Neon Zero_The Neon Series Prequel Read online

  Neon

  Zero

  By

  Adam J Smith

  The Neon Series Prequel Novella

  Copyright © 2019 Adam J Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the author.

  Journal of Lance Corporal Edmonds

  38th February (ext), 2234

  Hard to believe that after everything we’ve done – everything we’ve achieved – our fate remains the same as Earth’s. We escaped their burning pyres only to see the touch-paper lit here. It’s already begun. Today, 2nd Lieutenant Baines and I commandeered a Grounder and made our way over to Neon. Maintenance crews haven’t been out for weeks, and it showed. The road was cracked where the heat had melted it and then the frost of night had frozen it; all sorts of shapes snapping up when the Grounder’s over-sized tires rolled over them. As always with the Grounder, the ride was smooth – I wish I could say the same for Baines. He’s losing it or lost it. His mojo, that is. His – how would he put it? – incorrigible charm. What comes around, comes around – to bite you on the ass, he said a few days ago. Ever since the news broke he’s been a hollow shell. I guess everyone takes it different. Some run around in blind panic and there’s no snapping them out of it besides SNAPPING them out of it. Others need an arm and some guidance and to be told where to go, where to stand, where to eat, when to shit. Some, like Baines, put up such a tall barrier to block out the sun they spend the whole day standing in shadow, going about their lives as though navigating their apartment in darkness.

  Then there are those like me, I suppose. Turning the lights on in each room. Making sure to switch them off again when they leave.

  We’re here, in Neon, right now, waiting for the latest storm to subside. Hoping the next isn’t THE ONE.

  We got about two-thirds the way to Neon and took a small detour to Alpha Five. There were children playing outside the dome – CHILDREN – and they raced up to us as we pulled up. Their faces were red and wide with smiles and I could tell straight away that they had no idea what was going on. Which was fine, I thought. I wasn’t in charge here. It wasn’t my call. And hell, what did it matter if the children could be kept in the dark for as long as possible.

  The problem there of course was Captain Selani Birdie. Birdie of 8th regiment, before it disbanded. She’s never quite been able to let go of that feeling of power. I always used to think she meant well, but earlier today she remained even more stubborn than I remembered her. Falling rocks couldn’t have moved her. Well falling rocks – or their metaphorical equivalent – had to.

  She came out to greet us. “Hi,” she said, and surprised me by the strength in her handshake. The children fled like cattle. Baines stood back – he was probably smoking in the shade of the Grounder – in fact now that I recall, yes, I could smell the smoke. I remember thinking how soon he wouldn’t need a match.

  “What brings ya out here?” asked Birdie. She would hate it right now if she knew I was calling her Birdie.

  “Captain. Is it safe to let the children play out here?”

  She looked around, dismissive; a look on her face that said she knew better. By now the children had run over to the playground built within Alpha Five’s park. Looked good, compared to some other parks. The grass was still green and there were leaves on the trees – a treehouse poking out of the bough of one. Colour of pre-autumn.

  When she didn’t say anything, I added, “You’re doing a good job on irrigation here.”

  “Aye. The farming’s good in this sector. You had an apple yesterday, it were probably from here. Are you stopping...?”

  “Lance Corporal Edward Edmonds,” I told her, and then saluted. She seemed a little taken aback at first – formalities such as this are dying a death, I know, but she was a Captain after all.

  “Edmonds,” she dragged my name out, trying to place it, no doubt.

  I told her I was an easy person to forget, and that we didn’t have time to stop, I just had this edict to give her. It was then that she rolled her eyes.

  “Yeah, I got a pile of them already on my desk, not to mention my inbox.”

  “It’s important,” I implored. “This isn’t some safety fire drill.”

  “Listen,” she began, and I’m trying not to laugh as I write this, for it shouldn’t be funny, but the look on her face; it was one of those moments I wish I’d had my iris-recorder in. She thrust that piece of paper in my face, waving it around, telling me how she had every right to run her sector how she saw fit; how the latest reports were all just scare-mongering and that when push came to shove, Alpha Five would protect them – and then POOF! That piece of paper went up in flames right in her hand – the flames exploded into the air and almost burned her eyebrows. She gave a yelp and jumped back and dropped the paper to the ground. It was ash before it even landed.

  She looked down at the smouldering embers with a perplexed look on her face, and then turned her eyes to the cloudless red-pink sky. I did too, the stinging smell of carbon in my nostrils. My skin prickled. I had the oddest sensation running across the bare skin of my arms, felt across my balding scalp, of being trapped inside a microwave. I turned in place, as though to present every side of myself, and glanced at Baines. His hand shaped as though holding an invisible cigarette. Trails of smoke spun from the ground by his feet.

  “Baines!” I shouted. “Hey!”

  He looked at me, waking from his slumber. I shouted at him to go grab the kids, and then I turned and took Birdie’s arm and lead her to Alpha Five’s entrance, shouting for them to open up.

