Safe
City
"Welcome to Safe City. How did you get in?"
"It's a long story."
"We don't meet many outsiders, so why don't you tell
it."
"I came from The Blue Hills in Sector 5."
It's been weeks since anybody spoke to me. I'm locked in this prison day and night. They said it was protocol, just a precaution,
but the whispering walls tell me this isn't protocol, it's something else. They think I'm dangerous, infected, like the
others. The truth is there aren't any
others, but they haven't given me a chance to tell them what happened. They are waiting for me to change into one of
the things they fear I am. I wonder which
one they think I'll become? How much longer can I keep disappointing them? I fear they're going to claim that I'm
something I'm not any day now to prove how safe their city is. I wonder if there were any others like me,
innocents that had to be disposed of to feed the lies they keep.
"Is it bread this time, I do love bread?"
My meals arrive at the same time each day, they're not
elaborate, but enough to keep me fed and not complaining. My prison reminds me of a diner in the dry
desserts of Sundown. I used to go there
with friends and order orange sherbet.
Basil would use his special straw that he said made the fizzy drinks bubblier. I remember the last day I saw Basil and what
he said to me.
"You have to leave, it's happening here."
"What's happening," I screamed back at my best
friend.
"Death, worse than death, get out."
"Come with me!"
I pulled on his arm, and he disappeared in that moment.
I'll never forget the look on his face; he didn't know
what took him, or where he was being teleported to. I wish it took me too; I wish I was with him
now. Death did come after that and I
barely escaped. It came in the night; I
heard the screams, I still heard them when all the people were gone. The wind carried the screams and lashed at my
heels as I ran across the sand. I ran
until I couldn't run anymore; then I started to vanish. First my fingers glistened and then light
surrounded me, then I was gone. When I
became whole again, I thought I would find Basil, but I was on an unmanned
carrier. It picked up my life signs and
teleported me up to it. That's how I
ended up here.
"Safe City," the computer voice on the carrier
announced and then I started to glisten again.
This time is was standing, so it looked like I just walked up to the
gates of the city from another dimension.
If I had looked up maybe the guards on patrol would have looked up
too. But they didn't and they had
already come up with their own story about where I came from. That's when I slipped past them. They busied themselves with a perimeter force
field so no one else would walk out of the other dimension and show up at the
gates. I only saw a small part of the
city before they caught up with me. It
seemed like a paradise at the edge of Sector 8, until they started to treat me
like an outsider.
The sun is setting early today. The natural light that comes into the diner is
fading. I stop spinning on the stool I always
sit on and tuck myself away in a booth.
I pull the blanket with the words 'Compliments of Safe City,' stitched
into it over me and wait. Then I realize
it's not the sun that is fading, but something that is blocking out the
sunlight. I get up and cloak myself with
the complimentary blanket and run to the window. It looks like a supply ship; I wonder what it
is bringing and if there is anyone on it.
I watch the guards leave their posts and I pull on the door. Of
course it's locked. They wouldn't be
that stupid.
The doors open and they begin stacking the barrels
against the wall. They ignore me and
keep talking to each other.
"This one is heavy; help me push it back behind the
counter."
"Is this the last one?"
"Yes until the day after tomorrow."
"Let's leave these and open them when the rest of
the shipment arrives."
"Alright then, let's grab a drink at the pit."
They leave and I try to imagine what's in the barrels to
pass the time. It only takes my
curiosity seven minutes to force me into action. I look behind the counter for something to
pry the tops off. The draws are full of
utensils, so I grab a butter knife and choose the one closest to me to
open. It won't budge, so I tap on it and
listen to see if sound is reverberating on the inside. I hear
something that tells me there is enough air in there so I should be able to
lift the top off by prying it. I try
again. This time the butter knife forces the lid up and I think I see hair and
back away from the barrel. My curiosity turns
to fear and I step away and clutch the butter knife to my chest. The barrel groans. And I race for the doors and pull on them
frantically.
