A Crack in the Sky

by Mark Peter Hughes

  Eli felt his courage return. Whoever this poor creature was, he was too old and frail to be dangerous. “What are you doing here, Outsider?”

  “Waiting for you,” he said, his voice as raspy and dry as the desert, “the errant Papadopoulos, the grandchild who called out for the truth. I wanted to meet for myself the boy who would risk climbing the sky just to find out what nobody else would tell him.”

  Eli stared. He had only just finished climbing the sky. How could this old man have known what Eli would do before it even happened?

  “No,” he said. “I meant, how did you make it past the perimeter Guardians?”

  “There are ways. Hidden paths. If you know where to look.”

  Eli couldn’t help shivering. He’d been in here only a short while and already he was cold. He glanced around at the jumble of boxes and equipment again. “What is this place?”

  “This is a sky chamber, one of several hidden in the inner crust of the dome.” His respirator hissed. “Some are for sky control, some for storing test equipment. This one holds refurbished dome parts.” He gestured at the space on the floor beside him. “Sit.”

  Eli took a step forward.

  Don’t, Eli! I don’t trust him.

  Marilyn had kept so still under his cloak that he’d almost forgotten she was there. But Eli didn’t need the warning. This was only the second Outsider he’d ever spoken with, and he was already wary. He squatted to get a better look at the decrepit old man, but he wasn’t about to sit next to him.

  “So,” he said, “do you believe the same crazy stuff the kid on the Bubble does? About how the world is about to come to an end and all that?”

  The Outsider smiled, revealing two uneven rows of jagged yellow teeth. “Tell me, in your InfiniCorp training, have you learned much about the rapid rise of carbon levels in the planet’s atmosphere? Have they shown you charts or graphs or anything that demonstrates its alarming rate of increase over the past few decades?”

  Eli considered but shook his head.

  “Then let me be the one to enlighten you.” The old man paused while his respirator expanded again. “The point of no return for Earth is about four hundred and fifty carbon-equivalent units per million. Do you have any idea what that number is at the present time, Eli Papadopoulos, as you and I sit here in air-conditioned comfort?” He bent forward so that his nose was uncomfortably close to Eli’s. “Nine hundred and eighty.”

  Eli rose and took a step back. This Outsider was giving him the creeps.

  “There’s something very wrong out there,” he continued. “Long after the passing of the Great Sickness, it’s still gathering strength. For now, the machine that runs your life keeps your attention elsewhere, but just beyond your vision lies an ever-expanding wasteland of desert and death. Eli, the end of the world as we’ve known it has already happened, you just haven’t realized it yet. You’re like an oyster in a steaming pot, blissfully unaware that you’re being cooked alive.”

  Eli studied him. “If it’s already over, then why are you here? What do you and the other Foggers hope to gain by coming into the domes?”

  The old man’s lip curled. He pointed a gnarled finger at Eli. “If your house was on fire and your family were asleep inside,” he shouted, “would you do nothing?”

  Eli took another step backward. Coming here had been a mistake. He spun around and dashed to the door. It wouldn’t budge.

  “It’s locked!” When he turned to look back again, the bent figure was standing. His nose stuck out from between the two curtains of dirty gray hair that framed his face. Eli felt his blood rush. “You did this!” he shouted. “You can’t keep me here—my family will never let you get away with it! Unlock the door!”

  The Outsider’s voice was calm. “I didn’t lock it. If it won’t open, it means the sky must be rebooting.”

  “Rebooting? What does that have to do with anything?” Eli grabbed the knob again and started yanking with all his might, but it wouldn’t move. “Let me out! Let me out!”

  “Listen to me, Eli. When the system resets, the dome is at its most vulnerable. It’s standard procedure for the company to secure all the sky chambers during any reboot. In a few minutes they should be released automatically, but in the meantime both of us are locked in here.”

  Eli slammed his fist against the door. “Why should I believe you? How would you know how the domes work?”

  “Because,” he answered, “I designed them.”

  Eli felt Marilyn scrambling under his cloak. Enough lies! I’ll make him open the door! She burst into the air, baring her teeth. In an instant she bounded across the tops of the crates and flew at the old man. He held up his gloved hand, so she sank her teeth into his forearm. But the Outsider didn’t even flinch. While Marilyn dangled from his arm, hissing and scratching, he calmly reached with his free hand and dislodged her as if he didn’t feel a thing.

  Marilyn’s whole body went rigid. Eli watched the grizzled figure lift her by the scruff of the neck, dangle her, helpless, in the air, and then gaze into her face with what looked like a strange mixture of amusement and reverence.

  “There you are, little altered creature, cheated queen of the wild. I was wondering when you’d come out of your hiding place and say hello.”

  Panicked, Eli charged across the room. “Don’t you dare hurt her! Leave her alone, filthy desert snake!”

  Before he was even halfway to Marilyn, though, the Outsider had already lowered her gently to the floor and let her go. The instant she was free, she dashed at Eli and leapt into his arms. He pulled her close. Are you all right?

  Her orange eyes were wide with surprise and fear. I think so … There’s something wrong with his arm. It’s—it’s not alive!

