by A. S. Hames
To my right, there’s another door. It’s open and leads into a big room with a polished wooden floor and big windows looking out over half the fort and the mountains beyond. Inside, there’s a big table with a bowl of fruit. Fruit! Apples, oranges, red berries… Then there’s a bookcase with more books than I’ve ever seen – maybe fifty in all!
There’s also big map on the wall. At first, I don’t recognize it, but then I see the top half on the left-hand side looks like the two maps we had for a while.
There are arrows pointing at various places inside the Nation. They’re coming from a place to the north where I guess the redcoats come from. Then there are arrows coming in from the east and south.
The map also shows railways. I find the Lake Towns and I can see the line going north from here.
Krak!
I go to the window, but there’s no view of the executions from this side of the building.
Beyond the fort though…
For a moment, I think I have a little dirt in my eye because there’s something there, where it shouldn’t be. I blink and look again. It’s still there. In the sky. It’s falling to the ground. But no… it’s floating downward. It’s a car… in the air. Just like the one belonging to Flight Officer Charles G Kellerman. My mouth falls open. It’s the most incredible thing I’ve…
“It’s an airplane,” a voice behind me says.
I turn to face the Leader of the Nation.
“Sir?” I say, because I don’t know how else to address him. My blood is rushing. I feel overwhelmed.
“I’m assuming you don’t believe what your eyes are telling you,” he says.
I don’t know what to say about that, so I stick to the plan I came up with a few moments ago.
“I’ve come to rescue you,” I tell him.
For some strange reason, possibly insanity, he laughs.
17. Intruder
JAY
The Leader of the Nation looks a little different. He’s undeniably the same man I’ve seen painted in oil, but he lacks the glowing skin and radiant, wise eyes. He also has less hair and is six inches shorter than I expected. It’s still an overpowering moment though.
“Are you sure you’re a rescuer? You look more like a burglar.”
He doesn’t look like a prisoner. His lightweight gray suit is immaculate and he smells like he’s just had a good bath.
“I’m a Nation soldier,” I say. “Sub-Lieutenant Jay-Ruth Two-Five.” I’m not sure if I’m meant to bow my head or salute. I surprise myself by doing neither.
“How old are you?”
“Almost seventeen.”
“I see. And are you armed?”
I pull my gun out from under my shirt and show him.
“I took it off someone who tried to kill me.”
“Resourceful.”
While he goes and sits at a desk, I tuck my gun back into my waistband. The airplane is driving out of the sky onto the strange road. At least a road to nowhere makes sense now.
“Are you a prisoner here?” I ask.
“Not really, no.”
“If you’re not a prisoner, are you able to stop the executions down there?”
“How well do you know me?” the Leader asks.
I think about the letter. If the Leader got open support from the redcoats, what would he do? Attack the East State and free our prisoners of war?
“I studied the Companion Book at school,” I tell him, still eyeing the airplane. “So I know your thoughts on everything.”
“An educated young woman? Tell me, does the book complete your life?”
“Not anymore.” I say, turning back to him. “I’m thinking there must be some pages missing.”
He laughs again.
“Are you sure you can’t stop those executions?”
“There is no need to cross the river for honey when the bee…”
“…works among the flowers on this side,” I say, finishing a sentence I learned when I was six. I’m sure my face is already telling him I no longer accept that as right. “It seems to me it places a limit on our possibilities.”
“The name’s Carl Cartwright,” he says. He holds out his hand for me to shake. It doesn’t seem right so I don’t take it.
He’s not troubled in the slightest.
“I should be going,” I tell him. “Are you coming with me… Carl?” It seems strange the Leader having a name. He’s always just been the Leader. “If you’re coming, we need to go now.”
He puts his feet up on the desk. “It’s not every day I get people breaking in. Now, listen. The Companion Book is a starting point. It’s not a complete thing in itself.”
His shoes are the best I’ve ever seen. Soft brown leather, all stitched and shiny.
“This isn’t the time,” I say.
“The train leaves in twelve minutes,” he says. “In eight minutes, I’ll write you a ticket. You’ll be able to board the train and get to safety in the next town.”
I’m not sure how to react.
“Are you sure you can’t stop the executions?” I ask again.
“Oh, I’m quite sure I can’t. It’s not Nation business.”
“Why are they setting up a camera for you? What declaration are you going to sign?”
He takes a cigar from a box and lights with a little flint device. I wish I had one myself. They look useful.
He exhales smoke.
“An education is a wonderful thing,” he says. “The best tool an individual could wish for.”
“Maybe everyone should have it then.” Even as I say it, it resonates inside me. We could make it the law. Everyone must be taught to read and write.
“What do you like? Stories, plays, poems?” He inclines his head toward a bookcase. “The originals are kept out east, of course, but those are good copies.”
I read the spine of a green book. It’s poetry, so I take it in my hands and open it. There are long poems inside. Longer than any I’ve ever seen.
