Chapter One

Rikar, Sectra

Year: 2545

Time: 1445

Location: Manderson High

Joey walked through the polished halls of Manderson high with a less than enthusiastic look on his face, with his father having a more...aggravated look. This was Joey’s third fight of the week, and Manderson was at an end for his rebellious streak.

“Honestly, Joey, why can’t you just behave yourself for more than five minutes?” Joey’s father said as he walked outside of the school with his son right next to him. Joey rolled his eyes, here comes the lecture. His father still blabbered on as they got in the car. “You know, when I was your age-”

That’s when Joey mentally checked himself out and answered all of his father’s questions with “no sir” or “yes sir”. He had “let your parents ramble” on to a science at this point. For the past five years, Joey hasn’t been the best when it comes to getting along with other kids. Especially when those other kids make fun of his prosthetic legs. Just looking at them wrong will make him want to punch you. He doesn’t like to talk about how, for five years, his dad measured the legs wrong and he’s had a slight limp. But the other kids LOVED to talk about that.

“Are you even listening?” His father looked at him furiously.

“Yes sir.” He said, still staring straight out the windshield. His eyes locked onto a group of birds in the sky and how perfectly they moved in sync. Except for one little bird that was slightly out of formation and drifting to the left.

“What did I just say then?” His father was the most excellent prosthetics maker in the entire space sector, but a terrible public speaker.

“You just asked me if I was listening or not.” Joey said, still looking at the little bird. His father smacked the driver’s wheel in rage.

“Got dang it, Joey! Ever since Tanya-”

“Don’t bring mom into this!” Joey exclaimed in a sudden fit of rage.

“She knew what to do about you. She knew what you needed. But, with me, it’s like I’m a burden to you. I weigh you down. Talk to me! What on earth is going on with you?!” Joey stared at his father and sighed. Time to bullshit his way out of what’s really going on.

“It’s just...with Ms. Blazer moving in and you remarrying...it’s just hard. Also the fact I have a half-brother too, I just can’t keep up, dad.” Joey said. His father narrowed his eyes and sighed.

“I’m not taking another...half-hearted explanation.” He said. His father reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a pamphlet. He threw it into Joey’s lap and Joey was stunned at what was on it.

The Pamphlet was decorated with blue and white accents and streaks running in star patterns around the edges. There was a woman on the front, she had short red hair, her soft blue eyes stared at Joey with a hardened look, and she was wearing a weird kind of armor. The armor looked like white plastic pieces on top of a black under armor. She was holding a clearly fake rifle as the words “SAFE HAVEN TRAINING CAMP”  were displayed in big and bold text above her.

“Dad- you can’t be serious. Military camp?!” Joey threw the pamphlet back in his father’s lap.

“I’m sorry, Joey, but you’ve given me no choice. It won’t be all bad. Auntie Ela will, hopefully, be there.” His dad parked the car in their mansion’s giant driveway. Joey sat there in anger and shock. His dad tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but Joey smacked it away and angrily got out of the car.

Joey entered his huge mansion and walked up the clear crystal steps tracking in mud from the outside.

“Joey Killian Marks!” Ms. Blazer, his soon-to-be step-mother, cried out. Joey stopped in his tracks as he turned back and saw her standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Go grab a mop and clean this up!”

“Just get Rodsworth to clean it, Barbra.” Ms. Blazer was taken aback by the use of her first name and an angry scowl spread across her face.

“Your father should hurry and put you in that military camp! Maybe an Architect can knock some sense into you!” Joey rolled his eyes and continued up the steps, still tracking mud. Ms. Blazer continued to scream at him, even when he was out of sight.

Joey limped past his trophy case. He noticed that there were only five trophies in the huge case. The last trophy is the one Joey refused to look at. The trophy of his first ever official little league baseball game. The other trophies were from community competitions or from school games. But, this one was supposed to be a big deal to Joey. It was supposed to.

Joey shook the thoughts and tears out of his head as he continued to where he wanted to go. It wasn’t his room. He walked a couple dozen more room doors and there he heard it. The crying. It was loud enough to echo through the hallways. Joey walked up to the door where the crying was coming from and opened it.

Inside was a nursery. It was decorated with baby toys littered on the floor, a tv on the wall, a shelf for all of the baby’s needs, and there was a crib in the corner. And, from that crib, was crying. Joey entered the room and looked at the walls. He chuckled as he saw the many baseballs on the walls, he painted those, and the footballs being thrown, he did that too, and the basketballs bouncing off the floor borders, unbelievably another thing he did.

The walls were meant to be bare, nothing on them, until Joey convinced his father to let him paint his brother’s room. It took a week, but it turned out perfect. Well, about as perfect as a thirteen-year-old could get it.

Joey walked over to the crib and looked into it. There was Joey’s favorite person in the galaxy. The best and most beautiful one-year-old baby half-brother anyone could ask for. His birthday was right around the corner, and Joey couldn’t be happier.

“Heeyyy, Jaxson! How are you today?” Jaxson babbled in happiness when he saw his older brother. Joey noticed the still moving mobile. He smiled as he remembered he put the sprinters on there. “You wanna come with JoJo?”

