The Dark and Shining Future

by P. F. White

  “Knock knock,” said Miriam as she knocked upon the slightly ajar door to the Fletcher family's living-room. Adriana had been sitting on the big leather chair by the window, staring out at the vast expanse of empty gray that made up her entire view. It was almost hypnotic. You could imagine, but never see. What atrocities went on in that gray mist? What wonders could be seen?

  “You can come in,” Adriana said as she turned to give a tired smile to Miriam. At least Miriam had been something of a godsend for her. She was younger than Adriana, though she certainly didn't act it. Sometimes Adriana thought she was prettier as well (she was certainly skinnier, though Hank laughed at that when Adriana mentioned it and usually said something altogether inappropriate for whatever company they were in.) This sort of reasoning normally wouldn't even occur to Adriana, but she felt almost as if a blanket of dull, listless, and pedestrian thought were slowly being pulled over her. She was drifting, angrily at times or perhaps just desperately. She didn't feel she knew anything anymore. She didn't know what to do. It was exactly the sort of thing that often drove people to religion, she thought to herself, and there was no way that would happen to her.

  Thankfully there was always Miriam.

  Despite her exterior, every blond hair in place and clothing seeming to stay both immaculate and stylish regardless of circumstance: Miriam actually seemed to be a compassionate, understanding, and fiercely loyal sort of person. She looked after her department, and it's highly nerdy personnel, with the protective instinct of a mother lioness. She spent nearly all her time with them, and always made extra time throughout the day just to chat with everyone on her floor and make sure they were doing okay. She was the sort of person who listened well, and offered insight often. She didn't seem judgmental or callous, though one could never really be sure of that, and she went out of her way to think of others first.

  She looked young, perhaps nearer to twenty than thirty, but every mannerism she had seemed oddly out of place in such a young person. She never let anyone intimidate her, she never backed down except when she was wrong- and then she backed down immediately and tried to correct the mistake. She was wise, but better than that: she seemed experienced. Yet that experience was never used as a club to bludgeon others.

  Miriam almost seemed too good to be true.

  “How you doing today?” asked Miriam as she came in and sat down opposite Adriana.

  “I'm okay I guess. I'm not really sure what to do with myself, honestly. These days just seem to...I don't know...stretch...”

  Miriam made a face.

  “Yeah...” she trailed off a bit. The two women locked eyes for a moment and then Miriam stood up, “About that. I've been talking to some of the others and-”

  She saw the expression on Adriana's face and suddenly burst out laughing.

  “No, no, no!” she said as she shook her head, “It's nothing like that I promise! Oh god, you still have some idea that we are like- what- alien monsters or something here? Going to harvest your organs or turn you into a pod person or something?”

  Adriana opened her mouth to say something polite, but Miriam quickly raised a hand and said:

  “Don't answer that. Please don't answer that. Jesus how we must- No. What I meant was just that you really have seemed...well...bored I guess. Everyone else here seems to have started to integrate into the various projects. Some floors are carrying on like nothing has even happened. A few even still have work days if you can believe that. Even your husband has-”

  “I'm fine,” said Adriana defensively. She folded her arms. Miriam's face softened.

  “Adriana, you are not fine,” said Miriam, “I'm worried that if you stay perfectly idle here you are going to, well, go a bit nuts.”

  Adriana raised an eyebrow. She didn't want to admit it, but she was thinking the same thing. Hank had, surprisingly, thrown in his lot with the security guards. He now wore a blue uniform alongside the rest of them, and was learning his way around the various floors, seeing the various sights, and reporting back to his family on all of it. When she had asked him about it: he had looked at her with those funny intense eyes of his. His exact words to her had been:

  “I'm not sure if I trust them here. In fact, I'm more certain that I don't trust them, at least not all the way. But we have to figure out where we are, and to some smaller extent: why we are here. That means becoming familiar with this place. That means making alliances, understanding power dynamics, and being prepared for the future. Trust me on this: I know how to live inside of an institution. I'll be careful, but I'm going to get results.”

  Adriana had frowned about, that but had also seen the logic of it. So far, at least, he didn't seem to have been switched out with a robot or anything. Then again: he was often so strange in his behavior that she wondered if she would even notice...but in the same vein: she doubted they could even replicate Hank's particular brand of crazy.

  “Okay,” said Adriana as she took a deep breath. She tried to give Miriam a more reassuring smile but it fell flat. She needed help, she needed to engage. She said: “If you are so worried about me going nuts: then what do you suggest?”

  Adriana tried to put a note of the carefree into her voice but found she simply couldn't. She also couldn't help but glance back at the door to the other room where the baby was sleeping soundly.

  “I can't exactly leave him you know,” she explained.

  Miriam raised an eyebrow at that.

