Autumn in the City of Lights

by Kirby Howell

  I smiled, wanting to be strong for him. But Rissi didn’t. She started crying as she went to his bed. Ben wrapped an arm around her and cried, too. I found Grey’s hand and willed my eyes to remain dry. If we all started crying, it would only make Ben feel worse.

  “Hey Marissa,” Connie said. “I have an idea. Why don’t we go home and start dinner, and then bring it back here so we can all eat together. Will you help me?” Rissi reluctantly agreed, and Connie gave me a sad smile over her head. We both knew Rissi needed to be taken away for a while for Ben’s sake.

  After everyone else left, Shad and I sat down and filled Ben in on the Summit of New Nations in Paris, and the three of us discussed whether we trusted Diego enough or if we should vote for someone else. Then there was the problem of how to get to Paris.

  When Connie, Daniel and Rissi returned with dinner, Daniel brought a surprise for Ben. “No doubt you’ve heard about the radio transmission from Paris,” he said. “I know you like to be take part in the evening conversations, so I figured you might want it here.” Daniel placed Ben’s shortwave radio on the table. “I don’t know what the hell you do on this thing all night, but I bet you money it’s alive with chatter now.”

  As Ben took the receiver from Daniel, his eyes lit up, and I saw the first real grin since he woke. “Thanks, Daniel. Maybe I can still be useful with this.”

  “What do you mean, still be useful?” Shad demanded. “That’s ridiculous. You’re a walking encyclopedia...” Shad trailed off when he realized what he said. “I mean, well... you know... a wheeling... you don’t have to walk to be useful around here.”

  Ben ignored Shad’s comment and waved him forward. “Come here, I’ll show you how to use it.”

  The dinner Connie and Rissi made was absolutely delicious, but we were too focused on listening to the broadcasts on the shortwave radio to pay much attention to food.

  While we never heard a repeat of the broadcast from Paris, we did hear a version of it from the people at Niagara Falls, and on other channels from the groups in Virginia, Washington State, and Canada. They’d all received the Paris transmission and were passing on the details, like a children’s game of telephone.

  “...calling it the Summit of New Nations. Everyone’s sendin’ somebody,” said the Southerner. “We’re having our own elections here, but we got no way of getting there.”

  “Don’t you worry about that,” said Franklin, the leader in Vegas. “New Burbank has a jet and a pilot. Not sure what’s to be done about fuel, but I’m sure we’ll find a way.”

  “We should reserve this channel for official business, gentlemen,” Diego’s slightly accented voice chimed in. “Unless there’s something urgent...”

  “Cut the crap, Diego,” Franklin said. “This is an open channel, and we’ll damned well talk about what we want to right now. You want an official channel, switch to another one. Meantime, I need to chew this over a little bit... start wrapping my head around it.”

  “Sorry, Diego, but I have to agree with Franklin on this one,” said a man whose voice I didn’t recognize. He had a distinctive East Coast accent that reminded me of my father’s favorite Prohibition-era gangster film. “If this isn’t official business, I don’t know what is. We should talk about this before we decide anything. Right now, I’m skeptical. What if this is some kind of power play?”

  “I understand your reservations, Vincent,” the woman from Washington State said. “I have my own as well. But I think we’d be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn’t at least try to go into this with some modicum of good faith...” Ben turned the volume of the radio down.

  “Well, things are about to get interesting again,” he said, eyes staring off in the distance, trying to work something out.

  “It was bound to happen sooner or later,” Daniel said. “The world used to not be that big of a place. It was just a matter of time before we all started talking to each other again.”

  I wished I could tell my friends everything I knew about Karl – where he was from, what he was capable of, how he already had a presence in Paris. They would be more skeptical than they already were. But they couldn’t know. It was just too dangerous. If Karl found out they knew, there was no telling how far he would go to silence them.

