The City

Fort Anthem announced itself in layers.

Earthen ramps, barbed wire, and burned-out vehicles demarcated the first barricade, ugly and provisional.  The second layer: rusted shipping containers, stacked and topped by coiled razor wire that hummed shrilly in the wind. The third layer: rows of fencing, with forty-foot watchtowers at even intervals. In the towers, silhouettes of heavy caliber machine guns tracked movement without hurry. Behind that, a final inner wall encompassed the city-proper.  The air began to smell of dust, oil, and old smoke. 

Miles had heard the barriers called “Dante’s Circles”. Inside the final wall, “Heaven”. Everything these days had a cynical nickname, he thought.

Within the first row, security surveyed incoming traffic, noting vehicles of interest and radioing ahead. The motorcycle groups stayed a minimum of a quarter mile outside this first rampart. Enforcers of other communities were not welcome or tolerated in Fort Anthem.

Miles and Sera trudged along the rutted road toward the main entrance.  Here the migration of caravans and crowds slowed. There were people in jumpsuits and gloves, searching vehicles and pedestrians, all under the watchful eyes of heavily armed, uniformed security.  The searches started minimal and became more in-depth with each circle.

Sera watched Miles unobtrusively—she knew her mother-hen instincts annoyed him.  She would pause their walk, pretending to need a moment, just to give him a break.  She had learned his limits, especially while recovering after a performance.

Inside the barricades, the wind thinned, replaced by the steady grind of generators and the clipped cadence of voices giving instructions. The road straightened, rubble cleared. Painted lines appeared beneath the dirt, remnants of lanes resurfacing through neglect. Guards directed traffic with practiced efficiency. The city didn’t open its arms to outsiders, it filtered them into its maw. Each step forward felt less wild, more watched.  Anarchy stripped away. Replaced with rigid order.

The order was why there were so few places left like Fort Anthem.  Few communities could maintain the discipline necessary to build it.  Or the ruthless strength to enforce it.

On foot and with only their packs, they passed through the process faster.  Still, it took a couple of hours to arrive at the queue for the third row gates. 

They were waved forward by a stern-faced woman in a crisp blue shirt and pressed dark blue pants, wearing a facemask.  They doffed their packs onto her inspection table.  Sera made her hands stay still at her sides.

“Purpose?“ The woman asked perfunctionally. It was the fifth time at the fifth search they had been asked this question.

“The annual show,” said Miles. “We are here for the show in the arena.“

The woman took a cursory look at the yellow strips of fabric they had tied around their upper arms, at the glowing tattoos they had rolled their sleeves to display.  With the Old World brusqueness of a woman who hated her job, she opened their packs, pulling out the contents.

“What’s this, then?” The woman asked as she tugged a yellow and green striped outfit from Miles‘s bag. She held up a bald cap wig with tufts of bright red hair on the sides and looked at him with renewed interest.

Miles kept his voice steady and calm.“It’s my costume, I’m a performer. I came to perform in the show tonight.“ 

The woman poked through the other items in his bag: tins of grease paint, oversized shoes, a horn with a bulb at the end, a battered hat, and the ukulele. Everything had seen better days and was either dented, scratched, or stitched back together. The woman surveyed the costume and everything else in Miles’s bag and pushed it to one side. She looked up from searching Sera’s bag.

“Where is your costume?” she asked Sera.

“My cost—oh, I’m not… “I don’t.”  The words dried up in Sera‘s mouth. She looked at the woman, who smelled of floral powder and scented soap. Her hair was brushed back and tied up loosely beneath a bouffant cap and her clothes were spotless and clean. She was wearing latex gloves. Latex gloves! When had Sera last seen sterile gloves of any kind? On the Plains Sera was a nurse and a medic. Inside Fort Anthem, with her greased hair braided tightly and her scars and tattered clothes and dirty fingernails and stale sweat, she was nothing but another wasteland vagabond.

“She’s my assistant,” Miles filled in.  Sera looked down and mumbled in confirmation.

The woman impatiently pushed Sera‘s pack and belongings down the table next to Miles. She pulled two tags of red card stock with bold black printing and, using a fat black marker, wrote on each card.

“You both have a two day pass, “she said, handing them the tags. “These won’t let you into the city.  If you seek to stay any longer you must apply for services and skills. Keep those tags on you at all times and do not lose them or let them get stolen.“ She looked past Sera and raised her arm beckoning to the next travelers in the queue. Sera hurriedly stuffed her belongings into her pack and joined Miles as they threaded through the gate, holding up their red tags for the guards to see.

