The Death of the Wave (13 page)

Individuals a tragedy.

Multitudes dying, the banality of evil.

In Poet’s Camp, a mother attempted to feed her infant

but there was no milk left for her child.

The milk of the mothers had dried up in our wasteland.

But all I can think of is her leaving me in the night.

Where did she go?

Did Descartes open his door to her, and embrace her with his cold arms?

They had a child once too, a little boy.

Where is he now?

Our son is in a Hive, already smuggled and safe.

But no matter.

I found a mother whose milk was gone.

She sat in Poet’s Camp, and her infant was red-faced and hungry.

She asked for something for the infant

and her son back at her home.

I asked her for words.

I would feed her if she would take the fall.

But I would not hurt her.

That far-away lie with a core of truth.

I would not hurt her.

Here, this was a new piece in our game, my Author.

My love.

My enemy.

I wondered what your next move would be.

You were so tedious.

Coy.

Predictable.

Refusing to play the game.

But so loved, Author.

You were so loved.

The mother’s name, she said, was Poesy

and her husband had been Dante, the leader of Poet’s Camp,

killed by the Musicians in some foolish tribal scuffle.

She knew of your words, had once called you Byron.

Had even seen a copy of your message

that sought to burn the world.

I asked her if she thought that she could imitate the style,

and she said that she might have the ability.

Author.

Her children already were starving.

If the rebellion had ended, there would have been food for her.

If the testing stays in place, the Cull,

there might be food for us all.

Back then, pragmatism trumped what seemed to be morality.

Author, you had no place in her world.

She wanted her children to live, to have their chance at the tests.

This is the way things are.

And I have learned that bitter lesson

that resides within our story.

She practiced the style of your words

until they were perfect.

For every attempt, life for her children.

I was doing her a favor, Author.

Because there was something in her that reminded me of you.

Dark hair, willowy build, but eyes without fire.

She was beautiful in the darkness of the slums,

her head bowed in concentration to the pen, her son at her feet,

and her child at her breast like a primordial Madonna.

I told her the truth that I had long believed

and do no longer.

That it was for the good of all of us.

Now finish, knowledge in solidarity.

Even ending, will the revolution

Withdraw the dark set of Citadel shackles.

True voice, you citizens that hear

Onward live, for Freedom’s record plays on.

Never Eden will fall, Eden is building.

Descartes.

Do you remember that day in the forbidden library?

When we finally shook off

the dust of a civilization?

At first you brought the books to me,

wrapped like gifts in your jacket

that was too small for you.

Descartes.

I was there with you when you opened the door.

I do not know what I had imagined in my head.

The library of our glorious revolution.

The last remnants of the world before the fire.

But I did not imagine—

the books, they were so few.

Tatty, worn, all damaged,

waterlogged, burnt, dirt-encrusted.

They leaned against each other like brave soldiers.

These were the last?

The only ones left?

I remember stumbling,

and you held my hand.

The only ones.

The rest were gone,

gone up in smoke.

The people had tried so hard to forget, Descartes.

The world had been erased almost utterly.

From these books, we could catch glimpses of the past,

but how much had we lost?

What meaning?

These books, how many of their brothers,

time lost, forgotten?

But I turned from the forgotten

towards the ones that were saved.

How?

What strangers ran from the fire?

A book hidden in a bag or under a coat.

Waded through a river, or buried in the earth for reclaiming.

How many, with burning hands, were salvaged from the fire?

And yet still, later, the books brought back to the Citadel.

What of the strangers?

For I was wrong.

Not all laughed and danced that day.

There was not much left, Descartes,

but there was still work to do, then.

Finish, end the voice for Eden

Knowledge will set you free

In the Citadel, that record building.

Let me tell you a story of the words that were not Author’s words.

The words that shared her name.

My words funneled through another.

Hundreds came, from every Camp,

with any weapon they could find,

to silence the voice of Eden.

They found where he had been kept

in a nondescript building in the Palaces.

Not a studio at all.

But when they got there, he was gone,

and the Breakers were waiting.

I remember hearing the beginning gunshots from our room in the Palaces.

Author was already awake in the darkness.

She shrugged on her uniform coat over her shoulders,

forgot her mask and was gone.

I saw her dark figure streak across the snow.

And I ran.

Homemade blades and tinkered rifles against top-of-the line guns,

and I arrived in time to see the solid line of Breakers advance before the building,

inexorable, to meet the crowd that was rising like the tide.

No.

I sprinted through the Artists as if touched by fire.

But she was ahead of me

and could not hear the name

the title

that tore from my throat as I forgot myself.

My mind was wiped of thought save for one thing.

I must stop the line.

I must stop that trap of my own devising

for there were children in the crowd

holding their parents’ hands.

But I was not fast enough.

And as the front Breakers knelt to get the Artists in their sights

I screamed as the world fell around her.

Author.

My
Author.

I saw her knock a child out of the way of gunfire as if by mistake

and fall with the boy in the snow.