"Help, let me out!"
Another groan answers my plea.
"Help," I scream louder, but no one is coming
to help me.
"Claire," the barrel said my name.
I must be imagining it.
I cover my ears and drop the butter knife; the sound echoes in another
dimension. I see it on the floor, and
question myself whether or not I should go and pick it up. My body is immobilized by fear. The barrel is now rocking back and
forth. My mouth is gaped open and I
can't shut it. The barrel comes crashing
down and I see hair again, but this time I also see the face it's attached
to. The fear turns back into curiosity
and I run to help my friend.
"Basil, how did you get in there?"
"It wasn't easy," he says as he pops out of it
like a birthday present.
"More like impossible."
"I thought I told you once that impossible can
always be tricked or altered."
"So you altered the barrel somehow or
yourself." I add without a need for
an explanation.
I hug him; I'm so happy he's here I'm not going to dwell
on how he got into the barrel in the first place.
"Shall we go?"
"Yes of course, but what are we going to do?"
"Since we can't order French fries, we'll look for
someplace else to eat."
He must have known I was in the old diner, so now he is
just being his usual self. But his usual
self was teleported away the night something came and left its victims
screaming.
"Before we go, I have to know; where did you
go?"
"I'm sorry I didn't take you with me, if it was up
to me I would have, but, well you'll find out soon enough."
"Basil, something happened that night. Something came and."
"I know what it was and I'm glad you got away, now
let me concentrate on the locked door."
He reaches into the barrel and pulls out some sort of
weapon or tool. He scans the lock and it
clicks open. He pulls the door open just
enough to stick his head out.
"Okay, let's go."
I follow him out and the sunlight is so bright I have to
cover my eyes with my hand. He grabs my
arm and pulls me. I keep my eyes covered
until he whispers something that sends a chill down my spine.
"Vampire Dust," he scrunches his nose while he
says it.
"What did you say?"
"Vampire Dust, that's what came that night and
that's why you heard screams."
Vampire Dust doesn't kill you it infects you like a
plague. It changes its victims into
something else, less organic beings that feed on others, bat zombies. I look at him waiting for him to tell me if I
should find my fear again.
"They aren't coming here. The ship I was on exterminated all, probably
all, of the bat zombies the dust created that night. If one got away it won't be much of a threat
and if it's on its way here, it might get a good meal at the gate, but that
meal will certainly be its last."
I think about the guards that I walked away from and try
to imagine a bat zombie flying past them.
I think it would have a pretty good chance of getting into Safe
City. Basil stops to look at me like he
knows what I'm thinking.
"Well maybe it would get in, but its preference for
human flesh would stand out a bit in a crowd, don't you think?"
"What about us?" I ask as the crowd around us
seems to be noticing us.
"Right, then," he says as he grabs my waist and
spins me around.
Suddenly we seem to be blending in with our
surroundings. We stop at a food cart in
this vast city that is in constant motion.
The food cart vendor offers us a sample of beef on a stick. It's not real beef, he explains but it
tastes just like it. He claims he's
tasted buffalo from Sector 9 and this imitation meat is the closest there is on
the planet.
"Why not just trade with Sector 9 nomads to acquire
real beef?" Basil asks the vendor.
"They are thieves; they charge seven portions per
pound."
"And how much is your imitation delicacy?"
"Thirty-seven pence, per serving, a fair price for
it too."
"Yes, but it doesn't taste very good."
"You silly lot, you won't find a better meal, go on
now."
We walk away, because we don't have any money anyway. The streets are alive with decorations like
some massive celebration is happening.
But in Safe City the people are always celebrating, so we just get lost
in the sea of colors.
