Dark Blue Monstropolis

It wasn’t like her not to wake up. Normally, even the smallest of noises would have brought her out of the deepest slumber–which never was as deep as she hoped the chemical alterations she added would make her.

Only this time, her enhanced sleep was everything she had hoped and more. She hadn’t been sleeping well for the past several months, and not just because of backfiring transports from outside or doors slamming down the narrow cinderblock hallways that led to her current habitation. There was something gnawing at the back of her mind that would not go away. Nor could she put her finger on exactly what it was. Whenever she did starting rifling through all the files stashed away inside her head, this (nagging feeling? was that the right phrase?) would just slink quietly away to a new safe place just out of her reach. She was beginning to get the feeling that whatever it was, it was something big.

Given her current state, it shouldn’t have been surprising that the gunfire didn’t wake her up until it was almost on top of her.

And, still, when she did register it as gunfire, she seemed unable to do anything about it. In fact, she seemed incapable of moving her body at all. It was as if all the workers in the factory of her body had gone out for a bite to eat all at the same time. She was at the controls, but there was no one there to answer her increasingly panicked calls for assistance.

Just when she was sure that whoever was doing all the shooting was going to kick in her door and end it all for her, it stopped. Incapable of doing anything else, she listened. She slowed her breath in order to hear out into the hallway better.

“Is this the one?” an electrified male voice said.

“Affirmative. We have acquisition of target,” answered an electrified female voice.
Her mind raced. What contraband did she have onsite? She and all her friends (if you could call them that) were very careful not to bring any of it home. In fact, some of her former cohorts went so far as to laugh at her and her Tight Group, as they called themselves. Why are you being so paranoid? They would ask. No one would ever suspect us of hanging on to any of the old mixes. I bet they don’t even know what a cassette player is for, anyway.

These, of course, were the friends that she never saw anymore. Rumor had it that they had been hauled off or killed or worse weeks ago.

There was a deep thud as a door was kicked in somewhere down the hall. Very close, by the sound of it. Shortly after the thud, there was an ever increasing sound of someone with metal gloves knocking on something. She barely had time to register that a grenade had been thrown into whatever room it was down the hall before it went off.

What few belongings she had in her room were suddenly thrown from the walls and crashed to the floor. The concussion from the blast hit her square in the chest and seemed to push her through the floor. At least it seemed to bring the factory workers back from their eternal lunch break. She rolled off her bed and onto the floor, grabbing hold of the mattress and pulling it down on top of her.

It had to have been Jake’s place they hit, she thought. Jake lived next door and had actually been the one that had supplied her with the medication that should have given her body the much needed rest it deserved. If it hadn’t have been for this little interruption, she might have slept for weeks. Should have.

Let’s just hope it was a smart grenade and not one of the Old Ones. The thought came as naturally to her as any. She had no idea about the Old Ones at all and there were very few people that did. Old Sean could tell her about such things, but she thought she was the only one who believed any of what Old Sean said about the old days. She would have to ask him about this thought, too.

From next door, there came the muffled sound of something being dragged across the floor. Jake, she thought. I wonder how they found him here? Then her thoughts began to race. Certainly, he wouldn’t have kept a record of their little transaction, would he? It was more than a month ago since she had made her little barter with him. The price was fair, and after all, there were lots of other girls who have done much worse than that for far little, right? It was over quickly and she gotten what should have been the solution to her problem.

Only now that solution seemed to have opened up a whole can of other problems for her, hadn’t it?

She began to slowly crawl out from under her mattress and take stock of the situation that used to be her room. She didn’t have that much stuff to begin with anyway, but what she had was almost completely destroyed. The only items that had survived were the items in the small blast proof case. The case itself had taken a nasty beating, but that was it’s job. She entered the digital code to open the case and tried in vain to shake off the druggy haze. The seal hissed when it opened and the lid slowly flipped open on an age-old pneumatic lift. She began to go through the inventory.

Key ring? Check.

iPod and visor? Check.

Emergency credits? Check

Shiv? Check.

The place that would hold her cassette recorder was vacant as it was supposed to be. After the dust had settled, her key ring would soon reunite her with that.

She knew what she would have to do, but her knees making contact with the floor told her it would have to wait until later. She knew that her knees would be covered in her own dried blood tomorrow, but there was nothing to be done about it. She was just thankful that she had positioned herself in front of her mattress, otherwise, she might not have an eye tomorrow morning. She was only dimly aware of the hiss of the case closing itself as she drifted back down into the murky depths of her drug induced quasi-coma. She heard Jake screaming. Then she heard Jake not screaming. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day. This was her last conscious thought for the next twelve hours.

