.jpg)
Chapter 2
The weather never changed in the perfect world of
peaceful Icarus-7E. Warm blue sky of the planet lit by the evershining sun,
synthetic sounds of wind in soft grass, luxurious glass towers of the city -
people took those all for granted. Only on rare occasions like academy
graduation there was a special festive mood in the air.
‘Our sincere congratulations. We are delighted with
your excellent performance during exams.’
A middle-aged man on the stage looked strict and not
delighted at all. His black outfit and usual grim face were somehow foreign to
the relaxed atmosphere of the sunny planet. Every student knew him as professor
Atlas, an intimidating head of the space academy, though he visited Ark city
only on organisational matters.
He carried on with his clichéd speech, and the
ceremony was getting rather boring. Students were sitting or lying on the
grass, watching mysterious lines in the sky - hints of distant planets they
were eager to explore after graduation. Onica was watching them too, but she
didn't see the blue sky. As she touched the grass she couldn't say it was
green. And there was no light falling from the sun, which made this world look
so fine, as there was no sun. There were only screens, wires and walls,
surrounding a tiny fake reality of Ark - their prison.
Atlas looked around the crowd and stopped his sheer
cold gaze on Onica to meet disobedience in her eyes. She wasn't afraid of him,
of anything at all. She didn't avert her gaze until he left the stage.
‘Are you alright?’
Lee, son of a bolt! Onica flinched out of surprise.
Lee was the exact opposite of his sister - diligent, gentle and quiet, always
dreaming about something and hoping. He was the only one Onica could trust her
secret to, though he didn't care to look through the illusion of carefree
society.
'I don't wanna be here. Let's get to the shoulder,'
she said annoyingly.
'The shoulder' was their secret place, a narrow roof
of the bridge connecting two towers. It was impossible to spot anyone on top of
it, but the whole city was seen from there. The only place where Onica didn't
feel being watched.
Lee looked uncertain. Same as Onica loved breaking the
rules, he was into following them with utmost precision, and the e-ward on his
wrist showed around fifteen minutes till the end of the ceremony. And as soon
as he decided that he was needed more for Onica's seemingly bad mood, an
energetic looking man wearing a lab robe and glasses occupied the scene.
'Do not leave! I have a tiny announcement for you, my
dear friends.'
It was Dr Eim, and same as usual he was wearing his
best smile. Eim was a good friend to students, attentive and caring, but Onica
didn't like him. His kindness was fake like this entire damn city. A while ago,
when Onica first showed her 'symptoms', he was the one to treat her, but
fortunately, Onica came up with the idea to pretend getting better before the
special treatment began.
'Onica, wait, it's about our first expedition! It must
be important…'
'I don't give a flux.'
Unlike Onica, every student of Ark academy was
dreaming about space expeditions, as they were vital for keeping Ark city
alive. Resources on Icarus-7E were
gradually depleting, and no one knew how long peace would remain in Ark, the
last refuge on desolated planet. Out there, in vast unveiled depths of space,
everyone was hoping to discover a place where humans will no longer think about
survival.
Lee rushed to catch up with sister, but she was
already climbing the emergency ladder attached to the building next to the
glade. As she threw a glance at the stage, Onica accidentally made eye contact
with Dr Eim, which made her momentarily shiver with unease. He continued his
speech as if he didn't notice the two escapees, but for a moment, his eyes held
a slight taunt.
Onica and Lee
From the shoulder, Ark City lay open before them,
nestled on a small island. While they were studying, they weren't allowed to
leave the central area, where their campus was - four impressive towers for
future operators, medics, pilots and engineers. Lee's love for space travels
propelled him to graduate as a pilot, while Onica always fell behind and didn't
manage to pass through her status of mechanic and get a respectful degree of
engineer.
‘You are being weird today. Are you seeing those
visions again?’
There was a concern in his voice, which made Onica
even more furious.
‘Visions? Scrap, you told you believed me!’
‘Onica, we've already discussed it.’
Yes, they discussed it many times. And many times
Onica tried to attract Lee's attention to inconsistencies of the fake reality.
If they had been taught that planets orbit the sun, why is it always in the
same place? Space travelers bring terrifying stories of how they escaped the
brink of death, why do they and their ships return in such a perfect condition?
Do you have at least any memories of leaving the campus? Although Lee lacked
critical thinking and let the academy fool himself, he was smart enough to
admit that all those signs were concerning. However, as he woke up next morning,
he got away with some new explanations, as if someone was constantly updating
database in his head.
‘Well, whatever. Soon I'm gonna prove you.’
Lee sighed.
‘What do you have in mind this time? Professor Atlas
gave you the last warning: another incident - and you will be expelled.’
Onica was notorious for her countless attempts to
sabotage peace of the academy. It was a riddle for everyone except Lee why she
would disrupt classes, steal chemical reagents or parts of the equipment from
storage. Of course she had something in mind.
Lee sat down beside Onica at the edge of the shoulder.
She was an emotional fortress, but something about her hinted that she was at
her breaking point.
'Look… I know that you are unhappy here. After I get
my licence, we could leave this planet…'
'Big words.'
'… I will always be here for you, and I will try to
make anywhere we'll go a safe place, a better place, for you and me…'
'Shut up, you don't even understand.'
'…whatever you see, it doesn't matter as long as we
are together. You don't need to be scared of those visions, I am capable to
protect you, just give me some time, after expedition I will graduate as a
pilot and…'
'I said shut the flux up! Stripped gears… I'm not
afraid, okay? And there'll be no expedition, how can't you understand! We won't
live though the graduation, we need to escape now!..'
