Little Maya woke up, afflicted with a horrible headache.

  She was a bit frightened to not recognize her surroundings. Stretching out her arm, her hand bumped into something round. She stared at it, then realized it was a large steering wheel. The next thing she noticed was the windshield, covered by snow. It took her a moment to realize she was alone in the cab of a truck. She took off the blanket that was covering her and felt a little better when she saw that it was actually Raven’s coat.

  Outside, sparks rose up when Raven dropped another log on the fire he’d just built. He was about to sit down by it when he heard a loud creaking. He turned his head to see the door of the truck opening and Maya’s little head poking out from behind the dented sheet of metal. The child’s hair was tousled and her eyes were swollen. Raven went over to her and helped her down, holding her gently.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “My head hurts a little.” Maya wiped her forehead with her hand.

  Maya curled up next to the fire and looked at the truck that had served as her bedroom. Only the cab remained—there weren’t even any wheels—and the metal was completely rusted out. She thought about the only time she’d gotten in a truck; it had been two years ago. She would have liked to have been able to look down at a highway again from up in the cab of a truck.

  “I couldn’t find anyplace better to spend the night,” apologized Raven, following her gaze.

  “It’s okay. Here, take your coat. You must be cold with just a sweater,” she said, not seeming the least bit bothered by the improvised shelter in which she’d spent the night.

  “Thanks.” Raven took the coat and put it on. “If you’re cold, you just tell me. I can handle the low temperature.” It wasn’t snowing, but it was the kind of cold that had become the new “normal.” Maya reached out her hands to warm them by the fire. As Raven watched her, he felt instinctively protective.

  “Do you know where this road leads to, Maya?”

  “To London. It’s not very far away. My mom took me a few times before they walled it off and wouldn’t let people in without a pass. It’s a supertown—and really big. It’s huge.”

  “You mean it’s a city, right? It was the capital of this country.”

  “What’s a capital? And a country?”

  Raven was a little taken aback by her questions. They were such basic concepts for her not to know about them.

  “How old are you, Maya?” he asked, suspecting he knew what the problem was.

  “Eight.”

  “That explains it. You were born after the Wave, so you never knew the world before. In a way, you’re right; it is a ‘supertown.’ It’s called a city, actually. And it’s a capital because it was the most important city of an enormous area.”

  “My mom told me the world was a lot better before. It wasn’t cold and there were more people.”

  A torrent of images flooded Raven’s mind, sparking feelings of nostalgia. Soccer games and all kinds of other sporting events . . . movies and plays . . . countryside bathed in sunlight . . . airplanes flying . . . the list was endless.

  “It was different. Better in many aspects, but there were problems there, too.” Raven didn’t know how to tell her about a world she had never known. It was a situation for which he was totally unprepared. Only ten years had passed since the Wave, and Raven hadn’t had much contact with children. Yet he knew that this kind of question would be commonplace as children became adults and would wonder about the references their elders made to a bygone world they had never known. He was quiet as he looked into the fire.

  “Can I stay with you?” Maya asked suddenly. “I like you and I don’t want to go back to where my parents died.”

  “Of course.” Raven put his arm around her shoulders. “At least for now. I won’t leave you until we find a suitable place for you.” A shadow appeared over Maya’s face. “Maya, you can’t stay with me forever. You need other children your age to grow up with.”

  “And where are we going to find them?” she asked sadly.

  “In London. I’m sure there’ll be lots of children there. Besides, I have to go in that direction anyways.”

  “Okay, but you still haven’t told me your name.”

  “Oh, sorry about that. It’s Raven. Is there anything else you want to know about me?”

  Maya thought for a moment. “How old are you?” Her curiosity was slowly awakening.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, embarrassed. “I’m suffering from amnesia.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It means I can’t remember anything about my own life. It’s how I’ve been ever since the Wave. I don’t remember when I was born, so I don’t know my exact age. How old do I look?”

  Maya sighed deeply, opened her eyes wide and made a face.

  “I’ll take that to mean I look old,” he acknowledged pleasantly.

  After a few more questions, he told Maya it was time to get going. They put out the fire by burying it under snow, and started walking under threateningly dark clouds. They got back on the main road and followed it at a relaxed pace.

