by Tara Brown
I glanced up at Bran, shaking my head. “I don't understand.”
“They take some of her and some of us and combine it and make a baby. Those babies are put inside of women to build the population here.” Bran sighed, glancing at Lyle who nodded and spoke softly, “The numbers of pregnant women don't match the numbers of babies being born and added to our population.”
Again I shook my head.
Lyle lifted his finger, pointing to the dim ceiling of the room. “The rest are sent up there.”
I stepped back. “Where?” I didn't want the answer, I knew that deep down.
“There’s something else we need to show you.” Lyle pulled me to the side of the room where another door was. He walked through it, using something in his hands to scan at each stop. I knew it was a thumb cut from another person but I didn't want to see that. It was gross and weird to cut things from people, even though I knew it was needed. The doors didn't open for everyone.
When we got into the next room I was completely lost. There was a massive screen, like the ones on the walls of people’s houses but it was bigger. A white table below glowed from small squares. It was blue, the way the lady with the long head was.
Lyle tapped the thumb on the scanner on the white table. The squares became brighter. He tapped them, making a series of lights and soft sounds. The screen brightened with a face, one I knew and yet didn't. It was my face but my head was long and pointed, the way sleeping Lisabeth’s was, but there was no scar from the slaver’s whip on her cheek. She was a perfect version of me, with a pointed head.
I gasped, stepping back as my face smiled on the recording, nodding and speaking softly with my very own voice, “We believe the latest batch of cells is the strongest. It has eradicated the virus as we believe the cells are resistant or immune to the sickness.” My face was filled with joy. “I believe we can leave this planet and return to our own after the next hatching. The planet is of no use to us anyway. We will find better success on our home planet. That is the finding of the council. That is the final decision on the matter. We will send your transportation after the hatching. Peace be with you.”
The screen turned off and my face vanished.
There were hundreds of fears attached to the thing I had seen but I didn’t have a single rational explanation for it. Not one.
“She is your clone. We have discovered that's what they call it, clone. They take the DNA from one of us and make one of them. There is no way to understand it but we can assume for each of us made, there is a second one up there.”
I looked up at Lyle, dizzy and confused. “Who are they?”
“They are what that recording we watched with Michael said they were: aliens from another planet. A type of people, one similar to us but clearly more superior in intelligence. They had grown sick, so they traveled until they came upon us. Somehow they managed to create these farms, where the healthiest and strongest of us were used in their testing.”
Lyle’s words circled inside of me, creating a swirling motion that made me gag. Murphy grabbed a garbage basket and held it for me as I lost whatever it was I had eaten last into the bin. I clutched to it, shaking and sobbing. Nothing was what I had imagined it was.
My imaginations involved beings from another world, but I never imagined for a second that we were copies, farmed like corn or apples. Plucked when ripe and used to make more of them for their world. I dropped to my knees, not even embarrassed by the sickness in the bin or smell lingering around it. I clutched to it, resting my head on the edge. “What about the savages and the river people and the kingdom and the slavers?”
“Rejects.” Murphy muttered, dropping to his knees as well. He took the bin, wiping my face of everything. “They are the weak, sick, infected. They are the genetically feeble. People who have sickness running through their veins, people with mutations, people with limited capabilities.” His eyes lowered, taking the softness they had offered me with them. “When a woman is pregnant and the tests show she will deliver a weak baby or a sickly child, she is pushed from the gates. The Last City of Men is a place for the strongest so the breeding is perfect, made strong so it will survive the combination of alien DNA and ours.”
I shook my head. “No.”
He nodded. “Anyone who is susceptible to illness or sickness is sent away. Anyone with a history of a disease is sent away. Anyone who doesn't blend in with the sheep is sent away. We were taught a distorted version of our past, made to believe they had saved us. The city was created because we were saved. But realistically they enslaved us. This is a work farm, made to sustain life and create a species of perfect humans so they could take that perfect DNA and make one of their own. We make our own food and govern ourselves so they don't even have to do the work. We do it all and they get the rewards.”
I covered my eyes, taking deep breaths. “The Last City—there are many last cities?” I was reasoning more than asking.
“Many. We have found seven so far. Two others are quite close to ours. The other four are spread out. One in a place once called Africa. One in a place called Asia. One in Europe. And one south of us in a place called South America. We are in North America, according to the old maps and the limited evidence we have found. They came, they conquered, and then they controlled.” Lyle dropped to his knees as well, giving me a soft stare. “We all took this news the same way you are. We couldn't believe what we had found. They have been here for hundreds of years, slowly breeding out our diseases and viruses. Slowly, over generations, they have made us stronger and harder. Our generation was the first to be successfully combined with the alien DNA. We are special, which is why we have survived everything we have. Which is why we are so much more attractive and stronger than previous generations. You must have noticed it out in the world, the difference in us?”
I nodded. I remembered seeing the river people as less than us. I didn't like my superiority complex regarding people on the outside, but it had been obvious that we were different in a way that would suggest I was better built. As it were, I had been.