  Here, in the comfort of Neon’s western Guest & Board, with its thermostatic control and spa bath that I recently made use of, I can’t quite put into words how it felt – the heat. Imagine that your skin had turned from pink to red in a matter of seconds, and then imagine the cause as external, and what that would mean for your fragile, fry-able skin. When we made it inside Alpha Five I just looked at my hands and had never been so keenly aware of being nothing but meat. Just one step removed from a spit-roasted pig, with less fatty skin.

  I turned to witness Baines making an effort, which was something at least. He corralled the children from the park towards the entrance; their mouths agape, screaming, smoke wagging behind them like tails. Only at the last second did I register that I had over twenty children barrelling towards me, and stepped aside quickly. Half of them were as red as me; those who weren’t were dark-skinned and I envied them that. We all felt the same pain.

  As the doors closed to the world and the transfer room quarantined the children’s sobs, I watched the leaves fall from the trees in the park; tears of flame that extinguished inches above the browning grass.

  Flares

  Lance Corporal Edmonds, or just Edmonds as he preferred, stretched and yawned. The scribblings in the diary wavered into a plate of spaghetti until he rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times. Nope, didn’t help much either. Too tired to continue. He rose and winced – and shook his head that he should feel pain simply by moving, his skin flexing. It looked dry yet shimmered beneath the light, and he wanted to itch at it so badly. Instead, he opened the complimentary refrigerator and took out a bottle of cold water. A scintillating thirst squencher. He was pretty sure there was no search verb as squench. He uncapped the bottle and brought it tentatively to his lips. The water went down like good synth, after stingi
ng his lips.

  Following his bath in salt water he’d applied a salve to the red parts of his skin, and for a while it had soothed the burning itch. Now they rose again, and he grabbed the pot of salve from the shelf and began rubbing more of the ointment on. He considered the swimming pool that would be down near the first floor of the Guest & Board, but had to stifle a yawn as he did so.

  He smothered the salve across his scalp, moaning quietly, then stepped up to the open window. It was nothing like home; the air at home would’ve blown its cooling fingers through the window. Here nothing licked. Lights shimmered in the city that never slept, such a contrast to New Seren. Every building was a highrise with a glass and concrete façade, fascias of neon and argon illumination painted up the sides and floating by on advertisement drones. The amount of energy and resources this city needed boggled his mind. Looking out, and up a hundred levels, and down a hundred levels; he shook his head – this was only half the story. Each tower plummeted below the ground to equal subterranean depths. He worried for the wellbeing of the families who lived here, for what kind of life could they lead, surrounded by hard walls and regime? Only allowed to leave upon being granted exit visas.

  The thought that he might be trapped here filled his stomach with rocks.

  New Seren had highrises but they were centralised, reaching up like fingers to stroke the underside of the dome. In the suburbs near the dome’s edges were small, two-bedroom cottages, and this was where his husband awaited. Edmonds was beginning to wish he’d listened to Jerry and quit his job the moment the news came in – Let them deal with it, he said. If this is the end, at least enjoy it.

  What if it didn’t have to be the end?

  New Seren had been the first major dome built, and was the operational hub. Over the last sixty years, a further seventy domes had either landed or been constructed, spreading out from New Seren in a web of connecting roads. Ancillary domes stood constructed on cement foundations in areas of promising agricultural land, near resources that would make irrigation and general living possible. These were mostly no further than a mile or two from the highways that linked the major domes. Neon ranked second in size (though highest in population) while Burgot and Remington ranked closely behind. These were cities – metropolises even. The rest were towns and science stations, and every year a new dome was constructed, reaching ever further in terraforming conquest. Pipes shuttling water and gas and oil beneath the desert and rocks and occasional oases.

  Soon they would all be gone.

  Places like Alpha Five were being told to evacuate and seek sanctuary within one of the four larger domes in case their shielding didn’t have enough power to withstand the incoming storm, though Neon had erected a border control and was only allowing a certain number of refugees. Which was why Edmonds was here.

  After the solar flare, he, Baines, and a caravan of followers – including Birdie – travelled west to Neon. Sometimes you had to see something with your own eyes before believing what Birdie would have called the ‘scare-mongering’. So he had the solar flare to thank for that. He had to hope now that the other small domes would evacuate in time; that Neon would take more of them in, and that the dome’s energy barriers would be enough to stave off the annihilation of the human race.

  He looked up towards the stars.

  This was it now – all the ships had landed. No one left in orbit.

  How wrong they had been.

  Arcadia

  The Agridome walls rose high into the night sky, allowing the starlight to glimmer through and light the boy perched on the edge of the treehouse. He shivered in the breeze; the air-recycling unit in overtime after the solar flare earlier that day. Goosebumps crossed his skin and wrinkled beneath the hem of his shirt, sleeves rolled up. He closed his eyes as the wind teased the hair in his face, glad that he’d been inside when the air had warmed up. He looked across to the entrance, now closed, and recalled the returning Ferret with his team of road builders, all of them cowering beneath makeshift capes, exposed hands as red as apples. Safely inside, they’d collapsed onto their knees and curled into balls, huffing from exhaustion. The coats and vests fell from their heads, and Jax recalled holding his breath in horror.

