The Lightfighters
D.J. Takemoto
The Beginning
327,000 bce
“Are you certain this planet will suffice?”
“There are few to select from at this point…this early.”
“But the up-top is so hostile.”
“Yes it is, but several events must occur before they can fully evolve.”
“Do you mean…?”
“Yes, but only a single hit may be necessary, if it is large enough.”
“But this planet will take eons to evolve, and the selected dominant species is so fragile, and not too smart. How will they be protected from extinction?”
“They will not be alone. If imperative, a chosen will be sent.”
They released the life bubbles through the portal from their side of the dimensional wall, and into the newly evolving planet.
“Chosen?” “Yes, the species will call them The Lightfighters.”
2628
Chapter One
Assignment Day
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Eve walked into the sterile containment room; it was lined with tube-shaped containers attached to long black wires. Each container held blinking red and green lights that displayed changing numbers. She thought it had something to do with what or who was inside the tubes, but because they were closed and the portals were covered in steam, she could not see inside. She only knew that she had to act fast because someone, or rather a thing, would pass by, and she would be in danger if it saw her. She was almost ready to push a button to open one of the silver tubes, when the thing approached her row.
...and then she woke up.
Her mother was yelling at her to get ready for her last day of school. It was assignment day! “I’m up, Ma,” Eve shouted back through the wall of their sleeping room. She stepped into her indoor shoes and walked to the wash basin. While running cold water over her face and hands, and brushing her hair into a braid, she thought with trepidation of her coming day. “A new job; what job will I be assigned?” Eve asked herself as she donned her plain brown school pants and shirt.
“Hurry, Eve, your food is getting cold,” her mother reminded. Eve put on her school jacket, and gathered her things. “I’m coming, Ma.” She stepped into her worn, brown leather boots, and noted the hole in the left heel was getting bigger, so she stuffed some rags inside to cover it.
They ate breakfast in silence. Her little brother James had already left for school; and her mother only had time to absentmindedly hand Eve her bowl of mush, wash her hands, and leave for her own city job as a street cleaner. “Good luck, Eve. And remember, no job is too small for the good of our city,” her mother repeated the town’s mantra. Then she kissed Eve on the cheek and left for work.
Eve finished her meal alone, washed her metal bowl and spoon, and walked down the stairs to where her outdoor coat hung on a hook behind the front door. In several seconds she was out the front door and on her way to school…for the last time. The day was approaching full orb time, and she noted the dome top was turning from pale orange and pink to daytime brilliant blue.
●
As Eve walked to school for the last time, she glanced up at their overhead protective dome. It covered their city, protecting them from the intense cold or heat of the deadly outer void. She knew it also allowed the rulers to project vids of day and night. Their city days were divided neatly in half…twelve clock-hours of light and twelve of dark. During light time, the dome above their city was a dazzling aqua blue, with tiny, perfect white puffy clouds passing overhead in a gently flowing pattern. Eve knew it was only a moving picture; everyone knew this, because by the time they were five or six years of age, children could recognize the clouds as they repeated themselves in their daily passage across the dome. Some children even named their favorite clouds, or made wishes to them.
At night, Eve’s favorite time, the dome top pictured a black sky filled with twinkling lights called stars. Because there were so many, the star patterns varied greatly, and some even had shapes or patterns. In school, the children learned to name these star shapes…the Big and Little Dipper, Orion’s Belt…and many others. Eve’s favorite was Orion’s Belt, though she could not distinguish a belt pattern in those stars. “I wonder if stars are real and if I will ever see them,” she thought as she turned left into the town square.
Eve walked through the cobble stone square, noting the enticing smell of morning rolls coming from their single town bakery. She reached into her pocket, trying to find a coin to purchase a roll but came up empty. “Here, I got you one,” someone said from behind her. It was Dirk, and he stood in front of her holding out a special goat cheese and strawberry roll. She took it, stuffing most of it into her mouth in a single bite. “Thanks; where did you get the coins?” she asked through a mouthful. “I worked overtime on that cart wheel repair I was doing for Mr. Darpen. He gave me a tip for being early.” “I’ll pay you back, Dirk.” Eve replied. “Right, you do that,” Dirk answered with that funny look in his eyes. Eve had crumbs on her cheek so Dirk reached out to wipe them off, and then took her hand as they walked to school.
They remained silent for the rest of the walk, each involved in their own thoughts. Eve was happy they’d arrived at that place; they were happy with each other’s company so did not always need to talk. She thought about her city as they neared the front steps of their school. Originally during dark time, their domed city was lit with electric lamps so that the people wanting to go out would not trip on the many discarded or worn-out things lying on the curbs outside peoples’ homes, waiting for the dark-time recycle pick-up. Eve remembered the electric light era from when she was five.
The lights were electric for only the first three hundred years, until they ran out of bulbs. So now light bulbs were only used to grow the plants in the huge greenhouses near the edge of the dome. But those where a special type of bulb called a solar bulb, and they were scarce; they were very valuable. The Committee told everyone they still had thousands of solar bulbs stored in the bee-low, and Eve hoped that was true. She glanced up at one of the street candles lighting the way to the steps of her school, as she climbed with Dirk.