  Maya was quite intrigued by the stories of the former world and endlessly bombarded Raven with a symphony of questions fueled by her childlike imagination. He patiently answered each and every one of them, granting himself creative license on topics that, in his opinion, would boost the child’s spirits. The hours flew by for both of them thanks to her tireless questioning. Raven was grateful that Maya was concentrating all her attention on him and wasn’t thinking about the grief-inducing subject of her mother’s death.

  A monotonous blanket of white snow covered the countryside. At one point they passed an abandoned gas station. Raven stopped and checked it out quickly, looking for anything that might be useful—like clothing or food—but he found nothing. The place had long since been ransacked. A while later, they came across a train track, so Maya further explored the frontiers of her imagination with questions fed by this new discovery.

  Raven was enjoying her company. He had always traveled alone, and it had certainly never occurred to him that a child could enjoy being by his side. Yet she seemed to be happy with him, as well as with his answers to her questions. At first he’d been afraid he’d say something that would upset her or make her not trust him—which was how things normally would go for him—but nothing even remotely like that happened. The little girl readily accepted explanations that should have been impossible for her to grasp. This was unbelievable to Raven, whose problems interacting with other people tended to crop up when they discovered he wasn’t like everyone else. People never trusted what they didn’t understand. But with Maya, that was not the case. It had taken no time at all for him to relax and let the conversation flow freely.

  In the midst of their friendly chat, something shifted inside Raven. That same mysterious pull was urging him along, and the need to keep moving quickly washed over him. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew that in London he would find what was summoning him.

  Buildings were becoming more numerous now, dotting both sides of the road. They noticed a small, well-kept church next to a school. Several people came out the front door and took a road that led to a row of modest houses a short way from there. The people paid no attention to them. A bit later they passed a modern building with large windows. Raven thought it might be an old car dealership since it appeared to have a big showroom, but there were no cars in sight. Since a car lot didn’t make a terribly interesting topic for such a young girl and since she seemed to have run out of questions to ask him, he instead told Maya about the playgrounds of days gone by. With very little effort, Raven made up a half dozen stories about swings and slides on which the little girl could play in her mind.

  After walking several miles, Maya was beginning to feel tired; her steps were slowing down along with the rhythm of her questions.

  “How are you doing, Maya?” asked Raven, surprised that she hadn’t complained about the long hike. “Do you want to stop?”

  “My feet are a little cold and I’m hungry. But I can keep going if you want,” she said, making an effort to sound energetic.

  “There’s no hurry,” he reassured her. “We’ll stop in one of those buildings to see if someone can give us something to eat. I don’t want you to be afraid to tell me if you’re not doing well, no matter what the reason, okay?”

  They walked along the side of a highway that was getting wider and wider with more and more lanes which, in the past, he supposed would have undoubtedly helped with traffic flow. Raven rummaged through his incomplete memory but could only recall general information with precious few specifics about London. He guessed he hadn’t lived there before the Wave, or he certainly could have come up with some precise details about the city. The increasing number of buildings and the size of the highway was a sure sign the old capital city couldn’t be far away. They certainly would have been able to see if by now if it hadn’t been for the heavy cloud cover and low visibility.

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  They took an exit to the right that led to a block of buildings in relatively good condition. A van drove past them, and there were people out in the streets. Two teenagers, perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old, were doing their best to shovel the snow off the sidewalk. Many men and women were bustling about, loaded down with big sacks on their backs.

  “Is there anywhere near here where we can get some food?” Raven asked the boys who were shoveling. “We can pay.”

  The tallest one stopped shoveling and turned to face Raven, looking him over curiously.

  “If you really can pay, we have some cheese, bread, and fruit at my house. Plenty for the two of you. I don’t think you can do better than that. Everyone’s at the street market, trading.”

  “Sounds perfect,” said Raven, smiling shyly.

  He took out a bill and handed it to the young man, who quickly snatched it from him. The boy took them to the next building over. They went through the doorway and up some stairs to the third floor. They passed several people who looked at Raven distrustfully until they recognized his guide.

  “It’s right here.” The boy stopped in the hallway in front of a wooden door. “There’s no one home right now. My mother is out selling wool sweaters. I make them myself,” he added proudly. “You can eat here and take something with you for the road, but you have to hurry.”

  Raven nodded. They went in and the boy took them straight to the kitchen. Raven and Maya sat down at the small table, grateful to rest a little after such a long hike. Before they knew it, the boy had brought out a loaf of bread, cheese, and three apples. Maya tore off a piece of bread, stuffed it in her mouth, and chewed it hungrily. Raven sliced the cheese.

