by R F Hurteau
“What’s up?”
“Well, I think I’ve got the power here. But—ow!”
Ripley smacked his head against the top of the housing as a sudden shock surged through him. He backed out, pulling the offending wire with him.
“This is live!” he exclaimed, rubbing the back of his head with his free hand and shooting an accusatory glare at his friend. “And it’s been cut.”
Felix leaned back in his chair again, looking disappointed. “Nah. It probably just came loose. This stuff is pretty old, you know.”
“No,” Ripley insisted matter-of-factly. “It was cut. The other end is still connected to the system.”
He reached in again, fingers still tingling, and gave the small remnant of braided wire a gentle tug, pulling it away from the circuitry and handing it to Felix. “See?”
Felix gave it a cursory glance. “Rats,” he concluded, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
Ripley pressed himself back into the workstation. He was blocking the light now, so he used his hands to explore, more cautious this time. He groped on the ground behind him, felt Felix’s boot as it pushed the multi-tool within reach. “Thanks.”
Popping it in his mouth, Ripley depressed the flashlight button with his lips and worked in the scant illumination of its tiny beam of light. It wasn’t ideal, but he could at least brighten a small portion of what he was examining.
“Shut down power to this unit,” he mumbled through clenched teeth. “I don’t want any more nasty surprises.” He heard Felix rise and move away.
“Okay, she’s down,” Felix informed him. “Or, you know. More down, I guess.”
Ripley pulled the light out of his mouth, using the knife to strip the wire’s coating. He reconnected it with deft fingers and a gentle touch. He didn’t have the soldering equipment needed to do the job properly, but it would be good enough for now. Certainly no worse off than having a live wire dangling free.
“Done! You can hit the power again now.”
Something hummed to life above his head as he backed out and began replacing the screws.
Felix let out a victorious whoop. “It’s alive!”
But Ripley couldn’t shake the strange feeling that the severed wire had given him. “I wonder who cut it?” he mused. “I wonder why.”
He didn’t even realize he’d spoken the questions aloud until Felix scoffed.
“And here I thought I was bored. Sabotage, Ripley, really?”
His friend turned his attention back to the newly-repaired machine with an air of mock surprise. “Well, what do you know? It’s another monitor! I did not see that coming.”
Ripley ignored him, pulling his chair closer to examine the panel for himself. “Looks just like all the others, to be honest,” he admitted after a while. “Camera controls here, atmospheric readings over here...still not sure what that is, though.”
He indicated the toggle that Felix had been playing with before. When Felix made no move to check, Ripley leaned over him and gave it a flick. A roar filled his ears—wind—moaning as it blasted from the speakers. Ripley cringed and switched it off so that the room was once more enveloped in quiet.
“Okay, so now we know what that does!” His ears were ringing. “Hey, do all your monitors have sound? You could’ve warned me.”
Felix didn’t answer. His shining eyes were narrowed, staring intently at the monitor, all signs of sarcasm gone from his face. Ripley followed his gaze to the black and white view of rocks and snow that filled the screen.
“What are we looking at?”
Felix shrugged. “It’s not windy out there.”
Ripley realized his friend was right. When he’d flipped on the microphone, it had sounded like a raging storm. On the contrary, the scene before them was peaceful, motionless.
Reaching in front of Felix to move the camera, Ripley frowned as the controls refused to cooperate. Instead of panning smoothly across the landscape, the mechanism only gave a slight jerk before going still again.
“Weird. Where is this camera?”
Before Felix could answer, the whoosh of the door sliding open made them both jump. Felix took the opportunity to shoot Ripley a knowing smirk.
“See?” he murmured. “You do it, too.”
But Ripley didn’t return the smile. He recognized the rounded silhouette of Captain Lub, Head of Security, framed ominously against the gleaming white of the hall before the door whisked shut behind him. As he stepped inside, Lub gave Felix a quick once over, jowls quivering, before turning to fix Ripley with his customary, accusing glare.
“What’s your business here?”
Always such a pleasant guy. Ripley opened his mouth to offer a response but Felix was quicker.
“Ripley just came down to see if I wanted to get anything to eat. He’s not on the clock, Captain.”
Lub’s piercing expression remained dubious. He ignored Felix, as so many others did, and continued addressing Ripley.
“Where is your station?”
“Core Operations, sir,” replied Ripley. “They’ve sent us all home for the day. I wasn’t keeping Felix from his work, though, I swear.”
Security personnel always made Ripley’s insides squirm with anxiety, their leader no exception. It was hard to say why—the old Theran was anything but intimidating. He had the air of someone who had let himself go to seed. His pristine uniform strained a bit against the zipper running up his midsection, and the blue and gold piping that adorned the collar looked uncomfortably tight.
Lub’s piercing gaze moved back to Felix.
“Where is your uniform?”
“I’m wearing it, sir.”
“Were you not issued a department head uniform when you were assigned this position?”
“I was, sir.”
“Well? Where is it?”
“Dirty, sir.”
