SHENLIGHT is a story about four kids who discover that their home, Sandshadow City, is in extreme danger and it's up to them to learn how to use their special powers in order to protect the innocent people from the Peaceguards--a ruthless robot police force that patrol's the alleys of the desert city.
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I stepped quickly over rough stone, weaving through crowds of people.
I couldn't stop thinking about the way the trasher, Yanco, had controlled the sandstorm. About how he commanded the sand in the air not to touch him. He could move the sand without touching it or using any tool of any kind. He could do something that shouldn't be possible.
Just like me.
The fact that I finally knew there were more people like me could change everything.
I walked through the busy streets. There was no storm today. The usual street vendors, children playing, workers coming and going, and other crowds packed the roadways and alleys and stirred up dust clouds.
People passed on both sides of me. Some walked quickly with a purpose. Others barely got anywhere at all, preferring to travel much slower. Maybe they were conserving energy in the ridiculous heat.
I shaded my eyes and looked up at the sun in the sky. It was relentless. Glancing around as I walked, I realized pretty much everyone in the street was doing something to hide from the sun. Most wore clothing that covered their entire bodies. Some carried large umbrellas.
I remembered again why I hated to use the streets. Everyone hid from the sun, but it didn't ever bother me and so I tended to stick out in the short-sleeved shirt and cut-off pants I wore on sunny days.
There were robos in the streets as well. In Centro, robos guarded nearly every corner. And some patrolled the streets, walking through the crowds with their shooters held shoulder high. Passersby moved left and right to get out of their way.
The sentries usually walked in pairs of two, and almost always carried their hands as weapons. They were the defense of the city, protecting it from the inside out. At least that was what our professors always said in classes. Sandshadow is a safe haven from the unforgiving world above, and it is safe thanks to the soldiers that guard our peace, they would say.
Yeah... sure. I thought. Real safe.
One of the large, gray soldiers turned his head in my direction as I passed in front of it. The lenses in his eyes rotated quickly, opening and closing as his gaze browsed through the crowd of people, occasionally stopping and lingering on some person for whatever reason.
The markings on his shoulders and torso were pulsing blue. I had occasionally seen others colors, mainly when a sentry was in pursuit of some thief or some other troublemaker. But they almost always walked around pulsing blue like these ones.
The soldiers' sleek, curved boots made a clanking sound on the stone as they neared me. My heart sped up a little as the one looked down at me. I stayed focused on the street ahead and tried to pretend I didn't notice it looking. Fortunately, he moved on. I let out a breath of relief. I really didn't have time to be stopped and questioned today. I looked down and noticed my bare arms. It was so easy to be careless.
If you stopped in the middle of the street, laughed with a friend too loudly, or dropped something and didn't pick it up, they would stop you. Basically, if you couldn't blend in to the crowd around you, the robos were going to bother you. And if anyone ever acted out against the rules of the city they would help you understand.
I should really have been on the rooftops if I wasn't going to dress like everyone else.
The problem was they could always find something you' were doing wrong.
One of the figures stopped in front of an old trasher who was laying on the stones.
I crossed the street and stopped in the shade of an overhang, leaning against the wall. Most people kept walking, hoping to get away from the confrontation before anything happened. But some, like me, couldn't resist the urge to stay and watch.
The robo soldier pushed the old man in the stomach with his heavy steel foot. The man slid a little ways across the stone before looking up.
The beggar looked completely depressed and worn out, like he had already spent the day on his feet trying to earn dinner. He didn't seem too excited to have to deal with the soldier.
"What do ya want from me?" he asked in a raspy, old voice.
How did it get so quiet?
I could hear him the conversation from across the busy street.
I looked around and saw that the few people still in the vicinity had stopped and were watching the exchange. No one spoke at all.
"Citizen, you are obstructing the common path of travel," said the robo in a projected, metallic-sounding voice with no emotion. "You are encouraged to move aside so that other citizens may pass without further issue." The voice almost echoed on the walls of the buildings that surrounded us.
The man laid his head down again and muttered something quietly.
The people watching seemed to hold their breath in unison.
The robo kicked the man in the stomach, who cried out in agony. Still, he refused to move, lying there like he didn't care if the cobblestone street became his final resting place.
Come on, you idiot. Just move! I thought. You're not helping yourself by fighting back!
The robo looked at its partner and turned to the man, holding up its shooter.
Some people turned and tried to quietly escape the scene.
"Citizen, I will have to resort to proactive measures if you do not comply."
The man didn't move. He finally lifted up his hand and waved at the guard, shooing it like a fly from his head.
The robo fired its shooter.
People gasped.
The man screamed out in pain as the stun surged through his body. His body twitched back and forth with agony, writhing around on the ground.
