C James - Dome Six

Julia was frightened and confused. He explained as best he could but swore to her that the train would bear her and their child to the kind of life they couldn’t have lived in the Dome. It was the only way, he said.

They watched the tanks fill one by one, the train easing further and further into the tunnel that presumably led outside. The train was old but heavily armored. It had weathered the deadly conditions outside for the better part of a century. Julia was scared as hell, but she trusted him.

He promised he’d join her in Pacifica someday, kissed her, and helped her up into the small cabin at the back of the rearmost tank. There were no windows. When the train eased into the pitch-black tunnel and slowly accelerated, there was no way to wave goodbye.

Cytocorp took care of both his cover story and the data that corroborated it. Julia had a history of mental-health issues. She refused to abort her pregnancy and had a psychotic episode — what came to be called “Dome Fever.” Desperation drove her to crawl into the incinerator, presumably looking for a way out. That story could only end one way.

Every so often, they let him speak to her. Sometimes she sounded older like the other day and sometimes he’d swear she was still in her late 20s, but at least he got to hear her voice. It crossed his mind that even Julia could be some sort of AI like the Legacies, but he banished the thought, preferring to believe she was okay. The Company was cagey, yes, but everything they’d told him turned out to be true. Luther trusted when he talked to Julia, he talked to Julia .

They had yet to let him talk to his daughter. She’d be around 19 by now. IDA ran thousands of genetic scenarios to generate a possible image of her face. She had Julia’s lustrous brown eyes but his protruding ears. Her lips but his nose.

But as much as he wanted to meet her, to even know her name, he understood why he couldn’t. Maybe Julia would tell her the truth one day and maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she would find someone new and maybe not. At least he’d given her the choice.

Twenty years was a long time for anyone to hold out hope, especially him. How many times had he convinced himself to let them both go, only to descend into the Nexus and ask yet again to hear her voice? That ember refused to burn out, no matter how much he tried to douse it.

This thing with the Exchangers was no trifle. Based on the reports he’d seen over the years, he was shocked there hadn’t been a failure much sooner. But an existential threat couldn’t just be chalked up to wear and tear. There was no worse crime than to compromise the safety of the Dome. All he needed now was a suitable criminal.

Neither of the men who fell from the roof of the Dome during the O 2scare were seriously injured. Lewis, the one Byron tried to rescue, dislocated his right shoulder and two ribs. Byron likely had a concussion but was otherwise unharmed. Tosh should’ve felt grateful, but she wasn’t.

She was angry as hell.

The Dome took her parents from her. In a way, it took her best friend, too. In a few days, it would take her friend, Art. It cast Owen into the Towers and took Hideki’s mind. And, now, it had nearly taken Byron, who she didn’t even realize she was in love with until she thought he was about to die.

Enough was enough.

After the O 2scare ended, she led her students back to School 2, where their parents were anxiously waiting. She left Dee with Byron and went to find Owen and Dek. She found Owen near the entrance to the dormitory and threw her arms around him, squeezing so tightly he had to pry her free.

“Easy, Mom,” he said, patting her on the back. “I’m fine.”

He’d tried to make it all the way down from 30 to help with the airbag but only just reached the Agora when Byron fell. He introduced her to his new friend, Aaron, whose affable nature seemed to be rubbing off.

Was it possible that Owen had made his peace with Tower work? Was that good or bad?

They, too, had watched the drama play out from level 30, right next to the Authority workers in their special little area. Those same Authority bureaucrats all saw the same emergency but did nothing even though they had an elevator. An elevator !

She gave Owen another hug and even had one for Aaron, to his pleasant surprise. He excused himself to check on his own parents and told Owen he’d see him later. They’d be allowed a few hours’ rest from the Towers, but that would be all. The plants had practically exploded from the trays while the exchangers were down.

“Have you seen Dek?” she asked.

Owen said he hadn’t but noted that he could’ve been anywhere. Tosh said she’d try and find him and then go to check on Art.

She arrived at Dek’s place on Rad 41 about an hour and a half after the Exchangers came back online. By then the air had returned to normal. As soon as he opened the door, she wrapped him up in her arms.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said. “I was worried about you.”

“Oh, you know me,” he laughed. “I’m scrappy.”

He was more lucid and keyed up than she’d seen him in a while. His shades were still drawn as always, but the living room was fully lit and strewn with electronic junk clearly taken from the Boneyard. Their father’s roll of Technician’s tools lay open on the floor. He’d been there a while.

“What the hell is all this stuff?” she asked, taking it all in.

“I have so much to tell you,” he said, clearing a small spot at the end of the couch. She didn’t realize how tired she was until she sat. Compared to the floors of the Towers, the couch felt like a cloud.

Dek explained about his gruesome errand in the FPC and the strange Macro he found in Multimeal Maria’s remains. He then related his experience in the Stores, and how he’d seen Downing skulking about. He got out just before people streamed back in from the Agora and had no idea what had gone down on the roof with Byron.

“Why would Downing switch off the Exchangers?” Tosh wondered. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

He shook his head and shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

He went on to describe the Macros’ unusual antenna structure and the deep red color that made it all but invisible. The Dome had no means to produce such a thing and they both knew it.

“And you have no idea what they are?” Tosh asked, picking through some of the stuff he’d smuggled out of the Stores. “Is the antenna a transmitter or a receiver?”

“Receiver for sure. It’s too small to transmit.”

Tosh related everything from the start of the alarm to the equipment failure that nearly killed Byron. As someone who constantly sought escape from the drudgery of Dome life, he was sorry to have missed such excitement. But she could also see how deeply he’d sunk his teeth into this new mystery.

The screen on the wall flicked on suddenly, flooding the dark room with bluish light. The Cytocorp logo faded up, then back out while music played. The screen resolved into Elle’s tightly drawn face.

Authority broadcasts were relatively rare, usually related to major changes in work shifts or notices that a train was down. Even then, they were usually left to IDA. But in addition to their screen, they could hear her voice booming from outside, her image projected on the underside of the Dome.

“Attention citizens,” Elle began. “Like most of you, I watched the past day’s events with great concern. That it didn’t end in tragedy is a credit to both our emergency responders and the brave few who came to the rescue of those men. Our city owes all of you their gratitude.”

he leaned toward the camera and sighed, her tone taking on additional gravitas.