Eternity (Memory's Children Book 1)

by Clay Gilbert

  Hetraveled another two hours before the lights and buildings seemed to grow less clustered, like stands of trees left over from forests that had been mostlycut down. He knew he was outside the City proper by that point—in the no-man’s-land that lay in the midst of what the Providers designated ‘the Deserted Sector’. It wasn’t actually a city sector at all, as far as anyone could tell, but rather the border between the Black City and what every Citizen learned to call the Beyond: the uncharted, presumably ruined land that lay outside the great Wall. Out here, the laws of the Providers fell away, and with it, the stability they brought. In the unchained potential of this place, it seemed equally likely that a new world might rise—a world not beholden to the failures of the fallen past— as it did that the world they had now would stay forever in the shadow of the chains it wore. And the physical embodiment of those possibilities was the great glass cylinder that rose before him when he began to feel he would drop from the cycle’s seat in exhaustion.

  Hotel Paradise, the blue neon sign announced, and the sight seduced Jonathan’s tired eyes as he emerged on the edges of the City’s dark expanse.

  Seen at a distance, the walls of the Hotel Paradise seemed to be made of the same black glass that provided the material for all the City’s buildings, except for a few in the residential sectors. But when he drew closer, Jonathan saw that the glass of which the hotel’s walls were made was, instead, a dark indigo, as if he were traveling from night back into dusk. Inside the hotel, the blue, neon tubes mounted along the hallways threw strange light along his path as he walked. He felt more a stranger here than he had anywhere in his life to that point. But, once he was sitting on his bed in the glass cubicle which passed for a room in the Hotel Paradise, he could not help smiling. He was free.

  Here, there were no citizen patrols or riots. Here, the eyes of the Providers did not see everything. Sequestered within these walls—as perhaps within other places closer to the Forgotten City—one might avoid the hidden eyes and contemplate the politics of rebellion.

  What should I do now? The hotel’s walls might not keep the Providers’ invisible gaze out forever, and even if they could, he hadn’t come from one prison only to exchange it for another of his own construction. Freedom was what he’d come for, and freedom had a price.

  Freedom has a price, but who’ll pay? He had paid already. Paid the price of exchanging home and family for the shadows that sheltered all the City’s dissidents. The ones who found refuge in the Forgotten City paid a higher price—that one day they might be found out, that the lights and screencrews and invisible, unseen eyes might one day find them among the riots and the raids. They paid for their freedom with the promise that, if they had to, even leaderless, they would die for it.

  Who’s going to pay for my freedom? Not my parents. He would change his name and his appearance, learn to shield his mind from his enemies. No one would know him. They might recognize his face for an instant, but not being able to connect it, as few would be able to, they would put it out of mind.

  My parents won’t pay for my freedom. Not if I can help it, and I’ll try my best, but one day the Providers will pay—for my freedom, and that of many others.

  * * * *

  There are shadows in Paradise, Jonathan thought. Sometimes, he mused, shadows could be used to one’s advantage, and at other times, the shadows had to be purged, or one might be blinded by them. I’ll have to learn to know the difference. There was a lighter in the room, left behind by another of the hotel’s transient inhabitants, probably with little thought. This’ll come in handy.

  With a flick of his fingers, the lighter sputtered into flame, and he touched it to the first of the pictures he had brought with him, then a second and a third. He watched as his historywas erased, bit bybit becomingblack ash and fading, blue-grey embers. When it was done, he scuttled the dust under the bed. Tears threatened, and he pushed them back hard.

  Crying won’t help me now. I’ve got no past to mourn. The future for me, and for those like me—it’s far from certain. Even our present is shrouded in shadow. All we have is this one moment, stretching forward into forever. At once he knew the name that would forever replace the one he left behind him.

  “Myname is Eternity,”he whispered in the neon-lit darkness of Paradise. In the moments before sunrise, light and glass merged to make it seem the Hotel Paradise had been made from the very fabric of the twilight sky itself. Eternity took one last look behind him at the hotel, finding comfort in its strangeness for what it had awakened within him. He touched a button on the hovercycle’s console. With a jet of flame, he left the hotel—and all those still fighting their battles within its walls—behind him. The Black City beckoned once again.

