Matthew Tysz - The Last City of America

Grakus took his hand away.

“You really think this will make everything better? You think people will stop being bad when your bloody body lies in Angela’s arms?” Grakus’s voice shifted from Adrian’s left ear to his right. “You think they’ll stop fighting for stupid reasons when a twenty-five year-old widow says goodbye to a face she can no longer recognize?”

Adrian’s eyes stung. “She’ll make another man lucky.”

With a growl, Grakus appeared face-to-face with him. “She’ll hate you for the rest of her life. And she’ll hate your daughter if she even decides to keep her. She can’t handle abandonment. Don’t put her through it like her father did. Not again.”

A hand with a gun came next to Grakus’s head. It was Angela’s hand.

Grakus smiled. “My lady. We were just talking about you.” He vanished and appeared behind her, smelled her hair. “You don’t know what’s going on, do you?”

Angela thrashed her head against his face, swung her feet across his ankles. Grakus fell, but vanished before he hit the floor, reappeared across the room. She fired at him. He vanished and returned over and over until her clip was spent.

Grakus laughed. “Time-out, time-out.” He stepped forward, facing Adrian. “A little too much woman for me.” He looked at Angela. “But there are things even you can’t handle.” He turned away. “Goodbye, my lord and lady. We’ll meet again, if not in this world.”

Angela holstered her pistol. “If the city wants to throw away everything we gave them, so be it. We’ve done everything we can. The army will move out soon to try and bring some order back. And the rebels will probably take the building. It’s time to leave this place. When people have decided to stop killing each other, we’ll come back to lead what’s left. The mercs will be alright, we’ll at least have them.”

“Angela…”

“What?” her concern was immediate, her eyes pressing him for an answer.

He tried to speak without crying. “…I’ve sinned.”

He watched her face change. “What?”

“I can live with what my mistakes have done to me. I can’t live with what they’ve done to the world.”

She shook her head. “What are you saying?”

He took a breath. “Angela, I’m giving myself up to them.”

She almost laughed. “They’ll kill you.”

Adrian nodded.

“…And you think they’ll change once they have?”

“They’ll have the chance.”

She swung her gun down on his head. A flash in his vision, and he was on the floor. “You’re coming with me.”

“Guards!”

A soldier grabbed her. That soldier was on his back in a second. Two more soldiers came. In the struggle, Aden appeared.

“Aden,” said Adrian. “Make the announcement.”

“Daddy!” Angela screamed as three men struggled to control her. “Don’t let him do this! Don’t make me go through this again!” She cried. “Not again! Please!”

Aden looked away and covered his face.

“ Aden ,” Adrian shouted. “Our people are dying by the second.”

Aden looked at him, horror on his face, then he left.

Adrian walked to Angela. She stopped struggling for the moment they looked into one another’s eyes. “You always see the good in things, Angela. You saw the good in me.” He took her hand, held it to his lips. “You gave your love to me when all I wanted was to hate. And I wish I could know what it’s like to spend a lifetime with a woman like you.” He stepped back. “I love you.”

Angela slashed her nails across a guard’s face. A fourth arrived. She was dragged away, screaming hateful things.

Adrian fell to his knees a second time, put his face in his hands. Angela was always so calm. So in control. And now she was as helpless as she never wanted to be again. Because of him. Sickness came. He swallowed it. He stood. It was time. He walked outside, overlooking the plaza. There was smoke rising over the city, fanning over the property. Throughout the city, Gunshots. A few explosions. He had told the tank commanders not to fire their turrets. A lot of them had been anyway.

He should have done this sooner.

The voice of his father in-law echoed in the smoke. Listless. To the point. He told the people that Adrian Velys was turning himself in for his war crimes, that the Manhattanites should stop fighting for vengeance, that the loyalists should stop defending their lord, that their lord was waiting on the front porch of the Capitol.

The fighting calmed, and people started to gather, Manhattanites and everybody else.

His guards lined in a perimeter around the porch. He waited until more people had come. The fighting in the distance had slowed, but didn’t stop. The plaza was filled with people. All silent.

He said to the mass in front of him, “Who will be my executioner?”

For a long time, there was no response.

Adrian told his guards to stand down. They retreated into the building. It was down to him and the people.

Three men with ski masks stepped forward. They crossed the space left by the guards, climbed the stairs.

The Manhattanites in the crowd cheered. Many of them emerged to fill the space bellow the stairs.

The three men surrounded him. He knelt. One of them raised a hand to silence their compatriots. Even the wind obeyed that call.

“In memory of all those lost,” the executioner declared, “may we found this new city in justice.”

The Manhattanites cheered.

The executioner continued. “But justice does not belong only to me. It belongs to us all.”

Maybe he should have stopped him. Maybe Adrian didn’t realize this wasn’t what he truly wanted.

The guards opened the doors for him, and Aden stepped onto the patio, his son in-law across it, facing the world, restrained in the firm hands of his enemies.

Adrian didn’t say a word. They shoved him down the stairs. He tumbled into the mob.

Aden ran to the steps. When he got there, Adrian’s body had come apart in the hands of those closest to him. The hands of many more became red as they ceremoniously shared his blood.

The first thing that came to Aden’s mind was his granddaughter: how they would ever explain to her what happened to her father. He thought about the Manhattanites: how they and their grandchildren would bear the guilt of this moment. He thought about how his own sins begot the misery in his daughter’s undeservedly difficult life. He was embarrassed to be human.

The Manhattanites, with their ashen faces and bloody hands, cheered like tribals over a feast. The rest of the world looked on. Quietly. Angrily.

Gradually, the cheering stopped. The Manhattanites looked around. The faces that surrounded them. They looked at each other, looked down at their hands, all in silence under the gaze of many angry neighbors.

“What have you done?” said Aden to the mob.

All at once, they looked at him, helplessness in every pair of eyes.

“He killed our families!” one of them called in defense.

The news crew nearby stuck a microphone in Aden’s face. Aden didn’t care. “You fools,” he said, exasperated. “All of Baltimore was calling for war when you allied with Grakus, not just him. The whole city was responsible.”

“We never knew!”

All around, the world screamed and groaned.

“We told you,” Aden said, pleadingly. “Why will you only listen now that you’ve killed a child?”

The fury of the world grew louder. Louder still. Aden felt his soul fall as the world closed in on this pathetic mob, who, frightened, raised their weapons in defense. The media on the porch turned to their cameras, talking about the coming slaughter.

Then Aden saw his wife. For the first time in many years, he had a clear image of her in his vision, and his soul stopped falling. From the journalists around him, he snatched every microphone he could wrap his hands around. He turned to the world and screamed until his face was red. “ NO! ”