Alternate history – The Word Worker

The Warp

FB_IMG_1590604606681 The city burned. Well, technically speaking, cities, since there seemed to be several versions all at once. It had started on Times Square. Everyone on the street suffered the same blinding headache at the exact same moment, and when they recovered the billboards had been replaced with the original New York Times building. Brand spanking 1904 new. Except that 1904 hadn’t had access to 2020 technology, and within seconds broken electrical wires and gas lines had exploded half the building.

It hadn’t stopped there, obviously. No one knew what had created the time rift, but every explosion warped it further. Theatre facades from the 1920s replaced gleaming modern glass and steel, only to burn. Modern street signs stood before the flaming remains of storefronts from the 1800s. Over it all towered the twisted and shattered skyscrapers of the last forty years.

After the buildings, the warp affected living things. First trees and other greenery shifted and broke, sparks from the blazing city setting them alight like living torches. Then people began to change. Some were suddenly mysteriously confused, insisting they were someone else and cowering in terror. Others simply disappeared, while men and women in costumes from long ago days blended in bewilderment with the screaming theater crowds. The worst cases no one talked about, the ones caught between as the rift continued to warp. The ones who didn’t survive, could never have survived.

Most fled, trampling each other in wild abandon like animals racing a forest fire. Here and there a trace of humanity survived: a man snatching a crying child from the path of a bus careening out of control, a woman supporting an elderly man who could barely hobble. For the most part, civilization fell to its basest instincts, the urge to survive at all costs.

It was vain. The city lay silent, its hodgepodge of time staring with bloodied and emptied eye sockets on a burning concrete wasteland.

The Leaving

FB_IMG_1590364184563 She had waited for this day for twelve years. Every time an Underage met his or her Milestone, she had followed them up the tracks as far as she was allowed, dreaming of her own Milestone. This morning, her twelfth Day, Da had woken her before Lights, a ready bag in hand.

She had dressed carefully in her brand new Topside clothes, her hands trembling with excitement. She had to blend in, but the clothes felt so strange she couldn’t quite move correctly. The long skirt hung around her ankles, and she kept tripping. Da told her to take shorter steps and move more slowly until she adjusted, and she tried.

The long pack was heavy and hit her thighs just behind her knees with every step. She was relieved to climb on Da’s Motor and let it hang behind the seat. She had to hike the skirt up as well to straddle the Motor, and she relished the freedom of movement, the last she would experience for several… months? Yes, that was the word. She was going to have to remember to talk like a Topsider. Starting with not saying Topsider, she thought with a grimace. Surface dwellers called themselves Citizens.

The Motor made the trip up the tracks much shorter than she remembered. Da was a good driver, but the crossties still made for quite a few jolts. She kept her jaws clenched tightly to keep from biting her tongue, and when they finally stopped at the Door she ran her tongue over her teeth to make sure they were all still there.

She and Da stood together, his hand on the lever that opened the Door. “Are you ready?” he asked. She nodded. This was how it was. No ceremony. Only one witness to confirm the Leaving. He pulled the Lever, and the steel panels slowly rolled back into the walls.

She had seen charcoals of Topside, even a few oils, but she was not prepared. The city stretched vast before her, its towers reflecting in the river like bridges of glass. Gleaming silver transports mirrored the colors of the sky as the sun tipped the horizon. It was her first sunrise, and for a moment she thought the whole scene burned until she remembered one particular oil.

Da pointed downriver. “There’s an old highway about a mile that way,” he told her. “Topsiders haven’t used it in decades, but it will get you across.” He squeezed her shoulder tightly, and she knew he was worried. Miners always worried about the Leaving. Sometimes they had reason.

“I’m ready, Da,” she assured him. “I can do it. I’ll be the perfect Citizen. You’ll see.”

He nodded, his eyes reddening. “Bring back everything you can,” he choked. “See you as a Miner.” He stepped away from her, ready to close the Door. She took a deep breath and stepped into the Topside.

The Road

FB_IMG_1582732885221 She had lived in the shadow of the mountain all her life. No matter the season, it’s snowy crags had punctuated her world, piercing the sunrise and reflecting the fire of sunset. Now, standing here on the old Roman road, it stood as the final bastion of my old life.

The road itself seemed as timeless as the mountain. From the first time I saw it as a child running wild on the moor, it had fascinated me with its ancient mystery. When I asked my father about it, he would only say that it was the old Roman road. My mother gasped over her loom and dropped her shuttle, something her expert hands never did. In twenty years I had never asked again, but its stones had called to me in my dreams, and often I had searched for its path among the heather and gorse.

Now my parents were dead, my mother to a fever my fifteenth winter, my father to old age only a month gone. Nothing held me to the village; marriage would soon no longer be a possibility even were I drawn to any of the young men. Already glances slid over me as if I were no more than scenery.

I walked the moor for the last time, and for the first time placed my feet upon the ancient Roman stones. My breath caught in my chest. Soon the mountain would be behind me, only the road stretching before me stone after stone. I hefted my bundle and with a deep breath set one foot before me, then another.