The Ruins Book 3: A Dystopian Society in a Post-Apocalyptic World Page 8

  Taking his cue, The Gifted ones walked on feet Bray couldn't see beneath their robes, taking seats. Had he been in a snowberry-induced stupor, Bray might've convinced himself they floated. A part of him wondered if he was dreaming, destined to wake up on a bed of rocks and dirt in the wild. Cullen looked as if he had been caught mid-bite in a stolen meal. He walked with his mouth open, his eyes wide, following Kirby, William, and Bray.

  Before sitting, Bray glimpsed more of the ruined buildings out the back windows, which extended as far as the eye could see. Farther back, he thought he saw the end of the protective wall. Tolstoy and the rest sat, while Rudyard stood in a position by the door, seemingly relaxed, but probably guarding.

  "Welcome to New City," Tolstoy said, smiling through his warts.

  Another man, with a bulbous head and thin, wart-covered lips spoke up. "To clarify, the name probably held more meaning when we first decided to call it that, many, many years ago. Now it is more of a misnomer. We have been a city for many years."

  "It is beautiful, no matter what you call it," Kirby said politely.

  "We are impressed," Bray said.

  Tolstoy gestured to the people sitting around the back half of the table, his brethren. "These are the rest of The Gifted. Some you saw on the balcony. Others you have not met." Motioning to each in turn, he said, "Their names are Herman, Simon, Walter, Alfred, Henry, Leonard, Barron, and Amelia."

  A few of them nodded at their names, or moved their misshapen heads to acknowledge the introduction.

  "I am Bray, and this is Kirby, Cullen, and William," Bray said.

  "William," Tolstoy regarded, latching on to the name. "We are very interested to speak with you."

  The others switched focus, watching him. William shrank down in his chair, uncomfortable, or nervous. Despite that, he kept his hood off his head.

  "In the Beginning Time, before The Collapse, we saw more like you, like us," Tolstoy said, with a faraway look in his eyes. "Most were destroyed by people who didn't understand what we were. If they had been given time, perhaps we could have built a city filled with our people."

  William nodded slowly.

  "I'll admit, it has been almost a hundred and fifty years since I have laid eyes on someone of our type," he continued with reverie. "Someone with your appearance, but with an intact mind. Someone who can speak with The Plagued Ones, or apparently so."

  Sitting forward, possibly containing a thought, the woman named Amelia said, "In all my years, I have never seen one as young as you."

  William stayed silent.

  "Have you been infected long?"

  "My mother found my lumps when I was eleven."

  "Many, many years ago," she assumed.

  "Not that long ago," William said, confusion crossing his face. "It was only in the past year."

  "The past year?" Tolstoy asked, incredulous.

  Looking at Tolstoy, Amelia said, "The spore might have changed, so many years after The Collapse. Or perhaps he is an anomaly."

  "I don't understand," William said.

  "Usually our appearance takes more time to develop," Amelia continued. "Our thought was that you'd come from before The Collapse."

  Tolstoy cut in. "The spore causes all our telomeres to mutate and form the telomerase enzyme, which stops us from aging, but for a very few, it makes us more intelligent. Usually that process takes years." Tolstoy paused as he saw William's confused face. "My apologies. We are speaking in terms that are probably bewildering. It is just that we have not seen another of our kind in so long. Sometimes the sickness we get in the beginning kills many of the youngest of us. Obviously that did not happen with you."

  After a silence, William said, "I was sick for a while, but I got through it."

  "The sickness affects the intelligent ones the worst," Tolstoy said, adding, "You are a strong boy to survive it."

  Bray felt as if he was listening to a conversation in another language. But some part of what he heard, he understood. He knew William was special. He'd seen that from those first days, when William had shown his aptitude for tracking and hunting. William had picked up on things that most kids his age ignored, or had no time for. Kirby was infected, too, but she didn't have the appearance of William, or his degree of intelligence. And she certainly couldn't speak to demons.

  William was like Jingo, like these people.

