CHAPTER 16

            It had been a gloomy couple of days, preventing the cabin roof’s solar panels from getting much of a charge. It was a scenario that unfolded often in the autumn and winter months, and Naomi and Sophie had spent a whole three weeks that summer making the wax candles they now pulled from various dark nooks in the cabin’s walls. The candles, along with blankets and woven quilts, were dispersed through the small guest cabin.

            The temperature was falling a couple of degrees each week, and Naomi was thankful that Charlie and Daniel had chopped enough firewood to keep a comfortable blaze burning when it was needed. A momentary bolt of lightning threaded through the sky, filling the living room’s picture window with its pale blue veins. Someone gasped.

            “You think they’re ok?” Sophie whispered to her mom, who was standing over a pot of soup on the kitchen burner.

            “I hope so. Maybe they’re still in town somewhere,” Naomi said. It was of some comfort that Charlie had called the night before, when they’d reached the inn at Bighton, but that had been a full day before, and the line had been silent since.

            Naomi pulled plates and spoons from the cabinets and soon they were enjoying potato soup and fresh sourdough rolls with Liping and Adrina. The four of them sat quietly in the guest cabin’s modest living room, cozily cramped together on two sofas piled high with blankets and pillows. A small cast iron fireplace in the room’s corner gnawed quietly on a block of cedar. A collection of  muti-colored candles littered the table between them, their flames dancing wildly with the slightest hint of breeze.

            One of the boxes that had housed the candles sat at Liping’s side. She glanced down and peeked at its contents. The things were dusty and old and mostly uninteresting to her, but a small envelope of photographs caught her eye.

            “Go ahead, take a look,” Naomi said, noticing her.

            Liping bent down and scooped up the packet in her hands. They were mostly old pictures, some faded, some furled at the edges, some splotched and speckled where time had taken its toll. Some of the pictures had been taken in this very room with guests and friends and possibly family who had come to visit. Others were taken at a construction site somewhere. It was only after viewing several pictures in succession that Liping realized these were photos from the center at the peak, taken years ago when Daniel was just a boy. In one picture, he wore an oversized plastic hardhat and held a hammer in his hands.

            There were many other faces in these construction pictures, faces of different colors and shapes, faces that Liping had never seen before. It was puzzling to think that so many people had come to such a remote place for a such a small project, and stranger still that they smiled despite the menial labor. In the world she knew, huge skyscrapers could be built by a few dozen men, but they were men with faces that had forgotten how to smile. They’d been forced into their jobs after their homes and farms were demolished in the name of progress.

            “Why are they so happy?” Liping asked.

            “They were good times,” Naomi said. “I have nothing but fond memories. We worked hard, and we were exhausted at the end of every day, but all of it was enjoyable.”

            “How did you do it, I mean, build all that while raising two children?” Adrina asked.

            “Well, we had a lot of help. As you can see from the pictures, many of our friends came and stayed here for a few months until the project was done. And at the time, we were only raising Daniel. Sophie was grown by that time. There is a bit of an age gap between the two.”

            “Your friends all stayed here in this cabin?”

            “No, there were too many for that. Some were here, some stayed with us in the big house. We built this house first, actually. Charlie and I lived here since it was just the two of us. We didn’t need a lot of space. But then, with Sophie coming back and Daniel’s birth, we knew we needed more space. The friends were happy to help.”

            “But I don’t understand–where did they come from? How were they paid?” Liping asked.

            “Many of the friends were from neighboring communities. Some were family. They were notified about the project and volunteered to help.”

            “Volunteered? You mean there were no wages?”

            “No monetary wages. But we helped to provide food and accommodations.”

            “Well food and shelter is great, but what about earning something for savings? Something to leave their children?”

            “Why would they need savings?” Sophie asked, wrinkling her face.

            “To secure a future, of course,” Liping insisted. “That’s a basic need.”

            “In an unstable and imperfect system, that’s true,” Naomi said. “But that kind of system is a thing of the past. We don’t worry about insurance or saving money or having enough for future medical bills. We’re living in a perfect society.”

            “There is no perfect society,” Liping said, folding her arms defiantly.

            “Ok, I can understand why you’d think that. You–both of you–have only just arrived. But don’t make the mistake of assuming the worst just because this is different than what you’re used to.”

            “Is that what the others did?” Adrina asked quietly.

            “What?”

            “The two men–Jack and Harold. Did they assume the worst?”

            Naomi shrugged. “I have no idea. I haven’t seen them since they left. I’ll know once we get a chance to talk with them. But coming into this new environment requires learning to adapt. No matter who you were or what you did in the Old World, you will all have to make changes here.”

            “Or else?” Liping asked.

            “Or else you can’t live here. You’ve been given a second chance, and what you do with it is your choice alone. But there is no life without obedience.”

