your love

Priestley was running late – again – Gould lamented under his breath. This had become something of a pattern, and Gould found himself increasingly irritated by it.

“Priestley, I'm at the rendezvous. You'd better be on your way”, Gould declared into his radio, indignant, as if he had somewhere to be. More to the point, Gould had somewhere to not be, and that somewhere was right here. Gave him the creeps. Truth be told, it gave everyone the creeps, save Priestley, who found himself fascinated by the past, even though such sentiment had long fallen out of favor.

Always sent out in pairs, the patrolmen of the city would wander the wastes of the old world, ensuring there were no stragglers or survivors. It was thankless, perhaps even pointless work, and generally considered unenviable. Only Priestley seemed to relish it, as he was doing at this very moment.

“Copy that, on my way”, he finally responded. Which, of course, was a lie. Priestley was inspecting an old house, finding nothing and no one, only dusty remnants of a time he scarcely recalled. He enjoyed flipping through old photo albums, combing through people's possessions. He would find himself imagining what their lives had been like, back before the consolidation... back when there were still women.

On this day, he'd found something of particular interest – a heart-shaped locket – tarnished and rusted, and within its clasp, a photograph of not just one but two women, as well as an inscription – “I don't wanna lose your love tonight”. Priestley pondered the meaning for several moments... a poem? Lyrics, perhaps? Something meaningful to them, in any case. These two had loved each other deeply, that much was clear, and it intrigued him very much, for he'd never known anything of the sort. He'd return and investigate further, he assured himself before Gould's grating voice once again chirped at him.

“Goddammit, Priestley, it's nearly dark. We gotta get back.”

Priestley looked out the window and sure enough, the sun was getting low in the sky. They were due back and what's more, wasn't wise to be out after dark, they said. Though he wasn't sure why, exactly, since they'd never actually seen anyone out there, that wasn't supposed to be. With reluctance, Priestley put his helmet on and walked out towards his motorcycle. He thought for a moment that maybe, just maybe, he'd seen someone in the distance, in the corner of his eye, but just as quickly dismissed it as a trick of the fading light, before speeding off.

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That night in his unit, Priestley lay in bed staring at the ceiling. In the background, the broadcast played, as it typically did. Was mostly just white noise he'd long since learned to tune out, but if you weren't watching something specific like the day's news or the latest roundtable discussion on the city leaders and the splendid job they were doing, you were treated to some documentary or another on how they'd saved the world a generation prior, and how perilously close we'd been on the brink.

Priestley had only been a boy when the world changed, so women were only a vague memory. If he tried hard enough, he could picture them, and perhaps even an echo of a feeling that he'd once associated with them. Of course, the city leaders had done everything they could to prevent the whole thing, but once the virus tore through the female population, the primary goal became survival of the species, and so the scientists and doctors got to work on ensuring Priestley's generation of men wouldn't be the last. And it was good.

He pulled the locket out from his nightstand drawer. It was contraband and he'd have been punished severely for keeping it, but he hadn't been able to help himself. There was just something about it, and he found himself lost in thought once more, wondering who these women were, and how they lived.

It was at that moment his door chimed, signaling that someone was coming in. He quickly hid the locket back in the drawer before Gould entered, a stern look on his face.

“I could have been sleeping”, Priestley offered meekly, but Gould said he'd heard the broadcast and knew better. In any case, he was there to offer a warning – the committee had noticed a pattern of unpredictable behavior with Priestley, and would not tolerate much more. They'd already kept him in his low station position as a patrolman far longer than most, and it would be folly to look at it as anything but exactly what it was, punishment. These lectures and incriminations were tiresome, but so was Gould. Not to worry, soon he'd advance and they'd assign him a new partner, just as before.

“No. That's what I'm telling you. If I rotate out before you, you're out. Only you won't be coming with me.”

And with that, Gould had said what he came to say, as Priestley knew what that meant. Banishment. After all, there was no use for a man in the city who didn't know his place. Priestley sighed, knowing Gould was probably right. But he was tired and decided to worry about it tomorrow, so he dimmed the lights, lowered the volume of the broadcast, and slept.

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Gould and Priestley stopped at the intersection, as Gould glared at him through his helmet. “Four hours”, he snapped. “Four hours means four hours, we each cover a sector and reconvene. If you're gonna be late, check in, got it?” Priestley nodded, as always, which Gould realized signified very little in reality. He shook his head and turned left down the abandoned roadway on his bike, leaving Priestley to go right.

Once out of sight, Priestley hightailed it to an adjacent sector, and directly to the house where he'd found the locket. Practical decision making had never exactly been his forte, as his curiosity came first. Once there, he resumed his search – for what, he wasn't sure. But he was looking for something.

