The City We Live On

THE CITY WE LIVE ON

by Sydney Henderson

Three weeks after Adeline’s son goes missing, the Council sends a formal Representative to offer their condolences. He's young, still baby-faced behind the dark red of his uniform and the patchiness of his sparse beard. He gives the usual spiel in a monotone voice, like a child asked to read aloud in class. It's nothing Adeline hasn't already heard before: just more of the same hollow platitudes from countless well-wishers with awkward smiles. She tunes out all the parts she knows, till he gets to the end. 

"They have meetings for your sector at the Church on Pestle Street," he says, shoving a brochure into her numb hands. He can't seem to meet her eyes. He's the right age; maybe he knew her son from school. "It's the big blue building. I’ve also been asked to remind you that this meeting is mandatory, since you missed the others.”

She thanks him, and the Representative takes it as a dismissal. He salutes her sloppily, then turns on his heel and walks briskly away. Adeline watches him till he gets to the end of the block, then retreats back inside her house.

The Church’s brochure is made of thick, pale yellow paper. It’s one of the nicer ones that Adeline has received. The pictures printed on the front and inside its folds are stark and clear, the lettering a delicate maroon cursive. Pleasant smiles stare up at her as she flips through it, skimming over the Representative’s condolences, how thankful the City is for her son’s sacrifice, and directions to the Church on Pestle Street, till she gets to the meeting schedule on the last page. 

Twice a week. Tuesdays and Fridays. The Church basement. 7pm. 

Adeline adds the brochure to the multi-coloured pile of others like it on her living room coffee table, and backs away from the light filtering through the gaps in the curtains and the sounds of the people outside. Her retreat takes her down the hall, past the picture frames lining the walls—the ones she can’t bear to look at or take down. Her son smiles at her, captured in various moments of joy: a chubby-cheeked baby in his crib, a toddler chasing a ball more than half his height, a boy tightly packed together with a group of other lanky preteens, and, most recently, a young man standing tall and proud and all grown in his graduation uniform, eyes narrowed against the barrage of camera flashes. One member of the triumphant surviving graduating class.

Adeline slinks away from them, head ducked and eyes closed, up the stairs towards the safety of her room.  

The curtains that frame her bedroom window are open. Before, she’d always preferred waking to the sight of the pointed, uniform peaks of the City’s Spine jutting out over the tops of the slanted rooftops that surround her house. They’d meant protection, safety. 

Now she can barely stand the sight. Their visage chases her even when she closes her eyes. Instead she turns her back on them, curls up in bed, and cocoons herself in her layers of blankets. 

And, for the first time in months, her hand reaches out for the alarm clock on her bedside table. 

The day of her meeting, Adeline dawdles, taking her time washing off weeks of neglect before layering concealer over the shadows under her eyes. She regrets leaving the privacy of her home the moment she steps out her door: the world outside makes her feel indecent by comparison, with its clutter-free streets and polished buildings. The smiling faces she passes—their loud voices, their laughter—are almost obscene. 

The Church itself is not hard to find. It sits at the end of its street, the blue colour unmistakable: the pained colour of a bruise, tinged with grey. Its polished-metal spire reaches dangerously tall, a testament to the newness of the building. Adeline instinctively ducks her head as she passes under it, scowling at the foolishness of building something so fragile.  

By the time she arrives, her heels clacking on the stone steps, everyone else has settled in. They’re gathered in a circle, sitting on wooden chairs, facing each other. Mostly, they are quiet. A few turn towards her when she enters, drawn in by the new face, vacant-eyed. She takes her place in one of two empty chairs and determinedly avoids everyone else’s eyes, focusing instead on her jagged, chewed nails.  

“Well,” comes a lilting, feminine voice.  A woman enters from one of the doors lining the basement wall, her body bent over a radio which she wheels into the room on a cart. She’s thin and pretty, about Adeline’s age. Everything about her is meticulous, from the perfect swirl of her dark hair to the lines of her maroon dress.

