“So I said… Stop clowning around! And I shot his big red nose off.” Andy grinned at the fond memory. A few of the vault dwellers–the inquisitive teenage girl especially–laughed with him, but the majority of them remained silent, just staring. “Wow, tough crowd.” Andy took a swig of the apple flavoured water they’d provided. Given a year to ferment, it might make for a passable cider.
“So, there’s Clara, standing on the stage trying to communicate with the leader of the mime faction, and this mime… she’s waving her hands about and making all these wild gestures. I swear at one point, she pretended to be stuck behind a glass wall. And all this time, Clara is just trying to find out where the clowns have broken in from. You see, the clowns and mimes were at war with each other. They were separate apocalypses that happened to occur next to each other. Coincidence? I don’t know, maybe not.
“Anyway… I’m killing these clowns and I swear to you… I shit you not, they’re attacking with wooden mallets and riding on top of balloon animals as steeds. I swear to you I’m not making this up. I know it’s ridiculous but it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. So I’m holding this breach in the main theatre room, which was apparently sacred ground for both factions. I’m fighting with these mime warriors and they’re imitating shooting guns and throwing grenades, and you wouldn’t believe it, but it was working. The clowns were falling down as if they’d been shot by riot control grade weaponry. Bean bags and that. Not enough to kill, but enough to put you on your arse. Apparently, the mime’s power came from their performative ability to suggest that you were being shot with a gun, and your body would feel the impact. Crazy right?
“Anyway, at one point, I just stop shooting because I wanna watch what’s going on. I don’t want to kill all the clowns and spoil the fun. So the clowns swarm into the theatre, smacking the mimes with their mallets, kicking them with big shoes…” Andy was laughing too much at the memory to speak. “With big shoes… This one mime fell over… with his arse in the air… and the clown… he booted him and it made a trumpet sound.” Andy cackled and banged his fist on the table. He imitated the noise. “Just like that. Then this balloon animal lifts one of the mimes up in its balloon jaws and starts to squeeze him to death. The other mimes try shooting the balloon animal steed, which looked kind of like an elephant to me, I think. Anyway, they’re shooting this elephant balloon animal, but their psychic bullets are bouncing off and hitting themselves. So then the mimes start falling over to their own pretend ricochet bullets. They convinced themselves that they were shot. I couldn’t believe it, I was laughing too hard to shoot.”
Andy shook with laughter, breathing hard as though he’d just gone for a jog.
“What happened to the mimes?” a boy asked. The kids and teenagers were gathered in a group of their own, captivated by his stories.
“I don’t know. We won, I think? I can’t remember, this was years ago before I was Augmented. I just remember these balloon animal clowns and… ahh, it was awesome. Why can’t more of the apocalypses be like that?” Andy glanced around the vault at the pastel jumpsuit wearing vaulties, not a spec of grime or sign of injury on them. “I guess you wouldn’t know.”
The soldier in the white jumpsuit with the blue-rimmed cap came and sat next to Andy. He wore a smile, but his eyes were stern, scanning the crowd. “Andy, I need a word in private.”
“Sure, whatever.”
There was a commotion from somewhere deep in the crowd, shouting back and forth. Something clanged as it was thrown against the floor. The shouting rose to a pitch as more voices got involved. A group of grey-jumpsuit wearing guards armed with riot-grade weaponry dispersed towards the fighting. Only two remained to keep an eye on him.
“Let me show you our kitchens,” Blue-cap announced, standing over him. Andy got up and followed him through the crowd towards the building at the back of the canteen. Blue-cap opened a door, and they went inside. Three other soldiers in white overalls and blue armbands came up behind Andy, ushering him inside the canteen.
“I don’t like being herded,” Andy said, stopping just outside the doorway.
“Please, follow me,” Blue-cap said. “It’s for your own good.”
“Oh really?” Andy had heard that one before.
“The Greys are coming for you. They won’t let you leave. You have to trust me.”
The intensity in Blue-cap’s face coaxed Andy on. Whatever he had planned was probably more interesting than eating another vault lunch. “Go on then.”
They passed through the canteen towards the kitchens, then took a detour towards the large column lift. Blue-cap scanned the panel and all five of them went inside. The elevator room was more spacious than the one they had taken previously, large enough to fit about thirty people shoulder to shoulder. Andy stood in the front centre, the soldiers behind him, and Blue-cap to his right–Andy intentionally left himself deceptively vulnerable. If one of the soldiers tried to take advantage and drew on him, his Augmentation’s Killer Instinct module would trigger, and he’d kill all four of them in an instant. By exposing himself this way, he could be sure of their intentions.
“Andy, we want to be free.” Blue-cap took his cap off and wiped his brow. Andy wished he hadn’t, because it was easy to forget which one of the soldiers was with them all wearing the same white jumpsuits. “There’s life outside this vault, am I right? People. Animals. The natural world. I remember it, of course I do, but some people find it so easy to forget when they’re trapped beneath the boot of authority.”
“There’s some stuff,” Andy said. “Yeah.”