  Connie reached forward and touched the microphone connected to Ben’s radio by a long spiral cord. “It’s amazing how these things work. I didn’t realize you could talk to the other side of the globe.” She dragged a finger across the recessed lines of the mic before reverently setting it back on Ben’s side table.

  “Well, you can’t normally reach that far,” Ben said. “These use line of sight to transmit back and forth. So on a normal day, you couldn’t transmit to the other side of the world even if you wanted to. It’s simple physics. The earth is round. There’s no straight line between this side of the planet and the other side... unless you dig a hole. And that’s not how radio works.”

  “Then how was anyone on this continent able to hear Paris?” I asked.

  “Well, there’s this phenomenon called ‘skip.’ It’s a bit complicated, but the basic version of it is, if there’s a lot of solar activity, it can cause radio waves in the air to get caught in the atmosphere and get reflected back down to earth. So on certain days, a radio signal that could only travel say from here to New York, could travel from here to Paris.” Ben paused for effect. “So Paris could have been trying to get this message out for quite some time, but didn’t have the right atmospheric conditions to reach the rest of the world. Pretty amazing if you think about it.”

  I smiled. Ben was already starting to sound like his old self.

  “Are you going to Paris, Autumn?” Rissi said, breaking me out of my thought.

  “What?” I asked. “Why would I go to Paris?”

  “Because someone from New Burbank is going. You told Ben earlier, remember?”

  “I remember, but I didn’t mean me.”

  “What about Diego?” Connie asked. “I was friends with him back in Hoover. He’s smart. He’s been a pillar of this community. I think people trust him. Ben, you worked with him in the Mayor’s Office.”

  “I suppose he’d be the logical choice,” Ben said, considering.

  “No,” Grey said. “It can’t be Diego.” All heads spun to Grey as he entered the room. He quickly greeted us, then went on talking while he claimed his dinner. “I like him just fine, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know him. If I had to nominate anyone it would be Daniel, Autumn, or Ben.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, doc,” Shad said, his forehead crinkling in annoyance.

  “No offense, Shad,” Grey said. “I think you’re a courageous young man, but I’m not sure you’d excel in a forum-like setting.”

  “A what now?” Shad asked, only half serious.

  “My point,” Grey said with a soft smile. “Again, I mean no offense.”

  Shad smiled back and nodded. “Yeah, I’m more the take orders type, not the giving them type. I get it. But still, I like Diego.”

  “I agree. Diego is the logical choice here,” Connie said, as if that closed the subject.

  I opened my mouth to argue and was surprised when Connie’s eyes flashed with tears.

  “No. Autumn, I am tired of everyone I care about being in constant jeopardy. In the past, we were in the middle of it all, and we couldn’t help the situations we were in. But this time it’s different. Let someone else be the hero.” She tossed her napkin down, stood up, and walked to the hall. Daniel followed her, and moments later, I heard crying.

  “What’s wrong with Connie?” Rissi whispered.

  “She just wants to make sure we’re all safe,” I said. “We just need to give her some space right now.” I knew Connie was thinking about her three children and husband before The Plague. She was right. She’d lost too much. We all had.

  “I still think it wise to discuss who the representative should be,” Grey said.

  “What about you, doc?” Shad
asked. “I could see you winning an election. You and Autumn are still pretty popular. You could beat Diego if you threw in your hat.”

  Grey considered for a moment. “That is a possibility.”

  “Shad, you know you’re going, right?” Ben pointed out.

  “Wait, what? I thought we just established I’m not form material,” he said, butchering Grey's phrase.

  “Not as a representative, but as a pilot,” Ben said. “They’re going to need a transcontinental aircraft. There aren’t many of those. We’ve got a couple at the New Burbank airport, but those are some really sophisticated planes. Not many folks can operate one. Daniel has to go, whether Connie wants him to or not. And he’s going to need a co-pilot he trusts. I know he’s training a couple people, but at the end of the day, he’s gonna choose you.”

  Shad’s brow furrowed. “Damn. You might be right.”

  “I know I am. So the real question is, who do we want to send with you guys as a representative? Diego? Grey?”

