by Ike Hamill
The air went out of me. If he didn’t leave the apartment, I had no chance of getting away. I wouldn’t be able to pack.
“Isn’t that great?” he asked.
I nodded.
He was starting to look at me funny. I think he could sense my building panic. I had to get him talking so he wouldn’t spot my fear.
“Some people at work think that the Optioners are trying to extend the cull with the closure of the clinics,” I said.
“They’re idiots,” he said.
“You don’t think that the Optioners are behind it?”
“Of course they are. Let me ask you something—if you finally get to the point where you never have to worry about aging and disease, what would be your next item of business.”
I thought for a second. I hadn’t really given the idea much consideration.
“The environment?”
“Why?” he asked.
“Well, it wouldn’t do any good to live forever if you didn’t have a good place to live,” I said.
“You’re not seeing the big picture,” he said. “Your next item of business would be to clear out anyone who wasn’t an Optioner.”
I thought about it for a second, but I wasn’t seeing his logic.
“Why? Just to have everything to themselves?”
“Goals,” he said. “You can’t share the planet with a species that has such different goals. Regular humans are built to reproduce. The only way to succeed is to leave little copies of yourself behind. For Optioners, they are their own future. They only need to surround themselves with enough resources to be sustainable. With a patch of land, some water, and some sunlight, they have everything they need forever.”
“Why not just get a Q-bat and a fab. They could last a thousand years,” I said. It was a low estimate. I had just outfitted my grandmother’s cabin with enough capability to last for a hundred lifetimes that I would never live.
“Machinery breaks down. Unless you learn every step of the process to build your own machines, that solution isn’t permanent. Growing crops and hunting game can last forever.”
“What if the sun turns?” I asked.
“What if it does?” he asked. “There will always be some part…”
He was cut off by an explosion from down on the street. The plates in the cupboard rattled. We heard gunfire. He cocked his head.
I filled the silence with nervous chatter. “I saw the craziest thing today,” I said. “Some people were agitating in front of the bodega. The Guard came and shot them.”
Austin got up and moved to the window. He pushed the curtain aside and tried to see what was happening.
“Serves them right,” Austin said. “We have a process. If they’ve got a problem, they should contact their representative, like anyone else would. There’s no reason to take things in their own hands. We’re not savages.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
With the next explosion, the glasses actually banged together in the cabinet. I looked up and saw that the hanging lamp was swinging. We had our share of earthquakes, but this wasn’t that. The explosion sounded like a bomb had gone off.
“Good thing I got rid of the car,” he said. “They just burned that yellow truck across the street.”
“What?” I asked. I jumped up and ran to see. He was right. There was a pool of fire in the bed of the truck. Up the way, someone was running down the middle of the street with a torch in their hands.
“We better check the news and see what’s happening,” he said.
He turned on the feed. It didn’t take long for my worst fears to be realized. It was the food riots all over again, but this time was worse. They were already talking about a lottery cull. One in fifty non-crucial would be culled, and agitators would be bumped to the top of the list. It was nothing short of cultural blackmail. It was a death penalty for anyone who dared to speak out.
“This is bad,” I said. I was about to do the unthinkable—I was going to tell Austin about the cabin so we could try to get there together. Austin was unstable and a bully, but if anyone could get me to my grandmother’s cabin, it would be him. He had a way of negotiating the impossible and getting his way. A blockade wouldn’t stop him, and he would find a way to traverse the kilometers even without rapid transport.
I got lucky. He shut my mouth with his anger.
“What do you have to worry about? You’re crucial. You don’t even have to submit. I have a two-percent chance of being randomly selected, and a hundred-percent chance if someone reports me as an agitator.”
The idea flickered across my mind, but I dismissed it. Regardless of how mean he was, I couldn’t dream of turning him in as an agitator. He would find out somehow and then I would be in real trouble.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to.
“Don’t you do it,” he said. Austin was back at the window. I joined him and saw what he was looking at. A group of young men were walking down the center of the street. They stopped at each shop and threw bricks at the windows. I couldn’t tell what they were shouting.
Austin liked our landlord. He was protective of our building. He wasn’t going to let a bunch of rowdy protestors vandalize the place.
“What are you doing?” I asked when he went to the closet.
“I’m going to defend our territory,” he said. He pulled out a box that I didn’t recognize. Inside was a shiny black gun.
“Austin, don’t,” I said. He was through the door before I had a chance to reason with him. I put my face back to the window and looked down at the street. The men advanced. Austin was too late. They were already smashing the first floor windows of our building. I saw one back up from our place and suddenly lots of people had guns. Many of the protesting teens were pointing their weapons towards the front of our building. I could only assume that they were pointing at Austin.
“What are you doing?” I whispered. I looked straight across the street and saw smoke rising above the building. It was far away, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen in my neighborhood too. When I blinked again, I focused on the reflection of my own eyes in the glass. I realized that I should have asked the question of myself. What was I doing? I was looking for a way to get clear of Austin and he had just presented it.
