Citadel 32: A Tale of the Aggregate

by Tom Merritt

  The rear was something out of ancient times. The back wheels were huge with wooden spokes and some kind of metal wrapped around the rims. The rest of the cart was also rough wood with paint that had faded into a reddish brown where it still clung to the wood at all. The front was some sort of engine, open to the sky in a metal container with two flat, brown seats sticking up behind it. The front wheels were all metal and about half the size of the back wheels.

  Jackson dragged a couple of plastic chairs over to the cart and threw them in the back.

  “Our guest will sit back there with me. You drive, Justin.”

  So the mean man was called Justin. Justin hopped up into one of the front seats and began manipulating a series of shafts that led down into the engine. As he did so, the engine began to make some growling noises that were not loud but disconcerting, as if the machine was straining against itself. The other man tied Michael to a chair.

  The cart ride took them down a slope away from the metal shack. The terrain barely changed. The same light dusting of green mixed in with dead, yellow vegetation in a grey soil.

  Michael began to feel very sick. Was it the rads or the trip? He’d never been out of the Citadel. He’d grown up in the Complex, never away from the protective influence of the Authority. He felt himself begin to cry. There was nowhere to hide, strapped as he was into a plastic chair that moved and shuttered with every bump. He feared falling over or even out of the cart. At the same time, he wondered if he should jump. They hadn’t tied his legs. What if he launched himself from the cart? Would it kill him? He almost hoped it would. He realized he couldn’t run, even if he did jump. There was nowhere to go.

  Tears welled up in Michael’s eyes, slid down and clung to his cheeks. No wind blew to dry them. Jackson took no notice. Without Michael realizing they had even been climbing a hill, the cart crested the top. The landscape below was entirely alien. The cart trundled down a small path among what looked like snakes of metal winding in and out of each other across the ground in random patterns.

  “The Plum Forest, we call it,” said Jackson, speaking for the first time since they left the shack. “It’s what’s left of all the houses that used to stand here, or so they say. Heretics used to hide out here, so the Authority wiped them out with a bomb that burned everything but the pipes from the houses. At least that’s one story. The other way I hear it sometimes is the Heretics suspected the people of overreliance on technology, so they burned them out. Either way, all you have left is pipe. One of the seven wonders of the wilderness I’m going to show you, Monk.”

  Michael could see it now. He knew very little about plumbing except that they had it in all the buildings in the New York Citadel. But how could so much be burned away without melting or destroying the pipes? Here and there, he noticed shreds of material clinging to the metal but nothing recognizable. The trip through the valley of metal seemed to take forever. Once, he was almost certain he saw a children’s toy in the middle of one nest of pipes. As they got closer, he realized what he thought was a toy must be bones. But then, as they got closer still, it looked more like the pieces of a broken toilet bowl.

  “I see you’ve spied the porcelain miracle,” Jackson barked with a laugh. “Or what’s left of it. Lots of us outcasts think it’s a holy relic, like some you have back in New York. Although this one’s quite a bit less useful than yours.” Jackson eyed Michael when he said this. “But that doesn’t stop some folks from stealing bits of it now and then. So the scraps are all that’s left of the second wonder of the wilderness. Nobody knows why one porcelain toilet would survive here. You wanna know what I think?”

  Jackson leaned in close to Michael so the Monk couldn’t avoid the smell of the somewhat unhygienic man. “I think somebody brought it here later as a joke.” Jackson whispered, then leaned back. “Some joke, huh?!” he shouted. “Get on up the hill, Justin! Let’s show him the Crystal Palace!”

  Justin worked the levers, and the cart picked up speed. They turned off from the main pathway and climbed a small rise where the plumbing thinned out. Over the top of this small hill was a riotous collection of fused glass. It looked like someone had taken hundreds of window panes, mirrors and any other glass they could get hold of, thrown it in a pile and then partially melted it. Shards of glass stuck out in sharp angles in many places, while streams of smooth, melted material flowed around the sharp points.

  “What is it?” Michael couldn’t help asking.

