Ruined Cities Page 9

  “Now,” the girl said as she added Yelty’s ring to her collection “I am the Last Empress of Atlantis.”

  “What in the lowest level?” asked Otheirn.

  Yelty laughed thunderously.

  The girl examined him with tilted head, sighed, lifted her chin in haughty mien and exited with a muted flourish.

  The ground rumbled. A dragon screamed. The stench of burning Empire filled the tavern.

  “Let’s have one more round,” said Yelty, “the good stuff, in honor of our new Empress.”

  ESCAPE FROM 1133

  by

  TOM HOWARD

  B’ron ignored the dusty pipes pressing against his back and looked at the burn on his forearm. In the flickering light, his wound didn’t appear as painful as it felt. At fifteen, he was too old to cry but still wanted to run to his mother to fix everything: his arm, the security men chasing him, the terrible mess he’d gotten himself into.

  Taking a deep breath, he knew he needed a better plan than to hide until they dragged him to the recycling chamber. There, he’d become nutrients for the hydroponic gardens, and everything he’d tried to do would be lost.

  Rosco should be with him in the disused crawlspace. His pal was always the one with the plan. B’ron hoped his friend had escaped. It figured the brainy one was near their only way out, while B’ron was stuck on the other side of the habitat ring.

  A clanging noise in the hallway outside made him freeze. When it faded, he considered turning himself into the security patrols searching for him. Better than being found by Rusty and his welding torch again. The quadrant mayor’s son hated B’ron and enjoyed bullying him at every opportunity. When B’ron had been labeled a threat for trying to tell everyone the truth, Rusty grabbed his portable torch and formed a search party. B’ron’s arm was testimony to their last, brief encounter. Only by tripping the larger boy had B’ron managed to escape. The trip to recycling wouldn’t be quick if Rusty found him again.

  B’ron looked up into the musty darkness. Could he use the crawlspace he was in to reach the ring above? His mom worked in maintenance and said the habitat rings weren’t connected to one another, but five years earlier he and Rosco had discovered differently.

  ***

  His mom, although tired and overworked, insisted on having her own fire drill, separate from the one required by the community every month. She was familiar with their entire ring’s systems and said fire was the aging cylinder’s greatest enemy. A kind woman with a quick smile and bright green eyes, his mother insisted B’ron know the locations of the halogen-free rooms in every corridor.

  Since his father worked in the mines deep beneath the cylinder for weeks at a time, he was excused from B’ron’s mother’s spur-of-the-moment fire drills. To make it interesting and more challenging, she blindfolded him and led him to an unknown location in the quadrant. Then she watched her wrist computer for the two minutes she gave him to find the nearest safe room — still blindfolded.

  The day he found the secret passageway to the lower ring and became friends with Rosco didn’t start well. His mother had taken him to a dead-end corridor, and — although he thought he knew every square inch of the ring — he’d been unable to get his bearings in the required two minutes.

  “I’m surprised I finally found a place you were unfamiliar with,” she said. “I haven’t stumped you since you were five.”

  B’ron barely heard her as he removed the blindfold and fixed the location of the unfamiliar corridor in his mind. While running his fingers down the hall during the drill, skimming the metal walls, he’d detected one painted panel that wasn’t metal. Puzzled, he’d stopped momentarily but continued when his mother had coughed. With the blindfold off, he couldn’t spot the unusual panel. That made it a mystery, and a mystery was something he enjoyed.

  He smiled at his mother. “I’ll do better next time. You won’t stump me twice.”

  “I’ll take that wager,” she said. “Now run along. Be home in time for study hour and dinner.”

  B’ron gave her a quick hug and headed to the Park, located in the center of the ring. He wasn’t sure exactly how many rings were stacked upon one another to make up their cylinder, but he knew it was over two hundred. The habitat rings occupied the top levels while the lower half contained the carefully tended crops upon which they all survived.

  The Park was located in the center of the ring, a green oasis with shrubs and a playground. A large fountain, cracked and dry as long as B’ron could remember, stood like a marble tower in the middle of everything. The Park was crowded with children of all ages, scheduled for social interaction by their teachers.

