by Andrew Gates
His peak into the surface world yesterday was too much to ignore. One look was not enough. The shining sea above the water was too tempting. He remembered the flowing crest of sand and the white globs of smoke dotting the empty void above. Baltir swore the ball of light decorating the air was not the Lord Above Both Seas, but Tracey was drawn to it as if it were some divine force. The sun, he said. It represented everything the Atlantic Station didn’t. It was beautiful, bright and free. A glimpse of another world. A glimpse of peace.
With a brother still missing, a teacher at school pissing him off and now proof that Damien’s submarine had been attacked, it was a wonder he had not woken up with another hangover. Things just aren’t going my way. I need to see that light. I need to see it again. For me.
Tracey’s view of the government had not changed since seeing the surface, instead he felt more confused. Baltir’s passiveness towards Ortega’s hold left Tracey with more questions than reassurances. A man like that, manipulated into doing work for the Federation, should have been the first in line to form some sort of resistance. Instead here he was, working for the suits, taking an occasional job on the side, sure, but still a pawn nonetheless. That’s how they get you, Tracey thought as he walked down the empty hall, they act all passive. They see he’s a crossbreed and that I’m AWOL. They find something they can use and hang it over our heads.
It was a smart system. Tracey could not deny that the government was good at what it did, manipulating people into obedience. To the general onlooker, Ortega’s regime came with freedom and choice. To the more trained eye, Ortega’s regime was nothing more than Ortega’s regime. It’s like nobody can see this shit but me.
Tracey had many friends in his past; most he had not seen in a long time, but each of them were pushed away by Tracey’s skepticism. There were only a small few who really understood him: Ophelia, Damien, Baltir and that girl from his childhood. Oh Lord Beyond Both Seas, what was her fucking name? He instinctively placed his hand on his head, as if that would help him remember. Iris, he suddenly recalled. That was her name. She used to call me Trace.
Iris was too young to know Tracey before he truly feared the government, but she genuinely considered him a friend, which was rare even in those days. He remembered the shy girl following him through the halls, eager to do whatever he did, see whatever he saw. He could not remember why Iris ever moved away, but the memory of her made him smile.
Hopefully she was smart enough to stay away from the suits.
As Tracey rounded the corner towards Baltir’s residence, he saw the crossbreed standing in the doorway, fumbling with his keycard. He had bags slung around his arm filled with what looked like probars and cans of beer.
“Going shopping?” Tracey asked as he approached his friend.
Baltir turned, surprised to see him. Once again, Tracey had not informed him that he was coming.
“Well fuck, Tracey. Why do you keep surprising me like this?” he said as he opened the door. There was a strange tone in his voice, almost like he was nervous. “Come on in, I’ve just been to the green zone. Help me put this shit in the fridge.”
Tracey grabbed a bag and helped carry it inside.
“I couldn’t stay away,” Tracey explained. “I had to come back.”
Taking off work again was not a problem. Tracey had taken off two days in a row before. Tedious manual labor was not hard to find, especially in a station which required such constant maintenance. Despite the stink of chemistry, the blaring sounds of machines and the hardly livable rate of pay, people were always willing to cover.
Tracey was nothing more than a glorified supply driver on the production level. He carried chemicals onto his loader day in and day out, fresh from synthesizing. Tracey did not know the first thing about chemistry, but lots of his deliveries went to the Food Production Division (or the FPD). It scared him to see how many shipments came to the FPD from the mad scientists instead of the agricultural sector. Some days he would deliver up to five vats of gassy liquid for every one crate of actual food from the farmers. Those days were rare, but the fact that they happened at all was not a welcoming thought.
Leaving the military to work in the production level was no easy decision. The financial loss was significant, but even worse was the loss of his protection. The best way to be safe from the government is to be one of them, he used to tell himself. But eventually he came to grips with reality. Navy life was not for him. His career was never truly his priority anyway. Ophelia was all he cared about.
“Watch that bag,” Baltir said as Tracey carried the bag inside. “There’s real milk in there. I paid a fucking fortune for that shit.”
“Real milk?” Tracey responded in disbelief. He opened the bag and peered inside. Sure enough was a carton of milk labeled natural organic. Tracey had never tried real milk before.
“You’re telling me this shit came from a cow and everything? Damn, that better be worth it.”
“I need to eat healthier,” Baltir replied as he started putting things away. “I still bought a ton of probars and shit, but it’s a start.”
Milk was a luxury down here in the station, real milk at least. Everyone knew its health benefits were extraordinary, though few had ever tried it. How did Baltir get enough money to afford this? Tracey wanted to know, but decided to hold off for the moment.
“Can I try some?” he asked.
Baltir chuckled as he grabbed the bag from Tracey and brought it over to the counter.
“You just invite yourself over and start trying all my food?”
Tracey felt embarrassed. He did not mean to seem greedy.
“I didn’t mean that… I was just curious,” he tried to explain.
Baltir smiled as he continued to put away his groceries.
“Don’t worry, I’m just fucking with you. Maybe later, but it has to cool first. You can’t just leave it sitting out like you’re making green milk bombs,” he explained.
