As I Walk These Broken Roads (35 page)

“
Just let me clean a few things then we can get going.
”

This was it then – the last of the
forgotten highways. No traffic,
no destination – only the bones of the great civilization.

Wentworth pressed the button connected to his headset. They were still testing the radios, as well as working out what
sort
voice-procedure patois they
’
d be using.
“
Romeo, this is Whiskey. Radio check; over.
”
A second later Raxx
’
s voice answered.

“
This is Romeo. Loud and clear, buddy, looks like they
’
re working fine – over.
”

“
Roger that, Romeo. Whiskey out.
”

The echoes of their engines echoed for k
ilometres up and down the sound-
barricaded corridor.

Wentworth had taken lead again, negotiating a path forward. Vehicles littered this highway. Their electronics blown out, most were parked on the thin shoulder, but many still littered the main paths of travel. They threaded their way through, encountering no difficulties, but vigilant for any scattered debris from some of the multi-vehicle wrecks they saw.

The hulks flashed by, one by one, empty of occupants. Nobody had cleared this highway.

On either side, the occasional building could be seen over the barricades. All of them had their windows blown out, and most showed signs of fire damage. Empty tombs, flitting by. There was no human life here, little animal life, and only the occasional patch of green struggling in the piles of dirt that had accumulated on the shoulders. But despite all the decay, the highway stayed good to them.

Up ahead the ruins loomed. They kept dipping behind the horizon, or hiding as they curved around a bend, only to reappear larger and more decrepit. Wentworth ignored them, his eyes were focussed on the road ahead.

“Whiskey, this is Romeo – you figure we’ll find anyone out here?”

“Whiskey – better hope not. This place is putting me on edge, and I figure anyone else out here will be feeling the same. Better ready your weapons when we stop, just in case, Over.”

“I hear that – Roger. But I don’t see any tire marks, so we shouldn’t have to worry.”

“I feel like the rules don’t apply here… Out.”

Billboards started to appear, thirty meters tall, on either side of the road. Their paint was faded, and their products forgotten. Fire damage was becoming more common, gutting the high-rises. The distant sky would blink through as the windows aligned.

“Hey, uh, Whiskey – you see that? What that going on with the road up ahead? Over.”

They were passing an off ramp, up ahead the road appeared jagged, its sides twisted and distorted. “Whiskey – Yeah, I see it. We should slow down and check it out – Over.”

“Roger, out.”

They slowed their vehicles, coming to a stop. Raxx’s truck groaned as he pulled the parking break. He got out and walked over to the idling motorcycle. “What the hell do you think caused this?”

Wentworth had been studying the mess in front of him since they stopped, trying to figure it out. The road came to an abrupt end three meters above the ground, sixty meters ahead. In between was a mess of shattered concrete, steel rebar, and I-beams. He knocked out the kickstand, and got off of the motorcycle. He pulled out a cigarette. “One of the bombs, maybe.”

They walked towards it. This had been one of the highway’s major intersections, almost a full cloverleaf. He spotted the remains of a railway which had run parallel to them, as well the avenues beneath the highway. Parts of the wreckage suggested there’d been a short tunnel here, three or four layers of transport. Now there was nothing but crater.

Raxx looked up at the sky, as if imagining the bomb’s detonation. “Huh. Maybe. The buildings around here look like they might have been hit with a blast wave centred here.”

Wentworth smoked, stretching his knees. “I was about to say that we ought to get off this road, anyways. The wrecks are getting denser, the closer we get. You up for a bit of urban navigation?”

“It’s not like we have much choice.”

* * *

Every aspect of the landscape was getting denser. Along the side streets were single-dwelling homes and residential neighbourhoods, but the main drag stayed commercial. Everywhere tall buildings lined the streets, refusing to topple. It was hard to imagine how many people had lived here.

The going was much slower than on the highway. Cars were everywhere. Mostly they were parked along the sides of the street, and passage was still possible, but occasionally there’d be the remnants of a multiple-vehicle accident blocking an intersection, or abandoned cars and trucks parked lengthwise across a street. Once they came across a bus which was flipped on its side and wedged in against the buildings. Bit by bit they made their way further east, backtracking when necessary, going on side streets and through residential neighbourhoods, over wild lawns and down alleyways. The towers were growing larger each time they saw them.

