Things Fall Apart

During six years, they wandered in the wasteland.
In six years they had built themselves a new home out of trash, and found themselves new friends they would have been ready to die for.
Mikey never talked again.
He wasn't Mikey anymore. Gerard wasn't Gerard either. They were the names society had given them. But now that this same society had turned against them, they couldn't carry anything on them that had to deal with it anymore. They abandoned their roots. They denied the grip of a society they despised on their existence by denying everything it had given them, to their names, taking control and choosing their own. They were born again with a new identity, a mask under which they could hide their shameful humanity and names that would be remembered for centuries. They were Party Poison and Kobra Kid.

Their lives weren't as comfortable as they would have been if they had remained under the control of the BL/I, in their city which had been renamed. And maybe the clothes were all the wrong sizes and the colours that they now bought not as bright as before, maybe life was tougher and food tasteless but they were free. Free as they had never been. They had an identity, they had a distinctive size and a shape now, they weren't just citizens slurred in the mass, but individuals.
They had found a cause to fight for, a reason to live. They knew everybody wanted to change the world, but nobody wanted to die and that's why they were going to give it a try.
They thought they were immortals, and they called themselves Killjoys.


Only a few hours after they fled the city, they found another boy, in the desert. They were scared at first, because they didn't know whether the latter was a refugee just like they were, or an agent of the BL/I. The two brothers were dirty, exhausted and starving: not in a well enough state to defend themselves. So they just hid behind a pile of waste. They didn't have any names anymore and hadn't chosen new ones just yet. They were two nameless boys, lost in the desert, observing a stranger with funny hair, looking as awful as they did.
The older one of the nameless boys eventually peeped from behind the pile of waste.
What else did he have to lose anyways?
"Hi." He said. The stranger turned around, and the boy suddenly noticed he was wounded: there was blood all around his right eye, running down his face. He probably was blinded.
"Don't be scared." The boy continued.
"I'm not scared." The stranger with the funny hair said. "My name is..."
"Shh." The boy cut him. "I don't want to know."
"Have you fled the city as well?" The stranger asked.
"Yes, my brother and I did." The boy replied, beckoning his younger brother over, still hidden behind the pile of trash.
"Would you have a drink to share?" He then enquired.
"That's what I'm looking for." The stranger replied. "In the trash. There must be cans or bottle that hadn't been drunk yet."
"True." The boy admitted. "We'll help you search."
Indeed, fifteen minutes later the three of them had found six untouched cans of different sodas in the piles of trash. The drinks were hot and all the gas evaporated, but it still felt refreshing.
"It's crazy how all that's left of our childhood is the taste of flat drinks in rusty cans." The boy observed.
"I've never noticed it before coming here." The stranger added. "But I reckon you're right."
The younger of the nameless boys drank silently.
"Doesn't he talk?" The stranger asked.
"He hasn't talked in a while. Not since we left actually." His brother explained "I'm not even sure he's fully aware of what is going on, he just seems lost in his thoughts."
"Oh." The stranger simply replied, finishing his can of soda.
"Do you mind if I stick with you? Being alone here is not fun, and maybe we'll have more chance of surviving together." He then asked.
"Sure." The older nameless boy replied. They remained silent for a while before he talked again: "By the way, what happened to your eye?"
"S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W's dracos attempted to shot me when I tried to flee." His interlocutor replied. "I guess I'll never see from this eye again. I should find a patch, it'll look pretty cool."
"We should also find covers, because the nights are pretty cold here." The boy added, observing the sun setting.
"Should we put on a bonfire? It would keep us warm."
"Yes but we'll get noticed."
"I don't think the S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W would adventure itself in the desert just yet. It would need all of its forces in the cities. Besides we could get noticed by other refugees like us."
"You’re probably right." The boy agreed. "Let's do this."
Hadn't they made that idea come true, they probably would have died from hunger, thirst and exhaustion.
But the light of the bonfire indeed attracted other refugees like moths.
Other refugees that were already well organised in a gang.
