By Liam Henrie
Liam Henrie was born in Naples, NY, where he spent his childhood frolicking in the woods, daydreaming, reading fantasy, and generally wasting time. At some point he started writing, producing his first fantasy novels which he has since carefully hidden away where no one will find them. More recently, he has written a number of short stories, a column in the Brighton High School newspaper, and a short play, “Reformation,” which was performed as part of Geva Theatre’s Young Writers Showcase in 2011. Liam now has a column, “Out of the Mouths of Goats,” which will be running in The Cornell Daily Sun on alternate Mondays. He is currently attending Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences as an Environmental Science and Sustainability major, attempting to ensure that the world depicted in his story never becomes a reality.
In our final story, “A Man Outside,” a postwar dystopia promises comfort for a privileged few. What about the downtrodden residents of Outer Rochester? Liam’s tale provides a study in contrast amid the specter of those beyond the city walls.
—
Jake Miller was in a good mood. A damn good mood. Everything seemed especially pleasant. Jake glanced up at the city’s canopy, supported by the tops of skyscrapers that held in the filtered air, its piezoelectric layers generating power from the wind and precipitation. It was far more efficient than the old turbines. He smiled; a man could feel comfortable underneath that. One layer was a polarizer keeping out the worst of the sun’s radiation. Rochester had taken a step toward the future when the city put up that canopy, and another had been taken today. He and Andrew had gotten their patent.
He glanced at the sidewalk. This part of the city had piezoelectric sidewalks. A friend of his at RIT had been pressing for such sidewalks all over the city, but the mayor hadn’t thought they were worth it. Jake grinned and jumped, landing with a thump. He wondered how many watts that generated. Because that energy was worthwhile now, thanks to him and Andrew.
Turning off the street, Jake walked down an alley and into the tunnel that led to the Monroe 14th car station. Even going off-filter didn’t bother him like it normally did, as the small airlock in the tunnel exchanged the clean, doctored Inner City air for the Outer City’s vague smell of decay. Emerging above the Outer City, on the outer edge of the Inner Loop wall, he paused, looked around, and tapped his ear.
“Andrew,” he said slowly as he headed down a foot bridge; then he was silent. Off to his right, the Genesee Pond shone brightly in the light of the setting sun, where the river gathered above the city’s hydroelectric dam. That river’s free power was the only reason the city had survived after the lake was poisoned.
Jake glanced over rows of derelict houses before he descended to street level, with his usual vague twinge of depression, dulled after so long. Huge areas of the city had been abandoned years before. When the global population hit twenty-five billion, population density laws were enacted to avoid destroying the natural systems the world depended on with housing developments. Thirty years earlier, that had made sense; now it was a bad joke. Since the War, no one had needed to worry about expanding population. The city didn’t have enough personnel to demolish most of the abandoned buildings, still decaying in their lots. The view was depressing. Suddenly, Jake spoke.
“Finally you picked up!” he cried, into thin air.
At the base of the bridge, a couple of men had looked up, then turned away sullenly when they realized he was speaking to an earpiece. One spat as Jake walked by. He ignored it. He was well into his conversation with Andrew.
“Of course it went well!” he was saying. “Old Matt from Armco liked it. The rest will follow suit in no time. And what’s-his-name … Yeah, him, he’s already found the site for the production line. Hold on, I’m grabbing a car.”
At the station, Jake tapped his ID chip on a receiver and checked out a car. The garage door opened, and a small two-person vehicle unfolded onto the ground. A mechanic checked some joints and then waved Jake over. Jake said hello.
“Hey there, Mr. Miller,” the man answered. “Good day at work?”
Jake smiled. You’ll find out soon enough.
“Good enough,” he answered. “No, Andrew, I’m talking to someone else.” He addressed the mechanic again. “How are you?”
It was the old man’s turn to smile.
“Fantastic. I finally got that condominium on the east side that I told you about. It only opened up a couple days ago. It was a nice catch. Me and my wife are living on the inside now.”
“That’s great news!” Jake grinned. “So you must’ve gotten that raise?”
The man nodded.
“Good,” Jake said. “I knew those guys at Maintenance weren’t stupid enough to overlook you. You won’t be working in this damn garage much longer.”
