Elysium

They left that basement and walked uptown in the dimness of daybreak. The streets were a deserted mess. Cars stopped in traffic with no one in them. Newspapers and trash flying around. Smashed windows on the storefronts. And silence. Their footfalls echoed off the tall buildings. Behind the gray clouds it was speckly, like a monitor screen gone wrong. A small green dot hovered up there. Adrian watched it for a while as they walked until it blipped out of existence.

Whenever they heard something or saw something move, they hid. Abandoned storefronts, an old wreck of a house, and alleyways all made good hiding places. Something moved. It could have been anything. It could even have been someone who was still normal. Antoine wasn’t taking any chances with Adrian’s life. So they took cover and waited for whatever it was to pass.

Things fell apart so fast. Who would have guessed that the city could look this way so soon after the incident? That’s what their dad called it, the Incident. He seemed pained even saying that much. Now their dad was gone. But Adrian had Antoine. He was going to look out for him. He would always look out for him.

E
LYSIUM

Or, The World After

Jennifer Marie Brissett

Aqueduct Press, PO Box 95787

Seattle, WA 98145-2787

www.aqueductpress.com

This book is fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Digital ISBN: 978-1-61976-054-7

Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Marie Brissett

All rights reserved.

Cover illustrations: “Road to Dead City” © Can Stock Photo Inc /rolffimages; “Elk” © Can Stock Photo Inc/Almaviva
Interior illustration: Feather © Sasha1610/ Shutterstock.com

Cover Design by Kathryn Wilham

Poem in Chapter 9, “Death creeps through the streets over programmed,” from “NGH WHT” in
The Dead Emcee Scrolls
by Saul Williams reprinted with permission of Simon & Schuster.
Copyright © 2006 Saul Williams.

The flutter flutter of death’s wings came for my beloved,
but I was not ready to let go
…

>>

>> open bridge

Connecting...

*BRIDGE CONNECTED*

>>

>>

>> begin program

BRIDGE PROCESS: INITIATED 0000-00-00 00:00

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1.

Floating high above the city, dipping and swooping through the valleys of cinderblocks and concrete, landing on the edge of a rooftop to look down upon the inhabitants below. Watching, seeing, learning. They walk along the streets, alleys, and avenues. Moving here, going there, in a constant state of rush. Appointments to be kept, people to see, things to do. And Adrianne was one of them. She had somewhere to go. It was not deathly important. Just something she had been looking forward to all week, lunch with a friend at a place where they could sit by a window and watch the beautiful ones pass, examine their clothes, and take notes while rolling noodles around their forks, pretending to eat.

The city was a place to both love and despise. A place where a patchwork of new and old gray buildings stood side by side with icy-glass-covered skyscrapers. A blended terrain of high and low structures, each bookmarking history. A place Adrianne called home. She could never see herself leaving, though she often wondered how she could remain. Her mind wandered on so many useless thoughts as she walked along the busy sidewalk. Then she noticed, among the cars and the trucks and the buses, an elk. Its furry hindquarters protruded as it entered the crowd and sauntered through the shoppers, the vendors, and the construction workers. Its antlers rose high upon its elegant head, spreading upwards like giant fingers into a crown as it strode nonchalantly along the bustling city street. Adrianne stopped to examine what she could so clearly see, yet everyone else seemed blind to it.

The elk turned to face Adrianne. They considered each other for a long pause, gazing into each other’s eyes. They were momentarily interrupted by a tourist double-decker bus. After it passed, they resumed their connection. Then the elk lifted its head as if in a nod and sauntered away. Adrianne watched as it disappeared into the crowd.

She remained on the street corner, blocking the path, and got pushed and shoved, not out of rudeness, but simply because she was in the way. Her mind was now blank. She had been considering something. Something strange that she could not remember. It was possible that the heat was affecting her. The sun beat down warmly over her face and hair. She moved away from the corner towards the shade of a storefront’s awning, fumbling in her purse, searching for a piece of tissue so that she could wipe her nose and dab the perspiration from under her eyes.

Her phone buzzed.

