id: 371
name: City kino WIP
author: joemama
date: 30th April 2021
text len: 12468
views: 207

>"All undocumented citizens must report to the community center for their new state IDs..."
>The loud speaker drones on as I pass the time in line.
>I wait excitedly as i get closer to the front.
>I can finally leave this shithole.
>For years i've lived in this area.
>The old parks and statues turned to impromptu first aid and food stations.
>The bridges were blown long ago.
>Bunkers and underground tunnels line the coast of the city.
>"In other news, the conscription age has been broadened, with men and women from the ages 15-50 now accepted into the people's militia. All non-compliant citizens will be sentenced to five years forced labor, minimum."
>I reach the front and step into the small customs building.
>"Papers?" the inspector says, not even stopping to look at me.
>"Hey, come on. That's mean." I pout.
>Upon hearing my voice, he jumps in surprise.
>"Oh, my bad. When you're on shift, you kind of get into a flow." He apologizes.
>"You ready to go?" I ask.
>"Yeah. We'll have a few minutes until they start looking, so you better haul ass."
>"No shit. Alright, let's go."
>We quickly walk out, leaving the customs station behind and making it beyond the initial border wall.
>I find myself walking through long-since abandoned buildings that fill the space between the city and the front lines.
>"We'll be there in a minute." He says.
>I've known this guy since the first months of the siege, when we were kids.
>He was lucky enough to get a job as a customs inspector when the borders re-opened a short while ago.
>A little before that, his job was making people disappear.
>Not killing people, but literally helping them disappear from society, you know, emigration and whatever.
>It was way harder back in the day, what with there being no legal way to leave, and on top of that, I have a criminal record.
>Having anything on your criminal record, even something small, fucks you completely.
>You're moved to a supervised, lower class home seperated from the rest of the city, you get less food stamps, you have the lowest medical priority, and on top of that, criminals don't have the right to emigrate.
>Which is why when I got wasted and accidentally pissed on the wrong building and got three years in a labor camp, all my plans of emigration were fucked.
>"Right, here we are." he says.
>We walk into a decrepit building. A well-worn wooden hatch is revealed as my friend digs through a few piles of garbage.
>"Alright. This is the only way we can leave. All the boys move their shit through here, so it should be safe."
>I acknowledge what he said and we climb down into the tunnel hidden by the hatch.
>"So how long's the trip?" I ask.
>"Like, five minutes. Then we hit the main tunnel. After that, I already got a bike ready for us. After that, it's a three hour trip through some shitty smuggler's routes. Someone might try and pull up on us." He says.
>"For sure." I feel my back pocket, where my handgun is. It's reassuring. Most guys in the city can't even get close to one, especially ex-convicts like myself.
>We continue on, where we find the bike waiting for us. We get on, turn the key, and we're off.
...
>As we pass through the tunnel, I notice the endless nooks, crannies, and sideroads all branching into different areas.
>Every 15 minutes, we pass rows of tents and small markets. This tunnel system was built long ago, before the war, and forgotten by most.
>I learned that it was repurposed as a smuggling route when I was maybe 15, so 10 years ago.
>Since I knew the guys who ran it, I made good money running with them. Shortly after the siege began, they were the ones who started trying to get people out of the city.
>They got crushed years ago, but the tunnels never stopped running. Now, people use their name to smuggle coffee and cigs instead of men and women.
>It's been about an hour now. My ass hurts; dual sport bikes like these aren't meant for long rides.
>"Yo, stop for a minute. I have to pee." I say.
>"Is it REALLY so bad we have to stop right now?"
>"Yup. I'm going to piss all over you if you don't stop."
>He stops at the side of the tunnel, leaning the bike on the wall.
>"Why not just use the bike stand?" I ask.
>"It's hard to put back up when it's down. When I tried when we started to leave, it took me like five minutes to unstick that shit. No way I'm putting in that much effort again."
>"..That's kind of pathetic." I reply.
>"ALSO," he continues, "You picked the worst spot to stop, in the history of places that you stop. I want to be able to get out quick if there's any trouble."
>"Wh-What? Why didn't you just tell me that before you STOPPED the bike?"
>"You said you had to pee."
>"So you stopped the bike in the middle of some fucking ghetto tunnel town."
>"You're the one that asked to get off in the first place, dumbass!"
>"I wouldn't have asked if you had TOLD me it was a shithole!"
>"Yeah, yeah whatever." He dismisses it. I brush past it, and do my business.
>As much as I needed to pee, I also wanted a break from riding that God-forsaken bike.
>It also gives me time to think. It's been a fast day, so to speak. I just abandoned everything in a matter of hours.
>It's a shithole for sure, but everyone I've ever known lives there. The guys from work, my neighbors in the Class-E neighbourhood, the cute girl I never got with..
>I think they'd be happy for me. If I could bring some of the guys along, I would. But it just wouldn't work.
>Maybe if I spent a few more years figuring shit out, I could have gotten everyone out.
>Whatever.
>"Alright, I'm done. Let's get going." As I walk back, I see my friend turned attentively at a brown looking man.
>"Hey, who's this guy?" I ask, confusedly.
>"How should I know?" He responds. "He just sprung out of the alley just now. Guy scared the shit out of me."
>The brown man tries to speak, yelling in a foreign language neither of us understand.
>"What's he saying?" I reach for an answer.
>"Take a look at me. Do you see brown on me? Do you think I know how to speak Indian or whatever the fuck this guy's talking in? How am I supposed to know?"
>"Yeah, fuck this." I slowly pull my old handgun out of my pocket, out of sight from the man. I then chamber a round.