Her hazel eyes slowly began to flutter with life. The images deposited themselves on her mind with a rapidity that she was not quite ready for.

“What the hell?” she asked the empty room. Then the events from the previous day (night?) began to play back for her.

Very slowly, she got to her feet. Her head felt like it was inside a fish bowl with a large bowling ball balanced very delicately on top. Every time she turned her head to look at something new, the world seemed to take its time getting into her field of vision. This would have to be remedied and fast.

She found the bowl of grimy water she had put out for the cat during the brief time that she had one and splashed it in her face. Both the coldness and the stench of the water did the trick of bring the world back up to speed. She wiped the excess grime off with the bottom of her night gown and realized that there was dried blood.

My knees. She looked down and remembered that final conscious thought. She picked the pieces of broken glass and cinderblock out of her skin.

She didn’t have a mirror in the room because they were contraband, but she took stock of the rest of her body as best she could without one. She was actually quite young, but her young body had been through a lot, hadn’t it? Still, given her habits and habitat, she thought she had held up quite nicely. Any guy who gave her half a glance would sometimes nearly break his neck trying to get the other half. She was both petite and fit.

Her recent hobbies (occupation?) had kept her running from the authorities most of the time and she had to be in top shape to outrun some of them on their personal airlifts.
She grabbed a black t-shirt and faded blue jeans from the floor and traded them for the bloody nightgown. As she did, she took stock of her upper body for any damage that might have been incurred from the previous night’s festivities. There was hardly a scratch on her toned upper body. She continued her business. She emptied the debris from her boots, put them on, and laced them up tightly around her ankles. More than likely she would be running today. With her long sandy-blonde hair tied in a pony-tail and her favorite baseball cap on her head, she was ready for what ever life threw her way.

Or so she thought.

Once again, she keyed the digital code into her case and grabbed the shiv. Knives, guns, and swords had long been outlawed, but everyone seemed to have at least one of them anyway. She smiled at this and cut a large gash down the side of her mattress with the shiv.

Since she had turned the mattress on its side during the night, she had to insert her arm into the mattress up to the armpit before her hands fell on what she was looking for. From inside her mattress, she pulled a black 9mm pistol wrapped in an oil cloth. Her arms went into the mattress again and pulled out a belt with a low-slung holster attached. Her arm went into the mattress for a final time and pulled out a small black cylinder. She gripped it in her hand and slung it toward the ground. Several pieces of black steel flew out of the end of the cylinder and became a hard metal baton. She tapped it against the floor and collapsed it. She stuck this in her hip pocket.

She unwrapped the pistol, placed it in the holster, and wrapped the belt around the holster. She started to put the pistol inside her box and realized that there was neither room for it or a place for it to belong.

She began to dig around her room for her small backpack. After a brief search she found it under what was left of the bed. She looked at it briefly. It bore a single word written on the outside cover-flap: Ginger. It wasn’t the name she was born with, but when she had found the backpack nearly a dozen years ago, she decided that it was as good a name as any and made it her own.

She undid the buckles of the cover-flap, opened her backpack, and stuffed the holster and the pistol inside. Her case began to make the hissing noise again and she waved her hand under the slowly closing lid. It reversed its direction in an almost apologetic way. There were times when she wasn’t sure that this case wasn’t her only true friend in the world.

She grabbed her beat-up visor and put it on. Just as she did so, an image flickered onto the screen. The audio that came with it was deafening. The image was of a tall, slender woman with a hand cannon of some sort laying waste to a group of people. She seemed to be onstage somewhere, which made sense, because the audio that nearly left her bleeding from the ears was filled with music that she had heard somewhere before. She filed that into the back of her head to parse through later. Right now, she had to scat and scat fast.

She placed her hand gently on the top of her case and it began to close again, but this time with more purpose, as though it new it were doing its job right this time. Ginger slung her backpack over her right shoulder and grabbed her case with her left hand and danced her way through the rubble of her room to the door.