  These Gifted.

  "I saw some of our power in you, when you were outside," Tolstoy said. "And I see in your eyes that you are smart. I assumed that was why your people had chosen you for an emissary. I am surprised they allowed someone so young far from home. They must have confidence in you."

  The compliment allowed William to relax a bit.

  "You do not need to fear us," Amelia said to William, to all of them. "We have plenty to learn from each other. I think we will find that, in our visit."

  Chapter 16: Bray

  Bray stared at some of the strange, blowing devices that flung a breeze against their faces, unable to help some trepidation as he wondered what caused the strange contraptions to move on their own. Noticing his attention, Tolstoy pointed at the nearest, which had a long, snake-like object behind it.

  "The devices provide a bit of a respite from the heat outdoors," Tolstoy said. "They aren't enough to cool a room, especially on a building's upper floor, but they are something. We mostly use them when we have guests."

  "How do they work?" Bray asked.

  Looking as if he was gauging their reaction, Tolstoy said, "Electricity."

  "Electricity," Kirby muttered the word quietly, in awe.

  Tolstoy seemed surprised. "Have you heard of it?"

  "I have heard of the word, though I only have a vague idea of what it does," Kirby said, probably hiding the extent of her knowledge. She knew many things Bray and William didn't, but as supposed emissaries from Brighton, they were playing a role.

  Reinforcing the statement, Bray said, "We have heard stories."

  Intrigued by the topic of conversation, Tolstoy said, "We have some machines that work on steam power, which provides us electricity. Others work on wind, such as the mills outside."

  "What do the windmills do?" Kirby asked.

  "One of them pumps our water, and one of them grinds our grain. They allow us to produce food and drink much faster than a man's hands could." Tolstoy looked proud of his accomplishments. "We choose our resources, and we prioritize survival. For that reason, we do not use the lights or the fans often. We use them for hospitality. The majority of our efforts are focused on products that we can trade. I will admit, not many of our trading partners have a deep enough understanding to discuss these things."

  "Most of what we've heard are from stories," Kirby reiterated.

  "Stories are many, in this world," Tolstoy said. "Some are true, but many are fabrication." He gazed at the bookshelves.

  "How did you build the devices called fans, and the windmills?" Kirby asked, pointing at the circular, moving objects.

  The infected man named Herman shifted in his chair. "Reclaimed metal, mostly. The majority of the materials to build these types of devices was worn away, stolen, or pulled into the forest over hundreds of years. But over time, we found places that preserved some of them—places underground, or tucked away from men, in conditions that were better than the wild. Most people were more concerned with food, drink, or a place to hide. Many things that were hard to reach were left behind. Sometimes we have substituted materials, where we do not have them. We improvise."

  "The knowledge of much of man's history is preserved in moth-eaten books," Tolstoy said, nodding at the bookshelves. "We are familiar with the things from before The Collapse, but that does not make them easy to recreate. Most of man's great inventions took years to progress. Even before The Collapse, each invention was built on the shoulders of someone before it. Without the shops to make some of the specific parts, or the technical knowledge of each process, we are left to learn and make do. But we have had plenty of time
, and we are gifted with intelligence that makes learning easier. We use what we can. In addition to our reclaimed materials, we have built a few others by modifying the processes, or reverted to older, more archaic methods, such as the ones used long before the years of The Collapse."

  Bray gazed up at one of the round, bulbous lights on the ceiling. "I have never seen anything like the lights."

  "Would you like to see how they work?" Tolstoy asked.

  Bray nodded wordlessly.

  Eager to demonstrate, Tolstoy stood, walked over to the side of the room, and touched a strange object on the wall next to one of the bookshelves. In an eye's blink, the lights glowed from behind the round, glass casings, illuminating the area underneath each device.

  "They are more impressive at night, of course," Tolstoy said.

  Bray, Kirby, William, and Cullen sat back in their chairs, enrapt.

