“Jacinta! Medical emergency! Efa! Both of you to level five immediately!”
Medical emergency? Annora’s heart skipped a beat and she found herself searching the empty doorways and windows for Calix’s face. She wandered absently out into the courtyard as others left their stations, eyes meeting eyes.
“Jacinta!” the loudspeakers echoed.
“What’s going on?” asked Easton as she left the workshop.
“Don’t know,” said Alden.
Then Jacinta could be seen running from the salvage yard – she’d probably been paying a visit to Galen, thought Annora – and she headed straight for the lift. “Could someone message down to say I’m coming?” she shouted out. At the lift entrance she saw the one lift was already descending, so called the other one. It would be a race.
Annora watched as the upper lift descended from the watchtower, going from shadow to light that dimmed the lower it reached. Inside was a small boy with dark hair to below his ears. Annora smiled when she saw it was Calix, and realised the sensation at the back of her throat, of almost acid, as though she hadn’t drank water for a few hours, was spreading. She clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes but it couldn’t stop the tears from welling.
I’m not going to cry!
And she didn’t – just a single stream from each eye that she quickly wiped away with a snort.
Calix’s lift arrived first, so he jumped out and let Jacinta in, who slammed the bars closed and sent it down. Annora jumped on Calix and gave him a big hug. “I got new shoes!”
Linwood
He stood in the watchtower, hands on hips, staring out between the sand and ion induction clouds. Overnight, a level one swell had shifted a wave of sand against the entrance, causing it to become half blocked. A crew were out there now, everyone in non-essential posts recruited to don masks and vacuum blowers to make the way clear again. In the distance, the swell moved towards the north, its hurricane twist like a red hand reaching up from a grave. He hoped there was no-one caught in it – there shouldn’t be that far north, unless there was someone in unauthorised territory.
He looked down to his console and selected the territory map. He’d gotten used to this 2D projection a few years ago, though it had taken him a while. It felt so archaic to use his fingers in real space to scroll through a real-time projection – well, he was sure used to it now, and he pinched and prodded at it until he revealed the regions within forty miles. A large part of this area was green, meaning they had mapped it. A few areas remained red, and maybe he would send out a party to map this area at some point, but he wasn’t too fussed. He believed in intuition, and he intuited that what they were looking for would be a lot further than a mere forty miles away from Sanctum.
He pinched the projection again and revealed further regions – many zones were green but an awful lot were red. Again, that sinking dread seeped in. The dread that he would die out here before his mission was over, eyeballs red with ghost and scratchy, powdery sand; ears full of it, mouth full of it, throat and lungs full of it; and these lowcase half-wits full of pleasure, eagerly awaiting the sound of his body hitting the side of the decomposition unit on its way into the rot. They’d eat all their vegetables for the next six months, gobble them right up with a smile the size of Neon on their faces.
According to the readings there should be no one north of here currently, unless they were lost. That was something at least. Walker was late; his last call-in flashed orange on the map about eighty miles due south-east. This in itself wasn’t unusual – it was a constant battle out there just to get the crawlers to keep crawling – but Walker was on a promise. One more rotation and he’d earned a year in Sanctum. He should’ve been earlier than normal, eager to put his feet up.
Linwood pulled on the hologram until Walker’s orange dot was taking up most of the projection, and then just stared at it. Within his thick goatee his mouth twitched. His eyes distanced themselves until they were looking through and beyond; in his mind, Walker and his team lay dead beneath the protective belly of the crawler, tidal sand slipping under and slowly drowning their bodies inch by inch – what a waste, he thought. Losing a team and losing a crawler.
He hated it when they lost a team – it took the resources of another team just to retrieve the damn crawler and filtration units. When one team was down, the reality was they were down two teams until everything had been retrieved – if it could be retrieved.
“Fuck,” he said, closing the projection.
