by Isa Marks
“We did not ask you to do that,” the old man answered surprised. “The guards have the freedom to make certain requests, but visits to the city should always be approved by our council.” He scratched his head. “But . . . the guards know what they’re doing son, so maybe they were just scared, afraid we would say no. They will have a good reason, I’m sure. Murphy boy, there’s no use in speculating. We will start an investigation and wait on the report. Until then please keep your voice down, people are panicked enough already.”
The people outside looked at him, taking a step back as Murphy stormed out through the door of the Farm House and walked away with firm steps. He was pissed off. If even the old leaders had no idea and hadn’t given orders to change protocol, then how could he trust the rest of the protocol to work?
“I’m going to the Spring Cabin, I don’t care if protocol tells us to wait until the rendezvous is complete. I’ve got a feeling this thing will go down faster than we expect. Who’s with me?” he said to the group leaning against the back wall of the Farm House. Most of them were in their twenties like him. He knew all of them by face, but only one of them by name. Well everyone knew that guy by name, Jake was the most popular guy in town.
“I’m not hanging around waiting for that water to catch up with us, lead the way. You know how to get there right? You’ve been there before?” Jake asked.
“I’ve been everywhere before,” Murphy said. “But yeah, they put me on water duty for a whileremember, to teach me a lesson. Carrying that water all the way down to the village almost broke my back. Guess why I went into scavenging. Those pipes and hoses we installed did make it a hell of a lot easier to get that drinking water down.”
“Why didn’t your dad think of that sooner anyway, or was he the torturing type,” Jake said with an ironic laugh.
“Things were easier when the groundwater wasn’t salty yet,” he replied shortly.
“Did they really have drinkable groundwater before, or was it some made up story like that ‘City of Light’ story? You know, that one where people are still living like it’s the zeros?” one of the girls said.
“Kind of depends on what zeros you take I guess,” Murphy replied. “It feels like we’ve been living like it’s the 1900s out here. Well I guess we’ll go back to 1800s standards now, after this wave.”
“I’m pretty sure they mean 2000s,” she laughed. “Back when the car batteries still were attached to the car and you could drive them, instead of them being our backup generators and chicken coups. Everyone knows the story of the City of Light though. Did you seriously not read it as a kid?”
Murphy shrugged, “My sister claimed all the books, I never got to read them.”
“Well then you’ll have to listen to this one while we walk, you can’t miss out on such an important part of our history, Murphy.” She felt kind of sorry for him. She knew what it was like to grow up like him. With all of her parents’ attention going to their important work. There was hardly any time to play with the kids. She remembered how Cathy had coped with it by reading every book there was, just like her. Apparently it had been different for Murphy.
“Guys it’s a kids fairy tale, you aren’t really going to make us listen to that the whole way are you?” Jake whined. “Cecilia please, I’m too old for that.”
“Shut up, you fool and listen.”
CHAPTER 3
THE CITY OF LIGHT
“There once was a City of Light. It was high up in the sky, on a floating island, impossible to reach. From the ground you could see its light. It was the place where the richest people of Earth had gathered. They lived in wealth and had as much food as they wanted on their table every night. Their servants cooked the most delicious meals and every night they fell asleep in their comfortable king sized beds with a full stomach. How good life was within their walls.
“Once every year a boy and a girl from the ground were picked to join them in the City of Light and share in all their riches. Or so they told the people on the ground. Everybody lined up, willing to be the next one picked. They all wanted to see this futuristic city, which was higher than the mountains. Twelve O’clock midnight, as the new year started, their flying machine emerged from the sky.”
“A flying machine?” Murphy said.
“It’s not Aliens, is it? I told you it was a stupid story, do we really have to listen to this?” Jake said.
“Go on,” Murphy smiled. “Anything to annoy this guy is good with me.”
Murphy thought about the flying machine. He had seen strange things hover over the city on his supply runs. They had told him it was his mind playing tricks on him, just some signs of heat exhaustion. But he wondered if things like that still existed somewhere in the world.
“People looked at the roaring machine in wonder.” Cecilia continued. “They only saw it once a year, on that same date and time. Two men stepped out and threw sugary sweet treats in the crowd. And while most of them hungrily grabbed for the sweets, the men picked a boy named John and a girl named Jane, who were obediently waiting in line, to take with them to the island in the sky.
“When they flew around the island, looking for a place to land, Jane and John gazed at all the lights in wonder. They had nothing to compare it to, except maybe fireflies, because there was no electricity on the ground. They felt like the luckiest boy and girl in the land. Everything they saw was new for them. The roads were swarmed with cars, driven by people wearing clothes in the most bright colors falling silky smooth around their bodies. Giant buildings were lit to the sky and moving commercials were played on screens in the streets. This was the only place on Earth where these buildings and machines had all survived and been maintained by the smart and rich inhabitants of the City.
