by Jack Robuck
The four who were staying limped onto the platform and into the darkness through the door, weapons raised. Winston helped Glazier along with one arm around his shoulders. In a moment, the train was aligned, and Jimmy throttled forward gently a notch at a time. "Here we go!"
The train glided out of the roundhouse into darkness. Natalie, Matthew, and Rachel collapsed onto a booth seating unit around a narrow dining table. Natalie wiped a layer of dust from the table’s surface.
"Fucking train."
They were picking up speed. The spotlight illuminated only the tunnel walls and the sand-strewn monorail, and the group lapsed into silence.
Rachel rolled her head over to look at Matthew. "How you holding out, kid?"
"Don’t call me that."
"Okay."
"I’m fine. Where are we going?"
"I dunno. Jimmy knows where we’re going, but who knows what’s going to be there when we get there. If anything."
The train raced ahead through the blackness of the tunnel. The group slept in turns, lulled by the quiet rumble of the wind through the broken windows. Timeless night, lit only by the cobalt courtesy lights of the train cars' center aisles. Time, marked by hunger and thirst that consumed their meager supplies, and by sleep and waking that filled the hours in their state of long term exhaustion.
Days passed before the instant whoosh surprised them and sent them scrambling for weapons before they realized that the roof of the tunnel had given way to the pinpricked obsidian of the night sky. Matthew leaned out of the window, over the jagged glass edges, kneeling on the leather seat. The sky looked like space. Like the only home he had ever known. The infinite dark was comforting. Only the experiences of the last few days inspired the idea that that might be abnormal.
Jimmy’s presence behind him broke through his thoughts. He sat down next to Matthew on the wide bench seat. "Well, I have good news and bad news." He held up his repaired hand-held computer.
Matthew smiled. "What’s the good news?"
The train is headed exactly where we need to go. Place must be a stop on the line. Or the end of the line."
"What’s the bad news?"
"Obviously...the train is going exactly where we need to go. I’m scared for what all this means. For all of us, but also for Rachel. Why was that hologram of her grandfather?"
Matthew raised his eyebrows. "How about‚ 'Why is this planet a giant construct?'"
Jimmy nodded. "Good question. I don’t think the others really hit home with that. Either it’s above their comprehension...or it’s outside of their emotional fortitude."
Matthew turned away from the window, and sat heavily next to Jimmy. He spoke quietly. "Listen, all I care about is finding my mom and getting any survivors from The Waverly out of harm’s way. Not to be an asshole, but it really doesn’t matter to me if we stop the Admiral from finding a new kind of weapon, or waking up an army of dormant robots or whatever is waiting for us at these coordinates up ahead."
Jimmy opened his mouth to speak, but Matthew cut him off. "Don’t worry, the past couple of days have convinced me that the Fleet you guys know isn’t the one I’m from. "But to be honest, in a similar situation of low resources and a large rebellious indigenous population, my Fleet might very easily have evolved into the same ruthless violence in the name of mission, or objective, or, in the case of an enormous wasteland planet...survival."
Jimmy shook his head. "Come on, Matthew. These people, the planet; they’re civilization. Whatever their weaknesses, their superstitions, they are the future. The Fleet, the Admiral, it’s an army of thugs...No matter what their goals may be, you can’t design a way of life without enslaving everyone else to your will."
Matthew put his head back on the tall seat. "On The Waverly, we were taught that there was always a plan. We, ourselves, our family, our...ancestors...were part of a single driving mission. We were taught that there were orders, and a reason for them, and that a free society, with a government, eventually a democracy, all these things were part of that plan that were triggered under certain conditions...when a colony hit a certain population density. When agriculture and specialization of trade were established."
Jimmy smirked. "Look around, kid. I don’t think the Admiral has the same paperwork as you. You can’t deny that the biggest threat, the most violent predator on this planet, is the Fleet. Instead of letting people freely irrigate the land near the water, they fence off narrow tracts that they can patrol.
