Look Up - Part 2 of 3 (A "Sunlight" short-story)

Part 2

When Arfid came to, he first saw blinding white light. He blinked, slowly, and the room around him began to take shape. It was pristine white, and bare metal. The air smelled… antiseptic. It was large – larger than his entire flat. There were no windows, and he couldn’t discern the source of light. Groggily, he got to his feet, raising his wrist to his face to check the time. His watch was still there, which was a good sign, and he was still in his clothes. As he sat up, he realised he was on a metal bed. On the wall opposite him, there was a metal door that stood open. Jeeva was leaning against the doorframe, studying Arfid carefully.

“How are you?” she asked, worried.

“Sleepy,” he replied, blinking slowly.

“Any pain?”

He took a moment, just breathing in and out. “No, not much. Can’t breathe properly but… nothing beyond that.”

“Fine. You’re ready, then. I’ve kept the memory cards, the injector, and the respirator on the table beside you – along with your bag and some supplies. Read up, and go. You’ve been out… a couple days. You don’t have much time,” she spoke sternly, but she was smiling.

As she turned to leave, Arfid called out, “hey, where am I?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” she replied, slyly and without turning around. Not long after, the click-clack of her heels had faded out of earshot. Shaking his head, Arfid grabbed his sling-bag and slung it over his shoulder. As he did, something heavy clunked against his chest. Puzzled, he reached inside the bag only to feel his fingers wrap around the cold metal grip of a pistol. Fuck sake, Jeeva… He then shoved the injector, RUNFAST, into the bag, and sat back down, turning the memory cards over in his hands.

This was it… his way out. Ignoring, as best he could, the thought of greener pastures, he slotted both cards into his jackpoint. For a second, nothing happened and then Jeeva’s voice sounded in his brain like it was his own train of thought.

“Hello, Arfid. Today’s job is simple. All you have to do is get to T.H.’s workshop in Old Mumbai, pick up a small pouch of wheat seeds, and bring them to our client. Once you have them, you will need to make your way to Station A1. Just drop the pouch at the station, and turn around. Do not wait to see who picks it up.”

Arfid’s heart began to beat faster with every sentence.

“The seeds are from the Svalbard Vault, and are among the last unregulated wheat seeds on this planet. Once you have the seeds in your hand, you hold with them the final hopes for a food industry free of corporate malice and interference. You cannot fail. Do. Not. Fail. Should you be captured by Sabdis Group, the second memory card you have slotted in will collapse your system. You won’t feel it. It is better than what they will do.”

Then, there was silence. Jeeva was just breathing in the recording now; slow, shallow breaths like she was trying not to cry. “I am sorry, my friend,” she finally said. “But a great responsibility lies on our shoulders. Let us live up to it.” The recording went dead.

Rage and despair swelled in Arfid’s heart in equal measure. He wasn’t beholden to this task, he could leave. The scrambling chip she’d installed in his head could make it so that no one would ever see him again. He hated Jeeva; for tricking him, for making him a part of her futile rebellion, for raging against a world that would never change… but most of all, he hated her because she was right. And then again, there was the matter of his fee… a life in the Circle…

He clenched his jaw, balled his fists, cursed his luck, and left the room.

There was nothing beyond the door to his room but a corridor, with a locked door on each wall and another at the far end. The corridor, too, was made of the same white metal. The air there smelled just as antiseptic. Like a hospital. Arfid reached the door on the far end which he threw open in a fit of drama. Immediately, he was set upon by the combined forces of smog, sunlight, and noise. Blinking away the discomfort, and coughing away the smog, he saw the city spread out in front of him. He was standing on a rooftop. He’d never set foot on a rooftop.

Around him, still, the concrete chasms of New Bombay soared into the sky. About him, still, the concrete rained. The smog was thick here, too. The sound of traffic – cars and bikes and scooters on concrete flyovers and footpaths – echoed around the canyons of the city and reached his ears magnified tenfold.

And still… he was on a rooftop. Tentatively, he walked to the edge, and looked down.

The city disappeared into smog-shrouded blackness below. Through the thick grey clouds of pollution, hundreds of bright lights shone through; orange, blue, yellow, red. Above that cloud and zipping through it, were great bridges and flyovers, metrotracks and monorail lines. There was the city, below him.

He smiled to himself, in spite of it all. Maybe things could get better. He stayed there, smiling like a madman, for a minute or so before the weight of his task brought him back to reality. Then, grim-faced and sure footed, he made his way to the lift and rode it back down into the depths.

He would have to go deeper still, to the parts of the city that time had forgotten. The U-Levels were like the seabed. You could see the light from there, but it never reached you – often enough, it was so dark down there that one couldn’t read a book. There, in the darkness, in the rubble and ruin of the old city, there was no light and little hope. The smog was perpetual there, and better times could only be remembered by staring up at the columns of sunlight that broke through the concrete rain.