‘This must be heaven,’ Jane said.
‘It certainly looks like it,’ John agreed.
“They were welcomed by the king himself and that night they had dinner in the castle’s main hall. All the people of the City gathered there to enjoy their meals. Mountains of fresh vegetables and meat and pies were stacked on the center of the tables. They slept in a king size bed with a full stomach for the first time in their lives. How lucky they were.”
Murphy and the group were on the edge of the former forest. The ground changed from cracked dry sand and charred old tree stumps to rocky pebbles and patches of green grass. Young trees came up from between the bigger rocks on the side of the trail. Vegetation here began to increase, this part had not been touched in the last forest fire.
Jake still looked bored, the way he’d been the entire walk. He didn’t like hiking and the story made him hungry. Hopefully there’d be plenty to eat in the Spring Cabin. Cecilia tried to keep the troubling thoughts out of her mind. She had to focus on something other than the raising water. Telling the story helped her, and she hoped it would help the others too.
“The next day Jane and John were taken to the garden. The ground was overgrown with giant green bushes with berries and there were big trees with juicy red apples and tomato’s and strawberries. You could have a full meal right there if you wanted. But eating was the last thing on their mind, their stomachs still ached from the giant meal of last night.
“‘Well, welcome to your new life,’ the garden’s leader said to the two kids. ‘You will work here for the rest of your lives, pick the fruits and vegetables and do your work. There is only one rule. Do not eat any of the food.’
“They were used to a working life on the ground. Picking fruit here was easy, there was so much of it. They picked a basket full and proudly went to the garden’s leader.
‘Well good for you,’ he said. ‘Now pick me a hundred baskets more. The people have to eat tonight.’
“After a hundred more baskets John and Jane were exhausted. Their stomachaches were replaced by a feeling of emptiness and hunger. They longed for the king sized beds, but instead they were demanded to follow the other kids to their huts. The huts were nothing like the castle, the beds were dirty and
they slept with twenty of them in one room. Jane recognized one of the girls next to her, she was picked last year. This must be the children from the ground that had been taken to the City of Light each New Year’s day, she thought.
“That night’s meal was small and sober. It was just like back home on the ground, except there they had freedom. The days passed, soon it became weeks and months. The work was hard and the food little.
“Then one day in the field, John got angry. Why did they have to work this hard while the people inside the City got to enjoy all this food they had picked. It wasn’t fair, John thought. He picked a juicy red apple and instead of putting it in his basket he took a bite out of it.
“The kids around him fell silent, they gazed at him in fear of what would happen next. A guard stormed towards him, tied him up and threw him over the shoulder. He locked him in the back of the car and drove off. John was never to be seen again.”
“Are we there yet?” Jake asked for the third time.
Murphy rolled his eyes. Why is this guy so popular, he thought, I’d be surprised if he can tie his own shoes. He looked at Jake’s shoes and couldn’t help but smile when he saw the velcro. He probably wasn’t even exaggerating. Yet the others hung around that guy like flies.
The others had been quiet. Maybe the thin air at this altitude had made them tired? Daryl would know, he knew these kinds of things. Murphy wondered where he was, he had expected to see him at the Farm House with the village elders. They always seemed to value his advice.
“What, you just stop talking to me now?” Jake said, “I asked if we’re there yet?”
“Shhh,” Cecilia said, “and listen to the story.”
Jake shook his head. The others followed his example and sighed disapprovingly.
“It was the day before the New Year and Jane had gathered all her courage. After the work in the garden was done, one of the others would distract the guards, so she could slip away unseen. Her dress pockets were filled with vegetables and fruit from the garden. She had figured out a way to drop the fruit in her pockets instead of the basket without being seen by the guards. The other workers were grateful for the extra food she provided on the table, and started to follow her example.
“Jane hid in the back of a guard’s car. Her heart pounded in her chest. The car took her to the Castle. The guard left and went inside for that night’s dinner. She sneaked out of the car. It would still be a long walk to the flying machine. She’d have to hurry to get there before midnight. She walked the same path the car had taken her and John when they first arrived. Only this time she went through the bushes along the side of the road, to not attract any attention. She ducked behind them and hid between the long blades of grass every time a car passed by on its way to dinner at the Castle.
“Her feet hurt, but in the distance she could see the empty field and the white machine. All she had to do was to crawl in without being seen. She watched the guard from behind the bushes along the landing strip. There was only one, and he wasn’t paying much attention. He was watching a square box with moving images in front of him. She crawled toward the machine, then over the chairs into the back and hid under a plastic tarp.
“She heard cars in the distance and saw the guard leave his entertainment system, making his way to the approaching cars. The two men from the car loaded a crate into the back, right next to her, and settled in the front seats. The engines started roaring. Her whole body was shaking, from the movement of the machine, but also from fear and excitement.
