Hardin's War

by A.S. Morrison

XII

  There had to be a mistake, there was no way anything I was seeing could be real. Tall buildings were everywhere, in all directions. They were towers, constructed out of an odd metal and reached heights I never imagined possible. There were many windows on each floor; many reflected the sun into my eyes. The sun! It was there, not hidden by endless clouds but actually there in its bright beauty. I couldn’t believe how bright it was. I was too afraid to move at first. My body still shook, though I then realized that it wasn’t because of what had happened but because it was so cold. The warmth of the forest was gone. I had never felt the air so cold. Slowly I became aware of the noise of people. I couldn’t see anybody but I could tell there were people around. If I was able to move my feet I would have tried to hide. I was standing on a white stone platform that was connected to the main land by a small white bridge over a small stream.

  It was too late to try and hide, somebody had seen me. An old man walked up to me wearing strange clothes. He had on bright yellow pants and a gray jacket with several muddy stains. Or were they just part of the design? I couldn’t tell.

  “Did you just come through there?” The man asked.

  “ . . . I’m dead . . .” I said vaguely.

  “You are?”

  “Were we ambushed again?”

  “Again?” He asked, clearly confused.

  “Where are the others?” It was the first time since I saw the buildings that I thought of them.

  “Are they dead too?” I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

  “I don’t know.” I looked at his face for the first time. He had a short scraggly beard and his eyes were wide with wonder. I wondered if I looked the same way. “Who are you?”

  “Who are you?” He shot back.

  “I’m Hardin from Humurom.”

  “Humurom!”

  “Is this a city?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a Cityer!”

  “What? No.”

  “Then I am dead. Or am I in the past? Is this Humurom?”

  “This is Azureland.” He said proudly.

  “Where?”

  “Azureland. You know, land of the Azures.”

  “Where?”

  “Azureland, land of the Azures.”

  “Of the who?” I was more confused than ever.

  He leaned in close; I could smell his terrible breath. “You say you’re from Humurom?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s fantastic.”

  “How so?”

  “Just . . . here come with me.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Our mayor is surely going to want to meet you.”

  I turned around. The wall looked the same as from the other side. “What is that?”

  “That’s the Rainbow Wall, and you just came from inside it.”

  “Inside it?”

  He laughed. “Come along now, they will explain everything. I can’t believe it; this has to be a good sign . . .”

  The old man took off across the bridge towards the buildings without looking back. I took a look back at the wall and chuckled. I wasn’t with the Cityers, but I was someplace better, a place where no one wanted me dead. Was that even possible? I guess I was about to find out.

  The buildings looked taller the closer we got. Large groups of people hustled about in the evening sunlight. I flinched every time I saw someone, convinced that the next person was going to try and attack. He stopped me at the first street. I wanted to jump for joy at the sight of it. It was so much busier then I imagined. Strange automobiles sped by extremely fast. They were different than the ones I had read about in the library back home. Most were large and square with big wheels underneath. They stopped when lights hanging above them turned red. We crossed and continued down a small street between the buildings. There were very few people here. The ones that were outside were seen lifting strange tubes up to their mouths and breathing out colored smoke. It fascinated and disturbed me. Something smelled rancid there, like Nutrition when it sits out for too long.

  When we came out into the open street the most beautiful building of them all was right in front of us. It was white with pillars on all sides and a huge dome at the top. Various sections were bronze. This is the building that we went into. It was warm inside. The walls and floor were both dark red. The only thing in there was a small desk in front of a large wood door. The man went straight to the person behind the desk.

  “I would like to see the mayor.” The old man announced. “This fellow is from Humurom.”

  “Very funny.” The desk clerk said. He looked up at me. There must have been something about my appearance because he immediately looked impressed. “Seriously?”

  “Tell him.” The old man prodded me in the side.

  “I’m from Humurom.” I didn’t know how that was going to help.

  “I’ll let him know, you can go in.” He opened the door and let us through.

  The door led to a long hallway that disappeared around a curve in the distance. “Why did that guy believe that I was from Humurom?”

  “Everyone wants to believe.” Was all he said.

  I was going with the flow at this point. The way things had happened in the last few minutes were dream-like, but I didn’t dare try to wake up. If all that just happened ended up being real then I probably just made the greatest discovery in the history of Humurom. Or did that old man just make the greatest discovery in all of Azureland? It was hard to see which angle this was coming from. What I did know was that it was too early to make any final decisions on how to feel, but that’s not how I worked. Instead I was so glad to be out of reach of Cityers that nothing else mattered; after all the old man didn’t seem to know who Cityers were. The Cityer territory must have ended around that place where we were ambushed. Maybe that’s why they wanted to kill us, to keep us away from Azureland where people would help us. This was definitely turning into the best day ever.

