by Brian Dae
Inside packages of food and drink lay scattered around the floor, much consumed and strewn about like a rat infesting the cupboards. In its heyday the facility would have needed to supply more than 200–300 people and the stores of supplies spoke to that need, an impressive assortment given what must have been a period of rationing. Again the veterans started touching whatever they could get their hands on, holding up chocolate bars to the light and reading the labels in a misplaced nostalgia. Nuclear winter aside, the original purveyors must have been concerned about maintaining operation during desperate times in their selection of canned foods and shelf-stable supplies—still edible after this long period. Some items like the candies were more frivolous and looked too spoiled for consumption. Cassidy noticed the ranger standing still and approached him, noticing what had caught his attention. On the ground the dried remains of a then survivor leaned against the back wall. His pistol just a foot away from his body. Nothing on his person identified him. Next to his corpse the door read ‘freezer.’ Opening the latch failed to release any air, showing that the seal had become undone sometime during these past 20 years. Inside the air had already equalized. Leaning on the same wall laid the bodies of a few more individuals that were arranged in fixed positions, hands resting on their thighs and heads drooping down. Considering how little food had been eaten and how relatively clean the previous room stood, the decision to end their lives came shortly after the explosion. One of their members persisted longer than the others but only marginally, perhaps having assisted the others in suicide. Taking pictures of them served little purpose yet they still proceeded in doing so. Top officials back in Vandia expressed great interest in finding out who remained and who managed to escape to Hon Hei or other receptive countries. Identifying a few faces might be of use to the intelligence agencies in ending a number of investigations.
Exploring the factory in depth might take weeks with a professional crew but their mandate called for a single afternoon, followed by a quick rest and further exploration in the city. Sleeping inside the beds of the former inhabitants felt slightly perverse and inside their suits the difference was only marginal, so they settled down to rest in one of the large office lobbies, set to sleep until 6:00 am the next day. Compared to camping on the battlefield serenaded ever so often by gunshots, the monotony of familiar spaces made it easier to forget where they were. Still the silence from before carried until now. Some veterans felt too exhausted to make an effort to eat dinner and laid back to rest. Others struggled to reach within their suits for the hard biscuit like substance tucked on their chest and to navigate it somehow to their mouths. Being surrounded with literal tons of food stocks made the meal less satisfactory than it otherwise might have been, especially when their poor teeth struggled to make dents on its dried exterior. Cassidy wandered over to the lavatory out of habit. Relieving themselves happened in another room out of personal considerations even if others could not actually see it. Staring at his reflection in the mirror he again thought about the dead. Those who worked here likely knew what would happen in advance and could plan accordingly, most choosing to evacuate the factory and leave the country if they could manage to do so. Dressed in uniform, those who died here made a conscious decision to stay and outlast the storm only to succumb to death without bothering to open the door outside. Cassidy really itched for a cigarette at that moment. A phantom trigger on his tongue calling him to breathe deeply into a smoldering stick. Odd thing for not having smoked all these years.
Waking up on light carpet left their backs less stricken than expected, owing to the padding built into their suits. Even without alarms most of them could get themselves up in time for move-out and the sound of their neighbors coughing and stretching woke any struggling to lift their lethargic bodies. Most had not exhausted themselves at such a level in years so it pained them to not be able to remove their boots and massage their feet. Ranger Mathews spoke barely above a whisper for them to get up and head back to where they started, choosing to retrace their steps instead of exiting out one of the side passages. Once they returned above ground, facing the city from out in the exurbs reminded them how much distance they still needed to travel before completing their mission. Heavy-cladding on the bottom of their boots made it easier to gain traction on rubble but suffered when walking long stretches of flatland where the only thing above the dirt was drying grass. An illusory city floated in the distance like a mirage above sandy hills, only they understood well everything collapsed in rubble. Twenty kilometers separated them. Originally the mission allowed for two days only to be extended to three by necessity. Cassidy figured four might be a better estimate. By the time rubble started to form at their feet it was already past noon.
Flakes of dust rose up after disturbing the ground with their footsteps. Cassidy wiped the sediment off his shoulders and watched it smear, figuring the exercise a pointless one after repeating it twice. Walking without speaking to the others allowed him the opportunity to daydream whilst keeping one foot going ahead of the other. He imagined all the restaurants, stores, and apartments that might support a city of two million inhabitants—the great metropolis of Karkov. As a young boy many exotic locations made it onto his travel list and a special spot had been kept for visiting this city. Like most of the cities on that list he never ended up getting the chance to go but now that he finally arrived it filled him with greater meaning than any other might inspire in him. The same held true for many of the others walking alongside him. Everyone expected to be strolling down the streets here as conquerors even if they did not want to admit it to themselves, that was the feeling in those final days when the war settled in their favor. As they came before the legislative assembly, the sight would be the culmination of a three-year war, the goal everyone had been fighting toward. Here the marble pillars and limestone facades collapsed on one another but formed an outer shield against the burning pressures of the blast. Although it remained an impressive sight to behold, he almost felt it looked exasperated, as if chastising them for single-mindedly marching to its location. Even stone fell into ruin.
