10Spare Parts
B46N087 lay in the dark, staring out the window at the midnight sky. The moonlight crept through the gateway to the outside world, softly falling on her uncovered limbs. The stars winked from their lofty heights, adding to the beauty of the night. Clouds rolled gently across the sky, dimming the silver light briefly before it burned through the thin layer once more.
Far below, the city was full of life, even at this ungodly hour. Parties were in full swing; adrenalin-pumped teens sought to assert their masculinity by racing on the streets; people were out clubbing and drinking.
B46N087 had never been down to the city. The Tower was all she knew. She had never experienced the joys and sorrows, the pain and the wonder of city life. Her whole existence had been spent in the building only known to her as The Tower, mostly in the very room she was in now. The other children and her received whatever it was they asked for, so long as no outside contact was involved. They all slept in large dormitories, sharing shower and toilet facilities. Breakfast was served promptly at seven, and if you missed it you had to wait for lunch.
The children all lived comfortable lives, but B46N087 sometimes wondered whether living safely and healthily was worth the price of freedom.
Bea, as she was called, sighed, lying back on the soft covers of her bed, shutting her eyes and letting the darkness encroach upon her once more. When the dark came creeping over her, shutting off her senses and blackening her mind, she felt peaceful at last. Other times, there was a sort of tenseness in the air, a sense of anxiety, even if nobody had a reason to feel that way. There was just something about the shining glass panes and silver walls that inspired a feeling of being caged, and what Bea wanted most of all was to find the key that unlocked those gilded bars.
A strand of light shone through the glass panes of the windows, alighting gently on Bea's sleeping form, turning her normally dirty blonde hair into shining strands of gold splayed across the pillow. Her green eyes were screwed shut, as if in worry or fear, but all of a sudden her stiff limbs relaxed, and her breath whooshed out of her lungs in a soft sigh.
Rubbing the sleep from her bleary eyes, Bea sat up, the covers rustling softly around her. A few of the other girls stirred, some sitting up as well, or immediately jumping out of bed and into their dressing gowns and slippers. Bea certainly couldn't understand the enthusiasm; it was just another ordinary day, with ordinary school and ordinary chores. She got up, sighing, slipping her feet into fuzzy pink slippers and her arms into a matching dressing gown, wandering off to see what was for breakfast today.
"Bea? Is something the matter? You seem a little distant," Bea friend Lilly asked, waving her forkful of pancake around to emphasise her words. Lilly had been named after the flowers she loved so much, and Ember for her love of fire. All the girls had nicknames – they had decided that for themselves years ago – that served as something to address one of them as. Numbers were too difficult to remember, and too much of a hassle to say.
Bea was named after the B in her number, as she seemed to have no distinguishing characteristics, and just went along with whatever people said. If she ever regretted how she acted, or a decision made, she would never show it. Bea didn't speak much, choosing instead to think and ponder over matters she considered important.
"Hey, listen to me, will you?" The white-haired girl exclaimed, thumping one fist down on the table and standing slightly. Lilly's features were twisted in a frown – slightly angry, but still concerned. Bea scowled, not at her friend's worry, but at the fact that she had made her worry in the first place.
"I'm fine, Lilly, just a little tired is all," she said, lying through her teeth. "I didn't get much sleep last night, so don't expect me to be the most responsive person in the world today."
"Well, if you're sure..." Lilly trailed off, waiting for a response.
"I am."
Bea ignored the teacher, choosing instead to stare out the window at the shining, bustling city down below. Besides, the literature teacher was hardly the most interesting thing to look at. Instead, she gazed upon the one place she had never been.
Far below, the people moved like ants, scurrying around looking for work and food and a good time. The whole affair seemed so very random, but Bea knew it was organised chaos. Watching the people far below scrambling around like flies on a carcass seemed so very calming, separated from it as she was. Perhaps, if it were her down there, Bea would be hurrying around too, rushing and shoving people out of her way in an effort not to be late to some terribly important event.
Still, sometimes she considered the possibility of not wanting to go down to the shining silver world, with the ant-people and the wonderful gadgets and opportunities. The many teachers came in from the Outside, and every single one of them seemed to gaze upon their pupils with something not dissimilar to contempt, as if they were lesser beings. Sometimes Bea would catch a disgusted glance directed at her or one of her comrades, and shivered at the intensity of the glare. What had they done that was so terrible? Bea had spent her whole life in The Tower, going about her life and disturbing nobody, but obviously she had done something to offend these people.
