Sky City (The Rise of an Orphan)

by RD Hale

  'Good old Jardine.' Whispering, I shake a fist below waist level.

  'The volume is a bit loud, just say if you want to reduce it, but don't worry about the others as it only has a range of three feet. Let me know when you've finished and I'll show you those books.' The librarian disappears amongst lofty bookshelves which are needlessly well-stocked, given the information contained within can so easily be stored on a pinhead-sized microchip. The recording continues as we hurry from our seats. 'Here wait, you forgot your cartridge.'

  The librarian tilts his head in a patronising manner with no idea he is holding a weapon of subterfuge in his hand. I snatch the incriminating evidence with a polite smile and we flee this elitist institute, marching through Sky City without looking back until we reach the tram station. Troubled by an urge to escape the manifestation of our dreams, we sit at the platform and Mila's spontaneous burst off laughter reminds me there is still so much to see and do.

  'We should go back to the hotel to get our things and return to Jardine. Best not test our luck,' Mila suggests.

  'Are you kidding me? We haven't been to the zoo yet…'

  Huryzen Park

  After a lengthy tram journey Mila and I venture through the entrance of Huryzen Park where a holographic map sequentially enlargens animal symbols described by a booming voice. Information coming from the loudspeaker gets interesting as chimeras and monsters created through genetic experimentation are inaccurately labelled as mutants - and there is a noticeable increase in vocal energy as it hypes the zoo's newest arrivals:

  'Now you might've heard rumours of new inhabitants in our mutant enclosure. And you guys are lucky to arrive today because when word gets out the queues are gonna be unbearable! Dinosaurs! That's right, dinosaurs! I should explain. We've modified junk ostrich DNA and used synthetic genes to fill the gaps in the genome. After several years of trial and error we've recreated several species of dinosaur, which although genetically different are anatomically similar to the real thing. They look pretty much exactly how we believe they would have looked.'

  'Dinosaurs? But that's supposed to be impossible. They can't have... surely,' I gasp.

  'With science anything's possible. That's what you always tell me,' Mila replies.

  We do not wait for the description to finish, hurrying into what was referred to as the 'old section' where denizens of the cage are familiar, but never witnessed in the flesh.

  Approaching the first enclosure we wait for something to happen as the yawn of a golden-maned lion flashes redundant fangs and a bored pride laze in the sun. Disappointed we stroll on, peering over the periphery wall into a basin where a rhinoceros munches long grass. The beast's grey skin is baggy like a morbidly obese person after a diet and it looks too ungainly to wield those deadly horns. Further along we stare into a green swamp where partially submerged crocodiles look more like floating logs and would be almost unidentifiable without the plaques. A safari without the wilderness lacks an awe factor and these creatures are notable, but easily forgotten given what we have been told is around the corner.

  'I wanna see the dinosaur enclosure,' Mila shrieks then points to a cage. 'Monkeys!'

  'Bonobos. They're apes, not monkeys.'

  Mila and I trot to a limited enclosure of muddy puddles and flimsy trees where our simian cousins hang on tyre swings and chase one another over unimaginative wooden frames to playfight like schoolboys. One stops picking its nose to point an elongated fuzzy arm and a grey-haired elder scratches its chin as a youngster displays an array of comical facial expressions and mischievous hoots.

  'They're too self-aware to be kept in a cage,' Mila murmurs.

  A family approach with the father talking in smug tones as the fawning mother cackles in response, ensuring she is loud enough for the entire zoo to hear. Two out of control brats squawk with excitement upon seeing the bonobos; it must be like looking in a mirror for them. The boy grabs a handful of sweets and disregards the sign which reads: Please do not feed the animals.

  The boy flings candy at the double-layered mesh and some of it bounces back, but the rest passes through and scatters on dirt. Over-eager simians grab sweets, rolling eyeballs and chewing slowly as though deciding whether they like the taste. Then they snatch and squeal as the alpha of the group barges to the front and uses his broad back to block off the rabble.

  'Reminds me of you.' Mila smirks.

