Neon Zero_The Neon Series Prequel Page 5

  Nothing.

  He switched on the outside lights.

  Slightly more than nothing. A swirling dervish of brown dirt roiled, thick; too thick for light to penetrate.

  His heart hammered but his hands remained still as he brushed them before the headset, pulling and pushing at virtual controls.

  Either Lani or Scarlett called up to him but he ignored them.

  He commanded the terrain scan to activate. His vision switched from camera to heat-vision as electromagnetic waves painted a pattern of destruction around him. He turned his head left and right as yellow, orange and red rock formations burned into his retina, made him wince, but he could not look away. He manoeuvred the scan towards the cave formations and the only exit, and where there should have been only the darkness of open air, there was the fiery crimson of recently dislodged rock.

  “Not now,” he repeated, wanting to scream, wanting to swear his voice hoarse, but he knew it would do no good.

  Think.

  What caused it?

  He ripped the headset from his head and it fell down, hitting the ‘floor’ with a clang.

  “Jax?” shouted Lani. “Come on, what’s happening? You’re scaring us!”

  “I need to think!” he shouted back. Lying down like this was not good for the brain. He felt the heat of all that blood rushing to it in his face. He had to check one more thing first.

  He dialled up the atmospheric hologrammetry. Twin projectors at the end of each armrest painted an image of the sky in his lap; of an ionosphere luminescent with lightning and charged plasma particles from the latest coronal mass ejection. Purples and greens pulsed; a billion paintbrushes of electromagnetic radiation dying an aurora of the planet’s shroud. Jax half-wished he was standing on the cliff above to witness it firsthand, but then noticed the temperature: 61-degrees-Celsius.

  It’s here.

  And we’re trapped.

  He rubbed his fingers together, a nervous tick, and felt his palms become increasingly clammy. He made a mental note to grip the ladder rungs tight. His fingers combed through waves of hologrammetic violet sky, without effect. He laughed; if ever there was a more fitting analogy of Man’s impotence to Nature, he was yet to see it. The laugh startled him, and he pondered if that would be his final laugh. His goodbye song.

  How much time do we have?

  He instructed the ship scanners to penetrate beyond the atmosphere, as he had done many times before now, watching for Junkyard Sally or Pretorius to come strolling by the viewfinder: just two of many derelict satellites or ships they’d left in orbit.

  Immediately, across the hologram, in red, and flashing, was the word WARNING!

  An analysis of that warning sign indicated that a catastrophic CME had been ejected; a strength beyond the X classification which was probably what had just hit them. He envisaged the discharged plasma on its collision course of destruction. The stupid thing was it would miss them if only they could stop this planet from moving inexorably onwards.

  No more close-calls. Time’s up.

  He opened up one more screen. ‘Impact in 44 minutes, 32 seconds.’ That 32 became 31, became 30, became 21 before he finally closed it. He could forget getting back to Arcadia; forget the experiment and the twins: he had just one goal. Survive.

  The twins are here because of you. You knew you’d need their help.

  His conscience battered the paperweight of his mind, as thin as it was. The desert hadn’t hardened him at all.

  He pulled himself out of the seat and descended monkey-like to the room below where Lani and Scarlett sat huddled on the steps, holding each other. They didn’t jump when they saw him. Instead they searched his face for answers, and they found all they needed, it seemed, to start crying.

  He knelt before them, placing his hands on their knees. “We have forty-three minutes, and right now, I really do need your help.”

  Journal of Lance Corporal Edmonds

  4th March (ext), 2234… cont…

  The ground shook and the SatLink went dead at exactly the same time. For the briefest of moments it was daytime and then the world went blind. I had to blink my way back to existence and I found my hand independently trying to reconnect the link. Jerry’s voice had dropped out mid-sentence. It only took seconds to realise I would never hear his voice again, and yet my hand kept trying until Baines placed his hand on mine.

  I eased off the gas, staring out at the patterns in the clear, dark-blue sky, slithering purple and blue and green like snakes above the approaching dome. The temperature warning gauge flashed red which meant it must be hot as hell out there. The air-con churned within.

