by Nolan Oreno
Saul turned to the small man at his side who was still wheezing from the day's physical exertion. “And do you know what happened next?" Saul challenged him.
The small man shook his head side to side.
“God stopped them. He saw that there was strength in their unity, and He divided them by confusing their speech so that they weren't able to speak to one another. He saw that their harmony made them too holy and too evolved for their time. Their species came too close to divinity and so He made them animals again. He made each one different from the next so that they would find chaos in these differences. So that they would find war and hatred and racism and prejudice. He separated the people of Babel and soon enough they became us because God knew that if they were anything like us they would never have the power to reach perfection again. After that, the Tower was destroyed and forgotten, and God was left alone just as he wanted, while we were left down here at war with ourselves, waiting for the next Great Flood to wipe us out so that we might become united again."
The small man looked confused at the relevance of the story. "So, what does that mean we should do?" he asked.
Saul smirked and looked back at the tower for one last time, finding peace in its brokenness. "I think lately God's been telling us to stay down here where we belong," he said, and pulled the phone from the small man’s hand, held it to his ear, and spoke loudly. “Let it fall," he said, and so it did.
Many years later and many worlds away, Saul whispered the same words to himself as he observed his other unfinished tower from the helm of the Crawler he was in. It was only a matter of days before it would collapse onto itself, so he would need to hurry to get what he came for and get out. He unstrapped himself from the vehicle’s seat, shook his helmet to be certain it was secured over his head and the oxygen was flowing, and stepped out of the rover and into the desert. He looked around, spinning in circles, and took in all the other half-built buildings in the construction site. The Refugee Settlement did not look new, as it was, but rather ancient, like the decaying temples of a Martian civilization long since extinct. Saul faced the particularly broken tower at the end of the rotation and moved against the harsh winds towards it, fading into the mammoth shadow of the tall rickety structure. He slipped into the buildings wide entrance and out of the coming storm in urgency.
The inside was nothing like the outside, as it normally is with most things, and the building’s relatively polished furnishing contrasted with the weathered exterior. The grand apartment lobby was washed with appealing ocean blue and tan decor which was the favorite color scheme of Saul, who had designed it. Above the glass flooring, a large crystal chandelier swayed slightly with the creaking walls, and a triple set of elevators were stationed at both sides of the oblique front-desk in its center. Saul imagined there being other survivors from Earth with him in the apartment tower. He imagined the lobby being packed with families and friends and all of them praising him for his beautiful work. But there was nobody in there but him. A creator alone with his creation.
Nearly at the elevators, Saul listened to the skeleton of the tower groan with each passing gust and thought it best to take the stairs instead. Up he went, passing the shadow infested floors. He flicked on the industrial flashlight that he brought with him to navigate the dark stairwell, and continued his climb, stumbling against the might of the storm beyond the tower walls that rocked it. He turned off the light when he reached the only illuminated level in the building: Floor Nineteen.
Finally, he had made it, but the tiresome climb had Saul fighting for a breath from his oxygen tank. For a moment, he considered taking the elevator on his way back down, but this thought quickly dissipated when a strong tremor rippled through the building. Saul caught himself on a handrail to stop himself from stumbling back down the way he came. Before anything more could happen, he briskly maneuvered out of the stairwell and down the long white corridor. He did not stop until he reached the door number 19-10. He wiped away fear from his face and tapped strongly on the door with his gloved fists. He waited for someone to answer. A minute went by and still nothing. Saul tapped again, stronger this time, and the door glided to the side. Saul stepped inside the closet-size space and waited.
Decompressing. Please remain stationary.
A moment after a green light illuminated beside him, Saul lifted off his humid helmet, stepping into the room, and he breathed the putrid air in short sips. The last door opened seamlessly before him.
“You don’t need- you don’t need to be that loud with it. All that banging," spit a drunk man into Saul’s face on the other side. The hefty man’s suit insignia of a syringe was flashing red.
Saul wiped the man's alcoholic spit from the corners of his mouth. “Move aside, Novak. I’m here to collect my tax and be on my way."
Saul pushed between the doorframe and Doctor Novak and into the spacious apartment which was flooded with the music of the 1950’s. The apartment, as with all the others in the tower, was designed to hold four families at one time, with two large kitchens and four bedrooms branching off the comfortably-sized shared living space. Saul made his move to the closest of the kitchens on his left without a second's thought.
“Tax?" Novak coughed. “You didn’t say anything about a tax before. That wasn’t the- and listen, I think I need to inform that the building has been moving these last few days. It goes back and forth and back and forth, like this. Should I be concerned? Do I need to go back to the Hub?" Novak huffed while proceeding to stumble over his own feet keeping up with Saul.
Saul reached the oversized refrigerator. “It’s shaking because your drunk, Novak. You’ll be perfectly safe in here. The structure is sound. You’re not going back to the Hub anytime soon, you know that. Not yet," he enforced.
