Beyond Ever Blue Skies

by Clive S. Johnson

  Midway down alley JAC513 loomed the entrance to Agri-Prod: a wide affair in yet another long, tall and featureless white wall. Unlike the park’s, its tinted glass doors were shut. To one side he found a speaker box and a button to press. A warbling tone then crackled from the speaker, immediately followed by a tinny “Yes?”.

  “I’m Morgan Travis, from Lecy…here to see Stephanie Chandry.”

  The door slid open, and with a little trepidation, Morgan went in.

  Also like the park’s, this entrance too had a short and perfumed foyer, but in this case the glass doors at the other side were tightly closed. Darkened by their tint, a figure could just be seen pushing a wheelbarrow past rows of tall bushes that blocked any further view.

  The figure stopped, lowered the wheelbarrow and cocked its head, then approached and stared through the inner doors. When they at last slid apart, the figure turned out to be that of a slim young woman in overalls, her long brown hair tied back in a full ponytail.

  “Hi, I’m Stephanie Chandry; you must be the lecy-eng.”

  That there was something odd about her stifled Morgan’s immediate response, getting no further than a smile and a nod.

  “This way, then,” and she turned and strode back towards the wheelbarrow.

  That was it, he thought, she doesn’t look pumped-up, but then the doors began to close and he had to leap through.

  She led him, pushing the wheelbarrow, down a blue-tiled but grated path between the high bushes and round a corner at the end, towards a glass structure. Then something buzzed past his head and he ducked.

  “What the…” and he wheeled around to watch a small black and yellow something fly lazily out of sight over the hedge.

  Stephanie had stopped, now grinning. “You not seen a bee before?”

  “A what?”

  “A bee: what makes your honey, and more importantly, pollinates our crops,” but Morgan hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. She had to explain, and in some detail, but he had problems envisaging what a “Hive” was, and how the bees went about their business.

  “If this is your first time in Agri-Prod, then I suppose you won’t have come across them before,” but the smirk her grin had become remained. Morgan felt somehow wrong-footed.

  She led him on again, but as they passed a path off to one side, its gap in the bushes made the length of Agri-Prod all too evident. The low-growing expanse of greenery beyond did nothing to obscure the distant view, although a broad, round, high and featureless white tower rising in the middle distance broke up its seemingly unending reach.

  He had to stop, then whistle. “Crikey. I never realised just how big this place was. It must be as big as the park.”

  “Not quite; same width, but just less than half its length. You’re right, though, it is big.” She threw him a sideways glance. “But not so full of pricks,” and the light slap of her footfall got ahead of his still dazed stare—until what she’d said sank in.

  By the time he’d narrowed his eyes at her she’d parked the wheelbarrow outside the glass structure and was now rubbing non-existent dirt from her hands.

  “Pricks?” Morgan said as he came up beside her.

  She seemed to stare through him, then slowly looked about. “I love this place: so peaceful, secluded—real.”

  “But it’s so messy. I mean, just look at it all: irregular and random and unorganised…except the way it’s all set out, I suppose, but the plants themselves are… Well, yes, so unkempt—just plain messy!”

  She laughed, and Morgan thought he saw an uncommon glint in her eyes that seemed somehow familiar, something he’d not expected from an agri-eng.

  “There is order here, though… Er, Morgan, isn’t it?” He nodded and peered uncertainly at the nearest bush. “You just have to look more closely,” she confided, and reached out and drew a stem nearer.

  “See how the shapes of the areas made by the major veins in these leaves is repeated in the smaller ones in between? And then in the yet smaller ones, and so on. That’s not random, nor is it messy…that’s ordered,” and something of her infectious enthusiasm rubbed off on Morgan. He stared even closer at the leaf, until she let go the stem and it snapped back to its bush.

  “Anyway,” and Stephanie’s tone became sullen, “that was a healthy specimen.”

  When she took him inside the glass structure, she let out a long and weary breath as she looked about her. “But these definitely aren’t.”