  How they’d moaned.

  Faces crimson. The bald men with heads like cherries.

  Jax had been right here, in the same spot, legs dangling from the edge with Frankenstein in his lap. That book now lay on the ground below, where it had fallen, forgotten in the cacophony.

  He could still see the gurney tracks on the path, trails of mud. They led inside the inner dome of Arcadia, where the crew had been taken to the hospital for treatment.

  He shuffled backwards towards the rope ladder and descended, swinging in the breeze. He passed the notches in the bark where ladder rungs had once been nailed in, but removed. The smaller kids kept coming up with their dolls and teddy bears for foodless picnics, taking up space. With a rope ladder replacement it was a lot more difficult for them to get up.

  Leaving Jax and the gang alone.

  There were few spaces for privacy in Arcadia, so they used the treehouse often. Even if it did pong of fertiliser and dung – it was better than their dorm rooms beneath the ground.

  “Hey,” called Lani, emerging from the side of an oak tree that had spent years propagating up in space. Her shock of blonde hair with its white streak hung to her shoulders; the same as her twin, Scarlett. Only Scarlett lacked the streak – it was the only way to tell them apart. She appeared next from the other side of the tree. “There he is.”

  “Hi.” He raised a hand in greeting.

  “Told you he’d be here,” said Lani.

  Scarlett said, “Where else would he be?” and leaned against the tree.

  “This is the hottest place in town, after all,” said Jax. “Literally.”

  “In the day, maybe,” said Lani. “Got a right chill on now, though.” She hugged her arms.

  Jax moved towards them, boots squelching slightly in the off-path mulch. Light from the strip of spotlights running up the inside of the dome lit the sisters, faces half-ghosts, pale and white. Everything turned at night; the tanned turned pale, fire turned to ice, the planet revealed its true nature: this was not Earth. What they now called home became an alien landscape, their shadows lost in the night.

  Still, it was better than orbiting, breathing stale, recycled air. What’s changed? he thought. They still breathed that air.

  He had another thought, a stab to the heart. It had been better.

  “Might not be much time left,” said Scarlett. “They’re saying today was a precursor.”

  Lani added, “They’re saying when the sun comes back around, it might be bringing fire.”

  “So it’s now or never,” said Jax. He was fifteen in Earth years and the twins were fourteen – on the cusp of full-responsibility. Mr. Keogh, luckily, was pretty lenient with the rules; largely because they had built upon his trust over the years. They were teens but the opportunity for rebellion was hard to come by. They did their chores, pitched in, went to school (which were just practical lessons for vehicle and dome maintenance, things along those lines) and made little in the way of trouble.

  So Mr. Keogh thought.

  “They’ll kill us if they find out,” said Lani.

  Scarlett laughed. “I don’t know about that, sis. Bit harsh.”

  “Who’s on watch?”

  Jax began walking to the entrance. “I haven’t seen anyone. After what happened earlier, I think the threat of the outside would be enough to stop anyone heading out.”

  “Except us!” said Scarlett, stepping in line.

  “Except us!”

  Lani followed behind. “Did you see them?”

  Jax nodded.

  “Burned to a crisp some of them. Are we sure it’s safe?”

  “Until the sun comes up.”

  Silence fell on them as they stepped up onto the concrete walkway that split the boggy marsh of the ground. The tree p
asture they’d just come from formed the left-side guard, while on the right, rows and rows of corn disappeared around the edge of the dome, leading towards paddy fields. At this time of evening, with the temperature low, the smell wasn’t too bad. In the daytime the smell reached epic levels of mushroom dampness, rotting vegetation and manure. It kept the smaller kids away – another reason for Jax’s choice of private location.

  The entrance door was broad and tall, made of thick metal that hung on hinges the size of his arms. A whole year of heaving rolls of hemp and hay meant his forearms had grown quite thick these past few months. He entered his keypad code into the panel on the left and waited for the red light to turn green.

  “It’s not going to work,” said Lani.

  “It’ll work,” said Jax, trying again.

  A voice flickered through the speaker. “Jax? Jax? That you?”

  That voice belonged to Mr. Osborne. “It’s me. Can you let me out?”

  “What are you doing? I was in the middle of something only to have you call me over.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to call anyone. I just need to get out for a minute. Could you privilege my pass code so I can head out and get back in again?” Maybe this wouldn’t work, after all. “I’ll head on over to command and reset my privilege again as soon as I return. You can carry on doing whatever you were doing.”

  A few seconds of silence passed on the other end, before Mr. Osborne said; “What do you even need to go out there for? That storm could happen any moment.”

  Jax noticed Scarlett about to speak, but put a finger to his lips. “Not right now it couldn’t – it’s practically night time. I left a few tools out and I’d hate for Mr. Keogh to think less of me if I wasn’t able to book them back into inventory. They’ll be up in flames, along with my ass.”