Before she even put her hand near the palm plate, she turned around and gave her room one final glance. She would not be seeing this room ever again and she wanted to make sure that there was nothing around that might tie her to this mess. She was almost convinced that there was nothing when her eyes stopped on a tiny scrap of paper near the waste dump in the corner. She danced her way back across the room, picked up the slip of paper and read what was on it. Scrawled in her own handwriting were these words:

Wickeds X. Food. Lock door. Mix away.

She held it to her nose and sniffed. She couldn’t smell anything, but she felt the almost microscopic grains of powder enter her nostrils. The drug she had gotten had not been in pill or liquid form. It was a powder that had to be mixed with some form of liquid. She had mixed it…where? She couldn’t remember and hoped against hope that the lack of that memory wouldn’t come back to haunt her. She started to stick the piece of paper into her pocket, and stopped. What if they are doing a search downstairs to see if anyone had contact with him? With Jake?

She dropped the paper into the waste dump. She put her backpack and case on the floor, unfastened her pants, pulled them down around her knees, turned and squatted over the waste dump. She relieved herself on the paper sitting in the bottom of the dump. After she was done, she placed her hand on the palm panel and the waste dump lowered itself into the floor. She could hear the familiar noise of the aging pneumatic system carrying the dump to where ever it was supposed to go. She thought that in a different life, her case lid and this waste dump might have had quite a nice friendship.

In a different life.

That’s what she needed.

She made her way back to the door, placed her hand on the palm plate and yet another aging pneumatic motor opened the door. Better say goodbye to your friends, she told her case and stuck her head out into the hallway. She scanned both ways, saw that the hallway was empty and stepped out of her room forever. The sad, leaky pneumatics seemed to be thankful that it wouldn’t have to perform this task again for awhile. She turned left and headed to the staircase that would take her down the eighteen flights of stairs to the ground level of her building.

She didn’t have the heart to make the pneumatic elevator work that hard just for little old Ginger.

Her suspicions were right. She was stopped by two goons in heavy black boots and a body armor that made them each look like they were riding around in their own human-shaped personal tank. Their shells looked like steel, but were soft as cotton to the touch. She knew this because their hands were gloved with the stuff as the goons ran them all over her body. Several times, just to be safe.

This was something she had just gotten used to. Her body was in excellent shape given her hobby of chasing down contraband cassettes and players and hocking them on the black market. She didn’t understand why some people were so stuck on trying to get old tunes off of iPods and the like. There were still some perfectly good tunes left on the older stuff, you just had to know where (and how hard) to look.

“The Elegance of the Chase,” she called it. It was too easy just to hook an old hard drive up to your pack and dump tunes from it. There was an art to finding ancient material on cassettes, or even more rare, “fat cassettes”. She had even heard an old timer tell tales of music files being stored on large, bulky black plastic discs, but she had never seen one herself. She had no reason to believe the old timer, he seemed to be enjoying his remaining days drinking Splat and ratting artists like herself out to the authorities.

After the personal encounter with the two overly-friendly pigs, she emerged into the cold night air. The sounds of the airtrawlers screaming thousands of feet over her head. The air and the ground were wet. Another planned rainstorm from the Heavy Tech satellites that kept the weather in motion around what was left of the world. Still, she had to be thankful that she was one of the lucky ones who were “back East”. She had heard rumors of the world to the west and how desolate it was. She also heard of the mutants that still dwelled in the world to the west.

It all came down to a simple choice. Right or left.

Going straight would lead her into another building, but that would be too simple. Besides, she had had to do some finagling to get her place in the building she had just silently vacated.

Right.

Or Left.

She’d better do something soon. The Eye had a way of spotting people who didn’t have anything to do or anywhere to be and until she was out of their view, she had better look like a good little worker bee.

On a whim, she opted for Right. Right had always served her well before, hadn’t it? Ironically enough, right took her west. If she kept walking far enough, she could learn about those mutants and their life all by her lonesome.

Over the next several hours, she would randomize her walking in case the Eyes began to see a pattern to her direction matrix. She had quite a bit of distance to cover if she wanted to not have to worry about his anymore.

At one point in her journey, there was a brief, but intense rainshower that covered only about one hundred square feet. See? she thought. Not even the Heavy Tech stuff gets it right all of the time. I wonder who it found to blame that little mistake on? I wouldn’t want to be that person tonight. I hope that they have told their families that they loved them.

She continued slowly westward, varying her pattern. The sun had risen and made its own zig-zag pattern through the sky and was moving closer and closer to the western horizon when she saw the entrance to the tunnel.