  Morgan had no idea what she was referring to; it all looked just as messy as outside. “You reckon you have a lecy problem.”

  “Scratching the barrel.”

  “Eh?”

  “We’ve been through everything we can think of, so now we’re—”

  “Oh, I see what you mean. But what’s the problem you’re trying to sort out?”

  She stared at him, as though at an idiot, then looked along the half dozen rows of bushes stretching away down the glass structure.

  When Morgan only raised his eyebrows, she shook her head. “What colour’s everything outside?”

  He looked through the doorway. “Green.”

  “And in here?”

  “Green. Well, a lot lighter green, I suppose.”

  Stephanie snatched a leaf from the nearest plant and held it before his eyes. “Pale green bordered by yellow that shades to white around the edges—around the dry and crinkly edges that are turning brown in places.”

  “That’s not good, then?”

  “Not for this species, no.”

  “So—”

  “We’ve checked, and nothing’s changed…unless the stuff we don’t have direct control over is now misreporting.”

  “Like lecy stuff?”

  “Like lecy stuff.”

  She took him to a box mounted on the end frame of the structure and opened its cover. Inside were some standard adjusters and readouts, old but looking perfectly serviceable.

  “Irrigation and ambient light,” she said, pointing out the relevant components.

  “So that’s why they’re all in here, then? All this is vary-glass,” he said, looking up.

  “And the irrigation’s through the growing medium, which can’t be so easily checked—so we have to trust the settings and readouts, you see.”

  “Ah, right, got you; leave it with me,” and Morgan unclipped his tool pouch and opened it up on the ground. “A coffee’d be good,” he ventured, and she beamed back at him.

  “Coming up; I’m gasping for one, too,” and for some reason it made him smile in a warm not an uncomfortable way.

  By the time she came back with the coffees, Morgan was able to report “No fault found, both circuits”.

  She sighed as he packed his tools away. “Then we’re stumped, and this lot’s likely to die off before too long.”

  When Morgan asked why these particular bushes had to be so carefully looked after, she explained they were a delicate species that couldn’t tolerate a lot of light.

  “But they’re getting the right amount, if what you’ve set on your box’s controls is correct; same with the watering.” He took a sip of his coffee and couldn’t help but watch Stephanie do the same. There was that sparkle in her eyes again, despite being a little dulled by the bad news.

  “Is there anything else they’re sensitive to?” Morgan asked, to which she narrowed her eyes in thought.

  “Er, I don’t think so, but hang on a sec’, I’ll check,” and she blinked to one side, her eyes darting across what only she could see. “No, noth— Ah, what’s this?” and she appeared to squint. “Air quality!”

  “What?”

  “It says here they’re sensitive to air quality, so not just light levels.”

  “But air’s air. How can it be bad or good?” but she was too engrossed to answer. Morgan drank the rest of his coffee as he watched Stephanie’s sky-blue eyes dart about the virtual pages before them.

  Eventually, having drained his cup, he blinked up the time: “11:42”, then realised
he’d nothing special to be getting on with. He wondered if another coffee might be in the offing and was about to ask when Stephanie darted him a startled look.

  “You probably know air’s mostly made up of two gases, but you might not know it’s twenty-one percent oxygen and seventy-eight nitrogen.”

  “That’s only ninety-nine percent, so what’s the other—”

  “No, but it’s the oxygen that matters,” and those sky-blue eyes widened as she stared back at the information before her. “Because it says here that my problem plants can’t tolerate anything below twenty percent.”

  “Twenty… But the air in here’s the same as out there, isn’t it?” he said, pointing through the doorway.

  Stephanie only nodded.

  “So what else can’t tolerate low oxygen levels?”

  Her mouth drew to a thin line. “Well, at some point or other, just about every living thing…like you and me, and everyone else!” and they both turned and silently stared at the long rows of sickly plants.

  3 Refuge Refused

  Stephanie had said she’d have to raise it with her supervisor, although Morgan didn’t think she looked that hopeful. He felt unsure what he should do himself, other than reporting “No fault found” to Mr. Craytov, which would at least please him.