  No turning back now, he thought, and no time for regrets. Timeto put the last remnants of his past to rest.

  CHAPTER FOUR “The situation in Govsec has grown progressively worse over the past week. Yesterday and today, violent street warfare continued between citizens living in or near Govsec and dissident youths opposed to Government policies. There has been no word about a possible remedy for the fighting, but the Government issued a statement today saying that the deaths on both sides were likely to continue unless dissident activities are ended. Our Video Department has footage—”

  Behind the newsdesk, Emily sighed. She was free from the monitor’s eye—for the moment.

  Those words—did I really say those things? She hoped the fear hadn’t shown in her eyes, but she was afraid. Not just because of the fighting, but because she feared the Providers would see that she disagreed, that they would hear her disbelief with every word she read on the reports each night. Every night her doubt—and her fear of its discovery—grew stronger. She didn’t think the Providers, whoever they were—and no one really seemed to know— were really gods. She suspected her parents didn’t really think so either. Sometimes, after work, when they were all together at home, she asked them if they could remember a time before, when people had been allowed to be themselves and the eyes of people in the City’s streets regarded one another with friendship rather than mistrust, suspicion, or indifference. Her parents told her they’d heard stories of such a time, so long ago now that the things said of those days seemed merely fanciful dreams of a world which might never even have been.

  But I know it was. Her voice read the news reports every night since the fighting first broke out, and though the bias of many of the reports disgusted her, she sensed another emotion from the notes she read each night: fear. Unbelievable as it once seemed to her, that had to be it. The Providers feared the rebels, feared those who wouldn’t stick to the pattern of sameness and safety. She smiled, knowing that those who didn’t lie had no reason to fear.

  Emily looked out over the City’s vastness from the skycar that carried her home every day from her work in the screenvid studios of the Busisec. The Busisec was a sector like the others into which the City was divided, yet the people who worked in the Busisec were not like those who toiled in Govsec. The Govsec workers were thought of by most in Busisec as mere maintenance men for the Government, unimportant slaves to whom little thought was given. But the workers in Busisec were, it was said by some, the Providers’ ministers to the rest of the City. Theywere the newspeople and screencrews who, like the young girl herself, relayed nightlythe messages the Providers approved for transmission.

  Emily knew, though, that any difference between the two classes was onlysuperficial, no matter what comfortable lies some told themselves. Whether in Busisec or Govsec, the people of the City remained the grey-clad servants of a power, which for all they knew, was beyond their understanding. She looked out over the City, and as the last rays of the sunset shone off the black glass spires at the City’s heart, it occurred to her how beautiful it all was—like a dark diamond held in the fist of a tyrant whose only advantage was deception.

  That might change one day, she thought and drifted off for the remainder of her journey home. Emily was jerked awake by the
skycar’s landing at the station in the residential sector she and her parents called home. Each Resisec had its own station at which the skycars docked before jetting off to other parts of the City. The skycar’s doors slid open soundlessly. As she walked home, she found her mind wandering back to her thoughts of the Providers.

  If they’re not gods, who are they? Emilyleft her questions at the threshold of the apartment she shared with her parents. They’d be asleep, she reminded herself, as they so often were when she returned home at night. She stepped inside the door, which slid open automatically at her approach. She sat down in front of the large glass wall in the living room, and was startled as, seconds later, it sprang to life.

  The late report. She was suddenlyafraid. The late report was onlyveryrarelyon—at least before the fighting started. Now you can never tell when.

  All at once, the sound of the newsperson’s voice drowned her thoughts. “Two more deaths have occurred in the Resisecs tonight, presumably connected with the recent outbreaks of fighting. Tonight’s victims, killed just hours ago, were older citizens living with their daughter, who, it was learned, is a worker in Busisec. Government—”

  No. It can’t be. To still the rising terror in her mind, she ran down the hall into her parents’ bedroom, and when she got there, she screamed.

