Hardin's Dilemma

streets are filthy, crime is everywhere, and the place smells terrible. The only nice place is the government building. Now don’t get me wrong. The country does have nice spots. Because they are on the ocean, and need money, their seaside cities are wonderful. But that’s not the Dizuria we are going to. With any luck we’ll peel back the mask and find the truth underneath, mostly why they are killing all those people. If we find anything we need to get evidence to bring back and show the other countries around the wall. They will hopefully spring into action and help out. We’ll give those countries bracelets, I hear Calrus is making a lot, and they can help get Humurom out.”

  “Why don’t we just give them the bracelets and tell them Dizuria made them?”

  “Dizuria is a tricky country. They will find a way to turn it around and pin the bad on Azureland.”

  “Who would believe them?”

  “They have powerful allies. We don’t want to start a war. If all the other countries around the wall believe us then we will be better off.”

  I looked back out the window at the pretty fields. Occasionally a tree or house would zoom by. It made me sleepy to look at the same thing over and over again.

  “So what do I do while you are snooping around?” I couldn’t take my eyes off the green out the window.

  “I need you to come with me and use your knowledge of inside the wall to find evidence. If there’s a picture of something inside maybe, or a note about inside, or even a uniform used inside. Anything will work as long as it can tie them to being inside. Oh, and one more thing. This will be dangerous, we could get caught.”

  “I’m used to things being dangerous.” I said absent mindedly. I could see large fields full of cows and pigs. I had never seen so many animals at once. I wondered what they were all doing out there. There was a large building nearby, but I didn’t get a good look at it.

  “That’s another reason Gilik chose you.”

  I took a quick nap. I grew very tired staring out the window and found myself dozing off. Theen didn’t seem to mind. He pulled out a book and started reading. I woke up an hour later. We were now in a different country, Zamiastin. When I opened my eyes I was looking up at a very large mountain. Zamiastin is full of them. These were much more interesting to watch. The train took its time climbing tracks up and around mountains and through tunnels. We passed little towns and a big city, not stopping for anything.

  The hours passed by slowly with nothing to do. I was beginning to get very hungry, and Theen must have too because he pulled out sandwiches sometime in the evening.

  “Do you want to know something weird?” I asked; my mouth full of chicken and bread.

  “What?”

  “Somebody recognized me yesterday.”

  “You sure?”

  “They said something about Mama and the hunters.”

  He nodded seriously. “Should you have told Gilik?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Things should sort themselves out while we’re gone.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant. Did he think Historia would just forget about me? I didn’t want to ask. For some reason I feared the answer.

  “We left kind of fast, didn’t we?” I said.

  “They wanted us there before we could lose our nerve. But don’t worry; this will be a quick and easy trip. Before you know it we will be back on the train for home.”

  I could see in his face that he didn’t believe that. I wondered if Gilik had told him to say that sort of thing, just as he told Nara to take me away when I first arrived in Azureland because he thought me unstable. This led me to question if I had ever been told something straight. I didn’t want to get any more paranoid than I already was so I thought of other things.

  We finished our sandwiches and washed them down with soda. I wasn’t quite used to the sensations that came along with soda yet, but it was always an interesting experience to drink it.

  “Are they building a place for you all like they are for the Bozlins?”

  “I don’t know. I guess they’ll decide once they see if more are coming out. If it’s just us then they might just let us stay where we are. Of course they will probably want us out of the government building soon. Once everything is over I want to go on a Journey Ship and see the ocean.”

  Theen put his head back and pushed his seat back. “That sounds great.”

  It was dark outside. The lights dimmed. I moved to the back of the train so we could have more room. I lifted up the armrests on the chairs so I had room to lie down. I watched the darkness out the window and soon found myself drifting off to sleep.

  Sometime in the early morning I heard someone nearby. I opened my eyes and heard something about Dizuria. I sat up and looked out the window. The only thing I saw was trees.

