Once by Anna Carey Page B

hadn’t done enough. I had left that night, assuming there would be a chance to come back. More time. Now, with my hands bound, just outside the City of Sand, there was nothing I could do to help them.
    As we approached the fifty-foot wall, Stark pulled a circular badge from his pocket and held it out for the guards to see. After a long pause, a gate opened in the wall’s side, just big enough for the Jeep to pull through. We drove inside, then rolled to a stop in front of a barricade. Soldiers circled the Jeep, their rifles drawn. “State your names,” someone yelled from the darkness. Stark held out his badge and recited his name and number. The other two men in the truck did the same. A soldier with sunburned skin studied the badge, while others checked the car, shining lights beneath the metal carriage, on the men’s faces, and on the floor around their feet. The beam ran over my hands, still in their plastic restraints. “A prisoner?” one of the troops asked. He kept the flashlight on my wrists. “Do you have papers for her?”
    â€œNo papers necessary,” Stark answered. “This is the girl.”
    The soldier studied me with beady eyes, smirking. “In that case, welcome home.” He signaled for the troops to fall back. The metal barricade rose up. Stark pressed his foot on the pedal and we sped toward the glittering City.
    We passed buildings lit from within, bright blue and green and white, just as my Teachers had described. I remembered sitting in the cafeteria at School, listening to the King’s addresses over the radio, telling of the restoration. Luxury hotels were being turned into apartment buildings and offices. Water was supplied by a local reservoir called Lake Mead. The lights shone in the top floors of every tower, the pools glowed a perfect crystal blue, all of it powered by the great Hoover Dam.
    The Jeep sped through a sprawling construction site on the outskirts of the City. Sand drifts were ten feet high in some places. Troops walked along the top of the wall, their guns pointed out into the night. We passed crumbling houses, piles of debris, and a massive pen filled with farm animals. The smell of waste stung my nostrils. Giant palm trees towered above us, their trunks withered and brown.
    As we neared the center of the City, the land opened up. Gardens spread out on our left and a concrete lot on our right. Rusted airplanes sat in front of a decrepit building with a sign that read McCARRAN AIRPORT . We sped past wrecked neighborhoods and the shells of old cars, until buildings rose up around us, each one grander than the next. They were all different colors, buzzing with electric light.
    â€œImpressive, right?” The soldier with the scar asked. He sat beside me in the backseat, twisting open his canteen.
    I stared at the building in front of us: a giant gold pyramid. A green tower rose up on the right, its glassy surface reflecting the moon. Impressive wasn’t the word. The polished structures were unlike anything I’d seen before. I’d only known the wild—broken roads, houses with their roofs caved in, black mold that spread over the School walls. People strolled on metal overpasses above the streets. At the end of the main road a tower shot up into the stars, a bright red needle against the night sky. We’ve survived , the City seemed to say, with every glittering skyscraper, every paved road or planted tree. The world will go on .
    The Jeep was the only car on the street. It moved so quickly that people went by in a blur. I could tell they were mostly men from their broad shoulders and heavy builds. Tiny white dogs roamed the street, nearly a third the size of Heddy. “What are those?” I asked.
    â€œRat terriers,” the scarred soldier said. “The King had them bred to deal with the rodent infestation.”
    Before I could respond, the Jeep was turning left, cutting up a long road that snaked toward