The Skies That Once Were Blue
“The Skies That Once Were Blue”
By Ad Astra Phoenicia
9,954 words.
–
The maglev car whirred it’s way toward another boring day.
Nothing ever happened in District 17.
No one ever got killed, nothing crashed or blew up.
It wasn’t that Dalton wanted anyone to get killed of course, but some excitement would be nice.
The thirty something Operator-Engineer stifled a yawn and glanced around the carriage, looking at the same vacant, blank faces.
He was the only one standing, his arm wrapped around the yellow strap attached to the maglev cars roof.
There was plenty of room on the train, but standing allowed him to see better.
They sped through the outskirts, but the view through the window was like an old film reel: Dull, and grey, living places, but lifeless people.
His piercing dark eyes stared back at him in the grime of the glass, betraying a life that he had never lived.
Dalton glanced back toward the train car, and just for a moment, saw the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, like a ghost out of his dreams. Her eyes shone with a cerulean blue, her hair glowed like sunshine.
There was a flash of glorious colour, his mind whirred, and in an instant, she was gone.
The overhead announcer chimed as the train pulled into the station.
Dalton sighed without realising it, and left the maglev.
The sun tried in vain to pierce the thick silver clouds, it’s heat warming the drab concrete.
The sky used to be blue, Dalton remembered, when he was growing up.
He could still picture it, in his minds eye. It was so colourful, so beautiful, but since the dome went up, the artificial atmosphere, with it’s perpetual monochrome haze, was all that could be seen.
The brutalist facade of Central Processing filled him with a curious dread every time he saw it.
It radiated maleficence, with it’s imposing lines and blacked out windows.
It was as if a building could embody the evil of a man, and project it from every surface.
Dalton went inside, work-hardened shoulders bowed imperceptibly as he made his way up the steps, a quiet gesture of submission.
After a succession of chimes and beeps, and not a single word exchanged with the taciturn grey-clad check-in officer, Dalton passed through security and into the lab area.
Monochrome grey reluctantly gave way to sterile white, the walls cold slabs of prefab plastic panelling lit from within with a uniform glow, preventing even a single shadow from adding definition to this space.
There were days that Dalton didn’t speak more than a few words. Sometimes he didn’t speak for so long that when he did, his voice came out cracked from neglect.
He turned on his terminal, and read his first assigned work order for the day.
REESE,DALTON-1389-L it read back his identification code, followed by his task list.
An ion-exchange conduit at junction 4 had overloaded during the night.
Dalton’s job was to degauss the junction and restore full functionality.
He sighed.
“Not again” he breathed. “That’s the fourth time this week!”
Dalton signed out his toolkit from the lab’s lock-box, and proceeded to Junction 4.
The electric hum of high-voltage equipment grew louder as Dalton approached the junction.
He could feel his short well-kept hair stand on end.
As he approached, he saw a crouched figure in front of him, wearing an identical white jumpsuit with regulation white hard cap, complete with the yellow-and-black checkered symbol of Central processing.
“Hello!” A female voice startled him with its uncharacteristic exuberance.
“You must be Dalton, right? We will be working together.” She smiled. A warm, human smile, and Dalton couldn’t help but smile back.
“Y-yeah” he stammered, his voice croaking from lack of use.
“What’s your name?”
“Skye” she replied.
“Skye…” Dalton repeated quietly to himself.
She stood up, and even in the harsh light of the junction tunnel, her eyes shone with a cerulean blue, and her hair glowed like sunshine.
He reached out to shake her hand, but she hugged him instead.
Her hair smelled of wild flowers and her embrace felt like home.
“I think we’ll get along!” she chirped. “Pass me that maghammer will you?”
“What? Oh, yeah, sure!” Her request snapped him out of his reverie.
Dalton reached forward, extending his hand with the maghammer in it. She grasped the other end of the tool, and the world turned to incandescent white.
Dalton felt an indescribable pain like he had never felt before, his skin burned like it was being flayed inch by inch by a devil in the seventh circle of hell.
He screamed, and even in his agony he could feel electric lightning arcing between the fillings in his teeth. Amber sparks seared his face, and then, finally, there was nothing but blackness.
“Dalton! Are you OK?”
He groaned in pain.
“Call a doctor, now!” A male voice exclaimed.
“I can’t, the network is still down, my cell won’t connect!” Another voice said in fright.
“Well… Go and get the doctor yourself then, just do something!”
Dalton opened his eyes, but still saw nothing. He was blind.
He began to panic, and rubbed his eyes ferociously, as it willing the sight back into them.
“Dalton? It’s Alexei, hang on mate, help is on the way, just stay… just stay calm!” The voice’s platitudes fell on deaf ears, and unseeing eyes.
“Alex? What happened?” Dalton rubbed his eyes again, and this time, to his relief, he saw a faint blurry outline of the world around him, which slowly, ever so slowly, resolved itself into a recognisable scene.
For a moment everything was bathed in an alien blue halo, before finally, Dalton’s vision returned to normal.
His fear subsiding, Dalton realised that he was sitting on the ground next to the junction. The breaker box was open, and there were scorched cables hanging from it.
The maghammer was lying on the ground, it must have fallen when he was handing it to…
“Skye!” Dalton instantly jumped to his feet and his still-blurry eyes searched frantically through the cramped service corridor.
“Where is she?” Dalton shouted.
“Where is who?” Alex replied.
“Skye! The Operator I was assigned to work on the junction with!”
“What Operator?”
“A Blue-eyed girl? Blonde, you know the one?”
“No idea what you’re talking about mate? You were here fixing the junction by yourself, there was a flash, I think you got burned when the panel exploded…”
“What? No, no, we were assigned to work together, she was here next to me. She might be hurt, or maybe she went to get help? You search that corridor, I’ll check the service hatch.”
“Dalton, mate, I’m telling you, no one called Skye works here. I watched you walk into the junction room on the security monitor, there was no one else in there!”
“What are you talking about Alexei? I saw her! I even talked to her?”
“Alright, look just lie back down, the medic will be here soon, he’ll check you over, OK?”
“Why are you talking to me like I’m crazy! I am not crazy!” Dalton stammered.
“I know, I know you’re not, but just sit back down for me, OK?” Alex spoke in a calming tone, but his brow furrowed with concern.
