“Do you realize what you’ve done?” My betrayal is carved into the Rebel leader’s expression. She is not Bethune any longer. She cannot be, for with her crimes and short-sightedness the Rebel Leader is the antithesis of Bethune.
I am held against the wall by two of her bodyguards. There is a knife blade at my throat. It presses into the flesh enough that an errant move by either of us would cause it to pierce the flesh. I weigh the answer to her question carefully, knowing that an errant word could be far deadlier than an unguarded movement. Still I cannot play the fool, even now and in this precarious position.
“You’ll address one atrocity with another?” I accuse.
“You have seen their crimes. The Reclamation System is the backbone of the Corporation’s control and power. In one blow we strike at Section Twenty-one and martyr our enslaved comrades.”
“And thousands of Innocent Associates?”
“They are already dead. They gave themselves to the Corporation.”
“They were born into it.”
“I am fighting for the future.”
“And this accomplishes that goal?”
“This will shake the Corporation to its core!”
Three thunderous explosions shatter the sewers in quick succession. Glowing chunks of shrapnel tear at the sewer walls around me. A sudden fusillade of bullets rips the air like murderous hail, cutting down a number of the fighters nearby.
Suddenly Section Twenty-one fighters are everywhere in the sewers. In the darkness their incessant muzzle flashes capture images of unspeakable carnage, and at first their organized assault all but overwhelms the rebels. They advance steadily, pouring fire into their enemy, but in the darkness they are nothing against the smaller and fiercer rebels. The trooper’s cries for retreat or screams of agony are deafening as they are cut to pieces.
Within minutes the fighting all but ends. The moans of the wounded and dying are punctuated by scattered shots, or brief and distant fusillades. The battle is far from over. The rebels caught Section Twenty-one by surprise, but there can be little doubt they will return, wielding its vengeance and might against their shadowy enemy.
Friday, November 27, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Twenty-nine
In short order everyone is on the move. I am not bound, rather by oversight or otherwise. Not that it matters. The woman who guards me holds a captured Section Twenty-one rifle at the ready. She is young, with attractive Asian features, but the seriousness of her expression and the confidence with which she carries the weapon leaves little doubt about her determination.
I am better now. I know the sewers better than before, not much better but well enough to have an idea the direction we are moving. The Low City rebel leader now commands a force of more than a hundred strung single file through the sewers. The water and filth has deepened, rising nearly to our knees at times. It runs cold and swift, the chaotic currents underneath those black waters making our progress all the more treacherous. I cannot move my thoughts from the ruins, and the belief that, at the end of all this, I will never reach them. Indeed, in this place, I feel farther away from the world, let alone the ruins. That realization is worth than death.
At every junction I weigh my chances at escape. The guard ahead of me is more concerned of a surprise attack or an ambush by Section Twenty-one than for me. Behind me the guard helps a comrade with a heavy bundle of supplies. They have fallen back quite a distance. In the darkness they are barely visible at all. I could slip away down one of the many intersecting passages, but they are even smaller and narrower. I am outclassed, untested and out of place here. They would recapture or kill me before I managed to get very far. Still my mind races, palms tingle and my heart swells for even the slightest opportunity.
I can smell the Reclamation Center now. I can tasting the burning of bodies and feel the thundering calamity of the furnaces reverberating through the walls and into my soul. Time is running away from me with every step, running away from me like a pugnacious child. The reluctant clock hand drags me through each excruciating moment despite my failing will. I am fighting it at every step, and come grudgingly to the understanding that I am the final agent of the hope I seek.
At a junction I spot a portal to the city above. Gray light falls in a heavy shaft, illuminating a circular patch of churning brown water. There is something more, the blue glow of a Sentinel. It is high and out of sight, but there is no mistaking that light. I recall John Brown, the dog carcass and the rats, and realize this might prove my last opportunity.
Footing is hardly a certainty. There are hidden straps and obstacles with nearly every sloshing step. I can only guess at my chances for reaching the portal, but I know full well my chances if I fail an attempt. In an instant I am splashing, slipping and clawing towards that pale shaft of daylight.
I can hear others behind me, giving chase. Bethune’s fighters, move easier through the muck and refuse. Foolish to chance a look backwards, but the flash of a knife blade drives me forward. I know now that I will die here, my body left to rot and be consumed in this sewer. I am not sad for that realization. I have chosen this path, however, and I am determined to see it through to the end.
I reach the light first, standing tall and straight. The guards stop short, backing away from the light and Sentinel, as if I am standing at the center of a flame. I turn to face them, my arms outstretched in some mechanical gesture that I am unarmed. They could kill me yet. By their expressions and the way they hold their weapons that it still undecided. But they know. They know it is too late, and killing me now would be little more than an act of revenge. Sentinel has already read my thoughts fully. The Corporation knows everything now. It knows of the attack on the Reclamation Center, and it knows Bethune’s true identity.
