Next bit after THIS BIT of the excellent post-apocalyptic adult hippie fairy tale, Alice…

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Alice stood on the hilltop from which she and Rebecca had seen the medieval village. It was still a village but larger. A “town” perhaps it would be called, or a “city,” nestled in sharp-peaked mountains of verdant green and white stone crags. And she descended into the mythical city of El Dorado.

The main thoroughfare was lined with buildings on each side. These were not the smithies and workshops of Rebecca’s medieval village. They were modern and mixed up, some brick and bulging out toward the street, some smooth and silver, cubist and metallic. There must have been a thousand people in El Dorado. Or maybe a million. How would Alice know? Alice, who had lived her life so far in the hamlet of New Arcadia.

Some of these people walked briskly down the street. Others loitered at the facades and steps. One of them, a buzz-cut blonde loitering at a brick façade, had spotted Alice.

“Baby, you look lost.”

“I guess I am,” said Alice, with no clue of how to proceed with an explanation.

“Where are you from?”

Alice looked at the blue-green eyes and freckles below the buzz cut. The woman talked tough but looked soft, waif-like.

“New Arcadia,” said Alice.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” said the no-nonsense waif. “Come on in.”

“Is this a dream?” asked Alice as they crossed the threshold into the squat brick building.

“Sorry. Afraid not,” said her interlocutor.

The interior of the place was dark wood and dim. Lamps at the bar cast haloes of light, but you had to get close to see any faces. And there weren’t many faces to be seen. For this, Alice was grateful, as she was not yet ready to see too many strangers.

“Opal,” said the waif.

“What?” said Alice.

“Opal,” said the waif, laughing and holding out her hand. “That’s my name.”

“Alice,” said Alice.

Opal took Alice’s hand and led her through an arch to a small side chamber of the café, sort of like the side chapels you see in the great gothic cathedrals. In the chapel – I mean chamber – was a table of dark wood with a lamp casting a halo of light. At the table were three people.

“This is Alice,” Opal said to the three.

Alice had to resist asking again if this was a dream. The three looked at her and nodded with friendly, nonchalant smiles. They looked like characters from a novel to Alice.

“She’s from New Arcadia,” said Opal.

This perked the characters up somewhat from their lazy smiles.

“We’ve been expecting you,” said a man with a black beret, close-groomed black beard, and piercing black eyes intensified, apparently, by black eyeliner.

He pulled out a chair for Alice. She sat, and Opal sat next to her. One of the other people at the table must have noticed Alice’s confusion.

“Don’t listen to Jacques,” she said. “It’s not you exactly, but we’ve been waiting for someone from New Arcadia.”

Alice thought that the speaker’s eyes were pure gold, her skin black, blacker than black. Her lips were painted deep blue to match her top, and her brows had golden highlights. The general impression was a surfeit of black and gold and blue, as if whatever touched her became unbearably rich upon the touch.

“Don’t mind Sheena,” countered Jacques. “She’s still mad at me for going to the lab yesterday.”

It was all so strange to Alice. The way these people joked and talked.

Opal leaned over to Alice. Alice could feel the silver spaghetti strap of Opal’s top and her exquisitely light arm hair brushing against her as she came close to whisper.

“They wouldn’t normally talk about the lab with just any stranger. But you’re from New Arcadia. Anyone from New Arcadia is with the rebels.”

“The rebels?” asked Alice. “Who are the rebels?”

“For now,” whispered Opal, “the rebels are us.” And she smiled.

“If we’re going to take down the government – the lab – since the government and the lab are about the same thing,” said the man who had been hanging back. “We need a New Arcadian.”

“But why?” asked Alice. “What do you want?”

“Because we want what you have.”

This odd turn in the conversation once again gave Alice pause.

“The historian doesn’t mean it like that,” soothed Opal, sensing Alice’s concern. “We don’t want to take anything from you. We just want to be able to live like you do – peace, tranquility, and all that.”

Alice looked at the historian. It was true. He obviously did not say it with envy or malice. In fact, he had the sweetest face, the most disarming smile of the whole group. Maybe not the beauty of Opal’s face, or the mystery of Sheena’s, but something that put you at ease. Kind of like Christopher, Alice said to herself.

“Well, it is,” said Alice, thinking she ought to say something. “It is peaceful. That’s true. But this place seems – interesting too.”

But her efforts to think of something worth saying were unwarranted, as the group had already moved on in the conversation.

“Look at Jack Piper over there.” Sheena gestured toward a man with a top hat and leather vest, with a diagonal strap across it with silver studs. With his shabby coat and thin waxed mustache, he was a cross between a pirate, a steampunk, and a Victorian rag-picker. He approached.

“The gang’s all here as they say,” he teased at the table of our heroes.

Sheena bumped him playfully with her shoulder. “How’s government work, Jack?”

“Same old. We lab workers are as much in the dark as you anarchist types.”

“You mean lab rats,” said Jacques coolly. “And I don’t see any anarchists at this table.”

“Oh my!” said Jack. “Jack and Jacques. What a pair we’d make. You with your, your . . ..” He searched for the right word. “. . . your covertness. And me, who can’t keep a secret.” He flipped his wrist in an airy flourish to emphasize his point.

“I didn’t say our plans are a secret,” Jacques added. “I said there were no anarchists at this table.”

“Oh, I forgot,” chuckled Jack. “You’re a lefty, she’s a populist, and she” – he pointed at Opal – “now she’s an anarchist.”

He leaned over and kissed Opal on the cheek. Opal curled one side of her mouth, restraining a smile.

“People used to lump in anarchists with lefties,” continued Jack Piper. “Ah, people,” he added, as if he pitied the whole foolish lot of creatures that fell under that category. “But she, she’s a real anarchist,” Jack continued, “She doesn’t trust you lefties any more than she trusts the old fascists.”

Opal poked at the silver studs on Jack Piper’s . . . whatever that thing was strapped across his chest. “And what are you, Jack Piper?” she asked. “All in with the government?”

“Oh, come on Opal. I don’t give a hoot about the government. I love your little group here more than that whole laboratory full of serious young know-it-alls who can’t see past their own desks. Or take Sheena’s cousin, Toussaint, the artiste. The artiste is the true subversive. And yours truly – oh the scandal! – yours truly was with Mssr. Toussaint just yesterday, providing a little reconnaissance for one of his subversive art projects. Always the same. You rebel types come and go, but the artist is the true subversive.”

“You didn’t answer my question, baby,” Opal said. “What are you? Anarchist? Leftist? Populist? Reactionary?”

Jack Piper smiled. “Oh honey, you know me. I’m an entertainer.”

“Time,” called the bouffant-headed woman behind the bar.

Jack kissed Sheena’s hand, tipped his hat to Jacques, and everyone was up and shuffling.

“Time?” asked Alice.

“Yeah,” said Opal. “Twice a day they clean the place out.”

She took Alice’s hand.

“You’re coming with me,” she said.

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