An Obsidian Sky Part 1

An Obsidian Sky.

By Ewan Sinclair.

1.

A Faded Half-Light.

June was a fine month. It drifted by lazily in a sad imitation of the smoke from the adjacent factory. I was twenty five and I was bored. I filled my time with endless media, media it seemed that manifested itself everywhere, anywhere. The world seemed so full of noise, so bursting with a raft of information, it was only logical to seek out illegal movies and viral videos just to escape the chatter.

Then it was August. A job interview burgeoning filled me with such promise. Ten days and I might be in my dream job. A year and I might be earning dream money. Such fantasies filled my head that I became a spectre lost to a world between worlds, somewhere they claim imagination lies.

Rudely interrupted by a ba.n.a.l bleating, the call ID said Matt so I answered grumpily. 'What's up...I'm not doing anything...yes, but I'm tired...cheers man, bye.' The shortened version was that life was sweet, promising and full of pleasure. I could do what I wanted. I had great friends, a great life and everything a boy could want. In fact the world seemed made for me, nothing was ever too difficult, nothing ever too hard.

It was a Tuesday and I decided to go into town, without a job there was little to do. I lazily put on some clothes, drifting in and out of the tedium of putting together an ensemble. I moved with sluggish motion to find my keys. The room was dark, but lights were expensive, so I fumbled around until I found them.

I opened the door to my car. The flat card shape slid effortlessly into the ignition. A dinging sound let me know that the engine was on. I pushed the b.u.t.ton required to attach my retention belt to me. Looking at the screen on the wheel I pushed the voice b.u.t.ton and stated clumsily, 'Downtown, Chana car park.' The machine got the message anyway and began navigating. Pressing the start b.u.t.ton I laid back and let the car do all the work.

I was rapidly pa.s.sing the central boulevard where row after row of gravity defying buildings brushed past. They were barely there long enough for a look, before they shot away. The world was a blur, a dull hazy blur. Bored with the gla.s.s and concrete scenery I fumbled with the touchpad on the dash till I found the radio. A news report warbled in from the car's speakers.

'Thanks to the impressive efforts of our emergency services the fire was put out before there were any casualties.

'In other news,' the narrator continued, 'there is a demonstration taking place outside the Global Governmental Offices. This demonstration is in response to an increase in fuel duty due to come in later this year. Eyewitnesses have stated that the crowd remains calm. So far there are no reports of violence.

'Moving to the Waste Zones now for a breaking headline. Latest figures from the Presidium Party state that there has been a forty percent increase in resistance to Western control. In other news the Machali tribe appears to be gaining momentum in its attempt to take over the region. Leader of the political movement, Walter Halerm, stated that the tribe would soon be in control of sixteen thousand square miles of territory.

'Well that's all the headlines for now, so it's back to Atifa with all the latest music and celebrity news.'

The report finally cut out, but I was already too bored to listen. Politics and war and strife had never been of much interest to me. I considered myself more of a social animal. Let the world do what it will. It didn't bother me so long as I wasn't gonna get hurt by it.

The car had finally made it to the vehicle storage facility. The distorted female brain of my car began bleating repet.i.tively, 'Disembark, Disembark, Disembark.' In an effort to shut her up I pulled my legs from the car and breathed in the hazy air of Bataga. I stepped away from the car and it was rolled away on an automated running track and into the darkness of the building. I took my reference ticket and made my way out.

The sun was baking down upon me. It was so hot. I wished I had just stayed at home. It was far too hot for walking. Around me downtown was flung about in its huge, sprawling and poorly planned composition. A mixture of washed out colours blinded my vision. Some buildings were so high it hurt your neck to even try and look at them. I started coughing, the air was nauseating. It had smelt like chemicals ever since the war, or so I was told. 'Clean up' they called it. Seemed more like systematic poisoning to me.

After a short walk I came across the emporium I was looking for. The sign above the huge curved gla.s.s entrance said Was.h.i.+ngton Emporium. It was the latest vogue to name your buildings after dead cities. I was quite amazed that I had managed to get the reference at all. History had been such a drag. Back then I couldn't wait for it to be over.

In the act of walking inside I was greeted by the refres.h.i.+ng cool and clean air provided by the buildings environmental systems. Too much outdoor air was bad for you. At least that was what the health correspondents on the news said.

