This choice: Rumo lands in Wisconsin as softly as he can manage. • Go Back...Chapter #9An Uneventful Calamity by: Kilbil   It always took a while for Rumo's foot to fully cross over the city. All anyone could do in that time was wait for several minutes in suffocating silence while it served as a temporary sky for all the inhabitants.
One's mind couldn't help but wander while milling about in this tense atmosphere. More than a few morbid denizens couldn't help but think about how easy it would be for Rumo to lower his foot down. Chicago's entire military arsenal, nuclear warheads and all, served little purpose other than to warn him to back off whenever he got to close, along with occasionally blasting away whatever grime and debris happened to fall off his soles. If he ever happened to disregard these warnings, there would be nothing stopping the boy from turning the whole city into a temporary insole. They were completely and utterly at his mercy, trapped in an almost intractable dance between life and death every time he happened to come by. That was assuming, of course, you weren't driven mad by the unbearable heat radiating off the giga titan's sole, or from watching intently for any meteoric sweat droplets or mountainous bits of rubble to fall off and plummet towards the city. Even knowing that Rumo generally meant well, there was so much that could go wrong; there was always a chance that one of the droplets would be too big to shoot down in time before it landed and condemned another city district to a quagmire of perpetual repairs.
Naturally, most people's responses were to tap their feet impatiently while they waited for this to be over already. Once Rumo had completely crossed over into Wisconsin, the automated shutters were raised up, a temporary reprieve from having to stay cooped up indoors like sardines in a can. People were walking around and about attending to their daily routines, as though the sky weren't still completely shrouded under Rumo's shadow. The bright, neon streetlamps lit the city in an almost sickly red hue as people milled around in shops and conversed amongst themselves in cafes, not even getting particularly bothered by the smell of onions and toe jam wafting through.
Arthek himself was already getting ready to greet more people into his little cafe, sweeping up whatever glass was still strewn about on the floor and cleaning away the plaster and dust that had coated the tables in a fine layer of white so that they looked at least somewhat presentable. Old Avery Square had been through worse scraps than this, but it was still annoying having to tidy up every time his nephew happened to make his presence known. In this way, Arthek's patron was perhaps one of the few who still had it in him to cower and fret over the futility of his life in the face of the incomprehensible. The bartender almost felt sorry for the poor bastard; he must have felt like he was the one sane man in a world gone mad. In many ways, he basically was.
Whatever he may think, the truth was that there was only so much that could be said or done after the world got used to dealing with continent-spanning teens. This wasn't the first time Chicago found itself within a hair's breadth of becoming a smudge on one of Rumo's skin cells. The giga teen came by here every week or so, and everyone had gone through this song and dance long enough that it was practically expected that he would make it across. It didn't seem like today would be any different, and even if something did happen to go wrong, there wasn't much that could be done to change whatever outcome arose from that.
Humanity had already been driven to the brink of extinction by the glut of miles-tall giants that had come into the fold. Entire stretches of Africa and Aisa had been rendered completely uninhabitable, bereft of any kind of sustainable life. The lines of track had already been laid out for them, so to speak; the worst had already happened, so all they could do was ride along the train of destiny and hope that whatever was at the end of the line wasn't a one-way trip down to the bottom of an abyss. In the meantime, all they could do was stop worrying and keep carrying on as they usually did.
Don't worry and just keep moving - that was the motto humanity had learned to adopt. There was even a song that had been circulating through the radio to that effect. Though telecommunications beyond the confines of the fortified city-states had been completely severed, people still found ways to keep themselves entertained. Arthek supposed it served as a testament to the endurance of the human spirit, but good Lord was it painful to listen to for more than a few seconds at a time. One would figure that hard times would make for better art, but apparently there was more behind that particular formula than most figured.
