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The Northridge neighborhood was one of the safest, quietest, and most beautiful parts of the city. Spacious, golden homes with meticulously groomed lawns sat in silent darkness as the neighborhood slept. The only sound was the gentle whisper of the creek that meandered through the community.
The creek was one of the primary reasons Adam had chosen this neighborhood ten years ago. Many times he had followed it out of the city, tracking it for miles in hopes it would take him to the pond that brought him into this world when he was a child. His many excursions south of the orchard in search of the pond always had the same result. He returned to the city empty, frustrated, and lonely.
Over the years, the stream had become his companion. He often came to it when he was troubled. He would sit, sometimes for hours, watching the ever-changing currents, or a standing wave that would slowly build then collapse on itself. The crosscurrents, hydraulics, eddies, wave trains, pour-overs—the rich complexities combining to make a simple stream captivated his mind.
Sitting at the creek was the next best thing to getting out of the city altogether. It seemed his thoughts were clearer when he was away from the city. But even then, memories of his home and family were out of reach. Like a piece of ice in his hand, the tighter he attempted to grip them, the more they slipped away.
His only connection to his arrival in this world was a set of maps he created in his searches—the product of years of surveying the area south of the city, section-by-section. He hoped one day he might show them to the Great Ones. Perhaps they could help him find the pond. Adam prized the maps, keeping them carefully hidden in his house.
Just a block south of the creek, within his lavishly furnished bedroom, Adam had just drifted off to sleep when the piercing tone of the city’s warning siren jolted him awake.
Again?
He bolted from his bed, dressed, grabbed a jacket, and hurried out to the street. It was the third time the siren had sounded in as many days.
Already the street had filled with Adam’s neighbors, and the buzz of speculation permeated the nervous crowd as everyone scanned the surrounding buildings.
Adam spotted his old friend George standing between their two houses out at the street and joined him. “Which building is it this time?” Adam asked.
George shook his gray head. “I don’t know. I just heard the siren, same as you. S’pose it could be just about any—”
“There!” a woman shouted, pointing to the north. Adam looked just in time to see a giant dust cloud rising in the place where a beautiful golden high-rise had stood moments earlier.
Within seconds, the sickening boom arrived. So many buildings had fallen lately that the sound had become familiar. It knotted Adam’s stomach. So much suffering. There was hardly ever a building collapse that didn’t bring the little girl’s words back to Adam’s memory. The gold is cursed. Was the city doomed?
Adam and a few others ran toward the collapsed structure. The siren gave a pretty good warning this time. Hopefully most of the people made it out of the building.
As he ran, Adam glanced toward the city gate as he had so many times over the years. He felt a tinge of sadness, remembering that day he first entered this city, so determined to find his way home. He shook his head.
Adam arrived at what had become a familiar scene—survivors searching for loved ones and tending to the wounded, others wandering around in a daze, and many dead.
He was glad to see a medical team already working to set up a makeshift triage area. With each collapse, the workers were fewer. Most people stayed in their homes to protect them from looters.
As he had often done before, Adam gathered a group of men to begin the rescue effort. His position as senior manager in one of the gold mines had equipped him to mobilize people.
One of the many reasons his workers held him in high esteem was how, unlike other managers, Adam was no stranger to hard work. An imposing man, three inches over six feet and the muscles of a laborer, he often dirtied his hands right alongside the miners to help meet deadlines.
“There’s someone down there,” one man said, pointing to the rubble under his feet. “I can hear her.”
A beam jutted from the rubble, blocking access to a hole that echoed cries for help. The men lined up along the beam. The hulking man next to Adam looked like he might be able to move the beam himself.
“On three!” Adam looked down the line to make sure everyone was ready. “One, two, three!”
A chorus of grunts and a shout from the big guy filled the dusty air. The beam rose a few inches, then fell. A second round of grunts also failed as the beam dropped back into place.
Adam gathered several long pieces of timber and steel rods and gave one to each man.
“Wedge your lever under here, here, and here. We’ll use this log as a fulcrum and pry it off.”
On three, the beam rose and fell a foot to the side. Adam moved the fulcrum and they heaved again. Another foot of progress. Three more, and the beam was out of the way.
The group tore through the remaining layers of debris until they could see the woman. But four solid gold pillars blocked access to her.
Two of the men stepped back. A third attempted to push the top pillar, but the moment his hands contacted the gold, he winced and yanked them back.
