"What do you mean, she hacked the system!?"

"Anderson, it's exactly how it sounds. She hacked the system."

"That's not supposed to be possible!!!"

"sigh I know."

"How the hll did she do it!?"

"That's exactly what I want to know. According to our medical specialists and Monitor Research Facilitators, we have no idea. These are geniuses we're working with, Anderson. Not your average preschooler."

"But still! She couldn't have gotten her hands on anything that could shut it down!! For how long has the MRF been keeping this from us!?"

"For about eight months, sir."

"Dangit, Colonel! We can't afford to loose her!! Approximately, where is she now?"

"If I were to hazard a guess, somewhere in Rotterdam, by now anyway."

"Ugh... The best place to hide a tree is in a forest... Now I get it."

"Rotterdam would have been highly preferable, Anderson. It is the closest area with the highest population, for her. Plus, she will have blended in perfectly. Many children live on the street in that area, and the only reasons why not many adults do is because most of the children don't live long enough for that."

"I want forces searching that area, NOW!! My gosh, Colonel!! She could be anywhere by now! We need her!! Geez... I knew her family ignored her and treated her badly but...oh crap."

"The MRF says she's started going by the name her parents told her to use if someone saw her."

"You mean, 'Skye Taylor?'"

"That's the one."

"Well, at least the MRF is good for something. Message me when you find her."

"Obviously."

"We thought it was obvious that the MRF should contact us if she were to hack the system. Look at what good that's done us now. Now leave!"

"sigh Okay."

Skye wandered blindly though the crowd. She was quite a sight to see. She tugged ominously at some short, spiky hair that stuck out of her elephantine hooded sweatshirt. It was large and clumsy looking; the bottom almost reached her knees and her shorts were too small, thus being invisible. Beneath her sweater she pulled her long, blue, turtleneck sleeves closer about her wrists. The IF was near. She could sense it.

She had been wondering how long it would take for them to send soldiers after her. After all, she was high on their priorities and they had invested a lot of money into securing her whereabouts. She bit her lower lip. It was obvious that she didn't belong, and it's not like anyone would cover for her if questioned by the government. She winced with discomfort at her matted, straw colored hair that clung to her face in areas where it was long enough. But her uncomfortable expression turned into a smile as she remembered her clean escape.

She had first turned off all the lights in her room and put a blanket over her head so that the MRF wouldn't know how she had accomplished her task. Using a pair of craft scissors, she quickly shut down the monitor. There was a flaming pain that blinded her and made her knuckles twist and her muscles ache. She bit her lip until it bled, holding in her desperate cry of pain so as not to wake the family. Once she was able to sob silently from the pain, she clambered out from under her blanket and into the bathroom, still clutching the small pair of scissors.

Once inside, she bent over the toilet and quickly snipped away at her bust-length hair. She smiled as the golden locks fluttered down into the toilet. It was almost too easy.

Skye now stared at her own reflection in a puddle on the side of the street. Her own blue and green eyes stared back. They were like a painting crafted by some ADD artist. The sea green interwove the blue and swirled in a picturesque fashion. Her eyelashes were heavily laden but were the same color as her dirty-blonde tresses and gave the casual viewer the impression that she was always half asleep. Her quickly cut mop of hair might have looked trendy if it hadn't been for the lack of cleanliness the street life offered. Besides, she wasn't the type to care about looks, though she really would have been beautiful if she were properly cared for.

Which she wasn't.

She looked about. She was now nearing Rotterdam. She pulled her hood closer about her ash pale face. It was a dark area she was now entering.

Once in Rotterdam, Skye took stock of her surroundings. She was right next to a run-down playground that had been utterly vandalized and decorated in graffiti. (remember that!) Nearby, some small children, not much younger than Skye, were licking candy wrappers as if it were a treat. One sat in a corner rubbing a black eye. An extremely small child was sitting on a trash can. Skye stopped to stare at him. He was coated in dirt and his hair clung to his scalp with grime. He had probably never had any sort of home or even a type of shelter. He had a bony frame, challenged only by that of Skye's. But his eyes. Oh, my lord! His eyes! They were like the firecrackers that Skye would always see by her window in the attic when the children went off to the Fourth of July parties.

The parties Skye could never go to.