  The bodies of her parents stared, wide-eyed and still, at Emily from their bed. There was no blood. A pin-sized lasgun burn, round and bright red, marked both their necks.

  She was frozen—couldn’tspeak, couldn’t move.She wanted to scream again, but her mouth refused. She wanted to cry, but tears wouldn’t come, just lingering and stinging behind her eyes. Her stomach was a sickened sea of black loss. In her mind’s eye, though, she could still see her parents as they had been—as she knew she’d always see them.

  No one can take that away, and if they think they can, they’re wrong. Now I’ve gotta pull myself together. Gotta get out. Gotta find the ones who did this—and make them pay.

  * * * *

  The night sky over the City no longer seemed beautiful, and Emily’s every thought was of revenge. Who could have done this? Emily wondered. Who could have wanted them dead? She knew one thing, though—no one in the City had done it. Class superficialities aside, all Citizens were the same.

  The ones that did this—the only thing that mattered to them was that Mom and Dad were Citizens. One of them had done this—one of the terrorists. Once I might have joined them, she thought. Now, she only wanted to make them pay. CHAPTER FIVE

  What are you gonna do about it? You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be.

  Easy for you to say, Ace, Eternity thought. He wished Ace was with him or that he was waiting to meet him in the Forgotten City. Still clothed in the grey robe of a Citizen—although it was wrinkled and dusty from travel, and still without much difference in his appearance (although, he reflected, his hair was beginning to grow out and he could use a shave)—he knew he might still be mistaken for the frightened ‘dome’ he’d once been, should anyone who didn’t know better catch sight of him.

  Where is it? Thought Eternity.He’d traveled three dayssince leaving the Hotel Paradise behind: three long, lonely days with cold and fitful nights. Where is the Forgotten City?

  “ You probably think it’s a lot of ruins,” Ace had said, “because that’s what we want you domes to think.” The words had stung Eternity then. Now they just exasperated him.

  Where, Ace? Where is it, man? “Hey!”astrange voicebroke in on the intercom. “Aren’t you a little far from home?” At first, Eternity was afraid another Citizen Patrol cycle had caught up to him, but this was the Deserted Sector, and it wasn’t likely they’d come this far to find him. He glanced at his viewscreen, and saw behind him the source of the exclamation. Another cycle floated in midair, seeming suspended in smoke and flames.

  At its console sat a boy who looked to be Eternity’s age, his cropped, spiked hair containing every color of the rainbow, his eyes hidden by mirrored sunglasses. He wore a heavy, black leather jacket covered with zippers and a pair of grey denim jeans cut off unevenly above his calves. The stranger flashed a toothy smile at Eternity, who saw in the boy’s face an echo of the freedom he’d once found in Ace, and could not help smiling back. Eternity pressed the suspension switch on his cycle and the vehicle remained, generator pulsing, floating above the road.

  “Hey, dome,” the strange boy asked Eternity, “didn’t you hear me?” “I’m not a dome,” Eternity replied. I hope he’s not looking for a fight. He doesn’t look the type, but I’m not taking any chances.

  “Come on, man,” the boy laughed. “In those clothes? Your hair might be a bit longer than I’ve seen on most domes but then, even the Providers can’t see everything.”

  “I’m not a dome. They killed a friend of mine who lived in the Forgotten City. That’s where I’m headed. My name’s Eternity.”

  “I have to admit, that doesn’t sound like dome jargon. You come up with it yourself?” Eternity nodded.

  “It’s heavy, but cool,” said the stranger. “Take some doing to live up to it.”

  Eternity figured he was right.

  “Who was your friend?” the strange boy asked.

  Eternity lowered his head. “Ace.”

  The other youth nodded, looking as if his answer had changed everything. “My name’s Shadow. Stay behind me, and I’ll take you in.”

