by Clay Gilbert
“No problem,” said Jude.
* * * *
“It’s the biggest crowd we’ve had yet,” Eternity told Angel as they sat on the holohouse’s stage, waiting for everyone to find their seats. Not only was the auditorium filled to capacity, but there were people jamming the aisles and crowding the entryways. They’d left the doors to the place open, and the whispers and shouts of still more gathered on the streets outside could clearly be heard.
“We need them now,” Angel said. She returned from Oldtimer Town that morning, bringing his parents, Sentinel, Ariadne, and Ariadne’s parents along with her. Angel caught sight of Ari near the front of the crowd, and smiled at her. They needed people like Ari—people who were shapers and makers, people who could get things going—more than ever, now.
“Every time we’ve gotten together,” Eternity began, “I’ve talked about change. It’s always happened, but I’ve never been able to see it ‘til now. This is change—all of us here like this. It’s been coming for a long time—in trickles, in whispers, like a stream running down to the river, like a river finding its way to the ocean. But now we’re the ocean, and the tide’s ours to ride. And we will, but we’re gonna have to be careful, because something I’ve been afraid of for a long time is true. They know we’re here.”
Eternity thought it was probably old news on the streets by now, but silence fell over the crowd when he said it— whether because they didn’t know or just didn’t want to believe, he couldn’t say.
“That’s right. I didn’t want to believe it, either, when I heard it, but when Jude explained,” he pointed Jude out in the crowd, “how he found out, I knew it was true.”
“What are we gonna do now?” some streetrider shouted out in the crowd.
“We’re gonna have patience, man, for one thing,” Eternity said, and smiled. There were a few laughs from around the auditorium. “We’re not just going to ignore this. Jude’s going to go back into the City, undercover, to see what he can find out for us. We have to know how they located us, how they’ve kept track of us, and what we can do about it. He’s also going to see if he can find out just how much they know about us. Brain and some of the other Undergrounders are going to check their records down there for any more info, and study the City’s power grids. We’ve already managed to pull the plug once, and if we can do it for longer, maybe the Citizens will get to do some thinking of their own about what’s goin’ on. They’ve been watching us, for longer than we’ve known, and they know a lot more about us than we do about them, but if we don’t let them know that we found out—at least not yet—we’ll come out ahead. They have to be scared of us. That’s the only thing that makes sense. And we’ll use it, if we have to.”
“What about the raids? Ain’t we gonna do something?” Eternity recognized the voice now. It belonged to Scarab, a streetrider heand Angel had met out on Crown Avenue when they’d spent a night dancing at one of the new clubs there. A good guy, but he’s a little too in love with the way he heard Ace did things, and he wasn’t around then any more than I was. We need people like him, though. At least he’s got the heart to make something happen.
The replying ripples of sound in the crowd told Eternity that Scarab wasn’t alone in wondering.
“No, man, nothing like that. We’ve already made a few raids—just for supplies—and we’ll keep that up as long as we can without being noticed or getting anyone hurt, but we’re done with the old ways. If we attack—and I’m not ruling that out—it’ll be in the open, in numbers, once we know a little bit more about what they’re up to. Once Jude’s done alittle pokingaround, he’ll let me know, and then we’ll decide. We’re not gonna let them step on us forever—don’t think that—but we have to do this right.”
Angel, watching the faces in the crowd, saw smiles on the faces of many of the Oldtimers—including Eternity’s parents. They knew that Eternity loved freedom as much as Ace had, but he was different, too. He used reason, put the good and the safety of his people above his desire to overcome the Providers. He made sure that everyone knew that’s what he wanted, as much as any of them.
And after everything they’ve done, Angel thought, who’d blame him? A tall, gaunt, youngman with frost-white hair and apale cast to his skin stood up in the crowd and began to make his way down toward the stage.
Funny, Eternity thought, I didn’t even see him here. We hardly ever see him. But it is his place, after all. He watched people scrambling out of the way to let the Prophet pass.
Angel caught herself clutching Eternity’s arm, then took a deep breath. The Prophet still frightened her, although she didn’t understand why. She didn’t understand him, either, but that shouldn’t matter.
We don’t judge people here just because we don’t understand them. She was frightened of Eternity, too, once, although the memory of those feelings seemed to belong to another person, another lifetime.
“What’s going on, man?” Eternity asked the Prophet, when the pale youth reached the foot of the stage. “You don’t look so good.”
The Prophet’s skin, always pale, had taken on a jaundiced tinge, his skin shone with sweat, and his fingers were trembling.
People shifted in their seats, and here and there could be heard a cough or even a laugh. “Come on, people,” Eternity said. “Cut it out. He’s one of us. Now,” he said, turning back to the Prophet, “how can I help?”
“I want to help you, man,” the Prophet said.
“You alreadydo,” Eternitysaid. “If you didn’t let us use your place, I don’t know where we’d all meet.”
“You’d find somewhere else. You’d make it happen.” “It wouldn’t be the same,” Eternity told him. “You’re important around here, man. You’ve got a real gift.” “That’s what I want to talk to you about,” said the Prophet. “The dream-drugs. I’m trying to quit.” The Prophet’s use of the dream-drugs wasn’t a secret, but Eternity was still shocked to hear him speak about it with so many other people around.