“The clock in the cabin struck twelve and she heard the men say, ‘It’s time.’ The machine slowed down and touched the ground. She heard the shouting of children and remembered the day she had been standing there herself . . .
“The men took out the crate next to her and walked towards the crowd. They threw the sweets from the crate in the audience before them. Meanwhile she lifted the tarp and started running the other way as fast as she could without being seen. When the machine took off she came out of hiding and made her way over to the crowd. She saw her parents and her friends.
“That night they ate the biggest meal the people on the ground had ever seen, made from all the fresh fruits and vegetables she had brought back with her. She told them everything that happened in the City of Light. About the giant meals in the castle and the hard work in the garden and the disappearance of John. That had been the last time the people on the ground would ever let them take their children from them to do the work for those rich people in the sky.”
“And let me guess, They lived happily ever after,” Jake added. “Could a story end anymore cliché?”
CHAPTER 4
SPRING CABIN
The wind picked up as Murphy and the others climbed higher and higher. From here they could look down at the water, now rushing through the streets they had just walked on, right outside the Hospital. They could hear the sound of the roaring water, even from up here. Murphy knew it indicated the water level was still rising. It would take a lot of time before it would get quiet again. The threat wasn’t over yet, he was sure of that. The Spring Cabin was almost in sight.
They left the main trail, the vegetation was thicker here. Trees and bushes stood contrasted against the big mountain wall. It concealed the little building that was hiding right in front of them. It was constructed in such a way that it seemed to be one with its surroundings. Most of them had never been to the little wooden shack before, and followed Murphy obediently.
“Is this it?” Jake said. “This is the second rendezvous point? We’re not even going to fit in there to keep dry when it rains.”
He turned around disappointed and sat down on the forest floor, resting his head in his hands. Evacuation exercises only had led them to a nearby field and he had imagined the Spring Cabin to be a giant building. At least the size of the Hospital, big enough to house all of them.
“Looks can be deceiving,” Murphy grinned as he opened the door. “Follow me.”
He took out his flashlight and cranked it a couple of times. A beam of light shone from the device.
The group was amazed at the sight before them. The place was huge, the small wooden building opened to a cave system leading deep into the mountain. Pipes ran along the ground inside the cabin and lead deep into the dark tunnel ahead.
Jake got up reluctantly and peeked inside the Spring Cabin. Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as he thought. It was big, but it was dark.
“Hey can I get one of those light toys?” he shouted to Murphy.
“Are you even allowed to have that?” Cecilia asked Murphy with slight hesitation. “You know we aren’t allowed to use unnecessary energy, and aren’t those exclusively for guards? Where did you even get one?”
Murphy gave her a daring smile, “Well you said it yourself, they are exclusively for guards . . . so where do you think I got one? Plus they are crankable flashlights. You can just turn them to charge the battery, no need to plug them into the power grid. So don’t worry, they are allowed. Make yourselves at home guys. This place is like a doomsday shelter, there’s a food storage over there and up there to the right are blankets and clothes. If you follow the pipes to the end, you’ll get to the spring.”
They walked through a corridor of barrels, most were filled to the top with water. None of them had realized how prepared they had been for a situation like this. As if the threat had been more real than the elders had made it seem. All this stuff didn’t get here in a day, this had been years of planning and scavenging.
“Most of these thing are from the abandoned villages and cities nearby,” Murphy said, as if reading their minds. “Every supply run we’ve been trying to get as many of these things back as possible. You know how the old guys always say that everything can come in handy one day, well that’s what your looking at here. My back still aches from just looking at this stuff. I guess calling it ‘a worst-case scenario’ lets you get away with turning into a hoarder.”
They laughed, yes these elders knew h
ow to collect. Their houses were like museums, filled to the roof with all kinds of useless things. Everything from the old world had to be collected and documented, for the sake of preserving history. Their generation had made jokes about it, since most of the things were electric and either didn’t work to begin with or were stripped for their batteries leaving them useless.
They walked to the end of the cave, where the pipes stopped and ended in a small basin. There were two pipes. One lead to the Hospital, where they had lived. The other lead to the Farm House, where it was the water supply for the food they were growing there. Above the basin a small stream of water flowed out of the mountainside, replenishing the water supply.
“Well, make some fire and get some lights going in here,” Murphy said, “then get some rest while you can. I have to go and grab something, I’ll be back soon.” He left them puzzled. What did he expect them to do, make torches or something? He gave his flashlight to Cecilia. Then he hurried back the same way they had come, to the entrance of the Spring Cabin.
The adrenaline rush was something Murphy had always liked. The thrill was so high, he felt the energy flow through his veins. Situations like these were what he was good at, improvising on the go. He knew the protocols and he wondered what the elders had planned if barrier 3 didn’t hold. Protocols had never said anything about that, at least not the protocols that they gave to the people. After today he didn’t know who to trust, and decided to trust his instinct instead. He would find his own way out if it was necessary.
