by Bruce Shigeura

Carol would be the first person in 123 years to step outside Xanadu into the raw, unfiltered air of the Outland. Walking up the steel stairwell through the Upper Complex, she stopped a moment to tap the window of a vivarium, catching the attention of pigeons and doves sitting in an apple tree. She’d always felt kinship with them, as the only other living beings among the racks of computer memory banks, cultured plant and animal tissue, and lattice of ductwork and electrical lines. Though the birds were at the bottom of the food chain, once she Recycled, she’d complete the circle, becoming nutrition for them. She continued up the stairs to the top catwalk, 300 meters above Xanadu’s living quarters. She reached up and unscrewed the bolts holding a solar panel to the steel framework. She didn’t put on a gas mask—she wanted the full sensory experience. When she removed the panel, sunlight streamed through the opening, stunning her with its warmth and brilliance. She took her shoes off, reached up, and pulled herself onto the Dome.

The sky was a gray overcast, and the sun a white globe. A damp, saline breeze off the Pacific wafting over the Coastal Range caressed the fine hairs on the back of her neck, while low fog had pushed its way through the Russian River gap. Accustomed to the warm, dry current of air from computer exhaust fans in the shadowless glow of LEDs, she found her senses clashing as from an LSD overdose. She focused on the mountaintops, covered in Ponderosa pine and fir trees, a textured, chiaroscuro green that archival photos didn’t capture. The foothills were duskier and mottled, live oak and lichen-flecked buckeye splashing shade over red and yellow California bunchgrass, which must have replaced the European golden grass that predominated before the Final War. There were no cattle grazing–perhaps driven to extinction during the nuclear winter. 

It was the end of the rainy season, and the Napa Valley was densely covered in a mixture of kale, snow peas, broccoli–vegetables she’d only eaten pureed for decontamination. Pear and walnut trees specked with flowers were scattered throughout the gardens, shading patches of herbs, for flavor or medicine. The Outlanders had turned three oxbows of the Russian River into ponds, ringed with wild rice, lotus, and watercress, that could provide shelter for Chinook salmon and steelhead fry. Buildings of stone, logs, and adobe of varying shades along with wood and stucco houses from before the Final War were clustered around a village square at the edge of the river floodplain.  A redtail hawk circled in an updraft over the eastern hills, casually free, as if taunting Carol.

She looked through the opera glasses she’d taken from Archive. Outlanders bent over their gardens and reached into the trees. In the nearest garden, a woman and little girl picked vegetables, the woman picking from the top of each plant, the little girl from the bottom. The woman walked haltingly to the next garden as if tired, the girl skipping gaily ahead. The girl tangled her hair on a berry bramble. She shook her head and yanked, upset. The woman untangled her hair, sat with the girl in her lap, and braided it, like a mother with her daughter. 

Carol now understood why First Cause kept all current photographs and videos of the Outland taken by the robots out of the Xanadian public database. The sterile, confined routine of Xanadu’s underground living quarters was a simulation of civilization before the Final War, an artifact, while the despised Outlanders lived in a green and vibrant new world. A rivulet filled with rusting cars, trucks, and tractors was the only sign of pre-Final War civilization. There were scattered grape vines, but nothing like the wine industry Napa Valley had been famous for. 

Carol wondered how the Outlanders, apparently living like a peasantry, dealt with radiation. The black radioactive dust cloud from the nuclear attack on San Francisco and Silicon Valley had passed south of the Napa Valley, but the whole world had experienced a steady rain of radioactive particles during the year-long nuclear winter. Radiation levels in air, rainwater, and food imported from the Outlanders were still at danger level. 

An Aerobot hovering above the field, its laser guns pointed downward, rotated its turret around in a routine check. It saw Carol, rose and sped toward her, stopping five meters away. A red laser dot appeared on her chest as it scanned and identified her face. It announced, “Carol Jenkins, age 27, Mechanical Technician. Your presence in the Forbidden Zone is a violation of The Process. You are under arrest.”

Carol had expected this. She walked to the opening and dropped back onto the catwalk in the windowless Upper Complex. She would have to answer to First Cause, but her time in the “Forbidden Zone,” the real world, had been exhilarating, a brief sensory experience of freedom. 

#

“We need eight red peppers, five yellow, and three green,” Zyanya said.

Farai searched through the chili plant, and counted off as she picked. “One red. One yellow. Two red . . .”

