Antiquity's Gate: Sanctuary

by RF Hurteau

  He checked the clock again. Almost lunch. He hurriedly entered more readings in his log and then made his way up the steps, desperate for a distraction from his distraction. Ripley waited at the top for several of his coworkers to finish streaming by, everyone on their way to the commissary. “Hey, Harold,” he said in a friendly tone. The man from D5 looked up as he walked past, surprised.

  “It’s Herman,” he corrected.

  “Oh, right,” Ripley said, feeling a slight burning in his cheeks. “Sorry.”

  No sooner had he reached the commissary and sat down at an empty table with his lunch than another tray plopped down across from him. He looked up to see Felix.

  "What are you doing here? Is this even your lunch?"

  Felix shrugged. "No, but don’t worry, I cleared it with the department head. Listen, can you come to the Observatory after your shift?"

  Ripley nodded as he broke little pieces of bread off and dunked them in his stew. "Of course,” he said, “why?"

  Felix eyed his own bowl of stew suspiciously, homing in on a chunk of carrot, which he skewered deftly with his fork, popping it into his mouth, and chewed thoughtfully. "I don't really want to talk about it here,” he said at last. "Just come.”

  “Hey, Felix!” Looking around, Ripley saw a young man coming toward them. “Can I join you?”

  “Sure,” Felix replied, nodding. “Nice to see you again, Ben. How are things down in Podville?”

  “Oh, you know, more of the same. We miss you down there. Well, I do, at least. Funny seeing you here, though. I was just talking about you last night!”

  Felix looked surprised. “About me?”

  “Yeah. Oh, nothing bad or anything. But, come to think of it, maybe I’m not supposed to talk about it. I don’t want to get Sylvia in trouble.”

  “That’s your sister, right? She works at the front desk?”

  “Yeah, that’s her!” responded Ben, attacking his lunch with gusto. He spoke with his mouth full, which made Ripley cringe slightly. “Anyway, what have you been up to? How’s the Observatory position? Really cool, I bet. Way better than Pod Manufacturing, right?”

  “It’s not that great,” said Felix, looking as though he’d like to change the subject. “I think we’ve got rats.”

  “Whoa, seriously?” said Ben, excited. He looked up. “Oh, there’s Sylvia! You should meet her.” Ben waved, but her back was to their table. “I’m going to go get her,” he said, and left.

  Felix turned back to Ripley. “So, just meet me after your shift, okay?” he repeated, insistently.

  Felix seemed more like his normal self now, less tense. Ripley wondered what his friend was up to, and how much longer the second half of his shift would seem now that he was even more anxious to leave.

  "Oh! Poor James!" said Ripley, smacking his forehead. "He's going to be standing around waiting, and I'm going to be late!"

  "Well, this is more important. James and his rusty shutters are going to have to hang in there."

  Felix continued speaking, but Ripley had stopped hearing. Something had clicked, and he was suddenly eager to get back to his post. He looked up and scanned the room, eyes settling on the black-haired supervisor. She was laughing at something a companion had said and seemed in no rush to get back. If he hurried, he'd have about fifteen minutes. It would have to be enough.

  "Ripley?" Felix said, after a few moments, "You still with me?"

  "Here," he said, shoving his tray toward Felix with such force that small bits of vegetables sloshed over the rim of the bowl. "Have mine. I need to go."

  "Go?" said Felix, incredulously. "But you just got here!"

  Ripley didn't answer. He was already out the door and heading back toward Core Operations. The check-in guard eyed him with mild curiosity as he approached but didn't ask any questions as Ripley hurried past, mumbling something about forgetting to enter some data.

  Ripley circled the room and went down the steps toward his terminal, feeling the guard's eyes on his back as he sat, attempting to look natural. After a minute, he chanced a quick peek at the guard. The man had gone back to looking at his monitor. Ripley bit his lip, willing his feet to move. If he got caught, he'd be in a lot of trouble. He hunched down in his seat and slid onto the floor. He dipped beneath the panel that divided his console from the one next to him, and paused for a moment, listening. Nothing. Ripley crawled all the way to the last panel in the substation and took a moment to think. He'd succeeded in putting the condensers between him and the guard, but now he was stuck. The steps leading up to the path were behind him, near his own seat. With a deep breath, he bit his tongue and stepped, delicately, onto the panel in front of him. Then he reached up and grabbed the top of the railing. Lifting a foot up to the edge of the platform, he pulled himself up in one swift motion and scrambled over the top, grateful that there was no one around to witness his less-than-graceful performance.

  His goal was in sight now. The supervisor's station lay empty. The large glass window revealed a small desk, upon which she'd left her tablet. Ripley hesitated again at the door, fear nearly paralyzing him as he considered the possibilities. It might be locked. It might need a code. It might set off an alarm.

  He pressed Open.

  The door slid wide, and Ripley realized he had been holding his breath. It came out in a sigh of relief as he hurried inside, glancing at the time. His little adventure had already taken eight minutes.

  Where to start? He skimmed a list of file names briefly before he came to one marked Diagnostic Initiatives. That looked promising. He opened it, but a quick scan revealed nothing about his new panel or what it was for. The next title that interested him was Energy Investigation Updates. Clicking on that one brought up a login screen. The letters SEO appeared above a passcode prompt in big, red letters.

