by Vishal Ved
All cells had closed. The prisoners still in the hallway banged their heads against empty cells, pleading to be let inside, but no one could help them. All at once, they started choking, flailing their hands and legs desperately. Ariet watched in horror as the air in the corridor was sucked out, leaving the stranded prisoners with no more dueso to breathe. Within a few moments, they were all dead, and a haunted silence descended once more on the prison. Hundreds of eyes stared at the corpses in the corridor, knowing the bodies would all be gone before the next day. It would be like they had never existed. Everyone on Tomarkus was aware of dueso scarcity, but civilians of Hydus didn’t have to suffer from it, at least not until they broke some rules and were sent to Carcerem.
Ariet wondered if the kiro had managed to reach a cell in time. All he could do at the moment was to hope for the best. Then an idea struck him.
“Kiro!“ he shouted out loud, keeping his ears peeled for a response.
But all he heard were the curses from his neighbouring cell telling him to shut up.
3.
The Mad Rush
Siren and the clamour of footsteps startled Ariet awake. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. His cell was open. Prisoners were running in the corridor outside, but towards the left this time, in the direction opposite to the Cibum-hall. Without wasting any further time, the sato came out of his cell and started searching for the kiro he had seen the previous day. All the nearby cells had been vacated and he tarry for long—as he had found the previous day, Carcerem was murderous for laggards.
Running behind the others, he took a sharp turn to the left at the end of corridor. As he advanced, he felt feeble waves of hot air against his face every now and then. He saw a pack of fugits waiting outside an open gate. Whatever lay beyond the gate was completely obscure. Then, suddenly, a strong gust from the other side of the gate pushed him back and nearly made him fall. Ariet couldn’t see anything in the dark, but he heard a sound like that of a big fan blowing air, and it was coming closer and closer.
Ariet felt himself propelled forward by the crowd. In front of him, prisoners were disappearing into the dark beyond the gate. Where were they going?
A wild hope filled him: was MOX going to let them all go free because of dueso shortage? There was only one way of finding out. He followed the others into the dark.
Soon, he found himself on a quivering platform. He was standing over an elevator, which had a massive fan at the base for thrust. The platform, carrying nearly 40 prisoners, started speeding upwards, its force pressing them into its base. The elevator rose in a long vertical tunnel that was pitch dark. The tunnel was a direct route connecting the two extremes of Hydus—Carcerem and Mortem.
Hydus, a gigantic multi-story city, home to all fugits except MOX officials, was built entirely beneath the ground, and descended in storeys deep below the desert. Mortem, the crystal dome, was at its very top, while Carcerem lay 118 storeys below, at the bottom of Hydus.
As the surface approached the heat and light in the tunnel soared and, within a few moments, the sato found himself in the desert that stretched in all directions around him like an ocean of maroon clay. Dumping everybody on the pavement, the elevator hurtled back into the ground.
Almost at once, Ariet had trouble breathing. Dueso was extremely low in the desert. To make matters worse his body felt like it was aflame; he had never experienced such scorching heat on the planet before.
Panting for breath, he shaded his eyes and looked up at Citris. It was bright and violent, exactly as Ariet had seen it on screen. It shone in the sky, the star around which Tomarkus and twenty-one other planets orbited. It was the first time he was looking directly at the giant star, and he was left dazed and weakened by its brightness and sizzling heat. The entire desert smouldered like it was on the verge of melting.
Nearly a hundred paces away from the sato, others had started climbing the sand hill before them. The prisoners trudged into the desert listlessly, but when Ariet set foot on the clay, it felt as though he had stepped into an oven. Crying out in pain, he leapt back onto the pavement, which was tolerably hot.
The others were disappearing from sight over the dune, but he couldn’t muster the strength to follow them. Soon, they were gone, leaving him alone, in a temperature of around 80°C, surrounded by the bare land.
