CHAPTER ONE
The Wall went up virtually overnight. We should have seen it coming, but we were too busy with life directly in front of us. Too distracted by the moment. Who wouldn’t be? After all, we were first-lifers. Once we figured out what was happening it was too late.
The revocation of second-life rights was unfair. If we would have known, we would have lived our lives differently. Some will say our anger isn’t justified. Just because we have a second chance, is that merit enough to waste the first one?
I stand beneath the massive weeping willow tree. For me it’s a salve. On the other side of the hundred-foot-high, near-translucent wall rests another weeping willow of almost identical proportions. This is where Sarai and I first kissed; this is where we were to be married. She used to say we were soulmates. I prefer eternity mate.
I inch closer to The Wall, careful not to touch it. Once it was erected, many first-lifers flung themselves towards it thinking they could scale the massive structure, only to be hurled backwards and killed by 100,000 volts of blue electrical current. Our new cage consisting of Middle America reeked of seared flesh for weeks.
I can’t see through it, but I picture her there on the other side. The sorrowful strands of the weeping willow whip ferociously in the wind. They remind me of Sarai’s thick braided obsidian hair.
It’s the year 2099, and at twenty-five, my dark hair is preemptively birthing flecks of gray, betraying the burden and responsibility I’m yet to bear. When she was here, she took my breath away. Now that she is on the other side I labor to breathe, like she has pilfered one of my lungs. My heart has been ransacked. It has been five long years since I last gazed into her vast, deeply set copper eyes, touched her silky oblong cheeks. Her elongated eyelashes remind me of the flowers that grow atop mosquito grass in the damp meadows of spring. Five years since they snatched her from my arms.
I was seventeen and in high school the first time I saw her. If you can call it a school; it was more of a dilapidated building where parents send their children to learn basic reading and arithmetic from volunteers. In The Middle, there is no publicly funded education or government to speak of. It’s more of a controlled chaos. Some kids didn’t attend school. My parents made sure I went and did well. In fact, my mother was one of those volunteers.
The story of how I met Sarai differs, depending on who you ask. I say it was an accident-at least that’s how I recall it. I close my eyes and reminisce. I had arrived at Sarai’s aunt’s farm in my rusted, barely oscillating 2040 black Mustang. Almost sixty years old and the last gasoline engine built in the former United States. I would climb her apple trees and trim them before next year’s harvest. The pay was awful, but it gave me a chance to see Sarai outside of school.
It was a particularly windy day and I had to hang on extra tight while perching twenty feet up in the tree. Typically, when she sauntered by she would ignore me. It would change that day. I was mesmerized by her beauty as she slipped inside. I wasn’t ready for the potent gust that made
me lose my footing, causing me to fall out of the tree and hit my head on a rock. Blood streaming from my forehead.
Moments later I was on her couch while she tended to my head. The pain was worth her touch. She asked me what happened, but I couldn’t find the words, raptured by her proximity.
“Maybe you have a concussion?” she asked.
I did, but not from the fall, I was hypnotized by her angelic beauty. Speak you fool.
I said, “I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m Asher.”
After that we would spend our lunches together. After school she would monkey around in the trees with me and help with the trimming. Seeing as I was adept with tools, I would repair farm machines and work on her aunt’s car, free of charge. It didn’t take long until we were inseparable.
Until they separated us.
Now she is on her second life on the other side of the seemingly decorative wall. It is even garnished with digital images depicting Zion’s affluence, reminding us we have nothing. Boats. Beaches. Fancy cars. An abundance of different foods I have only read about. None of that matters to me, the only thing I want or need from Zion is her. I wonder if she still feels the same way, or if her soul has been festooned with Zion’s prosperity. I must reboot my mind daily to keep such thoughts from festering; this is how they want me to think. I still say we were meant to be, even if we can’t be together.
Whoosh. I duck down as a swift helidrone flies overhead on patrol. Its rotors emit a barely audible whine. It surveys the area like a nimble Dragonfly searching for its prey. I wonder if it’s running surveillance for some security reason, or if it’s on a kill mission.
I peer over at The Wall, which consists of tall steel towers every twenty feet that radiate the semi-opaque barrier of electricity. This way they can open and close portions of The Wall with efficient expediency. Each section is labeled with a number. Five hundred yards to my right, a section opens. A platoon of Lazurite soldiers march out of Zion West and into MiddleLand. I scurry behind a tree not wanting to be seen. The wilted leaves of autumn crunch under my worn fraying boots. Ants detour around my foot, their work unaffected. The soldiers
don gray and black exoarmor and carry plasma guns. Sunlight reflects from the visors of the soldiers’ oversized helmets. From afar they look like two-legged garden beetles.
