2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) (14 page)

Chapter Seven

Sarah’s head swam with all the information that had just been rammed into it, along with the many implications it held; getting out of this place and back to the surface was going to be far harder than she’d imagined. Uncurling her tall frame from the cramped sofa, she paused the induction video and refreshed herself with a cup of coffee and a sumptuous chocolate-coated biscuit; the kitchen had been well stocked for her arrival, as the Civilian Affairs officer had promised her the day before.

Sitting back down, the packet of biscuits in tow, she hoped the wallscreen had voice command as she couldn’t be bothered getting up again. ‘Play,’ she said. The pause icon disappeared and the film resumed. Feeling pleased with herself, she took out another Hobnob delight, enjoying its oaty taste while the woman who had begun the presentation came back on screen. 

‘Thank you, Professor Steiner,’ she said with genuine warmth as she looked off to one side before turning back to the camera to continue the induction. ‘For much more information about Sanctuary and Homo giganthropsis please visit the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Sanctuary located on the Dome level in the New Park district. A USSB Sanctuary rules, regulations and information handbook can be found in your residency, all of which is also available on the USSB’s cloud system, accessible via your wallscreen’s navigation panel.’

An image resembling Sarah’s wallscreen displayed next to the woman. ‘Now that you are up to speed on the main aspects of Sanctuary I can introduce you to the main areas of the base and advise you as to how to make the most of your experience here. This menu,’ she said, indicating a navigation panel identical to one Sarah had used on her own wallscreen, ‘will be key to you navigating the base, contacting friends, relatives and colleagues, and pretty much everything else you may want to do in your life as a Sancturian.’

Sarah watched the presenter outline the options on the screen one by one. Some of those she listed were only available to military personnel and the video skipped these sections automatically due to Sarah’s clearance level and civilian status. From what Sarah could gather, Sancturians earned United States Credits by working, in her case, at the Smithsonian Institution. Each USC was equivalent to one U.S. dollar, which was simple enough to remember. Not that she had any plans to stick around long enough to bother with it all, but if she wanted to escape she first needed to know what was what.

The credits, as Andrew had indicated in his letter, would be held on her multifunction card, which would also be used to access public transport systems and confirm her identity to military personnel and civilian authorities throughout the base. The card could also be used to purchase goods and services. It all seemed a very comprehensive system and Sarah couldn’t help but be impressed by the magnitude of it all, despite the surreality of her situation seeking to blur her perception like a hallucinatory drug.

The film eventually came to a close and a final message appeared on screen, accompanied by a female computer generated voice, which said: ‘Multifunction card: restrictions lifted. USSB cloud access now fully activated.’

‘Thanks,’ Sarah said to it and moved to swipe her card across the induction panel, instantly bringing up a new extended navigation menu, as per the video. The available options were:

MAP SIMULATOR >

RESIDENT DATABASE >

SOCIAL DATABASE >

APPLICATIONS >

TV >

RETAIL >

SERVICES >

INFORMATION >

EMERGENCY >

Selecting
Resident Database
she typed in her friend’s name, Trish Brook, and pressed enter. ‘Trish Brook,’ the computer confirmed, ‘Sector eighteen residential district, level twenty-five, chamber five, route twenty, domicile one hundred and ninety two.’

Trish’s photograph appeared on the main screen and Sarah felt tears welling at seeing her friend’s face again. A code displayed below her image,
S18 L25 C5 R20 D192
, and then both shrank to the left hand side and a large three dimensional graphic of the base displayed with a red pulsating dot on it. Assuming this must be Trish’s location, Sarah tapped the dot on the big screen and the view zoomed in, rotating in an anti-clockwise spiral as it did so. Sector eighteen appeared, highlighted in orange against the surrounding USSB, which was now greyed out. Another box sprang up next to the red dot detailing a suggested route to Trish’s apartment from Sarah’s own, but a warning message at the bottom of the information flashed on and off:

WARNING!