Litter and refuse were everywhere. Waxy advertising flyers blew about, water stained and faded. Newsprint and other cheap papers lay in the gutter, grey and yellow lumps covered with lichens and moulds. Everything was rusted, the street lamps and traffic signs. The wooden benches had rotted over the years, and the cement had shattered wherever water had seeped in and froze. The few remaining plants growing on narrow strips of earth and in sidewalk cracks were black and misshapen, their flowers off-colour with mottled spottings. There was no sound but the howling wind and clattering detritus. Their passing was a brief interlude, the growl of ancient motors before returning to the silence of abandonment.

The path forced upon them eventually took them to the waterfront. Residential buildings lined the street and stretching out to the east they could see the overgrown remains of parks and beaches. Wentworth stopped his motorcycle and pulled out his binoculars, looking for any signs of habitation. The occasional tumbleweed rolled along the wide avenue, but aside from that there was no movement. Like everywhere else in this city the plants were twisted and mutated, poisoned by the radiation and left over pollution. Without fertilizer and care they’d stopped growing strong. After a few minutes Wentworth put away his binoculars and looked over at Raxx, parked next to him.

“I don’t see anybody out there. That beach looks like it’d be good for travelling on – free and clear as far as I can see. I’m going to stick to the pathways, but I think your truck should be able to handle the sand.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. Let’s go.”

Wentworth drove over to the nearest concrete walkway and once he was facing in the right direction he gunned his engine. The cement footpaths were cracked and rough, but free of hazards. Raxx eased over one of the concrete embankments, then in low gear he tested out the sand’s surface. Satisfied, he notched up the speed to match Wentworth’s.

They were making good time finally, they kept the speed low, under fifty, and they ran into no obstacles. Sometimes Wentworth had to jog left or right as the path curved, and Raxx needed to compensate whenever he felt the sand shifting, but they were making progress, closing with the ruins.

The park was extensive and in places they could see the highway they’d been on earlier, it now ran parallel to the waterfront. They passed tennis courts, waterside bars, and marinas. The skyscrapers were getting close enough to make out the windows.

Eventually the park ended and was replaced with commercial buildings. They manoeuvred their way back onto the streets, then took an onramp back onto the highway. It was raised up on concrete posts, and gave them a long view in either direction. They kicked up the speed as the city spread out before them. Billboards passed on either side, on top of buildings or high steel posts. Rising above the skyscrapers was the jagged spike they’d seen while en route to Sauga. It was a narrow cement tower, smooth, without windows or accoutrements. The top had been torn off, ragged steel rebar hung out of the gash. They passed an eight vehicle pile-up, a commuter bus crushed into the backs of the automobiles in front of it. Over the years they’d rusted into a single mass. Drawing closer, they could finally see the base of the tower. Leaning against it were the remnants of the red and white saucer which had once sat at its pinnacle. It was fallen and shattered, debris sprayed everywhere.

They were now close enough to see that the downtown cluster had been thinned out. At a distant all the skyscrapers blended together to create a consistent skyline, but here, now, up close, they could see the gaps where buildings had collapsed. Only about one in four was still standing.

The cars were getting denser, and they had to slow their speed for the truck to work its way around them. These vehicles were in worse condition than the others they’d seen. Their tires were blown out and their glass was missing. None of them had upholstery inside. And there was something else...

“Gas tanks are gone.”

“Say again Romeo?”

“I just noticed, Whiskey. All of these vehicles had their gas tanks explode. You can see the marks on the road under them.”

It was the fireball, he realized. All of these cars had been hit by the fireball when the bomb went off. That’s when he noticed the bodies – he’d been passing them for a while without realizing it because they were nothing but dark, charred husks. The fire and the elements had left little behind.

They’d slowed to little more than a jogging pace. They were almost all the way into downtown, buildings looming on either side, but the traffic of the dead was getting worse. The cars were skewed out perpendicularly or rolled over. On his motorcycle Wentworth was still able to make it through, but Raxx was running into problems. The broken tower with its fallen disk, the one which pointed up at the sky like an accusing finger, passed by on their left. Spotting an off ramp in the distance Wentworth radioed Raxx and suggested they take it.

They managed to make it there and thankfully the ramp itself was free of cars. They realized why as they exited onto a street level intersection of wide avenues – a smattering of vehicles had coasted off the ramp at the very end, engines dead but wheels rolling, spreading out through the intersection and pushing the vehicles already there onto the sidewalks.