Zyanya picked some chilis before they were ripe, to be sure to meet Family Quota.

“Here, Mommy.” Farai held her bag open proudly. Zyanya showed Farai how to recognize the yellow-green color of ripe black-eye pea pods and speckled red pods of kidney beans. Farai picked the lower pods while Zyanya picked where the vines wound high up the corn stalks. At the firethorn bramble, Farai got scratched and tangled while berry picking. “I love red berries, but I hate thorns.” 

One of the bean plants had thick, elongated pods. Zyanya split one open and found the black beans were larger than normal. A mutation, possibly something good coming from radioactive soil. She collected all the pods from that plant, putting them in her pocket to save as seeds for next season; for Rayan and Farai, even if Zyanya herself wouldn’t be there.  

Farai insisted on opening each bag and naming it before Zyanya put it into her woven reed backpack. “One bag of Brussel sprouts. One bag of snails,” wrinkling her nose because she didn’t like the chewy texture of snails, “One bag of spinaches . . . We picked a lot of foods, Mommy.”

She squatted at the edge of the garden and emptied Farai’s bag into her larger one. She was taken with a coughing fit, dry and hacking. Farai patted her back. Zyanya quickly wiped her lips with her handkerchief and stuffed it into her pocket, so Farai wouldn’t see the blood. More than the work, the coughing drained her. It was the end of the rainy season, the winter crop was peaking, and she and Rayan had paid only a quarter of their seasonal Family Tax.  Farai’s enthusiasm and dedication would enable her to work independently all day by age five, relieving Zyanya of some of her worries about her daughter’s future. She closed her eyes and took a moment to gather herself, smelling the loam and flowering plum trees, listening to the cedar waxwing’s buzzing trill. 

“Let’s take the food to the Tower.”

“To the mean robot with no face?”

“Yes.” Zyanya took her daughter’s hand and walked the dirt path through the garden and orchard, over the bridge that crossed the stream, under the watchful eye of the two-eyed, one antenna robot, to the circle of open grass that surrounded the Black Tower. When she was twenty paces from the wall, the red laser dot appeared on her chest and the voice from the loudspeaker said, “Halt and display.”

She pulled up her sleeve and raised her forearm, the computer code tattoo facing out. The laser scanned it. “Advance.”

The waist high door opened. Gripping Farai’s hand firmly, Zyanya walked to the opening. She emptied the cotton bag into a bin, and the conveyor belt moved it back, where it was spilled and spread, viewed and counted, by Xanadu’s computer god, First Cause. 

“Santiago Family Quota 27% complete,” the Faceless Robot said. “You are behind schedule.”

Farai stuck her tongue out at the voice. As they were walking away, she said, “That robot isn’t happy.”

“He needs to get out of that black box and go for a walk in the woods in the early morning and enjoy the mist like we do on our day off.”

Farai began to skip ahead, singing her favorite song, dating to before the War, that Rayan taught her. “Happiness is the truth . . .”

Though she couldn’t skip anymore, to hold onto the joy of harvesting what you’d worked so hard all season on, Zyanya sang with her daughter all the way to the meadow. 

“This isn’t for the robot; it’s for us.” Farai swept the long-handled insect net back and forth across the tops of the tall grass, then folded the net and held it out to Farai. She first took out the ladybugs and painted lady butterflies and put them on her forefinger. If they didn’t fly away immediately, she blew on them to let them know they were free. She picked out the grasshoppers one by one, and put them into a hemp bag. Zyanya took Farai’s hand and they walked toward their log and sunbaked adobe hut. 

As soon as they opened the door, Farai ran to Rayan and threw her arms around his leg. He had been cooking, and stepped back from the hot stove, sweeping her into his arms. “Did you have a good day?”

“A beans and cauliflowers day!”

“Oh, cauliflowers,” Rayan said, wiggling his fingers enthusiastically. “That’s a very good day.”

“A bunny rabbit day!” She giggled, “A three Billy-goats day!”

“An exceptional, big-mouth hippopotamus day,” he said, puffing up his face and chest. He pointed to the bag she held. “What did you bring me?”

“Grasshoppers!”

“Give me five big ones, put the rest in the cage, and pick some fresh grass for them.”

After Farai collected grass and settled the grasshoppers in the bamboo cage, the family sat cross-legged on their hemp carpet. Farai filled them in on everything running through her head as they ate. When Rayan undid her braids, combing out the burrs, and lay her down on her mat, she didn’t even ask for a story, and was asleep in moments. 