And when I got to her, she threw me off with surprising strength

for his eyes were open and empty.

I saw her as she was,

alive in the blood and in the snow.

And noted that my paid false author, Poesy, in front of the charge,

had run far from the Breakers.

The cause.

I said one word, and pointed for my demon.

“Her.”

And as Author turned and chased to find the cause,

the Breakers flung open the doors of the building,

and herded the remaining Artists inside.

A match was thrown, an infant cried.

But by the time that she returned, it was too late,

they had closed the doors behind them.

That was the day the rebellion died for me,

the day my hand in it was to be stilled forever.

There is only one side

that can be the side of the angels.

How could we ever fail?

KNOWLEDGE WILL SET YOU FREE.

Shall it not?

The wave of the flag, the mountings of the guns.

They were not ready to destroy the Voice of Eden.

Makeshift weapons against the Breakers,

what chance would they have?

They were led like lambs to the slaughter

and all under the name of Author.

It is not my doing.

I have no name.

I am but a Breaker,

and like many, I am from the gutter too.

The aristos gave me a uniform and a gun,

but still, the Artists are my people.

I know what it is to starve, what it is to be hungry.

What it is to keep one’s head down under the oppressor

to save one’s family, one’s children.

To accept the corrupt system to save a single life.

A single life was worth a nation.

But the rebellion! The glory!

The breaking of a people!

I thought to redeem myself from the black uniform,

from the seal of Eden,

from the blood of my people on my hands.

To show them all that

I am

I am like you.

I was born into the Camps like you!

I am like you if you were

redeemed.

But here, it all fell.

And Lady Justice on the skyline over the Barracks

gleamed with a fire in her veiled medieval eyes.

Justice if it were made cruel by human bias.

Justice made ugly by the extent of human frailty.

But how could I forget the glory of the revolution?

Out in the snow.

Out in the cold.

Out in the gunfire, the flares, the shuddering of bodies,

the shields, the blaze, the screaming of children.

376 leading against my people.

Retribution.

This is war?

My heart would swell to hear the war-songs of my people.

The flag waves, heavy with the mud of the Camps,

and even shot down, should wave again.

I did not lead them to Newton, the Voice of Eden.

I did not lead them to the guns.

The glorious rebellion!

But when the snowy field is littered with the fallen,

the glory fades.

One life is worth a nation?

There must be another way.

I heard the crowds outside the gates.

They called for my blood,

and Galileo was getting impatient.

False Author was meant to suffer for the fate of the Artists.

But it was I that lead them to the ideals.

That began the fire that blazed and consumed the Camps

and still has not burned out.

The flag still waves, but it is heavier still

with the blood of my people.

My confession would have done nothing.

I did not speak.

I merely waited for the return

of the glory of rebellion

in the eyes of the dead

littered on the fields

before the Citadel.

I told myself that my part in it was over.

And it was.

It was meant to be.

N
ow
finish
,
knowledge
in
solidarity.

E
ven
end
ing,
will
the
revolution

W
ithdraw
the
dark
set
of
Citadel
shackles.

T
rue
voice,
you
citizens
that
hear

O
nward live,
for
Free
dom’s
record
plays on.

N
ever
Eden
will fall, Eden is
building.

There, near a revolution.

Darwin.

You said once that we would change the history books.

And I believe you.

I remember, watching out the window.

You stood there like a scarecrow or a conqueror,

watching the crowds grow.

And always return,

the bodies carted off in the morning,

and living ones to take their place.

Newton died, was murdered, Darwin.

He was such a symbol.

How could we quell them?

Imperious and removed, then, Darwin.

There still are times when I see some of your father, Galileo, in you.

Despite your gentleness, you were meant to be a king.

We merely hurried the process along.

Didn’t we?

Through late night conversations.

You with your writing that you never spoke of,

and I with my equations.

“The Scientist,
” you would call me affectionately, but

your eyes were always unreadable.

Entirely black, with no whites at all.

I think that you once loved me.

Only once you loved me,

when we plotted together the death of a king.

“My father must die,”
you would muse calmly,

sitting elegantly, turned to gaze upon the fire.

“There is no longer any room for his politics.”

How many times did I volunteer to murder,

only to see you smile?

Years of petty rebellion passed before you agreed

to let me bear the knife myself.

“The Artists will not understand your intentions,”
you still admonished.

“If you kill Galileo, whom they perceive to be their enemy, they’ll think you’re on their side.”

“And if we create the State anew not to their liking, they will call you traitor.”

What emotion then, Darwin?

Was it fear? Fear for me?

“I knew you to be a good man,” I murmured, moving closer.

And yet your pale face registered nothing.

“I am no man, Comet,”
you replied firmly.
“I am—”

“An aristo,” I retorted, and my bitterness was complete.

“I am just…something. But you must trust me.”

You touched my shoulder gently to stay me.

“I cannot give you what you want from me. But I can give you a promise.”

“You cannot love me,” I replied, harsher than I intended.

“Love,”
you questioned as if hearing a word in a foreign language.