Lub let out a sigh that seemed to mix with a growl somewhere in the depths of his throat. “You ought to take more pride in your position. See that it’s cleaned on your day off next time, and take better care of it from now on. You are a department head. Act like it. Have a little self-respect.”
“Of course, sir.”
Ripley rubbed sweating palms against his pants, wishing he were anywhere else but here.
“I’ll, uh, get out of your way now, Felix. See you around.”
Before Lub could hurl any accusations in his direction, Ripley skirted around the Captain and into the hall. He paused for a moment as the door slid shut, heart still racing, feeling a little guilty for leaving Felix behind with the Captain. Not a moment later he heard the door again and whirled, thinking Lub had followed him out for further interrogation.
Instead, he was surprised to find Felix grinning at him over a large stack of trays balanced precariously across his arms.
“They’re letting me go, too!” Felix’s eyes glinted with excitement. “Systems check! Let’s get outta here. And fix your hair, you look like you’ve just been electrocuted.”
Ripley reached up, smoothing his hair absently. He might have been embarrassed that he’d allowed himself to be seen in such a state, but his mind was on other things. He wondered if Captain Lub would have fixed the monitor if he’d gotten to it first. He hadn’t expected the systems checks to extend into the forgotten corners of Sigil.
His stomach churned as he considered the consequences of tampering with things he ought not be tampering with. He’d either just saved his friend from a pile of paperwork, or positioned himself for a disciplinary write-up. Whichever it was, there was nothing he could do about it. Felix’s awkward load distracted him from pondering it further.
“What are you doing with those trays?”
“Oh, these?” Felix gave a dismissive shrug. “Lub said to take them with me. Did you know they aren’t supposed to leave the commissary?”
> ***
After a brief stop to drop off the trays, where a sour-faced man snatched them from Felix’s arms with an incomprehensible grumble, the pair headed for the main lobby. They passed the Information desk, where a slight woman in a sharp uniform was shouting into her comm.
“No, no, no, that won’t work either!” she was saying, offering them a curt nod before returning to the obviously heated discussion.
“Think I should tell her about the rats?” suggested Felix in a whisper.
Ripley looked at the woman, who seemed close to tears, clutching at a large handful of her burnt umber ringlets as if preparing to rip them out of her head.
“It wasn’t rats. And I don’t think you should bother her, no.”
They exited the building only to enter a bustling sea of people. Everyone was helping with preparations for the Anniversary celebration, the bulk of which took place here, in D1. The lack of housing in this dome left a lot of open space, which formed what was quaintly referred to as the city square.
Two men were configuring a speaking platform to the right of Sigil’s steps, and a Theran woman was busy festooning the podium with garlands and flowers. The pleasant floral scent permeated the air, the rarity of the blooms adding an almost exotic appeal. Their vibrant colors were a welcome change from the otherwise bleak concrete expanse.
Flowers for flowers’ sake were not deemed important enough to grow in their limited facilities. But several varieties of flowering medicinal plants were used to brighten the ceremonies, after which they would be collected and dried for something more practical. In Sanctuary, nothing was squandered.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, taking in the preparations. Everyone looked cheerful, excited. For many, this was the best time of the year. There would be speeches, games, and a whole feast that all the citizens of Sanctuary were invited to enjoy. This was a big deal, since food was always strictly rationed. There was always enough, but only just. A little bit of overindulgence once in a while was just the thing to warm the hearts and bellies of the people.
Ripley wondered why he, too, couldn’t just relax and enjoy the celebration. Every Human in Sanctuary had been born here, after all. Whole generations had lived and died here. He’d never known the outside world, before this city. So, what was it that made him feel depressed about something that had never been his to miss in the first place?
“I’m going to catch the Tube and head home,” he declared, entertaining a scandalous vision of himself overriding the shower timer and taking twice the allotted time slot before collapsing into bed. After all, nothing made the time go by faster than good old-fashioned unconsciousness. The sooner the Anniversary arrived, the sooner it would be over.
Felix looked crestfallen. “Wish we could hang out, like we used to. Living at Sigil six days a week has really put a damper on my social life, you know? Do you want to come have dinner with me and Willow?”
Ripley shook his head. “I’m sorry. Soon, though.”
“Well you’re still coming to the Anniversary with us, at least, right? Because you’ll break poor Willow’s heart if you don’t.”
“Of course.”
Although he wasn’t looking forward to the event, he couldn’t suppress a smile at the memory of the last time all three of them had been together. Willow had insisted on preparing a traditional dish that she had learned about during her studies on ancient Human culture. It had been Ripley’s twenty-first birthday, and she’d wanted it to be special. She’d spent days agonizing over the meal, which she’d called “Mac and Cheese.” Unfortunately, the result had been—quite literally—hard to swallow.
Willow had forgotten to take into account the fact that almost none of the ingredients existed within Sanctuary’s culinary means. With stubborn determination, she had made what she deemed to be suitable substitutions. The macaroni replaced by cauliflower, the specified cheeses replaced by one of Sanctuary’s own. When Willow tried to melt it into a sauce the result had been a lumpy, fragmented goop. The cheese of yonder days must not have been made from the milk of goats fed on a synthetically prepared fodder of nutrients and vitamin supplements.