No one except “artists” like her used them anymore. In fact, there was a small group of people that had taken up residence inside them. It seems that the Eye didn’t really know what went on down there and hadn’t picked up on it yet. What the tunnel dwellers couldn’t see was that, if the Eye ever found out, there was nowhere for them to run. If the Eye ever found out, it would simply seal off both ends of the tunnel with little or no warning.

She decided to stop briefly with some of these people for the night and partake of their hospitality.

She lowered her visor over her face, took a brief glance back at the skyline of the city that she had grown to love over the years, and found the building she was looking for. If there was a weakness to the Heavy Tech stuff, it was regularity. There was no room for things to be out of sequence in its world. The building she that currently held all 110% of her attention was the tallest one in the skyline. Like the other buildings it was shaped like a large knife handle sticking out of the ground. At its top was a brilliant blue beacon that also radiated a blue glow that surrounded the building from top to bottom.

She thanked her luck that she had decided to make this journey on a clear evening. She could see the top of the building very clearly. On even the lightest of cloudy days, the top ¾ of the building could be shrouded in the veil of cloud cover.

She had to pay attention. Every evening, near dusk, but never at the same time, the blue light and beacon would go out for about five seconds. She wasn’t sure what this was for, but the glow from the arc lights throughout the entire city would glow brighter during that one second. She assumed that it was to allow some kind of power switch, but had never been able to get a straight answer from anyone. What she did know was that during that brief time, the Eye was closed. It was at this time that she would have to make her dart into the tunnel.

In order to keep the Eye satisfied about her occupation during this time of waiting, she began picking up any spare trash that littered the ground around the mouth of the tunnel. She worked slowly enough to allow her enough trash to keep her busy while she waited.

After an hour, the streetlights suddenly brightened. She shot her glance to the top of the building and couldn’t see the beacon. Immediately, she grabbed her case, and dove through the tunnel’s mouth, hoping for a soft landing.

She wasn’t granted one.

She didn’t know that the tunnel immediately dove down into the ground, headed under the river of sludge that lay to the city’s west side. She fell much farther than she had anticipated and, as such, threw her arms out in front of her into the darkness to try to catch herself. Because of the darkness, the ground caught her completely off guard. Her case was the first to hit followed by the knuckles of her other hand. Her arms folded and the caught the case hard in her chest, her right cheek smacking into the ground as she went over her own head.

The momentum she carried from the leap dragged her face across what felt like broken glass for a few seconds. Her feet flew so far over the back of her head, she felt her spine collapse under the weight.

By the time she stopped, she found herself in a slowly bleeding heap on the sloped ground. Every bone in her body seemed to scream her name in vain.

She was about to try to get herself to her feet and assess the damage from the dive when a voice stopped her.

“You could have just walked in, you know. There is no need for the dramatics.”

It was pitch black in the tunnel. She squinted into the darkness from her crumpled state and tried to determine where the voice was coming from. She could not. She didn’t move any further and spoke very slowly. “I hope I didn’t upset anyone.”

“We are used to seeing your kind these days. More and more people seem to be leaving the city. It’s just too oppressive.” The voice was decidedly male and liquid smooth. She felt as though she were drinking his thoughts rather than hearing them. “Why don’t we have a look at you?”

A cold hand touched her forearm. She had no idea he was that close and almost flinched. He helped her gently to her feet.

“Thank you,” she said. It was an awkward moment for her. She wasn’t used to this sort of kindness. At least, not without the other person expecting something in return.

“Not at all. Now, let’s see. Oh dear, but we have taken a rather nasty scrape to our hands haven’t we? Well, that’s easily remedied.” The hand that had grasped her arm found its way to her face with an uncanny ease in the darkness. It gently moved her head to the left as it looked at her right cheek. “And, a rather nasty looking scrape to your face, I see. This one is a little more serious, I fear. But, nothing that we can’t heal. Does it hurt anywhere else?”

“Here.” She moved her hands to her ribcage just below her breasts. The hands were there before she knew it. How did it see that in this darkness? she wondered. The hands were exploratory, but not intrusive like the hands of the goons that searched her as she walked out of her building nearly fourteen hours ago.

“Let me see. Hmm…badly bruised, but not broken, I’d say. Anywhere else?”

“No, thank you. Who are you?”

“Please forgive me. My name is Easton. Most people just call me Easy.”

“Easy. My name is…” She thought of giving him one of her many aliases. Something told her she didn’t have to do that this time. “Ginger,” she finished.

