The Death of the Wave (17 page)

But I thought of nothing.

Nothing but the fall.

I heard you call my name,

saw you, my hero, rush forward

with arms as wide as angels’ wings.

And then there was nothing.

Nothing at all.

I awoke in your chambers,

propped up against your desk,

you, before me, with an aid kit,

cleaning the blood from an abrasion

that I could not remember getting.

“How are you feeling?”
you inquired softly.

Darwin.

You said that you were sorry that you loved me.

“The King is dead,” I murmured without sense.

“Long live the King.”

And you drew back with a shuddering breath,

but your eyes seemed touched by fire.

“Long live the king,”
you repeated, dazed,

and shook your head in wonder.

I began to laugh, and you whipped back to alertness,

at once by my side.

“Comet—”
you began,

but I stopped you, giggling hysterically—

“And long may you reign!”

Your brow creased and then understanding dawned

in your ink-black eyes.

You held me close then,

and trembled at the fate of a King.

“I have to send you to the Barracks,”
you whispered,

“Only for a time. I will find a loophole. Watch for the Palace car at Cleaning. I will find you.”

And then you shifted and grabbed my head

to gaze into my eyes with those eerie lights in yours.

“You must do what you can. Find Blue, Comet. Let Eden burn so that something new may grow.”

My fate, but

“How can I get him to—”

I could only think of you, at the reins of power—-

“Write him a letter.”

Left and lost.

“Why me? You are the writer. I can’t—”

Alone.

“Try.”

And I would.

I would keep you safe.

“Don’t leave me,” I protested helplessly, and you smiled the smile

that I love and remembered.

“I will never leave you, Scientist.”

“I need you.”

And as footsteps sounded,

the cock of the rifles

to escort me.

You held me, then, Darwin.

For a very long time.

Why did I do it?

Had the people thought that I lived,

I am sure that would have been the question

that I would have been asked.

But then again, had they known I lived,

I would not have lived much longer.

The last time I saw the outside,

before my time sequestered,

they hated me.

They hated me, and wanted me dead.

For in their minds, I had lied to them.

I had led them to the slaughter,

had dangled Newton as a prize above their heads

only to have their sons, their daughters,

shot down in a hail of gunfire and then burned.

But it was not me!

Only the Artist, working through an innocent.

You see, I am innocent!

But I am not.

I am not.

Why did I do it?

I know my answer, forever repeated,

so much that it has become meaningless.

Because it is better to die by overpopulation

Then survive artificially in a system of hate.

But perhaps it was simpler than that.

Perhaps it was simply that I was one of them.

That I had always considered myself a traitor

when I had joined the State as a Breaker.

Blue never understood.

But I had been so certain.

I had thought that I had seen men hungry.

I had thought that I had seen enough horrors

to damn the entire human race

without a guilty twinge for my principles.

Freedom rather than repression.

Hope rather than fear.

This I still believe.

But was the cause worth the cost?

Can one ever be sure?

I was once a child.

Of what fragility is a motivation?

I should have been on the side of the rebellion.

Darwin and I are on neither side but Darwin tells me—

the Martyr was the champion of the revolution

before she faded away.

And the Artist was on the side of the State,

before he thought the Martyr dead.

And what are we? Using the cause of the Artists

to further a new rebellion.

I dress for the Barracks,

and hidden with me are the pages of the Edicts

to give to the Artist.

Paper is precious, and he shall write a new civilization

on the back of the old.

Bound in the metal pieces torn from a booklet

once owned by a boy with laughing dark eyes and dark hair.

56859.

My friend was killed in the Hives after he failed his CEE.

My friend gave me his book of Edicts to keep me safe,

and this is all that is left of him.

One inch.

But it is enough.

Enough for the boy that did not survive long enough to get a name.

Enough for the boy that is forgotten already.

This system will be stripped of its power.

There will, must be a better way.

But first, the glorious revolution.

And then the take over, the take over that must be viewed as a betrayal.

Let this revolution be written on the pages

torn from the book of the Edicts.

Let Author reign once more,

but to our purposes.

Let it begin,

and let the world burn if only to save a remnant.

For one day, the State will say,

we will be dead.

But not today.

We are not dead today.

The time of the Cull

They say that it starts out

with a tickle at the back of the throat

and reddish eyes,

a feverish brow and aching limbs.

Then comes the swellings all over the body and fatigue.

Your whole body feels like it is burning

and your hair and teeth begin to fall out as the lesions grow.

I have seen men that should have long been dead.

And I write to stave off forgetting.

Cleaning Day has moved to all days

but my writing has not hastened.

Still a letter once a month from the stranger

this time to tell me to continue for

the draft is not complete.

To rally the soldiers once more.

The traitors and the empty men.

But I have seen men that should have been dead.

Men with eyes as blank as gray stones.

Men that cannot stand

and so were pulled to the side and shot like horses.

And the Cleaners move their sticks in decisiveness

and nod their bird-like masks like strange flowers.

Masks or faces?

I start at a cough and will wait

until the sickness overtakes my own body.

I cannot hurry my work for

inspiration keeps eluding me.

But I cannot die, not yet.

I have felt the burning in my throat,

and yesterday, a lesion

like the mark of a whore upon my hand.

But I will try to remember

until the day that I am dead.

They have stopped shooting men

as that leaves a corpse,

and they have taking to burning.

I will try.

I will try.

I will try to remember.

EDICT 9095: A new edict has been formed. The prerogative of the State is the safety of its citizenry. There shall be no more choosing to take on the duty of the Breakers. All those who score across all areas of the CEE shall see joining the Breakers mandatory. If a man is a Breaker, that man belongs to the State. If a review proves that an offender is culpable of severing this covenant, that man will be imprisoned or else put to death.

Everything was ready for the Barracks.

But first, the Camps and home.

Poet’s Camp as we arrived was near deserted.

Shanty town, slow burn of fires,

the cast of the trash, and starving dogs.

But the boy confessed False Author’s name,

and that she had had children.

The tilted shack

that the leader Dante had once called throne

was waiting.

So 376 held my hand tightly

But why did the dog betray his master?

and we went inside.

The forgotten infant was there,

screaming in a makeshift crib,

and there was a boy with a dirty face,

who sat on the floor and played.

My heart went out to him

in one terrible instant

as I stepped forward into the light,

removed my mask to clear my sight.

And at the sight of my ruined face

the boy began to scream.

“No,” I whispered, as my eyes burned.

“No, I will protect you.”

And I reached out my hand.

376 was there for him in an instant, ripping off his mask

to reveal himself as human.

Just as I revealed myself as monster.

And the boy clung to the big man, burying his face in his chest.

No time for reflection, the other, the infant,

crying angrily, and far too thin.

Its furious cries and the sobs of the boy filled the shack.

I held it close to my breast and glanced at 376,

who gently put aside the child and went to my side.

“We must take them both to the nearest Hive, first,”
he whispered.

But I shook my head.

“The Hives are not safe.”

“The Citadel will once more aid the Camps.

The rebellion will soon be ended.

They all think you dead,”

376 replied, softly, reasonably,

and his eyes were serene and far away.

“It is the only way.”

The boy, without hearing, regained his feet,

wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand

and asked: “Where is my mother?”