The Expatriate-the story of a Prodigy

16. Banished

 So he was going to be banished...ah, a disappointment, Alex Mars thought. Better if I died in less than a minute just like how Andrew had done. 

 Still, I would end soon enough, he added. 

 He looked up when heavy and irregular footsteps echoed into the cell and saw Fawkes walking to him right away. It was a bit of a surprise, since it was about 7, the exact time for dinner, and it had seemed as if no one cared of him after Mark Higgins' visit for permission to succeed his status a few days ago.

 The man walked to stand right in front of Alex. He didn't sigh nor piss out nor laugh. He only glared at Alex, rubbing his scarred hands together. Meanwhile, Alex noticed that he had his gun with him. 

 "I despise being related with you," The general finally said, mouth twitching. Alex sighed a big breath through his nose as he kept staring back. 

 The general took one minute to pause and resume the conversation. 

 "Hey, you know where I got this from? You're a Prod, boy. You can guess," He pointed at his wound beneath the shirt. Alex shook his head and kept staring at the man. 

 "Hale shot me that day during an intense fight, Mars. He thought that I was a Prod myself, maybe a conspirator with genetic connections to you, you must. I defended you and myself. But I had really believed that you were just an excelling boy-and you turned out to be a Prod. So Hale shot me during the duel because of you," He growled, now one hand at the gun. 

 Alex sighed. 

 "It was you who believed. And anyway, you are still a general and now I can be treated in any way. It doesn't matter to me, even," He said calmly, and the general sneered. "You are to be banished, Mars. Do you know how painful it is? Well, but you deserve it. And we are going to watch till you die of thirst, cold, hunger, or disease out there, I swear," The man turned away, gripping his gun. "You betrayed this country. And you're going to pay for all of what you have done in this world, Mars," With that, he stomped his boots away. 

 For the first time in his weeks in the cell, Alex Mars actually felt fright at the words-such as of what the gov would do to the Martyr and his parents.

 He spent one more week at the jail. He thought about being banished, about how it might feel like. The other boys had said that it would be terrible, much or worse than being executed-that it would be scorchingly hot in the day, then very frigid in the night. There would be no water at all, nor any food. Alex Mars knew that better than anyone since he had studied desert geography in great detail at home. But yet, he wasn't daunted at all. He was still void and dry of emotion-the cruelty that the Martyr had warned him of on the first day they had met had made him change, flipping his set of emotions in one swift day. He only thought about how he would be sent out into the desert-by some machine? Or maybe in the style where the pirate would push the victim down the plank? Hell, that would be jolly, he thought. 

 But it wouldn't be done in that way, obviously, and thus, it wouldn't be as jolly as he thought. 

 Not that he cared, though. 

 It was a Saturday. A day supposed to be normal turned into a turning point in his life in one moment by the government's choice. 

 The same guards who had grabbed him that day when Andrew was killed swung open the door and Alex Mars was confident that one of them smirked before cuffing and pushing his hands painfully to his back and prodding him out of his cell for the last time. They led him outside of the cell-building, and surprisingly, a Jeep was already waiting right out there on the blood-splotched ground. But it was not one of any of the generals' Jeeps-it was bigger, a real wrangler, smooth and black, smooth with curves all over its frame. Alex could already hear that this Jeep was the gov's from the sound-the engine was emitting a giant, deep roar. Alex squinted to see inside-a burly man in his military uniform like Mars-but in more cleaner and neater conditions. The man looked at him, then barked out laughing, his muscles at the mouth twitching. s**t, Alex thought. He heard the man's voice, a bit muffled through the bullet-proof glass. The man was giggling how small and silly Alex looked and wondering if this boy could fly-obviously the other Prods he had escorted had been incapable of those. How stupid you all are to believe that flying is possible, Alex pondered as the guards opened the door and put him inside the car. Mars noticed that  Hale and Fawkes was already sitting in front of him, then found it strange that Fawkes, who, definitely, was not the top general, was also coming along to wherever they were going to for the banishment that was near the desert. But Fawkes didn't seem to be in the mood to answer questions, so Alex said nothing as the driver who had previously laughed started driving. 

 Alex Mars watched in triumph as the car slid out of the base onto roads he had never gone on. 

