Chapter 1 of Untitled Scifi/Dystopian

13

     It seemed to Will that that number, 13, had followed him around like a curse for bad luck for almost two hundred years. It was said, of course, that there was no need for any sort of fear anymore, but the old superstitions never did seem to fade. Everyone had a number; that was the way of things; it was not as though this were exclusive to him. Nobody in town could ask for a new one. Numbers were just so much simpler and more structured than cumbersome names. Changing them would only become confusing. He himself was not actually called Will, but 13, if anybody besides Eyre talked to him. Names were not forbidden, but discouraged, so he kept his own borrowed name, William, hidden. He had to keep many things hidden, including his pale blue eyes, an unlucky and unwanted defect, under the brim of an old gray cap.

     Will adjusted this once-tweed cap as he lingered apart from a group of people, who stood across the alleyway. The morning was rainy and dark, and the only light was a faint orange glow cast from the streetlights, spilled down over the wet cobblestone pavement. Arcade, read the dull flickering red letters on the sign of the dingy brick building, alongside the number 10 in glowing yellow. Even in the heavy torrents of rain, none of the group waiting outside left. They jabbered incessantly and waited together to be let inside.

     To the casual observer, it would seem that this group was a jumble of cultures, their clothing an assortment of coats and shoes of all kinds. People wore Victorian top hats, t-shirts, battered sneakers and vintage blazers all at once. But if one looked closer, they would see only young faces with noses and foreheads curved in the same way, vapid brown eyes of the same shape and expression, the same pale complexions, the same brown hair of a common length, and the same accents. For everybody was exactly alike.

     In the distance the Clock chimed six times, signifying that it was at last six o’clock. The doors to the Arcade opened, allowing the group to shove their way inside building number ten, laughing and exchanging conversation with increasing rapidity.

     When they had all disappeared into the Arcade, Will was joined by a girl whose hair and eyes were concealed by an aviator’s cap and goggles.

      “Hello, Eyre.”

      “Hi, Will.” She wiped away the fog and rainwater smearing her goggles.  “Let’s go, then.”

     The library was a considerable distance away, along the line where the road met the railing separating the city from endless ocean. The walk through the 1—100 sector of town always did bother Will. Besides the Arcade and the dilapidated little library, there was not much to see: only the Cinema, where movies—two-hour long thrilling slaughter fests—were shown occasionally; a few small, deserted buildings that might have been in use before the disaster; fields of wheat; the ugly factories; the clock tower; and the apartments where the inhabitants of the sector all lived in their own separate rooms. There were five sectors in all, and each had an apartment building for exactly one hundred people.

     Those apartments, especially, he hated: the neat pale-cream cube blocks with floral-patterned curtains and green lawn outside. Normal apartments, it appeared, but the glass window panes were never dirty, and the curtains hung as stiffly as rods. The lawn was cut painfully short and was untouched—it had none of the familiar worn places where shoes often tread, no muddy gaps.

     And he hated them. He thought of a little blue house with white trim, overgrown grass and weather-beaten muddy boots out on the porch. He had always left a saucer of milk outside on that porch, for the stray cat with charcoal-gray fur and bright lemon-colored eyes. A funny half-smile flitted over his face. Thumbs, he had called her, because of the extra toe on each paw…

     He jolted suddenly, realizing he had remembered something, but at once the rest of the memory dissolved and he was left staring at the sunken library in front of him.

     They pushed through the doors and walked in, their wet shoes clicking on the old hardwood floor. Water dripping from the slick surface of Eyre’s brown leather bomber jacket collected in a puddle on the ground.

     Inside, the library smelled strongly of dust and old paper. It was hard to believe that less than two centuries ago, many people had gone to libraries almost as frequently as they did.

     Those books were the only window they had into how life used to be, before the disaster. Recalling his own memories was to Will like recalling the vaguest memories of someone else’s life. He could not remember anything past the age of eleven, or if he had once been older than he was now. His recollections even then were very limited. Books were important; their names and knowledge came from books; but a book did not live forever, and Will and Eyre were careful to preserve them.

     All of the books were needed. Will liked Shakespeare’s writing, and Eyre, Charlotte Bronte’s, but they read them all. Sometimes they helped Will remember things from the time before the disaster. Strange, alien-sounding words, phrases, descriptions of both the familiar and unfamiliar somehow connected in his mind. He had never in his current memory, for example, smelled cigarette smoke, but the term stirred something in his brain and allowed the ghost of a burning sensation to enter his nostrils. While reading a thick little brown volume by Jack London, another, more pleasant smell resurfaced: pine trees. It was associated with what he supposed was a happy day, a day mentioned in several books—a day called Christmas.

     Even the dictionary and encyclopedia had to be carefully perused. Though they were considerably duller than most of the books, they contained by far the most knowledge. At the moment, Eyre was poring over a copy of the dictionary, and commented aloud every so often about strange words starting with the letter q. She had unfastened her aviator cap, and her close-cropped hair stuck up in all directions like a bright red porcupine. Anybody could plainly see that her eyes were green.

