If I Ruled the World: Chapter Three
Life on Fex Er is great for the Fexers, but devastating for those who can't take the heat.
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Klado and Mille emerged on an open portico, side by side, flat on their backs, their hands, free of the tethers. This time, Mille did not feel disoriented. She leaned over and grabbed Klado’s tunic. “What’s that on your chest?!”
Klado smacked her hand away. “Do not touch my tunic! Ever!” They got up from the ground, looked around, and sniffed. The sky was dull orange, and the air reeked of sulfur. “We cannot stay here,” they said.
Mille stood up, too. “What is this place?”
“This is Fex, the most unstable Er in the entire galaxy. Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes happen here all the time.” They pulled up their sleeve and gazed at a black band with gold markings on their wrist. “We must leave as soon as possible.”
Mille grabbed Klado’s hand. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Klado shook her hand loose. “We can’t. Not yet. We have to wait for the transponder to recharge.”
“More rules?” Mille stamped her foot. “How long do we have to wait?”
“30 galaxy time units,” Klado said, fiddling with the wristband.
Mille got close but was careful not to touch it. “What is that?”
Klado sucked their teeth, reached into their tunic, and pulled out another one that looked much like it. “It is many things. Too many to explain now.” They placed it on Mille’s wrist and glared at her through narrowed eyes. “Whatever you do, don’t lose it. It will help me find you if we ever get separated.”
“Separated?”
“Don’t worry. This location is between two active fissures. We should be safe here while we wait.” No sooner than those words left Klado’s mouth the ground shook, and the roof of the portico crumbled. Klado lunged for Mille, but the falling pillars made it impossible to reach her.
“Run!”
Klado ran off to the right, and Mille to the left as a great fissure opened between them, tearing the portico apart, and releasing massive amounts of smoke and toxic gas. Mille ran as the fissure grew wider and longer. She kept running until the shaking subsided, then collapsed, choking on the falling ash.
Smoke billowed out from the cavernous fissure for what seemed like hours. Mille sat on a rock as close to the edge as possible, sure that Klado was still waiting for her on the other side. Behind her, uniformed personnel, apparently in charge of restoring order, were busy leading people off in the opposite direction.
One of them approached her, looking concerned. “You can’t stay here.”
Mille looked up. “I’m waiting for my friend. They will be here any minute.”
The uniformed woman cocked her head to one side. “What did you say?” She wrinkled her forehead. “I… I don’t understand you. Where are you from?” She pointed out across the wide fissure. “Are you from over there?”
Mille looked down at her pink but dirty hands and shook her head. The uniformed woman’s skin was the color of amber as if the burning earth had formed her.
“Martin!” The woman looked over her shoulder. “Come here! This one’s lost. We need to get her to—” She glared down at Mille. “The lost and found.”
Martin was tall, stocky, with dark brown skin. He ambled over, his eyes wide, gawking at Mille. “Where did she come from?” he asked.
The amber-skinned woman tilted her head towards the fissure, then made circles around her temple with her index finger.
Martin nodded, then tried to lift Mille by her armpits, but she struggled against him. She didn’t want to cause a scene, but she had to wait for Klado. Martin pulled again. His strength was firm, but not cruel, and more than she could resist.
He carried her to the back of a van with several others, also lost. One girl, olive-skinned and covered with ash, wailed for her mother. An old man with weathered bronze skin rocked himself as dirty tears spilled over the creases on his face. A young boy, curled up on the floor, screamed when anyone touched him. Mille tiptoed around him and sat down beside a brown-skinned girl about her age, who was staring blankly into space.
Mille fondled her wristband. Klado would find her.
The van drove by vast steaming wastelands of burnt-orange rocks that gradually gave way to countless rows of fruit trees, vines, and low-growing vegetation. Within them, the grown-ups of Fex gathered food while their children flitted around them, laughing and playing.
Suddenly, the van driver stiffened and said, “Turn it up! It’s the Supreme Fexer!”
Martin rolled their eyes and turned a knob on the console to the right until a reverberating voice replaced the indistinct murmur that had previously permeated the air.
“People of Fex Er. This last quake was unexpected, but we have faced unexpected quakes before. I assure you, the renovated plains of Sandor are ready to house everyone from the affected areas.” Martin glanced at the driver and shook their head. “I know the proud people of Fex will heed the relocation plans. Please be patient during this transition.”
Martin jerked the knob to the left. “My family got separated during the last quake,” he said through curled lips. “We just got reunited with my mom and baby sister. Now they’re moving us again—to Sandor, of all places.”
The driver squeezed the steering wheel until her knuckles flushed peach against the olive color of her skin. “The Supreme Fexer restores our world so we can keep living on it. She is doing a great work.”
“She’s always so sure of herself,” Martin said, squirming in his seat. “Too sure, I think.”
“She’s been successful so far. The last few quakes have had the lowest number of fatalities since the beginning.”
Martin tilted his head towards the rear. “Maybe. But these causalities are piling up faster than we can process them.”
Glancing at the miserable crew in the back, the driver caught Mille’s wide, frightened eyes staring directly at her. She spun around and drove on in silence.
The van stopped in front of a gated entrance to a sprawling compound. Martin jumped out, opened the gate, then got back in. They rode past several buildings until they reached one that was longer than it was tall. Criss-crosses of metal beams embellished its otherwise flat facade. Aides dressed in white poured out of the building and herded the stricken bodies from the back of the van to the front desk inside, where they pestered them with questions that most could not answer.