 The generals started smoking cigarettes and the driver started talking to them about recent Prods and their abilities and how they had died. Alex just stared at the space in front of himself to kill the time. 

 The mood got solemn as they neared D.C.(which was still the state). The generals put away their cigs and the driver focused mainly on the road, and Alex was thankful for it-he was tired of using his brain to analyze whatever came in through his over-sensitive ears. 

 They entered the city and for the first time in real life, Alex saw what a city really was, and especially, how D.C. people were living their lame lives. Actually, it didn't seem to be as lame as in his town and base. Most of the cars weren't old brands such as Ford and Beetle, but hi-tech brands of all sorts that even Alex wasn't used to see the brands of(for your familiarity, Tesla was one of the top three brands). Tall buildings with the sunlight glinting off their sides lined the streets, as if greeting him to his punishment to become an expatriate with pleasure. Rock and electronic music he had loved before rang out in the streets and Alex swallowed back memories of him making his own music stuck inside his room, loving the funk, beat, and thrill. Besides, the military had taken away his capability of listening to music-he was so gleeful now to hear those raps and yelps over the bullet-proof glass. He thanked his ears once more. 

 The people bobbed their heads up and down to the music and their podcasts, talking, laughing with each other, hitting each other playfully. Alex Mars had never had such friends nor gangs, usually by the logic that they were useless and unhelpful according to his Prodigy's Motto, yes. But now, he realized that not everything had to be based on logic. Even though those people were forming gangs and howling among each other, they seemed to be... happy. Mars was reminded of Andrew suddenly. The other boy had been the closest presence to him as a friend, and he had managed to let him die in front of his own eyes. He sighed and rubbed his temple with his index and middle finger. He let the driver zoom him past the probably last experiences of typical human happiness in his life and carry himself to be banished. 

 Among the soaring glasses and spheres and domes finally appeared an impressive, glass-covered building. Well, if it had only had a dome with glass, it would have been very typical. But its walls below the roof was tilted and curved with glass and grey concrete, giving Alex Mars a feeling that he was in 4-dimension or something for a second. He shook himself back to reality and observed the building-not to find a way to escape later, but just in curiosity. People in suits dotted a huge amount and flowing wave of stairs leading to the entrance as in those current public libraries, while soldiers in green and grey uniforms lined the glass doors(glass, glass, and more glass everywhere) with solemn faces, their hands touching their guns almost in a polite way. Alex felt nothing as the car stopped in front of the building smoothly and everyone, except the driver, got out. Alex let Hale haul him outside and pull him up the marble stairs, getting dragged like some slave. But as you know, it's difficult for two people to climb the stairs with one being dragged behind, involving balance and direction matters. So Hale just swung Alex to walk in front of him and pushed him up the stairs with angry thrusts, as if he was kicking up his soccer ball up the stairs, bored. Alex never noticed the smirks and suspicious glances and the examining looks of the passerby in their suits that matched altogether as if all of them were a set of business dolls-or maybe he did notice the glances, but nonetheless, never minded to care of them. 

 The guards stopped the gang and checked the generals' identity,, then saluted stiffly. They spoke rapidly into their earphones, glancing barely at Alex before swinging the glass doors open and letting the group in. 

 Their shoes hit the marble ground with sharp click-clacks as they made their way across the lobby to the elevators, not even bothering to go to the front desk. Surely, this couldn't be where I'd get banished, Alex Mars pondered. I mean, if they banished me here, it's been just the same as being set free in D.C., a fully-civilized city. 

 Of course, that was never going to happen. 

 They piled onto an elevator that was as big as Alex's old, small living roomf with an interior nthat looked like a jail with no bars at all. Hale kept rubbing his knuckles as if bored, while Fawkes gave grim grins at each of the walls and the doors until they swung open to let them out onto the 19th floor. 

 Instead of some hallway, there was the office right away, lined with bookcases and empty guns and full guns and documents piled on one, single giant oak desk. And behind that sat a man with hair that was boiously peeling away from age and stress, chubby and licking his fat lips, hands pushing up his wired-glasses up his nose each minute. 