  “Dizuria is very wooded.” Theen was standing nearby.

  “I see a lot of places for people to hide.” I said drowsily.

  “Nobody is going to jump out if that’s what you mean.”

  The trees didn’t last too long. The train reached more fields and I was disappointed to not see more interesting landscapes.

  “Oh, hey, there’s Diz City.”

  I could just see the tall buildings in the distance. We were still a ways away but I could already tell that they were all a dingy gray. I took a deep breath and hoped for everything to go smoothly.

  XI

  The closer we got the more I wanted to go back. My anxiety overcame me and did not get better as I saw the state of that city. Theen was right, Dizuria was a dirty mess. The buildings were all poorly kept. Many had broken windows and all of them had graffiti and paint covering the bases. Trash of all kinds was scattered throughout the streets. These included cups, paper, wrappers, old bikes, and the occasional heap of sheets or clothes. There was something about the overall atmosphere that had me trying to push myself back, hoping the train would follow my lead. Instead we pushed deeper into the center, where things only looked worse. At one point we passed a large group of people screaming and throwing things into a large fire. I had never seen such disorder in my life, and I had seen some pretty disturbing things.

  “What do you think?” Theen asked solemnly.

  “They really did a good job at making this place unappealing.” I said more cheerfully than I felt.

  The train began to slow. The anxiety grew with every second. We were approaching a very tall gray building, but this one was not like the others. It had the same graffiti that the others had, but this one was made to appear worn and dirty instead of ending up that way. If one looked closely they would see that it was actually very clean.

  The train stopped. My heart was beating fast and I had a hard time controlling my hands. I couldn’t keep them from shaking. This wasn’t like the times of danger in the wall. In those cases I knew what I was getting into by being outside and quickly went into survival mode when something happened. Now I found myself moving closer and closer to the enemy without any way of stopping once I realized the magnitude of everything. If they figured out who I was I wouldn’t be back on a train to Azureland, I would probably be fed to the fire on the street.

  Theen grabbed his bag and told me to follow close behind, and to make sure I didn’t look as terrified as I felt, and apparently looked at that moment. I stood up straight, feigned a smile, and stepped from the train. The air was almost as bad as the sights. I didn’t know what the smell was and can only describe it as foul.

  A mischievous looking man was waiting for us outside. He smiled toothily, showing gaps and what looked like blood stains. His smile wasn’t evil looking, but it did have a negative quality I couldn’t place.

  “Do you have the necklace?” He asked; his voice wheezy.

  “Yes.” Theen said, showing him a small bag.

  The man turned and walked away. Theen followed and I followed Theen. The man led us into the tall gray building.

  The interior wasn’t as bad
as the outside led us to believe. The walls were clean beige. A grand marble spiral staircase went from the ground floor up into the ceiling. There were chairs and tables set out, they were scarcely decorated. All were wood and a few had red cushions.

  The man pointed to a door to our right. Theen nodded and we went over to it. Inside was a small room with a tile floor and a small table with two light blue piles. They were clothes, a shirt and pants.

  “We have to switch into these.” Theen said, picking up a shirt and tossing it to me.

  “Why?”

  “They want to make sure we are not hiding anything in our clothes.”

  This all sounded very strange but we changed quickly, left our clothes in the room, and came back out.

  The man led us up the staircase to another level that looked much the same as the first. We went up higher and higher, each floor looking exactly the same. The only difference was how many doors the walls had. On about the sixth or seventh floor, I had lost count; he took us to one of the doors. He opened it and let us in.

  I looked about the room; it was small and had only two pictures on it. One had a simple yellow flower, and the other had a mountain. My eyes then turned to the man sitting behind a little wooden desk with nothing on it. My mouth dropped open unexpectedly. I had seen that man before. I knew I had, I only had to remember where. But where could I have seen someone from Dizuria? And then it hit me, the morning after I arrived in Azureland, the man talking in the hallway, the man who had