Matthew Tysz - The Last City of America

Bauler raised his hammer over his head. It came down on the statue with a dead thud. The statue was unscathed.

Rouge’s expression melted. “Tell me you can’t even strike a woman.”

“It’s cast iron, boss,” said Bauler. “Probably no one wanted it to break.”

Rouge cocked a brow. “Indeed.”

“Check that one out, boss,” the big man pointed his hammer at a second relic. It was a life-size model of the human body, with detachable organs. On the pedestal was written in big letters: “PROPERTY OF RUSH UNIVERSITY.”

Rouge turned from the statue of the lady, which hadn’t even moved from the impact. He took the hammer from Bauler. This was something he wanted to smash on his own.

As he approached the model, he imagined it were Barnabas Vulcum, the fucker who couldn’t take one more student. Just one more stupid, forgettable, insignificant student among hundreds. Better yet, he imagined it was Harold Del Meethia—the golden boy of Rush, whom everybody there loved and admired and respected.

Rouge was one of the few people outside of Rush who knew the identity of these people; Vulcum was nice enough to let Rouge be their messenger boy for the host. A consolation prize.

Rouge brought the hammer straight down into the skull, then swung it across the face. The model was knocked down, its head no longer usable. He hovered over it, raised the hammer again, smashed the head again. Then again. His glasses slid off his face. He screamed as he worked his way down across the body, seeing someone new with every swing.

He wished the model were more life-like. Blood would have been nice.

“Sir,” an agent appeared at the doorway.

Rouge caught his breath, straightened his scarf and put his glasses back on. “Yes?”

“News from Willis Tower, sir.”

He finished the letter sent by Rouge.

The administrator of hospitals had begun by saying he had good news and bad news. Truthfully, it was bad news diluted in uninteresting news. Rouge had begun with the uninteresting news. A newcomer had arrived. The underhost was killed. An underhost was chosen.

The other news was that the rebels had returned.

If Harold were inclined to care at all for politics, he would say that the only thing worse than a fascist is an anarchist. Fascists were easy to control; anarchists required a tier of imagination that Harold—praised as he was for his creativity—simply didn’t have. He was the best he knew at manipulating individuals, but the masses was a different matter. And the masses wanted change.

Good news either came or it didn’t—bad news always came. And when it did, it came from Rouge.

“What did it say?” came the slow, dry voice of the old man on his deathbed. “It wasn’t from the reject, was it?”

“Oh, you know Chicago,” said Harold. He crinkled the letter into a tight ball and trashed it. “What matters is Rush.”

“What matters most is standing here before me.”

Harold smiled. He listened to the low music flowing from a CD player in the corner of the room. Aside from intellect, one thing Harold and Barnabas had in common was their love for classical music. Or at least music without words. “Rest now, doctor.” He turned as Barnabas let his head relax. He walked into the hall.

The afternoon nurse got up off the bench by the door and stepped in. She seemed happy to get away from the flirtatious man of over a hundred forty sitting next to her. The man got up. “Harold,” he greeted.

“Dr. Iris!” Harold hugged him.

There was a level of concern in Iris’s otherwise cheerful demeanor. “Have you read the letter?”

Harold rolled his eyes. “We’ve had uprisings before.”

Iris shook his head. “This one’s going to be different. Chicago’s been good to us, Harold. But soon it will fall apart.”

Harold looked down. He had heard talk of moving before, but not so soon. And not like this. He figured another three years at least. Even that wouldn’t have been enough. He was as attached to Rush as he was to its founders. And it was bad enough to watch old age take them one-by-one. Now some petty spiff between people who didn’t even know what Rush was would force it to shut down.

“How long?”

“I’d say as soon as good ol’ Barnabas leaves us,” Iris said as gently as he could. “I have everything we need prepared in a duffel bag beneath my desk. I left some room for any other data you may need to add. As soon as we’ve said our last goodbyes to Barney, we have to go.”

Harold crossed his arms. “We need to squeeze as much out of our studies here as we can.”

“I know,” said Iris. “That’s why I’ve prepared one last experiment before we leave. For years, we’ve tested patients from Chicago’s hospitals. I want to see if our information will be consistent with subjects from a different part of the country. Most of them will be dead, but I want at least a few live samples. I’ve sent three convoys to check the morgues and hospitals in the eastern cities: Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Manhattan.”

“I know what the eastern cities are,” Harold grimaced bitterly.

Iris put his arm around him. “I know this is going to be difficult, Harold. But everything important is coming with us.”

Harold looked at the plain white walls. “I didn’t realize my home was unimportant.”

“I’ve been here longer than you, Harold. I can handle it.”

“I grew up here.”

“Oh, Harold, wait until you see the west!”

Harold didn’t want to. Transplanting a tree always left roots behind, slowing growth. A bunch of brainless rebels against the armies of a psychotic megalomaniac were going to take his roots away from him. How was this possible?

Iris laughed. “You’ve pouted the same way since you were fourteen years old, Harold. Look at that puss on your face!”

Harold turned away from a concerned Dr. Iris, his hands in his pockets. “Anything good for lunch?”

“Eastern,” Iris called back. “Anything with flavor, just stay away from the rice… gave me all sorts of damn gas. And remember, Harold—there’s always gonna be more out there than in here!”

Harold heard him, but didn’t respond. He never understood what people meant when they threw that word around. More. More what, knowledge? What ‘more’ was Iris talking about? Something worth sacrificing his home for? No. His home belonged to him.

Harold was the smartest man in Chicago. Surely he could find a way to keep both his home and this ‘more’ Iris was talking about.

The sun was straight above them when he arrived with Morgan at their street. The feeling of relief he still couldn’t get over was topped with the joy just to be home again.

A lot of people out there would agree that this was the crappiest hovel on earth, especially those skykissers. But the only thing about his home Adam would change was Manhattan—he’d get rid of it. The skyline dimmed the stars. While he was at it, he’d take everything else away: the farms, the factories, the LIM. Just him and his street in an empty world. What a life that would have been. Adam chuckled softly. The apocalypse happened and he still wanted people to go away. For a second, he forgot that Morgan was walking with him. He faced him.

“Okay, so what we’re gonna do is start eating together all the time, all three buildings—just like last night,” he explained to Morgan. “Ya know, give us all a sense of communion.”

Morgan was tired. Adam couldn’t blame him. “What if someone wants to eat alone?”

“Oh, well, he certainly could…” Adam smiled. “But we’d miss him.”

Adam started to think as Morgan went silent again, concocting new ways to get Morgan to talk. He chuckled again. Morgan was a social ground hog; he’d have to yank him by the head when he peered out of his hole. He’d get him, and learn a valuable lesson of patience in the process. See? They both stood to gain from this relationship.