Chaos Zone

by Paul Stewart

  ‘I know the Earth was dying,’ I tell him, recalling the info I was fed by the Half-Lifes back at the Inpost. ‘And that humans used the last of its resources to build the Biosphere, to store everything that was good and useful and should not be lost.’

  Travis is nodding.

  ‘I know that a thousand years ago, we set out across the vastness of space in search of a new Earth,’ I go on. ‘With tech-engineers, bio-engineers, core-controllers. And robots. And that five hundred years after that, something malfunctioned at the Inner Core. The robots rebelled against the tech-engineers in the Outer Hull . . .’

  ‘Precisely,’ Travis breaks in. ‘So here in the Mid Deck, our bio-engineers triggered the safety protocol. Above and below, the Mid Deck sealed itself off from any contamination.’

  His eyes narrow thoughtfully. It’s as if he’s reliving that moment – a moment that took place hundreds of years before he was even born.

  ‘But we had another enemy,’ he tells me. ‘An enemy within. Accelerated evolution. It started in the labs, spread to the archives and seed banks. And then out into the zones. We lost control of them one by one. Life evolved, mutated, and the zones broke down, merged, became one huge messed-up zone. A chaos zone.’ He passes a hand slowly over his cropped black hair. ‘Some blamed the zoids of the Outer Hull for cutting powerlines; some blamed the controllers at the Inner Core for the failure of central filtration systems. But whatever caused accelerated evolution, there was only one solution. Retreat to the Sanctuary and decontamination.

  ‘Three thousand of us there were then. Three thousand there are now. No more. No less. To allow any others into the Sanctuary would ruin what we have here. It’s what the Outsiders can’t understand. And what they can’t understand,’ Travis says, shaking his head, ‘they seek to destroy.’

  ‘But come, York,’ Travis says, and claps his hands together. ‘If you’ve had enough to eat and drink, I thought I’d take you to see our other new arrivals.’

  I look up. ‘There are others?’ I say, surprised.

  And he smiles. ‘You’ll see.’

  I follow him back to the elevator and soon we’re gliding through the Sanctuary. It occurs to me that I’m not really noticing the individual hustle and bustle of the dome any more, just the atmosphere as a whole.

  It’s calm. Well ordered. Harmonious . . .

  I smile sadly to myself. I’m getting used to being a part of this peaceful community, and I only wish that Belle and Caliph were here to share it with me. The thing is, though, I know now that neither of them would have been allowed in.

  There are no zoids or critters in the Sanctuary.

  The elevator comes to a stop. The door slides open and we step into a softly lit room with soothing music playing. It’s full of young men and women, each of them cradling an infant in their arms. Wrapped in white shawls, the babies are gazing up into their parents’ adoring faces and gurgling happily.

  I don’t remember my own parents. They were killed by the zoids when I was a baby back in the Outer Hull. My eyes mist over. How lucky to be born here in the Sanctuary, safe in the knowledge that you’ll live a long and happy life.

  What was it Travis said? Ninety years?

  Just then, from behind me, the elevator opens once more and a group of grey-haired people troop out into the room. They mingle with the young parents and their newborns, marvelling at the babies’ tiny fingers and toes, and cooing over them lovingly. I look at them them. Parents and grandparents sharing the joy of new life . . .

  Then, as Travis and I stand there, the parents take their babies off in elevators to crèches in other parts of the Sanctuary. The grey-haired people watch them go.

  The music fades. The lights brighten.

  I notice that Petra Crockett is looking down at us from her chamber high up in the dome. She nods, and Travis nods back at her. It’s only then that I see that droids have arrived.

  They’re tall and thin, with black bodies and visored faces. They escort the old people into a waiting elevator. The door closes and the elevator drops down into the depths of the Sanctuary, its lights dimming before it disappears from view, like an energy pulse down a generator well.

  When it returns, moments later, the elevator is empty.

  ‘Where did those people go?’ I ask Travis, though I’m not sure I want to hear the answer.

  ‘The Sanctuary sustains us, York,’ Travis says. ‘And we, in our turn, sustain the Sanctuary. Three thousand. No more, no less. The elders have greeted the newborns and have departed. The Sanctuary continues.’

