Divided Worlds Trilogy 01 - Disconnect by Imran Siddiq Page A

questions in your face as the day that Tania Connor left Marcus Connor.”
    “Don’t say her name.” Quivering water welled up in his eyes in an instant.
    “A male lost in thought over a female is the same, regardless of the cause.”
    Zachary glared up at the irregular joints of the ceiling. “Rosa’s not a bad person. It’s like I understand her and then I don’t, all at the same time. I feel like I can talk to her, but I’m afraid to. She’s … different.”
    “Different from whom?” asked Patch. “You have never spoken of anybody with interest or pleasure. You have always distanced yourself from association.”
    Zachary recollected a moment in his home from twelve years before. Then, there’d been order in the arrangement of cutlery, the stacking of plates and the folded dishcloths. Three chairs had sat around the table. The slim man who’d come to collect his mum hurried her to leave behind the packed bags that would slow them down. She’d hugged Zachary so tight that he thought she’d be taking him with her, but she didn’t.
    “I’m sorry,” were Tania’s last words.
    Four years old. Unfed. Confused. Alone.
    Zachary had pounded the door screaming for her to come back. The door never opened; not even when he begged Patch to smash the locks. But what could the droid welded to the wall have done? And when his dad returned home, he wished the door had remained shut.
    The large dent in the centre of the table where his dad had slammed his fist that day was still present. Zachary had cowered in the corner of the room, crying, struggling to shut up no matter how agitated his dad became. Marcus stormed out of their home. The door was unlocked. Zachary could have left, but he didn’t. Every limb failed to move as he curled up in tears. Hours had passed before Marcus returned after searching. He never said if he’d found them, or whose blood etched his knuckles.
    Zachary had run to his room when his dad turned on the Haulage-404 droid. Marcus had smashed a chair against Patch, and then clobbered the droid with no break for minutes. Without a sound, Patch took it all.
    It had been the darkest moment of Zachary’s life in this home. His mum had destroyed any trust he had in anybody. Days with his dad’s anger had intensified the cold hatred Zachary developed toward her. With age, he saw other homes unravel amidst similar deceit. Nobody was immune, and when he came to know of a family living in peace, he wondered how long before somebody trampled on their happiness.
    Zachary had vowed never to bring his home to a wrecked state on the promise of a woman’s heart. Yet, he couldn’t cling to that decision any more.
    “Rosa is different,” he said. “She lies to protect herself. She doesn’t do it to hurt anybody. She has a good heart, and if she found something she liked, she’d want to look after it.”
    “Do you like her?” questioned Patch.
    Zachary grimaced. “The girls around here don’t care about you. They judge you on what you’re wearing, how many coins you have to spend on them, and how much respect you can carry on your shoulders when you march down the lane. They never give anybody a chance.”
    Patch shook his finger. “But you’ve never tried. Have you?”
    “You know I haven’t. I’m nothing but a poor scavenger. That’s what my dad thinks of me. Rosa doesn’t.”
    “How do you know that she doesn’t?”
    “ I don’t . Damn, Patch, can’t you say anything nice? Look, Rosa has every right to look down on me, but she doesn’t.”
    “Does she know your feelings?”
    Zachary’s neck tingled. “Do you think I should tell her?”
    “You have both crossed a boundary and I do not know what the outcome will be. An Underworlder feels for an Overworlder. Incompatible civilisations. Worlds apart with differing expectations.”
    “We can still be friends.”
    “I detect that you have exceeded that.” The droid’s cold fingertips touched Zachary’s head. “Even a machine can