  A few parents, chatting amongst themselves at a group of picnic tables, watched groups of kids climb, slide, and swing.

  B’ron, too old for kiddy rides, joined a group of children his age spread across a slope of artificial boulders, the paint rubbed off from years of wear. Some of the youths were talking, but most were playing games on their wristband teachers. Keeping an eye out for the Bigs, older kids who liked to gang up on the younger ones, B’ron found an empty space to sit and activated his teacher.

  While his mom was at work trying to repair the increasingly decaying ring systems, B’ron’s teacher taught him his lessons in the family apartment. During free time, the games and puzzles on his teacher unlocked. He wasn’t interested in Robo Pets or the Fiery Maze today. He wanted information about the section with the hidden panel.

  Before he could examine the schematic displayed by his teacher, a girl from his corridor approached him, a brunette named Jana. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were wet from crying.

  “You’re B’ron?” she asked. “You live next door to Drea Waters?”

  “Yeah,” said B’ron, wishing she’d go away and stop asking him about his stupid neighbor.

  “Do you know where she is?” she asked with a sniffle. “I went to see her, and the cleaners were there. She and her parents were gone.”

  B’ron was surprised. People never moved out of their apartments unless someone in the family died. Drea was a few years older than him and not very bright. His mother said Drea spent twice as much time as he did with her teacher.

  “Isn’t her father a miner like your dad?” asked Jana. “Did something happen to him?”

  “I don’t know.” B’ron rarely saw his dad. When his father did come home a couple times a month from the tunnels far beneath the cylinder, he slept most of the time. If there had been a mining accident, he hadn’t told B’ron about it. The death of a parent could result in the loss of a three person apartment, but everyone would know about it immediately.

  Instead of taking the hint that B’ron had other things on his mind, Jana sat beside him. “I think it’s because of Rusty.”

  “Rusty?” B’ron asked. “How could he make them move?”

  Jana rubbed her wet eyes. “Maybe his father had them… recycled.”

  B’ron was speechless. People weren’t recycled when they were young and healthy. They were recycled when they became too old to contribute to the well-being of the cylinder. The Waldos, robot doctors, determined when they were no longer able to contribute. His teacher had taught him that in civics class.

  “Rusty wanted to help Drea with her sex class exercises, and she turned him in,” said Jana. “Two boys who beat up Rusty are gone, too. Along with their families. Only the mayor can order a recycle ahead of schedule. My mom says…”

  “If I see Drea, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.” B’ron, as uninterested in sex class as he was in discussing Drea, stared pointedly at his diagram.

  Instead of being annoyed at his answer, Jana jumped to her feet and ran away. Too late, B’ron realized the kids around him were scattering. The Bigs were coming.

  Before he could escape, Rusty and three of his friends surrounded him on the boulders.

  “Hey, Stinky,” said Rusty, grinning at B’ron. “Your mom came and fixed our shitter yesterday. Did a real good job. Spent mos
t of the time with her big butt up in the air.”

  Clenching his fists, B’ron jumped to his feet. He stood on the boulder, almost eye to eye with Rusty. “Don’t talk about my mom, you big tub of grease!”

  Rusty growled and shook his fist in B’ron’s face. “What you gonna do, Stinky? Run to your mama like last time?”

  A year earlier, the older boy had given him a black eye. When his mother complained to the mayor, the big man had laughed and told them he was sure it had been an accident. “Little boys like B’ron,” he said, “should learn to look out for themselves.”

  Angry but powerless, B’ron’s mother had taken him home and told him to stay away from Rusty.

  He wasn’t doing a very good job.

  “I’m going to smash your face into a rock,” threatened Rusty.

  “It’s made of rubber, fathead.” B’ron didn’t care if he got a beating. It was worth it to hear the other Bigs giggle and to watch Rusty’s already red face turn dark crimson.