My face absorbs autumn’s windy chill. Ahead a group of a hundred MidLanders, or Drecks as they like to call us, don mismatched shoes and tattered clothes from the turn of the century. They are escorted to an open section of The Wall by Lazurite soldiers. It’s the first Wednesday of the month; Lottery Day. That explains the helidrone. I thought maybe it was here for me. Every month a lotto is held for a lucky few to be allowed to emigrate from MiddleLand into Zion. Out of the decay and into paradise. Out of the fire and into the frying pan is a more apt description. Their elated smiles on their dirty faces will be short-lived. Don’t they find it strange they’re not allowed to bring their belongings?
I have since stopped trying to warn them that they are marching into ruination. Into the hands of the cell-pirates as we call them. They scoff at me and call it mere rumors. They are blinded by the decadence and abundance they believe awaits them on the other side. Like a get- rich-quick scheme or a compulsive gambler who always returns to the table, the truth becomes veiled when you believe the promises of a better future that isn’t earned. To them, perhaps something is better than nothing, even when you are unsure of what that something is. Besides, to them I’m just a Dreck from Reservation 9. They don’t know I’m Asher, the last son of The Great Defiance.
That is why I hide.
***
Sarai stands under the identical weeping willow on the other side of The Wall. Her father, Renatus, ruler of Zion, would be less than merry if he knew she was here. Her armed escorts act like sentinels, following her every move. It took some convincing for her security detail to take her to the edge of Zion, right to The Wall, considering what she had done in the past. They fear Renatus’s wrath if he ever found out. Or if she was ever hurt.
Today is the anniversary of Sarai’s secret engagement to Asher. She doesn’t know that he is on the other side at this very moment, but she can feel him. The wind pelts her face as she edges closer to The Wall, but it doesn’t bother her. The Lazurite guards make sure she doesn’t get too close, as they keep a wary eye out for anything out of the norm. The willow’s tress thrashes against its branches making it come alive. In its powerful beauty Sarai sees Asher.
Her father built The Wall fourteen years ago. It’s a modern engineering marvel that both connects societies and separates them. Its design is almost a perfect square located in the middle of the former United States of America. Its northern border starts in what used to be Northern Wyoming and stretches to Wisconsin; the eastern side goes from Wisconsin through the former states of Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas; the southern border goes from Arkansas to New Mexico; the western side from New Mexico back up to Wyoming. No ocean access, no way out. The former states that now encompass MiddleLand have been divided into twenty-four equally sized reservations. Reservation 9 sits on the Utah-Colorado border was where she first met Asher.
Sarai was tired of being a sultana, and the constant primping, prepping, and schooling at the Lazurite private schools. At seventeen she sneaked out of Zion to live with her Aunt Esther on Reservation 9. It was only supposed to be for a season, an adventure, a distraction before her forced marriage at the Canonization.
Then she met Asher. She smiles and recollects that day. There was a knock on the door and she opened it, wondering why this handsome boy in front of her had blood dripping from his forehead.
“What happened?”
“I . . . I fell.”
She dragged him to the couch and told him to lie down. She then grabbed a wet rag, cleaning the wound before bandaging it.
“How’d you fall?” she asked.
He just stared at her.
“Perhaps you have a concussion?”
Still nothing.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m Asher.”
“Sarai.”
“I know.”
“You stalking me?” she asked.
“No, I . . . I heard your aunt call your name.”
It was Sarai’s aunt who told her that she saw Asher purposely use a branch to make a small cut on his forehead, so he could pretend to be hurt. Then, he accidentally fell out of the tree while gawking at Sarai. Asher had hurt himself on purpose just so they could meet and spend time together. It was a daring and partially stupid gambit, Sarai thought, but one she now cherished. Asher’s head wasn’t the only thing cut that day. Her perception of what love meant was shattered. He had wrecked her notion of love.
Asher was different than any of the Lazurite boys Sarai was used to. And he was different than most Drecks. He didn’t live recklessly like so many first-lifers—except when trying to impress a girl he was enamored with. Part of it had to do with his family lineage. He was being groomed to be a leader, a warrior, but all he wanted was his own quiet corner, a garden, a few boisterous children to take to the playground, and, now, for Sarai to be his eternity mate.
But Sarai’s father had other plans. When she died in a car accident six months after her engagement to Asher, she was imported back to Zion where she was secretly given second-life protocol. The brakes on her car had failed. Ironically, the same brakes Asher had replaced weeks before. But in her heart she knew Asher was not to blame, that he hadn’t made a mistake. And even if he had, she would have loved him no less. It was an accident that brought them together, and another one that now separated them. At least that is what she believes.
