The next afternoon Michael was working in the kitchen of the Square Bar again when Bert came in.

‘I have some kind of letter for you, from the non-wife girl. She said it was important.’

He looked a bit nervous, he still wasn’t used to the Free Women.

‘Angela?’

‘No, the other one. They call her Sam. She always makes the boys uncomfortable.’ ‘Ah, yes. But what does Samantha have to say that she writes me like this?’

He looked at the paper and saw only a few sentences in a firm cursive handwriting:

‘Come to the Ghost Town hospital this evening after your shift, there’s something I need to show you!’

I was signed with her name, with a small heart next to it. Under that there was a post-scriptum in smaller letters that was probably meant to reassure him, but it only made him more suspicious: ‘PS: I swear I’m not going to seduce you!’ Bert tried to read with him, but he put it away without showing it.

‘She wants to see me in the Ghost Town hospital tonight,’ he said casually, and his colleague backed off.

‘Ghost Town hospital? Are they going to turn you into a woman?’

He looked at Bert, baffled. ‘What?’

‘You know. The witches say you are a friend of their community, but everyone knows they hate men and only accept women. And they still have advanced tech in their lair, so I bet they will be able to do a sex change operation too.’

‘What?’

‘Haven’t you heard how in their early days there were sex traitors who were against Manfred who disappeared in the Ghost Towns, and became women? If they really want you in their community, they will have to turn you into a woman first…’

Michael looked at him. He had heard that story before, but Bert still didn’t make sense to him.

‘We’re not in the days of Manfred anymore. They talked to me because of the Pen Pal system and the unification of the black markets and stuff like that. They want me as a representative of the male world, even if they overestimate the place of a deleted boy probably.’

‘I’d still watch out, they could castrate you,’ Bert said.

‘Come on, do you think Samantha would help them turn me into a woman or castrate me? She always tries to flirt with me hopelessly, and she isn’t into girls at all. It makes no sense that she would like me to be anything but a man. Even if it’s hopeless between us.’

‘If you say so. Or she wants revenge because you’ve rejected her witchy advances. She’s crazy enough for that. Anyway, I’m back to the bar,’ Bert said, and he was gone, still a bit nervous.

Michael looked at the short letter again. Sure, Samantha wouldn’t lure him into the hospital to turn him into a woman, but it was still rather mysterious what her plans with him were then. But for now there were dishes, and then ingredients to check, and lists to make.

Straight after his shift he walked to the Ghost Town still a bit suspicious but also curious about what the story behind Samantha’s weird message was. After a walk of more than half an hour he arrived at the secret entrance, where Rebecca just looked at his badge and didn’t even bother to let him recite the pledge this time.

‘Hi Michael. You seem to be expected,’ was everything she said, and he was in. It was strange how fast he had become part of the daily life in this strange squat village for women.

He was just a few steps in when he almost was run over by Eliza on a bike loaded with too much robot parts and materials to drive safely.

‘Hey, watch out!’ He said, but she just stopped, parked her dangerous vehicle, and jumped at him to give him a hug.

‘Ah, Michael. I’m sorry, I’m a bit dangerous on the road with so much black market stuff. But it’s late already and I have a lot of work to do. I’m just arriving too.’

She bent over to pick up a wig with blond hair that had fallen off her bike and suddenly changed the subject.

‘So, had a good romantic date with your ex? I heard she even slept over at your place.’ She gave him an ominous smile.

‘Could you stop making things sound weird, Eliza. Nothing happened and you know it.’ ‘Ah, but you’re too much fun to tease. You’re cute when you’re blushing too. And from what I heard at least something did happen, you smooth heart breaker.’

She patted his head, like Megan had done.

‘You and Angela and everyone told me I had to work on our friendship and reconnect with her before it was too late, and I did that.’ He said defensively.

‘Yes, and you also kissed both of them. Megan and Angela I mean, not me. And you’re still hopelessly single.’

‘How…’ He said.