  “Hey, Rusty,” a kid yelled. “Your dad’s security goons are looking for you. Something about your teacher scores.”

  Rusty’s face paled, and he looked around. “Next time, you’re going to get twice as bad a beating, Stinky.” Rusty and his friends vanished down a nearby corridor, but no guards appeared. Since they worked for his father, they probably wouldn’t have stopped B’ron’s beat-down anyway.

  “Thanks,” B’ron told the blond who’d called out the inaccurate warning.

  “I’m Rosco,” said the boy, raising his hand.

  “I’m B’ron.” He pressed his palm to the boy’s hand in greeting.

  Rosco looked at the schematic displayed on B’ron’s teacher. “So, why are you looking at a diagram of a corridor that goes nowhere?”

  B’ron smiled. “Do you like mysteries?”

  ***

  The beep of his teacher startled him, and he quickly silenced it. It wasn’t a call from Rosco saying he’d escaped and had a way for B’ron to evade the security guards. It was a bulletin for all citizens to beware of B’ron, a dangerous miscreant intent on destroying the ring and all of Cylinder 1133. Everyone should remain in their homes until the quadrant mayor gave the all clear.

  B’ron knew, because Rosco had told him, that the mayor couldn’t find them using their teachers. The main computer could not locate a specific teacher because there were too many and they were too much alike. Rosco knew a lot about computers. He’d gimmicked his own teacher so that it could do things that no one else’s could.

  They were unlikely friends. Rosco spent all his time working with his teacher, only spending time on social activities when they were required. B’ron spent as little time with the teacher as he could get away with. He explored the entire quadrant, memorizing the corridors and the areas of the ring. He knew about the Waldo rooms where sick people went in and came out repaired… or were silently transferred to the recycling center. B’ron knew where recycling was, but only special technicians were allowed through the double doors.

  His mom was correct — the elevators only went to the hydroponics gardens tended by workers on his ring and the mines far below. There was, theoretically, no way to reach the other inhabited rings.

  B’ron turned off the sound on his teacher and pulled up a schematic. Thanks to his mother’s fire drills, he knew his way intimately around the ring. Thanks to Rosco and the false panel in the dead end corridor, he was also fairly familiar with the ring below.

  ***

  “What is this place?” asked Rosco when they finally pried the wooden panel loose. He was standing beside B’ron on a dusty concrete platform. Metal pipes, twisted and black, poked out of the walls.

  “I think it’s what’s left of a staircase,” said ten-year-old B’ron, peering into the darkness below. “Doesn’t look like they meant for anyone to use it.”

  “Who blocked the entrance with a piece of old wood?” asked Rosco as he slid the panel closed behind them. Vents over their heads let in enough light for them to see.

  B’ron shook his head. “Probably someone generations ago installed it as a temporary fix, but the work order got lost or something.” He stepped off the concrete block and reached for a length of pipe.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Rosco. “You’re going to fall so far even the Waldos won’t be able to fix you.”

  B’ron grinned. “If it’s a stairway, it must lead somewhere. Let’s go.”

  Ten nervous minutes later, B’ron and Rosco, smeared with dust, stood before a set of double doors. They’d used the former handrails as a ladder, certain they’d end at any minute and they’d be forced to ascend.

  “Next time,” said Rosco, “we’ll bring flashlights.”

  B’ron nodded. Because power in the quadrant shut off unexpectedly on occasion , everyone kept fully charged lights and knew how to open doors manually.

  He tried the handle on the double doors, and they swung inwards. From the weak light from the stairway, he could see it was almost a mirror image of the dead end corridor above. To his relief, Rosco had equipped his teacher with a light, so they could see this ring’s corridor didn’t terminate in a blank wall. Instead, a door stood open in front of them.

  “That’s why the corridor is a dead end on our ring,” said Rosco, moving forward. “It used to be the entryway to this level.”

  “Why were these two rings connected?” asked B’ron. “And where is everyone?”

  Rosco kicked up dust as they entered a dark corridor. “There’s no air flow. Where’s the hum of the equipment?”

