Way Down Dark

by J. P. Smythe

  “We could have come here,” I say. I think that I should speak up, that maybe I should be angry about this. I spent my life up there, and this was here the entire time.

  “This place is a lie,” she replies. “Up there is the truth. It’s where we come from, who we are. We weren’t meant to be down here.”

  “But this place is safe,” I say. It’s empty, and it’s warm, and it’s clean. I imagine having grown up here instead of up there. What my life might have been like, with showers to take and food to eat and no worrying about the threat of somebody trying to kill me, all day, every single day of my life. I wonder what that might have been like.

  I wonder if it somehow might have stopped my mother from dying.

  “It wasn’t safe, not then. There were things that I didn’t understand here, Chan. I didn’t know what this place was, and I didn’t feel—”

  “You should have told us!” I scream at her. The anger has swollen up in me, and it bursts. “You should have brought us down here, and we could have . . . We could have lived here.” I’m in tears. This hurts so much, to know that this was here the entire time.

  “I couldn’t,” she says. “I couldn’t.”

  “But why?” I ask. She doesn’t have an answer for that. She just looks away from me.

  I’m sitting alone in my room when there’s a noise outside, in the corridor. I stand up and open the door, and Jonah is there, waiting. He seems almost surprised to see me, as if he hadn’t planned to come in.

  “Can I sit?” he asks, and I nod. I can’t hear Agatha now, and I don’t know what she’s doing. I don’t care. I’m so angry at her. I don’t really want to talk, that’s for certain, but he does. He was there for me, and I owe him for that.

  “It’s cruel,” he says out of nowhere. “There’s something almost cruel about finding this place.” I nod, because that’s all I can manage. He slides his finger underneath his collar and pulls it away slightly to give his neck room. “Being on Australia was never something good, not like the Women said. Everything we live through—the hell of it all, the chaos, and the nightmares, and there was never a reward owed to us.”

  “A reward for what?” I ask. Keep him talking and maybe I won’t have to think about my own problems.

  “For living. Life here was purgatory, and we were on our way to be rewarded with a better world. After the revelations on Earth, we ascended. We were going to find heaven.” There are tears in his eyes as well, and that stings me, too, for some reason. At least I haven’t been living my life expecting a payoff in the end. I’ve lived day by day, not hoping for the future. But he hasn’t. His whole life has been about that: about the promise of what comes after. In some ways, he’s lost more than I have by learning about this place. “We were meant to be finding somewhere better.”

  “Maybe we still are,” I tell him. If we land—if we’re alive when we find a place to land—there will at least be a planet. A new home. We can start again.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he replies. “Look what we come from. Who we come from. What sort of person is so dreadful that they’re sent away, imprisoned and exiled? In The Book, only the worst . . .” His voice fades off. The Testaments of the Pale Women: they mean nothing now. His finger runs around underneath his collar, stretching it. He’s sweating, and it hurts him.

  “Wait there,” I say, and I leave the berth and head to the kitchen. Agatha is sitting at the table, her hands clasped around a cup of something steaming and sweet-smelling.

  “You can’t know what it was like to make the choices I had to make,” she says, looking up, her face ravaged with grief.

  “No,” I tell her, “I don’t. I was never given the chance.” I take a knife from a drawer and head back to Jonah, slamming the door to the kitchen behind me. This knife is small but almost impossibly sharp. Looking down the blade, I don’t dare run my finger along it to test it. I know that it will just give me another scar I can’t get rid of.

  He looks up as I show it to him, tensing his body, suddenly on his guard.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m good with one of these. Just don’t flinch.” I take the back of his head in my hand, holding on to his scalp with the tips of my fingers, holding his head steady, moving it to one side. The band that runs around his neck is stitched together, the threads thick and hard, with metal staples pushed through. It’s tight, and underneath the leather I can see where it’s rubbed, scarring his skin. I slide the blade of the knife beneath it, holding it angled against the inside of the strap, where the threads are joined. “I’ll try not to choke you,” I say, and I start pulling the knife toward me. The threads fray and then snap, and the collar falls to his lap. “There,” I say, and then I notice that I’ve cut him slightly where the tip of the blade has dug into his skin. I rub it, and the blood spreads. I lick my finger and wipe it off. The nick on his skin is barely noticeable.

