The Last City Box Set

by Logan Keys

  “Mother—Adrian, why do you hate men so?”

  And I worry at the pupil like ring to Joelle’s voice, and I see in her head, the messy tangle of loose ends all winding into one ball of confusion. Is her mother right?... she is wondering.

  I’m no champion of men, having been brutalized and abused by them as long as I remember, but a good portion of the men in my life were not only kind, but heroes to me. I push an image to Joelle that I can tell snaps her gaze to mine. Tommy.

  But Adrian is distracting, now in full motherly or educational mode. She must have been a professor or like Joelle had said she’d performed experiments on her, and so she falls easily into the role of teacher for us young girls.

  With a grand motion, Adrian takes in all that we survey, swiping a hand across the vast destruction and mayhem that has corroded the landscape. “The power of women has long since been edified. From the Mother Eve to Bathsheba. From Delilah to the daughters who wed the sons of God causing angels to fall, women have been tempting men out of grace and into hell long enough to know who is the real strength of sex. But this... the desolate earth, look upon it, my darling. Because this is the wrath of man.”

  I don’t flinch at her words, not because she is right, but because she is not wrong.

  I have felt man’s wrath on my cheek. In my body.

  I have felt bruises and pain until I’ve lost consciousness.

  Like the earth, I have shared my desolateness and still have parts of me that will never regrow or return anew.

  Like the world, we both have scars that may never heal.

  But I have felt a woman’s complacency, as well. My mother knew what my father was. She’d say she was afraid to leave him. I’d say she was afraid of change. My mother’s patterns in life were set, much like Joelle’s mother’s appear to be now, and I’d been more afraid to follow my own’s footsteps than to be knocked flat by my father.

  If we are not careful, we simply continue their cycle.

  I send Joelle the image of her mother abusing her as a reminder. Was it man that did that?

  Joelle’s gaze falls, as she knows that we cannot listen to all of this rhetoric without remembering the source.

  Is it strength and weakness that truly polarizes the genders? Or is it those that do and those that stand by no matter which parts they have?

  “A woman rules Anthem,” Joelle says. “The widow you mentioned. Does she not add to… all of this?”

  Adrian whirls around on us, anger pulling her face tight. “You think Karma truly rules? She’s only following the legacy of her dead husband. Reginald wore the mantle of power, Simon, your father, worships the supernatural, and the scientist who’s hidden himself among the weak on that island. That man I refuse to even name, he’s the worst of them all! He’s held a personal vendetta against your father ever since he left, and the world paid for his pride dearly! And all of this is the result of their feud, their precious child: war. A colliding of their egos, and their sin is the root, the weed strangling the new beginning. It’s passed a long time that we’ve cleaned our garden. A woman’s work as it were. I say we begin a new era, one of majesty rising from the ashes. We'll call it the decade of deliverance. A sweet rain cometh to wash away the sins of fallen Kings as it should be.”

  Joelle looks incredulous, but, if I’m honest, a little bit in awe of her mother’s ability for the grandiose.

  "You would have me join you?” Joelle asks. “Long live you, the Queen, alongside your subjects.”

  "No, my darling.” Adrian reaches out to touch her daughter’s cheek. “Long live the Queens."

  Chapter Eight

  Liza

  I’m in Anthem. Not the Anthem. I know that now, but as time goes on, I will have forgotten. Most often, I’m lost to the fabrication too soon to truly study the differences, and I sense Cory’s glee when that happens after the fact.

  I used to panic when I realized I was inside of a fake reality and that I would eventually capitulate and be lost to the pretend, but now I embrace the transition with a new driving need to feel like I chose to. Like I control something. Anything.

  This version from my memory is perfection, almost. He’s gotten the gist of Anthem down by now. The earlier renditions were much dirtier, closer to the post-apocalyptic feel of outside in the wilds rather than the new feel of a rebuilt Anthem.

