by Dan Wells
“Good morning.” The voice boomed through the massive stadium, echoing through the speakers and off the ceiling. The center of the coliseum lit up with a giant holo-image of Senator Hobb. There were twenty senators, but they always let Hobb take the lead in town hall meetings, delivering the opening remarks and most of the announcements. He was definitely the most charming.
“This town hall meeting will now come to order,” Senator Hobb continued. “We’re very glad to see you all here; it’s important that you take part in your government, and these town hall meetings are the best way for everyone to stay connected. At this time we’d like to offer special thanks to the Long Island Defense Grid, specifically Sergeant Stewart and his team, for hand-cranking the generators all night here in the coliseum. As we have pledged to you, these meetings have never and will never draw electricity away from the community.” There was a light smattering of applause, and Hobb smiled kindly while he waited for it to die down. “We’ll start with our first order of business. Ms. Rimas, if you’d please join me on the stand?”
“It’s the schools,” said Kira.
“I told you,” said Haru.
Ms. Rimas was the head of the East Meadow school system, which had dwindled over time to a single school for which she now served as principal. Kira listened with her hand on her mouth as the old woman spoke proudly of the work her teachers had done, the success their system had shown over the years, and the great things accomplished by the graduating students. It was a send-off, a triumphant look back at their hard work and dedication, but Kira couldn’t help feeling sick about the whole thing. No matter how they spun it, no matter how much they tried to focus on the positives, the ugly truth was that there simply weren’t any children anymore. They were closing the school because they had run out of students. The teachers had done their job, but the doctors hadn’t.
The youngest human being on the planet, as far as anyone knew, would be fourteen years old in a month. It was possible that there were survivors on other continents, but no one had ever been able to make contact with them, and over time the refugees on Long Island had come to believe that they were alone. That their youngest was the world’s youngest. His name was Saladin. When they brought him onstage, Kira couldn’t hold back her tears.
Marcus put his arm around her, and they listened to the string of heartfelt speeches and congratulations. The youngest students were being accelerated into trade programs, just as Haru had predicted. Ten were accepted into the pre-medic program Kira had just completed; in another year or two they would begin interning at the hospital just like she was. Would anything be different then? Would infants still be dying? Would the nurses still be watching them die and recording their stats and wrapping them for burial? When would it all end?
As each teacher stood to say good-bye and wish their students well, the coliseum grew quieter, almost reverent. Kira knew they were thinking the same thing she was. The closing of the schools was like the closing of the past, the final acknowledgment that the world was ending. Forty thousand people left in the world, and no children. And no way to ever make more.
The last teacher spoke softly, tearfully bidding her students good-bye. The teachers were joining trade schools as well, moving on to new jobs and new lives. This final teacher was joining Saladin in the Animal Commission, training horses and dogs and hawks. Kira smiled at that. If Saladin had to grow up, at least he could still play with a dog.
The last teacher sat down, and Senator Hobb rose and walked to the microphone, standing calmly in the spotlight. His image filled the coliseum, solemn and troubled. He paused a moment, gathering his thoughts, then looked up at the audience with clear blue eyes.
“This didn’t have to be.”
The crowd murmured, a rustle of movement rippling through the stadium as people muttered and glanced at their companions. Kira saw Marcus look at her; she grabbed his hand tightly in her own and kept her eyes glued on Senator Hobb.
“The school didn’t have to close,” he said softly. “There are barely twenty school-age children in East Meadow, but across the whole island there are more. Far more. There’s a farm in Jamesport with ten children almost as young as Saladin—I’ve seen them myself. I’ve held their hands. I’ve begged them to come in, to come here where it’s safe, where the Defense Grid can better protect them, but they wouldn’t. The people with them, their adopted parents, wouldn’t let them. And just one week after I left, a mere two days ago, the so-called Voice of the People attacked that farm.” He paused, composing himself. “We’ve sent soldiers to recover what we can, but I fear the worst.”
Senator Hobb’s hologram surveyed the coliseum closely, piercing them with his earnest stare. “Eleven years ago the Partials tried to destroy us, and they did a pretty damn good job. We built them to be stronger than us, faster than us, to fight for us, in the Isolation War. They won that war handily, and when they turned against us five years later it didn’t take them long to wipe us off the face of the earth, especially after they released RM. Those of us who survived came to this island with nothing—broken, fragmented, lost in despair—but we survived. We rebuilt. We set up a defensive perimeter. We found food and shelter, we created energy and government and civilization. When we discovered that RM would not stop killing children, we passed the Hope Act to maximize our chance of giving birth to a new generation of humans with RM resistance. Thanks to the act and our tireless medical force, we grow closer to realizing that dream every day.”