  He sighed. This wasn't going as well as he'd planned. He backed out and was just about to open a file labeled CEDAR when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

  No, he thought. Seriously?

  On a scrap of paper at the edge of the desk, there was a scribbled, ten-digit number.

  He opened up the Energy Investigation file again, snatched up the paper and punched in the code. He nearly gave a triumphant shout as the login screen disappeared, but stopped himself. His eyes flew over the page, stopping to read anything that caught his attention.

  "…unprecedented energy loss…"

  "…systems affected include atmospheric…specifically

  temperature and humidity…rust is becoming a widespread

  issue in D1 and D5."

  That was it. Rust. Something was causing massive fluctuations in the humidity controls. But he still wasn't sure what that something was, or when it had started.

  "Efforts to locate the source have been hindered

  by the necessary discretion required to prevent a panic."

  "Swift resolution is absolutely paramount…"

  "Conclusion: Dome Breach Probable."

  Ripley looked up. He was out of time. He closed the file, replaced the tablet, and slipped out the door. He lowered himself back over the railing and had just reached his seat when a terse voice called out, "Prior!"

  His heart leapt into his throat. It was the supervisor. Instead of getting up, he groped around. He said the first thing that came to mind. "Lost my log sheet!"

  "It's on your station."

  "Huh?" He got to his feet, brushing off his knees. "Oh, would you look at that! So, it is!"

  She eyed him, clearly concerned. “Seems like you could really use some sleep, Prior. Make sure you get some rest before your shift tomorrow. We’ll let you off for the morning speeches, but you need to monitor your station until then.”

  Ripley didn’t care either way if he would be able to attend a few boring speeches, but he didn’t get the chance to say so. Without waiting for his confirmation, the supervisor turned and walked away. Ripley felt something in his clenched fist, and looked down at it. He’d accidentally taken the li
ttle scrap of paper with the supervisor’s password. Grimacing, he shoved it deep into his pocket and sat hurriedly down at his terminal.

  "What the—" he heard someone saying as he collapsed, thoroughly shaken, into his seat. "Is that—is that a footprint?"

  * * *

  Ripley practically leapt out of his chair when his shift ended. He couldn't wait to share what he'd learned with Felix. So, they suspected a breach in the dome, but they couldn't find it. That was the most interesting thing that Ripley had read. How could a breach be hard to find? Wouldn't the bone-chilling cold rushing in be a dead giveaway?

  When Sanctuary had been built, it had been done hastily. Therans and Humans had worked together to construct it as the world around them was dying—a last-ditch effort to stave off the extinction of the Human race. Although history books showed that the technology for a far more advanced system had been available, it was the lack of manpower that ultimately led to the oversight that caused the D6 disaster. After that, they'd rushed to seal up Sanctuary for good, foregoing many features that had originally been planned. Ripley had been under the assumption that the domes were covered in sensors, but if they were having trouble finding a breach, that couldn’t be the case. Was it possible that the closest thing they had to sensors were the few dozen monitors in the Observatory? A couple of cameras, microphones, and thermometers? It was hard to believe, but it certainly seemed like this was, in fact, the long and short of it.

  He passed the hall which normally led to classrooms. This is where he and Felix had first met. Now, with no school during the entire week preceding the Anniversary, the classrooms were full of people doing last minute preparations for the festivities. The hall, which normally looked so long and sleek, was now dotted with open doors through which snippets of conversations floated out. He caught a glimpse of a life-sized mockup of Antiquity's Gate and slowed his pace to get a better look.

  "Well, maybe you should have thought of that before we finished it!" shouted an angry voice from inside.

  "Me? Why do I have to think of everything?" came the exasperated reply.

  "I can’t believe they denied our request. Okay, well, maybe we could cut it into smaller pieces…"

  “There isn’t enough time to put it back together by morning!”

  Ripley couldn't help snickering as he realized what was going on. The idiots couldn't fit it out the door. He was still grinning as he reached the Observatory, and he was just about to share the story with Felix when he remembered why he had come.

  The panel slid back to reveal Felix, pacing back and forth. "Ripley!" he whispered harshly, grabbing his arm and pulling him inside.

  "What is it?" Ripley asked, but Felix was already walking away, beckoning for him to follow.

  "Look at this!" he said, stabbing his finger at the monitor they had fixed on Ripley's last visit.

  "What am I looking at?" He gazed at the whole screen, taking in the quiet scene once again.

  Felix, in response, pointed at the other monitors. "Storm," he said, simply, pointing at a screen that showed next to nothing due to thick, heavy snow. "Storm,” he said again, pointing at the next screen, which showed the same. "Storm, storm, storm." He pointed in quick succession. Ripley looked back at the new monitor.

  "No storm," he said.

  Felix nodded. "But wait, there's more!" He flicked the tiny silver toggle, and once again the room was filled with the moaning wind. Ripley got the idea—storm—and reached to turn it off, but Felix held up a hand. "Wait!" he said loudly. "Listen!"