"Hello kids." They heard a deep voice say. The three of them volte-faced and found themselves in front of an impressive bearded man in a wheelchair wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses even though it was dark, accompanied with a handsome blond young man wearing a very old army uniform and a colourful mask covering his eyes, another man with darker hair and a similar mask and a girl in skinny flashy clothes wearing a motorbike helmet. All of them were equipped with diverse weapons.
"I'm Doctor Death-Defying." Continued the bearded man in the wheelchair, "but you kids can call me Doctor D. My lady friend here is DJ Hot Chimp, this young man is Cherri Cola, and my other friend is Tommy Chow-Mein. You can thank the Witch you were lucky enough for us to find you before the Dracos did!"
After cautiously putting out the fire, the three of them followed the newcomers through the desert. Surprisingly, even though he was in a wheelchair, Doctor D. was really quick.
"Why won't you show us your faces?" The funny-haired stranger dared to ask.
Tommy Chow-Mein, turned around, growling like a wolf.
"Because we don't trust you yet. We have to test you first." He snapped, making the boy accidentally back away from his aggressiveness.
The other man, Cherri Cola, who mustn't have been any older than them, took a few steps back and joined the three nameless boys, smiling in a friendly way.
"Excuse him, he's very aggressive, but he's not mean. He just doesn't trust people easily." He explained. "We've been here for a while actually, we saw the coup coming and we left before. We just knew the BL/I was slowly getting too much control over our lives. We got the desert ready for when it would eventually happen, to host and train refugees like you. Actually, we're trying to build a pirate radio. It's going well, I think we'll be able to broadcast soon. We built a radio house we call Home. It's where we live and it's all we have, that's where we're taking you. You'd be surprised to know there actually are a few buildings in the desert. Not much, but still."
He suddenly stopped talking as they had arrived in front of a short little building built out of diverse materials they must have found in the trash, with wires and cables running all around it.
"The radio house." Simply said Doctor D., extending his arms, introducing them to the place.
"The wires and cables are for the radio and the electricity: we managed to connect it to the city's power." Cherri Cola explained.
"We allow you to spend the night here, and we'll see what we'll do of you tomorrow." Doctor D. continued, without even turning around, before entering the building and disappearing in one of the rooms, followed by DJ Hot Chimp.
"Find them a place to sleep in, Cola." Timmy Chow Mein said dryly before disappearing into the building as well.
"Follow me." Cherri Cola sighed.
The first room was quite large and equipped with a very old TV and a sofa in a fairly poor state.
"You three can sleep here, I'm sorry there's only one sofa but I can bring you more covers." He said sympathetically.
"Thank you." The older of the nameless boys said while the younger one yawned. Cola nodded and left the room to fetch the covers.
"You can take the sofa, I'll sleep down here with my brother." The boy then said to the stranger.
In that moment Cola came back with a pile of covers. He shared them between the three of them, and the dark-haired boy protectively wrapped some around his hazelnut-haired brother, who had drifted off to sleep on the floor meanwhile.
"I don't know how he can manage to fall asleep." He whispered "after all that happened."
"Are you guys hungry?" Cola whispered in order not to wake him up. "I have cereals bars to share."
But before any of them could reply anything the funny-haired stranger's stomach growled. Cola laughed.
"I'll take that as a yes."
He sat down next to them, took the bars out of his pockets and shared them.
"You know," he said "my friends are actually very nice too, you just have to get to know them better first I guess. Anyways, you guys don't have names anymore don't you?"
"No."
"We'll have to find you new ones then. Or you'll have to chose, that's the exciting part. You're gonna chose a mask too, just like we did. You're not entirely part of the gang yet, that's why I can't take mine off, you'll have to do a sort of ritual tomorrow I guess."
The two others were too busy eating to reply.
"Won't you wake your boyfriend up so he eats a little too?" He suddenly asked the dark-haired boy.
"Oh, he's not my boyfriend he's my brother." The latter replied, gulping down a mouthful of cereals.
"Sorry my bad. You guys don't really look alike."
"I don't know if I should anyways, he seemed really tired, I'd rather have him rest a little, I'll save some for him so he can eat later." He continued, gently taking his brother's glasses off his face so he wouldn't crush them while sleeping.
"We need to take care of your eye too..." Cola observed, talking to the stranger this time "we don't want it to get infected..."
The funny-haired stranger left the room on Cola's track.
And, while they were gone, the pale-faced and dark-haired boy fell asleep on the floor, crushed under the weight of existence, his face turned in the direction of the only thing he had left in the whole world, which also was the only thing he cared about.

