Three days later Michael was sitting on a bench in a small park in between a few Epsilonville apartment blocks after dinner time, slightly nervous. This was the place where he had agreed to meet Eliza and Angela before he would be brought to Lady Martha for a first meeting to ‘talk about the future in which there would be better relations between the Ghost Town women and at least some men’, whatever that even meant. Both had assured him there was nothing to fear, but he was still extremely nervous. He’d always been wary of high-ranked people, and Lady Martha was the equivalent of an Alpha-1, but then from a female-only world that was usually quite hostile to his kind. After all he was still a man, he didn’t even need to check to know that. His thoughts went in all directions and then settled on Megan. He still hadn’t seen her since the incident, and the longer the absence of contact between them lasted the more anxious he was becoming about seeing her again. Eliza had actually invited her to accompany them too, but she had a job interview or something like that. But maybe it was better to be focussed now on establishing contact with a new world anyway, and not on his currently impossible relationship with his ex Wife School fiancée.
Exactly when the local church bell announced that it was seven o’clock in the evening both girls came in from two different sides. Eliza was just dressed in her usual weird mix of casual clothes and walked whistling with her hands behind her back as if nothing special was going to happen, but Angela was much more self-conscious, wearing a pretty dress and make-up and looking around a bit nervously. Michael had never seen her like that, and it reminded him that they both probably had a completely different relationship to Lady Martha. Angela was quite awed by her, while Eliza didn’t seem that impressed by anyone, not even a Ghost Town leader. How she managed to stay casual about meeting someone like her was beyond him, but in a way it fit her personality.
Eliza inspected the Free Person badge on his chest and nodded approvingly.
‘So how’s our revolutionary leader doing today? Ready to meet your female colleague and elder, comrade?’
He looked at her. ‘Huh?’
‘Ah, why else do you think that you’re the first man ever that she wants to talk to? You are the first sensible revolutionary leader from the male side since old Manfred. Or maybe something in-between now seen your relationship with the male side. You’ve accomplished a lot already. Without you there wouldn’t even be a Pen Pal network to reach a boy with a letter, remember. And she knows about the unsegration movement and the unification of the black markets. Why else do you think she wants to talk to you?’
‘She’s expecting quite a lot from a deleted boy school student;’ he said dismissively.
‘Lady Martha is interested in change, and man or not, she can’t ignore you any longer.’
‘And so I’m going to a place that’s completely forbidden for men. And you all expect me to get out there alive even.’
‘That’s what we expect. You’re way too nervous, my dear boy,’ Eliza said and Angela nodded when they took off in the direction of an old road that led to somewhere outside the city, but he’d never taken it far enough to know where it actually went.
First they passed a small shopping centre before they entered a zone with endless apartment blocks for lower-ranked citizens. The amount of people they met went down, and twenty minutes later they were walking over an empty street that felt quite desolate.
‘There is one thing I have to add though, and I don’t want to scare you but it’s important…’ Eliza said suddenly, when they walked in between tall trees and ugly run-down skyscrapers.
‘What is it?’
‘Well, eh, they might sort of expect you to be blindfolded for the last part, until we’re in the middle of the Ghost Town. Lady Martha said it was a requirement from her elders, and probably only for a first time, if everything goes well. Some of them seem to be afraid that if something goes wrong you’ll lead an army of dangerous men to their actual entrance or something like that.’
‘Ah, yes, my army…’ he said sarcastically and then paused a bit, ‘well, it seems I’m not the only one who has weird conspiracy theories in my head sometimes.’
‘It’s only for one time, and if everything goes well you might even be able to leave without it tonight. It’s just that some of the elders are a bit suspicious of men.’
He didn’t even protest at this point, he knew that it wouldn’t do anything, and he just had to trust that no-one in the Ghost Town had planned something evil for him, which went against deeply held fears that existed inside of every Nation Man, which he technically still was.