Senator Hobb nodded to Dr. Skousen, sitting beside him on the dais, then looked back up. His eyes were shadowed and solemn. “But along the way, something happened. Some of us decided to break off. Some of us forgot about the enemy that still lurks on the mainland, watching us and waiting, and they forgot about the enemy that fills the air around us, that fills our very blood, killing our children like it killed so many of our families and friends. Because some of us have now decided that the civilization we built to protect ourselves is somehow the enemy. We’re still fighting for what is ours, only now, we’re fighting with one another. Since the passing of the Hope Act two years ago, the Voice, these gangsters, these armed thugs in the mocking guise of revolutionaries, have been burning our farms, pillaging our stores, killing their own flesh and blood—their own brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and, God help us, their own children. Because that is what we are: We are a family, and we cannot afford to fight one another. And whatever their motivations are, whatever they claim to stand for, the Voice—let’s just call them what they are: barbarians—are simply trying to finish the job the Partials started. And we are not going to let them.” His voice was hard, a force of pure determination. “We are one nation, one people, one will.” He paused. “Or at least we should be. I wish I had better news, but the Defense Grid found a Voice strike team raiding a supply depot last night—do you want to know where? Can you guess?”
A few people in the crowd shouted out guesses, mostly outlying farms and fishing villages, but the giant holo-image shook its head sadly. Kira looked below to the man himself, a tiny figure in a worn brown suit made almost white by the spotlight. He turned slowly, shaking his head as the crowd called out locations from all across the island. He stopped turning and pointed at the floor.
“Here,” he said. “Actually, just over there, south of the turnpike, in the old Kellenberg High School. The attack was small, and we managed to contain it without much bloodshed, so you may not have even known about it, but still, they were right there. How many of you live near there?” He raised his hand, nodding at the others in the crowd who raised theirs as well. “Yes,” he said, “you live right there, I live right there, that is the heart of our community. The Voice isn’t just out in the forest anymore, they’re here, in East Meadow, in our own neighborhood. They want to tear us apart from the inside, but we are not going to let them!
“The Voice objects to the Hope Act,” he continued. “They call it tyranny, they call it fascism, they call it control. You cal
l it our only chance. You want to give humanity a future; they want to live in the present, and to kill anyone who tries to stop them. Is that freedom? If there’s anything we’ve learned in the last eleven years, my friends, it is that freedom is a responsibility to be earned, not a license for recklessness and anarchy. If someday, despite our strongest efforts and our deepest determination, we finally fall, let it be because our enemies finally beat us, not because we beat ourselves.”
Kira listened quietly, sobered by the speech. She didn’t relish the thought of getting pregnant so quickly—she had fewer than two years left before she came of age—but she knew the Senate was right. The future was the most important thing, certainly more important than one girl’s hesitation to take the next step.
Senator Hobb’s voice was soft, grim, resolute. “The Voice disagrees with the Hope Act, and they’ve decided to express their disagreement through murder and theft and terrorism. They’re allowed to disagree; it’s their methods that are the issue. There was another group, not so long ago, who used the same methods—a group who didn’t like the way things were and decided to rebel. They were called Partials. The difference is that the Partials were unthinking, unfeeling, inhuman killers. They kill because that’s what we built them to do. The Voices are human and, in some ways, that makes them even more dangerous.”
The crowd murmured. Senator Hobb glanced down, cleared his throat, and continued.
“There are some things more important than ourselves—more important than the limits of the present, and the whims of the now. There is a future to build and protect. And if we’re going to make that future a reality, we have to stop fighting among ourselves. We have to end dissent wherever we find it. We have to trust one another again. This is not about the Senate and the city, this is not about the city and the farms, this is not about any little group or faction. This is about us. The entire human race, united as one. There are people out there who want to tear that apart, but we are not going to let them!”
The crowd roared again, and this time Kira joined them. Yet even as she shouted in chorus, she couldn’t shake a sudden sense of fear, like icy fingers in the back of her mind.
CHAPTER TWO
“You’re late, Walker.”
Kira didn’t speed up, watching Jayden’s face as she walked casually to the wagon. He looked so much like Madison.
“What?” she asked. “Don’t soldiers have to attend mandatory town hall meetings anymore?”
“And thank you very much for the attitude,” said Jayden, leaning his rifle against his shoulder. “It is a pleasure to have both you and your delightful wit with us on this run.”
Kira mimed a gun with her forefinger, silently shooting him in the face. “Where are we going this time?”
“A little town called Asharoken.” He helped her up into the back of the metal wagon, already full of ten more soldiers and two portable generators; that meant she was probably going to field-test some old equipment to see if it was worth bringing back. There were two other civilians as well, a man and a woman, probably here to use the second generator on some equipment of their own.
Jayden leaned on the edge of the wagon. “I swear, this island has the weirdest town names I’ve ever heard.”
“You guys are loaded for bear,” said Kira, looking at the soldiers’ heavy rifles. They were always armed when they left the city—even Kira had an assault rifle slung over her shoulder—but today they looked like a war party. One of the soldiers was even carrying a long tube she recognized as a rocket launcher. Kira found an empty seat and tucked her bag and medical kit behind her feet. “Expecting bandits?”
“North Shore,” said Jayden, and Kira blanched. The North Shore was essentially unsettled, and thus prime Voice territory.
“Valencio, you’re late!” shouted Jayden, and Kira looked up with a smile.
“Hey, Marcus.”
