Burn it Down

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to space, though I’ve always been curious. I think about it now as I stare up at the night sky. I can only make out a smattering of stars through all the light pollution. The dual moons are full and fat, and they rule the darkness. A few drones fly by overhead. Holograms flash from their surfaces, broadcasting uninteresting advertisements as they deliver packages. One is for a clothing brand, and it shows off ugly suits and other dress clothes. The drones make a dull humming sound as they go by that I'm used to blocking out. There are usually a lot more of them in the sky and the spaces between buildings. “Hey,” Sam says beside me and I turn my head to look at him. He’s staring up at the sky, his hands cupped beneath his head like mine. We’re lying flat on the rooftop of my apartment building, which of course is just seven stories of ten foot by ten foot pods to sleep in and public bathrooms. “What?” I ask him, because he seems to have drifted off for a second. His eyes flutter back open. “Oh,” he startles, remembering he was about to say something. He rolls his head to face me, his brown eyes looking like pools of darkness in the low light. “This is your one night off. Don’t you want to use it to sleep or something?” “Mmm,” I murmur and look back up at the stars. “You know, so you can stop being a vampire and experience daylight again?” “A vampire?” I flick my eyebrows up. “Yeah, you know, those nasty bloodsucking creatures that don’t like sunlight.” “What?” I look back at him, having no idea what he’s talking about. “I think they were more popular in the old days.” I scoff. “Yeah, I’ve never heard of that. I mean…what?” “Well they’re not that uncommon. They still get mentioned...” “Yeah, sure.” “Whatever. Anyway, don’t you want to sleep?” “Nah, not right now. I’m already on this shitty schedule and it won’t do me any good to get off it. Besides, it’s hot as hell during the day and all the interesting stuff happens at night anyway. I’ve been missing out.” It’s true that most days I feel like I’m melting under the searing sun of the red desert. I was born in the icy cold of the south. I’m not built for the kind of heat this place gives off, though I’ve never experienced anything else. My parents moved to the capital city of the Earth settlements on Cress when I was a baby. They died shortly after that, leaving me stuck to grow up in the filth of these overcrowded streets, mostly raising myself because the caretakers at the orphanage didn't know what they were doing, and they didn't care. Sam snorts a laugh, startling me from my thoughts and back to the conversation we were having. “What, interesting stuff like lying on a roof staring at the most bright and beautiful sky anyone’s ever seen?” His voice rises with obviously fake enthusiasm at the last part of that sentence, and for a moment my brow knits together. “I like it.” “There’s barely any stars,” He protests. “It’s the idea of it. Don’t you ever want to know what it’s like to break through the atmosphere and really see all the stars? See what our planet looks like from a different perspective?” “Not really. I’ll probably be forced into doing that in a year anyway.” For a moment my heart sinks. In a year we’ll both be twenty. We won’t be able to avoid our four years of military service anymore, and we’ll probably be sent off-world to fight rogue humans or native people rebelling against Earth’s rule. “Well obviously I don’t mean it like that. I mean to have the freedom to explore, to do what you want.” The whole government likes to act like we have freedom, but we don’t. If we really had freedom, we’d be able to break away from this city, from this planet altogether and come back whenever we choose. We would rule our own worlds. Instead they force us into a military where for most people choices are narrowed down to two decisions of either kill, or be killed. Sam hums in understanding. “Yeah, sure,” He says. “But aren’t you the one who’s always like ‘this is my home and I never wanna leave because this place is my place and I belong here’?” I let a sigh out through my nose, thinking about the way we live. I wish my ancestors had fought back against the human military. Maybe then the planet wouldn’t be getting poisoned by industrial innovations and the people, human and native alike, wouldn’t be forced to live in crowded cities with hardly enough food and no way to rise above it all. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t be here if that had happened. My father was human. He came here as a member of the fourth installment of migration to Cress. Many humans did. They fled the destruction they brought upon their own home to come to a new world. And now it's becoming more and more apparent that once again they are doing exactly the same thing. Except this time it’s to a different planet. My planet. Slowly this world is being poisoned by them, and when it's all over we'll be the ones that have nowhere to go. I stare up at the dual moons. One is rather large, its planes vaguely blue and green with hints of brown from this distance. It's full of minerals that humans now mine. It holds life, while the other is smaller, made of nothing but stone that shines silver in the night. There are people who live up there, on the larger moon. People who’ve always been there. And now humans force them to mine their own land for the benefit only of a government that doesn’t give back. “I want it to be different,” I say, my voice soft, even as something sparks like a growing fire inside my heart. “You want the people to be different.” “Yeah. Exactly. Just a few though, well, a few hundred actually.” “The upper classes, yeah I know, you rant about it every other day.” “I can’t help it. It’s infuriating. They get plenty of food, reasonable work hours, actual rights-” “Yeah yeah yeah,” Sam cuts me off. “I know, it does suck, but what can you do?” I ignore him, unable to stop myself now that I’ve gotten started. “We do all the real work. Society would collapse without us.” Sam lets out a sigh that does nothing but spur me on. I sit up, getting into it now. “And you know what?” “What?” He moans. I look down at him. “They’re the only ones who don’t really belong on this planet. This isn’t their home.” “Whoa, hey. If you’re going by that logic then neither do I. And neither does half of you.” I lean over, closer to his face. “No, but-” He cuts me off again, “No human is really supposed to be on this planet, and I didn’t decide to get born on this planet, but I was, and I’d prefer not to leave. What can you do with that? Most of us were born here, raised here. We can’t all just leave too easily.” “That’s not what I mean. It’s not just about being human. It’s about them. It’s about the upper