When did thinking up titles get so hard?
Title: Nails on the pedestal
Fall Out Boy gen, Pete, Patrick
Warnings: Slavery, child abuse or at least major parental suckage. I'll write about something different one day.
Word Count: 4165
Summary: In a world where 99% of the population has some degree of psychic ability, those without Talent form the slave class. Pete fights the system, never forseeing the moment when it all goes wrong.
Disclaimer: I don't know any of the people who are named here and the events described never happened.
Written for the 'fall from grace' square for hc_bingo.
When Pete was fourteen, he was given a class assignment to write about his heroes.
He wrote about his parents, his Mom and Dad. The possibility of writing about someone else never crossed his mind.
He couldn’t put everything into that paper that he wanted to. Actually, a lot of the reasons why Pete looked up to his parents so much were secrets. Really important secrets.
It was okay, because there were plenty of other things he could say about them.
“We went to a restaurant, and the manager said my dad should have sold me after my status testing,” Pete wrote, kind of defiantly because at school, people really didn’t like to acknowledge the fact that Pete was a void. “My dad got so mad! I thought he was going to punch the manager. But then he just said he hoped the other guy never had any kids of his own, and he said he’d tell everyone he knew not to go to that restaurant. It was awesome.”
It had been awesome. Well, at the time it had mostly been scary and upsetting. Pete had only been eleven, and the status testing had happened just the year before. Pete hadn’t been totally sure, back then, that his parents still loved him just as much even though he was a void. He knew better now.
“This other time,” he wrote, “Some kids at school were picking on me. They called me an empty-head and a waste of space. Mom found out what they were doing and made them stop. My mom can do anything.”
That memory was a bit different. Despite what he’d written, Pete had known, even then, that his mother couldn’t really do anything, she couldn’t make the other kids accept him or be his friends. But she had stopped the teasing and the shoving. Pete could still tell when the telepaths were thinking mean things about him, but they were careful to keep away from him.
The real reason that Pete’s parents were his heroes was because they were actually secret revolutionaries. Pete’s parents didn’t like the Talent hierarchy. They didn’t like the special privileges that the most powerful psychics got, they didn’t like the compulsory status testing that happened at ten years, and they really didn’t like that void children could be sold into slavery.
That was what they did; they helped voids go into hiding so that they couldn’t be sold. They belonged to a group of people called Colt13, which did the same thing all across the country.
Sometimes parents just left their children at the testing centre. Pete remembered this. He’d gone to the testing centre, and the tester said, “Hmm, no talents here, this one’s a void,” and then he’d said, “Do you still want to take him home? The current market value for a ten year old free-born void is $6,440, you can collect the cash today if you choose.”
His parents had said no, of course, and that had been another time when Pete had thought his dad was going to punch someone he really shouldn’t. But some parents didn’t say no.
Voids were property. They had to belong to someone. Pete belonged to his parents. They could have sold him, any time until he turned eighteen. After that, they weren’t allowed to sell him for money anymore, but he was still theirs. Sometimes, parents with void children wanted to keep them, but they had debts, or they got into trouble with the law. Sometimes, those people came to Pete’s parents and asked for help.
It was really difficult to organise, because the voids had to stay in hiding. It would be too easy, if they were seen, for someone to notice what they were. There were plenty of psychics out there who didn’t have all three talents, and it might be possible for a void to blend in for a short time, but not to hide what they were forever.
Pete’s parents put a lot of their money into keeping the network going. Other people gave them money too, people who felt the same way the Wentz’s did. Pete’s family was well off, enough to keep a lot of people safe. They lived in a nice house and his parents wore nice clothes, because it would have looked suspicious if they’d made so much money and lived like paupers. But they saved money however they could. They ate simple meals and didn’t go out very often. They didn’t have domestic slaves, which was unusual for people who had so much money, but then, everyone knew how the Wentz family felt about slavery, so it didn’t surprise people. They didn’t buy a lot of toys, or electronics, or other things like that - fun things.