“Ginger. What a beautiful name and it complements you very well. Welcome.” Whoever he was, he was good. She felt right at home. If he asked right now, she probably would have spilled her guts about anything he wanted to know and then some.

“Please, Easy, I can’t see a thing. Can…can you see me?”

“Cover your eyes.”

Without thinking, she closed her eyes. She could see the inside of her eyelids grow from black to a soft glowing red. Somewhere out there a light had come on.

“You can open them now, but slowly.”

She was not ready for what she was when she did so.

What she saw was another pair of eyes looking back at her, but instead of seeing the normal pupils and irises she expected, these were glowing with a soft amber light. It was the perfect amount of light for the darkness. Just enough to shine on his face and reveal his entire body at the same time without blinding her eyes. She gasped.

“Please don’t be alarmed. I won’t hurt you. I’m a seventh generation Tunnel Dweller. I have lived down here in the darkness all my life. In that time, we have almost become our own species. I am the first of our kind to have this trait. I seem to have…evolved.”

She opened her mouth to ask more questions, but he cut her off.

“Why don’t we talk about this where you will be more comfortable?”

The only light that allowed her to see that she was being led deeper and deeper underground came from Easy’s eyes. She was able see the outline of his body walking just slightly ahead of her through the black. Every now and then he would break the monotony with a quick “watch your step” or “not much farther now.” With the exception of these interjections, the only thing she could hear were their feet hitting the pavement and the sound of her breathing.

After they walked for about thirty minutes, she saw another source of light appear just under the curve of the tunnel’s ceiling. It seemed that the small group of nomads had made their home at the exact spot where the tunnel settled in to its deepest point. As she got closer to the small camp, she could see that just to the other side, the tunnel started making its way presumably back to the outside world again.

There was no guard posted. They simply walked right into what seemed to be some type of common area. There was a wide circle of tiny lean-tos that seemed to be composed of whatever the builders could get their hands on. There was a large multi-colored tent made from a kind of material that was almost translucent. There was one word printed on this material, and it stood out in large letters which made it look as though they were trying to race right off the fabric.

GOODYEAR, it said. There was another that looked like the floor of a small wooded area that had been taken up and thrown over a small frame to make their shelter. Yet another looked like a quilt that had been haphazardly sewn together from the same material as the blue jeans she was currently wearing.

Each tent glowed with its own dim light from within. As they passed by several of these tents on their way to the “town common” (that’s already how she thought of it), she could hear several of the inhabitants inside breathing. Ginger and Easy made no attempt to communicate with each other, even as they walked close enough to rip the coverings off their homes. Ginger could not be sure where the idea came from, but she knew somehow that the serene
quality of this place could change very quickly had she chosen to do anything of the sort. And an impulse like that–she wouldn’t get the chance to repeat it.

She and Easy stopped in the very center of the common. He made no attempt to speak or even look at her. From behind, he looked like a man waiting for a bus, or his turn in line for something. He simply stood there. He faced in the same direction in which he had been walking.

She was about to speak when a hand touched her right shoulder. Instinctively, she spun around and prepared herself for a fight. She stopped herself just before she broke the arm connected to that hand. What stopped her was the face. It was the kindly wrinkled face of someone’s grandmother. Probably several people’s grandmother. She wore a robe that simply rejected all light attempting to land on it. Ginger had never seen something so entirely
black. Still, her face floated just above the blackness and did so with a kind, understanding smile firmly in place.

“There’s no need for apology. I understand that I startled you. I assure you I meant not to.”

The sound was coming from the face, but there was something very wrong about it. She could see the lips moving, but it sounded like the voice of a much younger woman. It was not the voice of a world-weary woman who had seen too many days. The voice sounded fresh and calm and even elegant.

“I’m sorry,” answered Ginger. What else could she say?

“What happened not is past not. Therefore, we won’t worry with it, if that’s alright with you.”

She made motion as though to reply, but Easy beat her to the punch. He had silently turned and positioned himself just behind her left shoulder. How could she not have heard this? If she could have bottled and sold the adrenaline she was pumping right now, she would have been a billionaire several times over. How could she not have heard another possible threat behind her?

“She’s hurt.”

The old woman acknowledged Easy without ever looking at him. Her eyes never left Ginger’s face.

“I can see that, Easy. She was obviously surprised.” He said nothing in return. Ginger realized after the fact that Easy had overstepped some kind of invisible boundary with his short statement.

