by Dayton Grey
Allea replied, gesturing ahead of them. “See the bastions, Geon? The tall poles in the ground? The whole system is really dependent on those. They are spread out as far as they can be, and they are fully adjustable in height. The mini cable goes from the bastion to the main cable… one on each side. The L-RUD runs on the thick, main cable.”
“So why are they adjustable?”
“Well,” she said, “Look around us. This world is constantly shifting, evolving, moving. One day there is a building here, and the next it’s destroyed. Another day you have nothing here, and after heavy flooding, or a quake, or tornado, the next day, you have a massive pile of rubble here. So the bastions rise up and lower as needed, and can loosen or tighten the two side cables as needed as well. Plus the cars are connected but separated in between to allow for flexibility in between. It’s essential for allowing it to snake in between, around, over, and under fallen structures and other objects around the area. Basically, it can go left, right, up, and down!”
Amazing, Geon thought to himself. All this destruction around him, and humans still seemed to be persevering on… innovating… trying to live.
“Soooo… L-RUD? What’s with the name?” he asked.
“Like I told you, G,” Allea responded with a smile. “Left… ri—”
“Hang on, Allea. Let him see for himself,” Sabien interrupted with a smile. “Come on.”
They rode the winding altinator up to the platform and walked under a suspended E-Pillar. It simultaneously greeted all of them, in a mangled mix of boops, beeps, and a garbled electronic voice.
“Greetings, Sabien Jabari! Greetings, Allea Shay! Greetings, Kumuki Quinn! Thankthankthankyouyouyouhavehavehaveaaanicenicenicedaydayday!” it echoed.
“Just walk through and keep your sleeve down,” Allea whispered to Geon. “Without a cuff it won’t detect you, but if you get caught without a cuff, you’ll be in some serious trouble. You get a bit of a grace period since you just woke up, but we don’t need any reason to alarm the CARE guards.”
Geon nodded and walked casually through, trying not to make eye contact with the large, scowling, uniformed guard. He noticed the logo on the guard’s chest. Something about it looks familiar.
Their LifeCuffs beeped and showed two credits removed from each of them as doors of the Glidewing slid open and they hopped on. Once on board, Geon focused his attention on the walls and windows inside, where abstract three-dimensional images continually changed in color and shape and soft sounds twinkled in sync with them. He noticed there were no seats on the car. Just vertical flat boards evenly spread around it, each designated for one person. The bottom of each board was curved slightly upward to provide some support to sit against. As the other people each took a spot against a board, the four of them moved to a section near the back of the car. Sabien stood next to Geon, across from Allea and Kumuki. Geon leaned back against the padded board. On the sides of each board near their shoulders was a padded semi-circle loop, coming out of the padded back. Geon watched as Kumuki and Allea put their arms through the loops, then crossing their arms in front of them. Sabien looked at Geon and smiled, not following their lead. Geon decided to do as Sabien did, leaving his arms free at his sides.
“Glidewing departing sector eight,” a voice from the car said. The doors closed with a ding and with a sudden jerk, the entire train of cars took off. The force of the thrust pushed Geon back into the padding. As the train accelerated even further, he smiled with excitement. He had not felt a rush like this… maybe ever. All of a sudden, the entire car made a drastic and sudden lurch upward, and then immediately downward again, hurtling his body upward and back down. Geon laughed with giddiness.
“Enjoying this are you?” Sabien inquired.
Geon nodded and smiled.
“Well, maybe not for long,” Sabien remarked with a smirk, still casually leaning back.
Suddenly the car turned so violently to the left that it threw Geon from his spot and into an elderly lady on the opposite side of the car. As he tried to apologize for bumping into her, the car violently turned in the opposite direction, almost backward from the direction they were just traveling in, throwing Geon again in the opposite direction. Immediately the car snaked again the other way, hurling Geon once again into other passengers on the car. Sabien and Kumuki laughed in delight as Allea shook her head in dismay and looked down at her LifeCuff.
“L-RUD!” Kumuki shrieked, over the noise of the car and the sounds of Geon colliding into the walls. “LEFT. RIGHT. UP. DOWN! L-RUD!”