“They haul percentages of every town's kids off to work on their farms. In their recycling plants. And fuck if anyone knows what all happens to the poor bastards they drag upstairs. It’s like they’re intentionally keeping this planet barren. They’re intentionally keeping the population small so they can control it. Maybe that’s their plan. And when your ship hit the solar system, they nearly had the juice to finish the job."
The accusation hit home with Matthew, even though the passengers and crew of The Waverly had played no part in what had gone on here. He turned his head to meet Jimmy’s eyes in the even blue glow. "So why are you telling me the news, instead of Rachel?"
"I don’t know. I can see she’s got a lot going on inside her right now. With Luna, with Sydney...with her grandfather. I don’t think she’s ready for any new information. I’ll tell her in a few hours. I’ll have to. She’s just not seeing the big picture here yet."
"What makes you say that?"
Jimmy shrugged. "Maybe I’m wrong. I’m usually looking too far on the dark side of things, I guess." He paused. "I just have a weird, scary idea of what The Core might be. Not sure yet, though." He slid over to get up. "I’m glad you’re with us, kid." Jimmy walked back to the engine room in time with the gentle sway of the train.
Chapter 10
Matthew, taking a drink, missed the water bottle with his mouth. He looked up. The train was slowing. On either side, low walls ramped up diagonally, and suddenly they were underground again. Matthew screwed the top back on the water bottle, and stowed it in his bag. Holding onto the bench seats, he sauntered forward, passing over the joint between cars and climbing up the rungs to the engineer's console where Jimmy peered out of a pair of welding goggles with the shades flipped up.
I found these!” he yelled over the wind roaring through the shattered windscreen. “Aren't they awesome? ...Yeah! Yeah!” He was sipping on a colored bottle with a diagonal stripe and bold letters. He offered it to Matthew. “Energy drink, man! I found a whole case in the locker over there! Totally still good. I've been up for seventeen hours, baby! Yeah! Did you see when we went back underground? Wooosh! Looks like we're getting close, man. You better go wake up Rachel, everybody else...You want me to do it? Nah, you do it. Wooosh!”
The tunnel, apparently aware of their presence, lit up with a snap. Pale green hemispheres on the walls lit up in groups of three: left, right and above. They passed one every thirty yards or so, leaving voids of darkness between them. Jimmy sat, transfixed, giving his head a slight duck when each halo zipped past.
Matthew climbed back down the ladder. He went over to Rachel first, back on the second car, where some windows were still in place. She slept with her head leaning against one of them, wedged into the space between the seat and the glass. She had wrapped a Fleet Trooper's coat around her for a blanket, presumably taken from one of the bodies they had stripped of gear and thrown out the back.
The lights of the tunnel zipped past. In each moment under the lights, her pale, freckled skin glowed a chalky, alien green, and she was the stranger that destroyed his home...that left him at the bar. In each void, she was bathed in the cool cobalt of the running lights, and he knew her again.
The train was slowing, and as he stood over her it pulled into a wide white concrete station and jolted to a stop. He looked back at Rachel, lit half in the hard industrial white through the smudged glass, and half in blue.
She opened her eyes. “We're here.”
Matthew opened his mouth. “Uh, yes.”
<
br /> She smiled a little tired smile, and pulled herself up into a sitting position. “Go wake the others.”
Through a silent chalky terminal they stalked, half themselves in black assault vests stolen from the Troopers they had killed. They had chem-lights and grenades; chewing gum and handcuffs. They had blood-crusted wounds and dirty clothes. They were exhausted, and the hospital-white interior they dirtied with their presence imposed a quiet pressure.
Jimmy whispered in the stillness. “Shouldn't the Fleet already be here? They were way ahead of us on this.”
Natalie shushed him. They worked their way through the complex, turning corners with tactical concern. Leap-frogging long corridors in pairs until the utter silence waned to condescension on the part of the facility. Around every corner they expected ambush, yet the main path swept on like a river, obvious and desolate, until finally it led to an immense white room with seven large, clear glass elevators arranged in a broad semi-circle.