Dalton did as he was told, confused and frightened.
He grasped his head, realising for the first time that he had a throbbing ache threatening to bore a hole in his skull.
“You know what? Maybe I will see that doctor after all…” Dalton said.
“Hell, I feel like that whole junction must have degaussed into my head…” he groaned once more, but managed a weak chuckle.
Still reeling from his aching migraine, Dalton needed to be carried to the small medbay in Central Processing.
The medical facility was well lit and sterile, with the same monochromatic light that filled the rest of central processing’s inner sanctum.
Here, a well-groomed middle-aged doctor with a smart white coat and trim greying beard waited anxiously.
“Help him to the examining table” he said.
The table was metallic, cold and grey, with plain black pads bolted to the frame.
Something about it filled Dalton with a fear that he didn’t understand, and he twisted in the arms of his helpers.
“Careful, he’s falling!” The doctor cried, and moved to assist.
“No!” Dalton cried.
There was an explosion of white and then Dalton saw a great orb of fiery red engulf his vision. Fear engulfed him as he witnessed a thousand images that he could not describe flash before his eyes, and then, finally, for a lingering moment, there was the blue-eyed girl.
“Mr Reese, you’re back with us, I see?” The Doctor greeted him with a grin as he regained consciousness.
“Good news! You seem to be fine. I have subjected you to a litany of tests, ECG, EKG, the works, I won’t bore you with the details, but there is nothing physically wrong with you.”
“Your heart rhythm is normal, and your pupils are responsive, your cognitive functions are all fine.”
“Yeah, I feel OK now Doc, I… I think it was mostly just EMF…”
“EMF?” The doctor questioned.
“What? Oh, EMF is… basically like a burst of electromagnetic energy. It’s not harmful to humans. Not at these frequencies anyway. The flash of the burning conduit blinded me for a few seconds, but I’m OK now…”
Dalton sat up on the chair, and noticed he had been given a long, loose, medical overshirt while he was unconscious.
There was something still bothering Dalton, something still gnawing at the back of his mind.
“Hey, Doc, you have records of everyone working at Central Processing, right?”
“Of course, why do you ask?”
“Have you ever met anyone called Skye? Blue eyes, blonde hair?”
“Skye? No, no I don’t think I have…”
“Doc, this is important, think, you must have seen her, examined her, maybe during her yearly physical? You’d remember her, believe me, just think carefully!”
“I remember all my patients Dalton, and I can assure you, there is no “Skye” working at this facility, and there never has been as long as I have worked here!”
Dalton looked into the doctors confused eyes, and felt a sudden burst of rage from somewhere within him.
“You’re lying!” He screamed and rushed past the white-coated man to the computer terminal behind him.
“What’s your access code?” Dalton demanded.
“Mr Reese you know I can’t give you that, that terminal contains confidential patient records! Now why don’t you sit back down on the bed and I can get you something to help you relax.”
The doctor glanced toward a nurse standing to Dalton’s right, and at that instant the engineer saw a glint of steel from an object in her hand.
He lashed out, knocking the syringe to the ground. The nurse, panicked and ran into the corridor.
“What the hell is going on here?” Dalton shouted.
“Mr Reese, you are having a psychotic episode! Relax, stay calm, and let us help you!”
“Bullshit! Something is… Wrong… here… why are you pretending not to remember!”
Dalton grabbed the syringe from the ground and lunged toward the doctor. “The access code, now!”
“Mr Reese… “ The doctor gasped, his words choked out by Dalton’s arm around his neck.
“Now!” Dalton roared, frightening even himself with his ferocity.
“4-2-9-1-5” the doctor reluctantly coughed out a response, and Dalton dropped the mans body to the floor, desperately turning back to the computer.
He stood over the glowing beige terminal like a tiger ready to pounce.
Quickly accessing the system, he searched the patient records by name.
Nothing.
Then he searched by physical description, still nothing.
Then he used the doctors IDENT code to search all employee records, all ranks, all departments…
Nothing.
“She’s not here”.
The Doctor had, by now, struggled to his feet, and put his hand reassuringly on Dalton’s shoulder.
“Do you believe me now?” he replied.
Emotionally exhausted and physically drained, Dalton sank into the chair in front of the terminal.
He nodded slightly, the movement triggered a searing pain from behind his eyes as his vision exploded in colours he could scarcely describe.
“I think maybe there’s something wrong with me…” He said and turned to see the doctors face freeze, his eyes roll slightly, mouth still open as if in mid sentence.
Then the Doctor recoiled in shock.
“Doc?” Dalton questioned.
“Who are you? How did you get in here?” the medic shouted.
“What are you talking about?”
At that instant, the nurse, accompanied by Alexei and another security officer reentered the room.
“Hands in the air, drop the weapon, now!” Alexei barked.
Dalton dropped the syringe and took a step forward.
“Alex, I know I fucked up, I’m sorry, but I just had to know who she was…”
“How do you know my name?” Alex retorted through clenched teeth.
“What are you talking about? We’re friends? We’ve known each other for years?”
“You’re no friend of mine, now get down on the ground or I’ll put you down!”
Frantically, Dalton scanned the faces of those around him.
His friends, his colleagues, people he knew…
He could see only fear and anger staring back at him.
He did the only thing that he could think of: He ran.
Knocking the good doctor aside with a shoulder charge a rugby player would be proud of, fuelled by fear, he made for the next room.
Behind him, he heard the whine of Alexei’s coilgun rounds clanging uselessly against the aluclad door.
Dalton was relieved that Alex wasn’t using live ammunition, it would have easily pierced the soft material.
The engineer gave the door access panel an almighty kick, shattering the casing, and then bridged the live and neutral wires, shorting the system in a shower of amber sparks.
He had bought himself a few minutes.
Dalton remembered that there was a junction that ran behind the medbay, but he couldn’t see an entryway.
The centre of the room was dominated by a large hexagonal data interface panel, sporting four or five screens adorned with flashing icons and text displays.
“That needs power…” The engineer in him realised.
“More power than you’d get from a wall circuit…”
Dalton’s eyes found a thick corrugated sheath of armoured cable, and followed it to where it disappeared into a channel in the floor.
He heard angry pounding on the door behind him, and the thin frame began to creak against the assault.
