by Tara Brown
I couldn’t imagine a man his age running and jumping like he was a child, and yet, there he was doing it.
He reached the pole, wrapped his hands around it and walked in a circle, like he was trying to make his mind remember.
He stopped and looked to the right. He pointed and walked away from the pole. He dropped to his knees after a moment and started to dig at the sand, spraying it back behind him.
He dug several holes and after a moment, he shouted excitedly.
We ran to where he had made a mound. There, on the desert floor, was a door. I frowned. Lyle and Greg helped him lift it up. He climbed down inside. “Follow me and listen carefully. This is a strange place.”
One by one, we dipped our bodies down into the hole in the ground.
Arms wrapped around my waist, helping me to land on my feet. I stood there in the shade and silence, waiting. Heartbeats and breaths were all that were heard as Michael pulled the door back down, sealing us in.
Again, I felt like maybe we had made a mistake in trusting him.
Suddenly, there was a snapping noise and sparks made a light. Michael grinned, holding a sparkling stick. “Follow me and stay close.” He walked quickly. Our feet made a sound like they did in the tunnels in the wall. I could see the red dress blowing in the breeze of my mind as we walked.
Michael almost glowed in the dark. I could tell we were in a vast space. He opened a metal door. We followed Michael to a room. I heard him fussing with things, and then suddenly something in the dark slammed and the lights flickered on. It wasn’t a constant light at first. We walked in a room with papers strewn about the floors. There were cupboards opened and things spilled on the floor.
“What is this place?” Greg asked.
Michael looked back. “I don’t know. I was brought here by one of the river people once. We were on a hunting trip, looking for bigger game. One of them stumbled upon this. It must be a lab or a facility of sorts.”
Lyle’s hand found mine in the shaky light. I squeezed his fingers tightly.
We walked down corridor after corridor, until he finally stopped in front of a silver door. He sighed and pressed a button. I almost told him not to; I didn’t want this thumb pad to lead them to us. Then I remembered, they had thrown us out.
The doors made a funny sound and then slid open.
Lyle put a hand on the frame of the elevator and looked around. “You’ve got to be kidding. You want us to go in this elevator? It’s got to be three hundred years old.”
He nodded. “Yes.” He stepped inside and smiled at us. “The good stuff is down.”
I put a hand up. “Wait—how did you discover the power panel and the elevator?”
He sighed. “I’ve come here every year since I left the city. I have explored it. I worked in maintenance in the factories in the city.”
The four of us looked at each other as if to find the answer on the face of the person next us. Greg stepped in. We followed him. Michael pushed the button.
“Where is the power coming from?” Lyle asked as the elevator lowered slowly in jerky movements.
Michael shrugged. “The lines run to a generator. I can only assume it’s the sun. I know the city runs on the sun, solar power.”
I frowned. “No, the windmills are where the power comes from. There is a massive field of them outside of the wall.”
Lyle nodded. “She’s right. I saw the maps of the windmills.”
Greg frowned. “I never saw any windmills when we left.”
“I believe they’re on the opposite side of where they evict people from the city.”
Amber looked lost, as she did frequently. I couldn’t imagine what it was like being with us all.
Michael sighed. “I saw the solar panels. I had to work on the converters a few times. There are no windmills.”
I gave Lyle a look. He raised his eyebrows in concern.
The elevator stopped with a thud. I groaned as we stepped off. The lights below were more constant. We were in a huge open space that looked like a hallway but it was wide and long. We walked down the long ramp to a huge set of doors. Michael opened them, giving us a grin.
I expected something to jump out at us. The smells were weird, dusty and fake almost, like smelling plastic. The light was on but still dim, as if it were the natural light coming in the window. The door creaked and seized part way. We had to slip through the crack between the two doors. Inside was something I had no way of understanding. There were seats at small tables in a cascading half circle around a huge screen. The floor was red carpet and the desks were wooden. The chairs were a plastic material, made into a scoop-looking seat.
It was so different from anything I had ever seen.
“Take a seat.” Michael waved at us as he bounded down the very wide stairs to the area at the bottom where the large screen was.
The room was huge and frightening, but I didn’t know why I felt that way. I guessed because it was unnatural for me to see something like it. Lyle took my hand in his. We hadn’t been touching much, as he hadn’t been touching me much. But he took my hand and pulled me into the seat next to him. He held my hand tightly.
Michael worked on something and then ran up to where we were. He beamed like a child receiving praise might. “I found this last time I was here. It runs the same as our screen in the city.” He pressed something and the screen lit up. It was bigger than any I had ever seen.
A man’s voice spoke over the grainy pictures we saw, “The ship was discovered several weeks ago, thought to be an asteroid at first but it began slowing down. We knew then what we had discovered. The extraterrestrial life form was untraceable, even as it landed in the desert. Oddly enough, it landed in Roswell. We felt this was significant, as that was the first landing site we had on record. As you can see when she—well, we are calling her a she, exits the ship, she is humanoid.” The picture was a screening of the pictures we had seen on the hill. The rounded thing flew down as a bird would, landing in a cloud of steam. The door opened and she, the pointed-head Lisabeth, climbed from the opening. The round thing was large, much larger than her. Several others walked from the ship after her.
