Requiem (2 page)

The entire
platform felt like it was swaying in the wind, being eaten away by
the sand, waiting to sail off in the storm. Anything made of metal
had been partially liquefied and spread out on the floor into
crusted, deep-set puddles. Anything made of concrete had its
surface dissolved and fractured; now so weak that sheets of it
could be broken and lifted with the toe of her shoe.

Her attention
came back to the Yurrick on the bench. He wore a dusty patchwork of
loose-fitting and heavy looking materials. Faded and worn, tattered
edges hung from his shoulders and draped onto the seat. White was
stained into black. Black was aged back into white.

The Yurrick sat
up straight and spoke without turning to face her.

‘You’re a long
way from home, aren’t you?’

The words were
fluent but the voice was coarse and the sound scratched at the back
of Seline’s throat. She unconsciously placed a hand around her
neck.

‘What do you
mean?’ she said. ‘This
is
Vale Station, isn’t it?’

‘What remains
of it.’

‘Was it always
this small? Where did the rest of it go?’

‘It could be
anywhere by now. My guess is they melted it down for spare
parts.'

‘You mean
they... NeoCorp strip-mined the station?’

The stranger
nodded. ‘Apart from this platform obviously.’

Seline looked
through the thick plastic panes of the shelter towards the city but
the shifting clouds concealed the entire landscape.

‘I can’t see
the city through this damn dust storm.’

'There isn't
much to see.'

She glanced at
the Yurrick then back towards the shrouded city. She was unsure
exactly what he was implying.

‘Do you know if
the intercity magline is still running? I need to get to Sinn’.

‘If it was then
I wouldn’t be here. I’ve been sitting in this shelter for hours
waiting for this storm to pass.’

Seline sighed
and leaned back on the shelter’s window pane. She slid down the
length of it until she was sitting on the platform and wrapped her
arms loosely around her knees. Her satchel lay by her side, the
strap still draped over her shoulder. She blew at the strands of
hair that had fallen across her face. Long enough to be annoying
but not long enough to tie up. She closed her eyes and leaned her
head back on the glass.

Raw and
vacant, the crushing blanket of space stretches out before her. She
takes a deep breath and steps to the edge of the platform onto the
ship's severed docking line. Blue sparks bleed from frayed cables
underfoot. The surrounding void stretches in all directions,
tugging against the magnetism of her boots. A small light from the
open airlock of an undocked ship blinks in the distance.

She moves away
from the edge until her back is against the wall of the hallway.
She exhales. Her eyes close. Muted explosions vibrate through the
frame of the ship. She places her palms flat on the wall to steady
herself. Uncertainty creeps in. She pushes it out. Her hands begin
to shake. She holds them fast against the wall.

The vibrations
stop. Eyes open. Pupils dilate. Lungs inhale. She pushes herself
from the wall with her hands, throws her right leg forward then her
left. One stride. Two. Three. Four. The platform is gone. She
struggles in vain to propel herself forward against the vacuum. Her
hands keep reaching for the pulsing light. Her helmet pushes her
heavy breath back against her face. Sections of wall, floor, and
ceiling silently overtake her, flying into the distant shadows.

The flashing
light grows larger. Her breath grows heavier still. Shards of glass
overtake her, smashing into dust against the rapidly approaching
wall. Her muscles cramp. Her lungs burn. She squints as she
approaches the airlock, attempting to make the most of the
momentary spasms of light.

She had
misjudged. She tries to absorb the impact with her arms but
misjudges again. She can hear the cracking sound from her ribs as
they collide with the bottom ledge of the doorway. The air rushes
from her lungs, stifling her pained gasps. Her fingers claw at the
frame of the door while her arms heave the rest of her body onto
the top side of the ledge and into the chamber. The light blinks.
Her arm drops to her side to cradle her aching ribs while the other
gropes the wall. The light blinks again. She throws out her free
arm, slamming her fist against the emergency door lock.