  “Was that it?” I asked.

  “A little taste of what’s to come. A category X perhaps. Probably knocked the satellite out.”

  I looked across at him; he’d grabbed a rifle and was busy loading its clip with .45s.

  “Rifle or grenade launcher?” he asked, deadpan.

  “Grenade launcher sounds tasty. Why not both?”

  “Oh, I’m taking both.”

  Above, the sky continued to ripple rainbows; it had a texture and a volume like never before, not merely a multi-layered atmosphere giving life and protecting the planet, but something with a surface that could be defaced, poked, torn apart. I recalled something Jerry had said: “When the radiation and plasma hits the atmosphere will do its upmost to protect us, as it does on a day-to-day basis. Just that sometimes, that’s not enough.”

  I hoped he was watching.

  “Do those things even work?” I asked.

  “Last I tried.”

  “And when was that?”

  “Last month, down the firing range.”

  “The firing range?”

  “Where else?”

  “I can’t even remember the last time I fired a gun.”

  Baines laid a rifle in my lap and a full clip on top of that. “I can’t recall zero-G but I could still shit in a pan if I had to.”

  “Nice.” The weight of it on my legs felt good. Too good. Just stay seated, it said. “So what’s the plan?”

  “You tell me, boss.”

  “I guess we knock, politely, and ask to be let back in.”

  Baines leaned in towards a co-pilot monitor and then forward, looking out the window. “I don’t think that’s an option – evasive manoeuvres!”

  I followed his gaze and saw a streak of yellow flame splitting the sky in two, getting larger, and falling; heading straight for us. I punched left and was thrown right, straight into Baines, whose seatbeat clicked into place just in time. He pushed me back while grabbing the wheel.

  “Belt!”

  After securing myself in I retook the wheel, just as the round landed where we had been. The explosion rocked us sideways but the Grounder forged on.

  “That was a warning,” said Baines.

  “Fuck them.” I began zigging left and right, aiming for inconsistency. We bounced over terrain that had not been flattened by years of trucking. From the top of the dome, now visibly growing as we got nearer, four more streaks of flame shot out. Like fireworks on Landing Day. I directed the Grounder to the right, turning tightly in a pattern they could not have predicted. I watched them cascade to my left – couldn’t keep my eyes off them.

  “You make sure they miss,” said Baines, quietly.

  “I’ll do my best.” The fact the first one missed filled me with hope – that they weren’t laser guided and may not have been just a warning shot.

  Down they came.

  As I watched them, I realised I’d never really stared death in the face before – not properly. It was agony; they took forever and I ended up wishing they would hurry up and land already and finish it one way or another. Just too much time to think.

  Of course I’m writing this, so they missed – not by much though. The Grounder flew into the air from the quadruple blasts around us and we almost tipped over. Gravity pushed Baines and I to the right, the seatbelts cutting into our neck and shoulder, and
then we slammed back into the ground. The roar of the explosion palpable in our bones. Rocks and stones clattered the hull and pinged from the reinforced windscreen, and beyond swirled a dustbowl of embers, smoke and dirt.

  “Ram the bastards,” said Baines. “They haven’t got time to fire another volley. Ram the entrance.”

  I said nothing. I just steered into the cloud until the night and Neon reappeared, and then hit the gas, hard. The glacial entrance looked inviting, clear as glass on a sunny day, the tunnel beyond cutting through the Agridome to the inner sanctum.

  “Open the hatch.” Baines unbuckled his belt and stood, grabbing the grenade launcher from the side console.

  I opened the hatch and hot air blasted inside. It was crazy hot out there. I could only imagine how it was on the sunny side of town. Baines volleyed his own expletives as he pressed his head up through the hatch to the outside, pulling the grenade launcher out.

  We couldn’t have been more than four hundred metres out when the entrance began to lift open.

  “Be ready for a welcoming party!” I shouted. “They’re opening up!”

  “I see!”

  “Damage control!”

  “I bet! Too late for that now!”