            Naomi’s words were punctuated by a bolt of lighting streaking across the sky. The women fell silent.

***

            Jack had run until his lungs had been about to burst from his chest. The darkness, purple and unnatural, had come long before sunset, and Jack had prepared as best he could for the oncoming storm. It was unfortunate that Harold had packed the tent. All Jack had at his disposal was a raincoat. He had considered putting holes in it to create a kind of suspended tarp as a shelter for the downpour, but realized that it would serve him best being worn normally. He didn’t have much else that was waterproof, and knew that getting wet in a storm in the middle of autumn would be sheer misery.

            If a rain canopy wasn’t possible, the least Jack could do for himself would be a suspended bed to keep him off the soggy forest floor. It would require dozens of branches and at least three properly situated trees. As the first cracks of thunder let out over the forested hillside, Jack wondered about Harold. He wasn’t particularly worried about the man’s survival; they’d split in a populated town and Jack was sure Harold would be able to fend for himself. He did wonder, however, what would become of him if he crossed paths with the men who’d come hunting for them.

            Hunting. That was Harold’s word for it, anyways. Jack still wasn’t sure. He lacked Harold’s conviction that this was a dangerous place, or that any schemes had been planned beyond what they’d been told. Harold had been so sure he’d find something to support his conspiracy theories, but so far Jack had only seen signs of a peacefully integrated community. There wasn’t even evidence of an military presence–no armed guards, no watch towers, no weaponry of any sort.

            Then again, maybe Harold had found something in the library–the archives, they called it–that had given him a basis for his paranoia. Who knew? Of course, there was the possibility that Harold was looking for something else in the shelves of those books. Maybe he was looking for himself. Maybe this was all about him, after all. Maybe he just needed to know that the books he’d authored had survived in this society. Maybe that was his way of making sense of this place, knowing that in some way he had changed and affected his world.

            But Harold was an evolutionist, wasn’t he? Jack was no expert on science, but it seemed to him common sense that the idea of random, purposeless evolution was at fundamental odds with the idea of directed creation by some supernatural power, a concept that seemed to govern the society he now found himself in. And whether that concept could hold water or not, Jack was fairly certain Harold’s theories wouldn’t have survived. After all, wasn’t it always the victors who wrote history?

            Jack tried to push the thoughts away. They were serving no use to him now. The rain would be here soon and he needed to find a place to hole up safely for the night. If only the trees in this part of the forest weren’t thin and spindly. He knew they’d never hold his weight, let alone the weight of his pack. Jack kept moving.

            It was at this point that Jack realized that the grade of the slope had evened out, and he could see much farther in front of him. And there, deep in the distance, was a thin grey wisp crawling into the sky, where a high wind yanked it away just above the trees. Jack realized he was seeing the smoke trail of a campfire. A lucky break in an otherwise disastrous day. Jack forged on with an eagerness tempered by caution.

            On the one hand, he wasn’t thrilled about meeting more strangers in the forest. He was unarmed and unfamiliar with these woods and thus at a tactical disadvantage if anything were to go wrong. On the other hand, he’d been caught in storms overnight before and was willing to avoid repeating the experience at almost any cost. It would mean a night without sleep, and the next day his energy would be sapped form the cold and the wet. He decided to take his chances rather than risk another night in black rain.

            But as he neared the trail of smoke his pulse quickened. This was not a usual campsite. There was no tent, no flashy neon hiking gear strewn about. The things here had been crafted carefully by hand, made from sticks and rocks no doubt collected nearby. A couple of plastic containers had been sawn coarsely in half and packed in with rocks in locations meant to gather rainwater. Someone was living here.

            Jack’s mind flashed back to the Syrian desert, where he’d stumbled on similar makeshift dwellings. Insurgents living in primitive little camps, packed into caves and lean-tos, just scraping by waiting for targets to raid. Sometimes there had even been children. And then there were orders, always from some cold, metallic, distant voice crackling through a radio line, an ear bud, a walkie talkie. That’s all it took. Just a few whispered words to summon the lurking army and wipe out a hundred lives.

            Jack glanced down at his hands, realizing that he’d unwittingly grabbed a dead branch from somewhere along the path. He couldn’t remember when he’d stooped to pick it up, but he could see that he held it in his arms exactly as he used to clutch his old M16 assault rifle. He drew a quick breath and stepped forward.

***

            Harold opened his eyes slowly, letting the world around him come into focus. His mind was a jumble of images and memories covered in a thick layer of pain. Pain everywhere. His arms hurt, his sides hurt, one of his ankles was positively on fire, and his head felt as if it’d been split wide open. Harold tried bring his fingers to touch his face, to check for blood or cuts, but the hand wouldn’t budge. Something held his wrists. They were sore too. Harold tried to turn but found himself pinned down. Where was he? What was this?

