The Volunteer

by J B Cantwell

  I paused at the entrance, the door having been blown off its hinges. Slowly, I made my way inside, my boots cracking the shards of glass beneath my feet.

  There was nothing left. No counter. No tables and chairs. No bodies. It was all gone, obliterated, unrecognizable.

  I moved farther into the building, sending up clouds of ash into the air as I walked.

  “Hello?” I quietly called, though I expected no answer.

  My heart, hammering just moments before as I’d run down the street, now sank into the pit of my stomach.

  All gone.

  Tears ran down my dusty face, landing on my shirt as they poured out of me.

  I wondered why Davies had wanted me to see this. He had told me not to go, though he surely had known that I would. Inside me a resolve started to harden, and I gritted my teeth with anger, wishing he was here right now so that I could spit in his face.

  I turned and left the building, looking around in every direction, hoping desperately for a survivor. For anyone. But the street was deserted. I couldn’t know who had been killed in the attack. Maybe nobody. Maybe they had all gotten out before the bomb had the chance to blow. I doubted it, though. It just wasn’t like our government to let people live, no matter whether they were guilty or not.

  Guilty or not.

  I stepped out into the morning, dull and gray, clouds filling the sky.

  Was I guilty, too? Did they really know for sure about my involvement with the Volunteers? And if so, why hadn’t they executed me?

  I began to walk south, unsure of my destination. I wandered over to the wall, not seeing anyone on patrol on this particular street.

  As I approached it, I realized just how high it was, fifty feet at least, and I wondered how thick it must be to hold out the forces of the ocean.

  I stepped up to the concrete and lay my hands upon it. It was smooth and cool, a thin layer of condensation dappled along the surface of the stone. I pushed my hands against it, dreaming for a moment about what it would be like if I could push this wall down, if I could destroy it all. Would a breach in the wall be enough to take out the city? With no more inhabitants, would our designations fade away?

  No. The server buildings would remain, and anyone who survived would still be connected to the system.

  I turned and began walking again, running my hand along the wall as I did so. Occasionally, I would come across a building in my way and have to skirt around it. In one, I placed my hands against the glass, shadowing the light of the morning so that I could see inside. They were all the same, though. Blocks of concrete filled every level up to the top of the wall, just like I’d always heard. It had been seen as a saving of resources to use the buildings in this way, shells waiting to be filled, all in the name of saving the city at all costs.

  I imagined what a breach would be like. How exciting it would be for me if the wall were to spring a leak. Ten leaks. Then these streets would slowly fill up with water just as ours back in Brooklyn did with nearly every tide. The buildings surrounding me would erode away, then. A ghostly reminder of what this place had once been; full of life, full of promise.

  At least, that’s what my lens system told me, taunting me with the successes of the past and the excuses for the future.

  When I had had enough, I turned away from the wall and made my way back over toward Broadway. I was overwhelmed by the destruction that had surrounded me on every side so close to the wall. Times Square, with its billboards and theaters and shops, would be enough to distract me. Enough to keep me from doing anything stupid. At least for a while.

  But as I neared the bustling square, I felt the first drop fall upon my cheek. It burned slightly, and my hand automatically flew up to cover it.

  Rain.

  It hadn’t occurred to me that the clouds today could mean rain. I hadn’t felt the humidity, so thick in the air, as I’d made my way toward the diner, too distracted to see or care.

  But in moments, the drops intensified, and soon my hands and face were wet and stinging.

  It was always this way with the rain. Before the water came down clear, it would bring with it the pollution that hovered over the city like a lid. I imagined that this would be what the Burn was like, only there it wouldn’t stop, would never stop.

  I found a doorway to duck into as the rain intensified, several others joining me beneath the ratty awnings that lined several of the buildings on the street. Slowly, the water seeped into the fabric, spilling small droplets onto the people underneath.

  There was nowhere safe to be. Only inside.

  “Hello, Riley Taylor! Come in for some delicious lunch! We have sandwiches if that’s your desire, but we also carry fare to suit the more budget conscious. Nutrition squares and mash are always available at competitive prices…”

  I walked inside. A nutrition square was the last thing I wanted to eat right then, and even though my stomach was rumbling, I sat down at a table, telling myself to refuse anything more than a cup of hot water with a squeeze of artificial lemon.

  A waitress in a blue uniform made her way to my table and offered me a menu. I ordered my water, and she glared. But I kept hold of the menu, curious about the things one could order in a place like this.

  Sandwiches: Peanut Butter, Tofu, or Imitation Turkey.

  Mash: Rice, Wheat, or Potato.

  Squares: Standard, sweetened, or savory.

  And there at the bottom, nearly an afterthought, Ice Cream. Imitation Vanilla.

  My eyes widened, and I quickly became fixated on the words. Vanilla. Ice Cream. Imitation.

  I pulled out my credit card, unsure of how much exactly I had remaining on it. I raised my hand.

  “Excuse me, miss?” I called.

  She turned, rolling her eyes.

  “Yes?”

  “Can you please check my card and tell me if there’s enough for … for ice cream?”

