Free Truancy Origins by Isamu Fukui

be left to grade him?
    Zen seized the nearest document on the Mayor’s desk and examined it. Then he seized another, and another, his features darkening with every sheet. Every page detailed plans, schemes set forth by the Educators. Everything was there, in painstaking detail—from a program that locked student bathrooms in order to establish their use as a “privilege” to a ploy for teachers to release students late for class so that they could get in trouble with the next teacher. Seemingly everything, big or small, that Zen had ever hated about school lay there on that desk, but the one question he couldn’t answer was
why
? Why go through so much trouble to make children miserable? What was the
reason
?
    Zen was so obsessed with the search for this answer that he barely noticed it when he came upon a sheet of paper different from all the others. Inspecting it, he realized with a jolt that it was his latest report card, statingthat he’d passed everything by a thread. But that wasn’t right, the report card Zen had received said he’d failed a few classes! Then realization hit, and Zen felt his bitterness redouble. All this time, his father had been changing his grades. Why? Did the man think that it would
motivate
him?
    Zen crammed the report card into his pocket and carefully replaced the rest of the papers before clenching his fists. He had to be absolutely sure before he acted. He knew their crimes, but now he
needed
their motive, and he obviously wasn’t going to find that here. For that, there was only one last place that he could look.
    Â 
    R ed jerked awake at the sound of gunfire. He was instantly alert, crouching down behind a fallen chunk of concrete as he tried to get a bearing on what was happening. All around him the other vagrants were already fleeing, weaving around more concrete slabs and pillars as they dodged bullets. Even as Red watched, one of his companions caught a bullet in the back, cried out, and fell to the ground. Red immediately understood. No vagrant group in the entire City had guns. This had to be an Enforcer raid.
    Red weighed his options. Considering the utter chaos unfolding in the garage, it was clearly every man for himself at this point. Red glanced around. Chris was nowhere to be found, and that suited him just fine. Red didn’t think that the Enforcers had spotted him behind the concrete just yet, and the garage was very dark; none of the lights had been working for a long time, the vagrants’ fires had been put out in the night, and only faint, distant daylight flickered in from the entrances to the garage at both ends. Of course, the Enforcers would have flashlights, but they couldn’t be everywhere at once. Red smiled as he looked around. Another reason the vagrants had favored the parking garage was the numerous sturdy concrete pillars that provided cover.
    Red decided not to go for one of the direct exits. As enticing as the daylight was, it probably meant more Enforcers were waiting there to pick off runners. Instead, as soon as he heard the closest Enforcers firing at another target, he leapt out from behind the fallen concrete slab and darted behind a pillar. As soon as he thought it was safe to move, he darted behind another one, and another, slowly making his way deeper into the garage towards the door he knew led to a stairwell. Once he escaped to the ground floor, he would have more options.
    With his goal blazing in his mind, Red darted for another column, but this time a flashlight briefly passed over him.
    â€œThere’s another one!” a voice shouted.
    Red swore under his breath, and then abruptly broke into a run through the dark forest of pillars. Other flashlights began skirting the area aroundhim as loud footsteps pursued him, but he knew they’d have a hard time getting a good shot at him.
    As gunshots rang out and bits of concrete began flying off the surrounding pillars, Red suddenly came up with a