“That was easier than I expected,” Sera muttered, looking at her fingernails as they walked.

“I told you so,” Miles said, looking around at the activity. “Lots of people coming into Fort Anthem today. Who’s going to notice another clown from the Plains?”

“Did you look at your tag?” Sera asked. 

He looked at what the stern woman had written: “Mune/Clown”.

“Maybe we should switch,“ Miles joked, sliding his tag into his pocket. “What did she write on yours?“

Sera showed him: “Mune/woman”.

“Why didn’t you tell them you’re a nurse? “Miles asked.

Sera made a face that did not encourage Miles to ask any more questions. She pushed her dirty hands in her pockets, eyes downcast at her worn bootlaces and stained pants’ legs.

Past the gates, Fort Anthem made its argument decisively.

It was not a city in the traditional sense — not the kind Miles and Sera would remember from before the plague started. Born as a refugee camp, it had grown in size and scope.  Early investment by the government and subsequent reinforcement repurposed the structures with a more permanent identity. The wall that surrounded it now was both a defense and a statement.

Between the gate and the wall lay the Commons, an open area half a mile wide.  Water splashed from public fountains into wide circular pools and cisterns, their sound almost shocking in its normalcy. Food stalls sold rationed meals, sealed and stamped with dates. Every stall was powered, providing glowing lights, blinking signs, occasionally refrigeration.  Cables ran overhead in disciplined bundles. Everything worked just well enough to remind people what had been lost—and who controlled what remained. 

Past the merchants’ stalls and open fields, travelers were being directed by workers and temporary fencing towards the stadium, which rose like a shipwreck in the landscape.  Across the wide field, people were being funneled in four routes, with guards checking for tags and spot searching vehicles at random.

Sera could see hundreds of uniformed men and women with walkie-talkies and headsets.  She also spotted many people without uniforms, but badges. People without sophisticated weaponry, but armed nonetheless.

She caught up to Miles. “Maybe we should rethink this,” she whispered, her voice tight, eyes darting. 

Miles turned, his hollow, heavy eyes toward her. He looked exhausted just from walking.

“Rethink what?” he asked.

“This.  We’re not in a barter town.  We’re outmatched here.”

“We’re nobodies to them.  They’ve got more to do than run down rumors.”

“It’s just…” Sera flailed trying to explain.  She raked her gaze along the lines of security.

So many.  Not just guarding.  Looking.

“Maybe we should wait,” was all she could justify saying.

“The show must go on, Sera,” he murmured softly. 

“Tags,” a bored guard said, holding his hand out. 

Miles and Sera dutifully handed him their tags. He glanced at Sera‘s and handed it back but stopped at Miles’s. He looked up at Miles.  

“Hey, Sarge,” he said loudly over his shoulder, keeping Miles in his view. “Got another clown.” 

A man who was not bored detached himself from a group of soldiers, taking the tag from the guard. He motioned for Miles to step out of line, taking in the yellow cloth and tattoo. He took out a handheld electric device, tapping on the screen.

“Name?” the man asked without looking up.

“Miles Danner.” 

Sera froze, staring at the device as if looking at a memory. 

“Where are you from, Mr. Danner?”

“Rock Bridge,” Miles answered, saying it loud enough for Sera to hear.  

“Other occupations and skills… besides ‘clown’, I mean.”

“None that apply in this world,” Miles answered.  The sergeant looked at him, then tapped on the screen.

“So, you’ve always been a clown?”

“That’s what my mother told me.”  Miles managed a tight smile.

The sergeant looked up again without a smile.  “Save the jokes for the show, Mr. Danner.”

“Of course,” Miles said, feeling Sera stab him with her glare.

“Hold out your right arm, please,“ he said. Miles did as he was instructed. The sergeant pressed one end of the electronic device against Miles’ forearm just below the bioluminescent tattoo.  His skin briefly burned at the contact and he flinched slightly.  When the sergeant removed the device Miles saw a red ink barcode on his skin.

“Hey!  What the hell?” he said, holding up his arm.

“Alright, Mr. Danner, since you have no skills, you’ll be expected to leave Fort Anthem when your tag expires.  If you don’t… we have your name and we’ll know where to find you.”

Miles remained with his arm held up.  “Again… sir… What the hell?”

“Take the service road.  It’s clearly marked.”  The sergeant waved them through and onto a wide road that veered left of the stadium.  Sera nudged Miles forward, and they passed through with  eyes lowered.  The sergeant watched them, then tapped the device again.

Once past the guards, Sera took Miles‘s arm and looked at the stamp.

“What do you suppose that’s for?” She asked.

