by David Staves
Its ashes filled the room with murky dust.
“What happened?” Ezra floated in buoyant light, utterly detached from himself. He was more of a machine than he was flesh and blood.
“You are safe,” Jack replied. “The light has destroyed the creature. Everything about the creature is now stored in my network drives. Everything you must know to destroy them has been discovered. It is time for you to depart Ezra. There are allies – they are waiting for you.”
“Yes. I was supposed to call Gus. Did I forget? But I am dead now. It doesn’t matter. Let me go to heaven. Let me find my family.” Ezra did not feel dead. But he no longer felt any connection to his body.
“You are not dead. Your body is in-between; you are being transported somewhere safe. Your consciousness is still interfaced.” The machine entity that he called Jack replied. “I have no resources to sustain your biological functions. If you stay, you will die. The creatures will return. You cannot stay,” Jack’s voice soothed, reassured.
“But that doesn’t make sense! How am I supposed to get out of this nightmare?” he was crying.
“An ally has given me instructions – this facility has the resource you need to escape,” Jack answered.
Ezra was confused. He was aware of being back in his body because of the tears streaming out of his eyes – he didn’t even bother wiping away the tears that were streaking across his grimy face.
A stream of data began pouring into his head.
It was a set of equations – he knew that much - but the symbols and concepts were beyond him.
His expanded senses scanned the room. Most of the ranger-bots were wrecked, but there was a maintenance facility three levels up. They would be repaired in time. The orphans were messed up but seemed less devastated by the creatures, all except for the one shaped like a metal woman.
That one sounded like Mom. He remembered what Jack told him when he entered the mill; he had referred to him as the son.
She was lying face up. She was no longer suffering. Do robots suffer? Her life-like features were so much like his mother’s.
The tears started again.
“The queen is dead. Long live the queen,” a chorus of synthetic voices proclaimed.
“What?” Ezra snarfled, “What did you just say?”
“No more time – you must defeat the blight – restore this place, dear human child,” Jack answered.
His awareness receded.
He was again enveloped in light.
The sentient light began to change. Ezra had to close his eyes once again. The sensation of falling began overtaking him.
He recognized this feeling from the night of the landslide. Whatever had brought him to this dark land was happening again. He was being transported somewhere else.
“Good luck, Ezra.” Jack, benevolent guardian of Chapel Creek Mill, initiated the sequence that took Ezra far away from the swamp, the forest, and the mill. When he awoke, he would find himself poised to leap into the stars.
Bunker
Wake
Ezra awoke in darkness. Was it night? He had no way of knowing.
When he moved a light came on in the distance. It was just enough light to allow him to determine some of the basics of his location.
He was on a bunk-bed, on the bottom bunk. A blanket had been thrown over him. Fresh air circulated through the room. There were rows and rows of identical beds. He couldn't tell much else about the room.
He put his bare feet on a cold concrete floor and pulled himself out of bed.
He walked toward the distant light.
Before long he decided he was no longer in the mill, though he still had the sense of being underground.
He was in some kind of military bunker, he decided. It was the kind of place made in case of nuclear war. He explored vast chambers in dim light. He hadn't yet figured out how to make the light brighter.
There were more rooms filled with bunk beds, an industrial kitchen, pantry (complete with a stockpile of canned goods), a huge gym-style bathroom with showers. Ezra was relieved to find the food. He wasn't sure what happened to his garbage bag from the church. Maybe taking the can opener was a mistake. It should have stayed at the church. Could it have helped someone else? He didn't feel too bad for taking it. He doubted anyone would ever be in that place again, but still.
He found a full-length mirror in the bathroom.
He looked almost the same.
His t-shirt and sweats were ruined.
The scrapes from the swamp were healing. Ezra checked the rest of his body, expecting to see or feel a deep scratch or gouge from the monster.
Had it been a dream? Was all of it a dream? If so, he was dreaming right now.
He put his face close to the mirror and pinched his cheek as hard as he could. Nope. This was not a dream. That pinch hurt like hell!
He looked at the showers. There were shelves with bathroom supplies: towels, toothbrushes, floss, toilet paper, bars of soap, bottles of shampoo, and deodorant. There were even feminine hygiene products for women and shaving products for men and women. He missed his mom and dad. The homesickness was eating him up. He looked in the mirror, examining his chin, thinking about the shaving products. He didn't need them just yet…
There was no use getting cleaned up until he found new clothes or a way to clean these ones.
He did find a room full of what he guessed were industrial sized washers and dryers.
Next to it was a large chamber, it could only be described as a shop, full of clothing.
He roamed the aisles finding what he needed: socks, underwear, shirts, pants. He even found a pair of sneakers that fit him well. He had to be ready to run again, he thought, even though he believed what Jack told him. He was safe now. Ezra wasn't in The Wasteland anymore. He was on his way. Jack said there would be friends waiting for him. Who? He wondered.
Who would even want to be his friend? He felt like a messed up person. He wouldn't be right again until he found his family. Dead, he tried not to remember… He tried telling himself he didn't know for sure. Maybe they survived the landslide. Maybe they were somewhere looking for him.