“I’m trying, man,” he went on, “but I don’t want to give up the visions.” The Prophet looked around at the assembled crowd, and was surprised to see understanding in more than a few faces. More than one pair of eyes met his own, and he found a sense of welcome he hadn’t felt since his first days in the Forgotten City.
Angel looked up at the Prophet, met his crimson eyes. He just wants to belong, like I did—like we all do.
“How do you know you’ll have to?” she asked. “Come on!” His voice almost cracked with desperation and fear. “The dream-drugs caused the Sight in the first place. They had to. Without them, I won’t be the Prophet anymore. I won’t be me.” His hands trembled even more.
He’s wrong, Eternity thought. But he doesn’t see it. “So why give them up?” “I’m tired of being alone. People are afraid of me. No matter how much they seem to respect me, I look too weird, sound too strange, and see too much forthem. OnlyAce, Brain, and you were different.”
“We’re all different here,” Angel said. “I guess sometimes people forget.” “It’s not just that. I could live with being different. I even like being different. But I don’t like people being afraid of me, and this.” He tapped the silver syringe that, despite his desire to quit, still occupied its customary pocket in his robe. “This makes me weak. So weak I can hardly move sometimes. It makes me look old, even though inside, man, Iknow I’m young.Andsometimes after thevisions are gone, I’m even sick. And sometimes there’s blood.”
Eternity and Angel exchanged horrified looks.
“I have to quit,” the Prophet said softly. “I have to.” “I’ll help you, man,” said Eternity.
“Any of us would,” the streetrider called Scarab said from his place in the crowd.
“How long’s it been since you had a dose?” Eternity asked. “Long enough,” the Prophet said in a weak voice. “Couple of days—three, maybe.”
“And the visions?” Eternity asked. “You think they’re gone?”
“Don’t kno
w. I think so. I don’t—feel like I used to. When I had them, I mean. And look at me. My hands—” “What made you want to quit?” “Tired. So tired of being dependent. On a fix. For the sight.” Short gasps punctuated each phrase. “Wanted to help. Fight Them.” He paused finally to catch his breath. “I wanted to show them I could stand on my own. Like you.”
Eternity smiled. It was quite a compliment coming from the Prophet who never before showed much desire to be out among the crowds in the Forgotten City or seemed to need anything beyond the sights his visions showed him.
“You will, man,” Eternity said, clasping the Prophet’s pale, thin hand. “You will.”
Eternity turned back to the crowd for a moment. “We’re done here for today. I may call another meeting soon, but until I do, stay put, and stay out of the City.”
Eternity sat on the stage after the last of the crowd had left the auditorium, lost in his own thoughts, a reverie as deep as he imagined the Prophet’s trance states to be. He might have stayed like that indefinitely, but for the sound of Angel’s voice.
“Eternity, we have to do something.”
Eternity turned back to see her kneeling down and cradling the Prophet’s fallen form in her arms. “It happened just now,” she said, “like he had just enough strength to wait until the others were gone.” She pressed her fingers to his throat, felt the pulse there. “He’s still alive, though.”
“We’ll stayheretonight,”Eternitysaid. “He’s strong.He can fight this. But we’ll be here if he needs us.”
We all need each other now, Eternity thought. On both sides of the Wall. I just hope we can remember that.
* * * *
Another vision? The Prophet thought, looking out on the darkness. At first there was no light, and then, gradually, a soft glow that seemed to have no source—like a sunrise freed from the horizon’s moorings—suffused the space before him.
Another vision, yes. Maybe the last one. The Sight beyond sight. Whatever came of this moment, he knew it had to be. This victory had to be won first, before he could help the others to face the Providers’ power. Even if winning meant giving up his own.
The golden glow spread and strengthened, settling over his body, warming him. Could this be the Sight? But I’m not dosed—haven’t been.
He felt like he was floating apart from his body, as he often did when the dream-drugs held him in their trance, and yet he was acutelyaware of everything around him. He found he could hear the whirring engines that powered the holographic generators out in the lobby, and the rush of his breath and the rhythm of his heartbeat were like sounds out of stories—the roar of a great river, the surge of a sea against cliffs of coral—sights that were never seen in the City, or, so far as he knew, in the lands beyond it, but which haunted his visions more than once.
How much have we forgotten? And how much has been hidden from us?
How much do we hide from ourselves? Another voice, one that wasn’t his, inquired inside his mind. I’m tired. So tired. And he was afraid. Afraid that if he moved from the auditorium, so long the place of his visions, he would lose them.
Not so, the other voice said. Remember the light? “Yes,” he murmured aloud.
Was that the drug? The phantom voice asked.
“I—I don’t know,” the Prophet said. He looked down at his hands. They were trembling worse than ever, and beads of sweat shone against the white flesh of his clenched, bony hands. Dazed for a moment, he turned his hands over, opened them, and looked at his wrists, at the veins that snaked their way like blue tributaries down the length of his arms and through his body, feeding his physical existence the way the Sight had fed his spirit. Or had that been the drug?
