by Tara Brown
He swam toward me with a devious look in his eyes. “When this is over and we are settled somewhere,” his eyes darted at The River City, “you and I are going to lie in a field of grass, sip a cold drink, and try hard as hell to forget all of this.”
I grinned back at him. “I don’t want to forget, though. I want to kill them all and take back the cities. I want to end the memory making and the forced love. I want to make the city run the way The River City does. I want to change it all.”
His blue eyes sparkled like the water. “All this from the girl who wanted to forget at the start.” He chuckled. “I told you, you’d get brave. You just needed to see everything the way I did.”
I wrapped my legs around his waist. “I see you for the first time in eighteen years.”
He pulled me into him. “Likewise. You are the girl I knew you could be.”
I pressed my lips against his, not too hard, but enough that I felt it. I needed to feel something not horrid.
He kissed back with force, like he needed the moment to be bigger than we could make it.
Amber moaned, “Ewwwwwww.” I felt water splashing my face. I turned to see her laughing. She shook her head. “I never would have guessed you two.”
I nodded. “I like that. I like that it’s not something planned, even if it was meant to be anyway.”
He nodded. “I agree.”
Greg dropped his pants and pulled off his shirt. He jumped in, in his underwear and splashed all the way out to us. ”She’s going to be fine. They’ll keep her safe and make sure she stays sleeping. They won’t take the stitches out until we get back.”
Lyle cleared his throat, still holding me tightly to him. “We need to get there as fast as possible.”
Greg waved over to Michael, who was walking along the shore. “You coming with us again?”
Michael frowned. “Not a chance. I assume you mean to get them back from The Undead City?”
Lyle nodded. “We do. We want you to come with us.”
Michael pressed his lips together. “I don’t go to places that start with the word undead.”
I laughed. “We were thinking about sneaking back into the city and finding answers afterward.”
His eyes lit up. “You know a way back in?”
I nodded. I was telling an untruth.
Greg didn’t miss a beat. “The lake. Our city has a lake at one edge of it. We could swim up to the shore.”
He didn’t buy it. “If there is a lake at your city, then why is there a wall? If anything can get into the city from the lake, they wouldn’t need a wall.”
I sighed. “Okay. I don’t know how to get to the lake or what kind of terrain we’re dealing with. I know the wall is there and the lake is there.”
Lyle cleared his throat. “Actually, the wall cuts through the middle of the lake. That’s probably not the way to go.”
Michael watched our faces. He was doing the lip-pressing thing he did. He bit it and nodded. “Okay. I want a guarantee we will be going into The Last City of Men after The Undead City. I will show you the way to The Undead City, but I’m not going in.”
I smiled. “Thank you.”
He didn’t look like he was happy to oblige. He looked angry and annoyed. We climbed from the water. The thick leather shirt dripped down my torso. I caught Michael’s eyes trailing down my body. I looked down where he did.
I frowned at him. “What?”
He shook his head. “You girls are starting to look like the women here. You were so thin, soft, and pale. Now look at you.”
I looked at Amber and noticed it. “I guess so.” I smiled at her. “If only our friends could see us now. We look very different. No more dancing in masks and dresses.”
She gasped. “You went to the club?”
I nodded. “We went. I remember us dancing at the Club of the Unknown. The music was loud and everything was mysterious. You had fun.”
She beamed. “I can’t believe we went. You remember?”
I nodded. “You had a good time.”
She pulled her outer shirt on over her bra and nodded her head. “I always imagined I did.” She put her hand to her lips, wide-eyed.
We all laughed.
She blushed. “I guess I can say that now: I imagined.” Her eyes darted to Lyle. “I imagined a lot of things.”
My stomach had a twinge as she pulled on her shorts and leather flats the river people made for us. It had been a trade for the work we did for them and fish.
I slipped mine on as well. I rubbed my belly. “My stomach feels weird.”
Amber nodded. “Mine too.”
I shrugged. “Let’s get our things together for the walk.”
The City of the Undead
I didn’t complain this time. I didn’t need to. We were all miserable and hot. We wore our clothes the way the river people did when they journeyed a long way. The healer told us it was the only way to do it. Michael didn’t like it, which was why he hadn’t mentioned it before. He thought it was too stuffy to wear. But I felt much cooler. My face and head were wrapped in cloth and I wore a loose-fitting, nearly sheer robe that stopped the sun from frying me. It almost started to get too cool as Michael led us away from the desert. The land built up around us. The sky got darker, more polluted with clouds. There was a green line where the trees started and the sand ended. We hiked up into the woods. It was like the orchards but unruly and thick.
The trees were messily put everywhere. I didn’t know a real forest looked that way. Our forests were pruned and spaced to be beautiful and to optimize growth. This was not like that.
Michael sighed as we climbed a steep hill. “When we get over this hill, you will see it. You will see how the other half lives. You will be amazed and disgusted. I know my first time here was disturbing.” He glanced at me. “Do not show that hair of yours, no matter what.”
I frowned. “Why?”
