C James - Dome Six

“Well, either.”

“Neither,” Dek said, a bit hurt. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. But not here. Let’s take a walk.”

They left and walked all the way down Rad 41 out to the perimeter Arc, where Art had shared his big secret. There just wasn’t a safer place.

Dek leaned in close as they strolled. Passers-by eyed them suspiciously even though they were probably there for the same reason.

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Tosh said.

“You know the strange Macros I told you about?”

“From the woman in the FPC? The ones with the antennas?” He nodded. “What about them?”

“I’m close to isolating the signal.”

“How close?” she asked.

“All I can do is run through frequencies until it seems to respond.”

“Then what?” Tosh asked.

“Then we figure out what the hell they do.”

“You think we all have these things inside us?”

“I’m working under that assumption,” he replied.

Tosh didn’t like Macros one bit. She’d only taken one in her life for a nasty case of pinkeye. That was enough. The thought that her body might be riddled with them turned her stomach.

“There’s something else,” Dek said, interrupting the thought. He leaned in so close that his cracked lips tickled her ear. “Downing came down to the Stores.”

“During the shutdown?” she whispered, incredulous.

“I think he turned the Exchangers back on from the emergency command center. That can only mean he shut them off, too.”

“Why would he do that?” Tosh asked.

“So he could frame me, obviously.”

“Dek, no offense, but that sounds insane.”

She said that louder than she meant to. A passing couple glanced their way.

“Everything okay here?” the man said directly to Tosh.

“All good,” Tosh said, flashing her most reassuring smile. The couple continued on.

“Think about it,” Dek said. “Who better to blame than one of us?”

He was referring to their father, who supposedly tripped the O 2alarm as a distraction. It only took a couple hours for everyone to realize it was a false alarm, by which time he and their mother had already slipped unnoticed into the FPC. It led directly to their grisly deaths and long, dark chapters of her and Dek’s lives.

They’d been on Downing’s radar ever since. Dek was right — he was the perfect scapegoat. Downing must have seen he was in the Stores and seized the opportunity to cause a panic — the same panic that nearly got Byron killed.

“What did he say to you, exactly?” Tosh asked.

“He said if I confessed, he’d only go after me. If I didn’t, he’d implicate people I cared about.”

Tosh shook her head. Downing was such a conniving bastard. Why couldn’t they be as anonymous as most citizens were?

“But then he just let you go?”

“Elle came in just as he was working on me. She ordered him to.”

Now that was surprising. Elle was no fan of Hideki either. She seemed to be in bed with Luther in every sense of the phrase. Then again, she also wouldn’t want to be associated with torture. Tosh still believed she was a good person.

“Thing is, I don’t think his case against me is complete,” Dek continued. “He was just using the fact that I was there with a neurobullet in me to try and make things easy for him.”

“You think he’s gonna follow through?” Tosh asked.

“He’ll do everything he can to nail me to the wall. He hates me.”

“Well, you did flood the city with illicit Macros.”

Dek pondered this for a moment. “You and your damned logic.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“I need to isolate the signal and figure out what these red Macros are. I can’t tell you why, but I think it’s the only question that matters.”

Tosh sighed and smiled at him. “You sound like Dad.”

He smirked. “You’ve still never talked to their Legacies, have you?”

“No.”

“Will you talk to Art?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been pushing all that away. Someday, maybe.”

“I love you,” he said. “You know that, right?”

“I know,” she said. “You, too.”

Every 20 years, the Administrator of Dome Six descended into the Nexus and asked IDA a question.

The answer was always the same.

The question was whether it was finally survivable outside. Twenty years wasn’t even a blip in geological time, but the century leading up to the Dome Project was marked by a volatile climate. The hottest summer on record and the coldest winter on record had once occurred during the same calendar year.

They didn’t need year-round survivability — all they really needed was a few hours. A small team would put on the suits, find the way out, take a look around, then compare their data to what IDA pulled from the Apex sensors. Depending what it said, there would be some difficult decisions to make. All Elle wanted was the opportunity to make them.

This time she didn’t encounter Luther in the Nexus. He was building his case against Dek, which she was trying not to think about. The Hideki she knew since childhood wouldn’t knowingly harm anyone but himself. It just didn’t feel right.

On top of everything, she and the Authority had an Epoch to plan. She was only 14 during the Fourth Epoch, the only one she’d seen. Clear as day, she could remember Keane’s report. The world was still shit, it was still our fault, and they still weren’t going anywhere.

Knowing that and seeing it fall across the hopeful faces around her in the Agora was quite different. As each data point was read, it seemed more air got sucked out of the Dome. Airborne particulates would instantly clog the CO 2filters in the suits. The heat would’ve been bearable but without a water source it didn’t matter. High winds would’ve made standing difficult, let alone exploring.

But even if all these metrics were borderline, what kind of life would it be? The Dome offered limitless food, a reliable source of water, a temperate climate, and protection against the elements. It was home, and it was there for a reason. The Originals figured they’d never feel grass or see trees again but held out hope that future generations might. Was it foolish to think that a mere four or five generations would be enough for the world to heal? Maybe, but to that point hope had always triumphed over fear. It felt like that advantage might be ending.

She stuck her hand inside the access panel and authenticated.

“Good morning, Administrator Travers,” IDA intoned.

“IDA, I need the latest readings and footage from the Apex array.”

“Of course. Which would you like first?”

“Sensor data. But first, call up the readings from the Fourth Epoch.”

The holographic projectors activated and a glowing column of data hovered overhead. She remembered being a teenager and seeing the same numbers projected on the underside of the Dome. They weren’t good. Her pulse quickened at the notion she’d be the first to know what the Fifth Epoch would bring. Luther was wrong about that — people didn’t need someone to blame. They needed hope.

A second column illuminated, and her eyes darted back and forth between the columns.

“This can’t be correct.”

“I detect no malfunction. The data is accurate.”

“What’s the margin of error?” asked Elle.

“Insignificant. Zero point four percent.”

The readings couldn’t be right. If she couldn’t trust it, then maybe she could trust her eyes.

“Show the camera feed.”

The display switched to four wide-angle views of the outside world. The first was pointed west. Dirt and sand stretched as far as you could see. The blackened husks of trees, none taller than three or four meters now and worn smooth, were the only features apart from little bumps and hillocks that could’ve been anything. Visibility was limited on account of the dust, but she’d seen enough. North, east, and south were indistinguishable.