Someone had painted a red symbol on the street corner. It had no name yet. Only the mutterings of a distant dream. The symbol was an eye with a line split down its center, a partial arrow shape at its bottom. The Visionaries. Vero followed its direction down a trash-ridden alley where a black car waited, its back door propped open expectantly.
Ivy perched on the hood, a cigarette held loosely between two fingers, smoke billowing from her lips. “You’re late,” she said, snuffing out the remains.
“You would be too if you had to climb those stairs.” He shoved his bag in the back seat and clambered in. Music bumped from the speakers, and Ezra rapped his fingers against the steering wheel to the beat. He’d rigged up the radio, silenced its ads and propagandas, and fed it music from an old, jailbroken device.
Ivy slipped into the passenger seat and closed the door.
The engine sputtered to life, and the car lurched forward, setting out into the vacant street. Vero watched the streetlights pass, one after the other. A torn banner hung swinging from one of the lamp posts. White cloth with black scrawled letters.
One word: Obey.
The train yard was ten minutes away, tucked against the edge of the city. Skyscrapers loomed over its every side, blocking out the lights of the city. A solitary floodlight bore down on the last train, set to depart in a few hours. It carried boxes of books from the once-library. Aged and irrelevant, they’d been named for the incinerators. City officials had put condensed and censored copies online for easy viewing and the illusion of access.
Ezra slowed the car to a stop and rolled down his window. An armed guard approached, and there was a swift transfer of money from one palm to the other, then the guard pulled open the gate. “Forty minutes,” he said, glancing down the line of vehicles that’d come, their headlights glaring in Ezra’s rearview mirror.
“Forty minutes,” Ezra confirmed. They drove through and parked near the track.
Vero took a deep breath.
