City of Darkness

by D P Wright

  “Who are you?” A citizen, wearing the same uniform as the corpses crouched, partially obscured by an overturned table, stuttered manically. He was very thin and his tunic hung from a bony frame. He pointed a pistol at them, bringing it to bear on each one of them as if undecided on whom to focus, the other hand was outstretched above his head and held what looked like a thermabomb or grenade of some description. His thumb hovered over the trigger.

  “Easy pal, we’re just passing through. All we need to do is get to Acheron.” Kessler repeated slowly as he holstered his side arm and, with arms outstretched and palm open, backed away, “We don’t mean to disturb,” Kessler looked around him at the grotesque scene, “whatever you’ve got going on here.”

  “You’re not from here?” The man had a feral look about him. He breathed into his vent, his eyes wild as he stared at the group through the dirt and grime of his visor.

  Doc steeped forward, “Citizen, we have travelled from Midtown. I’m a doctor, can I be of any assistance?” He gave Kessler a sideways glance.

  “From above? You’ve come to save us? I knew they would send someone.” He started waving his hands up and down with excitement, “Tell me, where are the others? What is the news from the Council?”

  Doc reached out and held his arm, smiling reassuringly, “I’m afraid there are no others, we are lone travellers on urgent business to Acheron.”

  “Why would you want to go there?” He shoved Doc to the side and started pacing in a circle, his head in his hands despairing, “I knew it. They have abandoned us,” he started to pray, “Oh machine that gives us heat, that provides sustenance for our unworthy bodies…”

  Doc shook his head, looked at Kessler and muttered to himself, “No Council prayers are going to help you down here.”

  “And look what you’ve done, the door, the door, the door,” he twitched and shook as he pointed to the crumpled metal, “they’ll get me now, for sure!”

  “What happened here?” Kessler tried not to stare at the bodies, their stench however forced his attention.

  With mouth opened and twisted in a silent scream, the citizen’s hands clawed at his visor, “We turned and turned, everything fell apart.” He began to sob, “A wave of blood drowned us from the dark,” his voice cracked and shrieked. “Keep the light on, always keep it on, that’s what they told us.”

  Kessler tried to make sense of the citizen’s ramblings. His mind had obviously been broken but he needed answers quickly if they were to get to Bethany. He looked at the chevrons on his upper arm of his soiled heat suit which gave him the rank of Corporal. One thing he knew about the DPD was that they were well trained and brainwashed with corporate doctrines, always loyal soldiers to the Council. Years of this devotion would not be quickly forgotten, “Corporal what is your name and serial number?” Kessler spoke with authority and made sure that his holstered Luther was in plain view.

  The trembling officer abruptly stopped his babbling and for the first time stood stock still seemingly trying to absorb what Kessler had said, his gaze fixed on the detective’s weapon. He looked up and spoke in a hushed but clear voice, “Corporal Eisen 65247M3.” He limply tried to stand to attention, “Sir.”

  “M3,” Kessler smiled, trying to calm him, “I was originally from there. A solid, hard-working district, full of loyal citizens.” He paused, allowing Eisen to compose himself, “I require a report on what happened here, a brief one.” His voice took on an aggressive, yet controlled air, taking time to pronounce every syllable, his common Midtown slur gone, replaced by the clear, direct tone of authority.

  “We, we lost the battle sir, and my squad, we retreated and tried to escape back to the upper reaches…” he began to stutter and twitch, “they were everywhere, all over us. We managed to make it to this store and lock ourselves in, wait for help. There was nothing left to do, all was lost.” He looked down at the remnants of his squad and briefly lost his composure, whimpering slightly before looking back to Kessler, “Soon they started to show signs of the plague, I did my duty, sir, as we have been told to do, stopped it taking them before it had them completely.” Eisen looked down again at his dead companions and to his pistol which shook in his loose grip.

  Kessler’s mind was a whirl of thoughts. A battle? All the way down here? He had never heard of the Council losing anything. “Lux, it’s spreading?”