            Jolts of pain shot through Harold’s neck and shoulders as he tried to crane his head around to look at his surroundings. He was somewhere very dark. Dark and musty. And he was drenched. And cold. Harold glanced down at his legs, which were slathered in mud and bits of leaves and moss. He tried to move his feet and felt another streak of anguish there, too.

            So this is it then, Harold thought. Here was the dark side. He’d gone looking and he’d found it. He’d been right all along. But now what? Would there simply be this punishment or would there be more? Torture? Execution? Would his example be used to frighten other would-be escapees?

            Booby traps in the forest. That had been a clever move. So the walls were there, they were simple invisible. And the enforcers of that law lived at the borders of society. Perhaps they were the criminals of the Old World. Perhaps their banishment to the woods to indulge themselves in the punishment of the rebels kept their violent tendencies at bay while the rest lived in peace. Such a simple trick! And brilliant, Harold had to admit. Insidiously brilliant.

            There was a noise from across the room. Harold craned his neck to look up. More pain. A young man stood there, watching Harold with a thin smile across his lips, soaking it all in.

            “So, you’re finally up,” the boy said in an unnecessarily loud voice. “Who sent you?”

            Harold’s lips moved silently in confusion. “Who sent me? What are you talking about?”

            “Don’t play dumb with me. I knew this day would come. I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve even been looking forward to it a little.”

            “What are you on about? No one sent me. I came here on my own.”

            “Oh? And this?” The boy shouted triumphantly, unraveling the map that Harold had been carrying in his backpack. It was covered in lines and circles from where Harold had marked it over the course of the previous few days.

“I’m not stupid, you know. I know a manhunt when I see one.”

            Harold remained silent as he processed the data in his head. This boy was young, evidently a teenager. He was here, presumably alone, in this cave. Was he hiding from something? He coughed wildly as a misty breeze stirred a plume of dust into his face. The coughing fit, with all its racking pains, brought Harold closer to his senses.

            “I know nothing of a manhunt. That’s my map and I made those marks myself, and I wasn’t looking for you. I don’t even know who you are,” Harold stated carefully.

            “Right, sure, whatever you say. So what’s your name, then?”

            “Harold. Harold Dawson.”

            “Is that your real name or just some alias?”

            “My real name! Why would I lie?”

            “Because you’ve been caught. You’re on my turf now and you’re scared. Maybe you’re scared about what I’ll find out if you tell the truth.”

            “You watch far too much television, boy. My name’s Harold Dawson and that’s the truth.”

            “Well that’s funny, because the name on the map here is…Charlie Lewis. So either you stole this map or Harold isn’t your real name. Either way, you’re a liar. Like I said, I’m not stupid.”

            Harold let out a sigh and set his head back into the dirt. “Fine. I stole it. But you have to listen to me, I have no idea who you are and I haven’t been sent here to find you. I won’t tell a soul about you or your hideout if you let me go.”

            “And? You expect me to just release you?”

            “That would be the civil thing to do, yes.”

            The boy held his head back and laughed with exaggerated menace. “Not in a hundred years, pal. You’re gonna lay right there till I get some answers.” He walked over to a small fire at the entrance of the cave, sucking in a bit of smoke and trying unsuccessfully to blow rings into the air. He was just a child. A small, foolish child.

            Harold decided to change tact. “Listen, boy, I think we have more in common than you realize. I’m not on their side. I ran away from one of the centers on a hill a few days ago and I’ve been looking for answers. I actually thought you might be one of their spies at first. Now I can see we’re in this together! So please, help me out of this.”

            The boy’s slit eyes crept back to Harold. His hands were locked behind his back and he held his nose in the air. The interrogator. This kid really did watch too much TV.

            “Isn’t that a coincidence. Your story sounds just like mine. Let me guess, it began with you waking in a strange room, absolutely naked, covered in a big white sheet. And maybe you were sick before, in your last memory, but now it’s all gone, and you’re suddenly healthy, just like you’ve always wanted, and so you get dressed and you open the door and learn that it’s been two hundred years since the world you knew existed, like some kind of crazy apocalyptic sci-fi movie, but instead of aliens or some mutant plague it was actually God and the angels that did it, and now you have to seek a life of redemption...” The boy said these last words with a look of sarcastic penance, drooping his eyes and placing his palms together in the pose of prayer.

            “Is that about it then? Huh?” He shouted.

            “More or less. I wasn’t sick, though,” Harold mumbled.

            “Whatever. In any case, I don’t march to anybody’s tune but my own. I was outta that place first chance I got.”

            Harold shook his head slowly. Under his pretentious tough act, the boy’s sentiments rang a familiar tone.

