They made a small camp next to the ruins. Fire reflecting off the walls. Shadows hungry.
Noise echoed too much down here.
"Probably before the president," Teddy sniffed, eyeing the edge of the ruins. "Probably for the homeless."
"I think you're right."
It would never be used again. Too much time had passed; nothing would work, life sapped from the ground.
"It makes me sad," Teddy said, "to know so much effort went to waste. To know that we were trying so hard but we had become so bad. Or maybe it's always been this way--I don't know. What can you do?"
"Eyes front," Molly said. "We need to stop Maxis. That's all that matters."
"Is it?"
He went over and sat back down. Brushed off the dirt gathered on his pants.
"What do you mean?" Molly asked.
"Maxis is...what? Our mistake. Everything that went wrong. Ambition becoming insanity. Expansion becoming genocide. Everything."
"How do you know that?"
"Because he wants to control the world."
"Maybe it's for the best."
"Maybe--but I know Maxis isn't the one to do it."
Molly nodded.
"Teddy, other than a couple of...vague details, you know just as much as I do now."
"But I'm not connected."
She got up.
"No."
"So I am exempt. I'll never know the real thing. What it means to be connected. The last thing taken from me by people I once trusted." Teddy nodded. "Yeah, I think I do get it Molly. It's really not that complicated: the haves and the have-nots. Again."
"You sound like a revolutionary."
"It's the truth."
From the ruins appeared a man, stooped over. At first Molly thought it might be Maxis, had somehow found her in this pit. But the man was slow, ruined with age. The only way he could get around was all the tech he wore, long poles jutting from the wrist that he touched the earth with, catching various walls and rubble. Four glowing orbs on his chest--Molly assumed armortech.
"Ah," he said, noticing them. "Do not mind me! I have no quarrel with those from above."
His eyes were covered in goggles but his skin was so pale Molly was sure the eyes must be just as white.
The old man scurried away.
"We're close to the source," Teddy said, staring at Molly.
"He might be Maxis. Disguised. He wants to trick us into doing something--I don't know what. I don't know and..." She sighed. "Others don't."
"The people in your head."
"Yeah."
He nodded again.
"Let's go find him."
"Teddy, wait--"
They kissed under the glow of the moon: where the opening was, Molly didn't know. The light was hazy above them, unknown particles dancing, organisms conjoining.
She held his hand.
"I love you. Please...please don't change."
Teddy smiled at her.
YOU ARE READING
Molly - Part 4
Science FictionThere wasn't a statue of liberty anymore--there was no need for it. And as the sun dawned and the fog rolled in and the buildings became so high they blotted out what little sunlight there was it could only be said that yes: this was the end of the...