I ran for the bedroom.
My packing went fast because I had rehearsed it in my head so many times. Clothes, food, and money. Everything was neatly packaged and stashed. Austin was right—my collection of good underwear was all ready to go. I don’t know if it’s like this for everyone, but my fear wasn’t exactly of Austin, it was larger than that. As I closed the apartment door behind myself, and ran down the hall, the dread surrounded me like a fog. It was like swimming upstream.
I forced myself to continue.
I heard feet on the stairs and I bolted down the other hall. I pressed my back against the wall and waited for him to pass. The shadow loomed at the corner and then came my way. I thought my heart would burst as he rounded the corner.
It wasn’t him. The shadow belonged to our neighbor, Bas. He looked at me and my backpack. It took him a second, but he figured it out. He gave me a tiny nod and then kept walking. I wanted to ask him if he had seen Austin, but I couldn’t. I had to leave on my own. It’s hard to explain, but taking help from someone else would have been the same as staying. I had to stand up straight and walk alone.
As soon as he was gone, I hit the stairs.
On the ground floor, I saw Austin’s back in the doorway. He was defending the building from the top of the stoop. The act of creeping away from that door was so terrifying that I had to choke back vomit. When I finally got around the corner near the rear door, I was one meter from freedom. Still, I had to stop and collect myself before I could work the handle.
# # # # #
I was harassed before I got to the end of the alley. I kept my head down and walked fast. I was already an expert at making myself invisible and those bullies were no different from the one I had escaped. Walking g
ave me a ton of time to think and observe.
I saw the world with fresh eyes.
Even in the parts of the city that appeared to be abandoned, the buildings were full of life. As the sun went down I saw tiny lights and tall shadows through the broken windows. I caught a glimpse of children playing up on the roof of a leaning office building.
And everywhere, I saw the Civilian Guard doing their work. They had two speeds—they would either politely ask people to disperse, or they would start shooting. Before that night, I never worried much about them. I was a young woman, and I had a valid ID. I saw a different side of things that night. All it took was one misunderstanding, or one suspicious gesture and the morgue staff would need to be called to grab a sample and notify your next of kin.
According to the man handing out flyers, this was nothing less than “specicide.” Our overlords had evolved and didn’t need us anymore. They waited for the return to Eden.
The crazy man pressed a flyer into my hand. I crumpled it up and put it in my pocket. I had remembered to bring a lighter, but I worried that I wouldn’t be able to find kindling. If I wanted a fire, I might need his paper.
I walked until it seemed like my feet would fall off.
Dawn still hadn’t come. Worried about the blockades, I followed the dry lakebed north and then veered east. I saw footprints leading across the mud towards Walpole. I was in a vacant lot where the house had burned down and nobody had bothered to build again. For a minute, looking at those footprints, I considered following. I wouldn’t find any blockades over there. I found my flashlight and used it to trace the progress of the prints. They didn’t go far. About two dozen paces into the mud, the prints simply disappeared. It was like the person had been sucked up into space.
The hopelessness of those footprints overwhelmed me. I had to sit down. Once I was off my feet, I knew I wouldn’t be going any farther that night. I curled up under my coat and slept until the sun came up over Walpole. The mud shimmered in the morning light.
I got back on my feet and started walking again.
# # # # #
I had to swing west around Selfridge. The Civilian Guard had a big base there, and the trucks went out at regular intervals. Once I got north of that, I was able to head back towards Anchor Bay. They still had water in the bay, but it was only good for the view. From an overpass on the highway, I was able to see over the walls of some of the estates. It was a different world on the other side of those walls.
They had ponds surrounded by lush lawns. They had gardens full of flowers. They didn’t have any dirty Civilian Guard vehicles patrolling their streets. Each estate had its own private army.
I came up with a plan—I would go north along the old riverbed until I could find a safe place to scurry across. Once on the other side, I could loop around the east side of the lakes and continue north. I would be in abandoned territory, but at least I wouldn’t see any blockades.
The problem was the estates. They were between me and the riverbed. The super-wealthy people had staked out the territory on the edge of civilization, and I had no way to get around them. I continued north, but I realized that I was squeezing myself into a corner. If I got as far as the lake and I was still on the west side, the water would corral me towards the blockades. I had to find a way to the other side of the estates, or else I might as well turn back south and return to the city.
As my options began to get thin, I finally found a possible solution. There was a gap between the walls of two estates. I studied it as best I could from the roof of an abandoned house. One estate was built to look like a giant castle, complete with turrets on the corners. The other place was surrounded by drooping trees and it reminded me of a southern plantation house.
The castle had big gray walls surrounding the courtyard. The plantation had white stucco walls. Between them, there was a corridor about fifty meters wide that ran down to the riverbed. I waited all night, watching the patrols and timing my run. When the sun was starting to brighten the sky, I went for it.