I am better now. I know the sewers better than before, not much better but well enough to have an idea the direction we are moving. The Low City rebel leader now commands a force of more than a hundred strung single file through the sewers. The water and filth has deepened, rising nearly to our knees at times. It runs cold and swift, the chaotic currents underneath those black waters making our progress all the more treacherous. I cannot move my thoughts from the ruins, and the belief that, at the end of all this, I will never reach them. Indeed, in this place, I feel farther away from the world, let alone the ruins. That realization is worth than death.
At every junction I weigh my chances at escape. The guard ahead of me is more concerned of a surprise attack or an ambush by Section Twenty-one than for me. Behind me the guard helps a comrade with a heavy bundle of supplies. They have fallen back quite a distance. In the darkness they are barely visible at all. I could slip away down one of the many intersecting passages, but they are even smaller and narrower. I am outclassed, untested and out of place here. They would recapture or kill me before I managed to get very far. Still my mind races, palms tingle and my heart swells for even the slightest opportunity.
I can smell the Reclamation Center now. I can tasting the burning of bodies and feel the thundering calamity of the furnaces reverberating through the walls and into my soul. Time is running away from me with every step, running away from me like a pugnacious child. The reluctant clock hand drags me through each excruciating moment despite my failing will. I am fighting it at every step, and come grudgingly to the understanding that I am the final agent of the hope I seek.
At a junction I spot a portal to the city above. Gray light falls in a heavy shaft, illuminating a circular patch of churning brown water. There is something more, the blue glow of a Sentinel. It is high and out of sight, but there is no mistaking that light. I recall John Brown, the dog carcass and the rats, and realize this might prove my last opportunity.
Footing is hardly a certainty. There are hidden straps and obstacles with nearly every sloshing step. I can only guess at my chances for reaching the portal, but I know full well my chances if I fail an attempt. In an instant I am splashing, slipping and clawing towards that pale shaft of daylight.
I can hear others behind me, giving chase. Bethune’s fighters, move easier through the muck and refuse. Foolish to chance a look backwards, but the flash of a knife blade drives me forward. I know now that I will die here, my body left to rot and be consumed in this sewer. I am not sad for that realization. I have chosen this path, however, and I am determined to see it through to the end.
I reach the light first, standing tall and straight. The guards stop short, backing away from the light and Sentinel, as if I am standing at the center of a flame. I turn to face them, my arms outstretched in some mechanical gesture that I am unarmed. They could kill me yet. By their expressions and the way they hold their weapons that it still undecided. But they know. They know it is too late, and killing me now would be little more than an act of revenge. Sentinel has already read my thoughts fully. The Corporation knows everything now. It knows of the attack on the Reclamation Center, and it knows Bethune’s true identity.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
THE LAST MAN:Part Twenty-eight
“I cannot allow you to leave,” she says, turning back to the last of her journals and notes.
“What am I to you? You’ve already seen how I protected you and the others from Sentinel and Section Twenty-one.”
“I have,” she nods, weighing the last of her things in her hands. “For that I will protect you as long as I am able, but at this moment allowing you to leave is a risk I cannot accept.”
“If you fear I will return to the city…I will take my chances with the refugees on the coast.”
“I am sorry.” She tosses the last of her things into the fire. She motions to the guards. “Bring him, we are going to the Reclamation Center.”
“You’re going to liberate the Reclamation center?” I asked, alarmed.
“Liberation?” she replies, with not a small amount of mockery. “There is no liberation. I will strike them at the heart of their hypocrisy. It will be historic, dear friend, and you shall be there to watch firsthand.”
“What of the innocents?”
“There are no innocents. This is war! There is no one to redeem. All are beyond redemption.”
“You would slaughter so many?”
She comes forward. Her back is to the fire, so that her features are all but obscured in shadow or lost in the glare. She is not enraged or hostile or threatening. Her mood is much different, rather like a teacher in the channels; wishing to impress upon me a crucial point. She takes hold of my arm to stress her position.
“Lucky soul,” she says. “What luxury you have to believe in the inviolability of human life. Yours is a perspective of the common man, in which life is large and death is a monolith. Your lives stand for nothing but struggle and pain and that is all you can see. At the end of that is only death, an ignominious death. You are relieved of the burden of history. You are relieved of the burden of being judged by future generations. Death is nothing to me in the face of that legacy. That is the burden I bear.”
“What am I to you? You’ve already seen how I protected you and the others from Sentinel and Section Twenty-one.”
