Chapter 2: New World Order

"What?!" A sixteen year old Rayleigh Pierce asked in a particularly loud tone. "What the hell are you doing in Tron?"

Rayleigh immediately paused what he was doing, diverting his full focus to the matter at hand.

In a more hushed tone, he said, "Tell me you’re joking, Tris."

"No, I am not joking, I left Skylark an hour ago on a medical expedition to Tron." A soft feminine voice on the other end of the phone call responded.

Rayleigh, looking slightly perplexed, couldn’t contain his current worry. "You didn’t tell me anything about an expedition to Tron. You should have told me."

"It was impromptu. I didn’t know I was going to be stepping foot there until two hours ago. I tried getting a hold of you then but you weren’t picking up."

"I was working!"

A few heads turned, glancing at Rayleigh whose hands firmly gripped a mop stick. He stood in the middle of an open space, part of the ground was wet and slippery. His job description was indefinitely obvious; he was a janitor.

"Sorry, I’m—I’m on call with my sister."

Explaining that he was talking to someone and not to himself—which would be considered crazy—seemed reasonable as not everyone could tell.

Diverting his attention back to the call, he spoke. "You know how much I dislike these other cities, right?"

"You mean your city paranoia; your ’ciranoia’? Yes."

Rayleigh rolled his eyes slightly. "You be careful over there, alright? Call me if anything goes wrong."

Tris chuckled over the phone. "You say that like you’re going to come running to save me. You can barely even afford a train ticket, much less a ticket to another city. I’ll be fine, don’t worry. I have to go now."

Tris hung up the call on her end. Rayleigh couldn’t help but sigh in worry. He wasn’t in love with the idea of his little sister wandering off to another city.

Aside from the dangers that traversed with the routes of travel, there was also the possibility of drawing the wrong kind of attention, especially from the city elites.

Deciding that worrying was a luxury he couldn’t afford at the moment, Rayleigh decided to continue with the rest of his shift. The sooner he could get this entire floor clean, the sooner he could grab some lunch.

Not long after, he resumed cleaning the white floors of the building. With his head plumped down, Rayleigh couldn’t help but catch glimpses of all the fancy shoes walking to and fro that screamed money.

Rayleigh didn’t come from money, if he did, he wouldn’t be a janitor in a Rune Academy. Being broke was the second thing he disliked about his life. The first was having no Rune Genetic Code.

Hours later, after successfully getting three floors clean – contrary to his original plan of getting just one done before lunch – Rayleigh decided it was time to get some. A stray thought wandered through his mind.

’Why don’t I try cleaning another floor before lunch?’

That thought went down the drain as quickly as it came. His stomach protested, a sign of his overwhelming famishment.

Finding his way to the elevator, Rayleigh got in, pushed a few buttons that was accompanied by terminal beeping. Not long after, he found himself on the first floor of the school building.

He was about to make his way to the exit when his peripheral vision caught two figures approaching him.

Both officers were clad in matte charcoal jumpsuits with diagonal zippers cutting across their chests. Passerine birds stitched in silver-grey thread took flight along each left sleeve.

Rayleigh’s mind spun into a web of dramatic spiralling. ’Why are two Silvered Agents approaching me?’

He could already feel his palms getting sweaty. Rayleigh had never been approached by the Silvereds in his entire life. His entire existence was baseless. Not being from a rich family or having the Rune Gene made him borderline invisible to society.

But seeing two Silvereds approaching him, one could only imagine what sort of trouble he had managed to get himself in.

"Rayleigh Pierce?" One of the Silvereds, a dark skinned middle aged man asked. There was no speck of warmth in his voice. He looked like the kind of person who never joked around – who always meant business.

"Yeah? That’s me." Rayleigh managed to keep his voice steady.

The second Silvered pulled out a small device from another larger device wrapped around his wrists.

He aimed it straight at Rayleigh’s eyes and a light-fast flash of red light stole Rayleigh’s vision for a second.

He placed the device back in its hole.

"You’re coming with us. Let’s go." The dark skinned Silvered ordered.

