There was a pause for Calix to take this all in. In the void there was no wind, only silence.
“Until they stopped just watching. At first, it was done in secret. Death had become so common that bodies, when discovered, were just thrown in the DC, for a harvest that may never come again. So that was the assumption. But then – as you know – try and cook meat in the dome with no-one finding out. It’s impossible. A small but growing number were cooking the dead and eating them. The... ‘meat’” Barrick paused, shaking his head. “Boiled slowly, in most cases. Making broths that would stretch its use. I’ll never forget that smell...
“My father, he ranted. He went from someone so thin and weak you could almost see straight through him, to a giant. He was in the face of each and every one of those cannibals, shaming them, slamming them for their inhumanity. And all they did was laugh, or spit on him, or push him away. ‘We’re the solution. Join us,’ they’d say. Two birds, one stone, as the old saying went.
“Well, my father had his own solution. He wasn’t the only one who was angry, and they got together, and one night they went round and murdered anyone who had eaten flesh, sparing only the children. They piled their bodies in the DC, closed the lid, and not another word was said about it. Even the kids who had been spared never mentioned it.”
Calix swallowed. Not as much pain in his side now. “And that... solved the problem?”
“No. There still wasn’t enough food. It had been months since our last merchant visit. Sam died first. Then El. Then my father. We... buried them. We couldn’t put them with the cannibals. It didn’t seem right. And then a merchant did come, and mother persuaded him to let me go with him. So that was that – I became just another orphan to be dropped off at some other dome.”
“Did you ever see her again?”
“No.”
Whirlwind
Barrick finished his story and stood. Without another word, he sat back on his hoverbike and waited for Calix. Two minutes later and they were on their way again.
It was to help gain his trust: Calix knew this. The story was meant to show Barrick in another light. It was manipulative, which he didn’t like; but he did appreciate him opening up. Know someone’s history and it makes it easier to empathise with the decisions they make and the things they say.
To a point.
He pictured a young Barrick waving goodbye to his mother and knowing it would be for the last time. How had his own mother – or father – said goodbye to him, if they had at all? Were there tears? Had they been sorry, or thankful?
And what was better? Barrick’s situation – or his?
He recalled Annora’s face, looking down at him in the mirror of the sail and imagined if that was to be the final time he’d see it.
His sympathy for Barrick grew.
The remainder of the ride to Sanctum was as smooth as it could be, with the dome appearing on the horizon just as the hand of darkness was beginning to fall across the clouds again.
The journey in the crawler would have taken a week – it was amazing the speed he could now go. Communication. Exchanges. These things could now be achieved so much more quickly – should he want to dabble in trade.
But first, there was Annora. In fact, he cared now about little else. If Kirillion was a murderer, if there was some other plan at work, it was someone else’s problem. All he wanted was to get Annora back, and together they could explore, or set up somewhere knew. The possibilities were endless. He couldn’t wait for Annora to feel this same rush of wind in her face. This power at her fingertips. The sense of freedom left in the geysers of sand they kicked behind them.
He felt his belly growl.
The starvation that Barrick described would become a thing of the past. He could form his own, new caravan, and trade food with settlements that were struggling.
Maybe.
Calix looked to his left and wondered if Barrick had the same kind of thought in mind.
Or maybe Barrick would disappear on the horizon never to be seen again.
Either was possible.
“Let’s take a minute,” said Barrick.
Calix slowed to a stop. The sudden still chill was pervasive along the edges of his scarf. Numb cheeks. Fingers frozen despite the gloves. “This thing could do with a heating option,” he said.
“Remind me to go back and look for the instruction manual.”
“Well, there she is,” said Calix, looking ahead. Sanctum’s dual dome glowed against the darkness. “A wanderer once told me that Sanctum breathed. That you could see the dome rise and fall at night as the Agridome air got circulated.”
“I can see why someone would think that.”
“So how we gonna do this?”
“Knock on the front door. Ask politely if they’ve seen a short, hot-tempered blond. And Caia.”
“We could do that. Or…” Calix removed his goggles to wipe his face and give his eyes some freedom. “What if we could sneak in? If they have something to hide, better to catch them off guard.”
“How do we do that?”
“Well, there’s only one way, and it’s a long shot. It would mean having the entrance hidden all this time, even to those who grew up here.”
“We look for a similar entrance to the blown up dome.”
“If the layout is the same, it should be easy to find, judging from the underground levels.”
“We’ll do that then.”
“And hope they don’t spot us in the watchtower.” Calix fired up the hoverbike.
“Let’s withdraw the sails now.”
There was a creak as the metallic bones bent and withdrew the solar wings back into the hub of the hoverbike. Slowly, they hovered closer to the dome, veering right, away from the front entrance. It soon grew in size; Calix realised he’d forgotten just how big Sanctum was as the clear walls of the outer dome began to close until they were rising like a near-sheer cliff. He thought of Walker’s description of the vast cavern beneath the destroyed dome, and he wondered if level six here was something just as vast. Just as strange. What exactly was beneath them? And how deep did it go?