I began my ascent in one of the gla.s.s encased lifts, rising like a bird until I was so high the people on the ground floor looked like bacteria. I emerged from the lift and into a large open planned, marble s.p.a.ce where the store of my dreams resided. It was a tech shop, like the kind you see everywhere, only this was the Eternis Systems flags.h.i.+p store. It was intense. The promotions claimed that it provided the best tech in the biggest store of its kind. It took up thirteen floors of the emporium and every inch of s.p.a.ce was put up to a great purpose.

Carousing the aisles of the store I finally found the stand I was looking for. It was the new Compa.s.s(R) handhelds, the most advanced handheld in the world. I picked it up and marvelled at its flatness, its s.h.i.+mmer, its elegance. It was like something from an art exhibition. It enthralled me and seemed to fill all the other customers, who were admiring it, with excitement. It was of course way too much for me. But if the interview went well, then I could afford it. So I figured I could put it on credit and have it paid by the end of the month. Yes, I thought, I'm gonna get it. And that was that. Shopping trip over, time to go home and try this puppy out. I descended the elevator and walked out onto the deserted streets.

2.

Sephra.

I'm walking through the doors now, philosophising. The receptionist asks 'So you're the new candidate?' and states, 'this way Sir,' and with that I'm in. It's actually happening, I thought, sitting down in front of my interviewer.

'Our application process is really very simple Mr Engeltine. All that you need to do is sit comfortably and not worry.' So I sat comfortably, reclining backwards, preparing for the blitz.

'My name is Charles Sephra. Welcome to the Eternis Systems' human resources section.' The cool suit wearing man leaned back into his chair and lit a cigarette. 'Are you comfortable? Good, shall we begin?'

I nodded and he reached his hand below him. Something clicked and the sound of whirring was audible. I felt a stabbing sensation in the side of my leg. I would have wondered what it was but it disappeared quickly.

He took another drag of his cigarette. 'Something will happen that will make no sense. I do not expect you to understand but please be a.s.sured that it will be brief. In the interlude between conception and cognition you should remain still. And, Mr Engeltine, you will see with new eyes.'

Creep, f.u.c.k, what the h.e.l.l, this is a joke right? These thoughts ran through my head with frightening speed. I had been so excited about getting a new job. It was my chance to turn it all around.

My vision began to fade. I felt my eyelids drooping with a heavy weight, they would soon be closed. I tried to strike out against Sephra but I didn't even manage to raise an arm. The clouds began to roll their way in front of my vision. Then there was blackness. Then there was nothing.

Then there was light. Light, a beautiful aura falling so smoothly above my head it was as if it was made from water. Focusing my eyes I looked forward and I wished I hadn't. The man opposite me, so unremarkable before, was out of focus. Perforated by halos of light the man was nothing more than an image, a faded recollection of an abandoned memory. His distorted self, in one moment, threatened to snap back into reality. Yet in the next seemed only to s.h.i.+mmer, brighten and form images of impossibility. To me it was beyond comprehension, beyond understanding. Rising with a speed I did not know was possible I opened the door and flung myself from the room.

The hallways and rooms of white shot past in an ember of half forgotten images. The street, filled with the damp of rain, rushed past, unintelligible. The day faded and merged with the night. Amidst this semi lucid fantasy I woke up in my bed.

Groaning I managed the movements required to silence my alarm. It obeyed obediently. Where had I been? Had I dreamt the interview? Everything seemed different. Everything was the same. Only it couldn't have been because everything had changed.

My room had remained the same but seemed different. Words fluttered to my mind 'new eyes' and 'cognition.' I must have changed, but how? Then it hit me. The very narrative of my mind had changed. It did not speak as it once did; fragmented and disjointed, instead it spoke with clarity. It was the kind of clarity that separates crystal from gla.s.s. A difference that was at once imperceptible and at the same time of critical importance.

Strolling toward my blue dresser I saw the world s.h.i.+ft. Spears of light punctuated my room from no apparent source. But unlike the light in the interview room my understanding of it had changed. This time it held a meaning, but its meaning was lost on me. I could only recognise its presence. The light seemed to flicker and began to fade. The world gradually darkened. All the colour that was, seemed to be no more. Then it was gone, I was gone.