Why did he have to mention green milk bombs? Just the mention of it made his head hurt.
Baltir remained silent as he put away the last few items of groceries and then turned with two beers in his hands. For some reason, his hands vibrated like he was still nervous about something.
“Beer?” he asked.
Of course I want beer.
“Yeah,” Tracey replied.
“Here, sit down,” Baltir said, opening the beers and motioning to the center of the living area. “What brings you by again?”
Tracey got right to it.
“I want to see it again.”
“See what? The wreckage?” Baltir asked.
“The surface.”
A glimpse of another world. A glimpse of peace.
Baltir sat down and silently took a sip of his beer. He tucked his shivering hands away and stared down at the can in front of him as if lost in his thoughts. Tracey did not know what was making him so nervous, but this news seemed to make it worse.
“Look, we’ve got to be careful looking into this classified shit, man,” he eventually said in a serious tone.
“But don’t you have clearance?” Tracey asked.
Baltir shook his head.
“Not for some of the shit we found last time, no. Look, I’m good at bypassing this stuff. I can move around without being seen, but only if I go in and out. If I’m there too much, someone is going to notice me. That footage we found of the surface, that live feed… that’s restricted, man. I got in by tricking the computer into thinking I was someone else, someone with clearance. Doing that once, maybe they won’t notice anything. But doing that repeatedly is going to be suspicious,” he explained.
Tracey glared at his friend. Baltir was the best there was. Nobody knew computers like he did. He’s got to be bluffing. Nobody can catch him. He’s afraid, afraid of what he might find.
“You got in last time. Just do it again, or trick them into thinking you’re some other person this time. Come on, you had to’ve done this like a thousand tim
es, right?” Tracey asked.
“Not this file. This is some serious shit. I mean, we’re looking at the surface. Look, I was just as impressed as you were when I found that. It’s amazing, like fucking amazing. But I’m worried we can’t just keep doing that. Especially with this attack going on. In the past few days, do you know how much surface research the government’s been doing? Lots of people are looking at this probe data, Parnel included, and despite that wiseass attitude of yours, you don’t want to fuck with her,” Baltir explained.
“I know,” Tracey replied, remembering his AWOL. That bitch can crush me if she wants.
Baltir raised his hands into the air and brought them back down again, as if to suggest he had no further answers.
“Look man, I’ve got my own work to take care of here. As much as I’d like to help, you can’t just show up without telling me and expect my support. I don’t work like that. Nobody does,” Baltir explained.
“What if it’s just this once? Just this one last time. Hell, I’ll take a fucking video of it on my pod. I’ll record the screen so I can look at it again on my own time. Fuck, Baltir, I just want to see it one more time. Just once, that’s all I ask,” Tracey pleaded. He could hardly believe it had come to this. He was practically begging at this point.
Baltir leaned forward in his chair and set the beer aside.
“Are you on drugs?” he asked.
Tracey shook his head, no. That was the truth. Today, at least.
“No drugs.” Do I look like I’m on drugs?
“It’s just, you seem like you really want to see this video again. I’m a bit confused, I guess,” Baltir explained.
Tracey paused for a moment to collect himself.
“This thing… this video is my drug. Think of it that way. With everything going on, the attack, Damien, Dr. Parnel, even this teacher at school, I just… I just need to see that the world isn’t so full of shit,” he responded. Baltir seemed engaged in what he was saying, almost sympathetic. Keep it up, it’s working, Tracey thought to himself. “It makes me happy, you know? It’s like when I look at Ophelia. I love her and I want the best but I know she’s going to grow up in this shitty world we live in. But out there, I know it’s possible. It’s possible for a better future. It just… it gives me hope.”
“On the surface?” Baltir asked.
Tracey nodded.
“You know we’ll never live there,” he said.
“You never know. Maybe you’re wrong,” Tracey answered, knowing full well that Baltir was right.
Baltir sat quiet and motionless for nearly 30 seconds until he picked up his beer again and took another sip. This time it was Tracey who chuckled.
“Just give me one more look,” he insisted. “That’s it.”
Baltir took a deep sigh, clearly not wanting to argue much longer. After a few more seconds of silence, he calmly nodded his head and stood up from his chair.
“Fuck it, okay, one more look. But it’s the last time I do this for you. Take a video on your pod and save it so I don’t have to show you this footage again, okay?”
Tracey smiled and stood up too. Holy shit, I didn’t think he’d go for it.
He felt like an eager child again. He felt as if he were floating, breaking through the darkness of the station until he could no longer see anything but a world of white around him.
Tracey followed his friend to the back room. Once again, Tracey had to shield his eyes as Baltir’s room came alive with light.
“Take a seat,” he said to Tracey in a more commanding tone than normal. Tracey simply did as he was told and remained quiet as Baltir started tapping away on the monitors.
The anticipation was unbearable. Tracey was so close, he knew it. I’m almost there. I’m almost above the sea, away from this world. Tapping, tapping and more tapping. Did it take this long last time? Baltir seemed to be taking forever, sliding his finger across the screen, tapping icons and typing in code. But Tracey tried to act calm. He was in no position to complain.
