City of Cruelty and Copper (Temperance Era)

by Rhiannon Paille

  CARNIVAL

  3330CE |1310TE

  I wasn’t suicidal.

  I was homicidal, insane and paranoid, but I had no desire to die. Not for real. Playing games with me in the Arena was one thing. I was used to bear traps, zombies, and unexpected trap doors. What I wasn’t prepared for was this. Every day for the past two weeks someone has been dangerously close to my cell. I hear their breathing on the other side of the lead wall that separates me from their world. I hear their steady gait, boom, boom, boom across the sculpted cave floor. I hear the click of the little metal container and I smell it.

  Orange juice.

  There’s no challenge in it, they never open my cage, they never bother to let me out. They set it down, just outside of my cell and leave. I inhale the scent for hours. It’s always the same tangy orange scent, the same chemical freshness hitting my nostrils. I breathe it in forgetting anything except the orange juice. I black out to the smell, curl up on the ground inside my cage hoping that it goes away. I’m bored enough as it is, I don’t need familiar smells keeping me out of my trance.

  Footsteps sound and I’m alert. Whoever brings the orange juice comes back hours later, removes the canister. They say nothing to me, hurrying away like they might be caught. As soon as it’s Temperance Day I’ll tell Hattie. I won’t tell Hattie. She doesn’t have time for an investigation, it’s only orange juice. She’ll remind me that I’m Immortal, that nothing, not even a meat grinder or a guillotine can kill me. She’ll remind me that the Fountain of Youth made me immortal, regenerative, and that whether I like it or not, I’m alive.

  I’m also in captivity, but she doesn’t seem to talk about that.

  It was only partially my choice. Senate wanted to keep me locked away for my own good. In the first years after discovering Temperance and my fortunate predicament, there were tests. These tests weren’t done in the sterile labs that existed now, these tests were done in the streets, in the little clay structures they call homes. I bounced from one founding family to the next, from scientists to doctors to politicians. I was passed around like a new species meant to be dissected. They poked and prodded me, tested my intelligence, interrogated me, you name it, they did it to me.

  After months of experimentation they deemed me an unlikely threat. I stayed with the Chungs while Temperance was formed. People from the mainland were brought over, thousands of refugees by day, in any manner and condition. Most of them were burn victims, all of them were radiation victims. Lots of them died. Michelle Chung was a doctor, so there was always someone screaming in her dwelling. I refuse to call it a house because when I lived in Argentina we had real houses. They were made with wood and bricks. They had plumbing, heat, air conditioning. Luxuries I would never know in my lifetime.

  My endless lifetime.

  Michelle Chung died a few years later. Her sons took over the family business, and their sons were the ones that began work on the underground labs. The Crays established a government at Central, they created Temperance Day. I was forced to make a speech every year. The Grims opened a school and created a curriculum. The Ketterlings excavated more of Temperance. They owned a mining company in Argentina. When there was an Argentina. The Gibbons were farmers, they solved the growing food issues. From what I understand, the Brightons were technology majors. Since there was no such thing as Apple anymore they were useless until an expedition to the former United States of America dug up enough equipment to run televisions throughout Temperance. There was technology, but without Hollywood, it became a public service announcement system.

  Preston Engel was the only religious man to survive the nuclear blasts. He was the eighth of the founding families and after everything that had happened, he lost his faith. I used to be Christian, going to a huge church in Buenos Aires with my parents once a month. The Senate voted against religion of any form, calling Temperance the new world, and with it new beliefs. The official religion in Temperance was no religion, not since I became Immortal anyway.

  At least they didn’t believe I was the second coming.

  A loud bang on the door knocked me out of my day dreaming. Due to the boredom I often put myself into a trance and pretended I was somewhere in the past. The past was easier than the present. I peeled my fifteen year old body off the floor and stood, squinting in the dark.

