Matthew Tysz - The Last City of America

Of those who sought a better future than Long Island and the ruins of Manhattan, Angela’s men counted just over one hundred thousand. She destroyed the bridges to Long Island to quarantine the damned and left with those few who chose salvation.

Adrian arrived with his army and ten thousand Pittsburgh refugees to the place twenty miles southwest of Baltimore. It was an odd city. It was dense, but there were no skyscrapers.

And it was beautiful.

Many of the buildings were made of white stone—like the capitol building in Sacramento, but much bigger.

At the largest and most beautiful of these buildings, Adrian found his father in-law.

Angela arrived a few days later. There were a million people following her army. They marched through the wide roads. Smoke was rising over factories, flags over homes. Those who arrived here only days before she were walking out of shops with bags in their arms, out of work with briefcases, out of school with books. All looked with wonder at her and the massive parade behind her.

She came with her company before the Capitol, where she was reunited with her father and her husband.

It was Aden Mesa who welcomed all these people, his family at his side. He told the mass all about the city—its history, design, important locations (maps were handed out as he spoke), and to those who came from farther than Pittsburgh, how beautiful the weather was in this part of the country. He assured them that they would be fed that day, and they would have suitable homes by nightfall.

“There is room for all of you,” he said to them. “Those with children will have early choices, depending on the age and quantity of your little ones.”

When Aden arrived at the subject of government, he introduced his son in-law as lord, his daughter as lady. Lord Adrian Velys began to speak.

He announced that the city was to be called Obadiah, for it was to be the servant of God and a prophet for the world. There was an applause as the people prepared their hearts for a new beginning.

Deep in the crowd, behind many clapping hands, someone recognized the young lord’s voice. He nudged his friend and fellow Manhattanite in the shoulder. “You know who that is, don’t you?”

His friend kept a level stare at the lord. “He is Adrian Velys. The man who destroyed my home. And killed my daughter.”

Maybe it was his obligation to protect these people.

Was that the only reason he was standing now against Chicago? Of course it wasn’t.

Every artillery cannon in his arsenal—and Darius left him a lot—was lined up along San Bruno Mountain, facing down the San Francisco Peninsula that cloudy morning.

Bay scouts in motorboats spotted Chicago’s army headed up through the suburbs along the Santa Cruz Mountains. They’d be in sight within the hour.

Raindrops pattered on the cannon next to him, slid down the metal, into the grass.

He spent these few days since the battle at Monument Valley preparing for this. In that time, he watched the scattered journalists of California Broadcast frantically capture what was left of the Western armies. What was left of Los Angeles. The fear in what was left of the Western government.

Then the black army reached Sacramento. The media tried to keep up. Coverage outside the city was lost as the army approached. Coverage in the streets went dark when the buildings overhead started coming down. And now Chicago was here.

The West was no more.

Faint signs of outside life returned only yesterday. Messages from the East Coast. A new city was rising there.

He stood on the mountain, in line with his multi-mile artillery line, side by side with his general—the youngest in the nation; an age group he could trust. Together, they watched over the massive valley: suburb mixed into rolling green hills, rising back into the Santa Cruz Mountains far across.

Surely the governor had a way out… some hidden network beneath the capitol.

“Did you hear that, my lord?” his general asked. Harold had him holding the radio to filter out the useless information. “That was Burns. He said Chicago’s in the valley. But I don’t see them.”

Harold held his vision on the view, enjoying it for however much longer Grakus would allow.

She was alright. She’d hate him for the rest of her life. But she was alright.

Light flashed against the side of the far mountains, against the dark gray clouds. Then the rumble.

Harold crossed his arms. “Light the valley.”

His general gave the order. San Francisco’s cannons started popping along the mountain from east to west. Their shells pounded the valley with only a small focus on the source of the first light.

More flashing light came in a row much closer than the first cluster.

The general tried to get a better read on their position through binoculars. “They’re not even hitting close to us.”

Harold didn’t turn to face San Francisco. His general did, although he had been instructed not to.

“Kid,” Harold turned to his mesmerized companion. “ General .”

The general looked at him.

“Focus.”

“We have to move in for their cannons, look what they’re doing!”

“No.”

Crestfallen, the kid looked back into the valley.

Chicago had every building in that valley garrisoned by an army that far outnumbered Harold’s. For him to send his men in after those cannons would accomplish nothing. Grakus left him no choice. The only way was to level the valley. That would take time.

And so it did.

The drizzle had stopped and the sky was clearing as the cannons on San Bruno continued to pulverize the valley like a pestle to the mortar. A fine view—the work of man, taken over by nature—grinded into splinters over hours.

Running out of cover, running out of time, Chicago sent its troops up the mountain, the valley behind them filled with smoke as thick as the passing clouds, lit like thunder from the artillery of both sides.

San Francisco’s fleet of Humvees rolled down to meet them, machine guns screaming over the rooftops, splashing blood from the black uniforms of Chicago’s army. None of them made it within a hundred feet of the barricade.

San Francisco’s artillery became more focused then, firing only where it saw Chicago’s artillery firing.

Four o’clock in the afternoon. The sun was shining over a silent valley.

The smoke cleared. Harold sent the army in. Occasional gunshots. The sky turned pink.

He turned and looked at San Francisco.

Smoke and flames were rising there. Many of the buildings were flattened. Many more would be, given a little more time.

His general drove him down the mountain, to a golf course in the center of the valley, where the army was assembling.

Harold had been asked by one of his commanders the night before if they were taking prisoners, to which he had sighed, “If it’s not too inconvenient.”

Several dozen of these prisoners were being herded into an area enclosed with portable chain-link fencing and a circle of rifles. All were shackled and seated, most in quiet shame. One young Chicago soldier, with a dazed expression into the ground, chanted “How does it feel!” over and over loudly, monotonously.

Harold approached one of his commanders, asked if these were all the prisoners.

“Only so far, my lord,” the commander wiped his face of sweat. “Just not many left out there, and they’re not quick to throw their hands in the air. Fewer than that were found hostile but unarmed, came at us with whatever they could. The guy you hear screaming came with a flask. Took three of us to get him in shackles. The look in his eyes, though… I can’t see why bother taking him anywhere.”

Harold approached the fence, stood opposite the screaming young man.