He noticed her gaze and immediately returned it. An understanding hit the two of them like a lightning-bolt, and Skye knew that he could read, as did the boy know about Skye. It was like the forbidden intelligence they shared was a tangible thing, cruel and inevitable.

"Hello." Skye said finally. "Hi." he returned, blinking at the incredible realization. She took a step forward. "My name is Skye Taylor. What's yours?" He swallowed. "I don't have one." Her eyebrows crinkled for a split second in momentary confusion. "What do you mean by- ooohhhhhhh..." She suddenly understood and gave him a simple, slightly sympathetic nod and looked at her feet. He was an orphan. No one had ever given him a name.

He nodded and looked at his lap, a gesture not unlike Skye's. "Yeah." he breathed. She looked up at him again and cleared her throat. "Well, I had a family once." He cocked his head a little in slight interest. "Really?" She paused momentarily with a little intake of breath and nodded, feeling her boldness grow. "Yeah." She gave him a sort of unsure grin that was not at all unfriendly, and gave him a little comic shrug. "They're sort of overrated." The boy blinked for a moment and then burst out laughing. She smiled. He probably didn't laugh much.

"I was a Third once." she explained. His laughter ceased and looked at her open-eyed, but more out of wonder than fear, unlike most of the looks she got. Skye decided she liked that about the boy. "You were? Wait a minute- were?" he said in sudden confusion at her word choice, which was clearly past tense. "Yep." She looked at him for a second, then she decided she could trust him. "I've decided that I'm not going to let other people influence me. If they don't like it, that's their problem. It's not my fault the government is prejudice against us third children." He looked at her with a fresh sort of respect.

"And well you shouldn't!"

Skye spun around. Standing there was an cocky looking older boy with a single crutch. "People who say stuff like that are weird. Out here in Rotterdam, though, people don't care who you are. They care about survival. What's your name?" he asked. His eyes were intelligent too, but Skye wasn't so sure she liked him as much as the younger boy.

She glared slightly. "It's rude to ask someone their name without first giving them yours." she spoke stiffly. The older boy laughed. "Fair enough, Thirdie! My name's Achilles. But since when has a homeless Third cared about manners? I thought Thirds were rude!" Behind her, the nameless boy growled. "You take that back." he murmured. Her glare intensified only slightly. "Then I guess I was wrong about you." she said haughtily. He cocked an eyebrow. "And what about your perspective of me was wrong?" he asked looking slightly amused. "The part of my perspective of you that made me think that you were smart," she hissed.

Achilles opened his mouth to say something, but whether it was a retort, an outraged yell, or an amused gesture, she never found out. All three of the mangy looking group looked suddenly at a girl, as two hookers demanded some food from her. Skye wrinkled her nose distastefully. Couldn't they find some less perverted way to get money?

The girl (who looked a rather lot like a boy) quickly brought back a half-eaten pastry and handed it to the pair of them impishly. The two older girls began fighting over the pastry and the smaller girl simply backed away, hoping that they would forget about her. Suddenly, the two girls realized and turned on the smaller one.

"Oi!! Poke! We're not done with you yet!!" yelled the fatter of the two.

"Yeah! We haven't eaten for two days! If you don't give us food, we'll beat up your crew!!"

"Crew? I don't have a crew and I just gave you that-"

"Shut-up, girl!! This wasn't enough-"

"I'm not a girl!"

"Like h you aren't." said the skinnier one, rolling her eyes.

"P-please don't beat me up. I don't know anything about a crew."

"You don't know anything in general!!" vexed the fatter one, grabbing a nearby kid who had been running strait through the middle of the three girls. The kid struggled and squirmed. "Let me go..." he whimpered. "Hey! Leave him alone!" yelled Poke, her maternal instincts toward her crew kicking in. The skinnier woman smirked wickedly. "Not 'till you get us more food, doll-face." she teased.

Skye decided it was high time she intervened.

"Cut the crap, you dorks," she said boldly. The two women took their sweet time turning around to meet her intense gaze as they looked upon her with eyebrows cocked at the small girl's audacity. Poke looked as though Skye had just lost her mind. But there was also a bit of relief and thankfulness in her look that made Skye's courage boost.

