The last day of Sachiko's ordinary life started like any other: deep in the guts of some nameless machine too cheap to be worth repairing and too expensive to waste outright. Like all things nobody wanted to deal with, it had been left to the apprentices to salvage what they could and then study what they could not. Such an arrangement didn't particularly bother Sachiko. If anything, she appreciated the opportunity to work the myriad array of standardized parts that made up the machines of Arsia M. C.; each one was a temperamental terror that took years to master, yet together they could achieve miracles beyond what their humble and sometimes esoteric descriptions suggested. It helped that during these exercises, she would often have the whole engineering bay to herself - free of curmudgeony old fogies who'd silently judge her as she laughed at the idiots on the radio.
Today's clownshow was on some pressure system that had developed in the U-basin. Kind of interesting, but not newsworthy in itself. However, the newsteam had somehow baited all sorts of apocalyptic predictions from the attention hungry scientists hiding in the colony's metalwork that this pressure system was going to be the one to finally bring rain to the parched deserts of mars. Sachiko snorted. Yeah right. If she had a credit for every time she'd heard such a prediction, she'd be a thousand credits richer! The fact that she was only 32 was almost depressing. Didn't these people have something better to do?
When the alarm on her PDA rang off about the end of her shift, all she could think was: I know I do. Stuffing her grease-smudged multi-tool into her shorts-pocket, Sachiko awkwardly made the crawl back out of the two-storey tall hull, wings tight against her body lest they get caught on some errant pipe or edge. When she felt her feet reach open air, she curled around the lip of the access panel before launching herself away. In the low gravity, a fall from this height was unlikely to be anything more than uncomfortable, but nevertheless she allowed her wings to stretch, pulsing them so as to catch air and soften her landing.
To say the engineering bay was huge would be an understatement. Thirty meters in diameter and five times as many tall, there was ample space for all but the largest machines to be suspended on the rigs that protruded from the walls of the cylindrical room. Along the floor, various terminals and storage units bulged from the ground in a comforting, organic fashion that simultaneously maximised the available surface area.
Thinking little of this familiar sight, Sachiko made her way to the door and out into the interstitial space beyond. Here the counterparts of the rigs bridged the gaps between rooms and provided stable platforms for her to hop between in short, powered bursts of buzzing. Gradually, she made her way down to the ground floor where the first set of airlocks greeted her. While strictly unnecessary, given that the space beyond was even more habitable than what she was leaving, the cultivation domes were considered a risk in the event something made its way through the thin atmosphere that surrounded the planet.
Sachiko couldn't imagine why that was enough danger for nobody to ever visit them. The blast of warm, fresh air heavy with the humidity and scents of nature was like a balm for the soul. Great fronds rose overhead while eager leaves stretched their way about the path. If she were to look backwards, she would see the sheer surface of the arcology covered in countless blisters much like the one she was in, as if it had just gotten out of a bad encounter with entirely too much soap.
While the cultivation domes were always a welcome treat, the lack of anything but ground cover vegetation meant there was very little to do beyond enjoying the ambience. Maybe one day they would grow a shrub or a proper tree - perhaps in the engineering bay. Sadly, that day seemed as far off as the distant Earth from which they hailed. Instead, always one to take what she had in stride, Sachiko sought the final set of airlocks.
Used to the routine, it didn't take long for Sachiko to don a heat suit, filled with 'solution and all manner of clever gizmos as well as a respirator to make up for the still-incomplete air beyond. Whether it was from being filtered out by the cultivation domes or simple disinterest, Sachiko noted that once again hers would be the only suit missing from the lockers. Sometimes, she couldn't understand other people. Would she be like that, when she was old enough to be an adult?
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Tossing her short hair out of her face, along with all the lingering thoughts of the mess that was Arsia M.C., Sachiko cycled the airlock and stepped forth into the world beyond.