“Seems like everyone made it,” she says, flashing a smile. She fiddles with the radio, adjusting the dials, and steps back with a satisfied look as it starts to play a gentle tune. 

“Perfect,” she says, then seats herself in the remaining chair. “For those of you new to us here, my name is Marian. I’m this district’s appointed Grief Counselor, and I am absolutely delighted to have you all here with me tonight.”

She looks around at those assembled, all bright-eyed gladness. “I see a couple of new faces with us tonight. So why don’t we start with one of our veterans? Harris? Why don’t you tell us who you’re missing tonight?”

She turns her head towards a man sitting a few chairs down from Adeline. He’s likely a few years younger than Adeline—dressed casually, jeans and a t-shirt, but his messy hair seems to be that way by design. He doesn’t return Marian’s too-broad smile. 

“Don’t turn shy on me now, Harris,” she says. 

Harris straightens in his chair from his lazy sprawl, his hands coming to rest on his thighs. He clears his throat, then says aloud to the assembled group, “Hello, everyone.”

There are a few scattered hellos in return, but Marian doesn’t seem to be disheartened at the lack of  response. She makes a gesture with her hands when Harris pauses, encouraging him to continue. 

“Uh, as Marian said, my name is Harris,” he says. “And I’m missing my girlfriend tonight. Em.” 

“Thank you, Harris,” Marian says. “It’s very nice to have you here tonight. And how long have you been missing Emily?”   

Harris reaches back to scratch at his neck, his eyes sliding to the ceiling. He clears his throat. “Little more than a year now.”

“Why don’t you tell us about her?” 

Everyone is silent. Adeline tries to keep her eyes cast down, but despite her efforts her eyes keep flicking upward towards Harris’s face. The lines in his forehead deepen the longer the assembled group waits, making him look much older. 

“She was a neighbor of mine, first,” Harris finally says. He looks away from Marian’s pleasant smile, his eyes meeting Adeline’s before darting away. “Em and I met at one of those Match meetings for the district, and we got along pretty well, so we decided to try and things just progressed from there. We hadn’t known each other for very long…” He trails off for a moment, his throat working as he swallows. “But I liked it when she sang. She had a great voice, y’know? Even when it was one of those depressing church hymns—sorry Marian.” 

Marian just nods.

“Anyway, I’ve been missing her for almost thirteen months now,” Harris finishes somewhat weakly. Marian takes no notice. She nods solemnly, then says to the group at large, most of whom are looking anywhere but at her.  

“We all have a debt to pay. Emily knew that, I know she did. How else could she sing with such beauty?”      

She continues: “Our City is the great unifier. It doesn’t care where its people come from. And isn’t that just wonderful?” 

Evidently done with Harris, Marian turns towards Adeline. At the woman’s plastic smile, Adeline’s hands tighten on her purse strap. Bits of cheap faux-leather come away under her fingers. 

“What about you?” Marian asks, not unkindly. “What’s your name and who are you missing?” 

“Adeline,” she manages to bite out. She doesn’t hesitate like Harris did, but her palms feel sweaty around her purse strap. “My son.” 

Marian’s smile turns sympathetic. “Well, Adeline, I am sorry for your loss. How long have you been missing him?” 

“He’s been missing since the beginning of the month.” 

Marian cocks her head to the side, an almost maternal gesture.

“Now, Adeline,” she scolds. “While it is true that you are ‘missing’ him, he is not ‘missing.’ The sooner you come to terms with what happened to your son, the better for you in the long run.”     

Adeline can do nothing to stop her face from twisting, though she knows the more she acts out the longer the Council will keep an eye on her. The pile of brochures sitting on her coffee table is a testament to their tenacity. If she hadn’t shown up tonight, who knows how long it would take them to send older, burlier Representatives to her doorstep, each bearing wide smiles and bruising hands.

