Adhara's Sonder

Chapter 1: Pilot Light

With a jingle of keys, the faded door swung open. Creaking footsteps warped the floorboards from the foyer to the kitchen, stopping just beneath the kitchen table.

He squinted in the kitchen light as he dumped his rucksack into a chair, sighing and digging inside it. He paused. He rummaged inside it again, scraping the bottom. He searched a smaller pocket. He searched the small side pockets, pointlessly. He looked up, blinking at the china cabinet across the room, his encumbered brain struggling to keep up.

Now the stairs creaked, but quietly; each step rolled on the balls of his feet as he stole upstairs. He flung open the door to his workshop, tearing through stacks of research papers and overturning boxes of wires. With a wide sweep of his arm, he cleared his desk. The stairs creaked again, louder under his heels, and he returned to the kitchen and searched his rucksack again.

"I forgot my laptop," he admitted to the empty kitchen.

After a dramatic sigh, Cyrus slammed back out the front door again and dejectedly began pedaling his bicycle back the way he'd come.

Living outside the city came with many perks which almost made up for the commute. The climate was cooler this close to the mountains, and every day on his way to work and back home, Cyrus enjoyed the sun rising and setting over their peaks. The view was especially grand over the strip of fields just outside his neighborhood: a waving golden sea crested with the strip of woodland at the foot of the mountains. Every day Cyrus was tempted to get off his bike and run wild through the field, but the chain-link fence with the sign that read: "NO ADMITTANCE: Meteorological Terraforming Survey Zone" had not yet failed to discourage his primal desires. So, he just stared at the mountains as he passed—they were always covered in rolling fog, but when the sun was directly behind, he could just make out the long row of AirShift towers. 

The temperature started to rise once he came through an orchard, past the dented sign which fibbed: "Hudson City: You are safe here." He smirked. When he came to the top of the hill, the cluster of skyscrapers bordering the bay sprawled out beneath him. But it wasn't until he reached the bottom of the hill, heading towards downtown when it really got warm—as many as ten degrees warmer than his neighborhood.

The momentum from the hill carried Cyrus well into the city. Each building he passed became slicker and cleaner, and as he approached the city center even the streets were darker and smoother. Since they were empty, they were easy to admire—at this time of night, there was hardly any traffic to delay him. The buildings were alive with lights as always, but as Cyrus stopped to grab a soda from a vine-covered vending machine, he had only his thoughts to keep him company. He took a sip of the soda—his favorite, Battery Acid—and blinked rapidly as the ice-cold sugar and caffeine brought him back from the brink. As the stimulant surged through his veins, he hopped back onto his bicycle and headed back out of town on the far end. The wind started to blow cold again, so he pulled his hood up and pressed forward, weaving to avoid patches of ice and blinking away snowflakes as he passed an industrial tanker at a fuel station. He soon regretted the cold drink.

By the time Cyrus arrived back at the lab where he worked, the sides of the road were buried beneath a two-foot blanket of snow. He stopped at the security checkpoint booth, rubbing his arms.

"Hey, it's Cyrus!" guffawed the booth guard through the speaker. "Back again so soon, huh? Burning the midnight oil?"

"No, I just forgot my laptop," Cyrus confessed.

"Again?" the guard chuckled. "Well, stay warm—it's cold out here where they don't fix the weather!"

"Thanks, Barry. Have a good night."