  “Let’s not talk about this anymore tonight,” I said, finishing the discussion. “We’ve got six months to figure this all out, and right now we could all use some time to rest.”

  “I’m going to listen to the radio a while longer,” Ben said. “Might even join the discussion on the open frequency, start taking some notes.”

  “Egg head,” Shad said, smiling.

  An hour later, Grey and I were in my bedroom alone. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. This is all getting out of hand, and on top of it all, Connie is acting so strange. I want to go tell her we’ll all stay out of it, but… we can’t, can we?”

  “No, we can’t,” Grey said, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

  “The Front is in Paris. We’ve seen it with our own eyes. No one else knows what Karl is capable of.”

  Grey pulled me down next to him and kissed my cheek gently. His lips were warm on my skin. “How would you feel about me putting my hat into the ring?”

  I sighed and leaned against him, my head finding the curve of his neck. “Knowing what I do about you and Karl, I guess you’re the best person to go.” I paused, unable to hold back the rest. "But I don’t want to be half a world away from you.”

  “I know. But it’s not like he can capture me. I can go anywhere I please, at any time.”

  “But he can kill you,” I whispered.

  “Ben was right. Daniel and Shad will be there. We’ll watch each other’s backs.”

  “But they don’t know about you or Karl or how to protect you from him,” I whispered, then allowed myself to voice the concern that had been slithering around in my head like a rattlesnake ever since Karl’s announcement this morning. “What if this is all some grand scheme of his to kill you?”

  Grey’s hand closed around mine. “If Karl wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead.”

  I shook my head. “Karl knows too much about us now that the peace talks are happening. We still don’t even know where he lives. Yet he’s learning New Burbank more and more each time he’s here.”

  “I’ve often thought the same thing.”

  “Do you think there’s even the most remote possibility he’s honestly trying for peace?”

  “I suppose it’s not completely outside the realm of possibility,” Grey said, brushing the tip of my ponytail again his palm absently. “But I think it’s unlikely, knowing him the way we do now.”

  “What if he’s luring all the leaders there to trap them? Or what if Paris is just some kind of prison state, or worse?”

  “Why don’t we go find out?”

  I looked up at him, surprised. “You want to go to Paris now?”

  “We could.”

  “What if we were seen?”

  “We’d have to be careful, of course. But perhaps we could learn a little more about all of this if we took a short trip.”

  I bit my lip and considered it for a moment. “Where would we even go? Paris is a big city.”

  “I can think of only one place in the city where they’d be broadcasting that message. It’s the tallest antennae in the area with the most likelihood of getting a signal out this far, and we’ve been there before.”

  “The Eiffel Tower.”

  “Seems a likely place for their transmission. What do you say? Are you in the mood for a quick trip?”

  I thought about it for a moment, then grinned. “Oui.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Grey took me in his arms and brought his head down to my shoulder. I knew to close my eyes without being told, and seconds later, cool, damp air brushed my cheeks and swirled my hair around us both. I opened my eyes. The Eiffel Tower stood before us, lit up against the predawn sky, letting everyone know why Paris was called “The City of Lights.”

  We stood on a rooftop about half a mile from the iconic tower. It was chilly, and I wrapped my arms around myself. A steady breeze rustled a sea of leaves all around us. The roof was mostly covered with vines growing from what I assumed used to be a rooftop garden. Groups of large lumps, like miniature rolling green hills, suggested chairs and tables were nestled beneath the leaves.

  “They have power here,” I said, my eyes skating across the flood of lights. “I didn’t think there were any of those hydroelectric dams nearby. Could they really have gotten the whole city up and running since we were last here?”

  “They wouldn’t need to. Paris installed hydroelectric turbines under some of the bridges along the Seine River. They could get enough power from those to handle this area. At least... that’d be my guess. They must be maintaining the turbines the way Hoover maintains the dam.”

