(Photo by cottonbro studio)

Trees blocked my view of the city but the plume of smoke rising up was still visible in the morning light. After abandoning my car yesterday, I ended up walking, pulling my wagon of supplies as fast as I could manage. Skirting around the places that were already burning was not an experience I wanted to repeat, ever. At first I was worried I’d run into whoever set the fires but needn’t have worried. I never saw or heard anyone else on my way out of the city. When I reached the forested hills at the edge of the city I felt like I was leaving civilization behind entirely.

I was only a few hours walk outside the city but pulling a heavy wagon that had been designed with paved sidewalks in mind was grueling. Camping was not something I was accustomed to so I hadn’t slept well the night before, either. All of that resulted in me being incredibly sore and disinclined to try to do much physically today. So it was that I sat beside my tent, eating sliced peaches out of a can and wondering about how life had changed so drastically this past week.

“No job, no home, no friends or family,” I ticked them off one by one on my fingers. “I’ve got enough food and bottled water to last me a week, maybe. Water filters and bleach tablets will let me get clean water for another month. Toilet paper will last a couple months if I’m careful. Winter’s going to be a problem if I don’t have better shelter by then but,” I looked around the forest and listened carefully, “where is everyone else?”

I half expected the aliens to chime in with an answer but they remained silent. Still, it was a question I’d been coming back to time and again ever since I began my exodus from the city. Where was everyone else? Even with less than a third of the original population there should have been tens of thousands of people, maybe even hundreds of thousands, and yet I didn’t see or hear anyone. With the city burning I expected there to be a flood of people leaving the city but so far, nothing.

On the one hand, with no one else around I didn’t need to worry about being attacked, or having to share my food and water, and toilet paper. On the other hand, though, there was something deeply unsettling about being so isolated. There was a massive difference, I was coming to feel, between living alone in a big city with millions of people, versus being alone in a forest. I missed the sounds of people outside, the hum of traffic, the occasional siren even. Here, there was only the wind in the trees, birds, and sometimes something unseen running through the underbrush.

“It would be nice if this was a vacation,” I admitted, but the not-so-distant column of smoke and the knowledge that there was no going back really dampened the ambiance.

A thought struck me and I grabbed my pack that held the non-edible emergency supplies. It took me a moment to find what I was looking for but eventually I pulled out a survival guide. It wasn’t the sort of sensational type of book where the front cover showed some guy covered in mud, holding a knife in one hand and staring menacingly off into the distance. Those books had chapters that, honestly, sounded like they just watched a bunch of Rambo movies and wrote down what he did.

Cover yourself in mud to hide from the wildlife. Then pounce on the deer as it walks by and wrestle it to the ground, stabbing it with your knife. Seriously, the number of those types of books I had to sort through before finding something actually helpful was depressing. This survival guide had sections about finding edible plants in the wild, ways to make sunscreen, and, yes, how to hunt, but they focused more on small prey animals since, as the book pointed out, how much of that deer would I eat before it went bad? There were sections on how to preserve meat so even a larger animal could be useful, but for the time being I figured starting small was for the best.

Right now I was looking up the section on shelter. My little tent was fine now, but I’d much prefer having something more substantial before the weather turned cold and wet. I knew how easy it would be for me to sit here, doing nothing, and then get caught in a storm with nothing better than my tent to keep me and all my supplies dry.

A lean to was my best bet for now. It was fairly easy to build and would serve decently well until I could build something more permanent. I was about to get up, sore muscles not withstanding, when another thought struck me: why was I bothering?

Did I really think I could survive out here on my own? I might seem prepared, with my wagon of food and water and supplies, but there was so much more to survival than a week’s worth of stuff, or even a month’s worth. Was I going to build a cabin out here? Were there really enough wild plants that I could survive off of them? I might be able to plant a farm, but that would require seeds.

Then there were the health concerns. I had a first aid kit for basic injuries but what would I do when I inevitably ate or drank something that made me truly sick? What if I broke an arm or a leg? What about protecting myself if someone else came along and decided they wanted whatever it was that I had? It was these sorts of things that I hadn’t really thought about before. In the past I always assumed emergencies would be temporary, that I’d always be able to go back to my apartment and get back to regular life but, sitting here in the forest while the city burned and most of humanity was flocking to alien cities floating in the middle of the ocean, really put into perspective just how desperate my situation was.