  “Nobody knows,” Jackson grunted, almost in disgust. “Every theory is different about the third wonder. Some say it was a refuse pile that got torched when the bomb went off. Seems likely. Others say it was some kind of Citadelian tech that went wrong and melted itself. Others think it was a space vehicle—maybe Moon men trying to get home—that crashed. You know what I call it?”

  Michael didn’t play along, but Jackson acted like he had anyway.

  “A waste of time, old son!” Jackson cackled and clapped Michael hard on the back, almost making him vomit. Michael felt miserable now. It was the worst he had ever felt, physically and emotionally. He wanted it to end. He wanted to throw himself on the jagged spikes of the third wonder. He was manic but frightened to death of moving. He wished for death and salvation with every alternating breath.

  “Cheer up, Monk!” Jackson said, oddly echoing Michael’s state. “You won’t die of this. You won’t likely die of anything out here. Just enjoy the tour. Here comes the fourth.” Jackson pointed up in the sky. Just in front of them, thick, black ropes bundled together and covered in bird droppings, hung between two immense metal towers. They were the tallest structures the Monk had seen outside of the Complex in Manhattan.

  “No idea what this is either. Probably some kind of power or communication system from the Citadelian days. Certainly dates from then, anyway, whatever it was. Again, no idea how it survived or why. Probably just dumb luck. That’s how WE done it, eh Justin, eh Bob?!” Jackson now clapped the two men as hard as or harder than he had clapped Michael.

  So the other man was named Bob. Neither of the men turned to acknowledge the thought. Justin just fiddled constantly with levers and kept the cart moving forward.

  “The fifth wonder of the wilderness is my favorite. Right down in this hollow. Some people don’t even notice it. Do you see it?” Jackson asked.

  Michael saw it. “Oh yes.” At the bottom of the little hollow stood a tall, majestic tree. Not the kind nurtured on rooftops in the Complex. Not the scrubby mutants of the countryside in Queenlyn. A tree out of a storybook, tall and filled with leaves. It was twice, maybe three times, as tall as Michael. He had never seen anything like it.

  Nothing but dead or half-dead scrub surrounded it, but somehow the tree had maintained its stature. As they got close, Michael saw that the tree looked sicker than it first appeared. The leaves hung limp. None were perfect and without holes. Insects crawled on the tree in too great a number to be beneficial. And the bark had a dry, dying look.

  “Is it dying?” he asked Jackson.

  “If it is, it’s been doing so since before I was born. Enit boot,” Jackson rasped, almost whispering, in the lingo of the Free Citizens. It was the first time he had lapsed into the slang. “Jussit boot, yeah.” Jackson jumped off the cart and walked over to kneel by the tree. Michael wondered what he was expected to do.

  “Just sit,” Justin grunted at him. So Michael just sat. He couldn’t do much else.

  Jackson spent quite a long time by the tree. Michael took the opportunity to get his bearings. Or at least he tried to. Other than the sun setting in the west, he didn’t really know enough to help himself. He ended up staring at the tree. Finally, Jackson returned.

  “On to the sixth, Justin. The singing sixth! You’ll get to come down off that chair for this one, Michael. Won’t that be a treat?!”

  It took awhile to get there, and nobody talked on the way. Eventually, they came up to a shack similar to Jackson’s, made mostly of plastic but with a metal door. In fact, it wa
s somewhat the opposite of Jackson’s, Michael noticed. A homemade sign sat out front on the ground with the words, “Bar Open.”

  “Well, let’s grab a drink,” Jackson said.

  They didn’t untie Michael’s hands, so he assumed he wouldn’t benefit from these proposed drinks. Of the half-dozen people inside, nobody seemed to be surprised at a man in bondage.

  There was no real bar. A man at a low table with benches attached to the sides of it served drinks into unmatched cups of various materials. A wild variety of chairs and small tables sat about the room, half of them occupied. A couple of people nodded or greeted Jackson, but none seemed overly friendly. Nor did the mean men engage with anyone, though all three got drinks.

  In one corner of the room, which Michael now noticed was three or four times the size of Jackson’s metal shack, stood an odd glass machine that looked incredibly fragile. Michael couldn’t be sure, but he thought it glowed with a faint light.