When looking at massive buildings from a distance it is difficult to gauge their true scale, especially when the outer periphery is included. The last images of the building were from decades ago and photographs then were far grainier and taken at odd angles. Standing at the base of the building required the veterans to lift their heads to capture the wide span of the structure, unable to look at the bottom and top simultaneously. Certainly the metal statues fused into stone in blazing heat and hundreds of empty windows presented endless distractions for eyes to wander. Hundreds of cracked pieces of brick-red tile surrounded them as they edged closer to the entrance. Proceeding up the flight of stairs made them worry about stray rubble tumbling down and crushing those below; an avalanche of dirtied white stone dislodging itself like a trap. Their light footsteps seemed to disturb the earth little. Still as they drew closer to the front, the Legislative Building appeared far too modern to be imagined as some ancient wonder, and aside from the context which surrounded it, felt not dissimilar to the same building with the same function in Vandia. An almost boring normalness filled in all the cracks and crevasses to complete an otherwise familiar thing.
At the main entrance the doors were blasted open and its wooden shards were strewn into the walls. Bits of furniture and picture frames cast aside to the floor. The historical value of the artifacts contained inside might well be immeasurable and wasteful to leave in the condition they were in, unavailable to the eyes of the world. But not a single item was touched or moved by the men as most had already been taken away by the previous possessors or perhaps a passerby who took things on a whim. All for the best as none of them were trained to handle such objects. Walking into the emptiness made it seem as if everything was made ready for the next guests; an impression dispelled by layers of dust settled about. Fine fabrics carpeted the floor and intricate paneling adorned the rooms, giving a veneer of respectability even in its
state of disrepair, instilling between the veterans a need to stand straight and avoid dragging their feet. Beyond the foyer led straight to the chambers of legislation where all the laws of the nation were once written, debated, and signed. As they passed by its doors they felt tempted to walk in and see the same sight they saw on television where the senators proclaimed that Karkov would never surrender to Vandian aggression. Such spaces grew in historical power by nature of them ceasing to be used. However the mission did not call for reenactments. The rangers led them instead to the chambers situated deeper within the complex where the ultimate decision makers made deals in the literal backrooms of the establishment. Wide spacious halls brought them straight through the building and into an attached area to the side. Its window would have once opened out to the national parks which only differentiated themselves now by having less debris spilled over them. Eventually they made it close to the end of the building.
Here the premiers resided to conduct long thought-out calculations over which direction the entire country should move. They stepped into a long, tighter hallway and approached the large wooden doors once sealed off during planning session, interrupted perhaps by the occasional attendant. It opened to a domed room with high windows meters in the air shining light onto a large rectangular table. This was the heart of a nation. Surrounding the table sat six uniformed skeletons. Their skeletons petrified and denied the honor of decaying inside the land. These were the remains of the High Commission, the preeminent leaders of the Karkovian Republic. It was their decision to use the bomb against the advancing Vandian Army and to die along with them. Many left before this point.
The veterans bore no ill will toward these men. A few saluted the corpses absentmindedly and dropped their hands in shock, though none reprimanded them for doing so. Everyone suspected these individuals had absconded to Hon Hei in advance of the final battle—the men whose names they read in newspapers and television documentaries, characters who played the defining roles of his generation. It felt surreal to stand before them in their bright orange suits while these statesmen leaned in their chairs with a defiant dignity. Everyone knew from this sight that they would not find what the generals asked them to, the dead men sitting before them proclaimed as much. Mysterious metal aside, an entire country would burn to the ground before it was given to them. Nothing here belonged to these invaders. Such pride and purpose escaped Cassidy. He could not imagine the responsibility of possessing that ultimate decision which decided not just his own fate but for all their peoples and the peoples of another nation. Thinking back to the two ministers from the Deiderot it repulsed him to think they would be involved in making the same decisions despite exhibiting none of the qualities which were required. No, the men of the Deiderot were mere caricatures, people cut from the same cloth as himself and preoccupied with the same mundane questions of what they wished to do with themselves. They were never truly put into a position where their very existence itself was subject to forces beyond their control, at least not for a long time. Surely his disdain was colored by a distrust in his country’s politics but now he felt he had found the answer to the question which had plagued him ever since the war.
None of the veterans managed to move from their spots while the rangers finished taking pictures. For the young men clicking their cameras this conflict was generational and one of many, uninterested in the history of an old war when their short-lived lives barely intersected with this world. As they looked around the table for documents the veterans cried in their suits. Cassidy knew he and the others were changed men. Like most other instances he could not say in what way. The feeling they experienced now ran deeper than the visceral emotion for having done something wrong. Perhaps they finally understood they were responsible for the war, the city erased around them, and a nation that ceased to be habitable. In a way their fates were no longer intertwined now. Only they now carried this burden.