  “Would you like to eat something with us?” he asked their host politely.

  “I’m not hungry,” answered the boy.

  Raven pushed the slices of cheese toward Maya who took a good number of them and immediately shoved one in her mouth.

  “We’re headed to London,” stated Raven. “Is it far from here?”

  “You’re not from around here, are you?” guessed the boy.

  “No,” Raven confirmed, not thinking of any reason to hide the obvious.

  “Then it all depends . . .” the boy looked impatiently at Raven.

  “On what?”

  The boy was still staring at him, but his expression had changed, and a look of shame flashed across his young face. A few seconds passed, then his eyes boldly shifted toward his right hand which was now held out over the table, palm up. Raven took out another bill and put in the boy’s hand.

  “You can get there in about an hour by following the highway.” The boy turned his eyes toward Maya. “Maybe two, but they won’t let you in.”

  “Why not?” quizzed Raven.

  “There’s a wall around the city. They put it up during the war, before order was restored. For two years now, no one has been able to go in without a special pass.”

  “Isn’t it possible to apply for a pass?”

  “It is, but they won’t grant you one unless you have a work contract or someone inside who can vouch for you. It’s getting harder and harder to get one since there are more problems every day with refugees trying to come in from other Secure Zones.”

  “We can sneak in,” Maya suggested.

  “That would be really difficult. The army controls all the gates to the city and they’ll shoot if they catch someone trying to sneak in,” the boy warned sternly.

  “I know people who’ve snuck in,” replied Maya stubbornly. “It’s not that hard.”

  The boy simply shrugged his shoulders.

  They finished eating a few minutes later. After filling a couple of water bottles, the boy put the rest of the cheese, the water, and more apples in a backpack as his hand closed around two more bills.

  Raven and Maya left the building and got started on the final leg of their journey. On the way to the highway they passed the street market the boy had mentioned to them. Stretched along a little more than two blocks of the street, a multitude of makeshift tables were scattered about where all kinds of merchandise was on display. There were large drums with firewood burning at every two or three stands where shoppers were warming their hands. People were moving from stand to stand, looking over the goods, buying, bartering, and selling. Sellers were announcing at the top of their lungs the quality of their products.

  “Fruit! Juicy and healthy!”

  “Medicine! When was the last time you soothed a fever with an aspirin? Come and see!”

  Raven held tightly to Maya’s hand, keeping her close by his side as they walked. He was uncomfortable with so many people ambling around them. They roamed around the stands, amazed at all the activity.

  A man was doing a demonstration with knives, illustrating the sharpness of the blades by cutting up various items. The stand next to his had a display of shoes in a wide variety of colors and, judging by the number of potential clients desperately looking for a pair in their size, he was doing a good business.

  Coming from another stand nearby they heard, “Why go hungry? We’re close to the Thames. Buy one of my fishing poles and you’ll be sure to catch fresh fish! I have fishing line and bait, too, of course.”

  The majority of the vendors routinely recited their offerings. They’d repeated the same sentences hundreds of time and their voices sounded mechanical, with not an ounce of spontaneity. Raven noticed that quite a few people were wandering from one stand to another without taking an interest in anything in particular—just browsing, apparently. What they were looking for Raven could not imagine.

  He felt a tug on his arm and he turned around.

  “Nice coat. How much you want for it?” asked the stranger abruptly.

  “It’s not for sale,” replied Raven.

  “Maybe I have something you need.” The man leaned in toward Raven, as if they were conspiring. “I have weapons,” he lowered his voice until he was almost whispering. “I can offer you guns of different calibers. Are you interested? I can also get you women.”

  Raven walked away quickly, pulling Maya along. He didn’t want any trouble. Clearly it was time to get out of this bazaar. They emerged from the sea of people, leaving the last few stands behind them. Back on the highway, they started heading toward London again. Maya seemed a little sad about leaving the market, and she walked with her head turned back toward it until it was out of sight.

  Just as the young man who’d given them the food had indicated, they made it to London in a little more than an hour.

  The great city was imprisoned behind a line of iron grates that were welded together to form an ugly, makeshift wall. Dents of all sizes and streaks of rust caused by shoddy, careless welding decorated the atrocious metallic structure. The wall was of varying heights, giving it a crooked, serpentine ledge behind which emerged the square shapes of nearby houses. In some spots, parts of buildings—and sometimes entire buildings—had been built into the wall due to the lack of time and materials when it was constructed, which only served to contribute to the gigantic structure’s look of instability.

