Fools
Destruction
Arise
Up
Enemies
Darkness
Heart
Rectangle
Revenge
Misdirection
Mutants
Home
Command
Escape
Epilogue
City
Ap
athy
This is Neon City, he thought, as he ventured down one of the tower’s many subterranean corridors. Above him, multicoloured pipework snaked around corners carrying poisons and toxins, water and gas, and their twin umbilical of ventilation shafts twisted with them. Above the ceiling: cross-beams of steel; cantilevers, flitches, trusses, borders, rafters and girders worked into a lattice of dull concrete and glistening metal, moulded from identical isometric blueprints, and spaced in even blocks ninety metres apart. These of course formed the towers, with added sheets of glass cladding that, aboveground, reflected what little daylight made it through the dome. Here, belowground, beneath the concrete sky that split the city in two; blue and purple hazes shone dully up facades where blinds, usually drawn against the constant night, acted as cinema screens for the shadows of lives hidden behind. Families in some. The unloved in others, lost in their own reality. A divided society.
And yet, this wasn’t Neon City at all. Rylan checked the pressure on the gas intake valve, and not for the first time imagined how the generated electricity would be used aboveground. Wondered if they even took one minute to appreciate the depth of life present and roaming beneath their streets – or perhaps we were all cockroaches to them, he thought. Kept in the dark, in the city’s cupboard, the door padlocked. This was Neon City’s forgotten long-lost sibling.
It was so damn hot near these furnaces too, like being linked-in in a burning apartment and not realising until too late that everything was on fire, every inch of skin filmed with sweat so thick it was layered; peeled grime, or else soot, trapped like flies in amber. Rylan tried wiping the sweat away because that was what you did.
He checked the holo-readouts on the screen in front of him, while walking down a long aisle from one machine to the next in a sauna of bright, white light. The pipes from across the local area converged here; water from the north, oil from the south, and gas from the east. Resources dragged from the far corners, from a time before the end of the world and the coming of the mutated monsters that roamed the sands now. Or whatever was going on. Rylan could care less. He had another eighty-four pressure valves to check before the end of his shift, and a bomb to rig.
Ry
lan
“I don’t know, it sounds too risky,” said Rylan. “It’s not your life on the line here.” He picked up his glass of synth, holding his nose as he took a sip.
Clarisse smiled at him. “I’ll never understand why you actually want a hangover.” She relaxed against the soft material of the booth seating and shot her synth in one, taking a deep breath from the empty glass; sucking in those alcohol antigens.
“No fun without pain,” he muttered.
“Rylan Preece.” Corbin leaned across the table. His face disappeared beneath his brow; all green-lit hair and neon eye-whites. Malted breath. Got some good stuff stashed away? thought Rylan.
“Get me a few bottles of whatever you’ve been drinking, and maybe I’ll consider it.”
Unmoved, Corbin whispered; “Rylan Preece. Have you had enough?”
Slouched in his end of the booth, arm draped across the top of the seat, he flicked his eyes at Clarisse. “Get a load of this guy. What is he? Your revolutionary therapist?”
“Just listen to him.”
“I can barely hear him over the jukebox.” Rylan leaned his head in close to Corbin’s. “Listen, pal. You want to risk your life? Fine. Go ahead. Be... my... guest. I’ll throw your ashes into the heart myself, how’s that?”
Corbin smiled. Just teeth beneath those eyes.
Across the bar, the crowds laughed; their mingling voices not the usual respite that Rylan sought on his nights off. Tonight they shrilled. The holo-ads for Synesty and Low-Cal Syn bounced across the ceiling and the top facia of the bar, where East-Side faced South-Side in the district basketball finale, the game silently streaming. A few loners on bar stools, their heads a purple neon haze, drank quietly and watched it, drowning.
“Rylan...”
“… Preece, yes, yes. I know my own damn name.” He fell back into the comfort of his booth.
“Your name is important. It’s who you are.”
Rylan could feel the sweet, stinging ring of pain blossoming in his temple, overriding his need to say “No shit.”