The street lights had been replaced by candles made from beeswax that was recycled many times over. The job of lighting these candles went to the Lightkeepers. It was a very auspicious and important job, Eve knew. But often now, entire sections of their town were dark, even during light time, because of the candle rationing and the time required to collect the used wax and to refashion the greyish-white wax candles with their rag wicks. Dirk had told her he wanted to find a quicker way to recycle the candles; he also wanted to find those mythical hidden storage bunkers down in the bee-low.
Eve understood their city was old; that everything was running out because replacements had not arrived from that unknown and unnamed place in almost five-hundred years. The known storage rooms in the bee-low bunkers were now almost empty. She tried not to think of it. And anyway, there was still that rumor, or maybe folklore or wishful thinking, that someplace underground in the bee-low beneath the Boardroom Building, there was another vast supply bunker. Parents spoke of it in stories to their children on Atonement Day, especially if they only had meager gifts to give them. Eve also wanted to find those bunkers…if they really existed.
“You’re quiet today, Eve. Are you worried? Did you have another dream?” Dirk interrupted her thoughts. “Yes, it was the same dream. How about you?” “My usual one about meeting a talking machine. I think it’s just worry about my job assignment. Are you worried about your job assignment?” Dirk asked. “A little…I mean what if they assign me to do recycling?” “Then you will have all sorts of great junk to give me so I can build us beautiful things.” Dirk did blacksmith work for his family business
when not in school. “Do you remember when we had electrics?” she asked Dirk. “Yes, but that’s gone now and we have to do and not wish.” It was Dirk’s latest motto.
They both remembered the dim-light times, when candle rationing was even more severe, and people tended to congregate near the Boardroom Building because it was always brightly illuminated by some magical internal power source. “I wish it was brighter,” Eve replied. “I know, do and not wish…I try, Dirk. But weaving is difficult by candle light.” She thought of her evening work with her mother, weaving new cloth from rags. She glanced at the Boardroom Building, shining silver in the morning light from across the city square. Dirk noticed.
“No one has ever entered the building for as long as I can remember, Eve. It’s locked up tight with those huge silver metal doors, and the access codes or keys, if there ever were keys, have been lost eons ago.” Dirk spoke what they both already knew. “I think that no one lives inside the building anyway; that the place runs on something called nuclears, and is controlled by those strange powers we read about in the archives; with AI and long numbers as their names,” Eve responded. They’d reached the front door of the school. Dirk let Eve enter first. “No one understands what those AI things mean. Some of my friends are even afraid of the sound of those words, so strange, like the old speak written in the ancient archival books,” Dirk told Eve.
They walked the central hall of their school. Everyone knew they were high level, and so would be graduating. Most stood aside, looking at them with either awe or sympathy. None of the younger school children was in a hurry to go to work at a city job. Eve waved at several of her little brother’s friends, again noting how dark the school hall seemed. She knew it had been shocking to everyone at first, when the electric lights dimmed during the day. Eve remembered that was what made them switch to candles in those nice reflective holders, but then they too became scarce, during the rationing.
They’d been taught that sometime between the third and fourth hundred years of their life in the city, everyone slowly moved nearer to the Boardroom Building because the lights never went out there. That was also about the same time the last of the citizens abandoned the tall decaying buildings outside their current city, and used some of the concrete building blocks to construct their current, identical two-story, grey block homes; all the same, and arranged in neat little rows on stone roads. The houses were once painted in bright colors, but paint had been the first thing to become depleted.
The dimness was a particular problem if someone had to work over in the greenhouses near the dome wall, because they might have to stumble to work in the almost dark of only a few widely spaced street candles. The previous year, Eve remembered several people had fallen into ditches and gotten hurt that way. So several months ago, a central, candle-lit path from the management district to the greenhouses had been added. It was now somewhat safer to transport the food to the cooking hall and market.
Eve knew someday they would run out of everything, but she tried not to dwell on it as she and Dirk approached the door of their classroom. The Head of The Committee often held festivals whenever the candle rationing got too severe. He or she used clever names like Joyous Darkness Times, or Winter Dark Festival. But the adults and older students, like Eve and Dirk, understood what was happening. Despite this, the people went about their lives as usual; the adults went to their designated city jobs, and the children went to school until they turned eighteen.
At eighteen, the citizens graduated, went to work, and were officially paired with their mate…their life partner. The Life Level Subcommittee made the selections, but an individual could request someone else. Although if the Genetic Subcommittee found they did not gene match, the request was not granted. Fortunately, that was not an issue with Eve. She liked her selected mate just fine. They were both friends and lovers…well, almost lovers. They would begin to live together soon after graduation; after the required license signing and marriage ceremony at the City Hall in two days.
Eve and Dirk separated once they entered their classroom, each taking their assigned seats. Eve thought it was fortunate that the pairing process began long before they turned eighteen, so the individuals could get used to the selection. When the children reached twelve years of age, they had to report to the nurse at Wormwood Hospital. She remembered when the nurse pricked her finger with a needle, and a drop of her blood was placed into a magical machine directly connected with a black wire extending from the side of one of the Boardroom Building walls.