We walk along the blue sidewalk that marks the edges of
the street; the buildings are illustrious and grand even to outsiders. The whole city mimics a forgotten world. It's like a living library of the past. Naturally when so many cultures come together
each one is represented individually and then like petals on a flower they
blossom into something unique. Safe City
is beautiful. The other sectors are vast
and arid. Here cultivation is
prevalent. My parents had a large garden
they raised crops from and shared with all the people of Sector 5. When their work called them away, the people
would look after the crops and always leave a basket with enough for my whole
family to eat on the kitchen table. After
a few years the basket only held a week's worth of grain and vegetables for
me. I would process the grain and eat the
same meals until I was bored with them. That's
when I met Basil; I started frequenting Sundown. It was so barren, but that's where the diner
was. Everything they served was
synthesized, but it was somewhere to go and only twenty miles from home.
A crowd is gathered near the entrance to a stadium.
"The match is about to begin," someone shouts
as they run past us.
A woman in a blue jumpsuit bumps into Basil and he
stumbles backward into me and knocks me to the ground.
"Please accept my apology," the woman
says. Her short blonde hair frames her
face and her brown skin is spotted.
She's wearing blue lipstick that matches her jumpsuit. She seems to stand out more than anyone else
in the crowd. Basil holds his hand out
to help me up from the ground.
The woman has walked off and I get up without Basil's
help.
"Shall we go to the match then, and see what all the
fuss is about?"
"That seems like a good idea, only it might delay us
leaving, but no need to worry we do intend to leave, so I suppose a few minutes
will be fine."
When we enter the stadium it looks as if we've left
civilization behind. The arena is a
dessert and the players are wearing earth tones to match the motif. If it weren't for the seats facing the
arena, I would seek the vibrant colors adorned by the crowd. Suddenly I hear a sound that demands all of
my attention. Then the playing field is
electrically charged with laser beams that target the ground. Simultaneous emissions from both sides of the
arena are being absorbed by the ground in the center of the field. When the flashing stops the crowd is still,
so are the players. A loud moan causes
the entire stadium to tremble. I grab
hold of Basil's arm to steady myself.
The other onlookers do the same to their companions. The players move toward the center of the
field and I notice there are goal posts suspended at both ends of the
arena.
"The ground is moving," I whisper to Basil.
"No, something in the ground is moving," he
says without looking away from what is happening.
The players approach the movement. One player pulls on something that looks like
a large hose; it's wider than him. I
notice his uniform is marked with a symbol that looks like a sun and the other team
is marked with a dagger symbol. Dust is
coming up and screens are dropping in front of the stands. The players all pull down their leather
banded goggles to cover their eyes. The
screens seem to filter out the dust and I can see two mounds emerging and both
teams are climbing on their mound.
"Sand Octopi," Basil says and the mounds send
out a call to each other.
My parents warned me about the dangers of Sand Octopi
when I was little. They told me outrunning them was nearly impossible but the
probability of running into one was not likely because they lie dormant
underground for centuries and are rarely disturbed by the light footed. Why would someone make a game out of waking
them?
Their pink eyes scan the arena and find each other. The one on the right lashes out first and
strikes the other with a tentacle.
"Both males," Basil observes loudly. "That accounts for all the
activity."
"And the danger and why it's a game to them," I
add.
The octopi moans escalate into sand filled roars and the
first team scores when one of its players rides a tentacle across the arena
close enough to pass a leather ball through the opposing team's goal post. The player who scored jumped too high off the
sand octopus's tentacle and miss calculated his landing after he scored. His foot slipped and he fell at least ten
feet down onto the arena floor. The
opposing team's octopus spots him and rages after him, swatting at him with a
force that would flatten him. But he
rolls out of the way and climbs back on to his octopus receiving cheers from
the crowd and congratulations from his team mates. This type of activity goes on until the sun
team is ahead of the dagger team by three points. The crowd has lost interest and is beginning
to fan out of the stadium. I'm
immobilized with curiosity about what happens to the Sand Octopi after the
match.
A partition in the arena opens and two yaks are pushed
through.
"It will look a bit strange if we are the only two
people here," Basil whispers as he urges me to get up.