  “Oh really? What's going to get him? One of my guys? Or how about-”

  “What if something comes in through the window?” asked Adriana. She tapped upon the glass. “I'm still not convinced this place is as strong as you say it is.”

  Miriam snorted at that.

  “Yeah, I felt that way for awhile too. If you like I can take you down to the materials lab and we can run some practical tests together. Every six months or so they used to invite us to come down there and try stuff. They have guns, and bombs, and whatever else you might want. They also have a few slabs of the same glass paneling that's on the outside. You can just go nuts on it and there isn't even a scratch afterward. It's actually kind of fun.”

  Miriam seemed to brighten at the thought.

  “Come on then, we can go right now!”

  “No...” Adriana didn't like the idea for some reason. It was still just too weird for her, and the last thing she wanted was more violence. It would only wind her up more on the inside. Maybe, she thought, that was the whole problem.

  “I feel like I just can't relax,” she admitted to Miriam. Miriam nodded thoughtfully.

  “I understand that. Really I do. We had the same problem in the- well where I'm from. We found ways though, and so will you.”

  Adriana sighed.

  “It's like the fog out there? It oppresses me somehow. We can't even see six inches out from the glass anymore you know? I feel like my entire world is now trapped in here with me. It's like I'm at the bottom of the ocean or something. Or on the moon. Or maybe just in an insane asylum. Somewhere where the world just can't even touch me.”

  Miriam nodded. She said:

  “And it just gets worse whenever one of the creatures bumps up against the glass. Suddenly you see some terrible monster thing, and you get the idea that the world is nothing but monsters outside and, well, nothing but office inside. It's like two hells bumping against one another. I understand that completely.”

  “Exactly!” said Adriana. She laughed and ran a hand through her hair, “I feel like no matter where I turn-”

  “Adriana?”

  “-I just can't-”

  “Adriana?”

  She shut up and looked cross for a moment.

  “What?”

  “Come with me. I think I know just the place to show you.”

  Adriana looked back towards the baby.

  “You can bring him with you if you want. Trust me, it's totally cool.”

  Adriana hesitated again. She didn't exactly trust her new home, in fact: s
omething about it terrified her, but she was still scared of leaving it anyway. Paradoxical fear, she thought to herself, maybe I am just going nuts!

  “Tell you what,” said Miriam, “Go get Claire, and tell her to watch the baby for a little while, okay? Then you can go have a little adventure without having to worry.”

  Adriana swallowed, her mind already trying to come up with exactly why that was such a bad idea. Then realized that if she never allowed herself a little fun: she really was going to go crazy. So she just nodded and said:

  “Okay, let's go get Claire.”

  “That's the spirit!” said Miriam.

  # # #

  Hank Fletcher was at one of the lowest levels of the sub-basements. He was standing in the biggest artificially created chamber he had ever seen, and he was understandably speechless.

  In front of him was a simple pool of water, yet it wasn't just any pool of water. This pool stretched out in front of his feet for half a kilometer, and to each side for nearly the same. Below him he could see the bottom of the crystal clear water: half a kilometer beneath him. It was a giant cube of water with the steady rhythm and noise of pipes constantly providing background noise.

  “We can even turn on an artificial water-fall if we want,” said John to one side of Hank, “It's pretty cool, and we can adjust it from light sprinkle all the way up to waaaaaay too big to be safe! It's a lot of fun actually, we've had parties down here with it. Want me to turn it on?”

  “No,” said Hank as he looked on at the massive recycling machines surrounding the simple cube of perfectly pure water, “I think this is impressive enough...but how can you have a party here? Isn't this water, I don't know, clean?”

  “Of course it's clean!” John laughed, “But we are also in the middle of a gigantic recycling plant! You and everyone else here could do nothing but stand here peeing into this pool and it would still have so much water, and recycle it so quickly, that you would never even come close to contaminating it!”

  The building consistently managed to surprise Hank. No, “surprise” was far too small a word for what this building represented. Nearly everything he had seen here seemed anywhere from years to centuries ahead of the rest of the world. Hank liked to consider himself up to date on tech trends, he subscribed to several of the magazines and read some of the best blogs...but he had never even imagined half the things he had seen in the last week.

  “So this system is perfectly self contained?” he asked yet again. John just laughed.

  “Yes, for the hundredth time. We have filtration and processing systems scattered across the entire complex so that even if something major were to happen down here: we would still have potable water. We don't even have to slow down the various projects requiring large volumes of water. The system right now can process over 51% of the total volume every minute if it has to. That means that, even with a massive failure on several fronts, we should never have anything even close to a water shortage. Even this tank contains far more water than it should. It's half a cubic kilometer but, through something having to do with gravity and Non-Euclidean geometry, it contains about three times as much water. Don't ask me how: but every aspect of this place has been over-engineered to a fantastic degree. ”

  “And you said all the filtration has something to do with...metal?” asked Hank while he shook his head. He didn't even want to try and fathom what John was getting at now. He tried to stick to things he could understand instead.