     Will didn’t bother to warn her about being more careful. There were no interface surveillance screens in this particular building, and besides them, nobody had entered the library for two centuries. And why should they? Next to the Arcade, with all of its gleaming, brilliant golden light inside, a library was nothing. The Arcade was a paradise, full of incredible games to play all day with no work or school to care about.

     Being Unusuals, as was the popular term (accompanied by an obligatory look of distaste), Will and Eyre were not allowed in the Arcade. In the beginning, when it didn’t matter very much, they used to sneak in anyway. With hats and sunglasses, they could pass for being Usual while wearing hats and sunglasses—the genetic alteration had worked on them for the most part, freezing them at about eleven or twelve years old forever, but leaving their eyes and hair the same.

     Then a third Unusual—16—with whom they did not associate, had been caught and turned into the Sovereign’s Administration. He was never seen again.

     After that, Will and Eyre did not return to the Arcade.

     They did not know where the other Unusuals went while the others stayed in the Arcade for hours. There had been at least fifty to begin with, but they had all gradually vanished throughout the years. Unusuals had been turned in for the crime of a different eye color, without violating any other rule. Will and Eyre had gone unnoticed by the carefree Usual people, who did not know or care why the two of them no longer visited the Arcade. 13 and 29 were not missed.

     Will found it funny that even after all these years, everyone remembered everybody else’s number. He knew that before, people must have remembered others’ names, which, said the Administration, was very confusing. Some people had the same names. Names were dull and used; a number was unique and only applied to you.

     That was true in some respect, thought Will, but somehow names were better and different in a way he could not explain. The characters and authors of books never had numbers instead of names.

     He settled himself into a musty, sloped chair with a copy of Macbeth and began to read, as he had dozens of times before. The words were magic in that old library. He was limited to the physical, emotional and mental capacity of an eleven-year-old, and stumbled over a few gnarled and complicated sentences, but soon was swept up in the play. Macbeth always sent welcome chills up his spine. He scarcely minded the most confusing parts; the story caught him within its pages like only the best authors’ words could do. It allowed him to forget, for the time being, that the Sovereign had ever existed.

      “Quid pro quo,” Eyre called out abruptly.

      “Interesting,” said Will, though he felt a slight stab of frustration with her for interrupting Macbeth. “What’s it mean?”

      “‘One thing in return for another.’ Cool.”

      “Yeah…,” he said absentmindedly. Try as he might, he couldn’t quite return to Macbeth after that. Instead, he focused on the windows. Pale light was seeping through the shutters, though the rain was still bucketing down. Eyre extinguished the candle she had been reading by and shoved the remaining stub of wax deep into the pocket of her coat.

      “It’ll be eight o’clock soon. We should go.”

      “All right.” Will closed his book and returned it to its proper place, a lonely shelf reserved for the few paperback copies of Shakespeare’s works. He had done this perhaps thousands of unaccounted-for times, but this time he accidentally pushed the book against the back panel too hard and too far. It caved in and revealed a hollow dark space behind.

     He froze. “Eyre?”

      “Yes?” she said, glancing up.

      “Come look at this.” He pushed on the panel with his hand. It fell down. Lying down inside were stacks of booklets—big flat glossy covers stapled over paper. They were like magazines but too big, like picture books but too thin. He pulled a few from one stack.

      “What’s Beethoven?”

      “I don’t know,” Eyre said, stepping closer to better examine the booklets.

     Will gingerly lifted a whole stack of them and flipped through one. He was greeted by the inviting rustle of crackly yellow pages and rising dust. The pages were covered with interesting titles, lines and odd symbols.

      “Liszt,” said Eyre, reading aloud from the books. “Chopin. Mozart.”

     The words struck him as familiar. He didn’t completely recognize them, but they felt comfortable rolling off his tongue, as though he had said them before. Will thumbed through more pages. Once, Eyre had found a drawer full of maps, but they hadn’t discovered anything new for several years. The booklets were an exciting find. He scrutinized the pages and had a sudden mental image of long fingers—his own?—flying across black-and-white keys. Disjointed soft sounds floated through his mind. They were part of the same song, but he only remembered bits and pieces.

     He became conscious it was called “piano.”

      “It’s sheet music.”

     Eyre’s eyes lit up. She seemed to understand. “Really? I don’t know any music notes,” she said with regret.

      “I… think I know a few,” Will said hesitantly. He placed a finger on one line, tracing the notes and humming as he went along. The notes came to him with shocking ease, and he was amazed he had not remembered them before. He was able to figure out what the song may have sounded like—almost, almost—but it was not enough, he would need a piano just to come close.

      “Hey, what’s that?” Eyre’s hand in its black woolen glove blocked Will’s view of the page. He brushed it away to see faint pencil annotations in the margins.

