C James - Dome Six

What the actual fuck?

Dek pushed his chair back and leaned on his elbows, wringing his hands as though he’d seen a ghost. For a guy who had entertained his share of conspiracy theories over the years, this was practically the Holy Grail. But like other theories, it could easily swallow him up. His mind needed constant stimulation, which was why he loved Macros so much. Yellows especially. Now, with a dwindling supply, he’d be forced to follow his thoughts wherever they led.

If there was an antenna, there had to be a signal. Where there was a signal, there would be a radio frequency. You could find those if you were patient. He’d try and isolate it somehow. Then he’d figure out what it meant. That would lead to a hypothesis, and tests, and–

It was too much. It was all too much. His brain scrambled for answers, charging through doors and down darkened hallways like a lunatic in an asylum. If he didn’t calm himself, he wouldn’t be able to think straight. Then he’d spend the next several hours trying to focus and lose this opportunity to unravel this tasty little mystery.

He had to open his mind to all the possibilities, and nothing did that like a yellow.

He took the vial with the blood-tinged solution from his pocket again, uncapped it, and fished around with the pipette until he pulled the yellow inside. Worst-case, he’d get a cold or conjunctivitis. The rewards far outweighed the risks. He tilted his head back and slipped the Macro in the corner of his right eye, then blinked out the excess solution.

It would only take a few minutes. He got a fresh vial from the cabinet, filled it with clean solution, and rinsed the red Macro thoroughly before returning it to the vial and refilling it. Then he dutifully cleaned his old QC station so no one could tell he was there. It was very tempting to post up at one of the production terminals, fire up the bioprinter, and crank out a fresh stash. Unfortunately, he had no way of knowing if the O 2alarm would last hours or days and he couldn’t risk being caught. Not with so much to do.

What he needed now was to go down to the Boneyard and see what he could scrounge. If there was a signal, he had to find and isolate it. Only then might he understand what the hell it meant.

As the hours dragged on, the floor supervisor on 24 agreed to open the box of emergency rations. Multimeal could be formed into bars and dried for long-term storage, but upon opening the box, it was obvious the Authority hadn’t replaced them with fresh ones in a very long time. The box’s seal had failed and the layer of mold on top of the bars was so thick that you couldn’t even tell what was underneath. Since they were in a Tower that only grew onions, that wasn’t great. At least the water stations still worked.

Tosh and another teacher bookended their students along the railing and took turns napping. The heavy air made it very hard to stay alert. Yes, the kids didn’t really have anywhere to go but she worried about them anyway. Most couldn’t have said exactly where their parents were. They were tired and scared. Tosh could relate.

Overhead, the crawlers slowly closed in on the Apex as they inspected the Exchangers one at a time. She’d fully expected the problem to be resolved by now but other than the slow movement of the crawlers themselves, it was hard to tell if any progress was being made. Her bones ached from sitting on the grated floor and her head hurt like hell. She would’ve given anything for a painkiller Macro just then, which brought her closer to being inside Dek’s head than usual. Was this how he felt when he wasn’t high?

Dee was curled into a ball with her head on Tosh’s lap while Vi leaned against her other side, both asleep. Tosh’s legs screamed for a stretch, maybe even a lap around the inside rows, but she didn’t want to wake them just yet.

Fortunately, something else did. A commotion rose from somewhere down below and murmurs rippled through the sweaty masses. Dee roused from her sleep and tapped Vi’s arm.

“Wha…?” Vi asked, yawning.

“Something must be happening here,” Tosh said, her muscles protesting as she got to her feet. She helped the girls up and craned over the side of the railing to see what was happening.

A work crew of perhaps a dozen people dragged an enormous bundle out near the Nucleus. A few minutes later they’d unfurled it into a giant square of blue material with a white circle in the middle. They connected it to a large electric motor and it began to inflate.

“What’s that?” Vi asked sleepily.

“It’s an airbag,” replied Dee. “It means there’s a problem on the roof.”

Their eyes traced a line up above the airbag. Two crawlers had pulled even with each other near the end of their tracks. They could only see the underside of the one nearest them, but over the edge of the other was a man clinging to the overhead armature. He wore the same yellow body harness as the man who shot through the roof of the cafeteria. To have anything under you up there besides a sturdy crawler seemed like suicide, especially in light of the accident.

Tosh knew little of such things. The crawlers rarely operated at all, let alone on this scale. Dozens of them drew closer to the Apex as they tried to locate the source of the problem, like spiders converging on the heart of a web. They formed a ragged circle.

“What’s he doing?” Tosh asked. Byron rarely discussed his job and she rarely discussed hers, but Dee liked to hear the gritty, technical details. She’d know better than anyone would know what was going on up there. “Oh my god. That’s not Byron, is it?”

“No, that’s definitely not Dad. Look, though — he’s clipping into the sled.”

Crawlers only moved up and down their tracks, along which were the Exchangers and kilometers of wiring and electrical relays. The only way to move sideways was to clip into a hand-cranked sled and make your way across to a rescue crawler. Even at full speed, it would take the crawlers almost two hours to get back down.

Every eye in the Towers was cast upward at the unfolding drama. The man, now suspended upside-down from the roof, eased toward the edge. As he did, a small, brightly colored object fell from where he was. Tosh gasped.

“It’s okay,” said Dee. “They drop markers so they can line up the airbag.”

Once inflated, the airbag was massive. The little marker hit it with a barely audible pop and the ground crew tugged it a bit to the left.

“That was a good drop,” Dee said. “He should be good to go.”

Sure enough, the man emerged from over the crawler and came fully into view. He had about 25 meters to cover. Tosh tried to swallow but her mouth was too dry. After what happened in the cafeteria, it was almost too much to bear.

A few meters out, the man seemed to realize he had everyone’s attention. He could go at whatever pace he wanted and drop occasional markers. In between drops, he waved and mimed like he was flying. It got a good laugh and some grateful whoops from the tense crowd. If it wasn’t a big deal to him, maybe it wasn’t a big deal at all.

“I think that’s my dad’s friend, Lewis,” Dee said.

He dropped another marker at the halfway point, and it hit the white circle dead center. Everyone cheered as though it was a contest. Even Tosh got into it. Each drop sent up a chorus of hoots and applause that echoed across the Agora. And why not? This was the most exciting thing any of them had ever seen.

About ten meters shy of the other crawler, however, he stopped moving. He reached up and fiddled with the crank but didn’t budge.

“Something’s wrong,” said Tosh. “What if he’s stuck?”

“Then whoever’s in the rescue crawler has to try and get him.”