Geons stomach because to churn as he tried his best to grab a hold of a loose arm loop while keeping his breakfast down. The car shot upward again, at nearly a vertical angle. This time it climbed higher and higher, and just when Geon thought it would stop, it just kept going. It reminded Geon of the small roller coaster he remembered riding when he was young, except that the Glidewing didn’t climb up slowly. It seemed to maintain its breakneck speed the entire time. Geon finally managed to get back to his board and shoved his arms through the loopholes. Sabien snickered and smiled at him and casually held on to one of the loops with his wrist.
“Fun, huh?”
“Ugh. Yeah. So much fun.”
“G, take a look there,” Allea said, pointing through the glass at what appeared to be a public park. “That’s WEAF park. It’s one of the few parks in the city with trees and meditation areas.”
“They’re not real trees,” Sabien smirked. “But they’re the closest thing that we’ve got.”
Geon watched the imitation trees as they gently moved in the wind, their green leaves fluttering softly on each branch. They did look quite lifelike. The park also had bright green grass and perfectly rounded small rolling hills, with some other stone structures and a small pond in the middle.
Allea seemed deep in thought as she said, still staring out of the window, “It’s a place we like to meet sometimes. To talk, to work, to think.”
“I like the fish!” Kumuki exclaimed. Geon looked up at him, startled.
“Real fish?” Geon questioned.
“No, they’re synths! They’re pretty!”
Geon nodded, disheartened that even real fish weren’t around any longer. One place he remembered loving as a child was the local city zoo. There was something so fascinating and mysterious about animals to him. He used to wonder about them… their thoughts… their emotions. He wondered if they were like humans, in that they could make choices in life, or were they like robots, knowing not what they did and following some predetermined path without any question. His family would let him explore, spending plenty of time with each animal. He used to sit and just stare at each one while other children ran around, taking only moments looking at each animal. Geon would carefully watch them and try to connect with them.
“Next stop, sector seven,” the voice from above said. Seconds later, the Glidewing slowed to a sudden stop and the doors slid open. People rushed in and out. The doors slid back closed and the voice said again, “Glidewing departing sector seven.”
Geon looked around cautiously at the other people in the car. No one spoke, smiled, or laughed. Everyone kept their heads down and seemed preoccupied with either their LifeCuffs or their thoughts. It wasn’t that people seemed sad, Geon thought. It seemed more like people just seemed… vacant, without emotion altogether. He felt bad for them, for himself, for everyone. It seemed only a moment ago when he was a child and the world was so different… so free. It had problems when he was young, but nothing like what he was seeing now.
It really makes you appreciate what we once had. A moment ago for me was actually six years for these people. It was so long ago.
He looked down at his shoes and then at others and realized no one had any laces. Everyone was wearing grey, black, or white clothes and the same pair of grey sneakers, with a folding closure flap on top. He reached down and pulled at the flap, and it came undone with a soft click. The top of the shoe and the bottom of the flap each had tiny little plastic barbs tha
t locked together when contacted with each other.
“It’s Burrstik,” Sabien said, noticing Geon opening and closing his shoe flap. “Laces are too inefficient. Government issued, of course.”
Geon stood upright and leaned his head back, staring out of the window and at the remnants of the city. The demolished remainders of buildings were scattered about, and Geon could see prefab structures littered around between the rubble. Some were in total isolation, and every so often there would be an opening where five to ten prefabs could be seen huddled together, usually on a flatter and higher level of ground. Occasionally he would see a prefab that looked demolished as well, either knocked off its stilts, or caved in completely. The trees and grass were all gone, and the ground around was spotted with patches of moist, muddy earth, and puddles and ponds of water.
This looks as similar to the Earth I remembered as the surface of the moon. It’s truly become a different planet.
As the Glidewing lurched around and took a slow, bending, diagonal turn, the car shifted forty-five degrees to the side and came around the corner of what looked to be a very large, old warehouse. As the old, abandoned, brick building passed him by, windows and doors standing only as dark openings, Geon noticed a person scurrying out of sight just through one of the openings.