  Ripley listened hard. And then he heard it. A rhythmic tapping that ebbed when the wind did, speeding up each time there was a gust. "I hear it!" he nearly shouted, and Felix spun a little dial, lowering the sound. “Oh, come on, you could have done that to begin with,” complained Ripley. “I think you’ve given me hearing loss.”

  "I checked the coordinates," Felix went on, ignoring him. "But they didn't make sense. All of the other cameras, they're all facing away from Sanctuary. But this camera is facing in. Why?"

  "I don't know."

  "I think it used to face out. I think something hit it, spun it around somehow. That's probably why it refuses to pan. The camera is facing in, but the microphone is dangling, still hearing the storm, smacking against the dome whenever the wind blows."

  "That makes sense! Felix, you found the breach! It’s in D6!" Ripley filled Felix in on what he'd learned in the supervisor's office. He felt a twinge of pride as he recounted his daring escapade, and Felix expressed appropriate admiration for his friend's first foray into espionage.

  "Wow, buddy. I didn't realize you were into spy stuff!" He put on a joking, dreamy face. "Think of all the missed opportunities,” he said, thoughtfully. Then his features became serious again. "Nobody cares about the Observatory because there's nothing to see. If I told them every single camera was down, I doubt they'd even care. But I bet they'd care if they knew what we were seeing right now. This is their breach, right here. If the panel was down, the old attendant never would have known about it, so it wouldn't have been reported."

  Ripley was shaking his head slowly. "No. I don't think so. I think the old attendant knew exactly what happened, and I think he tried to hide it. That's why that wire was cut, so no one else would see footage and figure out what happened. You said it yourself, he knew no one would care if one of the cameras stopped working."

  Felix walked away and returned with a stack of papers. "All the logs from the old attendant look the same as mine,” he said, flipping through. "This was the stack that was out when I first started."

  Ripley looked at the pages. Felix was right, all the logs reported No Activity, just like Felix's. Then he noticed the dates. "How long after he disappeared did you start here, Felix?"

  "Two days. They don't mess around. When he didn't show for a whole day, they went ahead and replaced him."

  Ripley was thinking hard, doing the math in his head. "That means that he stopped logging activity a full two days before he disappeared,” he said.

  "Do you think he destroyed them?"

  Ripley shrugged. "Either that, or he took them when he left. Whatever he saw, he definitely didn't want anyone to know."

  Both of them were silent. Watching the monitors. Then Ripley's heart sank. "Captain Lub was here yesterday. He saw the monitor."

  Felix smacked himself in the forehead. "You're right!” He paused, thinking. “But he probably didn't care either, right? He wouldn't have been looking for anything suspicious."

  "That's exactly what he would have been looking for. They're searching for a breach. We’ve just given them one. We’ve practically led them right to it.”

  Felix slumped down into a chair, looking tired. "Great. We found the way out. We're just a day late and a credit short."

  "Maybe not," Ripley said, excited now. "Everyone's getting ready for the celebrations, right? They aren't going to pull the entire Engineering Corps off their current assignments. That would certainly look suspicious. The file said they were trying to avoid a panic. If people suspected there was a breach—"

  "There'd be rioting in the streets!" finished Felix. "Tempers are already short around here. It wouldn't take much to push people over the edge. The idea that Sanctuary is compromised? That the systems might fail, or the Sequencing might get in?" He shook his head. "I don't want to be around if that happens."

  Ripley tapped a finger against his chin, thinking. "Well, they've been searching this long. I don't think they'll be sloppy about it now. They'll most likely wait till the speeches tomorrow night. Attendance is mandatory for all non-essential workers. That will give them some time to do whatever they need to do to find a way past the bulkheads. It can't be a gaping hole—that would have been evident right away. I think we've got just as much of a chance of finding it as they do. If I'm right, that gives us a head start."

  "And then what?" asked Felix, eyes gleaming mischievously.

  "I haven't gotten that far."

  Felix looke
d at him, and Ripley couldn't help feeling a little excited. This idea was crazy. It was dangerous. It was a little bit stupid. But Felix's wild idea about getting out of Sanctuary no longer seemed completely impossible. There was now a tiny sliver of hope. If they could find the breach, if they could reach it, if they could devise a way to survive the cold and if they could find a way to travel north…Ripley decided to focus on one problem at a time. The rest would have to be dealt with as they came to it.

  "Tonight?" asked Felix.

  "Yeah," agreed Ripley. "Tonight, we're going to Dome Six."

  five

  What Lies Beneath

  Hey, Syl! Sylvia!” She turned around and saw Ben approaching from across the commissary. She smiled at him, tucking her paperwork under her arm to take the tray from a surly-looking red-headed man who was holding it out to her from behind the prep counter. “Thanks,” she said, but he didn’t reply. She walked over to meet Ben, who hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward the table behind him.

  “Hey, come and meet Felix! He isn’t usually at this lunch.”

  “Oh, uh…” she hesitated, looking somewhat longingly at an empty table in the corner. “I was kind of hoping to get a bit of work done while I ate…”

  “Oh, come on, take a break, would you? They don’t pay us to work during lunch!”

  She looked uncertain, but found herself nodding. “Okay, I guess so,” she said.