  Eisen ignored Kessler’s question, lost in his own thoughts and words, “We had no chance, there were so many. You say you’re travelling to Acheron, sir?” His twitching features stepped forward bending close to Kessler’s face and he whispered quickly in a series of snatched wheezes, “That’s where they make the stuff. Top secret,” he winked at Kessler, “I’m sure you know, sir,” He stepped back and cleared his throat as his face took on another disturbed look, “It’s full of their monsters. You’ll never make it.”

  “Brilliant,” Doc despaired.

  “Quiet!” Kessler barked at Doc who quickly nodded and stepped back. The detective needed to remain focused, he had to think. His eyes were dry and sore and his head hurt. He was sweating and could feel the familiar signs creep through his body. Panic. Blinking repeatedly, his hands went to his bag where the soft plastic caps of sim awaited him. He wanted to rub his aching eyes but noticed Eisen and Doc staring at him. After a few moments breathing, thinking with only the sound of Beck’s whimpering and the rattle of Eisen’s shaking body filling the room, Kessler drank some water from his pouch and withdrew his hands quickly from his bag. “How long have you been here, Corporal?”

  “It’s hard to say, a month maybe more…”

  Kessler looked down at the floor of the room. Some attempt had been made to keep human waste to barrels and buckets in the far corner but the stench was overpowering. Empty food parcels, Ox canisters and dry hydration pouches lay strewn across the filthy metal mesh floor. He took another look at Eisen’s dead companions and back at the Corporal who was becoming more agitated. “These are difficult times for us all.” Kessler never had any sympathy for Venters or anybody associated with the Council but looking at Eisen’s, grubby, gaunt features made him feel a kind of affinity with him. They were all fighting against this plague, as the Corporal had called it. This scourge that threatened Dis. He thought of Bethany and where she might be right now as panic again threatened to overcome him, ‘Damn,’ Kessler cursed to himself, ‘don’t lose it, keep yourself together.’ He composed himself and spoke aloud, “We have to make it to Acheron, you are welcome to come with us?”

  “I, I can’t go back up there. No, sorry.” He sat down and put his head in his hands.

  “Ok. Do you have an access key for the hatch outside?”

  “Yes, I have my keylite.”

  “Excellent. Ok.” Kessler turned to look at Doc and Beck, “Let’s go.”

  Kessler picked up Beck who looked at him wide eyed, “I didn’t realise you were Council…”

  “Shut-up.” Kessler cut him off and raised his fist threateningly and the innkeeper immediately stopped talking and quickly followed Doc out of the room to the base of the ladder.

  Eisen climbed up and opened the hatch. His small rectangular keylite quickly slotting into the lock and after a couple of clicks a blue flash indicated the hatch was open and, with the hiss of pistons, the young officer lifted the heavy door and motioned for Kessler to move quickly. As the detective passed the Corporal he reassuringly took hold of his shoulder, “A couple of hours travel up that passageway will lead you to a store room where a service tunnel will take you right back up to D2. I’m afraid Lux has taken hold up there as well but it’s not as bad as down here. You should go, from there you’ll have a chance to make your way back up beyond the Rim to Midtown. You have served the Council well.”

  “Sir,” Eisen looked up at the detective, who paused atop the ladder, and spoke with stuttering uncertainty, “my unit, my colleagues, all kept talking of going to live in the light, that giving into this plague was the only way. They’re wrong aren’t t
hey, sir? The Council are the only providers of light, providers of energy, aren’t they?”

  Kessler stared into the eyes of the young Corporal. An officer who had lived through the last month locked in a room filled with terror of the monsters lurking around them, faced with having to kill his own unit to survive and the only thing keeping him alive was his Council loyalties and ideals. “Of course, Corporal. The Council bring us light and warmth in the darkness.” Kessler spoke the popular Council mantra and it seemed to bring some happiness back to Eisen.

  “Thank you, good luck sir.” Eisen disappeared quickly back into the room as Kessler, Doc and a muttering, complaining Beck rose up through the entrance into a shower of white light.