Travel to this sector is only available at weekends. To unlock restrictions a higher clearance level is required.

To view your restrictions please visit the INFORMATION portal.

Sarah cursed under her breath and looked at the navigation screen to see the bold letters
MONDAY
written large; five days to wait until she could travel to Trish’s sector. A telephone icon also rested within the graphical box. She pressed it. This time an error message appeared:

ERROR!

No suitable credits available.

Letting out a growl of frustration, Sarah flicked through to the information section. After a few minutes she’d worked out she had credits for necessities only; once she’d been to work she’d have what they called
Active Credits
. The information portal also revealed a whole raft of restrictions on her movements: too many to remember, so many, in fact, that the list of what she could do would have been more helpful –
and a lot shorter, too
, she guessed. Knowing the outcome already, Sarah entered Jason’s details. The same problems arose, although thankfully Jason’s home looked to be only one sector over from Trish’s.

Giving up on seeing or speaking to her friends that day, she decided to get outside and explore as far as she was able. A cleverly concealed wardrobe in her bedroom contained a smart grey uniform, like those worn by the two people in the induction video. Deciding this must be for special occasions, she plumped for the only other available garment, a black hooded sweater. Dragging it on, she arranged her long tresses inside it and then collected her multifunction card.

With some trepidation she opened the front door and stepped outside. She found herself at the top of a short flight of stairs, one she briefly remembered having climbed up the evening before in near darkness. Looking up she expected to see the great tower and a bright blue sky, but she recalled she was on a lower level of the base, having descended a massive lift system with Andrew and then been transported by a car to this apartment. Instead of the dome the chamber’s smooth, dense, rock ceiling lurked some hundred feet above, lined with row upon row of powerful floodlights which tailed off into the distance in all directions. Buildings, some nearly reaching the lights themselves, surrounded the area, all seemingly residential, much like the apartment she’d just been given.

To her left the street ended abruptly in a large transparent wall. Through it she could see an amazing sight. A vast thoroughfare cut through the chamber, and not just on that level; as she approached the wall she could make out at least ten levels extending up towards the dome and ten more down towards the lower reaches of the base. Great lift systems, interconnected with a mass of complex road layouts, teemed with moving traffic, the muted roar and whine of fast moving machines penetrating the chamber where she stood looking out. Close to either side of the gigantic swathe, hewn out of the rock, wide walkways bustled with human activity as people went about their daily lives; as she’d learned to her cost earlier, the rear of Sarah’s apartment backed onto one of them.

Looking left, and then right, she could make out a large, white, rectangular beam that hugged the rock walls. As she watched, on the far side and along such a beam, a blue and white train flew past at high speed. Below it another came in the other direction, but this one slowed, coming to rest in a futuristic glass-clad station, passengers exiting and boarding like on any major city network the world over. This place was something else.

Looking back at her front door, she made a note of the numbers,
S5 L15 C8 R12 D274
. How could she be expected to remember that? She recalled the card in her zipped trouser pocket; Andrew had shown her this last night.
Wake up Sarah!
she told herself. Swiping the MF Card over the entry pad caused a red light to replace the green that had been glowing through the transparent plastic. Now the door was locked, her address code,
S5 L15 C8 R12 D274
, lit up in a muted white light on the emblem side of the card and then slowly disappeared. According to Andrew, the card was able to read her fingerprints and pulse rate, providing a unique identifier so only she could utilise it. Anytime she wanted to see the address all she had to do was hold the card for a few seconds and it would appear again.
Simple
, she thought,
as long as I don’t lose it, that is
.

The inner streets of the chamber were quiet as Sarah made her way along them, her new shoes helping her to bounce along in comfort. Turning a corner, she found herself on a wide, sloping walkway that took her down to the transport channel she had just been looking at. A noisy cacophony of traffic came thrusting along the path towards her as she drew closer.

