Escape from the dark

‘This is a public announcement. All non-essential services are shutting down in five minutes. Expected blackout duration: forty minutes. Smoking is strictly forbidden throughout the Moon.’

A crowd of around three hundred people had gathered under the Edge City Station Dome. Some were standing by the glass wall, others were sitting under the trees. A news reporter was talking on camera, her voice higher than usual.

‘This is Kelly again, speaking from the Edge City Dome. As you’ve just heard from the PA, the Moon-wide blackout will start in just five minutes. Edge City and Core City will be left without power, except for some essential services. Even cityNet will be unavailable to the public. The Monorail has already been powered down, but will reopen in both directions as soon as the blackout is over so you can meet and hug your family andfriendsfromCoreCity.’

Her last few words were a slur that ended with a squeak. The six hundred inhabitants of Core City and the four hundred of Edge City were used to communicating via the ubiquitous cityNet. The Moon Council expected a surge of concurrent connections during the blackout, but the net’s bandwidth was not large enough to satisfy everyone’s needs: restricting access to the public was the only measure that could guarantee smooth coordination between the emergency services, if needed.

Kelly managed to regain her professional composure and continued her live speech.

‘Only three hours ago the astronomers down on planet Rovem discovered the rogue asteroid, larger than the Moon we’re standing on right now, and headed our direction. Luckily there will be no collision, but the asteroid will swing by the Moon just before our monthly eclipse from Rovem begins, and will pass between the Star and us to create a once-in-a-lifetime event: a second, extraordinary eclipse, expected to start as soon as the first one ends. Rovem’s eclipse will last the usual eight minutes, four of which in totality, while… while the asteroid’s one is estimated to last about thirty-two minutes. We’re also reminded that smoking is forbidden everywhere; lately there have been many cases of malfunctioning cig-a-reeds bursting into flames, which is why the Council has issued a temporary ban.’

She closed her eyes and took a short pause, then continued, her voice more mournful than she intended it to be.

‘Our star panels will not receive light for the entire duration of the double eclipse. The Moon Council has assured us that all available storage batteries are at full capacity, but it’s not known how long they can last on standard usage. The blackout is an exceptional, necessary precaution to ensure that artificial gravity, life support systems and other essential services will continue to function.’

There were families, workers, and curious onlookers with binoculars under the massive glass dome of Edge City Station. The domes, lights, and buildings of Core City were visible from there, two kilometres away, as was the Monorail, all the way to Core City Station. The two cities were built at an angle with respect to each other on the surface of the peanut-shaped Moon, such that those standing under a dome in one city had to raise their heads forty degrees to see the other city.

Most people were chatting, smiling and laughing nervously to reduce the tension. A few children were playing and running around the trees, thrilled by the unusual commotion.

‘This is a public announcement. All non-essential services are shutting down in one minute. Expected blackout duration: forty minutes. Smoking is strictly forbidden throughout the Moon.’

The crowd hushed. Kelly was now almost whispering.

‘Okay, we’re stopping the live broadcast now, but we’ll continue recording this historical event in infrared for as long as our batteries allow. There will be a final warning siren ten seconds before the blackout. See you all in about forty minutes.’ And finally, after a moment of silence, ‘Take care of each other.’

An operator flicked a switch to disable the broadcast and put the camera in infrared mode. There was an eerie, unnatural silence all around. The children stopped playing and clung to their parents’ legs.

The siren blared, catching some off-guard. They gasped for a second. Some held their breath.

The noise stopped, and all lights went off in both cities. At the same time, Rovem started its monthly cruise between the Star and the Moon. It was a usual sight for everybody, but nobody had ever experienced the dimming of natural light combined with the complete absence of artificial illumination.

The eclipse entered totality after two minutes. Then Edge City and Core City plunged into complete darkness.

Silence. The only light source was the tiny LED light on the camera, still rolling. Some people finally relaxed and began to whisper. Kelly spoke for the first time since the blackout began.

‘We’re now in totality,’ she whispered. ‘It’s pitch black everywhere.’ A short pause, then she said, ‘No, not everywhere: towards Core City, we see some green lights. Hard to understand where they are, but they’re probably above the essential services.’

A nearby woman with binoculars confirmed her theory. Everybody was staring at that awesome view: a few green dots on the backdrop of absolute darkness. It was well known that green lights were used to identify active buildings, but they were usually drowned in the natural brightness of the Star. Now, for the first time, the service lights in Core City were all that was visible.

Some began to hyperventilate under the oppressing obscurity. They reached for their mobile phones and turned on the screens, using their lights as therapy.

‘No connection,’ a boy said.

An older voice next to him reminded him, ‘No cityNet during the blackout.’

‘No… no connection,’ the same boy repeated. ‘How long?’