“I don’t have any of my own gold,” he said. “I can’t do this.”
Adam touched his wrist. He had forgotten his gold bands as well.
Not long after coming to the city, he had caught his knee on the corner of a bench opening a painful laceration. George was with him at the time and pulled one of the gold bands from his own wrist and presented it to Adam.
“This is now yours. Touch it to your knee.”
Adam obeyed. In an instant, the pain dissipated. After a few minutes of contact with the band, the wound had healed.
Adam looked up at George. “When I first met you, you wouldn’t even let me touch your bands. And now you give me one as a gift?”
George removed the other band and tossed it to Adam. “The healing properties only work if it is your own gold. Touching someone else’s gold has the opposite effect. It will burn your skin. Take these and keep them with you.”
Over the years, Adam had accumulated a large stockpile of gold, but none of the pieces were as dear to him as the bands, which he kept as a symbol of George’s friendship.
Adam now understood why George preferred bands over gold worn some other way. Though they looked like handcuffs, they were really the opposite. Having them on his wrists made them easy to apply to an injury while leaving his hands free.
Still, Adam didn’t like wearing them. He kept them hidden in his home. Their value to him as a gift from George far exceeded their monetary worth or healing benefits. This night, however, he wished he had brought them.
“We can’t save her,” one man said, and walked away.
Another followed.
Adam shook his head. Cowards.
One by one the remaining men turned to go.
Adam’s clenched teeth gave way to a lump in his throat when he turned from the men back to the woman. How could he get to her without help?
“I won’t leave you,” he assured her.
He used whatever tools he could—boards, rods, tiles—anything to avoid direct contact with the gold. Still, his hands burned. He could hold a tool no more than a few seconds before the burning from the gold heated the tool so hot he had to drop it. He knew it would be weeks before the burning in his hands would subside, and the longer he did this, the worse it would be. But he couldn’t leave the woman. He kept working.
After two hours, he had removed the gold beams, climbed down to where the woman lay, and discovered what pinned her. A large, stone slab—too heavy to move with a lever.
After several attempts, Adam halted his efforts and sat on a beam to catch his breath and study the impossible task before him.
Then he rose and walked away.
The woman’s sobs returned. She pleaded, “No! Don’t leave me.”
Adam found three women combing through the debris for survivors. After giving them instructions, he returned to the pinned woman.
Minutes later, the three ladies came, dragging a cable. Adam fished it under the slab, then held the other end as he climbed to the top of a steel and brick wall that was still standing. Thirty feet from the ground, Adam secured the cable to the top of the wall.
He climbed down and recruited several men to help. They surrounded a large beam and on Adam’s signal rammed the beam against the wall putting tension on the cable.
Pieces of brick trickled down.
“Again!” The men slammed the wall a second time. Then a third. After the fourth try, the wall creaked, then fell with a crash, pulling the cable and lifting the slab enough to free the woman.
Adam scrambled down to her. “Can you stand?”
The woman moaned through her tears. “I can’t move my legs.”
Adam slid one arm under her back, another under her knees, and struggled to his feet. He carried her toward a triage staging area, ignoring the stinging pain from his burns.
The woman was dark complected with long black hair and bright gray eyes. Holding her made Adam forget his pain. She was stunning.
He knew better than to read anything into her arms around his neck. She was simply holding on while being carried. Still, it filled Adam with desire. He couldn’t help imagining her embracing him out of affection.
But he could tell from her dress and jewelry she was from a much higher class than he. Adam had done well for himself as a gold mine manager and, through some shrewd investments, had amassed a larger stockpile of gold than most in his wealthy neighborhood. But nothing like her wealth. Just one of her bracelets would cost all the gold in Adam’s house.
Get a grip, Adam. You could never be with a woman like her.
Adam set her gently on a cot and pulled a nurse aside. “Is she going to be okay?”
“Looks like severe bruising on her legs. We’ll know more after the doctor examines her.”
Adam stepped back to the cot. “I think you’ll be just fine,” he said.
She reached up and clutched his arm. “What is your name?”
“I’m Adam. I was—”
“I’ve never seen anyone do what you did. I can’t tell you how grateful I am. How are your hands?”
“Oh, they’ll be fine,” he said, turning his palms up, then quickly closing them to hide the burns. “I was happy to help.”
