A Child's View (part 7)

Tum finally decided to get up and leave his room. He didn't have school this day, which was fine because he didn't know if he was ever going back to school, now that his chip was disabled. That was another problem. He would be scanned for his chip at school. He was wondering more and more if disabling his chip was a good idea.

He decided for the first time he could remember to go out and walk around the town. There was a certain danger in this. He would have to avoid the cameras, which seemed ubiquitous, and most of all, the drones. A feeling of terror went through him as he imagined being vaporized by a drone. He started out, being careful to avoid any main route, especially ones that would take him to the main public transports. He cut across and around corners. He felt driven to keep moving on. It being the hot season, the sun shined through the hazy red sky. Tum actually felt hot, which was unusual for his species, being used to warm temperatures and averse to cold. In fact, if one of Tum's species were exposed to cold below what on earth would be 0 degrees Celsius, he or she would slow down, and eventually shut down.

He didn't really know where he was going, but he seemed to be drawn in the direction of the natural place. He knew he couldn't enter the natural place itself, because that would be too dangerous. There was too much monitoring going on there. It would take a long time to get near the natural place, especially since he had to take such a circuitous route.

He finally came to the edge of the natural place. He sat down in a secluded area. What was to be done now?