‘You know girls talk about everything. You’re almost an honorary girl yourself, except that we’re not frequently talking about periods to you. Yet… It seems you’re missing some reports.’ She winked and he was reminded of Bert’s conspiracy theory again.

‘Whatever…’ He said, shuffling around uncomfortably but Eliza suddenly got curious again.

‘You wouldn’t talk about your first kiss with your boy friends?’

‘It wasn’t, eh… Whatever, but probably not, no. Boys assume that you do whatever you can with your fiancée, but they insinuate instead of talking openly. Which isn’t better anyway. Plus how many boy friends do you think I have left? I’m not going to talk about kissing with Robert.’

She winked again. ‘You don’t need boys! Come to the female world, we are much better…’ ‘I’d suck at being a woman…’ He said. ‘No, no, please stay yourself, we like you as an alternative kind of man. You could become a Ghost Town mascot even, like tame man on a leash. But you’d suck as a woman indeed. No-one would want you to become a woman.’

‘Eliza, please…’

‘Sorry, you are fun to tease. But actually, I’m not here to play the gossip girl. Or to check you out now that you’re back on the market.’

She pinched his cheek, and he pushed her hand away.

‘I’m here for serious business, your wife isn’t gonna rebuild herself in a Shirley shape without my help. And I had a lot of stuff to do and now I’m behind. So I’m off to the robot workshop. You here for a special reason?’

‘Ah, good luck with that. Eh, Sam told me to come to the hospital here, do you have any idea why?’ He took the little letter out of his pocket to show it to her.

‘Eh, no. I’ve been busy with robot stuff and administration, not with Samantha-herding. But I’d trust she doesn’t want to seduce you tonight. If she had plans like that she’d not do it like that. She’s much better than that.’

She jumped on her bike again and was gone before he could process the conversation.

A few streets further he saw Samantha waiting for him at the hospital. She hardly even greeted him, and promptly grabbed his hand to bring him to a one-bedroom, with no explanation. In the room he saw a woman who seemed to be the victim of some kind of very recent accident.

‘This woman here fell out of the sky in a flying machine last night.’ She said, and he looked at her in astonishment.

‘A flying machine? Those don’t exist in…’

‘She calls it an aeroplane, and yes, she comes from overseas. And you’re the only man I really trust or that they’ll let in here, but you know about machines. You might be able to help her.’

Michael looked at the stranger and her strange clothes. It was not easy to comprehend that she really was an outsider, even if she certainly looked like one. He looked back at Samantha and then at the stranger. She was just a typical woman with a very ordinary brownish skin and brown hair that wouldn’t stand out at all in a Nation crowd, but she wore an uniform that he didn’t recognise, and there was something weird about how she wore her hair too.

‘Let’s start by the beginning again? Aeroplane accident? In this era?’ He asked.

‘Yes, that’s what she calls it. Only survivor of the accident too. She’s called Jibrilla. Two others in the same plane have died in the explosion, but she used an ejection seat or something like that and landed in the trees.’

He swallowed ‘The aeroplane exploded?’

‘Motor problems or something, they crashed in the woods.’

‘Where does she come from then? I mean, The Nation has no fricking aeroplanes. And she has foreign clothes.’

‘She didn’t say that much yet, but she says she’s from Héva, an Island not far from The Nation, where only women live.’

He looked at Samantha, who had just casually revealed the name of an outside country that he’d never heard of to him as if it was nothing.

‘It seems they know more about us than we realise, although they see things very differently. The night nurse doesn’t understand how but she says she’s never seen a man before. That’s why I called you.’

‘And how could I…?’

He never finished his question, because the woman opened her eyes, and tried to move violently away from him when she saw Michael. She didn’t get anywhere, hindered by the bandages, drip infusion and all kinds of medical meters, but still was able to sit upright in her bed.

‘No, not a Nation Man-person!’ She said with a strange accent, looking at him in horror.

‘He’s a good man. Not a Real Man.’ Samantha said reassuringly, but the shock was still visible on her face.