‘I guess a minute more or so.’

Kelly checked a timer, then shouted, ‘One minute!’ startling those nearby. She took a deep breath and then said, almost with her usual voice, ‘Less than one minute left. Everybody here under the Station Dome has behaved by the book. Still, looking forward to having Rovem out of the way.’ She chuckled the last few words out.

Up in the sky, a sliver of light appeared. There were sighs of relief, clapping of hands, and a few waves of laughter. Rovem was indeed returning the Star to its place in the sky.

The camera operator switched off the infrared mode, and Kelly rejoiced.

‘Totality is over, and the Star has started to shine again on the cities! We can see each other’s faces again after the eclipse and blackout---’

Flinching, she realised what she was saying. This was a planned blackout. There had never been any planned blackouts for the monthly eclipses… because this was not just any monthly eclipse.

She corrected herself with ill-concealed nonchalance, ‘---after the first eclipse. Now… we see already the second eclipse has started to…’ She trailed off in mid-sentence. 

The light inside the Dome stopped increasing in intensity. Overhead, one quarter of the Star was visible when the asteroid began its transit. The onlookers, stunned and unable to speak, witnessed the shaping of the rounded silhouette of a kind of luminous hourglass. Its top and bottom edges were at first slanted to the right; then, as the asteroid seemed to chase Rovem in space, the hourglass became bigger and more symmetric until it reached its maximum size. It kept moving and warping, the sides slowly bending to the left… it became smaller, dimmer, weaker… until it was no more. The second eclipse was in totality, and the Moon in darkness once again.

‘This is a public announcement. Remaining blackout duration: thirty-two minutes. Smoking is strictly forbidden throughout the Moon.’

For some, the PA was a relief, a guarantee that things would soon get back to normal; for others, it was a call to reality---a relapse into anxiety. The darkness under the Dome was broken by the screen light of several mobile phones, shaking, illuminating faces on the brink of a panic attack. The more stoic in the crowd were lucid enough to realise the predicament everybody was in, and moved to assist and reassure those in need.

Kelly recovered from the shock, though she was a pale version of her normal self. She turned to face the camera, now in infrared mode.

‘We have now only… thirty minutes of blackout remaining. The tension is palpable, but everybody is displaying a remarkable attitude during this momentous event.’

She didn’t really believe it, but she needed to say it anyway to instil some peace in those around her.

Behind the crowd, standing under a tree, a man was shaking. He reached into his pocket, took out a cig-a-reed, and lit it. It gave a small, bright light, but only for a few seconds: soon enough, someone else grabbed the cig-a-reed and pulled it from the man’s mouth, turning it off.

‘Hey… No smoking here,’ he said in a low, harsh voice before smashing the cig-a-reed on the ground.

The smoker was too shaken to react. He lowered his head, ashamed, then folded his arms and squatted by the tree, in silence.

‘Look!’ another man shouted. The screen light of his phone was reflecting on his outstretched arm, pointing in the direction of Core City. There were the same green lights visible during the first eclipse, but now a new, orange light had appeared. People began to murmur and whisper. The orange light grew in intensity, until someone panicked and shouted, ‘It’s a fire!’

The crowd lost its composure. People gasped in consternation. ‘What’s happening!?’ and ‘That’s impossible!’ and ‘What’s burning?’ filled the air under the Dome.

‘We can see an orange light getting brighter and brighter somewhere in Core City,’ Kelly quivered. ‘It’s causing distress here in Edge. Some think it’s a fire developing under one of the glass domes.’

All binoculars were trained in the direction of the orange light, trying to decipher its meaning. At the same time, the PA spoke again, but with a different, more strained voice:

‘This is a special announcement. A report from Core has just come in. A fire is developing at Core City Comms. It is not expected to affect any of the essential services.’

The crowd’s fear was confirmed. But nobody was convinced that everything would be fine: fires had never broken out on the Moon, and even though there were measures and procedures in place, they certainly had never been tested during a Moon-wide blackout.

‘Twenty-five minutes of blackout remaining,’ Kelly said, looking at her timer. ‘As we’ve heard, there is a fire at Core City Comms. It’s one of the essential services that has been partially active throughout the blackout, and it’s… and it’s now on fire.’

Almost everybody had their mobile phones on, some for comfort, some in the vain hope of receiving news from Core. A woman with binoculars gulped, then shouted, ‘The green light is off! The Comms are down!’

Kelly couldn’t speak. The Comms had so far allowed coordination and updates between all the emergency services of Core City: that line was now broken.

The crowd became unbearably noisy: people were crying, wailing, begging for someone, anyone, to do something. The fire grew in brightness and size. Someone yelled, ‘The whole dome is ablaze!’ Then a sudden spike of intensity, visible to everybody. ‘It exploded!’

