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Taylor glanced at it too. He kicked the ground beneath the post that held it in place then looked beyond it to the building.
"Maybe the house?" he asked doubtfully.
“You think they could pick where they lived?" I asked.
“Why not? There's plenty of options," Taylor shrugged.
I bit my lip as I considered it and Taylor lead me on again. My parents had been promoted twice while I was growing up. Both times we had been escorted to a new apartment on a higher floor. When I was sent to live on forty, I was escorted there too. They even moved our things for us. We never had a choice. I couldn't imagine having a choice.
In front of a lot of the houses were rusted metal vehicles with fraying seats inside them. They sat on wheels which had deflated and corroded. The rubber was the only thing that still held its colour. Everything else was faded and ruined but the tyres were pitch black.
"Cars," I said, pausing to look at one more closely.
"Huh?" Taylor tore his eyes away from one of the houses to follow my gaze.
“That's why the road is so big: for the cars." I pointed but Taylor still looked blank. He'd never taken as much interest in Old World classes as I did. "They used them to get around. Like the Warden buggies, but bigger."
They didn't look anything like the images I'd studied; shiny vehicles which zipped along at high speeds on big, rubber wheels. The decaying remains they left behind after nearly a hundred years were barely recognisable but I was sure that that was what I was looking at.
"What's this?" Taylor
asked, walking up to a large, brown column standing alone in front of one of the houses.
The base of it sprouted from the ground and the top split into countless smaller pieces which pointed in all different directions. I ran my hand over the surface of it. It felt rough and flakey through the sensitive pads on my glove. There was a carving in the shape of a heart with the initials K.L & L.W on one side of the thick column at eye level.
“I think this is, or was, a tree," I said slowly.
"I thought they were green?" Taylor asked, looking doubtful.
“The tops were green but the bottoms were brown. Besides, this one must have been dead for at least seventy years. The green goes away when they die."
"I don't see how something like this-" Taylor knocked his fist against the tree, "-could cause so much trouble."
“You know it was more complicated than that. And anyway, it looks like they dealt with this one pretty thoroughly," I said, as I rapped my knuckles against the hollow wood too.
"We're here, look." Taylor pointed at the GPS in my hand. A green line had appeared on the screen marking the start of our search area.
We turned to look at a standard, two story structure with a faded red front door and big windows smeared with dust. There was a little white fence ringing the patch of ground outside. It had fallen down in places and some of the slats had broken. A dust-covered path lead to the door, cutting a line through the barren ground.
We moved towards it and stopped in front of the door.
“So, how does it work?" I asked, looking about for a retinal scanner.
"Oh look, fingerprint scanner," Taylor said, putting his gloved finger onto a round button by the door.
Nothing happened, no surprise there.
The door had a wooden knob that protruded from its centre and I reached out to tug on it. It didn't move so I braced my feet and pulled harder.
"A little help?" I asked Taylor and he moved to take my place.
He grasped the handle and yanked on it. It still didn't budge so he did it again. A wrenching sound filled the air and the whole thing broke off in his hand. He tumbled backwards from the momentum and collided with me.
We fell, sprawling into the dust and I cursed at him through my laughter.
“Sorry." Taylor tossed the rotten doorknob aside and turned to help me back to my feet. Our white suits were now decidedly brown and I brushed uselessly at the dirt. It refused to budge so I gave up, embracing the filth instead.
I turned back to the door with a huff of irritation. It had a round hole in its centre and as I approached it, it started to drift inwards.