Michael turned to the brown-eyed woman. ‘Are you afraid of the men in your country too, like some of our women are? Are you even more segregated in Héva than in the Nation?’

She nodded her head. ‘No, we only have sisters in Héva and no man-persons. None at all. Only outsiders from overseas visit us only rarely. But we know about your country and about the Masculists of that accursed devil Manfred. Sisters are being kept as slaves here. The war was won by the man-persons here, and my ancestors could escape before that happened and left for Santa Muerte Island to start a new life without man-persons. And there we started a new world.’

‘You have no men at all? How boring! Worse than a Ghost Town!’ Samantha interjected, falling back into her old persona.

Michael saw other problems with the absence of men than just the absence of flirting between the sexes. ‘But, does your country not have children at all then? Ghost Towns rely on refugees from the male world. But you don’t have a male world.’

She looked at him, as if he had said something stupid. ‘Silly boy. We can have children without a man-person. We’re modern women. We followed progress and rebuilt society in the best possible way, without them, but with science and technology, and now we don’t need man-persons anymore. It’s much safer like that.’ She said, looking at him with curiosity mixed into her fear now.

So many questions that both sides could ask of each other but she was still very tired.

‘You must have some fuel to operate aeroplanes in Héva.’ He said, switching to his engineer mode.

Even when his identity alone was enough to trigger her, that might be a safe subject for a constructive conversation.

She nodded. ‘For special occasions. Our little aeroplane had a hybrid motor with a hydrogen combustion engine and a powerful battery. But the battery suddenly was empty, and the hydrogen tank was damaged, and then we crashed and the plane exploded in a lot of fire. Something must have gone wrong with the hydrogen safety. They told me my sisters were dead when I woke up here in this hospital. I was assured that I would be safe in the female society of the Nation. Why are you here as a man-person then? I do not comprehend.’

He shrugged. ‘I’m considered harmless by the Ghost Town community here, I’m a friend of women and in my own way I’m trying to end the segregation between the sexes in The Nation.’

He didn’t mention how he had thrown out of the whole revolution idea after his prison experience; it seemed to run well without him too.

‘End the segregation between the sexes? You mean, like in Lantada, or the United Afropean archipelago and those other faraway places where sisters live together with manpersons as equals?’

Michael stared at her, trying to process the information. One other country with only women was one thing, but she knew about the rest of the world too? Where men and women lived as equals?

‘We are not aware here of other nations at all, but there was a past when men and women were partners and friends, and ran the world together. I’ve read enough black market books about that?’

Now it was her turn to be baffled again. ‘You have forbidden books from before the blackout and the war between masculists and feminists here?’

‘They are not forbidden, but not always easy to find either. The Central Computer doesn’t really care about them. You don’t have them in Héva?’

‘The Sisterhood destroyed all those books when the Hévan State was founded. But we’re not isolated from the world, we have some diplomatic contacts with other cultures overseas that you don’t seem to have. And I think they have those books. And live in them. But we’re quite shielded from the rest of the world in Héva. The Sisterhood tries to keep us safe from bad influences.’

He sat down on the chair next to the bed, deep in thought. Every sentence from her brought new information that was hard to take in. Even if they had isolated themselves from the past and from The Nation there was contact between Héva and the United Afropean archipelago and Lantada? He recognised those names from an old historical atlas. Those were the names of the new continents from after the great Tsunamis in the century of floodings and ice cap melting, when the axis of the Earth had changed and whole countries had disappeared into the sea while other landmasses had appeared. And the Sisterhood, whatever that was, had kept contact with those countries, but on the other hand they had destroyed all books in Héva, where only women lived. Women who had found a way to have babies without men?

‘My head is dazzling. The things you tell are too much for me. So much new information.’ He said.

‘Same thing for me. So you’re a leader of revolutionary men, and that’s why you are here in this stronghold of the female society? You have power among the male society?’