Saul opened the door to the refrigerator and looked over the countless bottles of booze inside. “Do you have a bag?" Saul asked innocently while reading the label of every bottle. “Something large. Something sturdy."
Novak stumbled to a cabinet, pulled out an armored duffel bag, and handed it over, but not without further questioning. “What tax- what are you speaking about? What are you-” Novak slurred.
Saul selected ten bottles of wine from the toxic hoard which barely made a dent in Novak’s overall supply. He stacked the bottles onto each other in the bag and hoped the glass would hold as he made his descent.
“I’m talking about our deal, Novak. The one we made a few weeks ago. I gave you the keys to my kingdom, and I gave you all the alcohol on the planet. I made you the richest man on Mars. All I ask from you in return is to keep your mouth shut and do as I say and look what you’re doing right now. You’re asking questions," Saul said.
The duffel bag was overflowing with bottles and it was heavy on Saul’s back.
“But, I have kept mouth shut about what I saw-" Novak protested.
“Not another word!" Saul shouted.
Novak stopped and his attention diverted to the bag.
“But I need all the alcohol," he said in defeat.
“Surely you can spare some of the abundant treasure I helped you get, considering the occasion," Saul said as he made for the exit, ignoring the doctor as he dizzily tried to grab for the bag.
Novak pondered for a minute, but in his drunken mind, he came to no conclusion. “What is the occasion?" he asked hopefully.
Saul turned around just before he left through the doorway. His helmet was now secured over his smile. “A baby is coming," he said excitedly and disappeared from the room before another question was asked.
The door closed and the Doctor was left alone in his castle once again. After a moment's hesitation on the blurry series of events that had just transpired, Novak leaped back to the refrigerator to recount his precious supply. He counted the bottles once, and then twice, and as many times as he could. Was there enough to last him? Would he run out? Could he still die a drunk and happy old man? Novak continued to count his bottles even as tremors rippled back through the tower
. He gave no notice to the unsafe world around him.
Outside in the crawler, Saul watched the tower from a safe distance. Soon, it would fall. Any day now. With its destruction would come the end of his worries. The loud-mouthed doctor would finally be silenced, and only then could he carry on with his future. His kingdom of twelve towers could be rebuilt, reinforced, and reimagined as a place they could live and grow as a colony. As a family. For this, Saul would have the wine poured, especially considering the most recent news: a child was coming to Mars. That was something to celebrate. He did not need the weak and fool of a doctor to see the baby into the world. No, it would be his own hands that would guide the child into the light.
After all, it was his.
As the Saul directed the Crawler back towards the Hub, he thought about the Tower of Babel and how its story was meant as a warning to humanity. He had a different perspective of its message now after watching the destruction of one of his own creations. God was not a destroyer of worlds, as it may have seemed by the tales end, but far more than that. He was an architect. He shaped and built and made things stronger. He refined and defined. And sometimes, as an architect, one must first destroy his own work so that something better can be built on top of the rubble. First, taken by gravity, and then, rising like a phoenix from the ashes, a better world will come.
Part Ten: Winter Solstice
Mars was alive again. The people laughed, cheered, sang, and filled the Hub with unheard sounds. They danced in the rooms, drank in the hallways, and kissed beneath the stairs. They remembered the beauty of the past, they saw it in the present, and for few brief seconds, they thought it could be in the future too. Their bodies ran warm and their hearts beat fast, and skin touched skin in low-lit chambers. Joy rustled through them like the wind through branches, and it was all so intoxicating. The ecstasy of life had returned, and the people did not know if it was the wine or the coming child that provoked its revival. They did not care.
The mess hall was the center of the celebration. Saul Lind had spent days decorating and dressing the large space into a temporary ballroom for the event. Colorful cloths draped from the high ceiling and tables were moved aside to open the floor for the nineteen guests to dance amongst themselves. Hors d’oeuvres and wine and gifts flooded the tabletops while music masked the sounds of the sand storm that raged above them in the outside. The music also did well loosening the limbs of the guests as if they had just recently risen from their graves and were using them for the first time. Although, what captured most of the attention was not the music or the spectacular decorations, but a large set of numbers projected on one of the far walls. The numbers dropped in value with each passing second. Ticking away.
39:42. 39:41. 39:40. 39:39.
Those that danced glanced at these numbers every few minutes, thinking deep about the amount left, and returned their heads into the crook of the neck of their partners. They did not enjoy seeing the numbers grow so low. Some chose to forget the numbers altogether for they dared not to drag their thoughts away from the dance floor because they knew that such joy was a rare thing on Mars. They worried that it would all be over too soon once the numbers reached their end. Ignoring the clock at their backs, they continued to dance to the swelling music, twirling like angels in clouds who refused to return to the ground again. They wanted it to last forever.
