Flare (32 page)

There are only six rooms in this area of the Salvation
,
even though there’s space for twenty here.

Ash’s partner was waiting by his own door, and he waved when he saw Ash. He was a muscular, short man in his early forties. He had a bald head, a prominent nose and Mediterranean skin. His body was quite hairy, and though he looked tough, he smiled broadly when he saw Ash.

“Hey!” he said.

Ash was taken aback by his informal tone and surprised by his appearance. After seeing Adriel for the last week, Ash was expecting everyone here to share her regal features. This man wasn’t unbecoming, but he didn’t look like a king.

“Hello,” said Ash.

“My name’s Dave.”

“I’m Ash.”

Dave came up to Ash and attempted a hug, but held himself back and then shook Ash’s hand firmly. Something about the man lent an aura of trust.

“Good to meet you,” said Dave. “You’re the first person I’ve seen since …”

“Me too,” said Ash.

Dave patted Ash on the shoulder.

“Let’s go to
z3
,” he said, winking. “We’ll chat on the way.”

/***/

A panel at the end of the hallway slid open soundlessly to reveal a door. Dave walked towards it and Ash followed. Ash was excited to see another real human being, even if he was nearly as clueless as to their surroundings as Ash was.
Perhaps that’s precisely why I’m happy to see him, and why he feels so trustworthy.
We’re in the same boat.

Dave exited through the door, and Ash followed him into the darkness. Ash’s eyes adjusted to the dim light and he saw that the white plastic alloy was now gone, replaced by rock and black metal piping in a cramped hallway. Ash touched the metal, and it felt cool on his fingers.

“This is still the plastic from inside,” said Ash. “They just gave it a black color out here, and it blends in with the darkness. It looks like metal, and probably behaves like it too.”

“Oh, yeah!” said Dave, speaking a little too loudly. “So it does!”

Dave put his fingers to his lips and winked at Ash again. Ash nodded in return. He didn’t quite understand what Dave wanted, but he understood the cue to be quiet.

/***/

They walked through the cramped hallway and then arrived at a small area that looked like the platform of a subway station. It was lit by several artificial stones that glowed brightly when they approached, and the stones bathed the room in a soft red glow. The platform was quite small, perhaps ten feet by ten feet, and there was a four-foot drop below the platform with a ladder leading to a track and a small vehicle. The vehicle was well designed and compact, and Ash thought that it looked like something between a bullet train and a motorcycle side car. As Dave approached, the vehicle’s bright beams lit up, bringing full illumination to the platform.

Dave crawled down the ladder and into the front of the vehicle, boarding it through a sliding panel in the roof. Ash crawled down the ladder and marveled at the design of what he was gripping. The ladder wasn’t a ladder at all, but merely rocks on the side of the platform that were engineered to serve as steps. He couldn’t see the divots from the outside, but they felt sturdy and were easy to grip and navigate with his hands.

Ash got into the vehicle, which was narrow and held four seats. He realized that much of it had the white hue of his own room. The entire thing was made of various permutations of the plastic alloy, from the outer frame of the train to the seat cushions. The shell on the outside of the train was harder than steel, the seat cushions were like soft velvet, and the train was filled with everything else in between. Ash tapped the windows and wondered if they were made of the plastic alloy as well. They were clear but soft to the touch, and didn’t show any scratches.

Dave closed the hatch on his roof, and Ash followed suit. Ash took one more look at the rough interior of the platform and realized the subtle intricacies of this area’s shape. The ladder of rocks was all but invisible now. The rock that made up the tunnel’s ceiling had no man-made support beams, but it had been arched and compacted to the point where it looked like it would hold forever. And the platform itself, though it was made of flattened stones, still looked like it belonged here. As soon as the glowing rocks on the platform faded, the floor disappeared, leaving only a sparkling texture in its stead.

They’ve built into the natural world around us.
But they’ve put just as much thought into what they’ve built here as they’ve put into the white, plastic rooms where we spend most of our day.

/***/

The train flew out of the station quietly and quickly, and the track elevated precipitously. Ash worried that they were headed towards the surface, but Dave showed no fear and simply pulled back a lever to bring the train into a lower gear.

Ash saw white ahead and realized that they were entering a small tube, most likely made of the plastic alloy. Dave pulled a lever, and the train went even faster. Ash’s senses adjusted, and soon it felt like the train wasn’t moving at all. Ash saw a digital display in front of Dave and noticed that it was simply a projection coming from the train’s ceiling. Dave pushed a circle on the projection and then pulled a lever beneath his chair. He turned his chair around in the train, and though it was a tight fit, he was soon facing Ash.

“
Now
we can talk,” said Dave, as he winked once more.

/***/

Dave had procured a small table that shot upwards from the floor with a press of a button, and it spread outwards until it was sturdy. Dave pressed another button on the wall, and a panel slid open to reveal a glass of the cloudy white tea and several glasses. Dave poured two glasses and put them on the table. Though the train was still moving at an incredible speed, the ride was so smooth that neither glass was in danger of spilling.

Dave closed the panel on the wall and toasted Ash.

“To the Salvation,” he said with a broad grin.

Ash raised his drink and their glasses met with a soft thud, the noise dampened by the glass’s flexible structure. They drank, savoring the gentle taste of pears.

“They record us everywhere else,” said Dave. “But I don’t believe they record us here, even when the train is just sitting by itself next to a platform. I’ve run this train quite a few times, and I don’t think that they watch us in here, though you can’t tell for sure. They’re pretty crafty.”

Dave pointed with his eyes at the projector that had put the driving display in front of him.

