It was Birdie who actually saluted me, sending flakes of croissant to her shirt and laughing with her head tilted back. There was something funny spoken around her table but I hadn’t caught it, and regardless, I wasn’t in the mood. I asked her if she’d talked to anyone yet and she told me to sit down and enjoy the food and the hospitality and I told her I’d see her around.
I had to get out. Find fresh air. Or its equivalent.
I had to get out of Neon.
“That’s not wise,” Franghorn said later. What an absolute horror that man is. Sure, he’s all charm and smiles, the ends of his thick moustache curling up into twirls; the white bonnet on his head and dark blue suit recalling times of early Twentieth-Century New York – the current fad here apparently – but he’d turn his suit red if it meant getting what he wanted. There had been rumours going around for years. Neon is lead by a committee of Elitists and he would be their unofficial leader – together, they are the architects of this city’s moral and physical foundations. On the surface they’re thriving. (No pun intended – in orbit they were ruthlessly efficient.) Room a-plenty for the million or so who live here. The Agridome needs little in the way of manual attention. I’ve seen the agrorobotics and hydrorobotics for myself and it is impressive what automation they have achieved – I guess those years in orbit were useful for something. It was said they had commandeered the greatest minds, and perhaps it was true.
Last time I was here I asked Fanghorn for a tour of Neon’s depths, but he denied the request. I wrote about this previously so it’s nothing new. Never quite put it out of mind, though. What’s going on down there? I don’t mean the housing situation either – we’ve all seen how deep the towers run – but it would be remarkable I’m sure to be able to investigate the engineering at the heart of this city. Right down there in the depths. They say they have no new knowledge or technology to share with us, yet their robotics say otherwise.
Maybe in time I’ll find out.
I’ll probably never get to leave, so…
I had to be in that asshole’s presence while he told me that storm surges were intensifying and to head out now back to New Seren could be suicide. He pouted, as if I was a child. As his eyes… twinkled. Does that sound weird? He couldn’t give a damn about my situation. He waved the back of his hand and said; “But don’t let me stop you. You managed to force your way in here by playing on our consciences; all those poor, burned children – how could we turn you away? How monstrous of us, if we did! As much as Neon would love to absorb you into its citizenry, I cannot stop you leaving. We’ll even give your Grounder a quick service, make sure she’s tip-top and ready to carry you back to New Seren.
“But you should go now, before it gets worse.”
We were talking on the roof of the tower at this point. I turned away from his face and looked high towards the ceiling of the dome. Hung like a halo above the city was The Ring, attached to the underside of the dome and where all the Elitists lived. Franghorn had descended to give a small welcoming speech to the new arrivals, and while he was speaking I left. A guard followed me, of course. So I told him I needed the toilet and I was going back to my room. That I’d probably sleep because I’d been up all night in pain.
He still followed me.
Back in my room, I flushed the toilet and lay on the bed making fake snoring noises for five minutes. And when I checked, the guard was gone. Through boredom or only loose instructions, I don’t know. I left and went immediately to the roof to wait for Franghorn.
I inhaled, deep enough to suck the air from dying lungs. That’s how it smelled, right then. Tower roofs paled into the distance, as though I was standing at the edge of a chess board. Empty air fell to moving vehicles below. It was remarkably peaceful, being so high. The last time I’d been so peaceful was probably pre-solar alert, sitting besides New Seren Lake with Jerry and our families, drinking beer and eating barbecue. Still waters rippling only when a toy motorboat trailed past.
“Do you have any lakes here?” I asked.
“No. I’m going to head back now. You do what you want.”
“Can I see the weather report?”
He took a pad from his pocket and handed it over. “It’s all there.” He tweezed his moustache with absent fingers and turned his back on me, stepping into his manned drone. I watched it rise silently away, leaving me alone with my guard.
The reports were bad. I read them while my legs carried me to the Neon exit: first to the stairs that lead down from the roof, then to the elevator, then out into the tower lobby filled with people and polished, white concrete that echoed their footsteps and clamouring voices. Then out into the day; the antithesis of the rooftop. There was no stillness, no calm, to be found at street level. Perhaps at any level, I thought. Even high up there – I looked up, barely able to discern the contours of the tower edge – maybe the peace had been an illusion. A delusion. Only the kind of peace I found whenever I thought of Jerry – one that I carried around with me. That I carry now. That I need to carry now.
The guard had an autocar waiting. It carried us to the exit while my fingers scrolled the reports and read them like Braille. The outside temperature at that moment was 47-degrees Celsius. The Grounder had air conditioning, so that wasn’t such a problem – for me. The worry was overheating the hybrid engine or frying a circuit board if there was a minor flare. Then I’d be stuck and reliant on rescue – if anyone was willing to take the risk. It was now or never. I needed to speak with Baines. And I needed to video Jerry.