“General Marcus Stanton met her for the first time. The meeting was peaceful. She expressed only an interest in helping us. She is willing to work with us to improve life on earth. Her motives, at this point, seem be out of general interest in saving our planet. She has studies that have been conducted and a map of the areas we are failing as a species. Her information is based on the experience of their own dying planet. At this point, we believe they have no wish to invade as there are only a handful of them left. This is based on their words and not research. We have pinpointed their planet in the galaxy. We can still see it as a planet, but apparently, it is destroyed. Their sun, though similar to ours, was much older and started its natural cycle into death. The heat it gave off in the last hundred years has cooked the surface of their planet. The water is gone and the planet is dust.”
I looked at Lyle. His face was what I expected mine to look like. He squeezed my hand.
The screen showed stars. “We are here and our sun is here. Their planet is here. Roughly eight hundred light years away. They have taken many years to reach us, explaining we are the only planet similar to theirs. We have taken the things she has said into consideration. The task you are facing is the decision of what to do with her recommendations.” The screen fuzzed out.
Michael looked back. “Interesting, is it not?”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand at all.”
Lyle pointed. “I have heard of this. The sun going through stages of its own evolution and the chance there is life in the stars. My father told me that there were mainly two kinds of people before. The ones who believed in a God who made the earth and ruled us with cruelty and expected sacrifice. The others were scientists who believed the earth had been created through a catastrophic event in space. There was always a belief that if we had life, why wouldn’t there be li
fe elsewhere?”
I gave him a look. “The books in the library that they told me I could read were about the God. The silly beliefs of the people who believed in the God and their way of life.”
He nodded. “Yes. I don’t know which is the truth. The science sounds more likely, but I don’t have enough information on either to make a guess.”
Greg looked ashen. “That means that the woman in the glass bed was one of these people who came from the round thing and the planet where the sun died?”
I nodded and pointed at the screen. “That specific one was the woman in the glass bed.”
Michael nodded. “And she is the superior engineer in the city. What does it all mean?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
Lyle nodded. “It means something. It must. Why would it all still be here if it was nothing? There is clearly something in the building that will tell us the who and the what of Lisabeth and our world. I wonder now if it ended the way they say it did.”
We sat for a long time just staring at the blank screen. My stomach hurt. The magic inside of it made me feel funny, like I was expecting something terrible to happen.
The Last City of Men
The walk back felt worse. I didn’t have the little bit of mystery and hope to make me even slightly want to take the trip back. I felt bogged down by the things I’d seen and the things I didn’t understand. They were many.
Lyle held my hand still. He hadn’t really let go of me since the screen.
I glanced at him. “It’s gone, you know?”
He frowned. “What is?”
“The love they made me feel for you. It’s gone.”
He looked sad but I smiled. “The way I feel about you now is my choice to feel this way.”
He shook his head. “Wait until Bran comes. Your feelings for him will supersede the ones you feel for me.”
I didn’t argue with him, but I didn’t believe his words to be a truth. They felt untrue in my heart.
The sand and the sun overwhelmed me. I was on the brink of shouting and crying at the same time, when Michael pointed at a mountainside. “We are going this way. You will see The Last City of Men is here, and I am not seeing a sand story.”
I laughed like I had gone mad and followed him. “I would do anything for a sand story right now. I am so tired of this desert, and this walking, and this heat. My brain is refusing to be tricked.”
Amber laughed. “Mine too. My body hurts like it never has.”
I scoffed. Clearly she didn’t recall the hike from The Last City to the river people.
As we walked, the sun moved along with us. Our shadows started on one side of us and slowly made their way to the other side. We reached the hill he had pointed to. My feet ached looking up at the climb.
Michael wiped sweat from his brow. “We will take a break here and then make the climb in the dark.”
We all plopped into the hot sand, moving it so that we sat in the cool layer underneath.
Greg wiped his face. “My eyes sting from the sweat. I swear I have never sweat like this before.”
I nodded. Lyle laughed. “I know I have. That first hike nearly killed me and Lisle.”
I frowned. “Were you the only people who left the city that night?”
He shook his head as his blue eyes darted about. He drank some of his waterskin. “There were many of us. Something happened to them. We walked down the road. When it came time to leave the road, only the girl agreed to come with me. We were halfway up the hill when the screams started.”
My skin shivered. “Monsters?”
He nodded. “I think so. We ran, her and I. We ran hard for the mountain of sand. The screams and noises were unbearable. They all died, I think.”
My hand slipped over my mouth, “Oh, that’s awful.”
Amber shuddered. “I don’t know what I would have done.”
Greg looked sickened as he grabbed her hand. “I told you what to do. I told you in the truck. They had stripped away your dress, stolen it. You were crying, but I told you not to. It would make it easier to run in your slip. I told you to run for the second hill you saw, and continue straight into the desert.”
Amber looked frightened. “I came to this place alone?”
Greg shook his head. “There was a lady and a man who came with you. The rest of your group probably died too.”
Michael watched us, and I watched him. Finally he spoke, “Those were not monsters. Those were men.”