"What, did you say?" asked the skinny one. The rhetorical question pestered Skye to no end. It sounded like her mother. "You know, in crappy places like this there sure is a lot of people with hearing disorders," she spat venomously at her own crude joke. "Probably 'cause prostitutes can't afford to get 'em fixed." The fatter one's face bent into a sneer. "Shut up, you retard." she retaliated lamely. "At least I'm smarter than you, which is kinda sad, seen as I'm six." One of the rolled her eyes in a "I don't have time for this." kind of fashion. "Look, kid." said "Skinny." "Once you've got one-a them monitors like one-a them rich kids, come back to me about brains. I heard what you said to mini-me over there," she gestured toward Skye's nameless friend, "You're a Third. Third's don't even get educated. It's illegal." Skye smirked with her newfound power. "Oh, really? Well, prostitutes are illegal, but that hasn't stopped you yet." As Skinny opened her mouth in open resentment; Skye spun around, tore off her hood, pulled down her collar, and pulled up any hair that was long enough to obscure her monitor.

Everyone on the street gasped.

Skye knew that she shouldn't be so gaudy about her monitor, but she really couldn't stand the way the two perverts were acting. She turned around to face them. "Leave them alone. You think you'll beat me up, but that's not gonna happen." "Fatty" shook herself slightly to come out of her own shock, and began to smile evilly. "Just because you're smart doesn't mean you're strong, Thirdie. I will squash you, I swear I will." Skye's eyebrows twitched with barely restrained amusement. "Oh, so you'll squash me, eh? You must be so big and bad, beating up a six-year old when you two are at least ten years older than me each." Fatty growled. "Can it, you!"

Skye feigned fear and backed up against the mangled jungle gym. "Please don't hurt me..." she said. She was a good actress when she wanted to be. The two girls smirked. "No way, goody-goody. No one makes a fool out of me, and I don't want to see your face around Rotterdam ever again."

Everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch, and people had come to their windows and out onto the streets. Just to watch one fight. It's not like fights were rare in Rotterdam (at all!), but this was a fight against one brilliant six year old and two far older, but far less brilliant, prostitutes. Skinny started running toward Skye. Skye calculated her predicament perfectly and, using her surprising strength all at once, hoisted herself upward using the bars of the jungle-gym, and shoved her feet outward, hitting the fast moving Skinny squarely in the chest, and thus knocking her to the ground. (It only took a split second and Skye is really strong, if you're wondering how that's possible.)

Skinny lay dumbstruck for a moment. It only took -a moment- for Skye to kick her rudely in the jaw. Skinny winced at the pain. "Leave me alone. And Poke and her crew. I don't want to hurt anyone if I can help it, but if you try and hurt them again, I'll go farther than this. Every time I'll go farther and farther. I will kill you if I have to. So leave them alone." Skye looked at the girl's clothing distastefully. "Oh yeah, and you seriously need to get yourself a new job." Skye's nameless friend laughed again. Skye gave him a little wink.

Suddenly she felt a large, masculine hand on her shoulder.

"Skye Taylor, please come with us."

Well, there you go!! My first complete Ender's Game/Ender's Shadow fan-ficton. Wow. I am really, REALLY tired right now. That's probably why it's so bad. And short. TTTT Oh, wells. Hope u liked it anyways.

I give hugs to people who review or message, and BIG hugs to people who review AND message:D To all who did, have a cookie!! Hands out cookies to bewildered looking teens with nothing better to do than read my crappy stories, and gives each of them a pat on the head through the computer screen (somehow)

Well, yeah, by reading that last part, you can tell I have ADD. Oh! Guess what? Ender-related-randomness: I would be an illegal third!! I'm a third child and I'm not that smart. I was brilliant when I was little, though. I could multiply a little bit before I was out of kindergarten. But now I'm just ADD and good at art. sigh... oh well... At least they recruit when you're small, so I might have had a monitor. My oldest brother, Joe, would TOTALY have a monitor. No foolin', man. He's a flipping genius

BTW: I was inspired by "Ender's Analogous" by AbeLincon and "Third's Chance" by Alaria MacNab. So if u like this, drop a friendly word by their accounts and read those two stories, wouldja?

Well, that's all the ADDness I gots for you today. Peace, man.

-Gaara4fr