All manner of items are stored in these cars, from cans and bottles and jars stored in large translucent plastic boxes, to tables and chairs stacked perfectly together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and wrapped with translucent plastic sheets. Bottles of wine and whisky and beer are encased in climate-controlled glass chests with air-ride suspensions.
“Look,” I whisper. On the platform closest to us, a girl picks up a hose attached to some kind of generator. She widens her stance, bends low for support, and depresses a button.
A continuous jet of water shoots from the hose. The girl is pushed back a few steps by the powerful propulsion before righting her stance. As she starts hosing down the contents of the train car, she is joined by a dozen other girls on both platforms. Spread along the length of the train, each girl mans her own hose. It becomes immediately obvious: cleaning the plastic boxes and containers is a task of highest priority. Not a square inch is missed. Even the underside of each compartment is hosed down. A mist of spray cocoons around the train.
Small groups of elders walk down each platform, clipboards in hand. But if they mean to inventory the shipment, there’s no apparent rush. They amble to the last car where a crowd of girls have gathered.
“Let’s move in closer,” Sissy whispers, and we scoot under cover of the trees, then glide along the meadows. Nobody notices us; all attention is fixed on the train. And on the last car in particular. The elders gathered there yell at the girls to stop spraying. The generator is turned off, and the jets of water sputter into drips. Gradually, the misty cloud enveloping the last car begins to dissipate. The ribbed car slowly emerges from the mist.
Sissy takes my hand, squeezing tight.
Inside the compartment, water dripping off the ribbed, metal bars, something moves.
Sissy and I are the only ones who tense with fear. Nobody on the platform shrieks or even flinches. A silhouette shifts, then shuffles to the edge. More shapes emerge inside the last car, moving incongruently with one another like the waves of a turbulent sea. As the hum of the generators dies down, sounds sift through: bleats and squawks and clucks and oinks of fear and fatigue and hunger.
I exhale sharply through my nose. A palpable relief fills my chest as I reach for Sissy’s hand.
“What is it?” she says.
“It’s livestock,” I say. Her eyes sweep questioningly over me, trying to understand. “Duskers love to eat certain animals,” I explain. “Like cows and chickens and pigs. Their appetite for these meats is nothing compared to their lust for our flesh, of course, but still. They’ve driven cows, chickens, and pigs to scarcity. Now, these meats are only available to the upper elite class on the rarest of occasions. The general population never gets to consume them; most make do on synthesized, artificial meat products. Sissy,” I say with growing excitement, “duskers would never give up these livestock. Especially not for humans.”
Realization flares in Sissy’s eyes. “Which means whatever’s at the other end of these tracks—”
“More than likely isn’t duskers.” I say, squeezing her hand. “It’s got to be a place filled with our kind. The Civilization is the Promised Land! Jacob’s right: we’ve been worrying over nothing.”
Sissy’s eyes sweep down the length of the tracks, following them as they disappear into the darkness.
I continue speaking. “I thought the meats we’ve been eating here were from the farm. Not shipped in. But now it makes sense. At the rate we consume meat, there’s no way the cattle could be self-sustaining. Most of the meat would have to be brought in.”
But Sissy’s head is turned away down the length of the train tracks. Her jawline ridges out, hard as a granite cliff face in moonlight. She looks at me out of the corner of her eyes, then down to her exposed forearm. At her branded flesh. “I don’t know, Gene,” she whispers, frowning. She bites her lower lip. “Call me overcautious but I still need more.”
We quietly observe the activity on the platform. More elders arrive. There’s laughter and smiles, their pleasure with the shipment obvious. Already, a few of them are opening the alcohol chests, uncorking a few bottles. I hear Krugman’s laughter lifting into the night air seconds before his face glides into view. He’s gripping two bottles by their necks like a man strangling a pair of geese.
The girls work en masse in a silent, coordinated movement: lines of them radiate out from the train station carrying containers, while other girls—empty-handed now—sweep in like a returning tide. They move slowly on account of their diminutive feet but their sheer numbers ensure that progress is steady. They will be finished unloading by dawn, noon at the latest. Then the train will be ready to make its return trip.
Sissy knows what this means. She has to make a decision soon. But her face is twisted with uncertainty.
