We went up to the desk wearing our New Seren tunics and an officer there eyed them, then us, with a slight nod of the head. After some back and forth, he told us to wait and someone would be along. Ten minutes later and a secretary in a military jacket took us silently through a maze of corridors, her bootheels clacking a rhythmic beat, until we came to an elevator marked ‘Military Personnel Only’. And up we went.
On the sixth floor we disembarked into a large, open area with cubicles, lined by glass-walled offices with an opacity function. Many of the glass walls were foggy; their inhabitants shadows. Other inhabitants sat at desks, okay with exposure. A hundred cubicle voices escaped into the atmosphere like bullet chambers, landing incoherently. We weaved between them, all eyes on our ‘foreign’ attire. Their mouths continued to jabber.
She knocked on the door to an office at the end of the room and then opened it. Beyond, a window overlooked the compound and with his back to us, Franghorn stood, looking out. A vent whirred gently in the corner of the room, sucking out air and scent. It felt cold, suddenly. Nothing but his dull reflection in the grey, metal-composite desk. Not for the first time I wondered about the forges at work, somewhere in this city, to churn out so many assets. And the resources needed.
“Edmonds,” he said, turning around.
“Franghorn.”
He nodded towards Baines. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“It’s Baines, sir. Second Lieutenant.”
“Ah,” he smiled. “Well, welcome, once more. How are you settling in? I hear you wanted to speak to me? Please, sit down.”
We ignored his offer and cut out the pleasantries. I didn’t really want to be in the same room as him. “We’re both leaving. Tonight. But we need to get word to New Seren that we’re coming to get reassurances of a rescue attempt in the event of a failure.”
Franghorn looked around; perhaps searching for a drink. Evidently this wasn’t his office. Or anyone’s office. He cleared his throat. “Okay. I hear that the communications systems are currently down, but as soon as they’re fixed we’ll let you know.”
“What’s wrong with them?” asked Baines. “Perhaps I can help.”
“They’ve got it all under control.”
“How long will it be?”
“The latest report estimated between five and twenty-four hours. Not most reassuring, I know.” He paused but breathed in to speak again. Instead he walked around the table, now standing barely a metre away. “If you are so intent on leaving, perhaps you should leave now? Try to contact New Seren when you’re out there? The closer you are, the more likely you can reach them? Forgive me, I don’t understand these things too well.”
He understood plenty.
“The Grounder’s comms should work fine. Is the dome blocking them somehow?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Must be the solar activity.” He turned back for the window. “Once you leave though, that’s it. No coming back. We’re locking the city. The catastrophic event is imminent; activity has increased nine-hundred-percent and temperatures have risen. Even if you leave tonight you might not return safely, I’m sorry to say.” He placed a palm on the window and looked up. No idea at what. Or why. He couldn’t see the sky from there.
“It’s beautiful here,” he said. “You would come to love Neon. You would embrace it, just as it has embraced the planet.”
“Yeah, well,” said Baines. “We have loved ones. People we need to return to. Who need us.”
“Then why all the procrastination?
Home
Jax, as he had done every time he visited, placed a hand on the near-zero-degree Celsius surface of The Oasis. He wasn’t without respect; this gesture simultaneously revisited the awe he felt when he first came across it, vast and imposing in the sweeping rays of sun cutting through the cavern ceiling and bouncing off surfaces, globes of light on rocky surfaces where darkness should have reigned: and paid respect to the dead.
“I’ve never seen it at night,” said Lani.
Scarlett heaved on an airlock door, controlling its descent to the ground as it made a ramp. “I’d be scared if we hadn’t come here a hundred times already. After you,” she waived Jax inside.
He looked around first; probably his final chance to do so before it was turned to dust. The Oasis sat in a crater of its own creation, having landed up on the cliff and fallen through. It didn’t quite sit straight and navigating the rooms inside took some getting used to. He’d lost eggs to the roll of the table before now. Some of the cliff had fallen in on top of it; its snub-nosed cockpit smothered in rocks and dust and debris that no gusts of wind had yet shaken. It had also fallen in sideways somehow, so even from a flyover it would have been missed.