Oasis
Jax found The Oasis a few Earth-months earlier while exploring the outer edges of the known terrain on his hoverbike. The whole area had been auto-mapped from the skies; nothing but desert and rock formations and long-stamped craters. All that was the future. No need to head there on foot. Or vehicle. The land of most potential had already been selected. When Jax went exploring it was to areas that had never entered the eye before – human or otherwise. This thrill matched the thrill of the hoverbike’s speed; its solar-sail wings a frenzied blur in the onrushing wind. Heading to sun-glinting apertures on the horizon slowly resolving into cliff faces or anomalous boulders. Sometimes rising, sometimes falling.
Always something new.
The Oasis, in the scheme of things, was actually quite near. He’d explored much further since. Never repeating the discovery.
“Beat you,” said Scarlett, panting, hands on hips. She smiled and pulled a small canister from a breast pocket, unfurling a mouth-piece at the top. She sucked in a lungful of oxygen and returned it to her pocket.
Lani leaned against her, breathing hard with her head on her sister’s shoulder. “Fix me up,” she managed to say, allowing Scarlett to repeat the procedure with her own supply.
“Wimps,” said Jax, measuring his inhalations. Chest and diaphragm tight with pain in the process. He sucked the thin air rapidly through pursed lips.
“We’re human,” said Scarlett. “Even if you pretend otherwise!”
“Obviously I’m more than human,” he said, pushing through into the narrow gap at the base of the cliff.
Lani prodded his back. “A super-ape. A big-brained chimp.”
“A lobotomised orang-utan,” said Scarlett.
“An experiment gone right!” Jax turned around and shone his torch into his face and made the sound of a chimpanzee, the girls just black silhouettes in front of him, laughing until he turned the light to them. They blocked the light with their forearms and groaned.
The narrow crevice was wide enough for one person, but widened further almost immediately after entering. The girls squeezed through and he turned to the tunnel.
“Alright, let’s be quick.”
“Just how much trouble do you think we’ll actually be in?” whispered Scarlett.
Lani whispered back; “Why are you whispering?”
“So the ghosts don’t hear,” said Jax.
They both told him to shut up.
“What can they do? Throw
us out?” He swung the torchlight around the dead air of the cavern before them, catching the edges of arches and the fallen debris of rocks beneath. Stones and pebbles scuttled across the sandy floor whenever they kicked one, and darkness pervaded ahead.
“They’ll thank us,” he said.
“Thank us for what? You haven’t even told us what the big new mystery is,” said Lani.
“In time.” He had often considered revealing his discovery to Arcadia, but then he’d hop on a hoverbike and head out towards the horizon until Arcadia disappeared behind him, look around, feel the welcome sense of being alone, and remember why he’d kept it secret to begin with. Arcadia was way too small for the number of people who lived there. It was going to be his new home – at before the inflation of solar activity.
Gently, he began to feel the rush of cool air blowing against his face; some conflation of channels and airways in the rock pulling and sucking air through and around, dizzying. They walked through tidal doorways where the air moved in different ways, becoming slowly cooler and cooler. Passageways veered off left and right; many unexplored and others that lead to dead ends. Then the ceiling rose. And rose. Torchlight fading on the surface as it failed to reach; leaving no contrast until the ceiling disappeared altogether, to be replaced by the stars.
The dead lagoon.
A lake of shadow and circular concave walls.
An ocean of sky.
The Oasis.
Journal of Lance Corporal Edmonds
2nd March (ext), 2234… cont’d
They took our blood today. All part of the screening process, they said. If we are to live here then they need to know what hereditary diseases we’re bringing with us. No matter that this is all already logged in the data files for every one of the domes, and that we brought this data with us.
“Roll up your sleeves or leave,” said the head nurse. There was a forced smile on her face and her outfit was a black number with tight trousers and long cape. The Neon attire can be weird, sure, but black? For a nurse? The other nurses strolled from armchair to armchair, capes billowing, but at least their outfits were a bright blue. The hotel had given over its large reception hall to the intake process, and there we all were, arms draped over armrests, sitting as though we were about to watch a theatre show. When I asked why they needed a whole half-pint of blood instead of a standard pin-prick, the head nurse just said, “Price of entry.”
Well, okay then.
God, what it is it with these people?
The nurse who attended me couldn’t have been older than sixteen, yet she inserted the needle like a seasoned professional, with almost no pain at all. She was silent throughout and never once met my eye, even when I asked her name.
“That’s of no concern,” said the head nurse.
“And what’s yours, for that matter?” I asked.
“Nurse Ratched.”
So she had a sense of humour, at least.
I’m stalling, dear diary. Have you worked that out yet?
Of course you have.
Why else did I let them take my blood… for “Price of entry?”
The radiation is interfering with the radio and telecomm signals. After speaking to Baines we decided to call New Seren and ask for their opinion – well, to ask if they would send out a rescue party in the event of an emergency.
Nothing.
We couldn’t get through. We were in the Grounder. Up to that point I’d been reassured by the thought that even if I might not see Jerry again, or at least for a very long time, that I’d be able to say goodbye. Then this. I frantically flicked through the broadcast channels and tried to videolink – Baines even brought out the old CB radio – and nothing. The screen was that grey-black of impure darkness, and I turned it off and on again in futile hope, each ‘off’ a drop into black despair, each ‘on’ a blot of hope. Fading hope.
