by J J Hane
CIty of light
By
JJ Hane
Chapter 1
Working outside the city walls isn’t quite as bad as it sounds. Don’t get me wrong: it is pretty bad. It just isn’t quite that bad. Mostly, it’s just tedious. All of the good work, the work that would actually be interesting, is done safely behind the fifteen-foot high walls that completely surround the city. Outside of that is only field work, which is what I have been assigned to ever since I was old enough to push a tiller.
I stood in the center of one of the large fields on the western side of the city, the setting sun bathing the remaining modified corn in golden light and bronzing the tilled earth around me. The sky above was a deepening azure, free of all but the wispiest of cirrus clouds. Beyond the acres of crops was a wide, flat, barren patch of land, kept that way to prevent anyone from sneaking up too close to the city. Thick woods began on the other side of that blank space.
Here and there, in the barren area and the nearest edges of the woods, I could see the remains of old civilizations: the rusted frame of an old car, the spidery web of metal from a collapsed building, and a twisted pole that might have once provided light to the broken remnants of a weathered road. The fields surrounding the city had been completely cleared of that kind of debris, and most of the barren zone had been leveled, but it was nearly impossible to be entirely free of reminders of humanity’s folly outside the walls.
Not that long ago, there had been a lot more cities than the one behind me. Wars, famine, and engineered diseases had put an abrupt end to that era roughly two hundred years ago. Ruins still dotted the landscape, or so I was told. From what I knew of the world, there weren’t many functioning cities left. Mostly humanity was reduced to roaming clans, fighting over the scraps.
“Raphael Peregrine!” a sharp voice called out behind me. “I swear to High Heaven, if you don’t get your lazy self in gear you won’t have anything to eat tonight!”
I tried not to sigh. Turning, I found Supervisor Sophia Baumgardner standing with her hands on her hips, her plump face redder than the horizon. She was a tough woman in her late-middle years, a little rounder than one might expect of someone who supervised the work in the fields. I happened to know that she was a lot stronger than she looked, and her severe tone was all-too familiar to me. She couldn’t actually keep me from eating, since my foster parents were the ones who provided most of my meals. At least, I didn’t think she could. Maybe she intimidated them as much as she did me.
“Yes, ma’am,” I called back to her. She had ridden up to me on her hoversled, those annoyingly quiet vehicles used to carry the smaller machinery to and from the fields. I must have been daydreaming longer than I realized for her to have been both willing and able to sneak up on me.
Sophia eyed me with suspicion from her place beside the sled, evidently unconvinced by my respectful reply. “You’ve had all afternoon to work on this field,” she said, her tone somewhat less lacerating. “What have you been doing?”
I cleared my throat, looking around at the half-tilled field, trying to come up with an excuse. The truth was that I had just been thinking and wondering about the world beyond the fields. That did not seem like the sort of honesty that would redirect Sophia’s wrath, however.
Another voice piped up from the hoversled. “He’s probably just daydreaming.”
A young man, somewhere close to my sixteen years of age, hopped off of his perch at the back of the vehicle. Several large boxes had concealed his presence until that moment. He carried with him a small tiller, identical to the one I was supposed to be working.
“Thanks, Ab,” I muttered.
Abishai Salman flashed a shining grin in my direction. “Honesty is one of my many strong suits,” he said gravely.
Sophia scowled at him. “That’s what you are, is it? Honest?”
“To a fault,” he assured her with a wink.
With a great huff that threatened to till the earth itself, she shook her head. “Young Mr. Salman has offered to help you finish your work out here. Make sure you get it done before night falls. Neither of you should be out after dark.”
Her last sentence came with a note of warning, a caution that revealed that rare soft spot in her heart. She may have been the most outwardly severe of the Martyrion staff, but she really did care, in her own way. She hopped back onto the hoversled, casting one last, stern glance in our direction before starting it up and flying away.
Abishai turned a beaming smile toward me. My closest friend, Ab was tall, darkly copper skinned, and irritatingly handsome. He was the sort of person to get in a lot of trouble, but he had the charm and innocent smile to get him back out of it. He was not the sort of person to help out with someone else’s chores unless he wanted something. In fact, he usually tried to find a way out of his own.
“Alright, Ab,” I said with a sigh, keying in the activation code for the little tiller I had been given. “What are you really up to?”
When he started to reply, I cut him off by revving the tiller, sending clods of dirt flying in every direction. The device was meant to be pushed by hand, though its motor was powered by one of the compact batteries that ran most of the Martyrion’s technology. It was only a little wider than my shoulders, which was more than a little frustrating. Our city had all the technology and materials necessary to build one of those huge farm machines I’ve seen in history books, the kind that can till a field in a day. Instead, in keeping with the ideals of the Martyrion’s founder, they built these little devices to give us all plenty of work. Something about building character, I think.
Abishai reached in front of me, switching the device back off with an irritated flick of his hand.
“Always so serious,” he chided. “Can’t a friend come and help without an ulterior motive?”