Everyone else looked at him. The sun was setting behind him, making him scary as he spoke, “Those are bad people. The river people call them the slavers. They avoid them at all costs. Sometimes one or two of the river people go missing. They believe instantly that a slaver has stolen them.”
Lyle gave me a look. “Do they go after them?”
Michael shook his head. “They do not. They do not ever go up against the slavers.”
Amber moved closer to my brother. He wrapped an arm around her.
We all looked horrified as the sun set, and we could no longer see each other’s faces perfectly.
“We better hurry.” Michael stood and hurried up the long sandy hill. When he reached the top, he flopped onto his belly. We followed, lying next to him in a line at the top of the sand hill.
My mouth fell open. There, in the sandy desert, was the wall. He had been right. My eyes found the hole where I had screamed for the loss of my friend. I followed it out to the dusty road. But as I searched in the dust, I didn’t see it.
“This is the eviction side?” Lyle asked.
Michael nodded. “Yes.”
”Wow, you were right. I really am lost out here,” Greg muttered. But I pointed. “No tree. No tree and no red dress hanging from it.”
They paused with me, staring at the barren sandy road.
Michael frowned. “No tree. There never has been a tree there. I have watched the people be evicted and the slavers come from a spot just over there on that far hill. There has never been a tree.”
I looked at the huge wall and the glow of the city inside of it. “Is there another side where people are made to leave?”
He shook his head. “No. There is only one side that opens. I have worked on the gate before. They didn’t think I would remember it, but once the gate broke and they made the guards push the people from the top of the wall until we could get it fixed. I will never forget the sound of their screams, and then the sound they made when they stopped.”
I shuddered but processed it all. I dug my fingers into the warm sand and shook my head. “It’s not the same city.”
Lyle shook his head too. “No, it’s not. Is there even a large body of water here? Our city has a huge lake on its shores and a pier.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There is no water. I don’t know what a pier is. How is that possible? How is The Last City of Men not the last city?”
Greg looked at me and then Michael. “But the superior engineer looked like Lisabeth in both cities?”
Michael shrugged. “This is The Last City of Men. You two have a sand story in your heads.”
I pointed, almost angry, I was so confused. “This is not the city we came from. So it is clearly not The Last City. We have a massive lake and a pier that’s made of wood that floats on the water. We have windmills and a tree. There is a bloody tree with two dead people hanging from it. Now does the engineer in charge resemble the lady we saw on the screen or not?”
He looked puzzled. He thought for a moment. “She looks like her. Identical but not a pointed head or large like that. Last I saw, she was beautiful and like the rest of us, normal sized.”
We lay there, astonished, perplexed, and lost.
“So The Last City of Men is not the last city. How many are there?”
I looked at Lyle. “How many Lisabeth engineers are there?”
I flipped over onto my back, savoring the feeling of lying down on the warmth of the sand as the air got cool. “Essentiall
y, three hundred years ago or more, depending on the age of the screen story, Lisabeth the large and pointed lady showed up. She came from a dying world similar to ours. Somehow, it had died already but the man in the screen story could see it still. I don’t even see how that’s possible. Either you see it or you don’t. The Lisabeth lady knew how to save our dying world that to me didn’t look like it was dying in the screen story. Now three hundred plus years later, we are lying in the sand outside of The Last City of Men, which we have discovered is not the last. The Lisabeth lady with the pointed head and the engineers who run the two cities we know of look identical. Am I missing anything?”
Lyle flipped onto his back too. “Yes. The cities are controlled by the lack of memories. That is obvious.”
Amber gave him a look. “That was to stop the violence of yesterday and the bitterness.”
He pointed at her. “Prime example of that theory. Controlling us through fear was obviously the plan she had discussed with them. Maybe the stories of the resources, pollution, and depravity are true. Maybe some parts are true. Why else would they consider what she had told them as a plan if it wasn’t really bad?”
Greg sighed. “This is madness but it makes sense.”
I shook my head. “Why the Adam and Eve thing then? Why use my eggs and your seed to make the babies?”
Greg laughed. “So we don’t evolve to look like the river people.”
We all laughed.
Amber looked over at me. “I’m confused, Gwyn.”
I smiled at her. “You won’t be in three more months. You’ll remember it all. I’ve added so many things to your dailies.”
She nodded. She accepted that. For her, the whole thing was understandable. We were peaceful and weak. Amber wasn’t angry like the rest of us. She was complacent. She didn’t care about the past, not the way we did.
We lay there for a long time. The night sky filled with stars and the air got cold. I snuggled into Lyle, sucking the warmth from him. He kissed the top of my head and I pressed into it. I closed my eyes for just a second.
Visions danced in my head. I saw the factories, the orchards, and the cleanliness of the city. The clean control of it all was desirable, but at the same time, I was different. I saw the blank faces of the people around me. They didn’t know things were wrong or that it went against our nature. Their faces were always controlled and calm. In my visions, they were not in color but I was. I stood there in Amber’s commencement dress. I stood there with the red fabric whipping around me in the wind that never touched them. I tried shouting at them but they didn’t hear me.