 "Dear my Minister of Special Defense, we brought the Prodigy we discovered and reported last week," Hale's voice was suddenly smooth and neutral with no hint of his poison and annoyance and rang out proudly at the minister. The man looked up, squinted once at Hale, then swung his beady eyes to Alex, who didn't even try to look polite and just stared back, and hard, at the man. The man kept glaring into his eyes, and Mars was suddenly reminded of the day at the hopsital with his dad just after he had gotten his Muter implanted in his head, when they were competing over who would be able to go on longer without closing eyes. How ironic everything was fitting in with the past, he said inside his head. 

 The minister chuckled after breaking his glance away first, then motioned the gang forward to stand on a red carpet which his oak desk was on. The man ducked behind the desk, then started to pull out and push back documents, where the view wasn't available for the people in front of the desk to see(Alex was able to figure out what the general was doing with his ear-sight), grumbling insanties like "s**t, why isn't it already placed on the top of the pile?", then sat up straight on his chair with a pile of papers that were about the height of Alex's hand, from the tips of his finger to the joint in his arm. So those documents contained all of his life, and the generals were there to sign it all away to trash his life and identity away into the desert, and after that, stright into the world dominated by the god Hades. 

 "Sign with all the info you know, then hand him the part where he have to agree," The minister grumbled, then spiraled away on his chair which had wheels to the corner of the room to observe the scene, which seemed to be strangely quite entertaining to him. 

 Hale pulled out a pen and started to scratch his signature and check on the right info with surprising speed, going down the pile like a wolf wofling down its prey in minutes, pen scribbling. Fawkes just watched with his implicit grin. 

 Finally, Hale handed Alex one single sheat of paper and thrusted the pen into his hands before un-cuffing him. Ah, only one single sheet of his life for himself, the protagonsit of all those pages, to sign and agree on...well, his own banishement. Hahaha. 

 'Things the convicted should agree to: -Do you accept that you are a Prodigy?

                                                              -What problem do you believed have caused your community with your abilities?

                                                              -Do you agree witth folloing statement? Prodigies cause harm to the overall ideal of the current government of the United                                                                     States of America.

Alex Mars was sick of lying and fabricating stuff up. He decided to be honest with his only and last sheet of life. 

 He agreed with the first question, then wrote in perfect handwriting that he had caused the death of his best friend who was suspected as a Prodigy instead of him, then checked that he disagreed with the last statement. He submitted the paper to Hale, and the man gathered all in his hands before handing it to Fawkes. The minister sighed before waving them off. 

 "Go now, I have so much work to do, General Hale," His eyes returned to the paper on his desk. Hale saluted to the man, then turned around to cuff Mars once more. The group once again, marched back to the elevator. 

 The rest of the walk back to the Jeep was silent, the generals never exchanging anything with their implicit eyes. Gee, it's much better to have no background noise to disturb my thoughts, Alex thought. 

 The Jeep rolled right back to the place where it had pulled up in front of the building, and the driver whisked them off onto the mainroad as soon as the generals both had their butts firmly on the leather seats. 

 "Just remember the last time you did it, General Fawkes," Hale suddenly murmurred. Alex looked up to see that Fawkes was wildly fidget-ing with th giant pile of documets on his lap. The man shurgged. "I'm not nervous, general," He said curtly back at Hale without tending to look back at the backseat on which Alex Mars sat. 

 The car zipped onto a series of highways and roads that Alex Mars had never obviously, seen in his life. Tired of watching the driver and the generals in front of him, he let his head rest on the back of the seat and doze off, dreaming of how his life would end in the desert. 

 He was kicked awake an hour later by Fawkes and his boots and sat up straight, bumping his head against the roof of the car. Fawkes snickered, then pulled him out, bumping Alex's elbows on the metal frame of the car. Not believing that he had somehow fallen asleep on the day of getting banished, Alex rubbed his eyes and ruffled his own hair, letting his drowsy eyes adjust to the scene before him.

 He had to swallow back amazement at the landscape.