  It smelled good in there, better than I ever thought a building could smell. The floor wasn’t hard and metal; instead it was soft and even a little plush. I was surprised at how warm it was compared to outside. The cold air was so new, but also felt really good. It had wiped away all feelings of anxiety and kept my excitement under control.

  The old man was in a hurry to get to the end of the hall. Every few steps he would squeeze his hands together and exclaim excitedly. With every curve revealing that we were nowhere near the end he would grumble incoherently. He was an interesting character to watch. I found myself being a little too amused by his antics. He looked back at me several times, each with a creepier smile then the last. After a few more curves another large wooden door appeared. The old man skipped up to it, squealing the whole way.

  The door led into a large room. Stairs led down into a circular slope surrounded by a wooden wall that was a good twenty feet high. At the center of it all was a small circular platform with a rail three feet high around the edge. The old man told me to stand on the platform and I did. He told me it would take several minutes and so I waited. Finally I could hear doors opening behind the wall but could not see them. Heads appeared all around and looked down at me. Suddenly the small platform lifted into the air and I realized that the rail was so I wouldn’t fall off. It stopped at eye level with those sitting behind the wall. Only their heads and shoulders were visible. One man was directly in front of me, he was a foot higher than all the others. He was the first to speak.

  “You are from Humurom?” He asked. “I am mayor Gilik.” He added as an afterthought.

  “Yes, and I would really like to know where I am now.”

  “How did you get out?”

  “Out of what?”

  “The Rainbow Wall.” He said as if it was the clearest thing in the world.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Nobody has ever gotten out.” He sounded impressed.


  “Where am I?” I was tired of his questions and wanted some of my own answered.

  “Azureland.”

  “Where is that?”

  He leaned over the wall, as though wanting to have a private conversation. “What do you know of your nations past?”

  “I would hardly call Humurom a nation.”

  “What would you call it?”

  I thought for a second. What would I call it? I thought it a nation before I ended up in Azureland. “We live in a mountain; there are only a hundred of us left. We are all hungry and tired of being scared.” This was as far as I was willing to go into our strange predicament.

  “Scared of whom?” Gilik asked.

  “The Cityers.”

  “Who are the Cityers?”

  “I think it’s time that I get some answers.” I said, not believing that the mayor didn’t know who the Cityers were. They were living right next to them after all.

  “You will, but first you need to answer me.”

  I could see all the other people behind the wall watching me closely. I became very self conscious. Why were they all there? What was the point? I tried not to think about it. If I still believed that everything was safe then I would be all right, it worked so far. “The Cityers are the other people . . . uh . . . in there.”

  “You mean the Bozlins?”

  Too many new words and ideas were coming at me; I didn’t have enough time to process them all. “Who?”

  “You don’t know anything about the past do you?”

  That really rubbed me the wrong way. I remembered the strange omissions from the Files Office and knew there was some truth to what he said. “I know our history.” I said stubbornly.

  “Do you know of the war?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly, “it destroyed everything.”

  He extended his arms. “Obviously not everything.”

  “This is the world isn’t it? The part that was not destroyed during the war.” This should have been clear to me already, but for some reason it just then hit me.

  “Only your part was destroyed. The rest of the world lived on uninterrupted.”

  He had just proven to me what I had been suspecting for a while. “Then why did no one help us. We’ve lived alone for one hundred and forty seven years. We ran out of food. Our hunters have been killed by Cityes.”

  “I think to fully understand you need to hear the story from the beginning.”

  That was the best idea I’d heard from him. “I think that would be best.”

  He cleared his throat and began. “One hundred fifty years ago a war broke out between two small countries. These countries were called Humurom and Bozlin. We in Azureland along with the other countries surrounding the combatants tried to stay neutral. The war started over a dispute on who owned a small piece of land right between the two countries. It escalated quickly. It got so bad that the surrounding countries got together to decide what to do. They tried to force an armistice, but to no avail. Then news broke that both the Humurom’s – known as Hums – and the Bozlins had nuclear weapons.”

  “Sorry,” I interrupted, “what kind of weapons?”

