Manifest (The Darkening Trilogy) (34 page)

“We can’t go any further.”  Then, grasping for a reason she spat, “What about the dunomads?”

“We can outrun them.”  Alex said. 

She searched again, and as soon as the thought entered her mind she quickly spoke.  “Maybe we can sneak back in.”

“Are you insane?”

“You crossed the crevasse, didn’t you?  When you were only twelve.  You said it had a bottom!”

“I don’t want to go back!”  Alex yelled.  “If they opened the gates right now,
I wouldn’t go.
”

“But we can fight them, Alex.  We can fight their decision.”

“That’s all you’ve ever done is fight their decisions!  Now you have to fight against
that
.”  He pointed out to the horizon, but Olesianna couldn’t bear to follow his gesture.  “
We
have to fight against
that
.”  Alex received no response from his mother.  She simply stared at the console.  “There has to be something out there,” he continued.  “Who do you think left the time capsule?  The dunomads?  No way.  There has to be something other than sand out there.”  Olesianna was silent.  Alex shook his head and then with an anger building in him, raised his foot, about to stomp down on the accelerator pedal.

“Wait,” Olesianna said.  “What if the dunomads catch us?”

Alex looked back at the horizon and some loose sand whipped up into a corkscrew.  Without a response Alex pushed his foot down and sent the hover car soaring forward, Teleopolis slowly disappearing behind.

T
hey drove into the dead land for nearly an hour before Alex started crying.  There was no more warning other than his suddenly sunken head and a sniffle, followed by uncontrolled sobs.  His sister was dead and he could still feel her charcoal hand under the blanket before they took her body away.  She was dead and he would never see her frail little form again.  He would never hear her laugh or know that gleaming smile she had when Alex returned home from school and sat on her bed, careful not to disconnect any wires or tubes from the machines nearby.  She was dead now – and it was his fault.

The hover car slowly drifted off course, sliding sideways along the flat landscape.  Taking his hands off the wheel, Alex slumped over towards the window, feeling another indescribable loss that his first inclination was not to lean towards his mother for comfort.

Olesianna stared at him, her hands gripping the interior of the car as it eventually spun around in a lazy circle facing back towards the horizon.  But she couldn’t bring herself to take the wheel or slow the vehicle down.  There was no real danger of course, they could have drifted like that for hours and never so much as gone over a bump, and any approaching persons could be seen for miles.  But that wasn’t what scared Olesianna. 

The hover car finally came to a stop and Alex looked over at his mother with reddened eyes. 

“I’m sorry Alex,” she said to her son, apologizing for what she knew he was angry about.  And Alex nodded.  He didn’t yet understand the guilt Olesianna carried, only that she couldn’t be there for him.  So he sucked back his tears and accepted her apology. 
She is suffering too
, he thought.  After a short conversation, one that seemed to punctuate the hopelessness of their situation, they decided to turn off the hover car and remain there till night time when resting would be too dangerous and travel would be best.

M
y name is Alexavier Ganithala and I am a former citizen of the Nine Providence City: Teleopolis.  My mother and I have been banished from that place.  Before I was banished I found a sealed capsule beyond the outskirts of the city and a collection of things inside.  Most of them were considered illegal in Teleopolis and they are partly the reason I was banished...  The items were:

○
                 
A Compact Disk Player with an assortment of AA Batteries to power it.

○
                 
A removable Compact Disk inside, labeled “Classical Music Legacy.”

○
                 
A pair of headphones made for the CD Player.

○
                 
A round glass bottle with a liquid inside.  (I haven’t opened it yet because I don’t know what the gold lettering says.  It’s in another language.)

○
                 
An assortment of books entitled:  “This Global World: Political Science and Government Policy,” “Deciphering Today: An Anthropological Look into World Religions,” and “the USSF Survival Handbook.”

○
                 
A locket with a picture in it.  (It’s a picture of a man and woman standing on a green hillside with a gigantic red bridge in the background.  On the back is engraved, “James and Marguerite Aulico.”)  I wear it around my neck for luck.

I am writing this because I think one day I will leave behind a sealed container for others to find.  Even though terrible things happened because of the time capsule, I believe I was meant to find it.  If I was back in Teleopolis I would say:
the will
meant for me to find it… but I’m not back there, and I don’t know what I think anymore. 

I guess I should start a little earlier for you to understand…

“What are you writing?”  Olesianna asked.

“A journal,” Alex replied.  Then, feeling suddenly self-conscious, he closed the note-book and slipped off the hood of the hover car and returned to the driver’s seat.  It would be getting dark soon and without the glow of Teleopolis, Alex worried about what the night would bring.  Olesianna worried even more.

T
hey traveled through the night, but slowly.  Alex wasn’t convinced there weren’t more crevasses, regardless of what he had been taught, and he didn’t want to suddenly drive into one.  Every now and then he would get spooked at nothing in particular chasing them and go a little bit faster.  Olesianna didn’t help the tension as she was always scanning, looking around and leaning against the glass as if only a moment ago, she had heard something and was trying to spot it. 

At daybreak, Alex was exhausted and with the rapidly brightening landscape, he convinced his mother to let him sleep for a little bit.  She would stay awake, she said, and judging by the look in her eyes, Alex had no doubt. 

In those off hours that begin the day Alex dreamt of Teleopolis.  But this is only to say he dreamt, and his dream took place in the only world he had ever known: the nine providences of the city, each its own town but part of the whole.  He dreamt again of his first years in school.  This time though, it was no particular day or even a particular memory, but a jumbled amalgamation of a life spent in classrooms, being instructed.

