by Tara Brown
He lowered his face to mine but I shook my head. “Your kisses disgust me. They make me feel like I am lying to myself about what you are in life, compared to Lyle.” I knew it would cut him. His hands balled.
“You’re lying.”
I laughed bitterly. “I am not. I wish I could see past the orchard boy, but that’s all you will ever be.” I pushed him back and walked to the front door. “Tell Lyle I will meet him at my parents’ house. I have some things to get.” I walked out the front door, completely blinded by tears. I ran, hard to the station. The tram came as I got there. I boarded quickly. When I sat down, I saw Lyle and Bran both running for the tram. The doors closed as they arrived. I kept my face down but I heard the slamming fists on the door as the tram moved forward.
Two stops later, I ran for my parents’ house.
I opened the door with my code. My mother beamed. “Hey, you.” She looked at my face. “Are you alright?”
I nodded. “Just homesick. I need to get a few things I didn’t get.”
She frowned. “We packed your whole room.”
I nodded. “I know. I just miss it.” I hugged her, smelling the way she smelled like a mom.
I let her go and walked to my room. I closed the door and sat on my empty bed. There was nothing in the room. They had packed it all. But I sat there on the mattress, running my fingers back and forth along the notches of my bed. Each one was a night spent with Bran as poor Lyle watched.
My father came in with a concerned look. “You alright?”
I sniffled, noting how tired he looked. “Yeah, I just need to adjust.”
He grinned and sat bedside me. “You have memories now?”
I nodded.
He glanced at me. “How is that?”
I shook my head. “Strange.”
He snorted and took my hand in his. His fingers were long and thin. The hands of a technologist. He pulled me from the bed and out to the front door.
He smiled. “Let me walk you to the tram station.”
I kissed my mother and hugged her extra long. The trapped feeling inside of me was slowly breaking the last of the things holding back my emotions. I took one last smell. “I love you, Mom.”
She nodded. “Me too, honey. Bring Lyle out next week for dinner. Message me to let me know you’re coming, and I’ll get extra food.” She winked. “You’ll be the one to remember it.”
I laughed and almost cried. “I will.”
We walked out of the house slowly, gripping each other. “It’s hard to remember everything in a world where no else does. Sometimes you feel like they’re frozen and you’re the only one who sees. It’s a lonely life.”
I started to cry.
“I learned to love her, Gwyn. She grew on me and he will too. I always suspected you remembered things that you shouldn’t. Maybe not quite like me and able to recall every detail of half a decade, but enough to know things you shouldn’t. The love memories won’t work properly but that doesn’t mean you can’t one day love him.”
I was trembling. I wanted so badly to keep the secret but I couldn’t. I needed one person to see the sacrifice I was making. “It isn’t that I don’t love him, Dad. I have risked him and me and everyone here.”
My father frowned. “What?”
I nodded. “He remembers every day, always has. The engineers don’t know that and they’re going to harvest my eggs and his seed and use it in the rotation of what they already have to make the babies of the future. They will unwittingly use Lyle’s tainted DNA to make the new babies that will be people who will remember everything too. I have compromised his safety and have to leave before he gets kicked out for being with me.”
His fingers bit into my arms. “You’re leaving?”
I nodded.
He spun me savagely. “You can’t leave the city.”
I gripped him back just as hard. “I have to. Amber is dead beyond the wall, hanging in a tree. Brooke has been kicked beyond the wall, and both because of me. The mistakes I have made have already cost lives. I must leave and cut Amber down and burn her body. I need to give her the last respects. Lyle is the future. He is the solution. I am nothing.”
My father shook his head. “No, he isn’t. You think they won’t notice the first wave of babies is the kind who remembers things?”
I shrugged. “His father has a plan.”
He moaned, “Oh Gwyn, everyone has a plan. We have to just try to survive this. Stay and hide, I will protect you.”
“Dad, I will not let The Last City of Men be a place where people have no will. This place is a prison, not a paradise. People love for all the wrong reasons. People are hurt, murdered, and shoved beyond the wall and no one saves them. Not just that, but I have already seen things I shouldn’t have. There was a woman in a glass bed. She looked like the superior engineer, Lisabeth, but she was different. She was massive in size and her head was pointed. She was floating in water, dead, I think. I don’t know why they have her in the water. I don’t know what she was, but she was not like us.”
His eyes lit up with tears and anger. “Please stay, baby. Don’t go. You’ll do nothing but fight the whole time out there.”
I kissed his cheek. “I love you, but I’m doing this for everyone else.”
He paused and then suddenly a fiery panic spread across his face. “Stay clear of The Lost City then. The engineers know all about it. There is a road when you leave the gates. Follow it and turn right at the second hill. Then hike into the dusty hills. They will find you. Your brother knows of these places. He’s told me about them, in case I ever get caught.”
I shook my head. “How do you know all this?”
He laughed. “Gwyn, it’s what happens when they think you won’t remember tomorrow. They talk in front of you.”
I frowned. “Has Greg always been—?”