He's right, and now that the yaks are grunting frantically
I want to leave. As we exit the stadium
I don't bother turning around; silence tells me that the two yaks are being consumed
and soon the Sand Octopi with their bellies full will slumber again.
Betting wages are being paid outside the stadium.
"Ten portions paid," the man wearing a clear
green visor says as he pays Basil.
"I didn't know you placed a bet."
"Well I did and now we have money," he says to
me unconvincingly.
"Can I interest you in a Peri Crystal watch?"
The man shouts after us.
"No thanks," Basil shouts back and the man
looks annoyed.
"You're missing out then."
"Better buy a watch from him, or it might become a
problem."
"I agree."
We walk back towards the man and I notice his grin is as
wide as his visor.
The restaurant overlooks the plaza and the stadium is
quiet and distant from here. The woman
with the long dark hair who took our order has already returned with our
drinks.
"For you sir," she uncorks a bottle of fizzy
water and places it in front of Basil.
"Wonderfully refreshing," he says as he holds
it up to his nose.
"And here is your cucumber slushy."
I nod as I press the glass to my lips and take a
sip. Basil takes out his scanning device
when the waitress walks away and scans his new watch.
"Of course it's fake, but I thought, oh never mind
what I thought."
` "How do you know it's fake, well
aside from the man looking completely criminal when he sold it to you, how can
you tell?"
"You see I've scanned it and detected that the
crystal is glass not a real Peri Crystal.
Besides if it was real the time on the watch would spin out of control
because a Peri Crystal would reverse the polarity of the watch and the readings
would become unstable. Time would keep
spinning round and round."
"Then why would anyone use it on a watch?"
"They wouldn't, that's why I wasn't interested, but
then that man kept on about it so I thought it was best to give him what he
wanted."
"Some of his money back."
"I hope that's all he wanted."
The conversation dulls and silence consumes us. I suddenly feel like Safe City is the most
dangerous place in all the sectors.
Basil's scanning tool hums and the spell is broken. We eat and then leave.
The sky is darkening, but it remains luminescent. The air is cleaner, there aren't as many dust
particles floating around in it at night.
The streets are quiet and we have to find somewhere to blend in.
"Welcome to the Gardens of Galactic Greenery and
Ficuses; a shrubbery park, greenest of all the sectors," the sign states as
we walk past.
"I don't think we could blend in with a bunch of
shrubbery."
"We don't have to blend in, we can hide in here,"
I grab his arm and pull him along.
"So that's the plan then? Find a ficus and ask it to keep us safe until
morning?"
"Do you have a better plan?"
"Not, yet," he replies as he scans the
park.
"Let's go then," I say as I find something tall
in the distance and head towards it.
The tree is massive in height and as wide as one of the
sand octopi, its branches curve like tentacles but are frozen in my view. Basil and I trust that this giant of the
shrubbery world will guard us through the night like we are precious stones in
an ancient crown worn by an ancient king.
We count the starts for a while, and envy their view of other
worlds. I fall asleep to the humming
sound of Basil scanning the grass with his device.
"Wake up now!"
I'm shivering because he startled me, but I'm sticky with
sweat. We are running but my legs don't
realize it yet. We reach the gate; it's
locked shut. Basil isn't talking to me
he's fumbling with his jacket pocket. He
takes out his scanning tool and it lights up when he pushes a button. He points it at the gate and the lock
yields.
"This way," he pushes me through.
I hear a cracking sound and turn back to look. The mighty tree is falling to its death. I couldn't see anything when Basil woke me
with a start, but now that my eyes are alive again; I watch the felled tree
being swallowed by the ground.
When we get to the city center venders are opening their
stands and prepping for the day ahead. The
sight of the tree being eaten by the ground flashes in my mind like a dream,
then my own hunger is summoned with the wafting aroma of fried eggs.
"The coordinates are set, and we are leaving."
