So it is done

Go

Night was finally falling on Atlas, ending the unnaturally long day – literally. Being in the sky, the soaring city of Atlas enjoyed extra minutes of daylight, thanks to physical laws and its position up above the surrounding hills of Atlas, which could not even be called mountains. It was literally a city elevated above the mundane...

Unlike Mantle.

Robyn practically spat at the thought, but managed to hold on at the last second before she pulled her cloak away from the window of a car.

The bulk of Atlas loomed over Mantle, a rusting colossus of human greed, hate, and indifference. Its position, a mark of pride for Atlas.

Who in Atlas even cares about life in Mantle? Who cared that the bulk of Atlas hung over the whole city, blocking out the sunlight? Do the people of Atlas even care that the people of Mantle spent even the brightest of days, in their shadows, able only to gaze at the monument to human folly hanging in the air instead of the sun?

It's the little things really, the increased percentage of mental illness, vitamin deficiencies, things that lead to discontent, things that are to be managed. Percentage and percentage and percentage, Mantle's life reduced to numbers and graphs – who cares what the people of Mantle even want? As long as they can dig, they could all be depressed, suicidal, lemmings for all Atlas care.

If Atlas didn't care that Mantle was drowning in filth and suffocating under their heels, why should they pay attention to some little thing that wouldn't reflect more than another little notation in the margins of another report?

Well, the unpleasant truth for Atlas is that little things do tend to pile up.

It was not the lack of light or the annoying view from the window that drew the people of Mantle outside in a united movement, in a desire to remove their humiliating slave collar. But it was such trifles that continued and continued to accumulate, gradually filling the cup with resentment of the people of Mantle.

Until the cup was overflowing and anger poured out onto the streets of Mantle, and that wave swept even the 'city above earthly problems'.

Robyn didn't consider herself anything too special. No, in a sense she could be called special as much as she doesn't feel it – here she was, in her mid-twenties, the official representative of all Mantle, the voice of the people, the most influential woman in Mantle.

But there was nothing really special about it – unique perhaps, but if it wasn't Robyn, it would be anyone else. Mantle needed a voice, Mantle needed someone to be its leader, someone to fight for them, someone to raise Mantle's flag and hold Atlas to account.

Robyn had become that voice, just as that voice could be any other person of Mantle who found themselves in similar circumstances, who had made moves like hers.

Joanna, perhaps? Her Deputy for the 'army matters'? She lacked charisma, but when it came to performance, rigor and methodicality she was unrivalled. She was cold, and detached; she could be the hard voice of the army for Mantle, making Atlas reckon with Mantle – though perhaps not so suitable in high offices, then at least in the streets.

Or perhaps Fiona? She was too soft, overflowing with sympathy, but she had the popularity of the people on her side. Even in Atlas, there were those whose hearts were not completely eaten away by the worms of hatred and blindness to Mantle's suffering... however few there were, and they liked Fiona.

Fiona would have been able to reach into the hearts of many, to extend an offer of peace to the two warring nations, Mantle and Atlas... As much as Robyn would have to hold her vomit back at the thought.