  In spite of his lack of personal memories, Raven knew that London had been a city of singular beauty, a place where you could find people from all over the world, people of all races, classes, and cultures; a place with a rich and abundant history that effectively immersed it in the most important events of the old continent. Raven had hoped to drink in the city’s aged and grandiose atmosphere when he finally arrived there, but the massive, deformed iron and brick wall pitilessly destroyed his hopes. The aura of splendor and prosperity had forever disappeared from London the moment they’d imprisoned it.

  Raven and Maya were absorbed into a swarm of people waiting in line to enter the city. The South Gate was three hundred feet in front of them. It was an opening in the ramparts, flanked by two remote-controlled mounted machine guns the size of cars that scanned the crowd. A military detachment was quite successfully maintaining order as it carried out its functions from the head of the enormous bottleneck the line fed into. There was a considerable amount of racket and scuffling happening at the gate as people tried to sneak in by creating another line—which Raven had also been hoping to do. He’d discovered that the easiest thing was to let himself be moved along by the current, but that made it harder to keep Maya protected and close to him at all times.

  Several stands along the road on the way up to the gate were selling rotting food at exorbitant prices to those waiting to gain entrance.

  “I came last week,” said a voice coming from a group of people to Raven’s right. “Two guys tried to slip past the checkpoint and they shot them full of holes without batting an eye.”

  “They probably didn’t have passes,” came another voice from the same group.

  The conversation only served to reinforce for Raven that he had to think of something or he’d end up in the same predicament as the two guys from the week before. He focused on the problem as they were dragged along, inching ever closer to the gate. His original intention had been to get close enough to have a good look at the process and then decide what to do, but he hadn’t counted on the crowd of people swallowing them up. He gave up on the idea of taking advantage of the pushing, shoving, and general confusion to steal a pass from someone; he’d reconsidered as soon as he’d pictured Maya falling into the hands of the soldiers because of him. He tucked that plan carefully into the “use-only-in-case-of-emergency” file. He couldn’t let anything happen to that little girl.

  The line going up to the gate was shrinking as was Raven’s control over his nerves. The soldiers near the gate were directing the flow of the herd so no one could jump the checkpoint. Raven and Maya had come too far; to turn around and leave now would arouse suspicion.

  A police siren and the roar of several engines could be heard above the hubbub, and Raven felt himself being pushed aside. He grabbed Maya with both hands as the two of them almost fell to the ground with the rest of the crowd.

  A convoy of three green trucks and a limousine made their way up the road. On the back end of the last truck was a massive silver cannon as big as the two machine guns that were defending the South Gate combined. Almost everyone who was standing in line was staring at the intimidating machine with a measure of respect. A weapon like that hadn’t been seen since the war with the North. And Raven hadn’t seen a limousine—much less one of these dimensions—since before the Wave. It was some thirty feet long, black, with tinted windows. It looked immaculate.

  The vehicles stopped in front of the South Gate under the watchful eye of the machine guns. A man got out of the first truck and headed for the checkpoint. He was dressed in a military uniform, but it wasn’t the same as the ones the soldiers guarding London were wearing. The soldiers quickly regrouped at the entrance to the city, ready to defend it at their superior’s command. An official hurried out to meet the man.

  All eyes were fixed on what was happening at the gate. The limousine drew most of the stares; its anonymous owner had to have been someone terribly important—or rich. Or both.

  Raven concentrated and caught fragments of the conversation.

  “We’ve come a long way . . .” The voice of the man who’d just gotten out of the truck was serious and unyielding. “General Thomas comes from the Secure Zone of the North.”

  “I was not informed about this,” said the official, clearly surprised by the situation. “My orders are firm. No one enters without a pass. I cannot compromise the security of the city.”

  Raven determined that this was the best time to sneak away without being noticed. It was obvious they weren’t going to get into the city without a pass. He picked Maya up and slipped through the crowd, taking the road toward the Thames.

  “Are we going to sneak in?” The child seemed excited about the possibility.

  “Something like that,” answered Raven, setting her down. “We’re going to look for another way in.”

  They moved away quickly, plowing through the snow as they followed the perimeter of the wall, keeping a safe distance. Maya did her best to keep up with the fast pace, never complaining. The snow came up past their calves, making walking a bit more difficult.

  “Stop!” shouted a voice behind them. “Don’t move!”

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