  She brightened slightly, clearly hopeful for a tip. She came back to the table and took the card from my outstretched hand, then swiped it through a reader she had attached to the belt of her dress.

  “Forty-seven,” she said.

  The ice cream was fifty.

  My face fell.

  “Is there a way, I don’t know, maybe to get a half a cup? Then you can have the rest of the card, I promise.”

  She raised one eyebrow, then turned away again, moving quickly to the freezer behind the counter and scooping the ice cream herself. Occasionally, her eyes would glance backward through the little window where the chef stalked, cooking his meals.

  She was cheating, I realized.

  She took one last look behind her, then zipped out from behind the counter and dropped a huge helping of ice cream in front of me.

  “Move,” she hissed.

  “What?”

  “Move around to the other side so he doesn’t see.”

  She gestured back toward the window, and I understood. I quickly stood up and sat back down on the other side of the table, my back toward the cook.

  The waitress cleared her throat, holding out one hand. I picked up the card and handed it to her, giving a slight nod of gratitude.

  “Thanks,” she whispered and walked away, stuffing the card into her apron pocket. A nice tip in exchange for free ice cream.

  I turned back to my breakfast, the luxury of which I could barely remember from when I was a child. I picked up the spoon she’d laid on the table and tentatively slid it into the rich, creamy scoop, then holding it to my lips, taking the smallest bite.

  Immediately, I was out of control. My mouth was on overdrive, and I took bite after bite of the sweetest thing I’d ever tasted. Soon, too soon, my spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl. I turned my head, wanting more, but the waitress had disappeared into the back room.

  I had to keep myself, and not with little effort, from picking up the bowl and licking it clean. Anything for just one more bite.

  Suddenly, a huge BOOM sound shook the glass windows of the diner, ratt
ling the silverware where it sat ready on the tables. I stood up and walked toward the entrance, the ice cream all but forgotten.

  It had been an explosion.

  And then there was another. And another. Glass was blown out of buildings. People were screaming, not caring about the rain now, just trying to get away. As the explosions echoed against the giant buildings, I held my hands over my ears protectively.

  BOOM.

  BOOM.

  BOOM.

  It seemed that the city was crumbling around me. I might’ve retreated farther into the diner, but instead I walked outside.

  People, some hurt, were lying in the dust of the partly destroyed structures. There was crying and some screaming still as the explosions began to ebb, their absence filled with the sound of sirens now.

  An emergency message flashed across my lens.

  “Alert. Explosions felt in Manhattan. Shelter indoors. Alert.”

  I remembered what it had been like in Edmonton after the Pearl had fallen, concrete turned to dust raining down on the city.

  But it was mud that was raining now. People’s faces were covered in it, the mixture of stone dust and the pouring acid rain.

  I stood there, still beneath the awning, my eyes wide. Somewhere in the distance, more explosions fired.

  “Alert. Alert. Alert …”

  “Riley Taylor, how did you enjoy your meal? Did-did-did you-you-you enjoy …”

  I walked away from the diner with its faltering AI display and turned north toward the recruitment center, my footsteps etched into the mud as I fled.

  At first, I walked blindly, the sounds of others’ misery in my ears. Then, as I began to speed up, I broke into a jog. My leg was back to normal now; it had only been a dream that it was still injured. My jog turned into a run, then into a sprint.

  I should stop. I should help.

  And do what?

  I didn’t stop. I didn’t help. I simply ran.

  “Alert. Alert. Manhattan attacked by Volunteers. Shelter in place. Alert”

  No.

  As I looked around, it seemed impossible to me. The people I’d met over the past week wouldn’t do this. Would they? And had I pledged to help them? They had told me that they had small arms, small explosives that they could use to shake up the city, keep the citizens’ minds focused on themselves to cause enough of a diversion so that they could hit their real targets: the server buildings.

  But that wasn’t supposed to happen yet. They didn’t have the means to take out the buildings yet, and wouldn’t until I had gone through training. And they hadn’t said anything about killing innocent people. They’d told me that it would be just surface explosions, just enough …

  Maybe they hadn’t told me the whole truth.

  Then, two blocks away from my destination, a young man stepped out in front of me, forcing me to stop.

  “Riley, wait,” he said.

  Jonathan.

  He pulled me from the street and held me against a building, both hands on my shoulders.

  Henry Mason

  Designation: Orange

  “Alert. Orange. Alert.”

  I was so relieved to find someone from the diner alive that I instantly forgot the tragedy that was unfolding around us. Not to mention the immediate accusation of the government.

  “You’ve been implanted,” I said, confused. “Why—?”

  “We didn’t do this,” he said urgently.

  “But— how is this all—what’s going on?”

  “You need to get yourself back to the barracks and stay there until they put you on a bus out of here. Do you hear me? Things are going to go nuts around here. You want to stay as far away as you can from us. You have your mission. You don’t need us.”

  “Don’t need you? How is that even remotely true?”

  The sound of a helicopter buzzed overhead. My muddy hair was plastered to my scalp, itching and burning.

