From its outer periphery, the city was desolate, yet beautiful. The city that rose into the air and fell had some sort of mystical property to it. Its remains had a bizarre, yet attractive quality that made Montag more intrigued than ever.

From the inside, it was terrifying.

The city was not how Granger described it as. It was not a heap of baking powder. Rather, it was still a city, bleached white, made of dust. Buildings were standing as high as they were. Trees seemed to breathe with life.

Granger walked to a nearby tree, and touched it gingerly. The tree crumbled into dust, and the white mass disappeared on the ground.

“Good God,” Granger remarked in disgust.

“How are we going to make anything out of this?” Montag did not understand how an entire city could be rebuilt.

“Three things,” Granger turned to Montag. “One: Quality of information. We need to inhabit this place with people who have the right type of knowledge. That type of knowledge? Well, we’re going to give it to them. And they’re going to give it to the next wave of people that come. Number two: leisure. We need to set a time for intellectual activity. A proper educational system. Colleges need to be a priority issue. And number three—”

“The right to carry out actions,” Montag remembered what Faber told him. He remembered.

“That’s right,” Granger smiled. “From the good quality of information, and the time to digest that information, people can effectively change the way a society thinks. But that’s only possible unless people get a say. They need to have the power. We can’t limit all the rights of a population to a small group of people. People need to create change.”

“But this…” Montag looked at the white road. “It’s so much. Where do we start?”

“We start with the mirror factory, of course.” Granger sat by what used to be a car. “Now, let’s go back to the camp.”

On the way back, Montag thought. He thought of Mildred, Clarisse, Beatty, Faber, that woman that was burned, those children he encountered while running away from the Hound. He thought of the city behind him.

And he knew that all was going to be well. 

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