Those Left Behind

by Alan Davenport

  “Where is friend Mary taking Tiny?” he asked. He had to run to keep up with Mary’s pace.

  “We have to go catch 41,” she said, nearly out of breath.

  Tiny stopped dead and pulled Mary to a stop as well. Tiny so outweighed Mary that it was as if an invisible, irresistible force had halted her dead in her tracks. “Mary is going the wrong way,” Tiny said shaking his head.

  Mary tugged at his hand and said, “No, 41 is this way Tiny. Come on.”

  Tiny refused to move. “No friend Mary. 41 is by the computer lady, Eliza. Eliza is THAT way,” he said pointing back up the tunnel.

  Mary took a deep breath. Normally she was perfectly fine with Tiny when he became stubborn. Not this time. “Tiny, stop it. We have to go THIS way!” she shouted. Tiny planted his feet, crossed his arms and refused to move. “I don’t have time for this!” she muttered to herself. With a flash of inspiration, Mary figured out how to get Tiny moving again. “Tiny,” she half whispered, “We can’t tell anybody, but 41 ran away. We have to go find him and bring him back!”

  “Ran away?” Tiny asked, his eyes open wide.

  “Yes, “Mary said. “We have to go get him before he gets lost.” Mary pointed in the direction she had been trying to lead Tiny and said, “He went this way.” This time Tiny followed Mary with no further resistance.

  The pair ran down the passageway towards the dark, abandoned tunnels that led far away from the inhabited areas of the colony.

  Chapter 10

  Max hurried down the tunnel. He smiled as he looked at the ancient power drill he carried. “I will be able to re-attach the lantern’s cover when I drill some new holes!” he happily thought to himself. After a few more steps he slowed down and stopped. His face wrinkled and he muttered sarcastically to himself in disgust, “Quite the victory, Max. I’m supposed to be the high and mighty technology councilor and here I am getting excited that I managed to fix an old flashlight! Too bad I can’t power the whole colony with the damn thing!” With a deep sigh he added, “Oh well. It’s something at least. Take any victory you can get, Max.”

  Already in a foul mood, he did his best to control it as he entered his workshop. “Tiny, Fred found me a working drill…” and then he stopped short. “Tiny?” he said, annoyed. His annoyance deepened when he noticed that not only Tiny was missing, but the flashlight that he had struggled so hard to repair was missing as well. Not normally a person to lose his temper, Max lost it and shouted, “Tiny! Where have you taken my lantern? Just wait until I get my hands on you!”

  Max turned on heel and charged out of the room and down the tunnel until he abruptly stopped short. “Where under the Earth could that boy have gone?” He looked left and right, unable to decide which way to go. “Mary,” he said. “He must have taken the lantern to show Mary,” and then hurried towards her quarters. Not finding her in her room he chided himself, “Max, you idiot. You know she said that she was going to go talk to 41.”

  Max received another shock when he entered the council chamber. His eyes opened wide and darted around the room when he noticed that the robot was missing. He turned and asked the computer, “Eliza! Did Mary take 41 someplace?”

  The monitor, which had reverted back to a screen saver cleared and Eliza’s image filled the screen. “Negative councilor Max. Mary did not take 41 anyplace.”

  “Well, where is 41 then?” he demanded.

  Looking perplexed, Eliza said, “I do not know the location of maintenance bot 41, councilor Max.”

  Max massaged his temple with his right hand as if he was developing a migraine headache. “Do you know where Mary is, Eliza?”

  “I do not know the location of Mary Hydro, councilor Max,” the computer unhelpfully replied.

  Max raised both of his hands in the air and asked, “Well, do you know where Tiny is then?”

  “I do not know the location of Tiny either, councilor Max.” she replied apologetically.

  Incensed, he shouted “Useless!” at the computer and then spun around and charged from the chamber.

  He did not slow down until he reached colony leader Paul Hydro’s quarters where he uncharacteristically burst in without knocking.

  Startled, Paul looked up from his desk. “Whoa!” he said, “What’s gotten into you, Max?”