  “Thank you,” he says. He turns the leather strap over in his hands, feeling the metal studs with his fingers.

  “How long were you wearing that for?” I ask.

  “As long as I can remember.” He looks up at me. “It was a reminder, they told me, that man is born in sin. I could look forward to my eternal judgment, when it would finally be removed. They told me how favorably I would be looked upon for wearing it, how it would make up for my being a man.”

  “And did it work?”

  “Yes,” he says, and he smiles. “I suppose that it did. It made me never forget my potential to sin. Because of it, I’ve always tried to help people.” It’s only the second time I’ve seen him smile; it softens his face, makes his eyes light up.

  “You’re a good person,” I say. I don’t know what makes me say it, but I think that he needs to hear it.

  “Maybe,” he says. “But I don’t . . . I couldn’t help the Pale Women.”

  “You helped me.”

  “They raised me. They loved me.” I don’t know what to say to that. Nothing I can say will help. “So what happens now?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him. He rubs at his neck so hard that it’s even redder now than it was before, but at least, I suppose, he’s in control of that.

  We stay together in silence for a long time and emerge only much later. Agatha cooks something for us. Bread and meat and cheese on top of it, a recipe that she’s found among the pages of the cooking book, the one that’s dog-eared from being thumbed too much. She puts it down on the table and doesn’t say a word, so neither do Jonah and I.

  But it’s almost nice, almost comforting, eating in this silence.

  I struggle to fall asleep. The bed’s too soft, and it’s far too quiet. I miss the noise of the engines; of the people being happy and sad and just alive and around me; of the chaos; the heat of the engines, their rumble through the metal, up into the mattresses and through every other part of your berth, to the point where you wonder if your teeth are rattling in your head; the smell that’s so distinct that I notice it only now that it’s gone; and the taste of metal in the air that you’re never sure is iron or blood.

  This stillness is wrong in so many ways.

  But it’s not just that. I sit up on the edge of the bed in the darkness. There’s a light that I found down in the wall, plugged in. It’s in the shape of an animal’s head, I don’t know which one. But you flick a switch and it glows orange, a soothing shade that gives just enough light to the berth to let you see that you’re alone. The door is shut, and I feel safe. Nobody knows we’re here, yet I’ve still put my blade underneath my pillow, and I was still clutching it as I tossed and turned and tried to sleep. So I get up. I get dressed, and I creep to my door and gently push it open. Agatha and Jonah are in their own beds, and I can hear them both from here: the gentle sounds of their breathing in the night. That’s good. I need some time to myself, and now I have it.

  I walk to the kitchen, and I open up one of the giant metal doors that the food is hidden behind. There are shelves and shelves of food, all sealed up and lab
eled, and I barely recognize any of the names. ice cream, one says. There’s a picture on the tub of a boy and girl grinning, spooning stuff into their mouths. I peel back the lid, and there it is: a cold substance of pink and brown swirls. I touch it. My finger sinks in, and I draw it out and put it to my lips, and I can smell it, and then I taste it, and oh, my.

  Oh, my.

  I take the container and find a spoon in one of the drawers and go into the control room, where there’s the one chair, and I sit in it, and for a few minutes I eat and eat—until my teeth hurt and my belly aches. When I’m done, I put what’s left in the tub down, and I look at the empty black pictures.

  I need to see this. I need to see what it’s like up there. I touch the pictures just as Agatha did. They flicker into life in exactly the same way, and they show me what’s happening in the rest of Australia.

  And what’s happening is war. It’s still going on. The Lows are still attacking, still fighting, still expanding, still taking. Rex is still leading. The free people are losing. Everyone I’ve ever known, ever so much as spoken to: they’re running, or begging, or dying.

  Or dead.