“There’s no going back,” I muttered.

I didn’t feel so good, all of a sudden. My stomach clenched and I felt hot and nauseous while my heart pounded in my chest. My head hurt and for a moment I thought I might black out.

“Calm down, calm down, calm down,” I told myself, closing my eyes and trying to get my breathing to slow down.

The problem was, no amount of me telling myself to calm down would change the fact that I was on my own in a very real, very serious way. I didn’t have the skills needed to survive out here on my own. I was a math teacher, for crying out loud. Brandi was impressed by my pantry and, at the time, I thought I was pretty well prepared. Now, I saw just how unprepared I was, survival guide or not.

The brush near my camp rustled and I tensed, opening my eyes and looking around wildly as my imagination filled with thoughts of people or animals come to attack me. Instead, I saw a little, white and black speckled rabbit. It hopped along, nibbling leaves as it went.

I relaxed my death grip on the survival book and carefully put it down. The rabbit was clearly one of the abandoned pets, or possibly a descendant, since there were no native wild rabbits or bunnies here. I watched it for a while as it moved along, sampling different plants. Looking back to the bush it came out from I could just make out the dark spot where its burrow was.

“How’d you know how to survive out here?” I asked.

The bunny, obviously, did not respond but a new question came to mind.

“Out of all of you that get abandoned out here,” I said, “how many of you actually make it? How many eat the wrong thing, or get eaten by something else, or just freak out and don’t know what to do?”

It was really getting to me now, being so alone, and I couldn’t hold back the question any longer.

“Aliens,” I called out, “where is everyone? Even with most people going to your cities I should have seen someone else by now.”

There are only three percent of humans not yet within our cities. Most of those who remained in your city were killed by the fire. They fled away from the initial flames but in the direction of the fire’s path rather than out of its away like you did.

Three percent was all that was left?

“Yesterday there was, like, thirty percent!”

Many people who chose to remain died recently. Many of your cities have been burned, and some remnants of armies are fighting one another, further reducing the human population outside of our cities. Fortunately, many continue to request to come to our cities and are brought here where they are safe.

“Is there anyone else even near me?”

The nearest other humans to you are around fifteen miles away. They have attacked everyone they have come across. They are moving south. If you wish to meet up with them you will need to move south-west.

That was a big nope from me on wanting to contact those people.

“Anyone else?”

There are a few individuals and small groups within a hundred miles of you.

“Any of them friendly?” I asked, though why I should trust the aliens about this and not about their cities I didn’t know.

Most of them are hiding within underground shelters. Those that have been approached by others have responded with hostility. We estimate they will survive another year at most.

“Is there anyone I could meet up with that would be interested in cooperating?”

There is a self sufficient community four hundred and seventy miles away from you. They have already taken in a few other people. They would be the most likely group to work with you, though you would be required to follow their religious practices and social customs.

Given my choices they didn’t sound too bad. The issue was one of distance and whether or not I could cross it before winter. I wasn’t even sure how fast I could cross that distance. Some basic math told me I could cross it in about a month if I covered a dozen or so miles each day, but I doubted that was a reasonable pace to expect from myself, pulling my wagon along with me. More likely it would take me a couple months.

“If I walk there, will you provide me with food and water along the way?” I asked since that would lighten my burden greatly.

We will ensure the grocery stores have food on their shelves and keep water flowing through the established plumbing, but we will not interfere further.

“So that’s a no.”

You would need to make detours to stores along your way, which would not be convenient to the general path you would want to take. We do not anticipate you would survive the trip.

“Great, thanks,” I told them without conviction.

All are welcome to come to our cities.

