People estimate the importance of their actions based on what it cost them. Time, effort, choices. But it is never that. The value that others get out of your actions determines the value. And I know what is of value to each target.
Nira desperately called the Shield Monitoring Division.
“Category 1 Emergency. Several sectors in the outer ring segments are exposed. My re-balancing stopped the cascade but did not bring the rest of the sectors back.” Shared Nira rapidly even before the Department liaison spoke a word.
“Hold please.” said the liaison coldly.
“I see you still don’t have either the proof or the discipline. So let me impart some.” Came the cold, clipped voice of Officer Vick.
Nira nearly dropped her crystal right there.
“Since you have used unauthorized access to tamper with the shields, depleting the garden reserves during a Decadal Shift event, I will ensure you are charged with terrorism. Please stay by the panel unless you want me to add the charges of absconding to your list. Am I clear?”
“Clear. You don’t have to believe me. There is another person here, who actually sabotaged the shields and set the cascade in motion. Just lock out all the interfaces in the garden courts and I’ll wait for you to arrive.”
“You don’t get to dictate that. But, in case you are wondering to try something, all the interfaces were already disabled the moment you initiated an unapproved and illegal transfer. This is the last line you will ever cross.”
Nira didn’t wait for the lecture to complete. She needed to catch that fleeing figure more than ever now to prove her innocence. If she could just catch him, she could salvage this debacle. Slightly.
Blood thundered in her ears warring with the dreadful thoughts of being banned for life, her life’s work and Davan’s evaporating in front of her eyes. She could not afford to get overwhelmed by these emotions.
As she rounded the corner towards the nearest maintenance interface, she found a Shadowsider dead ahead, fumbling with the interface desperation writ across his face. He was sweating profusely, clearly agitated and holding his anger on a slim leash.
Drav looked up frustrated as he saw Nira descending on him like a predator.
“Drav, Stop!” Nira panted as she cautiously stopped at a safe distance from Drav. The Shadowsiders never carried any weapons. They were barred, but she could not take any chances with a saboteur who wanted entire Skyside exposed to the dual sun radiation.
Drav searched desperately around, but the only other exit led directly outside where the red gold sunlight shone bright.
Nira caught Drav looking at the exit and the Sunlight and she understood.
“No Drav! Please! You don’t have to step into the sunlight! We can still find a way! No harm was done. I stopped the Cascade. You can still live!” said Nira desperately trying to talk Drav down. To calm him down.
Drav’s eyes kept shifting, his breathing fast and shallow.
“What use is life without meaning? The Skyside used us, abused us, and forgot us. You have a whole wall full of names just for Graduation! We get ours only when we die! Year after year, you sit and think new ways to choke us! That is what those names represent!” spat Drav, spittle and sweat flying from his lips as a dam broke in him.
Nira looked worried. She hoped Vick and the team were hurrying to find her.
“I understand you. I can empathize with you!” said Nira holding up her hands in a pacifying gesture.
“I can… Sorry. I can not.” Said Nira shaking her head.
“I can not relate to what you must have gone through. It was my dream to get my name up on the wall. I worked my life for it. But I am not sure if it is even worth it anymore.”
“You have no idea it is to work till you fall from exhaustion. You have no idea how it is to be treated like spare parts. While we pull triple shifts to maintain whole city’s infra, Skyside can not be bothered to decorate for your own vanity ceremony! You get to sleep! Shadowside has not slept in decades! This event that you have can be had any other day of the year. But no, you have it on the day of the eclipse when the radiation is at its peak! And today they will feel what the radiation does to you when you have no shields!”
Drav took another hesitant step towards the sunlight.
“Drav, please think of it. There is no escape. If you step into that sunlight, you will die. You know that! Do you want that to be your last statement? To be remembered as a terrorist if at all?”
“No. They will remember the dangers of this day and they will shift the ceremony to some other day. The Shadowsiders will no longer die to rush to prepare for this day, being forced to maintain the shields and everything powering them till we die!”
“No. They will not. If the shield had failed then may be. But if you step into that sunlight now, you will die and they find a scapegoat. Likely me in this case. But they will find someone. They will not change the longest standing tradition, and an event that unites the entire Skyside just for a sabotage attempt. A failed one at that!”
“It failed because of your meddling right?”
“Yes. It did.”
“Then you leave me no choice. The least I could do then is take you down with me!”
Before Nira could react, Drav started sprinting towards the sunlight and his doom.
Drav turned away from the persistent Skyside girl as he ran. He had run once before too. That one had been towards his doom as well.
The unfiltered light at the end of the corridor was blinding, growing larger with each step as his mind slipped backwards.
Rael’s grease stained smile arrived first. It especially shone on days where he could barely stand after harrowing double or triple shifts. His son had a knack to lighten the mood and Drav along with it.
The boots gave him away first. It was a rhythm unique to Rael, the exhausted, loose limbed swagger of an optimistic boy trying to prove that working on the shields hadn’t broken him. Yet.
Rael’s hands shook badly, his teeth grinding to suppress the pain he felt as he handed Drav a bowl of soup.
“The Atmospheric pressure was stable today.” Rael would say never mentioning the chemical burns across his hands from working in the smog outside the city.
Alarms on ring sector 6 went red again. Corin who had grown two doors down, died, burning his hands to ash to manually hold the shield in place for twelve extra seconds. Corin didn’t have any hands to grab anything as he fell from the city into the bay. That was the day, Rael’s swagger died as well.
The system did not mourn, it filled vacancies. Corin’s locker was cleared by dawn and Rael assigned Corin’s shift in addition to his usual shifts. No one else could be spared since The Decadal Shift preparations were underway. A slot opened and a slot was filled. That’s all the system cared about.
The waiting became a physical weight Drav could not put down. The clock became the enemy. No bootstep by ascent 4:44 made the silence in the quarters sharp enough to stab. Every second was an infinity compressed to seconds.
Drav saw Rael comeback diminished after each shift. The body pain competing with his grief to hollow him out. The terminal on the wall didn't chime; it gave a low, mechanical thud. Before Drav even looked at the screen, a sudden, violent wave of nausea hit him.
The air in the room instantly lost its taste. His hand hovered over it, his chest locking tight in the fraction of a second before his eyes actually registered the red font of the casualty notification.
Drav didn’t weep for Rael as he chiseled his name on the wall. He didn’t cry when his chisel split his palm open, marking Rael’s name in blood. The system didn’t care when the aged Drav signed up for the decoration crew, graveyard shift.
So Drav didn’t care as he found the issue causing sector 6’s failure. Drav didn’t care when he broke every rule to build what he needed. Without Rael, there was nothing to care.
Drav built on the initial failure. He tested. He planned. And he chipped away at every obstacle ruthlessly. He locked the sequence. He ensured he could move in the Skyside without detection and without touching the sunlight.
His goal was too important to rush. He would put an end to this tradition of celebrating the Decadal Shift. A tradition which celebrated Shadowsider death and blood.
Drav felt a tug on his jacket. Damn! That girl was still persistent! Drav shrugged her off easily and dived into the sunlight, laughing like Rael would have.
For Rael.