“Should be somewhere around here. You’ve got the back of the canteen there,” pointed Calix, spying it through the dome, looking like a mirage or a ghost. A figment of his childhood as faded as his pre-ghost memories. The back of the canteen always was unkempt, as it wasn’t on view to most. And now it looked worse than ever. The land between, in the Agridome, was tilled, awaiting seed.
They stepped off the hoverbikes and began walking around. Without the correct boots it was easy to shuffle their feet and almost become swallowed, caught by a million tiny teeth. Or so it could feel.
“You’d think someone would have stumbled on this by now,” said Barrick.
Calix lifted his knee above the sand-line and took a long stride forward. “I don’t know. I grew up here and barely left the dome. And when we did we normally headed straight for The Table so we had solid rock beneath us should we run into any trouble when camping.”
“Ah yes, your camping trips.”
“Fun times.”
“Close to a holiday you ever got, eh?”
“Hardly. Worried about running out of food. Not being able to get back. Waking up under a tonne of sand. Some holiday.”
They both breathed heavier now. Each lunge took an effort, and Calix especially could feel it; never so aware of his own weight. Of the fibres that knitted his body together – particularly those up his left side. That aspirin hadn’t lasted long.
“You know, we could find an entrance, but it could still be blocked in. It must be, or we’d know about it,” said Barrick between mouthfuls of scarf-distilled air.
“Then we break our way through.”
“Thought about what you’re going to say?”
“I just wanna find Annora.”
“What about Ziyad? Gonna ask him?”
“Do you believe me?”
“I believe you believe.”
�
�I… “ Calix’s heart thumped, words wrapping themselves around gulps of oxygen. “… don’t know.”
“Cal. It’s simple. Tell him what you know. You’ll know – and I’ll know – if he’s telling the truth. If he denies it.”
Calix paused. Could feel the sand-line creeping to his knees. Happy to have Barrick for back-up. “Annora may not even be here.” The moment he said it, he realised how much he’d been hiding from the possibility.
Barrick waited.
“First we have to find out what he knows. Everything else comes after.”
“Well, first we gotta get in.” Barrick shifted, arms out wide, dragging one foot after another. “And this is getting us nowhere. Let’s clear it with the hoverbikes. If they see us, they see us. Nothing we can do about it.”
Calix agreed and returned to the hoverbike. Climbing on, taking his feet from the sand, he sensed his growing addiction to this dislocation and eased forward. The sand beneath slackened.
“Only one of us,” said Barrick. “If one of us does circles, we’ll get too deep to get out again. The other will have to pull us out.”
“Alright,” said Calix. “You want to do the honours?”
“Here we go,” said Barrick. Calix couldn’t see a smile, but he could imagine the grin on his face. “You may wanna back off a bit. Unless you wanna get buried.”
Calix manoeuvred the hoverbike, giving it tentative throttle surges until he was satisfied he was far enough away. It was about to throw up a storm round here.
Barrick leaned to the left on his hoverbike and turned it inwards. How it worked, Calix was yet to figure out – probably something to do with the directional thrust coming from the rear – but it did work and that was all he cared about right now. Barrick cut through the sand in ever-decreasing spirals, a tornado of incandescent sand spinning up. Soon, Barrick was all but hidden, just the blue glow from the rear of the hoverbike flitting like butterflies as he completed revolution after revolution.
And then he was out of sight completely.
The particles, thin as dust, hung in a motionless column.
“Barrick.”
“I can’t see shit but you might wanna come down.”
“Alright, coming.” He inched the hoverbike towards the edge of the hole Barrick had created, inevitably entering the column of particles. Visibility reduced to inches. “You found the entrance? I ain’t climbing down just to have to climb out again, especially in this.”
“Yeah, get yourself down here.”
Calix put his foot down, into the sand, and slid, pushing forward with his hands behind him. His goggles clouded and he tried wiping them clean, but his gloves were red. He may as well have been blind. “When I say I can’t see anything, I mean it.”
“I can see you... just. A bit further and you’ll feel yourself hit it.”
And just then something hard beneath his feet broke his fall. He fell forward on his hands and tried to breathe, but the cloud was thick and each filtered breath felt like poison.
“Help,” said Barrick, himself croaking.
Calix looked up: there was still nothing to see. Any light was now completely blocked. So much for the eye of the storm, he thought. He crawled forwards until his head bumped something soft.
“Help,” Barrick repeated, grabbing Calix’s arm and guiding it.
Calix scrambled his gloved hands around the hard surface, and eventually found the wheel valve for the hatch.
“Turn,” said Barrick.
And together they turned it. His gloves slipped at first, unable to grip. He had to take them off, immediately recoiling from the feel of the powdered sand on his fingertips. It would be getting right into his skin, between the lines of his fingerprints and under his nails and it wouldn’t wash off for days. He gripped harder, and pulled, feeling suffocated. He didn’t know how much longer he could take it. Breaths became shallower. Nostrils filled. Mouth dried. Throat wheezed.
