by Gemma Fowler
‘Lunar Incorporated has been helping our world heal for decades: from Grayson Faulkner’s vision; to his son, the great Adam Faulkner’s drive; to the Founding Five’s talent. We have tirelessly kept the world bright, kept the air clean and industry booming. The lumite cell has helped eradicate global warming.’
The crowd cheered.
‘The affordable power it provides has helped wipe out poverty.’
Louder.
‘The lumite cell has transformed the Earth, it has united the Earth!’ Rix had whipped the crowd up into a frenzy. The rush of sound battered Aggie’s ears and made her feel light-headed as she moved her heavy limbs onto her mark behind the curtain. She felt like a prisoner from the old days, stepping slowly up to the gallows. The rope around her neck was the collar of the violet overall, waiting to choke the life out of her.
She fixed her smile. It made her cheeks ache.
‘A world with power, a world with peace!’ Rix paused. ‘Citizens of the United Earth . . . a world with . . . HOPE!’
The crowd fell quiet. A mechanism cranked and Aggie felt herself flying upwards.
A band of lights buzzed to life behind her, burning her back. Aggie felt like she was about to faint. Images of vid studios and interviewers and cameras and lights flashed before her eyes. Then the curtains opened.
The sound of the crowd nearly knocked her over. The screams and cheers and stomping feet battered her body. Nausea swept up inside, her eyes burnt, her throat closed up. She looked out on a sea of faces. Thousands of people, just like Switch On Day.
Aggie stumbled. Blurs of light and noise danced around her.
‘The Angel of Adrianne is here!’ Rix said as the crowd finally died down.
The commander gave Aggie his hand and helped her down from her raised platform. ‘Welcome back!’
Another wall of sound from the crowd. Aggie noticed someone being dragged away by the guards. Were people fainting? This was crazy.
Rix gestured towards her and slipped away. For a second, Aggie didn’t understand what had happened.
She was alone on the stage.
The crowd was so quiet Aggie could hear the buzzing of the lights over her head.
She glanced at the silhouette of Rix in the shadows, still looking at the ground in mock-emotion, then back to the sea of expectant faces, their collars glittering back at her in the darkness of the dome.
The silence seemed to stretch up out of the face and into the void itself. Aggie stood, dumbstruck, blinking in the lights.
‘Th . . .’ she said shakily, any words crumbling to dust inside her head. The realization that she was expected to make her speech washed over her like ice water. Not just a speech, but a speech about the one thing she hated to talk about: Adrianne. The ten-year anniversary of the disaster that changed her life forever. When her father made a mistake that killed thousands, including himself. She’d practised the words, but she hadn’t expected this, this frenzy. In that second Aggie finally understood what being the Angel really meant. The whole world was watching her, waiting to hear what she had to say. Rix grinned at her from the shadows. He’d known this would happen. This was a punishment. A test.
‘FAKE!’ someone who’d had more LIXR than Rix shouted from the sea of faces below, followed by a hushed giggle that rippled to the back of the room. Aggie looked at the faces again and, not for the first time, wished that she hadn’t survived the explosion.
Then she caught a face in the crowds. A pair of round brown eyes staring up at her from the front row.
Seb’s face was the picture of shock and betrayal. Mir stood with her arm around his waist. Aggie looked down at Seb. All she wanted to do was run off the stage and bury her head in his neck. She needed Seb to stroke her hair and tell her everything was going to be ok. She longed to tell him how sorry she was that she hadn’t told him sooner. She should have tried harder.
‘It’s a FAKE!’ the voice shouted again, this time getting a roar of laughter.
‘I, err . . .’ She stumbled on the words again.
Aggie stood in the spotlight, sweating. Racking her brain for something, some coherent set of words that would just get her though this.
She watched Seb turn and disappear into the crowds. Her heart went with him.
Aggie bit her lip and took a deep breath. She had to be strong. What was the point any more? If she didn’t have Seb, she didn’t have a life anyway. Just get through this, Aggie, she told herself, and suddenly, thankfully, the script popped back into her head.