I looked over to where I’d seen the bunny earlier. It was gone now, but it reminded me of the other time I saw a bunny this past week and the thoughts I’d had then about the alien’s motives. What were we to them, and even if we were nothing more than pets in their eyes, was that so bad? I felt like a rabbit seeing a trap and knowing something was off about it but not quite able to comprehend the full scope of the thing. Would this kill me? Would I wind up in some alien’s collection? Were we more like goldfish being coaxed into a pond so the alien’s could look at us while we more or less lived out our lives?

“So to get food and water from you I’d need to go back to the city?”

There are several homes and apartments that have not yet burned in the fire. We expect there will be some remaining after the fire has burnt its way out. You could live there for the remainder of your life and not need for food or water.

At that point, though, I might as well just go to the alien’s cities if I’m going to be so dependent on them anyway. The idea of decades of solitude, with nothing, really, to do, weighed heavily on me.

“What’s better,” I asked myself, “stay here and basically do nothing for the rest of my life, or take a risk on the alien’s cities?”

There is no risk in coming to our cities. All are free to come. All are free to leave.

“I want to stipulate right now that no matter what, I will be returned to this spot in one hour and not allowed to come back for at least one full day,” I said. “Will you agree to that?”

We will agree. You may come and see the cities and then be returned in one hour. If you wish to return after a day has passed then you will be readmitted.

“Okay, then,” I took in a steadying breath, “take me to your cities.”

A brief moment passed and then, suddenly, I was standing on a pier, looking out to the ocean. My ears popped a little from the change in pressure but it wasn’t anything terribly uncomfortable. The ocean was calm around the pier but a hundred yards out or so and the waves were quite large. Behind me there was a murmur of voices and a huge feeling of relief swept over me at that sound.

Was that normal, though? Were these my own feelings? I hadn’t been alone for that long, and even though I was quite worried about my long term survival, I wasn’t sure if this amount of relief made sense. Regardless, I could shut off the feeling like it was some sort of light switch. My paranoia wasn’t gone and that, at least, was some comfort to me.

I turned to get my first look at the city with my own eyes, rather than on the news. It was, like most things, much grander in person than on the screen. The sheer scope of it was almost incomprehensible. I had to look from left to right just to see the full profile of the floating city. A tram of some sort ran around the outside of the city. I wouldn’t have noticed the track it the tram hadn’t been going by at just that moment. It seemed to float above the thin, semitransparent track and made no sound as it passed by.

As I stood there, someone began to approach. They wore a suit and that was about the only definite thing I could tell about them. The features of their face, their hands, anything that wasn’t the suit, blurred in my mind to the point I could never quite remember what I was seeing.

Hello, and welcome to the cities.

They spoke directly into my mind, much like the Broadcasts, though there was something more conversational about this one.

Allow me to show you around. I understand your time here is brief.

It gestured and I followed. As we entered the main structure, I noticed others like my guide, mingling with the people here. Some were giving tours, some appeared to be chatting both among themselves but also with other people. Not all of them wore suits. Some were quite casual and I could only assume it had to do with who they were interacting with.

There are living accommodations for all here. There are opportunities for learning, for creating, for developing all manner of skills.

They led me through the space that I could only describe as an atrium, though it was miles across in each direction. When we reached the tram station, which was little more than just a waiting area, my guide pointed to the approaching tram.

Transportation arrives within one minute of your arrival at this point. It will take you to any level of this or any of the other cities.

“Do you have rail lines going under the ocean?” I asked.

No, our technology precludes a reliance on physical connection between points.

“So it’s like how you transported me here?”

It is a different mechanism but the end result is similar enough.

I took that be a polite way of saying no while also saying I wouldn’t be able to comprehend the technicalities that separated the two.

As your time here is limited, is there anything you are most interested in seeing first?

My guide asked me as we stepped onto the tram. I thought a moment before responding.

“Yes,” I said and knew what I was about to say would be a gamble. “I want to see why I should trust you and your cities.”

For that, the alien said without missing a beat, we will need to go up.

The doors to the tram closed and the outside began to move by. It was a little disconcerting because I didn’t feel any change in momentum, no sense of acceleration. I watched out the window as we circled the city, rising higher until we reached the very top. It only took a minute or so to reach it. In fact, I had the sneaking suspicion that it would only take the tram a minute to reach any of its destinations.