“I’m not badly hurt. Nothing a little time won’t heal,” said Ginger.

“Perhaps we can help Her out a bit, eh?” the old woman replied.

“Who do you mean?”

“Time. I think She could use a little help so She can help you.”

The old woman closed her eyes and her hands appeared from within the folds of her robe, palms up. Cupped in her hands was a small amount of a rough powder.

“What’s tha–?” She was interrupted by the old woman blowing a bit of the dust directly into her face. Instinctively, she tried to close off her windpipes, but it was too late. The slightest little bit had gotten inside.

She braced herself for a coughing fit, but it never came. Instead, she could instantly feel a warm heat over all of the wounds received from her rough landing at the mouth of the tunnel.

For a brief second, she felt as if she would swoon and fall, but she was steadied. Not by Easy or some other outside force, but from within. She opened her eyes.

The old woman was still there. Though her hands had disappeared into the black again.

“What the hell was that?”

“Ancient Chinese secret, as my grandmother used to say.” Ginger had no idea how old this woman’s grandmother might be, but if she were still around, it would come as no surprise to her at this very moment. “Why don’t you come and sit down. You are in need of much explanation, I see.”

Ginger neither agreed nor disagreed. She simply followed.

They were inside the tent that looked like it was made out of blue jeans. There was a short table in the center of the tent and many unmatched cushions all around it. On the center of the table was something that looked like a baby’s rattle: it had a bulb at the top, with a long stem hanging down below and a small loop at the bottom of the stem. It was somehow balanced on that hoop. It should have been laying on its side.

Behind the old woman was a pallet of cushions that seemed to make up the place where she slept, but Ginger could barely tell where the seats for the table ended and the bed began. There was another short table with a pitcher and glass, and yet another with a basin sitting on top.

The three of them were currently sitting around the table on the cushions with their legs folded. Out in the tunnel, Easy had seemed very confident and sure of himself. Now that they were in the camp and around the table, he was almost submissive.

The old woman began. “What can I tell you, dear?”

“I’m not sure what I need to know,” Ginger replied. “I was simply trying to leave town.”

“And you were heading west?”

“Yes.”

“You know about what lies to the west?”

“Yes,” Ginger said, and then felt she needed to explain. “I just made a snap decision to go one way or another. I figured I wouldn’t get very far to the east.”

“Indeed.” There was a brief pause, then the old woman said, “Even armed with the knowledge of what lies down the western roads, you still decided to follow them?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmmm. Now, what could possibly have sent you west with such haste knowing what you know?”

“I think I might be in trouble.”

The old woman raised an eyebrow. “Think?”

“Yeah. I…um…traded for something I shouldn’t have.”

“Yes, but how else were you to get enough rest?”

“I know, and Jake said he had…” She stopped in mid-sentence. The old woman knew about the drugs. “How could you possibly…”

The old woman smiled. “Know? Dear, there is very little that I can’t see even in the darkness of this tunnel. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. My name is Margaret. I’m the elder of our underground community. You are Ginger.”

It was an odd sensation to have yourself introduced to a complete stranger…by that stranger.

“How did you know my name?”

The old woman’s smiled broadened. “My dear, you’re not such a mystery. It’s on your pack.” Ginger blushed. With all the magic that she had seen thus far, she was expecting Margaret to tell her how many intimate relationships she had had and what type of drink she liked best. The old woman smiled.

“Ginger, you are running from something. There is something that made you grab your few belongings and leave town today. Let me first ask this: What kind of trouble?”

“I’m not sure exactly. You were right, I traded with this guy named Jake for some stuff that he said would help me sleep. The very night I had used the stuff, his place was raided. I was afraid that they would connect me to him, so I left. I’m not really sure where I’m going. I know that I have to get somewhere that I can still work my music.”

“Ah!” Margaret said, nodding. “A musician, are we?”

“Well, I’m a pirate of sorts. I scrounge around and find tunes to make music with. I guess oka…Damn!” She slapped a fist down on her left leg.

“You’ve just realized you have forgotten something?”

Something huge, lady, she thought. “I didn’t get my cassette decks.”

“Ah.” This ancient relic seemed to know what cassette decks were. Hell, for all Ginger knew, she probably owned one of the very first ones.

“I was so worried about getting picked up by the Eye and getting my ass out of town, I completely forgot to get them. How could I have been so stupid?”