Pete didn’t mind. He understood that what his parents did was really important, much more important than seeing the latest movies or having the newest games. And TV’s and game consoles that had been adapted for non-telekinetics were twice as expensive as the regular kind, so it didn’t make sense for his parents to waste money on such things when other people needed it more. He had some books and an acoustic guitar, and that was more than a lot of people. He’d even had guitar lessons, once, for a few months, but then they’d had a bunch of new kids come in, and Pete had offered to stop taking the lessons so they could buy more food.
The best, proudest day of Pete’s life happened not long after he turned sixteen, when his parents had said he was old enough to help with what they did. Not just help, like, ‘Wash those dishes up, Pete, so we can go do our super secret revolutionary stuff without worrying about them’, but actually help, like, take a backpack full of food and clothes to a safehouse in a rundown neighbourhood and drop it off, then take it back filled up with scrunched up newspaper so it wasn’t obvious he’d left anything behind.
Pete had been helping his parents for six years, now. Mostly, it was the same sort of jobs. He helped monitor the forum they ran, where they passed along information in code between the various Colt cells, and in Chicago, Pete makes deliveries to two safehouses twice a week.
He didn’t often help with introducing new kids to the network. His parents thought it was too risky, and they wanted to keep him safe, because they loved him. Still, sometimes they really did need his help, and he ended up being involved with a rescue. Like now.
They’d heard about this one through the forum. The kid was fifteen, his parents were in debt, and they’d taken out a loan. They’d put the kid up as collateral, and now they couldn’t make their payments. The idea made Pete really sad. The Talent hierarchy preyed on the poor and vulnerable, separating kids from their loving families in the name of profits. Pete could have wound up in the same situation if his parents had been less successful, less wealthy.
The kid stood in the shadows at the end of his street, backpack slung over one shoulder, scowling at the ground. He looked wary when Pete got close, took a step back, but Pete gave the code word and the kid relaxed. The kid fell into step beside Pete, looking him up and down.
“You don’t have a car?” the kid asked, kind of angrily.
“Nope,” said Pete, “Can’t drive. Void.”
The kid looked surprised, said, “You too, huh?” They didn’t talk much for the rest of the walk. Eventually, when Pete was sure it was safe, he led the kid to the safehouse and gave the coded knock. They were let inside, and Pete let one of the other voids show the kid around. The kid looked at the house and didn’t seem too impressed.
“We have to stay in here? All the time?” he asked. Pete was tempted to tell the kid he was welcome to leave, to take his chances on the streets, but the kid looked so miserable that he didn’t have the heart.
“We smuggle people across the border, but it takes a long time,” Pete explained. “You won’t be in here forever.”
The kids name was Jake. Pete learned that he’d enjoyed running. He’d tried out for the track team at his school every year, but never made it, because the coach didn’t think a void deserved the spot. He loved to run cross country and knew every jogging track on his side of the city. Now his world was reduced to a four bedroom house in a quiet street.
Every time Pete visited the safehouse, Jake seemed more wound up. He’d be waiting by the door when Pete arrived and would stay by him every second till Pete left. Pete gathered from the other residents in the house that Jake was just desperate for someone new to talk to. Pete bought Jake small things, little gifts to keep him occupied. Sometimes he bought his guitar and played songs, although he rarely had the time. Sometimes he bought one of his old books that he didn’t reread much anymore.
Pete could tell Jake was getting more and more desperate, but he never would have anticipated that it would get bad enough for Jake to sneak out of the house.
They found out through the forums, an urgent message left by another void from the safehouse. Pete and his parents went out searching; they looked for hours but without success. Jake didn’t return, and they weren’t sure what to make of that or what to hope for. Pete’s parents asked him the same questions over and over; did he know where Jake might have gone, had there been any sign that Jake might do something like this, what had he done to prevent it. Pete didn’t know what to say.
