by Clay Gilbert
You were the magic man, Ace. You had the moves, the lightning. When you were around, nobody got hurt. And Ace had helped him, too. Helped him reach his dream of getting out. Now he was out—not only free, but in the same place Ace had been, and he had to wonder where all the glamor had gone. Even Crown Avenue paled after a while. Well, almost, he thought with a grin. Where had it all gone?
The raids, the defiance, the things he’d never seen as wrong because it was never in his mind that they were raiding him, his City, that his parents might be killed—there just wasn’t any glamor to it anymore. What he said was law now in the Forgotten City, and Brain and Shadow were his two street messengers, putting out the word.
That was another thing: he rarely saw the streets at all anymore. Things had changed since Ace died. In Ace’s day, the Forgotten City’s leader could cruise Crown Avenue undisturbed, if not unnoticed. Now, though, the streetriders of the city had grown protective almost to a fault. Eternity had seen that in the assemblages outside the Leader’s Hall since the day he moved in: huge masses of leatherclad, bedenimed, cottoned, polyestered, black, white, red or multicolored, dreadlocked, mohawked, longhaired, nohaired or short-haired LOVE.
But do they love me, or just what I mean to them? Whatever they think that is. Did they still, he wondered, see Ace in his black leather and road-warrior attitude, or did they see him: a denim-clad dissident who was only concerned with peace?
What a split there was between the images and the realities of these two leaders. One had been all swagger and poise. The other all nervousness and oversensitivity.
That’s wrong, though, Eternity thought. Ace loved. He was sensitive. Ace had taken Shadow in when he had no one to turn to and nowhere to go. And I’m not weak, even if I don’t want to just burn it all down. But it had been, he reflected, Ace’s leather-and-fire bravado that rallied the streetriders to him. It was his defiance that scared the Providers—
Yeah, and got him killed, too. I’m not going to hide, but my way’s going to be different. He’d want it that way, and so do I. Eternity didn’t know if he had the attitude—the psychic glue—it would take to put the Forgotten Cityback on its feet for good and for all. He’d have to find out if he was really going to lead. He hadn’t spoken to the people since he’d become leader, but, hedecided, there was no better time than now.
* * * * Eternity heard the crowd calling his name. Standing in front of the Leader’s Hall—he decided to address them from down on Crown Avenue instead of from the balcony—he was surrounded by a throng of what seemed like at least a thousand people, maybe more. The early morning sun shone golden on the steel and glass buildings, and the sky seemed to blaze with scarlet and orange fire.
It’ll be a good day for a new beginning. I hope. He spotted Shadow in the crowd, then Brain, and a couple of other streetriders he knew by sight, if not yet by name. The whole vibe he got from the ‘riders was one of support, but also of challenge. They’d stand behind him, but they were going to make sure he had what it took as well.
Time to get started. “Myname is Eternity.”He smiled alittle, acknowledgingthe redundancy of the ritual greeting, but keeping it was his way of letting them know that yes, he did know the ways things were done. “I’m leader here now.” His eyes ranged over the crowd, locking with first one streetrider, then the next, ready to meet any sign of challenge.
“Ace is dead. He was my friend. He helped me when I was just another dome, another of the faceless faces in Their city. I wish he could be here. I wish he could, but he can’t. He’s dead.” He’d repeated the fact of Ace’s death as if to convince himself it really was true—that he was really going to have to do this alone. And the wonder of it was that the shock and sadness he saw on the faces all around him showed that they hadn’t come to terms with Ace’s death anymorethan he had. “Ace is gone, and I’m leader now.” There were tears in the eyes of some of the others, and in his own.
“We can make it. We can. Ace didn’t die for nothing. We’ll show them. We will.”
“How?” a voice shouted, in what could have been a jeer had it not sounded so lost. “We’ll survive, and we’ll wait. No more fighting—not unless they make us defend ourselves. No death. We won’t play their game. No domes are gonna disappear because of us. If we play it that way, there’s no difference between us and them besides the way we look. And that’s not how it’s gonna be.
