City of Cruelty and Copper (Temperance Era) Read Online Free PDF Page A

East side accents I could spot easily. It looked like his family was probably Western Earthly though, from a time the Earth had countries like North America. The stranger was taller than me by a foot, lanky in an athletic way with muscles protruding from the sleeves of his one piece. His shaggy brown hair tossed in the wind, revealing flecks of blond mixed with caramel.
    “Noon,” I replied, stuffing my hands into my pockets.
    “Isaac.”
    “Milo.”
    The crowd roared and we looked in the direction of it. I thought I was the first to walk away but Isaac surprised me with his long strides. He stepped in front of me just as I was turning to leave and I crashed into him, full on body smack. My nose collided with his hard chest and I fell onto my back.
    “Sorry,” Isaac said, but he didn’t help me up. He stood there awkwardly while I brushed off the sand on my knees and then he was gone, entering the arena, ducking into the shadows under the bleachers.
    Another thundering roar erupted and my heart leapt into my chest. The execution had started. I pushed myself to my feet and trudged through the sand back to the black box where I could celebrate the successful execution.
    The girl didn’t die.
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    Isaac was persistent. It didn’t take him long to find out who I was and where I lived in Central. Some say the Atlanteans had lived in Temperance before us and so all the formed marble shaped to look like stalagmites were really tributes to the world we left behind. I liked the intricate architecture but hated the way my shoes clacked against the floor when I went anywhere. Central was like a castle, if castles could meld into other buildings and seamlessly disappear. The only thing that really discerned Central from the other buildings was the cornucopia shaped turret pointing towards the Pleiades constellation. The eight families chose Central as their home a long time ago. Senate however, was elsewhere, in the bowels of the Arena. I was too young to attend Senate. At Central I had a modest room with quaint bluish gray furnishings, a single bed, a makeshift dresser, a mirror hanging on the wall and canvas covering the door. All I had to wear were the standard issue black one pieces, a utility belt for my communicator, tools and flashlight, and of course my boots.
    I tightened my belt and brushed curly black hair out of my eyes. The screen on the wall next to the door beeped and my father’s face appeared.
    “Seven hundred hours,” he said, pulling his eyebrows together. He was leaning too close to the screen on his end and so it looked like he was inside a fishbowl, his nose curving to either side of the screen. I pulled my sleeves taut over my wrists and rigidly moved towards the monitor. Isaac would have laughed at me if he saw me acting this way but this was how the founding families of Temperance acted. There was nothing funny about preserving life on Earth.
    “Sir?”
    “Leaving for Senate now. Will see you at ten hundred hours sharp.”
    I nodded to confirm my understanding.
    “Peaceful Temperance Day.” His warped face burst into a toothy smile that made me nauseous. I held my body firmly together and repeated him. He clicked the screen off and it faded to black leaving me alone. I didn’t want to go to another Temperance Day festival. The thought of it made my bones ache, made my head feel heavy, made me feel like everything I had grown up believing in was false. Everyone in Temperance died eventually, it was the product of bad genes and radiation poisoning. Five hundred years ago Senate approved euthanasia. Nowadays, if you didn’t want to live, you didn’t have to.
    Fable had no choice. She was thirteen times older than any resident in Temperance and she couldn’t die. They tried every year and every year they failed. I always wondered what she did the other three hundred and sixty four days of the year.
    I flopped onto my bed and piled my hands on my stomach. When I had met Issac a year ago