He laughed bitterly. “Right now you look and smell like the river people. Take that down and they will know. No one has wavy soft-white locks like that.”
I pulled my hood tighter and across my face better. Lyle walked closer to me. I glanced at him. “Why didn’t Bran come? The truth.” I hadn’t wanted to ask but I was curious.”
He blushed a bit. “He wanted to.”
“What happened?”
He laughed. “It’s funny really, in a horrid way. He was selected as the back-up Adam. It doesn’t have to be from the commencement class like we thought. It just has to be the right blood type, body type, and from the right sort of family.”
My jaw dropped. “He’s an engineer now?”
He nodded. “He is living it up with a girl named Elena. She was older than we were as well. His age actually.”
I frowned. “How did you manage to get away?”
He swallowed. “We swapped what you’d told us both and knew right away what had happened. I ran to the hole where we’d seen the red dress and watched you leave the city.”
I nodded. “I heard you calling my name.”
He grimaced. “I thought I was going to die inside. I couldn’t do it. They brought Elena in. I didn’t know her. We were learning about the security systems, the irrigation systems, and about how we are kept unable to reproduce with a shot given to girls every six months. It prevented the reproduction cycles. They invited us to dinner every night, watching us. Always asking if we had knowledge of where you had gone. I swore someone had harmed you. The last footage they had of us was the swimming pool. Cameras are run on random rotations, recording at unsystematic intervals. They are impossible to predict. But I found the last footage of us. There was one of us getting off the tram at my parents’ and us in the swimming pool. There was nothing else. So my theory of you being harmed was a possibility. They apologized to me profusely, and explained that while my heart was broken, they would have to force me to love Elena.”
My brow knit together. “Did they do it?”
He shook his head. “I stayed for three
weeks after you’d gone. Bran and I had a plan, but when they told me they were going to force me and Elena, I ran that night.” He sighed. “I watched her sleeping. She was a perfectly nice girl but I couldn’t imagine my world without you. I couldn’t bear the thought that I would be kissing another to destroy it all. So I ran. I hid in the tunnels. They went to my parents’, explaining to my father that something must be going on. Bran had been there already to explain everything. So he acted outraged that both the Adam and the Eve had vanished. My parents were destroyed, claiming it was sabotage and someone was surely responsible for this. My dad claimed they were trying to ruin our society’s chance at survival.” he smirked.
I sighed. “Wow, he went all out.”
He nodded. “He did, indeed. He then volunteered my cousin who was also fit and healthy and from superior bloodlines. They went and checked him out and there he is and here I am.”
I winced. “Oh God. Your father is so bent on destroying their breeding plan that he sacrificed Bran?”
He nodded. “I feel sick when I think about it.”
“So he was going to run with you?”
His eyes shot me a look. “Do you wish it had been him, and not me, that came for you?”
I shook my head. “I just don’t want either of you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
His eyes hardened. “He did tell me to tell you that he would find you. He would get away when he got the chance.”
“Oh.” I looked down. I didn’t know how to respond to it. I didn’t know how I would feel in the real world with both their faces staring at me, demanding a decision. I didn’t have an answer if they were both there. My feelings were mixed and confused. The fog in my brain was gone and I was becoming the master of my emotions, like Lisabeth said I would.
Our hands brushed against each other. All I knew was, in that moment, I liked him and his hand brushing against mine and the way he looked at me. I liked that.
We walked to the top of the hill. I could see it right away, the change in Greg and Amber. Their jaws dropped and leaned forward slightly, trying to comprehend what they saw. Lyle gave me a sideways glance. “That must be some view.”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid to look.”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Stay close to me, Gwyn. I’ll keep you safe.” It made me feel better.
We crested the hill, gasping and holding each other. Black smoke billowed into the darkening sky from something that was bizarre. They were dirty poles and very thin brick stacks with smoke and black stuff coming out the top.
“They burn coal; there is an old coal mine here. The slaves they take work the coal mine.”
I shook my head. “I don’t recall coal as a subject we studied.”
Lyle’s nose wrinkled. “We did touch on it for a few months. It’s a rock made of a carbon-based fuel. It was one of the largest contributors to the pollution issues.”
Greg nodded. “I remember that. I remember thinking it was weird a rock could be used as wood for a fire.”
Amber shrugged. “I don’t recall it, but that is disgusting.”
The city was a fair bit bigger than the River City. It was spread out like our city. But the buildings weren’t nice and clean. The lines weren’t squared. Everything was a jumbled mess of shanties, houses, and taller buildings with damage done to them. I could see the filth on the buildings and the landscape.
Michael pointed to the right. “The slaves are taken to the auction. People trade for them there.”
I frowned. “What do they trade?”
He shook his head. “This city isn’t like our city, well, cities. Everyone here owns something. The man who is the strongest and has the largest group of men who will fight for him owns the coalmine. He trades the coal to people for food, liquor, cloth, or whatever he fancies. The farmers live on the far side, near the riverbanks. They work their farms and trade their food for protection or coal, or whatever they fancy. No one works together without a price. You may not walk up to a tree, pick an apple, and eat it. They will call that stealing and cut your hand off.”