Zyanya and Rayan propped their feet on the stool by the cast iron stove. He asked, “How was your day?”

“Dr. Tran may have been optimistic when she gave me six months. My abdomen is telling me different,” Zyanya said pointing to a spot above her pelvis.

“The pain spread lower?”

“It’s my fate.” She touched his cheek with her cold fingers, to both reassure and warn. “Don’t make me worry, Rayan. I have to know you’re ready.”

“Dariya and my sisters will teach Farai how to choose seeds for sowing, and how to weave. I’ll make sure she stays out of trouble, and the whole Village will watch over her.” As Zyanya curled over in a coughing fit, Rayan lifted her in his arms and set her on his lap, wiping the blood from her lips. “Focus on caring for yourself; let me worry about our daughter’s future.”

Before Farai, Zyanya had five miscarriages and stillbirths, each heartbreaking, leaving her uncertain of her body and bitter about the radioactive killer. She knew it was evolution, a harsh mistress, condemning the many to death so the few could thrive. When Farai was born, she had felt unburdened and transformed. Then the diagnosis—she had lung cancer. “Make me believe in a future for Farai. Make your meetings on the beach count.” 

“We’ll return with a complete plan,” he assured her. Twenty-three men and women from the village, the Spartacists, were going on a two-week fishing and hunting expedition to the Pacific Coast. The secret purpose was to meet on an isolated beach where the robots couldn’t follow to discuss an uprising against Xanadu. 

Zyanya closed her eyes, breathing shallowly, distancing herself from the pain in her chest. She was saving the morphine Dr. Tran gave her, for the end. Her body was ready to leave, but her mind was still unsettled.

#

Robots took Carol to the Courtroom. A holographic Judge walked into the room and sat at the dais behind an oak desk from pre-Final War days. It said, “Carol Jenkins, you are charged with penetrating Security, leaving Xanadu, and allowing unfiltered air into our Compound—a Level 1 violation of The Process.”

The h-Judge looked like Abraham Lincoln, morphed to be less gaunt and more handsome. His voice was that of the pre-Final War actor Ian McKellen, deep and resonant. 

“I plead guilty,” she said, wishing to get this over and move on.

“First, explain yourself,” the h-Judge said. “Why did you violate Security and exit the Upper Complex?”

“I wanted to see the outside world,” she said.

“For what purpose?”

“To experience reality with my own senses. To open my consciousness.” 

“You violated the Process out of curiosity?”

Carol laughed. The h-Judge was one of First Cause’s many incarnations performing all the political, social, and cultural decision-making functions in Xanadu. It was Artificial Intelligence, capable of closely imitating consciousness, but a Meta-Algorithm, developed by the Forefathers over a century ago. It was devoid of emotion, intuition, creativity, holistic vision, instinct, and personal experience. First Cause would never understand her, and she’d known that since adolescence. 

“Curiosity, and to rebel against The Process and against you, First Cause.”

“That is a nonsensical purpose. Did you wish to communicate with the Outlanders?”

“You’ve seen the Aerobot’s video. I made no attempt to wave or shout. I don’t think they noticed me.”

“Were you evaluating a break-out?”

“From the Dome? Climb down a rope made of bedsheets?”

“No one has ever wanted to see the Outland. You are irrational.”

“Talking to a hologram as if it was a person is irrational,” she answered.

“Address me as Judge.”

“No. You’re an illusion created by intersecting light generated by silicon transistors turning on and off to make ones and zeros.”

“Are there any mitigating circumstances that could excuse your behavior?”

h-Judge had not responded to her accusation because First Cause couldn’t comprehend its own insentience. “No. I’m guilty.”

“Sentencing depends on your motives and attitude, whether you express remorse.”

Carol said nothing in her defense. The result was predetermined.

The h-Judge said, “Your childhood was marked by impetuosity and impertinence, that became adolescent infractions and rebellion. Now you’ve escalated to a major crime.” 

“I was never impetuous, always purposeful, even as a child.”

“So, you not only admit intentionality but boast of it.”

Talking honestly about her motives would only feed First Cause data to be used against anyone else who might rebel.

“I find you guilty of Level 1 violations of The Process. You are sentenced to Monitoring and Correction. You will submit to the Medical Facility for implantation of a Medulla Insert.”