‘Adrianne,’ she said, her voice quivering with nerves. ‘It’s a word that is seared into our minds as citizens of our beautiful United Earth. A disaster for both our history and our humanity. But, citizens, we refused to be broken by that terrible day, for a new hope emerged from what had become a hopeless world.’
The crowd settled down again. Gaining confidence, the familiar words from Aggie’s childhood of interviews and speeches flowed out of her. But every one she uttered tore at her soul, the embarrassment at what her father had allowed to happen at Adrianne rotted away inside her. She felt dizzy, but she kept going.
‘I, the Angel of Adrianne –’ she paused for another roar from the crowd – ‘I stand here, in front of all you good people, on this, the tenth anniversary of that terrible yet hopeful day, as a symbol of that hope. The hope that together, as members of Lunar Incorporated, and as proud citizens of the United Earth, we can achieve our every dream. We can rebuild what was broken, and bring light into the darkest of places.’
Commander Rix began to emerge from the shadows, smiling like a proud father. She’d done OK. She’d passed his test. Aggie felt his cold touch on her shoulders as the crowd let go a deafening shout.
‘Beautiful words. Beautiful. Our Angel will be back with us, working tirelessly to bring lumite into your homes and your hearts. May the United Earth forever stay bright.’
Another cheer.
‘But, please, listen to our Angel at this delicate, emotional time. Remember, we are Lunar Inc., we are united, and out of darkness . . .’
‘WE SHINE!’ The crowd bellowed back, followed by whoops that made the ground rumble like a moonquake.
Aggie felt pressure on her shoulders and Rix began to walk her slowly off the stage into the cool darkness. As they left, engineers ran on, setting up the stage for the first of the bands. Sonic Nugget, Seb’s favourite. He was going to miss it.
She could hear murmurs in the crowds. ‘Angel’ penetrated through the din more than once, and with an embarrassed twist in her gut, she even picked up on one voice muttering the first few lines of ‘Into the Light’.
Hands appeared out of the line of guards that kept the crowds at bay, clawing desperately at Aggie’s violet overall. People screaming. Fanatics chanting. Grown men and women in tears at the sight of her. Did they not know she was Aggie, the domestic analyst whom they called when their air con needed servicing? Her godfather had been right: in her years in hiding, the Angel had become more than a symbol – she’d become an icon. These people didn’t just admire her, they worshipped her.
Aggie kept her head high and tried to smile. A cold hand clutched at her heart, slowly squeezing with every step. Rix beamed beside her, reaching out and shaking the hands that came too close. He punched the air and applauded, nodding and singing along with the noise.
When they reached the end of the line, Aggie felt the room spin around her and she fell to the floor.
A guard rushed to her side, carrying her out to the back of the tent, where deep purple-clad medics swarmed her. Her head pounded, her heart ached. For a second, she thought she saw Seb’s face among the crowds. The hurt was so clear in his eyes. She needed to get away.
When the medics’ backs were turned, Aggie lifted up the heavy backstage curtain and ran.
Day-Cycle 10
Behind the stage, the face was deserted. Aggie ran around the dusty surface until she found an unmanned airlock and slipped through into the empty G Face corridors.
She ran and ran until her lungs burnt and her legs felt as if they would collapse. But she didn’t get far enough. Panting, she fell back into a service hatch, and listened to the sound of distant, stomping surface boots getting closer – Rix’s guards.
The hatch bleeped. Aggie jumped and saw the door was wedged open. The thud of the boots was getting louder. They were so close now that she could hear the laboured breathing of the guards in her comms. She didn’t have a choice. She slipped behind the door and slammed it shut behind her.
As the door closed, the sound was cut off. Aggie found herself alone in a small, dark corridor. Strips of low white light led away along the rocky floor to a dim intersection where metal conveyor belts ran into a series of tunnels.
Aggie could hear a deep rumble coming from somewhere up ahead. She was in the cargo tunnels, the subterranean highway that moved the raw lumite around the base. She turned back to the door, then hesitated. If she went out into the corridor again, the guards would find her. No one would look for her here. The G Face tunnels weren’t even in use yet.
