Zack walked along the street, his brown hair leaning downwards towards the pavement. He had one hand in the pocket of his grey parka, and over one shoulder, held a dark blue bag. He ambled leisurely towards a silver building in the distance. Looking around, he noted the familiar metallic apartment buildings and how they stretched endlessly upwards. And there, where the sky should have been, there was the faint outline of a city with streets, like a reflection of the one he was standing on.
The sight of the urban landscape hanging far above him did not shock Zack. He’d lived all of his life aware that over a kilometre away, high above was another part of the city. He looked down the street, a line of grey structures and green trees in clumps of soil surrounded by metal. His gaze followed the urban sprawl as it spread, and began to curve upwards, gradually arcing until he was looking straight up. Then back down, until he found himself staring in the opposite direction that he started with.
This was the reality of Zack’s world. It was an artificial world, made of billions of tons of metal. He remembered the first day he had seen the outside. During his first trip to the spaceport, at the age of 8, he remembered staring out of a view port into the black void of space, lit by countless tiny pinpricks of light. He remembered seeing the planet, a planet of brown, orange, and grey, of dust storms and ice caps. It was around this desolate desert planet that the Colony of STC-104 “Delta” orbited.
Suddenly Zack remembered he had a class to attend. Quickly he ran towards a metallic building and entered through the opening doorway. Good, no line-up today, he thought. He ran over into an elevator waited for the doors to close.
“Please specify destination,” said a loud, mechanical voice.
“Level 6,” said Zack automatically.
The elevator began moving rapidly. There was no feeling of acceleration however. Zack only noticed it was moving by looking through the windows on either side. He could see the buildings below moving farther away, and the buildings above advancing closer. Nevertheless, he felt the gravity begin to wax and wane, and he instinctively grabbed on to the handrails at his side.
“Please brace for gravitational recalibration,” spoke the mechanical voice.
At the exact centre of the colony, with a feeling of zero gravity around Zack, the elevator suddenly flipped upside-down and continued on its way towards the other side. Now the cityscape above Zack was retreating away, and below, the cityscape grew nearer.
Gradually the cityscape became clearer. A blur of lights became an array of distinct points, a mass of gray transformed into a landscape of metallic structures. The elevator came to a halt.
“Transition Completed, 120 Credits Deducted From Account,” said the friendly mechanical voice.
Zack ran out of the elevator and out into the busy street, crowded with people headed for work, for school, for a multitude of destinations. He hurried towards a complex of tall, tower-like structures to his immediate left. Dodging people along the way, he pushed his way through automatic doors and into a labyrinth of hallways and doors.
“The Earth,” declared the history teacher like some charismatic orator. “The Earth was once the cradle of Human civilization. From this small insignificant planet, we expanded across countless star systems. But we have not always been so civilized.”
Zack’s history teacher Mrs. Johansson stood in the middle of the classroom, a holographic projector beside her. It displayed in the air, a three dimensional image of the Earth, changing over time as though years flew by in seconds. She glared at Zack silently as he not so quietly seated himself near the back. She continued her lesson, recounting the time between the beginnings of the twenty-first century, to the end of the twenty-third. She recited a saga of over-population, of environmental abuses, politics, war, nuclear genocide, and the earliest space travel. Zack listened with disinterest. Old Earth History was a thing of the long distant past he thought. What did it have to do with him and his life out here?
Later, after classes, Zack walked down the metallic hall, on his way out of the busy school complex. As he turned a corner he saw Hannah walking towards him. She was a girl of his age, of 16. She wore a brown jacket and a short gray skirt, but what caught most people’s attention was her blue tinted hair.
“Hey, Zack! Didn’t you find it interesting what crazy things people on Earth used to do?” asked Hannah, her blue hair bouncing back and forth as she walked beside him.
“Nah, that stuff’s boring as space,” said Zack as they walked outside.
Hannah turned to face Zack and walked backwards in front of him. “Space isn’t boring, haven’t you seen all the majestic stars and…”
“I know Miss Astronomy Club, you’ve told me before,” jested Zack.
Hannah made an attempt to look hurt, then giggled.
“Oh, well I’m going to the Other Side to check out the new Holotheatre. Want to come with?” asked Hannah, pointing upwards.
“Sure why not,” was Zack’s reply as he tried not to smirk.
Together they made their way to the elevator station and entered the lift.
“Please specify destination,” said a familiar, mechanical voice.
“Level 5, please” said Hannah, politely.
They started ascending upwards, the metallic lift as always rising with no identifiable acceleration, despite the rapidly shrinking surface. Zack looked over at Hannah. He had known her since his earliest recollections, a childhood friend. She was like a little sister to him. For a brief moment, he wondered if maybe she had become more than that. Since her father had died he had taken it upon himself to protect her, and they went almost everywhere together.
Suddenly he heard the muffled sound of an alarm. Hannah looked out the window in confusion. That was the Enemy Attack Alert, a loud, constant wailing sound. Hannah’s face turned to him in fear. Turning towards the window, Zack looked outside. In the distance he could just make out several fighter craft flying about inside the colony atmosphere. A large gapping hole could be seen protruding from a distant wall of the Colony, near the Spaceport.
He’d heard that there was civil war with some other colonies on the other side of the system, but it seemed impossible that they’d attack this close to home. One of the craft was speeding in their direction. It fired a salvo of energy bursts; one heading straight towards the lift tube that Zack and Hannah were standing in.
With less than a second to think, Zack pressed the emergency safety override, and the lift accelerated with a massive flux of magnetic energy. At the same moment, Zack grabbed both the handrail and Hannah and held on for dear life. The section they had just passed through exploded into a million shards of glass and metal.
The lift zoomed down the tube as the fire ball followed in pursuit. They passed the centre without turning, meaning that they were now barreling down head first towards the ground. Just as it appeared that they would crash into the other side, Zack slammed the reverse lever, and the magnetic repulsion began slowing the lift. At the same time it threw them against the front of the lift. With his body Zack shielded Hannah from the impact. There was no impact. The lift calmly decelerated to a complete stop.
For a few moments they just lay there, Hannah crying softly in his arms. Zack just stared at the destroyed section of the tube with its charred and disfigured edges. If they had been just a moment later…
Finally Zack helped Hannah, still in shock, out of the broken lift while avoiding the wreckage of the lift. A squadron of defence fighters flew by. Fires were still burning around the colony. It was only a raid, thought Zack.
The sirens continued to wail as they watched fires being put out by robotic emergency craft. Repair crews had placed a force field around the colony’s hull breach, to prevent anymore of the precious atmosphere from escaping, but the gaping hole was still visible. Hannah held on to him as Zack lifted her to her feet, and together they looked silently out into the starry expanse, and out at the barren desert planet that had once been Earth.