Crimson

Chapter Four

|Chapter Four|
Carrier

•

I saw a firefly once. It had been one of those warm summer evenings- the ones that make you drowsy with fervor and inflamed with new ideas.

I remember thinking how pompous it looked in flight. Look at me, I'm a bioluminescent bug.

Weird envy had infused me, and I splashed water at it, hoping that would simmer its bioluminescence.

The bug dipped momentarily, then recovered and flew on. Its light was brighter than ever.

Tier One is a mammoth of a firefly.

There are lights everywhere: dazzling, twinkling lights that irradiate the entire night sky. Innumerable glass and steel buildings shoot up from the ground- poised and brandishing unknown apices.

My face is pressed against the window of the transference vehicle.

The streets are alive, to say the least, and something tells me that this is common. The populace is like a bustling ant colony, determined to be about their business.

Tier Ones are easy to identify. There's a brazened certainty about them that is almost blinding. It shows in the way they dress, the way they greet each other, their plastic smiles, the devices they use, their activities, the food they indulge in.

There are other things too. They don't slouch, they don't laugh sincerely, they don't lick sauce from their fingers and they don't hug long enough.

My face is still glued to the window, and I realize that I'm taking mental notes.

There are huge television-displays throughout the city. I am mesmerized, but no one in the city seems to notice them at all. One display shows a perfume ad, and another shows a collection of household robots that will make your wife insecure.

A large, crystalline clock tower perches in the heart of the city. I rack my brain to remember what the Old Londoners of decades ago had called it.

"What does it look like?" Jécob inquires across from me. I try my best to describe what I'm seeing, and what I know. He tells me that before he lost his sight, he had been to Tier One on a business trip with his father.

"Do you see Big Ben? That's my favorite."

"The clock tower?"

"Yes."

We continue conversing, as is everyone else. The noise in the bus grows incessantly at each new landmark. That is until the blonde female soldier at the front of the bus tells us to quiet down kids, we're almost there.

The transference vehicle is moving slower now.

We cross a large bridge that leaves the city behind us, then we are plunged into the darkness of a tunnel. The only things visible are several yellow blinking lights that line the roof of the channel.

"I can't see anything right now," I tell Jécob, "We're in some sort of tunnel."

"Welcome to my world then." His comment is crass but I decide against entertaining him.