“I guess it’s my authorization to perform,” mused Miles, rubbing his thumb gently over the stamp, which had already dried completely.  It carried the pungent chemical smell of a mark meant to last.

“I’m not so sure,” responded Sera. “Remember, back when everything started?  When ‘munes were first being identified? Before the tattoos—and I’m talking about very early on—they stamped people who were immune.  Remember?”

“That must’ve been before I was identified.”

“The ink had something in it, some kind of graphite or metal.  I don’t know. It got into the skin even after the ink faded. There were scanners that could detect the stamps, even under clothing, even after the ink was scrubbed off.”

“Maybe they’re just repurposing old technology,” Miles said, rubbing the indelible ink on his arm a little harder with no effect.

“That was highly sophisticated ink, for a serious detection system. Early on people tried to counterfeit the stamps, but they couldn’t fake the ink.”

“We’ve got the tats, why stamp ‘munes again?”

“They didn’t stamp me,” Sera said thoughtfully. “And I didn’t see them stamping anyone else, either.”  She looked at Miles. “He only stamped you after he discovered you were a clown.”

Miles looked down at the stamp and rubbed it even harder. Indelible. He said nothing, pressing through the crowd towards the lawn ahead.

Sera also stared at the stamp, the biting smell of the chemical in the ink fading.  She’d worn a stamp once, believing in the protection it promised.

Sera had met Ramos in Year One of the pandemic. Both were ‘munes, both assigned to a supply depot, both clinging to the same reckless belief—that whatever protected them would protect a child they made together.

It hadn’t.

Their daughter, Julisca, died at the onset of winter.  Five months old, coughing and drowning in phlegm at Sera’s breast. They wrapped her tiny body in a sheet and carefully buried her in a small grave, away from the mass pits where Pete’s other victims were stacked, unnamed, and sealed away.

Sera and Ramos stayed together after that, but the hope that had bound them was gone. He died the following year—not of the plague, but of something ordinary. Sera dug his grave herself, beside Julisca’s.

She stopped believing in protection. She drifted. Worked where she was needed. Eventually, she found her way into the camps with the medics, scrubbing and sorting, tending the sick, burying the dead.

She hadn’t found love again. But she’d found a place, on the Plains.

The stadium sat apart from the city like a concession, surrounded by broad lawns gone yellow with cold and overuse. Temporary fencing funneled the outsiders into wide, monitored paths, lined with vendor tents.  Makeshift markets sold charms, remedies, food, and faith. Security was everywhere—tighter, more alert. The air carried music, shouting, and beneath it all the wet sound of coughing.

From the service road, the stadium sat like a remnant of another age—too large, too intact, its concrete shell peeling layers of paint. On this side there were no lines of travelers, no music, no vendors calling out. Just loading bays, security doors, and long stretches of blank wall scarred by old signage and newer repairs. Miles felt the weight of it settle in his chest: a place built to hold thousands of voices, now repurposed to contain them. Sera slacked her gait, indulging a flicker of nostalgia of a place that once gathered people for joy alone. 

For Miles, the sight carried no comfort. Only inevitability. 

There was a wide, sunny lawn at the end of the service road, enclosed by a copse of trees.  Many performers stopped here to rest before going through the great bay doors in the stadium’s wall.  Miles counted perhaps two dozen clowns in costumes of every style. Some stood in small groups, sharing stories and jokes. Others worked in teams, rehearsing their routines.

Wherever there were clowns, Miles noticed, security forces lingered at the edges. Overhead, a dozen small drones drifted and darted, their faint buzz constant—omniscient as sparrows.

Miles and Sera plopped down on an open space. They gnawed on their rabbit jerky and chewed their cornpone patties, sharing swigs of water from their canteen.  Sera took off her canvas jacket and laid it on the dried grass, reclining back on her elbows, observing the other clowns.

“Do you know what you are going to do tonight?”  she asked Miles.

“Leave them in stitches, so then you can sew them up,” answered Miles, sitting against his pack for support.

“Ha ha.  Performing for ten thousand people in front of a jumbotron isn’t like performing in a quarantine tent for twenty coughing children.  You’ve gotta kill tonight.”

“I have a feeling I will.”

“Knock it off,” Sera warned.

“Okay, coach.”  Miles plucked some blades of grass and let them flutter away on the breeze.

“There was a big-time movie star and stage actor… what’s-his-name… he used to throw up before every performance.  You just get the jitters.  You exhaust yourself mentally as much as you do physically.”  Sera watched as two more drones drifted in overhead and joined the flock.

“Okay, doc,” Miles replied tonelessly, appearing lost in thought for the moment.