  “Drink the orange juice,” someone said through a voice modulator. I raised an eyebrow at the Brighton technology as the lead door slid open and a large man with a mask on his face stood a few feet away from my cell, stun gun pointed in my direction in one hand, voice modulator in the other. With the unformed plastic it was impossible to make out his face. He wore the standard issue one piece like everyone else, which also made it impossible for me to know who he was.

  I crouched, the metal canister within reach. My fingers grasped the container. Instead of drinking it I popped the top and hurled it at whoever it was, orange juice drenching the mask and seeping into modulator. The stun gun went off, hitting me square in the thigh. Volts of electricity shot through my body. I convulsed, falling on the floor in the cell. They didn’t know it, but the stun guns had no effect on me. When I was nine I watched a kid at church have an epileptic fit. It was the same idea. I lay on my back arms at my side and gradually let the shakes wear off.

  The masked man approached, standing over me. His breath smelled like fish. I cringed at the stench as the mask came off and the face of Colin Cray came into view. I thought about tripping him, flipping him onto his stomach, lifting his head, snapping his neck. I did none of those things. He leaned in, orange juice dripping off his collar.

  “There’s more than one way to kill Fable the Immortal.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. I didn’t have a snappy retort. I wanted to know what he meant, what he was thinking, what he was going to do. The orange juice was obviously his idea. These past few weeks he had been working up the courage to face me. He was already scared enough of me.

  He turned on his heel and stalked out of the cell, letting the lead door close with a dull thud. I heard him bend, pick up the canister, and his footsteps faded as he got farther and farther away.

  Twenty four hours later it was Temperance Day. I didn’t have the pleasure of Hattie Alexander and her bulging waist. Before the sun rose I heard steps clicking down the stairs. The remainder of the previous day and night were filled with memories, being brought to trial, being found criminally insane, sentenced to life inside the lead box. None of it was televised, none of it publically recorded. People still thought I lived in some private room in Central, their version of a castle, a capital and a legislative building. Central was massive, rooms stretched out in spirals and spirals of corridors. At the very center was the courtyard, where my sentencing had taken place. I dared anyone to become immortal, to watch as thousands of people died, as thousands more voluntarily tested products meant to make them immortal.

  Watch thousands die and try to stay sane.

  Do it.

  I dare you.

  “Fable,” a sharp voice cut into my reverie. I sat, the leather against my legs squeaking as I shifted. The lead door was open, Colin Cray stood in the doorway, stun gun raised. No, scratch that, real gun raised. Not much more effective on me, but smooth move. I arched an eyebrow.

  “You fancy an early show or something?” I said, purposefully popping the first clasp of my corset style top. Colin flushed bright red and a sly smile danced on my lips. I loved making men nervous. Here I was, older than they could even imagine, and still as hot as a teenybopper wet dream. I licked my lips and ruffled out my fiery orange hair.

  Colin laughed, something that made me well, not laugh. “I said I would kill you Fable, and I meant every word.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Is that gun loaded with isotope bullets?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m not going to feel a thing.”

  “You’ll feel this.”

  Colin Cray turned on his heel leaving the door wide open. I watched him, no
t budging from my spot inside the cage until he turned and shot at me. It missed, hitting the wall behind me. “It’s Temperance Day Fable! You’re not going to let your fans down are you?”

  It was way too early for this crap. Hattie would be showing up in a few hours, wondering where I am, if I escaped or something. Yeah, I’d be out terrorizing the children of Temperance, telling them the truth about their little harmonic existence. My combat boots clomped along the floor as I followed Cray to where ever he was going. I didn’t really want him seeing me naked, so if this plan had anything to do with dressing me up in some humiliating costume, I was going to snap his neck.

  He led me through the corridors to the lavish double doors. Opening them he ushered me into the oval room, with the marble floor and the pillars. We were somewhere below the Arena, in one of the places the Atlanteans had crafted. I thought that theory was a load of bull, but then, I couldn’t offer up any of my own explanations for it. There were years of scholars who had gone above and beyond the scope of my former reality, new books written, new languages and traditions created. The only reason they kept me was because they couldn’t get rid of me.

