The Fall of the City of Steel

The Secret of the City

For the first time in days, the worries that distracted me from all of my classes were for Jerry's safety, not my own. No additional disaster cropped up for the remainder of the school day.

As soon as I emerged once again to the roof, which was strangely devoid of guards, Emilia, Tony and Rico all bayed and waved for my attention, with the latter exhaling a smoke signal of tobacco residue. This was unnecessary; they stood with Jerry, surrounding my linear, where I was going anyway.

"Damon," Jerry called, as soon as I came within hearing distance. "Will you tell me what these three are here for? They won't tell me anything."

After a reassuring glance towards the three, I looked back to Jerry and paraphrased, "They're here to show me something."

Jerry continued to stare at me, waiting for more detail.

"To be honest," I continued, "I don't know what it is either, but it has something to do with what the police are up to."

"I want to see it, too," Jerry lamented, already knowing that I would refuse him the chance.

"I could get in a lot of trouble for seeing this, Jerry," I explained. "And I have something for you to do as well. The policemen only wanted me at first, but, given how they bullied you, I think it's safe to assume that the whole family is in trouble. They know my name, so I don't know why they don't just come knocking at home. If they ever do that, I need you to come up with an escape route that they won't notice. Just don't do any permanent damage, okay?"

"Okay," Jerry agreed, thrilled to be given a role to play and, at the same time, understanding the gravity of this job. As I flew him home, followed by the other three on their own linear, I could see him devising possible escape methods in his head. Even without seeing any of these machinations, I was already proud of my little brother's creativity.

After dropping him off back at the apartment building with instructions to explain to my parents that I was busy studying with some struggling students, I transferred to Emilia's linear and started off with her and her friends. These three had followed me home from school, as though worried that I might panic- or get too confident- and simply abandon them. As much as I hated to admit it to myself, this was a valid concern.

"Keep a lookout for patrol planes," Tony advised, loudly enough to be heard over the linear's engines. As we neared the disused structure we had visited the previous day, Rico and I both complied, but watching for planes hardly required our full attention. The air between skyscrapers was extremely sparse with vehicles. Traffic would have had to sextuple before even the smallest of aircraft could be hidden from our view, let alone an airplane. Such traffic would be much too dense for an airplane to navigate safely, regardless. Furthermore, even without watching, any of us could hear an airplane's engines from a mile away. As we flew, a question struck me.

"If you guys don't worship anyone," I began, as we descended to the bottom levels, "then why do you bother with the occult tattoos?"

"You'll see," Emilia dismissed.

"All the other gangs that have them," I pursued. "Are they cultists?"

"To be honest, I don't know how much of this cult business is real and how much is fake," Tony answered. "What I do know is that there's no better way for the government to attract rebellious folks to something than to demonize it. By now, just about every other self-proclaimed renegade at least looks like they have ties to a tribal cult. I've only encountered one other group like that before. Care to guess what they were doing?"

"I don't know where to start," I excused, dreading the explanation.

"They were attending a cinema."