The Last Train

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. If she were willing to look. If she wanted to step to the tetra-paned shield and draw it aside, to press the power button and wait for the screen to fill with an image of the surrounding landscape.

He probably wouldn’t stop her if she tried. Instead, Isra kept her eyes carefully averted, her mind focused on the scene laid out on the conference table.

“Only one week. Can you imagine?” Harold gestured to the three-dimensional model before them. He wore one of his several tweed coats - now ratty and patched - that he had brought with him. She wondered whether he had known that they would be his only remnants of his past. If they had been his choice.

Or if it had been a surprise, as it had been for her. She focused on the word surprise, holding the truer word at bay.

She clutched her notebook close against her chest. “Yes. So many years in the making.” He merely smiled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they gazed down at the urban model before them.

There before her stretched a model of a city of the future - one of twenty-five slated to be built, the first beginning in less than one week. Long, slim buildings with interior transportation systems, their own water and power systems, corporate spaces, restaurants, schools, residences and more. Everything each urban community would require.

The first to be installed would be erected in what had been Colorado Springs. She overrode the thought with its new name: Pleasant Springs. Everyone in the bunkers - everyone left in the country to the best of her knowledge - would move there once the city opened. Until they sent out a new generation of recruits to build the next city.

They had brought them on trains. The Children of the Future they had called those like herself, those who had tested exceptionally high in any of several categories. They called her a spatial genius and had grouped her with thirty-four similar youths under four renowned architects, four urban planners and seven engineers.

A unit of fifty devoted to building the new world to come. To planning it at least. She caught the thought, held it at bay, rubbed the concave area behind her earlobe and redirected her mind.

A rare opportunity. A new future. Peace. Prosperity. Brilliant design.

She looked down at the wrist band. The face glowed green, unchanging. Thus far, she had only 222 thought demerits - an unprecedented few among the others selected to train for and build their new future. She planned to keep it that way indefinitely. Or for as long as need be.

A perfect future. A city designed with every need and desire in mind.

Save one, of course. The dangerous one. It was ok. Ok to think of it so long as she held it at bay and called it what it was: a threat to their safety and security. What her leaders termed selfishness, individualism, and greed. Those who discredited the greater good and disregarded the beneficial boundaries of their leaders. Those who sought independence above the collective.

She chewed her lip, rubbed behind her earlobe again, and considered the impressive scope of the model. “Have the others seen it yet? In entirety?”

She felt him shake his head, his arm still draped around her. “In the morning. First thing. I was hoping that you’d help me present it. Nothing too formal of course. Our group knows its own piece at the very least. The others… I’ll lead the overview. If you could just fill in the specifics. Talk through the details in the design. And anything I leave out or forget.”

He cast a quick look towards her. She beamed. “I’d be honored.” And she would be. It stood for more. So much more than he knew.

“Well, you run along.” He winked at her beneath unruly chestnut brows sprinkled with white as she turned to go.

The old phrase. Their phrase. The one he had said to her since she came to the underground bunkers to apprentice with him when she had been seven, thirty years prior. A phrase she had heard every day since then. Their own personal history. The irony wasn’t lost on her.

It wasn’t that history was taboo. In many ways it was encouraged. To reflect on the past was permitted, but only with the proper perspective. No longing. No fondness. No sense of loss.

A lesson learned. Wisdom gained. The time before - never to be repeated.

She passed out of the architectural wing, down a long tunnel. In the distance she could see lights. Could hear the rumbling of machinery moving. Workers from the engineering division, dressed in yellow and gray overalls and hard hats, scuttled around the center of an open concrete space. Most likely moving materials from the Construction and Fabrication division to the exit tunnel and out to the hangar abutting the heavy steel doors that led outside.

Outside.

The sight stirred her heart. She felt it beating in her ears. Tingling her fingers. She paused, took a deep breath, willed her pulse to still. The band's face edged towards lime green. She breathed deeply again.

A glorious world. The answer to all of our problems. The beginning of the future.

Her band settled back to its original glowing version of Crayola green.

