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

“But you already know—” Dzhon started to say.

“Yeah, all by heart. He’s got other work…” Jafarr’s voice trailed off.

Sandi returned with their drinks and the kalger cream pudding. She smiled politely then left as quickly as she had come.

“Your dad has his reasons, Jafarr. You know that,” Alzdar said.

Jafarr rolled his eyes again, picked up a spoon and took a scoop of the pudding. He glanced about the room, watching people come in and out the open archway. Surface Patrol officers and cadets swarmed at their own tables, almost mixing with the civilian crowds. They laughed at their own jokes and occasionally glanced at the other patrons from other parts of the city. Jafarr looked back at his own table and tried to respond to his friend’s looks.

“I’d rather not talk about that,” he said poking at the pudding with his spoon.

“Well, at least you could come today. You’ve been missing out these past few weeks. Sometimes I think your dad keeps you captive,” Dzhon said, grabbing a spoon to take a large scoop out of the pudding bowl.

“Hmm.” Jafarr laughed. “Well, sometimes I think—”

“Sometimes you think what?” a voice broke in from above. The crowd around them had gone silent.

Jafarr looked up and then brought his head down on the table. A tall People’s Military officer leaned over him with a partial smile on his lips. His voice Jafarr knew.

“I heard you had a test today,” the white-haired P.M. said with a smirk from his cool blue eyes. “How’d you do?”

Jafarr closed his eyes, shaking his head. “I got an eighty-two.”

“Eighty-two, huh? A smart boy like you? I’ve heard that you could pass with a perfect score if you let yourself,” the P.M. said.

Looking up at the People’s Military officer, Jafarr recognized the face. He turned away.

“A boy that takes to repairing flight scooters in his spare time, training to be an engineer with one of the best groups in the middlecity is too bright a mind for an eighty-two…unless that was a code for something,” the P.M. remarked with a smug look, grinning down at Jafarr.

Jafarr dug into his pudding and frowned, stirring the remaining cream in a slow circle. “It was a History exam. There was no engineering involved.”

The P.M. smiled. “I suppose so, Zeldar.”

“What do you want, Dural Korad?” Jafarr asked, looking up.

Alzdar’s face went pale, especially at how Jafarr spoke so casually to that People’s Military officer. Dzhon stared quietly, licking his lips and glancing at the P.M.. The dural did not seem at all pleased at Jafarr’s disrespect. And the crowd around them drew in breaths.

“I want to know the deal with your test. You’re passing a coded message aren’t you?” Dural Korad peered down at him, watching every movement he made.

Jafarr flung his spoon into the bowl. “Code? Do I have time to even play this game, Dural?”

Dural Korad frowned and said, “The only game is the one you are playing.  Answer the question.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Jafarr said.

Dural Korad motioned over to another officer that had been watching from the archway. It was the officer from the metro. He came, smiling in a triumphant manner, stopping with uplifted pomposity at their table. Several customers snuck out then, the room clearing to get out of his way.

Physically turning, Jafarr faced his table. Alzdar was about to speak up, looking at his friend, but Jafarr shook his head slightly and stared intensely at him to keep him quiet. Dzhon looked back at Alzdar and Jafarr, and then the P.M. 

The two People’s Military officers reached over, grabbed Jafarr’s arms, pulled them back and cuffed him with electric binders. Jafarr closed his eyes as they did this, not resisting, though rigidly straining against the rough handling.

“Wait! What did he do?” Dzhon looked up to the faces of the internal military men, searching out even a glint of humanity in their cold eyes.

Alzdar grabbed at his friend and pulled him back. “No, Dzhon. No.”

Dural Korad glanced over at Jafarr’s friends and smirked. “That’s right, boys. Let him go. You might even see him at school tomorrow, if he is lucky.”

Jafarr kept his eyes closed until the two P.M.s started to move him. The two People’s Military officers seized him by his jacket, dragging him out of the social bar. He did not even fight them, though they pushed him around enough that it was just as well he did. Everyone watched.

The Surface Patrol officers watched the scene whispering amongst themselves, but did nothing. Sandi ran over to the two friends and with them watched the P.M.s take Jafarr away, as all the other patrons watched, ducking back in case the P.M.s thought to drag them away too.

“Don’t worry, Al,” Dzhon tried to say encouragingly, his mouth contorting in an attempt at hope, “Jafarr is lucky. He won’t be gone long.”

Alzdar watched the blue-uniformed men load his friend on a flight pad parked just outside the door, attaching him to the poles so he could not escape. The P.M.s talked among themselves as they secured Jafarr’s cuffs, glancing back into the eatery a few times. Jafarr just stared at his knees as he sat there.

“Lucky? I hope so,” Alzdar murmured, slowly shaking his head as he watched those P.M.s test the cuffs again.

Then one of the People’s Military officers from outside returned to their table, bringing another P.M. with him.

“You two, come with me,” he ordered.

Both Dzhon and Alzdar glanced at each other then at them.

“But what—?” Dzhon’s mouth flopped open.