  RACE FOR ACHERON

  The sky shook. A bright, blinding light bathed the group and for a short while each one of them stood stock still allowing the brilliant glow to envelope them in its warmth. Then, eventually, as the moments passed in silence, as each stood in awe as their nerve endings tingled in the light, darkness gradually embraced them again, returning the vast expanse to an eerie twilight.

  Kessler struggled to find words, “What world is this?”

  Another explosion from above illuminated them in its rays, “It is so bright. Can you feel it?” Doc looked to Beck, “Is this what you see in your dreams? Is this what these Malebranche promise?”

  Beck too stood open-mouthed staring up into the sky at the shimmering gaze, “Yes. Light and heat. They promised it all.”

  “It is wonderful. Truly wonderful. I have never seen so much light before,” Doc continued in awe.

  Soon however, as their vision adjusted, their zeal for the light vanished as it very quickly became apparent why Corporal Eisen had not wanted to join them. Beck knelt down and tried pulling on the hatch as Kessler and Doc sat on the cavern’s rocky surface and tried to absorb the view before them. The cavern floor was made of highly polished black rock that flashed white reflected light. The whole space was magnificently illuminated by what looked like an electrical storm. Huge blue rods of energy cracked and sizzled every few minutes burning the air and causing a bitter, acrid smell which caught at the back of the throat. A static buzzing sound fizzed around them. The surface of this gigantic space was littered with corpses, most appeared to be wearing the golden cog of the Council. All these citizens of Dis seemed to have had their bodies slashed and torn apart, their skin charred and blackened. Some lay by themselves, others slumped in a grotesque pile of hands, feet and distorted faces.

  The others, what few there were, appeared to be Seekers, their black gloss scales shining in the glow of the maelstrom playing up above. It was extremely hot and in the distance the heat played games with their senses as waves of vapour distorted the horizon. As the landscape smouldered in the stark yellow and blue light Kessler could see that the surface of the cavern was broken by various rocky outcrops, their silhouettes angry spikes and jagged edges that thrust out of the ground. An escarpment, about one hundred feet to the group’s left, ran in a relatively straight line towards the horizon. The intense heat gave the entire area a bleak, scorched look.

  Kessler checked his Ox levels, refitted a new canister to his vent and took some more water. The vast scale of the space dumbfounded him. He tried to say something to Doc but the words were lost somewhere between his dry, cracked throat and the immense cracking of the chaos which raged above them. He cleared his throat and again took more water, “Beck, come over here.” The innkeeper shrugged his shoulders and continued to stare at the sky, “Where is Acheron from here?”

  “The town can easily be seen.” Beck pointed to the horizon which, at its centre, was dominated by a large glowing sphere of light which seemed to dance in the eddies and swirls of heat. “It’s surrounded by a plasma gorge, a huge field filled with the liquid energy used to fuel the machines of Dis. I’ve seen it when I sleep. So much light in one place.” Beck seemed lost in his thoughts for a moment before suddenly shaking his head and shading his eyes with his hand, “You’ll need to pay the ferryman passage to cross it safely. That’s what I’ve heard. And within Acheron itself, who knows? The Malebranche have taken over, if you’re not taking Lux you won’t last long.”

  Doc spoke as he stared out into the distance, “I cannot believe the Council would let this happen… I…”

  Kessler interrupted, “They didn’t just let this happen. Look around, Doc. They threw everything they had at these creatures and still got their asses kicked.”

  Doc wiped his visor with his sleeve and continued, “No. They wouldn’t allow it.”

  Kessler returned his attention to Beck, “Ok, you’ll lead us up to this ferryman and then you can go and have want you want.”

  “How are we getting into the town, Kes?” Doc’s stare was fixed on the horizon.

  Kessler tried to blink away rivers of sweat which stung his aching eyes as he searched his thoughts, “It’ll be difficult but…”

  As he struggled to find an answer, Doc nodded, “It is ok. I now see it all laid out before us in this damned place. I understand now that there is no escaping this,” he looked around him, “whatever this is. Lux will spread up the city. If the Council cannot stop it then, well, there is no stopping it, no running away from it.” Doc held out his rifle, “Let’s find a way in and get Bethany.” Doc’s calm tones had the reassuring air of acceptance and for the first time in a long while Kessler looked at Doc for who he really was, an old friend.