Bran grinned sarcastically. “We also have a natural desire to mate with one another to create more like us. We are naturally attracted to each other.”
I scowled, hoping that explained my desperate need for the three of them.
“We have killed the engineers and planners. My father and Bran’s are all that are left of the decision makers. We have the city; we just don't know how to free the people.” Lyle shrugged. “It’s a problem we don't think we can solve, and this information makes it harder to hand over to our fathers.”
Bran sighed. “My father wants to just open the gates and let people decide for themselves. Make the city an open door place where trade and travel are possible.”
I shook my head. “These people would be the perfect target for the slavers.”
Lyle nodded. “My father agrees. He says we should just give everyone their memories and tell them the truth of it all.”
I wrinkled my nose. “But the people would revolt, that could cause more wars.”
Bran chuckled. “Exactly what my father said. He thinks the memories are still a danger to the people. It needs to be introduced slowly.”
I glanced at Murphy. “What do you think?”
“That giving their memories back is the only option. They need to be able to sustain themselves. But a government needs to be put in place, one that reduces the possibility of violence and riots.”
I scowled. “What are riots?” I could guess what government meant, governing the people obviously.
Murphy’s eyes narrowed. “A bad part of our history.” He didn't elaborate which made riots scarier. I imagined them to be the very worst thing a human could do. I knew it must involve murder. All the worst things we did to each other involved murder. My brain instantly went back to the slaver city and the violence and cruelty that lived there. That must be what riots are.
I nodded. “He’s right. They should have their memories and there sh
ould be some people in charge who have the interests of the people in mind. People who want to keep the cities free and the gates open, but look for a way of making it so the slavers don't come and pick the people off or invade. A place like the kingdom perhaps, with a leader who loves his or her people.”
Lyle sighed. “This is how we lost everything in the first place, disagreeing on every detail and trying to be perfect and have the best of everything.”
I didn't know what he meant until Bran spoke, “The army, like guards but trained for invasions and fighting, always runs the risk of turning against the people it is protecting. We have to be careful with that.”
I scowled. “Why do we have to make these decisions?” My eyes lifted to the clock on the wall. It was close to midnight. “My parents will be at the gate. I have to go.”
Lyle grabbed my arm. “If we let our fathers just take the information and give everyone back their memories, they could have a war or a revolt.”
“Your dad wants us dead for no reason. The engineers are gone so he shouldn't care if I live or die. I’m out.” I snatched my hand from his. “My parents will be at the gate, my brother is in the kingdom with my best friend, and my other friend is a slave somewhere because of me. I cannot stay here. I cannot pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist. Do whatever you have to do to end this, I don't care.” I turned and left the room, entering the room with the bright-blue light again. I found myself pausing at sleeping Lisabeth’s bed. I touched the glass that protected her, wondering how many degrees of separation there were between us.
Was she like family to me?
Was the girl who looked like me part of her family or mine?
I shuddered, realizing it all made me feel unclean.
I hurried from the room and to the stairs. I remembered I needed a thumbprint to use the elevator, but the stairs would let you out, just not in. I was halfway when I heard footsteps. I knew whose they were instantly. He would follow me to the end of the earth, I was certain of that. Not that I knew where the end was. In a sad, pathetic, and needy sort of way, I liked his footsteps there, behind me, watching over me. I liked how protective he was. When he left the city to find me, I had realized how much he truly loved me.
The image of the girl who was me in a thousand ways and not me in one very distinct way floated behind my eyes, haunting me. The way my voice and eyes were hers bothered me, but it was the gestures I knew I did that she did too that got to me the most. We were the same, apart from the pointed head. Why was her head pointed?
When I got back out onto the street I sighed a deep breath of the fresh air. Being inside of the building was choking me. I wasn't certain I ever wanted to be back here again. I anticipated getting to the gate and leaving The Last City of Lies.
“Gwyn!”
When I looked back I was stunned to see Murphy instead of Lyle.
“Ya can’t go alone.”
A slow smile, a bitter and emotional smile, crossed my lips. “I won’t ever be alone again.”
He chuckled. “It’s a hard life here.”
“It’s a hard life everywhere and you don't know the half of it.”
He nodded, licking his lips as he caught up to me. His brown eyes were dark enough to get lost in. “That's a very good point. I don't know the half of it, so when we get out there, you have to be sure to point things out to me, places and sights.” He winked like he was mocking me.
I started to laugh at his overconfident and joking ways. He had no idea what we were in for. “Sights.” I laughed harder. “You’ll see some sights all right.” I turned, letting him come. He wasn't Lyle, but he was something to me. I didn't understand what, but I knew eventually those memories would link up with my brain and I would know what he meant to me.
The gate that reminds me of the monsters we have become
When we got to the gate the rumbles from the trucks were already going steady. I glanced at the side of the building as we rounded the corner cautiously. My father was there, holding my mother’s hand. She opened her mouth to say something but I lifted a finger to my lips. Her eyes were filled with unknown excitement but my father’s were all dread. He knew what we were doing. What we were giving up.
She was clueless.