He sat down, sighing. He reached for a glass of potato vodka and downed a shot in one, wincing. If he only closed his eyes and imagined it was synesty, he could almost fool himself. Who was he kidding? he thought.
He pushed against the floor so the chair swung to the central aisle console. Various camera feeds fed the dozen screens in front of him – he glanced at the cleanup crew outside, saw they were doing well, and then switched to some internal feeds. Everything in order. Too quiet, if anything. But then he had given work orders to half the layabouts today.
He checked the power situation, part of the daily routine, and all was fine. Whoever or whatever fucked up this planet sure knew how to take advantage of the ionised atmosphere. He’d never seen it and supposed he never would, not unless something else catastrophic were to happen, but sitting right up there in the clouds above Sanctum was a transformer – he could only guess at the size of it or how it even managed to stay there – but that transformer stored the electrical charge from the atmosphere and sent it down wirelessly to Sanctum’s receiver in the sub-base. The how and they why of it was an unknown in Sanctum, with most believing – or in reality, told – that it was the solarised dome itself that powered them. That thing would never be enough though, on its own. It generated power for the Agridome, as near to a failsafe that had ever been designed, but that was it.
No, the clouds, the thing they despised most, after the sand, was the very thing that gave them power. Linwood had long ago given up trying to spot the transformer, staring up to the point directly above the dome on the occasions he found himself outside. But never a glint of light, not even a small arc of lightning. That was reserved, he was told, for the Reaches. “The Far Reaches beyond where even you tell us to go,” some wanderer had said once. He couldn’t remember who. It had probably been one of many. “The clouds there are blue and purple, and there’s a tension in the air like something’s about to pop. You catch your air in your lungs because you’re afraid to breathe out or else set something alight. And that’s just the edge of the Far Reaches, Linwood. You don’t actually dare to go in there. When the clouds explode you can watch sparks hit the ground, all at a distance and that’s too near. You better hope it don’t spread.”
But Linwood guessed it wouldn’t. However Sanctum got its power, he was sure they had the thanks of the transformer for keeping them lightning free.
The lift clattered.
Linwood turned off the console and stood, walking over to the door. When the lift stopped he pulled the doors open and greeted Calix. He looked a scrunt, but all the kids did, they had no choice!
Calix’s eyes squinted as he stepped forward with the wipeboard in his hands. Linwood forgot how much brighter it was up here for the sub-dwellers sometimes. He had an apartment just off of Tansy’s as he preferred to stay aboveground.
“Six full pigs, one half-pig, two shoulders and a few off-cuts I didn’t know the name of,” said Calix. “Maybe some ribs? They’d had all the pig’s heads for jellied ham.”
Linwood turned towards the view and noticed there was an incoming message flashing on the console. Encrypted. He blocked Calix’s view and pushed his thumbprint over the projection. Breaking the silence, he mumbled “Might have to ration. Gimme that,” and then read the request for a meeting. He deleted the message.
Calix thrust the wipeboard between Linwood and the console, startling Linwood.
Grabbing it, he said “Stay here,” and then headed for the lift. He put the wipeboard on a ta
ble and said, “I have to check on something. Stay here and mind it. There was movement out south so might be incomers, keep an eye and let them know below if it’s anything.”
Of course, Calix moaned, but the boy had no choice. He told him to get a backbone and then released the lever to go down.
What did they want?
Linwood barely noticed the sound of the aeration system as he passed through the Agridome. The power that thing needed – if not for the solarised outer dome Linwood wondered if there’d even be enough power for the rest of Sanctum. And then he was through, descending to ground level. A few ragged bodies the size of butterflies at this distance took their time walking between buildings. The camp above the headquarters, a dense patchwork of canvas tents and ropes attached to poles hammered into the concrete roof, was deserted. Had been for a long time. Too many had died and not enough had been replaced. The campground had been left as an empty reminder and a hopeful totem that it may once again be full. No fires and hog roasts had broiled there for years; its only use now was as prime hide-and-seek estate for the children.
