by Clint Stoker
“No,” she sighed, “but I think it would get really boring.”
“We could accomplish everything we have ever wanted to,” Air smiled, “We would never have to sleep, we could experience so much.”
She pulled him closer and kissed his cheek.
“But, I like how things are right now.”
“Sure, except it won’t last. The war is spreading, and I don’t want to be involved, not again… I think it’s worth looking into.” He started to feel embarrassed for defending himself. He shook it off. It made sense anyway. “I can’t believe we are even discussing this. There isn’t really another option. You know that.”
Air stopped himself. He raised his voice too much. He regretted it already. He called it passion, but sometimes her heart could be too tender for it. They lay quiet for several minutes and he held her tighter. It was the best apology he could give.
“Can we talk about something else please?” She whispered, trying to hold off tears. She had already made her choice. It hurt her that Air still considered the procedure as an option.
“Yes… I’m sorry, you know I love you. We’ll stick together no matter what we decide.” Changing her mind would be impossible but he liked leaving the option open, for her sake. He didn’t want anything bad to happen to her.
They spoke of happy things, Air knew that, but he couldn’t remember anything she said as soon as the words left her lips. Still, he felt happy. A chirping sound rang in his ears. The mood faded and the woman disappeared. A heavy fog spewed along the ground like a black omen. Air stood upright. He walked alone. Everything was so cold. Soft dirt beneath his shoes made it hard to move. Each step became more difficult than the first. He trudged forward until he became exhausted.
He approached a deep void. The fog spilled into the bowl-shaped ground. Air kneeled and peered into the crater. He fought his eyes to focus, to find form in the ganzfeld. He skulked deeper into the caldera until his fingers met warm caramelized matter. He breathed heavily. A mixture of sweet and noxious odors strangled him. He looked ahead as the fog dispelled slowly. The burned flesh he felt belonged to a corpse. He yanked his hand back and looked over the body. A soldier. The face and clothing were unrecognizable. Air looked up and saw more bodies heaped upon each other in a burned mass grave like a garbage dump for casualties. The image imprinted in his mind. It was the same memory he recalled in the purging floor.
The unbearable stench of burning flesh overpowered him. He vomited until his convulsing abdomen couldn’t wring any more bile from his stomach. Opening his eyes, small silver pins reflected light from the charred bodies. Each inscribed with the slogan ‘For life, for hope, for freedom.’
Voices trailed from the distance. He climbed to his feet, turned and ran. The chirping noise returned. It strengthened and ushered his mind elsewhere. There were houses standing in ruins. He searched through each dilapidated structure looking for life. In a frantic flurry, he called out for somebody, anybody. He walked into another half destroyed house and walked to the bottom of the stairway. Something nagged him to go back, but he needed to find survivors. He crept up the stairs, listening for any sound. A door was open on the right. As he peered in, the dream seemed to give out from underneath him.
The unstable ground sunk away and he lay still. Cold sweat beaded on his face. Sleep wore away slowly at first, then it abandoned him almost as immediate as it took him.
Article 3
The city is a perfect democracy. The day-to-day functions of the city will be decided by the residents themselves. This will allow all residents a fair and equal share in power and politics. As a resident, you will be expected to understand the issues and vote every morning after celebration. By accepting this responsibility you may be counted as a resident.
-The Founder
Chapter 4
A screen on the far side of Air’s apartment clicked and lit up. Swooping graphics curled across the screen along with a faint musical intro. He blinked the clouds from his eyes as a smiling newscaster recanted stories from the last night’s celebration. Air jumped forward and turned the volume up as if his life depended on it. Missing the news wouldn’t have been a tragedy, but it had become such a habit and there he was sleeping through it. He looked around the room in disbelief and tried to make sense of everything. Sitting back on the foot of his bed, he ignored the media. Sleep had overcome him for hours. He couldn’t imagine how a small woman and a frail, wrinkled man managed to carry his sleeping body back to his apartment. Air wasn’t exactly a large man, but even at a hundred-and-seventy pounds, his weight would be a challenge. Even more puzzling was why they brought him back to his apartment, assuming they were working together at all. He pressed at the sore spot on his neck.
“The rebirth is only days away and each of the chosen five women are showing strong signs of the late stages…” The media pulled for his attention, but it couldn’t compete with all the questions swirling in his head.
Air wiped at his eyes. The mask still clung to his face. Air pulled it off and dropped it on the floor. A red imprint covered his cheeks and traced around his eyes. He scrunched his face as blood rushed to where the mask had been embedded. Tossing off his toga, along with his under-shorts, he thought more about his abandoned routine then decided to neatly put away his celebration clothes. He gave up on the media and stepped into the shower to wash the Villa’s smell from his hair. The media droned on as water rushed down his face. He felt relieved to be awake and alone, unless they’d be back for him later. The entire experience didn’t make any sense. Purgers wouldn’t have put him to sleep. Protocol is to arrest guilty members immediately.
He stood in the shower, already clean, but let the water keep on trickling over him anyway.