  A little girl with a very boyish voice bawls: 'I wanna feed them too,' and she blunders to the far side of the cage to fling a handful of sugar-rich animal feed. Then the boy throws more sweets, causing chaos in the enclosure as the bonobos cannot decide which direction to run in. The kids continue to bewilder the half-brained hominids who polish off the treats with pleasure written all over their dumb faces.

  When the mud is almost barren of sweets I hold out my fist and beady eyes fixate on my fingers as I fling them open. The bonobos bolt towards where they imagine the candy will land and search the ground in disappointment, but this does not stop them responding in kind three more times as I repeat the trick.

  'Stop it... that's mean!' Mila laughs.

  'They're not so smart after all,' I reply, amused yet disappointed by the apes' failure of intelligence.

  'Well, they were smart enough to guess where the sweets would've landed.'

  We plod to the next spirit-dampening enclosure which contains a leather ball, a couple of hammocks, bowls of food and water and not a lot else. A pair of dejected prisoners stare unnervingly through corners of their eyes; human-like creatures with muscular torsos, prominent brows and swollen noses. Beyond a metal grid they stoop on grey dirt, barefoot and semi-clad in torn pieces of cloth. I read the plaque: Homo neanderthalensis.

  'What type of monkeys are those? They look like us, only big and scruffy!' Mila asks.

  'They're protohumans called neanderthals. I've read about them. They existed about a million years ago alongside a direct ancestor of ours called homosapiens,' I reply.

  'Are they the ones Eyris was talking about, who supposedly destroyed their civilisation? I would've thought they were the only people around then,' Mila asks.

  'I've no idea whether they had a civilisation like ours, but for a while they shared the planet with other species of human. They interbred with some and outcompeted others, but they all went the same way we're going. We just lasted the longest,' I explain.

  'Other species of human? So those things are basically the same as us and we keep them in cages. That's sick.'

  'Yeah, they're intelligent but scientists think because they resurrected these people, they own them. The Orientis only references one species of woman so they're not considered our equals,' I add.

  Mila leans towards the prison cell with a sympathetic smile, speaking to the protohumans who respond by clinging to the mesh fence and examining her with a perceptible wisdom in their deepset eyes.

  'Hello. Are you okay in there? Can you understand me? It must be awful.'

  Mila hesitates as if wanting to say something helpful and the protohumans explore a face of likely never-before-encountered compassion, but the sentient exhibits flinch as the brattish boy lunges with arms in the air. 'Raaargh!' he screams, before running to his parents and their proud grins encourage this hellion who reminds me of myself at his age.

  'Mam, Dad they were scared of me... Haha!' the boy shrieks in delight.

  The ridiculed neanderthals skulk away to the far side of the enclosure as we move on. Venturing through beaded ropes, we enter an aviary encompassing palms and ferns within net-lined glass walls. Mila grabs my hand as we amble over a wooden walkway through a miniature jungle where tropical birds fly back and forth; their plumage displaying the full spectrum of the rainbow. Some nibble hanging fruit or sit chirping with cheeky, smiling bills and they all seem so delightfully friendly.

  'I wanna take one home,' Mila says with a longing expression as I read a plaque naming various species of flying dinosaur as crimson rosella, dusky lory, honey creeper, little
corella, ornate lorikeet and so on. Mila squeezes her eyes shut as a hyacinth macaw leaves his statuesque bird-bath to swoop towards the wrist she is tensely offering.

  'Eek, it's on my arm!' Mila shrieks as claws dig into her skin.

  'Hello,' the macaw squawks from a beak bearing a cheerful expression and a razor-sharp hook which could sever a misplaced finger. With a flap of wings the strikingly blue bird with gold-ringed eyes flies overhead and I feel a splat on my stubbly hair which sends Mila into a fit of laughter. The cheeky chap lands on a small bush and chirps mockingly as my fingers touch a gooey substance.

  'Disgusting!'

  I wipe the macaw crap on a handrail as a doubled-up Mila revels in my misfortune and backs into a young couple with matching outfits, whose genders can be distinguished only by their differing hairstyles. The longer haired unisexual gasps, feigning offence by raising her snooty nose whilst clutching a drink carton which has not spilt a drop.

  'Sorry, excuse me.' Mila regains her balance as the jollity drains from her apologetic face.