“Do you have your pod camera ready?” Baltir eventually asked.
Tracey had completely forgotten about his plan to take a video of the video. He scrambled to find his personal pod hiding somewhere in his pants pocket. By the time he found it and selected the camera feature, Baltir had stopped tapping icons on the screen.
Suddenly the image lit up in front of him as it did before. The bright ball of white light shone in the far distance, but this time on a different area of the screen. It was so magnificent, so divine. Without even realizing it, Tracey felt his pod drop to the floor. He quickly picked it back up and began recording the video on Baltir’s monitor with the pod’s camera feature. So I can save it for later.
This is where Tracey truly wanted to be. It looked so empty, so peaceful. There were no rules up here on the surface, no danger, no lies. No attack. This was where he belonged, not down in a cold artificial underwater city. The Atlantic Station meant imprisonment but the surface meant liberation.
“Look at it,” he said as he recorded. “Look at the light. Look how the rays spread through the void. It’s so bright.”
Baltir simply nodded.
“It’s beautiful,” he agreed, though his tone did not seem to say the same.
Tracey studied the video more carefully. There were fewer globs of white smoke now than there were before, and the sea above the water seemed somehow brighter and fuller of life. The sloping hill of dry earth also seemed somehow different. Its general slope was the same, but the grains seemed somehow displaced in certain parts, as if something had impacted it in various points, dotting the beach in what looked like some sort of pattern.
“What is that?” Tracey asked. He pointed to the screen.
“The Earth. That’s the surface itself,” Baltir explained.
“No, no, what is that? The pattern in the sand there, you see that?” Tracey tried to point more specifically at the image this time. Baltir leaned in, studying it more carefully.
The small impacts seemed to flow from left to right across the screen in four parallel rows. Each impact was roughly the same distance apart from the one before it. This pattern seemed very familiar. Tracey tried to think of where he had seen it before.
“Oh shit, I see it now,” Baltir finally said. For the first time today, he seemed genuinely excited.
“What could that be?” Tracey asked. This had definitely not been there before. The surface had been smooth last time. Like the skin of a woman, Tracey remembered.
“That pattern, it’s… it’s almost like footsteps,” he said as he studied the image.
That’s where I’ve seen it before! The old playgrounds used to bring in sand from the bottom of the ocean. Tracey remembered walking through the sand as a boy, pressing his boots into the dirt. Those were the good old days.
“Footsteps,” Tracey repeated. “But who?
Baltir turned away from the monitor and lowered Tracey’s hand holding the pod. Tracey caught on and turned the camera off.
“Nobody,” Baltir replied. “It’s impossible.”
“But clearly, it is,” Tracey shot back, placing the pod on the table. “Look, there are four parallel lines there, so that means two sets of footprints. Clearly two people, two humans, must have been walking here.”
“Tracey, the atmosphere is unlivable. That’s the whole reason we’re down here. Not to mention, how would anyone even get up there? Nobody’s built a sub that can reach that height since the Descent. The technology isn’t there. And if it was, you think the Federation would just let someone go up there?”
Tracey stood up.
“How do you know the atmosphere is unlivable?” he asked.
“Because that’s why we’re here in the first place. Look, don’t you think-”
“But how do you know? Check the probe. There’s got to be some sort of sensors on it. Something to read gas, pressure levels, radiation, shit like that!”
Baltir turned back to the monitor again and tapped
a few icons.
“Doesn’t look like it,” he eventually said. “It’s got a few sensors but nothing that can help. It’s mostly just a camera. When the military sent this up, they didn’t know about any danger. I think they just wanted to get pictures.”
“But clearly someone is up there.”
Baltir was silent for a few moments, then turned back towards Tracey.
“It does look like feet,” he agreed quietly. “Human feet too.”
“Of course it’s human. Fish don’t have feet,” Tracey responded.
Baltir laughed again. So he still can laugh.
“There are more animals than just humans and fish, you know. The surface used to be full of animals. But I don’t know what could have survived the effects of all those bombs. I also don’t know what could have footprints like these. They look so much like a person’s,” he said.
Tracey’s thoughts began to turn towards his brother. What if Damien is alive? Two sets of footprints. Two people. Damien and the captain both made it out. The probe would have washed up on the same part of the shore as two bodies. It was a long shot, but it was possible.
“What are you thinking?” Tracey asked.
“I still don’t think it could be anyone from the station,” Baltir answered, “but it’s definitely prints and it looks human to me. That said, I’m no fucking expert on surface biology so what the hell do I really know about any of this?”
More than I do, that’s for sure.
“What should we do?”
“Well that’s easy. We tell no one. We’re not even supposed to be here. This stays with us. Don’t tell anyone about what you saw here and don’t you show that video you took to anyone. Not even your kid. This is serious, very serious,” explained the self-proclaimed non-expert on this type of thing.
“But it could be people. You said it yourself!”
Baltir turned and met Tracey’s eyes. Never had he looked so stern in his life. His eyes pierced like bullets from a gun.
“We tell no one. We need to cover our asses. We can’t afford to get caught.”