“That’s right. We’re just damn thankful to be out of the Outer City. It gets to you, living out here. But, you have a good day, all right?”
Jake nodded, got in the car, and tapped his ID chip on the dash, which flashed green. He pressed the “on” button. The car hummed slightly, and a soft female voice began telling him about traffic regulations and how far he could drive the car. He sighed. He must have heard this speech four thousand times. Ignoring it, he pulled out onto Monroe and resumed his conversation with Andrew.
“Hey, I’m back. What were you saying?”
He hated driving through the Outer City to the P-bubble. It was depressing, and everyone knew going off-filter was no good for your health. He felt bad for the poor bastards who had to actually live out here, in the impoverished districts of the Outer City. The whole place was going to the dogs, but that was all going to change. He had met with a group of investors this morning, and production was going to start soon, right here in Rochester.
“Calm down. We’ve got all that worked out. We’ll have the lithium we need.”
For a city that had been declining since the digital camera drove Kodak out of business, the production of the most efficient battery in human history was going to do a hell of a lot. Not only was the battery cheap, but it was going to make all those little energy-grabbing techniques worthwhile. Rochester was going to get back on the map. And Jake and his friends were going to be rich.
I’ll get an apartment in the Inner City, Jake thought. Or maybe more of the Outer City will get tented. He smiled as he passed Cobb’s Hill, imagining a transparent canopy spreading from a pylon atop the hill. Andrew dragged his attention back.
“Come on Andrew,” he began. “We’ve got it figured out. What we need is to plan how we’re celebrating … Screw New York! Let’s grab some seats on the SubAtlantic and go to Paris for a few days. You bring Elisha, I’ll bring Kate … Yeah, yeah, I know. We don’t have time. Fine, New York then. I’m still calling Kate.” Jake laughed.
“What? Whose idea was that?” Jake continued after a moment, his tone now incredulous. “If we don’t have time for Paris, we sure as hell don’t have time for that. Besides camping is awful.” Elisha wanted to go camping? Oh well, she’d always been odd. Jake had no interest at all in spending a night outside. He returned to the conversation with Andrew.
“All right. I’ll call you back in a couple minutes, okay?”
In a few minutes, Jake was out of the trash-ridden Outer City and below the old Thru Way onto an underground street. He pulled up to the Monroe Avenue 1st car station and tapped his ID chip on the dash again. The dash flashed red. Jake scowled and pressed the chip a little harder. It flashed green. He pressed “return,” got out of the car, and waved over a station assistant to fold the car up with the others on the recharge rack. He didn’t know this attendant, so after a nod, Jake grabbed an elevator that doubled as an airlock. He emerged inside another transparent, climate-controlled dome. Jake stepped out onto Pittsford Plaza. Parking lots were obsolete, since everyone now used car stations. Instead, the expanse between the stores was covered in solar panels and small stretches of artificial meadow, sliced up by paths for shoppers. People on glide walks whizzed past the health nuts who felt like walking from one end of the Plaza to another.
Jake breathed in the careful mix of gases and trace antibiotics. It was a bit cool but not uncomfortable. He jumped on a shuttle under the Pittsford Tower all the way to the southern edge of the bubble.
About as far from work as you can get, Jake thought, probably for the four thousandth time. And he had to look at the Woods. His front door opened on a pretty little stretch of the historical canal, but his living room window looked out from two stories up It faced the area that had been called “Victor” more than seventy years ago.
As the density laws forced rural and suburban people together or into the cities, New York’s hinterland had been emptied. With agricultural needs satisfied by huge hydroponics facilities in Syracuse and Irondequoit, the land of the Finger Lakes had been given over to parks or just plain abandoned. After the ASDM strike on the lake, Upstate New York had turned into America’s least desirable place to live. Now most of the region was a wasteland of dark forests, filled with the pollution and radiation of the 20th and 21st centuries. Jake hated looking out towards that dark expanse of trees, past a dreary field and the city’s security fence. The whole view was so dis—what the hell was that?