“I want you to be able to move on,” Marian says, her tone gentle. The pity on her face is uncomfortable to look at. “The people in our lives are with us only for a few precious years. If we focus so hard on what was, we refuse to look at what is. Losing a child is one of the hardest things any of us may have to deal with.” Her expression clears, turns sickly sweet. “But you must gain comfort from knowing that your son died a hero.” 

“Seems like a lot of us have become heroes,” Adeline replies before she can think better of it.

“The City only demands in turn what we have taken,” Marian says. “Imagine how many more lives would be lost if we weren’t in its care? How many famines, storms, or diseases would have plagued our citizens?” 

She addresses the group. “This is what I would like all of you to focus on until our next meeting. We need to be conscious of our place. Our City may seem to take a lot from us, but we also take a lot from it.” 

She turns her focus to a woman sitting in the seat next to Harris, visibly the oldest of the group. “When was the last time we experienced a Migration?” she asks. 

The woman doesn’t even have to think about it.

“Not for twenty years,” she says, as if rambling off a fact she’s often heard repeated. 

“So we should be grateful our City found such a prosperous place for us to live. No one starves in the streets, everyone has a place to live, everyone has a job. Our City takes care of us. Other Cities, Cities who do not take so much, suffer terrible things we cannot imagine. We are lucky to live on such a prosperous City. Everything that happens to us happens for a reason.” 

She pauses to look around the room, to see whether her point is resonating. The radio turns to static as the song ends, then the first few notes of a piano start as a new song begins. Marian’s fingers tap along to the beat on her chair’s armrest.

“Now,” she says. “Why don’t we hear now from some of the other people who’ve been here before? Any volunteers?” 

It’s dark by the time the meeting ends. Marian stands at the Church’s exit, saying an individual goodbye to each person as they leave. 

“I’m very excited for the progress we’re going to make together,” she says as Adeline passes her by. This close, Adeline can see the lines at the corners of Marian’s eyes and mouth, and the makeup caked on to hide them. “Have a good night.”

Adeline musters a faint smile back, then weaves her way into the evening rush of people heading home. 

Night settles in quickly this side of the Spine. The rigid bones of downtown’s skyscrapers cast their shadows over half the City, the half Adeline’s house is situated. At least this year, anyway. Eight years ago the City had gotten up and turned without warning, scaring the hell out of everyone and throwing the whole housing market into chaos. 

Her son had been nine at the time. He’d run to find her when their house first started rattling, and had clung to her until it stopped. His weight in her arms had felt solid, real; helping to ground her even while around them the world felt like it was shaking apart.

“You lost, ma’am?”

The voice comes from behind her, and she turns, startled. Standing too close, his arms raised in a placating gesture, is the man from the meeting: Harris. He smiles at her, contrite. 

“Sorry for scaring you,” he says. “I called out, but I guess you didn’t hear me.”

Adeline doesn’t remember hearing anything. She blinks at him, her eyes narrowing—takes a pointed step back. “You followed me?”

“Hey, easy, ma’am,” he says. He holds out a hand for her to shake. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

“Your mother never taught you not to follow women, Harris?” Adeline snaps. She turns, only to find the street she’d been walking down unfamiliar. She hesitates, confused and more than a little angry at herself. 

“Something wrong, ma’am?” Harris asks.

“Nothing,” she mutters, twisting around to head back the way she’d come. Harris falls into step alongside her, keeping pace. He’s taller by almost a head, and her stupid shoes have started to rub the back of her heels raw.  

“Adeline—it’s Adeline, right?—I just want to make sure you got home okay. You seemed pretty upset at the meeting,” he says as they walk.

She doesn’t dignify that with a response, choosing instead to put all her energy into walking without limping. Harris gives a frustrated huff.

“Look, lady, I just liked what you said during the meeting. I thought we could talk a bit.” 

Something in his voice has Adeline glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. His eyes are intense as he meets hers, conveying all the urgency he felt in the way his words and tone could not. Adeline flinches away from that gaze, taking a step back, only to feel Harris’s hand clamp down tightly on her arm. 