“Read me a few lines,” the Leader says.
It feels strange, but I find I can’t resist. And anyway, wasn’t I meant to read him a poem in another place? So I do, in my best reading voice, as if I were back in school. Because I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be right now.
“Downward through the evening twilight,
In the days that are forgotten,
In the unremembered ages,
From the full moon fell Nokomis,
Fell the beautiful Nokomis,
She a wife, but not a mother.
She was sporting with her women,
Swinging in a swing of grape-vines,
When her rival, the rejected,
Full of jealousy and hatred,
Cut the leafy swing asunder,
Cut in twain the twisted grape-vines,
And Nokomis fell affrighted
Downward through the evening twilight,
On the Muskoday, the meadow,
On the prairie full of blossoms.
See! A star falls! said the people,
From the sky, a star is falling!”
Boots on the stairs. A charcoal guard appears at the door.
“Your meeting is in fifteen minutes, sir.”
The guard looks worried, possibly because he realizes he’s let someone like me slip in.
“Everything’s fine,” the Leader says. “I’ll be down shortly.”
The guard goes downstairs. The Leader rests his cigar in a little glass tray. I put the book back.
“Have you studied the Book of Ages?” the Leader asks.
I don’t know what he’s talking about.
He gets up from the desk and goes to the window. There are people getting out of the airplane. There’s a car coming toward them, a normal one. It pulls up alongside and they get in. The car turns. It’s bringing them here, to the fort.
“It’s my cousin coming to gloat,” he says. “Not a man to trust, I’d say. My aunt is due to arrive too. Family! What would we do with
out them! Did I mention my aunt is Leader of the South State?”
“No,” I say, guessing that’s the meeting he’ll be attending – although none of it makes much sense to me.
I look toward the main gate. There’s a wagon coming in with the bodies of the guards we killed.
The Leader goes to a cabinet and selects a big red volume – which he thuds down on the desk.
“The Nation was founded fifty years ago. The Book of Ages goes back fifty centuries.”
I find that hard to believe. “Civilization only goes back a few hundred years,” I say. “Before our time, people either lived as savages or as priests in the towers of the forgotten cities.”
As soon as I’ve said it, I think of Nokomis, and wonder where she fits in.
“Have you heard of the Greeks?” the Leader asks. “Or the Romans?”
“No. Are they against the Nation too?”
He pats the book. “Empires far greater than any you would know have risen up and dominated the entire world, only to fall again – this land of ours being one of them. There’s a vast library buried somewhere in the south-west… lost to us, of course.”
I think of all the rumors I’ve ever heard concerning the age before our own. But I can’t concern myself with some lost library. I can only act on the here and now.
“How come this place didn’t get shot up defending itself?”
“Ah yes, well… I was offered a good deal.”
“What about the Nation soldiers who protected you?”
“They didn’t get such a good deal.”
I reckon my chances are no better. A guard let me in, but I’m guessing there’ll be plenty more of them waiting to see me when I try to get out again.
“Do you actually care how many people die in your name?” I ask, mainly because I’m now in no hurry to leave.
“I had no choice,” he says. “The East State reached an agreement with the South State. It won’t last, but for now they’ve agreed I’m to blame for everything. The truth is it’s just an excuse for both of them to take parts of the Nation.”
“Why would they do that?”
“We have coal in the northwest and coal and oil here in the southeast. That’s what the war is really about. Well, that and family disagreements. They wished to change the way I governed the Nation. I know – hard to believe, isn’t it.”
In truth, I’m having trouble believing any of it. People can’t die in their thousands because of oil and coal, or because family members fall out. And yet I feel he’s not lying about that. I wonder if I should try to get a sense of him, but I’m not relaxed enough.
“Your father was against the war,” I tell him.
“I find that unlikely,” he says. “The Third Leader left us many years ago but he was a staunch—”
“Your real father,” I say. That shuts him up. “He said he was sorry about the fight in the rose garden.”
His eyes widen.
“Is he well?”
“He’s dead. Those were his last words.”
I feel bad telling him, but he may as well know.
He goes to the window and stares out – at the sky, by the look of it.
“You know there are people who would act swiftly on news that I’m adopted. The good deal I mentioned? It would be torn up and I’d be fed to the starving poor.”
He’s heading back to the bookcase.
“Who would become Leader?” I ask.
“The Third Leader’s marriage was childless but he had an ambitious sister who gave birth to a son. A replacement heir, no less. But the Third Leader detested having a sister who was as devious as himself. That’s why I was stolen as a baby from a humble administrator’s family and passed off as the principal heir. So, to answer your question, the detested sister’s son – my charming cousin – would take over. Now, what town are you from?”
I don’t know why he’s asking.
“Forbearance. It’s in the north-west.”
“You’re a long way from home, soldier.”
He chooses a book.