Onica jumped on her feet, burning with fury, but it
was hard to sway Lee with emotions. He calmly locked hands behind his head,
resignedly retreating to the other corner of the roof.
'Fine, fine, I will go with you. But what then? Where
are you going to go? Do you have a spaceship? Fuel? Resources? You never think
ahead, you just always want to act on impulse. And can you explain, what you
mean by…'
'What's the time.'
'What?'
'What time is it?!'
Lee looked at his e-ward, which showed that the
ceremony was about to finish. He raised his eyes to Onica, but he didn't have a
chance to notify her about this, as she got coloured with unnaturally bright
light, and everything was torn by a deafening noise. With no further
explanation Onica turned Lee to the campus, and horror flashed in his eyes as
he watched the flickering image of the sky on shattered screens, and fire
eating walls of the small empty box they called the city of Ark.
'Welcome to my reality.'
And then everything faded and sank into complete
silence.
***
‘Are you nervous? It's fine.’
Onica flinched as she heard Eim's calm voice. She
found herself in a shimmering white ward, sitting in the treatment pod, with no
memories of getting here. But she remembered that last time she got here like
this was when she was suspected to 'see' something.
So they knew what she had done.
'Don’t worry, it's just a regular medical check,' said
Eim, as if he read her mind. 'There was a sudden explosion in the city centre,
so we need to make sure that no one got hurt.'
She didn't believe him. As Dr Eim was doing standard
examination, Onica was watching him closely. Of course, she could try not to
raise any suspicion and pretend being nice, but the only thought of that was
disgusting.
‘You are a mistrustful type, aren't you?’
Eim smiled at her and drew nearer. Onica scanned if he
had any injections prepared for her, but the only sharp object was a plain
pencil in his chest pocket. That will do. A strange thing to have though,
considering that e-pens and tablets were way more convenient than paper.
‘Relax, I won't harm you. Onica, my dear, look at me.’
As soon as she looked him in the eyes, he shifted his
gaze to the corner of the ward. His smile was now slightly cunning and his
voice lowered to gentle half-whisper.
‘Stay here for a while. I will make some adjustments,
it seems something is wrong with the surveillance system.’
Onica felt her heart beating wild as Dr Eim left. She
looked up cautiously at indicators to see that cameras were turned off. Then
she turned to the corner of the ward, Eim's obvious hint. The illusion of
shining white room was transparent enough for her to notice a door… a door!
Onica rushed from her place and pushed it impatiently
- it gave in. There was a piercing darkness outside, and Onica felt faint for a
moment. Never in life had those living in the perfect simulation experienced
darkness before - there were no sounds and no smells she remembered from Ark,
sterile nothingness. The girl panicked and turned around, but it appeared to be
just an ordinary corridor with wide toned windows to other wards.
The girl knocked her chest several times, trying to
brace her heartbeat, for it not to give her away in this silence, and she
slowly began crouching under windows, avoiding the light. On her way she
couldn't help looking through them, and there were some pods same as the one in
her ward, but filled with some white gas. In one of them she recognised Lee.
Onica fell under the window and punched her heart
violently, trying to think, but thinking through emotions wasn't her strong
point. The cameras were turned on in his ward, she couldn't get him for now.
They shouldn't know that she was there.
So she made herself move on and soon Onica reached the
lift, but she passed the lift by and chose the staircases. As she got upstairs
to the next level, she found a conveniently open door. It looked like a trap,
but no trap is one if you are cautious, so Onica decided to take a look inside.
It was a small room with many screens. The control
room. But it was strange somehow, cluttered with piles of objects Onica had
never seen before. They gave her impression of some old dusty trash, and the
fact that they were present here with no visible reason freaked her out even
more. A bulky device with two hands indicating some numbers, a light bulb on a
long stick covered with cloth screen, a scruffy overstuffed seat dressed with
fabric - all those things were giving this place a stale scent of abandonment
and uselessness. Obviously, Onica wasn't accustomed to appearance of clock,
floor lamp or upholstered armchair.
The moment she put her hand over the keyboard, she
froze. No. If the system was secured, they would definitely find out. Suddenly
Onica remembered a pencil she saw in Eim's pocket, which gave her an idea. She
turned around and found a cupboard filled with some tablets made of paper - Dr
Eim carried one with him all the time to their classes, and he might have
called it 'a notebook'.
There were some records with the heading ‘Evolution
project’, numbers, formulas, descriptions of Ark, expedition entries, students'
profiles… Students' profiles looked strange. Each student had several versions
of their profile, as in her own page, but she didn't remember anything about
the past described there - numerous lives she had never lived. Onica was
nervous and confused, but there was one thing she could see clearly - Ark city
was fake, and someone was tempering with their minds.
Suddenly she heard voices in the next room. Apparently
they belonged to Dr Eim and Professor Atlas. Trying to stay unnoticed, Onica
approached and glanced through the gap.
What she saw made her put hands on her mouth and take
a step back - for the first time she was terrified so much. The command office
behind the door had a huge window overlooking the absolute darkness, the void
itself, and cosmic light was leaking into it, disappearing into nothingness - a
destroyer.
‘I hope you realise that in what we do every human
being matters, Eim.'
'Sir, I understand those samples were important, I
tried to save them, but circumstances were against me…'
Eim's voice lost its usual calmness, he sounded
nervous, while Atlas spoke in steel.
'You have disappointed me, Eim.'
‘Sir, I know we are short of time, but I promise to
return after them, I won't fail, next time I…’
‘There will be no next time.’
Atlas was standing motionless like a statue, facing
the huge destroyer, and his voice was stone.
‘Soon Synod will eliminate this planet system.'