“We’ve been stuck down here for nearly nine years, eating the same food, playing the same games, having the same conversations…” The old man sighed and replaced his blue-rimmed cap. “The Honcho fed us lies. He told us that nothing had survived the apocalypse, that we were the last people on earth. The simple fact that that is not true undermines this entire project. This playground of his. We want to be free.”
“Yeah,” the other soldiers affirmed. One cocked his rifle for emphasis.
The elevator opened on a loading bay. Empty trolleys with grid-like containers stood in a row. The floor was rubbery, the air tasted humid. A few workers in pastel green overalls worked on the trolleys, ignorant of their group’s presence. Andy followed the soldiers through a plastic sheet covered doorway at the back of the loading bay and into a warehouse sized room cast in blue UV light. Spires of light rose to the ceiling on columns of plantlife. Fat green leaves enveloped the UV lights, soaking up its electrical goodness. Andy’s nose attracted him towards a column of tomatoes which bore plump green, yellow and red fruit. A small machine abseiled down the column and picked a ripe tomato off the vine, depositing it in a funnel at the column's base.
“We must seem like idiots to you,” Blue-cap said, leading their entourage through the hydroponic columns. “Honestly, I can tell that’s what you’re thinking. But we were sceptical, you know. Even before we knew there were survivors like yourself on the surface, we wanted to get out. See for ourselves. It’s only human nature. These walls may be white and clean, but they’re still a cage.”
“What’s the plan, Gary?” one of the soldiers asked. He was a young man with a thin blonde moustache and soft cheeks–the very boy who had tried to disarm Andy upstairs earlier that day.
“I’m taking our guest back to see the Head Honcho. He would never have allowed Andy to speak the truth in Hab Sec. The stories you told… The people know now. Their minds have changed. They are awake, and with your help, Andy, we can set them free.”
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“Do you have an armoury?” Andy asked, snapping a bunch of juicy purple grapes off a vine.
Blue-cap throwned. “Yes, we do. A small one.”
“Military grade?” Andy nodded at the short-barreled rifles each of them held.
“Yes.”
“How’s about a stop off?”
There was silence. The soldiers looked at one another while they kept up a brisk pace. “That’s a good point,” one of the men said behind him. He was the first soldier to accompany Andy and Blue-cap into Habitation Sec earlier, dark skinned and bald headed. “There’s still more guns in there. The greys could easily arm themselves.”
“I didn’t want it to come to violence,” Blue-cap said.
“It’s too late for that. Imprisoning Dave and the others for political crimes. That is violence.”
Their group turned right and headed towards the outer wall of the hydroponics warehouse. Ahead, a UV light shone through fish tanks, projecting a mosaic up the exterior walls. The tanks rose three layers high, each layer comprising a large fish tank above which plants dropped their roots into the water. The fish inside were as fat as his forearm. White tubes connected the tanks, running along their flanks, plunging into the water and rising again, connecting the district like roadways in a city. It reminded Andy of a screensaver which used to pop up on his grandad’s ancient PC if it was left idle for too long.
Blue-cap pinched his brow. “We just need to convince the Honcho…”
“Then why the weaponry?” another soldier asked, brandishing his rifle. The man was about Andy’s age, with sharp features and two lines shaved into his left eyebrow. “Is this to be persuasive? Or if he doesn’t agree with us, we shoot him?”
“Keep your voice down,” Blue-cap snapped.
“We should take the armoury,” the bald soldier said in a hushed tone.
“You should definitely take the armoury,” Andy said as they came up beside another set of elevator doors. “In my experience, you should always take the armoury.”
“There,” the soldier with the eyebrow slits said. “Listen to the veteran.”
“I have friends in the greys,” Blue-cap said.
“We’re doing this for them, too,” the bald soldier said. “We all deserve the freedom to decide.”
“We won’t shoot them,” the blonde moustachioed soldier said. “We’ll just hold them at gunpoint.”
“Let them know we mean business.”
“The Honcho is stubborn. He’ll only respond to might.”
Blue-cap scanned his armband and the five of them stepped inside. The lift was cramped compared to the one which they had taken in the loading bay. “If we had known you were coming,” Blue-cap said, face fixed on the interior control panel. “If we’d had time to plan…” His finger drifted down the panel as he selected a floor. The elevator doors closed, and they descended. “Never mind.”
Andy watched an LED light travel down a tube, passing markers which annotated each level of the vault. Above them was the vault’s First Level, where they had entered from the surface, named Admin Sector–it was annotated to house council chambers, high sec dorms, security offices, observation and the Head Honcho’s office. Below that on Level Two was the Hydroponics Sector, which, as well as the farms Andy had seen, contained a water purification station and a workshop.
The LED light travelled past Level Three, which was the Habitation Sector, where Andy had eaten his lunch. Below them, Level Four was labelled as Life Support Sector, which contained a hospital, the vault’s mainframe, life support machines and an armoury. Andy smiled to himself, Life Support was an ironic sector for the armoury to be built. Finally, deep underground, judging by its distance of the LED tube between Level Four and Level Five, was the Geothermal Power Sector. If, for some reason, Andy wanted to destroy the vault forever, that’s where he’d go.