Something had moved down in the fields. It was probably just an animal, but Jake had thought it looked …
He scowled and went to his computer. He’d taken a brief interest in programming a few years ago and had worked with City Security two years back. He hacked the system easily, bringing up the vidnet and searching for the cameras he needed. He couldn’t find any that could pan where he wanted. Then he remembered: just before he left, a new net had been installed in response to vandalism. This system answered to a separate program. He hacked that and found a camera that showed what he wanted. There was nothing there. Jake hesitated. He checked security alerts in the last 20 minutes; nothing in this sector. No one had seen what he had seen. What had he seen?
Rewinding what the camera had recorded, he saw it. He paused. He had been right.
Ten minutes ago a person had been standing at the edge of the forest, looking at the city. Outside the security net. Jake checked: that land wasn’t public property, and there were no recorded residences for miles on that side of the fence. The man wasn’t wearing the blue jumpsuit of City Maintenance. He had absurdly long hair, a long dark-brown shirt, and loose-fitting pants, like no style Jake had ever seen. He was carrying—Jake recalled childhood stories about knights from hundreds of years ago—good God; he was carrying a spear and wore a knife at his waist.
And the man’s face … As he looked back on the city, he wore a strange expression. Jake stared at the blurred image, wondering at the man’s countenance. It wasn’t the envious apprehension of Outer Citiers looking In, or the fearful admiration of newcomers to American cities. No. That man’s face disturbed Jake with its total, bitter disdain for what it saw.
“That’s bizarre.”
Andrew’s face wrinkled in consternation as he stared at the mystery man’s pictures.
“Do you have any idea who this is?”
“No,” said Jake, cross. “If I did, would this bother me so much?”
Andrew didn’t answer; he just kept staring as he sank into his large teak chair and began stroking one arm. His whole apartment was covered in hardwood imitations; the chair was the only real wood. Andrew practically worshipped the chair; it had belonged to his great-grandfather. Jake could tell he was bothered whenever he sat in it. Jake gave him a moment.
“Well,” he said finally. “Should we contact security?”
Andrew glanced at him.
“No … the man’s not doing anything wrong; he’s just … outside the city for some reason.”
Jake neglected to point out that he thought being outside the city was a terrible idea. He did point out that the man was carrying a weapon. Andrew nodded, but he still didn’t speak again for a few moments.
Finally: “Let’s call Aur. He’ll know what’s up.”
Jake shrugged. He looked out the window toward the Ontario Basin. He could see the Slug making its way across the basin, a faint fuzz of green trailing in its wake. The trail faded fast. We need another if we’re ever going to clean up the lake. Suddenly, Andrew spoke up behind him.
“God, Aurelius, why must you insist on having a bizarre name and sleeping until four in the afternoon?”
Jake and Andrew’s black-haired friend stared from the screen of Andrew’s computer.
“Neither of those things are my fault. If you had a Dineo-classicist for a mother, you’d probably be called ‘Caligula’ or something. And I was at a party last night.”
Aurelius yawned hugely. Jake stared at his enormous mouth, bemused as ever by this man who spent his time hanging out with the crowds of bizarre subcultures that had sprung up after the War. Groups of the world’s lost and depressed consoled themselves with drugs, sex, and a fascination with previous civilizations, no doubt trying to figure out what had gone “wrong.” Aurelius Stravinski was one of these “interesting” people.
Andrew snorted.
“You could get a name change anytime you want, Aur. But then again, with your sleeping habits I’m amazed you ever manage to feed yourself, so I suppose I should forget about you changing your name.”
Aurelius laughed. And laughed. Andrew looked up at Jake.
“He must be very tired. That wasn’t that funny.”
Jake agreed.
“Show him the picture, would you?” Jake said. He felt vaguely anxious. I want to know who the man is. Andrew obliged.
“Hey Aur! Shut up and look at this.” Aur’s laughter faded as he stared somewhere off-screen, where the picture had no doubt appeared on his own computer. He looked up, quizzical.
“Who the fuck is that?”
“We’re hoping you could tell us,” answered Andrew. “Jake saw him, about an hour ago.” He explained what Jake had told him.
“Hmmm … give me a second,” Aur was typing. “Stupid voice recognition system stopped working. I actually have to type stuff now. It’s a drag.”