They hadn’t come in that way - through the elevators up to the steel exit doors. None of the children had. They had all come in via trains, into the uppermost tunnels, from which they had descended deep below the base of the mountain.

The country had been on the brink of a peace treaty after decades of civil war. The people, long characterized by schisms and animosity had finally united and led numerous revolts. The force of a group, geographically scattered, but united in purpose, had been too much to resist.

Still, the country’s leaders had wavered on the issue of an agreement. The people - insurrectionists - responded by planning what would be their final uprising - the one in which they managed to take the remaining portion of D.C that still stood, along with the strategic command centers in Nebraska. The last straw, meant to secure the outcome.

They had been so certain of victory, so focused on the last uprising, that they had agreed to the evacuation. Had welcomed it even. A chance to remove their children to safety while they finalized the state of the renewed nation. Amidst the conflict and martial law, the communication lines severely hindered, no one had stopped to question why so few children had been selected. Thousands across the country, but still so few.

It might not have mattered. On an individual, isolated level, resistance would have been futile. The insurrectionists weren’t prepared to unite around the situation and only the collective could stand. On that matter, Isra’s new world coincided with the final state of her former.

It had been a Tuesday. A day of the week when no one expects anything. Tuesdays are for routine, mundane predictability. Even in the midst of martial law, the world had held a sense of cyclicality. The sight of chain link fences and tanks in the streets seemed to grow dull at the end of the week, to reestablish itself on Tuesday mornings and to fade away in anticipation towards Thursday evening.

Not completely, but enough to make the situation bearable.

The knock on the door had caught her parents off guard. Her mother, stirring a stew of vegetable scraps and tough bits of some unknown meat, had paused, the steam veiling her surprise, and looked towards the door. Her father, sitting at their tiny table, cleaning his work tools had paused, his glasses sliding precariously near the end of his long nose, his mouth open.

It helped that she had been an only child. Easier to assume that all were taken.

Chosen. Privileged. Fortunate. Granted a new chance. Selected for the good of all.

“Isra!” The shout barely rose above the sound of the machinery. One of the engineers, her friend Matthias flagged a forklift on towards the east tunnel and then jogged towards her. “It’s almost time.”

“Yes. I can’t wait,” she scanned his face, reading the unspoken amongst his words. “When will they lay the foundation?”

“As soon as possible.” He glanced almost imperceptibly at his wrist band. Green. “I’ve heard that they want it in within a week after the doors open.”

“Hmm.” She turned to walk towards the residences. “It’ll be weird. Being out there again.”

“I almost don’t remember it.”

“Me neither,” she admitted.

Images of a wooden swing sailing over long grass, a scampering black and white dog, the brilliant white sunlight filled her mind. Children of the future. Loyalties misplaced. Broken. She remembered a woman over her shoulder, calling from the porch, holding a pitcher of lemonade. We are all family. Isolated units breed disunity. The city is home. The community is home.

She rubbed the dip behind her ear again.

“Does it bother you?”

She blushed, properly warned. “No. Nervous tick. That’s all.”

He watched her, his look clearly unconvinced. “Oh. Mine itches occasionally. You should see if they can tweak the settings.”

She raised her eyebrows at that and shot a quick glance at his band. It had faded into chartreuse, dangerously close to yellow. “It’s good to hear that you’re on schedule. So much rests on the engineers.”

“Yes.” He started to walk away and then paused. “Oh, I forgot to mention that Brant won’t be there tomorrow. He clocked two thousand.”

The blood flooded her neck, rising into her face. “What did they…” her band swung into golden yellow. She bit her tongue, emptied her mind. “What went wrong?”

The band faded back to lime. She focused her thoughts on the models she had spent so long designing. The perfect blend of form and function. Of positive and negative space. Everything the human mind and body needed to live in harmony with nature.

“Guess he couldn’t see the opportunities for what they are,” Matthias shrugged and turned away. His body language read as unsympathetic, but his eyes were wide, his face fallen. She knew what he couldn’t say. Couldn’t even think.

