Truancy City
Page 46
The wind blew in front of the Mayoral Mansion, stirring the dust that had fallen the day before. Not a single person remained in all of District 1. The twisted streets and occasional corpse were the only evidence of the battle that had transpired. The body of General Iris had finally been recovered by Government soldiers. It had been airlifted out an hour earlier, in highest honor.
In District 57, the wind blew over the last of the deep City refugees, crossing a bridge quickly at the urging of the soldiers. They knew that doom was nearly upon them, that they would be the last ones out of the City. The soldiers waited patiently until the last of the civilians were across. Then they too followed in their vehicles, leaving the danger zone behind.
In District 19 the remnants of a dismantled lemonade stand lay discarded near an old construction site. The wind blew over a lonely grave there, unmarked and unknown except to a boy who had become Mayor of the City. The district had been abandoned for many years before that boy had lived there. Now it was abandoned once again.
At the very base of Penance Tower, the broken corpse of a wicked man lay in the middle of the street. The wind blew a tattered Student Militia jacket through the air, fluttering gently above the empty streets. Finally, the wind subsided like a sigh, and the jacket came to rest on top of the corpse as though covering something indecent.
If a person standing upon that spot had looked straight up at the sky and waited, they could have watched the end of the City arrive. That end had not yet arrived, as it was still soaring beyond the atmosphere.
Yet the end would come.
Like a falling star, it would drop from the heavens, travelling at 150 miles per minute as it returned to earth. It would touch down first at Penance Tower, the very center of the City.
When it hit, the destruction would begin with a flash, blinding any witness with bare eyes. A double pulse of light would rapidly expand from the impact, a fiery shock wave that would consume the City. In its wake would follow blast winds moving at nearly a thousand miles per hour.
Any stragglers left in the City who were not incinerated would be crushed from the inside from the sudden pressure in their lungs. Any who lingered too long or too close afterwards would succumb to the radiation that would poison the land.
This was the Government’s most terrible weapon, a nightmarish creation that had no place in reality—yet it was the end that the City now faced.
Eventually the skies opened up, and the end did come. There came a flash.
On the 101st floor of Penance Tower, the body of a brave girl was cremated instantly as an entirely different wind began to blow.
* * *
Cross could see the first streaks of dawn on the horizon as he propelled himself forward through the water. The waves were gentle now that the storm had ceased. Cross had never been a great swimmer, yet now he found himself trying to do the front crawl all the way across the wide river that separated the City from the rest of the world.
After descending from Penance Tower, Cross hadn’t had any time to reach a bridge or tunnel on foot. Instead, he had headed straight for the waterfront, and then dived in. The river was vast and, he had heard, polluted. It left a funny taste in his mouth, and so he kept his eyes and mouth firmly shut as he swam.
Every now and then Cross would lift his head, and as he gasped for air he would look at the light on the horizon. In spite of all that had happened, in spite of where he was, Cross now felt a strange hope for the future. The darkness was at his back, and he was not sad to know that he was leaving the City behind him forever.
Cross had never loved the City. It was a miserable place where he and all other children had been forced to endure trials they never should have. As the Education City it had been a nightmare. As the Truancy City it had been no better.
Now, as he swam, Cross felt like he was awakening from that nightmare. His childhood demons could not follow him across these waters. He did not know what awaited him on the far shore—be it years of happiness, or swift oblivion. But Cross knew that whatever it was would be better than what he was escaping.
And so he pressed on, no matter how much his muscles protested or lungs burned. He struggled to live on, as he had promised to do. With each stroke Cross took, the dawn light grew a little bit brighter. Finally, he reached the shore on the far side of the river and dug his fingers into the rough sand.
In that moment Cross looked down at his reflection in the placid water and was relieved to see that it was himself, only himself who looked back.
Then there was a flash from behind him, and his whole world turned to light.
* * *
The shuttle rumbled onwards.
From the safety of his seat, Umasi gazed out the window at the City in the distance. His sunglasses shielded his eyes as the flash blotted the horizon, and he felt his heart tighten as it did.
The former Mayor watched as his City was consumed by fire. Umasi had seen the bridges lowered and knew now that the people, by and large, had survived. Even so, he could not help but feel a sense of sadness, of loss. The City had been a miserable place, a dark place. It had brought out the worst in most of its inhabitants—as it had been designed to do.
Yet it had been his home. As Umasi saw the mushroom cloud rise into the atmosphere, he shed a tear.
The shuttle rumbled onwards. Zen stirred and mumbled something in his sleep. Umasi looked down and smiled at the slumbering child, glad at least that his son would have a chance at a childhood different from the one the City would have offered him. Umasi could not yet predict what choices Zen might make in his own life, but he would do his best to see the boy grow up to be wiser than his father.
The shuttle rumbled onwards, and Umasi thought about all of those who had died, or whose fates were unknown to him. He remembered the albino, somehow feeling sure that he would never see her again. He thought about the previous Mayor, now gone forever. He wondered now if Iris herself had stayed behind—it seemed like something his selfless sister would have done. He even recalled a boy named Red whom he had known long ago, the first friend he had ever lost.
Umasi then thought about the Government and its misguided leaders; men who had never seen the City with their own eyes, men who knew nothing about the people whose deaths they had ordered from afar. Umasi did not know when or if his path would ever cross with theirs, but if that day ever came he knew there would be a reckoning. The City was not wholly destroyed so long as he lived.
The shuttle rumbled onwards. Dawn light spilled through the windows. Umasi sighed, wondering if any good had come out of the saga that he and his brother had begun four years earlier. Then he remembered the countless citizens who had been saved by the combined sacrifices of so many.
Those survivors would now be united in that shared sacrifice, and in the end they might be wiser for it all. Umasi smiled faintly. He believed they would be. Humanity did have, after all, a great propensity for meaningful education—perhaps outside of the City it would be allowed to flourish.
And when someday the history of the Truancy City was written, perhaps the best that could be said of it was that in their darkest hour, its people finally came together to learn their most important lesson.
Umasi sat in silence as the shuttle rumbled onwards. Then he turned away and looked towards the dawn, with Zen fast asleep in his lap.
Students don’t need our education, it is our education that needs students.
—THE MAYOR
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TOR TEEN
Truancy
Truancy Origins
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ISAMU FUKUI studied politics and literature at New York University. He is the author of Truancy, which was published when he was a senior in high school, and Truancy Origins, a prequel. Truancy garnered stellar reviews and significant publicity, including two interviews on National Public Radio and features in the New York Daily News and on Esquire.com. He lives in New York City.
This is a work of fiction. All of the character
s, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
TRUANCY CITY
Copyright © 2012 by Isamu Fukui
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Andy and Michelle Kerry / Trevillion Images
A Tor Teen Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-2263-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 9781429986748 (e-book)
First Edition: November 2012