“Hey!” he whispered loudly, pointing at the building. “I think I just saw—”
Allea interrupted by grabbing Geon’s arm. “Look, G! It’s the ocean!” The Glidewing finally completed its long angled turn and a giant blanket of dark blue lay in front of them. Geon stared down in shock as enormous waves crashed up against the remainder of buildings that now formed the edge of the city. The waves were huge, foamy, and fast, and kept hitting the man-made structures with an imposing and pounding force.
“This is about the closest you can get to the sea, Geon,” Allea said. “You can see how large the waves are. Plus the currents and undertow are deadly. We’re strictly prohibited by CARE from going anywhere near the open water. Enjoy the view from here, brother.”
“Unbelievable,” Geon muttered as he stared back down at the waves.
The Glidewing slowly bore in the opposite direction and the water was soon out of sight. A few stops later and they were finally at sector four. They hopped off the car and down the altinator to the street below. Geon looked around and saw that there were quite a few more buildings, or remnants of buildings, per se, than in the other sectors. He looked up and saw that some of the buildings, though obviously demolished and abandoned, were so tall that he couldn’t even see the top of them as they pierced through the surface of the permamist above. One large building was split horizontally in half and the top half was leaning up against another close building. It looked as if it could come crashing down any second. The ground below was much wetter here than in their own sector, and Geon followed the others’ lead as they weaved in and out of the street to keep their shoes dry. He noticed that the other people in this sector seemed to be in worse shape than in sector eight. Many people had torn and tattered clothing, and he noticed a few people with cuts, bruises, and bandages. On the side of the street there were two men, motionless, laying against the side of the building.
“Are they… alive?”
“Hope so, G. CARE will come and get them and help them,” Allea replied.
“That’s what you think,” Sabien remarked. “They may come, but they won’t help them. They’ll probably send them off to—”
“Sabien!” Allea jumped in and interrupted as she came to a stop. “Let’s focus here.” She pulled up the weather on her LifeCuff once more. “Okay, let’s take a look. I still don’t see any signs of flooding here. Water levels are the same as yesterday, no signs of a flash storm. ORBs are yellow. What was Mr. Dauphine talking about? Let’s walk around a bit.”
As they proceeded around the streets, it became evident to Geon that this was a rougher area of the city. Living conditions appeared worse than in theirs and people seemed sicklier. A small girl, face spotted with mud and dirt, hair and clothes filthy, approached Geon with her left hand extended. Geon reached his own left hand out to shake her hand and just as he touched the child’s fingers, Sabien jumped forward and slapped his hand away from the child’s.
“G! We don’t shake hands anymore. It’s frowned upon. It’s because of the spread of the X virus. It’s just too risky and medicine is a rare commodity these days. You have to be more careful. Besides, she doesn’t want a handshake. She wants credits.”
“I’m sorry, little girl, we just don’t have any,” Allea interrupted. The small girl looked up at them with her large, round eyes. Geon’s stomach sank, imagining the poor girl going without food today.
“It’s okay, Allea. I can spare a couple,” Sabien said, noticing the look on Geon’s face. He nodded to the small girl and put his LifeCuff next to hers and said, “Transfer two credits.” Both his and the child’s cuffs beeped and she ran off with a half-smile.
“Geon, slide your hand over this,” Allea said as she touched some buttons on her cuff. The entire cuff suddenly glowed a light, bright blue. “It’s UV. It’ll kill any germs on your hand. Get used to doing this on your own cuff each day. From now on, no shaking, okay? Mama V encourages us to be friendly with each other like people used to be, but you still can’t be too careful with strangers.”
Geon nodded as he slowly ran his hand over the blue light on Allea’s cuff.
“You can also do this,” Kumuki said as he leaned toward Geon and slapped the back of his right hand with the back of his own right hand. Geon smiled, unsure if Kumuki was joking or playing a prank on him.
“So, like a high five? Only… backward?”
“Exactly. It’s called a back-five.” Sabien responded as the others nodded in agreement. Geon shook his head in amazement. What a strange, backward world, he thought as the group continued on, walking further into the depths of the city.