He tried to play one of their old vinyl records, but not even the solar cells were working anymore. He got just a few seconds out of it, enough to hear “Josie's on a vacation far away” before the audio distorted and slowed to nothing once more.

Priestley pondered who this Josie was, and where she'd gone, as he looked at the album art titled “Your Love” by The Outfield. Ah, yes, baseball, he recalled. Once a major pastime, that must have had something to do with it. He moved on to another room, a study perhaps, as the shelves were lined with books. In fact, on the nearby desk, he saw a book titled “No Place For Us”, and apparently written by the woman who'd lived here – Alice Sheldon – as her photo on the back matched that of one of the women within the locket.

He flipped through the pages, but it was dusty so he set it back down, and then noticed something of particular interest... what appeared to be a map to a place of great importance to these women, and he had the distinct impression it was of a secret nature.

Priestley checked his watch, and studied the map. He didn't have a lot of time, but he'd also never been very good at resisting his curiosity...

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He sped through the abandoned old world on his motorcycle, going recklessly fast. For the first time for as long as he could remember, his interest had been truly piqued. When he arrived at the coordinates, he was initially disappointed to find absolutely nothing, but then again, what did he really expect. After all, he'd raced to the edge of where the city met the forest, so aside from some wildlife, there wasn't much to see.

It was pure whimsy that took him into the forest at all, for he'd not been there since a child. He knew he was really breaking protocol now, beyond any reasonable measure, yet his feet outpaced his sense. It wasn't too long before he saw it, what looked like a hidden entrance to an underground bunker of some sort. It had been overgrown by vegetation, but was still an unnatural mound that was hard to miss, if you happened to go looking for it. The handle to the door was now covered in moss, and was either rusted shut or locked, he wasn't sure. He removed his helmet, as he was a bit out of breath from the effort and excitement of it all.

It was about that time he heard a twig snap behind him, and when he looked, only saw the butt of a rifle, before seeing nothing.

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Priestley woke in the bunker, tied to a chair, and could barely believe his eyes. Women, dozens of women. Of all ages, was the most unbelievable part. Even some young boys. They could see his mind was racing with questions his mouth could hardly formulate.

“You've been lied to, your whole life,” the leader told him in a cool, straightforward manner. She went on, “You believe a virus swept through the female population, and men did all they could to save us, and only in their desperation managed to stave off extinction. You've got it backwards.”

She went on to explain that once medical science made natural human gestation unnecessary, it was decided that women themselves were no longer necessary. You see, mankind had always harbored a deep-seated hatred for women, but of course, they'd been a vital component of perpetuating the species. No longer.

The virus was man-made, and released into the world so that most women would die off, while the rest could be rounded up, their genetic material harvested for future lab use. A very small percentage of women were immune; fewer still survived the culling, or "consolidation".

None of this seemed believable to Priestley, he remembered how much his father loved his mother, how much he'd loved his mother, and how sad they both were when she died.

“There was never a lack of love”, she reminded me. “The hatred simply simmered beneath the surface.”

The women openly debated what to do with him, surely they couldn't allow him to live, as he'd give up their existence and location. But they couldn't kill him, as others would come looking. No, Alice argued they were better than that, and would have to trust him, and perhaps that trust would not be misplaced, and maybe even the start of something new. After all, Priestley had been horrified by her words.

Priestley correctly surmised that others before him had been sympathetic to their cause, hence the children in their midst. With extreme trepidation, they untied him, and walked him to the exit. Before leaving, he showed her the locket he'd found. “You're Alice, aren't you.” She took it in her hands, as it was now her turn for disbelief, as she teared up involuntarily. He couldn't help but notice the other woman from the locket was nowhere to be seen. “I'm sorry for your loss.”

“We have nowhere to go, you hold our future in your hands”, Alice implored. He nodded, and looked over the crowd, his eyes landing on one in particular, who'd voted to kill him. From her expression, it didn't seem like she'd had a change of heart. Priestley once more had an echo of a feeling he'd once felt, before leaving.

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Gould was surprised to see Priestley waiting on him at the rendezvous, such punctuality and reliability was not his custom. Priestley was taking in the dying rays of sunlight without his helmet, so Gould removed his, as well.

“This is a first.”

“I appreciate your patience with me, Gould, and your warning. I think you might be right, it's probably time I started taking things seriously.”

It was finally Gould's turn to hardly believe something, as he half-laughed. “Well, shit. You might just rotate out before me, after all.”

Priestley nodded solemnly.

“I just might.”