  “Nuclear, they are much stronger than normal weapons. The surrounding countries became very worried about these weapons, and so secretly met to figure out how to stop them. Well, it was decided that there was no way to stop them. But that wasn’t good enough. Nuclear blasts would have destroyed far more than just the two countries. And so it was decided that the Rainbow Wall should be built around them. The wall itself is a sort of computer program.”

  “A what?” Yet another new word, though this one sounded familiar. I probably read about it once.

  “A – it is a – think of it as an impenetrable wall created by machines and run by people. It successfully shielded us from the nuclear attacks that destroyed everything inside the wall. The original plan was to wait until the radiation went away and then go in. But we had no knowledge on what types of bombs went off and so could not know the amount of time needed. The other main problem was that once the wall went up we had no way of getting in. That can be seen as poor foresight, but the wall was needed so quickly that we were not fully aware of what it was until it was up. Did that help any?”

  “How did you know the bombs went off if you could not get in?”

  “It lit up, glowed for hours.”

  He didn’t seem very sorry for what happened, but I suppose that’s what happens when a subject is treated as ancient history. It was still alive and well for me. I felt like I was in the history class I never was able to attend. “You mentioned radiation. What exactly is that?”

  “It’s a – I’m no chemist – but it is basically the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. It’s what’s left over. It’s deadly, and cannot be seen by humans. It’s a poison.”

  I could tell he was attempting to find a description that I could understand. It made me feel stupid. “Is it gone?”

  “Apparently, you’re alive.”

  “Many of us are.”

  “I’m surprised. I’m guessing that mountain of yours is a bunker.”

  “Yes it is.” Finally a question I knew the answer to.

  “There’s only one thing remaining.” Gilik said. He leaned in again. “How did you get out?”

  “I think it had something to do with this.” I held out my wrist, I still had the bracelet on. “I found this bracelet after my team and I got ambushed by the Cityers – Bozlins – it was on the ground. When we got to the wall it reacted, and then I ended up here.”

  “Very interesting, we’ll get someone to look at that. Now you said something about a team.”

  “Yes. We were on a mission.” I told them the entire story about why we went on our journey. I looked down at the floor twenty feet below the entire time, not wanting to see their reactions. It felt good to tell the tale. A weight was lifting off of me as I spoke and I wanted to continue, to tell everything about Humurom. I kept a few things secret, primarily Nutrition and the burned city.

  “You have had some life, Mr. Hardin.” Gilik said when I finished. He didn’t look surprised by anything. “I think you will like the next part better than the last. You’ve made it, and now can rest.”

  “Excuse me sir, but made it?”

  “You got out, away, wasn’t that the point?”

  “I’m not sure that was the point, but I’m happy with the result.” I almost collapsed from the disappearance of all the stress that twenty two years of living in Humurom created.

  “It’s late, we’ll get you a room, please follow Mr. Jess. He will take you there. Somebody will be by to take a look at that bracelet tomorrow. For now enjoy your stay.”

  The platform descended to the floor. I turned and saw a stiff looking man standing at the top of the stairs. I went up to join him. Mr. Jess led me out into the hall. The old man stayed behind, mumbling something about getting paid. Mr. Jess followed the curves to the end of the hall and came out in the entrance room. I was led off to the side where a staircase I hadn’t noticed before stood. The second floor was full of small hallways that reminded me of Humurom. Mr. Jess took me to a room, let me in, and told me I would be staying there. He left without another word.

  It was the nicest room I had ever been in. There was an actual bed as opposed to an ancient mat. A window looked out over the city and was half covered by thick drapes. The sun had gone down, revealing hundreds of tiny twinkling lights. I didn’t move from the window for a long time, trying to take it all in, but it was impossible. I had already exceeded my awe limit and could only stare out without a thought to worry me.

  A knock shook me out of my trance. The sudden noise woke my survival instincts. I cautiously made it to the door and opened it. A man stood there wearing a gray uniform similar to my own. He had a tray in one hand. He handed it to me. “What is it?” I asked.

  “Beef.” He looked at me like I
was something that was supposed to be thrown out.

  “Really?!” I took it and closed the door. I had heard of beef in my readings but had never seen it. It smelled so good and looked even better. Next to the brown and juicy meat was a pile of white stuff I thought was Nutrition at first. I tried it, and luckily it wasn’t. I don’t know what it was but it sure was good. I ate everything quickly, not realizing how hungry I was. A wave of sleepiness came over me; I had been up for a long time by that point. I lay down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. I started to think about everything that happened, but fell asleep before I could conjure up a single thought.