They passed a few more shaggy Epsonville blocks, which gave way to older pre-Nation ruins which were completely overgrown with weeds and sometimes whole trees, until a whistle came out of a bush.
‘Ah, here’s the first Ghost Town guard, which means that it’s time for your blindfold. You were okay with that, not?’
He sighed. ‘I trust both of you as my friends. Do you both promise me that you will defend me if anyone or anything will attack me?’ He said, slightly more nervous than before. Eliza laughed.
‘I will defend you, as I’ve done before. But it won’t be needed. They gave me promises about your safety, and I don’t believe that they will ever break their promises, but I’d defend you against everyone including the Ghost Town people, you’re my friend. And they know that.’ Eliza said while a woman appeared from behind a broadleaf willow that had overgrown the ruin of a small ancient house. She was looking at him with curiosity, but he didn’t sense any hostility.
‘He’s expected, but the elders still demanded the blindfold. Lady Martha pleaded, but they insisted.’ She said to Eliza.
Michael looked at the newcomer, a woman in her thirties. There was something about her that was completely different from any non-Wife that he had ever seen, and it wasn’t just because she was quite beautiful. At first sight she was just a common woman, with a dark face and dark curly hair clothed in green, but there was a certain aura of fierce freedom, and even though she wasn’t visibly armed he knew instinctively that he had to watch out for her. She looked at the Free Person badge on his chest, and he noticed that she was wearing one too.
‘So, Michael Michaels, do you pledge allegiance to all friendly people, regardless of sex, rating or identity status?’ She asked.
‘I do.’ He said.
‘And are you ready to meet Lady Martha? And you’re willing to be blindfolded for your first visit?’
‘Whatever… Yes I Am.’ he said.
He couldn’t go back now, and both girls seemed to trust that everything would be okay.
‘Off we go then.’ The woman said and Eliza took out a blindfold to put it on his face with an ominous grin.
‘Do I have to turn him around to make him lose all sense of direction? That’s the usual procedure with blindfolds in stories.’ She asked the guard.
‘No-one said anything about that, Eliza.’ The woman said.
‘It’s fun. Come, let’s do it.’
Michael didn’t protest when he was spun around, but Angela did.
‘Stop it, the poor boy. He’s nervous already.’
Michael didn’t know how many times Eliza had turned him, and what was left and right but he felt Eliza take his left arm to lead him, and then Angela take his other arm. He had to trust them now, so he just followed their lead for a while, and turned when they said him to. Today was a day in which he would be completely at the mercy of women.
*
He followed the girls like in a trance, not knowing where he was and where he was going at all. Even his sense of time seemed affected by the blindfold. He had no idea how far he had walked like that when he heard someone knock on a door, and then the voice of the guard woman said
‘Rebecca, open the door, the boy is here.’
‘Ah, there he is. I almost didn’t believe it, interesting to see one of those here.’ Another voice said, and she added ‘do you pledge allegiance to all friendly people, regardless of sex, rating or identity status?’
‘I already said I do, so yes.’ He said.
‘Then I’m supposed to let you in, weird as it might seem’ Rebecca said.
‘Watch out, there’s a step,’ Angela said, and after some wrestling with the relief of the doorstep to Seventh City Ghost Town they entered the place to walk even further into the invisible unknown. The moment they passed the door he suddenly heard more sounds. People were doing things here, and whispering, probably because of him. He only heard women’s voices but he didn’t understand most of them.
‘Isn’t it time to take it off?’ He heard Angela saying.
‘The elders wanted him to be blindfolded until the market square. But we’re almost there. It’s strange that they expect to get better relations when they insist on such humiliations,’ the guard said, to no-one in particular.
‘Sorry Michael. Two more streets with that blindfold. They’re quite strict here today, usually it’s much more relaxed here.’ Eliza said.
‘Usually it’s just you, and you’re still a woman, and I’m not,’ he said.
‘Well, that might factor in too,’ she admitted.