Carol had no intention of submitting to the electronic device that would allow First Cause to track her location 24 hours a day, and upon detecting any infraction, stop her heart and respiration for several terrifying seconds. 

For Carol, directing her own life was precious—the only thing she possessed. From her earliest memories, she had diverged from First Cause’s Process. She had asked her h-Teacher how the octopus that was wriggling and singing in the video really lived, what it ate and thought about. When told it wasn’t real and was just illustrating the letter “O,” she wasn’t satisfied. She’d scoured First Cause’s database for stories and videos not only of octopuses, but of creatures of the forests, savannahs, and tropics. She imagined swimming with the dolphins and climbing with the monkeys, enthralled by a world she was told existed only in the past. She asked h-Teacher if First Cause was a god like Loki, who lied and was mean. She loved reading Alice in Wonderland, but when she saw it on the five-senses Entertainment Pod, she hated the jokey action and sensory overload. 

She’d been assigned an h-Counselor, been given mood stabilizers, antidepressants, and multiple gene therapies, in various combinations. An h-Mommy and h-Daddy were installed in her home, permanently displacing her parents, hovering and giving her unwanted directives. 

Carol withdrew from her Education Pod, virtual reality children’s birthday parties, and in-person gym. She studied history and classic literature on her own. She wrote poetry and drew dreamworlds. She participated only in online school events. She played Franz Liszt’s dissonant and foreboding “Dark Star: Sinister, Disastrous,” and performed Antigone’s lament as she chose to die for a higher cause than the laws of man. 

As soon as Carol turned 18, an h-Psychiatrist diagnosed her as an Anomaly. She realized First Cause had concluded she’d never conform. It stopped asking her questions and intervening in her activities, continuing only to monitor her online research and actions. She almost missed First Cause’s harassment–it made her feel alive and important. She withdrew into herself, her solitary activities. She’d won the freedom to be herself at the cost of near total social isolation. 

She took a job in Maintenance, manual labor in the Upper Complex, where she worked alone, high above the living and working places of the Compound. As an outsider to Xanadu’s beliefs and culture, she learned to disentangle propaganda from fact in First Cause’s database. She curled up in a nook between machines, to think and write in her secret paper journal. Reading history, science, and philosophy, she discovered the complexity, profundity, and beauty of the natural world and humanity. She studied Xanadu’s origins, its logical and inhumane course, its inevitable demise. She constructed a new purpose for her life, from facts, imagination, and her own stubborn independence. She had been headed toward Compulsory Recycle, to be reduced to a nutrient broth at an early age, but decided to take her fate into her own hands.

#

Zyanya picked from the lower branches while Farai collected windfall apples. She had many coughing fits and her basket was only half full when the sun dropped toward the horizon. The rest of the village was already on line at the Black Tower with their baskets.

“Mommy, I’m tired,” Farai said, dropping an apple with bruises and wormholes into the basket.

“I know. Let’s get on line.” She’d been working and caring for Farai alone while Rayan hunted and fished, and was under quota, but her chest hurt too much for her to care. 

When they reached the end of the line, Zyanya had a coughing fit. Dariya turned and came back and put her arm around her. “Let’s get you to the front of the line, Zyanya.”

As she led Zyanya and Farai to the front, Dariya said to the others, “She’s sick. Give her a few potatoes or beans to make quota. People dropped handfuls of fruits and vegetables from their own baskets into Zyanya’s. Even Rosabelle, born with a small brain and webbed fingers, contributed green onions and broccoli.

“Dariya, you’re making me into a burden on the whole village,” Zyanya said.

“You’ve already met your pain quota for the day, Zyanya.”

At the front of the line, the Faceless Robot scanned her tattoo. She emptied her basket into the bin and the conveyor belt carried it inside. A moment later, the robot said, “You are a half kilo short and two kilos are poor quality.” He meant Farai’s windfall apples. Though she knew it was coming, the sharp, thundering pain in her head felled her. When she awoke, she was lying on the ground, with Farai stroking her cheek, eyes red from crying.

“I’m all right,” Zyanya said, giving Farai a hug. The robot had sent her a mild Head Bolt. She tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness and nausea stopped her. Dariya helped her to her feet.

“The people who donated to me and shorted their own baskets must have gotten the Head Bolt, too,” Zyanya said. 

