Autumn in the City of Lights

by Kirby Howell

  “I don’t see any white flags or signs,” I said.

  “Perhaps they’re past that point.”

  “What are we looking for then?” I asked. “Beyond seeing Karl himself walking through the doorway?”

  Grey thought for a minute. "Maybe we’re over thinking this. Why don’t we find someone and just ask?”

  “Just ask? What are you going to say? ‘Hey, nice weather we’re having this morning, and by the way, are you guys being ruled by a sociopathic alien with plans of world domination?'”

  He smiled. “Perhaps not that pointed a question. I was thinking along the lines of, ‘Do you know where I can find Karl?’”

  “What happens if they get suspicious?”

  “Then we make a hasty retreat.”

  “We’ll have to be careful who we ask. It can’t be anyone here. What if you come back with the delegates and get recognized?”

  “Very true. Let’s go back to the city and see if we can find someone more innocuous.”

  “How about that baker you already talked to?”

  He nodded. When we arrived, the baker was gone from the front walk, but the door was still open and a young girl, maybe fourteen years old, was sitting just outside reading a book. She seemed completely engrossed. We hid ourselves at the mouth of an alley a block away.

  “Wait here, just in case.”

  Grey strode up to the girl, who immediately blushed when she saw him. She grinned and tucked a stray hair behind her ear as he spoke to her. I wished I could have heard their conversation. After a few minutes, Grey waved goodbye then continued walking down the cobblestone road away from me. He went several blocks before turning a corner, and then, a split second later appeared behind me.

  “Holy hell, you scared the crap out of me!” I said, trying to lower my voice with every word.

  “Sorry,” he said. “She’d never heard of Karl, but says there used to be a Reconstruction Front here, and that its leader was an older man named Claude.”

  “Does that mean they’re gone?”

  “She said they dissolved The Front. They formed a new republic and elected a woman named Margery Durand as Prime Minister. This was just two months ago. Apparently, she’s the one calling for the Summit –”

  “I heard that name at the Eiffel Tower,” I interrupted.

  Grey nodded. “I’m certain that was the Margery Durand she spoke of.”

  “Wait, I’m confused. So did they dissolve The Reconstruction Front peacefully? I don’t see any signs of a war here like there was in Hoover and Vegas. Would Karl let that happen?” I ran a variety of scenarios through my head but couldn’t come up with a logical reason why Karl would give away control and just leave.

  “I’m sure there’s more to it than just that, but at least for now, it seems the people of Paris have an elected leader and are reaching out to other nations for altruistic reasons. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be cautious, but it would seem we’re not walking directly into a trap.”

  I stood, considering what Grey had discovered. It was a lot to take in.

  “We should get back home,” he said. “We’ve gotten what we came here for.”

  I sighed and nodded, reluctant to leave.

  Less than a minute later, I was kissing him goodnight at our back door in New Burbank. I watched him disappear into the guesthouse and then said goodnight to Daniel as I passed him in his usual chair in the hallway.

  Late the next day I went to find Grey in his lab on the top floor of the hospital. With no other doctors left in this part of the world who were knowledgeable enough to conduct medical research, he had the lab to himself. As I approached, I heard the tinkle of broken glass and a low curse come from behind his door. I pushed it open and saw him crouched on the floor, sweeping small shards of glass into a dustpan.

  “Hey,” I said, startling him. It was a rare thing to catch Grey off guard, and I was almost more surprised than he was. He recovered after a split second, then smiled warmly at me and motioned to the mess.

  “You’re not finding me in my best hour, I’m afraid.”

  “Can I help?”

  He shook his head. “No. I just need to make this again and get it into the centrifuge.” He sighed deeply, and I noticed how exhausted he was.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “No. Not really.” He snapped off his white latex gloves and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m no closer to finding a cure for The Plague than I was back in Hoover. I keep thinking I’ve made a breakthrough, only to run tests and see all of my solutions break down after exposure. I just don’t know what to do.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” I said. “You just need more time.”