The two streets were a lot shorter than the road they had taken to enter, so it wasn’t long before he finally stood there, still blindfolded, in what he supposed to be the centre of Seventh City Ghost Town. First the girls let go of his arms, and then Eliza finally took the blindfold of. The daylight came suddenly.
‘Welcome in Seventh City Ghost Town,’ said the guard woman, with a friendly smile.
He looked around. He stood in the ruins of a pre-Nation village that had completely been renewed, and there was green everywhere too. It wasn’t like the weeds from certain unkempt Zeroville neighbourhoods at all, but everything here was cultivated in such a way that it seemed like one big garden.
The square itself was green too with a kind of lawn plant. Women of all ages, except for children, stood all around him, looking at him and pointing to him and whispering. Like the guard they didn’t look like non-Wives as he knew them at all. They looked much happier, and had a more relaxed clothing style, and all kinds of different hairstyles with much longer hair than City Non-Wives usually had, even including Eliza’s halfway solution. There was an atmosphere of peace and freedom here, but he also felt very clearly that he was an outsider that didn’t belong here.
In front of him stood an older woman with long grey hair in a long red dress over which something grey like a giant silken shawl was draped. She seemed to have an aura of both authority and friendliness around her and was without any doubt the most important person present here.
‘I’m sorry for the treatment, Michael. My elders have all had negative experiences with men in their lives, and we’re all quite protective about our little community, as you will understand. But I’m glad that you still wanted to come talk to me, from human to human.’
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She turned to the guard woman. ‘Did everything go well, Jenny?’
‘I think so, except that Eliza might have spun him around too much after blindfolding him. And he’s a little bit nervous it seems.’
Lady Martha looked first at Eliza with a strange smile, and then at him.
‘Welcome in Seventh City Ghost Town, Michael.’ He saw that Angela next to him bowed for her, also still slightly nervous as usual in heavier social situations, and to his surprise even Eliza bowed so Michael bowed too with a a rather theatrical curtsy.
‘Pleased to meet you, Lady Martha.’ He said.
‘Like I said, welcome to you, Michael Michaels, the Gamma-schoolboy who brought connection between men and women in The Nation.’ She said.
He noted the strange double name that she used for him again.
‘We have heard a lot about you in the last months, and about how you managed to cross the bridge between our worlds, like no-one has done before in The Nation. Don’t forget that today you’re the first man ever to walk around in a Ghost Town in over a century, and I might add that the last one was disguised as a woman, and then accepted as a woman and no longer considered a man, which was long before me in the time of that cursed John Manfred. But that bastard is long dead now, and the times need to change and you clearly are an important part of that change.’
She snapped with her finger.
‘Let’s go to a quieter place. I propose that you follow me to my humble desk, together with your two friends here.’
He nodded, and Eliza and Angela followed him, together with the guard who had been addressed as Jenny earlier. The audience scattered and went back to whatever they had been doing while the little group entered the old town hall building, that had been completely repurposed in an organic style that was both completely unlike the sterile expensive Alpha-style he’d grown up with as well as the ugly cheap Zeroville stuff that he lived in now. It looked alive and beautiful as well as functional and simple, and here too there were lots of plants, some of which would be quite expensive and only fit for an Alphaville villa in the male society.
She took her place behind a desk and the others took three seats before it, with Michael in the middle.
‘And, what do you think of my little community centre, Michael?’ She asked, after asking the woman that had guarded them before to get drinks.
‘This place is completely different from what I expected, Lady Martha.’ He said.
‘How so?’
‘Well, I’ve only heard horror stories about dangerous outlaws who shoot men on sight. I had never expected it to be so beautiful here, and so cosy and friendly.’ ‘It is true that we have to defend ourselves. But we’ll never kill a human being. We’re not like male outlaws. We stand for life but that also means we have to defend this place, and our friends in the city whenever we can. And we have a community of love and friendship among each other here.’