They evacuated the safehouse where Jake had been staying, which was a giant pain in the ass, but better than taking the risk of the house being raided, if Jake had been picked up. The next day, the house did get raided, and they were all very relieved to have taken the precaution.
Just minutes after they’d heard about the raid, Enforcers showed up at their house. They rapped at the door and demanded entry. Pete’s father let them in, stiff backed and tense. Pete’s mother stood slightly behind him, clasping her hands together tightly. Pete stayed back in the doorway, hoping not to be seen.
That didn’t help. Jake had never met Pete’s mother or father. He didn’t know who was involved in the network. He’d never even known Pete’s last name. But with Pete’s first name, and a description, the Enforcers had been able to work out who had been supplying the safehouse. The Enforcers explained to Pete’s parents what had happened, giving Pete looks out of the corners of their eyes.
Pete could tell they suspected his parents were involved too, but they must not have had any proof, because they kept that quiet.
It was an unusual situation, because Pete was a void. He was his parents’ property, so they were liable for any crimes Pete committed. So he wasn’t arrested that night. The Enforcers left, with a warning to Pete’s parents, and a suspicious glance towards Pete.
His parents called Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He was their lawyer. Jeff was actually a really cool guy. Like the Wentz’s, he wanted to bring down the Talent hierarchy and end slavery, but he went about it differently, through legal channels. Jeff had some idea of what the Wentz’s were involved in, but only a little, because he insisted the less he knew, the better. Pete hoped Jeff would be able to help.
They stayed up for hours, talking the situation over, considering different alternatives. In the morning, they got another visit from the Enforcers.
They must have interrogated Jake again. Got every last scrap of information from him they could. Pete would have felt sorry for the kid, if he hadn’t given up the safehouse and nearly gotten all the other voids there caught as well.
They were even more suspicious now. Jake had had an inkling that there were other safehouses, that Pete wasn’t just working alone. The Enforcers had a warrant and they wanted to search the house.
They started with Pete’s room. There was nothing much in there, just his non-telekinetic laptop, but Pete was careful about what he kept on there, and memorised any information he needed to know. The Enforcers seized it, but Pete wasn’t too worried that they would find.
After the Enforcers find nothing in Pete’s room they go through the rest of the house. There was nothing incriminating there, either, they were all really careful about not leaving records of what they did. His parents kept a lot of data files on news relating to voids, Talent issues, all that stuff, but they had always been known to take an interest in such things, so it didn’t raise too much of an eyebrow from the enforcers.
With the lack of evidence, the Enforcers decided to leave. They took Pete with them. Put him in handcuffs and marched him out to their van. Pete looked over his shoulder as he goes out the door. His mom was trying not to cry; his dad’s fists were clenched tight, but neither of them said anything.
They stuck Pete in a cell and he was there for four days. They interrogated him, and it was awful. It went on for hours, the Enforcers yelled at him and pretended to be nice to him, tried to play mind games with him. Pete kept his mouth shut, because he didn’t want to be the one to give away the rest of Colt13. They told him they’d raided his other safehouse, and captured the voids hidden there. Pete didn’t believe them at first. Then the Enforcers named the voids they’d captured.
It didn’t make sense; his parents should have evacuated the safehouses if it seemed like they were at risk. Speculating about what could have stopped them from doing that kept Pete from sleeping.
Eventually he was taken to some kind of hearing. Pete thought he should have been able to talk to a lawyer beforehand, but no-one really cared about regulations like that when it was a void. Enforcers stood discreetly at the sides of the room, and Pete knew they were powerful psychics assigned to ensure that no Talents were used during the court proceedings.
A lawyer came into the courtroom, with Pete’s parents. It wasn’t Jeff. Pete didn’t know what that meant.