"Leaving?" I ask.
"Yes, it's time to go, and by the look of things
it's almost too late."
The scent of breakfast fades like a memory and I look
around at the awakening city. Fear
envelops me like a baby's blanket and I recognize its familiarity.
"What about everyone else?"
"They aren't for me to save, but we can try to
spread the word, but we have to leave now whether or not they choose to
listen."
"What will it be?" The man at the fried egg
cart greets us in an exuberant voice.
"The safety of the city has been compromised and
before you fry another egg, you should pack up and leave," Basil tells the
vendor.
"You must have had too much street ale last night,
and if you think I'm going to leave this city, you are sorely mistaken."
"It's your mistake, and what exactly is street
ale? Oh never mind, I've done all I can
to help you, here's a copper, although it won't help you when the ground begins
to quake."
The vendor takes the copper and turns the knob on his
flat stove and the flame dies out.
"He's going to leave," I say to Basil,
relieved.
"Yes, but he doesn't seem like the type that's going
to warn others. We won't have enough
time to tell everyone."
"Sky writer," I say as if I'm speaking to the
air around me.
"Brilliant, but we don't have much time!"
We run to the nearest shop, the sign above the door
reads, "Messages from above now available in a variety of colors,"
and "Home of the high top sneakers at unbeatable prices!"
When we walk in a delicate buzzer announces us and a
woman springs up from behind the counter.
Basil looks over the counter top and seems disappointed when he doesn't
discover anything out of the ordinary behind it. The woman looks familiar; she's the woman who
bumped into Basil outside the arena. Her
hair is orange instead of blue now, but her face is unchanged. She comes out from behind the counter and
looks at us for a moment then tells us she has just the right high tops for
us. Basil fumbles with his left shoe for
a second and then I yell out.
"We don't want shoes, we need a message
written!"
"You also need shoes," the woman more than
suggests by glaring at the shoes we are wearing.
"All right then, a message and two pairs of
shoes," Basil concedes to the woman.
"This pair is for you and this is yours," She
hands us two shoes boxes and as we sit on her leather sofa and take off our,
according to her, "outdated, last century, foot attire."
"What is the message," she asks when she is
satisfied that we are going to love our new shoes.
"Safe City, is no longer safe, please seek to leave,
and leave quickly."
"I would be ruined for agreeing to this," she
confronts Basil.
"Your shoe business won't matter at all in a few
hours."
He stares at her for a few moments, which is long enough
to convince her to believe him. His
honest face delivers the right amount of seriousness when it's warranted.
We run as fast as we can in our new high top
sneakers. When we are almost to the
arena the words, "Safe City is," loom above us. We pass the arena and stand on the landing,
and the message is complete, "no longer safe!" The ground rumbles but doesn't crack Basil
starts to vanish as a spectrum of lights encircle us. This time I vanish too.
I'm standing alone when I reappear. Basil is at a console in the middle of the
room.
"Where are we?"
"Safe," he answers without looking at me and
continues his maniacal tapping on screens and plugging in coordinates.
I walk over to him and look at the view of Safe City
below us. It's quiet on the screen and terror
is beginning to seep in. People are
slowly boarding the transport ships like they are taking a day trip to the mountains
of sector 4; their luggage is light and they are greeting each other and making
pleasantries. I look away and take in
the room I'm standing in. The console is
the only thing of interest here. The
rest of the room is like a prison. The
walls are blank and the floor is cold and hard.
"Here we go then," Basil says as he pulls the
lever on the console and the room gives off a jolt. I almost fall, but the room steadies itself
and me. The cold wall parts and opens a
passage into a long hallway. The
brightness warms the small room for a second until we stand in the way of
it. I hear familiar voices as we walk
into the hallway. The familiarity is
distant, but the sounds are growing nearer.
I see them and suddenly I realize how distant they've become to me. Like a dream, I almost forgot they were real,
and here they are, like time hasn't passed like it did and they never abandoned
me.