He nodded. “Like me? Always. He became a guard. They lie and tell them they’ll be memory makers but they’re guards. They don’t give them memories either. So he has spent the last four years working as a guard, pushing people out of the wall and using force to hurt people who rarely know the difference. The others don’t usually remember, but he does.”
“Oh no.”
He sighed. “Yes. So his memory is intact. He remembers everything he has ever done.”
I frowned. “Who are the memory makers then?”
“There are none. The engineers are it.”
A shout resounded off the houses from behind us, “GWYN!” I turned to see Lyle storming up the road. I looked at my father. “I love you, Daddy.”
He swallowed with force. “I love you more, Gwynie. I love you so much. I think I am dying inside right now.”
I kissed his cheek. “Take care of Mom.”
He kissed back. “I will. Be safe.” He waved at Lyle. “Night, Lyle.”
The sweet and kind Lyle was gone. He stormed up, controlling himself just barely. “Goodnight, sir.” I could see he was shaking.
I waved as he turned away and I turned to Lyle.
He gave me a sickened look. “What is going on?”
I walked toward the tram. “We need to talk. This is not going to work. I’m completely in love, the real kind, with Bran. I refuse to marry you and feel that way about him. I don’t believe in the forced marriages on a good day. I can’t imagine spending my entire life wondering how he is and if he’s with someone else.”
He grabbed my arm. “Give me a chance. It’s been days. I love you, Gwyn. I always have. I never told anyone or let on about it, but I have loved you since day one of behavioral school. You were so perfect. That day that your dog died was brutal. You were so sad. You stood up in class and told everyone he had died the day before. You even said yesterday. I knew you shouldn’t remember that and so did Mrs. Barker, but she just put it in the report. She never called them about it because I erased it from the report at the end of the day. I knew that day that I could help you. I taught you things the other kids never got taught. Words and ideas
and everything.” His eyes were desperate, and my heart was broken.
I bit the inside of my cheek to force myself to say the cruel and angry thing, “I could never love you. Not as much as I will always love him. You just aren’t enough, not compared to him.”
His face crumpled. He shook his head. “Whatever you’re doing this for has my father written all over it. Just stop. Just stop and be with me and we will make this work together. I know he told you I’m going to make the babies be the kind who remember. I know you know how important it is, but this—me and you, it’s more. You are more to me than the whole world. Just stop.”
I blinked the tears down my cheeks. “I can’t be with you. I don’t want to. You loving me is not enough.” I was dying inside.
He looked ready to scream. “I will love you enough for us both. Bran doesn’t even know you. He spent twenty-six nights kissing you in a dark hallway. What is that compared to fourteen years loving you and protecting you?”
I shrugged. “I want to go home and resign from my designation.”
He grabbed my hand. “I won’t let you.”
I jerked free. “You need to worry about yourself. You’re responsible for everyone, Lyle. Everyone.”
The tram was miserable. He sat across from me. I wanted to feel his warmth and his love. Now that he mentioned, I could remember all of it. It was fuzzy, like it was distant from me but it was there. I liked him, a lot. But he was worth far more than I was.
When we got to the house, we went to our separate bedrooms. I stood inside of my closet and pulled on a few layers of clothes. I didn’t know what else to do. I pulled on my most comfortable shoes and walked to the kitchen. I stuffed some whole food bars into my pockets and I opened the kitchen drawers to find the utensils. We had one knife for cutting things. I reached in, pretending I was grabbing a spoon to eat a pudding with, and instead, shoved the one knife up my sleeve. I pulled a pudding from the fridge and dug into it.
Fresh bread pudding was something I had only eaten on very special occasions. It had been part of the foods that were left for us.
He came out, giving me a deadly glare. He walked up, pressing my back into the fridge and pushing his lips on mine. I closed my eyes and let the kiss be everything I would miss, if I didn’t find a way to die at the tree.
“Stay with me.”
I shook my head.
“Then let me come with you.”
My lips pressed into his harder. “Save them all, Lyle. Do that for me. If I don’t come back, you know that you know nothing. I acted weird and told you I wanted to talk to Lisabeth.” I kissed him one last time and turned, walking out of the door. He didn’t follow me. He assumed I was going to speak to Lisabeth. I pressed my thumb on the elevator and stepped inside.
When I got to the main floor, I walked out to the street. The cool night air made my layers of clothes not too bad.
I walked to the place I assumed was the best bet.
I passed the torches and the buildings that were like whispers of a dream. When I got to the entrance to the tunnel, I passed it. I walked until I was in the alley. I stood there looking at the wall. It was huge. Steal and beams put together so tall the highest buildings could barely peek over the top.
The memory of Amber was real and painful. If I quieted my mind enough, I could still hear her screams and the thuds of the people’s bodies being hit.
I sat on the ground across from the wall and waited. My butt hurt but I didn’t want to move. I wanted the pain to make me braver than I was.
It wasn’t long before I felt the rumble of the machine. It was a truck. I hadn’t seen them before but I knew. I sat there until it backed up all the way to the alley where I was.