Michael laughed. ‘I don’t. I just made a safe space for men and women to meet, more or less by accident. I suppose Lady Martha will be able to explain more, I’m quite sure she’ll want to talk to you. And we probably need to get Eliza, but she’s too busy now with her robot make-over. She might be the only one who can find a way for you to communicate with your home.’

‘There is no internet cable here in this backwards country. And you don’t have radio transmitters or wireless talkphones. Your sister here didn’t even know what they are.’ Jibrilla pointed at Samantha.

‘Ah, but that’s where Eliza will be helpful. Alas the only radio like that they have here at the moment is a wireless receiver from my antique pre-nation wifebot I think.’

‘You don’t even have radio receivers? This country is even more backwards than I thought.’ She said dejectedly.

‘That’s not a nice thing to say of us.’ He said. ‘You, as a Nation man-person, are going to blame me for not being nice enough?’

‘All people are created as brothers and sisters, and should treat each other accordingly.’ He quoted an old verse.

‘Yeah, tell that to the manpersons who rule this country and have forced my poor sisters here to hide in these ruins.’

He shrugged ‘I might try, one day, but they won’t listen to a man who has lost his rating in the hierarchy I’m afraid. And life in these ruins is much better than that of the men in my Zeroville apartment in the city.’

‘They forced you to live there because you’re a rebel?’

‘Not even that, because I stood up to a man of higher rating to defend my fiancée and her friend against a violent abusive creep. And because Eliza defended herself and they didn’t believe a woman could have taken down an Alpha, so they blamed me. And a lowly Gamma attacking an Alpha is not done. We should obey higher-rated men, you know. So they took my Gamma-1 badge and made me an unmarriable zero. And they kicked Megan and Eliza from Wife School. The police didn’t like me being friends with girls to say the least. Very unmanly you know.’

‘So in male society you’re actually nothing now?’

‘Basically. I was the first connection between male and female society, but now I’m not much in the male part of the Nation anymore. I still have my job in the bar, but that’s it.’

‘Hmmm,’ Jibrilla said. He could see she was as confused and interested as he was himself. ‘So, nurse Samantha, you can vouch for this Nation man-person that he’s indeed harmless and a friend of women.’

‘Harmless he is. A friend of women too. But that’s about it. He’s also a bit boring.’

‘In Héva they say that all Nation man-persons are evil animals who think only of sex and dominating sisters. And that no sister is safe from them, and eh…’

‘I know the stereotype. Maybe it’s true about some men, I don’t know.’ Michael said, and Samantha wrapped one arm around him.

‘The theory that any man will want you and find you attractive just because you are a woman is certainly false. It works for the creeps maybe, and you should certainly avoid those, but if you take him as an example, he’s not seducible at all even if you try. And his friends are just awkward. Such an anticlimax.’

He pushed her arm away. ‘You’re not my type, plus you’re too pushy. Argh!’

Samantha smiled. ‘The poor boy didn’t even kiss his Wife School fiancée. Don’t count on men wanting sex all the time.’

‘Hey,I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I hadn’t even talked to a girl, remember. I need more time than I had to get close to someone like that.’

Suddenly Jenny came in.

‘Ah, you here too?’ She said when she saw Michael, and then she looked at Jibrilla. ‘She’s awake? That’s good. Lady Martha wants to talk to her, but she’s away at a Ghost Town leader meeting today. She’ll be back tomorrow as soon as possible, and bring a working vehicle too. I just had a phone call with her and she was shocked when she heard the news. Is the patient okay enough to speak to her tomorrow night?’ She asked Samantha.

‘Oh, yes, everything is okay with her and she’s completely conscious. She’ll recover soon.’ Jenny nodded.

‘She really comes from a world without men, and they know the names of other countries on the planet. Isn’t that strange?’ Samantha asked.

‘Lady Martha suspected that already. There seems to be a shared history between Héva and the Ghost Towns from Manfred’s Time, we haven’t had contact in over a century, so she’s curious too about them now. As are the other Ghost Town leaders. Martha might be bringing colleagues over to see her.’