      “It looks like someone owned it and wrote notes,” he said. There were tangled masses of cursive in which the person had jotted things like, “Always get that part wrong” or “Dec 7, practice this piece for recital.”

      “Oh,” said Eyre, clearly disappointed, but Will was fascinated. He leaned against the wall and searched for every penciled word, every dog-eared page, every strawberry jelly thumbprint.  It bore the marks of ownership, and somehow he liked this. Eyre, chin propped in hand, watched him for a moment, picked up the dictionary, then grew quickly uninterested and turned to the children’s section of the library for something more entertaining.

     Upon the eight faint chimes of the Clock, Eyre hastily stuck the book back on the shelf, jamming her aviator cap and goggles back on, and Will brought the sheet music with him. The lunch pavilion was near the center of town, just under the Clock Tower, and all of the five sectors joined there to eat.

     The gatekeeper stopped them as they went into the pavilion for breakfast. “Hang on, what’s that?” he asked, gesturing to the booklets in Will’s hand.

      “Just something from the library,” Eyre said shortly, looking up at him.

     The gatekeeper, being part of the Administration, was about fifteen, much older than the general population. His blank brown eyes tinged on puzzlement. “I don’t think those are supposed to leave the library, are they?”

      “I thought we could borrow anything from the library,” Will said, staring at the ground so that his eyes weren’t noticed. Eyre’s were obscured enough by the goggles.

      “That is true, but…” The gatekeeper shrugged. “The Administration wouldn’t like it. Hand them over. We’ll take them back to the library ourselves after inspection.”

     Will knew better than to argue. He handed over the sheet music, not liking to see them passed into the gatekeeper’s hands.

      “What was that about?” Eyre wondered aloud, taking a tray of pizza and soda as she walked. The Administration had set up factories that produced these things, which they ate for all three meals of the day. Will often thought wistfully of hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream melting softly on his tongue, things he remembered from before. None of the Usuals seemed to mind the lack of variety.

      “No clue,” he answered, picking up a tray for himself.

     They walked together to an unoccupied, squat pinkish-red bench. The canopy had been raised over the intricate maze of tables to protect everyone from the miserable weather. The pounding rain became only a dim mechanical clacking on the awning. The pavilion was much nicer-looking on dry evenings, when prisms of light caught by the shafts between the benches fell abruptly onto the reddish ground.

     When afternoon came, it was still overcast, slate-gray and dreary. It was only raining lightly then and the ocean just beyond the railing was no longer swaying as dangerously. After lunch, a group of Usuals were milling around outside the library.

      “What’re they doing?” Will said, frowning. “Why aren’t they in the Arcade?”

      “I don’t know…”

     They walked up the crumbling steps, glancing uneasily at the Usuals, and tried to open the door. It was locked.

      “What’re you doing?” one of the Usual boys demanded. “Don’t you know that’s a demolition site?”

      “A demolition site?” Will repeated, not fully grasping.

      “It’s been on the Arcade interface bulletin since after breakfast,” the boy said.

      “Has it?” Will asked bleakly.

      “Well, yeah. Where’ve you been? And who are you, anyway? I don’t think I’ve seen you at the Arcade.”

     Will didn’t respond. He and Eyre exchanged glances.

      “What did the bulletin say?” Eyre asked.

      “I don’t remember. It’s gonna get wrecked sometime today though. They already took the books.”

     Will’s mind raced. Took the books? Had the books been burned, or just been moved away? It was impossible to tell with the Administration. Two hundred years and they had left the library untouched. But now…

     He studied the moss growing through the cracks in the bricks. “Anything else?” he asked quietly.

     The Usuals had no helpful answers. Instead they peppered Will and Eyre with inquiries concerning how they felt about the new shooter game’s graphics. They both carefully avoided directly answering these questions, and kept polite smiles pasted to their faces the whole time. Finally, the Usuals became tired of the lack of violent demolition, and trailed back into the Arcade looking disappointed.

     Will and Eyre looked at the library, so old and weary. It had always been bound to happen, they knew, but they never really expected that it would happen so suddenly. They didn’t say anything to each other, simply sat on the front steps and waited over the long hours as it grew dark and a tangerine moon shrouded in dark storm clouds rose over the lonely last town on Earth.

     The team from the Administration came close to midnight, their white uniforms and white van appearing ghostly in the dark, and advised Will and Eyre to go back to their apartments. Instead they stood far away on the street, knowing that it was impossible to burn to death, but asphyxiation was another matter.

     First the Administration team crushed the empty library with a wrecking ball, reducing it to a jagged mess that looked in the lack of light to be a dead beast hunched over, wooden stakes haphazardly protruding from its carcass. They tried to set fire to it, to let bright playful tendrils of flames leap over it and consume it hungrily, but the rain had left it damp. It smoldered there, slowly being charred beyond recognition. Will and Eyre watched the whole time, to the very last minute, until the library, building number 13, was simply a pile of blacked bricks and ash.