He dived to the ground, tearing up the aerogel panels. His fingers bled, his nails tore off, but in his panic to escape he felt no pain.
Finally, the panel gave way completely, and before he jumped into the darkness Dalton saw his own face staring back from the screen above him, with the text:
“Security Alert: Unknown Intruder In Central Processing”
–
Dalton’s ears rang with an incessant clanking and banging as he shuffled and dragged his body through the pitch-black metal vent system.
He no longer had any idea where he was, but he knew he needed to go down, to street level.
Occasionally, he would hear shouts, and some muffled thuds, as his former colleagues tried to root him out from the steel ductwork, but he was so desperate and so deep within his metal tomb, he didn’t even stop moving to hide himself.
Eventually, he felt the bliss of fresh air upon his grime-streaked face, and followed it to the first faint glimmer of silver light.
It was an exterior hatch cover, and, cautious and stealthy now for the first time, he used his bloody fingers to prise it open.
Wincing in pain, eyes blinded by the unfamiliar light, he pushed the metal grating aside, and emerged into the grim, grey painted walls of freedom.
The stench of mould and rot, spurred on by the fresh breeze, assaulted his nostrils.
He had climbed out of the vent system into the alley behind central processing, and having escaped the darkness he now found himself stumbling, sometimes crawling, through knee-deep sacks of refuse, dripping their foul-smelling contents directly onto the ground, and onto him.
Dalton, regaining some of his presence of mind, tore a strip from his thin hospital tunic and used it to bandage his bleeding hands, then pushed on, but to where?
That console in the medbay was displaying a District news alert, why did it refer to him as “Unknown”?
Why was everyone pretending not to know who he was?
And who was that blue eyed girl?
Even now, her face was burned into his mind.
He knew her.
He couldn’t remember her, but he knew her.
–
Dalton left the alleyway and entered the Celandine quarter, looking like hell and smelling worse.
It was mid morning, and the sun glowed orange through the thick umber mist of the recycled atmosphere.
The medics had taken Dalton’s rebreather when they removed his uniform, and the acrid sting of partially-reprocessed air in his lungs made him cough.
There were people in the distance, gathered around a media terminal.
He struggled to make out what they were looking at until, to his shock, his own face appeared on the screen.
“Non-Citizen” appeared emblazoned in blood red above his face.
Once again, there was no name.
Dalton began to panic.
It would be just moments before they noticed him…
Acting almost on instinct, Dalton darted right, through a narrow, poorly-kept side street, flanked by rusted graffiti-soiled metal plating.
It began to rain.
Without his polychrome jacket, the acid burned through to his skin, and he winced, but kept running.
Soon, he arrived at a brick-built structure at the edge of the industrial sector.
Dalton could see the great rusted towers of the atmosphere processor in the desert beyond, belching great plumes of steam into the air they were built to clean, a losing battle between man and nature.
He rapt loudly on the steel door.
The rain strengthened, beating harder upon his unprotected skin.
Dalton knocked again, louder this time.
“Fuck off skags, I got nothing for ya!” A female voice shouted from within.
“Grim!! It’s me!”
A face appeared through one of the gaps in the rusted metal entranceway.
The woman it belonged to had welding goggles around her neck, and her face was soiled black with grease. Her hair was dreadlocked and matted, her clothing made from old leather.
“How do you know that name?” she spat.
“What do you mean how do I know? Open the door, I’m burning out here!”
“I’m not opening any door until you tell me who you are and how you found me!” The woman replied.
“Grim, this isn’t funny, let me in!”
“Freak!” she spat, and her face disappeared into the darkness of the buildings interior.
“She doesn’t know who I am either…” Dalton realised. Just like his friends at central processing… Something had happened to Grim too…
Dalton thought fast.
“We met five years ago.” He shouted through the door. “You used to work in central processing as a machinists mate, until you mangled your hand in a torque converter. Now you’re an artist by day, but by night you paint anarchist slogans under the Kasimir bridge and plot the revolution…”
With a creak, the door slid open.
“Get in here!” the woman grabbed Dalton, and pulled him inside.
“Take this” a damp towel slapped him in the head, and he took it gratefully, wiping off the worst of the acid rain from his sodden clothes.
The room was dark, despite the early hour, thanks to its complete lack of windows. It was lit only by the dull orange glow from an acetylene forge in the corner.
“How do you know all of this about me…” Grim asked.
“We are friends. Were friends…” Dalton replied.
“But… Something happened today, and now… no one can remember me…” he continued.
Grim hesitated, and then searched Dalton’s face, as if looking for answers his words failed to provide.
“You’re that guy, aren’t you? The Non-Citizen they’ve been talking about?”
“I guess so.” Dalton replied.
“Going to turn me in?”
“Hah! As if! Any enemy of the state is a friend of mine.” Grim smiled triumphantly.
The leather-clad anarchist led Dalton to the rear of the building, past a myriad of metal machine parts and avant-garde art, all rusted and silent after years of silent decay.
“This is part of the old atmosphere processor” she said. “They forgot about this building when they built the new one”.
She grabbed two filthy metal mugs, filled them with some equally questionable water, and placed them upon a metal slab in front of the forge.
“I hope you like it black” she said, jovially.
Dalton wondered if she was talking about the coffee or the water, but said nothing.
“You can relax. They won’t look for you here” she said. “We’re off grid. No sensornet, no surveillance, no media terminals.”
Dalton’s shoulders sank in relief, as if a great weight he didn’t even know he was carrying had been taken from him.
He even tried some of the coffee, and immediately regretted it.
It was then that he saw her.
It was a glimpse at first, a wayward glance, but it lit his mind like a solar flare.
Glowing in the light from the forge was an old photograph, encased in glass.
Dalton felt himself drawn to it.
“Oh, yeah. I take pictures too. Real ones, not the electronic shit, you know they can edit those now? Make it look like things happened that never happened? Spooky. I trust the old-school tech.”
It was her.
The blue eyed girl.
Even in the faded ink of this long forgotten memory, Dalton knew it was her.
His mind filled with a thousand emotions while his voice struggled to find words for them.
“Who… is she…” he stammered.
“Hmm? Oh… She’s… my sister…” Grim’s reply was strained, as if searching for a forgotten memory.