“I don’t want to be a god. But somebody’s got to make decisions, and we’ve all got to stand by them. If any of you have problems with something I do or say, I want you to tell me. If you don’t have the guts to say it to my face, then be brave enough to stand by all of us. But if you don’t have the guts to do that—to stand by all of us, not just I— then you can check out. We won’t hunt you down like they do. So, anyway, Iknow this isn’t what some of you want to hear, but I’m asking you to trust me. For now, we wait.”
Eternity looked out over the faces of the crowd, reading contentment in most of the eyes he met. Most would be content not to have to fight again, and Eternity knew they were glad there was leadership in the Forgotten Cityagain— a leader they could see, touch, talk to, and put their faith in again. Eternity himself felt content. They’d accepted him, and he would lead as best he could. But then a blaze of ice swept over him as he saw all at once the blasted landscape of the war-torn City, divided from within.
I know this peace can’t last forever. Just let me hold the fighting off as long as I can. I know it’s gonna come. Just let things be still for just a little while.
* * * *
“Good evening, Citizens!
Rebel activities in the City remain at a standstill tonight, but official word from Govsec is that all Citizens are expected to do their part for the Providers in helping rid the City of any resistance. Anyinformation leading to the capture of the insurgents would be greatly appreciated. Live well!”
Jonathan’s father laughed over the static crackle of the glass wall fading back to silence. No information would be coming. No one wanted to be linked to the rebels, not in these quiet days. It was a false quiet, and more knew it than were letting on. Everyone in the Citywas silent for fear their loyalty would be questioned. Even something as harmless as an absence from work shifts in the Govsec could cause suspicion of a link to the so-called ‘terrorists.’ So he went to work, and tried to make his face as blank as those around him. He sympathized with those who kept their silence, for the same fear motivated him to keep up his charade of obedience—fear for his own life, and the life of his son.
His son—still missing. He was sure the boy had gone to join the rebels, and he could only pray he’d found them and was well hidden. For whatever—or whoever—the Providers were, they were just a shadow, obscured now by the clear and present terror their own fanatic followers awakened in the heart of the City.
* * * *
Brain was alone with the night.
The hovercycle generator purred an automated song of darkness and the road, even as his mind seethed with anger and frustration.
Why, Eternity? Why should we wait? Why not strike now, while they don’t suspect anything? But he knew that whatever Eternity’s reason, it was a good one. His friend had a good heart and a good mind. His leadership could be trusted. Brain touched the accelerator button on the cycle console, and the cycle began to climb again—then the Wall was in sight.
Brain started to panic. He’d never seen the Black City before, and the thought of going into the Providers’ domain filled him with a fear he’d never expected to feel.
But I’ve got to go. So I can understand. They’d all seen—Shadow, Eternity, Sentinel—all of them but him. He alone had led a sheltered existence in the Forgotten City—not only that, but in the Underground. Whatever Eternity’s reason for wanting to wait, it lay somewhere in the City beyond the concrete colossus now rising before him.
Brain’s first sight of the Black City left him breathless. I never thought it was this big. In every direction before him shon
e a vast sea of lights from towering black buildings, while here, just beyond the Wall, was a mass of wreckage. This is what the domes call the Deserted Sector. This is what they’re all afraid of. We live in the heart of their fear, and they live in the heart of mine.
He steered the cycle farther into the City, his destination the heart of the black glass expanse, the twin cores of the Providers’ empire: the Towers. His parents had told him, his friends had told him. That was where They were, if they were at all.
If I can just see them, just see what we’re against. No raids, man. Just a look. Just a chance to face my own fear, to know what we’re fighting for. To see who we’re waiting for.
The City sped by him, its buildings an army of frozen soldiers, uniform and unliving. Then he saw them: the twin Towers, black as the night itself, their lights flickering on and off like displaced, dying stars. Below them, long, grey columns of marching citizens strode back and forth, as if trying to wear a path in the earth itself to mark their vigil.
