I served them up, he recalled fondly. Served them sharp!
Taking a fork from the kitchen, he’d crept into his parents’ room one night and stood over the sleeping forms, waiting for a sign. They were rich folks, undertower Alpha-bloods who’d hidden themselves far from the dome and the endless night beyond, never imagining the deeper darkness already inside. No matter. Their son brought it home to them.
‘Woke you up!’ The messenger giggled at the memory. ‘Made you see the night.’
A tremor had run through the boy, more intimate than anything his god had offered before. Electrified, he’d plunged the fork into his father’s left eye, hard enough to pop it, but not enough to pass right through, then spiked the other one before the first strike even registered. The screams had roused his mother as the boy came for her eyes. She’d opened them as he stabbed, which was helpful, but she’d also tried to sit up, which wasn’t, because the prongs had ended up going too far and killing her outright, denying the revelation he’d granted his father. But things had worked out all right ’cos she’d given her son a gift instead. The boy heard his true name in her dying screech. Yes, a screech. It hadn’t sounded like a human shriek at all. It was more like the noise beaked animals made in the vid-casts he’d seen. Birds, they were called. At first that struck him as funny; then he’d realised it was another sign and found his name.
Later, long after he fled the undertowers and took refuge in the slums, he’d pared the name down to its raw form, scraping away the stupid rules his tutor had drummed into him. That was how Kristopher Eugene Bunditz became De Skreech Dat Shreddz De Lyt.
Of course the city knew him by yet another name…
The wall twitched beneath his palm. It only lasted a moment – a divine heartbeat! – but there was no mistaking its meaning. The slogan had pleased his saviour. Skreech moaned happily. It had been a long time since his devotion was acknowledged. Even his bloodier communions had been met with silence, but he’d never once questioned his faith – never wondered if it might all be in his head. This was proof he was back on his game. It called for something special.
The night’s herald pulled up the collars of his leather trench coat and crept from the alleyway. Bright lights lined the avenue beyond, hanging from arced pylons like offerings, burning to hold back the encroaching hab-blocks. The city’s thralls hurried along the pavements, ignorant of their bondage, but the crowd was already thinning as the evening’s stampede died down. Auto-trams trundled along the tracks at the street’s centre like boxy yellow beasts, human cargo visible through their dirty-glass eyes. It didn’t matter which way the herd rushed. They’d all end up in the same place soon enough.
‘It ain’t real,’ Skreech murmured, allowing himself a flicker of pity for the slaves. ‘None of it.’
He glanced up. High above, the dome might have been a star-studded sky, its sunlights dimmed to bright points for the evening cycle. Skreech hated the cycle. It was another scam to keep the herd docile. Sarastus’ real sun was deep in its dotage, its radiance faded to grey long before humanity claimed the planet. The land between the five great cities was dead, its waters tainted by acid and its air bitter, but it was honest. Skreech had climbed out onto the dome’s skin once to taste it. It was a dangerous pilgrimage, not least because it was strictly forbidden, but it had been worth the risk. It proved his faith.
‘It’s a lie!’ he yelled as a tram sped past. Nobody heard him over the racket, but it felt good to proclaim it out loud. ‘All a lie!’
Someday soon the Night Below would answer the call of the Night Above. Like a titanic obsidian needle, it would rise up to pierce the dome and crack The Lie wide open. The signs were everywhere. The city was ready to break. It just needed a push.
‘Gonna put out your lights, dedhedz!’
Shoving his hands into his pockets, the street prophet joined the throng. As he walked, his eyes flitted over each passing face, hunting for inspiration.
Yes, this was going to be a good night.
The lift was a long time coming. Someone had smashed its indicator panel so Chel waited in ignorance, trusting it was on its way. There were twelve lifts serving her hab-tower, three to each side, but only seven still ran. Her apartment was on the one hundred and thirty-first floor, roughly midway up the block. Walking down a stairwell would take over an hour. Walking back up might as well take a lifetime because she’d never last the journey. Lyle claimed he’d done it once, but that was years ago, before he let himself go. Over the last decade he’d run to fat while she’d wasted to skin and bones, as though one body had leeched the other, though neither benefitted from the transaction.
If the lifts die, we’ll die with them, Chel reflected bleakly, gazing along the corridor to her right. She never walked that way, though it offered a shorter route to her apartment. Something about the passage repelled her. As always, many of its overhead bulbs were out, while the rest blinked erratically, transforming it into a patchwork path of light and shadow. Winged bugs worshipped at the surviving lights, fluttering about the bulbs in faltering circles, confused by the flickering. There was a mournful quality to their devotions, as though they suspected their idols were mocking them. Some
