Origins: 02

“Sweetie, come here,” his mother called, beckoning him out from behind the yellow crates. “This isn’t the time to play – not here.” The boy shuffled over to her side, taking her offered hand. “The techs are working – I don’t want you getting in the way,” she added as they walked hand-in-hand toward a group of men the boy didn’t recognize. One of them had a big nose…and even bigger hair. He giggled.

“What?” his mother asked, looking down on him, her eyes blue-violet starbursts like his own, smiling.

He tugged on her hand and held his arms out, up over his head. Wrapping her own arms around his tiny waist, she hoisted him up, balancing his weight on her hip. The boy cupped his small hands around his mouth and whispered in her ear, “He looks like a mushroom.”

His mother laughed, a warm, bell-like sound. “Mind your manners,” she warned as they drew closer, but the bite was missing in her voice. “He’s an important man – this is his project.”

“I thought it was your project.”

“Well, I’m working on it for him.”

“Oh.”

“I see your taking your toy into orbit,” his mother said as they reached the group of men. The boy slid from her hip to the ground, but quickly captured her hand in his again. “Good riddance.”

“Ah yes,” said the mushroom-headed man. “The naysayer. I have to admit that I’m surprised the one who designed the suit should be the one who most vocally protests its use.”

“Of course I protest its use – it’s a killing machine. There are already so many of them. What could another, albeit a far superior, one bring other than more death and destruction.”

“I suppose that explains its namesake then,” the man chuckled, a dark smirk spreading across his lips.

The boy turned his eyes from the man who continued to talk to his mother, and watched the men load crates and big black things onto trucks. The black and silver things were his mother’s project. But he didn’t really care about those – he cared about the truck the things were going on. He liked trucks.

“And how old are you?”

The boy turned sharply, finding the mushroom man looking down at him. The boy smiled. “I’m three years old,” he stated proudly, holding up his fingers – after double checking to make sure he held up the proper amount.

“Are you going to help me save the world when you’re older?”

The boy looked at the man again, glancing up at his mother – he thought she looked angry. “I’m gonna be a – be a fireman. And drive a fire truck.”

The man chuckled and straightened, still looking down his large nose at him. “Not exactly what I had in mind, but I suppose that would work too.”

“How soon can you get it out of here?” his mother cut in.

“Within the hour,” the mushroom man said, turning away from them both. “Off-colony in two.”

“Good,” she said. The boy thought she sounded happy. “Sooner the better.”

*****

There was smoke. And banging, popping. Yelling. He whimpered and covered his ears with his hands as his mother ran down the hallway, deeper into the factory. Away from the big room where the project was, away from his daycare and friends and teacher. Away, away, away. And always more smoke, more yelling. “Mom—”

“I need you to run sweetie,” his mother told him as they continued to run. “I need you to run and hide…”

“But, mom – I – I dun…” The boy didn’t know this hallway – he wasn’t allowed to be here. Only grownups…

“You remember the park, how to get to the park?” She asked, skidding to a halt by a big black door. She lifted him up and away from her shoulder, setting him on the floor.

“I wanna go home,” the boy whispered, his voice small and trapped in his throat as he clutched at her shirt. Something was wrong. The yelling was getting louder. More popping and banging. He hiccupped, using his free hand to rub at his eyes.

His mother’s fingers clenched tightly around his wrist, prying his small hands off of her arm. “You can’t go home – it’s not safe. Go to the park, don’t let anyone see you,” she told him. Swiping her card through the door’s lock, it swung open to reveal a tunnel with other doors. “Follow the lights on the ceiling,” she told him, pushing him toward the door. “When you get to the big black door, hit the red button. You’ll be outside the fire station. Run to the park. I’ll come get you.”

“Mom—”

She threw her arms around his small body and held him against her for a long moment. “Go to the park. I promise I’ll come get you.”

And with that, she shoved him down the hall and closed the door.

