Interlude: Provisions

Take only what you can carry. The text was emblazoned on every free corner, be it by way of spray paint, chalk, or even blood, the message was repeated an innumerable amount of times to those evacuating the above-ground cities in the hot, cruel Indian Summer of 2186. Our destinations, unknown. In the giant computer databases that took up entire underground warehouses, entire families were dismembered to a dozen Sub-Mets, never to see each other again. Sometimes the radiation tampered with the computer's circuitry, causing planeloads of refugees to land hundreds of miles from their destination without fuel or sufficient provisions. Provisions. The things we carried with us. Memories, the posters told us, were like concrete shoes, sinking us into the debris-strewn Styx.

Take only what you can carry. We remembered the things we left behind. Springtime on the porch, father grilling a juicy steak for the family, the dog ecstatically scrambling for a piece, mother and sister watching expectantly, their smiles scars of the joy shared on that wonderful evening then-wait, the sky! Look at the sky! Why, it's a meteor! Father shaking his head slowly, telling sister to go inside for a while. Realizations of the sad truth of war, sinking in like white-hot hooks of lead, both flame and tumor, piercing our very being. From then on, eyeing the sky, illuminated by the harsh and passive moon, with disdain and dread, anticipating the next strike to wipe us all off the map.

Take only what you can carry. The elderly and sick were always the last to be assigned to Sub-Mets. We all knew that the planning commissions secretly hoped that in the protracted waiting period for being assigned to a Sub-Met, a radiation bomb would slam into their residency and eliminate them from the equation, freeing up resources for everyone else. From a statistical standpoint this method was the most efficient way of reducing waste in the cities and helping to maintain a higher quality of living for everyone else. From a human point of view, such practices were sickening. More than one UN Evacuation Committee member was indicted with manslaughter during the chaotic days of the great evacuations.

Take only what you can carry. When I first started patrolling the streets of Sub-Kyoto, shortly after being reassigned from Sub-Chicago, I was amazed at the sheer amount of things that the authorities confiscated from citizens. Confiscation crews (off duty, I always called them Prince John's Posse) brought back enough items to be burned that the municipality had to build giant, multistory warehouses to store them in. Of course, as air vents were shut and oxygen was conserved, burning became an obvious impracticality, so, like a hoarder's attic, the warehouse grew fuller and fuller until it could store no more. One day, some local teens (rumors circulated among the townsfolk that they had called themselves the "Merry Men") decided to, well, relieve the burden of storing all that stuff from the authorities.

Take only what you can carry. That's what they did, really. From what I was told, as I was off duty that particular night, the youth snuck into the warehouse, ransacked it, and made off with as many things as humanly possible. That was, of course, until the police arrived with automatic rifles, gleaming like teeth in the artificial gloom. I heard the shots from my house, resonating cold and crisp in the night air like fireworks in an opera house. I dared not glance out my window, only to confirm what I already feared. The boys, I knew, were dead. Their funerals were sparsely attended and heavily guarded, to prevent rioting from the horrified population. Four pale-faced boys were brought up by pallbearers, one by one, and set to the left of the altar. As they, one by one, filed out of the dimly-lit chapel, I thought I heard one of them whisper;

"Take only what you can carry."