  I looked around the room, no girls, no costumes, nothing. It was bare of anything. I turned to Colin Cray. He was busy on the other side of the room with another set of doors. The set that I usually went through when I was being lead to the Arena floor, an elevator behind those doors. The Brightons had it installed after finding the shaft that led underneath the Arena.

  “Aren’t you going to doll me up?”

  Cray turned, his lips a line. He was nothing to ride home about, wrinkles around his hard blue eyes, saggy cheeks, buzz cut brown hair, medium build. He was in the military style dress all the founding families wore during the celebration. I didn’t think much of the crew style hat, the polyester slacks, the brass buttoned jacket, the patches sewn into the breast of it. All he needed were the gloves and he’d be ready for a full salute.

  “You won’t need a costume.”

  If I could feel anything, chills would have run up my spine. Cray extended a hand towards me as he entered the elevator. I steeled myself, unsure of what he was planning and stepped into the elevator next to him, without his help. I wasn’t about to let his grimy hands touch me, even if turning him on amused me. The elevator eased to a smooth start, moments passed in silence. I eyed Cray out of the corner of my eye, but let on nothing of my growing tension. It coiled my muscles, tensed the small of my back, crunched my legs, but I remained still.

  The elevator stopped, the doors opened and that was when I realized something was wrong. The stands were bare. Usually it was booming, people shouting for me, throwing gifts into the Arena. It was dead silent. Colin Cray unlocked the grate to his right, a place I hadn’t been in hundreds of years.

  “You don’t think I’ll run?”

  Cray winked at me. “You’ll like this I promise.”

  I stalked forward, each of my steps feeling like I had giant boulders attached to my feet. Cray lead me around the back of the Arena. Periodically there were openings for the stands, and then there were doors, leading to spectator boxes. Those were reserved for the founding families. Cray passed four openings and four doors before he stopped at one and opened it wide. I stepped inside and he closed the door behind him.

  “What is this—“ My airway was cut off as Cray grabbed me, throwing me against the far wall. He slammed my wrists into adamantium chains and left me there, dangling against the wall, nothing but the tips of my boots touching the floor. “This is some dirty trick Cray,” I seethed.

  Cray laughed, putting his thumbnail in his mouth and chewing it off. He winked at me again. “I think you’ll actually enjoy this Fable.” He sat down on the black leather couch and lit what I could only call a cigarette. It was made of aluminum and smelled like cinnamon. I cringed at it until something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. Cray pushed a button on the wall and a window opened, a window into the Arena. Grating covered it in little black squares. The Arena looked different from this angle. The big sandy floor seemed endless. When I was busy jumping hoops and fighting off science experiments it wasn’t the same.

  Doors I couldn’t see opened and a team in biohazard suits began spraying down the Arena. “Isotopes again?” I glared at Cray. He took a puff of the makeshift cigarette and chortled.

  “That’s water.”

  I waited, watched them douse the Arena, watched them wheel in large contraptions concealed underneath sheets of canvas. They placed them in a circle around the Arena, seemingly arranging them like they would at a circus. I’d been there before, circus theme, it was nothing new. What was new was populating the Arena long before the people of Temperance arrived.

  “You see Fable, I’m jealous.” Cray said, breaking the silence in the room. Other than the puffs on his cigarette and my even breaths in and out it was silent, nothing but the creaking from the things being brought into the Arena.

  “Of my stunning good looks?” I suggested.

  Cray shot me a deadly look. “Immortality. We all want it and yet you, crass, unpolished, unkempt, you are the only one who has achieved it.”

  I let out a guffaw. I was a cynic, but I blamed thirteen-hundred-and-ten years on that. I used to be a good Christian girl, I used to help my parents with their business. I never got into trouble with the law or boys. I cracked a smile at Cray, my eyes softening in their sockets.

  “I’m still a virgin.”