 The desert lay in front of him, straight, yellow dusty, and plain. The sand tickled his shoes, trying to pour into his socks as his eyes skimmed over tiny clumps of weed, grass, and of course the vast ocean of sand, till they stopped at a thick wall of grey, firm concrete, thick and sharp wires lining the top with presicion, designed to look tempting but impossible for people tending to get over it(from the outside, of course-who would want to expel themselves out of their home country for fun anf forever?). But the wall wasn't a simple wall. About 5 feet thick, it stretched and snaked over the entire land in Alex Mars' view-his feet moved continuously as his neck craned to look all around, in circles-and he found out that the wall was in a huge, unnecessarily snaking and twisting circle-around a small unimpressive building with offical looking windows and a red rooftop that was 2 stories high. A few guards patrolled the tiny building, each cradling long guns to their chests, looking and glaring at each other. Alex Mars spun around once more to stare into the distance, back directly at the grey walls about 50 feet away. There was going to be some door to let him through the thick wall, and after going through that door, unlike any other normal door, he would never be able to come back. 

 "Stop chasing your own tail round and round," Fawkes growled and yanked him to walk stiffly in front of him, and they marched quickly after Hale, who was already scuttling acorss the grounds to the small building, the thick layers of documents that he had given Fawkes already cradled to his chest firmly.

 They walked into the building. Mars felt tired of entering buildings, and just wanted to be left alone, anywhere, anyplace, but it had to be anytime soon. But he decided to focus on acting like a betrayer, expatriate, and Prodigy as he marched through the dirty, sweat-smelling halls, shooting glares at every soldier he passed, almost proudly. Well, he was proud of himself for real, actually. You assholes can't hear people approaching 2 minutes before they come to you, huh? He tried to let his staring eyes be implicit enough to imply the brag. 

 Alex Mars watched as Hale submitted his papers and got a proud, big, red stamp on each form. He watched as Hale and Fawkes chuckled with some soldier with all kinds of shiny badges on his chest. He watched as Hale pointed to Fawkes and explained why his companion was there with him politely to the badge-man. He watched as he himself was guided back out to the desert but this time, deeper into it. 

-well, that is, closer to the wall.                                                              

-and closer to becoming an expatriate.                                                                                      

 He watched in the corner of his eye that Hale had stopped Fawkes and was talking to him. Fawkes calmly waved off Hale, who never looked back at Alex Mars and started walking back to the car. Fawkes turned back on him and pushed him steadily down the invisible path to the wall. 

 They were walking in silence when Fawkes opened his mouth. 

 "You know what, Alex Mars? I also thought that life needed to be fair and good for us," Alex was a bit startled when Fawkes suddenly obviously started a speech about his life as they continued on their stroll. "I am not a Prod, but I was a bullied kid at high school. And that made me want to win everyone else, at least at the military. That's how and why I became general. But the thing is, I realized something after I just got appointed. And it was this," Fawkes' fingers suddenly grabbed Alex's shoulder, and twisted his body form to inevitably stare at him. "The world is incapable of being fair and Utopian, Mars. And we should just get used to it. That's how life works and how it has been since the dawn of the human civilization," The general made Mars stare at him for 3 seconds longer, then jolted the boy back to go to the wall. They walked in silence, but Alex was chewing back on the words the general had said. The world's incapable of being fair?! The man had to be had to be kidding. 

 "Let me ask you one question, general," He said roughly,  like a good convicted man. Fawkes gaped at him, smirked, then said nothing. Alex took it as a demand to continue, so he did. 

 "If you were born to be killed, what would you do?-A: you fight for your life for baby Jesus' and your own sake, B: You let yourself be slaughtered and go on to live the next f**k life," Alex Mars could have never felt so cool under the sun as he said those words directly to the general. 

 He waited for long, enjoying the pause and silence of the general. Ha, I think I just got you straight on the butt of your own words, he yelled at the man from inside his head. 

 "I'd get 'slaughtered' as you put it, Mars. But for me, it would never be the act of slaughtering-it would be an act of patriotism," Fawkes sneered. 

 Alex clapped as well as he could with his cuffed hands as if he had waited for that answer. 