  "You might have heard that humming noise coming from below," Herman said. "That is the sound of a steam-powered generator that we located and modified, which feeds the copper wiring in the walls. Most copper has degraded over the years. But we found some that had survived the looting, in the shops that produced it before The Collapse, or preserved in conditions where it hadn't degraded. We use an old method of wiring called knob and tube, encased in glass insulators that we produce here. The wiring method is actually safer than some of the later processes used closer to The Collapse—especially in large, old buildings such as this. Glass is one of our major pieces of trade. Along with our crops, of course." Herman sat back in his chair. "We don't have nearly as many luxuries as you might have found, hundreds of years ago, but we have a few. Perhaps one day, as our knowledge grows, we will have more."

  Tolstoy hit the same thing on the wall again, and the lights stopped glowing.

  "I have never seen something so fascinating," Bray said. "And I admit, I have never heard some of the words you used."

  "The process of electricity dates much farther back than The Collapse. In fact, some speculated that a people called the Egyptians used it, thousands of years ago," Tolstoy said. "However, that theory is unproven."

  "Perhaps if you stay longer, we can explain better," Herman said.

  Bray looked at some of the other objects in the room, sitting on the desks by the windows, on a few of the small tables in other places, or on the shelves next to the rows of books. "What are some of these other metal things?"

  "Microscopes, telescopes, lamps. Some have survived the ages, but others we have created." Tolstoy nodded sagely. "Too many relics have been destroyed by time. But we have made some fortunate discoveries."

  "Is that a weapon?" William pointed at one of the devices to which Tolstoy had referred, a tube attached to a curved metal base with various pieces of metal and strange knobs coming off it.

  A half-smile crossed Tolstoy's face. "That device has many different uses, but killing a man is not one of them. We found it intact in one of the underground buildings."

  "What is it called?"

  "A microscope."

  "A microscope," William repeated with wonder.

  "It allows you to see very small things easier," Tolstoy explained. "Perhaps later we can demonstrate for you."

  "I have never seen so many books." William gestured at the seemingly endless row of spines on the bookshelves, some of which were open and left out on tables. "It is no wonder you know so many things."

  "Can you read?" Tolstoy asked.

  William shook his head immediately. "I wish I could. Only the wealthiest, or those who have the time to learn know how. But I can count."

  "I am surprised you weren't taught to read, as an emissary," Tolstoy said, frowning.

  "We were chosen for our survival skills," Bray interrupted, hoping to smooth over what might be considered suspicious. "We are good at navigating the wild."

  Tolstoy nodded. "The wild is a vicious place. William's way with The Plagued Ones must help you. In any case, it is rare that we come across anyone who can read at all. Most of the people with whom we trade are more interested in the food we produce, or occasionally, luxuries such as glass. Rarely do we receive an offer tempting enough to trade some of these devices, or our knowledge of these things. Most are interested in the books, but only long enough to see they cannot interpret them."

  "And we wouldn't trade them, anyway," Amelia added. With a smile, she said, "It sounds as if your people are intelligent. Perhaps it is time you told us about where you are from."

  "A township called Brighton, from up north," Bray said.

  "It seems as though you had a long journey to get here," Amelia said, her eyes settling on Cullen's dirty face.

  "We had a few stops along the way, but none as glorious as here," Bray said flatteringly. "Our hope is to bring the best offers to our Council, so that they might decide with whom to trade."

  "What sorts of items do you produce in Brighton?" Tolstoy asked.

  "We have all manner of crops, and a variety of swords and knives," Bray said. "We have animals, goods made of leather, and coins that allow us to trade for these things."

  "And you have guns," Tolstoy said.

  "Unfortunately, only a few," Kirby said.

  "Not enough to trade," Bray added.

  "We have some ourselves," Tolstoy said, with a nod that showed the devices were not new to him. "Found, or collected over the years. We built some simpler ones."