Awakened by some imperceptible notion I rose from the floor, brow bloodied from the fall. Yet I did not feel hurt. I felt rejuvenated. Where once I had noticed nothing, my world had become descriptive, detailed beyond any possibility. The flakes of dust, human skin, captured by the light were thrown to the floor. This ordinary image translated itself into something beyond description. I noticed every motion and every movement that those flakes made as they tumbled on a current of air.

The small ink stains on my curtain, a teardrop burned into the soft velvet fabric beneath, stirred me to my innermost core. These things were the same as before and yet had become raised in value. They were apparent, whereas before it occupied the fringes of the unconscious. It had been as if my apathy had disappeared and my mind cleared. In the same instant I saw something else. Something beyond the imagination. Its very darkness screamed, calling me, for me, forever. It was an image in which the desperate man who screams for death, was calling for an absolute salvation. The two spheres, a present wonder and a future d.a.m.nation brought me to my knees. I might have lost all of the capacity to move from that spot had my phone not dragged me away with an incessant calling.

'h.e.l.lo Mr Engeltine, how are you feeling,' stated the unflappable voice of my interviewer. His very tone seemed riled with a confidence and slight amus.e.m.e.nt.

'What have you done to me?' I shouted back with a raw anger.

'Why Mr Engeltine we have done exactly what you wanted. We have transformed you from a useless drain upon the investment of our citizen's taxes, into a valuable piece of ordinance.'

'What? You turned me into a weapon?' The very notion of it seemed impossible.

'Not at all, though our contract is with the military, you can be so much more. Meet me today at twelve by the entrance to the Sennaca War Memorial. It is here that all of your questions shall be answered.'

The phone cut off abruptly. The device highlighted an option to confirm my attendance at the event. I wearily checked the appropriate box. My head was running through all the possible options.

I thought about going straight there. I thought about going in to confront them, to hold them to account. But, I realised that the Eternis Systems was an unstoppable force. You could not simply go in and confront them. You had to listen and be smart. These were two of the very qualities that I was sure I did not possess.

I thought about calling the police. Certainly this seemed a sensible decision. I looked at the call screen and started to put in the number. My fingers froze. I could not exactly say, 'h.e.l.lo I went into an interview and now I think that I am some sort of military experiment.' I dropped the phone down onto the bed with the futility of it all. There was no hope. I had to go to that meeting. I had to find out. If knowledge could arm you with power, then at least I would be empowered.

I gathered together my things. The keys were for once hanging on the rack. It was as I was walking out of the house that I discovered that I had a plan. I shuffled around in my pockets until my fingers connected with the hard flat lump that was my phone. I called the one person in the world that I trusted, even though we didn't speak anymore. I called Adrian.

'h.e.l.lo this is Adrian,' a ruffled, tired sounding voice announced.

'Adrian, look, I know we have not spoken in a while,' I began but Adrian cut me off.

'George, look, the way we left things off, I just can't...'

Adrian's voice had trailed off. I was desperate to make keep his attention and so I said, 'Listen I'm in a lot of trouble. I can't explain, just hear me out. I promise I'm not asking for a lot.' There was a sighing on the other end of the line and I had begun the motion of moving the phone from my ear in disappointment when I heard a m.u.f.fled reply.

'I'll give you five minutes.' I sighed with the relief of it all. Here at least one person might listen to me. Here at least one person might have my back. I knew I didn't deserve it, especially not from him, but I had to try and so I gave him my request.

'Adrian I'm going to meet a man, he works for Eternis Systems and he's very dangerous. I'm meeting him at the Sennaca War Memorial in an hour. If I don't call you back in four hours I want you to call the police and give them this information. Tell them...tell them that he did something to me.'

'I've got to go,' I continued. 'I want you to know I'm sorry for what I did, truly sorry.' I tore the phone from my ear before he could ask why. He had always wanted answers, answers I couldn't give. It was surreal that even in my unremarkable little life there were some things that I could never tell him. I stopped dwelling, after all there was a time and a place for everything. With a resolute determination I walked out of the house, stuck the keys in my car and departed.

3.