“Give it up, man,” Baines said eventually. “Let’s try Neon’s.” He lumbered across to the hatch and opened it, looking back. “Unless you just want to go.”
I did. I so did – right then. I was ready. “I’ll go, you stay.”
“No, no – we both go.”
“I won’t risk your life.”
“If you think I’m staying in this creepy fucking place without you, you’re mistaken.”
I stood and held the hatch open for him. “You’ll have to.”
“You’re not thinking straight. Look at you.”
“Look at me?”
“You haven’t slept.”
“Neither have you.”
“But I have enough sense to understand our options.” He stood his ground. “WE stay, or WE leave. We go now, or WE wait for the night.”
The night, I thought – why hadn’t I thought of that? I blinked, seeing things new, and took my hand from the hatch. “Tonight.”
“Tonight,” smiled Baines. “I thought you were the smart one.” He clambered out into the vehicle depot and jumped to the hard tarmac. “We still need to speak to New Seren, though.”
You forget you’re on a barren wasteland of a planet when at Neon ground zero. I followed Baines and had this thought again, even though I’d seen it only twenty minutes prior. Highrises block every vantage to see the dome and up there; high, high up there where the light itself is a reflected avenue of the street below, the skin of the dome is non-existent. Up there is just sky. A Neon dream. A narrative that says Everything is normal.
At the end of the military compound stood a station house that lead out onto the street and housed the officers on duty. We made our may over to them, crossing paths with transportation trucks on the move somewhere, and many more that were parked up and idling. When I thought about how useful those could have been in shipping people and cargo from some of the smaller domes in the area, it made me angry. The thought of leaving here brought me back down from the precipice, and I put the trucks to the back of my mind.
We greeted the officers who had been watching us through CCTV as they stepped out of the station house. Two of them. Large-chested and possibly wearing bullet-proof vests. How they could feel endangered in this place, I couldn’t imagine. With so many people on such a short leash, I guess there must be one or two that snap the hand that holds them.
I shouldn’t smile, but I do.
“Not heading out?” asked the bald one.
I shook my head. “We wanted some reassurances from New Seren. Can we use your comms to contact them?”
They gave each other the kind of smile I wanted to smack right off their faces, and then baldy said “Ain’t gonna happen, sir. All comms are down.”
Baines stepped forward. “Come on, you must have satellite communication.”
He shook his head. “All I know is the current status report. Come on in: read it for yourself.” They both turned their backs and retreated inside, so we followed.
Inside, the room was small with windows on three sides overlooking the compound, the entrance/exit, and the street. Smelled like the windows had never been opened. Trucks continued to leave and return outside while a third officer manned the gate, checking credentials and raising and lowering the bar. The bald one stood aside and pointed at the control panel.
“Be my guest,” he said.
Baines took a seat and I watched over his shoulder as he ran through all the communication channels; getting the same results as the Grounder. When he tried to access the satellite system, a large, circular and very red standby symbol appeared on the screen. The officer then leaned over and opened up that morning’s communiqué.
‘Due to increased solar activity extraneous communications systems are temporarily offline.’
“That shouldn’t be possible,” said Baines.
“It’s there in black and white.”
Baines looked at me. “It’s extremely coincidental or unlucky for every communications avenue to be down.”
“What do you think?”
“It has to be the dome. Somehow, for some reason, it’s blocking c
ommunications.”
“Couldn’t the external transceivers be damaged, frazzled?”
“In theory, but the Grounder’s comms should still get through.”
***
It’s this thought that I keep returning to. The comms should still get through.
We left the officers and went to find Franghorn or someone else with authority. We crossed the compound towards the highrise attached to it, its façade dizzyingly imposing. As the base of military and lawful operations, the first two-dozen floors are given over to Operations, with the next few floors housing every service you could possibly want, from gymnasiums and swimming pools, to bars, cinemas and clothing boutiques. Everything above that is housing. I stayed there once on a previous visit and vowed never again – I’d never felt so exposed. So in danger. An outsider. A civilian. I could barely breathe lest I sneezed.
Like anywhere else in Neon, my authority barely registered. Everything was a courtesy; an open handshake and a hand to the chest, cards hidden.
We entered through the imposition of blast-proof concrete and bulletproof glass doors, into polished white floors and walls; lobby sterile with back-to-back waiting chairs and a long reception desk topped with floating holographic displays. Stern faces with straight mouths answered the public’s questions while flicking through readouts. Perhaps a missing person’s report. Or someone reporting a theft. The lobby thronged with visitors and even more in uniform; the bells of elevator doors ringing endorsements of Man’s last grasp on a normal life.
It struck me once more how normal was redefined in this place.
This was home.
Neon was right at home on this planet.
Back at New Seren, and indeed in the other cities, we may mock Neon’s self-imposed ostracision, and their close-guarded society, yet when it comes down to it they have done more in nine Earth-years to make it feel like Earth than anyone. While most of us have terraformed outwards, they have first looked inwards.
Neon Sands Trilogy Boxset: The Neon Series Season One Page 58