Disclaimer: All characters belong to Cassandra Clare.
A/N: A futuristic universe, so I create lots of new places for the story and I hope this prologue won't be too boring… I HOPE.
* No guarantee on my updating speed but I never abandon my story.
Prologue
Waved goodbye to his schoolmates Alec headed to the Easton Train Station. Walking inside the transparent tunnel he fished the phone out from his jeans' pocket and pressed the screen a few times, holding it like a microphone. A voice came through.
"Sir?"
"Hi, Hodge. I'm finished with the orchestra and about to get on the train. I've already eaten."
He said indifferently, entering his log to the butler.
"Entry filed, recorded at 11:03 pm, 21th of March, 2541."
The idea of telling a robot your daily activities still crept him out, even it was a common practice long before he was born. He simply not that into documenting his life events and had others knowing it. Sure there were benefits doing it, but Alec felt his privacy was invaded. He only did so on his parents' request. Since they were always on business trips, they would access the database and check on him and his siblings by listening their logs.
How stupid it did sound. Alec had asked Hodge about this when he was young, what responded with a list of reasons and advantages of the recordings. He quickly shut Hodge out after ten seconds.
Threw the phone into his backpack Alec pulled a book and held it in his hand. A real book as in paperback. Every time he was reading people would shot him weird glances; most of them had never seen one. No one was using books now. They were replaced by electronic devices and fifty years before his birth, the last bookstore in the world closed due to the invasion of advanced technologies.
If you wanted to have a book printed, it would cost a fortune even the papers were produced in a laboratory rather than harvesting the natural environment. No one wanted to invest in papers anymore, among many other things. Alec could only dream of the times people wrote with a pen in their hands, let the tip touched the thin layer of paper and left the inks in loves and worries, hatreds and furies.
It was far too different from looking at the tablets and screens. He could touch – smell the words. The texture of dancing sentences and the sweet scent of plots, which could only pass on through paperbacks. He had not once thought of how lucky he was to be born into a rich family but not because of the wealth and better living his family could bring, it was the library that made him grateful.
A library with real books inherited from his ancestors. That was his heaven.
Alec walked passed a green layer of electronic particles for identification purpose and without trouble he went down the stairs. The only living in the station was the ebony haired teenager standing in front of an automatic door. Shifting his weight from one foot to another, Alec flipped to the page where he was interrupted last time. Instantly he was drawn to the world and completely ignored the random announcements and servers patrolling nearby.
He lifted his head up when the train came in, stopped perfectly in its position and the boring tone ringed around the platform. The door slid opened silently, revealing an empty carriage. Groaned in annoyance Alec found himself a seat in the almost vacant space, trying to read under the dim light. He hated travelling at late night. It was out of his imagination that the lighting system in the public transport changed following the circle of day. It was always too bright at the morning and too dark at night.
Hugging the backpack Alec rested his chin on top of it, concentrated on the book. He needed not worry about missing his stop as Guardian was his destination, which also was the end of the line.
It was one of his bad habits: being unaware of surrounding environment when he focused too hard on his task. If he had listened to his siblings' advice, now he would notice the group of three crept inside the same carriage few minutes ago, watching him with eagle eyes. Every slight movement of his was noted with great delicacy.
Massaging his nose bridge Alec had the perception that the light was becoming weaker as he was having trouble reading the word without zooming close. One more thing he discovered, the neon light bulb above each door was turned off. Weird, since no matter when and whatever happened they would always, always lighted up.
The darkness was approaching him and a mysterious fog rushing towards Alec. Now he could barely make out the shape of poles three steps away. With a sudden urge of panic Alec stood up, trying to locate the emergency speaker –
An Asiatic man was sitting on a bench in front of the coast, sketching on his notepad. Humming a tone terribly off-key, he added two more strokes and exhaled a satisfactory sigh. He held up the paper, letting the sunray penetrated it and shed dimmed shine on his design. Smiled contentedly, he slipped the paper back into his maroon leather case and prepared to start a new one.
Not a while after a guy similar to his age sat down next to him, peeping at the spotless papers.
"You are wasting your money on this."
The part Asian man snorted at the comment and turned his head to face the guy in gray hairs, said defensively. "Yeah right. How is your drug business, Jem?"
As if salt was sprayed on the exposed wounds Jem whined, wrinkled his nose. His gray pupils darted around to inspect the area. It was his luck that no droid was around.
"Magnus, don't say it out loud. I can get arrested for this, you know."
"Alright." Magnus threw his hands in the air with enjoyment, seeing his comeback successfully shut Jem down. The two of them were friend for ages along with two others, Will and Tessa. They grew up together, basically did everything with each other yet their ways went utterly disparate; Jem, while a licensed psychiatrist with a part-time job of smuggling drugs across the borders, his best friend Will was working in the homicide division of local police.
Will at first, angrily opposed Jem's action. But he never reported him to the officials, simply because he understood his reasons behind. The four of them were living in a city with all kinds of benefits. At the same time people outside, the discarded and exiles were poor and neglected. There should be no connection between the two worlds despite the fact that they were separated by an invisible shield.
Jem, a good-natured man had went out there once for his stillborn research. And once was enough, he said.
Magnus didn't think much about it, since it was Jem's business. Although sometimes he got worried over him; crossing the border was punishable by death.
"So, what do you need?"
Looking at Jem, Magnus said right into the pair of gentleness.
"Candy."
The code. He nodded with hesitation, asked. "When?"
At the second, there was a wave of black lines traveling along the invisible shield.
"Twelve tomorrow. One more thing, Tessa wants to ask you about modeling." Jem pocketed his hands, body tensed up when another groups of lines appeared above their heads. Magnus too, noticed and spoke.
"It's already the fifth times since I am here. They can't just give it a rest!"
Normally the city scanning would be carried out once every two hours. Yet right now, Magnus had only been sitting on the bench for an hour and the frequent scanning was annoying him. He wanted to catch the sunlight color right for his nature themed collection, not bunches of black lines circling the maize evening gown.
"Well, I tried to call Will this morning and he had to leave in a hurry. Possibly a new murder?"
Jem said while tilting his head to the side, watching one more wave. Sighed, Magnus threw the notepad aside. "Just forget about it. And you talked about modeling for Tessa. Are you serious?"
His frown deepened when Jem replied a yes.
"Should I feel honored about it? Because I don't."
His words made Jem chuckled, couldn't help but Magnus copied the grin. "Enough of that, just tell me why."
"Do you – no, of course you don't. Tessa's company is trying to open a new operation line and they need a proposal…"
Magnus listened carefully to Jem's explanation, shook his head once he was finished. It was a crazy idea.
"They are nuts. No way the government will allow this."
"I think they will. They are considering to legalize the meats black market." Jem stated, again attention was drawn to the black lines vanished behind the buildings.
"It's creepy and tell Tessa to find someone else." Magnus was not narcissistic enough to accept this offer. Magnificent he was but no. The idea of thinking about it had his hairs stood on their ends.
"Come on, you know she won't bother you unless she has to. Consider this a favor, Magnus?"
They stared at each other for seconds, and Magnus surrendered, groaned when a big grin on Jem's face.
"Fine! I'll call her tonight but only in certain conditions."
"That is?" Jem leaned in excitedly.
"If the proposal is passed, destroy everything about me."
"Sure."