27:12. 27:11. 27:10.
Off in the corners of the ballroom were those that moved less but talked more. They too felt the surge of the wine but expressed it differently. They tried not to connect through the body, like the dancers, but through the mind. Their spoken words were deeply soaked with emotion and inspired fruitful conversations between groups and pairs that extended beyond the topics of the trivial and the meaningless. They spoke in a poetic language that often used the words hope and love and future. Their eyes would depart from the pupil of their partner only to check the numbers on the wall in order to come to terms with their updated status.
20:01. 20:00. 19:59.
Hollis Reyes was neither dancing or talking; he only watched. Like a wallflower, he looked on as Saul and Autumn spun in circles on the dance floor. When they disappeared behind the other dancing bodies Hollis’ heart paused, but to his relief, the pair would always return back into view, and so his heart would start again. The two moved with grace and perfection, each step matched and replicated as if they were tied together by some unseen bond. One body and one mind.
Pressed between the bodies of the two dancers was a child. Hollis’ child. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs for them to stop, but he knew they would not hear him over the sound of the music. But why try? What use was there for Hollis to fight for something that was no longer his, because, after all, the child was now Saul’s. Autumn had said it herself. She told Saul a lie for fear of being found out: the child was his, and the only reason she kept her pregnancy a secret all this time was to reduce his worries so that he could better lead the people. She told him it was only a few days after Earth’s blackout that she found out and she was scared and weak and did not know any better. She told him what he wanted to hear, terrified to tell any ounce of truth. She told him she loved him and only him, and he believed every word of it.
Hollis twisted the stem of the wine glass between his fingers and the dark liquid spiraled inside. He touched the rim of the glass to his sun-cracked lips and let the red river trickle down his throat and into the bowels of his body. His insides felt warm for a moment, and then the warmth settled and he felt nothing but anger.
17:33. 17:32. 17:31.
If Autumn chose Saul as the father then so be it, Hollis concluded, refilling his glass to the brim. He did not need her anyway. She had been nothing more than a problem for him during his past years on Earth and Mars. Her presence in his life brought only disharmony to himself and his family, and like a parasite, she sucked everything in his life dry. She was a psychological terrorist, taking to ruin every ounce of purpose he had left, and it all began that night in Paris when they first kissed and entered into the same bed. Autumn was destined to destroy him and always had been, no matter what the Computer tried to tell him otherwise. She was his own personal poison. Hollis’ love for her was his greatest sin and now he could do nothing more than accept this.
He would not make the same mistake again. Only redemption laid ahead for Hollis Reyes, and he could only get there without her. However, as the Computer so often claimed, the protection of the child was the only way for Hollis to truly bring about the world he dreamed of. The machine made it clear it was paramount that he alone was the child’s guardian and no one else. How then could he protect the child if Saul was handed the torch by the mother herself? Autumn took the last of his hope with this final betrayal, and Hollis began to fear that he would lose his second child just as he did his first.
“It’s the wine," came a reassuring voice. “Trust me."
Hollis followed the sound to his right and saw an old friend approaching.
“The wine?" Hollis responded, looking down at the bubbling crimson ocean in his glass.
Asnee stood beside Hollis, and they turned to face the dancers.
“Yes, the wine. It’s what made them leave their rooms, dance, and love each other again. It brought back feelings that were hidden far away for the longest time and now they're finally realizing them. Just look into any one of their eyes and you can see how they’re awake. They only needed these things to be brought out. The wine does this well." Asnee smiled and continued. "I believe you said something similar to this in that epic speech you made a few weeks ago. Something about how we all needed to wake up."
Hollis smiled to him. “Maybe waking up wasn’t such a great idea."
“No, for once, I think you were onto something," Asnee smirked whimsically. “There’s an old saying that in wine there is truth, and I believe it. You can look out at all of them and see it. You were right about them. They still have that spark that made them special, they only needed to re
alize it for themselves."
Hollis turned the wine in his glass and laughed nervously. “So where’s your wine, Asnee? Aren’t you feeling truthful tonight? Don’t you want to embrace those long lost feelings? Don’t you want to wake up?"
Asnee turned to face Hollis, and Hollis saw the new light in his eyes. “Well, truthfully, Janya never liked it when I drank. As it turned out, I would get pretty reckless and end up making more enemies than friends by the end of the night," he laughed. “I like having friends."
“Well, what does that say about you?" Hollis remarked, taking another sip. “I thought in wine there was truth.”
“I suppose then my truth is that I’m good at making a fool of myself."
“Then Janya was a smart woman in suggesting you lay off the wine," Hollis chuckled and raised his glass. “Cheers, to Janya, and to making fools of ourselves."
Asnee raised his invisible glass with Hollis. "To Janya," he said and took a sip of air as Hollis took a sip of wine.