  He tightened his lips and closed his eyes. “I’m sure I will figure it out... I just don’t know how long it will take me to do it.”

  “You’ve got time, Grey. It’s okay if it’s not this week, or even this year.”

  He shot a glance at me, almost panicked.

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “I need to figure this out now. The world can’t move on until The Plague is truly behind us and can’t cause any more deaths.” I knew he was talking about the newborn crisis. So far, we’d only heard about one newborn living. The rest had succumbed within hours to the Crimson Fever that still poisoned the air around us. It was a sobering thought that this generation of children could very well be the last... but I knew Grey would eventually find a cure. I had to believe it.

  “Why don’t you take a break? Connie sent this over for you.” I held up a bag of leftovers. “Ben and I already ate downstairs in his room.” I smiled, and the hard lines in Grey’s tense face quickly softened.

  “Let’s go somewhere,” he said, shedding his lab coat and grabbing his navy sweater. He moved to wrap his arms around me. I smiled, knowing he was about to take me somewhere wonderful.

  In the blink of a moment, I felt the evening sunlight warm my cheeks. I opened my eyes and looked up to a cloudless sky, stained red by the setting sun. We were on a very high ridge, and I recognized Hollywood below us. I turned and saw New Burbank below us on the other side. The crest of the mountain that divided the two areas was just wide enough for a park bench resting under the shade of a single tree. I smiled, recognizing it.

  “I’ve seen this tree up here a thousand times over the years,” I said. “But now that I’m standing here, it seems odd that it’s all alone.”

  “It’s called the Wisdom Tree,” Grey said, leading me to it. “This mountain and all of the Hollywood Hills around us regularly burn during fire season. You remember seeing coverage on the news over the years, right?” I nodded. “This mountain has had at least three sizable fires since I moved to Los Angeles just a few years ago, not including the fires last fall. Somehow, this one tree manages to survive. But everything else around it is burned away.”

  “What an amazing little tree,” I said, resting my hand against its unmarked bark.

  “In some ways, it reminds me of you,” Grey said, pulling me down next to him on the bench. I settled into the crook of his arm.

  He leaned toward me and touched my lips with his. His dinner lay forgotten as we watched the sun disappear and the sky’s colors deepen.

  “Do you mind if we talk more about what I brought up the other night?”

  I immediately thought about his suggestion to live like Connie and Daniel one day – married and in a house of our own. But so much had happened recently that he could mean something else, so I just nodded.

  Grey leaned away and dug into his pocket, then took my hand and pressed something small into my palm.

  “I’ve wanted to give this to you for a while.”

  I looked down. An antique gold ring lay in the middle of my palm. It had an intricate design on one side, and the cluster of diamonds on top was milky with age. It was the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen.

  “I came into possession of this over a hundred years ago. I don’t know why I kept it, other than I thought i
t was important to preserve it. I think now I must have known that someday, I’d want to give it to you.” He paused, and I saw a shred of insecurity in his eyes. It made me smile.

  “Do you like it?” he asked.

  I nodded, unable to speak. He slipped it on my finger. “For now, it’s a symbol of my love for you. It can mean more later on, when we want it to.”

  He never got around to eating his dinner. We sat on the bench under the tree for hours, discussing what we hoped our future would bring. Once the sky had faded to a dark blue, stars began to appear and the moon rose. I watched the diamonds glint in the white glow and leaned against him, staring out at the few lights left in Hollywood.

  After a while, I found myself drawn to a blinking red light. It was the beacon on the top of Brass Ring Records on Hollywood Boulevard.

  “Do you see that red light? I was thinking about all the people who’ve been there over the years.”

  Grey leaned forward and stared at the light. “I never noticed that before,” he said more to himself than to me.

  “Noticed what? The light?”

  “No, I’ve seen the light, but I just realized... it’s blinking in Morse code. It spells out ‘Hollywood.’”