Still fighting
for breath she turns her shoulder to look through the airlock door
back along her flight path. Through the rapidly closing gap she
sees in the distance a small flash of collapsing light erupting in
an expanding sphere of metal and glass. The fragments of the
exploded station pulse outward, consuming its own disintegrating
remains. Before she can react, a white cloud of air discharges from
the giant cylinders pushing the door. She releases her breath,
closes her eyes and tries to inhale again. She chokes. Her eyes are
forced open and drawn immediately to the searing pain coming from
her arm, still outstretched and reaching for the emergency lock. A
shard of metal has run through it, pinning it to the wall. Her suit
is ruptured, is spewing oxygen into the chamber.

She tries to
scream but her lungs are empty. Her whole arm starts burning from
the inside. Blood seeps from the wound, lifts into the air,
evaporates as she wrestles with the makeshift blade. Her legs
hammer against the wall. A darkness blurs her vision. Her focus
dims. Her muscles seize. A green light flashes on the wall. Streams
of white vapour hiss into the room. The suspended orbs of blood
fall, splattering on the floor. The full weight of her body pulls
down against the metal pin. She can suddenly breathe. Cries of pain
force their way through her choking gasps for air. She can suddenly
scream.

The bone
inside her arm splinters. The pin gives way. She falls to the
ground, her body shaking and lungs throbbing; her brain is still
trying to outrun the pain. With one hand she frantically grabs at
the latches connecting her helmet and suit. One has already broken
off. The other has jammed shut. She beats her palm against the seal
around her neck until it gives way, then lifts the helmet from her
head, throwing it to the floor. Mouthfuls of air fill her
lungs.

The piece of
shrapnel is still firmly lodged into her bicep, holding back most
of the blood. She manages to push herself up against the wall. Her
eyelids are heavy. The adrenaline is wearing thin. She's shivering
uncontrollably.

She runs her
hand up along a beam sticking from the wall. Her fingers find a
small ledge and clamp down against it. She forces her back hard
against the wall with her legs and raises herself from the floor.
Her heart heaves and thumps against her rib cage. She takes a
tentative step forward as if learning to walk again. She stumbles
towards the door, her arm out in front of her, and slams her palm
into the display keys with the full force of her body. The door
opens and she staggers through into the blinding white light of the
hallway.

Her eyes
opened. Her heart was racing. She was sweating. Even the day-dreams
were becoming more vivid. She swallowed, ran her tongue over dry
lips. Her fingers unconsciously traced over the weaving, synthetic
fibres of her right wrist just beneath the sleeve of her jersey.
She winced every time she thought of that jagged piece of metal
protruding from her arm. She wondered how faithfully her memory
could recreate the pain. She remembered every second being
stretched and pried open yet the physical pain was now entirely
isolated to a faint, harmless memory, sitting high up on a shelf,
jarred, pickled, and sealed somewhere forever out of reach. She
could look at it but could never re-experience the pain. All that
remained was the knowledge that having her arm run through by a
piece of space station and subsequently amputated on the dining
room table of a transport ship was not something she'd ever want to
experience again.

She ran her
fingers through her hair. She looked at the time displayed in her
optics. An hour had passed. The Yurrick had only moved once to
cross his legs before resuming his slightly reclined position on
the uncomfortable looking seat in front of her. He had then sat
motionless for the duration.

She looked out
from the shelter. The sandstorm was weakening. Seline left the
small waiting bay and walked to the edge of the platform. She
watched as the storm slowly peeled away. A single cracked and
disfigured road could be made out in the foreground. An almost
ethereal division across a slowly unveiling red sea. The road kept
stretching through the relenting sand. The first vestige of a city
came into view as the silhouettes of a small collection of office
buildings appeared. The structures stood huddled together, bowed
and distorted, leaning against each other for support.