  “Air’s just air, after all” he kept repeating to himself as he retraced his steps back towards the workshop. Then he stopped, midway across the park, and stared up at the sky.

  “Where in Rundkern is there likely to be anyone responsible for such a basic thing?” but then he remembered his meeting with Ellie and wondered about her worsening “Times”: could such a small drop in oxygen really have that much affect? And why should it change? And why now?

  The park wasn’t quite so busy, but then he realised the time: they’d all be having lunch. He ate his apple the rest of the way back, taking the edge from his appetite by the time he went in through the workshop’s front door.

  Mr. Craytov was still in; Morgan could tell by the punctuated grunts coming from the open door at the end of the corridor. He tried to slip into his own room but a “Well?” brought him up short, so he carried on and put his head through the man’s office doorway. Mr. Craytov was mid-press-up, his arm muscles putting those of Morgan’s thighs to shame—even if he were to count them both as one.

  “No fault found with any of our circuits,” Morgan reported.

  “Good,” Mr. Craytov strained to say as he delicately touched his nose to the tiled floor. “Complete your job sheet then get off. I don’t want to see you in here from now on, not unless you’re on an assigned job.” He snapped his arms straight, a few drops of sweat dripping from his rapidly raised brow to the tiles below.

  “Two hundred; that should do it,” followed Morgan back down the corridor. “And I’ll be checking,” he called after him as Morgan slipped into his workshop.

  “Shit,” he mumbled to himself, then realised what he needed to do after completing his job sheet—and quickly.

  A quarter of an hour later and he was just blinking at the “Confirm reconfiguration?” box when Mr. Craytov stepped into the room. Morgan was pretty sure he’d cleared it before it could have been seen, but then Mr. Craytov’s query of “All done?” reassured him.

  “Yes. Just getting ready to leave.”

  “Well, hurry up, then; we can leave together. I think it’s about time I set the door to ‘Monitor’.”

  Morgan flicked his eyes and blinked twice, scanning through what now filled his vision before smiling and blinking once to clear it.

  “I’m ready.”

  As they went down the stairs, Mr. Craytov made light to ask if there was much of theirs in Agri-Prod. Morgan assured him there wasn’t, then toyed with the idea of telling him about the problem with the air.

  Mr. Craytov’s comment that Agri was a “Different world” made Morgan realise there’d be little point. “Funny lot: like chalk and cheese,” only went to confirm it.

  Once outside, Mr. Craytov blinked into the door’s reader. “You’ll need to give it a job number next time you come in. I’ll arrange to have them sent to your perscom beforehand. Okay?”

  Morgan only nodded, but then Mr. Craytov slapped him hard on his arm and Morgan staggered a couple of steps.

  “Do some work on your core strength, eh? And maybe some stamina building, then arm and leg muscles, you know the sort of thing, then get out and socialise…enjoy yourself.” Without another word, he was off at a stride down the alley towards the avenue that crossed its far end, along which those in “Supervisory roles” tended to live.

  Morgan slouched off in the opposite direction, back towards his alleyway home, quietly uttering “Prick” as he turned the corner onto his own avenue. This newly adopted term reminded him of Stephanie. Without thinking, he blinked up the perscom contact details she’d passed him and stared at her image, almost colliding with someone as he crossed the avenue.

  Josh’s breakfast bar had long since closed by the time Morgan turned into the alley, wondering what they might have in at home. As he climbed the staircase, his father came clattering down towards him, face beaming.

  “Not at work?” he smirked as he passed by.

  “Any food in?” Morgan called after him, but his father only laughed before vanishing out into the alley.

  The kitchenette still looked surgically clean, despite Morgan’s baby brother, Jowett, sitting on his mother’s lap at one of the counters.

  “Any food in, Mum?” but she only pointed at one of the cupboards, her mouth obstructed by a toddler’s feeder-spoon as she turned a bowl around in her hands.