*****

The park his mother took him to was abandoned when he finally got there. The light in the colony was fading. To his left, he could see the star field creeping up along the skyline, pushing the warm hues of the daytime holograms away. He’d never been out this late before, much less alone. He shivered and scrambled up the small hill to the playground. There was no one there – he was completely alone. Sirens still blared in the distance. He thought of his mother again and whimpered.

Rubbing at his tearing eyes with the back of his hand, he shuffled over to the large plastic tubes. His mother had said to run and hide, and so he would. She would know where he was hiding – he really liked playing in the maze of tubes. When they came here together, he would pretend the tubes were tunnels. But just in case, he thought, he would stay near one of the entrances, where he could see the picnic area. That way, he would see his mother when she came to get him.

Hours passed and he waited. His stomach hurt, and it rumbled and complained, but he stayed hidden. The sirens died down after a long time and the star field overtook the last of the daylight. And still he waited. He bit his lip to keep it from trembling and closed his eyes against the tears that rolled down his cheeks.

He must have fallen asleep like that, curled in the dark of the plastic tube tunnels, because when he opened his eyes again and looked up, there were other kids in the park. But it was still dark. From what he could see of the group, it was just other kids – he didn’t see any grownups. Or his mother. Maybe the other little kids had seen her? He crawled closer toward the edge of the tube’s entrance to see if he could hear what they were saying.

“D’ya think there’ll be anything left after th’Alliance is dun?” one of the kids asked as he bit into the apple in his dirty hand, rubbing his nose with the back of his sleeve. They were street kids, the boy realized, seeing their tattered clothes and dirty faces, and he started to tremble. Street kids were bad kids, he knew – they always stole things, broke things.

“Don’t matter,” an older boy answered as he tore apart a loaf of bread. He handed each half to two smaller kids. “We’re not goin’ over. It’s not our area.”

“But—”

“No.”

“But after the fire, maybe there’ll be sumthin’…” piped up a little blond girl. She sat cross-legged on top of a picnic table. Her stockings were in rags, her scrawny knees poking through twin holes.

“No,” the older boy repeated. “With all tha’ noise down there, th’Alliance’ll be ever’where. Were not goin’ near it.”

That seemed to settle the matter for the time. From his hiding place, the boy watched the other kids eat, perched on picnic tables and benches and tire swings. His stomach rumbled and he whimpered. In the tube, the sound was magnified and he saw a few of the closest members of the group turn sharply, food forgotten. The boy frantically scooted further down the dark hole even as the group closed in.

“It’s ‘nother kid!” a little girl shouted, grinning and pointing down the tube at him.

The older boy moved closer and knelt by the tunnel’s entrance. “S’okay…you can come out…” The boy didn’t move, but sat shaking in the dark of the tube. The older boy turned back to the table and tore off hunk of bread from another loaf before returning to sit on the ground. “Here. Somethin’ ta eat?” he asked, holding it out to the boy. “We dun bite.”

After a long moment, hunger won out. The boy crawled out of the tube, accepting the offered bread, and the older boy got a good look at him. He was dressed well, but he had eyes like half his group – L2 blue. Odd. “So what’s yer name?” The boy didn’t answer, just sat on the ground munching on the bread, shaking. He couldn’t tell if it was because the kid was scared or hungry. “It’s okay, ya dun hafta have a name. But I’m Solo. An’ this is my group,” he said, sweeping his arms around the surrounding children. “I take care of ev’rybody. I’ll take care of ye too.”

“You dun haf to,” the boy told him, taking a bite. “Mom’ll come soon. She promised. She told me t’ run an’ hide. So I hid, but she’s not here. So I wait.”

Solo bit his lip and looked at the other kids, who were all eyeing the boy with various degrees of curiosity. “Why’d yer Mom tell ya to run an’ hide?”

“‘Cause of the smoke,” the boy answered. “And the yelling.”

Smoke? “Where’s yer mom?”

“I dunno.”

“Where was yer mom?”

Looking over his shoulder, the boy pointed in the direction of a vaguely orange glow. “She’ll come. She promised,” the boy muttered, and Solo felt the all-too-familiar sinking feeling, that festering ache in his belly, and recognized the addition of yet another mouth to feed.