The fire in Core City expanded for a second, then was quickly extinguished by the vacuum of space. The debris, though, had just started its journey. Pieces of metal and glass and concrete were projected in all directions. They would soon hit other structures in Core, and possibly in Edge too.

The PA spoke immediately after the blast.

‘Special announcement! Proceed immediately to Edge City Dock! An evac ship is inbound! Estimated arrival in twenty minutes.’

The panicked crowd didn’t need any encouragement: the Dock was next door and didn’t have a glass dome. Edge Council had evidently taken the quick decision to evacuate Edge City and requested assistance from orbit. The lights of almost all mobile phones turned to face the tunnel between Station and Dock.

The transfer was not an orderly affair. Those closer to the exit tunnel tried to run, but the screen lights were too weak and poorly aimed to show the occasional steps on the floor. Many tripped and fell, taking down with them those immediately behind. Amid the screams and cries the other members of the crowd pressed on, slowed down by their number and by those struggling on the ground. They walked on whatever they encountered. They were determined to reach the exit.

Not everybody, though. Several binoculars were still trained on Core City, somewhat mesmerised by the explosion and eager to know more, cityNet or not. Kelly and her cameraman were among them, but they had already stopped caring about recording and dropped their equipment.

‘More fires!’ someone uttered. Other orange lights had appeared not far from Core City Comms.

Kelly recoiled from her daze. She stuttered, ‘N-New fires on Core? Wh-where? What?’

The escaping crowd was the prevailing noise. The lips under the binoculars moved, but Kelly heard no sound.

‘What??’ shouted Kelly.

‘Airflow and Power!’ was shouted in reply. ‘They’re on fire!’

Kelly’s eyes bulged, horrified. If Core Airflow exploded too, the people of Core would be sentenced to an agonising death.

‘Wait! The Station… they’ve powered up the Monorail!’

True enough, the green light above Core Station went on. At the same time, all other green lights vanished.

‘They’re sending all power to the Monorail! They’re trying to come here!’

It was a desperate move. Core was trying to save what could be saved. The fire at Airflow was growing brighter and larger…

The Edge Station Dome was suddenly showered in green light. Its source was above the terminal: the Edge side of the Monorail had been powered up too. Edge Council had understood Core’s intents and decided to assist them.

Kelly and the few others still in the Dome turned to face the Dome’s interior. The green light came from three metres above the ground and showed with sufficient clarity the situation.

Most of the crowd had already gained the tunnel to the Dock, with only a handful still funnelling through the exit. Behind them, lying on the floor, a mass of bodies: twitching, injured, maimed, calling for help or trying to stand up… or laying still. They were all covered in blood, black under the green light.

Kelly recoiled and screamed, then turned her head away from that atrocious sight. The PA called to action one last time.

‘This is our final announcement! Proceed immediately to the Dock. Core City is being evacuated by Monorail. If you’re still at Edge Station, vacate the area NOW! Make room!’

They all ran, except Kelly, who was paralysed by fear. Core Station was spitting train coaches over the Monorail, one, two, three, four, leaving at high speed, trying to save people from a horrible death. And outside, in the darkness of space, many lights appeared: the evac ship was approaching. 

That view pulled Kelly out of her trance. ‘Come on, come on…’ she said, half to the four bullets on the Monorail, half to the ship, which was finally landing.

The coaches started to decelerate… but too late. This time, in the face of immediate danger, Kelly was quick to react and dashed for the exit. There she stopped and turned to see the events unfold.

The first coach entered the Station, punched through the glass terminal wall, and landed under the Dome. It skidded on the expanse of bodies scattered about, rotated, and settled sideways at the end of the room, near the exit. The other three coaches followed suit, but had less room to stop: they rammed into each other as they decelerated on the floor; their windows shattered, and screeching and squealing they ended their race as a bundle of contorted metal and crushed glass over the mangled corpses.

The passengers struggled to leave the coaches through broken doors and windows, crying and screaming, cutting themselves on the sharp edges of the train carcasses; they climbed over the fallen, and crawled and staggered to the only exit they saw, towards the Dock. They were no more than forty. Kelly ran as she saw them approach.

The ship filled with survivors. It was large enough to evacuate everybody from both cities, but of the over one thousand inhabitants of the Moon, only about two hundred had shown up at the Dock.

As soon as the last evacuee had boarded, the ship took off. At the same time, the Star’s light began to reappear over the Moon. It shone over the ruins and fires of Core City, the deformed shapes of the Monorail coaches, the lake of bodies in Edge City.

On board, a man from Core was sitting alone in a corner. He put his hand in a pocket and took out a small box. Tears ran down his cheeks. He opened the box, and looked down at the cig-a-reed it contained.

Not long ago, he had two.