  Eli looked her over. She appeared dazed but okay. He glared across the room again. “What just happened? She tells me your arm isn’t alive.”

  “Does she, now?” He raised his glove and gazed at it. “Well, she’s right. I lost my original years ago. This one is a prosthesis, a mere substitute.” He flexed the fingers and tapped his forearm. Where Marilyn’s teeth had torn through the leather, Eli could now see shiny blue plastic. It looked like the same material sometimes used for droid casings.

  The Outsider’s left arm was robotic.

  “I assure you I mean Marilyn no harm,” he said, his respirator still expanding and contracting on his back. “After all, I believe that before this is all over, she’ll have an important role to play.”

  “How do you know her name?” Eli demanded. “And what do you mean, she has a role to play? How could you possibly know what’s going to happen?”

  “Know?” He shook his head. “I don’t know anything. What’s yet to come isn’t fixed like the scenes of a play, waiting only to be acted out onstage. The future is misty and forever shifting with the changing tides of the present. What little I have foreseen came to me only as a possibility in a vision—as fixed as the wind, as substantial as a cloud.”

  “You saw Marilyn in a dream?”

  Marilyn climbed onto Eli’s shoulder. Can there be any doubt his brain is fevered?

  For a moment the old man didn’t respond. He seemed to recognize the incredulous tone in Eli’s voice, because finally he said, “I’ve lived in the wasteland a long time. The desert has a way of enhancing one’s perceptions. It expands the senses and sharpens the mind.”

  Eli grunted. “Some would say it twists the mind.”

  The Outsider smiled almost imperceptibly. “As you wish.”

  Eli noticed something on the floor near the old man’s feet. It was the Alice book. In all the confusion it must have slipped out of his pocket. The Outsider saw it too. He reached down and picked it up.

  “What have we here?”

  “Give that back!” Eli demanded. “It’s mine!”

  “Is it, indeed? Then you might want to be more careful with it. They aren’t making any more of these, you know.” He examined the cover. “So, tell me, what do you think of Lewis
Carroll?”

  Eli only glared.

  “Since I was a boy, I’ve been captivated by Alice’s story. The genius is in the author’s inventiveness with logic and facility with the absurd. You can read it again and again and each time find something new and intriguing.” He ran his finger tenderly along the binding, and as he did so a realization dawned on Eli.

  “The Outsider I saw under the streets,” he said. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  Eli studied him with renewed curiosity. How could such a decrepit old desert rat make his way so easily in and out of the dome’s support systems? The ragged figure took a step toward him. He narrowed his eyes at Eli and recited:

  “‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,

  ‘To talk of many things:

  Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—

  Of cabbages—and kings—

  And why the sea is boiling hot—

  And whether pigs have wings.’”

  As he spoke, he inched forward. Now he was so close that Eli could make out the individual wrinkles on his scarred face. If there was ever any question whether he was crazy, this speech should have been Eli’s proof. Yet there was something in his eyes that kept him from backing away.

  “The world is overheated,” the old man said, handing the book back to him. “The polar ice caps have long since melted away. The oceans have risen and acidified. All over the planet, entire ecosystems have already collapsed: animals, plants, fish, birds—countless species, gone forever. Many others are greatly reduced in number and barely surviving, whether through adaptation or migration in search of cooler temperatures. And people are no exception. Pestilence and dwindling resources have already reduced our numbers too and continue to cut the average human life span shorter. There used to be a lot more old people, but sickness and hardship take most of us earlier than they once did. It’s evolution on steroids, survival of the fittest. In or outside the domes, those without youth, strength, and cunning rarely last long in this harsh new landscape. Those few of us old-timers who survive do so only with the aid of exceptional resourcefulness and extraordinary luck—not to mention special technology.” He gestured toward his respirator. “I don’t say this to frighten you, Eli. It’s just the new reality. Human life as we’ve known it is drawing to a rapid close. And, despite what you’ve been told, it’s still heating up out there. The old world is gone, and only the insects rejoice. Bugs are the only winners in the Great Warming.”

  Eli hesitated to speak. He didn’t really believe what he was hearing, but he wasn’t sure either. “Even if what you say is true, we must be able to reverse it somehow. There has to be something we can do.”

  The Outsider shook his head. “It’s too late for that. We’re at the end of a process many years in the making, triggered back when the massive overuse of oil, coal, and natural gas for energy first began to trap the sun’s heat in the atmosphere. Mankind has been preparing the groundwork for its own undoing for a long time.”

  “And nobody knew?”

  “Oh, many knew. Scientists across the globe were long ago in agreement about what was happening and spent years raising the alarm. Unfortunately those with the ability to do something about it on a large scale simply chose not to.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Eli said. “Why would anyone choose not to?”

  The old man shrugged. “All the power in too few hands. Few incentives for those at the top to act against their own short-term interests. It was easier to deny the evidence in favor of assuming it was mere science fiction, a case of Henny Penny calling out that the sky was falling. Believing meant making changes. Why risk ruining a good thing when there was wealth and power to cling to? And make no mistake, Eli, those at the top wielded mighty power indeed. They held even the ability to convince massive numbers of people that the science itself was simply wrong. And it’s no surprise they were able to persuade the general public of this. Everyday people wanted the science to be wrong. Who could blame them? Who wants to believe that worldwide calamity is just around the corner?”