Personally, she considered them to be the strange ones. Sometimes, she noticed something off about them. If one looked closely, the Outsider's skin sometimes seemed to be a different shade from another part of their body, but she simply wrote it off as a trick of the light.
Still, there was something about the city-dwellers that made Bea nervous. Perhaps it was the way they gazed at her with such disgust; maybe that in itself had subconsciously caused her to become wary of them, even if nothing was wrong. She could just be pointlessly paranoid, with no reason for it, but Bea didn't think so. There was just something wrong with those people, something she couldn't quite place. Perhaps it was that they were adults. Bea had never seen anyone from The Tower grow to adulthood. They were all young, like her, or from the Outside.
Then again, perhaps it was people like Bea who were the strange ones in this world. The oddities. The minority.
"Do you ever wonder why we can't go down into the city?" Bea asked, carefully placing a bookmark in between the pages of her novel. Lilly looked up from her sewing, a confused look on her face.
"No, why?" She asked, setting aside her needle and thread, spreading the midnight fabric on her lap. The girl turned to face Bea, frowning. The other squirmed slightly under Lilly's questioning gaze, leaning back in her seat.
"I just see no reason for the restrictions on us is all. I mean, why keep us cooped up here unless there was something wrong with us? Unless there was something about us that shouldn't be seen..." Bea trailed off, her grey eyes widening a fraction.
"What are you trying to say? That we're sick or something?" Lilly laughed, picking up her sewing once more and turning away from Bea in a gesture of finality. Bea sighed, knowing that once her friend had made up her mind, she would not listen to anything that went against her decision. Lilly was the type of person to stick her head in the sand when anyone mentioned something off. It was just how she was, and people are hard to change.
Bea stood at the window, watching life bustling past down below, like ants in an anthill. Hurrying around, not even realising how silly it all was. How futile. People are born to procreate, and then die. What's in between doesn't matter. Born to die; it was as simple as that.
Life seemed like a meaningless jumble of events all mixed together into a ball of confusion and anger, love and hate, joy and misery. And among it all, a sense of non-existent purpose; a desire to get involved, to do something, to leave your mark among a world moving ever onward.
But, like all things, time would wash the slate clean, and it would be forgotten.
"I want to go down there."
"You have to be kidding me!"
"I'm not, Lilly, I'm really not. The teachers and staff come and go, so there has to be a way out."
"But Bea, you can't! You just can't! We're not allowed, you know that."
"I know, but there's got to be something wonderful if we're not allowed down there."
"What if its something dangerous, and we're being kept safe up here?"
"Then we should know, shouldn't we?"
"Bea, what's changed? Why are you being like this all of a sudden? Things are just like they always were! Nothing's out of the ordinary, so why the curiosity?"
"I don't know, but something tells me there's a secret down there to be found. And I want to know what it is."
Bea once again found herself at the window, staring down at the silver slopes and smooth surfaces of the city, gleaming under the afternoon sun. The light refracted off a million planes of glass and metal, travelling from roof to roof and shining archway, making the entire city glow with the light of a shattered sunbeam.
The sun was reflected in the perfect surface, lighting the buildings on fire. From above, they were blinding to look at – a furnace among a dusty plane. And above it all, the tower rose, a structure of gleaming black metal dotted with clear, shining planes of glass. It sat in the centre of the city, watching over the inhabitants with a stern gaze as they went about their business.
Confined in those walls was a city in itself; nameless creatures created simply for the people of the city, to be used and then cast away, with no idea at all of what fate awaited them.
Rael bustled through the crowd, dodging people left and right in a futile endeavor to move faster. His mismatched eyes darted around, trying not to see the milling populace. To unsee what they had done to themselves. Monsters, the whole lot of them. Could they not see what they were doing? Cannibalizing themselves in an effort to become 'beautiful'. It was horrifying, disgusting, and monstrous.
And yet he was one of them. Of the many terrible things in this world, he was one of the worst, for though Rael saw the wrong-doings and torture inflicted upon Outsiders, he did not even lift a finger to try and stop it. Even though it went against every fibre of his being, Rael didn't seem to care.