“Sultana, it’s getting late,” one of the guards informs her.
Sarai ignores him and slowly stretches out her hand towards The Wall. She imagines Asher’s strong hands clasped with hers. His hands teemed with callouses from the countless holes his uncle forced him to dig as they unsuccessfully try to tunnel under The Wall. The first time she gawked into his buoyant sapphire blue eyes she felt like she was staring into a vast ocean. She adored the way his bulbous nose curled upward and how his chin would jut when he smiled. His short spiky hair flouted the presumptuous elongated locks of the Lazurite boys she grew up with.
Since being separated from Asher, Sarai’s numerous attempts to contact him had been in vain. There had been multiple rumors of his death. She wondered if he was still alive. And if so, why hadn’t he done more to contact her? Maybe he has moved on? The willow shakes, balking at such
thoughts.
“Sultana, I must insist.” The now unsettled guard shakes her from her remembrance.
“My father won’t be sultan forever,” she says, reminding him that she is next in line and that he should mind his tone. “Let’s go.”
“We’re clearing out!” the guard orders the others.
They create a perimeter around the armored helidrone and escort her into the back. Her drone is wedged between the protective custody of two more. She grabs a book and settles in for the long flight home to the Pacific Ocean she has grown to hate.
Sarai turns the frayed pages of a Hemingway novel. She prefers paperback to autoreaders or heads-up displays. Something about holding and turning the pages that makes the reading experience more intimate. The paper comes alive when she touches it. The simulated voice that attempts to duplicate what the great authors might have sounded like annoys her greatly. Most of them sound like a computer-generated version of an uptight snob just having poured his second bourbon.
She peers back at the diminishing Wall as they travel west over the rugged expanse of former Utah. She can see a person on the other side but doesn’t know it is Asher. If she did she would have her escort land immediately on the other side, despite the danger.
She may be going home, but as far as she is concerned, she is leaving home. As she turns and re-immerses herself in the poetry that is Hemingway her ears suddenly ring. She doesn’t hear the concussive blast that pushes her entire body into the steel roof of the drone. She spins in circles until the drone crashes into the side of a hill.
Her confusion mounts as she cranes her neck towards the window and witnesses the sky flip end over end at least a dozen times. The aging drone’s frame groans as the metal slowly twists with each somersault. Then her vision leaves her as acrid inky smoke saturates the flying beast. She doesn’t hear her guards squawk her name as her senses vacate her.
This wasn’t an accident.
***
I wrap my knuckles against the decaying door of the ramshackle house that sits on twenty acres of former farmland. The soil’s now sterile from years of neglect. A microcosm of our once productive society. Before second-life rights, before The Wall. It’s early as the sun still hasn’t scaled the mountains, but if I recall correctly, Sarai’s Aunt Esther is an early riser. I knock again, softly as it feels that the door might rip from its hinges.
“It’s five in the morning, who is it?”
“It’s Asher.”
Esther quickly opens the squeaking door. Her gaunt frame has seen more bountiful days, her silver hair wispy. She was once a stunner, but the hardships that have befallen The Middle have slowly chiseled away her beauty. More Zion’s doing than the years she liked to say. “Get in here before somebody sees you,” Esther squawks.
She drags me in by the arm and then checks that I’m alone. Her grip is like a vice from years of farming. When Sarai lived with her aunt I used to give Esther a hand with plowing, planting, and anything else that she asked. Her husband died of cancer years before I met her. Now things are falling apart. Her carpet is frayed and worn to dirty nubs. I smell coffee brewing, which is a welcome change to the otherwise musty aroma wafting up from the carpet.
Since her death, I have seen Sarai a few times on the holotube while watching a pirated signal coming out of Zion West. I know she has been taken to The Mountain and that her father and the Lazurites have resurrected her.
“What folly is this? I told you not to come here anymore. Sure you weren’t followed?”
“I’m sure,” I reply. I can’t blame her for being miffed. She could be executed if the Lazurites knew I was here. Besides, she blames me for Sarai’s accident. That is why I’m here. I sit on the rickety wooden chair and place my hands on the dusty table. She sits across from me. She throws me a vexing stare. I notice a small hole in the ceiling where the morning sun leaks through.
“I can fix that for you if you like.”
She ignores my offer.
“You’re lucky I was up, what is it you want?”
“The wreckage. You sure they didn’t mention where they were taking it?” I refer to her Toyota pickup that Sarai had died in.
She uses the sharp nail on her index finger to scratch her yellow front teeth, almost as if she can scrape them white again. “I know I look older than the trees, but I’m not senile yet, we have been over this Asher. ...
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