Revolution in the Underground

by Michaels, S. J.

  Sven looked again at the outside of the chamber. It was of a metallic, industrial luster whose cylindrical center, which was no longer completely intact, was transparent plastic, nearly an inch and a half thick. Along the base, printed in stenciled, bold, capitalized, dark red letters was “S T Y L E + 5.”

  “I need you,” Styles declared, “to get over on the other side of this tile. It will be a tight fit, but you can manage.”

  Sven, in the middle of his observations, was caught of guard. After minutes of struggled cramming, he squeezed his way in. Even with his knees and neck bent, he had a difficult time fitting inside. “Now what?”

  “Use your finger tips to pry open your side, and I will do the same with mine. The tile is attached to the base by a metal bar and will naturally resist our efforts. If we let go, it will recoil. Once we have pulled it up about a foot, you will shift inwards, straddle the tile on both ends and pull it up by yourself. Meanwhile, I will exit the chamber, and retrieve the computer, which is underneath. You will need to hold it for approximately one and a half seconds. Do you think you can do that?” Not expecting the task to be too demanding, and having a lot of confidence in his own strength, Sven answered affirmatively. “Any questions?” Sven shook his head ‘no.’

  They stuck their fingers beneath the tile and started lifting, but as soon as they started, the tile seemed to recede downwards. The harder they pulled, the more the tile pushed back down on them, as if it had some channeled their own energy against them. Sven was surprised by the resistance of the tile, and even more surprised by Styles’ strength, which seemed, by the tilt of the tile, even greater than his own. The tile crept down on their fingers, uncomfortably pinching it against the ground. If only I had a better grip, Sven thought to himself. He looked at Styles to see if they should abandon the cause, but he, who was looking down at his own fingers with a face reddened from exertion, gave no such indication.

  Sven breathed in deeply as the last moment of escape—the last moment at which it would be possible to forgo completion of the task with intact fingers—passed them by. Sven was sweating profusely, his face even redder than Styles’. He screamed out in anguish as the descending tile closed in on his fingers, crushing them with its powerful, immovable recoiling force. Just as the tile was about to snap shut, and sever their fingers, Styles screamed and lifted up with an unbelievable strength—his biceps bulging and his veins throbbing to seemingly inhuman capacities. Initially, as the tile tilted more towards Sven’s side, Sven’s pain increased, but after a few moments the tile ascended and the pressure lessened. Finally able to get a good grip, Sven lifted with his own impressive natural strength and though he was never able to level the tile out with Styles side, the tile did begin to ascend steadily.

  Styles, his face coated with sweat, called out at last, “You ready?” Sven wasn’t ready, and though he wasn’t about to admit it, he wasn’t quite prepared to answer affirmatively. Styles gave Sven some time to straddle the tile and put his two hands on either side, but as he did Sven’s former side tilted down dramatically. “Hold it!” Styles commanded.

  Sven positioned himself so that even if the tile wanted to descend, it would have to rip his arms out of his socket. As Styles let go and swiftly climbed out of the chamber, Sven cried out, lifting upwards with all the force he could muster. He closed his eyes, and screamed out louder, but even that couldn’t prevent him from hearing that sickening pop from his left shoulder. His neck and facial veins, ones that were usually hidden from view, now bulged prominently.

  In one quick movement, Styles leapt out, and seized the laptop computer from the compartment below the tile. Sven let go, almost instantly, and the tile slammed shut with a vengeance. Sven collapsed from exhaustion, panting heavily in a puddle of his own sweat.

  Styles, who recovered almost immediately, spoke cruelly to the winded Sven, “If you weren’t so fat and slow, I would have had you retrieve the computer while I held it up.” Sven was, however, far too breathless to consider Styles words, much less muster a rejoinder. “This,” Styles continued seriously, “stays between us.”

  Chapter 17: An Admission

  In the days that followed, Styles became progressively more dismissive. He had no interest in Daryl’s return from Imperium, nor did he seem to care about the increasing frequency and severity of bomb blasts in the Buffer Zone—the last of which claimed five lives. Even less was he concerned about the day-to-day happenings of the rest of the gang. In fact, after a few last orders to purchase some chemical compounds, he stopped giving them instructions altogether. Initially, Sven and Kara continued to notify him of major disagreements at the revolutionary meetings, but his growing indifference eventually convinced them otherwise. With all matters, except for those pertaining to the plant—which he was more obsessed with than ever—he seemed flippant.

  He changed in other ways too—most notably in his attitude towards Luna. No longer did he request her company. In fact, if anything, he seemed to push her away, instead asking for either Sven or Maggie to remain behind with him. This development came as a surprise to everyone especially considering the imminence of the DNA extraction—a technical task in which Luna was well suited.

  When Kara proposed to take Maggie and Ember to visit one of the biodomes, Styles was more than apathetic, he was unresponsive. Luna, who had come under the impression that Styles no longer liked her—citing his micro-expressions as evidence of his irritation—persuaded Sven to stay behind with him in her stead.

  The walk to the biodome was long but filled with pleasant, informative conversation, led by, at alterations, Kara and Luna.