Before long, Rumo's foot was just about to touch in on Wisconsin, and people were shuffling themselves back indoors. The automatic shutters slammed down behind them, and once more, the streets were rendered silent. The sheer immensity of the descending sole was such that the surrounding atmosphere was displaced over several hundred kilometers in massive waves. Like the ripples you would see upon landing on a waterbed or an ocean of gelatin, unfathomable tempests of wind were whipped up as his foot gradually got closer to the ground, consuming the entire city in a relentless dust storm. You could just barely make out the luminous glare of the lamps amidst the relentless gales.
The actual impact was even more daunting to contend with. Space itself seemed to almost warp from the sheer force of the resulting vibrations. The fortifications and earthquake-resistant mechanisms that had been installed across Chicago managed to withstand the worst of the shockwaves, but cracks still managed to form here and there at various points within the facades of even the sturdiest structures. All around the city, the innumerable faults and spindling crevices that had formed in the Earth's crust widened just that little bit more, threatening to one day send the whole of Chicago hurtling into the abyss.
The earth roared and shook with the force of a thousand suns, rattling the walls like a baby having its way with a particularly shiny toy. Otherwise, though, when the dust had finally settled, everyone had made it through more or less intact. All in all, it could have gone worse. Just another day in Chicago.
Once the TV had shown that Rumo had headed off into another hemisphere, and the city finally exited out of lockdown, Arthek refocused his efforts towards coaxing his trembling patron out of the comfort of the table underside. It took more time than he was willing to admit to get the disheveled-looking man out, but eventually, he was sitting at his usual stool, nursing a hot cup of coffee which Arthek was cleaning a few spare plates.
It was only after about ten minutes of him staring at his reflection in the brown liquid that the patron gathered enough of his nerves to mutter, "T-t-that was-"
"Yeah, I know." Arthek set down the finished plates and took out one of the bottles of scotch. "I'll fix you up something quick, on the house. You look like you need it."
"No, no, I... thank you. I don't want to own anything." The patron rubbed one of his shirt sleeves, which were wrinkled and dirty from collecting the grime off the tiled floors. "Does... does anyone know that he's your nephew?"
"Like hell." Arthek replied. "I'd be hounded in the streets if everyone knew. You know how they treat anyone related to those freaks of nature."
"Wh-, then why-?"
"Did I decide to tell you? Can't say for certain." Arthek sighed, placing a spare mug down on the polished red counter. "Guess I figured now was a good time to let it all out. Coffee pot got me all sentimental. He really was a good kid."
Silence hung in the air as the patron digested Arthek's words. "...I'm sorry. Your secret's safe with me."
"Hmm." The bartender poured out a scotch for himself. "I feel it's only a matter of time before most put the pieces together. There aren't as many folks around these days, so it's easier for everyone to know everyone, even in the big city. I'll have to figure out how to manage that when the time comes."
"I do have to wonder: why here? Why does your nephew have to keep coming back to Chicago every time? Does he... miss his family here?"
"...the way I figure, most of them are kids. The biggest ones, I mean. Rumo's about 14 years old, give or take. Guess it hits home harder the younger you are, I don't know. Point it, at that age, you get attached real easily, and it's hard to adjust when everything suddenly changes all around you. I can imagine wanting to stick around what you know, especially when it's right there, even if you know you don't fit in anymore."
The patron didn't notice the small bit of hesitation in Aadiv's voice as he replied, or the way his eyes looked to the side for just a split second. Instead, his considered what the bartender told him and said, "I guess I understand wanting to still have something be a part of your life, especially when you have to tiptoe around cities every day. Given the circumstances, it's a miracle Chicago's still left standing."
Arthek was just about finished with cleaning up the place, and by now, a few more customers were coming in through the door. His patron seemed to have recovered fully, sipping from his Turkish coffee with an air of contentment. For all that he could be slow on the uptake, and a bit of an annoyance to deal with at times, he was still his most consistent and loyal customer, and he was always earnest about trying to form a rapport with him. Perhaps he was getting soft in his old age, but he was starting to appreciate that more.
Little did Arthek know that this wasn't the only visit he was going to get from family. Fairly soon, he was going to get a surprise visit from none other than...   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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