  “Come on, Diddums,” she eventually managed, having taken the spoon from her mouth whilst Morgan rummaged in the cupboard, “eat a bit more for Mummy, eh?” Jowett, though, only dribbled it down his chin.

  Once in his own room, Morgan stacked the few bowls of previously half-eaten meals to one side, then sat on his bed to eat the hot lentil stew he’d brought with him. He didn’t doubt it would soon join the others, those in the to-be-eventually-taken-to-the-kitchenette-and-washed pile.

  Having got settled, Morgan stared unseeingly into the distance before barely breathing “Air?”, a spoon of stew part way to his mouth dripping unnoticed to his sheets. “So, first off, let’s see if my reconfig’s really worked,” and a couple of blinks lent his vision an assortment of graphs, tables and pie charts. A pictorialized list glared from amongst them, but this time none of its entries flashed.

  “Ace,” and he allowed himself a self-satisfied, almost smug smile as he fumbled his dish down onto the bed—until he realised he couldn’t read the smaller text. “Bugger.” It took him all of ten minutes to discover a magnifier function. Although it restricted the amount he could see in one go, he cautiously risked another satisfied smile before delving further.

  It was some time before his futile attempts to discover anything useful about “Air” were interrupted, his mother shouting from the hallway, “I’m going out to get dinner, Morgan”.

  “Chilli con carne, please, Mum,” and he caught sight of his cold, congealed and unfinished stew sitting on his bed.

  “I won’t be long, but you’ll have to watch over Jowett…and I mean now!” at which the outer door slammed shut behind her.

  When Morgan carried his tower of dishes into the kitchenette, he found Jowett strapped in to his highchair. The child gurgled, spit-bubbles coming from between his lips before their pops further splattered an already grubby face.

  “It doesn’t take you long, does it?” Morgan said as he lifted Jowett’s bib and wiped away the mess. Jowett gurgled some more then grinned up at Morgan, his eyes like large, glittering marbles.

  “Why can’t I find any mention of ‘Air’ anywhere on the lecy network? Eh, Jowett?” whose only response was a series of “Ga-ga” sounds. “You don’t even know what ‘Air’ means, now do you?” and he grinned, about to tickle Jowett under the chin when it struck him he himself might be just as ignorant.
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  “Perry?”

  “Yes, Morgan?”

  “Get me Stephanie Chandry, please.”

  “Connecting.”

  Almost immediately, Stephanie answered: “Morgan? Something wrong?”

  “What did your supervisor have to say when you told her?”

  “Ah, well, I don’t think she’d the first idea what to do, to be honest. Told me to leave it with her. But look, Morgan, I’m in the middle of dinner; can I call you back?”

  “Before you go, do you know any other terms for ‘Air’?”

  “Other terms?”

  “Yeah, you know…sort of, well, technical ones.”

  “Er, now you’re asking—O, Dad, can you get me another coffee while you’re in there? Sorry, Morgan; technical terms? I’m not sure. How about ‘Atmosphere’, or perhaps—”

  “‘Atmosphere’?”

  “First one that came to mind; but why—”

  “I’ll tell you later; don’t want to interrupt your meal. Okay?” but he’d blinked to disconnect before she could answer.

  A couple of further blinks and the lecy network again filled his vision, his scrutiny quickly searching out a supply interface somewhere down in one corner.

  “Got it,” he exclaimed, startling Jowett who then hiccupped and screwed up his face. As the child slid into a long drawn out cry, Morgan fumbled to slip him out of his chair and wrap him in his arms, gently patting his back. This time with a little more understanding, Morgan read: “125V regulated 10kWh — Supply only: Atmos — KEN-Prohib”.

  4 Private Worlds

  “I can’t be sure,” Morgan told Stephanie after he’d taken a few sips of his beer. “But what else could ‘Atmos’ stand for?”

  Stephanie downed half her glass of wine and tipped back in her chair, leaning further into the corner of the bar’s yard in which they were sitting. Then she stared up at the dusk sky, clearly thinking.