She scowled. Kimberly hated her wheelchair, and hated being in it. But it was either that or the ground, and the ground was worse. I cannot be lower than everyone else,especially my workers, she thought. Her servants, at the moment were cleaning the office, and she didn't trust her servants to not poke around in files and stick their noses in all the information about the war, so she had to babysit them the entire time. " Hurry up!" she snapped loudly.

The servants looked up for a moment, and then went back to work, their dusters dusting faster than they had been dusting before. After that was over, Kimberly wheeled herself to the desk, now shining like new. The cherry wood was out of place in the stark, modern glass office, but Kimberly had put it there, and no one said anything. She reached down and pulled a cabinet open. Inside lay papers filed in hundreds of small compartments. A paper was withdrawn, folded' into a small rectangle and plugged into the computer. Kimberly's scientists had done away with flash-drives for her, because she liked paper better.Paper was made to be written with pens and typed on a computer , which made things easier to hide. The technology was only available to Kimberly. She waited 2 seconds for the paper to appear on her screen, and just as she began to write, there was a soft knock at her door. Kimberly groaned and flipped her dirty blonde hair to make it cover half of her face. A girl, about 16 years old, two years younger that Kimberly walked in. She wore a faded pink shirt, and skinny jeans with combat boots. Her hair was fanned out like blue tipped brown feathers over the red leather jacket. " Nice boots!" snorted Kimberly " Where did you get them- 2014? "

The girl responded calmly in a scratchy voice, " Kim, it's the 3000s. There is nothing left from 2014. I got them from a shoe place that makes any shoe, if only you have a picture of what you want. Aren't they fabulous?" she exclaimed, twisting her feet to look at them.

Kimberly rolled her eyes. " I am assuming you aren't here to talk about your shoes, Phoebe."

Phoebe swiveled her blue, black lined eyes from the poster on the non-see-through-bulletproof-touch-screen-glass wall to Kimberly. " Kim....I- we ask for a truce. Maybe, just stopping the sound-bombs and heavily-armed attacks for a week? Please?"

" For such a sweet looking, past-loving girl, you truly are ridiculously annoying. You realize that, don't you?" Kimberly asked casually, flicking off an imaginary speck of dust off of her black and blue work dress.

" Just answer the question, meanie-pants!" spat Phoebe, her voice catching.

" Slow down, Pheebs," said Kimberly, looking up to meet Phoebe's eyes, which were now only inches from her own. " I will not stop the attacks. If I did, I would be surrendering. And surrendering shows weakness. Weakness leads to taunting, and taunting is me being ridiculed, and that can't happen because then I will never be able to climb back to a respected level! " she shouted, slamming her palms on the table.

Phoebe, with tears in her eyes, turned away, blue-tipped hair flying. Her bare neck was revealed for a moment, and something shined for a moment. " Phoebe!" Kimberly yelled.

The girl turned around. "What" she snapped, again her voice creaking. " It's obvious I was wrong about you, and you will never change. You will always be a cruel-hearted creature. What is it that you want?"

" What is on your neck?" The voice fell softly, but had underlying shards hidden, waiting to cut anyone who questioned. It was a dangerous soft.

Phoebe turned on her heels to run out of the room, but Kimberly pushed a button on her desk, and the doors slid shut with a whoosh and locked. Phoebe sighed. She swept her hair to one side, and turned to show the back of her neck. There was a shred of metal in her neck, the skin puckering around where it penetrated. A sob escaped Phoebe, and her red leather jacket shook. " There are people who have it worse than me, you know. Max Smithens, age 23. He has shrapnel in his neck,cheeks, thighs, arms and we think some in his heel. He can't talk, or move. I was lucky the doctors took out the piece in my throat at the right time" Phoebe pointed to a nasty red scar just above her collar-bone "All because of these godforsaken sound bombs and the pulse-fusion grenades!"

" Not to mention the army with their hyper-bullet shotgun, hand nuclear lasers and night-dust pockets. Tell me about it, right?" Kimberly said mockingly. " I really don't care if pieces of metal ruined your pretty little voice, Phoebe. Now leave." She said flatly, and pushed a button to make the doors whoosh open.