But my father was not. His stare met with Murphy’s and then mine. He looked lost on why I was still with the assassin who was meant to kill me. I shrugged, hoping he would let me explain.
The rumbles from the trucks made my skin shake on my bones but I didn't move. I didn't turn away. I waited for the truck to back up and the gates to open. I reached into the darkness of uncertainty and fear and gripped to the warm hand that was there. When the herds of people were shoved out from the back of the truck I pulled him forward, blending us with the dozens of citizens deemed unworthy. I glanced over at my father, watching him drag my mother the way I did Murphy. When we got out of the massive gate I broke into a run, shouting. “Follow me before the slavers come!” I ran to the left, not the right. I remembered the path home to the kingdom. To the last place I felt truly safe, even if it was short lived.
I ran up the dunes, remembering the horrid feeling of running in the sand. People behind us cried, confused and lost. When we reached the top of the dune I stopped and pointed to the far mountain peak in the distance. “That way leads us to safety. If we go there we’ll find a place where we can all live and be safe.”
A woman who ran as fast as I had, which was impressive, huffed and puffed as she reached the top of the dune with me. “Where are we going? Why did they make us leave?”
I shook my head, glancing at Murphy. “I don't know.”
Murphy winced. “The last couple engineers went today. Any orders given to the guards would have been followed if Mr. Getty didn’t stop them, but I don't know how he’ll manage to take over the guards. It’s going to be messy. The undercurrent that has been this silent revolution hasn't been easy. The man in charge of the toss outs was only taken out this evening.” He gave me a wry grin. “I was meant to handle it but someone decided to poison me instead.”
My father gave him a look. “Are you not the man responsible for the toss outs since you work for Frank?” The heavy sarcasm mixed poorly with the gasping for air coming from my father.
Murphy nodded. “Usually I am. But I don't make the decisions, just execute them.”
My father snorted. “Literally.”
Murphy’s stoic face never changed but I could see in his eyes he flinched, he just didn't show it. I wondered at my knowing his face so well, if it was linked to the months we had played house like children in school.
Not that I had time to worry about such things. Not with at least thirty people to move to the kingdom before the slavers came for us all.
I had made arrangements with Greg and Amber that they would come to the halfway point every couple days to see if we had managed to get away again. I nearly grinned remembering the grand scheme I had. I was going to save the world. Now I just wished I could escape it.
I started the trek across the sand dunes until they were no longer sand and my stomach stopped tightening to the point I thought I might throw up again. Not that there was a single thing in my stomach. I was certain it was empty to the point I was almost hungry again.
“How long is the walk? Some of the others are getting a bit scared to sleep and reset out here,” my father asked, wiping the sweat from his brow even though the sun hadn’t come out yet.
“About another full day’s walk, if we hurry. The halfway point is just up here. If we’re lucky Greg will be there midmorning with horses.”
My father’s nose wrinkled. “Horses?”
“We ride, Dad.”
He nodded but I could see by the look in his eyes he didn't hope my brother was there to meet us. He glanced over at Murphy, scowling still. “You can’t trust him. He was Frank and Lisabeth’s henchman.”
I nodded. “I don't.” It was a lie, I knew it. Deep down in the place where I knew Murphy, I trusted hi
m more than anyone. Apart from Lyle perhaps.
We walked in silence until the sun crested the mountains, and then as it rose, the complaints did as well. It was too hot, too dusty. The sand was in their shoes, rubbing against their feet. They were thirsty and tired. They needed rest—could we just stop a moment?
But I had something none of them did, perspective on what awaited us if we stopped. I knew what would be tracking us if we slowed. I pressed on, ignoring the complaints, regardless of how they made my blood boil. My legs hurt but the visions of the filthy, coal-covered city drove them forward. My lungs ached from lack of water and a dry, sandy throat, but I remembered how it felt to run from the city, following the naked people into the woods. I remembered fear, something these people had never felt. Or rather, never remembered feeling.
I had learned one thing thus far: the strong survived and the weak died. I had gone back to the city, believing myself strong enough to take down Lisabeth and her Last City of Men. I had imaginations of grandeur and success at freeing the people trapped there. I had believed I could be their savior. But when it had come down to it and the choice was my life or theirs, the answer was obvious. I would save myself. I was that selfish in one way and selfless in another. If I died Brooke would live out her life as a slave and that was not something I could let happen. I owed her her freedom. I would not stop until that debt was paid.
A sound interrupted my thoughts, a crunching sound. I glanced down, instantly smiling and dragging sand up my teeth with my dried lips. We had reached the gravel. I broke out into a sprint, using the very last of my energy. I ran hard for the creek I knew would be just inside the tree line.
When I reached the water I dropped to my knees, scraping them but not caring. I dropped my face into the icy water and drank until my stomach threatened to return the water. Even when my body screamed for air, I drank.
I pulled my face from the creek, cold water dripping down my cheeks and cooling my body, and watched as everyone else caught up. They shouted in joy and relief as they dropped into the creek next to me, each face plunging into the cold water.
