Into the light

Most people won’t notice that the sun didn’t come up today. We go to work in the dark and come home in the dark. Most eat their lunch in the break rooms with the full spectrum lights. We’ve been told that thirty minutes of full spec is enough.

I always eat my lunch on top. Walking the extra distance shaves seven minutes of my break, but the fresher air and sunlight is worth it to me.

Way back, in school, I learned about total eclipses, but if I remember right, they pass in ten minutes or less. Today, there is nothing. It’s eerie, strange, scary, though I‘ll never admit to being scared. I checked my Communication Module but there is no news. Nothing. No government announcements, official or otherwise, no weather warnings, no civil defense alerts. All I can get are kitten videos. And discounts on sunglasses.

Tamping down my panic, I rush back when I hear the first bell. I see Mannie at the dump, the elevator that’ll take us down into the earth.

I ask him if he called his wife from the break room. Today is his five minutes on the phone

“Tried.” His eyes are down, his voice flat.” No connection. Solar flare I guess.” He drains his water bottle and grabs another one as we turn on our headlights and walk into the tunnel.

“No, that’s the thing. There is nothing. No news, nothing. Not even the stock market.” My voice drops the closer we come to our work section. “No sun.” I mouth the last two words.

“Okay.”

He focuses on the detonators rather than what I say. I know he won’t believe me. I wouldn’t have believed it myself. It’s just too bizarre. The sun is always there. There might be clouds and smog, but it’s still there.

We hunker down for the blast and wait till the dust settles before we start shoveling the rubble into the small rail carts.

“What did you say?” he shovels.

“I didn’t.” shovel.

“No, before the blast.” shovel.

“There is no sun.” shovel.

“There’s gotta be!”

“Uh huh. But there isn’t.” shovel.

“Where did it go?” shovel.

“Dunno.” shovel.

“What did the news say?”

“There is none.”

The foreman’s whistle brings us back to reality. The reality of labor.

Shovel, shovel, shovel.

“No news?”

“None. Just kitten videos. Old ones.” shovel.

“Shit!” Mannie is about to walk when the foreman pushes him over to another tunnel. I hear him talking to Sol and Vic.

“Fuck! My wife!” Vic breaks line and turns toward the dump. He is stopped by a jolt of electricity to his shoulder and drops to the floor. We look away, we always do, but even over the lingering smell of the blast and dust we smell his piss. He is dragged back to his place.

At the end of our shift, we ride the dump to the surface, clock out and board the mono. It is dark. It is always dark when we go home.

Voices, murmurs and gossip are louder tonight. Dust-caked faces turn toward me. Their unnatural white eyes glare at me with suspicion. As if I hid the thing.

“How’d you know?” one asks.

I shrug. “I eat my lunch outside, on top.”

“Every day?” another wants to know.

I nod.

“Why?” a third asks

“Fresh air. Sunshine. Reckon it’s bound to be better than full spec.”

“Nah, you’re wrong there.” Vic points his finger at me. “Sunlight will give you cancer.”

“I’ll take my chances. Rather have the warmth from the real stuff.”

“So, where did it go?”

“Dunno.”

“Will it be back tomorrow?”

“Dunno.”

“What’d they say?” Vic pulls his CM from his pocket. There is no real communication on these modules. All we get is sanitized news, a constantly updated stock report, as if we could invest, and pet videos. The only communication we have is facetime with the ringer who randomly checks our whereabouts and alerts patrol if we’re not where we’re supposed to be

“There is no news. Nothing.”

I don't know how many times I have to say it. Vic keeps refreshing his module.

“How will we know then?”

I shrug, but don’t answer. I know I need to get out of work tomorrow. I need to convince the ringer I have a bug. I don’t know how far I can get before I get caught, but I must try.

The next morning, with blood shot and gritty eyes and a croaky voice from lack of sleep, I tell the ringer that I had been up all night, which was the truth. “Couldn’t take two steps away from the john.” I tell him. He shrugs, looks away already thinking of his next call. I wonder if my near perfect attendance gives me leeway, or if he knows something.

Once everybody is on their way and patrol has passed, I slip out the back. Sticking to the fences, shadows, and trees, I stay low till I am out of town. Then I turn on the headlight on my helmet. Why did they harvest the corn and wheat early? Why are those meadows empty. Weren’t there sheep there? It’s been a while

since I worked on top. But I thought …

Well past midday, based on the growling of my stomach, I run into the dome. Usually, it’s clear; today it’s solid black. Keeping one hand on the man-made material, I walk eastward, I think. It’s difficult to hold your bearings in the dark. We all know the bubble exists. We try not to think about it. Everything looks different now that it’s black.

Dark, oppressive, ominous, threatening.

An hour later, I reach the eastern gate. The armed militias guard a barrier. Just beyond the roadblock I see daylight, the shadows tell me the sun is past its highest point. My best guess is two or three o’clock. Which means I have three hours, maybe a little more, before our shift is finished.

Beyond the wall, in the sunshine, I see trucks lined up. The drivers have stepped out of their cabs and argue with the guards. Voices are raised

“But I have a load of perishables, man! I lose money if I don’t offload them”

“I have my orders.”

“You can’t just cut this place off. You’re gonna starve them to death!”

The guard shrugs.

“All we’ve heard is that these mines are tapped out. Government will close the sector. No one in, no one out. Don’t know any more. Sorry mate.”

I am stunned, trying to process what I heard. That can’t be right. That’s criminal! Isn’t it enough that they work us to death? Now they’re going to lock us in here, in the dark, after the last few ounces of ore are squeezed from the pit! They can’t! It’s inhumane! They’re just going to let us die.

