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rough draft advance copy readers any part of the current draft may be rewritten or taken out in any future draft of this book it is recommended that you read from the beginning every few drafts for new information unavailable in previous drafts update i will go through and change the edits to red for your convenience thank you for taking the time to read and criticize crossing cities by curtis lyon if you have any questions or comments please either use microsoft word comments or write your message in the text in bold and email the changed document to me i will try to message you back with answers a map and some author s notes are found on the last page 1

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chapter one ora elmstone pulchritudious the name of our fair city is an adaption of the borshe phrase pulcha rios tudaeos meaning ,milk and honey it s a reminder to all of our citizens that we are or at least we were at one point in a very long gaping detail-riddled history sweet and loving i remember one morning when despite the wisps of steam escaping from our lips whenever we talked or breathed my mother and i were outside sitting on the front porch of our house she had lifted me up onto her knee and pointed up at the dawning sun and whispering in my ear that the sunrise was god opening his eye and looking down on us like a guardian sitting in silence for a few moments i looked at the bright light that was beginning its ascent into the day it was a wondrous moment 3

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that only lasted until the sky turned blue and then it was time for my violin lesson in the grand park pulchritudious was one of the two only cities for miles climate and geography caused only cities with specific technological advances to form here the other city is disparauge it s a city polar opposite to our own very few people including politicians mail carriers and well-paying tourists ever get through the gate the large retractable wrought-iron fence that separates what my mother calls the armorae geareau kissing cities rumor has it that the only way into disparauge is through the gate it s a totalitarian state where people are stripped of their minds individuality and happiness their leader gans henri ferdinand is a god in their eyes they bow to him every morning and every night the heavy blanket of smoke that rises above the city walls all day every day is the perfect parallel of the city s ways dark detrimental i once got a glimpse of disparauge myself when i was carrying mail to an elderly woman near the gate disparaugeside the bulky blue-uniformed policeman had given me a 4

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pat-down looking for hidden weapons or illegal products and then inspected my mail bag after i was cleared for entrance i was given a thick red lanyard ten minutes later the enormous wrought-iron fence started drawing open and i along with some others were let through i don t really understand the security but i knew then that i wanted in and out as soon as possible upon going through the gate we walked along the cobblestone walk which sloped down and narrowed into a dark tunnel posted above the tunnel were two turrets each manned by two more peacekeepers in blue uniforms walking along a dark cement corridor i was a little nervous i hadn t thought of bringing a flashlight at ten in the morning and i couldn t see my hand in front of my face the ground and air were both really moist the exodus of the corridor opened up to a dark sky heavy smoky air and lifeless yellowed slopes the buildings were big and industrial but equally lifeless all around things were beige unless it was covered in blue posters of the gans i took all this in with a short gasp the landscape was 5

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completely different than what i d been subjected to growing up pulchritudious was much more green cared for and clear i glanced at the map of disparauge and started running i wanted to get out now but i had a job to do people were wearing tattered blue clothes sitting standing walking staring at me here in my mandatory red lanyard i was a rhenigarde it was the slang term for rhenigarde polisa geareau rio mani man from the city at our throats i was already in what they called the civilian housing district and the woman i was carrying to lived two streetends away the roads were gravel and i jogged the paved walk that ran alongside them to protect my soft bare feet the smell of smoke hung thin in the air but it was enough to make me cough up a lung i turned left at the second corner at every street corner was a tall building a story higher than the tallest house more uniformed policemen which were here called annapolisa monni peacekeeping men stood in the roofed metal-mesh box that topped each watchtower one of the annapolisas looked down at me and reached for his radio said something into it that i couldn t hear put it back down 6

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and waved me off i continued running until i arrived at the mail s destination 311-62 seq it meant 311th street 62nd house southeast quadrant i knocked on the door and an elderly lady opened she looked to be easily 90 but i knew that it was probably from hard work and pollution her entire life i reached into my bag for the envelope but she held up her hand in pause she coughed lightly and asked me if i wanted some tea i opened my mouth to say yes but she held her finger to her lips and pointed with her eyes to the watchtower 3 houses away i whispered my affirmative and she disappeared into the dusty unkempt home she returned a few minutes later with a tiny white porcelain cup filled with a steamy caramel liquid she held it up smiling an encouraging smile and i took the cup and nodded my appreciation the liquid tasted a bit dirty but sweet and warm a hint of french vanilla actually but what made it the best cup of tea wasn t the flavor or the way the wisps of steam rose from the surface of the tea the woman was probably taking a risk i couldn t know by offering me any unnecessary 7

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hospitality and i loved her for it after i had finished the cup she smiled and took the cup back to some other corner of the house then she returned with a coin to pay for the mail i smiled and shook my head the tea was better than a few cents i bent down and was about to give her a hug but a shout came from down the street and footsteps slapped into my ears i turned and ran the opposite direction away from the woman but they didn t go after me they burst through the woman s door shouted something in borshe i couldn t understand and slammed the door behind them there was the crack of a short whip and a horrible silence to this day i don t know if she survived my intervention i ran down the streets ignoring the pain of the gravel against my heels i had to get out of the city before the men caught up with me my only hope was that they didn t get to radio in my mishap to the people at the gate before i got through 8