The streets were clogged with dead vehicles. Raxx pulled over next to Wentworth, and they agreed it was time to proceed on foot. The trick was figuring out where – their vehicles would stand out and draw attention in this automotive graveyard if any scavengers happen to stop by.

On the far corner of the intersection was the answer they needed; a multi-storey parking garage. It was built ruggedly, with no windows, just wide gaps between support columns, designed with functionality, not aesthetics in mind. It seemed to have survived the blast relatively unharmed.

Raxx nosed his way over a curb and into a parking lot, and eventually found a route to its main entrance. A black-and-yellow wooden barrier, its paint chipping, had survived the nuclear fire, but under the truck’s grill it snapped off easily. Inside the vehicles were parked in orderly rows and dead halogen lights hung from the ceiling. Their way was clear until they reached the fourth level; there they found a minivan which had been about to enter the ramp to the fifth and final level blocking both lanes. The rubber from its tires was melted into the floor and its axles were rusted. There was no way they were going to move it.

They settled for parking on the fourth level in the darkest corner they could find. The chance of anybody walking up there by accident was low; aside from their own vehicles there was nothing of value in the garage.

When they shut them down the engines echoed for a split second, almost wistfully, then they faded and the garage was full of concrete silence.

For half an hour they stood in the shadows, watching and listening, waiting to see if anybody had heard them arrive. Thankfully, the vehicles in the garage had been unoccupied when the bomb hit and there were no charred remains for them to ignore. They stayed sharp and the time passed slowly.

Checking his Datapad for the third time Wentworth saw that thirty-three minutes had passed since their arrival. Neither of them had seen or heard anything during that time other than a flock of pigeons and a large rat. “I think we’re good,” he said to Raxx, slinging his rifle, “not that I expected anything. We’ve still got about four hours of daylight left, let’s pack up and get going.”

“So you wanna sleep outdoors tonight? I was thinking we might as well, we’ll get more accomplished that way.”

“Yeah, agreed. We should pack light though – I want to leave space for anything interesting we might find.”

Raxx took his rucksack while Wentworth took his duffle. Within a few minutes they’d made it down to ground level and were heading north, passing under the highway. The downtown core loomed ahead.

The buildings were immense, blocking out most of the sky and casting long shadows. When they spoke they whispered, but they didn’t speak much. As they passed under the highway, its chalk-white supports on either side of them, their footsteps echoed hollowly
. Somehow an ancient poster was still up
, taped to one of the columns and fluttering in the wind.

A brief open space followed after they passed under the highway; a park in front of a stadium, off to their right. Then the avenue they were on turned into a tunnel. They walked in silence now. For some reason the wind died down in this brief underground passage. A red cigarette pack lay in the gutter, standing out even in the gloom. It seemed to go on forever even though they could see the end of it, not more than a hundred meters from the entrance. When they finally got to the other side they stopped and stared.

“Holy Hell…” said Raxx.

The buildings they’d seen before were nothing compared to the ones confronting them now. They kept stretching up and up until they had to crane their heads back to see the top. Before it had been the proximity of the buildings which blocked out the sky; now it was their magnitude. All of the glass was gone from their windows, and their exteriors were a uniform grey from the dust, with dirty streaks where water had run down. Few were fully intact, and the debris of the fallen littered the streets ahead, sometimes the piles were several stories high. Behind them they could now see that the cause for the tunnel; dozens of train tracks running above it. This must have been the major transit hub for the great city.

The debris started at the first intersection after the tunnel and stretched on as far as they could see. Slowly they walked up to it trying to understand its magnitude. They stood there; Wentworth lit a cigarette, Raxx put down his rucksack and started making trial attempts at climbing the pile, seeing if it was possible. The dust spiralled up with the wind while dead leaves and garbage blew about in corners.

Finally Raxx gave up. “I don’t know how we’re going to get past this. We could climb it, but it’d be slow going all the way. Dangerous, too.”

Wentworth had been looking about him while Raxx spoke. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s go see if the subway system hasn’t collapsed.” He indicated a stairwell going down into the earth.