I was right, I thought. The blast from the shooter was quieter and less intense than the shots fired at the runner and me that night of the job.
The other robo reached down and lifted the man by his rag of a shirt, and tossed him to the side of the path. The soldier threw him like he didn't weigh any more than a loaf of bread. He kept writhing around on the ground, screaming in obvious pain.
Chills ran down my back despite the heat.
The robos, stepped forward and moved on, as if nothing had happened.
Then, like they always did, everyone else turned and walked on too.
Just another day in the great Sandshadow City.
I walked on, frowning.
...
An hour later, I found myself a few buildings of the rooftop where I had met the two of them yesterday.
I had retraced my steps of the following day, this time staying in the streets. I didn't like the fact that the boy who called himself Switch had followed me so easily, so I tried staying in the crowds this time and varying my usual route.
I climbed up a wall when I thought no one was looking, and hopped onto the rooftop. On the roof next to mine, there was an old woman slapping a stick against the ground and shouting at the chickens that wandered within her reach. She saw me climb and started muttering something in my direction, waving her stick in the air. I waved a quick apology and crossed the rooftop.
I leapt over the gap to the next building over.
Winding my way around some crates and under clotheslines, I jumped two more alleys and landed one building away from the spot.
Sure enough, the boy named Switch was there on the rooftop, sitting down in front of a crate. He was flipping through some old looking papers.
The other boy, Yanco, was sitting a few feet away from him cross-legged on the cement. He had a small stone in his palm, which was jumping into the air and falling to the ground over and over again. Each time it fell to the ground, he picked it up and let out a sigh, frustrated.
I took one more leap and landed on their rooftop. Yanco, dressed in what looked like the same clothes from the day before and looking no cleaner, dropped his rock a final time and looked up at me.
"So the sneaky roof rat wants in on our action?" He said with a wry smile. "Heads up, Switch! You were right. He couldn't stay away."
Switch put down the papers he was looking through and stood up. He walked over to where I was standing, and looked me up and down once or twice. "You got guts kid." He offered me his hand once more. "I'll make it simple for you. We can help each other train, become better at what we do. You have abilities you don't even know about yet, trust me. Yanco and I have learned so much already. If you join us, you'll make progress very quickly. You will shock yourself with how much you can do."
My gut clenched. It was like he knew me, knew exactly what I wanted.
But I still didn't trust these kids. Not yet, at least.
Better to take it slow, be careful making promises, and not give away too many of my secrets. Make them prove they had something for me too. I straightened my back, paused, and said, "We'll see. For now, why don't you just tell me what you can do?"
Stars! The kid actually looked hurt!
That would be the thief crew coming out of me, never trusting, always asking for more proof before giving any of my own.
"Fair enough," said Switch, a little less warm than before. He walked over to the table, and moved the papers, as if looking for something. I glanced at Yanco, still sitting with his legs crossed, elbows on his knees, chin in his elbows. He stared right at me, not moving a muscle. It was a bit unnerving. Finally, Switch apparently found what he was looking for and turned to come back across the roof to where I stood.
Yanco finally dropped his gaze and made a sound like he was trying to stifle a snicker. He looked up again, and his smile disappeared. He became serious far too quickly and said in a hushed, low voice, "You're going to show him, just like that? He can't handle it, Switch. He's not ready. Let the roof rat keep on running."
"Oh be quiet already. Let me show the kid so we can move forward!" he shot back. He lifted up a small card, rectangular, about the size of my open hand.
A screen.
They were expensive. Very expensive.
He turned it in his fingers and asked, "Do you know what this is?"
"Of course I do," I said. "Do you think I live in a mineshaft or something?"
"Ok, sorry!" he said, holding his hands in the air. "No one said anything about any mineshafts."
I continued, trying not to sound too defensive this time. "We don't have any… but I've seen screens before. My professors got ahold of them sometimes. They let us try them out." I shrugged.
"Ok, so you know that this little card holds data, displays images, etc. The whole deal." He turned the card in his fingers again, holding it up closer to my face. He then pulled it back and touched various parts of the surface as he spoke. "You pull up the next image like this, you go back to the main cache of data here, blah, blah. You get it. These little screens run on solar like pretty much everything else. Here take a look." He held out the card for me to grab.
I took it from his hand and turned it to look at the image that was there.
There was nothing.
The card wasn't even functioning. It was a smooth, clear rectangle.
"What happened? It doesn't work." I said. I turned and flipped it in my fingers.
"Here, let me see," he replied, holding out his hand. As I handed Switch the screen, the image returned and he held it up for me to see. There was an image that looked like a diagram for a building plan.
"Hey! It works again. How did you-?" I asked.
He handed it to me again, and the image disappeared again. He took it back, and it returned again.
By now, Yanco had stood and stepped up to watch the show. He laughed and said, "It really does get better every time, Switch."
