Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 576

Future Tales of the Greater Bay Area
West Island School, Lee, Claire - 14
With a flowery duffel bag tightly held under her sweaty palm, she began to zip through the crowd with
great ease.
Everywhere, people in rags of cloaks around her stared down at their feet as they moved in tight shuffles of
groups to and from doors.
Pearls, she thought with great bitterness, always blind. The Pearlians won’t be so easy.
Large neon signs in between murky alleyways with Chinese words boldy advertised screamed and blinded
her vision.
This was merely the lower class.
The moment she stepped out of the elevator and over a yellow line, a cold breeze of air attacked her face,
but she preferred it over the thick and stuffy air nanoseconds ago.
In front of her stood pencil-like skyscrapers glazed with glass windows of different heights, but yet, all of
them reflected a gleam from the stars in the night sky, as if they weren’t skyscrapers anymore- they were
crystals.
Every now and then, a train, The Rocket, sped past in a blur on a track raised high above the pavement
that gave off soft glows of violet.
She was to meet Lyra at the base of Pearl International while they talked over their plans.
Almost everyone she passed by in a formal suit or dress seemed to sniff the air and hastily change direction
after making a scrunched-up face at her, or perhaps, glared, as though their eyes were stuck looking at a
single object.
This used to be her home. When light still shone, when culture was still welcomed, no matter where you
were from. Before Pearlians bought the land off of the government and began making changes to it. Before
they started assigning people into levels, classes that determined your rights. Before she was forced
underground, met with the fate of living with no sunlight and sent all foreigners out.
And so she left Pearl. Who knew that there was such a world out of Pearl? Where people didn’t live
underground, (unless they’d chosen to) where people were free to eat wherever they wanted, where people,
citizens, could walk wherever they wanted.
It was prejudice and fear that drove the Pearlians into insanity. They aren’t human, darling, she was told.
She remembered stories of how Pearlians were sucked in my greed and ambition to own money, how that
made sense, she didn’t know.
It was true. What once were beaming, smiling faces, people that laughed merrily along with their
companions along the streets, swinging their bags with great strength transformed into ominous frowns,
calculating eyes constantly hooked onto the latest version of the iPhone, while their lips were constantly set
straight in a grim line, like someone had changed their programming and turned them into another person.
And tonight, she would free her people.
Putting her hood up, she ducked under streetlights, taking enroutes at the back, careful to avoid the telltale
whirring sound of cameras that constantly patrolled the streets.
“Psst.”
Her heart skipped a beat as her hand immediately flew to a blaster on her waistband, but slowly withdrew
as she scanned the intruder’s bright blonde hair that easily stood out in a sea of black.
“Rogue,” Lyra scoffed in a deep and fuzzy voice that clearly wasn’t her own, “early for once.”
She didn’t answer. For some reason, she couldn’t, no matter how hard she tried to.
Lyra laughed at something Rogue said.
“Oh, of course, of course. Shadow’s waiting for us at sector four,” she tapped her fingers on her wrist and
a hologram popped up in a “V” shape, where an image of a vague map with four white dots, all but two in
different locations was visible.
“You’ve got the jewels?” Lyra whispered as they leaned against a freezing concrete wall, then an “alright,
c’mon then,” followed.
Rogue felt her heart pumping but her body felt light while they jumped, ducked, sped through a deserted
road.
Although it was dark, like witching hour, she still felt a heavy shadow towering over her, leaning in, like it
was trying to listen to what they were saying.
This was it. Pearl International. Where a glass door was conveniently left open.
They paused for a moment and Lyra smirked at her, “Yeah.”