  He paused and squinted at something in the distance. “There are people down there.” He pointed toward the base of the Eiffel Tower.

  “Bit early for a walk.” I squinted at what looked like a group of tiny matchsticks. “Wonder what they’re doing.”

  “Let’s get a little closer and find out.”

  “We can’t let them see us.”

  “I won’t get us too close.” He extended a hand.

  I couldn’t help myself; I wanted to know more, too. So I wove my fingers through his. He wrapped me up in his arms, and I felt another wash of air. I opened my eyes, and we were behind a pre-Plague souvenir shop. I peeked out from the edge of the shop and saw two men and a woman near the elevator at the base of the tower. The woman was slender and curvy with long brunette locks billowing around her shoulders in the early morning breeze. She was dressed exceptionally well for a post-plague society – even one in Paris. Everyone in Hoover and New Burbank wore durable work clothes. I wondered who she was.

  “Can you hear what they’re saying?” I whispered. Grey nodded and strained to listen closer. I did the same. I could hear the sounds of voices on the wind, and I thought I heard the name Margery spoken, but I couldn’t be sure. Moments later, they all entered the elevator, and the car trundled up the base of the tower.

  “Anything useful?” I asked.

  “Somewhat. One of the men said they were able to confirm that at least one of their transmissions made it across the pond, because someone in Niagara made contact. They seem to know about the same settlements as we do, maybe even a few more. It sounds like everyone they’ve contacted so far wants to attend the Summit.”

  “But are they with The Front?”

  He shook his head. “They didn’t say anything that would indicate either way.”

  “There has to be a way to find out.” I glanced around and found no signs for Le Front de Reconstruction. “Looks like they removed all of The Front’s signs that we saw here last year. Let’s see if we can find any others.”

  Grey projected us a couple of miles away, and I opened my eyes to a narrow alley. The rising sun turned the eastern sky a delicate blue, which lit the dark streets just enough that the pools of white light cast by the streetlamps were less defined.

  “Did you ever live in Paris?” I asked, as we walked down the alley to a larger cobblestone street. “You seem to know ju
st where to project us.”

  Grey nodded. “For a few years, in the early 1950’s, when the city was starting to recover from the war. The population was booming and culture returning, but rations were only just ending and living was still rough.”

  “What were you doing here? I mean, why come here to live if it was so hard?”

  “Because it was still Paris.” He shrugged and smiled at me. I nodded in agreement, then wondered if the magic of Paris could live through The Plague and a silent invasion by The Reconstruction Front.

  We walked the streets, looking for signs of The Front and of Karl. But we found nothing. No signs, no white flags.

  Grey took us to three more places before we finally encountered people. The sun was up by now, and we were passing a small bakery. I kept quiet while Grey approached the plump man sweeping the walk in front of his store. The smell of fresh bread wafted from the open door, and I breathed in the delicious, yeasty scent.

  “Bonjour, mon ami,” Grey said, in what sounded like perfect French. “Où ont-ils décidé de mener le Sommet des nouvelles nations? J'ai manqué l'annonce.”

  The baker smiled, his eyes almost disappearing into his cheeks. “Oú d'autre que Versailles, pourrions-nous l'avoir?!”

  Grey gave a good-natured smile and rolled his eyes as if to say, of course! He said, “Merci, merci!”

  “Okay, tell me what you both said,” I whispered when we were far enough away for my English to go unheard.

  “We’re going to Versailles. That’s where the meeting will happen.”

  Grey pulled me into the next alley, and when we were sure we were alone, he projected us again. When I looked up, we were in the perfectly manicured grounds behind Versailles. The lavish garden setting reminded me of a novel I once read in high school.

  “They’re clearly getting this place ready to receive world leaders,” Grey said, picking up a pair of shears in front of a recently trimmed hedge. “You don’t go through all this trouble, unless you’re trying to impress.”

  I peeked around the greenery and eyed the palace. Despite the early hour, it was completely lit up with workers moving at a brisk pace into and out of the numerous entrances.