The Fall of the City of Steel

The Calm

Back home, my parents greeted me with no suspicion, and directed any annoyance at "that crazy little girl and her last-minute cramming." Emilia's act had them thoroughly fooled.

Jerry, upon seeing me, discreetly asked me if all went according to plan. When I told him that it had, he gave me a congratulatory smile, a nod, and then simply walked away, satisfied. For the rest of the day, my actions with the rebel group gave me no trouble. I began to gain confidence in my ability to keep this balancing act stable.

On the next day- Monday- returning to school felt strange. My fragile, large-scale sense of time had been disrupted by the previous Sunday that we spent working. As I waved goodbye to Jerry over the linear at the school landing pad, I noticed that he had no such difficulties adjusting.

In the halls before class, a public service announcement began on the speakers. This surprised me, for reasons it took me several minutes to realize; the last one I had heard played eight days ago, not seven. I was unused to this interval.

The first announcement was about hovercraft safety. Unusually, I tuned it out; not only did it have nothing helpful to say, but it lasted less than two minutes, by my estimation.

After that, however, they had the gall to play another announcement. This time, I listened. And I would not like what I heard.

"Good morning, boys and girls," began the voice, which sounded similar, but not identical, to the voice of the previous two announcements. "Today I would like to speak to you about a danger that rarely meets the eye. For an example, let us examine the case of Jimmy Barnes. Jimmy Barnes' hovercraft broke down one day while he was off shopping. Even observing proper hovercraft safety procedures didn't save him; he was simply out of luck.

"However, his luck changed when a friendly young man landed near him and offered him some help. He offered to fly off to the nearest payphone and call a maintenance trawler. He did, and when he returned, he made light conversation with Jimmy. As Jimmy would soon find out, this stranger was a good listener. In fact, he seemed to be a very nice guy.

"He said he'd see him again; that he visited the store frequently. As it turned out, Jimmy did meet the young man the next time he shopped there, but this time, he had all of his friends with him."

Finally, this announcement belatedly reached its point.

"Jimmy hadn't enjoyed himself so much in a long time. When the man's friends began introducing some off-color subjects into the conversation, Jimmy knew he shouldn't have been interested, but he was anyway. What he did not know was that this man and his friends all had a sickness of the mind. Not a medical sickness, but a sickness of ideology- one no less dangerous. This man... was a cultist."

I stopped in my tracks, taken aback.

"Gradually, Jimmy became a part of the man's circle, and he began to sympathize with their deviant beliefs, and even to take part in their rituals. Before he knew it, Jimmy had a copy of their symbol burned onto his skin. Jimmy didn't recognize the warning signs soon enough; he had become a degenerate."

Suddenly, I realized that I was scowling deeply. Not only did it trouble me that, just eight days ago, I would have taken no issue with this announcement, but it also troubled me to see my government foisting the status of a villain upon me. Since I learned about the atrocity, I figured that most or all of the government had been involved, but not yet had I felt so directly betrayed. That voice sounded exactly the same when it decried procrastination as it did when it demonized us.

Compounding this, I saw a poster on a wall not far ahead, portraying a primitive-looking man dressed in an animal skin and holding a knife, jumping onto the back of a screaming woman while a few more club-wielding savages ran past against the dark background. The caption warned, 'This is the enemy!'