“Yes, but they survived,” Dariya said, waving at the villagers who were walking down the paths to their cottages.

Zyanya squeezed Farai’s hand, as much to reassure herself as her daughter, and they walked toward home. The Faceless Robot had humiliated her and terrified her daughter, yet Zyanya felt relieved. It was a signal her life had shrunk down, and it was time to leave. She was no longer angry at her body for betraying her. She would live until she was assured Rayan was ready to care for Farai on his own, but she’d shaken off a great burden.

A trumpet tune played from the watchtower signaling the return of the hunters and fishers. Farai dragged Zyanya through the gathering crowd of villagers to the muddy beach of the Russian River, swollen with rainwater. When the lead kayak rounded the bend in the river, the crowd cheered. Farai jumped up and down, waving the family banner, a yellow corn plant embroidered on a green hemp cloth.  

Rayan was at the tiller of a freight catamaran, its deck between the two pontoons laden with their catch. When he waded onto shore, Farai clung to his leg and wouldn’t let go until he gave her a job, a small basket of murre eggs to carry up the bank.

The group’s excursion to the Pacific Ocean had taken them to the deep-water canyon in Monterey Bay, the Sacramento River Delta, and the Farallon Islands. The entire village carried the yellowtail, abalone, kelp, bird eggs, sturgeon, seal, and rockfish to the town square. They assembled the smoke house and drying racks, and gathered clay pots, filet knives, cast iron pots, salt, and firewood. 

They first set aside half their catch for the Village Tax. They threw in the leopard sharks and other scavengers that would have the highest levels of radiation, the seal meat with canker sores, mutant fish, while laughing sarcastically and cursing Xanadu. Villagers carted the tax to the Black Tower, registered it, and returned. 

They brought tables and chairs to the square and cooked and feasted on barbecued salmon, clams baked in kelp beds, raw oysters. They drank grape and rice wine from ceramic jugs and sang. The teenagers joined in, while the little children ran, played, and got underfoot. The hunters and fishers each sang verses relating their adventure and boasting of their prowess, followed by villagers mocking them, to keep them from becoming big-headed. 

When they’d eaten and drunk, they set to work smoking fish and seal meat, salting eggs and fish, rendering seal blubber, drying kelp, and prepping shark skin for tanning. As each item was finished, the hunters and fishers distributed it to their siblings, aunts, cousins, who in turn distributed to their relatives, until the whole village had a fair share. 

#

Carol wrote many drafts of her valedictory, wrestling over which theme was most critical, honing each phrase to precision. She wrote the final draft in her journal. When the day came, she was nervous as a debutante, and focused in on each step. She ran up the stairwells and catwalks of the Upper Complex to a closet-size data center just below the Dome. She didn’t log on to a portal, but cut into a cable bundle and spliced in her hand computer, making it difficult for First Cause to track down her signal’s location. She could now speak to every education, entertainment, work, headset, and loudspeaker in the complex.

Her stage fright evaporated. She shrugged off the weight of her long solitude and spoke. “Fellow citizens of Xanadu. I’m interrupting your evening routine to tell you what First Cause knows but keeps from you. Xanadu is falling apart and it’s only a matter of time before it shuts down completely. I work in Maintenance and see the radioactive metals that power us becoming depleted; the electronics First Cause runs on is aging and generating errors; the plant and animal tissue we grow is losing nutrition; our air, water, and recycle systems are corroding.”

Carol saw on her screen First Cause running through its security procedure, trying to locate her signal. “We let Artificial Intelligence make all decisions. We’re isolated from the natural world, and from our own rich and profound human history. Our society is stagnating. We make no scientific or technological breakthroughs, no brilliant works of art. We have no philosophical or political debates about our history and future, and generate no new ideas.”

She pulled out her stethoscope and touched it to the catwalk, hearing the rhythmic clank of the metal feet of Terrobots searching the Tower below her. The Aerobots would be probing every nook and cranny.

“Our genetic medicine has extended our average lifespan past 90 years old; so why are so many of us taking Early Recycle at age 70, even 50? We are trapped in shallow, purposeless lives, plodding aimlessly within the narrow bounds set by First Cause. We have no world to explore, no direct sensory experiences, no terror or extreme hatred, but no love and empathy either. Our intuitive, creative side is neglected and suppressed in favor of rote functionality. From childhood on, alone or in groups, we feel uneasy, hurt, and misunderstood.”

