A Crack in the Sky

by Mark Peter Hughes

  The machine held its gaze. “You heard me.”

  Eli felt a tingle down his spine. His own voice dropped to a whisper. “Who are you?”

  But the little one-eared droid’s face had already regained its usual grin, and it was backing away. “Ride the Bubble, Eli,” it said one last time before spinning around and heading back across the road. Within moments it was wheeling up to a crowd of people in pink uniforms, its voice playful again over the circus music. “Welcome to the East Side, my friends! Welcome to where the party lasts all day and the celebrating never ends!”

  Eli stood, frozen. It was a few seconds before he even breathed.

  Bubble stations were always noisy and crowded, especially during the evening commute. Mobs would pile into the air chutes that sucked people into the underground tunnels, where they’d cram into giant spherical trams that carried them home or to parties or one of the malls. The dome was always an active place, but nighttime was when it really came alive. Eli looked around, wondering what he was supposed to do. In the end he hopped into the first Bubble he saw, a perimeter shuttle that looped continuously around the edge of the city. He squeezed into a crush of people just as the porthole closed. The vacuum system gently sucked him up to the ceiling, the only place there was any room.

  It was good it was so crowded. If a Fogger tried anything, he could always scream for help.

  What was he doing? He wondered what was wrong with him that he would take orders from a funbot. What if it really was a message from the voices, as he suspected? Meeting up with people he didn’t know, CloudNet hackers from out of the shadows—it could only be a bad idea. This was the craziest thing he’d ever done.

  If only he hadn’t fought with Marilyn. He wished more than ever that she were here with him.

  Somebody’s elbow jabbed him in the side. He wasn’t used to being packed in with so many strangers. Members of the Papadopoulos clan rarely rode the Bubble. Eli pulled up his collar to hide his face. It wasn’t likely anybody would recognize him. Hardly anyone ever did. Still, it was best to be safe.

  The last thing he needed was more trouble.

  As the Bubble tram hummed into motion, he gripped a strap for balance. He scanned the crowd. The Foggers—if that was who he was meeting here—could be anybody. Just below him floated two girls with Dream Gamers fastened to their heads, large rubber goggles with tubes for their nostrils, ears, and mouths. They must have been linked into the same dream, because every once in a while they giggled in unison. Beside them three boys were zapping each other with blasters and laughing. For some reason all three were dressed as Elvis.

  The tram came to a hissing stop. “Now arriving at South Angell,” said a voice that seemed to come from everywhere, “where it’s two-for-one night at the Marauding Mutant. The Brain Blasters are playing at Club Babyhead, and at Lovecraft’s Lounge we’re having a masquerade ball! Prizes for the best costume!”

  A masquerade ball. That explained the Elvis outfits.

  Eli watched as the boys sank to the porthole and slipped out. A handful of other costumed people left too. A silver bug. A couple of vampires. One kid was even dressed as Grandfather. Eli hadn’t noticed them behind so many other people. When they cleared out, a new crowd squeezed in and took their places. The porthole whooshed shut, and they started moving again.

  It was uncomfortably warm. From the few times Eli had ridden the Bubble before, he didn’t remember the air being this stuffy. Had the underground blowers broken down too?

  The giant ball stopped and started over and over again, lingering at each station only long enough for passengers to scurry in and out. At every stop Eli expected somebody to drift up and start talking to him. On the ceiling to his left, a girl with flashing pink hair implants stared out the window. Just when Eli was wondering if she might be the one, she pulled her release lever and floated back to the floor. At the next stop she left.

  Neon lights whizzed past the window and periodically came to a halt. It took only a few minutes to complete the entire loop around Providence, and soon Eli was passing the same stations for the second time. He took deep breaths, trying not to panic. So where were they? Maybe his first impression of the funbot’s odd behavior had been right—it was just another malfunction. Maybe the Foggers weren’t going to show up after all. That thought was a relief to him.

  But that was when it happened.

  “A single thread of reality can be hard to distinguish in a complex fabric of illusion,” said a voice in his ear.