Brain brought the cycle down far enough that the lights of the Towers couldn’t find him, yet not so far that the marchers below would be able to see him. He hit the suspensor button on the cycle, afraid its generator would give him away. Then he merely floated in a lone, black unity with the night, held aloft by a flash of man’s own Promethean firescience.
These are the people we call domes. It was appropriate, he thought. They seemed less human and more some sort of automated simulation of men. But they’re people. And they’re afraid, because they’re not free.
He never thought about it—really thought about it. He had no reason. He listened, with a vague sort of fascination, to his parents’ tales of how life had once been in the City, before they came to join the rebels. But these memories had no meaning for him, and he cast them off like some troublesome second skin when the telling was done. And why shouldn’t he? He was free, wasn’t he? The Providers didn’t have any hold on him.
He thought of that night at the arcade on Crown Avenue, when he’d been the insider and Eternity was still new to the streets. They have eyes, man, eyes. The statement he made to Eternity all those months ago came back to him, and he understood, finally, what it really meant. It’d been a feeling he’d had, a feeling that not everyone in the Forgotten City was honest. That the Providers might really have eyes in the rebel community, people who still had family back in the Black City, people who could be persuaded to give up their ideals if they thought their family might be harmed.
Then there was the technology: the Providers’ real, tangible weapon in the Forgotten City. It was no speculation. There were no tracertabs or any other kind of surveillance in the Forgotten City—not that anyone knew of, anyway—nor should there havebeen, becausethe rebel communityexisted in a place where the domes were afraid to go, and that most didn’t even dare wonder about. The Net was a different matter. The Net was the technological core of the Forgotten City, yet within it lay the dissident society’s greatest liability. The Net was connected to—even originated in— the Black City. And since they kept close tabs on the Net, there was the possibility of discovery. Even the possibility they’d already been discovered, long ago. But that wasn’t all his words to Eternity had meant. There was something else there, something I didn’t see back then. As long as we’re afraid, as long as we’re—
“Look! One of the traitors!”
One of the domes below had spotted him, and five of them were pointing up at him.
Gotta fly. Right now. With a touch of a button, the cycle sprang to life, and in a space of seconds, he was in the air, far above the towers. Still, even then, he hesitated before looking back at the great black monoliths behind him.
Brain understood now why Eternity wanted to wait. Fear. That’s all it is, but, no—that’s not right. It’s a kind of love too, a misguided love. It’s not these people we’re fighting. They’re afraid of us, brainwashed into believing we’re some kind of evil, while we hate them right back for behaving in ways they’ve been taught are right all their lives.
Eternity had been one of them. Shadow, too, and Sentinel and most of the Forgotten City’s people. What had made them different? What hadmadethe quiet anonymityof being just another citizen not enough? He’d never had to make that choice.
If I’d had to, would I have been strong enough? That’s why he’d had to come here, with half amind to disobeyEternity’s order and strike at them anyway. He’d come, not to confront the domes or the Providers, but himself. As long as people feared, as long as people couldn’t defeat their fear, as long as there were people who didn’t know what they believed in or what it was worth, the Providers would always have eyes within the City.
We are the true eyes of our world, and if we’re blinded—we who risk the most because of who and where we are—then our world is blind, and there’s nothing to stop them doing anything they want. But if we know who we are, and why, they can never have us no matter how they try.
The lights of the City gleamed behind the flame-jets from the hovercycle as Brain headed for the far parts of the Black City and beyond the Wall and farther still, the Forgotten City, his home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“The City is in danger, according to Govsec sources, from the rebel forces, which, as of yet, still have been neither identified nor located. The official word is that all Citizens are still expected to give their all to help end the rebels’ reign of terror. It’s not clear whether the Providers themselves will speak to the people again soon, but some sources say it is likely. Keep safe, Citizens, and live well!”
Danger? Thought Jacob. What danger? There’ve been no new raids and no threats. Ever since that girl died—he remembered the day with a kind of bitter irony, since he was fairly sure no one would have made a fuss if he or one like him had died—the whole City had been in an uproar.