They walked down the stairs. The bottom was filled with debris and a set of glass doors,
spider-webbed
into small granules but still in the frames. Wentworth used his rifle to beat on one of them
; the
safety glass resisted with a rubbery consistency, but after his third strike it broke and sprayed pellets into the interior. For a second he felt like a vandal before shaking
it off
.

A cool wind was blowing out through the empty
frame;
it carried the hint of mildew. Somewhere in the distance water was dripping. They foyer they’d stepped into opened up into a labyrinth of turnstiles, stairwells, and confectionary stands. There were newspaper kiosks but their contents were long decayed. There’d been
people in here when the bomb went off, but the blast hadn’t hit them directly; they’d been allowed to decay
. The
ir
fragmented skeletons
and tattered clothing didn’t look real.

The
two men
turned on his flashlights and started exploring.

The subway was convoluted, three dimensional, and counter instinctive. For half an hour they wandered its upper level, investigating the stands, maintenance hallways, all of its nooks and crannies. They discovered things which were technically useful, but generally worthless: brushes, mops, old currency, and magazines; they picked them up, looked them over, then left them. The only exception
was
some new
s magazines, brittle but still readable, that Wentworth pocketed. Occasionally they’d see something – a missing fire extinguisher, a knocked over garbage can – that suggested that others had been through here before, but if so it had been a long time ago. The dust was heavy on the floor, and Wentworth was uncomfortable with the prints they were leaving.

Eventually they made it down to the lower levels. The tunnels were still intact. A soft, keening wail filled the air. Their electric light gazed endlessly into the darkness. They were several stories below the surface now, in the city’s calcified bowels.

They hopped down to the tracks and started walking.

One by one they reached the different stations. Many were blocked,
but
some were still passable
. One exited at a street-level
intersection
,
blocked by rubble on all four sides. In it they found an overturned delivery truck carrying water filters
, a few of which they stored
in Wentworth’s duffle. Another opened up into the City Hall plaza. They walked through the paved area, examining the statues and monuments. The streets surrounding it were a mess of broken down vehicles and collapsed buildings. They walked towards City Hall itself. It was built of glass and steel, and somehow the glass had survived the years, dirty though it was. Looking in they saw the silhouettes of people outlined in black against the walls. A shudder went down Wentworth’s spine as he realized they were the shadows of those who’d been standing there when the bomb hit, burnt into the walls with radiation. They left the building and kept exploring.

The last exit they checked took both of their shoulders to lever open. They stepped through the doors, and climbed up the rubble covering the steps. When they reached the street level there was nowhere to go, only a small area where walking was possible. Something caught Wentworth’s eye. High up, on an uncollapsed building, were the blue and yellow colours of a faded billboard. It depicted three
bright
faces above a corporate logo; a
dark haired woman, reposing i
n a bath;
an old man smiling happily
;
a child laughing.
Had anyone believed it back then, he wondered?

By th
is
time evening
had
arrived
a slight drizzle had started up. T
hey decided to retreat back to the shelter of the subway tunnels. They got a fire going and Wentworth shot a rat. They debated whether or not to eat it at first because it was albino and hairless, but the Datapad picked up no traces of radiation so they agreed to cut out the fatty bits where poisons would have accumulated and
cook up
the rest. Wentworth
watched the spit, while flipping through one of
his
news
magazines
.
Raxx
, meanwhile,
practised dry-firing his new shotgun. He already had the drills memorized; he was now balancing a coin on the front sight while trying to pull the trigger gently enough not to upset it.

The afternoon had been exhausting. Aside from the water filters, they’d come across nothing of value. Even the magazines Wentworth had picked up were short sighted
and deluded
; there wa
s little insight to be garnered. Just
a deep sense of irony.

It really was a graveyard. What was left was no more useful than the dates written on tombstones; without a context, it was meaningless.

The rat seemed to be finished so Wentworth gave a shout to Raxx. The meat was tough but nourishing. He’d flavoured it with some spices they’d brought with them, and it was better than any rations. A pigeon might have
been tastier,
but their weapons were too h
igh calibre for the tiny birds, and b
esides, it was raining
outside
. They ate in silence, sitting in a tiny alcove along the subway track
,
while the flames flickered in time to the wind currents flowing down the tunnel. Their dark and greasy surroundings
only
emphasized the
ir
gloomy feeling
s
.