‘Ah…’

More information that had no place in his head. ‘I think it’s time to go back to my humble Zeroville apartment… I have work tomorrow. You need me to escort you to the woman house?’

Samantha looked a bit surprised. ‘Eh, yes, that’d be a good idea at this time I think. I can defend you against the bad guys when needed.’

She smiled mysteriously. ‘How do you mean?’ She took a weird instrument out of her pocket. ‘I work in a Ghost Town, so I’m armed with Ghost Town magic.’

She grabbed his arm. ‘Come, let’s go.’

Two pairs of eyes looked at each other when they disappeared from sight and left the Ghost Town.

*

‘So you have the magic to defend me now? What is that thing even?’ He asked when they walked through the dark main street that led back to Seventh City.

Samantha grinned ominously in the twilight and took her little weapon out of her pocket to show it to him under the light of a street lantern.

‘Oh, just a standard Ghost Town stunner. Shoots little needles with some kind of sedative, and takes you out for at least 12 hours. It’s mostly harmless, unless you get too much of them in your body in a short time maybe. You didn’t really believe in the magic story, did you, big boy?’

‘Eh…,’ he said and looked at what seemed to be a green toy pistol. He couldn’t believe that on top of all the revelations about outsiders tonight Samantha had just casually revealed the most feared mystery in male society about the Ghost Towns to him.

‘Eliza’s got one too now, so we can defend ourselves when needed. You probably didn’t notice, but they’re getting a bit more careful about their safety, and about that of their friends too.’

‘Sam, you’re showing a man the source of their magic. Aren’t you betraying them?’

‘You are part of the ‘friends too’, you idiot. Didn’t you notice that Lady Martha’s assistant herself just saw me show it to you? She didn’t protest. When she gave me that thing told me to use it to protect other women when needed, or you. I bet they told the same to Eliza. They’re actually worried about you too, such a sensitive boy alone in the dangerous male world, you know?’

‘Worried about me? Ghost Town women?’

‘Yes, you, little revolutionary. You’re important and likeable, not just neutral and harmless. And probably too cute for your own good too.’ She wrapped her arm around him again.

‘You said you weren’t going to seduce me.’ She stopped and winked, her face way too close.

‘Not in the Ghost Town hospital. I said nothing about long romantic walks home afterwards. Plus how can you reject me when I am armed.’ She reached for her pocket theatrically.

‘Don’t be stupid. Or do you literally want me to sleep with you here, on the road? Putting me to sleep for 12 hours here and now is not a good idea.’

‘I’m not stupid, Loverboy, I’m just messing with you. They’d never forgive me if I’d use that thing on you, and neither would you. How crazy do you think I am?’

‘I don’t know anything about anything anymore after today, Sam.’ He said, allowing her arm for now but changing the subject. ‘That new bike thing of Eliza is interesting. Do you think I could get one too somehow? It would make this distance a lot easier if it’s going to be a habit,’ he said.

‘A bike in a Zeroville apartment building full of unranked men? It would be stolen in no time. You’re still naive about how men are yourself, aren’t you?’ She shook her head. ‘Hmm, true, it wouldn’t be safe and I can’t carry it upstairs all the time to store it in my apartment on the fourth floor. But a robot could do that, not? Both in the bar and in the Ghost Town it would be safe, so I just need to ask temporary Dorothy when I’m home. There’s just enough space in the ugly storage room’

‘You really have the weirdest ideas of the uses of wifebots all the time, Mister robot husband. You should know what men in your building normally use them for; certainly not indoor vehicle transport, let alone Wife School escape missions.’

For the rest of the walk the conversation turned to the mysterious land of Héva, where no men lived, which was a safer subject and less personal for Michael. He let her give him a hug and even kiss him on the cheek when they arrived at the woman’s apartment, and then he walked home, where temporary Dorothy awaited him.