When they got to Mille, an aide with reddish-brown skin and wide almond eyes tried to take her wristband. “We don’t allow jewelry in here,” she said.
“No!” Mille couldn’t let them take it. It was the only way Klado could find her. She thought fast. “It belonged to my mother. It’s all I have left of her!”
The aide’s mouth fell open. “I thought you said this one couldn’t communicate!”
Martin ran over. “She can’t.”
“Yes, she can.” The aide let go of Mille’s arm and stood back. “Say something.”
Mille lifted her arm and showed Martin the wristband. “She tried to take my bracelet! It was my mother’s!” She searched for more words to convince them. “Uh… she fell into that smoking hole, right in front of my eyes.”
The aide stared at Martin. “What did she say?”
Martin shrugged his shoulders. “I told you. She’s—different.”
Mille wrinkled her nose. Sometimes they understood her, but most times they did not.
The aide picked up a tablet. “I’ll put her on the list for sterilization. They will get to her in the next couple of days.” She studied Mille’s face, now flushing a deep shade of magenta. “Just look at her skin. Her illness has to be hereditary.”
The aide took Mille by the shoulder to lead her away, but Mille stood her ground. She wanted to be cooperative, she really did, but she could not let them sterilize her. They were overstepping what was right. That was her choice, not theirs.
The aide pulled, but Mille resisted—strenuously. She kicked, screamed, scratched, and punched as the aide struggled in vain to subdue her. Finally, Martin, frustrated and frowning, reached into his pocket, pulled out a silver disk, and pressed it firm against Mille’s temple.
Then everything went black.
The first thing Mille saw when she woke up was Klado. They were sitting in a chair across the room, watching her sleep. She sprang up, intending to hug them, but changed her mind and sat back down. Klado was such a jerk. They didn’t deserve a hug.
“What took you so long?” she asked, pouting.
“I had to wait for the transponder to charge,” Klado said, sauntering over to the bed. They sat beside her and patted the soft bedding between them. “Nice place you have here.”
Mille looked around. The room was pleasant. It had a large window overlooking a garden, and pictures of flowers, trees, and birds hung on the walls.
Klado stood up. “But I have to take you home now.” They flashed a broad smile filled with white perfect teeth. “And you don’t have to worry about being poor. I know how you can pass the exam.”
Mille rubbed her temple, remembering Martin’s violence and Klado’s smacks on the back of her hand.
“Look,” Klado said. “I’ll show you how the transponder works.” They unfastened the front panel of their tunic, exposing a silver breastplate. It had nine buttons, each inset with an icon of Er. Klado pointed to the top center button. “This one is for Gujetta. Once the transponder charges, I’ll press it and we’ll be back, right in the middle of my office.”
Mille leaned in. “What are these others?” she asked, even though she knew each Er by heart.
Klado pointed to the middle left button. “This one is for Fex. It’s the one you pressed in the transport on Gat Er.”
“What would happen if you pushed it again?”
“Nothing,” Klado said. “The transponder is not for inter-Er travel. That’s why it took me so long to get here. I had to travel to another Er first and then come back.”
“That sounds complicated.”
“It is.” Klado pointed to the button just above Fex and to the left of Gujetta. “This one is for Salek, where Theda galaxy’s most gifted strategists live.”
“What is a strategist?” Mille asked, her gaze fixed on the breastplate.
Klado shrugged. “They are people who think all the time and—”
“They think all the time? Don’t they ever do anything?”
Klado bobbled their head. “Yes. No. Mostly, they just work on solving problems.”
Mille looked at Klado in the eye. “How is that different from anywhere else? Gujetta puts buildings on stilts to raise them out of the water. Rex builds new communities to replace the ones that are destroyed.”
“Yes,” Klado said. “Those are physical problems—easy to solve. I am talking about people-problems and every Er handles them differently, some better than others. For example, Rex sends misfits to asylums like this one. Not so bad, right?” They narrowed their eyes. “But if they don’t get better, they’re sterilized so they cannot create more misfits.” They sucked their teeth. “They sterilize thousands of people every day.”
Mille pulled her knees up to her chest. “That’s what they want to do to me.”
“Well... that won’t happen,” Klado said, looking intently at their wristband. “The transponder is ready.” They laid one hand on Mille’s shoulder and the other moved toward the button for Gujetta.
Mille pulled away. “Can we go to Salek instead?”
Klado scratched their head. “But… I have to get you home to your mother.”
Mille hung her head, for she was not thinking of her mother. She must be worried sick. “You’re right,” she said, then a noise like keys outside the door stopped her heart. She clutched Klado’s hand. “They’re coming!”
Before the door opened, both Mille and Klado were gone.
Publishing Updates
In Our Bones: I’m on a mission to read a few more recent comparable titles before sending out a query.
The Beginning of Nations has a new book cover.
Don’t Cry, Mishalariah does too.
Do you like the new looks? I used Canva, a graphics design tool. I never used it before, but lots of folks are talking about it.
This is a really fun adventure so far. I'm looking forward to seeing where they end up next. Also, those new book covers look fantastic. You've done a great job... 😎
The covers look great, Kim! And yeah—I use Canva all the time.