  “It’s that darn boy… I mean, its Tiny. He stole the lantern that I was working on. I needed to get a tool so I could put the cover back on. I was only gone ten minutes and when I got back from Fred’s place, he was gone. He stole the lantern. STOLE it!” he shouted.

  Paul looked at Max, shocked by his uncharacteristic behavior. Recovering his composure, he calmly said, “Now slow down, Max. Tiny is not known to be a thief. There has to be another explanation.”

  Max paced back and forth in front of Paul’s desk. “Well, I can’t think of one unless…”

  Paul raised his eyebrows. “Unless what, Max. What are you thinking?”

  Max looked very unhappy. “Well, it is just that… Well, Mary is missing too.” He sheepishly added, “I can’t find her. Perhaps they took the lantern together.”

  Paul’s political career taught him to hide his emotions well but this time his training utterly failed him. “Mary is gone TOO?” he stood up and shouted. “What are you implying, Max?”

  Max wilted at Paul’s words. “It gets worse,” he cringed and said in a small voice.

  Paul stormed over to Max. Spittle flew from his lips as he bellowed, inches from Max’s face. “Worse? What could be worse than my daughter being missing? Where did you last see her? Did you look for her?”

  Max, never having seen his life-long friend this upset, took several nervous steps backwards. With a lump in his throat he sputtered out, “The bot is gone too. I don’t know where they are. I can’t find any of them! Anyplace!”

  Paul froze. An icy chill crawled down his spine. He took a calming breath and said, “I am Sorry Max. I shouldn’t have shouted at you.” He laid his hand upon Max’s shoulder. “You can’t find them anywhere? Where have you looked?”

  Max relaxed now that his friend started acting more like himself again. “No, I didn’t look everywhere but… well the colony is not that large.”

  “Agreed,” said Paul. “Let’s go find them.” As they hurried down the tunnels, Paul said, “They’re probably down in the reactor chamber. I’ll bet 41 found a way to fix one of them!”

  Max perked up as they hurried along and said, “I wonder how long it will take to fix it!” He deflated as soon as they burst into the reactor room together. Normally the room hummed with barely suppressed power. Today, the huge lemon-yellow reactors all sat silent and inert. The only sound was their labored breathing and the ever-present sound of dripping water. Max laid a hand upon Paul’s arm and said, “Come on. Somebody has to have seen them.”

  Eventually, the entire colony joined in the search for the missing trio, however they never found any evidence pointing to where they had gone. They had vanished as if they had never existed.

  Chapter 11

  Mary hurried down the tunnel, leading Tiny by the hand. Tiny giggled to himself, having a grand old time on their adventure together. “How does friend Mary know where 41 went?” he asked, giving Mary’s hand a little squeeze.

  Mary smiled and explained, “Eliza showed me a map to where he was going. We just have to follow this tunnel to the end, turn left, go some ways more and then turn left again. We’ll catch up to him there!”

  Tiny’s pace slowed. “Tiny is not supposed to go down this tunnel, friend Mary. Mother told Tiny that monsters live down here. I don’t want to get eaten by a monster,” he said in all seriousness with a nervous catch in his voice.

  Mary squeezed his hand and asked, “Do you trust me, Tiny? Would I ever lie to you?”

  Tiny looked into her face with the eyes of a child. “I trust you friend Mary. You are my best ever friend.”

  Mary smiled at his words and said, “Well then, I’m going to tell you a little secret. Your mother to
ld you a little white lie. There are not any monsters down here. It just goes on for a very long way. She didn’t want you to get lost. You could have died down here in the dark if you went too far and couldn’t find your way back.”

  Tiny looked at her with his eyes wide open in fear. “Friend Mary,” he said in all seriousness, “Will we get lost and die down there in the dark?”

  Mary hugged him and said, “No dear. I know which way to go. You have me to show you. Besides, we have this nice lantern that Max fixed so it won’t be dark!”

  Tiny accepted her words without question. “Okay!” he said and then resumed walking beside her.

  As they walked through the occupied areas of the colony, motion sensors on the ceilings with little green indicator LEDs on them clicked on the tunnel lights ahead of them. She was so used to the automatic lights that she didn’t give them a second thought. That is, until she reached to end of the occupied tunnels. There the little motion sensor, with its little green indicator LED, clicked its little relay to turn on the lights, however this time, nothing happened.