---

The next morning, Harold had moved the model to the central hangar by the time she arrived. Someone had focused a camera on it. The image filled two enormous overhead screens. Throngs of people stood about the gray space, their voices quieting as Harold cleared his and welcomed them.

Out of the corner of her eye, Isra caught movement in the balcony. A small group, shrouded in darkness, their faces imperceptible. No one she knew could say who they were. Couldn’t or wouldn’t. Some things could only be safely handled with silence.

She listened to Harold explaining the layout of the city, its amenities. Watched the responses in the others. Those in her own division were already familiar with their own contributions to the end product. Others like Danelia in Water Management or Evan and Laniya in Metal Fabrication knew only about those elements on which they had been consulted. The things that they had specified. Still others - most of the Medical staff and those in Neural Engineering - knew the least.

Regardless, everyone stood frozen, their eyes empty, cautious, calculating. So still. The world hadn’t been so still before. When people had been free. The thought struck her with a force she hadn’t foreseen. She gasped lightly, drawing a quick questioning glance from Harold before he returned to a discussion of the interior foliage and its biological benefits to the future inhabitants.

Her wrist band swung to pale peach. She shifted slightly, standing behind the model in such a way that it would be hidden. It wouldn’t matter of course. She looked down to see the screen register 223.

A thought guarded leads to wise actions. Wise actions lead to wholeness and community. Community leads to a future - for each and all.

“I believe Isra can speak to that better than I can.” Harold stepped back, signaling to her.

She faltered, grasping. The group in the balcony seemed to shift, to inhale, drawing all of the air out of the cavernous space and into itself. Where was he? She glanced down at the model before her. The division of residences and their design nuances. She cleared her throat.

“Yes. Though unity is bolstered by conformity and anonymity, there are several small distinctions that will enable each pod to enhance the productivity of the residents…”

Thirty years of architectural study and of judicious choices in language and expression took over, carrying her presentation despite her anxiety. She spread her arms over the urban model, hesitated, looked down to see her band. Solidly green.

Relief flooded her body. Exhaustion followed it, dragging her arms down, pulling at the back of her neck, pressing on her shoulders.

Excited. My body belongs to the state, the city, the community. One for all. All for one.

She hardly knew what had happened when the people began to swell around her makeshift stage, reaching out hands and arms in appreciation. Congratulations. She and Harold lingered for another hour to answer questions.

By the time the last of the audience had mumbled a final compliment and had shuffled away, her head throbbed - a pulsing pain that started up from her neck and radiated inwards from behind her ears.

Nausea filled her senses: a feeling that breathing too deeply, or moving too rapidly, or turning her head to the side would be disastrous.

---

The nursing attendant waited for her to approach the desk. Reached out her hand. Isra held out her arm, the inside facing up, and waited for the scan. Minutes later she sat in a private room, her head leaning back against the cushioned table, her eyes closed. The glaring fluorescents glowed red through her eyelids.

“Isra! Fancy seeing you again so soon.”

“Hi Lydia.”

The young doctor closed the door and pulled up a stool alongside the table. “Not feeling well?”

“Other than my head splitting in two, I’m just great,” she mumbled through her teeth. The lights above her head seemed to throb, their bluish cast probing into her skull.

“Hmm. Let’s take a look.” Lydia began a routine exam, checking all of her vital signs, and then pulled up to the computer. Isra risked a quick look in her direction and saw her band data pulled up on the screen. 223.

Something behind her eyes seemed to snap. She winced. Lydia turned in time to see her reach up and rub the once-hollow gap behind her ear.

“What’s going on there?” The doctor turned and pulled up to take a look, gently probing at her head alongside the mastoid process.

A term she wouldn’t have known before, even had she been the same age in the old world. Everyone knew something about neural engineering now. Isra recalled Matt’s words and focused her mind on the neurons behind her ear. Long enough to feel an itching sensation.

“It itches sometimes.” She watched her wrist band out of the corner of her eye. It seemed to flicker between Crayola Green and the faintest lime hue, but she couldn’t be sure.

First rate health services. Free for all. No one without every basic human need. Everyone with more than he could imagine.

