Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
I picture her city, trying to overlay it across this one. There are a lot of traditional cities still out there, Zeta and Rho being two of the most famous. Both of those still have gods, of course. And no train system so hardly anyone ever goes there. I’ve never gone there. The image I have in my head comes from a textbook.
But Clara’s Tau City would be much the same, probably. If it had a god the way she says it does. Because gods don’t like change and gods don’t like progress. Gods like tradition. Gods like to control the power distribution. Both kinds—the political power and the actual energy grid. Transportation too. Both Zeta and Rho are walking cities. No cars, no bikes, even. Maybe they have horses, but who knows? So this is my next question for her. Just to see what she says. “Did you have a train system?”
Clara reluctantly pulls her gaze away from the skyscrapers and looks up at me. “What?”
“Did you have trains in your Tau City?”
She laughs and looks back at the buildings. “No. We had ruins of trains. And tunnels, mostly caved in though. All that was outside the wall.” She waves a hand in the air like whatever I’m going on about isn’t important to her.
“You had a wall?”
“Yes. It went around the entire city, even the farms.”
“What was beyond the wall?”
“Sand dunes. Mountains. Nothing.”
Tau City, where we are, has sand dunes and mountains outside the metropolitan area as well. But the metro area is so fucking big these days that if you stand on the viewing platform of the highest, southernmost skyscraper, you can actually see Upsilon City through the public telescopes. So I test this detail out as well. “How far away was your closest city?”
“Closest city?” She makes a face at me. “There are no other cities. Tau City is the last one standing after the Great Sweep.”
“Huh.” A twist in the mystery. But it’s not helping her far-fetched story in the least. “So you’re from the future?”
“No.” She glares at me. “I never said that. I never said anything like that, so don’t paint me as crazy. I’m just telling you how it was.”
“The simple fact remains, Clara, that your reality and this reality don’t match up.”
She shrugs. “I don’t care. I know what I know. And what I know is that I don’t come from here. I walked through the God’s Tower door and this is just the place I ended up.”
“You’re not even willing to consider that you might be ill?”
“I’m not ill.”
“So that’s a no.”
She stops walking and turns to face me. “I never asked for your help.”
“No. But you need it.”
“Says who?”
“Do you know how to get to the health center? Because if so, by all means, up-city Clara Birch”—I bow and mockingly wave a hand at her—“have a nice day.”
“It’s not funny when you actually mean it, ya know.”
I straighten up from my bow. “I’m not trying to be funny. You’re mentally ill. I hope you get the help you need.” Then I give her a little salute, turn, and start walking back the way we came.
“What if I prove it to you?”
I stop, shaking my head, telling myself to just keep walking. Because this woman, she’s a really bad idea. I can feel it. But something compels me to hear her out. So I turn back. “How?”
She thinks for a moment, having not thought this through, I guess. But then she closes the space between us and looks up at me. “I’ll go to the health center and let them check me out. Neither of us will say anything about my story. We’ll just say I had a fall in the tower, hit my head, lost consciousness, and now I have no memory. None. And let’s see what they say. Let’s see if I do have a brain injury.”
“I think you should just tell them the truth.”
“What truth? That I think I’m in the wrong world? No. That stacks the deck in favor of your theory. My story isn’t important. If I have a brain injury, they’ll find it. And if they do, I’ll concede that you’re right and I’ll get treatment. But if there is no brain injury—no signs at all—then you will accept my story as truth.”
“Maybe you’re just a liar?”
“Do you think that’s all this is? A woman lying to you? To what end? I didn’t come looking for you, you came looking for me. What could I possibly need from you that would justify this lie?”
She’s got a point. There is no reason for her to be lying. I already came to this conclusion, I just feel like arguing with her for some reason. “Why do you care if I accept your story as truth? You’re no one to me and I’m no one to you.”