  He took another drag through his respirator. Eli could sense that even Marilyn was waiting anxiously for him to continue.

  “But soon the impact of accelerating climate change grew too obvious to explain away. Rapid disintegration of glaciers, diminishing shorelines, parched farmland. Increasingly violent weather brought frequent tornadoes and record flooding to major cities all over the world. Island nations started to disappear under water. Diseases like malaria were spreading. Even the timing of the seasons had changed. Soon the evidence of a heating planet became so undeniable that the company had to find another way to conceal the truth. So they came up with a new strategy: the domes.”

  “Wait,” said Eli. “So you’re saying the company leadership—my family—knows all this stuff but is hiding it? That’s outrageous! If it weren’t for Grandfather, we’d all be dead!”

  The old man nodded. “That’s true.”

  “So how can you accuse my family of wanting to deceive everyone? It’s ridiculous!”

  “Is it?” The Outsider’s eyebrow was raised, but then his voice went softer. “For what it’s worth, your family elders weren’t the only ones who inadvertently helped along the warming process—the same process that triggered the Great Sickness in the first place, before your Grandfather’s leadership and luck prevented it from wiping us out of existence. In some ways the Papadopouloses were no worse than anyone else in earlier days who stood by and didn’t act. But the fact is, from its first years running the country, InfiniCorp fanned the flames of an irresponsible and unsustainable lifestyle. Eventually the damage to the earth’s ability to cool itself became irreversible. Mother Nature’s vengeance was like an oncoming steamroller nobody could stop. In time the senior leadership of InfiniCorp came to recognize the world’s fate. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, Eli, but they understood long ago that the end is coming.”

  “No, that’s a lie!”

  “In some ways, building the domes was an act of mercy. It provided a way to fend off despair, to prolong the old, comforting ways and delay facing reality for a few decades. And why not? Management had the power to pull it off, and they saw no better alternative. By isolating the employees in cocoons of illusion, they can at least keep their consumer base for a while, the powerful can stay in control, and the money and good times can keep rolling—until the resources at last run dry or the storms knock the domes out of commission. Either way, they’ve always known it’s only a matter of time before the party comes to its inevitable, blistering end.”

  “You’re wrong!” Eli shouted. “Your brain is fried! My family cares about the employees!”

  “Eli,” he said, his voice steady and calm, “Grandfather is scared. Your aunts and uncles and parents too. They know what’s coming. The company is already losing control. In your heart you know what I’m saying is true.”

  “How would you know any of this? You don’t have any idea what my family was thinking. Why would a Fogger like you know anything about the inner workings of the company?”

  “Because,” he said, “I was there. Long ago I was part of it, a senior leader at the very elbow of your grandfather. Oh yes, we were quite close. Childhood friends, in fact. Almost like brothers. You find this hard to believe? Well, I can’t say I blame you. These days you’d be hard-pressed to find evidence. Any record of me or my service has long since been wiped from the archives.”

  Eli’s head was spinning. On his shoulder Marilyn was getting even more agitated. He felt her claws digging into him.

  Try the door again, Eli. If he was right about the reboot, maybe it’s over by now and we can get out of here.

  Eli started backing away again. What he was hearing couldn’t be true, and yet he remembered what Grandfather had hinted at, that there really might be cases in which the company felt that hiding the truth was in the best interest of the people. But surely not with something so gigantic as this—the en
d of the world! Besides, he’d also said the earth was cooling, not warming, and Grandfather would never lie to him. Eli made a decision. He was going to find out the truth, no matter what it was. The moment he got back home, he would ping Grandfather. He wasn’t supposed to interrupt him at work but he felt sure Grandfather would take his transmit. And then Eli would tell him everything, no matter the consequences. Grandfather would clear it all up. In the meantime Eli wasn’t about to accept what some brain-addled Outsider said about his family.

  He refused to believe it.

  “I made a mistake coming here,” he said, still backing off. “Now I want you to keep away from me. I don’t want to hear from you people ever again.”

  “You can deny us, but not forever. It won’t be long before you’ll be with us once and for all.”

  At the door now, Eli grabbed the handle and pulled. This time it opened without undue effort. A sudden gust of warm air blew into the room, bringing some relief from the frigid air. Eli and Marilyn gazed out at the dome ceiling. The bright, swirling light they’d climbed through only minutes earlier was gone. Now there was only the glow of the digital moon and a sky full of beautiful stars. The dome was in nighttime mode. Whatever the issues were, InfiniCorp had finally taken care of them.

  Marilyn chirped with relief as Eli ducked through the door and onto the ledge. Just when he started toward the ladder, though, something seized his wrist. It was cold and hard, and it held tight. He spun around.

  “Join us!” the old man hissed. “Help us defy the authority whose negligence helped send all humanity down the path to extinction!”

  Eli tried to struggle but the robotic grip was too strong. “If you’re asking me to work against my own family, to be your mole inside the organization, I won’t do it! Never! If you really could see the future, you would already know that! I’m a Papadopoulos!”