“Walk with me,” he says, smiling pleasantly down at her. Around them, the few remaining stragglers of the evening crowd flow uninterrupted, none giving them and their altercation a sideways glance. 

Harris loops his arm through hers, and proceeds to lead her away from the main road—down a series of mostly empty side streets. Once they’re well enough alone, Adeline wrenches herself free.

“Enough,” she says carefully, once she realizes how alone they are. “Tell me what you want from me right now.”

Harris takes a moment to glance over his shoulder, one last check to ensure they’re really alone. 

“You don’t believe any of their shit,” he says, matter-of-fact, no room for her to argue. “The shit people like Marian spew.”  

It’s the first time she’s ever heard anyone say anything like that aloud in years.

“Shut your mouth,” she says sharply. Looking behind her, Adeline grabs onto the front of his shirt. He doesn’t resist when she drags him into the shadow of one of the large, red-brick buildings that line the little side street. 

“You weren’t so concerned at the meeting,” Harris points out. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a few Administrators waiting for you when you got home.” 

“What do I have left to lose?” Adeline snaps back. It’s perversely gratifying to watch Harris recoil from the unmistakable pain in her voice. 

“Good,” he says. “Because I want off this rock. And I think you do too.” 

It’s remarkable how quickly those words shut her up. Not for their content, but for the echo they leave reverberating in her head. She glares at Harris, angry for the reminder of what someone else said to her, once. 

“Then jump off,” she says. 

“You don’t want to? You want to stay here and tiptoe around forever, hoping you don’t get snatched in the middle of the night by the Administrators or whatever else is taking people like Em? Like your boy?” 

“You don’t know me.”

“You’re the first person I’ve ever met who had the guts to say something. And I know your kid wouldn’t want you to just give up like this. Listen, we can figure something out, we can help each other—”  

Adeline shoves him away, hard. He staggers, falling till his back collides with the wall behind him. He gawks at her, shocked at her sudden show of violence. The anger that filled her disappears, and she deflates. 

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “I-I… you can’t talk about him like that, like you knew him.” She reaches up to scrub a hand over her face, horrified at the wetness she feels gathering in her eyes. “I’m sorry for pushing you, I’ve just… I get so angry.” 

“It’s okay,” Harris says, straightening. He smiles at her, for real this time, with just enough sadness tinged at the edges. “I punched a wall the other day. I didn’t think I was one of those guys, you know? But now there’s an ugly picture of someone’s terrier on my wall that I put up just to hide the spot.”  

The imagery is enough to shock her into laughing, and it’s nice when Harris joins in, a tension release after bottling everything.  

“You’ll think about it, right? We can talk after next week’s meeting?” Harris asks afterward. He’s aggravatingly earnest about it. 

“How do you even know it’s possible? I - Everyone hears rumors of people getting off, but no one ever does.” 

He grins at her, clearly excited that she’s even humoring him. “That’s what they say, sure, but of course they don’t want us to leave! The more people there are, the less chance anyone in the Council or their families get taken. It’s just math, and I bet a lot more people leave than they want us to know, right, because—”

She doesn’t see what cuts Harris off, at first. She’s too enraptured by the way his expression changes, from excitement to nothing, just nothing, a slate wiped clean. His mouth opens and closes. Then she looks down, sees the pool darkening the front of his t-shirt, the weird shape protruding from the center of his stomach. She follows the direction of the spike towards the wall on their left—the wall that has split open, soundlessly pushing aside the brick and plumbing to make way for the mechanical arm that has begun to pull Harris back inside. 

As she watches, numb with horror, more arms erupt from the wall. They swarm forward, gripping hold of Harris’s limbs till they’ve lifted him into the air. The drag backward is quicker now; the City swallows Harris whole, leaving nothing behind but a few drops of blood. The wall begins to close, as silently as it had opened.

