Ben sits across from Joaquin at a table in the tea shop, planning their next course of action. Outside, Dannika rests, wrapped in a blanket, an empty cup of tea beside her, and a few friendly stray cats snuggled up to her for warmth. Joaquin stares at her affectionately, his chin resting in his palm.
"Dannika has always loved cats," Joaquin says, smiling fondly, "and explosives."
Ben snorts in amusement at the statement. "I see we share common ground."
Joaquin turns his attention to Ben. "You know about that stuff, right?"
"Oh yeah," Ben says, taking a bite out of a small bao from his right hand, his left scribbling quickly on a bytesheet in a manner of efficiency rather than rushing.
The thin page of flexible plexiglass projects light from the micropixels woven into it, activated by every stroke of Ben's stylus. He swipes up on the sheet, creating a new page.
Joaquin sighs as he stands up from his chair and walks over to Ben's side of the table, "What have you got so far?" he asks.
"I'm almost done marking our checkpoints," Ben says, "I say we go now."
"I agree," Joaquin says. He defocuses his eyes for a moment, "I'm locked on." He says as he fades back into reality.
As they exit the tea shop, Joaquin bends down to place a gentle kiss on Dannika's cheek. She smiles softly in her sleep at the feather-light touch. Joaquin stays kneeling beside her for a long moment, admiring her angelicness before gently removing the blanket from her and lifting her into his arms. The cats snuggle into the still-warm blanket, and the group resumes their journey once more.
"Welcome to the fucking NID, apparently," Joaquin grumbles, walking around a tipped-over trash can.
The Northern Industrial District of Mizu is flat, streets sparsely intersecting plains of gray dirt plots lucky to have a junkyard in them.
Ben shrugs. "Well, that's where the coordinates have led us, isn't it?"
Joaquin grumbles something under his breath and raises two fingers to his temple, adjusting his eyes further to the inky dark void before them. The still air shivers as they trek through, almost a living thing itself, parting to make way for the group. Ben feels as if he may be intruding on the very atoms themselves. He wonders, are they sleeping? A silly question he dismisses though disquietingly can't shake. I'd rather not wake them.
"There." Joaquin points forwards. "I see it."
"What are we looking at?" Ben asks, his human eyes inept in the starless dark.
"A junkyard, what else? But there's light," Joaquin murmurs.
Ben adjusts his glasses and squints. In the distance, yellow lights twinkle barely brighter than headlights.
"Oh, yeah... yeah, I see," Ben says, his lip curling at the faint sting in his leg from the blasters, "Bit of a long walk..."
Joaquin snickers, "Want me to carry you too?"
Ben blows a raspberry at the offer, continuing on. Stepping through gateways of darkness, a soft, rhythmic crunch resounds from the silver dirt beneath Ben's feet with each step, the sky devoid of celestials. If someone told me I was on the moon right now, I'd believe them. They trek on for a long while, perhaps just under an hour; it isn't a difficult walk, as the ground is completely flat. Approaching the junkyard, Ben can now easily make out details. Scraps of industrial machinery, such as cranes, vats, saws, and even a cooling tower soar high into the sky, easily hundreds of feet. It's a junkyard for colossal waste.
YOU ARE READING
Descension
Science FictionExiled by a tyrannical government and betrayed by his brother, Ben Anderson is hurled from his status as one of the world's top elites and plunged into a dystopian reality. The clock ticks as a revolution comes to its apex, and the fate of humanity...