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i heard footsteps behind me and cut into the dark tunnel they followed me but they held their breath listening for mine i tiptoed into the only corner in the entire tunnel they were walking slowly whispering to themselves ,did you see her face ,i only saw her hair blonde kinda tall the second one made a sick comment about my body i almost kicked the pervert right then but i would get landed in detention or whatever these disparauge freaks had ,well she couldn t have gotten far ,did you bring your flashlight ,wait oh hades i left it in the tower the footsteps stopped only a few feet away from me i stalled my breath ,come on let s just go back and radio hal hal was probably the one at the gate ,equan sensi i agree i waited for their footsteps to fade away and stood up took off as fast as i could run for the gate once in 9

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pulchritudious i would be safe i walked quickly but did the immigration dance without alarming any of the annapolisas that was the first time i d been in our twin city and unfortunately it wasn t my last 10

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chapter two lafayette bentley i don t remember much about my mother only two things were clear one she loved music more than anything in the world two her life had ended because of her love of music this city is a little picky about what we listen to things like ke$ha bach and other stuff aren t allowed people who listen to metallica even in the privacy of their own homes are punished dearly for storing polisa coverat possessions that are considered dangerous or unpatriotic to the city she was one of them the song she had been caught with was approved the next year and for precisely that reason i hate it more than anything in the world i have an older sister my mother s been pregnant four times but the city only allows one boy and one girl per family unit and my mother had to have an abortion twice to keep from having two more girls after lisa she once told me their names would ve been caroline and estella 11

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i ve never been to any part of the city other than 264-13 neq my home the district of education the waste disposal district and the district of farming and rationing most people in their lifetimes have only been to their home the dfr the district of education and their place of occupation as inferred from what i said i work at the waste disposal district i jump off the back of a truck take people s trash and toilet tanks dump them into the back of the truck get back on then off to the next house i report to the district on foot at 6am sharp suit up climb on do my thing on our two designated roads the district of education the district of polices and transfer all that waste to the district where people are waiting to move it into another much bigger truck which then moves outside the city and dumps it all out somewhere else where there is no city to the knowledge of both cities we are the only cities for thousands of miles it doesn t matter where in the world we are yet but when the city is strong enough we will take the initiative and conquer the rest of the world 12

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i don t plan on staying here too many people have died from peacekeeper raids pollution and horrible labor pains the gans has silenced too many people who spoke a little too loose who listened to a non-approved song who stepped out of line but for my sake the sake of my mother s memory for the sakes of my father and sister and for the sake of every fellow citizen i ve ever talked to i stay in line and say my morning oaths i ve seen people from the rhenigard and they don t seem depressed or dying they only seem scared of us dirty people from the slums their city is stuck to i glanced up and saw a banner of gans henri ferdinand i couldn t believe i used to actually praise the man he and his peacekeepers were the ones who ,unified the city and ,avoided unnecessary bloodshed i had to remind myself that these were same people who have been tearing the city apart and killing people for humming along to the classics like jason mraz the banner was blue with a handsome man with a short straight mustache and short beard anyone who resembled that same look was shaved of all hair given a pill and thrown into the district of punition for a month for 13

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impersonating the gans it hung from atop every building that rose over three stories the banner was long and allowing it to touch the ground would result in having your feet removed for disrespect of our savior i looked away and started walking i felt eyes burrowing into the back of my head so i counted to ten and spat onto the cobblestones underfoot spitting on the ground while walking away from a banner was a sign of hating to journey away from our glorious leader i wanted to spit at it but i also wanted to live to see the granduv annageareau the great non-city i smeared some dirt from my face and sped up a little it was almost one fourth till and i was still only exiting my quadrant i was taking a shortcut through the district of education buildings were built with steel and brick but it still looked more like white mud piles than concrete the roofs weren t tin but the rusting material that topped the houses sure looked like it newspapers empty cd cases papers dust and grime wastebaskets with dwindling fires everywhere people were trying to keep warm at night and we had limited 14

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gas to ensure that the gans lived in luxury the gans palace in the district of policies was well lit and heated it looked like the castle at the beginning of a disney movie i used to watch the jungle book when i was little that is until it was banned when i was seven i glanced around to see if i was being watched and then spat directly at the vision of heaven that lay only fifty decapaces away when i knew no one had seen i also added a curse what i had done would ve given me twenty years in punition without a tongue my mood improved a bit i continued walking speeding up to make up for my detour and some minutes later i was at work i slipped a suit on from the locker room and had just fixed a pair of splatter goggles onto my face when a whistle sounded we all jumped into a single line facing toward the main door our boss poked his head in gave us a surveying look and disappeared again we all went to our trucks and started our morning duty the bad thing about this district 15

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