  Tolstoy and the other Gifted exchanged glances, but none of them seemed impressed. Bray felt a sense of inadequacy as he looked around at the miraculous objects. The resources he'd mentioned didn't seem worthy of trade—at least not to a room full of people with fascinating devices, and the knowledge to build more. Bray's gaze wandered to William. Gone was the look of dejection he'd carried through the woods for too many months. Of all the places they'd traveled, these people—these Gifted—were William's best hope.

  Fearing they might be kicked out before they had a chance to learn more, Bray said, "We have precious relics, too. Things that some of our collectors saved from the Ancient times."

  A few of the wart-covered people lifted their heads.

  "What type of relics?" Tolstoy asked.

  "Many are made with metals such as what you have here." He pointed around the room at the objects whose names he couldn't recall. "Some we do not know what to do with. Perhaps in time, we will discover some of their uses. Or maybe we can trade them, for the right offer."

  "Those objects would be of great interest to us," Tolstoy said.

  "A sample or demonstration of what you know would be fascinating," Herman said.

  "Perhaps that is something we can arrange, on a future meeting," Bray said, hoping he'd bought at least a night's stay.

  Tolstoy traded a glance with a few of the others. They bobbed their heads. "It sounds as if we have more things to discuss."

  **

  After more time talking and sharing stories, the sun lowered in the sky, glinting off some of the room's fascinating objects. The breeze from the fans didn't cool the heat of more than a dozen talking people, but it was certainly better than hiking through the forest in the scorching, late-day heat, Bray thought.

  They'd spoken more of Brighton, careful not to say anything that might insinuate they were less than four emissaries.

  After a conversation in which Tolstoy explained more about the windmills, Tolstoy asked, "Are you hungry?"

  Bray recalled the squirrels they'd shared in the morning, on the way to that enormous, fascinating doorway. "We haven't eaten since breakfast."

  "A meal is in order," Tolstoy said decisively.

  Rudyard, who had been quietly observing, said, "I will have something prepared."

  "That would be excellent," Tolstoy said, as Rudyard turned and departed, closing the door behind him. "While we wait, I would like to show you some more things."

  Standing, Tolstoy beckoned for the others to join him as he crossed the room toward the open doorway on the right wall. The other quiet, bulbous-he
aded men, along with the woman Amelia, followed, with Bray, Kirby, William, and Cullen behind. Bray's mouth hung open as he walked into a room as large as the first. Rows of wooden, perfectly crafted display cases, covered in thick glass, extended from wall to wall. The remainder of the walls contained windows.

  "This is a library of a different type," Tolstoy explained.

  Bray walked over and peered through the first display case, glimpsing weapons of numerous shapes and sizes. He had never seen a collection so impressive in his years of travel as a Warden. Many were clearly swords, knives, and arrows, in shapes he recognized, or that he'd seen in the forest. Others were in strange designs, or etched with patterns he had never seen. A few had sharp points, or grips for one or two hands. Some had handles made of wood, while others were made with metal, or contained spikes, or balls. A few weapons had links of chain, or multiple ends with which to stab. He saw a few other items he couldn't identify. The cases were secured with a thick glass. He might break his hand before he got inside.

  "What are these things?" he asked incredulously.

  "Gifts from some of the tribes with whom we've traded over the past two hundred years," Tolstoy said, beckoning to the items inside the case. "It is strange how much of human history has gone backward, or sideways. Or how many new uses have been made for old things."

  Kirby said, "Incredible. These are all from people on this land?"

  "Yes," Tolstoy confirmed. "Some are from tribes or colonies that still exist today, but not many. Some of these objects were found in the forests, or brought to us after the tribes died out. Lots fought wars with each other. Some have succumbed to disease, or fallen to The Plagued Ones."

  "I am curious," William said. "You said two hundred years. But I thought you were all much older."

  "We are," Tolstoy said. "Unfortunately, we spent the first century or so surviving, like everyone else. We traded for the essentials we needed. We stayed alive. We didn't have the time to obtain, or preserve such weapons or trinkets. It took us a while to settle down here, in the building you see, and those behind it, creating what we have. And it took even longer for us to find each other."