He wanted to say something else, but his mind went blank. He had never met a woman like her. Part of him felt he had no business talking to her at all, but another part of him had the feeling she wanted to talk to him. Was that just hopeful imagination? Or ...
“The doctor will see her now,” said an attendant. He and another man lifted the cot and carried her to the examination tent. Adam watched as they disappeared into the tent. His insides ached, as though something had been torn from him.
He returned to the worksite and rejoined his group but couldn’t do much because of his burns. His thoughts kept returning to the woman. It felt good to have saved at least one person—especially someone like her. But so many others weren’t as fortunate. Hours ago they were carrying on with their lives, enjoying their wealth without a care in the world. Now they lay trapped in a mangled pile of twisted metal, bodies crushed, taking their final breaths alone in the darkness.
Adam clenched his fists. “If they’re so brilliant, why can’t the prophets figure out what’s causing these collapses?”
The man closest to him stood straight, looked around to see if anyone else heard, then back to Adam. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” Adam said, continuing his work.
The man persisted. “Were you questioning the Great Ones?”
“I’m not questioning them. It’s just ...” He waved his arm toward the rubble. “All this suffering and death—it’s getting worse. With all their knowledge of the properties of metals, why can’t the Great Ones discover what’s causing these collapses? Look.” Adam pushed his foot against a steel beam, and it bent and snapped like a dead tree branch. “Every part of this building that’s plated with gold is like this. Those beams over there that had no contact with gold are as strong as ever.”
The man dropped his shovel, took a step toward Adam, and said, “Don’t be an idiot. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Adam had always admired the Great Ones and had spent many hours over the years studying their writings. But while their insights were fascinating, he found them unsatisfying because the topics were mostly confined to the city and the orchard. He found a few references to the pond, but no clues on its location, and nothing at all about the high country or the world he had come from or how he might return.
He didn’t fault them for that. How could they have information about another world? But this—this is a problem in the city they built. They should know why this is happening.
“Can’t you see what’s right in front of your face?” Adam said. “Look around. Obviously, something’s wrong.”
“Sabotage,” the man said. “The mountain people send their kids here and they sneak into the buildings and ... do something to them. I don’t know how they’re doing it, but I’m telling you, it’s them. And if you can’t see that, you’re a fool.”
“Maybe I am,” Adam said, and turned to go home.
Normally Adam enjoyed walking at night along the creek that led to his neighborhood. But this time his mind churned in turmoil. He knew something was wrong with the gold, but whenever he tried to think it through, a fog darkened his mind. Why couldn’t he think?
Adam looked at his burns. I need to get home and put some gold on these. Once again, the little girl’s voice sounded in his head—“Don’t touch the gold! It’s cursed.” Why had she said that? Everyone knew not to touch other people’s gold. Was she talking about touching his own gold? Or did she know something about the sabotage even then—ten years ago?
When he came to the street that led from the creek to his house, he paused. His aching muscles and sore feet screamed for rest, and he could do permanent damage to his hands if he didn’t get some gold on them soon. But the peaceful gurgling of the creek soothed his soul. He didn’t want to leave it.
He enjoyed the creek even more on the outside of the wall where it was larger, and the steeper gradient caused rapids.
Adam began walking again, passing his street, following the creek downstream. He needed to get outside the city and think.
When he came to the wall, he waded as far into the creek as he could without losing his footing, ducked under the water, let it carry him under the wall, and came up on the other side.
He made his way back up the bank and continued walking beside the creek until he came to a giant boulder that blocked a third of the creek. He climbed to the top, brushed away some pebbles, and sat, taking in the rhythms of the stream below and contemplating his life in the golden city.
A shiver rattled his body, his clothes still wet from the creek. The chills made his thoughts drift back to that day at the pond. Awakening memories that had slept for many years, he recalled how this world once seemed half real to him. Why was that? Half real compared to what? This is the only world he’d ever really known. And yet, something was wrong.
A sound interrupted his thoughts. Crunch, crunch, crunch—approaching footsteps. Adam stood but quickly realized he was cornered. If it was a wild animal, there was no escape other than jumping into the creek.
It sounded more like a person than an animal, but what person would be out here at night ... unless ... was he about to be accosted by the mountain people?
Movement between some branches! Was it a bear? Adam stepped back.
There it was again—moving toward a clearing. When it comes out of the trees, will it see me?
The creature emerged. Moonlight reflected off shiny black hair. It was a little girl.
