The Search for the Eoz Potion

11. Capital City

The city was beginning to wake as the SG marched toward the prison. They walked peacefully through the streets with no protection other than the griffins. Some members rode on the backs of the powerful animals, but most chose to walk on their own. They were tired, but the march energized them. They had a purpose, and they were excited to free Tellis along with their other members and supporters who had been jailed over the years. Josef himself marched with the strongest sense of determination. When they set out from the strangers' farm, Claire was talking with Zack and some of the other Searchers from the carriage, but Hailey was watching Josef. He looked straight ahead with a calm but meaningful look in his eyes. Hailey remembered Zack saying that Josef had family in the prison. She hadn't heard Josef mention it, but she assumed that was the reason for his intensity. Still, neither he nor any of the others seemed driven by anger. Except for Josef, most of the others smiled and laughed as they chatted with one another while walking. A few of them were so caught up in the moment that they even began singing.

Claire noticed the lightness of what to her seemed like a serious moment as they all walked through the cool morning and looked up at the rising sun with a sense of hope. This was not like troops marching off to win a war, it seemed more like they felt they had already won. Claire could not quite figure it out, but she became swept up in the spirit of the moment and started to feel empowered herself. Hailey, however, was more confused by the whole thing and looked skeptically at Claire as she started to give in to the magic of Yllop.

The morning rush hour approached as it does in any other city, and people rode up and down the streets heading off to work and school. Unlike the cities they were used to, though, Hailey and Claire watched as the residents of Capital City rode on self driving transports that hovered over the road. They were directed by the control stations up in the towers. Riders simply entered where they needed to go and an unseen operator took them to their destination. While there was a growing number of people on the streets, most of them mindlessly punched their location into the automatic taxis and were on their way. They did not even notice the SG at first.

The streets were patrolled by officers who were dressed just like the Human Robot Army, in dark green uniforms with purple stripes along the sleeves, but they did not have bracelets. These officers were Garden natives who had agreed with the Prince that the Searchers should not be allowed into Yllop. They were armed with small guns that stunned their target.

The police were the first ones to become concerned about the SG's parade through the city. When they first noticed them, the Capital City Police drew their weapons but quickly realized there were too many of them to fight on their own. Even with the support of the HRA soldiers that General Drawde had sent in to help keep the peace, there was not enough to stop the SG's march.

Meanwhile, Claire looked around at the city as they marched. It confused her and she struggled to make sense of the place. It was as if they had left the Garden completely. She found it hard to believe she was even still in Yllop. The city center was full of businesses in small strip mall-like structures, long one story buildings that stretched out for entire city blocks that all looked exactly the same. As the SG marched down these main roads, Hailey and Claire noticed street after street full of houses branching off just like the cities back home. They kept seeing people coming out of their homes and heading for work just like they would have done on any other weekday morning in any other city they had seen before. It felt to them like the world they knew, the world they had not long ago believed to be the only reality that existed, had been recreated inside of this mystical garden. In the building of the city, the magic of the Garden had been sacrificed for something familiar.

The Capital City Towers were located in the heart of a downtown area and the girls could see them on the skyline as they approached. Small groups of residents of Capital City started to gather on either side of the SG's little parade. They talked among themselves trying to figure out what was going on as an air of unease slowly started to grow. Some of them looked concerned, some of them looked angry. Among them, though, Hailey and Claire saw a young man and his wife give a slight nod of encouragement that confused the girls. For the most part, the crowd looked at the SG nervously, afraid they were planning some kind of attack but too scared to do anything to stop it.