The beleaguered springs of the battered old SUV heaved and loudly protested as they struggled across the badly dilapidated road, trying desperately to make their voices heard over the Greatest Hits of the 2090's. I had long since lost track of how many times this album had played all the way through and then started over from the beginning, but we didn’t bother to change it. The air conditioning struggled against the heat of the unforgiving solar rays beating down through the windshield, fighting a losing battle to squeeze all the cold air it could from the nearly depleted freon. It made no difference. The car was hot, and I was glued to my seat with sweat.

Not for the first time I wanted to ask my mother just precisely where it was we were going. I knew I wouldn’t receive an answer. She hadn’t spoken a word since she snuck into my room in the middle of the night, her otherwise beautiful face marred by a fresh bruise on her right eye, telling me to pack my things and get into my father’s car without any further explanation. Ever since then her eyes had been focused on the road before her as though they were blind to all else, and even now that there was no traffic to contend with or anything that would require her attention she remained like a stone statue, hardly even blinking. She had not moved from her seat or stopped the car for the entirety of the now fourteen hour journey, save for times when she was forced to refill on gas. It was clear that she didn’t want to be talked to, and at the age of ten I knew full well when to keep my mouth shut.

Instead, I went about munching on one of the bags of chips I had picked up during an earlier gas stop. The cupholder of the SUV was overflowing with trash. I hoped that there would be real food wherever we were going. All the sugar and salt were beginning to make me feel a little queasy, but my stomach demanded more food, so I kept eating. As I snacked, I suddenly realized that I could make out something on the horizon that hadn’t been there before: Faint grey shapes that might be real or might have been mirages cast by the noonday heat of the desert sun.

“There it is, Aston. There’s our new home.”

If I hadn’t been nearly stuck to my seat with perspiration I might have jumped out of it. I turned to my mother, and to my surprise I saw that she was smiling for the first time on the entire trip. Happy to see her in a good mood again, I decided to venture a question.

“Our new home? So what’s it called?” I asked.

“It doesn’t have a name. Heck, it’s not even on the map. Nobody will follow us here. This is the perfect place for a fresh start.”

A fresh start. I wasn’t totally against the idea. I had few friends back at home, and fewer fond memories tying me there. Still, a sudden change is a daunting thing, especially for a young boy. I had to wonder exactly what direction my life was being thrust in. What exactly was this place with no name? What would life there entail?

Slowly but surely the grey shapes in the distance grew and grew until they took the form of a skyline. It appeared we were headed towards a very large city, and I suddenly remembered hearing about something like this in a textbook somewhere. Hadn’t there been a big prospective construction fad back in the day that left a bunch of empty buildings sitting around in the middle of nowhere? I suddenly found myself wishing I had paid more attention to my history lessons. A city of this size, which my mother said had no name, and sitting right in the center of the desert to boot? There was no other explanation for what it could be. I wasn’t sure what to think of this development. All by ourselves in a city without people? It could get kind of lonely. On the other hand, I was about to become the boy with the world’s most expansive personal playground. Part of me was hesitant and part of me couldn’t wait to explore. My mother’s idea to take us here was crazy, but I decided I’d give it a chance.

As we got closer, I suddenly realized that that the road had become smoother. We left the cracks and potholes behind us and found ourselves on a flawless black strip. Somebody had clearly been maintaining this road religiously. Not only was the asphalt as smooth as if it had been paved yesterday, but there couldn’t have been more than a day or two’s worth of sand blown across it. I found this very strange. This city was supposed to be empty, right? What was going on? I soon got my answer.

“Hey mom, look!” I exclaimed, pointing excitedly out the window, “there’s a robot out there!”

The little bot puttered along the street, dusting away the sand. It was about the size of an average dog and had a vaguely rectangular shape with rounded edges. Other than that there was little to say about its appearance. Clearly it was built for function over fashion. I had heard of bots like these that kept big cities clean, but having lived in a small town all my life I had never witnessed one in person.

“Yep, I’d imagine we’re going to be seeing quite a few of those,” my mom told me, “without them nature would have reclaimed this place long ago.”

We sped past the robot, who offered no reaction to our presence, and towards the wall of skyscrapers in front of us. We were close enough now that I had a real sense of how big these things were. They climbed dozens of stories into the air, and that was just along the perimeter. I could see that they got even taller further back. These weren’t pure rectangular buildings, either. Extended platforms, odd shapes, and even buildings that appeared to be slanted sideways by design. Thick metal tethers tied some buildings to others, presumably for structural support given how absurd some of the design choices were. This city wasn’t just large, it also looked like it had been built by a madman.

