The Fall of Man

Part II chapter 12

Chapter 12

“It sounds fantastic,” Gwen breathes at him when he stops. “And so exciting.”

It is 6am and the cafeteria is still almost empty. The pair are sat in conversation at a small round table, bathed in a soft blueish light as the sun rises through a diffuse glass backdrop. Another half hour and the long hall will be full of clamour - conversations competing with clanking crockery and cutlery on smooth formica trays - as another day begins in earnest inside the self-contained building.

Gwen faces Noah in her ubiquitous hospital overalls. She is coiled up in her chair and holds a cup of green tea in her lap, cold and untouched. The fingers of her left hand are entwined in her unruly red hair. Noah’s tray is now devoid of toast, eggs and beans. This morning, for the first time since he was revived, he woke with an appetite. He smiles up at her from his empty plate, his mouth still full.

“How many of these cities do you think there are?”

“I don’t remember – thirty, forty maybe?”

“That’s what the websites said. But it doesn’t add up. If each city really is the same – walkable, walled, at most half a million inhabitants – that only adds up to about twenty million people. That was a third of Britain’s population in 2010. What happened to everyone else?”

“A lot of people didn’t survive the relocation – they were too old, or too set in their ways to change. Who knows how many never came in from the outskirts.”

“Do you think they’re still out there?”

“If they are, we never hear about them. It would be tough – no energy, no shops… I doubt if there’s much left at all. The Warming killed off even more people; most of the older buildings just couldn’t be adapted to the heat. God knows how many sweltered to death in their own homes. Then there were the floods...”

“Floods?”

“You saw the footage last night; the icecaps are gone.”

“Gone?”

“Completely. Billions of tonnes of snow and ice have been dumped into the ocean. As the sea rose, mile after mile of coastline sank beneath the waves. Whole towns were lost.”

“Wow.”

“The flooding was bad, but the loss of land was much worse. With no imports coming into the country from outside, the loss of crops caused widespread starvation. It was a very bleak time…

…We should go on a date,” Gwen concludes.

“A date? Me and you?” Noah is sure he’s blushing. He clears his throat. “Is that a good idea?”

“Why not? Do you like the movies?”

“I… er…”

“There’s a cinema here in the building. It shows all the films. All the best films, that is. Bad ones, too. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is playing right now, I think. I love that film. Have you seen it? It’s so… glamorous…”