  I sit back and I watch the war that’s happening above, and I feel totally and utterly powerless, more than I ever have before the whole of my life.

  I watch the pictures for hours. I don’t even know how long. Finally, I hear someone else awake, coming toward me. I know it’s Agatha without even having to look at her. I don’t say anything. She walks close to the screens and peers into them. I’m reminded that her eyesight isn’t what it once was. She fixates on one screen in particular, and I move over to see what she’s looking at. I know it. It’s the berth that I lived in with my mother. It’s been destroyed, torn apart. Amid all the war and carnage, I hadn’t noticed it until now. I can see that it’s full of Lows, and there’s a body with them, somebody they’ve killed. Even from here I can see that they’ve torn the neck open. They’re dipping their hands into the blood and writing on the wall, and we watch them until they’re finished, until they stand back and admire their handiwork as if this is art to them, as if this is something to be proud of.

  There is no ghost, the writing says.

  “Can you see the Pale Women?” Jonah asks then. I didn’t realize he’d come in. We look for the Pale Women, but there’s no sign of them: not of their floors or even any of their outfits.

  “They might be in one of the darker sections,” I say, “and some parts we can’t see.”

  “They won’t have survived,” he says. “I should have stayed and fought for them.” I don’t say it, but I’m glad that he didn’t. If he had, I might be dead now and we wouldn’t be here. This is a second chance, maybe. It’s a chance to do something, certainly.

  I just don’t know what.

  I start to feel sick. I try to tell myself that it’s the ice cream, that I’ve eaten too much, but I know it’s not that. What I feel is a different kind of ache, a gnawing deep inside me that feels like it’s trying to force its way out. I watch people being murdered, killed for territory or—it seems—for fun. All of this seems so wrong. All anybody here did was be born in the wrong time, the wrong place, punished for crimes that somebody in the past committed. That’s so deeply unfair. These are innocent people, and children, and—

  I spot her in one of the darkest corners of the ship: the little girl I met before, way up high, throwing her brother’s dolls into the Pit. She’s covered in bruises, right across her eyes. I don’t know what she escaped from, but something—someone—tried to hurt her. She’s got one doll left, and she’s hugging it to her chest as she cowers next to an abandoned berth. I look at the screens around hers, and there are Lows everywhere. They haven’t found her yet, but they will.

  I get up and go into the kitchen. “How do I get back up there?” I ask.

  “What?” Agatha stands up and looks at me. “No,” she says.

  “I’m going,” I tell her, and I’m sure that I say it in a way that suggests I’m not messing around. But she slams her hand onto the table and shuts her eyes. She looks so old and so tired.

  “You can’t, Chan. I made promises to your mother—”

  “So did I,” I say. “So did I, and I’m not going to break them. I told her that I wouldn’t die, and I won’t. Not yet. Now,” I say, walking down the corridor, away from the kitchen, “tell me how I get up there.”

  “Why?” she asks. “Give me one good reason.”

  “I’ll show you,” I say, and I drag her into the control room. The girl is still on the screen, still terrified. The Lows are closer. They’ll find her soon, and this will end just like every story here does: in blood.

  “I’m going to find her,” I say.

  “And what will you do when you get to her?” Agatha asks gently, like she’s trying to talk down a hysterical child.

  “I’m going to save her,” I say. “I’ll bring her down here.” I haven’t thought it through, but that’s what comes out of my mouth, and so that’s what I’ll do. That’s the answer. We have somewhere here that’s safe and protected, where she won’t be threatened. I can give her what I never had.

  “No,” Agatha says.

  “I never knew you were so selfish,” I reply. It hurts to say that, and it hurts her more to hear it even if she doesn’t show it.

  “It won’t end with her,” Agatha says, and she’s right. Even as she says it, I know that’s the truth. We can’t be alone; I know that. I’ve been so selfish. I look at Jonah, trying to be good, even succeeding, and I feel guilty. I’ve wasted so much time trying to protect myself. But I’m stronger than that. I’m stronger than someone who has to sit back and watch. I can make a difference, and I will. I know that now.