“But the city doesn’t care about your name. To them, you’re not even a number. You’re just an ant. Scurrying about. Working your little socks off.”
“You haven’t seen the size of his boots,” said Clarisse.
“Working away,” continued Corbin. “Until you die. Keeping the cycle going so that we may all participate in the endless carousel of apathy.”
“People are happy,” said Rylan. “Look about you. Are the people not happy?”
“People are trapped. They are stuck in routine and stuck beneath the boots of their oppressors.”
Rylan smiled, despite his rising headache. “But they are happy.”
“Ignorance is not bliss, Mr Preece. Remove the shackles, and you will be surprised by how many are willing to accept the light. Quite literally accept the light.”
“He’s your friend,” he said to Clarisse. “Can you tell him I’m not interested in this particular martyrdom?”
“Your name matters, Rylan. Let it be known.”
He was about to say something else, but Clarisse leaned across the table and placed a hand between them. “Both of you. What are you doing? Corbin; Rylan deals with facts and numbers, he’s already on our side, even if he doesn’t show it. Ry; Corbin is being overly theatrical. Honestly, I don’t know why he’s playing the martyr card. With your access and our control over the electrical system, we can do this, and do it safely, without anyone putting the blame on you.”
“Well, gee, let me think; who was on shift that day?” mocked Rylan. “Why I do believe it was that handsome fella, Rylan Preece.”
“A little poking around in the backend and we can easily simulate the videos to remove your involvement. A little tweaking to the numbers and it’ll look just like a natural explosion.”
Rylan hit the table with the palm of his hand. “One that I should’ve picked up on. Even if they don’t suspect foul play, my ass will be out on the can.”
Jimmy’s erupted with whoops and cheers – apparently someone was watching the game.
Temples now throbbing, Rylan shuffled across the seat and stood, matched by Corbin. They squared up, Corbin showing no sign of distaste for Rylan’s breath, or sweat-dampened armpits. Showing no emotion at all as Rylan lifted his chin and looked down his nose, finding nothing but cold, impassive eyes staring back at him. Then Corbin smiled and the creases flared from all the corners, that ice thawing in an instant and nothing more than a distant memory as a hand found his and shook it. “Think it over.”
He grunted. “Watch this one,” he said, directed at Clarisse. One final look as Corbin returned to his seat, Clarisse shuffling across to the corner and throwing an arm over the top of the bench, and he was gone; pushing through the throng of jostling drinkers and end-of-shift celebrators, those clinging to the tangible delights instead of the virtual. What was Clarisse doing, hanging out in that guy’s company? he wondered. Did she find him or did he find her?
They could only have met in the link – a risky practice that lead to incriminations, for it was too easy to manipulate who you were, and what your intentions were. Too many security officers keeping an eye on every connection, joining dots.
Reality: that was his truth. The only thing he trusted. If he couldn’t see it with his own eyes, it may as well be faked. East-Side and South-Sid
e could be nothing more than pixels dunking pixels. Those in the crowd simply procedural fans with equally generated whoops and hollers; sub-routines with smiles and tears.
The pressure of contact as a lowcase in a sweat-soaked tank-top pressed against him – his odour, the sheen on the back of his neck – these were truths. The thrum of bass in his boots, jolting up his legs – anchors to reality. Though not the falsetto female voice that sang atop the modulated beats. Not only was it annoying, needling his headache, some AI system somewhere in some upper Neon City tower had programmed her. It. If he felt like sticking around – which he didn’t – the real thing would be on stage later, performing into the night to the latest round of revellers.
He left the sweat and infrequent perfume behind, stepping out into the night. The upper echelon lighting had been dimmed, so he knew it really was night. Rain, set to fall whenever the temperature reached twenty-five degrees Celsius, arrowed down, undeterred by wind or canopies hanging from towers. It pooled on the sidewalks and splashed against Rylan’s boots, showering sparks of purple and blue light, leaving ripples. It dripped over the sides, down to the factories and forges beneath, and the rain-collectors, so the whole process may be repeated without evaporation or condensation. Clarisse worked in the decontamination factories that filtered the rain to ensure it was safe to continue the cycle, and talked of a great reservoir, far below; “A giant, black disc.”