Here we are.

The tram doors opened and we stepped out into what had to be a control room. Displays of complex information were everywhere and I didn’t even try to understand any of it. The hum of electricity, or whatever the aliens used for power, was heavy in the air. It was more like a feeling than a sound. A deep rumble in my head and in my chest. There were no other people up here, at least, no humans. Dozens of aliens, all wearing a sort of work uniform not unlike the janitors back at the school I…used to teach at . A few glanced up as we entered but most of them just carried on with whatever they were doing.

This room was not nearly as large as I expected it to be, considering it was the top of the city, but perhaps there were doors I simply wasn’t seeing. My guide walked me around the room until we reached a panel on the wall that had an image of Earth on it. The display was so perfect that if I didn’t know any better I would have said it looked like we were looking through a window.

Here is your planet. Like countless others before you, we have come and made our offer.

“Right, but why?” I asked. “On Earth we have a saying, ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch.’ It means everything has a cost. If someone’s just giving away something amazing, supposedly for free, there’s got to be a catch.”

Our people struggled for millennia, with civilizations rising and falling. Many times we neared the potential for exploring the universe, but always we fell short until we finally put aside our pettiness, our wars, our divisions, and became truly united. Since then we have been free to search the universe for others. We offer all that we find the same opportunity to grow beyond the flaws that held us back, in the hopes that they, too, will grow to become peers with us. Some worlds accept us, some reject us. There are such wonders to discover. The universe is beautiful beyond compare in scale, in majesty, in form, and it is our desire to share it with others. We do not desire pets, as you have said. We do not observe you for our own amusement, keeping you as our inferiors. We watch all people grow with a hope of seeing you rise, perhaps to someday surpass us.

While my guide ‘spoke’, I saw the other worlds and how they were changing over time, how the people were changing.

“But how do you change us?” I asked. “How did your people break the cycle of wars?”

We suppress, in a very specific, very limited way, fear. You may have already noticed it. Many do and we do not hide it. For those who choose to stay we inform them of this fact. Much strife comes from fear. Fear of competition. Fear of rejection. Fear of the unknown. There are positive aspects to fear as well, which is why we do not remove it entirely. We take the edge off of it. In doing so, we have found that over the course of generations, people change. They are more willing to collaborate and less likely to isolate. More likely to share and less likely to take.

Again I was shown examples and, indeed had noticed the dampening of my fears. I opened my mouth to complain about that being akin to mind control, but was it really? People were told what was going on, and it wasn’t forcing anyone to act in a certain way, just making it easier to get along. I was reminded of a quote from Star Wars about fear leading to the Dark Side and I could see how a lot of the world’s problems stemmed from it in some way or another.

“When I go back to the forest, will you still be effecting my emotions, making me feel less afraid?”

No. We only effect those here in the cities.

I wouldn’t know if that was true until I was back in the forest but I was beginning to believe my guide. Was that because they were showing me compelling evidence or was it because I couldn’t feel as afraid of them as I should?

What more would you like to see?

I looked around the room for a bit, still not understanding any of the strange displays, and thought. I wasn’t all that interested in seeing the living spaces. From what Brandi had said, they were amazing, like the best, fanciest homes you could imagine. The classes or training or whatever it was that the aliens offered sounded interesting but what else would there be to see besides a classroom or demonstration? No, if I was going to live here, going to trust the aliens, then I needed to at least see one other thing.

“Show me what you do to people who break your laws, or rules, or whatever you call them.”

We have laws here, of course. Come with me and I will show you how law breakers are dealt with.

We walked back over to the tram boarding platform and a minute later the tram arrived. Another minute later and we were a few levels below the surface of the ocean. The water was dark but the city was still brightly lit and welcoming. I expected to see prison cells or something like that as we stepped off the tram but that was not what I saw. Instead there were living quarters, recreational spaces, all for several miles in each direction. It was like walking through the richest neighborhood in the world.

“I’ve heard of a few places that put their inmates into self contained communities,” I said.

This is not isolated from the rest of the city. This is one of the residential levels.

I looked around, confused.

“Is there a prison here, then?”