“Not to worry, child. You have been through a great deal.”

“Yeah, but now I don’t have anything I can do but to go back to straight dumping.”

“Perhaps this will help?” Ginger looked up at Easy’s voice and saw he was holding her cassette decks.

Ginger just stared at him for a second. She tried to stand, but it was a bit too much to take. She wavered and fainted.

Her eyes fluttered slowly open. It took her a second to remember exactly where she was. Luckily there was still enough light for her to see, but just barely. In the dim light, she could just make out that she was still in Margaret’s tent. Her pack and case were sitting on the ground nearby. Just beside her case were her very own custom-modified cassette decks.

The power source was even connected properly and that was something that only she knew how to do. Upon closer examination, she realized that her latest acquisition was still locked into its place in the player. Her homemade direct box was still attached as well. She picked it up and turned it over to the “fat cassette” side. There was a cartridge sticking out of the rectangular hole. This cartridge was an extremely rare find of hers because the label was still somewhat legible. She could not see it in this light, but she knew beyond doubt that this cartridge bore two words: “Jerry Reed”. She wasn’t sure who those words were referring to, but she knew they were there and that if she pressed the play button, she would hear a tune about a man and the shaft to a goldmine he used to own.

There was a small coughing sound from the opening in the tent. It was Easy. She smiled at how appropriate his name seemed at this very moment.

“I hope I didn’t startle you. I knew that there was something you needed, so I got it.”

“Yeah, but how the hell did you know what it was, much less where to look for it? And, how the hell did you get it, I had it locked away!”

He looked at her and then at the ground just in front of his feet. “That’s going to take some time.”

Ginger sat at the table and listened while Easy told his story and the story of his people.

It seems that his people had made their exodus from the city about the same time as the Serious Shit Went Down. They managed to get out just in time. They retreated to the tunnel with every intention of going straight through and emerging on the other side just like she had intended, but they found the other side blocked by rubble. So, they made their way back to the lowest point in the tunnel and began to settle in for their time to emerge from the tunnel back into the city. Perhaps a dozen generations had past since that time.

They had made the tunnel their home, but without being able to get out for supplies, they knew that their days were incredibly numbered, so a group of the men made their way to the far opening in the tunnel and began to work on clearing the opening. Several of them died in the process. Part of the rubble collapsed with such a force that some of the smaller pieces were shot almost as far back as their camp.

They succeeded in getting the opening cleared, so an expedition was organized to go and find food and supplies on the other side.

They never returned.

They had headed west and never returned.

Time passed, and their people had been living in total darkness living on whatever they could catch in the depths of the darkness. Until one day, one young boy discovered that he could simply “Leap” over great distances. Legend has it that he took one step and was at the eastern mouth of the tunnel. He was in such a panic about this that he tried to step back and stepped all the way to the western side. No one ever saw him pass through the camp.

Their community had begun to adapt to their surroundings and, somehow, evolve into those adaptations.

Another person learned that they could create an artificial light. Ironically enough, when he discovered he could do this, he created a light so bright that he instantly blinded himself and his wife. However, his children and his children’s children could do the same thing. It simply became a dominant trait in his line. And when created, this light appeared outside of the body.

Easy explained that he was the first of his people who could emit light from his eyes and still see through it. He also had the ability to Leap. (“That’s how I got your belongings.”)

Over the generations, they had also changed their primary mode of communication. Among themselves, they used a kind of telepathy to communicate, but they still hung on to the old verbal ways for use when bartering for supplies on the outside.

Easy stopped for a moment. He took a deep breath before continuing.

“In all of our generations, not one person has ever Leapt or set foot back in the city until today. Outsiders come here, but we have never gone back outside. When I went back for your belongings, I became the first of our line to do so since time out of mind.”

There was a very heavy silence between them. She could tell that even with all of their evolution down here, they had still not gotten over their fear of the city; even though not one of them could remember exactly what happened that led them down here in the first place.

“Why did you do it?”

“I did it for you.”

“But you don’t even know me. You could have gotten yourself killed or caught. How did you avoid the Eye?”

“I simply Leapt into your locked storage room, took your things and Leapt back. As far as I know, no one has ever Leapt that far, either.”

“How could you have known where that was?”

“I read your mind.”

For the first time in her life, she felt as though someone genuinely cared for her and wanted her to be safe. She could see the look of absolute love in his eyes and it scared her to death.

