C James - Dome Six

“Do you have evidence?” Elle asked, intrigued.

“No, but I haven’t investigated. If it proved true ahead of the Epoch announcement, I suspect public sentiment toward the Authority would improve a great deal,” Luther added. “IDA, run a scenario where someone is found guilty of causing these recent accidents.”

“Public sentiment would rise to a minimum of 42 percent,” IDA replied.

Luther raised his eyebrows thoughtfully and nodded. “Forty-two’s not great, but it’s a helluva lot better than eighteen.” He and the others turned back toward Elle.

Even in private, Luther was as inscrutable as they came. But she knew him well enough to know what he was really saying. It was a useful narrative to advance, at least for now.

She’d spent more than half her life at the Authority — enough to know that this was how the system worked. Recent events proved they weren’t always in control, but they still controlled the information. In a closed system, control was the name of the game. Without it, the Dome would descend into chaos. Then the aging infrastructure would be the least of their problems.

It was the only lever she had to pull, but it was a gamble. The only satisfying end to a witch hunt was if she burned. Elle needed to tread carefully.

“Let’s look into sabotage,” said Elle. “Start asking around. Look at people’s movements around the time of the failures. If you find a thread, see where it leads but take no action. The circle doesn’t extend beyond this room. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” they mumbled.

“Go,” Elle said. “If you find anything, report directly to me. Dismissed.”

They all got up and left. Elle sunk back into her chair with a heavy sigh and rubbed her temples.

“I know you’re conflicted about this,” said Luther, leaning against the doorway. “You shouldn’t be.”

She didn’t love the fact that he hung back. The other Directors almost certainly had their suspicions about the two of them. Any appearance of bias was the last thing she needed.

“If I ask you a question, will you be honest with me?” she said.

“Of course,” replied Luther.

“Do you think we’ll ever get out of here?”

He thought for a moment and said, “I do.”

“Why?”

He sauntered behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. He pressed his thumbs into her muscles and moved them in slow circles. She wanted to melt into the chair. “Because, Elle, even I have to believe in something.”

IDA said, “Your application to conceive has been rejected. You may apply again in one year.”

Luther remembered it as clear as day. It was the seventh such message Luther and Julia received in as many years. It didn’t make sense, but life went on. The population algorithms hadn’t favored conception for the past few years. Almost no one was being approved. At least, that’s what he was told.

But then he found out about the Yamamuras.

They were his and Julia’s neighbors in 23J. Not friends, but friendly enough to know that they, too, had applied for conception. They were only rejected three times. Apparently, they got to work right away because a couple months later, Minori bounced by and told everyone who would listen that she was pregnant with twins.

Julia sank into despair. They’d been working first shift but she came home one day and said she’d been assigned to second shift in Infrastructure. It seemed arbitrary, but he came to suspect she’d requested the change so they wouldn’t have to see each other as much or confront their shared frustration. She wanted a child more than she’d ever wanted anything.

Months passed, and one day she was waiting for him on the couch with tears of joy streaming down her face. The Directorate of Health confirmed she was pregnant.

The contraceptives delivered through women’s rations failed sometimes. Nature occasionally found a way. All it usually meant was that someone else in the city would get denied. But Luther suspected that wasn’t the case with Julia. The timing was too coincidental.

It all added up to one thing. Julia had started drinking his rations.

She’d put him in an impossible position. Her CHIT would detect her hormonal changes and throw a flag, which the Authority would check against the approvals. When they didn’t match, they’d have a problem.

All they’d worked for, all the sacrifices they’d made to get to where they were would be for naught. One or both of them would be busted down to the FPC or the Towers. The pregnancy would be terminated. If it came to that, Julia wouldn’t be able to handle it. Even if she didn’t do anything drastic, she’d be lost to him. He would be stripped of his commission and become just as powerless as anyone else.

Then he had an idea.

He and the Administrator both had access to the Nexus, the Dome’s datacenter. All the hardware that drove IDA and gathered data from the CHITs was there. It was the most secure place in the Dome. He didn’t know if anyone was listening besides IDA, but if it was possible to reach whatever remained of Cytocorp, it would be from the Nexus. So, in his desperation, Luther went inside and asked the Company to help him.

He couldn’t remember if he actually said begging, but he was desperate to save his wife and child — desperate enough, in fact, to ask for the help of a faceless entity that almost certainly didn’t exist anymore.

But then the androgynous voice on the other end said, “We’re aware of your predicament, Director, and there may be a remedy.”

The voice said the Company would look after Julia and keep her safe. They would welcome her into their ranks and integrate her into their society, and when their daughter was born, they would look after her, too. The only way to save them was to trust Cytocorp.

They explained that the Dome’s primary commodity, multimeal, was the raw material for a nutrient-laden liquid people in the Northern Cities depended upon for survival. They’d been forced deep underground by the Burn and now needed this syrupy substance, which they called Agar, to survive. The Company had nearly perfected a way for people to survive the harsh environment above ground, but until they did, Agar needed to keep flowing. Once the technology was ready, they would come and free the Domes, starting with him.

But first he had to make sure it held together until their dataset was complete, whatever that meant. If IDA summoned him to the Nexus, he had to respond immediately and do whatever was asked of him without question.

That was almost 20 years ago.

Under the cover of the Fourth Epoch, he spirited Julia deep into the noisy mechanical heart of the FPC. There, he discovered a hidden door in the multimeal processor, precisely where the Company said it would be. It opened the door to just the first of many stunning revelations.

The first was that the processor was almost literally the tip of an iceberg. Beneath it was a fully automated underground facility that turned multimeal and water into Agar. The algorithms calculated exactly how much multimeal the Dome needed, and the rest became Agar.

He led Julia down through the tangle of pipes, vats, and pumps to the very bottom, where a massive door awaited, plastered with warnings about the mortal danger of opening it. But he opened it just the same — because that’s what the Company required of him.

Then came the second revelation.

In the musty darkness beyond was a set of tracks, and on those tracks was an enormous black train. It had hauled supplies and personnel to the Dome during its construction long ago. Now, it transported Agar through the Burn to the Northern Cities, from one underground to another.