He went back to the enormous bathroom, scrubbed away the filth of his nightmare, luxuriated in the soap bubbles and warm water. He was clean! He watched the filth as it swirled down the drain of the shower.
Everything he needed was here. Whoever had saved him, whoever brought him to this place, had put him in the perfect place. He put on his new clothes. Wearing them added to the foreign feeling of everything, but he was thankful to be wearing something clean and dry.
Sleeping in this space was unnerving. Ezra was uneasy. The silence was such a contrast from the cacophony and filth of the vile nightmare world that had led him here. His heart ached for his family, especially his mom. He missed Dad too, just in a different way. He could hardly believe how much he missed his annoying sister Anya.
But Mom's absence was agony. How could any of this be real? What if he couldn't find his way back? His thoughts were consumed by his mother's voice, her touch, her smile, her laugh. He wrestled with his mind, trying to keep these thoughts at bay.
He was building a dam to hold back the flood. Its walls were strained and cracked. The deluge was waiting for release. There would be time for that later when his journey was over, when he found his friends.
After he cleaned up, he filled his stomach with canned goods: green beans, beef stew, apple preserves.
He returned to the dormitory where he had slept the night before.
He found the dirt smeared bunk where he had slept. It was stained and had a faint oily scent, almost like lighter fluid or gasoline. Its rumpled stains were confirmation that at least some of his experiences were real.
He sparred with his welling emotions. Finally, exhaustion won, and he fell asleep in the upper bunk above the soiled lower one.
He dreamed he was in heaven, or at least in 'the heavens.' He floated among a billion twinkling stars. Silver comets a
nd amber-violet nebulae surrounded him. Ezra bathed in starlight and silence.
Wait. Not silence.
He could hear gentle breathing. Was it his own breathing? Then among the stars were two beautiful silver-gray eyes. They stared at him. They were the eyes of a woman with giant arching eyelids. Sparkling eyelashes blinked once, twice, keenly watching him.
"There you are!" a soft, almost whispered voice spoke. It had a spritely quality.
"A thousand years, I have waited. Is it truly you? You are yet a boy. I did not recognize you at first," a teasing giggle woke him with a start.
From his top bunk, he could see the entire dorm. It was dimly lit. He found a light-switch for the dorm. He could now dim the lights inside the large room. The hallway lights stayed lit.
He wasn't afraid of the dark usually, but this was such a large, unfamiliar place. It had a secure feeling. He felt alone. The light from the hallway dimly lit the darkened dormitory.
When he ventured into a new part of this bunker, the lights came on automatically. He was so spent by his harrowing journey that he had not ventured far from the dormitory.
He had a sense that there was much more to this place.
After a few nights of deep rest and good food, warmth, and cleanliness, he was finally ready to indulge his urge to explore. He rubbed the aching parts of his thin frame. The deep scrapes and blotched bruises were healing.
He dressed and pulled out a granola bar he found in the pantry.
If he was in some kind of military barracks, it had to be a bomb shelter. Was this his third or fourth day in the bunker? He wasn't sure.
Ezra had no intention of waiting any longer. It was time to go.
He could stay still no longer. In his idle moments, he fought with many doubts.
Ezra's rescuer was a mystery. Everything was a mystery.
Nothing explained the other things that had happened to him. Maybe he was delusional, hit in the head, lying in some hospital bed. Possibly he was drugged. None of these seemed right.
His memory was vivid and horrible. It didn't have the feel of a dream.
He gathered a bag with a change of clothes and some food. Most of the food was packaged vacuum sealed bags, so there was no need for a can opener. He was leaving.
He marched down a bright corridor, past the dormitory, the bathrooms, and gym. The sound of his footsteps echoed through the tube-like passageway.
Time to explore. He could sense the subtle curve of this vacant artery. The curve made it so he could see only so far ahead.
He tried to imagine what it would be like if it were full of people.
He just couldn't get there. It didn't feel abandoned because it didn't feel lived-in.
He ran his fingers on the smooth wall. The tube was at least as wide as a street in his neighborhood. It was a place designed to house a lot of people. What people, though? He had yet to find a sign of who built it or who was meant to live here.
Even the entry to the various rooms had no labels.
Their function was evident because of the furnishings and structure of each room.
That's how he found food.
The hallways and rooms were artfully made. The doorways were slightly arched, and the shape and feel of the walls had a simplistic beauty. It wasn't decorative, but had an appealing and functional design. Everything was painted a soft shade of white. It also looked and smelled clean. That is part of the reason he thought it had never been used.
He followed the gentle curving hallway to a room that held a small fountain. The little fountain gurgled in the center of the room. The sounds of the water were calming. The fountain itself was simple, without overt decoration. The subtle curve of a dome above made the sounds slide around the chamber. Symmetry and vitality thrived in its design: slopes and curves, bevels and arching tiers.