A bottomless lake, she said.
But then she was full of shit. Always poking around in other people’s business – a harlot for gossip with a pretty face. Maybe that was how she got away with so much; it had sure worked on him, back before he knew any better. Corbin wasn’t her usual mark though. He seemed to be using her rather than being used: Rylan hadn’t missed how she slouched in the booth with her body open to him, while Corbin remained focused on Rylan, almost with his back to her. That wasn’t her normal play. Men would fawn over her.
Women too.
Clarisse Decker. He imagined Corbin rolling his tongue over her name, drawling it out in a near whisper so quiet it drew her to him, encouraging intimacy.
Rain dripped from his brow and he felt his hair cling to his forehead.
It would be sweat, not rain, dripping from Corbin’s brow tonight as he hovered over Clarisse, burying his head in her neck, soft moans in her ears.
None of his business, Rylan told himself. At 34th and 8th, he stepped out onto the gangway and ducked his head against the incessant downpour. The rain hit the handrail or else fell through the diamond-latticework of metal that made up the walkway, immovable as rock beneath his feet, and continued into the spotlit darkness below. He shucked the collar of his trenchcoat around his neck, in truth a little numb to the cold rivers inching beneath the neck of his work overalls.
Ahead, if he cared to look up, tower D28 imposed itself, glass windows dark in places or opalescent in others; a collage of reds, yellows, and blues. Bright argon-lights at street level strobed, threatening artificial rainbows that never quite came to fruition. And as he stepped off the gangway, the trainlink descended from its monorail and came to rest against the street station platform where a family in black overcoats beneath clear parasols were waiting to embark. They flapped the rain from the umbrellas and bungled onto the tram as others departed, throwing hoods over heads.
“Alright, Frank,” said Rylan as he approached a vendor set back into a doorway, almost hidden beneath an over-reaching awning.
A fat man beamed. Bald head of sweat-dewed skin. He wiped his hands on a stained blue-and-white striped apron and asked “The usual?”
“Make it a double.”
“Hard day in maintenance?”
“Hard day. Hard week. Hard whole fucking year.”
Frank laughed and scooped a double portion of slow-stewed beef and beans into a carton, still steaming, and topped it with a ladle of rice. Hygiene aside, Frank knew how to cook – having the pot sitting on a stove for eight hours, stew bubbling away, probably helped with the whole hygiene thing. Besides, Rylan had an iron stomach. It was a prerequisite for a lowcase. He thanked Frank and cradled the carton in the crook of his elbow, covering the top with his hand as though shielding rain from a newborn’s face, and ducked his way toward the tower entrance.
Crammed into narrow galleys and spilling out onto the street beneath makeshift awnings, other vendors sizzled wares in woks and over flames. The scents co-mingling from one to the next; Rylan didn’t have to look at the chefs as he passed to know where he was. Eyes to the floor and soaked legs and feet of other bustlers; the hot, spiced aroma of Indian goat curry would be followed by the sweet, honeyed perfume of Misty’s Pancakes – something of a sugary pick-me-up in the mornings before work. Misty; a greyed and wrinkled hunchback of an old woman who slept at the back of her shop because she refused to live with her daughter, Clarisse, and besides; she’d “never manage the commute.” Rylan looked up but Misty was busy ladling pancake mix onto the hot-plate. He liked Misty – it was how he’d met Clarisse – and could spare her five minutes when she was free, but tonight was glad that he could just slip past, unnoticed. A few steps and the sweetness went and it was the smoky, fried sausages and burger meat that came next, sizzling in a cloud of flame.
Overcrowded. Many had umbrellas and scurried down the street in the rain – but an equal amount squeezed beneath the shelter and protection of the tower and vendors, hands in pockets and eyes forward. Rylan caught flashes of indistinct chatter as they mumbled into their comms or asked for food. A surge of sizzling oil. The clatter of pans on grills. The slam of the recycling units and whoosh of air in the vents. Patter of boots. The distant drum of bass.