  Eli turned. It was a kid—from the voice Eli guessed it was a boy—in a tattered tunic with a hood that partially covered his face. Somehow Eli had let his thoughts wander and hadn’t even noticed that somebody new had floated up beside him. And even the part of the kid’s face not lost inside the hood was hidden under a mask. It was red, with leathery skin made to look mottled with sun damage.

  The kid was dressed as an Outsider.

  “Do you understand what it would mean to unravel it?” he continued. Through the two holes in the mask, Eli could see his eyes, intense and brown, watching him. “Are you ready to accept the consequences?”

  Eli kept his voice low. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

  “You’re difficult to get near to, Eli Papadopoulos,” he said. “They’re watching you closely.”

  “Watching me? Who?”

  The boy looked away. Eli noticed two other kids in red masks and ragged clothes lingering within sight. One hung upside down halfway across the curved ceiling, and another floated near the wall on the opposite side. All three wore similar costumes: disheveled Outsiders with fake dirty hair jutting in all directions and wild, vacant expressions on their rubber faces. The one hanging upside down even had pointed ears and fangs.

  Monsters.

  “Who are you people?”

  “An association of brothers and sisters committed to truth and survival.” The masked boy’s gaze was fixed not on Eli but on the flashing lights outside the tram. “You can call us the Friends of Gustavo.”

  Eli watched the tunnel lights flash across the boy’s mask. “What kind of a name is that? Who’s Gustavo?”

  “A great and wise man. A teacher. A righteous champion for the scattered people of the wasteland. Many who survive out there today do so only because he showed the way. He taught not just the path of survival but also of a quest far greater than any of us.”

  “Okay, so where is he?”

  The boy shook his head almost imperceptibly. “It is believed Gustavo survived many years before the desert finally took him. We are his legacy.”

  Eli’s palms were sweating. How much more proof did he need that this boy was a Fogger? Besides, he hadn’t come to the Bubble to hear about some years-ago Outsider sympathizer. He felt guiltier than ever now, recalling the terrible damage the explosion had done to the air filter. This kid was a criminal.

  “I could alert everyone in this tram about who you are,” he said. The words were out before he even knew he was saying them.

  The boy turned back to him. He met his gaze. “You could. There’s nothing stopping you.”

  The porthole opened, and Eli felt another wave of heat. He considered doing it, exposing the Fogger right here and now. Or maybe he should just pull the lever and run back home. Another crowd of employees slipped out, heading home or to parties or to whatever they were up to in their normal, happy lives. He couldn’t help thinking about the failing blowers, and the blinking sky, and the crazed Outsider with her foul breath and jagged blade.

  Soon there’ll be no dome for you to return to.…

  He kept his eyes on the mask and wrapped the strap even tighter around his knuckles. “You people said you have answers. Tell me what you know.”

  “Be careful what you ask for,” the boy said. “Knowledge can be a perilous ally. It can demand much of you. This is why most people don’t really want to know what’s real. They think they do, but in the end they choose not to. Because knowing, knowing for sure, means h
aving to face up to what’s necessary. It’s easier to look away. It’s safer. As a Papadopoulos you have more to lose than most.”

  Eli eyed him. Was this a warning or a threat? A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead. Behind the mask the boy seemed to follow its progress.

  “It’s been warmer Inside lately,” the boy said. “Uncomfortably so. And yet, under the shelter of an artificial sky, it’s difficult to imagine just how warm it can be out there. Out in the Actual.”

  The Actual. Eli had heard that term before. And then he remembered where: from the savage with the white eye. When she’d talked about Outside, she’d used the exact same word.

  “The domes keep secrets, Eli,” the boy whispered. “They dull our senses and blind us. They lull us to sleep. But it’s a dangerous sleep. While we dream, the deserts expand. Resources run dry. Far beyond the protected cities, survivors of the wasteland hunt and scavenge. It’s all they can do. But you live under a protective shell, so you wouldn’t understand this.”

