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The past is the present. The present is the past. I listened while Matthew spoke our lore and gave instructions. I listened to the story of how the first of us fell from the sky and about the miracle of Central while I read. I tried to remember but there was nothing to remember. Except maybe Luke’s words. He said once, “There is nothing but what is and what comes.” I didn’t know what that meant then, and I don’t know what it means now. If there’s nothing but what is, why did Luke want me to remember? And what did Luke want me to remember?
Sierra and I were to go out and look. Every day some of us go out and look. We look for the machines. We look for others like us. Sometimes we find neither. Sometimes, one or the other. Never, both.
Linc, Chevy, Austin and Dakota were to go out and gather. We gather what we can find. What we can salvage from the stone ghosts. What little we find sustains us.
Jetta and Rabbit were to go out and stand watch. What we stand watch for I don’t know. Matthew never says. Luke never said either. But we take turns watching over Central just the same.
Others were given instructions too but I hadn’t named them. Luke had named them. They were his to mind or not mind. Not mine.
Sierra, today with me. Luke would have said that was good. Sierra talked now. Sometimes. She didn’t before, but she does now.
Outside wasn’t something I wanted to rush to meet. It was better within Central’s walls than without. But I was the first to walk the long hall. The first to climb the stone stairs.
I unbarred the great steel doors and opened them letting in the bright sunlight. I waited and listened, neither afraid nor anxious because those were things Luke carried with him and not me. I never understood why he always asked if I was afraid or anxious, sad or happy. Those were all his things, not mine. Except that now they are becoming mine.
I don’t know why. I don’t like them. I don’t want them. I want Luke.
I waited, looking up, not paying any attention to the stone ghosts all around me. There were no sounds, not even far away. There was nothing but blue in the sky above and the sun, that curious orange ball that hurt my eyes to look at. It was so bright—too bright. But I had to look at it because it moved when I wasn’t looking. Always away. Always away from Central like it was trying to tell me something.
“I’m Cedes,” I say sometimes when I look up and find the sun has moved. Luke saw the sun like I did. It was because I saw the sun move that Luke left. He never said that exactly, but it was why. I knew. It’s why he left the book to me and not Matthew too.
The others followed slowly. I had to wait and wait and wait by the doors. As usual, I looked out and watched as I waited.
Sometimes it was like someone out there was watching me as I looked out. Today was one of those days. Their eyes on me made my skin crawl. I wanted to shake my fist at them. To shout, “Go away! Run! Leave us alone!” But I didn’t want to disturb the quiet.
The silence was good. It was something Luke would have said. If I had to go out, better to go when it is quiet like this. Sierra would understand the quiet too. She would. She was like me—or at least more now than before. Luke saw it first. I saw it in his eyes when he saw and knew, and that was when I knew too. Sierra was like us. We had only to show her the way, as Luke showed me the way.
Turning back to the dark hall, I saw the broken stones above the door, the word “Central” etched into what remained. The others were waiting at the edge of the light. “Come,” I said as I waved them to me. I helped them up the stone stairs and through the doors.
As we gathered beneath the bright blue sky, I named each as Luke would have done if he were here. “Linc,” I said pointing. Then I named Chevy, Austin and Dakota too. I gave them the bags for their backs that they could put their gatherings in and then I waved them away, saying, “Go, gather. Find what you can and return.”
I took Jetta and Rabbit by the hand and brought them to the tower. “Go, watch,” I said as I made circles of my thumb and fingers and put them in front of my eyes.
I waited as I watched them climb the gray tower and then Sierra and I went out and looked. That was our instruction. We walked past the stone ghosts until we came to the empty places and then we climbed the long stone stairs up the hill.
The sun moved to where we weren’t during our climb. At the top of the stairs, I turned back toward Central. “Cedes,” I said. “I haven’t gone anywhere but Luke has.”
Sierra touched my lips as I spoke. Her eyes seemed to follow the movement of my tongue. It was as if she was trying to remember something. Perhaps, Luke had told her to remember too.
“Will you talk today, Sierra?” I asked.
Sierra stared blankly back.
I smiled. In the back of my mind, I saw Luke’s tall, lithe form. He was winking at me, but I don’t understand why.
“Will you talk today, Sierra?” I repeated.
Sierra looked left, right, and then back at me.
“Luke’s gone,” I said. “Did he tell you to remember too?”
Sierra didn’t answer. Her eyes were empty—no, they were fixed on something else now. I turned so I could see what she saw. I looked and looked but saw nothing. The wind was in the trees though. Perhaps that was what Sierra saw. Perhaps though it was the quiet.
Something about the quiet wasn’t right. The flyers—birds—should have been making coos and calls. But there were no birds in the sky, in the trees or anywhere. Everything was wrong. Where are you Luke?
Sierra and I looked out into the emptiness and waited. We waited for them. The machines. The machines who cared not enough to kill or enslave us.
“Sierra?” I said and she turned to me, her sharp green eyes fixed on mine. “Do you know where Luke’s gone?”
Sierra said nothing, but her eyes were full of inquiries. I brushed back a long spill of black hair from her eyes, watched as she struggled with something inside her.
“It’s okay. Words will come when you’re ready.” I said it, believed it, trusted that it would be true because I needed it to be true. Central without someone to talk with, to share with, was as empty as the space before me.