Matthew stepped forward, dropping the point of his rifle in confusion. “Which one do we need?”
Natalie walked over to one of the doors. “Only one button. Up or down?”
Jimmy grimaced. “Oh, I think these only go down.”
“Very good.” A strange voice echoed in the white glass room. They jumped to defend themselves, turning and finding nothing as the digital steam projection of Rachel's grandfather formed before them again in front of the center elevator. Once again, the old man held out an open palm containing a simple white cube.
He squinted, as if he could see them. “Why are you here?”
Jimmy put his assault rifle down on the floor. “We're going down to The Core.”
“Very well. Then you must know what you're doing.”
“We do, we...”
The cube in the old man's hand began to unfold. Six sides lay flat, unfolding six times six, times six, until a jagged plane of squares floated in front of them. The light in the room dimmed to darkness with a hum; an omnipresent whir of the facility they hadn't noticed before struck a deeper tone.
Jimmy, back-lit by the hologram's glow, turned toward them, eyebrows raised, his hair and the peach fuzz of his skin filament-glowed as he shrugged.
Rachel stepped forward. “It's the game.”
She was washed in the chemical white of the game where it floated in the darkness. The intensity of the light blasted even the hologram of the old man into tints of his former self. The singular direction of the light flattened Rachel's features. Her age showed tenfold, her pores, her wrinkles, and the sun-crisped texture of her skin. Her chipped nails, as her hand slowly moved over the board, uplit and through-lit where her fingers webbed.
Her chapped lips parted in a slight intake of breath before she whispered, “Let's play.”
The old man smiled a mechanical smile. “This is the nine hundred and thirty-six thousand and twenty-third attempt in the past ten thousand days. Let us begin.”
Nothing happened. Rachel's hand froze over the complex game board, the 216 squares all connected, rotating together in time, in a slow-motion spin as if they floated in space.
Nothing happened. The old man watched. Rachel's eyes were closed.
Jimmy whispered, “Rachel...”
“Shut up.”
“How the fuck do you play this?”
“Shut up, Jimmy.”
Slowly, very slowly, as the board spun on its center point, Rachel took in a deep, slow breath, and her middle finger lowered from where her hand hovered over the board. Just as a particular square passed under it she made contact.
Blip!
The square turned green. The board spun slightly faster. The old man didn't move, but another square lit up amber against the white.
Blip!
Rachel was breathing audibly now, but her hand didn't move. She waited, and waited, a dozen revolutions before she struck.
Blip! Green.
Blip! Amber.
Each time, the board spinning faster.
Blip!
Blip!
Two different colored squares struck each other. The board shuddered and blinked, and every square schluck! Extruded into a cube, some up, some down, and the plane bent on every axis, blossomed fractal, and the cubes had single colored faces, and—
Blip! Blip!
Blip! Blip!
The game raced on across 1,296 cube faces, all white, turning—
Blip! green, and—
Blip! amber, with each touch of a finger.
Rachel's hand was racing, her whole face frozen, as the game board spun faster and faster. Her grandfather flickered into the hologram's Red, Green and Blue color channels, and the old man smiled an oily smile. Red and Green, but Blue stuttered stoic, he blinked and said, “I think you've played before.”
Rachel pressed home another cube face.
Blip! “I have.”
The cubes shuddered, all pressed, all colored green and amber, each vibrated, and every one that had faces more one color than another became that whole color. The faces disappeared, only the edges and vertices remained, the cubes split apart from each other, connected only on corners, and shared no edges. The green cubes with 12 green edges, the amber with 12 amber, and the neutral turned all white again.
Jimmy whispered to Matthew, “Two thousand, five hundred and ninety-two edges.”
Matthew and Natalie exchanged a lost glance. The board spun, the edges glowed.