“I have,” she nods, weighing the last of her things in her hands. “For that I will protect you as long as I am able, but at this moment allowing you to leave is a risk I cannot accept.”
“If you fear I will return to the city…I will take my chances with the refugees on the coast.”
“I am sorry.” She tosses the last of her things into the fire. She motions to the guards. “Bring him, we are going to the Reclamation Center.”
“You’re going to liberate the Reclamation center?” I asked, alarmed.
“Liberation?” she replies, with not a small amount of mockery. “There is no liberation. I will strike them at the heart of their hypocrisy. It will be historic, dear friend, and you shall be there to watch firsthand.”
“What of the innocents?”
“There are no innocents. This is war! There is no one to redeem. All are beyond redemption.”
“You would slaughter so many?”
She comes forward. Her back is to the fire, so that her features are all but obscured in shadow or lost in the glare. She is not enraged or hostile or threatening. Her mood is much different, rather like a teacher in the channels; wishing to impress upon me a crucial point. She takes hold of my arm to stress her position.
“Lucky soul,” she says. “What luxury you have to believe in the inviolability of human life. Yours is a perspective of the common man, in which life is large and death is a monolith. Your lives stand for nothing but struggle and pain and that is all you can see. At the end of that is only death, an ignominious death. You are relieved of the burden of history. You are relieved of the burden of being judged by future generations. Death is nothing to me in the face of that legacy. That is the burden I bear.”
Monday, November 23, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Twenty-seven
The flames jump, crackling and roaring to a blaze that reach skyward, where the scorched concrete ceiling bends them back, like the liquid petals of a flower. I shield myself from the scorching heat, yet cannot take my eyes from the pages curling and blackening in the flame. Like the archives, and the volumes rotting there, here is a history lost. It seems a terrible crime, for how can a man rightly comprehend his fate without memory of his past?
Around us is a wild scene. It is the frenetic preparations for a final great battle to be joined against the Corporation. Many of the warriors brandish captured section Twenty-one weapons. They appear fierce in wolf skins and pieces of body armor. That wall of odd bricks is almost gone. A dozen or so children wait to shuttle the final loads somewhere deep beneath the city. Aids rush in and out begging orders and instructions. Bethune is well prepared, dispatching them to their urgent duties without hesitation and without the slightest indecision.
“We’re prepared,” she says with a weighted sigh.
“You’ll strike the Corporation?”
“It has always been A strategy. Would I choose such a terrible outcome? Of course not, but often in war the time and place of battle is chosen by the enemy. It is necessary to strike them before they strike us.”
“All of your people are fleeing along the coast,” emotion rises in my voice.
“Far too dangerous to remain,” she says.”I have my fighters.”
“The Corporation will butcher them out in the open!”
“Do you believe I would send them to be martyred lightly? The Corporation already makes it clear they mean to exterminate us. Better to die for a cause than for nothing.”
“The Corporation has no official policy about the Low City.”
“By their actions and their lieutenants their policy it only too clear,” she turns away.
“This is the wrong path,” I say, taking her arm and turning her back to me. She pulls away, glaring angrily at my unforgivable breach. Several guards rush forward, drawing blades. Bethune waves them away.
“In desperate times the wrong path is all too often the only path.”
I can see that it is pointless to argue. She is decided. The events have run away from any one person's ability to stop them. They have gained a character of their own, like the fire, ready to consume all the stands before it; innocent or guilty. I might strike Bethune down (and be slain by her guards) but the moment has even fled and outgrown her significance.
“I am sorry for you,” I say, “but more sorry for the innocent on both sides who will suffer most."
Her acts, I assert, are criminal, and not at all worthy of Mary McLeod Bethune’s association. True enough, this memory proves a malleable substance, fully at the beckoning and blunder of the owner. I had learned to alter mine, concealing true identities from the Corporation of those I felt were just. All that was now changed, and so Bethune’s identity was returned to its rightful place in history and in my memory. If Sentinel sought I would make no effort to protect her at all. I turned and started to leave. The guards block my path. I turn, finding the rebel leader’s immoveable gaze.
Around us is a wild scene. It is the frenetic preparations for a final great battle to be joined against the Corporation. Many of the warriors brandish captured section Twenty-one weapons. They appear fierce in wolf skins and pieces of body armor. That wall of odd bricks is almost gone. A dozen or so children wait to shuttle the final loads somewhere deep beneath the city. Aids rush in and out begging orders and instructions. Bethune is well prepared, dispatching them to their urgent duties without hesitation and without the slightest indecision.
“We’re prepared,” she says with a weighted sigh.
“You’ll strike the Corporation?”