The metal doors swung open and people started being pulled out. I got up and joined the group of them quickly. I was shoved from behind. I nearly stumbled but I caught my footing. Everyone around me was screaming and pleading. I was the only person who walked to the wall as it opened. The dusty road was ahead of us but we could barely see it. I saw the thickness of the wall and hurried. It wasn’t huge, but I didn’t want to be like the person with the arm.
I didn’t look back. The Last City of Men would stand a better chance with me gone from it.
The screams and sounds of begging worsened as the wall started to close again. In the sounds of the wall and the screams, I would swear I heard my name being screamed. I almost closed my eyes in fear, but I knew where I was going. My eyes betrayed my strength and forced my body to look back. The small hole on the wall screamed my name again. I forced myself to breathe and push on. It was too late.
The road was soft. The dust made it feel like walking on fabric.
My feet moved quickly; they didn’t trust the people behind me, and my heart didn’t want to dwell on the things being done to it. The things being taken away.
In the dark of the night, I could see it a little but I could hear it perfectly. It was exactly how I had imagined it would sound. The thin material made a delicate noise in the light breeze.
I walked toward it, the sound called to me. When I got close enough, I could smell it. There was a thick difference to the air near the tree.
I had no light to shine and see if it was her or not. I got close but my body wouldn’t move.
“It isn’t her,” words were mumbled next to me.
I knew who they belonged to instantly. My head snapped to the side. His hand moved and a light flashed on the dead face of the girl in Amber’s dress.
I breathed deep for the first time since she had died.
“It’s not her,” he mumbled again.
I frowned at him. “How did you know?”
He sighed. “They stole her dress in the truck in front of me. She ran into the night in her slip.”
I leaned against him. “I saw her fight. I saw her in the dress.”
He shook his head. “You saw what you believed was a truth and it was not. The girl and Amber looked very similar. Amber never fought and screamed. She ran into the night. She knew where she was going.”
I sighed, relieved and yet not. “I’m sorry I got you into this, Greg.”
He shook his head and wrapped an arm around me. “I would rather die in this desert free, than spend one more day living that life.”
I smiled at him as tears rolled down my cheeks. I sobbed a bit but he shook his head and turned off the flashlight. “We need to hurry.”
The sobbing people behind us caught up.
“Where do we go?”
“What will happen to us?”
“We’re going to die out here.”
I turned and faced them. “We need to walk fast.”
Greg pointed his light in front of us. “This way.” He started walking. I followed him, trying hard not to look back. There was nothing back there but the outline of the city and the glow of the lights.
Dustlands
My feet ached. My mouth was dry like the hills we climbed. The breeze was warmer than I had ever felt. I turned, hearing a noise behind me. A man was on his knees, sobbing.
I watched as my brother looped the man’s arm around his neck and lifted him from the ground. Greg was strong and fit, far more so than he had ever been as a boy at home. The thin, broken man didn’t even hang on to help him out. He had collapsed mentally.
“Where are we?” a woman whispered to me.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I thought about the food in my pocket as the sun climbed higher in the sky. They had stayed awake and not reset. I could see the weight of it on their dirty faces.
I knew that burden.
I slumped into the sand and started emptying my pockets. “I have food, but we must share it so everyone gets some.
The hungry, panicked faces looked like they might take it or hurt me. Greg lowered the still crying man to the sand and stood next to me. He held the black thing in his hands. “This is a gun. If I pull this trigger it will shoot a piece of lead into your body, killing you.”
The
eyes stopped watching the food and started watching the gun.
“That is an untruth.”
Greg jerked his hand to the left, making a loud noise. All of us slapped our hands to our ears, screaming from fear of the unknown.
The delicate emotions of the people next to us snapped. One woman began to cry, while another rocked with her hands over her ears still. A man held himself, muttering aloud.
We were a weak and pathetic mess.
I looked at the seven bars from my pockets. There were twelve of us. I passed one bar to my brother. “Guard that.”
I took each bar and broke it in half, passing a piece to each person.
We ate slowly, stuck in events that had occurred. Each face was dirtied with sand and whatever it was the wind carried. Our hands were filthy from wiping tears away. But the worst were the eyes, each set haunted by the loss of everything.
“I know too much. I am aware of things I am not allowed to know. That is why I had to leave.”
I looked at them each. A woman shook her head as if she didn’t want it to be true, but her lips moved anyway, “I remembered something yesterday. It was a man being dragged to an alley by a man dressed like you. I went to my physician and told him like they tell us to do. The man dressed like you picked me up from there.” Her eyes flickered to my brother.
He nodded.
The still-sobbing man muttered, “I kept a journal, a memory journal. My wife turned me in for it.”
One of the women pressed her mouth together. I stared her down. Finally she whispered, “I was turned in by a fellow teacher for telling the children in my class that if they remembered things that made their tummies hurt, they should never tell anyone.”
I took a bite of the whole food bar. I didn’t like it. I could swear I tasted beets, but I swallowed anyway.
My brother cleared his throat. “I have remembered my whole life. I have never reset a day ever. I got a designation to work for the memory makers but that doesn’t exist. I worked as a guard instead. I was told every day that the memory makers were picked from the best guards. I knew this to be untrue. I discovered there were no memory makers. Everything was done by physicians and the engineers.”