The End of the Line

by Tom Lichtenberg & John Lichtenberg

another small flying contraption heading straight for them.

  "Oh no," Edeline said. "I'm not getting strafed again," and she hid behind the much larger Red Cliff, but it was no use. The machine descended so rapidly and aimed itself so precisely that she could not avoid its attack. The thing buzzed and whirred as it spun about and patted and prodded her until it had straightened out all the wrinkles in her pants. Then it shot up straight into the sky and flew off. Edeline, who'd been swatting at it uselessly, shouted out a string of curse words at the thing, and swore she could hear it chortling with glee.

  "They're out to get me!" she said.

  "I really have never seen them do anything like that," Red Cliff said, and Soma concurred.

  "Maybe they're trying to tell us something," she mused, but Zed corrected her.

  "They just messed up," he said. "They wanted to straighten her out but the message got garbled. I think it was trying to apologize."

  "How do you know these things?" Ember asked, astonished.

  "I can hear them thinking," Zed said proudly.

  "The machines?"

  "No, the people," he said. "My people. Underground."

  "What are they saying now?"

  Zed stopped and stood quietly for a minute, his head cocked to one side as if listening to something actually audible. The others stood around him, expectantly. Soma looked questioningly at Red Cliff but he only shrugged. This feature of the boy was news to him too, it seemed. It seemed to Edeline that she even saw the boy grow an inch or two in that minute. He was now a bit taller than Ember, whereas that morning they had been the same height, she was sure.

  "They're thinking that the soup is too cold. At least one of them is thinking that. The other one thinks that margarine went the way of the dodo, whatever that means."

  "So there are two of them?" Soma asked. Zed nodded.

  "That's not even a coalition," Ember snapped. "You'd think the word would indicate more than two people."

  "Maybe there used to be more of them," Edeline suggested.

  "The book always says The Coalition," Red Cliff said. "It never says how many."

  "It doesn't matter," Soma said. "Come on. Let's keep moving. We're wasting time."

  "Yeah," Zed piped up. "They think they're running out of that stuff too."

  "Too?" Edeline asked.

  "Yeah," he said. "They're always thinking about running out of stuff. They think they used to have more of everything. Sometimes they think they just lost it, put it somewhere and then forgot where, but mostly they think it's pretty much used up."

  "What kind of stuff?" Ember wanted to know, but Zed couldn't tell them anything more specific.

  "Just stuff," he shrugged. "All kinds of it."

  After this they all walked on in silence for a while. The plant life around them became more varied. Larger streams hosted larger trees and lusher vegetation, and Edeline caught sight of some scurrying creatures that might have been chipmunks or squirrels. Red Cliff informed her that indeed there were animals, though fewer and fewer in more recent times. He could still recall the days of cats and dogs, cattle and horses, birds of prey and even fish in the streams, but those times were long gone.

  "There used to be regular people, too," he said. "I might be the only one left."

  "What about Zed?" Edeline asked. Red Cliff shook his head.

  "There's nothing regular about that boy," he said. "Nothing normal at all."

  Six

  The sun dropped from the sky like a ball from the hand of a small boy. Noon turned to night in an instant and the wandering party stopped in their tracks on the tracks.

  "Looks like the stars forgot to show up," Edeline remarked.

  "Guess we'll be camping here," Red Cliff said as he eased his large frame onto the ground. His comment set Zed off in a frenzy of dashing around, pulling out loaves of bread and hunks of cheeses from his shirt and pants pockets, a seemingly limitless supply which he handed out to the others with a great show of friendly service.

  "How does he do that?" Ember wondered aloud. Soma had remained quiet for a long time, but didn't feel like providing any answers. As each day passed she had become more of a worrier, and this latest day was no exception. She wondered if it was merely the effects of rapid aging, or if she was right to be so concerned. As a Keeper, she was supposed to know things, but there were some major unknowns in their current situation, the Coalition for one. She had taken for granted that "they" knew what they were doing, but lately she had to wonder. She wasn't so sure anymore. She was also troubled by the fate of her friends. She had seen what became of Bombarda and Squee, but didn't know what lay in store for Edeline or Ember. Zed, too, was even more of a mystery than she'd originally thought.

  "I'm getting old," she told herself, and for the first time in her life she was beginning to feel it, too. Her legs were tired from the day's walk, although it had been only half as long as the one the day before. She also had little appetite, and hardly munched on the berries Zed was now passing out for dessert. She noticed that Red Cliff had already gone to sleep, stretched out along the line like a massive flannel tree trunk. Edeline and Ember were huddled together as if they were cold, though it was a warm night. Zed was the only one showing no sign of fatigue. Soma thought she saw him running off into the night as she also fell asleep.

  He was still missing when she awoke in the morning, or rather, when the sun decided to rise. It was impossible to know how much time had elapsed. It might have been only minutes. The stars never did show up, nor the moon, which seemed to be permanently disabled. Soma stretched and rose, feeling some soreness in her legs and lower back, all novel sensations to the recent child. As she stood, she discovered that the group was no longer alone. Ember and Edeline still slept, and Red Cliff was snoring mightily, while on either side of the tracks there sat a dozen or so old people in a row, all on gray metal folding chairs, dressed in long black tunics and sitting with their hands folded on their laps. They were all more or less the same size as well, smallish, thin old people with masses of long iron gray hair hanging down to their shoulders. Their faces were narrow and dark and full of folds and wrinkles which nearly obscured their tiny black eyes. Soma studied first the group on her right, then the one on her left. They seemed to be identical, mirror images of one another.