“I just hope it’s still there when I get back,” I tell him.
“Nothing lasts forever,” he says.
It’s hard to hear this kind of talk. If people said this sort of thing back home, they’d be thrown in jail.
“Changes are coming,” he says. “The thing is, can you change?”
Before I can say anything, he’s found a page.
“Forbearance,” he says. “Town 117. Do you know there are fifty-five towns in the Nation?”
“I grew up thinking it was a thousand,” I tell him. “And all of them happy and prosperous.”
“We gave them numbers up to a thousand to make it seem there were many. I’m sure you understand the need to project power.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, and frankly I don’t think he does either.
“Now, Forbearance,” he says, studying the page closely, “just over five thousand inhabitants,” he says. “That’s average.”
I multiply the numbers. “Are you saying there are 275 thousand people in the Nation?”
“You’re fast with figures. Imagine if we’d been millions strong – like in the past.”
I wonder what he means. Does he really believe those old stories?
“Now… Town 117,” he says. “It was the Second Leader who allowed names. Of course, he preferred them to be uplifting, like Forbearance, Diligence—”
“—Endeavor?”
“Yes.” He’s checking the book again. “Tell me your name again and I’ll tell you your family name before the Nation was created.”
I’m stunned.
“Jay-Ruth Two-Five.”
He takes a pen, checks the book, and writes on a notepad. I try to read it upside-down. Ren-Cee Two-Five. That’s Pa’s name. Above it, he writes Fin-Zee Two-Five, my long dead Grandpa’s name. Then, above that, he writes two words I have trouble pronouncing, especially the wrong way up.
“Cher… risto…”
“Christopher Ravenscroft,” the Leader says. “Your great grandfather was Christopher Ravenscroft from the East State. According to the entry, he was a crop farmer who served ten years in jail for theft and was then deported. False charges, I’d imagine. It’s far more likely to have been political.”
I’m too full of information to understand much of it.
“Ah, my auntie,” he says, looking to the window.
There’s another airplane in the sky – a bright red one. It’s coming in to land.
“Technology,” he says with a sigh. “We once had the power to travel not just to other towns, but to other planets.”
“I doubt that.”
“It’s true. For over a century, Humans lived on Mars. Imagine that! Some say they brought back a plague, others say it was a curse.”
“Please don’t mock me.”
“Set aside your doubting, soldier. In the early 21st Century, we had the technology to replace damaged organs, to speak direct to any individual instantly, anywhere in the world, to have instant access to all Human knowledge… by the early-22nd Century, machines were so human people would choose one as a marriage partner.”
“That really doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course, it was the same Technological Age that poisoned the oceans, destroyed the rain forests, wiped out most of the world’s population, and created a five-hundred-year dark age. Would you seek to regain that knowledge? Would you trust us with it a second time?”
“I…” I just can’t get enough space in my head to consider it.
“It’s of no matter,” he says, “I’m required elsewhere.”
I turn to the Leader and I see he’s pointing a handgun at me.
“It’s been interesting, Jay-Ruth Ravenscroft, but what you know about my real father must never be shared. They would declare me a fraud. I wouldn’t be signing away the Nation in exchange for a comfortable retirement – I’d be executed.”
18. Fire in the Sky
Fear is the enemy. Think straight, act fast. He’s going to shoot me. He’s not used to it, so he’s trying to aim at my middle. I’m almost side-on to him and he’s worried he’ll miss.
“Your father,” I say.
“What about him?”
“There’s one other thing you should know.”
“Quickly.”
What am I going to say? Anything will do.
“He was an empath.”
“What? How did…?”
I drop – Krak! – to the floor. He’s shot my arm! I whip my gun out.
Krak!
His shin explodes.
Krak!
I hit his other leg. He’s down on the floor, screaming.
I crawl to collect his gun. I have it. He hates me. Despite his agony, I can see it in his eyes. That’s okay though, because I hate him too.
“I’m an empath, too,” I tell him.
As I head for the door I hear the guard on the staircase.
Krak!
I shoot him back down again.
Now I have a problem. There are too many levels between me and the back door. I need a distraction.
I’m scared but my fear is no longer hot and bubbling. It’s colder and more solid. I can live with it. I can work around it. It’s there, big and dominating, but I can still think straight.
I tuck both guns away and go onto the roof porch or yard or whatever the hell it’s called this high in the air. I drag the fireworks inside and go into the big room where the Leader is gasping and burbling about being a fellow empath.
For a second, I try to get a sense of him – but there’s a big dark space around his thoughts.
I dismiss it and take a whole load of papers to stuff around the fireworks. Then I take the captain’s badge from my pocket and toss it to my fallen leader.
“I’m resigning my commission,” I say, realizing how precious that badge once was and how worthless it is now.
That little flint lighter? I use it to light both boxes. Now I’m no expert in fireworks, but I’m thinking this isn’t the best place to be right now.