Switch looked at me and smiled. He held the screen up one last time. "These screens are solar powered, and they're always on. There's always an image or some document on it. The only time you'll see one like that, just the bare material, is if it doesn't work." He paused. "Or if it loses all its power.
"Yanco here, he moves sand or sandstone with his mind. He can push it away from his body without touching it or using any other tool. You can push light away from an object, or misdirect it, or simply diffuse it so the object seems to disappear. Or… that's what I think you do. I'm not really sure yet… we'll get to that later.
"Anyway, this is what I do. I can take an electrical charge into my body and put it back in the object I took it from when I want to." He stood there, smiling, obviously expecting some kind of statement of appreciation, or my jaw dropping to the floor, or something like that. I just stood and thought about what to say.
"I guess there had to be someone else," I finally said, quietly.
"Aww… The sucker thought he was the only one!" said Yanco, laughing.
"Give it a rest, Yanco. You did too," said Switch, silencing the other boy. He turned to me and said, "Look, kid. Ketcher, was it?"
"Yeah," I responded. "But you can call me Ket."
Already making friends, am I? I thought.
Switch nodded and continued, "Well, Ket, us three"-he motioned to the three of us with his arm-"we have incredible abilities. Abilities people don't have anymore. Power that people used to lie for, kill for, pay huge money for. In fact, they probably still do, outside of Sandshadow."
"Outside of the Sandshadow? You mean down the canyon?" I interrupted. There was nothing outside of Sandshadow.
"Trust me, I'll explain things later." said Switch. "The point is, Yanco and I are practicing. We need to get better at moving-that's what we call it for now. Yanco moves the stone and I move the currents. You move the light, and already pretty well, I might add. If you practice with us, we can help each other get ready."
"Ready for what?" I said.
"Ready for what's coming. People talk. I hear rumors of things coming back… dark shadows that eat right through a man's heart. Beasts that tear through buildings in search of fresh blood." He grew quiet. "…People that move objects with their minds."
"You really believe those legends?" I said, amused. He held up the screen and smiled.
"Oh. Good point." I said.
Yanco put one hand behind his back and one in front of his stomach and bowed low to the ground. "Thank you. Thank you. Please, no autographs!" he said.
Switch pushed Yanco's shoulder as he came up out of his bow and he stumbled.
"Hey!" he said. "Relax, I'm just playing." He pushed Switch back and Switch stumbled and stepped forward to catch himself.
"Listen, Ket. We need you and you need us. It's obvious to anyone with a brain. What do you say?"
I couldn't think. My heart pounded in my chest. There had been rumors of the shadows. My father spoke of them often. The kids in classes used to talk about things coming to haunt people at night in their homes.
I thought about the runs I had gone on with Bones and his crews. I had been able to do so much, shading them-or moving the light around them, if Switch was correct in his guess-to make them disappear. I had always felt so powerful running the rooftops, watching people down below, always knowing that I could see them, but they could never see me.
But I had wanted more.
I knew that I could do more, that there was more, deep in me. It felt like an energy in my gut, trying to get out. Trying to flex.
"Alright. I want in." I said finally. "If you know anything else about these abilities, this… moving… then I guess I need your help."
"Good man," said Switch smiling widely. "I knew you'd pull through."
He slapped me on the back. "Now come over here." He turned and walked toward his table. "I don't know everything there is to know about the moving we do, but I've learned a lot just by practicing and trying things out. Yanco's learning fast, as well. He used to be limited to helping mother sweep up after supper, right Yanco?" Switch smirked at him, teasing, then turned back to me. "You saw what he can do with the sand in the winds."
"Yeah, he saw!" said Yanco. "It's the coolest blithering thing anyone's ever seen."
I chuckled. Switch said, "Yep. You're getting to know Yanco."
"The one and only," added Yanco. Switch rolled his eyes.
He sat down at the table, setting the screen down on the top of all the jumbled papers. "Blast. I've made a mess. I'll get to it later." He looked up from the table and sighed. "Now go ahead. I bet you have questions. I can't answer everything, but I'll do my best.
"Yeah," I started. "Where did the blasted purple light come from?"
...
I let go and a dusty, worn out, brown shoe came into view on the concrete rooftop in front of where I sat.
"There you go. Now you see there's absolutely no cloud of light?" asked Switch.
"You're right," I said.
We had been practicing for hours. The sun had dropped behind the west wall a few minutes earlier, and we were finally enjoying a break from the relentless heat. The city had begun to quiet down, as most people were traveling home for the evening. The ruckus of the busy streets was getting slowly softer. I leaned back and put my hands on the concrete behind me, thinking about what I had learned.
"So… the cloud of light is simply a signal for when someone is moving something, or using their power?" I asked slowly to no one in particular.