The Oasis. Over a hundred years old and thought destroyed. The hull had lost its lustre, if it had any to begin with, and on what would have been its belly if it wasn’t standing on end instead of spearing through space, were painted palm trees, and a beach, and a lapping ocean. Sometimes Jax lay with his ear to the ground and stared at the palm fronds unmoving, and watched them move; saw the waters break and white foam creep upon the yellow sand. Imagined conquering the waves on a dull-grey, snub-nosed surfboard.
Home no more, he thought.
“God, never mind,” Scarlett huffed as she stepped inside, the light sensor picking her up. Lani followed, and Jax followed her.
Inside the lower level it was nothing more than a cargo hold housing everything from spare clothing and electronics to ration packs. Reinforced boxes were stacked against the walls where once they had been attached, but long taken down and inventoried. A pad with a neatly written list hung from the far wall: Jax’s work. What a waste of time. He scanned the items and grieved for the ones he’d have to leave behind. The synthetic concrete that would have formed a wall. The corrugated sheets of steel that would have made great tiling for a roof. Emergency solar panels that would have provided him with electricity – and the cables that would have knit his home together.
The girls forged on up, climbing a series of ladders that Jax had connected to reach the nose; since the ‘floors’ had become walls, he’d rearranged the contents in every section so tables and chairs and apparatus sat correctly. A series of climbing ropes connected to links he’d embedded in the bedrock kept The Oasis from toppling over. He’d considered devising a system to push it over, but he liked the mural on the underside too much for that.
On the next ‘level’ he’d laid out the first room to act as a relaxation room. Here, he could cook on a solar stove and lounge while reading. The girls, when they visited too, played games and read and knew to leave him alone by default, letting him engage them when he wanted, and not the other way around. He’d destroyed sections of wall to create doorways to adjacent rooms; areas that could later become bedrooms with en suite bathrooms. All that planning, now defunct.
“Get whatever you came for and wait for me here,” he said.
“Where you going?” they said in unison. “Your private area?” They giggled. They had no idea.
Jax climbed to the next level, and the level after that, feeling a tightness develop in his arms as he held his weight on the rungs. When he reached the top, the tightness quickly dissipated. The bridge sat above, a further climb, but it was the locked room across the way that interested him. He hauled the makeshift stairway over to the lopsided door and ascended. A neon light on a sensor activated and it shone from where he’d positioned it above him. He unlocked the door and it withdrew into the wall.
The lab beyond lit up, starched white; glass cupboards and clean, white tabletops across the far end with an array of affixed equipment held down, should the ship ever topple despite his efforts. Thanks to his rewiring and makeshift solar generator, the lab had a constant supply of electricity to keep his experiments running. Lights blinked green and red on monitors and digital readouts kept temperatures steady – there was something quaint about digital that he liked, being able to touch the changing numbers, unlike holo-readouts. He
stepped down to the other side and crossed towards a glass chamber draped with a sheet. It rested on the counter, as innocuous as the rest of the machines and vials and sample-filled petri-dishes. He lifted the sheet. The artificial amniotic fluid within turned blue in the light, giving the skin of the unborn inside a purple hue.
Journal of Lance Corporal Edmonds
4th March (ext), 2234…
Okay. Where do I even begin? It’s been two days since my last entry and so much has happened. I even spent yesterday in bed, unable to sleep, unable to wake; unable to eat, drink or write. I don’t feel like writing this but I need to, before I forget. Before anything happens to me. I don’t know if I’m safe – I’ve been lead to think I am but I wouldn’t trust Franghorn to piss on his children if they were on fire.