They try to make us think the rebels are so dangerous, and it works on some. It works on the people who march in front of the Towers, guarding them night and day against this socalled danger. Then a look as vacant as black glass filled his eyes, an emptiness with anger behind its mask. I wouldn’t march if I wasn’t afraid of what might happen if I didn’t. He thought of the gray-robed, shaven workers in their ceaseless clockwork parade. If I knew for certain They weren’t gods.
Perhaps, thought Jacob, I have more in common with the rebels than I thought.
* * * *
“Good evening, Citizens! “A citizen detainment occurred this morning, as two people were accosted after being overheard, in the words of Govsec spokespeople, ‘plotting against the Government of the City, and against the Providers.’ The people detained were workers in Govsec—”
No. Eternity cut off the monitor in his Leader’s Hall chambers. It’s starting already.
Just then, Shadow burst into the room, out of breath from running. “Did you hear?” He probably ran two blocks up the Avenue to ask me that. “Yeah, man. I heard. The domes are turning against themselves in Govsec.”
“It’s more than that, you know it is.”
“What more?” Eternity asked, although he already thought he knew. “They’ll kill them. Not out in the open, not yet, but they’re gonna die. Anyone that anyone thinks is going against the Providers. They’re gonna start killing each other now, because that’s what they think their gods are telling them to do.”
“Find Brain, then come back. We need to talk.”
Less than an hour passed before the three streetriders reconvened in Eternity’s chambers. “Man, you got to do something,” Brain said. “They’ll be coming for us next.”
“Not until their gods give the order,” said Eternity. “The domes don’t know where we are. They barely know we exist.”
“Oh, they know that,” Shadow said. “We took care of that in the old days, with Ace.” The look on his face said that was at least one thing he regretted about the old days. “Have you forgotten about the two domes that got killed?”
“No, man, I haven’t. That’s why
we can’t do anything until they do. Because if anyone remembers and connects it with that girl who got killed—” His voice trailed off, but there was nothing left to be said.
“But they’re taking people now. Just for being different.” “So what else is new?” Eternity asked.
* * * * The meeting was over, and it was almost dark. Brain had gone back to Crown Avenue to put the word on the street that the plan was still no plan, no action. He hadn’t liked it much, but he’d gone. Shadow and Eternity stayed in Eternity’s chambers for a long time after, talking about the troubles in the City, and the troubles on their minds. Shadow hadn’t wanted to leave Eternity when Brain did. He saw something troubling his friend that went beyond the concerns of the Forgotten City’s safety. And he knew what it was.
“It’s your parents, right?” he asked Eternity. “They’re still in the City.” Eternity only nodded.
Shadow said nothing more until he heard Eternity’s whispered reply:
“I’ve got to go back for them. If I don’t, they’ll kill them. Sooner or later, they’ll kill them.” Eternity and Shadow rode the elevator down to the lobby of the Leader’s Hall in silence. They walked outside together into the chill night air, and Eternity started toward his hovercycle. Then the sound of Shadow’s voice behind him brought him to a halt.
“Wait a minute, man. You want me to come with you?” Eternity smiled. “Thanks,” he told his leatherclad, rainbowhaired friend, “but this is something I’ve gotta do myself. I’ll be alright. Iknow the City. Don’t let anyone know I’m gone. I’ll try to get back as soon as I can, but I’ve got to go. Now.”
Shadow thought of his own father, then nodded. “I understand.” His expression brightened, and he and Eternity exchanged the handshake that was the sign of brotherhood among the streetriders. “Take care of yourself, man,” he told Eternity. “I’ll hold things together here while you’re gone. You just get back in one piece.”
“Will do,” Eternity said. The cycle’s rear engines roared flame, and, generator humming, rose into the air. Eternity pressed the accelerator button on the cycle console, and Shadow watched the cycle as it and his best friend gradually became only a point of light on the distant horizon.