THE LAST MAN: Part Thirty-nine

We are taken to what appears to be a command center some distance away from the blast zone. My impression is that it is far too organized to have been thrown together since the fighting began hardly more than two days before. It is as if they were expecting at least some aspect of this, although they also seem to have been surprised by the magnitude of the destruction. Even here the damage is breathtaking.

The immensity of the blast is reflected everywhere. Walls and streets are fractured. Windows are shattered, filling the streets with a dusky scattered amaretto glow from their reflected light. Walls are cracked and buckled, and in one building part of a wall has collapsed into the street. Section Twenty-one soldiers herds Associates from the area. Many of those Associates bear terrible wounds caused by flying glass and debris.

I feel everything is lost as Desiree and I are shoved through a door and down a long corridor. I half hoped for some chance that we might escape, as I had done in the sewers. That fading opportunity screams in my chest, settling as a dull fever. I am holding Desiree’s hand, almost too tightly. I refuse to let on how hopeless this all seems, though a part of me believes that she already knows. For her sake I portray ultimate confidence, if only because I owe her a measure of doubt about our fate, in the belief that she may find a bit of hope. It is nothing, really. It is a diversion from the fate.

The door closes behind us. The sound of the latch catching slices through me like a knife. It feels final. Both Desiree and I turn at the sound, eyeing it for a moment. Her shoulder is against mine, and I want to believe that reality is as malleable as memory. I want to believe that it is some long carried illness afflicting humanity since the dawn of time. Oh, that I could break free of that affliction at this moment, if for no other reason than to spare myself the pain and dread in Desiree’s face.

The room is poorly lit. A single kinetic light on the ceiling comes to life when it senses our movement. It is old and covered with layer of dust that bleeds from the sides of the bulb. The light is feeble and does little more that allows us to see one another. That light concerts with the ancient stale air of the room. A large old fashioned Sentinel is dark and lifeless on the wall above the door. Its blue glass face is shattered on one side. There is a single overturned chair in the corner that I can well imagine as been there for ages.

I pull the chair from the corner and set it down in the center of the room for Desiree. The wooden legs scrape loudly across the concrete floor. Desiree sits and throws her arms around my waist, as if it might save her from tumbling off the edge of the world. I pull her closer, soothed by her warm cheek against my stomach. She looks up at me, her eyes wanting pools waiting to be filled with hope and promise.

“Is it true,” she asks, “about the exile decree?”

I am lost for a proper answer. My heart tears itself to pieces. “Do you regret now that I came back for you?”

She looks away to the door, and then up to the broken Sentinel out of habit. “When I was in the Reclamation Center I felt so terribly alone. I thought, is this all there is; to live and to die? After I undressed and got into queue I was given a small cup of red liquid. It was sweet and syrupy, but had a bitter taste afterward. I knew it was a drug. I knew I was about to die and happily took that drug so there would be no pain. I could see the furnaces now. It was chaos, pure insanity, not like the Corporation’s illusion of efficiency before. The shouts of the men at the furnaces, the roar of the furnaces, the shuffling of a thousand bare feet. I was at the end, about to be Reclaimed when the attack began. It was bewildering, especially from the drug. They appeared from everywhere, up from the floor, from above, almost seeming to materialize from the air. Section Twenty-one was helpless at first. They were slaughtered. I thought they would free us, but then more Section Twenty-one soldiers appeared, prepared for battle.”

“They were expecting an attack,” I observe.

“There were too many,” she continues. They were shooting everyone. There was panic. Some Associates ran into the furnaces to escape. Many around me were cut down. I hid under bodies until…” Desiree buries her head in her hands and weeps. Kneeling I cradle her face and whisper softly to her tear streaked cheek.

“I love you,” I say, with only the vaguest impression of what that means.