Elysium (29 page)

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She fell wrong on her foot, onto wet soil. Above her, running feet scuffled on the wooden planks. Her ankle hurt like hell, but she had to keep on moving. She was surrounded by slimy, smelly, nasty things. There was no time to think or feel or be scared. Only time to run and hide. She silently moved among the leaves. Lights were peering down from above. She was sullied with mud and muck as she went deeper and deeper into the reeds and mess. Someone jumped down, then someone else. She kept moving. Then a flashlight was on her. They grabbed her. She fought like a cat. All went dark.

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… light and colors with unfocused edges. Adrianne blinked several times and still she could not see clearly. She had a terrible headache, one that she felt on her ears and on the bridge of her nose. The fuzziness focused.

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Twelve people surrounded her. Four were best friends. Two were more than that. One had curly-red-hair-that-was-slowly-turning-auburn. One was the Alien. One had gray-eyes-and-didn’t-speak-too-much. One was a direct descendant of Dionne Maiter. The last was Antoine.

“She’s coming to …” one said.

“Hey, there, we thought you were a goner …” said another softly.

“We made it, Adrianne,” Antoine said then laughed.

“We made it because of you,” Jolly said.

“Evidently~~~, you were correct about~~~the pro-jected enviro-ment,” the alien said. “No-thing~~in the camp~~~was real.”

“I always knew you’d survive,” Helen said. Adrianne touched Helen’s face to feel the breath from her nose and mouth. She drank in her warmth.

“But …” Adrianne said, “something is wrong …”

“Nothing is wrong,” Helen said. “Not with us. Everything is as it should be.”

“Everything …” Adrianne touched the nape of Helen’s neck, caressed her ear, then whispered tender words too deep to recall. She kissed Helen on the tip of her chin. Smoothed her eyebrows. Touched the back of her head and the softness of her hair. “Everything …”

Behind them Adrianne could see all the stars in a familiar nighttime sky with a single waxing moon. She had no words. This was Earth. She was home. She had always been home. Then, high in the distance, she noticed the smallest dot of green.

20.

The wind tasted of salt and the sea as moist air sailed through the window. The warmth of soft sheets and a thick blanket surrounded her. She stretched, feeling the crinkle and gentle pop of her muscles unstiffening. Then the smell of hair perfumed by lilac-scented shampoo. Adrianne reached over and held the warm body next to hers and sighed deeply. This was an amazing fantasy.

She felt Helen get out of bed, leaving the place where she once lay empty and warm. She watched her go into the bathroom and heard the sounds of the water pouring down. The cat made his appearance, jumping onto the bed, mewing and demanding his breakfast.

“Come on, little guy,” Adrianne said as she slipped out of bed.

She and the cat went into the kitchen where she opened a can of food and emptied it into its flat ceramic bowl with the picture of a rotund kitty in the center. The cat ate hungrily, and it smacked and purred with delight.

A warm light came through the open kitchen window as a breeze flowed in. She could see the wall in the distance. Broken in areas, but still sound and strong against the cruel forces on the other side. Helen entered the kitchen in full military dress of crimson and copper shielding. She was buckling a belt around her waist.

Adrianne handed her a cup of coffee and poured one for herself. It had been so long since she tasted something this wonderful. It filled her with peaceful pleasure.

“We don’t have much time before I have to be back on duty,” Helen said. “The war is not going well.”

“The war …” Adrianne said. So far away. Meaningless to her only hours before. Now it was everything.

“Then let’s make the most of the time we have,” Adrianne replied. She took Helen by the hand, and they sat down. Adrianne kissed her deeply. She tasted the sweet saltiness. The slip and moistness of her tongue in her mouth. Then she thought — she remembered — that this was wrong. None of this should be happening.

Helen pulled out of her arms. “I think you need to stay home and rest today.”

“Don’t worry,” Adrianne said. “I’ll take it easy.”

“Good. I’ll see you later on tonight, okay?”

This was not the Helen she knew. Her Helen would never don a uniform or patrol the wall. Adrianne smiled and held onto Helen’s face for a moment longer, then let her go.

“When did you join the war effort?”

“Since after you went away,” Helen said.

“I thought you hated the fighting.”

“Really? You thought that about me?” She touched Adrianne on the chin. “I’ve always understood that it was necessary.”

“I see.”

She watched as Helen picked up the harness for her wings. They
shinged
as she lifted them.

“Helen.”

“Yes?”

“You know that I’ve always loved you.”

Helen smiled. “You don’t even have to say it.” Then she turned and marched out the door.

Alone in the kitchen, Adrianne spoke aloud, “I only wanted to tell you one last time.”