He finally made it to the entrance, and the peace. The front doors closed loudly behind him, but then it was quiet, the lobby empty. Wall-mounted lighting glimmered but barely lit the numbers on the ground floor apartments. At least the lift was working. Twelve floors up and the doors opened, and he stepped out onto his floor. Equally dim lighting lit peeled paintwork; dark green and grey, and the unfinished graffiti of someone’s signature, perhaps a punk band. Even this vandal had seen the futility in his efforts, he thought. What was his plan? To scribe all the walls of every floor, and every sector of those floors? They’d run out of paint after one floor!
Here, the smell of the stew reigned, and he rushed to his apartment, belly grumbling. Inside, he fell upon the couch, grabbed a fork from last night’s carton, and tucked in. Silence. The blissful darkness. His teeth chomping and his belly thanking him. Facing the window, the lights of the low-depths lit his face, the corners of the apartment. The trainlink careened past on the other side of the glass, the faces within were momentary dinner guests, and then gone. D27’s many eyes stared back, some with eyelids closed, others lit with the colour of lives; but far enough away that whoever lived within the apartments were just anonymous dull manikins in their armchairs and sofas, against their kitchen countertops and brushing teeth in front of bathroom mirrors.
Down this low, there were more empty apartments than occupied ones. Those who clustered near the pit of Neon City all laboured in the factories and forges and power plants. Or were service workers doling food and cutting hair. Teachers or nannies to the young. Beggars keeping warm above the fires in places where the rain fell and lasted no more than a couple minutes before evaporating. Rylan would see them outside the window of his trainlink as it pitched into the manufactory levels, and watch without sorrow. They could take an apartment, but madness made an outcast of them. Better to eat scraps in the pit than die in a vacant entrance – at least there was a food service, even if it was leftovers.
Rylan kicked his boots off and placed his carton on the coffee table. Still half-full. He felt bloated and in need of an aspirin, but instead turned and lay down on the sofa, shadows of rain-trails playing down the side of his face. Trying not to wallow, and forcing himself to engage his mind to forget his headache, thoughts drifted to Misty, who right now may well be cooking up unused batter for th
e beggars, ready for the crate that came round for any excess food that could be spared, to be placed in a chute destined for the pit. For someone to disperse at the other end between the shacks and makeshift outhouses.
Not a bad deal, really. At least they didn’t have to worry about blowing up the pipework that snaked beneath them.
What about it? a voice said. It would make a statement.
He closed his eyes and rolled inwards, face buried in the cushion.
What happens when the equilibrium unbalances? Misty had asked him this once. Would the people be ready for it? Would they recognise it, even when it happened?
“People resist change, even when it’s against their own good,” he had said. He said it aloud again now.
The front of his belly pushed against his trousers, and he undid his belt with a sigh.
Then it has to be forced upon them.
He had smiled and said Clarisse is your daughter, alright.
He liked Misty. Liked having her nearby. Even after everything ended with Clarisse – if it had ever even begun – he kept Misty in his thoughts and daily routine; she reminded him of his own mother. Not her politics, but how she would go out of her way to care for someone, to make them feel welcome. And her pancakes were almost as good. Being around Misty was like being around his mother. He only wished there was someone to remind him of his father.
He guessed that would be him.
Walking the maintenance corridors.
Tool-belt swinging from his hips.
The same blue overalls.
His love of a drink.
He closed his mind and moved into the darkness.
C
aia
Here, she had a surname, and that was Warner. It didn’t really mean anything – it wasn’t attached to a mother or a father in the way that it should have been. It was Kirillion’s and she’d taken it after returning from the sands. After all, although he hadn’t exactly adopted her (recruited at fifteen from the orphanage on 7th to be more exact) he had taken her under his wing and shown her a world she could never have imagined prior: when taking classes in virtual development and remedial engineering had been her life; nothing but dorm-activities, linking, and queues for the bathroom between.
Neon Sands Trilogy Boxset: The Neon Series Season One Page 38