After several minutes, it spewed out a long list of combinations of letters, but not the entire alphabet. It only used combinations of A, T, C, or G, all in sets of three. Eve understood this was something called a DNA sequence…it contained your genetic information. Her information was then put into one of the other buzzing machines, and a list of possible matches, called gene compatibility matches, printed out on a digipad device. It was a good system, Eve thought; because that way the rulers could plan farther ahead, inform Eve’s mother, and by the time she turned eighteen, she would already know who she would be paired with for life. The matches were formally pronounced on Graduation Day…that, and your future job assignment. And today, the job announcements would be made. Eve was both excited and terrified as she sat down at her desk.
●
Fifteen minutes after Eve and Dirk arrived at school, they and all the other eighteen year olds sat rigid in Room 6 of the Robin Lightfighter City School. Usually boisterous, she and her classmates were now completely silent, heads bowed, trying not to be horrified when they found they would be working at a terrible city job.
The job assignment was scary to Eve Overhearder; she could do most anything, but would not particularly like the job of Waste Recycler because it smelled so bad. She also hoped Dirk would get the job he wanted. She hated when he was disappointed. The out-loud announcement of the partners also unnerved her. Because although she loved her selected partner, Eve knew some of her friends did not feel that way about theirs. The looks on their faces, when they finally knew they would really be paired with someone they did not like, broke Eve’s heart. She thought that would be worse than being a Recycle Worker. You could always change jobs after five years, but your partner was for life.
The thirty-two students sat at their now-too-small and rusted metal desks, waiting for the school principal to arrive. He was due at any moment, having just come from the Head of The Committee office with the official lists…there were two lists, of course…one for the jobs, and one for the partners. Their school principal would read the partner list first, to get that sometimes sad part over with. Eve knew they used to have separate days for each list. But The Committee had since decided it was easier and less disruptive to announce both at once; then they held a nice, loud festival and declared a day off from work so the new graduates could adjust to their adult work lives and new living situations.
Eve noted the desks were arranged in a circle, so it would not appear they had selected in any specific order. It was now eight o’clock, and she sat with her knees together, her almond-shaped, green eyes staring at the floor. Her head was bent down so low she could have touched the spider crawling across the floor, with her braided auburn hair. She was tall, and rather slender, with long curly hair kept neatly out of her oval face in a braid, and tied back with a piece of brown hemp twine.
She tried not to appear nervous, but kept fidgeting her knees up and down trying to take her mind off what was about to occur by singing one of the school songs in her head. Every so often Eve bent down even further to hike up one of her sagging brown wool socks, while trying to hide the hole on one side. From time to time, she reached up with her right hand and fiddled with her necklace, a single green stone attached to a strong, real gold chain. The stone was shiny on one side and scratched on the other, like someone had forgotten to smooth one side, or wanted to scratch out something.
The necklace was a gift from her grandmother…had been in the family for hundreds
of years. She’d been told it should never be taken off or given away. Eve treasured it. And when she touched it, she imagined she could hear strange buzzing voices, like ancient relatives were trying to tell her something from the past. She knew she’d only imagined it, but Dirk, who was more superstitious, thought maybe they really spoke to her.
To the right of Eve sat her best girlfriend, Lily Frostline, a gangly red head with a face that was covered in spots called freckles. Lily stared straight ahead at a spot on the chalkboard, nervously picking lint off her worn, brown goat-wool shirt. They all wore identical shirts and pants, made from woven, brown goat hair, and passed from student to student as each outgrew their uniform. Only the numbers on their shirts, 1 to 12, designated the difference, what class they belonged to. Eve was in class 12, the one for all the eighteen year olds.
Almost half-way around the circle now sat her other best friend, Dirk Heatherfield. Soon, they would live together. Dirk was Eve’s partner; of course, they both knew that already. They were so happy with their pairing…unlike some of her friends. But neither had any idea what their jobs would be, and so there was still some unknown excitement and adventure to the day. And Eve and Dirk both loved an adventure, though sometimes they got into trouble for going too far from the city into the decay zone out near the outer dome wall.
Eve glanced furtively at Dirk. She noted he sat with his shoulders squarely back, his head up, and aqua blue eyes squinted in concentration, like he was willing his job assignment to be what he wanted. She thought he looked like one of the black-furred rabbits they bred in the hutches off near the greenhouses. His shiny, black hair was curly, mid-length, and had a tendency to stick out in strange places if he did not wet it down every so often.
She loved the way he looked; had loved him since they’d first met when they were twelve years old. They had gotten along right from the start. Right after their pairing announcement when they turned twelve, he’d grabbed her hand, and laughing, they’d ran off to the archive to sneak in the back door and talk their way into the forbidden books room. Eve thought about their many crazy adventures as they all awaited the arrival of their principal. They got into terrible trouble with the rulers once, when they’d stolen flying balloons from the festival store room. They wanted to see if they could reach the doom top. Another time, they’d gotten grounded when they found a tunnel leading into one of the greenhouses and ate too many berries.
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