When the lawyer started to speak, Pete understood. The senior Wentz’s, the lawyer said, had no idea what their son was getting up to. They were unaware that he was using their permissiveness as an opportunity to steal and hide voids. Pete was shocked by what the lawyer was saying, but he tried to keep his face blank, because he knew his parents were trying to help him. If they could convince the judge that they didn’t have anything to do with Jake, they might be allowed to take Pete home.
Pete’s mother gave a statement. She glanced at Pete and broke down into sobs, covering her face with a handkerchief. “I didn’t know,” she cried, barely comprehensible. “I gave him pocket money, I thought maybe he’d spend it on some new clothes instead of those worn out jeans he always wears. I didn’t think he’d spend it on food to give to runaway voids.”
Pete swallowed and tries to understand how this was going to work. He felt bad for making his mother cry, even though it was all just an act. Even though he never got any pocket money at all, and he wore his crappy jeans because the money for new clothes got spent on fake passports, he kind of wanted to apologise for not dressing nicer.
Pete’s father was next. “We bought that house as an investment property,” he said. “We leased it out a few times,” that part was actually true, “But when Pete turned eighteen, we sort of kept it vacant, a place for him to use, him and his friends.” That was kind of true, too, given that the voids in the safehouses were the closest Pete had ever had to having real friends. “We thought he’d throw parties and take girls there, not that he’d... hide fugitives in it.” Pete didn’t even like girls that way, although only his parents knew that. “The other one, we just bought it a few months ago. We were planning to develop it, but we hadn’t started yet.”
Then the judge shuffled some papers and made some faces, and said, “Mr and Mrs Wentz, aiding or concealing a fugitive void represents a significant theft of property and loss of profit. We have recovered five voids that your son has been hiding in a house which is owned by you. We can proceed in two ways; by taking into custody the man responsible, or by seizing your major assets in order to offset the financial damages caused.”
Pete got it, then. Before his parents even give their decision, he knew what they were going to say. He was just one guy. In their networks, there were hundreds of voids. Pete wouldn’t put his own welfare ahead of all those other people. He knew his parents wouldn’t do that, either. All their major assets - that was every house his parents owned across the country, every safehouse they had. If they gave that up, they would have to try to co-ordinate moving all the voids at the same time, at a time when they had been financially crippled. With help from the others in the network, maybe they could do it, but there were other factors to consider. The Wentz’s would be under suspicion, now. It wouldn’t take too much for the judge to demand a full telepathic reading on his parents, to discover their hidden thoughts, their secrets. It wasn’t commonly done, for a lot of reasons. But the judge would order it, Pete was sure, if he sensed Pete’s parents were trying to hide something.
That didn’t make it any easier to hear, though. Pete’s mom was crying too hard to talk; Pete wanted to tell her it was alright, he understood. Pete’s dad stood up and said to the judge, “You should take him, take Pete. I don’t think... after what he’s done...” Then Pete’s dad was crying as well. Pete just wanted it to stop.
Things happened quickly after that. The judge banged his gavel and said some more stuff which Pete didn’t bother to listen to. Enforcers came up to escort him out of the room. The last time Pete saw his parents, they were standing at the side of the room, still crying. His dad’s hand was on his mom’s shoulder and she was angling her body away from him. Then the door swung shut.
They took him somewhere new, to a trading house. There was some process he had to go through. They took his photograph and his fingerprints and a freaking blood sample. Pete didn’t notice much about it, still remembering that moment when he heard his father give him away. It blocked out everything that was happening now, which was sort of a relief. Only sort of. It would be nicer to be distracted by thinking about puppies or something, instead.
After what seemed like a long time, they moved him somewhere else. They took him to a large area with pens set up everywhere. People were inside the pens. Voids. This was where they kept their stock. Someone opened one of the doors, and someone else shoved Pete inside. He didn’t resist.
The pens were small; it was long enough for Pete to lie down in and maybe half as wide. The sides were just made of cyclone wire, but it was sturdy enough, too sturdy to break. And there was someone else already inside.