Slowly, Aggie stepped forwards, the violet lamp in her new Angel costume cast a dim light in the thick darkness. With every step, the tight feeling in Aggie’s chest started to ease. Her breathing slowed and she started to notice things around her.
She was following a thin service corridor that ran parallel to a metal track. Aggie knew from her training that that track would usually be filled with rushing conveyors carrying lumite to the processing plants and then to the cargo bays, where it would be launched back to Earth. G Face wasn’t in production yet though, so the distant thundering rumble she could hear must be coming from the other faces, even though they were miles away.
After an hour or so of blissful, aimless walking. Aggie took a slope upwards and found herself in front of another service hatch. As she approached, the door clicked and sprang open. Aggie popped her head through and saw deep blue curved Plexiglas walls. The Tech Department.
Aggie paused by the door, but the only sound she could hear was the distant hum of the Tech computers. To her left, an Ether spun slowly beside an emergency airlock. Aggie watched it for a second, but Celeste didn’t respond. She slowly crept out of the hatch and into the low blue corridor. Tech was a subterranean department located directly underneath the Whole Earth Complex. It was made up of a series of low-ceilinged rooms connected by dark, narrow tunnels that twisted and turned so much they confused even the most senior tech heads. The perfect place to get lost.
Aggie loved the Tech Department. She’d only been a couple of times, when she’d actually admitted to breaking something. There was so much cool stuff happening down here, and no stuffy scientists to spoil the fun. If things had been different, maybe she’d have made a good tech head.
As she stalked the empty corridors, she could see a host of fantastic stuff happening inside the rooms: clean-up drones spinning around in pointless little circles, another with two members of staff in VR suits – the screens beside them showing that they were carrying out a maintenance check on one of the huge Harvester satellites that provided the base with extra solar power. Another room was packed full of 3D printers, all of different sizes and purposes, spitting out item after item into big coloured buckets.
‘Hey Agatha,’ Celeste said softly from one of the desks. Aggie stopped and stared at the Ether. It pulsed as the computer talked. ‘What brings you to Tech this evening?’
Aggie didn’t reply. She walked on, following the corridor as it snaked downwards. She wanted somewhere quiet, she wanted to get away from the madness that was now her whole existence. She couldn’t think of a better place to hide.
‘Hey Agatha,’ Celeste said again, this time from the Ether beside a maintenance hatch. ‘You do not have authorization for this sector.’
Aggie turned to the Ether angrily. ‘If I have to be the fragging Angel of Adrianne, Celeste, then I can access everywhere. It’s compensation.’
The Ether whorled. ‘I’m sorry Agatha, but I don’t understand the question.’
‘Course you don’t.’
‘You don’t have authorization for this—’
‘Shut up Celeste.’
There was a long pause.
‘OK Agatha.’
Aggie shot the Ether a puzzled look and pushed on. It was only a matter of time before the computer alerted Rix and his guards. She had to keep going, get herself well and truly lost.
The corridor was getting narrower and colder. The rocky walls were now lined with maintenance hatches. Some were left open; personnel had been in a rush to get their tasks completed before the party – exposed wires and components hung out of them like robot entrails. The air started to smell like burnt metal. Aggie began to feel safer, as if she was slowly creeping into the very heart of the base.
‘Hey Agatha,’ Celeste said, as Aggie stepped out of the corridor and into a huge, white, circular room. ‘Welcome to the Home Ether.’
Aggie looked up and gasped. She’d wandered right into Celeste’s mainframe? The Home Ether was four floors high, with white balconies spreading up to the ceiling, looking down on the giant Ether that stood, black and writhing, on a raised platform in the centre of the room.
‘Hey Agatha,’ Celeste said again, her voice emitting out of a tiny Ether by the door, ‘Can I help you with anything?’
Aggie shook her head.