Raxx spoke after chewing the meat off his last bone and throwing it in the fire. “It makes you wonder, what’s the point? I mean, here we are in the city and it’s never gonna be what it was. Everything’s broken and the people who could’ve fixed it are long dead. So why do we bother?”

Wentworth pulled a flask out of his pocket and handed it over to him. “You’re thinking about Blackstock, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, that and my uncle,” he said, taking a swig.

Wentworth accepted the flask back and took a swig of his own. “These conversations always go better with a bit of alcohol lubricating things,” he said, lighting a cigarette. The distant rain shower was just barely audible while closer at hand there was the echo of water dripping somewhere in the tunnel. “Part of the reason you’re asking me is because you know, with my history, that I can’t say ‘your family,’ or some other bullshit– ‘your community,’ ‘your girlfriend,’ ‘your little
malformed
child,’ or whatever.”

“I figure you’ll give me an honest answer. Saying any of that stuff, well, that’s just avoiding the question. Family and community can only matter if something else matters.”

Wentworth grunted out a laugh. “Yeah, those answers are philosophical suicide. Well... I don’t know Raxx. I wonder about that sometimes, why I’m still wandering around like some derelict. I don’t really know. But... maybe this is bullshit... or maybe not, but I think it’s more interesting being alive than dead – and dead’ll come soon enough, anyway, I figure.
Besides, I figure
I ought to do something about the shitheads of this world. If I can. Sometimes I can. Maybe
…”

He lapsed into silence and took another swig from the flask.

“At least
the whiskey here is good.”

Raxx barked a dry laugh
.
T
hen another. Wentworth grunted in response. This elicited another laugh out of Raxx, and slowly it grew until they were both having a good chuckle. Neither of them said anything more, retreating into their own thoughts. They continued to pass the flask back and forth while the fire burned low.

Finally, as Raxx was thinking about getting out his sleeping mat, Wentworth spoke. “So I finished that book you gave me.”

“
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you think?”

“Well, at first I didn’t think too much, thought it was just a bunch of mystical nonsense. But then he starts talking about real world problems. So I read it again. Now I’m reading it a third time – I’m halfway through it but I think I know what he’s getting at. You know how he talks about the Classical and Romantic approaches to knowledge? At first I thought he meant the scientific and mystical approaches, before I figured out the context.

“He says the Classical approach is exemplified by things like manuals, blueprints, and design sketches – all the boring analytical stuff that comes along with tech. You can see why I’d mistake Classical for science – but science isn’t that. Science is a hell of a lot more than that. That’s where the Romantic comes in. For Romantic he talks about his friend who appreciates the motorcycle in its final stage, as a beautiful machine, a ticket to freedom, but doesn’t want to understand the underlying principles. His friend wants a magic carpet, not a motorcycle. That’s why I mistook Romantic for Mystic – but it’s not that. See, why does a Mechanic build a motorcycle in the first place? It’s because he’s building a Romantic ideal. The author’s friend can only see the Romantic, and completely misses the Classical underpinning
s
.

“But the Romantic isn’t just prettiness, it isn’t just merely aesthetic – and aesthetics don’t equate to useless. That’s why he mentions the incompetent mechanics. The guys who just read the manuals, put in their time, and don’t care about the end result – to them it’s just a paycheque.”

“The technicians.”

“Yeah, the technicians. Just like his friend is only living in the Romantic world, the technicians are only living in the Classical world. Not only are their lives empty, they’re also incompetent. Because they’re not looking at the bike as a whole, because they’re not caring about it, they end up screwing it up worse than it was in the first place.

“The whole idea behind machines is that we can understand them, we can figure out what makes them work, and design them to do what we want them to do. We use our understanding to make ourselves greater.”

“That’s why I’m a Mechanic, man. It’s all something that I can understand, that I can use to change the world into what I want it to be.”

“It’s all math.”

Raxx’s brows furrowed. “Yeah... I guess it is.”

“The book got me thinking. You know Raxx, before I read it I used to be one of those Romantic guys – I never realized that I could figure out the whole machine, I only fixed the parts that I’d been taught to fix. You’re not like that, you don’t let ignorance get in your way. You learn what you don’t know, and chart a path through it. Except in one field.”

“And what’s that?”

Wentworth pulled out his Datapad, and tossed it over to the prone form. Raxx caught it, holding it apprehensively.