“I tested it,” he said. “I said some weird things back in my room before I went to bed, nonsensical stuff like
avocado microphones
and
gorilla milk
, and they brought it up the next day. But not here. In this train you can say whatever you want, and it won’t get back to you. Try it.”

Ash was silent, but felt impelled by Dave’s stare to speak as he requested.

“Quiver, rainbow splice,” said Ash. “Semaphore hermaphroditic creatinine.”

“There you go! That’s what I’m talking about!” said Dave, before repeating Ash’s words with a laugh. “
Semi-for, hemaphrodite creatine! SEMI-FOR hemaphrodite CREATINE
!”

Ash smiled at Dave’s enthusiasm and then quietly snapped the fingers on his right hand twenty times in a row, just to test this theory further.

“Of course, they could still be listening to us right now,” said Dave. “They’ve planned everything here, and they could probably run these vehicles by themselves. But that’s what they’re training me to do, so here I sit in the pilot’s seat.”

“You’re here to drive the trains?”

“I’m here to drive everything,” said Dave. “That’s what I did back up on the surface. Planes, race cars, boats, you name it. I didn’t do well on the tests, but I can drive, and that’s what they’re having me do. They’ve got big plans, whoever they are.”

“You have a normal name, just like me,” said Ash.

“Ash is a little different, but I hear you,” he said. “We’re both a long ways from Zerachiel, Ambriel, and whatever else they call themselves. I like these guys so far, but they’ve sure got their own thing.”

“That, they do,” said Ash.

Ash took another sip of the cloudy white tea and relaxed in his chair as the train soundlessly sped through the clear white tunnel. He concentrated on his surroundings but couldn’t hear a single thing from outside. It was as if they were speeding through air.

/***/

An hour later Dave turned his seat back to the front and began slowing the train down. The train came to a halt in front of a raised area, much bigger than their own platform, but also built out of the natural earth. The roof and walls were heavy with limestone, stalactites and stalagmites stretching to meet each other, just as they had done for millennia.

This place is less engineered than the last platform but still sturdy,
thought Ash.
These are natural caves, and they’ll endure even longer than the place we had left from.

Dave pressed a circle on the projection in front of him, and their roofs slid open. Ash stood up and grabbed onto the natural outcropping that was below the platform. It wasn’t carved like the first platform, but it was just as good as a ladder, and soon both he and Dave were standing on solid ground. Some of the rocks were glowing, and they lit the room well. Ash noticed a tall, gangly figure come from the darkness, and as he approached, the stranger wore a broad smile. He had a big forehead and his skin was a smooth dark brown, the color of pumpkin butter.

“Hello,” said the figure, with a thick Latin accent. “My name is
Santiago
. We’ve been expecting you. Please, come inside.”

/***/

The inside was white and expansive like their own space, and it also had six rooms spread evenly apart. The far wall had an open door, however, and Santiago walked towards it. Dave and Ash followed him, and they entered a long white hallway filled with doors on the side. Some of them were open, and Ash peered in as they went past. Inside some doors were more of the rooms that he had seen before, with six living spaces around a large common area, but there were people walking around freely. Most of the inhabitants had brown skin and dark hair, but other than that they were of varied ages, sizes and sexes.

Santiago continued to go forward, as if he’d done the walk every day of his life, and soon the hallway ended in a blank white wall. Santiago put his hand on the wall and a panel slid away, revealing another hallway that led in three different directions.

This place is enormous,
thought Ash.
I bet the place I came from has hidden panels in the wall and is just as big.

They walked for five more minutes, revealing empty rooms filled with children playing, people eating and laughing, a woman playing cello and another room with five people surrounding a giant architectural blueprint projected onto a table from the ceiling. They were arguing and erasing, changing and drawing lines with their fingers.

They finally reached their destination, and Santiago slid the door open to reveal a darkened room with a table covered in a projected diagram. A man was studying the projection and didn’t hear them come in. Santiago announced that they were there, and the man turned around and held up his hand. He was a young man with dark hair, pale and quite handsome. He was also quite short too, much shorter than Dave. As he approached them, he walked by Santiago’s oversized frame and looked like a child in comparison.

“My name is Nigel,” he said, and Ash thought his accent sounded British.

/***/

They let Dave go and gave him instructions on how to get back to the room where the people were eating dinner.

“You mean I can just roam free?” Dave asked with a laugh.

“Of course,” said Santiago.

“All right,” said Dave. “Ash, I’ll see you when you’re done. Take your time.”

Dave gave a quick nod and then left. As soon as he was gone, Nigel started explaining the problem. He spoke in British English, though he occasionally lapsed into Spanish with Santiago. He said that their problem was with the efficiency of the sewage treatment system. He first gave some background on their system, explaining to Ash their process of dewatering, killing the toxins and extracting fertilizer and energy from the solid waste. Ash looked over the system on the projected diagram and was stunned.

First of all, he noticed that the Salvation produced very little waste per person. There was almost no garbage, and only a small fraction of the water went down the drain. Ash remembered his long showers and reasoned that each room must have its own water recycling system, releasing it to the sewers only when it became absolutely unusable.

Second of all, the sewage treatment process worked incredibly well with the little waste it received. Their refuse was turned into energy, fertilizer and water with better effectiveness than anything he’d ever seen before.

“We’re hoping to increase fertilizer output,” said Santiago. “Can you help us redesign this system so that we may do this?”

They’re asking me to take a method with ninety-nine percent efficiency and improve upon it,
thought Ash.
It’s going to take some time, because I can’t just augment their design by increasing the diameter of a drainage pipe or adding another step of reverse osmosis. If I want to do what they ask of me, I’ll have to fight the universal laws of physics and nature.