood in silence and with great trepidation. He grabbed the pole just above Jafarr’s head and smiled down at the fourteen-year-old boy, saying nothing. Jafarr looked up mildly at the P.M. and then returned his stare out the window. His facial expression did not change a bit.

“Kind of far up out of the undercity aren’t we?” the P.M. said at last.

Jafarr continued to stare out the window, took a breath, contemplating his response. It was unwise not to respond to a P.M. when he spoke directly to you.

“Not far,” Jafarr said quietly.

The P.M. seemed amused. “No. I’d say it is at least five levels away from your digs. That is very far.”

Jafarr clenched his teeth. He then looked up at the P.M. and remarked, “Actually it is six levels if you want to get technical, but we aren’t going any farther than the Surface Gate.”

The P.M. frowned at the boy’s impudence. “I suppose you think you can just wander about the higher levels then, huh? You think you’re that hot?”

Digging his shoe into the metal flooring, Jafarr stared down at the seam of the closed doors. The metro rumbled, slowing down now on its approach to the station.

“Well?” the P.M. said testily, waiting for another pert response.

Jafarr looked up. He could see the approaching stop. It was theirs and it certainly could not have come soon enough.

“I’m not supposing anything more than that the Surface Gate is a caste free zone,” Jafarr replied firmly, though quietly.

The P.M. twisted his mouth with a smirk. “There is no such thing as a cast free zone when it comes to rats, boy.”

Taking a breath, Jafarr gazed out the glass at the approaching mobs of people. The car had stopped. He waited only for the doors to open. Alzdar watched the doors as well, grabbing a hold of Dzhon’s jacket and urging him to follow quickly.

“Is there a problem?” the metro police officer at last said, approaching them.

The P.M. lost his smile as he looked back at the interfering officer. The doors slid open. Jafarr and his friends immediately marched out into the open transit hall, followed by floods of people that had been waiting behind them. The P.M. stepped back even as he was pushed aside. However he quickly returned his gaze to where Jafarr had been standing then growled when he saw that he was missing. All three boys had vanished into the crowd of the transit hall, out of sight. The P.M. stamped his foot and stepped back onto the metro car to the security station. Grinning slightly, the metro policeman returned to his post.

All three boys laughed, standing around a tall table at Sandi’s, a stand-up restaurant nearly everyone in the city of Arras had nicknamed after their favorite waitress there. It was actually called Gangardek Zep, owned by a middle city man, but no one knew his name. Sandi herself smiled as she waited tables, sharing jokes with every person that walked in, calling each one by name. How she knew everyone so intimately could only be in her cheery personality, though Jafarr thought she was one of those few geniuses in the world that was hiding her talent with a menial job.

“Hi, Jafarr,” Sandi said as she passed by, raising her empty glasses overhead on a tray.

Jafarr smiled and waved back to the friendly face. She walked over to a table where three Surface Patrol officers were calling to her for drinks, them clearly off duty.

“I was sure he was going to nab you,” Dzhon said, not nearly as loud as he wished.

Jafarr shook his head. “So was he.”

Raising a finger, Jafarr summoned Sandi and smiled when she came with a micro-vid in hand.

“What will you have?” she asked with her characteristic flirty smile.

Alzdar grinned. “A citric tsilk for me.”

“A foamy for me,” Dzhon added.

Jafarr finished. “Citric tsilk and a bowl of kalger.”

Sandi smiled and wrote each order on the micro-vid. “Three spoons?”

Alzdar nodded, smiling. Dzhon grinned as Jafarr nodded in agreement.

The waitress quickly smiled then turned, waving to the man behind the bar counter. He nodded back, reading the marks on his vis-screen that she had just sent in. She turned back with a smile at the three boys.

“They’re on their way.” Sandi slipped again through the crowd to the next table calling her. It seemed that her job was never done.

They watched her go before they returned back to their conversation.

“So, are you going to your dad’s after this?” Alzdar asked.

Jafarr shook his head.

“Not today. He has some business to take care of without me.” He rolled his eyes up and stared at the glowing cube lights that lined the archway entrance. “He said he didn’t want