Green!
Amber!
Green!
Rachel tap-tap-tapped with both hands now, the spinning universe of corners and edges, and tapping an amber corner turned three edges white, and tapping an amber edge turned it white, and tapping a white corner turned it green, an edge,
Green!
But the tally mounted. In a fizzy vapor overhead numbers click-click tallied, and green had less than amber, but a funny shape was growing from the center, green, from the center, up and out of the pattern from the center, and Rachel.
Snapped!
And every cube exploded, extruded again, the 4th dimension, into tesseracts, rotating within themselves.
The old man grimaced. “I hope you know what you're doing.”
Rachel, sweating, smiled. “I do. You know I do.” Every green edge and vertex, and every vertex connected to a green, branched, sprouted, every corner. She had more origin points now, the amber was divided, she chased them down into corners, turning them white, white, white, her green tree branching from the center of the little bright universe, she—
Snapped! again, she—
Snapped! again.
A billion little dots, and the little dots turned the other little dots to white, to green, to green, all green, she closed her eyes, she took in a slow breath, and blew all the little dots away, all the brightness dissipated into the whole room, and sparked!
Blinking out, leaving the dim old man grinning a grim smile.
“Very well.”
The center elevator door opened, and the old man disappeared. Rachel fell to her knees. They rushed to her side, and she let them pull her to her feet.
She brushed the hair from her face. “I always hated that game.”
The elevators were all single glass cylinders and when the doors closed and clicked into place, only a thin line showed where the joint had been.
In the glass-muffled silence just before the elevator began to move, they watched in horror as two dozen Fleet Troopers stormed into the room. The glass popped with bullets, but held, undamaged, and dropped quietly through the floor. Their last view of the room was of boots, and Troopers and officers rushing to fill the other six elevators.
Space. Vast, unthinkable. As they descended in the giant glass cage, a single white rail guiding them like a spider's silk line, disappearing in the inky blackness below. Out of the dim infinity, occasional leviathans swept toward them, beams and trusses; pulsing arc engines lit brief galaxies of machinery, enormous spheres the size of moons rushing by like the counterweights of a clock. A
ll of this to be missed in the blink of an eye as they shot through the incredible dark; Matthew thought of being on the train again, but the elevator traveled much, much faster. Always, a hundred yards above them, they could make out the glow of the other six elevators rushing to follow on six white tracks, six white circles, glowing and dimming in the ambient light, no doubt containing a full complement of Fleet personnel.
Hours passed, time immeasurable, then without warning, a click and a floor was rising around them; they went through it, it became the ceiling of a room identical to the one they had left, and they touched down gently. The team rushed through the glass doors, straight ahead as the six elevators behind them glided into place.
They could hear the doors sliding open, and Matthew could see Troopers sprinting after them over his shoulder. They pushed through a set of giant green tinted glass doors, down a hall way, and stopped in front of a massive sliding steel door like a ship's cargo deck. It stood above them, flanked by dual spinning turret lights. Rachel slapped the yellow button, and the door slowly began to open, but the Troopers were pouring down the corridor behind them.
They slipped past the giant door's teeth as it receded into the wall, and pushed the button on the other side, but the door continued sliding open. Jimmy punched the button again. “It’s going all the way before it will close!”
They took up cover around the giant door frame, hearing only silence from the hallway. Natalie peeked around the corner. “What in the hell?”
Matthew, Rachel, and Jimmy each leaned carefully out of cover to see two dozen Fleet Troopers, all wearing the notorious white circle patch, standing calmly at attention in ranks halfway down the hallway.
The awkward moment lagged on, anchored in reality only by the grind and click of the giant door. Jimmy reached up a slow palm to press the door button, and slowly, methodically the door ground closed.
An audible gasp of relief was exchanged when the door homed shut. Rachel looked around at them. “What in the hell was that about?”
Jimmy shook his head. “There's something about that situation that is not sitting well with me.”