  “There will be a reckoning,” he went on. “They’re going to come for us this time. They’ve allowed us to survive on the outskirts for generations. That’s the truth. We may have been seen as terrorists, but all we were was a poor, hungry, dejected people. They knew it. They knew that it would be easier to just leave us alone.”

  “I—I don’t understand. You mean, you didn’t do this?”

  He clenched his teeth. “No. We did not do this. Don’t you see? They’ll come after us all now. We can try to go underground. But things won’t be like they were before. Things will never be the same.”

  “But what do I—” another explosion rocked the street, and I had to lay my hands on the brick of the building behind me to stay upright.

  “What do I do without you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” His eyes were wide now, like prey caught in a trap. His head whipped from side to side, searching for what, I didn’t know.

  My fatigues were drenched now, my body stinging all over.

  “I have to go,” he said, taking his hands off my shoulders.

  “Go? Go where?” I looked around, too. It was chaos all around us.

  “Don’t you understand? This was the government. We didn’t do this.”

  His words swirled around in my brain, nonsensical, treasonous.

  Then, I saw it. Looming up behind us. The wall. Just visible from this distance. Two red blinking lights.

  Countdown.

  “Just, do what you can,” he said, backing away and staring, mouth agape at the implications of those two small explosives.

  Then, he turned and ran away from me.

  Chapter Ten

  I stood there for several moments, stupidly watching him go. Then, I heard it. Two explosions in unison two blocks to my left. Then, the telltale sound of crumbling concrete.

  The wall.

  I didn’t need to see it. My ears told me all I needed to know.

  It was coming. Already I could see the water splashing over the top of the concrete.

  The government wouldn’t do this, would they? Would they drown out their own city just to have an excuse to corner the Volunteers?

  The water came pouring out, and I could see that it was only the very top of the wall that had been affected. Maybe it wouldn’t all come tearing down. Maybe only a part of it.

  But I ran faster than I could ever remember running before. I had to get back. I had to race, to outrun the water, if that’s what it was that was about to happen. A tsunami fresh from the Hudson river.

  The recruitment building was just two blocks away now, but the water was slowly infiltrating the streets. Not deep. Not yet. There was yelling and panic outside the building, and a big yellow bus was already parked outside, engine running.

  How had they assembled everyone so quickly?

  There was a man outside I didn’t recognize. A Prime.

  Jeremy Anderson

  Designation: Prime

  “Come on!” he yelled to the group of soldiers who were flooding out of the recruitment building, starting to assemble. “Get on! Don’t wait for me! Get on if you want to live!”

  I didn’t need telling twice. I jumped up the stairs of the bus and ran all the way down to the back. I opened up a window and stuck my head out as some of the other soldiers came aboard.

  My heart was pounding. Where was he? What had Alex said? That he had been tailing Amanda, not me? I wanted to yell for him, to call him out of wherever it was he was hiding.

  Soldier after soldier squeezed in. The bus was filling up quickly. Outside I could see the water rising, still just a few inches deep, but steadily increasing.

  And then there he was. It was like watching someone coming to your rescue when you were in the worst possible situation. I caught his eye and saw him let out a big breath of relief. He pushed his way onto the bus with all the others and made his way to me.

  “I thought you wouldn’t make it,” he said, putting his arms around me. I buried my face in his shirt, so relieved that it was enough for me to momentarily forget the chao
s that was erupting around us.

  “I made it,” I said. “I was the first one on.”

  The bus was filling fast, and moments later I heard the driver put it into gear. There were no other soldiers waiting. Everyone was aboard. Our destination was unknown.

  The bus lurched forward as he slammed on the gas. Alex and I were both knocked backward into our seats at the very back. I looked out the window behind us and saw the water line as it slowly approached, slowly flooding. Would it be enough? Would all these people die? Smoke and dust rose up from every block, the aftermath of the explosions that had been rocking this sliver of an island.

  The sound of fighter jets pierced in my ears, and I looked out the side window again. They were shooting, but at what? At the city? More explosions rocked the ground beneath us, and the whole bus shook.

  We were traveling at a good clip now, running through stoplights as if they weren’t there at all.

  Then, I saw her.

  Hannah.

  She was running, sprinting behind the bus, calling out, screaming for it to stop.

  “Hey! Hey!” I called to the driver. “Stop the bus! Stop the bus! There’s a soldier out there!”

  Hannah was starting to slow down, starting to lose momentum. Her feet splashed in the shallow water as she sprinted for her life.

  “Come on! Stop the bus!”

  “No! Don’t stop it!” some soldier or another yelled. Several voices yelled out in agreement.

  I saw the man’s eyes glare at me in the rear view mirror, but he hit the brakes, hard, and I went flying up against the seat in front of me.

  Hannah had almost given up, but when she saw the brake lights, she sped up again. The doors opened and she jumped inside.

  “Go! Go!” she yelled, turning to look at the road ahead.

  She didn’t see me.

  It didn’t matter.

  The bus screeched its way through Manhattan to the extended part of the Lincoln Tunnel that had been built after the floods started. It was the only place where people could flee the island on the north side, and it was wide open now. People had been taken off guard. Nobody was trying to escape. Not yet.