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.