All my fears for this place came true. Neon are even more self-serving than anyone even imagined – and I feel so powerless. Franghorn should die for what he did. His second-in-charge – the lieutenants that do his bidding. What they’ve done… it’s hard to comprehend. This place is evil. They all need to die. Dear diary, you may be my only sanctuary – the only place I can reveal my true thoughts if I want to continue living. And dear Jerry… I hope someday to see your face again. It’s the last vestige of hope I have – clinging to superstition – but it’s all I have in the world.
I’m thankful that at least I got to speak to you once last time.
***
Baines and I took the Grounder two nights ago. The temperature had dropped to 10-degrees Celsius and while there was still solar flare activity, its effects were restricted to the bright side of the planet – for now. The barren, scorched ground was a pale red in the Grounder’s headlights, and dust kicked up around us. Neon had not manicured the grounds around the entrance to any great length; where they had and where trees and plants once grew, only ash and blackened bones remained.
I piloted the Grounder while Baines tinkered with the radio. I felt every bump through the vibrations of the pedal and moved up the gears, reaching top speed as quickly as I could. Radio static blasted the cockpit – we’d left the volume on maximum – and my heart leaped. Baines shouted a curse and then dialled the volume down and searched for the correct frequency.
It was going to be okay, I kept telling myself. I watched the rearview camera as Neon’s lights and dome diminished, becoming both smaller and fainter. At some point it just stayed there, seemingly the same shape and size as the second before, and the second before that.
I focused on the forward view while Baines cycled through the frequencies: “G17 to NS-Ops, are you reading? This is G17 to NS-Ops, can you hear me?” His voice sounded cracked and a little gruff, as did mine – the low humidity of Neon’s air had caused our throats to become dry and scratchy, and out here, a deep breath could be laborious. “G17 to NS-Ops, New Seren, will you fucking answer?”
We rumbled on into the night.
Our growing desperation began to trickle down our brows and necks. We knew the city would be there – where could it have gone? – and yet dread wormed in. I had visions of rolling up to New Seren in a couple of hours from now only to find the skeletal frame bent and smashed and perched over the smoking ruins of the city like an ineffectual mouse-trap. Stalactites of metal frozen mid-drip and hanging, tips still burning orange. The smell of our flesh from the previous day returned to memory, and I could taste the burning bodies on my tongue.
“Nothing,” said Baines. “Do you have any ideas?”
“Have you tried direct SatLink?”
“No, I haven’t tried the foremost method of communication used on this planet.”
“I mean, other than Ops? A private number?”
“Do you have one?”
My heart hammered. I both did and did not want to give it. “Try Jerry: 212-002.” I turned to Baines and watched him nod as he switched the comm back to SatLink and punched in the number. “Turn it up.”
The ring tone repeated and repeated over the speaker. After a while I noticed a pain in my foot and eased off on the pressure I was applying to the pedal. Pressing harder wouldn’t make it go faster.
“Hello?” There it was. I couldn’t speak – my breath had left me and I felt a sting behind my eyes. Baines said “Hi” for me.
“This is G17,” he said. “Is this Jerry?”
“It is. Is Edward with you?”
“I’m here. We’re coming home.” My face ached from smiling ear to ear, stretching the sunburn on my cheeks and brow. I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop smiling if I tried. It was so good to hear his voice.
“No, you can’t. You can’t come back.”
That stopped my smile.
“Listen to me, Edward – if you come back you’ll die.”
Baines and I looked at each other, shocked to silence. In the end he nodded at me, urging me to speak.
“I don’t like what you’re saying, Jerry. What is it? What’s happened?”
We heard him breathing; taking stock. Sniffling, as though holding back tears. “I didn’t think I’d hear from you. I felt for sure you’d be dead by now. Are you okay, Edward?”
“A little sunburn but apart from that –” I was going to say ‘I’ll live’ but in the light of recent revelations I didn’t.
“Yes, apart from that,” said Jerry, snorting a short laugh.
“What’s going on, Jerry? We’re almost a quarter the way home.”