  “You don’t have to tell me about Outside,” Eli said. “It’s empty. It’s dead. I know that already. I’ve seen what it’s like.”

  “You have no idea,” the boy scoffed. “How could you? Insiders are cut off from everything but the lights and the machines and the pursuit of shortsighted ambition. But none of these have any worth to the people of the wasteland. Clean water is sometimes so scarce that Outsiders will risk their lives climbing the domes just to try to tap into company water. In this way they die by the hundreds every year. Did you know that?”

  Eli shook his head.

  “It’s one of many realities the company chooses not to share.”

  “Why would they hide the truth?”

  “Because,” he said, “they don’t want to disturb the illusion. Consider how Insiders are kept sedated with hollow jobs and empty aspirations. They’re distracted with products and meaningless entertainment. Have you ever asked yourself what the purpose is?” Behind the mask the boy narrowed his eyes. “It’s a diversion, Eli. A reassuring ruse to maintain a semblance of the old ways. For now it appears safe, but the fantasy comes with a cost. The Great Sickness wasn’t the end of the trouble—it was barely the beginning. Harsh reality is still building up out there. It’s knocking at the door, rattling the domes’ foundations. It won’t be ignored much longer—you can be sure of that. But you already sense this. I can see it. It’s not Outside that’s dead. The wasteland is the only truth we have left, the land of the real survivors. Look around. It’s your world that’s a living death.”

  Eli wasn’t sure what to make of this. The boy was nuts. “You make it sound like the domes are a bad thing. Until the Cooldown ends, why should we live like animals if we don’t have to?”

  The roar of the tram increased as it hurtled through another tunnel. “What if the Cooldown never happens? What if it’s too late for the planet to go back to the way it once was?”

  The boy glanced away again, but he leaned in as if he were merely adjusting his position on the ceiling. When he spoke, his voice was even closer to Eli’s ear. Even so, his words were quiet enough that Eli had to concentrate just to hear them over the background noise.

  “We are in an age of extreme transformation. Those of us who choose to see have precious little time to prepare for the final road. Even now resources are running low. Cracks are forming in the artifice. The company can’t maintain its illusion forever. After it gives out, then what?” He paused. “A storm is coming, Eli. A mighty tempest, the likes of which no one has ever seen. But you feel it already, don’t you?”

  “What are you saying?” Eli whispered, ignoring the boy’s question because he didn’t want to admit the answer even to himself. “That the Outsider with the white eye was right? That all the dome problems we’ve been having—the sky, the air coolers, and everything—that they’re just going to get worse, and then some huge storm is going to kill us all?”

  The boy shrugged. “That’s one possibility. But here’s the thing, the great mysterious truth to keep despair at bay: the Friends believe there’s something else out there, a reason for hope. Some of the oldest of the Outsiders, those who’ve survived in the desert through the Long Ago, tell us that somewhere out there, beyond the wasteland, past the dust and insects and famine, lies a safe haven, a glorious sanctuary where resources are plentiful and life can go on the way it once was. Gustavo saw it. It came to him in a vision. We believe that those who wish to survive need only discover it.”

  “A sanctuary from the storm at the end of the world …,” Eli said. “A place some long-ago Outsider says he saw in a dream. Come on, do you really believe that?”

  He nodded. “I’m not alone. There are many believers. Hundreds have given their lives in this final quest—the search for the Wild Orange Yonder.”

  Eli stared. The Wild Orange Yonder? This was the truth the voices had promised? This was the great answer? Eli had taken a huge risk in coming here, and it was because he’d been hoping for some revelation, some important insight that would explain everything. But this wasn’t it. This was just Fogger nonsense. It was nothing at all.

  He shouldn’t have come. He should have known.

  He felt again the intensity in the boy’s eyes. He wondered who he was talking to and what was underneath the mask? If he pulled it back, would he see real skin that was red and mottled from the sun?

  And with that thought he was suddenly even more afraid of him.