  Jackson approached it, a snake of a smile spreading across his face.

  A slightly built bald man with a scar instead of a left ear, stood up and slurred, “Whudda finking of, Jackson?”

  “Playn tunes uh my guest ‘ere,” Jackson waved toward Michael.

  Jackson’s confidence seemed to suck away some of the bald man’s. “You makka yerselph purty free widdit, Jackson. You knows twont longy. Whya get take alla tunes?” The bald man spoke slang in a fighting tone mixed with petulance in an ugly, unflattering and entirely unpredictable way.

  Jackson turned, the smile fading from his face, and spoke in proper language. “Let me explain real slow for you, Sammy.” Faster than Michael could follow, Jackson slugged the bald man who fell unconscious to the ground. Michael felt nauseated again. He’d never seen anyone knocked out before. At least he hoped the bald man was only knocked out.

  Jackson turned back to the glass machine and yelled, “Any quests?”

  A somewhat surly silence answered him until a young voice—Michael couldn’t be sure if it was female or male—yelled, “Over, over, over!” Michael didn’t see who shouted it, but Jackson didn’t turn.

  “Y’goddit,” he muttered. He pressed some buttons and music began playing.

  Michael wasn’t unfamiliar with recorded music. They used it in several of the rites and services in the Complex. But he didn’t expect a machine sophisticated enough to replicate music would exist out here.

  “A candy-colored clown they call the sandman…” a voice began to sing.

  Jackson sauntered over to Michael who just stared.

  “It’s some kind of battery device. Plays music. An infinite amount of music from all eras, all styles—anything you can think of and even more that you can’t. Nothing from recent times, of course, but then who wants that crap?

  “Thing is like that—there’s a battery life thing on it. Goes down a couple points every time you play a song. Nobody’s figured out how to recharge it, so it will eventually die out. Folks in the bar all have to approve of you playing stuff before you can do it. I’m preapproved, you might say. Every so often, I get challenged from somebody like Sammy, drunk on the juice. Oh hell, it’s usually Sammy. He does love that juice. I’d give you a glass but you need a little building up to it. I don’t want you pass out for the last wonder, now do I?”

  He slammed back his “juice,” slammed the cup down and slapped his palm on the tabletop.

  “Come on!” he motioned to the mean men, and they headed out the door.

  “Whera toddle, Jackson? Ya jes madddit in? Ya song int ven done?” Michael recognized the voice that made the request. It belonged to a young, thin redhead who came running up to Jackson like a puppy dog.

  “Gotta run, Pat, love. Alla back for long, ne worry.”

  The next wonder took quite awhile to get to. It was dark by the time they arrived. Jackson said it wouldn’t matter. The cart pulled up outside a low wooden building with a curved roof. Torch fires burned outside, and men with guns guarded the door.

  Michael expected to be challenged but the gunmen just waved them all through. Inside, a dozen or so people waited behind a crude hemp rope. At the other end of the wooden hall, an old man with grey hair and an old-fashioned suit of clothing stood by a screen, explaining something.

  Jackson skipped the line and walked right up to the old man, who just kept talking.

  “So we don’t really know what that means,” the old man was saying. “But it’s not a bad sign, in any case.”

  Jackson remained uncharacteristically patient. When the old man was finished, he turned toward Jackson.

  “Mr. Jackson. What trouble have you dragged into my observatory today?”

  Jackson snickered and answered in slang. “Whatcha care boss, slong zit charge a baytree, ne?” Both men chuckled at this. The old man offered a hand to Michael then noticed the tied hands and withdrew it slowly.

  “I’m Professor Panko,” he said. “Sorry about the bonds, but it’s probably for the best. I’m considered something of a Heretic, you see, so you might be required to kill me by your order or something.” He chuckled to himself at this.

  Michael’s eyes grew a little wide in spite of himself. Had the man just admitted Heresy to a Monk of the order? What exactly was a professor? Was that slang? It sounded like “confessor.” Was that what just happened? Had he confessed to Michael?