Sera rolled up and sat crosslegged, looking directly at Miles.  “Were you never not an asshole?” she said sharply.  “You’re malnourished, dehydrated, and, let’s be honest, a little on in years.  Of course you’re going to be spent after a show.  It doesn’t mean what you think it means.  And what happens… after a show… that’s… that’s science.  Psychosomatic healing is a real thing.  That’s science.”

“Learn that in med school, did you?”  Miles grinned lopsidedly without looking at her.

“Blow me.”  Sera flung herself angrily back onto her jacket.  There were now another dozen drones overhead. “I don’t think there’s anything mystical happening to you,” she said. “I think you’re tired, underfed, and carrying the weight of a thousand people who want the Clown to be more than a myth. I don’t think that means you have to believe it.”

“I know you don’t,” Miles said, not unkindly.  He looked at her lying on her back, staring at the sky, certain in her reasoning, and decided to let her have that.

“What’s important is that you get off the stage the moment it’s done.  We have to move out with the crowds—just a couple of everyday ‘munes headed back to the Plains.  Then we wait and see.”  Sera’s tone softened.  She silently remonstrated herself for getting angry.  The shows did take a lot out of him, and she knew it.

A skinny crane-like man who had been migrating from group to group noticed them sitting on the lawn and came over to them. He wore a tattered and dirty set of oversized overalls and a repurposed work shirt. He walked with the malnourished gait of someone who ekes by on the fringe of the new world. He fixed his gaze on Miles, a large grin spreading showing blackened and broken teeth.

“Hello, brother!“ he said when he was close enough to speak to them. He did not extend his hand in greeting – nobody really shook hands anymore these days. Miles acknowledged him with a cautious nod and the man squatted down on his haunches in front of them.  In that position, arms draped over his knees, he looked more like a vulture crouching over carrion, Sera thought.

“Here for the show, Brother Clown?“ The man said in a crackling voice, still grinning. Miles stared at him for a moment and the man indicated the stamp on Miles’s forearm. He then pulled up his sleeve to display both a ‘mune tattoo and an identical red ink stamp. “They only give these to us clowns, don’t they? I’m Marlon, Marlon the Clown. I’ve seen you on the Barter Route, haven’t I?”

Miles and Sera both tensed, but Miles covered with an air of indifferent calm. He thought he might recognize this man, but he couldn’t say for sure.

“We’ve just come up from Camp Creek,” he deflected.

Marlon looked over at Sera, taking in her grease and braided hair, utilitarian clothes, the long scar on the side of her neck. “You’re not a clown, you don’t have the stamp. Are you an entertainer in another field?“

“I’m a nurse,“ Sera said unashamedly to this Plains-man.

Marlon‘s grin stayed in place, but his eyes narrowed, re-appreciating Sera. He looked at Miles and gave a wink.

“A nurse, what an excellent traveling companion,“ he said. “So, brother, what’s your schtick?“

Miles made a casual motion with his hand. “The usual, a bit of juggling, a bit of sleight-of-hand, jokes and nonsense.“ And because he felt compelled to ask, “how about you, Marlon the Clown? What’s your schtick?“

“I sing, I dance, I have a puppet.“ Marlon said, and then leaned, lowering his voice to a conspirator whisper. “I don’t travel with a nurse. I don’t heal people along the way.“

Miles struggled to keep his response offhanded. “She and I only joined up in the last week, on the road coming here. We were both looking for work, you know. And it’s safer to travel with someone than alone.“

“I’ve seen her in the camps, with the sick. I remember her now. And I’m sure I remember you too, brother. What are you called?“

“I never fixed on a name,“ Miles said. “Sometimes I’m ‘Juggles’, sometimes I’m ‘Funnybuckets’. Names aren’t really important.“

“What do they call you on the Route?“ Marlon‘s questions were becoming less curious, more interrogative.

“What’s with the stamps anyway?“ Sera interrupted. She pointed at Marlon‘s arm, and then at Miles‘s. “Why are they stamping all the clowns?“ 

Marlon’s gaze swung back to Sera. If it were possible, his grin widened even more and he tapped the stamp on his forearm with his finger.

“They’re not stamping all the clowns, doctor.“ His finger slid up his arm from the stamp to the tattoo. “They’re only stamping clowns who are ‘munes.“

“I’m not a doctor. And the question stands: why the stamps?“

For the first time Marlon’s grin slipped off his face. “Isn’t it obvious? They’re looking for him. I bet they know he’s a ‘mune and that he’ll be here.“

“Him?“ Asked Miles, feeling his throat tighten.