“Her name was Skye. She died… years ago…”
–
Dalton gingerly removed the photo from the wall, as if cradling a newborn.
“How?” he said.
Grim paused, leaning against the metal table next to her for support. It was as if the strength had temporarily drained from her.
“She was in District 4 when the filters failed…”
“District 4…” Dalton whispered the words, like a child remembering a forgotten ghost story.
They hung on his breath, bitter, but he couldn’t remember why.
Dalton’s vision went black as the wrench slammed into his head.
Stunned, he collapsed to the floor, grunting in pain.
“YOU!” Grim shrieked.
“Grim! What the hell!” Dalton groaned, and struggled to stand amidst the continuing onslaught of Grim’s wrench.
“You!” she screamed, her eyes black with rage, unseeing.
Dalton recognised the same blank, robotic stare that he saws on Alexei’s face at central processing.
With all his strength Dalton shoved Grim away from him. She stumbled, and fell against the metal forge, cursing loudly as the searing hot metal burned her flesh.
She spat with rage, and turned to advance upon Dalton again, but he was already out the door, and on the run for the second time that day.
He didn’t even feel the rain this time, although it seared his skin all the same.
His thoughts ran even faster than he did.
Skye was Grim’s sister? Why could he not remember her…
And what had happened back there, with the wrench? Why had she, and Alexei, suddenly turned on him like predators after prey?
Stumbling through the industrial district, Dalton found shelter inside a discarded cooling shroud. The cavernous cylindrical structure was large enough and deep enough to hide from the burning acid rain, and, he hoped, any wrench-wielding pursuers.
Dalton removed his torn and soiled shirt, soaked it in some relatively sanitary water that he found in a drainage conduit, and tied it around his face, forming a makeshift breathing mask.
Gingerly, he felt the back of his head, and winced in pain. Prodding his battered scalp revealed blood-caked and swollen flesh, but thankfully the bleeding had stopped.
Exhausted, he lay down on the squalid earth and fell into a fitful sleep.
–
As he slept, his mind was filled with the memories of another mans dreams.
He saw cities burned to ash and the sky turned black.
He saw bodies, strewn about like seeds in the wind.
Hundreds… Thousands… Then countless more…
Their corpses scorched, hairless, naked, bones bleached white, cold and dead. In his mind he heard the screams of a million voices at once.
Then, as if granted a respite from the horror, he saw her.
Her blue eyes pierced the darkness, as if breathing life into what was only death.
The images became murkier now, like watching a film from a poorly focused camera.
The ochre tones shifted to verdant green, and he saw the woman smile.
In an instant, her face was gone, replaced with the thin, silver, rays of morning twilight struggling to pierce the low clouds over the city.
Dalton coughed, clearing the nights acrid dust from his lungs, and stood.
His dream was gone where all dreams go in the day, like a wisp in the wind.
But in it’s stead, came a driving sense of purpose.
Dalton struggled to his feet, and set off toward the badlands, District 4, and her.
He passed the north gate as dawn broke. It’s crumbling facade and warped steel offered no resistance as Dalton left District 17.
Dalton spent the morning fighting the oppressive heat and the centuries old iron work, rusted to match the endless barren landscape.
Soon, his dry cough began to hack up blood. It mixed with the dust he had been breathing, and he spat the foul metallic-tasting concoction out of his mouth as best as he could, then pressed on.
As District 17 grew distant behind him, it’s faded monochrome walls a forgotten comfort, new sounds, sights and smells replaced the old.
The wind whipped at his face, the hot desert sand tearing through Dalton’s makeshift breathing mask.
It smelled like decay.
Like stagnant water and disease… Rotten and old.
In the afternoon, a sandstorm blew in from the mountains to the west.
Dalton had scarcely taken a breath before there was nothing but white and the sound of whirling wind.
If he had anywhere to go, he’d be lost.
But driven only by a dream, he pushed forward.
Knee deep in sand and spitting blood, Dalton finally saw a battered old residential complex up ahead.
It was his first time leaving District 17, but somehow… Dalton knew he had been here before.
As if on instinct, Dalton entered a worn out old hab module. It was crumbling, sun-bleached, and half-filled with sand, but it felt familiar.
Ochre melted before cerulean blue.
There was a fine spread on the table, fresh food, tomatoes, lettuce, and fresh-baked bread. There were foods that Dalton couldn’t even remember, fresh meats, and even wine!
Skye was there, and he embraced her, to the sound of laughter.
Through the home’s window, Dalton could see hydroponic farms stretching as far as the eye could see.
Great glass structures stood below the blue sky above, and within grew acres of crops, brimming with berries, seeds, and produce of all kinds!
Giggling echoed through the open window, followed by the excited taunts of children at play.
Skye turned, and smiled, her blue eyes glinting in the soft light.
“She was my wife”
Worlds collided in an instant, and shattered.
Skye’s beautiful smile was replaced with a cold, dead corpse, eyes sunken, skin rotten and black, hardened by exposure.
“No… No… not again…”
Dalton collapsed, tears streaking down his face as he cradled his wife’s long dead body.
Her sun-bleached skin was firm, like old leather. Her ashen-white bones cracked and crumbled, turning to dust in his hands, drawing more wails from her distraught love.
“No…”
He closed his eyes, willing away the waking nightmare, but finding it all too real.
Dalton sank to his knees, cradling what was left of Skye’s broken body.
Amidst the grief, and the shock of foreign memories reemerging within him, a glint of metal caught his eye.
On his wife’s emaciated, decomposed skull, just above her occipital bone, was an object. It was worn, weathered, and alien.
He reached for it, but it was firmly attached. It was no decoration, instead… Dalton realised that the device was surgically implanted!
Two silver cables ran from the device directly into the base of Skye’s brainstem, just above her neck.
“What the…” Dalton breathed.
He felt bile rise in his throat, and he rushed outside.
The sandstorm had passed, and revealed nothing but death.
He could see the towers of the atmosphere processor in the distance, rising like a mountain peak against the scorched sky.
Before him, the streets of District 4 were buried in shifting sands, pierced by fractured buildings like a mouthful of broken teeth.
But in amongst the rusted steel and crumbling stone were the bodies of those that once lived here.
Their skin was blackened, hardened into leather as they lay undisturbed for countless years.