“I have an idea, Sissy,” I say. I shift position to face her as I place my hands on her shoulders. “I’ll get on the train. But only me. You and the boys stay here. No, hear me out. I’ll go to whatever is on the other end of these tracks. If it’s everything we hope it is, if it is indeed the Promised Land, I’ll return on the next train back and get you and the boys. Then we all leave here together.”
“And if—”
“If I never make it back, you’ll know not to go there.”
She’s still shaking her head but slower as I finish speaking. A brief hesitation ripples across her face—the plan makes sense, and she knows it. But then she stares straight into my eyes. “No way,” she says.
“Sissy—”
“No. You don’t get to play sacrificial hero.”
“I’m not trying to play anything. Think it through, Sissy. With my plan, you and the boys stay together. Isn’t that what you want?”
Her eyes waver for just a moment. “We stay together—that’s what I want.”
“The boys will be fine without me.”
She places her hand on my cheek. “When I said we stay together, I meant you and me.”
My hands slip off her shoulder. “Sissy…”
“I don’t want to be without you,” she says. A breeze flows across the meadows, blowing hair across her face. Her eyes, sharp and intense, catch mine through her windswept bangs. Moonlight swims silver in them. Then it is as if all sound vanishes, the breeze soughing through the grass, the voices on the train platform, the sound of livestock in the train, all fading away. As if the only sound left in the universe is her voice. “I don’t want us to be apart,” she whispers. “Not for a week. Not for a day. Not for a single hour, Gene.”
My hand reaches out to brush aside strands of her hair. I tuck them behind her ear, and she leans her head into the palm of my hand, pressing her cheekbones against my skin. I pause, thinking.
She must feel the resolve stiffen in me, the contraction of my pupils. Because as soon as I pull my body away, she reaches up to stop me. But she’s too late.
“Gene! No!”
I’m sprinting across the meadow for the platform. I hear her slicing through the grass giving chase. But I’ve gotten too big a lead on her. I bound up the stairs three at a time to the platform.
“Krugman!” I yell. He’s halfway along the platform. I sprint toward him, crowds of girls parting before me.
“I’ll get on the train,” I tell him as I reach him. I’m gasping for air and trying to speak at the same time. “But it’ll be just me. The others will stay here and await my return. Only then will we all leave together.”
Sissy catches up seconds later. “Whatever he just told you,” she says, “it’s not going to happen.” She turns to me now, and anger sizzles off her face. “You are not getting on this train alone.”
“Just let me do this,” I say.
Krugman starts laughing, uproariously, his leg stomping on the ground as if pixie dancing. The crowd of elders behind him glance at one another, then start smiling. A few guffaw loudly with Krugman.
“My, my,” Krugman says, smacking his belly, “I’m caught in the middle of a lovers’ spat! Who knew it’d be so much fun to watch. All so … drama!”
And then the smile snaps shut, his laughter coming to an abrupt end. The elders also stop smiling, dropping their lips to cover their teeth. Krugman stares at us, his bunched cheeks drooping into jowls. “Fact is, it’s all neither here nor there. Because this discussion is academic. You’re all getting on the train. You read the official Order from the Civilization—you are all to journey there. All of you. Discussion closed. Train should be ready to leave in several hours.”
Sissy’s next words are spoken quietly and with calm. But the elders jolt with every spoken syllable. “I don’t think so,” she says. “We’re not getting on.”
Krugman presses his chin inward, and scowls at Sissy. “And what has got your knickers in a twist?”
She speaks in a near whisper. “I guess it’s out there now, so let me just say it. We have questions about the Civilization. We don’t know if it’s the place you’ve represented it to be.”
“So I’ve gathered,” Krugman says. He exhales slowly, phlegm in his throat combining with the stink of halitosis. “I’ll try not to be offended by this apparent lack of trust in me. I’ll try not to feel … betrayed—is that too strong a word? No, I don’t think it is—by this misbegotten belief that I’ve somehow lied to you about the Civilization.”
He spits to the ground, and the phlegm, large as bird poop, is acidic yellow, half-solid, and dotted with tiny bubbles. “After all I’ve done for you, after all I’ve provided for you, this is what I get in return? Not only ingratitude, but suspicion? Come now, what have I ever done to deserve this kind of distrust?”
“Take a wild guess,” Sissy says, her words cutting into the thick, tense air.
Krugman smiles, then slowly bends forward to examine her forearm. A slight flick of his tongue at the corner of his lips. “I think it’s getting infected,” he says with a miniscule smirk.