1-5914-6025-5 (Paperback)      0-7443-0543-8 (ebook)

Aurora Browne took up little space on the soiled couch as she waited in silence. She had listened in frozen disbelief as her mother had placed the call, and then watched as the tattered old gym bag was packed with her few belongings. The ragged and drafty cabin that she had called home since her birth was old and drafty; the chill air of the day raised goose bumps along her arms. Her mother paced between the broken front window and the crooked door, muttering unintelligibly under her breath. Her eyes shifted between the window and Aurora. Her dreadlocks, far past need of a wash, hung in disarray around her head, obscuring the older woman's face from a clear view. She muttered to herself nintelligibly.

The soft 'shhhhuuuuh' of the air pillow beneath a Unit broke the eerie silence of the day. Aurora's mother snatched open the door before the Pale Soldier even had an opportunity to disembark. The Unit was dark gray and cumbersome, a boxy contraption that looked like a cage with walls instead of bars. A narrow ramp slowly extended from the operator side of the Unit as the soldier walked across the broken concrete to the shack.

"We're here for the Candidate."

The voice was as dead and featureless as the leaden skies above. He was as pale as she was honey brown. Aurora shivered, shrinking back into the worn fabric of the old couch. No…no. Her mother couldn't be giving her to this machine. Please no!

Her mother nodded quickly, half running across the room to grasp Aurora's arm greedily. She kept her grip tight as she dragged Aurora across from the room and extended her hand.

"The money?"

The Pale Soldier extended a sheath of papers with a pen across the top of them. Aurora's mother scrawled her name across the document. The Bill of Sale. As Aurora's worst fears were confirmed, she lowered her eyes and tightened her hands into fists as she tried to banish the Pale Soldier from the room, wishing with all her might that he just disappear.

"Here, take her!" Ms. Browne said, snatching the faded sack of silver from him as she shoved Aurora forward.

Aurora wondered how much she was worth as the Pale Soldier jerked her toward the door. His grip was forceful and tight; her fingers tingled as the blood supply trickled to almost nothing as if a constricting rubber band had been wrapped around her arm.

Her mother never looked up as she counted, her dry lips moving as her daughter was led away. Aurora's last sight of Ms. Browne was of her back; one dirty hand scratched her nappy head, and then the door slammed.

The day was still as the Pale Soldier pulled Aurora up the ramp to the Unit. The restless wind that normally whipped and blew was absent, as though afraid to be near the soldier. No birds sang in the trees because the trees had long gone and with them the birds.

Much of the destruction was the result of the United World Council's war with the Resistance.
The silence of a dying place where everything was gray, the color of decay in New England Tre, one of many floating cities above Earth. The veil that hid the sun muffled all sounds of life.

Noxious black fumes curled directly up in the still air as the Unit puffed more and more, adding to the curtain that had blocked the sun from the land for generations.

"In. Now!" The Pale Soldier commanded Aurora as she pushed her into the vehicular monster called a 'Unit'. Stumbling up the corroded ramp, a wide-eyed Aurora stood rubbing the angry black place on her arm where the Pale Soldier had fastened hid grip moments before. She scooted to the back of the Unit, as far as possible from the unyielding Pale Soldier.

Pale mechanical cyborgs served as the Garden's security. They usually arrived with stunners, laser guns or Johnnys. They lacked a conscience and emotion. They used their weapons excessively and without hesitation often with deadly results.

Aurora surveyed the greasy interior of the Unit. The Pale soldier paid her no attention as he shoved her out of his path, lowered himself into the operator's seat, and started pressing several buttons on the Unit's dashboard. His fingers, moving automatically to the correct sequence of buttons, sped pass Aurora's eyes in a blur of creamy white and black colors.

A ragged empty area where the passenger seat of the Unit had been ripped from its hinges and haphazardly replaced with a steel two-level cart on which weapons, such as bats, solid steel balls and knives rested in disarray. Swinging around the thin legs of the cart were three sizes of handcuffs. Flecks of what looked like blood and other dark substances stained their ugliness.

The metal had been worn away and sections of them bore dents and dings indicative of heavy use.
Aurora hustled further back retreating until her back touched the metal wall. She smeared dirt and grease into her ivory torn sweater as she scrambled on her hands and knees across the floor. Black smudges streaked along her boots in places where there weren't any holes.

"Good." The Pale Soldier pressed a final purple button on the console and a gate erected a barrier between him and Aurora.

A red digital screen read the temperature as 30 degrees. It felt much colder as Aurora's breath condensed into wispy white puffs of air. The arctic coldness of New England Tre never rose above forty degrees; yet, the Unit was devoid of a heater. Its driver didn't seem to mind, as the Unit appeared to shiver before lunging westward.

Once moving, the light inside the Unit became dim like the quickening of a long forgotten sunset. The only visible light came from the flickering digital thermostat and swirls of dust whirled as they floated in the air stimulated by the Unit's movements. They danced in the red light like dancing embers from a burning fireplace. Aurora could taste it on her tongue, gritty and metallic, and she wept as her tears left frozen salt trails upon her face.

© 1998-2003 Nicole Givens Kurtz