Approaching the bottom, her nerves came to the fore when she saw two armed U.S. soldiers standing watch over a multi-arched gate system. As people moved through each barrier, they held up their card to something on the inside of the arch and then a blue laser flashed over their body in the blink of an eye. Most people walked through almost without slowing, but Sarah halted in front of one, apprehensive.

One of the soldiers ambled over to her. ‘Are you OK, ma’am?’

‘Err, yes,’ she said, cursing her reluctance to just walk through as if she belonged. ‘Do I just swipe my card and walk on past? I won’t get zapped or anything, will I?’

The soldier chuckled as his partner came over to join them, increasing her tension further. ‘No ma’am, no zapping. It just scans you – see.’ He pointed to a man as he passed beneath an arch unscathed. ‘It makes sure you have no unauthorised weapons, explosives, liquids and the like on you.’

‘Standard protocol,’ the other soldier told her gruffly.

She gave a nervous smile. ‘That’s a relief; I didn’t fancy getting incinerated today.’

‘I like your accent,’ the first soldier said, ‘what is it, Australian?’

Sarah laughed as she relaxed a little. ‘Australian! It’s English, East London. Land of Hope and Glory ‘n’ all that.’

He brightened. ‘Ah, like the Royal family, yeah, I know. I really like your King and Queen, cool couple.’

The other guard eyed her with suspicion. ‘We don’t get many foreigners in Sanctuary.’

‘Don’t mind him,’ the first man said, ‘he was born to get out of the wrong side of the bed.’

Sarah looked at him. ‘You couldn’t tell me how to get to the Smithsonian Institution, could you?’

‘Sure.’ He held out his hand for Sarah’s MF Card.

Taking the card from her he walked over to a robust looking wallscreen and swiped her card into the system. Up came all her details and her location on the map of the base.

‘So,’ the soldier said, as his colleague wandered off, disinterested, ‘you’re here and the Smithsonian is—’ he tapped and rotated the screen with practised ease, ‘here. Basically, you can get the monotube straight through without needing to change; you’re lucky.’

‘That makes a change.’

‘Bad day?’

She made a face. ‘Bad few months.’

‘Well, things are looking up. You’re very lucky to get a job at the museum. It’s smack in the middle of the nicest part of the base. Most people need a high clearance level to be able to go there as much as you can.’

‘As much as I can?’

He grinned at her naivety. ‘You really are new, aren’t you. Basically, as you work there, you could go seven days a week if you wanted, but most people would need a clearance level of six or above to go there that much. I have level three clearance, so I can only go to the New Park district on my days off.’

Sarah was confused. ‘But you’re military; I thought you could go anywhere you liked?’

‘I wish,’ he said with feeling. ‘Military or not, we all have clearance levels and we all have restrictions; it’s how the base works. You haven’t got it all your own way, though; since you’re a level one, you won’t be able to get off at any other stop or sector along the way – during the days you work, anyway. Weekends or days off, some of your restrictions will be lifted to the main areas of recreation and commerce.’

Sarah’s brow furrowed as she looked at the screen; she felt more disorientated now than she had before, and it must have shown.

‘Don’t worry,’ the soldier said, ‘you’ll get used to it. It always takes a while to adjust to Sanctuary; it’s so much bigger than the other bases.’

‘I haven’t been to the other bases,’ Sarah mumbled to herself.

He leaned forward. ‘What was that?’

‘Eh? Oh, nothing. So I just catch this monotube thing straight to New Park Central?’

‘That’s right; you’ll need to cross over to the other side to catch it, though, or you’ll end up in the industrial sector.’

The soldier gave Sarah directions to the station on the other side of the road and rail system, and it didn’t take her long to cross over using a few travelators and an elevator. The monotube took a while to arrive, but at last the futuristic machine cruised into the station and came to rest with the venting of some kind of gas, which rolled across the surface of the platform, covering the shoes of the waiting travellers, including Sarah; some kind of discharge from the braking system, she presumed. The bright blue and white exterior of the train was adorned at specific intervals with the transport system’s logo: