Kyle glanced at Vinnie, who looked a little pale around the gills, then returned his undivided attention to Maya. "So ... 2 and 3 are fairly safe then?" he asked.
She made a face and bopped her head from side to side. "Both yes and no. It's tougher than here," she said and eyed him up and down for a moment. "Pretty boy like you has to be careful in a place like this. But with that big ape on your shoulder, most over there will think twice before taking a stab at you," she added and nodded toward Vinnie.
"Who are you calling an ape?" Vinnie growled, obviously a little hurt by the nickname.
Maya gave him a glare for his trouble. "Reality check, dickhead. We descended from apes. It's not a fucking insult, okay?" she snarled.
"Calm down," Kyle suggested casually. "All we want to know is how far we can go and still be fairly safe."
"Why'd you wanna leave this dome anyway? You can live out your life here and be content, can't you?" Maya countered and gave him an odd look he couldn't read.
All Kyle could think of doing right then was to shrug lightly and smile. "I'm a rich man's kid. I'm used to more than a tent or a lean-to," he said and spread his arms in an all-encompassing gesture.
Maya eyed him for a moment and then chuckled. "I like you. It's a pity that you won't live long," she said. "The tunnel to the next dome is right across from where you came through when you arrived. It's hidden behind a tarp."
"That's all we wanted to know. Thank you for your time," he said and rose. Vinnie followed suit, a hurt look in his eyes, and Kyle briefly wondered if the big guy was going to last in this joint.
"Look me up if you make it back here in one piece," Maya said and waved them off. "Now, go on. Scat. I want some peace and quiet here."
"Let's go," Kyle said and led the way across the expanse toward where Maya had indicated they would find the tunnel.
"Do you think it's such a good idea after what she said?" Vinnie asked and fell in step beside him. "I mean ... she's a woman and all, of course, but still ..."
"Don't worry about it, Vin. My honest opinion here is that Maya's a little nuts. Or maybe she's just ... you know ... careful. Doesn't want to get in trouble or something," Kyle tried to reassure him while brushing past tents that looked like they'd been dipped in shit and left to dry in the sun. That thought made him grimace.
"Do you think so?" Vinnie didn't sound too sure when he brushed a curtain-like divider aside to let them pass.
"I know so. She's scared under all that bravado," Kyle countered and slowed down when they reached the dome wall. He inspected the area ahead of them and sighed. There were a lot of tarps and a lot of them were hanging close to the wall. "Where should we try our luck?" he asked.
Vinnie eyed the wall too and then shrugged halfheartedly. "To be honest, I'd rather stay here," he said in a small voice.
Kyle considered his options of making it alone in a tougher neighborhood and figured he couldn't count on getting through this unscathed if he went through on his own. Like it or not, he needed Vinnie by his side; if for nothing other than to feel marginally safe. "Truth be told, Vin, me too," he said quietly. "But ... and you gotta keep this under wraps ... I kinda get the feeling that this place isn't as escape proof as they want it to appear. And I think we need to gather some resources - both manpower and whatever scraps we can salvage - to make it in this dump long enough to find out if my theory pans out."
The other man made big eyes at that claim. "You really think there's a way out of here?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "Do you really think so?"
It was the response he'd hoped for. A part of him felt bad about leading the big guy on, but this was about surviving first and foremost. And he figured his chances were pretty bad if he didn't have some backup. If even half of what Maya had said was true, he should cut his losses and just stay here. But Kyle wouldn't be where he was today if he didn't at least try. Knowing when to back down had never been one of his virtues and he wasn't about to change that now. "Yeah, big guy. I really think so," he confirmed with what he hoped was a sincere smile.
***
Dome 2
The second dome turned out to be completely different; apart from the fact that it was a dome like the first one and the glass was just as dirty as in dome 1. But that was where the similarities ended. This was a housing community. There were actual buildings in this one, all one story, all dusty gray, all of them alike apart from the number stenciled onto the doors.
What struck Kyle immediately was the absence of life. There were no people mulling about, talking quietly, and cooking their meals. He stopped just outside the mouth of the tunnel and eyed the surrounding area for a moment. "Seems kinda quite, doesn't it?"
Vinnie had come to a stop next to him and looked around too. Then he sent Kyle a nervous glance. "I don't like it. Silence in a place this big ain't right," he muttered.
Kyle shrugged with feigned indifference. "Maybe they're not social," he suggested and started forward. He headed straight for the first building and the door. The buildings had no windows and he couldn't see if they had roofs. Maybe they were storage sheds rather than living quarters, he mused, pressed the door handle down and pushed the door open. He expected nothing, really, but was still prepared for an attack. There was none, though. All that met him beyond the door was an almost brooding darkness; the light from outside barely reached over the threshold. "Hello?" he asked and squinted into the gloom.
"I really don't like this," Vinnie said at his shoulder.
Kyle ignored him and took a step into the structure. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and things began to stand out. There was a bed in one corner, a table, a chair, and what looked like a closet. He ran his fingers over the inside wall and found what he was searching for; a light switch. He flicked it and a dirty neon tube embedded in the ceiling flickered on. The room yielded nothing more than what he had made out in the darkness, but it looked like nobody had ever lived here. "That's weird," he muttered and sent a brief glance over one shoulder toward the tunnel from the first dome. Why would they choose to live over there in tents and lean-tos when there was perfectly good housing over here, all empty?
"Can we go back? I'm really not comfortable here," Vinnie almost whispered.
The big man was glancing around nervously, obviously spooked by this ghost town. "Take it easy, Vin," Kyle admonished him in a friendly tone of voice which was aimed at hiding his own concern over this situation. "It's just an empty room."
"Yeah, but why are they over there if there's housing over here?" Vinnie asked, voicing Kyle's own thoughts. "That doesn't make any sense unless there's something wrong here."
Kyle chuckled. "You've seen Ghosts of Mars one time too many, my friend," he said, alluding to an old sci-fi movie that had always made him laugh. The idea of ancient alien ghosts on Mars had always struck him as ludicrous.
Vinnie gave him a confused look. "What?" he asked.
With a wave of one hand, Kyle brushed it off, flicked the light back off and closed the door to the abandoned hovel. "Never mind," he said. "Let's go a bit further. If there's nobody here, there's nothing to be afraid of."
They continued onward, making their way between two rows of the buildings, while Kyle listened intently to their surroundings. He at least wanted to be able to hear if someone was sneaking up on them.
The further they walked, the less likely it seemed that they would run into trouble though. There simply wasn't anyone around. It was weird, no doubt about that, but abandoned rooms weren't dangerous.
More than once on their trek he had to tell Vinnie to back off because the big guy was tailgating him all the time. Kyle couldn't help wondering how a guy that big could actually be afraid of others, but obviously the package didn't always contain the volume indicated by its size.
Halfway through the 'street' he had chosen, Kyle came to a stop. The rooms were laid out in grids, very straight forward. All the doors he'd tried so far opened and all the roo
ms behind them contained the same furniture. And all, without exception, looked like nobody had ever used them.
"You know what bugs me?" he asked while sending long looks up and down the crossing 'street'.
"That there's nobody around?" Vinnie guessed.
"Not so much that. What bugs me is that it looks like nobody's ever used these rooms. There must be dozens of them, hundreds maybe. Why aren't the people in dome 1 using them? Why choose to live in tents and lean-tos when there's perfectly good housing over here?"
"Because they're afraid of the ghosts," a voice said from behind them, making them both jump.
Kyle and Vinnie turned around to face the owner of the voice and Kyle frowned a little at the tall guy standing there. He had a shaggy mane of dark hair and looked like he just came from the gym, dressed in sweats and a sweat-soaked t-shirt. He was half a head taller than Kyle, which made him about half a head shorter than Vinnie. "Ghosts?" he asked.
The new guy smirked. "Yeah. People here are pretty superstitious. There are no ghosts here, just a lot of dust. These used to be the original cells of the prison before they chose to turn it into a self-sustaining colony," he said.
Frowning, Kyle pushed Vinnie's hand off his shoulder and took a step forward. "And you know that how? You look like you're still a bit wet behind the ears," he countered.
That earned him a halfhearted chuckle. "Thanks. I get that all the time. Until I hammer them into the ground, that is," the guy said and stuck a big hand out to Kyle. "Daniel," he introduced himself.
"Kyle," Kyle replied and grabbed Daniel's hand in a brief handshake. He could not imagine that Daniel would hammer anyone into the ground. He just didn't look the type. "So ... why aren't you living here then if there are no ghosts?"
Daniel smirked. "I am living here, just on the other side," he said and nodded in the direction they had been heading. "I like to go for a run in this part, though. Nobody around to bother me."
There was something about this story that didn't quite add up, something about this guy that didn't correspond with the subdued tough-guy-act he was displaying, but Kyle wasn't about to question it right now. Daniel might be his ticket to finding out more about the domes. "How many live here?"
With a slight shrug, Daniel rubbed the back of his neck and briefly inspected his hand which had come away slick with sweat. "I don't know the exact number," he said and wiped his hand on his pants. "But there are a few of us. You should come along, meet some of them. Are you new or have you just been living over there?" he asked, nodding toward dome 1.
"We just arrived today," Kyle said. "The big log behind me is Vinnie, by the way," he added and jabbed a thumb over one shoulder. Vinnie was still standing much too close for his liking, but he knew the guy was nervous and didn't call him on it.
"Good to meet you both. It's always nice with some new faces around here. People get pretty stale after they've been here for a while. It's not like it's a party, you know," Daniel said and started walking.
Kyle fell in step beside him while Vinnie trailed after them, apparently scared into silence for now. "I never thought it would be," he admitted. "This is a prison, after all. Do the guys on Earth even know what's going on up here?"
Daniel sent a brief look upward. "They used to," he said. "I've been told that there used to be cameras all over the place, but someone before my time took them all down. I have no clue what they've done with them, though. Some say the loonies in the dark domes have them and are using them for scrap metal or whatever. Who knows? It's not like it really matters anyway."
"Guess not," Kyle agreed and sent a brief look back at Vinnie. The guy looked almost morose and he figured that Vin didn't like it that he had made a new friend. The idea almost made him smirk, but he abstained from rubbing salt in the wound right now. He would have to talk to Vinnie about it at some point, though. For now, it was still pretty important to him to maintain a working relationship with the man. They needed each other in this joint. "How long have you been here?" he asked Daniel.
"I have no idea. It's kinda hard to tell the days apart. We have no seasons up here, as you may have noticed. My best guess is two years," Daniel said and turned down another side street. "What are you in for?"
"Rape and murder. Falsely accused, obviously," Kyle countered evenly.
Daniel gave him a brief glance, a brief flicker of something not quite comfortable in his gaze. "You don't seem the type," he said.
"As I said, falsely accused," Kyle countered. "What about you?" The guy was hardly more than a kid. He looked like he was barely out of his teens, even though appearances could be deceptive in some people.
For a moment Daniel remained silent and just kept walking. Then he gave Kyle a look that made him wonder what horrors this kid had gone through up here. He was definitely not comfortable in his own skin. "Drunk driving," Daniel finally said. "I killed someone because I was driving back from a party drunk as a skunk. They took one look at me and threw the book at me. I hardly got a trial either. I had no money, no influence, and no rich relatives. So I ended up here."
"Graveyard for the damned," Kyle muttered.
"Don't say that," Vinnie said quietly, his tone of voice tense.
Kyle glanced back at him. "Cheer up, buddy. How bad can it really be?" he countered, hoping to raise the guy's spirits a little.
"Oh, it can get pretty damned bad here," Daniel said, ruining the illusion. "As I said, this isn't a party. Far from it."
They walked on in silence for a bit while Kyle tried to determine what 'pretty damned bad' could mean. "Have you been to the dark domes?" he asked, following a sudden thought.
The glance that earned him from Daniel was almost enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck. "No," Daniel countered. "If I had, I would be dead now. The loonies ... you don't mess around with them. As long as we stay away from their domes, they don't come after us. But if you get too close ... it can get pretty gruesome." He pulled his shoulders up a little, but stopped one step from hugging himself. "I've seen things I don't ever wanna see again," he admitted. "As I said, it can get pretty damned bad here."
For the time being Kyle really didn't want to know more. Having been warned about the dark domes by two different inmates made it valid in his opinion and that meant he was going to steer clear of the dark domes if he in any way could.
***
The Lost Boys colony
The other side of the second dome was livelier. Daniel's neighbors were all male and none of them seemed hostile, but that didn't make them friendly either. They watched Kyle and Vinnie with unveiled suspicion.
"Newbies," Daniel said and at least two of his neighbors simmered down a little.
Kyle had no interest in them, though. If they wanted a fight, they could have one, but he would rather avoid that until there was no other way. All he was interested in right now was Daniel and what he could tell him.
Daniel pushed the door to one of the rooms open and stepped inside. As opposed to the other rooms, this one looked lived in. It was neat and it had soul and that was more than Kyle could say for the first rooms they'd looked at. "Yours?" he asked.
"Yup," Daniel agreed.
"No kitchen? No bathroom?" Kyle glanced around. This place was a bedroom and nothing more.
"No, we have a common bathroom and a mess hall. It's a bit of an inconvenience, considering that if you're at the other end, it's pretty far to either. Another reason for that nobody has chosen to live on the other side of this dome," Daniel explained, opened a drawer and withdrew a towel that had seen better days. He smirked when he noted that Kyle was frowning at it. "At least they're clean. We have a Laundromat as well. Most of the machines function too."
Kyle nodded. "What about clothes? From what I hear, you guys get supplies about once a year. Can't be much to go around here," he said.
"There's enough. The synthesized food takes some getting used to, but it's better than none at all. They fill up the con
tainers that produce the stuff now and again. In the beginning I tried to time it, thought maybe that would be a way off this dump, but ... the repair and refuel-gangs don't ever come inside." He shrugged lightly, smirking a little. For someone who had been sent to this place for life over a stupid mistake, Daniel seemed to be in fairly good spirits.
"So ... what's the deal here? We talked to this woman from the first dome and she was kinda saying you guys could be pretty brutal," Kyle said.
This tempered Daniel's otherwise upbeat expression a little. He settled down on the edge of the bunk and wrapped the towel around his neck. "Sometimes getting rough is the only way to get by. In a place like this, you gotta make your mark to let others know you're able to defend yourself." His attention drifted a little, the look in his eyes growing distant. "I didn't know much about this way of life when I got here. But I learned."
Kyle eyed him, reading all the signs of a brutal awakening. "The hard way?" he asked and glanced at Vinnie, who was idling by the door and looked downright unhappy about being here.
Daniel chewed on that for a moment before he answered. When he did, he looked up and met Kyle's eyes. "Yeah," he agreed, but didn't elaborate.
Not that an elaboration was necessary either. Kyle could see in the guy's eyes that his first weeks, maybe even months, in this place had been anything but easy. "It's a fucked-up legal system that sends a kid like you to his doom that way," he said.
For some reason this made Daniel smile. "You can't be much older than me," he claimed.
"I'm thirty. I may be a multi-millionaire's son and I may have had all the money I could use back home, but I lived on the dark side most of the time. I can't count the times that I've woken up in a cardboard box under a bridge after a week-long bender," Kyle admitted, pulled out the lone chair and settled down on it. "Those who had nothing and still found a way to trudge through life every day, I figured they had something worth living for. I've spent years trying to figure out what that was."
Dark Side of the Moon Page 3