Old World Woman

Only those few who chose to spend their time reading the manuscripts of the Old World believed that the Heart Locket was more than a tall tale designed to keep the working man under control. In a world as cruel as this one, dripping in the kind of nihilism that any sane person would need to embrace to stay alive for long, the answer to all of the hardships the masses endure day after day couldn't be as simple as an Old World device that endows ultimate power to those who wield it. For hundreds of years, all of those poor dregs who were unfortunate enough to be birthed into this nightmare were told that the system they were born into was too complicated, too insurmountably guarded to be toppled. How could they hope to take control of the means of their way of life if those who hold the reins are so intangible? Nobody had ever seen these people, the shadows behind the curtains dispensing smaller and smaller rations, smaller paychecks, smaller glimpses of hope. How can you destroy what you can't even see?

In the middle of the Nevada desert lies a small, inconspicuous building, just as dilapidated as the rest. Barbed wire lines the perimeter, but nobody is to be found in the nearby area. A small guard tower rests near the building, the upper windows too obscured to be seen through reliably from the ground. For miles, nothing else is to be found. Anybody who would stumble across this premises would likely be deterred by the building appearing to have been completely stripped of usable resources. A young woman approaches the building with a small handcart in tow. Her supplies are neatly wrapped and organized in tattered cloths and fabrics she clearly scavenged on her journey. Indomitable, she marches towards an opening in the fence and sets her supplies down. She unravels a knapsack that is in better condition than the rest, and drinks a deliberate gulp of warm, noxious water. Packing her flask back up, she glares towards the compound. The sun reflecting off of the pale desert and the metallic building casts an almost unbearable beam of light back into her eyes. She continues to stare, steadfast in what she has come here to do.

Unwrapping another of her bags of supplies, a large dusty tome falls out and kicks up dust around the cart. The woman picks the book up and immediately leafs to a bookmarked page. The ink is so sunburned that it is barely legible, but the woman has poured over these pages so many times that it no longer needs to be read, only remembered. The woman abruptly thinks of her childhood, of all the times her mother confiscated books from her. There was no need for these old books. Look what these old books wrought upon this world. You cannot live in the past, only look to the future and work to make it brighter for yourself and those around you.

The woman disagreed with her mother today just as much as she did then. She always knew there were answers to be gleaned from these old pages, threads of the Old World that persist into the New. She would grant that her thirst for fiction and fantasy from the Old World was mostly a form of escapism to a time when such frivolities were worth pursuing, but she would not throw out Old World literature entirely. That hunch brought her to the very book she now holds, a handwritten codex of sorts that she found deep in a building used for governmental affairs in times where one could aspire to be a part of working towards a better society. She was drawn to this book out of the many thousands available only through what she could describe as a spiritual experience. The book was vague in its descriptions and was clearly meant to be read only by those with the context required to understand its contents, but that same force that compelled this woman to find the book gave her the willpower to decipher it. In the first few pages of the tome is a diagram of a locket, a golden device with intricate mechanisms that appears to be designed to control a wide array of other devices. This drawing was all the convincing the woman needed that there was more to the childhood tale of the Heart Locket than an allegory for the complicated nature of the world.

Years of research, traveling and surviving brought the woman to this point. Vaguely drawn maps in the codex had to be compared to other old manuscripts with maps of local regions that were of importance to the Old World. The time, energy and heartbreak that brought her to this point would all be worth it if her calculations are correct, if this is in fact the building that contains the Heart Locket. She takes one step forward towards the building before hesitating. Was this the culmination of a lifetime of being a naive little girl who thought she could change the world? Maybe her mother was right, that these books have been a waste of time, that no amount of hard work and cunning could topple a system designed from the ground up to keep her and her loved ones oppressed.

The woman shook her head vigorously as if to expel the thought physically. Too much has been sacrificed to turn back now. How could she go back home and face her mother now after leaving her behind to chase this hunch? She had no choice but to press forward. She draws an old but functional pistol from her waist, triple-checking that it is loaded with the ammunition she stole from somebody kind who had taken her in. Placing her hand above her eyes to shield her from light, she gazes up into the guard tower and doesn't see any sign of life inside. She is not so naive as to think this place would be left unguarded. There are people with names and faces that control the Heart Locket, and she intends to give them the same treatment that they've given her family for a hundred years. As she walks closer and closer to the front entrance of the building, she is surprised at the lack of resistance she has met. The front door opens with no issue, the hinges suspiciously well maintained.

Inside the building is what you would expect from any abandoned shop or home. Dust and empty cans line the walls, the paint chipping away and adding to the debris on the ground that she must wade through. Pistol drawn, the woman finds a door in the back of the building with an attached digital keypad. She had seen so few digital devices in her life that the keypad immediately sent a wave of fear and excitement through her. Remembering what she had seen so many times in her book, she knew in her heart that the four digit code scattered through the pages would give her access. She inputs the code “2025” into the keypad and suddenly the door unlocks mechanically, making an uncanny noise she has never heard. The woman opens the door and immediately sees a staircase leading underground. The staircase is not lit, but the light beaming from the outside behind her illuminates the perfectly maintained walls, painted red with gold trim. Not a mote of dust was to be found in front of her. The woman descends the staircase, a wooden set of stairs that despite being clean and maintained are creaking with every step. She closes the door behind her and looks down, uncertain of how many steps are ahead of her. As she descends, boisterous laughter fills the air, and a gruff voice welcomes her into the basement.