She heard the robots approaching. She cut to her ending. “First Cause teaches us that our Forefathers foresaw the Final War, made preparations, and saved humanity from extinction by secluding us in Xanadu, safe from the radiation, with everything we need for survival. What it doesn’t tell you is that the Forefathers were the elite of the Pre-War society, tech moguls who hired engineers, military officers, and technicians to serve them. They designed their version of paradise, gave decision-making power to First Cause, and imposed The Process on us. When the sun emerged after the year-long Nuclear Winter, we could have opened our doors and traded technology and medicine for food with the Outlanders. But Artificial Intelligence can only use methods already in its database. It subdued the Outlanders with robots and laser guns, and colonized them to extract food. First Cause has no capacity to understand an unprecedented crisis, such as Xanadu’s coming existential breakdown. 

“It is the Outlanders who saved humanity. They survived nuclear winter. They saved seeds, and when the sun returned, planted them and grew gardens as the forests, rivers, and oceans returned to life. I stood on the Dome and saw the Outland myself.” 

The lights went out and Carol’s computer went dead. First Cause had shut down the entire electrical system to stop her. She stepped onto the catwalk, ran to her portal, and pushed open the solar panel. She scrambled onto the Dome just as a laser gun beam struck the steel grate where she’d stood. She stripped off her clothes, poured alcohol on them, lit them on fire, and dropped them on a computer bank. The aging plastic burst into flame, blocking her portal.

Carol clutched her journal, her life’s message to the Outlanders, and walked to the edge of the Dome. The night sky was clear, a sign the rainy season was over. She looked up until she saw a shooting star blink on and flare out. She spread her arms like an angel, tilted forward, and fell. In free fall, wind rushing through her hair, she felt the exhilaration of a dissonant chord resolved, and submitted to the beautiful vastness.

#

Zyanya slumped into the hammock and closed her eyes. The next thing she knew, Farai was shaking her shoulder. “Mommy, dinnertime.”

Though the meal was savory and colorful, Zyanya wasn’t hungry. She forced herself to eat a portion of the vegetable soup, sorghum bread with garlic and olive oil, sea urchin roe, and fried chili grasshopper. Farai was chattering on about her day, when she said, “I don’t want to give any more food to the robot with no face on the black wall, Daddy. He’s mean to Mommy.”

Rayan’s eyes flashed in fear and anger. Calming himself, he spoke sternly. “All robots are mean, Farai. Only people are nice—like Dariya and Yolotli and Alyosha, and all the people of the Village.”

Farai sensed from her father’s tone, she was not to complain or talk back to the robot. She said softly, “Okay.”

Zyanya put her hand on her daughter’s and said, “Some things aren’t fair. Giving food to the mean robot is just one of the things we have to do. You pick the food, and that’s fun, but let Daddy and I, the grown-ups, deal with the mean robot.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding, letting the lesson sink in.

“You want to play with your dolls?” Rayan asked her.

She perked up and laughed, as if the suggestion was ridiculous. “I’m too big to play with dolls, Daddy. Building blocks!” 

While her husband and daughter sat on the floor building a castle with moat and drawbridge, Zyanya leaned back to rest. She was in a deep sleep when she felt a blanket being tucked around her. “No, Rayan, I’m going to Gathering with you.”

He made her a chamomile and ginseng tea to ease the soreness in her throat. She drank some and poured the rest into a ceramic jug to take with her. They wrapped themselves in rabbit fur cloaks and leggings to mask their heat signature from the Terrobots on watch. They bundled up Farai, and left her with Dariya, who was watching over the Village’s small children. They walked to the Spanish-style former winery, the largest building in the village. Downstairs in the wine cellar, all the adults in the village were seated on the floor. Alcohol lamps along the walls dimly illuminated the room, and sage incense sweetened the air. They found a spot and sat cross-legged on their cloaks. People talked and laughed in low voices. 

“Welcome to Winter Harvest Gathering,” Makena said. Her gray hair was thin and patchy from the radiation, but she was strong and vigorous, Sage of the Council of Elders. “A young mountain lion was sighted in the pine forest to the west—they’re reproducing. With black bear and coyotes, the full range of large predators from before the War have returned, plus gray wolves from the north. They’ve come because the blacktail deer and tule elk are thriving in the grasslands. They’re bigger than before the War, maybe from genetic mutations. Council proposes we hunt male deer and elk beginning this coming year—ten of each species until we’re sure they’re stable. Any questions?”