  Mary stopped dead in her tracks. The tunnel continued endlessly onwards into the gloom, which soon faded away into a total inky blackness. A little shiver of fear traveled down her spine as she stared straight ahead. Perhaps a premonition. Perhaps only the fear of the unknown. She did not know which. She put on a brave face and flipped the toggle switch on the lantern. The tunnel instantly lit up quite a distance with a brilliant white light. She tilted the beam and looked upwards. “Light bulbs. They are all gone. Fred harvested all the light bulbs from these empty tunnels.” With a nervous little laugh, she turned to Tiny and said, “Let’s go.”

  Mary soon got over her fears. Artifact after forgotten artifact littered the tunnel floor. Old cast-off bottles, food wrappers and other items that were carelessly cast aside long ago met her eyes as she walked. She picked up and examined each piece of bric-a-brac as if it were a lost treasure and she was a famous archeologist making a history-changing discovery. “I wonder how long ago this was dropped here!” she said, turning over an old plastic water bottle in her hands. Tiny gave no response. He did not understand Mary’s fascination with what he thought was just plain garbage. He just smiled and followed his friend like a loyal little puppy dog.

  At a particularly wet spot, the floor had a thin layer of mud. Mary tapped Tiny’s arm with one hand and pointed with her other. “Look!” she exclaimed, “Fresh tread tracks! I TOLD you that 41 went this way!”

  Tiny examined the tracks and said, “Is 41 nearby? How much further. Tiny is hungry and Tiny wants water.”

  “Not far, Tiny,” Mary lied, as a parent would to a whining child on a long drive. Mary glanced back over her shoulder. “Mary, what are you doing?” she thought to herself. “It’s not smart to be running off like this without any food or water.” For a moment, she considered turning around, however she quickly changed her mind. “Tiny, water is dripping off the wall right here. Go take a drink,” she pointed and said. They both leaned to the trickling flow and drank their fill before continuing onwards.

  Many hours passed as they pressed deeper and deeper into the void. Eventually, Mary stopped picking up every cast-off item on the floor, having finally come to the same conclusion that her supposedly simple friend came to right off the bat, that it was all merely trash.

  They stopped talking. They just trudged ever onwards. Mary began to have doubts that she had picked the correct path. She started to feel the beginnings of panic. The only sound was the echo of their shuffling feet, dripping water and the ineffectual clicks of the motion sensors on the lightbulb-less light fixtures. Becoming more and more afraid, she had just about convinced herself to stop and turn back when, with the usual click, a motion sensor closed its relay. This time however, a bright light snapped on and illuminated a room around them. They had reached the end of the tunnel and stood upon the platform of the long forgotten underground transit system. Mary was so surprised that she shrieked and nearly dropped the lantern.

  Tiny grabbed Mary and laughed at her. “It’s okay friend Mary. It is just a light, silly!”

  With a little nervous giggle, Mary said, “Yeah, I can see that Tiny. It just surprised me. That’s all,” she said, trying to hide her embarrassment.

  Mary looked around the small room. A sign hanging from the ceiling proclaimed, “Colony for the Continuation of Humanity, Transit Station Number 76”. Orange plastic benches lined one wall, restrooms and a shuttered food kiosk lined another. A thick layer of dust covered every surface.

  In a large nook to the back of the room sat an old travel cart. “Let’s go see!” Mary cried. Her fascination with old technology drew her to it like a moth to a flame. The cart contained four seats, a steering wheel and two pedals. It sat upon four small, squat, wide, plastic tires. A selector lever on the floor selected forward or reverse. At the rear of the vehicle was a recessed area where cargo could be placed. A wire led from the ancient vehicle to a wall socket. Mary brushed the dust off of the cart’s display screen and her eyes opened wide in surprise. The display glowed green indicating that it was good to go and that it had one hundred percent power. She shook her head in amazement that the little vehicle has been sitting here, waiting patiently for riders, for three centuries. She flicked its lights on and then off again. “Son of a gun!” she cried, amazed. “Wow, it sure would have been nice to have this at the OTHER end of this tunnel. It would have saved our poor tired feet! Oh well. It is what it is.” She looked over at the recessed train tracks, sighed and said, “Too bad it can’t go down the tracks.”