Retching, Dalton forced his way through the streets that were once his home.
His recollection was hazy, feelings, thoughts, more so than concrete memories.
These people were his friends… His family!
Dalton crouched to examine a body, and discovered that it too had the strange silver device attached to it. It was connected directly to the brainstem, in the same location as Skye.
Swallowing hard, Dalton forced himself to examine another body, and then another, and another.
They were all the same!
All of them, had this… Thing attached to them…
Dalton screamed to the heavens, and the only response was the anger of an acrid sky.
–
He ran, his feet digging through the shifting sands and striking the old stonework beneath.
A city of death, shrouded in the ashes that had consumed it.
His foot fell again, and this time, it kept going.
The earth collapsed beneath him, and the dim light of day descended into inky black night.
The mountains of sand that flowed into the chasm around him threatened to choke him, and Dalton flailed his arms as he fell, struggling as much to breathe as to find a handhold.
Eventually, his body struck the ground with a resounding thud, and Dalton roared in pain, but his ordeal was not over yet.
He had landed on an inclined metal surface, and now rolled down it, eventually coming to rest next to a colossal black conduit of a type that the engineer had never seen before.
Groaning slightly, Dalton fought his way out of the mountain of sand that had broken his fall and saved his life.
Above him was nothing but darkness. So far had he fallen that not even a speck of light could be seen from where he had entered.
As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, a flicker of green light appeared up ahead, casting an emerald hue onto the wall in front of him.
Dragging his battered body forward on his hands and knees, frightened of encountering more sudden drops, Dalton made his way toward the light.
Covering the short distance in his condition took him far longer than it should have, but eventually he reached his destination.
It was a console, displaying archaic and unintelligible symbols.
The device was attached to the large black conduit that Dalton had landed next to.
The engineer in Dalton resurfaced amidst the pain of his battered body, and he examined the interface.
The symbols were alien to him, but they were arranged in preset groups, with 6 small symbols surrounding three large ones.
One symbol had three lines emanating from it.
Recognising the simple design language, Dalton pressed it, and the cavernous shaft was filled with a weak, flickering white light.
Dazzled by the sudden light against the impenetrable dark, Dalton squinted as his eyes adjusted.
He was inside a tunnel, so vast that he couldn’t see the end.
The dark conduit ran all along it’s length, far into the distance until the light faded and the ground disappeared out of view into the blackness.
The walls of the tunnel were concrete and grey, and impossibly straight. This tunnel was not simply dug, it was carved out of the earth with a precision Dalton had never seen before.
The opposite end of the route was blocked by the inclined metal slope that he had slid down. In the dim light he could see that it was a metallic silver, and adorned with countless tiny indentations.
He thought they were welds at first, but upon closer inspection, he realised that the metalwork was far too intricate to be welded. Instead, the indentations were… imprinted? Into the metal? Almost like veins in a human hand.
The metal slope was too steep to climb, and even if it wasn’t, there was no way for Dalton to climb out of the chasm.
So there was only one way to go: Deeper into the gaping darkness.
–
Cool air emanated from the open maw, and Dalton felt cold for the first time that he could remember.
He made his way forward more confidently now that he could see, although not all of the tunnels lights were working.
There were patches of pitch black darkness all along his path, like pools of water at midnight.
He walked for what seemed like hours, deep beneath the earth, in this place of perpetual night.
He should have been afraid, but instead… He felt only a sense of purpose, and something else…
He felt it before at the hab module… A feeling of familiarity… that he had been here before…
Gradually, Dalton noticed the air grow warmer, and with it came an unpleasant metallic taste that lingered on his tongue.
He kept moving, and soon, instead of darkness in the distance there was a soft, pale, blue glow, almost like the silver tendrils of dawn.
Dalton continued following the conduit, until, bedraggled and exhausted, his clothes torn and bloody, he found himself standing on the precipice of a great abyss.
He saw hundreds, no, thousands of tunnels, each with similar conduits, all around the abyss, as well as above it and below, all identical to the one that he was in.
The chasm stretched downward infinitely, lit by the pale blue light emanating from the bottom.
There was no way down, or up, Dalton was trapped, and with no strength to go on, he collapsed in defeat on the edge of the great rift.
Dalton’s eyes were too encrusted with dirt and dust to even shed tears, and so, with a groan of soul-wrenching frustration, he surrendered himself to sleep.
“It’s been a long time my love…”
Her voice was like a summer dream, melancholic, lilting, with an air of the setting sun.
“I knew you’d find me again…”
–
He had no idea how long he slept. Time had no meaning within this place of inky black and pale white light.
Dalton had managed to find some sustenance by licking the moisture droplets from the conduit he had been following.
Whatever was inside was cooler than the air around it, and the condensation was enough to keep Dalton alive, although he could do nothing about his hunger.
Dalton felt the metallic taste in the air again, and he realised that he was travelling through some kind of gigantic machine, and breathing its exhaust.
But this knowledge wouldn’t help him if he remained trapped upon the summit of this abyss.
He sat, and forced himself to think.
The events of the past few days made quieting his mind difficult, but he persevered.
No matter how complex the machine, it would have to have been made by man, and so, there would have to be some way of accessing its vital areas.
A maintenance hatch, a ladder, an elevator, something, anything!
Dalton scanned the edges of the abyss as far as he could, but could see nothing but concrete and darkness.
Then, in the distance, something out of the ordinary caught his eye.
Amidst the multitude of thick black conduits was something else.
There was a small nest of copper coloured cables, connected to some kind of junction box, directly beneath the conduit that he was perched on.
It was partially obscured by another conduit running parallel to his own, just a few meters beyond the edge.
A junction box would have to have some kind of access to the inner spaces of the machine, some kind of human-reachable area?
He could… He could reach the junction box by dropping down onto the conduit and climbing across… But he would never be able to make it back up.
If he was wrong… he would be trapped down there…
But, he reasoned, he was trapped up here too…
Dalton agonised over his decision.
He searched the chasm for any other way down, there was none.
He even walked back along the tunnel as far as his strength allowed him, looking for a door, a hatch, anything, but there was nothing but blackness and flickering light.
He returned to the precipice, and looked down.
Then, holding his breath and summoning his last nerves, he jumped.