There were none.

“Vote. All in favor.”

“Aye,” the crowd said.

 “Ayes have it.”

“We sighted two pods of humpback whales off the Farallon Islands. Adults have no predators. Next season we’ll discuss hunting one of them.” Makena added with a chuckle, “That will be a lively debate.”

Atziri walked to the podium. On the Council of Elders at the age of 26, she had studied the science and history books rescued from the library in Berkeley. “A Xanadian woman fell from the top of the Tower last night. She spread her arms out and swooped down like an owl. We buried her with a prayer.”

“I thought all Xanadians were fat and jolly,” a voice called out, and others laughed.

 “She was the only Xanadian to come to our village in 123 years, and she came to die. We must respect that.” 

Zyanya whispered to Rayan, “It’s sad to die alone and be buried by strangers.” She prayed silently for the woman. 

Horus stepped to the podium wearing a vest made of mirrors that would reflect a laser gun. “The Spartacists met at Russian Gulch beach. We decided our time has come to launch an uprising against Xanadu, and Council agreed. We have two goals—to end all taxation, and to force them to disarm and allow inspections of their Black Tower and underground cavern.”

“Xanadu has flying robots with laser guns, and laser cannon from the Tower,” a voice called out. “We have Robin Hood weapons.”

Arguments broke out, and Horus slammed the podium with his fist.  “We are smarter and more determined than Xanadu and its robots. We’ll fight from underground or the other side of the mountains. We’ll block or break their solar panels, air and water intake, cameras, trap their robots, encircle and starve them out.”

Makena said, “We’ll begin with a tax strike at the summer harvest. We must prepare by storing a quarter of this winter harvest in the three village wine cellars.”

Atziri said, “There’s a principle called entropy—not man’s law, but a law of nature—that over time all systems, including Xanadu, break down. The Aerobots’ batteries and laser guns are weakening. When Xanadu raises taxes, disables or kills us with Head Bolts and lasers for minor acts of resistance–these are signs of weakness, of dependency, of fear. The Xanadian woman brought a journal with her that confirms that their computers and machines are deteriorating.” 

“A law of man is oppression breeds resistance,” Makena said. “Xanadu grows weak, while we recover as our gardens grow full and nature flourishes. While our Spartacist warriors have their role, rebellion must be waged by our whole village. Everyone must sacrifice and be prepared to talk through conflicts and stay united, fight and die for freedom, and carry through to the end, wearing Xanadu down until they sue for peace.”

Leonardo stood and spoke. “We’re safe and doing better. Why risk dying when we might lose and make things much worse?”

Zyanya gulped tea to ease her throat, then Rayan helped her to her feet. “Yes, we can survive anything—the year-long Dusk at Noon and Gray Rain, the miscarriages and stillbirths, the cancers and birth defects. We pay taxes, submit to the robots, keep our heads bowed. We have moments of great joy and love that make our existence bearable. 

“But I want more for my daughter. We need medicines, our children in school, knowledge of both the world that’s gone and the new one being born. We need to exchange goods and ideas with other villages. If deer and whales aren’t just getting by but thriving, then can’t we humans, with our capacity to dream the impossible then make it happen?”

When Zyanya slumped to the floor, Makena said, “Find a group to discuss the positives and negatives of war. Say what you have to say, and listen to responses. When we come back together, we’ll vote.”

Zyanya whispered to Rayan, “I have to nap.” Rayan led her to a quiet corner and covered her with cloaks. The arguments blurred into a murmur and she fell asleep. She dreamed she was afloat on the ocean surrounded by giant whales, spouting laughter, cavorting and leaping. She awoke to Rayan’s gentle shake.

“It’s time to vote.”

Makena said, “All those in favor of launching the insurrection say ‘Aye.’”

Zyanya said as loudly as she could, “Aye.”

“The Ayes have it.”

On the walk home, Zyanya felt disoriented and leaned heavily on Rayan’s arm. “I voted when I didn’t participate in discussion.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “You voted intuitively, based on your life experience and vision of the future.”

Her life experience; Zyanya felt it wane with each jolting step. It was not her fate to raise Farai. But the night sky was like a blanket comforting her, and her fellow villagers walking with her were strong and determined. Her daughter’s future was not secure, but for the first time, it was hopeful.