By early morning the following day, they were woken up by Doctor D.'s voice booming into the room.
"Are you motherfuckers still asleep? The BL/I is not gonna give fall while you lazy brats sleep! Come on! Move your fat asses out of here!"
And before they could even realise what happened, the three of them were out in the desert, the whole gang behind them. After they walked for what seemed like a fair amount of time, since the sun had now appeared fully in the sky, they suddenly stopped on a sand dune, in appearance no different than the others.
"Weapons." Doctor D. commanded, and DJ Hot Chimp gave him three laser guns. He handed them to the three to-be-named boys, a red one for the oldest of the brothers, a blue one for the funny-haired stranger, and a yellow one for the youngest brother. Meanwhile, Cherri Cola, named after a drink, was disposing three cans of soda on the following dune, a few meters away.
"Each of you can take a can as a target. If you shoot it down, you're in. Show us what you've got."
Not to mention that neither of the three had touched a gun before, the targets were really difficult to reach. The raven-haired brother aimed, narrowing his eyes in order to see something in the strong light, shot and missed by far. He heard one of the radio gang's member tutting behind him.
The funny haired stranger tried and missed as well.
The younger of the two brothers remained gun in hand, looking as though his mind was miles away. His older brother called him, gently, not by his name, since he didn't have any, but, recognising a familiar voice, the young boy looked up at him.
"You must shoot a can." He explained "Come on."
The young boy nodded, aimed and directly shot his can right in the middle.
There was an impressed silence floating around the little group. The young boy looked up at his brother again, wondering if he did it right. But the latter was looking behind him, at a bunch of people the young boy had never seen before. Three men, including one in a wheelchair, and a girl, all wearing masks.
By the time his brother turned around again, his mind had already gone away.
He did not hear what the strangers had to say about it. He had done what his older brother asked, and it was all that mattered to him.
After hours of trying, both the raven-haired boy and the funny-haired stranger eventually shot their cans. The sun was setting in pink shades over the desert, once more.
They turned around, their guns smoking, exhausted, but satisfied.
"You're in." Doctor Death-Defying said. "The two of you are, but what about this young man?" He continued, gesturing towards Mikey.
"Are you kidding me?" His brother spoke up for him "He shot his can the first time!"
"It could have been luck."
"I don't believe in luck."
Doctor D approached his wheelchair and observed the youngest of the brothers from very close. The latter did not flicker.
"He doesn't look right. And he won't talk. Something's the matter with him. We can only take refugees in a good state of mind, and I am sure this young man won't even last a week."
"Give him a chance! There's nowhere else he can go!" His brother protested "Besides he will listen to me, he always does. He'll do what I say."
"He looks young. How old is he?"
"Seventeen."
"He can't stay."
"Of course he can! Since when do you take people from a certain age? That's not fair!"
"We decided to only take over-eighteen. You should have told him to go back to Battery City when it was still time, because now he knows the location of the radio house we can't trust him. He has to die."
"What???"
"You may think we're reckless but life is. If he's too young he'll only bring us trouble. It would be better as for us that for him if we killed him now. He would suffer less that if the BL/I catch him, which they eventually will."
"He'll do fine, he's very clever. And I'll take care of him, I'll look over him. He'll do what I say. And he's almost old enough!"
Doctor D seemed to think for a while.
"You three can keep the guns." He eventually said, implicitly accepting to take him in too.
The boy, who had been tensing up during this exchange, sighed from relief.
"You're in!" He shouted exultantly at his little brother, who did not react.
Doctor D eventually broke out a smile and took off his sunglasses, as all of his friends took off their masks.
"Welcome home, kids."

Notes

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