“It has always been A strategy. Would I choose such a terrible outcome? Of course not, but often in war the time and place of battle is chosen by the enemy. It is necessary to strike them before they strike us.”
“All of your people are fleeing along the coast,” emotion rises in my voice.
“Far too dangerous to remain,” she says.”I have my fighters.”
“The Corporation will butcher them out in the open!”
“Do you believe I would send them to be martyred lightly? The Corporation already makes it clear they mean to exterminate us. Better to die for a cause than for nothing.”
“The Corporation has no official policy about the Low City.”
“By their actions and their lieutenants their policy it only too clear,” she turns away.
“This is the wrong path,” I say, taking her arm and turning her back to me. She pulls away, glaring angrily at my unforgivable breach. Several guards rush forward, drawing blades. Bethune waves them away.
“In desperate times the wrong path is all too often the only path.”
I can see that it is pointless to argue. She is decided. The events have run away from any one person's ability to stop them. They have gained a character of their own, like the fire, ready to consume all the stands before it; innocent or guilty. I might strike Bethune down (and be slain by her guards) but the moment has even fled and outgrown her significance.
“I am sorry for you,” I say, “but more sorry for the innocent on both sides who will suffer most."
Her acts, I assert, are criminal, and not at all worthy of Mary McLeod Bethune’s association. True enough, this memory proves a malleable substance, fully at the beckoning and blunder of the owner. I had learned to alter mine, concealing true identities from the Corporation of those I felt were just. All that was now changed, and so Bethune’s identity was returned to its rightful place in history and in my memory. If Sentinel sought I would make no effort to protect her at all. I turned and started to leave. The guards block my path. I turn, finding the rebel leader’s immoveable gaze.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Twenty-six
“They must not fall in the hands of the Corporation,” Bethune tells me, dumping well-used journals, maps and paper into a roaring fire.
It was with some effort I managed to find her again. I was recognized by a fighter who accompanied Bethune and I to the Reclamation Center. She stepped from the shadows shrouded in dog hide. The black eyes and yellowed upper canines hanging down over her brow, and making her seem all the more threatening. She was a small, young woman with deep dark eyes, highly adapted and attuned to life and war in the sewers. Her tangled blond hair was bundled beneath a hood. A large red-brown birthmark covered one side of her angular face, extending down beneath her cloak. A crudely forged scimitar was at her waist. In her hand she carried a Section Twenty-one pistol. She held it awkwardly, as though she might fling it at an adversary rather than shoot it at one.
“Please go back,” her tone was pained, almost pleading. “Go back to the others. Go with them and leave the city for good.”
“What’s happening?”
“It is too terrible,” she replied. “I think we will all die.”
“And you?”
“I am with the cause, and to the end,” she said before relenting and leading me back to Bethune.
As we made our way through the sewers the thunder and roar of the Reclamation Center seemed to grow to a din, like a great monster no longer fulfilled at being fed by its patrons and keepers of the Corporation. It seemed as if the whole monstrous plant might tear from its moorings to devour the city. The walls shook as I never remembered. Maybe it was me and my skewed perspective and visceral disdain for that place, or perhaps the world was rising to a cataclysm. Either way time was slipping away, something which now felt entirely out of my control. History is a raging river, and I was being swept helplessly and inexorably towards an inevitable conclusion.
It was with some effort I managed to find her again. I was recognized by a fighter who accompanied Bethune and I to the Reclamation Center. She stepped from the shadows shrouded in dog hide. The black eyes and yellowed upper canines hanging down over her brow, and making her seem all the more threatening. She was a small, young woman with deep dark eyes, highly adapted and attuned to life and war in the sewers. Her tangled blond hair was bundled beneath a hood. A large red-brown birthmark covered one side of her angular face, extending down beneath her cloak. A crudely forged scimitar was at her waist. In her hand she carried a Section Twenty-one pistol. She held it awkwardly, as though she might fling it at an adversary rather than shoot it at one.
“Please go back,” her tone was pained, almost pleading. “Go back to the others. Go with them and leave the city for good.”
“What’s happening?”
“It is too terrible,” she replied. “I think we will all die.”
“And you?”
“I am with the cause, and to the end,” she said before relenting and leading me back to Bethune.
As we made our way through the sewers the thunder and roar of the Reclamation Center seemed to grow to a din, like a great monster no longer fulfilled at being fed by its patrons and keepers of the Corporation. It seemed as if the whole monstrous plant might tear from its moorings to devour the city. The walls shook as I never remembered. Maybe it was me and my skewed perspective and visceral disdain for that place, or perhaps the world was rising to a cataclysm. Either way time was slipping away, something which now felt entirely out of my control. History is a raging river, and I was being swept helplessly and inexorably towards an inevitable conclusion.
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