  He takes me by the arm and guides me towards the elevator.

  ‘Now come and see what we do for recreation,’ he says with an easy laugh. ‘As a scavenger you should enjoy this.’

  But what I have just seen has shocked me. The Sanctuary is a wonderful haven. In the Outer Hull a scavenger like me is lucky to reach thirty years. Almost nobody up there survives long enough for their hair to go grey, let alone live till they’re ninety.

  And yet . . .

  ‘The Sanctuary took me in,’ I say slowly. ‘Does that mean Connor . . . ?’

  ‘Connor is no longer with us,’ Travis says simply, and turns away.

  The elevator brings us to a broad visiglass platform. A holo-screen hovers over us, and a group of young people are sitting on synth-foam cushions with consoles in their hands. Everyone is having a good time, laughing and joking around.

  Two boys of about eleven or twelve are squaring up to each other playfully.

  ‘Going to have a good one, Lennox?’

  ‘I’m gonna be unstoppable, Klute. Full power!’

  As I watch, they turn their attention to the holo-screen. An image comes into focus.

  It’s an arena of some sort, an expanse of sand enclosed by metal walls. The quality of the simulation is awesome. High-def graphics. Gigapixel res. I can’t wait for the game itself to get started.

  A siren sounds.

  Klute and Lennox raise their consoles and settle themselves on their cushions ready for the contest. Their friends hush up. Everyone concentrates on the game.

  Travis pulls up a couple of cushions and we join the spectators.

  Up on the screen, there’s a mutant. A gill-man. And I can’t help it. A wave of revulsion comes over me. He’s dressed in patched-up trousers. Overhead, two lens-head droids – one silver, one white – are doing a strange dipping, darting dance in mid-air. Around me, the audience whoop and cheer at the two gameplayers who, I now see, are operating the lens-heads with their consoles.

  Lennox has the silver droid; Klute the white. They’re hovering a couple of metres above the gill-man.

  His eyes look round wildly. His teeth are bared. Having seen a gill-man up close, I can appreciate just how realistic the vid-designers have made him look.

  ‘Let the game begin,’ says a calm female voice, the words glowing briefly on the holo-screen.

  The gill-man stumbles forward. He gathers himself, the skin-flaps at his neck trembling, then looks up at the two lens-heads hovering above him. Their apertures open and close as, beside me, Klute and Lennox’s fingers play over the consoles.

  ‘Careful,’ someone in the crowd murmurs.

  ‘He looks tough, this one,’ says someone else.

  All at once, the gill-man spins round and throws himself up at the silver droid, one webbed hand outstretched. He’s fast, but not fast enough. His hand closes on nothing and he falls back down to the sandy ground.

  And the two droids attack. Klute and Lennox’s fingers are a blur.

  The silver droid nudges in front of the white one. There’s a flash, and a thin streak of blue taser-light shoots out from its head. It hits the gill-man square in the back. He folds double and slams to the ground, where he twitches and writhes, life-like drool spilling from the corners of his mouth.

  The vid-designers really have excelled themselves. For a simulation, it’s horribly real.

  The spectators roar with delight and, down at the
left-hand corner of the screen, a skull appears. Its eye-sockets glow a pale yellow.

  Lennox looks across at Klute, a smile of triumph playing on his lips.

  Klute scowls. ‘It’s not over yet,’ he says.

  The gill-man’s picked himself up. He’s stooping forward, arms out at his side, watchful, snarling.

  Suddenly the white lens-head soars up into the air, turns in a tight arc, then dive-bombs him. The taser-light flashes blue. It strikes the top of his head. He reaches up protectively. The taser-light flashes again and again, making his body jerk and jolt, and forcing him backwards.

  He’s screaming, but silently, since the simulation is playing soft, playful music. There’s smoke coiling up from his skin, his clothes. He stumbles, crashes to the ground.

  And a second skull appears, in the right-hand corner of the screen this time. Its eye-sockets glow a deep amber.

  ‘Yes,’ Klute mutters grimly.