>Apparently not hearing my chambering of the gun, he continues to try speaking to us, now in broken, incomprehensible english.
>After a few moments, he quickly reaches into his coat pocket.
>"SHIT!" I panickedly aim the gun and fire it off at him, hitting him a few times. The guy hits the ground almost immediately, cracking his head on the pavement.
>The gunshot reverbs around the tunnel, nearly deafening me. Angry yelling spreads all around me. It's generally bad etiquette to shoot in the tunnel.
>My bud looks at me, surprised, pissed, and amused at the same time.
>"What do you want me to do, let him pull out his piece?"
>"Let's bet. Piece or no piece?
>"Maybe it isn't, but I'm not gonna die to some Paki blasting me with a Hi-Point. You should be grateful I did that."
>"Let's check him anyway. Who knows?"
>"Yeah, whatever."
>My friend walks over to the fresh corpse, rummaging through his coat pockets.
>"Hey, retard! Check this out!"
>He reaches in the coat pocket, and pulls out a Punjabi-to-English phrasebook.
>"DUMB. ASS!" He ridicules me.
>"Not my fault. In another universe, I would've just saved you from a would-be killer, or something. Just take his shit and let's go."
>"I won't let you live this one down. You know that, right?"
>"Yeah, I know."
>Another while passes. We've almost reached our destination.
>We pass through newly-dug portions of the tunnel. The gap in quality between the pre-war and post-war tunnel is apparent.
>The concrete floor turns into dirt and mud. Cracking wooden supports barely hold the continuously narrowing path.
>Our bike's engine is the only audible sound now. Contrary to the normally-bustling marketplaces and tent cities of the stations closer to the city, this portion is dead.
>"You know, I fuckin' hate this, man." I say.
>"Huh?" He mumbles.
>"Don't you think this is.. Cowardly? I'm running away. Pretty much abandoning everyone, leaving them behind. They don't even know where we're going."
>He thinks for a second. "..Nah. Cowardly? The fuck you mean? We'll be back."
>"Nobody wants to solve anything. In the city, everyone's either too scared or too close to the Party to even want to try. Down here, everyone's just trying to make a quick buck. They couldn't give less of a shit about the city. Without the war, there'd be no way of making good money no more. Only people who care are people like us."
>"Think. The last time someone tried anything without help, entire blocks burned down. The only thing we'd accomplish by trying to start shit right now is getting our families killed."
>"Wait, man. What do you mean we'll be back?"
>He chuckles a little and says, "You don't have to do that 'can't say each others' names opsec shit, Frank. There's nobody around that cares."
>My head turns in confusion. "I wasn't doing that, I just forgot your name."
>My friend stops the bike. "You're kidding me, right? We've known each other for, like, 12 years." 
>I throw up my hands. "Hey, it is what it is."
>"It's Mac, dipshit." He turns back and we continue on the bike.
...
>We finally stop after a bit. Looking ahead, there's a huge cave-in that prevents us from moving through with the bike. Nobody's bothered to clear it for decades. 
>"Alright, the tunnel ends here." Mac says, turning off the bike. "We're still in the shit, though - this is a demilitarized zone. Just be careful."
>After the demilitarized zone is the borders of Canada. Or what remains of it. 
>It looks like we're going to continue on foot.
>Mac covers the bike with a conveniently-placed tarp. He leaves the keys in a hole in the floor, covering it with random debris scattered along the end of the tunnel. 
>I start toward the exit, a small ladder to the surface dug years ago to circumvent the cave-in. 
>It's not a well-known exit, so we shouldn't have any run-ins with anyone. 
>"Hey - Militia don't go out this far, anyway. Only people around here are traders or emigrants." He says, patting me on the back.
>"Yeah, I got you." I respond as I push the hatch open.
>I step up onto the surface, coming out into a building where the exit was dug. 
>"I know the way. Let me just cover this up really quick." Mac begins ripping rotten pieces of wood from the old floor, throwing them over the conspicuous exit. We take our leave shortly after. 
>We walk through the surprisingly full streets, full of beggars, emigrants, and immigrants alike. Some question where we came from, some play songs around a fire, some lay sleeping while their comrades stand watch over them.
>"Since the borders opened, we've been seeing a lot of decorated people allowed to leave. Businessmen and shit. They're pretty much the only ones allowed to." Mac explains. "Of course, we're a little bit different."
>We walk for a while more. He directs us into an abandoned building and turns to face me.
>Mac puts his hands on my shoulder. "I have work for you."
>I step back from him a bit. "What do you mean, work?"
>"How do you think we got out of there without being shot? You think the Militia's that incompetent? Half the guards at the border are bribed, and I don't have the money for that kind of shit." He goes on. 
>"We were both high up in the Militia for a while. We know a little here and there about the city's defenses. 
>"The only place for us now is with the Canadians. Think about it." He concludes.
>"You don't mean.." I stare at him.
>"The city's on its way to collapse. Fucked themselves the moment they opened the borders a little. We needed to switch sides before it came crashing down." He says. "Shoulda mentioned this earlier, but it didn't seem like the right time."
>"...So what do I have to do?" He's right; I've been seeing the signs of collapse for years.
>"All we gotta do is kick in the door. They'll set us up for life. If we're unlucky, they'll have us run the city." He whispers excitedly.
>"You're shitting me..." I sit down, leaning against the wall. "How the fuck did you set this up?"
>"Working on it for five or six years. Couldn't tell no one, sorry about that. Can't believe I didn't die in the process." Mac punches me in the shoulder. "Hey, and I thought I'd set you up good too. Forgetting my fuckin' name."
>"Bad memory, I guess." I reply.
>We both leave the building, continuing on to the Canadian border.