  'Watch where you are going.' The bouffant-haired prat of a boyfriend sneers, leading his conceited partner away by the hand and muttering: 'Careful, you don't know what you'll catch in here... And I don't mean from the animals.'

  Over-protectiveness causes facial muscles to scrunch as my fists clench in reflex. My antagonist turns bright red as he glances back and every part of my splenetic frame screams attack.

  'Hey! Who the hell do you think you are?' I roar and wooden beams of the walkway squeak as I lunge towards the stumbling nancy boy. His girlfriend drops her cup which splashes milkshake over flawlessly white shoes and this minor justice will have to suffice because Mila squeezes my hand, pulling me back.

  'Leave him, he's not worth it.'

  Given last night's conversation we are in a sensitive state and the disparaging insult warrants tackling him to the ground to beat his self-satisfied face to a pulp. But the sight of nearby children clinging to their mother means retaliation would be inappropriate so I walk away.

  'That's right. Walk on, little boy.' He laughs, before mumbling to his girlfriend, 'Level Two scum. They really should be segregated.'

  Obnoxiousness once again tips me over the edge and I strive to put the wanker in his place but Mila tugs my wrist with a stubborn determination. I consider yanking free but I cannot project any form of violence onto her so I grudgingly stand down.

  'He's Level One. He's probably got super-human strength or something. Don't pick a fight.'

  'I can't let him talk to you like that.'

  'Come on,' Mila insists and her better judgement brings my calming body closer to her side. We pass through more beaded ropes as we leave the aviary and Mila playfully nudges my ribs in a failed attempt to prevent the morons haunting our thoughts. 'They don't grow old, do they?'

  'Well, they take anti-aging pills. Funny how none of them are in a rush to get to paradise,' I mutter.

  'Imagine if you could live for a million years. You could fall in love countless times and forget people ever existed. Imagine it,' Mila muses.

  'I'd always remember you... but I would lose you though. A million years is a long time! A million years at our level, that would be hell,' I continue.

  'At any level, there'd be nothing left to inspire. Do you think love could last a million years?' Mila asks.

  'Who knows?'

  As I ruminate the prospect of thousands of forgotten romances, we come to an extensive wall with abominations etched into the surface which detail the twisted realisations of science fiction and mythology contained within.

  Treading through the arch, we discover the true meaning of disbelief with the emerging sight of hybridised monstrosities, bearing horns and teeth and claws which make our previous encounters seem timid by comparison. Terrifyingly, these beasts appear free to roam as they laze in the sun, splash in swampy ponds and gulp animal parts. There is nothing apart from small railings to deter them from charging forth and devouring every passing child.

  'Whoa! They can't get us, can they?' Mila asks.

  A titanic miscreation, which could happily snack on an elephant, lumbers forward and I gawp, unable to decide whether or not to flee from the mutant section. The spined mega-lizard unleashes a blast of fire with a tumultuous roar and slams its forelegs onto the dirt. Mila ducks needlessly as the superheated breath is halted by a blue ripple.

  'Forcefields,' I chuckle in relief as my racing heart decelerates. 'Can't believe you ducked!'

  'What... is... that?' Mila asks.

  The word: Dydongo appears, followed by: The dydongo was created by removing growth-inhibiting genes from the magnus monitor. When these creatures were first created they proved more difficult to contain than anticipated. Due to their ability to produce large numbers of offspring, there are substantial populations of escaped dydongos roaming the mangrove swamps of Arleoch. They are ambush predators who submerge themselves and wait for the opportunity to lunge at their prey. If the killer bite misses, they overwhelm their victim with expulsions of white phosphorous which incapacitate by melting through skin and muscle tissue. The dydongo is the apex predator of the Arleoch swamps.

  'Apex predator? I'm not surprised. What could mess with that thing?' I mutter.

  Miscreations and Complications

  As the sun sets Mila and I follow railings to a tri-headed aquatic creature floundering on the shore of a lily-filled pond. Our admiration of the biologically impractical is distracted by enlivened figures in the periphery of my vision which at first I disregard, but their determined pace arouses suspicion. I refocus my gaze to identify uniformed security guards marching in our direction. One of them points a finger, before reaching into his holster and my heart explodes into panic.