All four of us shied back, gripping our hands to our chests.
He nodded. “These are barbaric people. The land doesn’t prosper; the individual who amasses the largest army does. So the slaves are no different than a loaf of bread or an apple. They are a currency. They may be protection, workers, or lovers. Whatever you, who holds the whip, fancies.”
My hand had covered my mouth. The word ‘lover’ made me nearly as sick as the word ‘currency’ did. They were like the men who used the reset to enjoy themselves at your expense.
Amber started to cry. “Our people reset in that horrid place, not knowing how or why they have to live like this. I barely know anything, and I am not in there suffering.”
Greg gripped her arms. “And you will not go in there. You will stay here with Gwyn and Michael. We won’t let this happen to you.”
She sniffled and nodded. “Please, don’t go. You shouldn’t go either. People like us have no place in there.”
I couldn’t believe her fear and weakness, and yet, it was only just over a month since I had begged to be allowed to sleep and forget about Brooke. Brooke who might be down in that horrid place.
I shook my head, tightening my head wrap. “I am coming.” I looked at Michael with ferocity in my eyes. “You will protect her? You will hide and wait for us?”
He nodded. “I will. I swear it.”
I didn’t trust him, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Lyle gripped my arms. “You can’t come.”
I shoved him off. “Brooke may be down in there. She will know me, and she will follow me. The rest will trust her.”
He scowled. “She will know me too.”
I shook my head. “We cannot search this entire city in a group. We have to split up. Greg and I will go one way and you the other. Heads down and find our people.”
Michael nodded. “She has a point. Besides, the faster you go, the faster you’re out again. You don’t want to stay there long. Now is a good time—the slaves are at the auction for tonight.”
I glanced at Lyle. “Let’s hurry.”
He nodded, looking defeated. We ran down the side of the hill as fast as we could, jumping logs and bushes. My legs ached, but I pushed myself onward. When we got close to the city, we slowed and made our way to the right. There was a gate guarded by two men. We walked past it, still in the woods.
I pointed at a building at the edge of town. “There is a window open there.”
We walked slowly. The houses and shanties were made to be the wall of the city. There were long poles with sharpened tops filling the gaps between the houses. The walls of the shanties were made of metal sheets; they looked sharp and frightening. The only way in was the window of the house or the gate. The man at the gate was frightening too. He was huge and wearing a dark fur of sorts. His clothes only half-covered his body, like ours now did but ours were thin for desert life. His were patchy, like the seamstress wasn’t very good at her job.
It made sense though. Everything was done for money and not for pride and people. In a sick way, The Last City of Men was making some sense to me.
I glanced at Lyle. “I understand your grandfather’s motivation of sneaking back into the city and staying there.”
He smiled bitterly. “I know. Me too.”
Greg whispered, “What would you give for no memories and waking up in your bed tomorrow?”
I nodded. “A limb, at least.”
We snuck through the woods at the edge of town.
“Walk like we’re supposed to go this way. Like this is a normal event for us.”
We walked across a rocky path that looked like it might have been a riverbed once. We strolled right up to the window and each of us dove inside of the house. Lyle instantly dragged the cloth sheet-like thing across the metal rod and closed up the window.
We sat there in the silent dark, waiting for it to go wrong.
But no one came and nothing made a sound, beyond the noises of the city outside of the dank house.
“It feels wet in here, like the air is heavy,” I remarked and looked around.
Greg whispered, “It’s disgusting. What is that smell?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, but I want to get our people and get the heck out of here.”
Lyle nodded. “Follow me.” We each fixed our wraps and cloths to look like river people and walked to the front of the house.
Greg peeked out the front window that was made of some kind of plastic glass. It was foggy and hazy and not a very good window. Something dark coated the outside of it.
In the shadow of the dank house he stood, watching the street for a moment. “The streets are muddy almost. The women that walk with men look beaten down, downtrodden. Their eyes do not lift. One girl has a cut on her lip. They wear dresses made of a thicker fabric and a cloth wrapped around their shoulders. He grimaced. “We’re going to stick out. I don’t see river people. The streets are busy, but not that busy.”
Lyle looked up the rickety dark stairs behind us. “I bet there are clothes up there.”
We all turned silently and snuck up the stairs. The air got worse, the higher we were. There was a sour smell in the air. Like the orchards in the fall when the apple wine was being made.
I folded my pile of cloth and stood in my half shirt and shorts. Lyle tossed me a heavy dress. I pulled it on, making a face. “It smells.”
“It’s mildew, I think. I have heard of this. Wet things can get a form of mold in them, I think. I recall something about this from the factories. Sometimes they get mildew in the basements. That means it’s time to clean the filters.”
I scowled. “This whole valley bed needs a new filter.”
Lyle muttered, “Or just less coal burning.”
Greg did up my dress in the back. I gave him a hard look. “Hit my face.”
He looked as if I had hit his face already. “What?”
I nodded. “Make a mark on my lip and cheek, like I have been disobedient. It will make them fear you, just seeing me.”