Lydia shone a light in her eyes. She winced again. “Ok. I don’t see anything wrong with you. Give me a minute.”

Fifteen minutes later, her friend, Cody, head of the neural engineering apprentices, trailed the doctor into the exam room. “Isra. What’s this I hear?”

“I don’t know,” she said. Throbbing pain. Itching. Blinding light.

He ran his fingers over the section behind her ear, feeling the implant. “I’m going to need to bring you back to the lab.” He nodded to Lydia. “I’ll take it from here. Can you walk?”

“Ugh.” She squinted at the lights as she edged her legs over the table and carefully slid to her feet. He took her arm and helped her out of the office.

---

“Sit there.” His office was a stark, industrial one filled with computers, mounds of paper, disheveled bookcases, their contents threatening to topple, and - other than his desk and chair - a lone black guest chair. He reached over and clutched an armful of papers from the seat, moving them to a precarious position on top of stacks of paper on his desk.

“We won’t know what’s wrong with this without running through a number of tests. Fastest thing would be to extract it and insert a new implant. It’s minimally invasive. We’d do it through the stent. It’s pretty quick - out and back in. Otherwise you’re going to have to wait as we run each test and look for answers. In the meantime, I can imagine that your head isn’t going to feel much better.”

She swallowed as if thinking it through. The best choice is the one that benefits the community. “I’d be back to work faster if we swap it out?”

“Mm-hmm.” He slapped his thighs and swiveled towards his computer. “Ok. Let’s get this done.”

An hour later, the placed a bandage on her neck over the two stitches where they had removed the old implant chip and re-inserted a new one.

“We’ll want to sync this to your new wristband, of course.” He pulled a wristband out of the cabinet and logged a serial number into the computer: A4D799310IZ. It lit up: Crayola Green. “Excellent. Let’s get this on.”

She bit her lip and looked away. It didn’t matter. She knew that the serial number didn’t match the band he strapped to her arm. Most likely the new chip he had inserted was linked to nothing; definitely not to her profile. She tested the theory, ruminating on a fitting thought. Nothing too extreme, but something that should register.

Community may not be home.

She looked at the wristband. Still Crayola Green. Relief flooded her body, energy surging through her arms and legs. Her stress headache began to fade. She glanced at him. Most likely he had already done the same to himself, but his face gave away nothing.

Better to be safe. Especially this late in the game. Still, she left the manicured thoughts aside.

“I’m already starting to feel better.”

“Of course. Had to be some faulty wiring sending all the wrong signals. It happens.” He winked at her as she started to rise and leave his office. “Oh, and Isra. I’m looking forward to that new city you have planned.”

“Me too.” Me too. She felt giddy, as if her shoulders and legs floated just above the floor. The feeling she had had when she had been a child and the world - so full of color and bubbling sounds and fragrance - had beckoned to her. She had run. Run to the creek. Run through the woods. Run into the barn and back. Through the house - her father yelling at her to stop that racket - and out the back door.

To catch it all, to not miss a thing.

---

She stepped into the central hub - the cafeteria just as the line dwindled and most of the people had taken a seat. Lunch time was from noon to two, but most people hit the scene somewhere between twelve-fifteen and twelve-forty-five. The overhead clock read 1:04.

Her stomach growled on queue. Her body knew. The tight rations, apportioned on schedule three times every day, kept her body taut, hypervigilant. Something their leaders probably hadn’t considered: famine drives people to irrational, animalistic behavior; excess leaves people mentally numb and complacent; but a mild, constant near-hunger sharpens the mind.

She stepped into line in the cafeteria and pulled an orange plastic tray, its surface hot and damp, down from the stack. Sadir sat at the back table closest to the tunnel to his own division: Chemistry, Metallurgy and Fabrication. She slid in next to him and pulled her notebook and a pen out of her bag.

“Nice presentation,” he said, his fork balancing his goulash in mid-air.

“Thanks. Look, I have some last-minute things that I need to go over with you.”

“Shoot.”

“We’re going to need to test the air system before we go live. Given the number of people and the off-gassing of new materials. I don’t know the technical terms for all of it.”