A closed gate blocked our way as we finally arrived at the edge of the city, and my mother pulled to a stop. On the gate, in red and gold letters were the words “???* City Grand Opening March 21st 2087!”, and under that in smaller letters: “*Your name could be here! For details on how, go to our website”. It then listed a url code that I was sure would now be defunct. The gate was large and solid, clearly constructed to do its job exceptionally well. I doubted a tanker truck could have plowed through it.

“I guess we go on foot from here.” my mother said.

“Might as well. It couldn’t possibly be any hotter outside than in this car.” I replied.

We hopped out of the vehicle, grabbed our suitcases of meager belongings, and walked up towards the gate. We spotted a small opening on one side, ignored the warnings of “STOP! Authorized personnel only!”, and took our first tentative steps into our new lives.

The first thing that struck me was the silence. Nothing stirred in here, not even the wind. A long strip of black, empty road stretched out before us as far as the eye could see, flanked on both sides by buildings so tall and crammed so close together that the sunlight barely penetrated down, creating a gloomy atmosphere. The electric lights along the street, which might have countered this shadowy darkness, were all out. Not a single light shone from anywhere. I got the strange sense that the buildings were closing in on me, and indeed some of the more unusually shaped structures leaned precariously over the road, looking as though they were simply waiting for the opportunity to come crashing down on us. My mother and I stood with the gate to our backs, taking in this surreal scenery. The more I looked, the more I had a strange sensation like I was standing at the bottom of a large swimming pool, with all the weight of the water pressing down against me. The air felt heavier than air had any business being. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about all of this wasn’t sitting right. The place just felt off.

“Does something about this place feel weird to you?” I asked my mother, “I don’t know why, but it’s giving me the creeps.”

I could tell by the look on her face that I wasn’t alone, but she had come too far to turn back now, so she steeled herself and put on a smile.

“It’s fine. It’s just something different from what we’re used to,” she reassured me.

I shrugged. Maybe she was right. An empty city would take some adapting to, but with time it probably wouldn’t seem quite so novel.

“Besides, this is the fun part!” she continued, “We have a whole city’s worth of ritzy hotels full of vacant rooms, and we get to take our pick of the bunch for free!”

“Oh yeah, that’s right!” I said, suddenly feeling much more energized, “Let’s do some exploring, I’ll bet we can find someplace really cool around here!”

I cast my initial misgivings aside and began to run from one side of the street to the other like a kid in a candy store, trying to size each potential new residence up and occasionally calling back to my mother with something like “Whoa! This one’s got a really big glass dome on top!” or “Wow! Just look how high that penthouse is!”. She sauntered along behind me, laughing good-naturedly at my outbursts of childish joy. The strange sensation I had felt at the beginning was all but forgotten. Before long we had lost sight of where the gate was and were completely engulfed in the maze of behemoth buildings. It was only then, while checking out a particularly unusual building in the shape of a helix, that I spotted a flurry of motion out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see what it was and almost did a double take. High above me and maybe a block or two away, I could see several human figures moving. Not just moving, in fact, but running. I, not having expected to see anyone at all, and certainly not having expected multiple people at once, was even further shocked to see what it was that they were doing. They would run along a balcony rail, jump to one of the tethers that tied the buildings together, charge across it like masters of the tightrope, leap off of it, one, two, three stories! Then they would hit an elevated patio jutting out from one of the buildings, somersault, spring back to their feet, and keep running as if they hadn’t just survived a leap that would have killed a normal man.

“What on earth…?” I heard my mother whisper under her breath. She was just as dumbfounded as I was.

In no time at all, the figures completed their descent. With one final, impossible leap they landed before us and somersaulted themselves to a stop. Then they stood in front of us, five men roughly between the ages of fifteen and thirty, all of them pictures of athletic perfection. They were tall, packed to bursting with lean muscle, and dripping with sweat, although their faces betrayed not a hint of exhaustion. They wore simple clothing: Form-fitting hoodies (all of which were red), black sweat pants, and minimalist running shoes. Then, the one at the front, who I presumed was the leader, opened his mouth and spoke.

“Well now, look what we have here! Fresh meat!”