Lamentations - Part Four

They would get to the PCR’s capital by nightfall. Alistair still trailed behind Emil, but now he marched in a dirge. The way to the Capital was littered with bodies and derelict possessions alike. Some of the skeletons were crumpled like they had been crawling, either from injury or the superbug’s delirium. Others were turned on their side in slumber. The empty water cans and crushed personal devices, the torn shirts and hollow shoes, they all lay in witness to the death of their owners.

Alistair did his best to not let his gaze wander; instead, he restricted his vision to the ground directly in front of his feet, or to the Capital which loomed before them. The Capital resembled a giant turtle: the glass dome was tiled into hexagons, held up by an alloy framework. In place of a turtle’s under-shell, there were the twenty foot walls, interrupted by four “feet” on the compass points of the perimeter. They served as the main support for the ceiling. The wall was the main support for the colonists in their effort to ignore the desolate environment.

It had been a year since Alistair was in the Capital.

*

“Alistair, my dear, dear brother, I think we’re lost,” Amanda crumpled the map in frustration.

Alistair took it from her and uncrumpled it. “Are we even in the right dome?”

Amanda pointed to the Capital’s emblem displayed on a nearby sign. The sign read: Law Enforcement Office – No Loitering.

Alistair brightened. “I’m sure they can help us.”

“I’m sure that’s somehow breaking the law. Let’s just go.” Amanda pulled her brother along.

“Is that bitterness in your voice? Be careful, you’ll sound like Emil.”

Amanda punched him in the arm. “Don’t even bring our cousin up. I’ll never understand why he became a janitor if he hates them so much. Besides, I respect them enough to want to be taught by them, as soon as we find the stupid place for my admissions interview…”

The siblings made their way through the commercial level, careful to not stray into the path of rubber wheeled or metal tracked vehicles. They navigated their way around crowds clothed in polyester and plastics, enduring both harsh looks and pitying eyes. Amanda and Alistair didn’t like the stares, but they both marveled at the PCR’s diversity--their genetics had not been made homogenous by years of isolation as it had with the First. The First were recognizable by their orange hair, a mutation that hadn’t occurred on Earth and so was absent among the PCR.

Amanda took a wrong step and fell into a young man, his skin white as teeth and his hair brown as mud. When he recovered he turned around and glared at Amanda’s orange hair, her mint eyes. Alistair stepped between them, hoping his height would deter a confrontation. It didn’t.

The young man spouted, “And how would you like it if I came into the Outskirts and started pushing you over?”

Amanda poked her head around Alistair. “Your precious dome pushed us from our original home, are you going to push us so far that we won’t be able to access the aquifer at all?”

The fair-skinned man growled, but his companion, a man of similar age but of African descent, held onto his arm. “We’ve been their guests from the beginning. You could at least treat them as such when they’re in the PCR.”

“Hey, you,” Amanda pointed at the sensible one. “Can you tell me where the tech school is?”

He smiled, apparently impressed that she had business there. He gestured with his thumb. “Go in that direction till you see a fountain of a mermaid, then turn right. There should be signs from there.”

Amanda and Alistair quickly fled the scene as if it were routine, the brother leading with his sister in tow. They took a breather by the highly ornamental mermaid fountain. They didn’t have such things in the Outskirts. Amanda glanced shiftily around them before plunging her hand into the pool and giggling.

“You once asked me why I’m so patient with them.” Alistair pulled his sister’s hand from the cool water. The droplets absorbed into his skin. “It’s because, I can usually count on the First to be angry, to be resentful. But the domies, they’re not so predictable. They make their own decisions. I admire that, especially when they choose not to pummel us on their turf,” he finished wryly.

With her free hand Amanda splashed Alistair. They both grinned like children as they were chased away from the fountain.

*

The colonists had lived in small apartments that were underground, freeing up the daylight space to crops, animals, and gardens. The agricultural level was elevated above the walls and could be seen from the outside. High above the vegetation stood a tower whose base was rooted even below the apartments; it was the brain and spinal cord for all the Capital’s operations. In its basement was the Agricultural Authority, and at its top were the buttons and levers that controlled the water and air. In the exact center of all the levels was a circular cavity, so that from the tower one could look into the void and see the tip of the hydraulic generator that nested at the bottom.

The sun began to set again and the cousins stood before an entrance to the dome. Emil explained that the motorized doors had been jammed open during the chaos, so that they now stood as the mouth to the largest tomb Elegua could ever know.

Alistair asked, “How are we going to get into the tower?”

Emil slapped him on the arm. “I was trusted to clean the tower, you know. As long as the electricity works, I can get us in.”

His grin was wide and crooked. It was the most unsettling thing around, even against the backdrop of the condemned PCR. He quote out of nowhere “How lonely she is now, the once crowded city.

Alistair ignored him and led the way. “Let’s get this over with.”

What came next matched the pictures that Emil had shown him. The bodies were everywhere: splayed in doorways, piled on top of each other. The blood was once pooled against cement and steel, but now it was merely rust. Even the agricultural level had turned to dust and yellow blades of grain.

Then there was the destruction. It was getting dark and the electric lights turned on, but many of them had been smashed. Broken furniture had been used as weapons, weapons had been used against people and furniture. Crumpled paper still blew through the halls and walkways, moved along by a breeze that found its way through the dome’s breaches.

Alistair took off at a jog, always checking his bearings with the looming tower.

Emil called after him, “Hey, what’s your hurry?”

“You said the pandemonium spilled into the Outskirts. I want to see for myself that our families are okay. Sooner we do this, the better.”

Emil didn’t protest. After twenty minutes, they found their way to the tower’s access on the ground level. A light flickered above the double doors, revealing a dark figure beneath. Alistair squinted, not watching the cluttered ground beneath him. His foot caught on a busted box and he fell, hard, onto his knee.

Biting his lip, he tried to rub the pain away.

“Brilliant.” It was a girl’s voice. One he knew. “Keep it up and you’re bound to attract a woman.”

Alistair shot up and faced the dark figure sitting with her back against the doors. “Amanda?”

Amanda bounded to her brother and embraced him. “You smell terrible.”

“I know.”

“But it’s nice to see you again.” She let go of him. The playfulness of her comment did not extend to her face. Her ponytail had let renegade strands escape its hold, giving her a disheveled, frantic appearance. A large empty pack hung from her back.

Emil rested his hand on her shoulder. He frowned. “Does your father know you’re here?”

Amanda coldly brushed his hand away. “I’m sure he’s figured it out by now. And no, he didn’t want me to come,” she clarified to Alistair, “but I wanted to see you. Well, that and everybody in the Outskirts are unbearable at the moment.”

“Unbearable?” Alistair raised an eyebrow.

“There’s a lot of mixed feelings about what’s happened.” She glared at Emil. It was more than unfriendly, it was disdain. Emil shrugged off the glare and Amanda continued, “People are still stressed from evacuating and then reclaiming their homes. Kids are crying, adults are yelling—it’s all a headache, you know?”

“Yeah.” Alistair’s voice was soft. “We have to pull ourselves together. Once we’re working for our own food, it’ll take people’s mind off of…this ordeal.” He looked to Emil, inviting him to open the access to the tower.

Emil slid his janitor’s key through the slot, his head tilted like he was looking over his shoulder. The slot glowed green. “We’re in.”

The doors opened up to a lobby with several elevators. The vases of several potted plants were shattered, the plants themselves were just dry leaves. Miraculously, a painting of an Earth seashore remained hanging on the wall. Emil led the way to the elevator on the far left and pressed the button to call the elevator. The doors slid open and Alistair and Amanda followed him inside. Emil pushed for the basement.

PART FIVE