Ripley and Felix had been unable to hide their revulsion, though for his part Ripley had made a valiant effort to do so. He remembered how she had burst into tears at the table and then, almost immediately, how they had all begun laughing together over the absurdity of her reaction.
Ripley cherished those times with his friends. But right now, he just wanted to be alone.
He watched Felix sulk out of the corner of his eye. A head taller than Ripley, with long legs and a lithe figure, his friend could easily pass for a full-blooded Theran at first glance, his pointed ears peeking out from beneath his curly hair. It was this feature, so reminiscent of ancient fairytales, that had led to the widespread adoption of the nickname Elves in reference to the Theran people. But his looks did not matter to the Council, only his lineage. Felix and the two hundred or so Halfsies like him would never be considered more than second-class citizens.
Ripley realized he was sinking himself into a fouler mood by the second and tried to focus on their surroundings instead. They reached Sigil Station and placed their wrists under the scanner, their sub-dermal chips verifying their credentials. The Sigil insignia flashed on the gate guard’s monitor and he waved them through to the platform.
The Tube was Sanctuary’s only means of transportation, connecting the six biospheres together. The domes were arranged in a ring, and the Tube system ran through the heart of each, branching out in wide loops to smaller stations on the outskirts of the city. There was D1—it housed Sigil, the governing body of Sanctuary and its operations center. D2, the Agridome, was where all food was grown and stored. They only had one station to minimize access to vital supplies.
D3, D4, and D5 were home to the populace. There was D3 for the Therans, and the other two for the Humans. Halfsies, the common term for people like Felix, were often forced to the seedy outskirts of the domes, though some had managed to hold fast to a small community in the heart of D4.
The train picked up speed as it crossed the long expanse beneath the abandoned wreckage of D6, the jolting and rattling so familiar now that Ripley barely noticed it. There were no stops in this dome. It had suffered a catastrophic failure during the building stage and remained incomplete. He often wondered what it looked like.
Nowhere in the city offered much in the way of scenery. Because of their unique location in the Antarctic region, it had been built on solid earth, not atop the thick ice sheet that covered most of the continent. Theoretically, Ripley knew that this meant they might have given the domes real ground. It might have taken more energy to maintain the temperature, but it would have been possible. And besides, their energy reserves were virtually unlimited. The city sat in the shadow of Mount Erebus, an active volcano from which they drew the heat that powered the underground Geothermal Plant.
But the domes had needed to be sealed. So, instead of dirt and trees and grass, the people of Sanctuary had only endless slabs of concrete and steel. The Agridome utilized an aquaponic system rather than soil. Only the Geothermal Plant, deep beneath the city where few ever had the unfortunate need to visit, was exposed to the earth itself.
The grey landscape was dull but familiar. Five generations separated Ripley from the last time anyone had run in a field or climbed a tree.
A thick, sweet-smelling cloud rolled lazily into his vision, disrupting Ripley’s train of thought.
He cast a sidelong glance at Felix and frowned in disapproval. “You aren’t supposed to be doing that on the Tube. You’re going to get us in trouble.”
Felix took a long draw off the mouthpiece of a small, pen-like device, blowing out another cloud. “It’s fine.”
The clouds were now drawing harsh stares from some of the other passengers.
“It’s not ‘fine,’ you’re going
to set off the sensors with all that smoke in this tiny space.”
“It’s not smoke,” Felix retorted, his tone indignant. “It’s vapor. Lighten up. Oh, hey, that reminds me! I heard this great joke the other day. A Human, an Elf, and a Halfsie walk into a bar. The Human says, ‘Give me something with a little zip to it.’ The Elf says, ‘Is this place certified by the Sigil Committee on Food and Drink?’ And the Halfsie, he looks right at the bartender and says—”
Felix was interrupted by as a red light began flashing at the head of the compartment.
“Please be aware,” droned a cool female voice from the speakers. “There is smoke in car three. Remain calm. A Tube Official has been dispatched.”
Felix made a frantic attempt to dissipate the clouds by waving his hands around, and Ripley rolled his eyes.
“I told you,” he muttered, shrinking down in his chair as an angry-looking Tube Official strode through the door connecting the cars.
“But it’s vapor!” Felix insisted weakly, still flailing his arms.
Two
A Dish Best Served Cold
“NO, no, no, that won’t work either!” Sylvia exclaimed, exasperated. She nodded at a couple of passing workers heading out into the courtyard, listening to the man on the line give her his proposal for what seemed like the hundredth time. “We can’t have swarms of people in and out of Sigil during the celebration without extra security procedures. Don’t you remember what happened last year? And that...that was only school children!”
He continued droning on about how important it was to let the public see the government in action, spouting off carefully rehearsed phrases like “builds trust” and “establishes strong community ties.” He seemed to be under the impression that he was telling her about some new, innovative concept.
As if she weren’t charged with these very same goals on a daily basis.