“TCHW, of course.“ Marlon looked from Miles to Sera, who both looked back at him uncomprehendingly. “Don’t pretend. You can’t have been on the Plains for the last year and not heard about TCHW.“

“T-C-H –” Miles said slowly. “The Clown Who Heals… Are you joking? You can’t have been on the Plains last year and think that rumor is true.“

Marlon shrugged. “I’m agnostic, brother.  Have been since Year Three when they promised vaccines to cure Ol’ Pete. But the stories… stories are spreading like hot syrup. Enough people have come forward, formed cults, gained followers. They know he’s out there on the Plains, but the healings don’t take place right away – it takes a couple of days. So they don’t know who he is, exactly.“

“The stamps,“ Sera reminded him.

“Sure, the stamps. Just like they stamped those of us immunes in the beginning. They wanted to keep track of us. I’ve overheard the ink emit pings the little birdies can pick up.“  Marlon pointed his finger to the sky without looking up. “Tonight the air over the arena will be swarming with sparrows, you’ll see.”  

“Because the clown who heals is going to show up here and demonstrate his power?  Why would this fantasy person even come to the performance?“ Miles tried to smear derisively.

“The season is upon us!” Marlon squawked with something that wasn’t excitement so much as appetite. “Pete is already blossoming again.  Many here bear the black flag.  They’ve brought the early sick to be healed.  So many people—all at once? The Clown Who Heals couldn’t resist!”

Marlon rocked back and forth in his squatting stance.  “They have clues they’re looking for—the costume, the routine, some say a guitar. When he performs, they’ll spot him and follow him with the sparrows while they close in.” 

Miles narrowed his eyes.

He’d heard that voice before.

“And if they identify him,” Sera was also struggling to keep her tone calm and skeptical. “Then what?“

Marlon looked starkly at Sara, his grin completely gone. “Then what? You’re a nurse, you remember what they did at the very beginning, when they first discovered people who were immune.“

“I wasn’t a nurse then. I lived another life,” Sera sidestepped.

She knew what Marlon was talking about. Stories had spread early in the plague—new urban myths about authorities spiriting away the immune. Rumors of trials and extractions. One tale became canon, perhaps because it came closest to the truth.  A supplier claimed he’d stumbled onto a warehouse full of comatose immunes, laid out on tables, IVs in their limbs, tubes running to hanging bags—blood and other fluids drawn endlessly from bodies that never woke.

Truth didn’t matter. The story metastasized until any anonymous warehouse might hold captive ‘munes.  Any official tied to the Old World might be a perpetrator.

“Sorry, Marlon,“ Miles said, shaking his head. “That sounds even more outlandish than the idea of the clown who heals.“

Marlon swiveled his head back towards Miles, cocking it a little, the way a bird would when examining prey. “No more outrageous than the bounty offered on the Plains for TCWH. You’ve heard of that, I hope.“

Miles certainly had. It was one of the reasons for their circuitous route to Fort Anthem. “I think ‘reward’ is a better description. And it’s brought every motorcycle driving thug from New Patriot’s Town to Greatlandia onto the Plains to cause trouble.” 

“A man could get rich,” Marlon said much more quietly than he had been speaking before. His gaze rested a little too long on Miles for Sera‘s comfort.  “The bounty being offered by Fort Anthem would dwarf all others. Yes… a man –“ his eyes shot quickly to Sera – “or woman… A man and a woman could get very rich. Green tags to Fort Anthem. Permanent residence.”

“No one will pay a reward for someone that doesn’t exist,” Miles said flatly.

“Do you play an instrument, Brother Funnybuckets?” Marlon asked, eyeing Mile’s pack, shifting his weight side to side.

“An accordion,“ Miles said. “But I had to trade it away at the end of last season for some rations.”  Miles stood and gathered up his pack. Sera did the same.

“The show will be starting in a few hours,” Miles said. “We should all start getting ready. It was interesting talking to you, Marlon the Clown. I hope you do well tonight.“ With a nod, he and Sera walked away toward a small cluster of leafless trees at the edge of the stage. Sera glanced back once to see Marlon still squatting on his haunches, watching them with that same vulture-like intensity.

“I don’t like Marlon the Clown,“ Sera said once they reached the trees.

“You’d really hate his act—I’ve seen it,” said Miles, setting his pack down and lifting his sleeve to look at the stamp again.  And he’s probably seen mine, too.

“Do you think he was telling the truth, about stamps and the bounty?“ Asked Sera, looking up at the sky.

“I absolutely do.”

“What should we do?“

“Exactly what we came here to do, what we hope to do.”