“We’ve been sabotaged. Not just us, but Bergot and Remington too. We ran some diagnostics four, five hours ago on the shielding and discovered the power cells had been discharged. We’re – at best – a day away from critical solar activity, and it’s not enough time to recharge the power cells. The shielding needs an exorbitant amount of energy and we’re running flat.”
“And Neon?” said Baines. He leaned over the communications console as though his words relied on this to carry.
Jerry’s voice sounded clipped. Anger simmering. “We’ve not heard from them. Put two-and-two together and what do you get?”
“Their comms are down,” I said. “We couldn’t reach New Seren from inside.”
“But we were being blocked,” added Baines. “Those bastards.”
A moment of silence between us filled with the faces of the doomed cities; open mouths with tongues of fire and blazing eye-sockets, tears of flame. The domes disintegrating and towers turning to dust. A million screams cut-off in a flash of instant light.
My foot eased off the gas.
“There has to be something you can do?” It sounded more like a plea to the gods than a serious question.
“We’re working on it, but even if we rerouted every available power source it wouldn’t be enough. It’s the same for Remington, and Bergot are already out of power; they’re running on ancient battery sources. Our scientists are all working and communicating together, but the diagnosis isn’t great.”
“Why would they do this?”
Baines stood and paced up and down the cockpit. “They want the planet for themselves,” he mumbled.
“Are you evacuating?”
“Evacuating?” asked Jerry.
“To the smaller domes. Have you heard from them?”
As Jerry spoke, I’d never wanted to be by his side so much. “They’re okay – at least the ones we’ve spoken to. They’re small fry compared to the cities – Neon probably isn’t too worried about them. They’re at optimum occupancy though – we’ve been doing a lot of shuffling to ensure that all the domes have the engineers, cooks, medics and doctors they need to survive in isolation after the event. There’s no room for more of us.”
“They can make room, damnit!” I shouted.
“Edward; they can’t make room for all of us.” His voice came at me from all sides of the cockpit. It was such a strange place to be discussing the end of our worlds.
“Then you! You have to get out! Make it to Alpha One and we’ll meet you there.”
I could visualise him shaking his head. “Sorry, Ed �
� it doesn’t work like that. Alpha One are taking in the hierarchy right now – twenty or so women and children and Head Doctor Jameson as the leading geneticist in New Seren. Those who can and should go ARE going. Us runts have got to cross our fingers and hope for the best. Turn around. Go back to Neon. Either live or make them pay for what they’ve done.”
If Baines hadn’t been with me I’d have just kept my foot flat to the pedal all the way back to New Seren and prayed to reach it in time. I couldn’t ask that of him though, and he knew it. He sat down in the co-pilot seat and depressed the microphone so Jerry couldn’t hear us.
“You want to go on?”
I shook my head, eyes wet. “No, no.”
“I don’t care. If you want to be with Jerry.”
“No, I want them to pay for what they’ve done – and it’s not over yet. They might find a solution.” I reconnected the microphone. “Jerry…?”
“Yeah, Ed.”
“You do everything you can, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“God damnit, you two,” said Baines. “We’re not turning back. Living a death in Neon ain’t living at all. You should be together, whatever happens. Don’t worry about me.”
“You turn back now, you hear me, Baines? You hear me, Edward?” Jerry’s voice was loud and cracked over the speaker.
“We hear ya, Jerry.”
“Not on my watch,” said Baines, reaching for the control override.
Quickly, I covered the control with my hand. “You’re outvoted, Baines. Two to one.”
“This is bullshit. You want to go and I want to go; you’re damn right it’s two to one.”
In silence, I veered left, bumping over unflattened ground and turning us around. “We’ll make them pay, Jerry. We’ll make those Neon bastards pay for what they’ve done.”
“I know you will. I wish I could join ya. We considered recommissioning the military tanks and heading south with a few rocket launchers, if they still work. But we were outvoted on the council. There’s how many in Neon? And they’re not all responsible, just a handful at the top. Unlike them, we couldn’t justify wiping out an entire population.”
Neon Sands Trilogy Boxset: The Neon Series Season One Page 59