  “When the engineers designed the Underground,” Kara explained, “they evenly distributed the biodomes. Some people believe that they did that to ensure equal access to resources. It is harder,” she said, looking at Maggie and Ember as if the logic were self-evident, “to effectively control dispersed regions than it is to control an isolated pocket of equal total area. Others, however, suggest that the spread was designed to reduce vulnerability to contamination, or for other logistical reasons.”

  “Why do you talk about the engineers with such reverence?” Maggie asked, as if she had wanted to for some time.

  “Well… To be clear, we only talk that way about the engineers that built the Underground. Modern day engineers don’t get much respect. It’s true, however, that a lot of people talk about them like they are saints.”

  “Saints?” Ember repeated, unfamiliar with the word.

  “Never mind… It just means that they are highly regarded. I don’t exactly know why though… This place was evidently built as a sanctuary for mankind, and if the engineers built it, then that means that they were part of the generation that did something bad… Something so bad as to warrant the construction of this wretched place.”

  “And what exactly do you think happened?” Maggie inquired, though she had asked the same question many times before.

  “Like I said, no one really knows. For my part, I think it had to be some catastrophic war. I think, based upon how people act here, that violence and disagreement is a fundamental part of human nature. For some reason, people seem to focus on differences rather than commonalities. People seem to want to create groups—to create delineations where none is necessary… and then fractions quarrel, sometimes for no reason at all. I think it’s in our genes…. to control… to fight… to divide…”

  “I agree,” Luna said abruptly.

  “And if we could make all this mess just in the Underground,” Kara continued, “just imagine the type of destruction that all of mankind could have been capable of before hand. Maybe something so bad that it rendered the surface uninhabitable. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s just my opinion.”

  “But I don’t know how big the world is,” Maggie lamented.

  “Neither do I… but from what you guys have told me, and from what I have read, it is much bigger than this place.”

  “Ya, I know… it’s just that you told me
to imagine,” Maggie said, as if bothered by something trivial semantic.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said to ‘imagine the type of destruction that all mankind could have been capable of.’ How could I imagine that if I don’t have an idea of scale?”

  “Sure…” Kara said with a mixture of puzzlement and annoyance.

  “But… obviously the surface isn’t uninhabitable. How do you think it is that we came to be?” Maggie asked. Having voiced her reasoning for her nitpicking she now wanted to return to more substantive conversation. “I mean, how is it that Ember, myself, and you, came from places outside the Underground?” she added for clarification.

  “Well, that’s a good question. Perhaps the war never panned out. Or perhaps we were the few remaining surface survivors. It is awfully strange, however, that both our colonies were so proximal to the Underground.”

  “Kara was too young when she left,” Luna explained, “to remember anything… But Maggie? Ember? Did your people… your elders… did they say anything about human history or your town’s origins?”

  “No, not really. Life was so pleasant that people generally didn’t bother to inquire about those things. I told you about that letter that we found… but that was about it… and it didn’t tell us that much. I don’t think anyone else really knows anything more. I guess… maybe you should talk to Ember… he was always suspicious of the Council of Elders.”

  “Ember?” Kara encouraged.

  “What? Huh? Oh ya… I didn’t trust them.”

  “You’ve been awfully quiet today, Ember. Is something bothering you?” Kara asked, concerned.

  In fact, something had been bothering Ember. Today was the day that he decided to tell his feelings to Kara and he was considerably nervous about the prospect. He had been rehearsing his speech throughout the walk, and was shuffling through some sentences and ideas when he was presently brought into the conversation. “No, everything’s fine… I’m just a little tired, that’s all… It’s been a long day.”

  Though she did not believe him, she nodded satisfactorily and let him return to his thoughts. “Well… regardless of the reasons… why the Underground exists, and where we came from… we know one thing… The outside world is habitable.”

  “Getting back to the engineers,” Luna said, looking towards Maggie as she spoke. “There are good reasons why they are so honored. The Underground has been in operation for nearly five hundred years. It is nothing fancy but everything has remained remarkably operational throughout the entire time. The pre-Underground engineers were able to achieve efficiencies that today we can’t even hope to understand, let alone imitate. Take for example, food supply. Every year, the biodomes produce roughly six hundred million pounds of food. There are probably only about one hundred biodomes in all of the Underground, and yet they have been able to collectively produce this amount every year, for five hundred years. That is a sustainability that is hard to even comprehend. Compare it with the ill-fated, dying gardens in the Buffer Zone. People have been moderately successful in growing some potatoes, fruits, and fungi, but nothing like the synthetic productivity of the biodomes. It’s efficiency is difficult to imagine.” Luna spoke with lofty admiration.

  “And where do all the resources come from? Where does it all go?” Maggie asked.

  “That’s a good question,” Luna said, evidently excited to explain something. “No one knows for sure, but all of the biodomes have chutes connecting to the ceiling of the Underground. I suspect that this allows for gas exchange—probably through some sort of filtration system—with the outside world. As for the nutrients, I am not sure why they aren’t depleted. As for the energy they use to grow the food… it’s probably the same as what they use to power the rest of the Underground… and by my calculations, using energy densities of known petroleum sources, that would require an immensely large space. A far more likely scenario is that that they are utilizing fusion reactions of hydrogen nuclei to derive energy. Water could be used as the fuel source.”

