C James - Dome Six

So, no. That wasn’t what happened. It was something else, but he could never prove it.

Conversations with his parents’ Legacies assuaged his grief and anger, but only to a point. He still had few real answers.

“What happened to you in the FPC?” he’d ask his mother’s Legacy.

“I know it’s been difficult for you, Hideki,” she’d say. “But what happened back then doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that you’re happy.”

On and on they’d go like this. Pointed questions followed by vague non-answers and empty platitudes. Sometimes it sounded exactly like her — selfless and utterly focused on her children’s future. But other times she sounded like the AI she was, no more a real entity than a page of IDA-altered bullshit in the Cache.

He gathered up the components he was sure to need, plus a few he just wanted to tinker with, and loaded them into a plastic crate. His next priority was to find a place to stretch out and trip in absolute peace and solitude. He was giddy with excitement.

When he reached the aisle of spare mattresses, he was surprised to see only a few dozen left. Once, there were several hundred. He made room on a shelf at waist level, cut the plastic that compressed the mattress into a tight log, and laid down before it had even finished expanding. The moment his conscious mind let go, his subconscious expanded and he was outside the Dome, flying and floating and falling without a care in the world.

He woke to the sound of cheering.

His brain worked it seamlessly into his Macro-addled dream, in which he dove from a platform in the clouds and performed trick after trick before plunging into a fathomless blue pool. Somewhere, an appreciative crowd applauded his effort as he made for the surface. They sounded distant and muddled, even as he broke the surface and sucked in air.

When his eyes fluttered open, the dream fell away, and he was just staring up at the bottom of a shelf. It felt like his head was still underwater, but he was otherwise lucid enough to hear a chunky sound, and he felt the still air move again as the cheers slowly faded.

The Exchangers were back online.

But over that, faint but sure hum came another sound — the thunk of a distant door closing. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have noticed but felt certain he was alone.

Curious, Hideki left his perch in the shelves and tottered down the corridor toward the source of the sound. He paused at the corner of a long hallway and peeked around the side just in time to see someone in Authority blues appear around the corner. He pulled back tight to the wall, his heart racing, then ventured one eye out for another look. He only needed a second.

It was Downing. There could be no doubt.

Controls for the Dome’s critical systems were hidden in secure areas that only the Authority could access. His father spoke of recessed latches and false walls in closets. It made sense from a security standpoint. What didn’t make sense was why the Authority would let an alarm go on for hours and hours if all they had to do to fix it was flip a switch.

Unless…

Dek hid again before Downing saw him, or at least he thought he did. He hurried back down the central corridor as quickly as he dared and didn’t look back until he’d ducked into the shelves and froze. Downing’s footsteps paused for a moment, leaving only their faint echoes behind. Then they continued slowly down the hallway and into the central corridor. Hideki peered at him over a stack of plumbing fixtures as he scanned the corridor, then turned back to leave. Dek heard the door to the service elevator open and close.

In a few minutes, workers from the Stores would return through the main entrance and go back to whatever they were doing. Dek couldn’t be there when that happened. He ran back to the mattresses, grabbed his crate of components, and made a beeline for the exit. Right now, his mind was cluttered with so many questions that there wasn’t room for real answers, but he hoped it wouldn’t be that way for long.

The Directors of Education, Health, Infrastructure, Production, Housing, and Security sat around a conference table in a room adjacent to Elle’s office, with Elle at the head. She wordlessly met each of their eyes in turn, wanting to make them sweat. The squeaking of seats as they shifted uncomfortably was the only sound.

Every last Dome citizen packed into the Towers had watched the drama on the rooftop play out. Elle was very glad the two men involved would live to tell the tale. But it moved the needle of fear and distrust in the wrong direction. O 2levels got low enough that they seriously considered herding everyone into the Stores, a move reserved for worst-case scenarios. And it would’ve happened on her watch.

“What do we know?” Elle asked. “A lot of shit happened yesterday, so we must know something for sure. No guesses, no assumptions. Facts .”

All eyes turned to Shawn, the Director of Infrastructure.

“Don’t look at him. We’re a team. If one fails, we all fail.”

Luther, seemingly aware he had the least to fear from her, spoke first.

“Everyone knows the safety equipment is defective,” he offered. “It had nothing to do with us.”

“Maybe,” cautioned Elle. “But they can’t exactly hold Cytocorp accountable, can they?” She searched their faces. “Again — what do we know ?”

Shawn leaned into the table. “We’re still trying to identify the cause of both the failure and the restart.”

“Thank you, Shawn, but I asked for facts.”

He sighed, frustrated, and threw his hands up. No one knew what to say.

“All right,” Elle said, standing. She splayed her hands out on the table. “I’ll tell you what I know. I know people are scared for their lives. I know that trust in the Authority is eroding faster than we can repair it. And I know it’s only going to get worse unless we take action.”

She drew herself back up and took a slow lap around the room, its only real decor a running stripe of Administrator portraits.

“Let me be plain. The Fifth Epoch is coming soon. Raise your hand if you’d bet your life that we all make it to the Sixth.”

Furtive glances were exchanged, but no one raised their hand.

“IDA, please run a current sentiment analysis of the Authority,” Elle said.

“Public approval is approximately 18 percent,” said IDA.

“Eighteen percent,” Elle said. “Less than one in five.”

The data didn’t lie. People talked and Listeners, tiny wireless microphones, were everywhere. The same data IDA used to build Legacies was available to the Authority in real time. Keywords were flagged and logged for analysis. The same went for hormone levels, heart rate, muscle tension, and a thousand other parameters.

“You said Cytocorp couldn’t be held accountable,” Luther said. “But what if someone else could?”

“What do you mean?” Elle asked.

“I mean, what if it’s not all equipment failures and accidents?”

Her eyes narrowed at him. She never knew what he was thinking, but maybe he was throwing her a lifeline.

“You’re thinking sabotage?”

The directors shifted forward in their seats, like they sensed the opportunity to get off the hook. Luther had that effect when he opened his mouth. He’d been there longer than anyone and had their respect, if not their admiration. In her five years as Administrator, she’d never enjoyed a full measure of either.

“It’s just a theory,” he said. “But it does fit. The Exchangers anyway.”

A saboteur would explain a great deal. Most importantly, it would shift blame away from the Authority. She was far from convinced but advancing it as a theory at least bought them time. If it turned out to be real and the Authority brought them to justice…