Mars-red, as far as the eye could see, punctuated with everything from grand cliffs to the humble pebbles that littered the landscape. Up above, unfiltered, shone the faint martian sun about which cloudless orange skies stretched forever. Sachiko knew she would never grow tired of this sight. Not because it held any particular merit of its own accord, but because it was distinctly free. Beyond the blue-purple walls of the arcology, the petty dictates of man were nothing more than numbers in a machine. If she wanted, she could walk for miles until she lost all sight of humanity. In a way it was sad, though. Sachiko was a social animal like anyone else.
There was no point dwelling on that which can't be helped, Sachiko reminded herself. Instead, she crouched, tensing her legs and wing muscles before releasing them in an explosion of force that even in the thin air, kicked up a bit of dust. It wasn't flying -that wouldn't be possible outside for a long time yet- but it was fast, it was high and it was free. Each leap was another half-kilometer and in a surprisingly short time, she made it to the sunken chasma for which the great Mons Arsia had been chosen all those years ago.
Slumped cliffs descended many times the height of her engineering bay down into the meandering valley that stretched from one end of the horizon to the other. Such a majestic, undisturbed view was the perfect one with which to enjoy a book. Kicking her legs over the ledge of a promontory section, she proceeded to detach her PDA and escape into a world of prehistoric monsters and mythical beings.
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A deep, bassy rumbling disturbed Sachiko from her unexpected slumber. Blinking lazily, it was not until she felt the impact of what must have been a liter of water did she fully wake up, wide-eyed and alarmed. Instead of the warm hues of a typical martian dusk, the sky was dark and heavy with roiling, rumbling clouds. Looking down at herself, Sachiko could see that a good half of her torso was drenched in an centimeter or so of water cold enough to chill her through her suit.
"Rain?" she could only ask, dumbly, as her groggy mind tried to put together the pieces. It was raining. Or about to, she thought, looking around at the still dusty-dry plains behind her. Her heartbeat was picking up. Trying to remain calm, Sachiko collected her PDA, tucking it under her arm, and sat up from the cliff. Without wasting time, she set a pace, marveling at the feeling of wind fighting and dancing around her. In the distance, she could hear a muted pattering that was building, steadily, to crescendo. It felt like her gut was sinking with every waking moment as the tension in the atmosphere seemed to build on itself counter-likewise.
Sachiko leapt. Wings pumping with all her might, all her desire to escape, she burst into the air. It was just as she reached the apex of her arc that a gust of wind slammed into her like a wall, catching her still-spread wings and throwing her back towards the chasma. Sachiko didn't even have the presence of mind to scream, so tied up she was in the impossibility of it all. It had to be a nightmare.
When Sachiko felt the wind abate, she twisted midair and began again. Perhaps with all the wind, all the air, she could really fly. Sadly, it wasn't to be. Despite her efforts, she found herself coming short of the ledge, and when she passed beneath its lip, another gust of wind raced from the side to push her away and along the valley. Between all the new sounds, Sachiko was late to notice that a new one had arisen. Rushing, furious, and heralded by a whip-crack that left her cringing, the once-empty depression had become a river.
Sachiko screamed. She was going to die.
It was a premonition she couldn't shake, that she was going to die and there was nothing that she could do about it. The waves were coming closer, and she could feel the spray against her face as she plummeted. She was going to die! Sachiko gasped as the icy cold of the plunge pierced through her heat suit before leaving her with the creeping feeling of numbness characteristic of torpor. She was below the surface, now, and if it wasn't for the overengineered respirator, she would have drowned then and there. Nevertheless, she clawed at the water, unused to swimming and completely helpless against the violent currents. It wasn't long until her muscles were burning with fatigue. Stars exploded across her vision as her head slammed into a rock, cracking the hard-shelled respirator.
Dazed, Sachiko could only watch as shadows crawled from the edge of her vision, hungry for the distant, drowning light. She was going to di- A flash of light, more brilliant than anything she had ever seen, anything she had ever imagined, chased the darkness into her burning retinae, filling her sight so completely that even its memory seemed distant. Sachiko barely registered the cataclysmic screaming that followed it, even as the pressure wave squeeze the air from her lungs and left her ears freely bleeding into the freezing waters.
For a precious moment in time, there was only light and sound.