“What are you doing?” asked Jake.
Aur ducked out of sight, rummaging around for something. His voice came back a little faintly.
“Using a face-recognition system I keep on my tablet to look this guy up. The resolution might not be high enough, but we’ll soon see …”
“Why do you have a face-check on your tablet?” Andrew asked, bemused.
“To remind me of girls’ names who I’ve forgotten—and little tidbits of info that I record on the sly,” Aur answered. “I used it quite a bit at the party last night. People are often a bit flattered if you remember them. It gives me that extra edge.”
“To compensate for the fact that your name’s Aurelius?” asked Andrew, laughing.
Jake wished his friends would stop joking around. He wanted to know who the man was.
“Excuse me,” Aur protested. “The Dineo-classicist crowd is a lively one. I met a girl a few weeks ago who thought my name was great, and we—”
“I have no interest in your Roman recontructionist philandering, Aur,” snorted Andrew. “You should be called Caligula, not me.”
Jake paced around the room, his irritation mounting. Andrew took note, finally.
“All right, run the damn program already, Aur,” Andrew shouted before turning to Jake, his expression more serious.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “You were in such a good mood earlier.”
“That was right after the meeting,” muttered Jake. “This guy is freaking me out. What is someone doing out in the woods, with a spear, off the net?”
“I actually … I’ll tell you in a minute.” Andrew turned back to the computer. Aur was looking at them, no longer laughing.
“Well,” he said. “I have interesting news. This man is not a registered citizen of New York State.”
Jake scowled.
“Then what the hell is he? Who is he?”
“Hold on!” cried Aur, indignant. “I’m expanding the search now, to include the rest of the states, and Canada, too. It’s going to take a couple minutes, though.”
Jake turned around, angrier than before.
“Off the grid?” he yelled. “How?”
“Calm down,” Andrew said. “There are whole cities off the grid in other parts of the world—”
“Yeah, in fucking Mongolia or whatever!” retorted Jake. “This is the United States! Why would you even want to go off the net here? It’s illegal for one thing. And—Aur, you done?”
Aurelius nodded.
“Well,” he began, speaking slowly. “It would seem that, though conceivably this man is an illegal immigrant from … somewhere, that he is not a citizen of anywhere in North America.”
Andrew didn’t say anything. Jake shouted some more.
“Shit! How? Why? Is he just living in the woods?”
Aur shrugged. Andrew took a deep breath, as if about to speak. Jake looked at him.
“What?” he asked. “Do you have a voice in the matter of this mysterious man’s insanity?”
“Well,” Andrew began hesitantly. “This reminds me of a story. One of my uncles, he used to work on one of the wreck crews that tore down and recycled old buildings out in the towns that got abandoned when everyone moved west after ASDM. He told me lots of stories about weird old houses and stuff, but the story that this made me think of was one about how for a long time a few years ago, some weird stuff happened to a lot of the wreck crews.”
“Like what?” asked Aur.
“Stuff would get stolen,” answered Andrew. “Equipment and tools. Nothing big. And sometimes materials, like wood or sheet metal. Occasionally—and my uncle said that this was really weird—they’d find buildings that had already been dismantled, and trash and refuse piled up ready for them.
“There was a police investigation, ’cause of the theft of course. It was pretty extensive. The police realized that it had been happening to several crews, all over the Northeast. But they never could find the people doing it. It always happened under the trees, or cloud cover, so satellites couldn’t spot who was dismantling the houses, and whoever was stealing stuff knew how to get past the crews’ security systems. Like most unexplained stuff, it was figured to be pranks or something. Pretty soon the really rural wreck crews lost funding, and reports of incidents stopped. But it was never explained. My uncle said that the crews got used to it, said it was ghosts or just people screwing around. His crew called them the Specters and said they were helpful, because they’d pile up trash for the crew. But they never saw them.”
All three men were staring at the picture of the mystery man. Specters.
Jake shook his head. “But why would anyone want to live out there?” He gestured out the window. “The cities are humanity’s place! It’s progress that’s important. That’s what we do!”
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“Well,” Aur finally spoke up. “Apparently someone disagrees with you.”
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