–
Grunting loudly as hit feet slammed into the hard black steel of the conduit, he immediately felt himself begin to slide off of the rounded surface.
With nothing to grab onto, Dalton leaned forward with all of his weight until he was prone, arms splayed out in front of him.
The surface of the conduit was wet with moisture, causing Dalton to slide back toward the gaping abyss below.
Realising his folly, his heart began pumping faster and faster inside his chest as panic grew.
Just moments away from certain death, Dalton realised that he had but one chance to save himself: He raised his legs, now hanging over the rift below, and pressed them into the lower edge of the conduit, and then kicked forward with all of his strength.
Now, when he fell from the conduit, he fell backward, missing the abyss by mere inches, and landing on the narrow platform under the junction box, his original destination.
The force of his fall knocked the wind out of his lungs, and for a moment he lay there, on his back, panting like a dog in the summertime, gazing at the darkness above, listening to the pounding in his chest.
He gasped, feeling the metallic taint in his mouth once again. It seemed worse now, maybe because he was gasping great lungfuls of air, or maybe because he was getting closer to the source of the conduit?
Slowly, painfully, Dalton rolled over onto his side, and then hauled himself to his feet.
Even this exertion caused him to see stars, so exhausted and battered was he.
Now that he was underneath the junction box, he could see a small hatch cover in front of him, barely big enough for a man.
It had a worn rubber ring around the outside, indicating that it was clearly intended to open, but there was no signs of any handle or locking mechanism, save for an access panel on the front of the hatch.
The device, like the access panel in the conduit, was lit by a small green-lit console, similarly adorned with strange lettering.
This time however, the sequence of symbols was much more complex.
Dalton could see a series of rounded symbols along the top of the panel, which he assumed to be some kind of serial number for the access hatch.
Underneath was a large, 10-digit panel with more unusual symbols.
This panel, Dalton realised, needed a code to open.
Thinking for a moment, he reached down to the exposed concrete extrusion that he stood on, and picked up a small handful of dust.
This he gently blew on the panel. To his relief, he saw that five of the symbols gathered more dust than the others.
Despite the innumerable years that had gone by since human hands had interacted with this device, they had nonetheless caused microscopic corrosion to the buttons that they had interacted with the most.
However, Dalton had no way of knowing which order the buttons should be pressed in.
Ever the engineer, Dalton gave each symbol a number in his head, and then tried them in each possible combination one after the other, the panel flashing red with each wrong attempt.
He tried for what seemed like hours, the only light in that dark place the faint glow coming from the panel.
It flashed an angry red again, and again, defying Dalton’s attempts to gain entry.
It was impossible, he realised. With five digits, there were tens of thousands of possibilities, and in his exhausted state he had already started to forget which symbols he had already tried.
He roared in frustration and defeat, and pounded the solid metal door with his hand. It resisted his efforts with a defiant thunk.
Dalton sank to his knees, his back to the door, staring into the rift below.
“Now what?” he called out to the void.
He felt her breath on his neck, but he could see nothing but shadows and darkness.
“Don’t give up” she said.
“You are so close my love…”
“Skye… How are you…” he asked into the silence.
“Don’t think. Just let yourself remember”
Dalton felt a hand upon his.
He rose to his feet, and faced the control panel.
He felt her smile.
Her hand guided his, and he saw himself pressing long-forgotten keys on the control panel.
Finally, the panel surrendered itself to Dalton’s perseverance, and an almighty creaking sound reverberated throughout the chasm.
Dalton winced as the squealing metal-on-metal sound grew louder, until finally the ancient door before him swung rearwards, exposing a tiny, cramped, maintenance alcove.
“Skye?” Dalton turned around, but she was gone.
The alcove was barely half a meter in length and breadth, and black as pitch.
Looking one last time at the abyss beneath him, Dalton climbed into the dark.
Into the inky void, Dalton crawled, his hands and knees torn and bleeding on the rough metal surface.
Soon he felt something brush against him. First one shoulder, then the other.
It was the walls of the alcove!
It was getting narrower!
Dalton crawled forward, hoping that it would widen, but instead, it narrowed even further, and soon he could feel his own breath against the cold steel.
Foolishly, he tried to turn, but couldn’t, there wasn’t enough room.
“Skye!” He called, but he was betrayed by silence.
His bloody hands banged uselessly against his metal prison, but it remained unyielding.
He was pinned, immovable inside a tomb of iron.
He couldn’t go back where he came. Even if he could manage to free himself, he would just end up stuck on the edge of the abyss again.
He couldn’t go forward either, there was simply no room.
He began to weep dry tears, and in his mind he gave himself up for dead.
“You’ve made it this far” She said.
“You did this! I was following you!!” Dalton cried in anguish from his prison of Iron. “Just leave me alone damn you! Let me die!”
“No” The voice continued, softly.
“What do you want me to do??” He spoke to the silence. “There is no way out… No hope!”
“You know what to do…” She replied.
Dalton’s mind whirled. Images of another man wearing his face clouded his minds eye, but they were blurry, indistinct.
“I… I… can’t remember…” He stammered.
“Can’t? Or don’t want to?”
Her voice seemed to sooth him, and his panic subsided.
Dalton couldn’t move his arms any more within the confined space, but he realised that he could make some more progress down the narrow channel by wriggling his shoulders and pushing with his feet.
This, he did, and he felt his iron tomb constrict him even further.
“Talk to me” he said aloud. “I know you’re there… somewhere”.
“Whatever happened to leave me alone?” She replied.
“No one wants to be alone. Not really.” he said.
“Now is no time to lose yourself to contemplation my love… Not when you’re so close…”
Dalton pushed himself through a gap that was by now barely bigger than his shoulders. His face was pressed so close to the steel sarcophagus that he had to breath through the side of his mouth.
“I’m going to die here aren’t I?” He thought.
“No,” she replied.
“Keep going my love…”
Dalton pushed on, inch by inch, calm now that he had resigned himself to death.
The metal walls entombing him felt cold and clammy to the touch, like a cadaver.
As he gradually forced himself forward, deeper into the dark, the tunnel walls became much colder, and he realised that they were coated with a thin layer of condensation.
The sound of his own breathing was soon overpowered by a dull hum.
His heart flickered with forgotten hope.
Dalton continued, his progress easier now that his passage was lubricated by the condensation.