“Good morning. As always, I’m Dharmesh with your politics. It is now twenty minutes after the hour, so the Administration is up for issues and voting…”
Air reluctantly stopped the water and opened the frosted glass door. He had ignored his routine enough for one day. While drying off, he dressed and tried to pay more attention in order to make an informed vote. He made every effort to listen intently to the debates. He buttoned up a clean, blue uniform and pulled-up his black utility pants. After he strapped on his holster and handgun, he quickly sat at the edge of his bed with his phone in hand as if he could start fresh, like nothing unusual had happened the day before.
“As current head Administrator, I suggest rations be raised as a whole…”
The devastating scene from his dream made another swift appearance in his mind. He shrank back onto his bed. The wrinkly guy must be some kind of sicko to have planted those dreams. Air didn’t know how safe he could allow himself to feel. Was sleeping a prerequisite to a purging or were the two events completely separate? Either way, it was only a matter of time before everything unraveled. Air still felt guilty.
“The vote is now posted – please submit your votes within the next five minutes…”
Air grunted. So much for starting over. He lifted his phone as the screen flashed photos of the two candidates. Their names were displayed, Shade, the current administrator, and Tiller, a thin-faced politician who had been the administrator on-and-off over the past several years. He had barely noticed the morning issues so he voted for Shade out of ease. Not much can change in a one-day leadership role. Minutes later the newscaster interrupted the dull music.
“The vote is in and I am pleased to announce the new Administrator is Tiller. Thank you for your vote. This is Dharmesh with your politics and…”
Air finished getting dressed in his new uniform and left the apartment earlier than usual. He had to make sure the rest of the city was back to normal. It was. Walking along the street, he watched the custodial units skip around disposing of all signs of the celebration. The fresh air seemed to sooth his nerves. Long, damp shadows stretched from the bases of every building. The sun peeked over the tops of shorter buildings. The sun felt good until it glared off every window, on every building, a
nd into his face. His cheeks started to tire from prolonged squinting. Stopping at a bench, he turned around to watch his own elongated shadow. As he waited, his hands were stuffed deeply into his pockets. The streets grew busier with activity. People dressed in black suits spread across the streets and sidewalks. A woman with coffee in one hand and a large stack of papers under the other arm shuffled though the crowd and into an office building. Air smiled. Three weeks and he missed pushing paper already. He thought about the man he had shot then folded his arms, attempting to feel less vulnerable. He looked up and tried to think about something else.
Towering buildings reached high into the clear sky. Only a thin white cloud interrupted the blue heavens. The city boomed with noise. Everything gyrated with life and motion. Air was thankful warfare stayed in his dreams, or at least it stayed underground.
The transport hovered by. It was quiet enough to miss if he wasn’t paying attention. It floated, static, a foot above the asphalt. The exterior was clean and white like all the other plainly painted transports in the city. The door hissed softly as it swung open near the front of its rectangular body. Air stepped inside and nodded to the driver. He tugged the tether that hung his ration card around his neck and tapped it against a grey box. The box read the magnetic strip inside his ration card and blinked an approving green light. Thankfully, his rations had already been replenished that morning. Air walked to the back and sat with his legs crossed.
The quiet drive was only slightly interrupted by the soft scratching of the radio. Since voting was over, Air felt no commitment to listen as the media gushed on about rebirth policies. He watched the city swiftly pass through the window in a smear of people and architecture. His reflection in the glass passed over the city undistorted. Eyes still reddened from sleep, but overall he looked pretty unaffected. He felt a sense of shame to be so composed only a day after shooting a man to death. Looking for a flaw or sign of guilt, he studied his face for something that might give him away at the cleaning center. He imagined the soldiers’ weak faces from his dream. He frowned. His own face suddenly looked too fattened and healthy in comparison. Thinking about the solders curled up like rodents in a ditch, he couldn’t help but feel even guiltier for feeding his curiosity.
The transport slowed to a stop a block away from the cleaning center. Air stood, made his way to the front, stepped out into the street and took a long painful look at the cleaning center. Why was it built so different? There were no outer walls, only large glass sheets butted together and sealed so tightly the seams were difficult to see from even a foot away. It was the only barrier between the white cleaning center halls and the city streets. The glass was kept so clean it looked like it wasn’t there at all. Air walked closer and wondered why a glass building was chosen to house such a secret basement. He walked closer, assumed purging was the only gore hidden beneath the cleaning center.
Air walked in the front door expecting Dex to take him straight to the basement to be shot. He was greeted by a few clerks, but widely ignored by most everyone else. He slugged to the purging office and waited either to be killed or continue his training to kill others.
More investigation training was a welcome relief. The day consisted of Napal’s anecdotes on uniform policy and lectures from Dex on everything he deemed most important. It wasn’t hard to pay attention to the lecture on investigation. He found himself deeply interested on comparing the details to his experience the night before.
Investigations were divided into three processes. First, was searching for guilt, which was mostly accomplished by reading over reports that had been provided by cleaning center clerks. Air was familiar with the reports because he had just been a clerk. The reports gained a new importance to him now that he understood what they were for. Who collected the information was classified and against the rules for purgers to know. Air was a rare exception because of the transfer. Dex gave the transfer credence when he reminded Air that he would forget about all his work as a clerk in a few short years. It was a small relief. At least Dex wasn’t threatening Air.