I was about halfway to the river when the first arrow hit. It stuck in the dirt in front of me and I stopped. I couldn’t believe it. It was a wooden arrow with real bird feather fletching. I heard the laugh and I saw the kids atop the castle wall. They shot again and I had to dodge out of the way to not get hit.
“Children!” a voice called. Farther down the wall, the parent stood. I was relieved until I saw his bow. It wasn’t a toy like the ones the kids had. This was a serious piece of machinery and the man exerted effort to draw back his arrow. I ran.
The arrow hit my arm just below my shoulder. I felt the bone ring with the force of the impact. If my arm hadn’t swung, I’m sure that the arrow would have traveled right through my ribcage and into my heart. I didn’t feel lucky. His second arrow lodged in my pack.
I tumbled down the riverbank as the man cursed me and his own bad aim. The shaft of the arrow bent but wouldn’t break. I hit the dry riverbed and felt my feet sinking into the loose dirt. They were far behind me, but they were still taking shots. One arrow sunk into the dirt just a meter from me and I heard cheers from the castle.
I clawed my way up the far side with the arrow still hanging from my arm. The blood was running down to my hand. The pain was numbing. I could feel the ache all the way to my teeth. As the sun fully revealed the castle, I could see a dozen people on the wall. They were setting something up. A tree next to me exploded and I ran. I’m not sure what they were firing, but they meant to finish what they had started with the arrows.
I ran between trees and then between overgrown houses that had been forgotten. Everyone on the east side of the river had moved north long before. There was an old shed covered with vines. Inside, I bit down on the strap of my pack as I worked the arrow free from my arm bone. I had a small first aid kit that I had been secretly saving for years. I used the whole thing on my arm. It closed the wound, but did nothing for the pain.
# # # # #
My food ran out as I followed the eastern shore of the lake. Every day I remembered something that my grandmother had taught me—how to trap a fish in the shallows, or which berries to eat when I was thirsty. Unfortunately, she hadn’t taught me a thing about navigating with a map. My grandmother always stayed within walking distance of her cabin. All I knew was to keep the lake on my left and walk.
After a couple of days, I realized that I was headed down a peninsula. I had to cut across to continue circling the lake. I would have been better off trying to swim, but I didn’t know that.
I found a road that looked like it would take me across and I set off east at a decent pace. I heard the first clicks as soon as the lake was out of sight behind me. There’s not a person alive today that doesn’t know the sound, but back then I had no idea what it was. The clicks seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. They were nothing more than a curiosity to me as I walked. I actually stopped to collect berries from the side of the road when the sun was overhead.
I heard one of the clicks and I looked around.
I shrugged and went back to picking and eating.
I found an apple tree that still had some sour fruit clinging to the branches. Even though my mouth puckered, it was wonderful to actually chew something. I heard a click that was a lot closer and I froze.
I saw a man down the road. He was frantically waving his arms. My first thought was to run the other direction, back towards the lake, but I didn’t want to lose a half-day’s progress. I had to cross the peninsula at some point. He could have simply snuck up on me and attacked me, if that was his goal. I had no idea why he would wave his arms around like a madman.
I heard another click and started to put it together—he was trying to help me.
I went towards him slowly at first, but I picked up speed as he encouraged me on with waving hands. As I got closer, he began to run too, leading the way. We must have gone a couple of kilometers that way. I was about to collapse when he finally stopped. Through the trees I co
uld see the lake twinkling. We had crossed the rest of the peninsula.
He turned and caught his breath as he eyed me.
The man was so dirty that he might have been made of mud.
“You can’t let them get that close,” he said between breaths.
“Them?” I asked. Even more winded than he was, I was down to monosyllabic communication.
“The Roamers.”
I shook my head. Eventually, I caught my breath. “What are you talking about?”
“That sound. The Roamers were closing in on you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
He tried to explain. “You can’t see them, but they’re all through here. They move around independently and then swarm when they find a person. As long as you stay close to the lake, you can avoid them.”
“What?”
He shook his head, frustrated with my inability to understand. He spoke slowly. “Don’t go inland if you want to survive.”
As he walked away, I followed. He was the first person I had seen in days. In fact, he was the only person I had seen in a while who wasn’t trying to kill me.
# # # # #
I followed the man down to the water’s edge. He dropped down from the rocky bank into the mud. When his feet landed, he turned. A gun had materialized in his hand.
“Be on your way,” he said, gesturing with the gun to the east.
My grandmother always said, “A gun once aimed should never swing.” She wouldn’t have approved of the way he used his pistol as a pointing device. It told me that he wasn’t serious about shooting.
“Leave her be,” a woman’s voice said. We both turned to see her. She was just as muddy as her friend, and she was standing perfectly still. I suppose that’s why I hadn’t spotted her earlier. She slogged through the mud to join us. “She’s frightened and doesn’t belong here.”