“Long time no see.” Marcus grinned broadly and vaulted into the wagon. “Sorry I’m late, Jayden. I had a meeting that got a little heavier than I planned. Very hot and sweaty by the end. You were a major topic of conversation, though, in between bouts of passionate—”
“Just skip to the part where it’s my mother,” said Jayden, “and then I’ll do the part where I tell you to go to hell, and then we can maybe get on with our jobs like we’re supposed to.”
“Your mother died of RM eleven years ago,” said Marcus, his face a mask of pretend shock. “You were, what, six? That would be incredibly crass of me.”
“And your mother’s already in hell,” said Jayden, “so I’m sure you’ll be seeing her soon. We should probably just drop the whole thing. Bastard.”
Kira frowned at the insult, but Marcus only smirked, looking at the other people in the wagon. “Ten soldiers, huh? What’s the run?”
“North Shore,” said Kira.
Marcus whistled. “And here I was worried we wouldn’t get to do anything fun. I guess we’ve pretty much picked everything else clean by now, though, huh?” He looked across the truck to the two other civilians. “You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t recognize either of you.”
“Andrew Turner,” said the man, reaching out his hand. He was older, late forties, with the beginning of a sunburn through his thinning hair. “Electrician.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Marcus, shaking his hand.
The woman smiled and waved. “Gianna Cantrell. I’m in computer science.” She was older as well, but younger than Turner. Kira guessed maybe thirty-five—old enough to have been in computer science well before the Break. Kira glanced at her stomach, a reflex she wasn’t even aware of until she’d done it, but of course the woman wasn’t pregnant. Salvage runs were too dangerous to risk a child; she must have been between cycles.
“Interesting mix,” said Marcus. He looked at Jayden. “What’s the deal with this place?”
“Grunt salvage went through a few days ago,” said Jayden. “They logged a clinic, a pharmacy, and a ‘weather station,’ whatever that means. So now I get to go all the way back out there on a bunny run. You can imagine my joy.” He walked to the front of the wagon and climbed up beside the driver, a young woman Kira had seen a few times before—still a year or two below the pregnancy age, which made her fit for active duty. “All right, Yoon, giddyup.”
The girl flicked the reins and clucked at the four-horse team—the Defense Grid had a few electric cars, but none strong enough to haul a load this heavy with any degree of efficiency. Energy was precious, and horses were cheap, so all the best electric motors had been commandeered for other purposes. The wagon lurched into motion, and Kira put her arm behind Marcus to grip the side of the wagon. Marcus pressed in closer.
“Hey, babe.”
“Hey.”
Andrew Turner looked at them. “Bunny run?”
“That’s just slang for a salvage run, with specialists like you guys instead of the normal grunts.” Kira glanced at the man’s growing sunburn. “You’ve never been on one?”
“I did a lot of salvage in the early days, like everyone, but after a year or so I was assigned to solar panels full-time.”
“Bunny runs are easy,” said Marcus. “North Shore’s kind of spooky, but we’ll be fine.” He glanced around and smiled. “Road conditions aren’t great outside of the settlement, though, so enjoy the smooth ride while you can.”
They drove for a while in silence, the wind whipping through the open wagon and tossing Kira’s ponytail straight toward Marcus. She leaned forward, aiming the frenzied hair squarely at his face and laughing as he spluttered and brushed it away. He started to tickle her and she backed away in a rush, slamming into the soldier beside her. He smiled at her awkwardly—a boy about her age, obviously pleased to have a girl practically sitting in his lap, but he didn’t say anything about it. She scooted back into place, trying not to laugh.
The soldier next to Kira barked an order. “Last marker. Eyes up!” The soldiers in the truck bed straightened a little, held their weapons a little cl
oser, and watched the passing buildings with hawk-like intensity.
Kira turned, watching the vast, empty city roll past—it looked empty, and it probably was, but you could never be too careful. The markers showed the edge of the East Meadow settlement, and the edge of the region their military could reasonably patrol, but it was hardly the edge of the actual urban area. The old-world city stretched out for miles in every direction, almost coast to coast on the island. Most of the survivors lived in East Meadow, or in the military base to the west, but there were looters, drifters, bandits, and worse sprinkled all around the island. The Voice had become the biggest fear, but they were far from the only one.
Even outside of East Meadow, the road here was well traveled and fairly open; there was garbage, of course, and dirt and leaves and the random debris of nature, but regular traffic kept the asphalt relatively clear of plants, and only rarely did the wagon bump over a major rut or pothole. The realm beyond the curbs was another story: Eleven years of disuse had left the city derelict, the houses crumbling, the sidewalks cracked and buckled by burgeoning tree roots, rampant weeds, and vast masses of kudzu that coated everything like a carpet. There were no lawns anymore, no yards, no glass in any of the windows. Even most of the side streets, less traveled than the main roadway, were crisscrossed with lines of green, Mother Nature slowly reclaiming everything the old world had stolen.
Kira liked it, in a way. Nobody told nature what to do.
They rode in silence a while longer; then one of the soldiers pointed to the north and hollered.