“Hey, Helen, I’m on my way. … Oh. … Umm, yeah, no, I understand. … Yeah, that’s okay. Don’t worry. It’s fine. … Maybe next week. … Yeah, really don’t worry about it. … I’ll see you later. … Yeah, bye.”

Damn. It was just a lunch. An ordinary lunch. But Adrianne needed to talk. Something was happening at home. Something she felt through her skin. Something that if spoken to a trusting ear she might find was nothing but a wisp of smoke. But she needed to be assured that her imagination was working overtime before her fears gained form and weight.

Going home was not something she really wanted to do. And the streets were so full today. Vendor tables were lined up along the edges of the sidewalk with handmade crafts, T-shirts, scarves, leather holders for pocket gadgets. The table nearest to her had some jewelry that was interesting. She waited patiently while another woman examined a bracelet. The woman put it on and the shiny metal loops looked exotic and graceful on her wrist. Adrianne gently squeezed past her to pick up a necklace of polished stones that glittered over twisted bronze and copper. She held it up, decided it was too extravagant, and put it down. She looked at a few pairs of earrings, trying them against her face in the small plastic mirror hanging from the stand. None of them appeared as nice on her as they did on the table, so she put them back as well. The heat of the seller’s stare told her he was about to make the hard pitch for a sale. She gave the table one final look before he could speak, then walked away.

Voices, accents, languages whose rhythms echoed places Adrianne had never seen (and maybe never would) beat past her like a marching band. The sounds were a blending stream of conversations and sighs. The faces that passed her were from all over the world. Each a different shape and color. The smell of roasting peanuts on open charcoal burners, curried meats, frying falafels, and urine from the gutters drifted through the heated summer air. Adrianne moved asynchronously in the uneven flow of people. Many in the crowd carried multiple shopping bags stamped with designer logos, walking credit card bills with grinning faces.

The open doors of the boutiques and electronic stores blasted icy wind from air conditioners set on super-high. The cold beckoned to her. She relished the cool against her skin. Through her reflection on the window of a clothing store she could see the plastic people looking at the mannequins in their styled outfits. She went inside to join them.

She roamed through the racks of shirts, skirts, dresses, and pants. The perfume of a passing salesgirl was a mixture of sea breezes and powder. She clicked her price gun on a tag.

A red and white blouse caught Adrianne’s eye. She pulled it off the rack and held it up to the light. It was a flowing delicate faux silk blouse, long at the bottom with buttons at the top. She put it next to her body in front of a mirror. It was too young for her, so she replaced it on the rack without much care. She really shouldn’t be here, she thought. She wasn’t going to buy anything anyway. Back out to the summer streets.

The sun pierced her skin like a blade. She looked up and saw a dot of green hovering in the blue sky. It hung there for a few moments, and then it was gone. She paused to look for the dot, staring up from under scaffolding that provided cover from the heat. She leaned against the metal pole that held the wooden planks above, waving a newspaper at herself, as if the hot wind it produced could actually make her feel cooler. The headlines told of the possibility of war in some foreign land. Same old shit.

God, there is construction everywhere in this damn city. When are they gonna be done building this place?

“Hey, lady, look out!”

*** SYSTEM FAILURE ***

CREATING FILE: core.dmp

>>

>>

>> opendoc /r core.dmp

ERROR: CANNOT OPEN FILE

>> opendoc /d core.dmp

FILE: core.dmp 0 odus

>>

>>

>> delete core.dmp

*FILE DELETED*

>>

>> bypass error

SYSTEM ERROR BYPASSED

>> restart

BRIDGE PROCESS: **RESTARTED**

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“Lady, you okay?”

He was brown, skin and eyes, and covered in dust. He looked shaken, as if he’d seen the hand of death. Adrianne lay on the ground, also enshrouded in dust. He took off his yellow hard hat and cautiously touched her on the face and neck with calloused hands. Adrianne reached up to feel the wetness on her forehead. The red on her open palm sent a sourness to her stomach.

“Easy now,” he said. “The paramedics will be here in a minute.”

When Antoine finally came home, Adrianne knew exactly what he would say when he noticed the huge bandage on her forehead. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?”