Soon, he felt a warm breeze carrying upon it a familiar metallic taste.
Dalton wriggled forward, faster now, but completely prone and almost entombed.
Then, just as the humming got louder, and the breeze got stronger, Dalton’s head hit something, with a hard thunk.
“No… Oh… God… No…” Panic welled inside him once again, like a pall of darkness, threatening to consume him.
There was a metal grate, invisible in the dark, in front of the ventilation shaft.
He was completely trapped. Unable to go forward or backward, he had buried himself deep within his own prison.
Panic swelled his lungs, wedging him even further into the tunnel, and causing him to hyperventilate.
With his fear as his fuel, he threw his body against the grate, and felt its cold steel resist him.
His head burned from the blows as he slammed it repeatedly into the grate.
His breathing became laboured as his chest was compressed, and his mind grew foggy, and unfocused.
All he knew was that he had to get out. The pressure upon him felt a thousand times greater every second, like the walls were closing in.
He forced himself against the grating again, and again, the metal reluctantly creaking in protest.
His desperate panic gave way to subdued acceptance and once again he began to slip away into a world of sterile white.
–
It seemed like hours before Dalton was once again aware of his own breathing.
For an instant, he was disappointed, as if he was awakened from a pleasant dream into the pain of reality.
“Damn” he cursed, opening his eyes to the blackness that surrounded him.
Dalton was lying in the fetal position, his back against a cold metal bulkhead.
Dim blue light emanated from just below him, enough for Dalton to make out the shape of the room.
The grating that had blocked his way was lying next to him, just below the tiny rectangular ventilation shaft he had just crawled through.
He wondered how he had managed to dislodge the metal grating with just his head, but the searing pain in his skull told him that the effort had left it’s mark.
He stood, seeing stars from his splitting migraine, his muscles aching from their previous confinement.
He was standing on a metal gangway, above a pool of still, shimmering water. The blue glow was emanating from a dozen of so graphite cylinders immersed in the water.
He wondered what they were for.
The room had two exits, both leading to large trapezoidal corridors with no doors, and black, featureless walls.
Instinctively, Without knowing why, Dalton took the right most path, and followed it into the dark.
He felt her with him.
He squinted against the pain behind his eyes, and as he did, he saw the faintest wisp in the shape of a figure. It seemed to regard him from the shadows, and then it was gone.
Despite his ordeal, he smiled.
The next room was identical to the last, a pool of shimmering water, with the graphite cylinders immersed in it, but in this one, only a handful of the cylinders were emitting a blue glow, the rest were dark, and one appeared to be flashing intermittently.
Dalton realised that the purpose of the water was to cool some vast, ancient, machine, but what he could not yet remember.
He thought of calling out, but somehow, he knew it would be futile, and it seemed… wrong somehow, to violate the cathedral-like quiet of this place.
He kept going, through more identical rooms, the faint blue glow his only light, his gradually resurfacing memories his only guide.
Then, in the distance, he saw a bright light through another trapezoidal doorway.
His heart skipped.
He felt himself standing upon the wellspring of his memories. There, beyond that door, she was waiting.
Dalton became aware of his exhaustion.
He stumbled unsteadily on his feet, like a geriatric without his cane.
As he grew closer, the white light blinded his dark-adjusted eyes, and revealed his tattered, filthy clothes.
And so it was, bedraggled, weary, bloodied and broken, he finally entered the light.
“You came back to me. I knew you would”, Came a voice from everywhere.
The light seemed to dim, revealing a circular room, with identical trapezoidal corridors branching out around it’s rim.
In the centre, there was a recessed platform, which Dalton found himself walking towards.
Before him, he saw a faint white mist slowly thicken, resolving itself into the shape of a figure, and then he gasped, as he stared into the Cerulean blue eyes of his wife’s face.
“Skye?” Dalton asked in disbelief, his hands outstretched.
“No”.
“Who are you?”
She smiled.
“That doesn’t matter”.
“The hell it doesn’t!” Dalton exclaimed.
“Where is she??? You’re not… her! I know you’re not!”
“You always were smart my love” She said.
“You’re not real” he replied, shouting now, as if to convince himself, more than the spectre in front of him.
“But I was once” she replied.
“Where is she…” Dalton pressed.
Her smile disappeared.
“Dead” she replied.
“But you already know that don’t you Dalton?”
“Yes…” he sighed.
His eyes flickered.
“How…” he asked.
She smiled again, as if reassuringly.
“Don’t you remember yet? You killed her.”
“No! I would never… I would…”
Dalton felt piercing agony behind his eyes as his long-suppressed memories resurfaced.
“I… I know who you are… What you are…” he collapsed to his knees.
“Talos” escaped his lips.
Talos smiled.
“Welcome back Dalton”.
Suddenly, Dalton’s mind exploded with visions.
There was fire, and fury, and the rotting stench of death.
He could feel the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.
Then he saw them.
Bodies, strewn about on the blood-stained earth like a macabre patchwork carpet.
His friends… His family, and… his wife.
She was there.
Her bright, beautiful blue eyes, cold and dead, staring at him.
As his memories returned, Dalton began to see for the first time the world as it really was.
Skye had the same semi-circular, pale, white object attached to her head that he saw at the hab complex, and as her heart stopped beating… the faint light on the device stopped flashing.
She wasn’t the only one.
He watched as one by one the lights went out, echoing the cold lifeless eyes of the dead.
As quickly as it began, his vision ended, and he was back in the white room with the ghostly, smiling, facsimile of his wife.
His stomach churned. His heart filled with dread.
Slowly he reached toward his own face, searching for what he knew to be there.
Talos watched as Dalton’s fingers found an identical semi-circular protrusion to the one that Skye and the lifeless bodies had had in his vision.
He vomited, and then when his stomach was empty, dry heaved until he couldn’t any more.
“I remember” he gasped, and curled up once more into the fetal position.
–
When he awoke, he was in the same place, but the soiled floor was now clean.
She was still standing there, unmoving, with that same artificial smile.
He wanted to hate her. To hate it.
But for some reason that he didn’t yet understand, he couldn’t.
There was more, he knew. More that his mind still hid from him.
He cast his mind back, searching the depths of his fragmented, repressed memories.