            “I was just looking for answers,” Harold said to no one in particular.

            “Well you came to the wrong place. I’m fresh out of answers. All I got are questions.” Harold noted the change in the boy’s voice. There was a shadow in his face, now. It became darker, wilder. He grabbed a pointed stake from a wood stack at the corner of the cave and thrust its tip into the fire.

            “I swear, boy, I’m not here with any other intentions than you yourself,” Harold begged, his pain momentarily subsiding under a sudden wave of anxiety.

            “See, you say that, but there’s just no way I can be sure you’re telling the truth. Well, any way but the one.”

            The boy drew the stake back, extinguishing the flame with a sharp breath of air from his lips. The tip glowed red orange.

            “Please. Stop and think. If you let me go we can get the answers together. There’s nothing I know that can help you now.”

            “Well, we’ll see.” The boy stepped closer. Harold’s pulse was like the beat of a jackhammer in his veins. He watched the ember point zig and zag in the air, trailing wispy smoke behind it. It edged closed to Harold’s spot on the dusty cave floor. Harold wanted to scream, and in fact he would have, had he not noticed another figure, shadowy and silent, moving quietly into the mouth of the cave.

***

            Jack’s arm cut through the dank cave air quickly and silently, landing squarely at the back of the young man’s neck. The boy dropped the glowing stake and crumpled noiselessly into the ground, stirring the dirt and sending Harold into a coughing fit. He lay facedown and motionless.

            “I hope you didn’t just kill him,” Harold said.

            “Suddenly caring about others now?” Jack asked sharply, flicking a blade from a pocket in his vest and sawing through the twine at Harold’s ankles and wrists.

            “He was a victim, just like us. He didn’t deserve to die,” Harold said, sitting up and rubbing his arms and shoulders.

            “He’s not dead. Just unconscious. We’ll need to tie him up before he comes to. See what he has to say for himself.”

            “I think I got the gist of it. He’s just a kid, Jack. Let’s leave him be. He’s probably just scared.”

            “Are you serious? Were you not just here a second ago when he tried to light you on fire?”

            “We can’t be sure he would’ve actually done it. Let’s give him a little dignity. Maybe we can work together.”

            “Work together! We barely have enough for the two of us to survive! How do you expect we’ll ever be able to split what we’ve got three ways?”

            “So I guess that means you weren’t able to get the foodstuffs we agreed on then,” Harold said, clearly irritated.

            “No, I didn’t, but you could’ve helped. I didn’t hear you volunteer.”

            “I had other things to worry about, like getting to the bottom of this mess. You had a very simple objective, Jack. You were to get us some food and meet me at the agreed time. You did neither of those things!”

            “I didn’t have a choice and I didn’t change my mind–I was spotted in the market,” Jack said curtly.

            “Spotted? What does that mean?”

            “Charlie and Daniel. They were there and I think they were looking for me. I ran.”

            Harold was silent for once. Then he nodded slowly as he looked back to the boy, motionless on the ground. “I saw them too. Still, I wish you’d have found me before running off.”

            “I couldn’t. They were between me and the library, there was nothing I could do. Let’s not forget that I just saved your life here. Would it kill you to say thanks? Or does it always have to be about you and your theories?”

            “Theories? What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “All these ideas of conspiracy, dystopias, secret societies. Isn’t that what this is all about? You’re out here just looking for proof that you were right all along, that this is all some big cult or cover-up or whatever. But I’ve had my eyes open this whole time, Harold, and I’ve been willing to entertain your ideas to a point, but I’ve seen nothing that convinces me that your notions have even an ounce of truth in them.”

            Harold’s face was blank, his eyes narrowing to a cold horizontal line. He massaged his ankles quietly. “And yet, you ran,” he hissed with wounded insinuation.

            Jack stood and stormed to the front of the cave where he watched a sheet of rain shed from the lip of the opening.

            “Yeah,” Jack said.  “I did. But not because I think you’re right.”

            “Then why?”

            Jack shrugged without looking back.

            The boy moaned softly, stirring from his crumpled position on the ground. Harold edged away. Jack moved back into the cave, hovering over the boy’s back. He rolled the boy over with the toe of his boot. The boy shielded his face with his arms and whimpered.

            “Not so tough anymore, I see,” Jack said scornfully. “C’mon, get up.” Jack jabbed him in the side with his toe. The boy sat upright cautiously, removing his arms from his face. Jack blinked against the low light of the cave. He shook his head, unsure if his eyes were playing tricks on him. His look of disdain morphed into one of shock. He fell to his knees and grabbed the boy’s shoulders in his thick hands, shaking him.

            “Hyde?” Jack asked, a thin tremble audible in his voice.

            “Huh? Am I supposed to know you?” Asked the boy.

            “It’s me! Jack! Your little brother.”