Sam Sisavath - The Isles of Elysium

“Jack told me you had 4,000. How do you control that many people?”

“Control?” Steve said, not even bothering to hide his amusement. “What makes you think we control them? They can leave whenever they want. But why would they? These houses are the only things standing between them and the crawlers at night. There’s nothing for them out there.”

Keo had gone through whole subdivisions during his trek across Louisiana, and the empty houses never failed to leave him utterly depressed. But he didn’t get that same abandoned vibe now as they cruised up T18A1. The streets were sparse but clean, and he found out why when they drove past the first of what turned out to be a dozen or so workers along the sidewalks picking up garbage and stuffing them into bags. They were all civilians, and he didn’t see a soldier in sight.

“What did these poor bastards do to get this job detail?” Keo asked.

“You ever heard the phrase, ‘People who can, do; those that can’t, teach’?” Steve asked.

“I may have run across it once or twice.”

“Well, these guys can’t even teach, so this is the price of staying in town. You get it now?”

“What’s that?”

“This is what they’ll do to stay here. That’s how valuable this place is compared to what’s out there, why Tobias would never have been able to ‘rescue’ them. Because they don’t want to be rescued.”

“Nothing wrong with picking up garbage for a living.”

“It’s not, but you don’t wanna know what the poor bastards who can’t even do this are doing to earn their keep.”

“Does it smell?”

Steve chuckled. “Boy, does it ever. But hey, someone’s gotta do the dirty work, right? That’s how the world runs. Everyone’s got a role to play. That includes you and me.”

There were row after row of homes around them. They looked almost identical, except for a few add-ons and color schemes. What caught him by surprise were the yards; they all looked as if they had been recently mowed, though they seemed to lack the uniform clean-cut look he was used to seeing in suburban neighborhoods before The Purge. Almost all of the windows were open, even if he couldn’t see any homeowners around. Keo guessed they didn’t have to worry about crime these days.

The golf cart was the only vehicle in the entire place, its mechanical hum drawing curious looks from the people along the sidewalks. Keo was used to seeing cars and trucks parked along curbsides in subdivisions, but there were none of those here. As a result, the streets looked wide and inviting and nothing at all like what a real neighborhood should look like. In fact, there was nothing “real” about T18A1, or T18 for that matter.

Steve finally slowed down and turned into the driveway of a house near the back of the street. It was a two-story building, but there was nothing extraordinary about it. At least, nothing that would indicate this was where a man of Steve’s position lived.

“Here we are,” Steve said, putting the cart in park. “Your stop.”

Keo climbed out. “Where are we?”

“Go knock on the front door and find out.” Steve put the golf cart in reverse and started backing down the driveway. “I’ll send someone to come get you later, but until then, I would refrain from wandering off.”

Keo watched Steve back into the street, spinning the steering wheel, then tipping a nonexistent cap to him before driving off.

One of the men picking up garbage across the street stopped what he was doing and waved at Keo for some reason. He was in his fifties, with a full white beard and looked like Santa Claus, if Saint Nick had lost a good hundred or so pounds. Keo wasn’t entirely sure what to do, so he waved back.

Then, he turned around and looked at the house. It had brick in the front but wood paneling along the sides and, he guessed, in the back as well. It had an attached garage like every other house up and down the street. There were no mailboxes, but there was evidence someone had attempted to grow flowers around the walking path.

Keo took that walkway now, up to the front door.

He was halfway there when the door opened and she looked out.

She had one hand on the doorknob, the slight breeze picking up her long jet-black hair. The months hadn’t dulled the brilliance of her green eyes, and Keo couldn’t have stopped the stupid smile spreading across his face even if he wanted to.

“Keo,” she said. “You’re here. You’re really here.”

“I promised, didn’t I?” he said.

She smiled. “Yes, you did.”

He was so focused on her face, on the way her hair fluttered behind her, that it took him a while before he saw the rest of her. She was clutching the doorknob with one hand-a bit too tightly, for some reason-while the other one was rubbing her stomach, which was a lot bigger than he remembered…

“You’re pregnant,” he said.

“You always were a master of observation, Keo.” She smiled at him, though he thought it was probably a little more forced than she had planned.

“How long?”

“Four months.”

Four months.

It had been three months since Jordan escaped T18, and what had she said when he pressed her on why Gillian hadn’t left with her?

“She was different in the weeks leading up to the escape. To this day I don’t know what happened, but when the time came I was the only one who left. Only she can say why.”

Four months…

Keo watched her pour hot water from a pot into a pair of ceramic mugs, then open a package and dipped two tea bags into them. He was in too much of a daze, and had been for the last few minutes, to recall where the hot water came from.

“Tea?” he said.

“Black tea. The green ones expired a long time ago, though the guys running the farms say we might be able to grow our own very soon.”

She brought the mugs over and sat down across from him. Keo stared down at the tea, then at her.

“What?” she said. “You think I’m trying to poison you?”

He smiled. Or thought he did. “Of course not.”

“It’s really not that bad. I hated it in the beginning, but you learn to get used to things. Tea’s a luxury these days.”

He picked up the mug and sipped it. It wasn’t bad, but he was never much of a teetotaler. The Gillian he remembered had never been one, either. He remembered the two of them finishing off bottles of whiskey they had found in Earl’s basement. Then there was the occasional good red wine he and Norris would pick up during one of their scavenging trips.

But not tea. Never tea.

“It’s better with some milk or honey,” she was saying. “Or sugar. But those are rationed.”

I bet Steve has plenty at his house. Maybe I can go and borrow some.

“Hey, Steve, you got some milk or honey? My pregnant girlfriend would sure like some with her black tea.”

Girlfriend. Did he just refer to Gillian as his girlfriend?

Christ, maybe Tobias’s love-tap had done more damage to his brain than he thought.

Keo took out the pill bottle Jordan had given him and shook out two.

“You okay?” Gillian asked.

“Headache.”

“Does it have something to do with that?” She touched her own forehead.

“Lucky guess,” he said, and tried to force a smile, but gave up about halfway.

He swallowed the pills and put the bottle away. Then he watched her sipping tea across from him, sunlight from the open windows splashing across them. He wished it were darker inside the living room so he wouldn’t have to see her belly. The most painful part was that she was still as beautiful as he remembered; maybe even more so.

“I was wondering why they told me to come home,” Gillian said. She put the mug down and placed her hands over her belly. “It’s supposed to be safe for me to work until the end of my second trimester. Some of the women here are in their third, and they’re still in the fields.”