The Bad Old Days

Posted on 31 Oct 2014 @ 5:23pm by Lieutenant JG Kalos Jang Ph.D.

541 words; about a 3 minute read

It always rained on Farius Prime. It was a common saying, mostly among the millions of aliens that made Farius their home, but it wasn't exactly true. It just felt like it. Right now, it was the middle of winter in Maltabra City, and that meant snow, lots of it. Kal had hit a growth spurt when he was thirteen, shot up more than four inches. He'd filled out, gotten new friends, and started getting into fights, as you did in Maltabra City.

It was a territorial dispute, some guys from the wrong neighborhood in the wrong place. It wasn't uncommon. Kal and his buddies had decided to collect a toll. There was some arguing. Right now, Kal was on top of one of them, pushing his face down hard into a snow pile, punching him in the side, the neck, anywhere he could land a blow. Kal's heart was pounding, he was leaking blood from his nose and a cut in his lip. Sheer terror flowed through him, fueling his punches, but he was running out. He punched until the kid stopped fighting with him, just made these weak sounds of pain. Kal didn't have it in him to keep hitting him any longer, so he pushed himself up to his feet to find his friends watching him.

Rezo asked, "What are you doing?" Rezo was a year older than Kal, but in the same grade. He was trying to grow a patchy wisp of a beard. He was a Farian, like Kal. He had pale skin and shaggy reddish brown hair he was trying to keep in spikes. But between the snow and the rain, his hair usually just pasted against his scalp. Nobody had the balls to tell him he looked ridiculous.

"What am I doing?" Kal gestured at the other boy with a shaky hand. "I'm kicking ass." He tried to sound proud of himself when he said it, but he couldn't summon the feeling.

"Good for you. Now get his money." Rezo rolled his eyes, like Kal was too stupid to live. Kal looked at the boy still lying in the snow, swallowed and bent down to go through his pockets. He found a few wads of wet bills and stuffed them in his own pocket. Farius still ran on a paper-based currency system. Easier to hide than credits.

"I was gonna," Kal said. It sounded lame, even to him, but nobody seemed to notice as they walked out of the alleyway, leaving the three boys from the wrong neighborhood to collect themselves. Kal rubbed his scuffed knuckles and wanted to just go home, do his homework. He hadn't done his homework in a month. He felt useless and that made him angry. This was how Bimi got started, though. Running with the tough kids, protecting her territory. Eventually, the Syndicate saw and they started throwing work her way. Now she had money and she had respect. Kal's grades had never helped him do anything but get kicked around. Now he was doing the kicking.

"Let's go get drunk," Rezo said. "Spend some of this money."

Kal said, "Yeah." He felt like a toad, but he figured that'd pass. Especially with a few drinks in him.

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