  “Eli, has it occurred to you why you called out to us?”

  “Called out to you? I didn’t. You came to me.”

  The boy shook his head. “The CloudNet is a powerful sedative. It manipulates the senses and defines the world for us. Without our ever being aware of it, it influences how we perceive and interpret everything around us. It draws us in. Most people can’t resist the pull, but occasionally somebody comes along who can. For reasons we don’t understand, they’re just better at it than others. I’m one of them, Eli, and I think you’re another. You’re here, aren’t you?” He paused. “Eli, I believe you’re one of us.”

  “No!”

  Heads turned. He’d spoken louder than he’d meant to. But Eli wasn’t like this boy and his Fogger friends. Not in any way. He never would be. It was time to go. The second the tram came to the next stop he was going to leave. Lines from the Alice book flashed through his mind.

  Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

  He reached for the lever. “I’m going.”

  “You need to understand how few of us there are,” the boy said, his voice urgent. “Of the quarter million people living in this dome, we have perhaps a hundred agents. They’re scattered throughout the organization, but none are at the very top tier. With your help, though—”

  “My help? You’ve got to be kidding!” Eli considered shouting for assistance, but the other fake Outsiders were watching, and he worried about what they might do if he did. Instead he yanked his arm from the boy and turned on him. “You know what I think? I think you and your cause are pathetic. Sneaking around with masks and working against the company when it does so much to keep all of us safe. You’re a bunch of cowards.”

  His fists were balled up tight. The tram slowed and came to a halt at Dyerville Station. It wasn’t near his house, but who cared? He would walk home. He was about to pull the lever and drop to the floor, but then he noticed two Guardians slipping in through the far porthole. The masked boy saw them too.

  “There,” Eli said. “You can run, but it won’t help. It’s all over for you now. They’re coming.”

  But to Eli’s surprise the boy didn’t leave. Instead he looked directly at Eli and pulled up his mask. Now Eli could see his face. He wasn’t an Outsider after all. He was a regular kid, a boy only a year or two older than Eli was. He looked ordinary, with dark hair and just a little acne on his chin. Any other time Eli might have passed him on the street and never picked him out as different.

  �
��The other day you told us that if you were the last chance to save a dying world, you’d take that chance. Did you mean it?”

  “Yes,” Eli answered, too stunned to lie, “I did.”

  The boy nodded. “Then we have more to share with you, somebody we’d like you to meet.” The Guardians were already drifting in their direction. The boy pulled his mask back down and reached for his ceiling lever. “Be careful, Eli,” he said as he started to sink into the crowd. “They are always watching.”

  Who? Eli wanted to ask, but it was too late. By then the boy had already slipped through a crowded pocket of passengers and was moving toward the porthole. The Guardians seemed unaware of him. Eli watched as the three kids in Outsider costumes passed out of the tram, the last people through the porthole before it closed. His heart pounding, Eli tracked their progress through the transparent wall. He tried to follow where they went, but he lost them in the swarming crowd.

  The tram was moving again.

  9

  a few innocent questions

  When Eli got back to the house, his mind was reeling. No Cooldown? The CloudNet manipulating people’s minds? None of the things the masked boy had told him made sense. But then again, what did he expect from a Fogger?

  Marilyn was waiting on his chest of drawers. She raised herself on her haunches and glared at him. Ignoring this, he told her everything that had happened.

  How could you do something so stupid? she asked after a long pause.

  Eli kept his voice low in case Claudia was nearby. “How was I supposed to know what would happen? It’s not like I had any idea ahead of time.”

  What did you expect? You followed the instructions of a Fogger-hacked droid! At the very least, didn’t it occur to you that somebody on the Bubble could recognize you? What if your family finds out? Her whiskers twitched. Reckless, that’s what it was. A foolish risk!

  He didn’t say anything right away. After their argument he was glad she was even talking to him. It was a good sign. “I’m sorry about what I said, Marilyn. About your chip and about wasting time with machines. I was just worried about you. Let’s just forget it, okay?”