  “Does that matter? If I bring others down here, what difference does that make?”

  “You can’t save everybody. You have to look after yourself. You promised your mother. You promised her that you would look after yourself.”

  “My mother’s dead,” I shout.

  “You don’t get to make this decision. You’re only a child,” she says.

  “I’m older than my mother was when she had me.”

  “And she was just as stupid.” She spits the word out at me, and it hurts. “Being rash—being naive—was how your mother got into her mess,” she says. I stand up and walk away, but she follows me and grabs my arm.

  “Get away from me,” I say. I want to scream it, but I can’t. It hurts, and I don’t want her to know how much.

  “All of this would have happened with or without you,” she says. “The Lows were ready to boil over. They have always been violent. Nothing you can do will change that. You’re not special; none of us is.” She sighs and leans against the wall. Our argument is taking all her strength. “You’re safe here. Maybe you don’t understand the value of that yet, but you will. I was stupid, maybe, not to bring you here before. But now you’re finally safe.”

  “I might be, but she isn’t.” We both look back at the screen. The little girl is terrified. “I have to do something.”

  “Why do you?”

  “Because my mother was selfish, and it didn’t save her. It’s not an answer.” That feels defiant: an end to the argument.

  “You’re a fool,” Agatha says. She is disappointed, her voice tinged with anger.

  “I am what you made me,” I reply, and she knows that I mean all of them: my mother; the guard who was my father, Agatha, and Australia itself. She lets go of me.

  “Go, then,” she says. I do. I walk out into the kitchen, then the corridor, where Jonah is waiting, acting as though he didn’t hear the argument.

  “Where is it?” I ask him.

  “It’s down here,” he says, and he rushes ahead of me, down to the far end of the corridor. There’s a panel on the wall, and he presses it. A hatch opens in the ceiling, and a ladder drops down, the machinery that powers it sounding rickety and tired. There’s rust on the inside of it, all the way down the mechanism. Here, in the shining cl
eanliness of this down-below, it stands out: an intrusion from the real Australia.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I say, and then I see Agatha behind him, running toward me.

  “Wait.” She takes my hand, and she holds it between both of hers. I’m expecting her to plead with me to stay, to give me some reason I shouldn’t go up. “Come with me,” she says instead, and she pulls me back down the passageway and into the berth where she has been sleeping. It looks the same as all the others but more drab, the walls a pale gray instead of the cream that’s everywhere else. There’s no bed: just her blanket and a pillow on the floor. And the cupboard doors are metal, not the strange material that’s everywhere else. She opens one and stands back. “You might want to use these,” she says, and I see what’s inside: black and shiny rods with handles, the word Striker decorating their sides in small white print.

  Agatha reaches in and takes one of the rods. She hands it to me, and I curl my fingers around it. “This is what they tried to use on me when I came down here before,” she says, and I inadvertently squeeze the handle. The black rod fizzes, and a streak of blue electricity runs up and over it. It shakes, struggling against my arm, but I tense and control it. It’s dangerous, I can tell. She reaches to the bottom of the cupboard and brings out a mask with two eyeholes and a piece that goes into my mouth. “They wore this when they went into the Pit,” she says. “It let them see where they were going somehow, even in the darkness.” I press the mask to my face, and it suctions onto my skin, the mouthpiece going between my teeth. There are grooves for me to bite on to, and I do, and my lungs fill with air. It’s incredible, and it rushes to my head. I stumble, and she grabs me, steadies me. The view through the mask is different, flashing bright before stabilizing into grays, showing me the darkness and light better than it was before. It’s disorienting, and I need Agatha’s support.

  “Thank you,” I mumble, spitting the mouthpiece out.

  “Come back,” she says, and I nod.

  “I will.” I walk out, striker in my hand. I stop in my berth and grab my blade as well, and then I climb the ladder into the vestibule embedded in the ceiling, and I find the lever that Agatha spoke of, and I tug it. There’s no time to waste.