And then a loud, powerful hiss, and a freezing gush of updraft as the seal broke and air rushed out from below. It was enough to clear about eight feet of sand around them, and he could now see Barrick completing the revolution of the valve. His hoverbike painted red behind.
Barrick lifted the hatch and without grace, dropped down. Calix followed.
Secrets
For some reason Calix recalled old films; remembered claustrophobic sci-fi thrillers and horrors with walls of metal and cascading, set-prop cables dangling down across sweaty, hair-strewn foreheads.
As he grew older, the more he resented these films. By the time he was sixteen or seventeen he understood why few of the adults ever watched them. They were a reminder of everything they had lost, and that fostered resentment. Everything from the alien-chasing thrillers, to the submarine footage of aquatic animals that once roamed the once ocean. How could the humans of yesterday have squandered so much? How could they not see the damage they were causing and the inevitable destruction of their future?
Selfish. Unable to comprehend. But as much as Calix resented them, it was hard to directly blame them. Living as they did in boxes of their own space, within their own world, within a larger world that existed to serve their every desire – it would have taken a revolutionary, mind-altering, human-race entrenching tsunami of realisation to wake everyone up, at the very same time, to what was happening. And more than that – to care.
He sat crumpled on his knees from the fall with his hand pressed against the throbbing pain in his side, and he wanted to scream. But he was gasping too hard. In each gasp he released a small, but powerful, cry. Once again the frustration of the sand getting to him. What a world he had inherited, where people got so hungry they ate the dead.
See… he was getting selfish himself now. Easy to do. Easy to do when you’re thick in the swirling fog of red dust and unable to breathe, knowing it never used to be like this.
What a world they had inherited.
“Alright, Cal?”
“No,” he replied.
“Well, you better be.”
“Fuck,” he said. “Fuck this fucking sand. And fuck Kirillion and Linwood and all those that came before them.”
“There you are.”
Calix stood and looked around. Near darkness: if not for the square of light above he could be inside his own coffin. “Here I am. I didn’t really believe this entrance would be here – I grew up here! Why go to the effort of hiding it?”
“Let’s find out.” Barrick’s boots fell with a hollow kind of thud as he walked down the chamber. A light came on above. “Well, hello. Still hooked up.” The neon revealed a long corridor with a hatched door at the end. And Barrick, red from head to foot.
Calix looked down at his knees and forearms and resisted the urge to stand and shake his body. He removed his goggles and scarf and put a hand inside his jacket, withdrawing a piece of cloth to wipe his face with. He spat, but the blood-iron taste would remain in his mouth until he could find a drink. Preferably something strong.
There was a loud screech from the end of the corridor. Barrick had his hands on a valve and was trying to turn it – successfully but not quietly. “Give us a hand,” he said.
As Calix walked to the other end, he removed the comm-piece from his ear. Barrick did the same. Then together, they turned the valve until it moved softly enough it didn’t screech – and then a little further until something clunked and the door swung inwards.
Barrick groaned – so Calix’s first reaction was to wonder what was wrong with him. He’d still been unconsciously breathing shallow breaths, so it took a few of them before the smell hit home. And then he understood.
A light flickered on beyond the door, and though it was not fully open, he could see a leg, bare, shrivelled of flesh to the bone almost, and covered in hair. A leg on the floor. Then another. The door opened wider. The legs had a torso, also bare and male and withered to the bone, skin like translucent paper scrunched up and then reflattened. But the upper torso was not visible, because it
was the base of a mass of bodies piled on top of one another in the centre of the room. It had the sense of something deflated, where they had pushed on each other and pressed the gasses from their bodies, before rigidity had set in and now they were like sticks, snapped from a dead tree, positioned to make a fire, fingers and forearms like incongruous twigs.
And it did smell – but like a smell that had been waiting for an escape route for many, many years. It seemed to vanish until it was a vague memory. So many years, hermetically sealed, had stifled the rot. This was a tomb and the inhabitants were almost preserved.
“Animals,” said Barrick. “There’s kids in there.”
At first the pile was a singular entity of flesh, but as his eyes took everything in, arms became distinct from legs, and faces started to appear. One face was a boy, preteen, an arm missing. Other faces jumped out and Calix looked away. “What is this,” he said without inflection.
“Cleansing. There’s limbless here. And short people – dwarves they might have been called. Who knows what else may have been wrong with them.”
“But why?”
“Management,” said Barrick. He side-stepped to the far side of the room while pressed against the wall. There was plenty of space but Barrick’s face, where it wasn’t red, was white. “At least they didn’t eat them.”
“Man,” said Calix. He had to look away – he could feel a dry retch bubbling in his gut and feared the pain it would spark in his side. The floor was polished cement, the neon reflecting in it as though painted and then tarnished with the wipe of a cloth. Stiff fingers and feet insisted in his periphery as he walked around the other side, focused on the wall now. Touched the wall. Felt it’s solid, reliable state. He walked his hands across it as though unbalanced until he reached the far corner, and turned around.
Neon Sands Trilogy Boxset: The Neon Series Season One Page 17