classes. They’re the ones who don’t experience real life here. All they do is rule. They worm their way into every branch of the government so that democracy isn’t even a real thing, and then they force us to work horrible hours with horrible wages so that they can get richer and richer. They suck the life out of us. But you know what?” I say, my voice rising an octave. “We–we've earned our right to be here. This world is our world whether we’re human or not.” Sam lets out another sigh and I grimace as his hot breath hits me in the face. I pull away from him. “Yeah,” he says, “I mean, it’s the only home I’ve ever known.” I nod. “Yeah,” I say. “I wish it were different too,” he says softly. I turn to look at him, finding his expression withdrawn and sad. I’m about to tell him everything else I think when a sudden boom shudders through the air like a thunderclap. I sit up straight, suddenly aware of the city around me. “What the fuck was that?” Sam says, sitting up beside me. I get up and walk to the edge of the building where there’s a little wall that would do absolutely nothing to stop you from falling seven stories down. In fact it’s so short it would probably only cause you to trip and fall over the side of the building. A few blocks ahead of us, nestled somewhere in the sea of gray buildings, there’s an orange glow and a plume of dark smoke rising up past the rooftops. Shouts drift through the distance and into my ears. They don’t sound scared, though. They sound angry. It makes me wonder if a riot has started. It happens on occasion when people like me get too fed up with our world to contain they’re anger anymore. I feel a smile pull at the corners of my lips. “Shit,” Sam murmurs, as he comes to stand at my side. I turn away and walk to the metal staircase built into the side of the building. “Rhys?” I hear him say. “What are you doing? Don’t go over there.” I step off the roof and onto the metal platform at the top of the staircase. “Wait, Rhys, what are you doing? Come on, let's just stay here, we were enjoying ourselves.” I turn to look at him. “You basically said it yourself, it's boring up here.” I start rushing down the rickety metal stairs, Sam following close behind. “I want to see what’s going on over there.” “I think we already know what’s going on.” “Yeah–a riot.” “That you’re not going to be a part of. It’s a bad idea. What if we get arrested or something?” I glance back at him. He throws his hand out, giving me an exasperated look. “You don’t have to come, but I need to at least take a look at what’s going on.” “You know I’m going to come,” he mutters and I smile to myself. We make it to the last set of stairs, and, unwilling to wait another moment, I jump over the railing. It’s only about an eight foot drop, and I land like a frog in the filthy narrow street between my building and the next one over. Sam lands next to me a second later, and then we’re running down alleyways, around giant concrete buildings, and to the fire. I slow down when I can feel the heat of it, and see the light of its flames flickering over the side of a nearby building. People are shouting loudly, yelling about something I can’t yet determine. A couple of people run past us in the alleyway and I peek out from around the building Sam and I are hiding behind. I grin at what I see. Fire burns through a larger street. It eats its way through shopping stalls. It blackens the shining steel sides of a five story office building. It even bursts in little explosions from several of the windows set into the steel walls. They’re trying to burn the building down, and even if its metal frame won’t burn, the things within it will. Government officials that control things like city design and transport work there. Fire control hasn't yet been called in to control the situation. But that’s not what makes me smile. It's the people. They’re fighting back against enforcers who are almost always a part of the upper classes, because, of course, us lowly citizens can’t be trusted with maintaining the peace. There’s a crowd of about a hundred people screaming and fighting against about thirty enforcers. Most of them are crammed into the square between the steel building and surrounding concrete ones. I’m sure they’ve called in back up and at any moment now more enforcers in their bullet proof black and silver suits will be swarming the place and putting people in handcuffs. But for the moment it feels like the people actually are winning. I watch as they swarm the enforcers, taking several of them down even as they are the ones with tasers and guns at their sides. Others stand by, their bodies trembling with rage, shouting so loudly their voices are made hoarse. New people are joining the crowd while others scatter, running down side streets. They’re angry about the new transport plan that the government has decided to implement in just a few days. Transport for industry will grow while public transport will shrink and become less accessible for the people who need it, which, of course, is most of the lower classes. The people who live in great beautiful houses and away from this crowded city, they’re the ones who made these decisions, and they won’t be affected by them at all. There will still be special, private trains to take them into their office jobs, here and elsewhere in the city. I pull down a shaky breath. The whole scene is enticing. Exhilarating. I take a step toward the crowd, nervous excitement pulsing through me as several enforcers draw their guns and raise them in warning. I feel a hand clamp down around mine, and I look back to see Sam, the darkness of his eyes flooding into the pale purple of mine. His face is full of worry. “This isn’t a good idea, Rhys,” he says, shaking his head. “We should leave.” He might be right. Because I’ll probably get arrested if I go out there. But I’m tired of being still. Of doing nothing while the rich get more and more rich and take more and more from us, even as we are the bones that keep this world from caving in on itself. There’s a rage inside my own heart that’s been building my entire life. It calls now to the people so nearby, to the still roaring fire. The sound of it all is piercing. Impossible to ignore. I know exactly what they’re feeling. It's a feeling that needs to be answered. It’s a feeling that needs to be given life. I grin at Sam and wrench my hand free. I turn and walk into the crowd of people, ignoring as Sam calls after me, telling me to stay away. I don’t care if I get arrested. Now’s my chance to do something, however small it ends up being. And who knows? Maybe it will end up being the spark that will ignite our world, and uproot society so that something better can grow in its place. Because sometimes a single spark is all it takes to burn the rot away.