‘How is it that you can live in peace here without being bothered by the police?’ He asked.
She shrugged. ‘The existence of the outsiders is not really important to The Nation, as long as we don’t commit dangerous crimes against high-ranked men. They tolerate the black markets and stuff like that too, and you know. And we don’t really break any of old Manfred’s rules as he never said much about women who weren’t connected to men. We’re feral non-Wives in closed-off but peaceful existence, so no-one bothers, it’s not as if the Nation doesn’t have bigger problems than us either when it comes to outlaws. We’re not at all like the feral non-Husbands for example. They are a much sadder story.’
‘I’ve heard of them.’
‘They’re not really organised enough to be a big threat usually, but they can be everywhere in their small gangs. Most of them are violent mindless criminals and worse. Nothing you would want to talk to. But in the end they’re quite rare too. Don’t you know what usually happens to criminals in The Nation?’
‘They lose their rate, and are completely shunned by society.’
Lady Martha nodded again.
‘And from then on no-one cares, and they’re out of sight of everyone they knew, and they have no home or rights anymore. What can they do but join the feral men?’
‘I’ve wondered about that and about what I would have done after a complete deletion. The girls could have joined your community after being kicked out of Wife School, but I wouldn’t have been able to do that, and I’m not really interested in going feral as a wild predator. Plus I wouldn’t survive long either.’
‘I’ve heard about your incident. A deletion from ranked society for just defending girls. The male side of this country is still as rotten as it used to be.’
There was an anger in Lady Martha’s voice that he hadn’t heard before.
‘This country is so rotten to the core I can’t even begin to describe it, Mylady.’
‘I’m glad we agree on that.’
‘So, there’s really no mixed group of outsiders somewhere? I mean, men and women, as friends, or as lovers? Feral families?’
She shook her head.
‘Mixed outlaw groups? Families with children you mean? You’re letting your fantasy carry you away, young man. Have you been reading too many pre-Nation black market books? Sure, in another world it would be perfectly possible. But you know how brainwashed both sexes are here in the Nation.’
‘So the outlaws are all like the rest of The Nation in that? I had hoped that there would be something more.’
She smiled again.
‘Young man, you yourself are the something more that people have hoped for. You and no-one else. No other man would ever have agreed to meet me here. And for now we have to let the story unfold itself as it unfolds. I’ve always supported the Women are Human people too for that reason. Their final goal is something like all people being themselves regardless of sex, but we’re far from that now as you are aware. If that was the case no-one would bother about you as a man being here, instead of insisting on that blindfold. But to be honest, we haven’t been able to find a single man willing to talk to us before.’
‘Well, if I’m honest, I’m afraid that men are scared to death of you. They say that you put any man who comes close to a Ghost Town to sleep with black magic, and then they wake up days later in the wilderness with nothing on them, to be panther food. And then I didn’t even mention the castration chip story, that my girl friends here found so funny.’
He heard Angela giggle, and suddenly the woman who had guarded them before came in with a tray that contained some glasses, and both a tea can and a carafe with water, plus some cookies.
‘Who wants tea and who wants water?’ she asked, and she gave everyone a drink.
Angela and Eliza, who hadn’t said much yet took tea and a cookie, and remained silent. It seems that they found everything interesting but didn’t feel like adding much, which was a bit surprising from Eliza.
‘And, did the two brave girls have to defend him already?’ the guard asked innocently.
‘Defend him? Against whom?’
‘I don’t know but he made them promise to defend him if it was needed. He was quite nervous too.’
Angela looked away now, and Eliza seemed suddenly very interesting in her cookie.
‘You would defend him? Against me?’
Lady Martha asked the girls with a weird smile.
‘Eh, I might have promised something like that, but knew there was no real danger for him. But I’ve defended him against those high-ranked men, and I would defend him against outlaw women too when needed. With all respect to your literal office here, but he’s my friend.’ Eliza said.