Adeline slips through at the last moment—the hole closing behind her, as if it were never there in the first place. 

It is dark, inside the City. There is no need for light here: this place wasn’t built for people. The floor is nothing but metal grating, with gaps that trap her heels and threaten to send her sprawling—Adeline abandons her shoes quickly. The metal is cold beneath her feet, and, with no way to go back, she presses on, groping her way through the dark, claustrophobically tight space. What happened to Harris plays on repeat in her mind. Her son…

Her son.

Hands catching on uneven walls, Adeline finds herself in a tangled maze of passages. Eventually, her eyes adjust enough to make out shapes, bulky things made of rusted metal that hum with electricity. The farther from the surface she gets, the more light the machines give off, casting a crimson glow. Above, below, around her, pipes of various sizes flow together, tangling as they travel towards something deep within. Something that pulses, sending a vibration beneath her feet. The walls shine with oil, slick where the City’s lifeblood leaks.

Over time, her feet break down on the rough grating. She can tell through some instinctive feeling, some vertigo, that even though the path seems relatively level… she’s travelling down. The air gets murky, and the passages condense, causing her to bend over as she makes her way through the mass of machinery.

And there are things crawling around in the dark with her: things that move loudly, metal hitting metal. She gets a glimpse of one, once. Barely an impression of a square body moving on many thin, skeletal legs. Legs that taper into sharp points. She ducks behind a large pipe before it can spot her, her body squeezed in the narrow space against the wall, holding her breath until it passes. For a long time after, her lungs ache.

Finally, long after the blisters on her feet have all burst, the path opens into a large chamber. She finds herself standing on a mezzanine overlooking the source of the pulsing, a machine easily the same size as the Church on Pestle Street located in the center of a massive, domed chamber. Glass pipes come down towards it from all corners of the ceiling, pumping in a too-familiar red liquid and pumping out that oily, horrible ooze. It looks like something alive, something important. This close, the noise threatens to split her head in two.

She climbs down the side of the mezzanine, fingers and toes clinging to empty spaces in the metal. The air is almost unbearably warm from the heat radiating off the mammoth machine. Sweat drips down her forehead and stings her eyes. 

The machine stares down at her, impassive, uncaring. The stench it gives off floods her nose, makes her eyes water with its sickly sweetness, like something rotting. The metal that makes up its sides vibrates as the liquid that fills its body churns, around and around in a rhythmic beat. She wants to scream at it, strike it, curse it for what it has taken from her. Her boy, her only child, who had clung to her when scared. Who had the biggest imagination, dreaming up stories that starred magical creatures like dragons or tigers. Who still had made an effort to listen to her favorite serials with her, even though he’d been sixteen and too old for his doting, embarrassing mother. 

The machine’s walls aren’t smooth; it’s remarkably easy to scale its side, to make it up to all that fragile tubing and exposed wire. She barely registers the pain in her hands as she digs into the ancient rubber casing, as she haphazardly rips handfuls of thin cords from their places, hoping to cause as much damage as possible. Black liquid leaks from the cracks in thin streams, staining her dress and mingling with the sweat and blood that coat her skin. From somewhere below, above her, around her, she can hear the cacophonous clanging of thousands of metal feet as they surge towards her in a flood of mechanized alarm. 

And underneath it all is a sound, a deep bellow that reverberates in her chest so that she can feel it within her when she breathes. The machine beneath her feet trembles, shuddering in a facsimile of pain as she buries her arms down to her elbows inside its crucial bits—her jagged, sharp nails raking deep wounds in its guts.

She imagines buildings crumbling above her, streets cracking in two, people clambering over one another to escape, their fragile, happy little world disintegrating before their eyes. As the metal creatures crest over the top of the machine, she smiles, preoccupied with the thought of the spire at the top of the Church on Pestle Street toppling over, hundreds of years of sturdy architecture collapsing as easily as one of the block towers her son used to build as a toddler.