The sato knew he had very limited time to save himself. Hot gusts of wind seared his skin and his vision was getting blurred. The thought of dying alone in the desert finally overcame his inertia and he started hopping up the hill after the others, moaning in pain and breathing heavily. The stained footprints of dried blood and purple flakes of flesh of those who had gone before him served as his only guide as he staggered up the dune.
What was a giant crater was doing in the middle of a desert, Ariet thought as he finally crested the dune, and saw the depression that was far bigger than even the ones created by meteorites. Looking closer, he saw that the crater was built to harness energy from the sandstorms, and had numerous rotors planted on its wall. The colossal energy generated by the crater was enough to power the whole of Hydus.
But where was everybody? Ariet couldn’t see anyone at first, but when he moved a little closer to the edge he saw prisoners at the base of the craters like ants working in their big colonies. The footprints which the sato was following ended near a slide sculpted over the slanting wall. This was clearly the means of reaching the base.
Ariet sat on the slide and gave himself a little push. Sliding at top speed, he reached the end of the slide and was unceremoniously flung off it like a wood log. Getting to his feet, the sato dusted off his gaban which had turned multicolor, maroon and brown.
He had barely regained his bearings, when a guard, dressed in a silver armor above his cobalt blue suit with a torture stick hooked at the side, lumbered over and dealt Ariet a sharp blow on the neck which sent him to his knees. He couldn’t breathe for a moment, and felt as he was going to die.
‘Clean the rotor, else I’m gonna shred you in pieces,’ shouted the guard, frowning at others who had stopped to look at the poor sato.
Ariet stayed down, holding his neck, until the monster was gone. A black bruise had appeared on his silver neck. He managed to get to his feet and staggered towards the jumbo fan. Fellow-prisoners narrowed their eyes in sympathy as he passed by. Picking up a brush from the heap, he got to work.
Edges covered under layers of maroon clay were no joke to clean, especially when the prisoners had no solvent at their disposal. The cleaning was exhausting, and Ariet would have died if it were not for the rotor above him, which shielded him from the light.
The constant rhythm of scrubbing made him fall asleep out of exhaustion. He was balanced precariously on the ladder, which he had climbed upon for cleaning upper segments of the rotor. A noise roused him and his eyes shot open, but it was too late. He fell hard on the ground, jarring every bone in his body. He lay there groaning, with his eyes closed, semi-conscious.
The sound of a scuffle nearby finally brought him to alertness.
4.
The Desert Fight
Around forty meters away, a kiro was kicking a guard who was crawling away from her, his armor split open, and his face covered in violet. It seemed he had woken the beast in the kiro. Ariet limped painfully to the scene of the fight. Taking a closer look, he was shocked to see that the kiro who had beaten the guard was the same kiro who had been struggling to stand the day before, and the guard was also the same who had struck him a while ago.
A large crowd of prisoners stood surrounding the two adversaries, hooting like they were watching a street fight for the first time. By the time Ariet reached the scene, the fight was over.
It was getting dark and everyone dispersed from the site quickly like nothing had happened. Only the kiro remained, the guard at her feet covered in maroon clay, making no movement or sound. Was he dead, Ariet wondered, worrying about what would happen next to the kiro. The desert was sparsely guarded as MOX didn’t exp
ect the prisoners to escape into the desert where they couldn’t hope to survive.
‘HELLO,' he shouted, wondering whether it was right time to ask her name or not. She turned, dusting her mud-splattered gaban which had torn at the sides. Blood trickled down her face, but she was smiling at Ariet; she had no fear in her eyes, only satisfaction. Baffled, Ariet stared at her foolishly.
Breaking the silence, she said with a grin, ‘Hello again. What’s your name, by the way? I couldn’t ask you the last time.’
‘Why did you beat him?’ he asked, ignoring her question.
She grinned. ‘Just a little misunderstanding, had to teach him a lesson.’
‘But how —?’ Ariet stammered.
‘Do I look so weak?’ she demanded.
