Black City Read Free

the monitors. “And now a message from your government.”
    A pair of penetrating silver eyes appears on the screens.
    I recognize them immediately. They belong to Purian Rose—the spiritual leader and head of the United Sentry States. A message rolls along the bottom of the screen: His Mighty sees all sinners.
    Chills run through my body, and I quicken my pace. I instinctively head down City End and stop dead in my tracks. Why do I always end up here, even when I don’t mean to? I stare up at the Boundary Wall, a stone wall over thirty feet high, covered with posters of Purian Rose urging citizens to vote for Rose’s Law. The wall divides the city in two, segregating the humans from the Darklings. It would take you over a day to walk around the entire circumference of the wall, which encloses the Darkling ghetto known as the Legion, the largest of its kind anywhere in the United Sentry States. Every city in the USS’s nine megastates has walled ghettos just like this one, keeping the humans and Darklings apart.
    Behind the Boundary Wall is a second, smaller wall covered in spikes and barbed wire, and beyond that . . . my family. All my Darkling relatives live over there: my aunts, uncles, cousins. I turn away, not wanting to deal with this tonight, and take the longer route home to the Rise, the district in the northernmost part of the city where the poorest residents live.
    There are five superdistricts in Black City: the Rise, the Park, the Chimney, the Legion and the Hub, where the Emissary’s headquarters are located. There are nine Emissaries in total, one for each of the country’s nine megastates, and our Emissary is the worst. It sucks she’s back in the city; things were so much better when she was evacuated to Centrum during the air raids last year.
    I duck under the flimsy wire fence that surrounds the Rise. The fence is a rather halfhearted attempt to keep out any Wraths that have escaped over the Boundary Wall. They’re feral Darklings infected with the deadly C18-Virus, and they roam the streets hunting those foolish enough to still be outside after curfew. Idiots like me.
    I sneak through the sleepy cobble streets, dimly lit by cast iron oil lamps, following my usual path home. The Rise earned its name because of the hundreds of high-rise apartment blocks that dominate the city borough. The Sentry government had to erect some tenements quickly after Black City was bombed, and they’ve never bothered to come back to finish the job. Several of the buildings are already falling down, threatening to topple at the slightest touch. Six months ago, one of the buildings collapsed and killed over a hundred people. It didn’t even make SBN news. No one gives a fragg about us.
    I approach two derelict high-rises, which lean against each other like sleeping giants. Nestled in the crevice between them is an old church, its gray stone walls strangled by ivy, the bell tower leaning slightly. Home. Outside the church are a dozen apple trees, bursting with deep red fruit, which Mom planted to make the graveyard look less gloomy. Mrs. Birt’s ginger tabby cat sits on a nearby headstone and hisses at me as I pass. I growl back, and it scrams.
    I take another pace, then pause. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I peer into the gloom, in search of movement, but see nothing. Huh. I must be imagining things. I reach the front door and scowl. Fresh graffiti is sprayed over the dark wood, just two words painted in large red letters: RACE TRAITOR . The letters are smudged where Dad’s tried to scrub the words away. I sigh and go inside.
    Dad’s sitting in one of the church pews, waiting for me. He seems to have aged another year since I left the house this morning. His thick brown hair has gotten grayer around the temples, his beard more disheveled, his blue eyes duller. It’s difficult to believe he’s the same man who used to make Mom giggle like a schoolgirl just by smiling at her.
    “Where have you