What if everything I’ve done, everything I’ve been, has just been empty? The tracks on his arms were mirror-veins, tracingthe path of his life in the shadow of the silver syringe, in the service of the Sight.
I need a dose. His fingers found their wayto the silver casing in its pouch, crept inside, caressed its cold assurance of an end to all his doubts—
No. No. I won’t. I can’t. I promised Eternity. I promised— myself. When he opened his eyes again, his heart raced in horror. The needle-tracks were bleeding, weeping great red lines down his arms, but he felt nothing. The drug must have deadened my nerves—but I haven’t dosed—where is all this blood coming from? It continued to flow until his arms felt slick with it. I’m going to die. I’m going to die—
Going to— In that moment, the golden glow overtook his eyes again, but instead of feeling as if his body were beyond him, the Prophet found he felt completely present within himself for the first time in years.
No. I am not dying, and this is a dream. The last of the drug. And I still have the Sight. And there is no blood.
“No blood,” he said, intoning the words like a prayer. “No blood.” When he opened his eyes, the truth of the words brought him to tears. The scarred tracks on his arms were only the shadows of a time that was over for good, now.
I’m so tired. He closed his eyes, saw Eternity and Angel, lying together in one of the great holohouse’s auditoriums, asleep in each other’s arms. He saw Ace, as clearly as if he were alive again.
You won your fight, man, Ace told him. Now help them win theirs. I always believed in you.
“I will,” said the Prophet, and fell asleep in golden light, dreaming of a destiny still somewhere ahead.
* * * * I hate this place, thought Jude. Too many memories, and none of them good. The inside of the skycar Jude rode in was cold. Just like the rest of this place.
He wondered what they’d say when he returned. He didn’t expect it’d be easy just to walk back into his old world, his old life, no questions asked. He saw the Towers, their spires seeming to laugh at him in silver peals of moonlight on glass and steel.
You couldn’t get away from us. You never will. Traitor. Am I a traitor? Jude wondered. Is that why I hate the Towers so damn much? Because I left? He closed his eyes, waiting for the skycar’s approach to the Towers, like a condemned man waiting for the firing squad to sever him from life. I believed in truth, he told himself. I believed in truth. Not their truth, but what is True. Freedom of thought, freedom of will, freedom of belief. They know there is a place beyond the City. They know they aren’t gods. And still they pretend.
I may be a traitor to you, Jude told the gleaming Towers, but I won’t be a traitor to myself. Not anymore. The skycar touched down at Central Station, and its doors slid open with a sound like a strong breeze. Jude stepped down to the platform and pulled his coat-collar tight against the chill of the night air. He decided no one was watching, then descended the station’s ramp into the streets of the Black City. The night shift was about to begin.
* * * * Eternity sat alone, his thoughts far away. He and Angel had made love, and afterward, they lay together for a moment, still joined. He remembered tracing a line down her belly, through the soft curls of hair, to the warm, wet place between her thighs where they were fused as one.
“This is what they’re afraid of, you know,” he said, touching her—touching them, together.
She kissed him, and smiled, brushing sweaty locks of hair away from her flushed face. “I know.”
“I used to think about this, with you—when I watched you on the screencasts at night.”
She raised an eyebrow, made a face at him in feigned shock. “No!”
“Yes.” He grinned, then grew serious again. “Did you ever? Think about it, I mean.” “Yeah. I used to wish someone would come along who’d push their voices out of myhead. Ithought maybe that’s why the thoughtfeeds all the Cityfolk are brought up on treat sex like it was something people did in the history books, and nothing to do with us now. But I could feel that part of me that wanted someone—wanted you—even though I didn’t know it then, and I knew it was a lot more than that. They want us to forget the whole heartbeat of the world, Eternity.”
He kissed her then, and they’d started all over again, and w
hen it was over that time, Angel fell asleep. Eternity just laid there listening to her breathing for as long as he could stand it. Then he got up and wandered the long halls of the holohouse, knowing the Prophet was dreaming his own dreams somewhere in one of the dark auditoriums.
That was what this place was for, once. This was a place where people came to dream, and there are no places like it left in their world.
What made Them so afraid of dreams, of life, of imperfect, ragged, beautiful humanity? Who had decided that freedom was a crime, and when?
They decided it. When didn’t matter.
And they know about us. And they know us. Maybe not fully, but they know enough. He thought of the past; of the doubts he had about his purpose in the Forgotten City, doubts crowded from his life in the path of the wheel. There was no time for doubts anymore—not for him. It was too important to be sure.
But I’m just a kid, the scared, lonely part of him cried, as it often did when he could isolate himself with his thoughts. I’m only seventeen.
Angel was only sixteen, he told himself, and she was a fighter. He’d do what he had to—he always did. He pushed away the doubting voice. There was no reason the young couldn’t decide what they believed and act on it. No reason the heart of youth had to be turned always inward, upon its own needs.
Just then, a soft footstep startled Eternity, and, realizing who it belonged to, he smiled. “Couldn’t sleep anymore?” Angel shook her head. “Nope. It’s cold in there by myself, and I missed you.” She sat down next to him, wrapped an arm around him, and pressed close. “Why’re you still up?”