Her favorite clothes lined the closet. Items that she remembered being long worn out or stained hung perfectly intact, ready for her to wear. She picked out an outfit and laid it on the bed and stared at it. Then she pulled out of her dresser some sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a warm pullover, put them on and was out the door.

Antoine was waiting for her on the front porch. He smiled when he saw her and hugged her like a bear.

“Where we going today, Adrianne?”

“We’re going home, ’Twone.”

He laughed.

“You so silly, Adrianne. We are home.”

“No, baby, we’re not.”

She took him by the hand, and they walked together through the peaceful city. It was the city she remembered growing up in with her brother. Friendly faces smiled at them as they walked. Many of them seemed sickly and tired, yet they smiled and went about their daily business. Antoine was happy and swung his arms like a child. This was the place that serviced the men who patrolled the wall. Providing them with food and all the comforts of home. It was home, and Adrianne loved it. But it wasn’t real.

Voices, accents, languages whose rhythms echoed places Adrianne had never seen (and never would) beat past her like a marching band. The sounds were a blending stream of conversations and sighs. The faces that passed her were from all over. Each a different shape and color. The smell of roasting peanuts on open charcoal burners, curried meats, and frying falafels drifted through the warm air. Adrianne and Antoine moved asynchronously in the uneven flow of people.

The open doors of the boutiques and electronic stores blasted icy wind from air conditioners set on super high. The cold drifted out, beckoning them inside. Adrianne relished the cool against her skin. Through their reflection on the window into a clothing store she could see the plastic people looking at the mannequins in their styled outfits. She told Antoine to wait outside while she went in.

In a few minutes, her body adjusted to the cold. She roamed through the racks of shirts, skirts, dresses, and pants as Antoine stood outside patiently waiting. The perfume of a passing salesgirl was a mixture of sea breezes and powder. She clicked her price gun on a tag.

A red and white blouse caught Adrianne’s eye. She pulled it off the rack and held it up to the light. It was a flowing delicate faux silk blouse, long at the bottom, with buttons at the top. She put it next to her body in front of a mirror. It was too young for her. So she put it back on the rack without much care. She really shouldn’t be here, she thought. Back out to the streets to a smiling Antoine.

There was a man selling newspapers on the corner. The headlines told of war in foreign lands.

Adrianne looked at the sky, and it was blue, blue, no sun just blue. And there was the spot of green. Never moving, never changing shape or size. She followed it like the slaves of old the northern star. Down the boulevard, they saw corner after street corner after street corner, on and on ad infinitum. It was all such a beautiful illusion.

Past the stores and past the tall glass and steel skyscrapers, then to the area of small red brick townhouses in the lower edge of the city near the river. This was a part of the city that she should never be in, but here they were. She’d never realized how empty the city was outside their neighborhood. Wind carried newspaper pages flapping through the desolate streets, the breeze howling off the abandoned buildings. Adrianne led Antoine through back alleys where things scurried away to the old harbor where the great ships used to dock, then to a place where she had been before, the City Hall that their ancestor had designed, which was now open to the elements.

They walked through the front door unhindered because no one was there. They shuffled over the tiled mosaic floors, taking a moment to stare up at the oculus, which drew in a large stream of light from above — the ceiling decorated so delicately with indented squares carved out to lessen the weight of the dome. Their steps echoed loudly in the emptiness. They slipped into a back room and then through an open door to the outside into an alley to step over the boxes and the bones from devoured chicken and through the potent stench of urine to touch a brick wall.

Hovering above was the green speck in the sky. Adrianne searched and searched for what she knew must be there from a half-memory of when she was a girl. Antoine scratched at his face, then pointed to what she was looking for — the brick marked with a “T” in black magic marker. She pushed at the third brick down. A door opened and they walked through.

“Remember this place, ’Twone, from when we were little? We used to come here with grandpapa.”

“He said this was a secret place,” Antoine said.

“Yes, this is a secret place.”

This was the place behind the walls, behind the sky, controlling the day and the night and the wind and the rain. The hidden place maintained by The Twelve, that everyone knew about but refused to remember. They walked through the hall, past the one-way observation window where the town and the wall could be seen. Through another hall to the stairway of cinderblock walls with peeling off-white paint. These rooms were abandoned. No one should be here anymore. But they heard a noise. A shadow moved and approached them. It was Steven.

“So you’ve finally come,” he said.

“Yes.” Adrianne said. “How long have you been here?”

“Only a little while. I was waiting for you,” he said. “Hi, Antoine.”

Antoine bear-hugged him. When he was finally released, Steven pushed back his glasses and said, “We should go to the control room.”

“Okay,” Adrianne said.