The Broken Songs of Gaia The Sennaca War Memorial was a huge building. It had been composed entirely out of a metal that shone like the scales of a fish. All over its surface were rainbows of colour. Its shape was one of elongated arrow-heads stacked upon one another. Some of the floors were huge and spanned kilometres. Others were smaller and spanned perhaps five hundred meters. They were not laid out in any particular pattern, but scattered around, on top and below each other. The effect was a building that appeared like a chimera, always in between two forms. On the one hand it was the most horrific construction that mankind had ever endeavoured to create. On the other it was a beautiful testament to the genius of human architecture. It was a work of art and art can be both applauded and condemned.

The building was commissioned by the then head of the Eternis Systems in commemoration of the conclusion of the Resource Wars. It had always seemed to me that the war had been appropriately named. It was a stupid name for a stupid war.

In reality the building was far more of a corporate temple than it was a memorial. Its promotions boasted more office s.p.a.ce than any other building in Bagata. In fact the memorial offered the second most office s.p.a.ce in the whole of the former Democratic Republic of Congo. The city of course belonged to West in all but name and so it was only natural that the Eternis System's owned every square foot of it.

Parking the car and listening to the local terror report I opened the door and descended into the boiling fume filled landscape of Central District, Bagata. The terror report had promised a low level of activity, despite recent increases in violence across the Waste.

I was walking now away from the car park and towards the entrance of the memorial. Whoever had designed the entrance had seemed to be desperate to convince its users that it was an entirely natural composition. There were fountains dancing rainbows about them. There was a white marble floor with black circular sculptures, the genesis and intention of which, was unknown to anyone but their designer. There were broad leafed trees and rows of sculptured gra.s.s gardens separating the sovereignty of the memorial from the rest of Bataga.

As I walked through the opulence I imagined that perhaps in another place, serving another purpose, the entrance could seem almost heavenly. The architect had simply chosen the wrong place to put his sculpture because the surrounding memorial arching its laser straight angles into the sky caused a sickening sense of vertigo.

Standing there in front of the doors that lead into the structure I caught sight of my target. He saw me at the very same moment that I saw him. I drew my breath and marched towards him.

'Mr Sephra,' I demanded.

'Mr Engeltine, so good of you to come. Let's take a walk.'

We entered the building together our paces matching one another. I tried to keep my awe contained but the Sennaca Memorial was something to behold. Inside the huge entrance gallery, which rose for hundreds of unclearly defined floors, were huge crystal overhangs and tall obsidian obelisks that rose for hundreds of feet and seemed to split into a thousand fragments. Each fragment appeared suspended in the air, in the act of falling.

We crossed an eternity of gallery and entered an elevator. Chiming with sincerity the Eternis System's vocal representative informed us of all the tourist attractions within the structure. We disembarked at some bizarrely high number, with my shoulder brus.h.i.+ng the door apologetically, as I struggled to keep pace with Sephra. Traversing yet more crowded pa.s.sageways we made it to a room of immense proportions. Despite its size all that was present in the room was a huge desk surrounded by chairs. Sephra sat on one side and I the other.

'What have you done to me?' I asked more calmly than I thought possible.

'We have given you a gift, Mr Engeltine. We have made you see,' Sephra answered equally calmly.

'All I see is light and then darkness. It is beyond all recognition. How exactly is that a gift?'

'Like all great gifts Mr Engeltine, you may not always understand its gravity straight away.'

'So tell me everything. What have you done to me? I want to know. I want to understand what all this crazy s.h.i.+t is I'm seeing. I want you to fix it. I want you to make me understand. You can't just offer me a job and turn me insane,' I cried.

'If it is any consolation George you've got the job.' Standing briefly he offered me a cigarette which I took gratefully, snapping off the ignition stub and inhaling deeply. Sephra did the same. We stared at each other for a while. Each of us searching the other for a sign, wholly indescribable and yet wholly ingrained in reality. Sephra must have found what he was looking for as he grunted and began to talk.

'In order for you to understand, you must first know the beginning. The story is historically long, but it can be told, if you have enough patience. Most importantly you must suspend your disbeliefs and accept everything I tell you as fact, even if it seems fiction.'

He looked at me sternly. His face told me that he was preparing to unload a burden that had long been on his shoulders. Suddenly his expression changed to worry or perhaps grief and he returned to his chair.