‘No, I didn’t mean that, but he was so big and had weapons and all, how did you take him down?’ He still couldn’t believe that a kiro could defeat such a monster.
A loud air horn alerted everybody that it was time to return to Carcerem.
‘We’ve to go, else you must have understood yesterday what happens to the ones who linger,’ the kiro said with a grin, like it was a part of her daily life.
‘I did, and I got scared about you when I couldn’t find you anywhere.’
She chuckled looking into Ariet’s big eyes. ‘You don’t need to worry about me, they can’t do anything to me.’
‘How? I still don’t understand, and who are you? I’m Ariet, by the way.’
‘I’m Cenoy. I’ve been living here for the past three-and-a-half years, probably the senior-most survivor of Carcerem,’ she said proudly, any trace of grief or regret strangely missing from her voice at the statement.
While they had been talking, the crowd had carried them to the stairs, which the sato had missed earlier in the day and given himself a harder time.
‘What’s the most special thing about kiro?’ she asked Ariet as they climbed.
‘They’re not ugly like us, they are beautiful,’ Ariet said, returning her smile.
She chuckled. ‘Think of something else, how did you cure your wounds in childhood?’
‘We rubbed kiro’s saliva over them.’ His eyes widened in understanding as he understood. ‘So that’s how your feet are not hurt anymore?’
‘Yeah, they’re alright,’ she replied, frowning at a prisoner who inadvertently bumped into her from behind. At her glance, he beat a hasty retreat.
‘Whoa, how did you do that?’ Ariet’s mouth was half-open.
Cenoy grabbed his hand and put it against her belly. He was dumbstruck —it was like tree bark, harsh and rough with deep scars all over. Where had she got those burns and scars? His eyes narrowed, as he fought down his disgust.
'It wasn’t long ago when I realized it myself,’ said Cenoy. ‘My belly was burnt when I came out of apparently fathomless unconsciousness after many years. I had been used as a child factory for many years of my life—even I don’t know how many—but what I do know is I’ve given births to 435 babies in those years.’
‘How do you know that?’ Ariet’s eyes widened. Poor sato had always believed that children were created in laboratories.
‘I overheard them talking while they were taking me out to dump me into Panola river,’ Cenoy hissed in his ears.
‘Who were they?’ asked the sato, freaking out. He had never heard of something like this before; the only homicide he had ever witnessed had happened the previous night in Carcerem.
She continued,'They use external heating for conditioning, increasing birth output. The external heating is done by wrapping our bellies in heating coils which ultimately burn them irreparably. Nobody can handle such pain in full consciousness, that’s why we are kept sedated until our fertility is exhausted, and then we are dumped in the river.’ Yellow tears slid down her bright face.
‘If you already knew then why did you go for it?’ asked the sato, wrecked. Her story had filled him with sadness and anger.
‘They say it’s our fate and we have no other choice, but they never told us how it ends,’ replied Cenoy.
Life on Tomarkus was not easy and everybody knew this, but Ariet had never imagined it could be so much worse for kiros.
‘I ran away from the floor,’ she added, ‘before they could kill me, changing storeys every few days. I stayed hidden, freeing kiros in the dark until MOX’s guards finally caught us and killed the rest of my team, caging me in Carcerem to suffer and…’ Cenoy stopped suddenly and closed her eyes. ‘Sooo... goooood,’ she murmured.
Ariet stared at her in astonishment, but the next moment he understood. They had climbed the three hundred steps, and reached the desert. But the desert clay was no longer blazing; in the dark evening, it felt deliciously cool and soothing under their tortured feet. For a moment, Ariet forgot all his sorrow and pain, and gave himself completely over to the bliss.
The sky over the desert was illuminated with real stars, six full moons and four partial moons glowing like lamps, and sparkling pink clouds. The desert shining in the pink light of clouds appeared like a magical world to Ariet, a world he’d never seen before. He stood enthralled, staring at the spectacular display. The kiro watched in amusement. On Tomarkus, an excess of charged particles present in the atmosphere reacted with the clouds to turn the sky a vivid colour of pink. During the day, however, this beauty was hardly recognizable in the wrath of Citris. Kiro did enjoy the view, too, but she saw it every night; Ariet’s reaction reminded her of her own first night in the desert. Other passing prisoners too glanced at Ariet with bemused looks.
