The Last American Mortal

William Bandy had been shaving when he was given the summons. He had been standing in the bathroom of his living unit, staring at his face in the mirror, the razor in his hand. It was hard to find razors in the Red City anymore, owing to the lack of people who needed them; the one in his shaver was his last, dulled to the point that the smoothed half of his already craggy face had been dotted a few times with patches of sanitary napkin. It was a worn face. An old face. Bandy bore all the traces of having traveled a long road through the land of mortality.

He had been reaching up to start savaging the other half when the virtuphone began to chime on his coffee table. He set the razor down, walked out into the open common room of his unit, touched the 'answer' button on the sleek machine's plastic face. An inch above the unit the holographic fairy image of a woman snapped into existence; she wore the plain black dress uniform of a civil employee, starched collar and red necktie. She was young. Pretty. They were always young and pretty now.

"Good morning, Mr. Bandy," she was saying, looking up at him with enormous blue eyes. Her black hair was cut in a bob that licked at her chin as she spoke. "This is the Ministry of Social Health calling."

Bandy stared at her. Social Health was the ministry associated with propaganda and mental sanitation. "Yes, hello," he said in a voice far too dignified in a man with a face half-covered in shaving cream. "What can I do for you?"

The civil beauty gave him a dazzling smile. "Forgive me," she began, "But I am charged with informing you that you have been selected to discharge a great honor in the celebration of our glorious city's forty-year anniversary."

He stared at her. Of course he had known that the time had been coming; red banners had been hung from the office towers and garlands of roses had been draped over city monuments for the last three weeks. "Have I," said Bandy, voice flat.

Her face lit up all the more. "Felicitous news, Mr. Bandy!" she chimed. "You have been chosen to serve as the centerpiece of the Four Decades' Anniversary celebration. You are hereby instructed to arrive at Three Triumphs Square at the hour of eight o'clock this evening, where the assembled population will celebrate the dissolution of your mortality. You are to be made a permanent part of our City's glorious history!"

Cold water pooled into the base of Bandy's skull as he stared at her image; he propped himself up a bit against the corner of the table with a knee. "I'm sorry," lied Bandy, his throat tight. "I do not know what you mean by that."

"Mister Bandy, you will be expected to arrive at exactly eight o'clock. Remember that failure to comply to a Ministry order carries-"

The projection of her stern face vanished as he hit the 'END CALL' button. With a great sigh of mingled horror and relief, William Bandy collapsed to his knees before the table, his hands cupped before his breast as if he were about to pray. Perhaps he would, had he been religious. For forty years he had been hoping to die. Tonight he would get his wish.

Bandy spent the last day walking the streets. They had been dubious friends these past forty years, the vast avenues swarming with crowds and ground-effect traffic; the Red City had been his prison and his home, and as he journeyed slowly toward Three Triumphs Square he thought of how he would be free of it at last. Back then, before the Nobility came to power, the Red City had been central Los Angeles. He could still see traces of the city, long after the construction machines had lathed away the landscape for building material, in the windows of some of the shops that pocked the narrower avenues. The iconic Angelyne billboard - or what was left of her - supposedly hung in the Museum of Victories. He thought of her, overstuffed chest pitted by gunfire and her lipstick scorched by flames, and pushed himself down Ascendancy Street through the throng.