A young woman next to Sadir gathered her eyebrows, but he didn’t miss a beat. “Of course. Expected as much. We can run a test with all of the materials present in the air chamber.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Sure thing. Expected as much. Just let me know what time.” He eyed his plate carefully. She could almost read his thoughts: Every thought for the state. Every resource for the good of all. Every moment one of contribution.

His wristband remained resolutely green. Impressive.

---

She dumped her tray on the way out and spun around, ready to head off to check off one more box. It would only be a matter of time before someone realized that her implant - and Cody’s - were not connected to the computer files. That her mind and actions were entirely unmonitored. For now, without the need to carefully plan her steps and monitor her thoughts, she could move quickly.

As she turned to dash down the western tunnel, she collided with someone.

“Matt?” She looked up to see him before her, his face ashen, his lunch tray still heaped with food, trembling. He shook his head and stepped around her. “Matthias? What is…” Her face fell, her heart dropping out. “Is it Brant?” she whispered.

“He got what he deserved,” he said as he threw his tray down on the stack without clearing it. He turned and stormed off towards the residences.

“Oh, God,” Isra clutched the side of the bussing station and hunched over.

“What?!” Two girls looked at her with scorn as they passed.

“Nothing. Nothing.”

She stumbled out of the cafeteria, her feet suddenly heavy, anchored to the truth. The truth of the world she couldn’t - hadn’t yet - escaped.

On the train, she had clutched her favorite book, The Wind in the Willows, and a small suitcase filled with her toothbrush, nightgown, several pairs of socks and two changes of clothes. They rode from her home in Minneapolis through the rolling farmlands of Iowa, across the prairies and grasslands of eastern Nebraska, and across the barren land in eastern Colorado until the Rocky Mountains loomed before them.

“We won’t see them again,” a small, freckled boy said across the aisle.

“Yes, we will. It’s an evacuation. Don’t you know anything?” She turned away.

“Why won’t we?” the girl in front of her rose on her knees, gripping the back of her seat.

“Because it’ll all be gone by this time tomorrow. Bombed to smithereens.”

“That’s not true,” the girl retorted. “They’ve already bombed us and lots of stuff is still here.”

He just shook his head. “Those weren’t the big guns.”

Isra watched him, pulling out phrases he’d clearly overheard. Phrases that seemed silly from a child.

A small crowd had gathered around him. “What big guns?” “He said bombed?” “Yeah. Bombed to smithereens.” “How do you know?” “Yeah, what do you know?”

“My Uncle is already there.” The freckled boy pointed ahead, as if the mountains lay just beyond the train. “He told me.”

“I want to get off!” the girl in front of Isra whined.

The end of the train car opened and a tall woman with hair shaped like a helmet strode towards them. “What’s this? Everyone, back in your seats. You need to stay seated.”

It was true of course. Isra could still feel the panic that she had felt then. The sense of wild hysteria beating its wings against the cage of her chest. and back out at the rolling fields. She couldn’t go back. There wasn’t time and there was no train or plane to take her. Even if she did, there was an inescapable sense about the train, carrying her where she didn’t want to go, to a place she couldn’t escape.

She had looked down at her suitcase. One thought played over and over through her mind: if she had known, she would have taken something of her mother’s. Her bathrobe, the blanket she had knitted for her, her worn coin purse. Anything. Anything to hold onto. To fight the severing of the link.

Her face must have been chalky, her pupils dilated, when she stumbled into Sadir’s lab. Several other chemists looked up in surprise.

“It’s all right. Routine tests for the big day,” Sadir covered, pulling her aside. “I thought you wanted to run those tests tomorrow?”

She swallowed hard. “I think I can be ready tonight. Think you can work me in?”

His face registered shock, his wristband edging into yellow and pale orange. He shook himself, rubbed his stubble, waiting. The dial moved back towards green. But his demerits had jumped from 603 to 628. He glanced at them. “Yeah. Yeah. No point in prolonging the inevitable. Let’s get going?”

“Where we going?” one of his partners laughed as he passed by. Sadir just looked at Isra.

“We’re going home,” Isra answered.