The P.M. drew out his laser pistol, and the other motioned over to Dural Korad for assistance.

“What is it, Mezela?” the commanding dural asked.

Motioning over to the two other boys, the P.M. said, “They’re resisting.”

Alzdar spoke up at once, lifting his hands as he backed up. “Whoa! Nothing like that. He just wanted to know why—”

Dural Korad marched over to Alzdar with a critical glance. He then turned to Dzhon who had already slumped over to be cuffed by the first P.M.. “You’re Zeldar’s friends, aren’t you?”

Alzdar closed his mouth, nodded with a huff. He reluctantly lifted up his own wrists, knowing now it was guilt by association. Justice had nothing to do with it.

The dural smiled.

The P.M.s escorted both boys to the transport platform where Jafarr had been cuffed to the pole in an awkward position dejectedly staring at the floor of the pad. He looked up when he saw the durals bring his friends over.

“No, wait. What are you dragging them in here for? Your grudge is against me and my father, not these guys.” Jafarr twisted around so he could fairly face the smug dural.

Dural Korad smirked as the soldiers force both Alzdar and Dzhon on board the hovering pad, also binding them to the guide bar. “Dear boy, this is going to be educational. This is an education that I think you and your buddies need.”

Jafarr slumped back in his seat. It was no use arguing with a P.M.

Alzdar and Dzhon stared down at the flight pad floor and then up at their friend when the P.M. walked to his vehicle.

“What do we do now, Jafarr? I’ve never been to ISIC before. That is where they are taking us isn’t it?” Alzdar shook his head, nearly quaking in fright.

Dzhon closed his eyes and started to repeat to himself over and over: “This isn’t happening. I can’t have this on my record. I’ll never pass the test now.”

Jafarr snapped with a jerk against his bonds. “Do you think I do this all the time or something? Do you actually think I take jaunts to ISIC? Alzdar, I’ve never been to ISIC before either. Don’t you think this scares me?” He then shook his head and said, “It is just that this P.M. has recently come out of nowhere just because I’m a Zeldar. He had been lying in wait for me or my dad to screw up.”

Alzdar’s eyes grew wide. “That’s bad. It wouldn’t be so bad if your dad wasn’t—”

Jafarr glared severely at him to shut up.

Smiling apologetically, Alzdar continued, “It is just that you and your dad are the last Zeldars, aren’t you?”

Jafarr nodded. “Like that matters. It isn’t like we’re Tarrns or anything.”

Dzhon looked up at him after his panic stricken mumbling. “No, Jafarr, you may not be a Tarrn, but I once heard that things will always be well if a Zeldar is around. I mean, they were first cousins to the—”

“Enough of that!” Jafarr at last spat. “Don’t talk like that. The P.M.s don’t need more reasons to get at my dad and me. Or have you forgotten they killed my mother?”

Dzhon closed his mouth and sat back.

“I don’t want to go to ISIC,” Alzdar returned silently under his breath.

“Sorry.” Jafarr muttered and turned away.

They stopped in the uppercity at the gates of Internal Security Incarceration Compound, waiting in silence for the doors to open. The security guard smirked when he saw the three boys.

“An undercity Seer Class boy and two rats huh?” the guard commented.

Dural Korad shook his head. “Three rats only. Only that boy’s mother was Seer Class,” remarking on Jafarr’s looks, “He’s Zeldar’s kid.”

The guard’s eyes narrowed. He peered at Jafarr again, inspecting his face. Jafarr rolled his eyes as he turned away from the soldier.

“Acts like him,” the guard replied. He then waved the officers through the gates.

They flew down the wide corridors, passing durals and the High Class recruits gathered from the uppercity. They even spotted groupies gathered from the undercity, treated better than undercity cops would have ever treated them. Seeing this only solidified Jafarr’s suspicions about the groupies and the free reign the P.M.s seemed to give them for terror purposes.

They continued to travel until they reached an open hall where prison cells branched off. A security station stood in the front of the corridor. Dural Korad climbed off his flight scooter here and walked towards the security desk. The man behind it eyed the prisoners on the flight platform then nodded to his superior as Dural Korad spoke with him.

Armed guards from inside the prison hall immediately marched to the platform, forcibly removing Jafarr from his seat while leaving his friends. This time Jafarr struggled, staring back at Alzdar and Dzhon as the other Durals drove off with them away from that cellblock and down another corridor. Alzdar and Dzhon could hear Jafarr shouting out from the vanishing chamber on their behalf. “Where are you taking them? Let me go!”

His voice echoed with an eerie hollow sound as if he were already in the afterlife, giving them both chills. Alzdar and Dzhon looked back at him, knowing now it was worse than just parting from him at the Surface Gate. Ideas filled their minds about what might happen to them and to their friend. They did not know who would get it worse. They feared they might be the ones since sometimes that was the way the P.M.s worked.

However, they were merely taken to an empty cell down several passageways. The durals shoved them inside, closed the door, and locked them in. No one guarded the door. No one came.

Alzdar slumped against a wall and stuffed his hands in his pockets.