do?”
“I’m here because I wanna be.”
“Yeah,” says the other one. “And that’s all you are. A wannabe.” Then, gripping his arms, they lead him deeper into the building. It used to be a theater, but the rusted seats are all stacked in the corner. The old carpet is ripped up and gathered into piles that the theater’s new residents use as beds. The place is scattered with knickknacks and bits of scavenged civilization, the way a bird might feather its nest with scraps of paper woven into the twigs. The theater is the living space for about forty feral teens. They lounge on scavenged furniture; they laugh; they fight. They live. It’s a very different kind of living than the “schoolie,” as they call him, is used to. His life has no excitement. No passion. No adrenaline. His life is dull and in ordered control.
They bring him to Alph. The others don’t know the kid’s real name. He’s just Alph, as in Alpha. He’s the leader of this band of ferals. The schoolie, however, knows his real name, back from the days when they would play in the war-torn streets. The kid is a year older, but he always protected the younger ones. Now that he’s feral, he does the same, on a different scale. Alph is a key member of what the media likes to call the Terror Generation. He’s got a scar on his face from a feral flash riot that gives him character and makes his smile impressively twisted. He’s everything the schoolboy is not.
Right now, however, Alph isn’t being much of a terror. He’s being fawned over by a pretty, if somewhat filthy, feral girl. He doesn’t seem happy to be interrupted.
“Schoolie, how many times do I gotta tell you not to come here? One of these days the Juvies’ll follow you, we’ll all be screwed, and it’ll be your fault.”
“Nah, the Juvies don’t care—they’re too busy chasing down ferals outside of the wild zone to care about the ones in it. And anyway, I’m stealth. I’m too smart to be followed.”
“So what are you wasting my time with today?” Alph asks, getting right to the point.
The schoolie takes off his backpack and pulls out a brown paper lunch bag, but there’s no lunch in it. In fact, it jangles. He hands it to Alph, who looks at him dubiously, then dumps out the contents on a dusty table beside him. Other kids ooh and aah at the glittering pile of jewelry, but Alph stays silent.
“It’s my mom’s,” the schoolie tells him. “She doesn’t think I know the combination to the safe, but I do. I took just enough so that she won’t notice it’s gone for a while. You can fence it long before then.”
One of the others laughs—a buff kid named Raf, who could have been military if he hadn’t gone feral. “He’s got guts, that’s for sure.”
But Alph isn’t impressed. “It doesn’t take guts to steal from your own mother.” Then he looks the schoolie in the eye. “Actually, it’s pretty pathetic.”
The schoolie feels heat coming to his face. He doesn’t know why he should care what some feral kid says to him, but he does.
“You’re not gonna take it?” he asks.
Alph shrugs. “Of course I’m gonna take it. But it doesn’t make you any less pathetic, Schoolie.”
“I have a name.”
“Yeah, I know,” Alph says. “It’s a sad little name. Wish I could forget it.”
“I was named after my grandfather. He was a war hero.” Although for the life of him, he can’t remember which war.
Alph smiles. “Somehow I find it hard to imagine a war hero named Jasper.”
At the mention of his name, other kids snicker.
“My friends call me Jazz. But you don’t remember that, do you?”
Alph shifts his shoulders uncomfortably. Clearly he does remember, whether or not he wants to admit it. “What is it you want from me, Nelson? A pat on the back? A kiss on the forehead? What?”
They all look at him now. Isn’t it obvious to them what he wants? Why does he have to say it? Just because he’s not feral doesn’t mean that he’s not part of the Terror Generation, too. Of course, no one calls Jasper a terror but his grandmother, and she always says it with a smile.
“I want to be in your gang,” he tells them.
The mention of the word brings a wave of irritation that Jasper can feel like static electricity.
Raf steps forward, speaking for Alph, who just glowers. “We are