  Cray choked.

  I sighed. “You know what happens when you’re fifteen and you become immortal? People protect you, they make laws because of you, they lock you in a lead box. They don’t touch you, they don’t do anything to ruin your purity.”

  “But we’ve burned you! We’ve . . .” He paced, the horrors of the thirty seven Temperance days he had witnessed showing on the leathery mask of his white face. He looked like a ghost. I reveled in every emotional moment of it. From the nervous tick in his fingers to the way his jaw muscle spasmed. I loved the glassy look he gave me as he eyed me from chest to waist, to lips.

  I turned cold eyes on him. “I wanted those things! Anything to . . .” I didn’t want to say it. Hundreds of years tucked away in an ever growing society of stupidity. They were bringing things back from the remainder of the world every year. I’ve seen more and more of it show up in the Arena, rusty cars, refrigerators, cell phones, microwaves, satellites.

  “Die?” Cray offered. He raised his chin, looking satisfied with himself. “Well then consider today a favor.”

  “I’ll consider your death a favor.”

  Cray put a finger to his lips to shush me. I listened, the stands were filling. I closed my eyes wondering what Hattie had done when she went into the tomb and found me missing. I held my breath, my eyes fixed on the Arena as the din rose to an unbearable sound. People shouted at the top of their lungs, greeting their neighbors, wondering what was underneath the thick canvases. I had my thoughts about it. One of the shapes looked like an old fashioned Ferris Wheel. The rest of it could have been anything of the sort, carousel, buggy ride, tea cups, by the looks of it.

  “You know Hattie is going to be furious.”

  Cray shrugged. “Hattie won’t know the difference.”

  My stomach turned to invisible sludge. I hadn’t eaten anything in twelve hundred and some odd years. My body began rejecting food around the hundred year mark and from then on I had lived off the single droplet of water from the Fountain of Youth. My eyes widened.

  “What do you mean?”

  Cray sniffed the air, which was repulsive. “Watch,” he whispered, pointing at the Arena.

  Rab Ketterling appeared in the center of the Arena, wearing the same uniform as Cray. The crowds erupted into a shower of cheers as he smiled widely. Whispers about what was under the canvases shot through the crowd and Rab laughed. His shoulders shook with the sound.

  “Welcome to the thirteen hundred and tenth annual Temperance Day Celebration!” he shouted a
s the crowd grew silent. The speech went on, chronicling our journey from discovery to present day. I checked off the chain of events in my brain, being present and alive for every single one of them. I wondered when Hattie was going to find out that I was chained to one of the view boxes, that I wasn’t coming out until Cray let me. She should have been there by now. I should have been waiting in the wings, watching Rab through a metal grate.

  I tried to remain calm even though Cray looked smugger by the minute. “What did you plan Cray? Don’t give the people their show?”

  He kept staring at the Arena and completely ignored me.

  He succeeded in making me angry. “Let me out of these damned chains you bastard!” I raised my legs hoping to wrap my heavy combat boots around his neck. Snap, snap, wouldn’t take much even with his oversized body. He slid out of the way, my boot colliding with his cheek. I smirked as he dropped the cigarette and rubbed his face. I expected him to get violent, but he didn’t have to.

  Rab and a couple of servants removed the first canvas. It was a big Ferris Wheel, an exact replica of the ones I used to ride in Canada when we lived in Ontario. My heart sputtered, doing a double take as memories of my childhood – a childhood thousands of years behind me – attacked my mind. Water filled my mouth and I swallowed back the urge to burst into tears. There were only a few things that got me sentimental. Things that reminded me of my parents did the trick every time. Rab unveiled a carousel, teacups, and a boat ride, the tank full of water, little kiddie boats floating along the surface. My eyes widened, taking it all in, remembering again what it was like to be four years old. I realized Cray was staring at me unabashedly. His jaw muscles went slack as he saw probably the most emotional response I had emitted in centuries. I turned my stony black eyes on him.