  Lennox ignores him. He’s bringing his own lens-head down low towards the gill-man, firing at his feet.

  He may be a mutant, but I don’t feel easy watching him being tortured like this. Unlike the crowd. They’re loving it.

  The taser-light stabs around the gill-man again and again, like a bird pecking at grain. Small black marks appear in the sand. Klute’s white lens-head joins in.

  The spectators are laughing – and when the taser-light actually scores a hit on the gill-man, they whoop with joy.

  I look over at Travis, who’s smiling broadly. He’s clearly enjoying himself as much as the others.

  The gill-man’s on his feet now. Running. But there’s nowhere to run to. Nowhere to hide. Both lens-heads are after him, taunting him, shooting at his feet. Sometimes the taser-light hits him, sometimes it misses. Either way, as the blue light flashes – on-off, on-off – he keeps on leaping and jumping and skipping about, that same silent cry of distress on his face.

  It’s hard to watch.

  Then he’s down again. The air around me explodes with cheering. Everyone’s looking at the two skulls in the corners of the screen expectantly – and suddenly the eye-sockets of Lennox’s one turn a deep shade of orange.

  Lennox smirks. Then, while Klute’s bringing his white lens-head around in the air, he puts his own silver lens-head into a dive. The spectators sense victory.

  ‘Go! Go! Go! Go!’ they’re chanting.

  With a yelp of triumph, Lennox stabs at his console. A stream of intense blue-white taser light hits the mutant full in the chest. He falls down. And this time he stays down.

  The roar that goes up around me is deafening. The spectators are on their feet, jumping up and down with excitement, chanting Lennox’s name. Klute’s still firing at the gill-man.

  But it’s all over. The eye-sockets of Lennox’s skull are pulsing a deep blood red.

  ‘Arena decontaminated,’ says the voice.

  I swallow uneasily. I feel Travis’s arm around my shoulder. ‘What do you think?’ he says.

  I shrug. ‘It . . . it seemed so real,’ I tell him, and I can feel a painful lump in the back of my throat. ‘That mutant character . . . He looked as though he was really suffering.’

  And Travis laughs. ‘Lighten up, York,’ he says. ‘It’s only a game.’

  We’re back in the chamber up on the fourteenth level. It’s just the same as it was before – large and bright, with the desk, the info-stack, the stool and the high-backed chair. Except now the place is empty.

  ‘Where’s Petra?’ I ask.

  Travis looks round and shrugs. ‘She’ll be with us shortly,’ he says, then adds, ‘Fancy a look-see from the viewing platform while we’re waiting?’

  I agree of course. Everything about the Sanctuary fascinates me.

  We step towards the desk, then stop at the centre of a circular line cut into the visiglass floor. Travis reaches out and presses a couple of buttons on the control panel on the armrest of the chair.

  There’s a click and a hum, and the circle turns out to be a round panel set in the floor, which starts to go up. We quickly rise to the fifteenth level and beyond. Then, when our heads are about to touch the curved top of the Sanctuary, the platform comes to a smooth stop. I look out through the visiglass hexagons that make up the geodesic dome.

  ‘Quite a view, eh?’ says Travis, his arm sweeping round in a broad arc.

  He’s not joking. It’s spectacular.

  I can see different bio-zones laid out in wedge-shaped segments. Some of them I recognize. There are the tops of the towering trees in the rainforest of Zone 3, where Belle and I first arrived in the Mid Deck. And there, a stretch of grassland; an expanse of desert – and the polar ice-field of Zone 4. Far to one side, I can just make out the gleaming ripples of the frozen waterfall, where the water cascaded out through the crack in the ocean zone.

  It was fairly obvious down on the ground that the barriers between the zones had broken down, but up here the true chaos is clear to see. It’s all gone to gunk. Sand dunes drift into pools and forests, vines and creepers snake out across the snow, and bio-zone specimens released from their habitats now roam free.

  And it’s all so vast. The Mid Deck stretches off as far as I can see. In comparison, the Sanctuary – large as it feels from the inside – is little more than a pimple in this sprawling landscape.

