Matthew Tysz - The Last City of America

“Of course,” Harold smiled. “How about instead of my name, just put down ‘Rush.’ The city won’t question that.”

“Yeah,” said the Madam. She handed him a key. “Fourth floor. Room 404.”

He thanked her, and took the grand staircase to the second, then third floor, took an elevator to the fourth. The place was much quieter than he would have imagined a brothel to be, especially after his first impression. The halls were long, with smells he would never have expected outside a lab.

A girl of twelve or so stepped out of a room. Her clothes were torn.

“Child,” he stopped her. “Room 404?”

The girl pointed silently to the end of the hall, then made an around-the-corner motion with her hand.

Harold looked to where she was pointing, started walking.

He imagined what the woman in 404 might look like. For some reason, he felt he had stumbled on exactly the woman who would tell him what he needed to know. She was probably pretty. Not radiant, but pretty, and even though she was a prostitute, independent. Strong. Determined to become something more than what she was.

He found the room and unlocked the door, opened it, and realized that even geniuses can be wrong.

Her face had begun to wrinkle, though she probably wasn’t much older than thirty. Her lipstick was thick and, like her chipping blanket of makeup, unevenly applied. Her red hair was tangled. Overall, she was probably trying to blend in with her apartment. The worst thing about it was the stains. Harold tried not to touch anything.

“It looks like my lucky night.” The woman had a raspy voice. She shoved her cigarette into her dusty pillow. She opened her legs, and Harold recoiled from the sight of her loose thong. “Come show me what a man you are.”

“Thank you,” said Harold. “I’m actually here for information.”

“You want to know what it tastes like, don’t you?”

“I’m sure it tastes fantastic. So listen, I’m not like your other customers. I’m actually from Rush.”

“Oh!” said the woman. “You want to rush it in, don’t you… wanna rush it in all night!”

Harold sighed. “Darling,” he took out a cloth, used it to grab a stool that was lying on its side near a broken mirror. He brought it by her bed and sat. “I am from Rush University. If I wanted to have sexual relations with you, I would have waited till your shift ended, sent my lab assistants to drag you into a truck and ship you to the school, where within I would have acted upon my innumerable fantasies about your… womanhood… and have you back on the street. The reason I’m offering you money is because I don’t have the time to wait until your shift ends.”

The woman started rolling over on her bed. “Oh, you’re so aggressive! Take me now!”

Harold shook his head. This was actually embarrassing.

The woman rolled away once more and back toward him. He noticed something. Even underneath the makeup, he could see that her face was flushed. And there were scratch marks on it in all directions. Collapsed jaw. Blood-shot eyes.

Harold stood, reached into his jacket, pushed some things around, and pulled out something the woman recognized immediately: a little bag of meth.

“Ah,” said Harold. “Suddenly we’re not so horny, are we?”

The woman got up, her eyes longing and focused, her mouth hanging open. “Give it to me.”

“You earn money by fucking, you’ll earn this by talking.”

She tried to reach for it, fell to the floor. “I’ll tell you anything you want.”

“I want information on the rebels. Anything you may have heard or noticed. Not that I expect a junkie whore to know enough to earn my little sack.”

Rising to her feet, the woman followed him, tripped over the stool, got back up and clawed for the bag like a drunken cat. “A man came to see me. He was asking stupid questions just like you! Maybe he knows something.”

“What did he ask about?”

The woman started panting. “I don’t remember… experiments… science. I don’t know…”

“Did he give a name? When did he see you?”

“No name. Last night. My last man.”

Harold dropped the bag on her and left the room. He returned to the giant lobby, to the big desk in the center.

“Change your mind, Rush, or are you just that fast?” said the Madam. She seemed amused.

“I need to look at your book please.”

The madam grunted. She took out the ledger, set it down before him.

Harold started where he was, where the madam had put him down as ‘Rush.’ He went back to the day before, noting the time. He was going to take a bracket of names and meticulously ask the madam about each one, but he didn’t have to.

Less than twenty-four hours before Harold signed in using the name ‘Rush’, someone else had done the exact same thing.

Harold was rarely confused. And when he was, he rarely showed it. Just then, he couldn’t help it; it rose to his face as to any of these helpless corpses that swarmed the brothel. He paused with that stupid, dumbfounded expression. He thought quickly. He pointed to the word and asked the madam, “Do you remember what this man looked like?”

“I wasn’t keeping the books last night…” The madam crunched her lollipop, chewed on the stick. “Oh! That’s right, the bartender! Yeah, he’s hard to miss. He comes in every so often. Girls say he asks them weird questions, like have they ever been drugged and experimented on. His name’s Marshal.”

Harold’s eyes widened. “Marshal Grim?”

“Shit if I know.”

Harold forced a smile. “Thank you.” He backed away from the desk, turned to leave. He was redirected out one of several back entrances where others walked into an alley, then back onto the street.

His mind was racing as he made his way home. He tried to keep his face concealed.

Marshal Grim was still alive. And he was somewhere in the city.

Harold was glad he had something to work with, but he could not continue this investigation on his own. If Grim were part of the rebellion, and spotted Harold walking around, asking interesting questions, he could alert his friends. Harold would have to find someone… someone with wit, who could think on their own. Someone young and athletic… the kind the rebellion would love to recruit.

Harold sighed. In Chicago, that was another one of those problems that may well have been unsolvable.

September 14, 2113

I’m going to try and make this look as little like a suicide note as I can.

This is a report—a final overview of an experiment that began many years ago. I’m writing it with the hope of bringing the world to some understanding of what happened to me. In doing so, maybe help to stop it.

But in the spirit of full disclosure, I have to add… I can’t take it anymore.

I would like to think I’m still human. It’s a difficult thing to make myself believe. I like to think I’m still a woman. That’s even harder, and in a strange way, the more difficult of the two to let go.

My name is Evalynn. The rest I can’t remember. I was traveling on medical business. Something went wrong. People took me. Hurt me. Abandoned me. I found myself wandering an empty town, searching for water. I was attacked by people who were infected with a virus. But as I studied this event in the decade-and-a-half that followed, the individuals involved, and the virus they carried, I came to learn that what attacked me was the virus itself.

Before the Seven Cities, when the Hephaestus virus was destroying society, there was another virus which some doctors—I am one of them—believe have a similar origin.

I found a small hospital in the empty town. I began to write down everything I knew about a virus called Hephaestus II. As my memories began to fade, it became very important that I did this.