Maybe I’d missed seeing it among all the other structures.

No, there are no prisons here. We do not need them.

“Are you saying no one ever breaks the law here so you don’t need prisons?”

No, there are those who break the law, but our method of dealing with such things is not to isolate or concentrate them all into one place.

“Oh, like house arrest?”

Again, no. We do not confine them in any way.

“Then what do you do?”

We continued walking through the neighborhood as we spoke and there were people all around us, enjoying their new homes. Laughter was a common sound and, I had to admit, it was nice.

Most people who break the law do it out of a need for something. Since our cities fill those needs, a lot of that sort of crime does not occur here. The bulk of the remaining crime is generally done out of a lack of empathy for others. When this occurs, we are able to share with the person who broke the law the feelings and experiences of those they’ve effected. In rare instances there are neurological reasons for this lack of empathy and in those cases we correct them. In all cases it does not take long for the person to develop sufficient empathy that they no longer desire to break those laws and they becoming fully contributing members of society. Many of the people we have walked by were criminals before coming to our cities. Only a few of them have broken laws here, and none have repeated their offenses after developing their empathy.

That didn’t sound terrible, I supposed, and people here did seem happy, though the atmosphere was almost like that of a vacation resort. How long would it take for the newness of this place to wear off and would that result in people slipping back into old behaviors?

For better or worse I couldn’t really come up with any other objections of questions that my guide could address so I let them show me the city, where food was grown and processed, where people were taught and trained in whatever it was they desired. There were places for people to do research, to be creative and make make things. I saw performers of all sorts developing their talents and even listened to a choir for a few minutes.

Your hour is at an end. My guide announced. You will be returned to your campsite momentarily. If you desire to return here in a day’s time, we would be pleased to have you here.

I nodded and held out my hand to my guide. They looked at it and, even though I couldn’t really see or make out a face, I got the impression they were smiling.

We appear this way to you because it is easier for you, but I regret to say I cannot shake your hand. The offer is appreciated, though. I hope to see you again.

The city was gone and the forest was back. Again, the slight pressure change made my ears a bit uncomfortable until they equalized. I looked around my campsite and it was exactly as I had left it. The smoke in the sky was thinning, or perhaps just farther away as the wind blew it away from me. The rabbit was back beneath the brush, chewing away all the leaves it could reach and oblivious to the monumental shift that the world was experiencing. What did it care about the aliens?

I sat down and picked up the can of peaches I’d been eating before going to the alien’s city. It was mostly empty, and a few flies had flown in and gotten stuck in the syrup. I put it back down and instead pulled out a packet of trail mix.

The city was…exactly what they’d said it was. I was inclined to believe them, but there was still that nagging fear of ‘what if they pull the rug out from under us all and suddenly we’re slaves?’ It was the same old arguments I’d made before. I could keep going like that, arguing with myself in a circle for the rest of my life. A life that, if I stayed here, would certainly be lonely and, probably, much shorter than if I went to the alien’s cities.

I let out a long sigh and relaxed the muscles in my neck and shoulders. It was still early afternoon. I had the whole rest of the day to think, as well as tomorrow morning. I’d sleep on it and make my decision then. Or maybe give it a few more days. I had enough supplies here that I wasn’t in any rush. A growing part of me was beginning to accept the probability that I would go to the cities, but, again, I didn’t need to hurry. Like I used to tell my students, work your way through the problem, double check things as you go, and take time your time. Better to reach the correct answer on most of the questions than the wrong answer on all of them because you hurried.

“The fires should be out by tomorrow,” I said to myself. “Maybe I’ll go find someplace to stay for a few days. My own mini vacation while I think it over.”

Suddenly the forest didn’t seem so imposing and the solitude became a peaceful thing rather than oppressive.

“Who said I had to stay in the alien’s cities for the rest of my life even if I did decide to live there? I could still come back, explore the world if I wanted. Maybe there’s others would like to do the same.”

I poured some trail mix into my hand and began chewing the mixed nuts and dried fruit. It was a beautiful day and, although the world was changing and not likely to ever be the same again, it didn’t seem so full of worries anymore.