‘Well, if that is the case, Miss Eliza who’s known as the man-hater, I think that there’s no better proof than this that he is indeed the right man to start our connections with the male world with. Sure, everyone knows you’re a little bit outside of the box sometimes, but a man that can make a girl like you defend her against a Ghost Town leader in her own office when needed is one that has a very strong friendship with her. I can respect that. But there will be no reason to fight me or poor Jenny today first.’
Jenny started laughing.
‘I’m glad about that. Eliza is the only worthy opponent we could have in this country if she’d turn against us. We’d never be sure again whether she’s hacked our machinery to attack us anymore, and she’s probably capable of making a 3D-printer make weapons itself and attack us with them at the same time.’
Eliza put her hands in the air. ‘I truly have no such intentions, and that would technically be impossible, you know that. And I have my loyalty to this place too, and to you, Mylady. It’s only that, when they would conflict with my friendship with Michael over something in which he’s innocent, that I’ll certainly choose his side. Which is completely hypothetical, unless your elder Mildred does a coup here maybe.’
‘The Angel forbid,’ Lady Martha said. ‘And it’s okay I said. No-one ever had the intention to do any harm to the first reasonable male within reach since the days of Manfred. I just said I like the loyalty of your friends here. Most women wouldn’t go so far at all. It shows that there is indeed hope for the future.’
‘So what do you actually want from me?’ He asked. She smiled.
‘We just want you to exist, Michael, and to be able to do whatever you are doing. You’re doing good things. We might also hope you can get your ranking back, a level one male contact in The Nation that is actively working to end the segregation would be interesting.’
‘I’d still be only a Gamma, a brainie, and an intellectual that is hardly a Real Man. No-one listens to me. And what does it even matter, except for my pay being much lower now.’
‘We never even had an unrated ally or other friend in the male world, so your friendship with at least two friends of our community is a new situation that we would have to adapt to anyway. Plus the whole unsegregation movement and the Pen Pal project which are really interesting. And Eliza’s revolutionary pledge that comes with the Free Person badge made us think. I know we hadn’t really encountered much men to whom it applies, the water was too deep. Still we cannot treat any person as less than human if they affirm that pledge, can we? In the end we should accept the forgotten fact that men are technically human too. And that at least one in a hundred might be a decent person. And it’s wrong to turn down a decent person as if they’re not human. Don’t you see how your mere existence means that our community must change? And that change was long overdue and is needed for us to have an actual future anyway.’
‘So you’re saying that you’ve been waiting for the day that there could be a connection between your Ghost Town and the male world, mylady?’
‘As I said recently to my partner Ruth, who’s also our priestess, my noble predecessor Lady Leona always told me that both The Nation and the Ghost Towns would not last forever, and that in a better future the sexes wouldn’t be enemies anymore, and that I should look out for signs for a better time. And you three here together are the clearest sign that I’ve ever seen of changing times to be honest.’
Angela blushed.
‘In the end I have no other option than to consider you, Michael Michaels, a friend of our community now. Maybe it’s better to announce before you come here to visit, but from now on you’ll always be welcome here, as much as Angela and Eliza are.’
Michael’s mouth fell open, and Eliza grabbed his arm. ‘Thank you, Mylady!’ She said.
‘That might have been too much,’ Jenny said, looking at the shocked boy.
‘Well, he was nervous from the start.’ Eliza said.
‘Hmm, this might be enough for today then.’ Lady Martha said. ‘Can you two make sure that he gets home safely or do I need to send my assistant with you?’
‘Oh, we’ll be fine. We’ll just need to pick up Samantha from the hospital, she needs to get home too tonight.’
‘Okay, I think this audience is over. Are you okay with our conclusion, Mister Michaels?’
Michael nodded, and Eliza grabbed his arm when they left the office of the Ghost Town leader, who exchanged looks with her assistant.
‘See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?’ Eliza said.