“So, Mama V…,” Geon started. “She seems really loving… caring. Did she ever have children of her own?”
Allea looked up from her cuff to respond. “She doesn’t talk much about her past, but no she never did. She was engaged once, but I think he died… during the Shift. She doesn’t talk about him and we don’t even know anything about him, except that she called him Sivi. We think that’s why she cares for us so much. She looks at us like we’re her own.”
Geon nodded, wondering about Sabien’s and Kumuki’s past. “So, does anyone ever get… adopted?”
Sabien laughed. “It’s not like that, G. Not like the orphanages of the past. We aren’t going anywhere. It’s permanent. Hope you like your new family.” He grinned at Geon who smiled back at him and nodded.
Suddenly, all three of the LifeCuffs made the same loud, unique noise, like a rusty horn. Instantly some shouts from other people in the streets could be heard, but Geon couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“Oh my God, here we go!” Allea shouted as she pulled up the hologram from her cuff and began gesturing rapidly with her fingers as it beeped with each motion. “It’s a flash flood! Mr. D was right! G, get ready to run! It’s coming from a few blocks northeast from here. This way!”
The group began jogging in a northern direction as Allea checked her cuff and guided them through the streets. They turned right at one block and ran through a narrow alley and then took an immediate left turn and came to a stop.
“Guys,” she said, staring down at her cuff once more, eyes wide open and voice sounding more serious. “This one is coming fast. Unless you feel like going for a swim, we need to RUN!”
Sabien grabbed Geon by the sleeve of his jacket and pulled him as they began sprinting down the street and away from the coastline. Geon struggled to get his feet moving quickly at first, but after a block of hobbling awkwardly, he began to get his rhythm down. His heart pounded and his chest tightened as he tried to take in as much of the cool air as possible. He was frightened, yet strangely, excited.
The other three looked muc
h more calm and even Kumuki had a worried grin on his face as he lurched hastily through the streets. Geon turned his head to the right to look at other people as they screamed and ran in the same direction as them. One boy, who appeared to be with his mother, fell down and in one swift motion his mother grabbed him and jerked him up again. He noticed the ORBs were all glowing orange now, this time pulsing slightly faster than before. To his left, people were running as well. Children, teens, adults, all of them running. All of them wearing regular clothes in a full-on sprint away from the water, moving faster than he had ever seen people move before. It was a sight Geon had never imagined.
Suddenly, the sounds of the water came within earshot of them. It sounded like a jet engine from an airplane and Geon could feel the ground below him tremble. The sound of the rushing water became louder and louder until Geon finally looked back to see where it was.
“GEON, NEVER LOOK BACK!” Sabien screamed with authority. “EYES FORWARD, KEEP RUNNING!”
It was too late. What Geon saw sent a shiver down his back and left him breathless. His legs started to stiffen, his body petrified from the sight of the churning water. The water wasn’t coming from directly behind them, but rather from the side streets. The first thing Geon saw was the crashing and splashing of the wake off the side of a building and into the street they were running in. It came from all sides behind them, gushing and billowing nearly ten feet high as it gained momentum. Geon could see debris of all sizes floating in the water, and some people behind them had even climbed onto rubble and grabbed onto larger structures and fixed wreckage to save themselves as the water rushed past and even over them. Sabien looked back to see Geon a few paces behind them and stopped running, turning quickly to grab Geon once again, this time clasping his shoulders and jerking them toward his own. He stared directly into Geon’s eyes and said calmly and sternly.
“Geon. I need you to run now. Don’t look back. Don’t stop. Not for ANYTHING.”
Geon nodded and followed this time in full sprint. The cloud of fear began to slowly dissipate as he ran faster and faster, jumping over small trash piles in the streets and winding left and right around larger items with quick, graceful motions. His legs felt looser now, stronger, quicker. He soon passed Kumuki, who was paces behind Allea, and then soon passed her as well. Feeling a burst of energy as he stared at Sabien, only a few paces ahead of him, he gritted his teeth and pushed his feet as fast as he could go. The pain from his legs, his feet, his chest all disappeared. The world around him faded out and everything suddenly seemed to be happening in slow motion.