Maybe he was finally getting more recruits.
The ground rose up towards him and then the darkness took over as he entered the municipal level. The temperature dropped noticeably, one of the reasons he preferred to stay aboveground. Those that knew nothing else seemed to tolerate – even bask – in the relative coolness, but he preferred to feel the sweat on his skin.
Efa was probably manning the medical wing, with Jacinta out on calls or paying a visit to the salvage yard. Getting close to Galen, he’d noticed. Been a while since a birth – he didn’t know if Jacinta had sterilised herself and he didn’t pry. Birthed kids were useless to him anyway.
How long has it been since the last contact?
The drab living space was next. He looked out into the gloom and the worn carpets and the faded paintwork, chairs and tables with their bones breaking. Maybe he should finally go ahead and authorise the materials to replace and repair, he thought. “Let us reupholster the couches at least,” pleaded Easton at one meeting. “We have all that raw stock just sitting there and it’s going to waste while we wait for something that may never happen.” Perhaps she had a point. When she had been sent to him, still a toddler, her white hair and pale red eyes all bloodshot and tired from the journey, she had startled him. Her white eyelashes were crusted and he’d wiped them clean with a lick of his fingers, and she’d shook, scared. There was always some timidity in the orphans, but that usually faded quickly when they realised they’d made it home. But with Easton it took a while for her to blend in with her surroundings, as though her essentiality was every part albino as her skin and hair. Only since Linwood had put her in charge of the workshop had she began to truly blend in.
I wonder what’ll be wrong with the latest cleanse.
Annora waved at him on the next level down. She was watching a film about wildlife, he saw. It was important for the orphans to grow up with a sense of injustice, of what was missing from their lives. The hard part was injecting the hope that gave their purpose a meaning.
Too late, he was gone, forgetting to wave back. The huge open space of the Rec waited below, with another room the same size on the other side of the lift through sliding doors. He stared at the locked storage room at the back, peering through the gloom, and briefly recalled Annora’s wail and the clattering of chairs as they fell all around her. He’d watched as others rushed in, tearing the chairs away from the doorway and throwing them back so they slid for metres across the once-polished hardwood. One chair even came to rest against his foot.
Nearly lost her that day. The gash on her head was deep but it didn’t bleed too much, and Jacinta was able to stitch it together so there was barely any trace of it now. They’d kept her in the ward and he’d watched through a two-way mirror as they entertained her, keeping her awake for as long as possible to negate any effects of concussion. When she did finally sleep, Linwood left the viewing room and discharged Efa for the night, sending her to her room. The seat beside the bed was uncomfortable, he remembered that much. And her hand had been clammy and cold. He’d held it, one finger resting lightly across her wrist and monitoring her pulse. He could’ve asked for a pulsemeter to be set up, but he didn’t want to raise questions. Annora had come to him with a congenital heart defect, severity unknown. He couldn’t tell anyone, and it made no difference if Jacinta or anyone else knew as there was nothing they could do for her with these facilities.
She’d arrived at the same time as Calix. What was wrong with him they didn’t say.
The fecundity of the fungi plantation was thick in the gloom of level four. Essa would be around here somewhere, he knew, herself like a ghost buoyant on the fumes of her precious shrooms. Hemp was too valuable to waste smoking. The mushrooms would have to do for the crews. If it helped them sleep out there in the wilderness, and gave them the dreams to drive onwards, then Essa could carry on cultivating it.
I should ask for something personal.
The storeroom looked deserted, but Linwood’s mind was elsewhere now, thinking about synesty and sugar and the freedom he sought. The lift stopped and he pressed his thumb against the authorisation panel to allow him to go deeper. A holographic panel then appeared and he pressed the requisite pass code.
“Authorisation acquired,” said a computerised voice.
The lift dropped.