  Anthem’s not in shambles. Despite being called Ash City and L.A. being nicknamed La la land, it was the latter that was patched together on the west coast out of utilitarian fashion, while Anthem is a prize pig of cities. The only one rebuilt not only to its former glory, but further.

  Even I have to admit, she is far from ugly. She’s beautiful and worth all of the fighting.

  Right now I’m in the center of the city which holds buildings so high they seem to go to scrape the smoky clouds. They seem to crookedly reach for one other and are conjoined by skywalks that let you cross an aisle that hovers hundreds of stories high. Glass, all of it.

  The medical plaza. Floridian.

  There used to be three buildings, that is, until Jeremy and Crystal blew up the middle building. It had been the largest, and now it’s gone both in real life and here in my mind.

  A woman appears next to me, perfectly still. She turns her head on a robotic glide and says, “Here, at Floridian Medical Center, we host a number of physicians using the latest in technology and medicinal advancements to keep our city the healthiest place in the world. Press the display, and the information for each section of our hospital will be given in a virtual tour.”

  There’s no display. Pieces of this rendition are missing.

  It’s obvious Cory has never been to Anthem. But he’s gone over it like a painter, how the artist layers each time making something closer to reality. That’s what this is, a final painting of Anthem that even smells like Anthem City, but still, if I scratch at it, the other layers are there, not quite perfect.

  However, the final stand for humanity in all of its glory is something to behold. Impressively, it’s even got the correct amount of hopelessness.

  I leave the woman and step onto the street instead. This is the Anthem I remember, but perhaps I have it wrong as well. A sort of evolution since the uprising had to have occurred since I killed Reginald, some sort of knee jerking would have been done by the remaining Cromwell, i.e.: More guards and less freedom. Perhaps less upkeep on the south side.

  I keep walking until I’m close to section. It would have remained clean because no one would dare litter in Anthem. You wouldn’t even find an errant gum wrapper.

  So many rules…

  But it would have probably been less kept up compared to the center and north-most parts of the city. And voila: The image before me corrects to fit my thoughts instantly. The world tilts, and Anthem changes right before my eyes. This visible shifting is new.

  Sloppy.

  I smile. Cory is tired of running my fake world. He’s growing weary, swiftly slapping Band-Aids over cracks in the dam. Meanwhile water trickles through, corroding, eating away at his control.

  He’s added more guards too. They are on every corner now.

  They surround me. Watch me.

  I remember the time I’d fought one my first day in Anthem. He’d tried to arrest me for breaking a curfew I never knew existed. They broke me in that place, in Bodega, but here, here they never got the chance.

  People of section are now rushing away from the guards toward home, their movements jerky, like poorly developed animatronics. They slow, like their batteries are low.

  Cory’s trying to fix things as we go and the world I’m inside of is a mess as if it’s under construction. I wonder what’s going on outside to distract him so.

  I approach a wall and press. Nothing happens at first. Then it appears. The giant gaping skull.

  “Jeremy,” I whisper, closing my eyes, hand to the glowing image. “I miss you.”

  With a deep breath, I leave the picture that I created. The drawn sign of r
ebellion that I drew with my mind. A newfound strength emboldens me to risk trying to change something else.

  Section too has become something different. Before, when I’d been in Anthem the housing was newer, but still basic and little warehouses squared boxes for people to live: Coffins essentially for the poor that they did not want to have to see uptown. But this idea of them worn and ugly makes more sense. Is more fitting. Because truly, what would have happened over time? Karma would have let them go into disrepair out of spite. After all, this is where the rebellion sprang from. This is where her son made his way to a new family: us. Crystal, his Skulls, all of them the people who truly loved him in the end, and this is where he’d found me. Loved me.

  And I was the one who’d murdered her husband.

  So, she’d hate section. Abandon it. If she let it become undesirable, maybe the people would give up hope. Be easier to control. Give people just enough to keep them living under your thumb. Hasn’t that always been the Authority’s way?

  Each direction I turn is blocked off. I wait to see what this will mean. Will they attack me? Will I have to fight?