  “This is creepy,” said B’ron. Seeing familiar corridors abandoned made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  “It looks like this place has been empty for ages,” said Rosco, thrusting his wrist light into an abandoned room. The apartment had furniture but no personal belongings.

  “Two or three generations?” asked B’ron. “As long as we’ve lived in the cylinder?”

  Rosco chuckled. “Remind me to help you with your history lessons from now on. We’ve been here for ten generations. Do you sleep during the dome lesson every year?”

  “No,” said B’ron. “It’s the same lesson every year — toxic gases, carnivorous plants, vast wastelands created in a war generations ago. The teacher says we wouldn’t live two minutes out there without protection.” He remembered the desolation they witnessed every year from the top floor of the cylinder. To the students crowded together beneath a sandblasted dome of ancient glass, the outside world seemed alien and unbelievable.

  “Would you look at that,” said Rosco as they left a corridor for a large open space. “I think we’re in this ring’s Park.”

  B’ron stared at the dim shapes of playground equipment, empty flowerbeds, and bare earth. He could make out a fountain that looked exactly like the one on their ring.

  “Why aren’t people living here?” asked B’ron, turning to see the entire desolate Park.

  “Makes sense,” said Rosco. “If each generation is only allowed to have one child, they’d need less and less space as time goes on. After ten generations, we’re bound to have reduced our population. The cylinder closes down what it doesn’t need.”

  “Or what it can’t repair anymore,” said B’ron. “My mom says the cylinder is wearing out.” Talking about his mom made him think of dinner.

  “We better get back. My mom will be worried that Rusty and his friends are using me for kickball.”

  Rosco nodded. “Let’s walk the wall corridor just to make sure the two rings are the same.”

  The wall ring was the outermost corridor of the ring, the one against the outside bulkhead. Men and women used to compete against each other by running the entire twenty miles, but everyone was too exhausted from working to participate the last few years. “Just the quadrant,” said B’ron. “We can always come back.”

  Together they jogged to the outer wall, deciding to go to the left for ten minutes before returning.

  They’d barely go
ne five when they found their way blocked by a wall with a strange door.

  “There shouldn’t be a wall here,” said B’ron, running his hands across the metal wheels and horizontal bars protruding from the metal door. “And what kind of door is this?”

  Rosco examined it. “I think it’s an airlock like they used on spaceships and submarines.”

  “Sub what?” asked B’ron.

  “More history.” Rosco threw his weight into turning the large wheel. “Help me.”

  B’ron hesitated. “What’s on the other side?”

  “If I’m right, another door just like this one.” The wheel turned, first reluctantly then with greater ease. Bars across the door withdrew, and the boys pushed the door open.

  B’ron coughed at the stale air. “What’s wrong with the air filters in here?”

  “Probably worn out,” said Rosco. B’ron noticed Rosco always had an answer for everything. It might not be the right answer, but it was better than B’ron could come up with. He followed Rosco into a tiny room. As the blond boy had predicted, another door with a wheel stood before them. They closed and barred the door behind them and tugged on the second wheel. For a few minutes, B’ron wondered if it was locked from the other side, but it eventually gave way and fresh air greeted them.

  “At least this filter is working,” said B’ron, stumbling over the sill of the door into a brightly lit room. “And the air flow is good.” Furniture, overturned and misshapen, cluttered the dirty floor. Across from their door, three large windows looked out onto a landscape B’ron recognized.

  “We can see outside!” he exclaimed, racing forward. It was a familiar scene, but it somehow looked clearer and brighter than it did from the dome.

  “Look at all the other cylinders,” said Rosco. From atop the hill Cylinder 1133 stood upon, they could see countless other cylinders stretching into the distance. The ground, bare in places, was dotted with clumps of dark green vegetation, some of it growing over the sides of cylinders across the valley.

  “They look different than they do up in the dome,” said B’ron. “Much clearer. It must be the glass in these windows.” To test his theory, he placed his palm against the glass and was surprised when his hand passed into the open air beyond.