Ziyad
Cal’s feet disappeared through the ceiling and the cage with it. Everything but the hands stretching out before him was a blur. Always been the same, “Born that way,” Linwood had told him. Ever since he’d been old enough to start walking they’d put glasses on him. Wasn’t always right, but most of the time it was good enough. When he was older, old enough to join one of the crews, he planned on playing up to it and saying his sight was worse than it was and that no glasses could solve it. Maybe he could get work in the Agridome, or even in the workshop – anything would be better than going out there.
Ziyad made his way slowly down the storage aisles.
Maybe he could get training to fix the crawlers when they broke down. Except, hmm, even the mechanics had to go out to fetch them back sometimes. Better to do something he could only do inside Sanctum.
The autolighting blinked on around him and the shelves awoke, each casting a shadow on the next. At the head of each aisle was a manifest on a clipboard, and above that a wipeboard with the general nature of the aisle written upon it: books, magazines, film, games; all the good things. Nuts, bolts, screws, nails; all the boring things. An aisle of components lit up on his left: boxes of things called circuit boards and transistors and terminals and an alphabet’s worth of other electrical parts Ziyad thought vaguely about checking out. But he’d been down there before and, even if Rafe and his team wanted to train him up, it all looked really complicated.
He’d once taken a torch apart, out of boredom mostly, and thinking it would be easy to put back together. But he’d missed something and when cranking the clockwork the bulb had blown. It exploded with a sudden, and shocking, pop. It remained under his bed even now.
He reached the aisle he was looking for. The wipeboard said ‘Dentures & Glasses,’ but there was a more itemised run-down on the clipboard. This wasn’t his first visit, and wouldn’t be his last; he turned and found the section he was looking for about two-thirds the way down and started pulling out plastic drawers full of spectacles. Each drawer was labelled by power, with the sphere and axis labels attached to the arms. Ziyad had no idea what sphere or axis meant, but he knew he needed a pair of glasses in the -7.5 / -7.5 range. He chose one at random – they all looked the same with thick black rims – and tried them on. Then another. With each pair he tried on he stared down the opposite aisle and assessed if the random objects sticking out of the shelves were clearer or blurrier than before.
He’d only been without glasses for about an hour at most, delaying his trip down to the storeroom through pure laziness, but finally the
frustration at not seeing a clear screen had gotten to him. With glasses back on, he’d forgotten how clear the world could be. The lift was in focus in front of him when he heard the clanking of descent. He rushed over to the adjacent aisle and stood still. In fifteen seconds the autolighting would extinguish and he’d be able to surprise Calix who was probably coming back down to count something else.
Before long he was in darkness.
The lift re-entered the storeroom and the distant lights lit, but not the nearest. The silhouette of legs appeared, and then a back – too broad and big to be Calix, for sure – and then the back of Linwood’s head.
Ziyad’s heart began to thump. Linwood was probably the only person in Sanctum he wouldn’t try to shock, but the longer he stood still, the more difficult it was to move. The longer he stood still, the more he would have to try and explain what he was doing just standing around in the dark down here. He hadn’t even asked for permission – which wasn’t that bad a thing – but Linwood liked to know all that was going on and sometimes things went missing in the storeroom, never to be seen again. “One of these days I’ll have to put locks on the forsaken hammers and drills.”
The longer he stood still, the further Linwood dropped. And then he arrived. Instead of grabbing the bars and pulling them aside, he remained with his back to Ziyad.
He’s going down.
Ziyad sighed, and then hoped Linwood hadn’t heard him. The darkness segued from heavy on his shoulders to as ethereal as air. He pressed his back against the shelving and moved up onto tip-toes, making out something odd in the lift.
He strained further, forgetting that his movement could have set off the lighting, until he could see further over Linwood’s shoulder. There was a display similar to those he had seen in the watchtower, but they were in the watchtower only. Holographic displays Kirillion called them. “To better track the wanderers,” he’d said. But how did one get in the lift?
Neon Sands Trilogy Boxset: The Neon Series Season One Page 4