I skirt the road back into town. It should have been quicker since there is no traffic, no guards, not even at the market, but I had to stop to retch every five or ten minutes. My head is filled with images of kill and eat. Each other. Till the strongest of us dies of starvation.

I wait at Mannie’s till he gets home. Sol and Vic and a few others slip in the back door. They don’t believe me. I wouldn’t have either.

“You’re shitting me!”

“No way will they, would they?”

“No way, man!”

“I only have a year to go!”

I had several hours to get my head around it and I am still not quite there. What I do know is that we need an escape plan. Now! If I cannot convince these guys how will I ever convince the rest of sector five?

Though my legs are unsteady, which I blame on all the walking I did today, not on fear, I climb on Mannie’s table.

“Listen up! Listen!” I have to raise my voice over theirs. I hope there are no patrols out. We had some freedom, but gatherings are prohibited.

“It is true, you gotta believe me. I saw it, I heard the guy. Another day or so and the roads will be closed. There is no food coming in. The corn and wheat has been ploughed under. I didn't see sheep or cattle. The most we’ll have is a squirrel or two. We will die here, in the dark. I am sure they will cut the power and water.”

The room is silent now, slowly the stench of fear fills the room and takes all the air. I step off the table and pace the few feet available. The tightness in my chest is painful yet exhilarating. Doing something, anything is better than going back down. The men watch me pace back and forth.

“The patrol are the only ones with weapons, besides the men at the gates.” I’m thinking aloud. “But we have the numbers and surprise. They don’t know that we know. We need to attack all four gates at the same time.”

“Attack? We could get hurt, killed.” Vic says. I know he’s thinking of his family and the ever-present hope of seeing them again.

“If we don’t fight our way out, we will all die.”

It has to be said again and again, for them and myself. It’s difficult to wrap my brain around, but it’s our reality now.

“Fighting our way out is the only way any of us will survive.”

“Okay.” Mannie leans forward, slaps his hands on his knees. “How do we attack and when?”

“As soon as possible.” I nod, grateful that at least one of them is willing to hear me.

“I wish we could take our time and organize, but there isn’t any. We have to split up and surprise the guards at the gates all at the same time.”

Adam waves his CM in the air. “But these things will only play stupid kitten videos. The same ones over and over. There isn’t even a date or time stamp.”

“How many kitten videos are there?” Vic reaches for his module. We wait.

“Twelve.” He says. Then he watches the sequence again. We hold our breath while he counts “About thirty minutes to go through the loop.”

“It took me a little over three hours to walk from the east gate roadblock to here. That’s six loops of videos. I think we need to do two things. Alert as many of us as we can and find out what patrol knows., If they find out that we know, they could tell the blockade and we’d be locked in sooner. And it might help if we knew exactly how many kitten loops to the gate.”

I sigh. There is so much more to do. So little time.

“It would be great if we could get the trucks to block the gates in the dome.” Gary says.

“One of the old men in my building is hiding a ham.” Bill says.

“A ham?” Charlie asks.

“I’m not sure how it works. It’s old but he still talks to people. I think there’s someone in sector eight who he talks to.”

“Well go!” Sol pushes Bill toward the door. “Go wake him up. See if he can get anyone to listen to him.”

“Who knows someone in patrol?” Sol is fired up now.

“Dick does. He told me a mate is a sergeant. Right. I’m on it.” Zach is already moving to the door.

“Who’d be on our side among the foremen and ringers? ‘Cause we won’t go down tomorrow. We walk back out after we clock. They better not stop us.”

I look around the room and stop at Mannie, who nods and leaves. One of his cousins, who has been here a long time, is a foreman, his cousin’s roommate is a ringer.

One by one the men leave to spread the word, rouse people, and hopefully get everyone behind us. When the room is empty, my boiling adrenaline has nowhere to go. Without anyone to bounce ideas off and silence my fears, I’m drowning in “what ifs” and “we shoulds”.

I must have fallen asleep, though, for Bill wakes me.

“The old man talked with someone who knows a trucker. He hopes to hear back in a little while.”

I rub my eyes. There is hope. At least one person out there knows.

Theo, Sol’s roomie, sneaks in. “It took me five and a half video loops to get to the west gate.” He is panting. “I ran back.” Still catching his breath, he continues. “Three men on the gate. The trucks are still there, at least on the west.” I hand him water and thank him.

By midday, everybody is ready, which isn’t that surprising. We’ve all been wanting to get out, from the moment we were dumped here. Dick’s mate gathered his fellow patrolmen. They sheepishly confess they ran out of ammo last week. The ringers spread the word all night long. Night shift, though tired and dirty, is up and ready. Day shift clocked in and walked out. At the sign from Bill’s old friend, we split into four rag-tag groups and march up the four roads to the gates.

After the tension, the long night of haphazard planning, fear, impotent rage, and anticipation, the end is almost a letdown.

Roughly seventy kitten videos after we leave town, we are close enough to the gates to hear truck engines rev up, shouts from the guards, shots shattering glass and pings ricocheting off metal.

Our approach is muffled by the deafening grinding of gears as the massive black doors slide close. Then we watch and listen as large trucks are crushed. We hold our breath till we hear the blare of an alarm that overshadows all.

Three trucks, side by side, are enough to stymy the doors. Though the vehicles are crumpled and smashed together they are solid enough to keep the gates from closing. We climb over and crawl under them into daylight.

Vic stands in the middle of the road; his face turned up to the sun.

“You’re right, Tom.” He sighs. “The real thing is better than those lamps.”