  'Shit! They're onto us,' I gasp.

  Holding hands we hotfoot into the sparse crowd and duck close to wandering families, clattering a young woman who tumbles into her boyfriend. The plummeting pair are possibly the conceited arseholes we earlier encountered but we have no time to gloat as they crash onto solid stone.

  Knowing phaser fire could incapacitate us at any instant, I scour surroundings for an opportunity to disappear, before tearing into the bird enclosure. Heads jolt as our footsteps thunder over the wooden walkway and within seconds we emerge at the other end, sneaking off to a secluded corner beside a first aid office.

  'I think we lost them,' I pant as we double over and an ear-splitting whistling way above is followed by a BANG! The resulting tremor causes people in the crowd to stagger as though they have been struck by lightning. Mila uses my arm to regain her balance as a distant fireball catches my eye and the sight is almost incomprehensible. Our supposedly impenetrable defences have been breached and a huge plume of smoke billows from the midsection of the central tower of Sky City.

  'My goddess, what was that? I think we're under attack! We need to get home,' Mila shrieks.

  A deafening blast splits the hemispheres of my brain, hurtling me through the air until I crash into a springy barrier. Painfully crumpled against a broken fence, I have no desire to discover what horrors lie within the breached enclosure. The lights, which had only just been switched on, have gone out and a siren is blaring. My clothes are singed, the wind has been knocked out of my lungs and my left leg could be broken. The heat of nearby flames licks the back of my neck and it appears most of the surrounding cages have been damaged by the impact as smoke engulfs the zoo.

  Getting up I find my injured leg can still support my body weight but Mila is slumped several yards away. Consternation becomes tentative relief as she digs her palm into the ground to push up and when she falters I ignore the pain of a sprained ankle to lift her back to her feet.

  'Are you able to walk?' I ask.

  'I'm fine, just a bit winded,' Mila wheezes.

  'You're bleeding.' I point to the bloody patch on her elbow.

  'It doesn't hurt,' Mila insists through gritted teeth.

  People are staggering, clutching ears o
r lying on the ground, injured and bewildered by this indiscriminate act of warfare. Children and parents weep, blasted away from an impact crater within a buffalo compound and it is difficult to look upon these pained faces with the same scorn I did earlier. Some possibly have broken bones but miraculously I cannot see any dead people, just scattered cattle parts, including a severed bull head.

  'They're hurt. We need to help them,' Mila insists.

  A tangible growl, like that of a pneumatic drill, makes my hairs stand on end. My neck creaks around to identify an escaped leopard which has joined a crowd of increasingly terrified civilians. The beautiful speckled athlete seems just as scared as us humans, but has razor-equipped paws to lash out at any perceived threat. Holding my palms out as a pathetic shield I back off and Mila's screaming causes the beast to run in circles, clawing at a sobbing lady's dress.

  Mila and I sprint all the way to a grassy bank with a stone wall at the top, which could be the perimeter of the mutant enclosure but there is no time for hesitation. Clambering up the slope, I give Mila a boost up the wall then jump and grab the ledge. Mila tugs my wrist but her effort is nullified by a heavy yank on my leg and I discover my trouser ankle in the grip of teeth.

  'Shiiiiitt!'

  The tearing of trouser fabric decreases the weight of the leopard's pull but Mila's grasp slips so I furiously kick my free foot into thin air. Concentrating my efforts, I aim between the leopard's glowing eyes and jerk upwards as a hoof on the nose releases its grip. Mila's heals dig into turf as she heaves my suddenly light body and my forearms land on grass but as I scramble up the wall those unrelenting jaws steal my trainer. The leopard clings to the ledge and my holey-socked foot connects with its fuzzy face for the second time.

  'Run!' I yell.

  Hurdling a small fence, Mila and I approach the rear of a grey building with tall chimneys and we enter a maintenance door, relieved for the chance to regain our breath. A dimly lit corridor leads to a junction and there is a ladder to the left of us. When our panting lessens we dash through the doorless passageway in search of an emergency exit to lead us out of the zoo. But our hopes of an easy escape are thwarted by the appearance of two guards with seriously mixed up priorities.