I gave him an exasperated look. “No.”
He laughed. “You’re too wise for your age, Raph. I really do want to help. Also, I overheard Sophia saying that you were going to be stuck out here until nightfall if you didn’t hurry.”
“So you came to see the Archangel,” I said. It wasn’t a question: I knew the moment I saw him that was his real reason for being out here.
“And to see you!” he said, his tone one of false injury.
“Of course,” I replied, laughing.
“Besides,” he continued, “you obviously aren’t any more interested in this than I am. You’ve hardly done half your portion of the field since yesterday.”
That was true enough. I had been working on the same plot for the past two days. It was not bad work, I suppose, but neither was it interesting. I found myself looking out toward one of the broken concrete buildings at the edge of the forest nearly a mile away. Had it been a store? A warehouse? Some integral part of the original city that would have dwarfed the Martyrion? There was no way for me to know.
Abishai rapped his knuckles against my forehead. “Hello? Raph? Where did you go?”
Knocking his hand away, I said, “Fine, you’re right. I do actually need to get this done, though. Help me until sunset?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said with a grin. Grabbing his own tiller, he swung it around, slamming its toothed wheels into the earth beside mine. He started it up, setting to work right away. I followed suit, activating mine with that helpful sense of resignation that forces you to work when you don’t want to, simply because you know that you have to do it.
It was early October, so the harvest had already begun. Our tillers ground up the earth, dropping tiny capsules that would help to enrich the soil, limiting the effects of the radiation that had spread over the area after the nuclear power plants failed almost two centuries ago. Those capsules would purify the soil over the winter, making it easier to
grow more of our improved crops next year.
The work was hard and boring, but without it our people would end up starving like the rest of the world.
We worked our way slowly up and down the field, alternating between walking toward and away from our city. I preferred walking away, since the end of the field brought me closer to the edge of the world. Fifteen years ago, a man named Immanuel Moore had found me at the edge of the field, barely alive. My mother, an outlander whose name I never knew, had bled out in the buffer zone that helped keep our city safe from the rest of surviving humanity. Mr. Moore had brought me back to the Martyrion, where they had nurtured me back to health. Our city didn’t really have an orphanage, so I had been placed in his home as a foster child. Mr. Moore was nice enough to me. He was the closest thing I had ever had to a father, but he was an old man with a big family of his own, all of his children already moved out. I had never quite fit in. I liked looking out at the forest, wondering if I had a family out there, one that might miss me, maybe even welcome me if I ever found them. The Moore family was kind, but they weren’t my family.
Probably, there was no family waiting for me out in the uncivilized land that made up most of the world. There was nothing but war, famine, and disease beyond the borders of the Martyrion.
Heading back toward the city, tilling the poisoned earth as we went, was nice in its own way, I guess. The city itself was, in my opinion, huge, housing nearly thirty thousand people. Within the high, solid walls, life went on as though the world had not been nearly destroyed. Most of the buildings were squat, wide structures, with rows of gardens running the lengths of the streets, colorful flowers standing out strikingly against the white cement walls and paths. Only a handful of buildings were made with wood, given how dangerous it was to travel far outside the city walls.
In the center of the city stood a cluster of tall towers, skyscrapers filled with living quarters, laboratories, small manufacturing plants, and various other things. Those towers were made of gleaming metal and crystalline glass that was nearly as sturdy. Daylight, especially in the summer, turned that sector into a glittering, shining beacon of civilization, standing resolutely against the collapse of humanity.
Towering over it all, even over the other buildings in the center, stood the Martyrion itself. The tower was wider than its companions, taller than anything left standing on the planet. It spiraled up toward the sky, threatening to pierce the heavens themselves. Only the most important labs and manufactories were located there, along with the huge council chamber from which all governing decisions were made. Somewhere within, there was also the control room for the Archangel.
Over the next hour, we worked in the relative silence of our machines, Abishai humming along to a song in his head. Although the tillers pulled themselves along to some degree, it was still hard work to keep them going in a straight line as they tore and treated the earth. We were both sweating by the time night began to fall. Rather than making our way back to the security doors that would let us pass through the wall, we worked back to the outer edge of the field, deactivated our machines, and waited for the last rays of the sun burning through the forest to disappear.
Leaning on his tiller, Abishai stared intently up at the darkening sky that our ancestors had once travelled with ease. No airplanes had traversed that expanse since the final global war came to a bloody end. Very few rockets had pierced the veil of the atmosphere since then, though plenty of debris had come crashing down from orbit.
“Do you think we’ll ever go back up there?” he asked, his voice unusually quiet, almost hushed. Abishai tried not to make a big deal about it, but I knew that he wanted nothing more than to work with the Archangel. For all his attempts to avoid hard work, he was more dedicated than anyone else I knew to the classes required for a position in the Archangel control room.
I shrugged, like I always did when he asked me that question. “Maybe. If the Council decides we need to.”