Jaxson laughed happily. He liked when Joey called himself that. Joey picked up his younger brother and sat down in the nursing chair on the other side of the crib. He picked up the remote to the tv and switched it on. The tv came on and there was a children’s show on. Jaxson clapped when he saw it, so Joey let it stay. He wouldn’t admit to anybody that he actually wanted to watch this show too.

It was about a group of toddler-aged kids and they would go around solving the mysteries of the human, robot, and monster filled town they lived in. His favorite character of the show was the human child’s mother, the show never gave her a name, because she was so pretty to him. He watched her hair as it moved, the animation on the kid’s show was a little too good. She’s probably the reason why he’s growing his hair out. She was smart, beautiful, funny, a little bit crazy,  and she looked like him. Well, he looked like her and he couldn’t explain why it gave him weird feelings inside.

Jaxson started beating on the wooden chair while babbling things that sounded like words but were just gibberish. His slobber started to seep out of his mouth and Joey gagged.

“Eww! You’re so gross Jaxson.” Jaxson giggled. Then, that’s when Joey smelled the horrid piece of poop that Jaxosn just laid. “YAK- uh uh, this is where I check out. Rodsworth?!”

As if waiting by the door, Rodswortth, one of the family’s many butlers, appeared. He quietly entered the nursery and took Jaxson from Joey.

“Thank you.” Joey said as he was about to walk out the door.

“Mr. Marks, there is a visitor at your window, even though I wish he could learn to use the door.” Rodsworth said as he began changing Jaxson’s diaper. Joey gained a big smile on his face and ran to his room. He knew who that visitor was, it was his best friend.

He ran through the fancy halls, his sneakers squeaking loudly, and stopped  in front of his room door. He noticed that it was wide open and standing in front of his dresser’s mirror was his best friend.

His friend played with his hair and put it behind his ear, while mumbling something to himself. Joey cleared his throat and the boy playing with his fairly long braided hair turned towards him. Joey blushed as his best friend smiled at him, his perfect white teeth contrasting against his ebony complexion.

“I heard you beat Alexander Howard’s ass. Impressive.” He said. Joey began to stumble over his words as he tried to form a coherent sentence. It was made even harder by his best friend’s chuckling. The jerk knew he looked good and reveled in it. “I didn’t know you could beat a senior, but, just like always, you smash my expectations.”

His best friend turned towards the mirror and began to examine his hair again. He scoffed as he found a microscopic detail.

“Do you have a brush in here?” He said as he combed through the drawers. He had to keep going down them as he searched and Joey began to burst at the seams once the sunlight from his window accentuated a...very pleasant part of his friend’s body. “Joey, are you listening?”

“Oh yea, Levi! It's just in that ass- I mean drawer!” Joey said.

“Please contain yourself, I came here to get away from Micheal.”

“Is he being a douche again?” 

“Oh no. We just had a teensy-weensy argument. No need for you to go and beat his ass again.” Joey gave a silent sigh of relief, he knew that Micheal was bigger than the last time he beat the shit out of him for hitting Levi. “Anyways, I also came here to ask you if you want to join me and Sophia for my first ever “thing” with her.”

Joey blinked in confusion. Sophia was Levi’s older sister and she was never up to good. Joey once let her shocking beauty, the same as Levi’s did while he was searching through his dresser, distract him from her stealing his chore money when he was nine. Levi’s whole family were thieves in some way or another.

Levi and Sophia steal hearts and riches, their mother steals sanity, and their father steals lives. That’s how their family worked. Joey knew getting close to the Toronto family had its perks and downsides, but when he met Levi when they were five he didn’t care about that. All he cared about was hanging out with the neighborhood wild child.

“What “thing”?” Joey asked.

“Just a little heist. Nothing too big. An abandoned bunker that isn’t in Safe Haven’s records.” Levi said as he finally found the brush and began to lightly push a strand of hair back into place. “There. Perfect.”

“I can’t. My dad’s making me go to some stupid military cam- wait. Your family owns the military! Just tell them to not accept me.” Joey said brilliantly.

“I’ll see what I can do for a price, of course.” Joey groaned. There was always a price when it came to getting Levi to go talk to his parents. Pretend to be a guy he’s checking out to make Micheal jealous, prank Joey’s dad, or spend time with Jaxson. He always wanted something when it came to his parents. “You sneak out with me and Sophia, and we complete this heist. Then, I’ll see if I can get you out of this camp.”

“Okay. Abandoned bunker, steal something, get out. Doesn’t sound too difficult.”

“Exactly. It’s easy. You’ll be off of that camp’s list faster than you can say...well I dunno. You’re better at coming up with one-liners. Anyways, I need to be heading back, the bus is about to pass here.” Levi looked out of Joey’s window and saw a floating blue and gold bus holding a ton of other rich kids driving down the street. “Ah! Gotta run. See you tonight.”

Levi took two steps back and leaped out of the window. He landed on the ground and did a combat roll. He waved Joey goodbye and ran after the bus.

“I’ll always wonder why he doesn’t just go home first.” Joey said to himself.