The horizon
itself could not have done a better job of levelling the city. Only
at the centre, in the old business district, could vertical lines
still be found. A cloud of grey dust was resting over the city. The
sandstorms weren’t wasting their time in grinding down and burying
its remains.

She stepped
back from the railing. Her attention turned to the platform she was
standing on. Flakes of rust peeled from its thin steel guard rails.
Orange oxidised blood trickled from under its canyoning skin,
staining the surface of the platform. An unhinged, unreadable sign,
still fighting off gravity, clung to the station’s one remaining
wall. The Yurrick had gotten up from his seat and approached the
handrail next to Seline.

'It's been a
long time since I've been here,' said Seline. 'Did it always look
like this?'

The Yurrick
raised his hand onto the rusted guard rail. 'It gets worse every
day.'

'What happened
here?'

He glanced down
at her then back to the city. 'You mean you really don't know?'

'I've been away
for a long time.'

'But you still
probably know the story, don't you?'

Seline didn't
answer.

'Your cities
weren't built to last,' said the Yurrick, 'they were built to fail.
NeoCorp stripped almost everything that was usable in Vale and
replaced them with “new generation” materials to placate the
population while they did it.' He gestured towards the city. 'Most
of what you're looking at are new generation buildings.'

That low
rasping voice still echoed and rattled at the back of her throat.
She ran her eyes up and down the length of the road.

'It's a long
walk to Sinn,' the Yurrick said. He stepped back from the rail. 'I
happen to be going that way you know?' He immediately turned and
headed towards a lone staircase spiralling down from the platform.
Seline stood looking at the horizon and listened to the metallic
ringing of his steps as he descended. It was hot but she pulled her
hood back over her head to block out what remained of the wind and
sand, and followed him down.

He was already
walking towards the city when she reached the bottom of the stairs.
She started after him, trailing several metres behind at what felt
like a comfortable distance. Seline watched the sand shift across
the surrounding dunes, sailing in the wisps and spirals of the
gusts still lingering from the storm. Memories of Vale, of Sinn,
and of Earth danced somewhere in the back of her mind, jeering and
hollering at her from behind their rusted curtain. She resisted
them, just as she had always done. Up until the moment she had
received the message from this Abigail person they had formed a
part of a life she had desperately tried to disown. The fact that
the city had been almost demolished helped to minimise any
potential comparisons between those memories, wherever they were
hiding, and reality.

They had been
walking for almost thirty minutes before Seline looked back for the
first time at the platform's concrete stilted corpse. A gust of
wind whipped the edges of her hood against the side of her face.
She could make out a figure standing motionless by the guard rail,
staring out towards the city just as she had done. Another ghost
returning to the graveyard. She looked back towards the city and
quickened her pace until she had caught up to her companion and
moved to one side of the road while he walked along the other. She
glanced across at him, cleared her throat.

'What did you
mean... you know, when you said the city was built to fail?' She
asked.

‘I meant
exactly what the words implied,' he said, his voice level,
indifferent. 'New-gen materials are what a lot of these buildings
were built out of. Left to their own devices new-gen structures
will begin to break down after one year.'

'Then why were
they used?'

He looked at
her curiously then back towards Vale. 'About a decade ago NeoCorp
rolled out the first step of their big plan to 'upgrade' the cities
and towns in the insolvency. What they actually meant was that
they'd replace half of the buildings and structures with the
cheapest and least efficient materials they could find. They were
designed to look impressive at first but within a year were needing
constant repairs. But the new constructions served their purpose -
to placate the population while NeoCorp mined the city and to
create a dependency on NeoCorp for supplies to fix the
buildings.'

'They could get
away with that on such a massive scale?'

'Planned
obsolescence is something your species began toying with a long
time ago. Everything breaks down eventually and being able to
dictate when and where that happens just means another market
share. Whether their plan went exactly as expected is something I'm
not sure about because the next step they took was not so
subtle.'

Seline stepped
over a pothole, saying nothing, waiting for him to continue.