"I guess so." Switch replied. "Remember, I told you already. Yanco and I can't see the light. We hear a sound. It seems that maybe some movers have a different way of seeing other movers. You see a cloud of light, bright even in the daylight."
"And apparently it's a different color for different people," I said.
"Or maybe it's different color for a different kind of moving," said Switch. We've only been able to test three different kinds of moving that just happen to come from three different people."
I nodded and the conversation died out, each person lost in their own thoughts.
Switch had explained, and demonstrated that someone who could move, like we could, could tell when another mover was using their ability nearby. He and Yanco heard a sound that they said sounded like a perfect musical note. Switch had explained it as if a purely forged length of wire was stretched very tight and strummed, and the clear humming sound rang out constantly in the back of your head, getting louder or softer as you moved closer to or further from the person using their ability. Yanco pointed out that each one of them heard a specific note when the other was using their ability, and a different note when I used mine.
But for me, it was another story. I saw light. When Yanco moved something, I saw a cloud of purple light that seemed to be focused on the object he was moving. For example, if he moved a small stone, I could see the purple light focused in that area. I saw a dot of light the size of the stone. But just as that day in the sandstorm, the light disappeared as I looked directly at it.
Really the light wasn't even there. I had determined that it was a signal, or a shape I saw in my head, so if I focused on the object, I couldn't see the light. But if I turned my back on Yanco moving the stone, I could see-or sense-the object being moved.
And when Switch pulled the charge out of the screen, I saw a blue light. And same thing-if I looked at him while he did it, the light wasn't there. It was only there if I was focusing away from it.
"It's like our brains have a way of helping us find another mover," I speculated. "Probably so we can find each other in a tight situation, right?"
"Probably so we can kill the other guy before he kills us," said Yanco. "Movers aren't always friends, right Switch?"
"He's right," said Switch, leafing through the papers on the table. He was looking through more diagrams that looked like building plans. It seemed like he didn't want to talk about them, so I hadn't asked.
Switch continued, "I need to do more research, but it seems like movers kind of… don't get along. I don't know…" he trailed off. I looked up and noticed the sky was getting dark very quickly. It would be time to return home soon.
I turned back to my shoe that was sitting in front of me. It would be good to go through it once more. I closed my eyes and pictured the shoe where it sat. I concentrated on it, like I always did before shading something. I pushed.
There was the green light.
It was so strange how bright it seemed to me even with my eyes shut completely. There was a distinct cloud-like shape of green light that covered the space where the shoe should be.
How did I not notice this before?
Thinking about it, it was only when I had someone else's moving to see, that I noticed the colored lights. Whenever I had shaded something before, it just felt so natural to me that I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary-well, out of the ordinary of making objects turn invisible, if that's ordinary at all.
But I guess that once I finally noticed someone else using their ability, it was easy to notice. I finally opened my eyes and the green light disappeared. But the shoe wasn't there. Or it didn't look there. In its place I saw-if I looked very closely-the fuzzy air that looked like the heat pockets that floated ahead of you on the road during the hottest part of the day.
I stopped shading the shoe and it appeared, and I sensed the green light disappear in my mind. Stars! I had made so much progress. I leaned back once more on my hands and looked up at the darkening strip of grey above the canyon.
"Well, it may be time to call it a day and head home. I'm exhausted," yawned Switch.
"You're telling me," said Yanco, who had been sprawled out on the concrete rooftop for the last fifteen minutes.
"Same place tomorrow?" I asked excitedly, though I hadn't noticed I was.
"You -aww- got it," replied Switch, through yawns.
Switch gathered his papers and the screen and Yanco stood, stretching his arms. Yanco let out a strange yawn that was half yell. I put my shoe back on my foot and stood up as well.
Switch became serious suddenly and said, "I'm glad this is happening. I have this feeling that we really don't have very much time." He said staring in the distance across the empty rooftops, as if speaking to the canyon walls themselves.
Neither I nor Yanco replied.
The two of them left the rooftop in different directions, and I left in mine.
In Chapter 5, I show a little more about the dire situation in Sandshadow, and how the Peaceguards' ruthless rule oppresses the people. And then when Ket meets up with Switch and Yanco, Switch has an advanced piece of tech, which adds to the intrigue of his character. Where does he get his resources and information? Switch makes a comment about there being more outside of Sandshadow Canyon, and the question is left unanswered as he moves on quickly.
After practicing their powers with Ket's new friends for a few hours, Switch offers a couple more morsels of information for Ket. He hints at the fact that 'movers' like them might have been a violent group before (or at least they might have been involved in some conflict or fighting). And he also hints that they are almost 'out of time,' which builds more of the setting-related conflict. What could be happening soon? And again, where does Switch get his info, and when will he share?
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