“Insomuch as one can win a war, yes,” she replies, “we won. The government has fallen, and the Aboveground has replaced it.”
“You don’t sound very happy.”
“It’s not over. All intentions and announcements aside, I’m not certain how long we’ll be able to trust the new government. That’s the thing about having gnomes in charge,” she kicks the steps of the building, “about having anyone in charge.”
She breathes deeply. “But it’s over for now. For now, we’re free. Tomorrow? We might be fighting again. Glad you stuck around.”
“It’s been my pleasure,” you reply. “What now? I mean, this moment?”
“More than anything, I’d just like to return to our cramped little human room in the old Aboveground headquarters and sleep for a week. You?”
“Sounds good,” you say.
“Alright then. I get the top bunk.”
Your future uncertain, you walk through alleys and boulevards and witness the birth of a new society on your way to a well-deserved rest.
When you get to the Aboveground headquarters, you grab the pneumatic canister—the one you took from the central exchange—and pry off the top. A thin piece of paper comes out, with handwriting you can’t read. Difference looks over your shoulder and translates:
“‘Mother, I miss you around the house. I hope you get better soon! I can’t wait until I can hug you!’” Difference puts the paper back into the canister. “It was addressed to the hospital, I guess,” she says.
You think about the hospital, certainly overrun, and you look at your own bloodstained clothes. No matter, you think, because there is nothing else that you can think. What’s done is done, and will never be changed. You can only hope it was for the best.
The End
Acknowledgements
The first half of this book was written at Pink House in Portland and I owe a lot to Ratchet for her help. The rest of the book was composed during my stay at a writer-in-residency program at The Cyberpunk Apocalypse in Pittsburgh. I owe so much to the help and feedback of first readers, including (but not limited to): Isis Grimalkin, Lyra, Kate Khatib, James Matthew Hoyle, Hugh Ryan, Stiv, Micah Gates, and Regina Zabo. Thanks to Flint for the epigraph.
What Lies Beneath The Clock Tower:
Being An Adventure Of Your Own Choosing
Margaret Killjoy, 2011
ISBN-13: 978-0-9834971-1-0
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
This edition published by Combustion Books:
www.combustionbooks.org
[email protected]
Margaret Killjoy’s website is: www.birdsbeforethestorm.net
Art by Juan Navarro: fwacata.com
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