  It’s not surprising the occupants of the Sanctuary feel under siege. Back at the Launch Times, the bio-engineers laid out the zones perfectly. Now, they’re all messed up, and we’re surrounded by one huge zone.

  This chaos zone. Full of mutations.

  What had Travis called it? Accelerated evolution.

  I picture the face of the gill-man in the holo-simulation. The skin-flaps at the neck. The webbed fingers and toes. And I feel a familiar shudder of revulsion. That was just a simulation, but out there in the chaos zone are mutants just like that, lurking in the dark corners, waiting for their chance to break into this bright, safe, visiglass world, bringing chaos with them.

  And I hate them for it.

  ‘Enjoying the view?’ comes a voice from below us.

  I look down to see Petra Crockett, one hand raised to shield her eyes from the light, staring up at us. She’s smiling.

  ‘Thought I’d show York the sights,’ Travis calls down.

  ‘Very good,’ says Petra Crockett, ‘but there’s something I want to show him too. Down here.’

  And she must have activated the platform herself, because all at once, we’re going down. As we descend, I see that the chamber has been transformed. All around us now are walls of light, made up of huge flickering panels.

  Holo-screens. Dozens of them.

  The platform slots smoothly back into place in the visiglass floor, and Petra Crockett is there to greet me. She’s beaming happily.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re settling into the Sanctuary,’ she says, then turns towards the holo-screens. ‘Travis has shown you one view of the bio-zones. But here, York, is another, more detailed view.’ She raises a hand towards the nearest screen. ‘Temperate forest, for instance, with its mix of deciduous and coniferous trees.’

  In front of me is a close-up of a tree that I recognize from the atrium of the viewing deck up in the Outer Hull. It’s a common oak, with rough bark, broad branches and a dense covering of rounded leaves.

  As I watch, the picture focuses on a cluster of acorns, and a small critter that, apart from its long bushy black-and-white tail, looks like Caliph – and again I feel a pang of loss. It’s crouched on a branch, plucking them one by one and nibbling at them hungrily.

  Petra moves to another screen, and there’s another scene playing itself out. A snakelike creature is flying through mid-air, its body rippling from side to side, before wrapping itself round a dangling vine – and gulping down the squat, widemouthed critter that’s crouched there . . .

  ‘These images are from our maintenance droids,’ she tells me. ‘They’re our eyes and ears. They help us know our enemy. Of course, we would like to venture o
ut into the bio-zones more often ourselves, but . . .’ She sighs. ‘It is too dangerous for us, York. So we use the droids to monitor the extent of contamination. And the activities of the Outsiders.’

  My attention turns to another holo-screen. Unlike the others, this one is a blur of static. Petra Crockett catches me looking at it.

  ‘Another droid lost to their sonic weapons,’ she says sadly. ‘They are clever,’ she concedes, ‘the Outsiders. And they will stop at nothing to destroy what we have preserved here. Which is why we have to stop them . . .’ Her eyebrows arch. ‘Will you help us to do that, York?’

  I feel a surge of anger towards the mutants. And it’s strong. So strong I can’t understand it. Or resist it.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘This is it,’ says Travis.

  Up in her chamber, Petra Crockett gave me a mission. A dangerous mission. She asked me to go out into the chaos zone and find one of her surveillance droids.

  ‘A scavenger like you,’ she said. ‘I thought you might enjoy the task.’

  And of course she’s right. Scavenging’s what I do.

  The droid went down somewhere near the central library, and she seemed mightily concerned about it. Apparently, it’s vital for the safety of the Sanctuary that the information the droid collected is retrieved by someone.

  And that someone turns out to be me.

  The elevator door opens, and I follow Travis into the armoury. It’s smaller than I thought it would be, but packed full of equipment.

  Visiglass shelves line the wall on one side of the room. They’re laden with boxes, each one with a glowing neon label on the front panel detailing its contents.

  On the other side of the room are two rows of bulky exo-skeleton suits. I recognize them as the type Travis was wearing when he rescued me from the mutants. The arms and legs are ribbed with urilium rods, the chest reinforced with blast-proof shield panels, and the helmet visored. The whole thing is sealed and pressurized from within to prevent contamination.