  I looked at the red light with more curiosity now. With each blink I wondered which letter in the word “Hollywood” it was flashing.

  “It’s getting late,” Grey said. “We should probably get back.”

  I stood reluctantly, not wanting to ever leave this bench or this hillside, where the moon shone so brightly. I felt the ring circling my finger and realized I hadn’t thanked him.

  I looked up at him suddenly and found him watching me. I opened my mouth, but he touched his finger to my lips. “The look on your face is more than enough for me.”

  Moments later, we were back in his lab. “Let’s go check on Ben, and then I’ll take you home,” he said.

  When we got to Ben’s room, I was surprised to find Connie, Daniel, Shad, and Rissi all there. Something was wrong.

  “What happened?” I asked, chills prickling my skin.

  “Why don’t you both take a seat for a moment?” Daniel said, pulling out a chair next to him. “We need to talk to all of you.”

  I sat down in the chair next to Daniel, and Grey leaned against the wall beside me. Connie looked around the room at us and took a deep breath. “I’m sure you’ve noticed Daniel and I have been a bit on edge recently.”

  I nodded, remembering her outburst last night. I hoped she wasn’t going to say they were separating.

  “Well, there’s a reason for it. A very good reason.” She looked at Daniel, who nodded in support.

  She looked back at us, then took another deep breath. Her eyes locked on mine.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Pregnant?” I asked, stunned. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “Very sure. I’m three months along.” She put her hand on her belly in a protective gesture. “We’ve been keeping it quiet until now, but I’ll start showing soon. We figured it was time.” She looked around the room, examining all of our slack-jawed faces.

  “Connie...” Shad said, shaking his head. He got up and went to her, wrapping her in a firm hug. I saw tears gather in Connie’s eyes as he held her, but she wiped them away.

  “Don’t be sad for me.” She glanced at Daniel, then said, “For us. At least not yet. There’s always hope we’ll have a healthy baby.”

  “Maybe it’ll be born immune,” I said, trying to make myself believe it. But the odds weren’t in her favor.

  “It’s possible,” Daniel said. “And it’s also possible Grey will have figured out a cure by the time Connie’s ready to deliver.” He took Connie’s hand again and squeezed it, then wiped a tear from her eye with his other hand. A thought occurred to me, and I turned to stare at Grey, who had remained silent.

  “You knew?” I wasn’t sure why I felt anger, but I did.

  Grey met my gaze, then crinkled his eyebrows as if to say, “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s why you’ve been in the lab nonstop for these last few months,” I said, trying to control the accusatory edge. “And that’s why you were so upset today when your samples broke down.”

  “I wish I could have told you, Autumn. But Connie and Daniel asked me to keep this to myself until they were ready to share their news.”

  I turned to Connie and Daniel. “We’re supposed to be a family. Why keep a secret like this? We could have—”

  Daniel stopped me mid-sentence. “You could have what, Autumn? What could you have possibly done to help us?”

  I tried to organize my thoughts, despite the anger and hurt jumbling everything into a mess inside my head. The realization that Connie was a massive hypocrite surfaced, and I felt my irritation almost bubble over. The lecture she gave to Grey and me after discovering him in my room a couple days ago seemed feeble and annoying in light of this new information.

  “I could have given Connie someone to talk to,” I said.

  “She had me,” Daniel bit back.

  Connie put her other hand on his side and begged him to calm down. “She’s just upset right now because we kept her out of the loop, Daniel.”

  “Not everything is about you, Autumn,” Daniel said, not wanting to let it go. “It’s time you grew up a little.”

  My jaw dropped open.

  “Me? Grow up? Are you kidding?”

  “Hey, hey,” Shad said. “Let’s all just take a few minutes to calm—”

  “Hang on,” I said over Shad. This time I was the one standing up. “I think over the past two years I’ve done a hell of a lot of growing up. Remember, Daniel, I was the one pulling your ass out of Area 51. A kid might have panicked and left you there to die.”