  As the two cyclists neared the furthest reaches of the Deserted Sector, Eternity began to notice that the buildings were of varying conditions—here and there among the black glass, skyscrapers were decrepit fossils of brick and concrete—archaic remnants of an age older than memory and the most visible sign of the lie the Providers’ reign represented.

  “There it is!” Shadow’s voice exclaimed over the monitor. Eternity didn’t have to ask what his new friend was talking about. On the outskirts of the Deserted Sector, and dwarfing everything around it, was a vast, concrete wall. Eternity caught himself holding his breath. In his childhood, he heard many stories about the Wall or, more specifically, what lay beyond it. The Beyond was a source of mystery and, just as often, fear to almost every inhabitant of the Black City. Legend in the City had it that, centuries ago, when the City was young—and few knew enough to guess how long it had stood—a great holocaust had occurred in the part of the City that was now the Deserted Sector. The Providers built the Wall, so it was said, in an effort to protect the people from any possible harm resulting from the residual effects of the catastrophe.

  No one in the City knew if the legend was true. Some believed it. Others had their own explanations. But all found a reason to avoid the Deserted Sector and what lay Beyond. It was the only Sector in the City nobody bothered using an abbreviation for. Most people tried not to talk about it at all.

  Another of the Providers’ mysteries, thought Eternity. Someday, I’ll find out all their secrets. Someday I’ll know their faces.

  “Pull up! Eternity, pull up!”

  Shadow’s voice brought Eternity to himself in time to see the Wall rising before him.

  “Pull up, Eternity, we’re going over!” Eternity touched the accelerator button on the hovercycle and pulled up on the directional control. The cycle veered upward, trailing a column of flame behind it as Eternity prepared to follow Shadow over the Wall. He felt the rush of excitement rise in him as the cycle climbed higher.

  “This is it, man!” Eternity could hardly hear Shadow’s joyful exclamation over the wind rushing in his ears as his cycle neared the top of the Wall. He pulled back on the control lever again.

  Higher. A little higher. Almost there— And then he saw it. Rising out of the rubble of the Deserted Sector, the Forgotten City seemed to Eternity like an unpolished diamond, more beautiful for its roughness. Just below him, he could see a great strip of black road flanked by clusters of buildings unlike any the Black City boasted. Far from uniform in their construction, theyappeared almost organic, as if they had sprouted from the des
olated ground of the Deserted Sector—the first buds to blossom after a great drought.

  “That’s our Business and Govsec in one,” Shadow told Eternity over his cycle’s intercom. “That’s where the Oldtimers live.” Farther in the distance, Eternity could see that the stretch of asphalt widened, and on the horizon gleamed spires of glass and steel, as bright as the towers of the City were dark.

  “What’s all that?” he asked Shadow, pointing.

  “You’ll see,” Shadow grinned. “Follow me down, though. I want you to meet some people in Oldtimer Town.” “Sounds good, man. I could use some new clothes, too.” * * * *

  The shop was an old one. It was small; small enough to be lost among the great buildings of the Black City. As he entered, his heart quickened. The shelves, tables, and nooks were filled with ancient goods—things that might have existed before the Providers came, before the City lost itself to repression and homogeneity. In one corner, he spied a ceramic cup, polished by age, crafted and painted with a precision and care no longer lavished on such things in the Black City, where economy and efficiency were everything. Inanother corner stood atall mirror, its wooden frame ridged and rotted with time. Eternity imagined he might look into its surface and see back to the time before the City rose. In this place, among its curiosities, he might find the answer to his constant question: If not gods, who? This place was old, and its age was its power.

  “Antiques, all of them. Guaranteed.” Eternityspun around at the sound of thevoice. Shadow stood by, smiling. The old man was nearly six feet tall and wiry, his slender but muscled arms and wrinkled, wizened hands giving him the look of an aged oak tree. His face, though, was strangely unlined, and out of it shone two still-youthful, blue eyes. He wore long, black pants of a material Eternity had never seen before and a sleeveless vest of rich red with no shirt under it. Onhis feet, were apair of well-worn, brown leather sandals. His head was crowned by snowy hair, which cascaded nearly to his waist.