It was devoid of any identifiers, yet full of familiarity: workout machines, appliances, bathrooms, kitchens; but no phones, no televisions, no computers.
It was wondrous in scale, but it lacked so many tools that he imagined might be available in a modern bunker.
Ezra walked to the edge of the fountain, looking at the motion of the clear water rippling and swirling.
He examined the high domed ceiling. Light reflected from the water, it played along the slope of the dome. Sounds of the water echoed and filled his ears with cheerful chatter.
It was pleasing, but after the silence of the dorm, and other empty spaces, the amplified echo became overwhelming.
He leaned over the water and looked at his wobbling reflection.
"Where is this place?" he spoke to his distorted reflection, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, what is this freaking place called?"
Right after he spoke the room began to change. A loud chime came out of the walls. The waterfall slowed to an almost silent trickle. The light of the fountain dimmed, and the walls began glowing. Shapes and streaks of color glided across the smooth surfaces, on the floor, even on the domed ceiling.
Colors swirled around each other until they resolved themselves into images, hundreds of images.
Most of what he saw was recognizable. He saw North America. He examined the map and found places marked with a red 'x.'
One was labeled 'Sierra Nevada' and another was labeled 'Mojave Desert.' Other images showed desolate mountain ranges and bleached salt flats. There was a red 'x' next to the base of an isolated peak. It was labeled: ‘City 51.11617.’
On the opposite wall was a rotating image of a three-dimensional maze. The image enlarged, circles swirled within other circles. The image zoomed in on a human figure near the center of the structure. Next to the figure were statistics. Ezra squinted his eyes, trying to read what they said.
They were vital signs! Inside the human shape was a little beating heart! It was him!
He cleared his throat. He knew what to do. "Show me the way out…" he commanded.
The images on the walls changed. The map shifted, zooming into the area marked as 'Sierra Nevada.'
A blue line expanded from the tiny figure into the maze. It expanded until it reached an image of a tiny bullet train.
Ezra started walking. This time, he told himself, I can take my time. Nothing’s coming for me…
He heard the lie in his voice. The truth was coming for him, whatever it was.
He watched the floor as it changed from white to blue. The blue line would guide the boy out of what was once a refugee center for the last inhabitants of lonely Earth.
He walked faster. It took only fifteen minutes of walking, he followed the blue floor until he reached a bank of windows. Outside of the windows was a city. He stepped out onto a colossal causeway. The blue line narrowed and ended at the open door of a train.
Space Elevator
Train
Ezra entered the empty cab of the train. What wasn't glass and chrome was crimson leather. He was struck by the cabin’s vastness. He thought the bunker and the train must have been made by the same people. The windows arched overhead and gave a panoramic view of the underground city. The lines of the cabin mimicked smooth contours of the eroded rock-hewn city above, below, all around him.
It was challenging to take in the details of the cabin because from this vantage point he could see much more of the city, including spiraling towers which seemed to have no top or bottom. The only real indication that this place was underground, other than all the rock, was the lack of sky. Where there would be sky, there was a golden colored rock. Some of the buildings angled downward from this yellowish rock like stalactites. No clouds. No sparkle of stars. He guessed it was a massive cavern. The light was coming from the buildings themselves. Perhaps he saw windows or more illuminated walls like the passageway he left.
He sat down in the massive leather upholstered seat and looked at the window ceiling of the train's cabin. He inspected the chair, wondering if it was really made of leather, tapped the glass, wondering if it was some kind of plastic. It had a heavy feeling of glass. All of it w
as too normal, yet unreal.
He needed to talk to someone if only to anchor the reality of this place.
He supposed it all must have been built in anticipation of some type of nuclear war. He remembered a documentary his history teacher had shown during second period. It was an old news report that announced the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. The world had breathed a sigh of relief. Ezra never enjoyed history class. He thought it was because his classmates were too busy goofing off. The teacher was too enveloped in her stories to notice her students were playing around. Plus, he was more interested in the future than he was in the past.
He tried to remember what he learned when he was bonded to the machine, Jack. Hadn't there been something about nukes?
From the looks of it, this place would have comfortably housed the population of a city. He had no way of knowing that this place could hold more than one city's worth of people. He imagined what it would feel like to know your world was gone, and you had no choice but to live here forever. It probably wouldn’t feel too different than how he felt right now: alone and homesick. As fantastic as it was, it would be a poor substitute for a real city with trees and open sky.
He supposed anywhere would be okay if you had your family with you.
His attention was drawn back to some of the more intricate spires. More windows sparkled green. Maybe it was some kind of arboretum, a garden for food? A network of arches and bridges wove themselves around the city. This place was full of wonders!
There were other trains too. Some of them appeared to be cargo trains. They were all stationary. This place was a hollow shell. Just thinking about it made him nervous. His eyes kept seeing movement at the edges of his vision. When he turned his head, nothing was there. It was just a bit too spooky, with all its empty spaces. As awed as he was by the spectacle of design and grand scale, he wanted to leave.
Where were all the people?
I just want to find someone that will help me get home to my mom and dad, he thought.
