Part 10

Ironically enough it was the pain in my head that awoke me. Fortunately it had subsided to its usual level of slightly-nauseating-but-not-blackout-inducing. I was back in my house on the island in the river. It was late morning and the sunlight was streaming in through the windows, which did not make my head feel any better.

I got out of bed, which proved to be a mistake. I swayed and almost fell to the floor with dizziness. This was different from the headache. Fighting back a panic I took stock of myself. I was shivering, but sweat was beading on my forehead. My headache was not as bad but I felt even weaker than before. Whatever was affecting me had spread; now I seemed to be well and truly sick.

: I hate this place.

I made my way downstairs. Deryl was there, as he always was, but of course he was no longer my brother-in-arms against the madness of City Name. Now he was part of the madness. He looked up from his paper when I entered the kitchen.

: 'morning.

: Good morning.

: Hey, you don't look so good.

: Thanks for noticing.

And then he went back to reading his paper. This was a bit shocking, especially since the last thing I remember was screaming and passing out in the City Council's chambers yesterday. Well, that was the second-to-last thing I remembered. The very last thing was Jim, I thought, saying...something. It was a bit hazy. Sick of waiting around for some information to be given, I decided to confront the issue.

: So, did you bring me home last night? Or to a hospital or something?

: What are you talking about? You came home yourself, remember?

: What? I...myself...wha?

I took a few moments to pull myself together. Not too easy when you feel like your entire body and mind are falling apart.

: Ok, what happened at the meeting last night? Because I don't remember coming home at all.

Deryl looked at me with what might have actually been concern. Maybe his humanity hadn't been fully extinguished yet.

: Well, we presented you with the options for needed expansion, and then you approved the creation of an air- and seaport. Then you stood up and said "I need to brush my teeth," which I thought was a bit strange, but when your teeth feel dirty I guess you have to take care of it as soon as possible. And then you left and I assume came home and...brushed your teeth? I don't know; this is the first I've seen you since.

: Oh. Well, that's just great then. Now I'm losing chunks of time!

:

: Nevermind. What's going on today?

: Not too much. Should prove to be a rather uneventful day. How's your head?

: Pretty crappy, thanks for asking.

And indeed that day was uneventful. And so was the next; of course, the headaches were still there, and I still felt like I was coming down with the flu, but really by this point I had sort of learned to live with these. Not that they made life anything but incredibly unpleasant, of course.

A few days later Deryl marched into my office.

: I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?

: Good news, I guess.

: Well, I am proud to report that City Name now has a fully operational mass transit system!





: Well that's nice. Since it only took us a few more days to put it in after the ports were built I don't know what that fierce debate was all about at the last council meeting was about, but whatever. What's the bad news?

: Two of our power plants exploded.



: What!? Are you shitting me!? They just up and exploded? What caused it?

: Old age, according to the reports.

: Old age? What? But that doesn't... You know what? That's it.

I gathered up my things and headed for the door. As I was on my way out Deryl asked,

: So should we get them replaced?

: Sure, yeah, whatever.

I took the subway car back to my house and threw my clothes into a bag. Then I hopped on a bicycle that I had secretly stashed in the bushes outside the house a few days ago. I still felt incredibly shitty, but now I was driven by determination. I pedaled for what seemed like seven hours, but was probably only about two. Finally, I reached my destination.



I was getting out of here.

Yes those power plants really did explode from old age. Fortunately there wasn't a fire or anything equally disastrous. So we're going to need to replace them. We can go with the fusion plants, which are the best power producers, or we can go with something a bit more interesting, like nuclear or microwave (energy beamed in from satellites). Also, since nothing else came up, I'm just going to take last vote's runner up and address crime in the next update. Which should come Saturday some time.

Also, I'm going to mention that we've been very lucky that no disasters have hit us yet. Disasters have been on this whole time, but nothing has happened. I don't see this continuing for very long, however.