  “Autumn!” Connie gasped. Her astonishment cut through my anger, and I instantly knew I’d crossed a line. I looked around at the faces full of mild reproach and wanted badly to run away.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.

  Daniel’s face was as red as his hair now, and I could tell he was raging mad at me and doing his best to control it.

  “I’m going to go take a walk,” I said, then turned to leave.

  “I’ll come with you,” Grey said, standing.

  “No, thanks. I really just want to be alone right now.” I knew Grey wanted to explain himself, and I was sure under the right circumstances, I would forgive him, but I’d just lost my temper in a shocking fashion, and I knew I was still on the edge of losing it again. I walked out of the hospital into the cool night air. I wanted to get some distance between me and the rest of my family.

  I walked all the way home. Snicket heard me coming and stamped anxiously as I approached. I often brought her after-dinner treats of carrots or apples. This time I had nothing for her. I stroked her long, smooth nose and tugged at her forelock.

  “How would you feel about an evening ride?” She snorted in response, as if she understood what I wanted. Moments later, we were on the street, and I snapped her reins and yelled, “Heyah!” urging her faster.

  I let Snicket go at a full gallop on the main boulevard through New Burbank. Heads turned as I passed, but I didn’t care. The cool air whipped past me, chilling my face and arms, and it felt good, sobering me from my tirade with Daniel. I thought about how angry I was and then realized it wasn’t actual anger. It was fear. I was scared of Connie and Daniel having to go through a nine-month pregnancy only to lose their child. I was scared of Connie losing someone else, when she’d lost so much already. And I was hurt she hadn’t confided in me. I’d told her so much over the last couple years, but she didn’t feel she could reciprocate.

  My anger began to subside. I was still frustrated Grey hadn’t told me. I knew something had changed when he’d begun spending tireless hours in the lab. That should have been the first big clue. Connie freaking out about Daniel leaving for the Paris trip should have been my next one. But the thought of Connie being pregnant just hadn’t occurre
d to me.

  I rode Snicket all the way to the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains – the craggy, desert mountains lining the back edge of New Burbank like a cape. Unlike the lush, green Hollywood Hills near our house, these were brown and angular and much, much higher. There were hiking trails throughout the mountains, and I chose one, not knowing or caring where it led.

  I’d been up in these mountains before, only a few years ago. You could see all of the lights of the city from here. Now they were clustered around one spot – New Burbank, snuggled against the base of the Hollywood Hills.

  Most of the population here was situated near the equestrian center, but we were slowly spreading out. I wondered if we’d ever have enough people here to light this area up like it used to be. Not without babies, I thought. There just weren’t enough people left to fill the town up, at least not in the area. Even if all of The Front came to live with us, I didn’t think we’d even fill a quarter of the houses left. I silently prayed Connie and Daniel’s baby would live and be part of the next generation re-populating this area, and the rest of the world. Grey had to succeed.

  * * *

  Three months passed. Connie’s baby bump appeared and then grew larger. I rarely saw Grey, as he was spending his every waking minute in the lab at the hospital. There was no progress on finding the bomber from the incident at the Hillside Bowl. Shad and the Guard rode countless miles and interviewed everyone from the meeting that day, but the trail had gone cold. No one knew of anyone with a star tattoo on the back of their neck. Karl continued to insert himself into the everyday goings on around New Burbank. I couldn’t stand to see him walking freely around the town we’d worked so hard to rebuild, so I stayed home, working in my garden and helping Daniel build wheelchair ramps for Ben.

  Ben moved home on a sunny day that finally felt like spring. He’d grown quieter than he used to be and I worried that the accident had changed him. On the surface, he seemed fine, spending most of his days talking on the radio to Franklin and anyone else planning to go to the Summit of New Nations. He also began working on a project with his new BFF, Jen, the nurse. I thought they were an odd choice of friends at first, but in the last few weeks, I’d just been happy to see someone around who made Ben light up and forget about his paralysis.