  But instead they part ways down one alleyway, and between them I see him coming toward me. I tell my fake heart not to beat faster. I tell my fake lungs not to suck in and shudder out fake air.

  “This is a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream,” I chant, but my eyes fill with tears.

  All this time. All of it. And Cory has never dared to make me face him. Nor Tommy.

  “Jeremy,” I say as he comes closer.

  Cory is wise enough to make him not quite the same. Hair a little longer, dusting his collar, eyes dim from his last purging, the purple deeper, and the face is older, more haggard.

  And he’s a man now. He smiles, and it’s not charming or blinding, it is a weak and forced. But it’s him. I grab ahold of Jeremy when he’s close enough.

  “Liza,” he says like a prayer, and my traitorous body reacts with a jolt.

  He folds me up into his long, stronger, harder but tired arms. Arms that have cradled the rebellion into the grave.

  “I have missed you. I have dreamt of you all this time. I didn’t know you were alive. I swear it.”

  “You either,” I say, slowly capitulating to this madness.

  The fiddler is playing me so well and Jeremy seems solid and real. I search his face. One day I might wake up and not even know it anymore.

  Jeremy opens his mouth but I shush him. “Just hold me. Just be here a little longer as you.”

  “Okay,” he says with a laugh. “Okay.”

  But when he draws away again, one side of his mouth quirked, I bring my lips to his and eagerly kiss him. When he pulls away, his face twists from joy to anger.

  And I smile.

  “Hello, Cory,” I say.

  He’s not dressed as Jeremy, or wearing a Jeremy mask. It’s not as though he is physically here, but he’s monitoring the scene. Perhaps voyeuristically seeing me through Jeremy’s eyes. Either way, I am sure Cory’s watching closely since he brought such an important person to face me, when other times I sense that my world is on a steadily repeated loop.

  The hands at my shoulders grip tightens painfully. There is always a marker to these scenes falling apart. A signal. With this one it starts with a baby crying in the distance. Deep inside of section a child wails in hunger.

  My gut clenches knowing I will have to say goodbye to the pretender. Even if he isn’t real, Jeremy’s end is a fresh wound that’s been lanced open.

  So, Cory has succeeded in that.

  Out of pain, I pull away, and Jeremy changes to another version of himself. His gaze is distant. He melts into the zombie-fied guard. Even his outfit is now the black of their uniform. He’s once again a puppet of the Authority. This version is all too real to me. It is all exact to my memory. And the loss freshens, the misery strikes, it blinds me to the dreamscape, and I am here. I am really here.

  Jeremy is holding a gun.

  I back away, hands in front of me, remembering what happens next.

  “Jeremy!” I cry. “Remember me. Please.”

  He shoots me.

  I cup my hands over the blood from my middle. The scene changes. Now I have the gun, and I want retribution.

  I hold it shakily in my hands, and he’s not just Jeremy Writer anymore, he’s Jeremy Cromwell. He’s his father’s son. He is the reason for the world’s woes.

  I shoot him between the eyes.

  Chapter Nine

  Crystal

  “You haven’t told him she’s alive?” the doctor asks.

  “I won’t either.”

  “Why not?”

  My thoughts turn to Liza, somewhere, out there… God knows where. “Because from what Phillip has sent me, she won’t be alive for long. The last word was that the Underground had arrested her as a spy, but now I know Phillip has left LA and is headed for Anthem. I’m guessing they are together. But something is wrong. Otherwise, why the lack of communication? Maybe she did die. I’m not sure.”

  What good would it do to put Jeremy into one of his stupors over her dying all over again?

  The doctor looks like he knows something I don’t. “What?” I ask.

  “Liza’s a lot more capable than your Skulls give her credit for.”

  “Well, either way. If your little project girl fails, as we know it’s possible, Simon’s not exactly incapable, right? We need Jeremy for this rebellion more than she needs him to pine for her helplessly. Besides, it’s not like it’s happily ever after for anybody unless we get rid of Karma and the Cromwell’s once and for all.”