They came to the dune the sato remembered crossing in the day. Everybody moved with increased urgency, obviously not wishing to be left stranded when the cells closed.
Ariet and Cenoy climbed the dune, bent against the cold breeze that blew down it, making their climb dubly exhausting. They held hands to help each other balance against the wind.
They were a few steps short of the top when Ariet discerned the light coming from the opposite side. It was very vivid, rising up to a hundred miles, reflected in all directions at sharp angles like the light from a glowing crystal gem. He reached the top, pulling Cenoy with him.
'What’s that?' cried Ariet, shocked.
In front of them was a giant crystal dome, shining like a chunk of star, reflecting shades of pink and purple in every direction. The huge polyhedron structure, with hundreds of reflective faces, spread across an enormous area in the desert.
'Are you seeing it for the first time?' asked Cenoy, baffled.
'Of course, when would I have seen it otherwise,' replied the sato, still immersed in its beauty.
‘Look there,’ Cenoy nudged him towards a pavement between the dome and hill.
‘I see now, it was behind me in the day.’ He chuckled.
Mortem covered Hydus from the top, protecting the underground city from hot daylight, and serving as a gateway to the world above.
The duo made it to the prison on time and entered cells that faced each other. The sato was thoroughly exhausted, but for Cenoy it was a routine. Sitting in her cell, she stared at the sleeping sato’s poor feet, covered in blood from the tortures suffered during the day. Ariet was sleeping peacefully like he was still in his storey, and Cenoy was happy she had found a friend in the prison whom she would protect by all means.
She didn’t know when she dozed off herself, but something woke her and she sat up with a jerk. It was completely dark all around. She was puzzled. Lights were never completely turned off in Carcerem. Then she heard the sound of approaching footsteps. She stiffened with tension. What was happening? Were the guards coming to puncture her cell and end her story forever instead of fighting with her in the desert the next day?
5.
Breaking Into Prison
Two guards, navigating by the light of their seteks, were coming towards Cenoy’s end of the long corridor. The way they were casting only cursory glances at the cells they passed, looking at skin color instead of facial features, told her they were
looking for her.
With every step they took towards the kiro’s cell, her heart pounded hard against her chest. She retreated to the very back of her cell, not that there was much refuge to be had in its glass confines. She would not go without a fight, she decided, and with that thought, her fear vanished and her old warrior spirit awoke. She thought fast. She had become tough over time, but defeating two guards with seteks in a face-to-face fight was not going to be easy.
The guards reached her cell and stopped. She made no attempt to hide and stood straight in her cell, her hands clenched into fists. The light from the seteks blinded her, but then the guards dimmed the seteks and she was able to see their faces—they both wore cyan dueso masks on their foreheads along with full-body cobalt-blue suits. One was much younger than the other; the younger one was hefty and fit, while the older guard was chubby and his suit bloated as though it would burst anytime.
Cenoy took an attacking position as the hefty guard came closer to her cell. A little spark from setek would puncture her cell and she would eventually die of dueso deprivation. He brought his setek close to the cell gate as she had anticipated, and her cell started vibrating. The instant the glass door shattered, the kiro launched herself at the guards, kicking the hefty guard in the chest. Even her aggressive kick couldn’t displace him by more than a foot. Cenoy kept running.
After running the length of over thirty cells, she fell to her knees huffing and choking. She could hear the footsteps of the guards closing on her and she closed her eyes, fearing the worst.
To her surprise a mask came down on her face, instead of the dagger she expected. She took great, gasping breaths of dueso, before she looked up at the guards. The chubby old fugit was looking into her eyes, not in anger, but with awe.