Blue-cap took a deep breath and sighed. “I should have clearance to get into the armoury, but once the Honcho learns what we’re up to, he might have my rights revoked. He can do that from security stations in Admin Sec.”
“What happens then?” Blonde-moustache asked.
The LED light slid into place at Level Four, lighting up the Life Support Sector label. “Then…” Blue-cap thought for a moment. The doors hissed, but Blue-cap entered a command on the control panel, and the doors froze in place. “If that happens, we cut our losses, and we take the stairwell back up to Hab Sec, stage a revolution. Deonte, get back up there and get everyone ready. Whether or not we can get into the armoury, we’ll need all the sympathisers on our side. If we can get in, that’s great, we’ll arm them. If not, we’ll storm Admin Sec with what we have.”
“This feels rushed,” Blonde-moustache said.
“That’s because it is.” Blue-cap responded, keying in a command to open the doors. “The quicker we act, the better we’ll catch them off guard.” The officer left the elevator into a wide tunnel. The eyebrows-slit soldier followed him, but blonde-moustache soldier hesitated. Blue-cap turned and addressed him. “If you’re afraid to join us, that’s okay. It’s your choice.”
Blonde-moustache looked at his feet.
“But we’re gonna need all the help we can get. This is our one lucky chance. The moment we’ve been talking about for years. We’ve got to snatch it.”
“Okay,” Blonde-moustache nodded, exciting the elevator. Andy left after him. The elevator doors closed on the bald soldier who remained behind.
The vault’s tunnel was identical to the one in Admin Sector. Polished steel brackets curved around the tunnel at intervals. Cables and pipes were visible beneath access grates, set into the floor on the flanks of the main walkway. The ceiling was low, Andy’s scalp nearly brushed the roof. Adjoining the main tunnel were several hallways, each smaller and hexagonal in shape, with white wall panels and tube lights running along the top corners. Andy looked through the windows set into the wall on his left. The room was full of beds and medical machinery. Some of the beds were occupied by the sick and ageing, attended to by nurses wearing white jumpsuits with pink armbands. The majority of the ward was empty and clean with a surplus of beds.
At a crossroads, they took the tunnel right, away from the hospital and towards an area marked ‘Mainframe’ by a glowing sign in the ceiling. Vault dwellers in pale yellow jumpsuits sat at computers inside small offices, or carried clipboards through the corridors. Many stopped and stared at Andy as he and the soldiers passed, or else they stared dead ahead, pretending not to have noticed their presence.
“It’s quiet,” Eyebrow-slits said.
“Most of the vault went to Hab Sec to hear Andy’s stories,” Blue-cap said. “Our timing couldn’t be better.”
Ahead, there was a shallow groove in the tunnel, about five metres deep, at the back of which was a reinforced door marked ‘Armoury’. A security camera stood above the door, and against one of the inner walls, a window looked into a small room containing two guards. The men dressed in grey jumpsuits with red armbands lounged in chairs inside the office, eating a stew of some sort and chatting, although the reinforced glass contained their conversation from the outside.
“Stay here,” Blue-cap said, rounding the corner and approaching the door. He scanned his armband over the control panel, but the door didn’t budge. The men inside shifted, and one activated an intercom. “Gary? What’s going on?”
“We need access to the armoury,” Blue-cap said. “Head Honcho’s orders.”
Andy activated his radio. “Hey sis, just a head’s up. It’s about to get hot.”
There was no response on the line–likely, their radios weren’t transmitting underground.
“What orders?” one guard said over the intercom.
“The external guard isn’t enough. We’re arming all the greys in case more invaders get through the vault door.”
“Jesus, really?” The guard thumbled at his computer. “Hold on, just confirming with admin.”
“There’s no time,” Blue-cap said, but he was ignored.
“Greys are on their way,” the guard said over the intercom. His tone had changed, less friendly. “Stay there Gary. We can see the others on the cameras. The contaminate is with you, isn’t he?”
“He’s a survivor,” Blue-cap said. “There’s more like him. The world isn’t dead. It’s alive! We should be out there too in the naked sunlight, living our lives free of tyranny.”
The guards inside their post stared out of the window at Blue-cap. They looked sad, as though they had been somehow let down. Not angry, like Andy had expected them to be, upon learning that their fellow vault dweller was mutineering. Just depressed. That intrigued Andy, but it was about to change.
He drew Julie, feeling the throng of his Augmentation’s powers rumble in his bones, and took aim on the window. The power came to him willingly, building in his feet, filtering up his legs, into his hips. He held onto the power for as long as he could.
“Blue-cap,” he said, jaw rattling with the power accumulation. “Cover your ears.”
Julie shook in his grip–she was ecstatic. Andy felt the rush within himself, they escalated together until the power was too catastrophic to contain.
Julie erupted in his hands.