  I turned my head and caught Baines ducking back inside, more expletives forthcoming, this time complaining about the heat.

  “It’s the end times, man.”

  Ahead, the entrance opened to its full height, gaping like a mouth. Lights glowered red so it looked like either it had its tongue out or they’d laid out the red carpet for us. I doubt the latter. It felt like we were being eaten as I steered us inside. Baines said something about smashing out a side window, and held his rifle close.

  In the rearview camera I watched as the entrance closed.

  Beyond the clear tunnel – akin to a polytunnel cutting through the Agridome, acting like a decontamination chamber – tall redwoods climbed the sky, hanging with veins. These always caught me off-guard – for a city run so optimally, they seemed self-indulgent. Beautiful, all the same, and I suddenly wished Jerry was here to see them. I don’t think he’d ever visited Neon. Oh, the entrance is closed, I suddenly noticed, and the lights dimming, and the air hissing, and my eyelids closing.

  We passed out around about then. Never did get the chance to fire a weapon – just as well as I’d probably be dead already. Baines, closest to the hatch, fell first; I watched him collapse across the console and slip to the floor, and I knew instantly what was happening, and part of me was okay with that. Let me fall asleep. Peaceful. Painless. No longer a witness.

  Then I woke. Head groggy, eyes stinging. A potent smell of lemons in my nostrils. I became conscious of my weight and two others flanking me, holding me under the armpits. I fell into them, trying to stand straight. Then my stomach cramped and the force of it bent me in two, and puke spilled across the grey, cement floor.

  “Pull yourself together, Edmonds,” said a voice I recognised as Franghorn.

  My stomach felt terrible, so I put my fingers down my throat to force the rest out. I may have tried aiming for a pair of feet standing a couple metres away, but I was too weak to fire very far. “Bastard!” I spat out between heaving.

  “Stand him up!”

  As I wiped puke from my chin two arms hauled me to my feet. My head began to pound. Then I felt a breeze I hadn’t noticed before.

  We were at the top of the dome, standing on the roof of the ring that hung from the apex of the dome’s structure. Reinforced steel struts painted black held the ring in place. Beyond those, through the dome, the night sky continued to dance with plasmic rainbows.

  I shrugged off his goons and looked around for Baines. He was nowhere to be seen. It was just us four.

  “What have you done with Baines?”

  Franghorn looked to the floor, etched a face of genuine-looking regret. “He did not react well, I’m afraid. His body went into convulsions and then he had a heart attack brought on by stress.” He met my eyes. “I’m truly sorry for your loss. We had to take precautions, as you know.”

  “Precautions, my ass. You tried to shoot us off the road.”

  “For which I am also sorry. It seemed like the easiest option at the time, but now you’re here, perhaps you can still be of use.”

  I spat at his face. It was a good one, too, gobby and wet, and it dripped down his cheek as he wiped it away. He nodded towards a goon and I received a hard smack behind my ear, doubling my vision. Two Franghorns told me this was my final chance. Any more behaviour like that and I could eat lead.

  I wanted to tell him I didn’t care and that he should just feed me lead right now. I really wanted to. Not enough to override my innate self-preservation though, it seemed. Now my end was potentially so close, I don’t know, it’s strange and hard to put into words; maybe it was the pain of the blow to my head or my still churning stomach, and my beating chest – tangible reminders of existence – I thought of all that being NO MORE and I almost pissed myself with fear. I just crumbled and started crying. Useless Edward. Edward the Ugly. Edward the Coward. Just let me live, I thought, in this shithole of a place. Perhaps Baines had been my courage.

  I admit this, dear diary, for it’s the truth and I have never lied to you.

  His goons stood me back up and Franghorn stepped up to my face. “You going to behave now?”

  I nodded. “Just explain why?” I groaned.

  “To save humanity, of course. You think we would have done this out of spite?” Oddly, I appreciated that he didn’t feign ignorance of my knowledge.

  “Millions are going to die.”

