THE LAST MAN: Part Forty-three

A burst of fire from the armored transport takes the corner off the building beside me. The chest thudding concussion of those heavy rounds knock me to the ground. Chunks and pieces of building rain down around me. I roll to one side as another volley chews the pavement where I was laying to pieces.

Cut in a dozen places and disoriented from fright and fire, it is all I can do to scramble and tumble from the street into the relative cover of the alley. Desiree is running towards me. Out in the street resistance by loyal Corporation troops has completely collapsed. Their ranks are either scattered or killed. Virtually all of the shooting comes now from troops loyal to the Ministers. I still cannot find my feet when Desiree falls to her knees and into in my arms.

“You’re hurt,” she says, wiping a trickle of blood from a cut to my cheek.

“I’m fine,” I say. She settles me, brings a focus and a purpose I almost lost in fear. Behind us, at the top of the alley a soldier draws a bead on us. We are already up and running for the sewers. A burst from the Corporation side cuts the man in half. Bullets sail wildly around us in the man’s final dying spasm.

The entrance to the sewer is raised perhaps eighteen inches above the alley. Just inside there is a small concrete lip. There is a Sentinel, whose blue shell offers something of a hand hold. A waning afternoon light falls dimly to swirling brown water below. It is far too much of a drop for Desiree alone, but leaving her exposed in the alley. The armored transport draws to a stop. Its heavy turret turns slowly in our direction.

“I don’t think they’ve seen us yet,” I say. Fear thunders in my chest and in my ears. Soldiers appear from behind the transport, edging cautiously into the alley.

“It’s too far, I can’t make it!” she exclaims.

The soldiers spot us. The first shots slap impotently off the lip of the sewer entrance. The transport opens up a moment later, smashing fist size holes in the seawall above our heads.

“We’ll go over together,” I tell her, shouting above the gunfire. “Hold tight to me!”

Desiree and I slip over the edge as another volley from the transport blasts the wall to pieces. For a moment we swing in space. I have an arm around the broken Sentinel, the other holding precariously to Desiree. Hers are wrapped around my waist, but her grasp is already failing.

“Climb down my body and drop down!” I shout, but it is already too late. Her hold fails and with a scream she drops into the churning water. An instant later the Sentinel breaks loose and I am falling.

The water is deeper than I expected, cushioning our falls. It is muddy and filled with debris obviously loosed by the destruction of the Reclamation Center. Coming to my feet I find it almost chest deep and powerfully swift. Desiree is nowhere to be seen. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, and I spot her hand flailing wildly just at the surface. I pull her up and she gasps for air.

“You’re alright?” My voice echoes thunderously.

She nods, spitting water. “I couldn’t, the current…”

“Hurry, we haven’t time” I turn her away from the sewer entrance. Fighting the current I keep a wary eye on the hole for fear the soldiers will follow. All the while I hold Desiree up as the current threatens to drag her under.

The current slows, the water levels settling to our waist before too long. Near the beach it runs hardly deeper than our knees. For the first time it feels safe enough to pause for a rest. I settle against the wall. Desiree puts her face in my neck. Too numbed and too exhausted to cry she gives a long low moan.

Dogs have begun to pick at the dead on the beach. Their grisly task becomes all more chilling in the lessening amber light. They pay us little mind. Even still we keep well clear. From the bundles and scattered belongings we change from our wet clothes. Dressed in the things of the Low City people, there is a moment in which we realize our break with the Corporation. There is the odd realization of freedom, while not knowing precisely what that means. It is an entirely new land and a fundamentally knew sky that we come to now. It is an unfamiliar land so far away from the words I read in all those books. For freedom is not a battle to be won, but an eternal compromise between the desires of selfish heart against the tyranny of the world. And so I am free. The far horizon remains to challenge and define that idea. It is, at the end of this story, for me to weather that journey and, in the end, still remain true to my good heart.