Abishai was silent after that. The only sounds were the distant calls of night birds, a few insects chirping, and our own breathing. The Martyrion was a place of peace and beauty. Outside the walls there was another type of peacefulness, though: a loneliness that comes from the absence of humanity.
Minutes after the sunlight was reduced to a glow on the horizon behind us, blue-black night creeping across the sky, we could faintly hear a hum emitting from the Martyrion Tower itself. The top section of the tower split at invisible seams, opening like a flower to catch the light of the stars. It spread apart into a wide bowl shape three times wider than it had been a moment ago, stopping with a clang that resounded across the empty fields. Moments later, the Archangel lit up the early night.
A stream of white light, blindingly bright, hot enough to melt steel, screamed down from the sky above. The beam of energy struck the Martyrion tower directly in the center of the huge bowl at the top, splashing light and heat around the edges. An instant after the light appeared, we were struck with a wave of roaring sound that echoed over the landscape, carrying into the evening for miles around. Every inch of the city was lit up in stark relief, the light burning the image into my eyes.
It didn’t last long. Just a few seconds, then, as abruptly as the light had appeared, it vanished, leaving a bright purple line etched across my vision. High above us the system of satellites, collectively known as the Archangel, were no doubt repositioning themselves, closing up their projectors just as the Martyrion’s receiver sealed itself after the energy stopped coming.
Giant solar arrays put in orbit by the Martyrion’s founders shortly before the last world war, the Archangel had once been known by a more technical name. After it was discovered that the satellites could be used to defend the city as well as to power it, the more fanciful moniker was applied.
“We should head back,” I said after the Martyrion had returned to its usual position, receiver once again invisible as the apex of the tower. “I haven’t had dinner yet.”
Abishai shook himself out of his thoughts, grinning at me. “Are you sure Sophia is going to let you have any?”
“She will, and don’t call her by her first name. I’m pretty sure she’ll hear you all the way out here.”
“Ha! I’m not afraid of her wrath.”
I shook my head. “I always knew I was smarter than you; now I finally have proof.”
Abishai punched my shoulder. “I’ve just got more courage than you, Raph.”
“Like I said…” I dodged before he could punch me again, laughing at the look of amused irritation on his face.
“Raph,” he started, but suddenly cut himself off, tilting his head to listen intently in the direction of the buffer zone and ruins beyond.
A cry of pain rose up behind us, somewhere in the gathering darkness near the line of trees.
Chapter 2
I spun toward the sound, my heart suddenly racing. There were tribes nearby with which the Council often traded, though they were not permitted near the city. I had never before actually seen one of them, having spent my life sheltered under the protection of the Martyrion.
I didn’t realize that I was moving toward the forest until I felt Abishai’s hand on my arm, holding me back.
“What are you doing?” he hissed.
“Someone is hurt,” I replied, shaking him off, trying to see the darkened trees through the afterimage of the Archangel’s fire.
My friend glanced back toward the safety of the walls on the farthest end of the field from us. He cursed under his breath, something that would have immediately earned Supervisor Baumgardner’s ire.
I’m not usually one to take excessive risks. I was taught from an early age that the tribes outside the Martyrion are irrational, aggressive, dangerous. I also knew, even from a young age, that I was, in essence, one of them. Yet when I heard another human being in pain, something inside me demanded that I go to help. It was one of those things that I knew Mr. Moore would dismiss as ‘youthful idealism,’ ignoring the fact th
at the entire city was built on idealism.
Picking up the pace, I hurried toward the sound, squinting into the gloom.
“I’m going to be really pissed if you get us killed,” Abishai grumbled as he followed me into the barren land between the field and the forest. I glanced back to see that he had drawn an eight-inch-long cylinder from his pocket. He held it before him like a flashlight, though no beam came out of it.
“You brought a stunner?” I asked, surprised. “Where did you even get that?”
He flashed another grin at me, ignoring my second question. “Anytime I leave the walls. You never know…”
The cry came again, this time nearer to us. A male voice shouted for help. At last, I could see a figure clad in dark, ragged clothing stumbling toward us. He was still almost a hundred meters away, moving with an unsteady, limping gait.
“Who are you?” I called out, still moving to meet him. The question was, I realized, somewhat irrelevant. He was clearly not from the Martyrion, so a more pertinent question would have been ‘what’s happening’ or, as I wished I had asked, ‘are you being attacked?’
A sound I was only vaguely familiar with split the night. It was loud, a pop-pop-popping noise that might be deafening closer to the source. I didn’t fully comprehend what it was until the stranger staggered, toppling forward onto the ground. Abishai understood just before I did.
“Gunfire!” he shouted, dropping into a crouch, his stunner extended toward the sound.
I tried to stop my forward momentum, tripping myself instead. I fell onto my hands and knees, my heart trying to pound its way out of my chest. A scream echoed through the night, this one younger, more feminine. I couldn’t see where it was coming from, but I knew that I had to move. Instinct told me to run back to the city, ethics told me to run toward the wounded man.
“What are you doing?” Abishai shouted as I ignored my instincts, hurling myself toward the wounded stranger.