  “Sounds good, Doc.” Kessler could not help cracking a slight smile but was sure, behind the grime of his visor, that no one had seen it. He continued, “We need more water, let’s see if we can find any in what’s left of these Vents.”

  The three made their way slowly through the vast expanse towards a group of bodies that lay sprawled out in a near perfect circle around a small outcrop of rock rising a few feet above the surface. The loyal citizens of Dis lay lifeless, their uniforms and heat suits, like their flesh, torn from them. Kessler thought back to the monsters they encountered at The Crow’s Nest with their razor sharp claws and their savage maws. They had made fast work of these Vents.

  Doc knelt over and examined one of the few fallen Seekers while both Beck and Kessler rummaged through the bodies of the DPD. The crumpled, leathery flesh of a young cadet was frozen in a hollow stare as the detective examined what was left of his possessions. A standard issue combat knife, pouch of field rations, a small copy of Council Protocols and a plastic image of the cog, the type of cheap Council devotion that could be bought at any market stall throughout Midtown, was all Kessler could find. Half his helmet, along with half his face, had been clawed clean away, leaving the garish sight of blackened skin and bleached white skull left to rot and dry in the heat. “Find any water?” Doc shouted from where he was still kneeling over the dead Seeker.

  “No, nothing.”

  Beck spoke, his head lost in the folds of a Vent’s uniform, “I have to admit you were right, I am useful to you. One thing I know how to do, the one thing I have always been good at, is finding items that citizens need. I’ve the nose, or gills I should say, for such a task.” Beck chuckled to himself as his hands went to touch his mutation that lay covered under the thick material of his heat suit. Kessler could not hide a smile as the innkeeper continued, “Water, power cells and doctor,” Beck held up a red pouch, “a med kit.” He looked pleased with himself.

  Kessler barked a laugh and looked at Doc who pursed his lips in restrained acknowledgement. “We should rest here, at least for a short while, and eat some of these rations.” Kessler looked at him and shook his head in concern, “Kes, we will not be fit to walk never mind rescuing Bethany from these monsters if we continue like this. Another hour or two in this heat, in these heavy suits, will finish us.”

  “Ok, just an hour to catch our breaths then we move.” Kessler looked at the beautiful white glow of Acheron in the distance and, for a brief moment, another wave of panic caught him. Acheron was the centre of all this trouble, of all t
his carnage, and they were just going to walk right up to it. The insanity of what they were doing was just taking hold of him when Beck prodded his shoulder and Kessler, with a shake, returned from his tangled thoughts to see the smiling innkeeper offering him a pouch of water. He took a second before smiling back and sucking its contents through his suit, “Thanks.” His gaze returned to the furnace town, “It glows so brightly.”

  “The plasma, I expect.” Beck mumbled as the storm flashed blue and yellow around them.

  The three sat together around a pile of scavenged items. Beck sucked loudly on the liquidised corps rations while Doc spoke, “You can always rely on the Council to provide its men with the finest in combat stimulants but only the most basic medicines.” He held up a small syringe, “Theocotaline, won’t stop a fever, staunch bleeding or mend bones but it will force any broken body to stay and fight when all it wants to do is lay down and die, effective in the short term but usually deadly to the user.” He rummaged around for a few more seconds and eventually held aloft a small pouch, “Kestamine. It will numb even the most severe pain but will certainly not mend it.”

  “Council chems. All sanctioned and legal from the biggest dealer in the city.” Beck smiled and spoke as his fingers clawed at his visor. When Kessler noticed the innkeeper stopped suddenly, sat on his hands and cleared his throat before continuing, “Mr Kessler, if I may satisfy my curiosity by asking a personal question?”

  “Humph,” Kessler grunted as he examined an ornate knife with the Council cog emblazoned on a black synth-leather coated handle.