She walked slowly around the perimeter of the huge mainframe, checking for any panels or hatches, but the raised floor on which the Home Ether sat was smooth. Suddenly exhausted, Aggie sat on the lip of the platform and put her head in her hands. Her life had been extraordinary in so many ways, but tonight was really in a different league.
As Aggie thought of the mess of a speech she made, of the scrum that had formed around her afterwards and what Rix would have to say about her running away, she let out a long groan. How could she live on the base any more? Her life was over. She’d have to become a recluse, go back to her father’s old house in Reykjavik. Her only option was to do her duty for Lunar Inc. and then slowly become a rumour again. Until the next time. Until FALL rose up again, or until Rix decided he needed more love from his precious public. Aggie was company property. Something to be used, then cast aside.
‘Is there anything I can help you with Agatha?’ Celeste repeated.
Aggie stood up and faced the giant Ether. To her surprise, it was spinning like water down a sink. Aggie stepped closer, so she could feel the static coming off the invisible particles that whirled inside the huge frame.
‘Take me away,’ she said quietly. ‘Just take me away from here.’
‘OK Agatha.’ Celeste’s voice echoed, releasing a hatch hidden at the side of the stage. Aggie peered inside and felt something tug at her temples.
Aggie opened her eyes, and then shut them again.
Nope, it can’t be. It must be her mind playing tricks on her.
She opened them for a second time, then cried out and fell to the floor.
She was in a room, a room that spun and shifted, breaking up and coming back together as if it was constantly rebuilding itself. The ground rumbled softly below her – not the smooth white of the Tech suite, but the dusty grey of another room. A room she would never forget.
Like a dream, a soft violet light pulsed around her, illuminating the old control desk and cluttered metal cabinets. Paper readouts covered the old-fashioned touch screen and dials.
She was in the reactor room. She was in Adrianne.
The lumite reactor spun before her slowly, clouds of steam billowing from the cooling vents as they rotated around it. It buzzed happily to itself, pumping out thousands of kilowatts of power. It was working perfectly, just how it had done in the hundreds of tests her father had run before . . .
‘Aggie?’ a voice penetrated the hum in the air. A voice that was familiar and strange all at once.
‘You have to see,’ the voice said.
As the voice spoke, the room twisted and now sh
e was jostled by people. Thousands of people. Aggie tried to elbow her way through but she was too small, too weak. She looked up, the perfect blue sky shifted and settled again. A warm desert breeze shifted her hair, something fell into her hands. A tiny flag, the flag of the United Earth.
Somewhere above the heads and shoulders a microphone screeched with feedback. The stage was just visible through the crowd, the United Leader, the engineers, the Faulkners dressed in their best clothes for the Switch On of her father’s reactor in the power station far below their feet.
‘No!’ Aggie cried, as terror gripped her.
A deep rumble penetrated the noise of the countdown. No one in the crowds noticed. The anthem of the United Earth began to play over the speakers. The ground pulsed, but the crowds were too preoccupied with singing.
‘You have to see,’ the voice boomed in the sky.
The people disappeared, replaced by rubble and smoke. It was still, silent. Aggie looked down. She was on her knees, her hands were bleeding, her violet dress hung in rags. She wiped the dust from her eyes and continued to tear at the rocks. ‘Daddy,’ she panted, desperate to here his voice from under the rubble.
‘Look! A little girl!’
The First Responders appeared out of the smoke like shadows. They ran towards her with their black cameras and blinding lights.
Voices echoed. ‘She’s trying to save them! Help her!’
‘How did she survive?’
‘She must be an Angel.’
‘Stop!’ Aggie screamed at the sky. It was too real, too raw. She put her head in her bleeding hands. ‘Stop it, stop it, Celeste, please!’
The computer’s voice shattered the others. ‘You have to see.’
Suddenly, worlds shifted and rebuilt around Aggie like scenes from a dream: her father’s smiling face as he drank LIXR with Adam Faulkner on the roof of the Lunar Inc. labs in Adrianne. Aggie sat at their feet, listening to the hush of their deep voices, watching the warm sun set over the rocky orange mountains.