"Why did we teleport onto a ship my mom and dad are
on?" That question has been roiling me for three hours now. They seem to know Basil more than me, why is
that? I need answers and my mouth is
ready to ask the questions that smacked me in the face the moment I saw them.
I run to them, and right through them. I turn around because somehow they are behind
me.
"Mom, Dad," I scream at their images.
They just look at me, like they pity me. I feel someone touching my shoulder.
"What is this?" I ask him like he's cruel.
"This is all that is left of them, I'm so
sorry," he says with such compassion that my anger dissolves and
leaves. But now I feel empty and more
alone than ever. Knowing my parents were
out there somewhere was the thing I counted on, a future, my future. These ghost images of my dead parents
floating around on this ship must mean that there is nothing else out there,
nowhere to run to. I question the only
person that is on the ship with me, the only one with any answers.
"A very long time ago, centuries, perhaps eons ago,
Vikings, invaders on ships set out to conquer new land."
"Basil, what are you talking about?"
"I'm making a point, honestly, just
listen."
"They were headed for a country called Greenland; it
was called Greenland for obvious reasons.
It was lush with greenery, and life."
"Does this story have any relevance to
anything?"
"Patience, it's a virtue, do you have any of
those?"
"Right now I don't have anything at all, not even my
parents."
"Okay, I can see your faith is slipping, so I'll
make a long story short, Greenland had a sister country called Iceland, for obvious
reasons."
"Covered in ice?"
"Yes or not exactly, now I can't recall the story,
but the point I'm trying to make is that the names were switched to confuse the
invaders who may or may have not been the Vikings, in fact I don’t remember who
told me this story in the first place. It
might have been a funny looking fellow with a horned hat and his beard was
braided. He kept raising his drink and
shouting something about Odin, maybe this Odin was his brother? I think Odin came into the pub when I was
leaving, he had the same look as this guy."
"So is the story about the guy or the two
countries?"
"Neither, I'm just trying to point out that a name
is simply a name and doesn't define things like we think it does."
I look at him and we both end his ramblings by saying the
same thing at the same time.
"Safe City,"
"Exactly," he jumps up.
"It wasn't safe, I get it."
"Do you really understand?"
"No, but what does it matter?"
"Don’t you see?"
He is starting to work his brain into overdrive, I can
tell. Before he begins another story or
not story I get up and start to walk away.
My parents are gone; places aren't safe because they claim to be.
"Time is in flux," he shouts after me.
I turn around and see his grin growing off the sides of
his face; his eyes are as wide as snowballs.
I think of this made up Iceland and I still see Basil's smiling face in
a world of ice.
"Time is in flux," I repeat back to him, like a
parrot.
Iceland disappears and an ocean reveals itself with land
in sight. Basil waits for me to come
back from my reverie and then grabs both of my arms like I'm the only thing
keeping him grounded.
"Let's go somewhere," he says.
"Where shall we go?" I ask
"The question is when!"
"Now, are we going somewhere now?" I ask
uncertain.
"When would you like to travel to, we can travel to
the future, and see if there is anything out there that is worth seeing, or if
all the Sand Octopi have woken up or we can travel back to when we used to sip
orange fizzy drinks."
I just stand there while a hopeless future abandons me
and remember the past, a past worth revisiting.
The thought is so powerful that it makes me believe the future is worth
something, even if all but one of the stars burn out.
"Let's go," I say with a start and we run to
the room with the console in it.
The doors slide open and Basil taps on the screens like a
madman again only this time he opens the value to a container connected at the
base of the console.
"This is what makes time travel possible," he
says as he turns the knob one last time.
"If you say so," I reply.
He pulls the lever and I feel the safest I have ever
felt. I'm going to see my parents again;
I'm going to do so many things until we run out of time.
Basil's face is aglow
from the screens.
"Claire," he says. "You do realize we can out run
time!"