The second step of investigations was ‘retaining’. When a resident was suspected of harboring guilt, that resident would be arrested and brought to a holding cell. This was usually done during the day and kept very private. The general public didn’t see it happen, and the arrested citizens were rarely missed because transfers were almost always the excuse. This knowledge confirmed to Air that the wrinkled man was not sent to purge him, at least not officially. The entire experience wasn’t consistent with a true investigation, so it had to be about something else. The more information Air took in, the more he realized how little he understood about what was going on.
The final step in the investigation process was interrogation. The detainee would be asked a series of questions and if signs of guilt were apparent, purging would be prescribed. Dex boasted about the flawlessness the purging team showed in searching.
“We have never detained a resident by mistake.”
To Air, this also meant if anyone found out he was guilty, death was certain.
The morning went on and Dex received a call from the Administration. He excused himself. Air and Napal sat alone searching through reports as a way to disguise wasting time. Napal cleared his throat several times as though he wanted to speak, but decided against it. He finally stood up and walked to the filing cabinets tracing the office walls. He opened a drawer and pinched a sheet that laid flat on top of the files. Frowning with concern, Napal dropped the file onto the table.
“What’s that?” Air asked.
Napal hunched over and pushed the bloated file across the table with two fingers. He turned it so it faced Air then leaned just close enough for Air to feel uncomfortable.
“Does this look familiar?”
“What is it?” Air leafed through the loose pages.
“This is the investigation form we did on that guy you purged yesterday,” he spoke unusually somber.
A knot simultaneously formed in Air’s throat.
“You still keep those around after they’re purged, huh?” Air couldn’t see a way to avoid the topic.
“I really think you’ll find this interesting,” Napal scratched his head nervously. “See, it says he started complaining of strange memories from before the city began.”
Panic split though Air’s chest and he forced it to stay deep inside. He tried to remain composed, but he worried he was too shocked for Napal not to notice. He hunched over and dragged his chair closer to the table looking intently at the report.
“What…” he coughed. “So what did he say he remembered?”
“He said he could remember little people.”
“Little people?” Air forced a guffaw and smiled as if expecting a punch-line.
“Yeah, he said he could remember children.” Napal breathed deeply. “And I thought you were crazy remembering rifles.” He smiled. “This guy had delusions of primitive humans.”
“Come on,” Air shook his head, “Don’t tie this to me.”
Napal stood up and pulled a cigarette from his pocket. He turned away from Air and cursed under his breath.
“I’m sorry, Air.” His unlit cigarette bobbed between his lips. “It’s just that, I was thinking about you last night. I thought it was nothing at first but it’s too similar. I wanted to show you so you could understand how serious this might be.”
“It’s nothing. You said so yourself,” Air spat. He couldn’t defend himself without also defending the man he had killed. Accusations were expected, but he wasn’t prepared for Napal to turn on him. He clenched his hands under the table and narrowed his gaze. “I know it sounds crazy, but I have shot a rifle before.”
Napal sucked a fresh flame from the lighter then exhaled a stream of smoke that dispelled across the ceiling.
“Then prove it.”
Air wringed his knuckles until they turned pale. “We’ve already been over this… and you know, just before I pulled the trigger yesterday I remember
ed death.” Air paused, wanting Napal to take him seriously.
Napal sighed from his nose. Smoke seeped from his nostrils.
“Okay, listen. I don’t mean to say you’re crazy or lying or guilty. Just, make sure you think about these déjà vu episodes before rumors make it back to Dex. They could be real memories, or they could be side-effects…” Napal bit his lip and ran his fingers though his red hair. It wasn’t easy for him to confront Air like that.
“Side-effects?” Air demanded.
“Take a look through these investigation forms. There are always side-effects of guilt,” Napal started, “Call it a precursor to guilt or a red-flag, whatever…”
“You’re wrong, Napal.” Air pushed the file away. “What about you? I don’t know anybody else who is more opposed to Dex and the rest of the system. I’ll bet you a month-worth of rations that rebellion isn’t a good sign either.”
“Don’t be like that, Air. This isn’t about me. I just don’t want you becoming another form, filed away and forgotten in the purging center… You’re right. I don’t like Dex and I don’t like the system. Maybe we’ll do something about it someday. But for now, just keep quiet about the memories… I’m trying to watch out for you.”
“I guess I should be grateful,” Air quipped. “I’m not guilty. I’m not here to be interrogated, especially not by you.”
“I’m not saying you’re guilty!” Napal managed to hang tightly onto the cigarette while he massaged the bridge of his nose to take the edge off his stress. “Even you if were guilty, you know I wouldn’t do anything about it.”
“Then what’s this ambush for?”
“I just want to make sure you understand the situation. This is one of those things you should leave alone. Don’t try to fix it.” Napal trudged around the table to the door. “Just keep quiet about everything for a little while. I can keep you safe. I just need some time to think about it.” Napal stood as tall as his frame would allow and folded his arms. He might not have been tactful, but as he stood folding his arms, Air couldn’t help but trust him. Napal genuinely wanted to help.