  The doctor just listens to me like always. He lets me come to my own conclusions. He’s interfered enough to know that the results are unpredictable.

  I shake my head. “No. Jeremy is not fully himself. She is not fully herself. None of us is fully his or herself anymore. What kind of love can one offer as something they don’t understand completely?”

  “Know thyself.”

  “Exactly. And if you don’t, then why bother trying to pawn that unknown off on another poor mixed up person, trying to survive?”

  Am I talking about them or me?

  The doctor sees straight through my façade.

  “He’s awake,” he tells me, and I take a deep breath and head toward Jeremy’s room.

  “What is it you want from me?” Jeremy screams.

  He’s in a rage.

  His last purge took hold too long. It can make an explosive personality go up and down, no middle, and Jeremy was already like that, a manic, now it’s double, and he’s weak and strong all at the same time.

  He chucks a chair at the wall, it lands inches from my head before it breaks into a million pieces.

  I don’t flinch. I’m not afraid of him. Even like this.

  I’ve still got a lot of fight in me too. But I’m staying that side in lieu of patience.

  He wants to know what I want? Truly? I want him to look at me for once and be satisfied. I want him to see me, really see me, and not be left wanting.

  I want him to see Liza where I stand. If I’m being honest. But I won’t admit any of that, not now, not ever. If Jeremy Writer could look at me and see me beautiful just the way I am, scars and all, maybe profess his undying love… But then the world could fall away and I, Crystal, me, I’d be ok with it crumbling. I wouldn’t care if Anthem fell.

  Being rejected keeps me focused. It’s what drives me, partially, and that Anthem is scarred too. She’s not beautiful the way she is, and I’m not in love with her the way she is, and I wish she’d change as well.

  I love her promise, what she could be, undyingly.

  Maybe that’s what I want from Jeremy too, to love me like he loves his hope for Anthem.

  And he does too. We both do. We duel over who loves her more. At the moment, it’s me, but someday, and soon, Jeremy will wake up and he will love her above all else.

  Even Liza.

  He’ll be like he always was, Anth
em’s torch.

  And with the fervor of his crazy passion, he’ll surpass me in numerous ways. I can only hope to be as devoted to this cause as Jeremy Writer has always been.

  But I don’t say any of that because he’s already coping with too much pressure for a fractured mind. If mine has little spider-webbing cracks, Jeremy’s has a cliff with a ledge, and a deep chasm of a voided nothing begging to him to take a final leap.

  So instead I say, “I want you to take a deep breath, and realize that we need you, but we can’t get anywhere with you like this.”

  “Like what, Crystal? Like what? Crazy? A lunatic? That’s me. Pissed off and absolutely losing my ever-loving mind! That’s all I have to offer. Sure, your doctor may have juiced me back to life, but he can’t make me me again. And that’s who you are looking for to write all of this. The old me. I’m not able to sit down and write, or even sit still long enough to make you happy. Trust me. I’ve tried.”

  I keep my voice level. Calm. “I hear you, Jeremy, I do. Don’t you think I understand it better than anyone? You’ve been purged what? Twice. I was purged three times.”

  He stops. He slumps in his posture. “You’re right. God. I know. You’re right!”

  “But that doesn’t mean it’s any better or worse than this. Each time is hard, Jeremy. But it gets better.” His hands are shaking. The shaking is a new thing I’ll have to ask the doc about. “But, listen, I never went into that dark hole you did. I never crossed over. That must make it harder. I get it. I do. I’ll be patient. Haven’t I already?”

  He sits down. Defeated. “Yes. Yes, you have.”

  “We can do this,” I say, taking his hand. We both stare at our linked fingers and then Jeremy pulls away.

  Not because he doesn’t care for me. He does.

  But because he’s too ashamed of what he’s become. A shell of a man.

  I just want him better. But for now, I’ll settle for…

  “Jeremy, promise me you will write something today.”