Panic engulfed Rayleigh whole. "What? I haven’t done anything wrong!" He protested. "I have broken any rules whatsoever!"

"Do not resist." The second Silvered, who was slightly shorter than his partner, reached for an electrocuting device by his waist. Although he didn’t pull it out, his stance suggested that he wasn’t afraid to use it on Rayleigh.

The last thing Rayleigh or anyone as powerless as he was wanted to do was piss off two Silvered agents.

The Silvereds being the city’s police were the first line of defence against any form of threat, external or internal, and as such, they commanded respect across the city of Skylark.

Not arguing any further, he gave in and he was escorted out of the building.

A small crowd of students had gathered to witness the Silvered agents escorting Rayleigh out of the school building, and pretty quickly, rumors were already flying around.

"Who the hell did he piss off?" a male student, who for some reason had his hair incendiary, asked.

"I bet he tried to have his way with one of the younger students. It would be so stupid for a janitor without a Rune Gene to get himself into this much trouble." Someone suggested out of the blue

"You’re right. I’ve seen him lurking around the girl’s area a bit more often than usual. He does look like a pervert."

Hearing these students come to defamatory conclusions about him, Rayleigh silently let out a scoff.

He managed to pick up a whisper from another student. "If he was a pervert, don’t you think he would be in cuffs right now?"

It looks like there was still a shred of hope left of humanity after all.

Outside the school building, revealed the city of Skylark’s imposing nature.

A vibration pulsed from underneath the city. One could assume it to be the city’s under-grid reactors placed far underground

High above, suspended against the smog-tinted sky, a labyrinth of magnetic transit railways crisscrossed between each other over towering glass monoliths.

Sleek bullet trains ripped through the upper atmosphere in blurred streaks that could be calculated at at least Mach 3, leaving static trails in their wake.

Parked in the school building’s central courtyard was small shuttle spaceship, dedicated to the Silvereds.

Rayleigh was marched up the ramp of the small ship which sealed immediately the last of the Silvered agents stepped in.

Rayleigh took a seat on one of the metal benches. He looked down at his wrists; they still hadn’t cuffed him.

An agent walked down the central aisle, stopping right in front of Rayleigh. He stood over him as his shadow swallowed the eighteen-year-old whole.

"I’m Commander Gordon," the man said. "I suggest you listen carefully, Rayleigh, because your life as a floor-sweeper just ended."

Rayleigh swallowed. "If I’m not under arrest, Commander, then why am I here? I didn’t do anything."

"You didn’t," Gordon agreed. "But your sister did."

Rayleigh’s heart slammed against his ribs. "Tris? She’s on a medical run in Tron. She’s a student—"

Gordon interrupted coldly. "Two hours ago, Beatrice Pierce was detained inside the High Command Sector of Tron." "She was apprehended while attempting to assassinate Admiral Vance with a concealed plasma scalpel."

"That’s impossible!" Rayleigh bolted upright, but the shorter agent nearby immediately placed a heavy hand on his shoulder and shoved him back into the seat.

Rayleigh shot him a dangerous look, but what could a non-Rune do against powerful Silvered agents with dedicated abilities.

"She wouldn’t do that! There’s been a mistake somewhere.!"

"There are no mistakes at that level of government, " Gordon said, pulling a glowing terminal from his belt and flicking his thumb. A holographic file expanded between them, displaying Tris’s face alongside a wall of red legal text.

"According to Section 22, Subsection 2 of the New World Order, any citizen whose family is charged with high treason, or crimes such as an attempted assassination against a High Officer automatically implicates their immediate bloodline if they happen to NOT possess the Rune Gene. You share her genetic profile, you’re not a Runer, therefore, you share her liability."

Rayleigh stared at his sister’s glowing portrait, his mind racing as terror completely washed over him. "Implicate? What does that even mean?"

Gordon deactivated the terminal and locked eyes with Rayleigh.

"It means, Rayleigh Pierce, you aren’t going to lunch. You’re standing trial alongside your sister."