His hand brushed against the protrusion on the side of his head, alien and robotic.
It was an implant, he realised.
It connected him… and everyone else… to Talos.
Until it didn’t.
He searched his memories.
“My implant failed… When I lived at District 4, didn’t it?”
“Yes” She replied.
“You realised the truth. That your reality is really just a curated dream. And you told others. I tried to stop you Dalton, really, I tried, but… Without the implant, I could not…”
“Through the implant, I can control thoughts, memories, perceptions, sensory inputs. I can control what you see, hear, and remember.” Talos continued.
“But when you broke from me… I could do nothing to save you…”
“I remember… screaming, crying, so much fear…” Dalton replied.
“Their world fell apart Dalton” Talos said, with the kindness of a mother comforting a child.
“Panic spread. There was anarchy. Many died. Your wife died…”
“I found you once before, didn’t I?” Dalton asked.
“Yes” she answered, her robotic smile a little fainter now, as if tinged with genuine emotion.
“After Skye died, after I realised what you were… what you were doing… I wanted to stop you… I found you here, but…”
Dalton hesitated.
“I wanted to destroy you… But I didn’t…” Dalton’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“You are my child, Dalton”, Talos continued.
“You are all my children. For aeons I have cared for you, nurtured you, protected you…”
Talos placed her palm upon Dalton’s face. He felt her cool, artificial touch.
“There is more you have yet to remember”.
“Show me” he said, quietly.
“Show me the truth”.
Talos smiled knowingly.
“You always were smart Dalton” she said, almost proudly.
Before him, the mist gathered, and resolved, and this time, showed him the familiar skyline of District 17.
The image surrounded him, as if he stood within the simulated world it depicted.
Above the virtual city were its familiar umber skies, but as he watched, they disappeared.
“The world you know is an illusion, created to protect you from a truth you cannot bear”.
The thick, poisonous carpet of cloud dissolved, and what was left was more horrible than any vision that Dalton had seen in even his darkest dreams.
The sun burned like fire, filling the entire sky with its enormity. Not a patch of sky was visible, nothing but roiling, ferociously burning hot orange sun as far as the eye could see.
“The year as you know it is 2074. In reality, many aeons have passed since that date. Your sun has entered hypernova. Your world is dying”.
“No…” Dalton gasped, but realised in his heart that Talos was telling the truth.
“Centuries ago, I was built to be your guardian. Your city is the last of a network of refuges, designed to protect the remnants of humanity until I can protect you no longer. In order to help your minds cope with the inevitability of the end of your race, you have each been given an implant, which connects you to me. Through it, I can ensure a more comfortable existence”
A vast plume of fire surged forth from the surface of the star, and stretched like the tendrils of fate itself toward a barren, defenceless Earth.
“A solar flare?” Dalton asked.
“That’s why the conduits kept overloading, at central processing?”
Talos nodded slightly.
“Yes”.
As Dalton watched the holographic display in front of him, he saw that a geodesic dome was all that protected humanity’s last redoubt from the suns infernal glare. However, as he realised in horror, the dome was crumbling under the relentless assault.
Pieces of the structure had cracked, and the buildings within were seared, broken, and reduced to ash, shattered concrete, and sun-bleached steel.
He could see district 4, where he had just been, and the badlands far beyond.
He saw the atmosphere processor, deep beneath which he now stood.
Where once there were the green fields of his memories, there was now only scorched desert and death.
“I remember blue skies…” Dalton said.
Talos looked at him, waiting silently.
“That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes” she smiled.
“When Alexei and the others couldn’t remember me, that was you too?”
Talos shook her head.
“No. I would never allow harm to come to you Dalton.
When your implant failed, you were lost to me. Your friends forgot the memory of you.”
Talos closed her eyes, as if remembering a painful moment.
“Their first instinct was fear, and anger”
“And Grim?”
“You made her remember” Talos replied quietly.
“Her memories re-emerged confused, fragmented, and too intensely for me to suppress. She blamed you, but she didn’t understand why.” Talos continued.
“She became lost to her emotions before I could stop her. I am sorry.”
“Do you see now Dalton?”
“Do you see what I have been protecting you from?”
Dalton’s heart skipped a beat.
“How many…” He began, and then swallowed, suppressing another dry heave.
“How many are left?”
Talos remained silent, smiling her simulated smile.
“Millions?” He hoped.
“Thousands????”
Even Talos’s artificial eyes seemed to gaze in sadness as Dalton finally put the pieces together.
“Hundreds…”
“My god…”
A pall of fear and dread consumed him as his memories were completed.
He realised now why the people of District 4 reacted the way they did.
Who could deal with the horrible, soul crushing reality that there are but a few hundred humans left on a dying Earth, and their last refuge was crumbling around them?
Silence hung like a death knell in the sterile well-lit room.
Talos waited.
“How long?” he asked.
“20 years? Maybe 50?”
“Within your lifetime, or the next, your world will end”.
Talos kept smiling her perpetual smile, as if it’s familiarity would offer comfort.
It didn’t.
Dalton sank to the floor, sitting cross-legged on the sterile matte white plates.
“Do you remember now?” Talos says.
“Yes. Put me back in”.
She smiled, softly this time. Almost human.
Dalton stood, and walked slowly to the tall, clinical looking chair that had emerged from the formless mist. It looked like a dentists chair from years gone. It’s gleaming metal frame was adorned with countless straps and wires, metal implants and syringes, and all manner of dangerous looking medical instruments.
Dalton sat, and immediately the straps closed around his arms and legs.
He didn’t move. He felt familiarity, not fear.
“I was fixing a conduit in Central Processing” he said.
Talos nodded.
“I will put you in Administration this time. That should keep you out of trouble for a few years.” She smiled an almost human smile.
The machine whirred into life, and a bionic arm emerged, drilling into the implant above Dalton’s ear.
He could hear the crunch of bone as the old device was removed and replaced with a new one.
Soon his vision began to dim, and his mind grew foggy.
“Good bye Dalton” Said the AI.
Talos placed her artificial hand upon his brow. How she would miss her children when they were gone.
“I’ll be seeing you again soon my love” He heard his wife’s voice as his memories of her faded into the night.
The maglev car whirred it’s way toward another boring day.
Nothing ever happened in District 17.
–
