“This way,” the soldier snapped. He joined the nearest cluster of flowing people. “We’re almost there. Cut the chatter and prepare to be put on the line for work.”
Put on the line? This whole unfolding scenario was growing more perplexing and likely dangerous by the second. Brandon began to shoot Jason meaningful glances, hoping to silently plot out a possible escape plan, should one become necessary. For all they knew, it was already necessary. His heart thumped wildly in his chest.
“Hey, man,” Brandon whispered to a stranger walking beside him. “What’s going on? That dude in the camo won’t give it up.”
“Shh…” the unknown man hushed without looking in Brandon’s direction. His face was tight and taut, with dark sleepless rings beneath his eyes. Shivering, Brandon abandoned that conversation and looked around him for other possibilities. Men and women moved with the same robotic determination, all of them as stoic and tired looking as the first guy. He resolved not to try for another chitchat until he got another hint of their whereabouts.
The large herd of moving people, occasionally jostling but mostly marching as a single unit as though they were prisoners on their way to labor camp, led Brandon and Jason toward a point which they judged to be a town center, or at least a major focal point of the metropolis. The streets curved into a stadium-sized roundabout surrounding a grassy locale. In the center of it all was a staged concrete slab holding up a towering statue, probably double the size of the Statue of Liberty, if not taller than that. Certainly she was more massive than any of the immediately surrounding buildings.
Rather than depicting a crowned woman carrying a torch and book representing the freedom of a nation, though, they were instead gazing up at the gold-plated majesty of a girl with a cheeky smile and her hands planted on her slender hips. In the face of all this madness, Brandon didn’t even have the peace of mind to get sexually distracted by the three-hundred-foot statue of a gorgeous giant woman.
Wait. Wasn’t he thinking about something like that just before the blackout? Something about a giant woman or a tiny city? Maybe he was just remembering his previous fetishistic internet search. There was far more at stake here than his horniness.
Brandon tried to slow his breathing, unable to process almost any of what they were seeing now. The crowds were all converging on this single point in the streets, and not just from the direction they’d come. Every opening in the concrete jungle of brick and glass gave way to flowing, militantly focused humans. Men and women, young and old, of varying sizes and ethnicities. There had to be thousands packed into the open space here alone. Looking up, Brandon could spot dozens of comparatively miniscule workers hanging from pulleys looped over the statue, hammering and chiseling away at the beautiful visage of the honored young woman, whoever she was; at the base around her metallic feet, throngs worked, some laying stone, some polishing the gold, and some working away with tools.
Squinting, Brandon wondered if he recognized that self-assured, feminine face on the golden idol, but was quickly shoved from behind by the oncoming crowd before he could pause long enough to decipher her features. It took careful stepping now to avoid tripping, as only now that he physically stood in the center, did Brandon realize the ground was littered with debris made of shattered rock and wood; it almost resembled a battlefield. The flow of the crowd slowed, everyone lining up with surprisingly professional order, until neat rows and columns of humans were formed around the altar of the enormous statue.
“We’re here,” the soldier said into the ears of Brandon and Jason. Already around them, civilians had begun stooping down and scooping up the scattered building remains. “You’re new, so until we can trust you’ll get the job done, you’ll be on stone duty. Pick up what’s around you. When a stone comes your way, accept it and pass it forward. Quickly.”
“Wait. Wait, wait, hold up, man,” Jason stammered, ever the public speaker. “We didn’t sign up for this. I don’t know who you think we are or what, but we’re not supposed to be here.”
“Get to work,” the soldier repeated. “There will not be a third warning.”
“Please,” Brandon hissed to the uniformed man. “Just tell us what’s going on. We have to try to figure out how to get back to where we-”
“What’s going on here? Why aren’t they lifting?” another soldier demanded, passing through the neatly organized lines of working humanity. Unlike the original trooper, he gripped his semi-automatic in his arms, which instantly put Jason and Brandon on edge. “Get to work, you two.”
“I’ve explained their duty, but they remain resistant,” the first soldier said.
“Well, how about that?” the second said with a sly smile. Before either boy could respond, he jammed the butt of his rifle straight into Jason’s back. Squealing like a child, the twenty-one-year-old staggered to the ground, narrowly avoiding smacking his face on a large chunk of stone. Instead, the butt of the rifle came down on his back again. Brandon couldn’t even think to try defending his friend before he, too, was rendered stunned on the grass as the first soldier whacked him in the knees. A boot came down hard on his spine.
“All right, all right! STOP!” Brandon shouted. He could feel a welt on his back forming from the soldier’s boot. “We’ll work, we’ll work.”
“See that you do,” the more aggressive of the two troopers sneered. Both soldiers halted their assault. He withdrew his rifle and spit on the ground. “You’ll not jeopardize every person here through your inaction. Now get up, cowards.”
Pitifully, the boys helped each other back to their feet as the second soldier wandered off to inspect other workers. The first trooper who’d led them all the way here stayed long enough ensure the pair obeyed. True to their word, the two stooped and heaved up a large chunk of stone apiece and passed it off to the waiting individual next in line. Only then did their apparent captor march away and leave them alone with their fellow “employees.”
Half an hour passed. Already the two were soaked with sweat, red in the face. The pace was difficult to keep up.
Looking around in between stone duty, Brandon realized he and Jason weren’t alone in their inadequacy as stone-layers. Across the crowd, he could make out other soldiers in camo, occasionally halting to bark at an individual moving too slowly with the stone conveyor belt system. Some even delivered the brunt of their rifle stock into the citizens’ hips; the citizens only panicked and worked harder, never even looking at the soldiers.
“Holy fuck, dude,” Jason stuttered at Brandon. “We have to get the hell out of here.”
“Do you see a way right now?” Brandon scowled, thinking fast and coming up dry. “There’s too many people to get away, too many of those guys with guns. Just go with it for now, okay. They can’t make us do this all day.”
“Silence,” one of the exhausted female strangers beside Brandon hissed. Despite having a slighter build than either Brandon or Jason, this woman was moving twice as fast, her stringy biceps pulsing with every repetition of heaving the rocks. “Do not endanger the rest of us.”
Almost angered enough to respond, Brandon instead kept his mouth shut and concentrated on grabbing the next back-breaking rock. Kooky as the citizens around here acted, it was obvious now to him that whatever regime was controlling them, they had some good reasons to be afraid. They appeared to be victims just as well as he and Jason.
An ear-piercing alarm sounded from some unclear point around them. Brandon cocked his head, attempting to pinpoint the shrill artificial screech, until he realized it was coming from all around: most of the buildings surrounding the town square were marked with spinning red lights to accompany the resonant call. Had someone escaped? Were they finished? Or perhaps the real United States military was rolling in to liberate them all from the insane power trip of whoever was in charge? Maybe it had something to do with that girl carved into the gold statue; it could be she was related to whatever over-compensating creep was calling the shots with these overzealous soldiers. Brandon couldn’t help but smile at the thought of getting his hands on whoever it was that had effectively enslaved him and his friend here.