Shaking, I left the arena and went home. I contacted Amanda on her pager. "I'm with my mother," I could hear her tinny reply, "I'll call you when we get home." "It's urgent," I warned.

I'm not sure if I was more depressed or scared. Depressed because Amanda and I had lost an innocent and safe haven, our playground on the planet. Scared because I had tasted safety and freedom, and now that had been taken away. My mother knew something was bothering me, and asked me about it, but what was I to say to her? I told her it was gang related, and that I really couldn't talk about it. It wasn't entirely a lie. She left me alone.

Amanda called me a few hours later, and I told her it was about The Other. She asked for more information, but knew I couldn't talk about it over the phone. Too many wires were tapped these days to trust them. We agreed to meet after lights out.

The lights were turned off in everyone's home at the same time every night by the power company, as they have been every night for my whole life. My father mutters about how this was an invasion of our rights, but I don't understand the problem he has with it. He says it didn't used to be that way. Isn't that the truth about anything. Adults are always complaining, even though they say it's us kids who bitch and moan.

The lights went out, the street beacons came on, and I went to The Other. I especially liked The Other at night, because there were none of the usual noises, none of the usual explosions and gunfire. The new President is trying to enforce the curfew, but it won't work. There has always been a curfew, punishable with a jail sentence, but there has always been shooting. For the first time, I felt afraid in The Other at night. Now I knew I wasn't so alone as I had thought.

I rode my bike in the silence to the park between our houses. Normally, the mosquitoes would have made the outdoors intolerable, but of course the bugs were immobilized, too. I only had to wait about five minutes before Amanda rode up on her bike.

"What's so important that it couldn't wait?" she asked, breathless from her ride.

"Girl, we've just joined another gang," I said. She was in a Blue in her neighborhood, too, of course. I told her all about my trip to the arena, about Billy and the Scouts.

"I don't want to join. You can do what you want, but I refuse to be bullied," Amanda said to me, "This place is so big, they don't need to have us in their stupid gang."

"They have machine guns, Amanda," I said. "And they said they'd kill us if we don't join."

"That's what the Reds said, and I'm still alive."

"This is different," I pleaded.

"How?"

I thought of so many reasons to give her. I told her about safety in numbers, about maybe finding out more about The Other and how we came to be here. I told her that we'd end up being enemies, and that I would have to treat her as such. But it all boiled down to one plea. "I need you,"I said, "You're my best friend on this world and the other, and I need you to be with me."

"Well, shit, why didn't you just say that in the first place," Amanda answered, and smiled. "We'll be all right, we'll take care of each other. Though I can't wait to meet your Billy. I can't wait to give him a piece of my mind."

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Copyright © 1995, Monica Israels
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