THE LAST MAN: Part Forty-two

I climb slowly to my feet. As I draw Desiree up, still shielding her with my body, it seems impossible we are still alive. Desiree is already pulling me towards the sewer, knowing full well this could be our last chance for escape. At the entrance to the alley I spot movement among the dead. I pull away from Desiree. Her fingers linger at the end of our touch. Her face fully reflects the urgency of this moment, but I have to go.

“Please, I beg you,” she pleads.

“One moment is all I ask.”

I take her in my arms and look purposefully into her tortured eyes. We both look to gunfire out in the street. The sound comes nearer with each passing heartbeat. Her fingers grip the sleeves of my tunic tightly, as if she might drag me away if all else fails.

“If something happens,” I tell her, “follow the sewer to the coast. You will find…”

“I won’t, not without you!”

“You must,” I say, pulling away. It takes every ounce of strength and courage I can muster her. We may only have this one chance, but I have to go.

I follow the wall to the top of the alley. In the street, a few yards away the Man from the Corporation lies bleeding. Bullets have pierced his body crossways from hip to shoulder. I am amazed he is still alive. Seeing me he musters the strength for an ironic smile. At the end of the street, in the direction of the Reclamation Center, Section Twenty-one troops loyal to him are fighting a losing battle against the Minister’s forces. Bullets rip at the air overhead and skip at the street close by.

Ignoring the fighting I kneel beside him. Gently I lay my hand upon his shoulder. It is cold to the touch. Already I can feel the life fleeing from his body.

“Seems as though I am the one eager to say goodbye now,” he says weakly.

A cross the street a man stumbles from the fight and collapses against the wall. The street battle reaches its climax. The man from the Corporation looks past me to the ultramarine sky, and the torn layers of smoke and dust.

“Does it hurt terribly?”

His eyes find mine. “I did not believe I would see you again. Don’t ascribe any purposefulness in saving you, if that is in fact what I’ve done.”

“Still, I owe you a debt, my friend.”

The word seems to catch him a moment. It seems to rescue him from the finality of the moment, more than he rescued Desiree and me from the Minister’s bullet.

“It is I who owe you a debt.” I said. “In the atrium you said something I did not understand. You said that a man alone is always defeated, but that a man alone has nothing to lose but his dignity, and that he will defend to the last.”

“I did.”

“But not all men. It takes an uncommon character.”

“Or a common man in an uncommon situation.”

“Perhaps if that were truer we would live in a very different world. I believe you are the last man…my friend”

Only a hand full of his loyal men remain now. They have retreated to doorways around us. At the top of the street, seeming to rise from the lingering smoke and haze from the Reclamation Center, an armored troop carrier creeps forward spitting fire around the street.

“Anything I can do for you?” I ask.

He looks to Desiree. There is a lonesome look to his eyes, as though he realizes something he has always missed but only now discovered. With his final breaths he reaches up and touches my face.

“She is waiting for you,” he says, breathing heavier and more erratic now. “See how she looks at you? That better world awaits if the two of you can find it.”

With that he is gone. As I close his eyes I know he meant less of the physical world than of something more. I am coming to a definition of love in Desiree. Implied in that word is the hope of a different world, if we can find it.