  Turning away from the small travel cart, Mary walked further into the room. Spying an interactive screen for the transit system, Mary hurried over to it and excitedly pressed the home button. The screen emitted a little beep, however nothing else happened for several seconds. Just as Mary began to turn away, a tinny voice emanated from a hidden speaker and said, “Please select a destination”. The screen now showed a list of the nearest stations. She was so excited that she failed to notice that the travel times column on the list of all of the destinations contained red dashes rather than actual travel times. Mary picked one at random. After an extended delay, the tinny voice said, “We are very sorry. Due to technical difficulties, that destination is not available. Please select another.” Mary tried each of the listed destinations on the original screen and all of the ones on the next page too. She received the same error message each time. With a sigh of disappointment, she whispered to herself, “Well, what did you expect, Mary?”

  Mary turned away from the interface and said to Tiny, “I am going to use the restroom, assuming it still works. Wait right here, Tiny.”

  Tiny smiled and emphatically said, “Tiny will wait, right here!” pointing to the floor at his feet. Mary shook her head in good-natured humor as she went to use the old rest facilities. Tiny waited until she was out of sight and then with a guilty look upon his face, hurried over to the touch-screen. He pressed the Next Screen button over and over again, thoroughly engrossed by the colorful, ever-changing screen. He let out a little laugh at each of the little beeps his keypresses caused. He stopped when something different caught his eye. Instead of the little red dashes, one destination displayed glowing green numerals. Fascinated, Tiny pressed the screen on that line of text and he jumped and quickly turned away, like a child caught stealing a cookie, when the little speaker said, “Alice Springs, Australia. Colony for Continuation of Humanity transit station number eleven. Nearest tube travel vehicle in route. Estimated travel time to Alice Springs: 5 hours, 47 minutes and 07 seconds.”.

  Mary emerged from the restroom shaking her hands. “The plumbing still works!” she said in wonder. “The hand drier, not so much though,” she added, flicking water off her fingertips. “It made a lot of noise but never blew any hot air, just cold.” Mary looked at Tiny. He was looking away from her and rocking side to side. “Do you need to go use the bathroom, Tiny? You should go while you can.” Looking guilty,
Tiny shook his head no. Mary looked closely at her friend, wondering about his odd behavior. Used to his idiosyncrasies, she decided it was not something that she should pursue. She grabbed the flashlight and said, “Come on then. This way. Let’s go!”

  Mary walked down a small concrete staircase and onto the railbed. With one last glance over her shoulder, she switched the lantern back on and then began walking. Tiny squeezed her hand and asked, “How far, friend Mary? How far?”

  Mary squeezed his hand back and said, “Not too far. It’s still some ways yet but not as far as the first tunnel.” She tightly held his hand and said, “Watch where you put your feet. The floor here is not as smooth as in the other tunnel.” Another chill of fear ran down her spine when the motion sensor behind them timed out and the lights clicked off. With a determined sigh, she pulled Tiny along with her.

  This tunnel was even more featureless than the one that brought them to the abandoned train station. It did not even possess any motion sensor lights. The only feature was the rusty steel rails which continued monotonously on and on, seemingly into infinity.

  Mary was very close to giving up again when she noticed a barely perceptible change in the ever-present echoes. She lifted her head and then sighed in relief when she spied a set of concrete steps leading up into a small alcove. “Oh, thank goodness!” she muttered to herself. She hugged Tiny and kissed him. “We’re almost there!” she said in excitement. “We just have to walk down this short tunnel and then we will be with 41!” She laughed when she read a sign that said, “Authorized personnel only!”

  “Why is friend Mary laughing?” Tiny wanted to know.

  Mary hugged him again and said, “Well, that sign says we are not allowed to go in there. It’s funny because there is nobody here to stop us!”

  “We will not get into trouble?” Tiny asked, a little afraid despite her words.