It was a guy, sitting on the ground, looking up at Pete like he was the most interesting thing he’d seen all day. Hell, he probably was. The guy was a few years younger than Pete, with strawberry blond hair. When Pete had been looking at him for a minute, the guy looked away and ran a hand through his hair, messing it up.
Pete sat on the ground at the opposite end of the pen. Now that he’d stopped moving and he was left to himself, he could feel his self-containment wavering. He was exhausted and scared and he felt like he could cry, but he didn’t want to do that. It was still so open here, even though no-one was in his face right now. All he could think was that his illusions were wrong, his ideas about his parents were wrong. They weren’t superheroes, they weren’t better than other people because of what they did. They had to make shitty decisions just like everyone else, and there were some things his mom couldn’t fix. She couldn’t fix this.
“Are you alright, man?” asked the kid at the other end of the pen. Pete wanted to ignore him, but it wasn’t like he could go anywhere else, so he decided he should at least be polite.
“I’m fine,” he said, and he knew he sounded nothing like fine, but he couldn’t help that.
The kid looked at him sceptically. “I’m Patrick,” he said. “You look like hell. You’re kind of old to be in here.”
Pete could have taken offence at Patrick’s comment on his appearance, but it would take energy he just didn’t have. He just kind of nodded his head vaguely, and Patrick looked even more concerned. “I’m old?” Pete managed after a minute, hoping to distract him.
“Older than most of us,” said Patrick. “This is where they bring all the newbies. Voids who used to be free. Usually under eighteens.”
“How old are you?” Pete asked. He felt like he was prying, but Patrick was the one who started it.
“I’ll be eighteen in five days.” Patrick gave a bitter little smile. Pete could see there was a story there, but Patrick didn’t seem to want to talk about it, so he didn’t ask.
“I got into some trouble. You know, legal trouble,” Pete said vaguely, hoping that would be enough to satisfy Patrick. Patrick nodded and pressed his lips together.
“My parents sold me,” he said, seeming to spontaneously decide to share. “Two days ago. They kept me at home all this time so I could keep the house for them, and because they could get more money if they waited till I was older before selling me.”
“That’s horrible!” said Pete, his mind taken off his own problems.
Patrick just shrugged like his story was nothing special. Pete knew it actually wasn’t, but that didn’t make it okay. “I always knew they’d do this,” he said, as though that made it better. Pete couldn’t imagine it. He’d always held on to the times when his parents stood up for him, looked out for him and took care of him. He’d realised now that his dad would never punch anyone on his behalf, like he’d imagined happening when he was a stupid kid. It would have caused too much trouble for them. But they’d always looked out for him as much as they could.
Pete scooted across the floor of the pen to sit closer to Patrick. “Your parents are assholes,” he said furiously. He felt bad straight away, because no matter how awful Patrick’s parents were, it wasn’t really Pete’s place to say anything about it. Patrick just nodded, though, and didn’t look mad. Pete shifted, and his shoulder bumped against Patrick’s. Patrick didn’t move away. He shifted too, so they were pressed more firmly together. It was comforting to touch a friendly person in this vast featureless place. It was like Patrick being here was helping Pete to remember the things he needed to know, and keep the despair out.
“What’s going to happen to us?” Pete asked. He could feel Patrick shrug beside him.
“The house is open for customers during the day,” he said. “They don’t come back here, they’ll move us out to the front. Put us on display.”
Pete kind of shuddered a bit, because that sounded seriously unpleasant. Patrick grabbed Pete’s hand in his own. “It’ll be alright,” he said. “It’ll be okay.” Pete knew he shouldn’t believe him, but he did. Patrick spoke with this confidence, this certainty that said he wouldn’t let things be not okay. And Pete knew there was nothing Patrick could do. Patrick was even more helpless than his mother. But he had to believe.
He laced his fingers through Patrick’s, and gripped harder.