This was too much for her. Ginger leapt to her feet. She wasn’t sure what she felt for Easy and her lack of understanding of those emotions was more than she could handle. She was thankful that he managed to retrieve her most prized possession in the world, but she was pissed off at him for how he went about getting it. She knew he was becoming obsessed with her, but she didn’t want him to get hurt. After all, she had to be leaving now, thank you very much.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he said.

“You didn’t hurt me, but you can’t just go around reading people’s minds and…” she struggled for the word “…’Leap’ off and go get stuff for them.”

“But you needed…”

“I would have gone back on my own.”

He stood up and turned his back to her. In the same amount of time it took for her to blink her eyes, he was facing her again.

“You would have been caught.”

She was still dealing with the whole instantaneous about face trick. She reeled as she spoke. “What?”

He helped sit her back down at the table. “You would have been caught. There are armed sentries standing outside your storage facility, waiting for you. I could sense them when I Leapt back there.”

She felt a chill run down her spine. Not only had he returned her most prized possession, he had no doubt saved her life in the process. She simply sat with her mouth dropped open.

Then she blinked.

Words would not fill this moment. She stood up, turned to face him and put her arms around him. She could feel the tears finding their way down her cheeks, but she was powerless to stop them.

Had she ever had someone love her in her life? She couldn’t remember. Sure, she had had plenty of relationships with men in her life, most of them physical in nature, and she had had her share of friends that seemed to enter and exit her life through a revolving door, but had any of them really loved her? The more she thought about it, she wasn’t sure of the definition of the word love until this very moment being held in the arms of a stranger.

She let go.

A flood of emotion came forward with a force she had never felt. It caught her by surprise so that she had not had time to take a breath to prepare.

She wept. Ginger wept.

And Easy held her and let her do so.

“I have to leave, you know.”

Why was this so difficult for her? She didn’t know any of these people, but she felt as if she owed her life to this man. She owed her decks, yes, and those were singularly important but…why these feelings and why were they this strong?

“I know.”

And why did he have to be so understanding about it? She was sure that if he were to beg her to stay, it would be much easier for her to leave. Instead, he just sat there staring at the little patch of floor just in front of his feet.

“I…probably will never come back, you know.”

“I know.”

She gently put her hand under his chin and lifted his face to meet hers. She smiled.

“Can’t you say anything else?”

He didn’t reply. He just looked into her eyes. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him gently on the lips.

“I never said ‘thank you’,” she whispered.

“You just did,” he replied.

She turned to gather her belongings and found that they had already been organized for her. She smiled and picked up her pack. It was decidedly lighter than it had previously been.

“Now that you are out of the city, you should probably put this on.” Easy was holding her pistol belt.

She nodded and took it from his outstretched hands. She placed it around her waist and positioned it low on her hip. She took the pistol from out of the holster, removed the magazine and saw that it was empty. She went into her pack for her ammunition and began loading the four 15-round magazines. When she had finished this ritual, she worked the slide on the pistol, placed a round in the chamber and pressed the lever that let the slide slam back home. She then placed one of the magazines in the grip and drove it home with a slap of her fist.

“9mm, right?” Easy asked.

“Yup.”

He smiled. She wasn’t sure what that smile was really about, but she figured it ultimately didn’t matter. She had to be moving on.

She went to pick up her pack and it was once again heavy. She shot a quick glance over to Easy.

“I thought you could use some more ammunition. I got you about five hundred rounds or so. I hope that’s all right.”

She opened her pack to see all of the boxes of ammunition sitting neatly at the bottom. She closed the flap and adjusted the straps for use on both shoulders. This added weight would be better carried across both shoulders on the journey she was about to take.

She smiled at Easy, gave him another quick kiss on the cheek and turned toward the opening of the tent. Her case was already locked again and the cassette decks were safely inside. She grabbed her case and turned to leave.

“We’ll see each other again,” he said.

She smiled. “With you, I have no doubt that that’s absolutely true.” And, with that, she made her way further west.

“You love her don’t you?” Margaret asked.

“Yes,” Easy replied.

“Why aren’t you going with her?”

“It’s not time yet.” He never took his eyes from the western edge of the tunnel, down which Ginger had vanished at least an hour before.

Margaret looked at him. She turned her gaze back to the tunnel and nodded. “Perhaps you’re right.”

With that, she made her way back to her tent, leaving Easy at his vigil.