Alex stood in the back of a nondescript classroom and watched the teacher lecture on the geography of Teleopolis.  “And the nine providences form what shape?”  The teacher gestured at a pull down map of Teleopolis.  It was an orderly and consistently laid out city with clear parallels in streets, blocks, buildings, parks, factories, store houses, and schools for each providence. 

The class droned the answer to the teacher’s question, “An octagon.”  Like a wagon wheel, the borders between each providence led inwards to the center.

“Correct, with First Providence in the center.”  The teacher pointed to the central providence which acted as a hub to all the rest.  Drawn into some of the large central buildings were words like city hall, hospital, and an assortment of acronyms for agency headquarters.  “And what lies beyond our city to the
west
?” the teacher asked next.

An eager student towards the front of his class raised his hand.

“Yes, Alexavier?” the teacher said, pointing to him.

From the back of the class, Alex watched his younger self, feet not yet touching the floor as he sat in his desk, answer the question.  “An ocean.”

“Not just an ocean…” said the teacher and immediately several other hands shot up including Alex’s, eager to redeem his oversight.  The teacher called on another child.

“The
Endless
Ocean,” the girl said emphatically.  It had long been determined that the ocean was too dangerous and uncertain to be worth exploring and instead should only be utilized for food, drinking, and power.  In fact, only a select few professionals from the seventh providence were allowed to learn how to swim.  It was a needless skill for anyone else.

“Correct,” the teacher continued.  “And what lies to our east?”

Alex, standing in the back of the classroom, winced.  He was vaguely aware that he was dreaming, and the mention of this place hurt him to hear.

This time a torrent of answers erupted, the urge to answer too great for raising hands.

“The dunomads!”

“The great fissure!”

“The wasteland!”

After calming the students the teacher said.  “Those are all fine answers.  The great fissure–” the teacher pointed to the black rift in the map which ran in along the eastern edge of the city, “which was opened up by the will, protects us from the evil dunomads…” In response to the mention of these creatures, the children all made the scariest faces they could and growled at the teacher as was customary in the younger grades.  “…who live in the wasteland.  Now, who can tell me about
the will
?”

“
W
ell, I’ll be.”  Alex stammered.  It was hardly the discovery he was hoping to find, but it nevertheless seemed to offer some degree of reassurance.  Not more than a day’s drive eastward from Teleopolis was the horizon they had been staring at all this time, the highest ridge visible.  And now, cresting it, they could see what lay beyond: a field of parched shrubbery, brittle and wiry, much of it in skeletal bulbs or prickly green trunks. 

“What?” Olesianna asked, peering fearfully over the dashboard to see.  “Where are they?”

“Plants, Mom.  They’re plants.”

“I don’t understand,” she said absently, her eyes still searching for a threat.

“It means this isn’t a total wasteland.”  While Alex had optimistically taken this as a good sign – he had always known that Teleopolis lied to its people, but here was proof – Olesianna took it to mean that the dunomads would be feasting on their flesh before the sun set.

“Alex we have to go around.”

“Around what?  It’s everywhere.”

Undaunted, Alex pressed on into the valley, and Olesianna resumed her watchful gaze.  Before long, the sparse foliage began to thicken, and soon plots of yellow grass and large bushes emerged from the ground. 

“Stop Alex,” Olesianna said in that subtle but forceful tone of hers.  Immediately Alex began to decelerate.  It was the tone she had used when Alexavier was a child and Olesianna needed him to be close while crossing the street or walking in a busy parking lot.  Somewhere beneath the jolt it gave Alex, a glimpse of her former authority had shown through, and it was reassuring to him.

As Alex looked among the shrubs for a place to stop, he suddenly saw what his mother must have seen.  It was a building.  At least he thought it was.  With a final, inexperienced depression of the break, they lurched to a stop and Alex looked nervously over to his mother.  “What is it?” he whispered.

“Stay in here,” she said back, and bravely opened the door.  Never setting foot outside, Olesianna stood on the foot rail and used the door and the roof to balance herself while looking into the distance.

“Alex,” she said after climbing back in, “I want you to drive around.”

“Drive around what?” he asked frantically, a youthful sense of invincibility and curiosity allowing him to hope for even the dangerous answer.

“It looks like an old town.”

“Are there people!” he shrieked, his voice cracking.

“I don’t want to know, Alex, now please drive around – Alex!” she called after him, but Alex had already opened the door and climbed up onto the roof.  Depressing the metal
sheet with a twanging thud, he gained his balance next to the supplies crates and stood up to his full height.  Before him lay the grass enveloped ruins and foundations of more than thirty buildings.  Not one had more than two standing walls and none among them had a wall more than five feet in height.  Nevertheless, this was already a grave blasphemy against the will.  It defied everything Alex had ever been taught in Teleopolis.  There was not supposed to have been any other civilizations, especially not ones that had concrete walls and foundations!  And if it was the dunomads, then they were far more than banished desert people living in caves.

Alex startled as Olesianna grabbed his pant cuffs and hissed, “Alexavier Ganithala, you get down off that roof this instant!”  With a clamoring that echoed throughout the ruins, Alex slipped back into the cabin.  “Who do you think used to live there?” Alex asked excitedly, beginning a detour south.

“That’s none of our concern, Alex.  Just keep driving.”

A
s Alex drove, the excitement he felt about the ruins quickly faded, and with the help of prolonged silence and his overactive imagination, it gave way to fear.  At first it was like when Alex would get the news that school had been cancelled due to potential dunomad activity in Providences three through five.  The township alert would be sounded and heard throughout the streets and Alex would watch from his window as people ran back into their homes.  The following morning everyone was tense and would jump at the slightest provocation, to accuse someone of something suspicious or, just as likely, rally together, proud to be Teleopolans.  The prevailing cautiousness meant the school buses were late, the teachers were slow to start and it turned Alex’s five day school week into three and half days at worst.