his friend.
Verlander stood. He bled from multiple wounds. Three of the metallic shafts protruded from his thigh, held fast in the solid bone there. When he opened his mouth to speak, blood washed down onto his shirt.
“Now?” he coughed. “Well, now we finish it. Creen’s still here—I can feel him. He’ll go down with the ship, if it’s starting to flag,” he gagged, a geyser of blood staining a crimson bib onto his shirt. “Stump sent out a transmission prior to disabling the digital obstacles. The world knows what we have done here. The world will bear witness. All that’s left is to finish it.”
They picked their way across the floor to the stairwell, moving slowly, their footsteps echoing heavily on the iron grating as they descended into the bowels of the brewery.
There was a dimly lit corridor at the bottom of the stairs. “A bunker…at the end of the hallway,” Verlander panted. He was losing steam quickly. Fausto nodded in and out of consciousness.
Norton was confused. How could he do this himself?
He stopped midway down the corridor, propping Ruiz against the wall. “Wait for me, Fausto. I’m going to get you some help.”
The man with the sleepy eyes smiled in return. Verlander slumped heavily against the wall, confusion spreading on his features. “What are you…”
“I need you both to wait here, Alain. Wait for me. I’ll meet with the general.”
Verlander looked exhausted, his hooded eyes and gore-streaked beard telling the story of a man in his final hour. “God be with you then, Norton.” He stumbled, caught himself against the wall and slid into a seated position.
Bryan smiled as the wounded men leaned against each other, forming a crux of support in that dark place. He shrugged out of his rifle, opting instead for Verlander’s sidearm.
He walked to the end of the hallway. The door before him had a pane of frosted glass— LABOR stenciled on the front in black ink.
“General Creen,” Norton called, his tone even. “Come on out of there.”
There was a moment of silence, then: “So…Norton is it? Come in, come in. You will not be harmed.”
Norton considered the situation. He closed his eyes and saw his wife. He saw his father and his mother— pictured the little house he and Maggie shared in the Sellwood district. He saw the ruined bodies of the men who had fought for the rights to raise a family.
His hand went to the doorknob. It was as though he were outside himself—watching himself enter the lion’s den.
He was not afraid.
Creen was very old. He looked frail, his face a story of time and hardship. Still, aged or not, sharp eyes peered out from beneath wild, gray eyebrows. He couldn’t discern their color, but they were unwavering.
“Please. Sit down,” Creen said, motioning to the chair before him.
Norton did, the muzzle of Verlander’s sidearm fixed on the general’s chest.
“You have nothing to fear from me, Bryan Norton. You can put that gun away. Or you can keep it out. It doesn’t matter.”
“Do you have children?” Norton asked. He was surprised by the strength in his voice.
Creen smiled. “I do. My daughter is thirty-six years old. She works for the authority. My son is twenty-four. He will face Labor in four months’ time.”
“Why? Why would you condone this… this barbaric exercise?”
Creen put his palms up, as if to say
“That doesn’t mean we can’t change it, Creen! We’re talking about your son’s right to have his own family. Don’t you see the flaws inherent in this… this
“My son is strong. He will win his family. Just like you, Bryan Norton. You have navigated the contest. You have survived Labor, and your prize is somewhat grander. Do you mind if I show you something?”
Norton nodded and the general touched a button on the arm of his chair. A bank of video monitors blinked on and Norton’s mouth fell open at the images they revealed.
“200,000 of them. Maybe more. The Authority has called in the National Guard. I don’t think it’ll make much of a difference, though. That,” he said, pointing a finger at the monitors, “is the beginning of the end of the current way of doing things.”
Norton couldn’t reconcile what he was seeing. Throngs of civilians marched up and down Portland’s streets. There were, indeed, many thousands of them, pressed into the parks and streets of a burning city. The monitors were silent, but a quality of anger seemed to bleed from the images there.
“If you wanted a revolution…” General Creen whispered, his back turned as he watched the monitors, “you got it.”
“And you, General? What will happen to you?”
The old man turned and offered a wry smile. “I’ll die. It won’t be long now.” He rummaged in his pocket, pulled out a canister and threw it to Bryan. Cyanide—a centuries-old manner of suicide.
“Why did you do that?”
“I’m a symbol of the old ways. I understand that. The tides have been turning for decades, but what you did tonight sped things up. There’s no life for me on the other side of what happened here, Bryan. No place for me in the new world.”
“And your crimes, General? What of the things you did in your life?”
He sucked in a draught of air and let it go in a sigh. “Who knows? I did what was asked of me. Did I believe in it? Sometimes. Early on, mostly.”
“Would you change it? If you could, would you go back and change it?”
Creen eyed him. “It doesn’t matter, son. Fact is, I
Norton nodded. He stood and turned his back on the old man and left without sparing him another glance.
When he returned to his friends in the hallway, one was dead. The other barely breathed.
Bryan choked back a sob, threw Verlander’s weapon away and sprinted for the stairwell and the promise of help above ground.
It was one of those summer afternoons in Oregon. The sky was a rich blue, the trees filled with singing birds. The sun warmed the face of the Earth and their families gathered at a picnic table in Forest Park.
An impressive banquet stretched before them—cold cuts and potato salad and fried chicken and fruit and iced tea and chocolate chip cookies. Bryan sat near his mother and father. Across the table, Eli was strapped to Maggie’s chest in a sling.
Fausto played with Carmen on a blanket while Angie, his wife, fixed them plates of food.
“A toast,” Bryan’s father said. He wore a look of sincere pride as he regarded his son. “To Fausto Ruiz and Bryan Norton—a pair of first-rate fathers!”
There was laughter as they touched cups. Bryan’s smile lingered as he scanned the park. Families basked in the sunshine, throwing footballs and eating picnics of their own.
The world had changed in the last nine months. The new government was busy re-building cities toppled by struggle. The Authority had managed a weak defense before falling in less than sixty days to a determined populace.
America was changing. The world was changing.
“Oh, hey now, Buster!” Maggie said, blotting her shirt with a napkin. “We have a code red over here, Daddy!” She wore a bemused grimace on her face. There was a wet circle on her t-shirt.
Eli laughed, his toothless mouth wide in a mischievous grin.
Bryan chuckled. He took his son in his arms, kissing his temple before putting him down on the blanket to change his diaper. It was a small thing, but it made his heart swell with happiness.
Here it was. Here it all was, and the warmth of the day was inside him and all about him, creating a connection to his family that was stronger than the tides of the sea.