  “How do you know all of this?” Kara asked in amazement. Luna shrugged but did not answer.

  “Ya, that’s another question I have,” Maggie began, “where do you get your water?”

  “We overly a large aquifer… So large in fact, that we don’t seem capable of depleting it.”

  “You really respect the engineers, don’t you Luna?” Maggie pressed, trying to understand her infatuation.

  “They have managed to create a system so perfect that all the corrupt efforts of the Underground can’t seem to perturb it from equilibrium. By most estimates the Underground began with roughly three hundred thousand people. Assuming that the biodomes collectively produced six hundred million pounds of food a year, as they do today—which I think is a reasonable assumption—then that comes out to two tons of food per person per year! Now imagine the type of luxury the first residents had. Think about what type of world they came from. Over the years the Underground has probably doubled in population, but still there is enough for everyone to survive… at least here in the Buffer Zone, where resource distribution is somewhat equitable. Just think about the world that created this system. Consider the insight. The ingenuity. The planning. It is something worthy of respect.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk this way about anything!” Maggie said cheerfully, interlocking with Luna’s left arm playfully as she walked.

  “The biodomes,” Kara added, “are the only objects that have remained untouched—throughout all the wars and change—in the Underground. They are some of the oldest objects, yet they are the most efficient and advanced.”

  “Will we be able to go inside?!” Maggie asked, excited by all the talk.

  “Go inside?!” Kara cried out. “Oh no! We definitely can’t do that. The biodomes have no point of entry and are heavily guarded.”

  “How do they get the food then?”

  Kara smiled. “Machines from the inside do all of the harvesting and artificial synthesis, and they ship it out automatically to an adjacent storage facility. It’s kind of a black box. Stuff goes in on one end, and processed food comes out on the other. As for collection and distribution of food stocks… Every place is different, but usually, in the Buffer Zone, some sort of municipality divides it up to others, who then turn it into the food we know. It’s about the only concerted effort that the people in the B-Z can agree upon. A lot of people have taken to growing their own food in recent years, but as long as the biodomes remain productive, I see no reason why.”

  “I see… so why are we going here if we can’t see anything?”

  “Thought you might be interested. You can see the machines, biopods, and pools from the distance. You won’t be able to understand it… no one can… but it’s still pretty cool,” Kara said, as a biodome appeared above the horizon of shanty residences.

  The dome was immense in every dimension. As precious as space was in the Underground, there wasn’t a single structure, except for the large closed-in adjacent storage facility, fifty yards from any of its sides. It was the first time that Maggie and Ember had ever seen a cleared out space in the Underground. For once, things didn’t seem so desolately dense and inconsolably filthy. It was impossible not to exalt the structure. Any object surrounded by calculated isolation, as with any object put on a pedestal before others, cannot help but inspire some fascination. Here it was, alone and colossal—so significant and so powerful that it displaced the drab humdrum of the Underground.

  They stopped at the outskirts of the buildings, admiring it from fifty yards out. Though it was difficult to make out particular details, moving machinations and numerous green-sacked biopods were readily apparent. The majority of its volume was occupied by opaque white structures with numerous thin arms, on which were more dark green ovoid sacs. There was, as Luna explained, a large black shaft that shot out from the center of the transparent biodome towards the dark void above.

  “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen,” M
aggie said with awe, walking along the perimeter of the outskirt of buildings, to look from another angle. Luna followed her as she went.

  “Kara and I are going to stay here a little bit! We’ll catch up to you!” Ember cried out after them.

  “Huh?” Kara said with inquisitive intonation.

  “I want to talk to you for a little bit,” he said nervously, reaching his hand out to touch her. “It’s important. It won’t take long.”

  Kara’s mind raced and her heart beat faster. She had no idea what to expect but automatically assumed the worst. “What is it? Is something the matter?”

  “No, nothing’s the matter. There’s just something I really wanted to tell you.”

  “Oh, uhh… okay… What?”

  “So I was thinking a lot recently… and I realized that we only have one life. I mean, I know it’s obvious, but still… We only have one life, right? It’s kind of crazy right?”

  “Uhh… ya,” she said with an uncomfortable chuckle. “Is that all?”

  “And then I got to thinking about all the pain and suffering here… and then I thought about all the possibilities we have… I mean, we can do anything we want right now!”

  “Well… not anything… we can’t even approach the biodome, let alone leave this wretched place,” she said, trying to enter the conversation and turn it in a more casual, two-sided direction.

  “Ya! I know that!” he said, almost angry at her for interrupting. “But… listen to me… Just about anything’s possible. I mean, if we wanted to we could just run away right now. We only have one life. I know I keep repeating the same thing… and I don’t know if it even makes any sense right now… but somehow… it’s all I think I need to say… It just makes so much sense to me.”

  “Ya… I think I understand,” she said, her heart beating uncomfortably.

  “I mean, I just want to say it over and over again… we only have one life… only one life… it’s the only argument I need… This is all there is… so we have to make the most of it… because we can die at any moment!”