Boys Will Be Boys

Jam and Ty jumped the turnstiles at the Solar-Rail station and ran into the train before any of the station workers could stop them. Jam could feel his blood coursing all throughout his body as he stumbled into a seat on the train. He thought back to his vocabulary list and picked a word to describe the sensation: exhilarating. He was happy and full of energy as if he’d swallowed a whole bag of ThunderFruit candy.
            “Why’d we do that anyway,” Jam asked his companion, Ty. The two became fast friends when Ty transferred to his Learning Community last year. Ty always seemed to know a more fun way to do anything and everything, and Jam had learned life was more fun if he followed Ty’s lead.
            “What do you mean, man? Wasn’t that awesome?”
            Jam laughed, “Yeah, it was, but we didn’t have to pay if we don’t want to.”
            Jam was correct, skipping the fare was unnecessary. The City’s tax system took care of keeping all the public transportation running. Fares were basically donations to the transport system and didn’t have to be paid if a person didn’t want to. The turnstiles didn’t even lock, they only stalled every once in a while, to prevent large crowds from swarming to the trains all at once.
            “It’s the philosophy, man,” Ty said. He didn’t explain further, because he knew he didn’t have to. Jam understood the philosophy very well. Ty’s belief was that everything that was done wrong was better. Breaking rules made life more fun because it meant that everything a person did carried the risk of punishment. There was nothing better, in Ty’s opinion, than the feeling of escaping punishment, and the more Jam hung out with Ty, the more he agreed with his friend.
            “Here, take one of these,” Ty said to Jam. He reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a bag of ThunderFruit candy, encouraging Jam to take a few.
            Jam didn’t bother asking how Ty got it, because he already knew that it was stolen. Stealing candy was another activity that it took Jam a while to fully understand. All his life, whenever he wanted candy from a store but lacked the money to pay for himself, he could just ask the shopkeeper or a passing customer for some small job to do, and they’d give him the candy in exchange. It was the same all over the City, for all children and adults. Even the ascetics that chose to live on the street and sleep in the park were often given free food and clothes by people in exchange for some small daily assistance.
            Jam happily took a ThunderFruit from the bag. His head jerked when he bit into the sour candy shell and felt the spark of electricity in the center of each round, blue pellet. He’d eaten ThunderFruit hundreds of times before and had never come across one so powerful. The electric shock had actually hurt him much in the same way that it had the first time he’d tasted one, back when he hadn’t yet gotten used to the flavor.
            “Ow!”
            Ty chuckled, “See? Even stolen ThunderFruit tastes better when you’re eating it on a stolen train ride with your best friend. It’s the philosophy, man!”
            Jam eagerly picked up another piece. With a large smile on his face, he raised it to the sky and said, “To the philosophy!”
            Ty and Jam rode the train for a bit longer than usual. Ty thought it would be fun to explore the City for a bit before going home, and Jam suggested they go to Border Street. He didn’t really plan to cross into another sector, because he knew kids weren’t supposed to. He just wanted Ty to think that he was brave enough to want to do it. Jam reasoned that if it looked like they might actually cross into the next sector, he’d just make up an excuse to go home instead.
            The two boys got off on the Border Street station, and immediately Jam could see the stark contrast between it and the roads he was used to roaming with his friends. There were no candy stores, no friendly ascetics roaming the streets offering the words of their many different gods. There weren’t any bicycles on the road, nor even the rarer cars that Jam sometimes encountered while out in the City. The street was mostly abandoned, with a few large, fat, square buildings here and there, but no obvious signs of life out on the streets.
            “I remember what Tutor said about this place,” Ty said. “I heard that on the Border Streets throughout the City, there are all kinds of offices and warehouses that handle business and make sure people cross sectors right. They don’t want people or things getting lost, especially since the City’s always growing and becoming more complicated.”
            “So where are all the people then?” Jam asked.
            Ty shrugged, “I think they’re all in the buildings. Making Border Street work right is a long and difficult job.”
            The two boys began to wander the empty Border Street, looking for something fun to do. Ty was determined to find other people, and Jam wondered if it was because he was planning to steal something from them. The thought of it excited him, and he too began to anxiously look around for some unsuspecting soul whose Coin they could swipe.
            The two eventually made their way to the edge of the street, and there they found the perfect place to play. It was a large, square building whose glass windows had all been shattered and blown out. Neither had to wonder if anyone was inside because the warehouse was obviously abandoned and had been for years. Turning to each other with wide grins, the two boys raced each other inside the warehouse, ready to have the most fun of their lives inside.
            Suddenly, Jam fell to the floor. Or, rather, it was better to say that he was pushed. Ty had thrown his body onto Jam’s and pinned him to the floor of the warehouse the second that the front door had slammed shut behind them. Jam and Ty had wrestled before, and often they’d done so without any warning whatsoever, so Jam didn’t find it odd. He grabbed Ty’s shoulders and pushed all his strength into them so he could throw Ty off and proceed to roll around with his friend.
            But nothing happened. Ty didn’t even struggle or flinch from the force. With a shock, Jam realized that his friend suddenly felt much heavier than he ever had before. Jam felt like it was a grown adult, and not another 10-year-old boy lying on top of him. It didn’t make sense.
            “When’d you get so strong?” Jam asked with a laugh. But he didn’t think it was funny, not at all. He just didn’t want to show Ty that he was scared.
            “I always have been.”
            Ty’s voice was flat and expressionless, like a machine’s. It didn’t match his face at all. Ty’s face was spread in a wide smile. His shiny, sharp teeth reflected in the little light of the warehouse, and within his eyes was the same mischievous glee that Jam had grown so used to seeing in his friend’s face. The same eyes that widened in glee whenever they stole a bag of candy or picked someone’s pocket now looked down at Jam in a way that made his heart jump.
            “Let me up, Ty. You win, okay?” Jam said, fighting tears of frustration back. He pushed and pushed against his friend’s body, but it didn’t appear to have any effect on Ty whatsoever.
            “I can’t. I’m hungry, Jam. I haven’t had a good smoothie in ages.”
            Jam’s eyes widened in horror at the word, ‘smoothie.’ It wasn’t a curse word, but it wasn’t one children were supposed to use. Jam had heard it plenty of times from older boys trying to scare him, and from his parents and their friends when they bemoaned the type of people that consume smoothies and created the slang word in the first place. Jam was old enough to know that almost no one used smoothie in the traditional sense anymore, somewhere along the way, smoothie became another word for human blood.
            “You’re a vampire! Why didn’t you tell me?”
            Ty didn’t answer the question.
            “If you’re hungry, go to a blood bank, that’s what they’re for! Or get a pack of Red Delicious pills from the candy shops!”
            Ty didn’t respond. He just stared down at the scared child in his grasp.
            “You could have asked!” Jam actually was crying now. Tears streamed down his face as he struggled harder and harder against his friend’s grip. Because even at that moment, that was how Jam saw him. If Ty said he wanted some of his blood to drink, he would have happily let him take some. Not all of it of course, but enough for both of them to survive. Jam couldn’t understand why Ty felt the need to trick him, pin him down, and steal blood from him.
            “It’s the philosophy,” Ty explained with a shrug.