  "Is there a mirror?" she asked herself, and walked over to her left. The sitters did not budge or move a muscle as she stepped between and around them.

  "Not on this side," she muttered, and crossed over the tracks again to inspect the other group. They were also physically present. She poked one in the shoulder but it did not respond. They did not seem to be dead.

  "Dressed for it, though," she said. Returning to the tracks, she knelt down and prodded Red Cliff awake.

  "We've got company," she told him. Red Cliff groaned and sat up slowly.

  "Monks," he said. "Watch your back."

  "What do you mean, watch your back?" It had not occurred to her that they might be dangerous. They looked so feeble and weak.

  "They can be pranksters," he said. "They sometimes like to mess with people. Levitate them, put stupid thoughts into their heads, spout meaningless jargon, and do card tricks. They're like a circus without fun, like one of those old time amusement parks where the rides go haywire and people get hurt."

  "You're not making any sense," Soma said, gazing at the so-called Monks. "Where's Zed, speaking of mischief."

  "At your service," the boy replied, startling Soma as he appeared by her side. He was now as tall as she was, and was even sporting the beginnings of a silky mustache.

  "My, how you've grown," she mumbled, refusing the somehow hard-boiled egg he was holding out to her. "No thanks. Not hungry," she added. Suddenly anxious, she strode over to the still sleeping pair and sighed. Their changing had begun. Soma recalled how she felt the day it started happening to her. She had felt it first in her jaws, the growing pains, and the massive headache that followed. Her limbs seemed to crackle and pop a
nd her eyes strained as the world shrank right before them. On the second day she bled for the first time, a nuisance that had since become a fairly regular pattern recurring every hour or so for a moment each time. As her body shaped itself into its fully grown version, her mind too had undergone revision after revision, like software being upgraded. In just a few days the experience of childhood became a dim recollection, as everything she ever knew fell away completely, replaced by new and alien knowledge. It saddened her immensely. The one who had been so filled with exuberance and confidence and joy was now the one who harbored secrets, told half-truths, and moved about with caution and uncertainty.

  "What big teeth I have," she told herself.

  "The better to frighten you with," she silently replied. Now she worried again about the fate of the other little one.

  Ember sat up and noticed the Monks immediately.

  "Are they dead?" she asked, and before Soma could respond, Zed did.

  "Almost!" he shouted gleefully. "It's their one hundredth birthday today! Their last day on Earth!"

  He trotted over to the group on the left and paced up and down before them, chatting merrily.

  "What's that you say? Cats got your tongues? What are cats, anyway? Nothing to say for yourselves? No more tricks up your sleeves? I see those sleeves, by the way."

  He tugged at the robes but the geezers didn't react. He tousled their hair, pulled on their noses. Nothing.

  "Stupid old coots," he shouted angrily, and taking one by the shoulders, he shoved it back, toppling it onto the ground. The Monk didn't twitch, didn't move, didn't do anything at all.

  "Come on," Soma said. "Let's get out of here."

  Edeline had jumped up in alarm at Zed's action and demeanor, and now all of them hurried forward, resuming their march, eager to put some distance between them and the eerie figures that had surrounded them in the night. Looking back, Edeline noticed some of the flying machines descend and busy themselves with the bodies of the Monks, but she couldn't tell exactly what they were doing, and didn't really want to know. Her attention was drawn away by an onset of groaning from her companion.

  Ember had stopped walking and was doubled over in pain. Edeline hurried to her and as she helped Ember straighten up again was shocked to see how much the girl had already transformed. Ember's face had become so familiar to Edeline over the decades and centuries they'd spent living side by side and now all at once, was this even the same person? Her narrow cheeks had widened and her sharp chin broadened out. Those big blue eyes were not quite so big, and Ember, who had always come up to Edeline's waist, was now up to her chest.

  "Are you okay?" she stupidly asked.

  "No," Ember curtly replied. "It hurts so much."

  Soma joined them and took Ember's hand in hers.

  "I've been through it," she told her. "It gets better. The first day's the hardest, and the first minutes of the first day especially."

  "Is there anything you can do for her?" Edeline asked, and as Soma shook her head Ember cried out again in pain and sank to her knees in pain.

  "We can only be here for her," Soma said.

  Edeline crouched down and put an arm around Ember's shoulders.

  "If that's all I can do, than that's what I'll do," she said. Ember shuddered and shook. Red Cliff and Zed were also standing around her now, Zed for once speechless and still. Red Cliff gestured to Soma for a word in private, and they moved a few feet away from the others

  "It seems to be accelerating," Red Cliff said, and she nodded.

  "I can feel it in myself," she told him. He did not add that he could see it in her too. For the first time he noticed traces of gray in her hair.

  "But not you," she said. "Of course, you're a human."

  "We all have our faults," Red Cliff tried to joke, but he could see the alarm on Soma's face. "We'll have to pick up the pace. Can the