As the only physical structure still standing in any decent condition, the rangers decided they would camp here during the night. They huddled in the hallways and started to drift away to sleep having exhausted themselves in all manners. Tomorrow they would spend the morning looking through the building for more documents and then spend the afternoon heading east to the pick-up site some twenty more kilometers away. This would be the end of their mission and aside from confirming the deaths of men who were no longer consequential to the world, yielded nothing of significance.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The sky above The City was bright and sunny. Such days were rare to see when the streets were clogged with cars except on windy days. On the ground, the people could hardly feel the breeze though, as they wiped the sweat from their foreheads and kicked out their legs to keep the pants leg from sticking to their thighs. The balmy summer weather was something that passed soon enough at this part of the hemisphere and eventually the long autumn would make the trees bloom red and yellow, a wondrous explosion of color that made an otherwise dull gray city come to life.
The kids were still out of school and causing trouble. City kids were spoiled for choice compared to their country cousins in ways to express their dissatisfaction. A group of aspiring young thugs crossed the street and spread their forces wide, capturing the entire sidewalk and kicking people out of the way. They made no exception for Cassidy, who wandered aimlessly in their direction. His eyes were dark, no longer shouldered by the light brown hair on his head, giving him an older appearance. Mistaking him for a homeless man, they surrounded him and started to give him trouble. Without a second of hesitation to see how their game might unfold, Cassidy raised his hand and struck the boy facing him across the cheek. At that moment they reassessed the situation by waffling around their injured comrade unsure how to proceed, whether to avenge their friend or back down. A man who had watched the scene unfold started to come forward and this spooked the children enough for them to disperse, aware that they did not want to commit to whatever might be coming. Instead of turning around to thank the interlocutor, Cassidy just continued walking where he was headed.
In a city with so many things to see he wondered how he always ended up in the same places, like someone given a private jet flying from one point to another ignoring everything in between. He knew the streets and had walked through most of them but it was with a bird’s eye view; a quick jaunt over that never captured the three-dimensional world in which the people there lived. Whenever people spoke about the culture of a neighborhood or its mood, the idea glossed over him as too vague. Dividing things by artificial lines made no difference in how he perceived it as he only saw it as The City now. Even if the people living there carried their own values, they all worked and understood the rules here. Everyone living here became a part of it and what they contributed and left behind became The City itself. Only he wondered what exactly his and the other veteran’s contribution would be to The City when they themselves felt so marginalized in the greater scheme of things.
Outside the theatre Cassidy looked at the boards to see what movie they were screening and found it not up-to-date. Nobody stood in line to buy tickets and it was only then that he realized they were bought inside the lobby as the front booths appeared unoccupied. Judging by the dust collecting on the wire mesh and the brass bars tarnished by rust, the paint chipped counters had long been abandoned. Through the glass doors he spotted an empty desk inside as well and wondered if the building were closed after all despite the lights shining outside. Finding the door unlocked he stepped inside the dimly lit lobby and found it absent any staff. Even if he were interested in buying a ticket the owner did not make it an easy task. Undeterred by the lack of service and equipped with spare time, he headed to the manager’s door and started knocking. That door too remained unlocked and inside the room a disorganized mess spread itself before him, papers stacked full on open filling cabinets with many dating back decades he presumed by its bulk. Abandoning the pursuit of seeing a manager he decided to enter the screening room to see if anythi
ng was playing at all. To his surprise he found a movie playing in its early stages with long rolling shots, playing to an empty audience. He navigated his way down among the unlit rows and stood at the bottom to face all the empty seats and questioned who exactly prepared this screening. An old man sitting in the center stared on watching the movie.
Despite not wanting to disturb the old man who seemed absorbed in the movie, Cassidy was curious if he was the owner. He tried to get the man’s attention by taking a seat nearby and watching along, making sound in his seat as he settled in. Even in the silent interludes during the film, the old man did not budge and aside from the occasional blink remained frozen in place. Cassidy shrugged it off and watched the film instead. Having missed the beginning and not knowing the subject, Cassidy found it difficult to feel invested in the foreign faces running about and shouting their lines to the viewer. He could not grasp the meaning of the entire thing but still it compelled him to watch on; the basic qualities still relatable enough in the end to understand at a very basic level. When the movie entered its denouement and the side characters had died off and been long forgotten, the old man suddenly turned to him and asked if he enjoyed the movie. Cassidy was so preoccupied with the scene at this point he could not hear the question and continued staring straight ahead only realizing the old man was looking at him when the movie finally ended. Cassidy apologized for intruding and introduced himself to the old man who confirmed that he was in fact the owner. He was unconcerned about the trespassing and laughed about the state of the theatre, a full-throated admission of its poor state. The way he expressed it seemed hardly sad though. Matter-of-fact indifference carried throughout his tone. Still it seemed impolite to agree with him.