  “Better than all of us.” He turned his back on me to admire the view. He pointed; “New Seren.” He pointed in another direction, and then another, saying “Bergot” and “Remington.” Then he faced me again. “Too many people for this planet’s resources to sustain after the solar catastrophe. In order to save humanity, sacrifices had to be made. Our scientists calculated how long the frozen underground lakes would sustain us, how long the molten gases could be mined, before we all starved. They concluded we would never survive long enough to break free of the nuclear aftermath, the radiation storms and showers that would eventually dissipate and give us back our planet. So we started planning. Reinforced and shielded pipes are spread deep underground throughout this region – they’ve already begun siphoning off shared resources. We’ve developed technology – which we will share with the few remaining subsidiary domes – to engage with the ionic storms in the aftermath and utilise the radiation charge in the atmosphere to develop a new source of power.”

  He stepped up close to me again, smiling widely. “We will survive!”

  “At what cost,” I said weakly.

  “Irrelevant.”

  I fell to my knees. “Why are you telling me this? Why am I not dead?” I looked up and I knew; from the heat of the surface on my knees, to my uptilted chin – I knew.

  “You could still have value.”

  I nodded. “Baines didn’t die of a heart attack, did he?”

  He laughed. His chest puffed up larger when he did, giving breadth to his shoulders beneath his military tunic. “I like soldiers – anyone in service really where rank and rule apply: they abide.” He glanced at the goons and gestured at them to move away, then he lowered to his haunches. “Not all of them, of course. Baines wasn’t the Yes, Sir kind of soldier, was he?”

  “He would have had value too.”

  “The next few generations are going to be very, very important if we are going to get through this as a species, together, making sacrifices. We have to be very careful about the type of people inside Neon – you understand? We all have to be pulling in the same direction.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Now, Edward. Listen carefully. Your journal – I read a few pages. Jerry –”

  I flinched, and Franghorn squeezed.

  “Jerry sounds like a very nice man. However, when it comes to rebuilding Neon there’s no place here for homosexuality, from a
purely biological imperative standpoint. When the radiation subsides and the natural resources become more amenable to mining again – stage two – again, everyone will need to be pulling in the same direction.”

  “What are you saying?” I said, just wanting this to be over with.

  “Your skills we could do with; down on the lower levels we’re short on manpower, particularly in the security area. Some districts remain under military guard but that is not optimum. Someone with your experience would be very helpful. What would not be helpful, though, are your genes.”

  “Genes? Being gay isn’t a gene.”

  “There are a very specific set of circumstances within the DNA make up – so I’m told – that heighten the likelihood of homosexuality. Like I said, from a purely biological standpoint, we don’t want these genes in the pool – at least right now.”

  “Well that’s hardly a problem, is it?”

  Franghorn stood, towering over me again. “Good, good; so we see eye to eye.”

  I shook my head, incredulous. I couldn’t quite believe the conversation I was having. And then… “I know gay people in this city, and I’ve seen beggars, and the jailhouses full of criminals. Are they all ‘pulling in the same direction’?”

  He said nothing; his look said it all.

  “My god, how many have you killed? Of your own people?”

  “Not only was it necessary from a mathematics point of view, but also as a species. Why not move forward with only the best that we can offer? Sure, in the future, generations from now, we’ll be back where we were, mutations galore – what a colourful species we will be once more! Until then… sacrifices have to be made.”

  I was spent.

  I couldn’t hear any more.

  The numbers – they were too many to comprehend. I couldn’t get a fix in my mind – still can’t. All I knew is I didn’t want to be one of them.

  It was then the sky cracked; the sun’s yolk bursting through, from fire into fire. We all looked out at the vista; from night to day in a blink of an eye – oh it was so beautiful, really, a little like when we came in to land all those years ago. I think this was the highest I’d been since then. The planet we’d come to call home hadn’t changed all that much over the years – a little green and blue here and there, all gone by this point of course. We could see for miles across open, rocky desert. One second there and the next not. ‘Not’ as in literally. The shielding kicked in and the plasma hit, hot white, against it, and then it swirled like a close up of the sun itself, as though we were inside the sun, looking out. It lasted for thirty seconds and when it was gone, only darkness remained.