  “It sure does! See it's pretty simple and, well at least to a bumpkin like me, pretty dang impressive. What we did is create an artificial alloy that appears solid to the touch, but is actually porous. The trick, as I understand it, is to make it so that the only molecules that can fit through the holes are the water ones. Pure H20 molecules are either oddly shaped, or smaller than others, or some such hocus-pocus.”

  He waved away the specifics as if he really didn't care. It was an odd habit that John had. He seemed to understand far more science than he ever let on, pretending at times to be nearly illiterate, while at others he would go on about something that Hank himself could only barely grasp. Hank again got the impression of a barely functioning human personality surrogate. He understood concepts like relatable ignorance, unlike a pure machine that would just rattle off answers to whatever questions it had the data for, but John didn't always use those concepts correctly. It was quite interesting and Hank watched the man while he went on about the water filtration system some more:

  “-The point is that we end up with a filtration device that requires zero power to work, will work for as long as the materials remain viable, and take up nearly nothing in terms of space! I can show you the standard filter if you like, I got one in the office. It's almost as thin as a sheet of paper!”

  “But what about the waste?” asked Hank.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, yeah: supposedly the water just goes right through, but what about the stuff that isn't water? Where does that go?”

  “Well the biggest parts end up in the recycling plant a few floors above us. Nothing biological though, just large particles and actual garbage. Most of the smaller stuff, and all the biological parts, are simply shredded.”

  “Shredded?” Hank tried something spur of the moment: “What does that word mean?” he tried to keep his voice neutral while he said it, trying to pass off as legitimate ignorance as best he could. If successful the personality surrogate would confuse it for genuine ignorance- as even well educated humans often had surprising holes in their knowledge. Of course a real person would most likely sniff out the ruse instantly. Who didn't know what shredded meant anyway?

  “Oh yeah, you haven't seen our material shredders have you?” John laughed, but there was something intimidating in the sound now. He ignored the ruse entirely. Interesting, thought Hank, though hardly conclusive.

  “Well then I think it's high time,” said John “Brace yourself: if you thought that this was impressive you haven't seen nothing yet!” He laughed again, a bit louder than he probably should. Hank didn't like the sound of that.

  # # #

  The Elevator seemed to take forever. Miriam had been annoyingly silent during the ride as well. She only smiled mischievously and gave a few tantalizing hints about their ultimate destination. Apparently, according to her, what Adriana was really lacking was some good old fashioned sunlight and fresh air. Adriana didn't see how that could be fixed, but Miriam had just smiled all the broader when she had said that.

  Now the two women were taking the elevator all the way to the top. While Adriana had never heard anyone actually mention the top of the building, she knew of no reason why it should be any different then the floors below. At the most she might be able to stand atop a chilly, fish smelling rooftop and look out over the gray mist all around her.

  She somehow doubted that that would make her feel any better.

  The elevator rang its' little bell as it announced their arrival at the top.

  “Everyone off!” giggled Miriam as she took Adriana's hand and led her out the door. The area around them was well lit and fairly sparkled from its' high degree of polish. Adriana hesitated a little just upon seeing it, her eyes widening and her hand coming to her mouth.

  It looked like something out of a dream.

  The entire upper floor appeared to be made out of polished marble, gold, silver, precious jewels and elegant crystal. Directly above them hung a chandelier larger than the Fletcher family's entire car. It appeared to be suspended from the ceiling from nothing at all. The ceiling itself was nearly fifty feet above them too, and seemed covered in elaborately elegant patterns and vast reproductions of famous paintings. “The Creation of Man” stretched out to one side while “Starry Night” occupied the other. In front of them was a large golden statue of Atlas, the world upon his back was some sort of hologram that spun as he silently shouldered his burden. Classical music flitted through the air, perfectly clear and as beautiful as in any concert hall. Hol
ograms of musicians in tuxedos stood or sat in various places to add to the illusion of an ongoing live performance. The walls were covered in carefully displayed paintings by some of history's most famed artists. While most were reproductions, like those upon the ceiling, a few bore placards proudly announcing their authenticity. Regardless of whether they were “real” or not: they all looked achingly beautiful to Adriana.

  “My god,” she said softly.

  “I know. Impressive isn't it? The upper three floors are supposed to be for executives only, but the others here, and especially me, have never really followed that rule. As long as no one messes anything up we figure why not let our people enjoy this place you know? Besides: if someone did mess anything up we could just look at the security cameras and call them out specifically for it. The security here is good enough and there is no need to punish the group for the behavior of one person right?”