'Do you know what this building was built for?' I nodded and he smiled a smile which seemed too say like h.e.l.l you do.

'The Resource Wars were a terrible time Mr Engeltine. Humanity had just achieved its defining moment. We had spread our wings and left this troubled planet behind in search of greener pastures. We found them of course, as you will find anything if you look hard enough.' He looked knowingly at me and sighed.

'But like all things George what we found was not what we had looked for. The colonists set down on worlds that were cruel and harsh. Nation-making is never an easy task. Many died. For years they had our support, but the war took that away. We left the colonies to find their own way, in many cases to wither and die. There are only six left out of twenty.'

Interjecting I exclaimed bitterly: 'I know all of this. I mean even school children know this. What does this have to do with me?'

'It has everything to do with you. This information sets out a chain of events that will lead me to a discovery and inevitably to you. If you will not listen, then what is the point in the telling?'

'Fine I'll listen, but my patience is wearing thin,' I replied angrily. Sighing again Sephra seemed to come to another decision and continued.

'After the Resource Wars so little was left habitable. The cradle of civilisation had become a dying oak, gnarled and beyond repair. The most powerful nations in the world left their holy cities and took the lands of those less powerful. The West took Africa, the East took anything that was left.

'This monument was built, not to commemorate the war, but to commemorate the West's ideology and so it is a temple to consumerism. To put it simply the war had utterly destroyed both enemy and ally. It was useless to build a monument to a war that had put an end to everything. So we built a monument to an ideology. An ideology that we can no longer enact.' He sighed again and paused.

I wanted to point out the window and say, 'look at all of this, can't you see, the West is thriving.' Instead I was silent.

Sephra continued, 'I know exactly what you are thinking. I know that if you look out and onto this city it would seem as though we were rebuilding, coming back to the time of the United World. But the truth, the truth is never that simple. In reality the West was only ever a visitor. We were always supposed to go back. It seems that nature always had a sense of irony. You see the things that were so effortless to destroy were also impossible for us to put back. Once you destroy that much of something it can never be re-engineered.

'We lost Mr Engeltine. We lost the war. Now all that we can look forward to is a future elsewhere. A future, perhaps, in the stars. There is nothing left for us here. The world has died on us and we can no longer stay. In two years even Africa will no longer be capable of supporting life. In just a few days Africa won't even be able to support a civilisation. We have done so much to Mother Gaia and now she wants us no more.'

Rus.h.i.+ng to my feet I shouted, 'well what about the colonies, they weren't even involved in the wars, why aren't we starting an evacuation?' But Sephra just shook his head slowly and smiled again, that same tired smile.

'This is where we arrive at your part in the story.' He smiled and continued.

'Almost a century after the wars conclusion we finally regained our s.h.i.+p-building capacity. Imagine our surprise, arriving from hypers.p.a.ce to find a barren landscape. We searched one planet after another and it was the same again and again. Total wreckage, total destruction. Of course some things had managed to survive, the odd superstructure here and there, the odd computer, but nothing that even gave us a clue.

'In desperation we began to search for the farthest colonies. To our relief we found that they had survived unharmed and unaware of the fate that had befallen their sisters. It was a miracle, if such things are to be believed.

'Over the days and weeks that followed we began our investigation. We steadily began to put together a picture. It was the portrait of a nightmare.

'At first we believed that this might have been an inevitable result of the loss of the United World. The colonies were in the processes of being terraformed. Without the metallurgical supplies that Earth could offer, we believed that the colonies may well have found it nearly impossible to survive. Perhaps, we mused, that with a failing environment, with no possibility of resupply, they had endeavoured to take the easier way out. It would have been kinder, more humane and infinitely quicker. Certainly the blast patterns and radiation indicated self-suicide. So we began to mourn for that loss. But mourning does not rebuild nations. And so with little other recourse, we prepared ourselves for the second exodus from Earth.

'Just as our investigations were nearing their completion we discovered something that shook our conclusions down to their very foundations. Topographic and environmental a.n.a.lysis indicated that far from starving the colonies had been thriving. They had not been strangled by a lack of resources during the Resource Wars; they had innovated and succeeded. And yet they had certainly decided upon self genocide. It made no sense.