 "Congrats, general-you just became one of the most stupid and shuck human beings on Earth. Humans are animals, general. We are born with the urge to live, though those wishes can be stomped down by specific situations," Alex asked in a deep breath. The perfect example for 'specific situations' would be the case of Andrew, he sighed in his head. "And you would just love to let yourself be killed with no good reason. Huh, general, be realistic and humble to me, please. That's my last wish," He said as they slowly reached the grey wall. Alex was surprised that Fawkes hadn't interrupted him so far. "You won't be able to kill yourself if your only obligation in the cruel world you were born in was to let yourself be murdered, general. You just won't be able to, if you get in my shoes," He spat out the last words out with a great degree of satisfaction. 

 "Says who?" Fawkes growled. 

 "Says me, obviously," Alex felt an odd sense of déjà vu as the words just came out of his mouth. 

 He soon realized that the Martyr had said them, and he grinned at the seething general in front of him with pride. 

 He still watched in amusement as the general wordlessly turned to the grey wall and pulled out his phone casually from his pocket. He growled a question of the location of the door and as soon as the guard on the another side(Alex heard the guard answer that the door was about 15 feet to the right from their current position-obviously, they were all watching from their posts, those guards) answered, stuffed his phone back into his pocket and kicked Alex Mars on the thigh to head to the right of the wall-not in the 'hey, man, whassup?'style, but in the 'f**k away, you s**t'style. His thigh hurt and ached, but still, he felt very calm as he was led wall like a camel being herded to a door carved into the concrete and two hinges holding it firmly into the frame. The general paused in front of the door, staring at it intently. 

 "Beyond this door, you'll be entering the 9 circles of hell with each agonizing and sizzling step on the desert ground," Fawkes said, then finally grinned as the door started to slide open into its side automatically-maybe the guards behind them had pressed some button to open it up while watching the drama. "Doesn't matter, sire," Alex said as the door stopped sliding, fully open. Now, as if contained tamely in a grey, huge frame, sat golden sand, sifting over and over with the wind as if playing pat-a-cake with each other. No grass lay among the desert sand here, beyond the wall-only pure wind and dust and sand. And the same scene stretched over and over, and Alex's eyes climbed the space till he finally saw the blinding horizon. The sun, neatly hovering up in the sky, beamed proudly down at the sand and himself beneath, and his eyes already seemed to be ready to go blind. Hell! This was the desert!his mind yelped out in surprise. 

 He remembered that he wasn't yet beyond the wall, when Fawke's hand pulled at his shirt to grab his attention. Mars suddenly felt doubtful of his decisiveness once more when his mind sensed a feeling of fright creeping in. So this was the last seconds of his life with contact with another human being and safety from being roasted up beneath the heat. But he didn't want to be roasted up! Well, guess it's too late-things were already unchangeable. 

 He watched below as Fawkes pulled out a small device from his pockets and strapped it onto his ankle. 

 "A camera, Mars. Not to track where you are. Just to see how long it takes you to die. We're all just curious and entertained with the records of Prods. The record was 1 week and 3 days before the man bonked out. It's impossible to take it off your ankle on your own-unless you grow skinny enough for the thing to slip off your ankle," Fawkes chuckled as he got up, patting off the dust on his knees. For one second, they stared at each other intently, various emotions flooding through their brains. 

 "Spit out your last word, Mars. Not your wish, you already used it up, obviously," Fawkes finally cut the pause. 

 Alex Mars grinned once more. 

 "You said no Prod has ever returned, Fawkes. But you're not a prophet. You're not from a century later, taken back to this time by time machine. You can never know the future. Thus, here's my conclusion: We never know that something is impossible since in the future, it may be possible," Alex paused, then shrugged. "That's all," He added. 

 Fawkes bit his lip, raised his brows, nodded back politely, then gave Aled Mars a good prod on the back, directing him to the real desert and battlefield out there. 

 "Good luck, then, Mars. Let's see if anyone can make it back after today, just to test if your hypothesis on the possibility of things are correct," Fawkes murmured, staring holes into Mars' back. 

 Instead of staring back, Mars stepped over the line where the door had been. His left foot landed on the other side, heat rising already off into his shoes and soles and knees. He grit his teeth, then let his right foot lift. And then, let it land on the other side beside his left. 

 He, as usual, heard it before he could sense or see, when the concrete door slid shut right behind him, then stood solid and silently on the scorching grains of sand, letting the atmosphere, the heat, the sand, and the sun, to drink in his sensation of being an expatriate solemnly.