  “Honestly, I don’t hold with any of that Heretic nonsense about lack of freedom and progress, and I have no quarrel with the Authority as long as they keep the power on. But that’s the issue. They don’t. And they don’t seem to like me complaining about it, or the fact that I seem to want to deal in facts about the Moon.”

  “The Moon?” Michael asked with true curiosity.

  “Yes. Yes, the Moon. That’s what I do. Jackson here calls me the seventh wonder of the wilderness, stupidly high praise for a man who simply kept his family’s telescope in working order. He helps me scrounge batteries, and in turn I help him with odds and ends he needs. Nothing worth mentioning of course, right Jackson?”

  “Trifles all,” Jackson said with a wide smile.

  “But come. You’re not here for that. You’re here to see this,” he motioned toward the screen behind him and led Michael up to it.

  On the screen were charts and flickering numbers and, in the middle, a light flicker surrounded by silver and shadows.

  “This won’t make any sense out of context. I’ll give you a private demonstration.”

  Panko worked a keyboard and the image zoomed out to show the Moon. He slowly zoomed in while explaining.

  “I’ve centered the image on the most likely location of the ancient Armstrong Station, or Citadel 32. As far as we know, the last contact with Armstrong was just before the Fall. They were technically self-sufficient and working out plans for an extended stay, though probably not as extended as it’s turned out.

  “So the question has been, ‘Are they still there, or has the harsh, airless climate of the Moon gotten them?’”

  That was the old man’s first heresy, thought Michael. The Moon was not airless, according to the Authority; the air was just thin, like at the top of a mountain. But it wasn’t a mortal heresy, so Michael kept it to himself and just listened.

  “As we zoom in, you can start to see a dark spot where the Armstrong Station Dome is. There are also these very tiny dots where tunnels run out. And the one I’ve been focusing on is this tunnel here.

  “Just in the last few days, I’ve noticed what I could swear is some sort of activity—and a light or at least a reflection. It looks to me as if something has been uncovered, and either they’re shining a light on it, or it’s reflective.”

  The image returned to its original dark landscape with a light spot in the middle. Now that Michael had a better idea of what he was looking at, he thought he could see the objects.

  “What do you make of it, Michael?” Professor Panko asked.

  “That looks like machinery of some kind, and these are tracks maybe? Possibl
y a car? I’ve heard they had some there. And this egg shape is very familiar. There’s a Sculpture quite like it in the Reliquary.” He stopped himself. Why was he telling this stranger all this? He wouldn’t have told his fellow Monks this much. But he was excited. He was looking at the Moon! The more he looked, the more he was convinced the egg shape on the Moon was identical to the Sculpture in the Reliquary. Was this the Armstrong machine he’d been preparing to signal? If so, how did this wilderness Heretic have the tools to see it and not the Authority?

  “Ah-ha!” Panko exclaimed. “They do have it. And if I’m right, that is the transmission machine. Oh, you’ve been very helpful, Michael. Very worth all the trouble. A pleasure to meet you. I’m only sorry that circumstances prevent us from truly working together. Maybe someday eh, maybe someday? But not today. Thank you, Jackson. I was right, wasn’t I?”

  Jackson seemed to good-naturedly—but reluctantly—nod his head. “I should never doubt you, Professor. Come along, Michael.”

  As they left, Michael heard the old man excitedly tell the next person in line about his new discoveries and how they confirmed the Moon’s inhabitants must have survived and likely held invaluable information.

  “I showed you the Moon, Michael,” Jackson said in an odd voice and accent as they climbed back into the cart. “Now let’s see the stars!”

  They rode most of the night. Michael drifted in and out of sleep as much as he could while tied to a plastic chair. Eventually, he woke from another nap to find they’d stopped. Moonlight showed enough of the road and surrounding landscape that Michael could tell they were at the edge of a cliff.

  They pulled him down out of the cart again and walked him to the edge. In his dreamlike fugue of exhaustion and fear, he both worried and wished they’d throw him over.

  “Look up and look down,” Jackson said. Michael obeyed, too beat to resist. He looked up and saw the swirling stars of the sky, seemingly slightly more numerous than they looked near the Citadel.