Skye City: The Darkness of Emmilyn

The Shard

Stunned and shattered we leave the jungle and prolong our journey through the warzone because there is nowhere safe to rest. Night falls as we near the hubs of Medio where the registered Citizens live. The triple towers of Skye City are dominating the skyline, even as distant shadows, voids in the heavens where the stars cannot shine.

We enter a Level Three neighbourhood in old town where the poor are housed by multiple storeys of concrete. The lamp posts are not working and most of the grimy windows lack light, thanks to EMPs. The glow of the twin moons is all we have to navigate these unfamiliar parts. The streets are so quiet I can hear the echo of a plastic cup dancing in the breeze. I can only assume the invasion is not fully underway, that Nyberun troops are still coming because I was expecting their numbers to be much higher. I was expecting to hear gunfire.
Shit, I am tempting fate.

Shuffling becomes rhythmic thumping, louder and louder, and as we establish the vague source, we miss our chance to flee. Synchronised footsteps thunder on the road so we climb a small flight of steps and hide within a doorway. The concrete arch is dark but shallow and barely contains our four rigid bodies. I gulp as a procession of soldiers march past the building; mere shadows with rifles resting against their shoulders. They maintain rigid postures as their leather boots stomp to make their presence known. Miraculously they ignore us. Or more likely fail to notice. We may have the lack of street lighting to thank for our survival.

We wait until the footsteps fade to silence and head in a different direction, quickening our pace and depleting our vital energy reserves. We come to a familiar housing estate called Howdon where some of our few Level Three friends live, and I consider ringing buzzers to seek help. Not that anyone has the room to house our gang. Those apartments are like boxes, or rather cells.

We turn a corner, gawping as we discover a colossal broken cylinder resting against a partially collapsed apartment block at the bottom of the street. The cylinder is so immense it can only be a fragment from the Skye Elevator shaft. It stands at an angle, supported by the remaining part of the roof and a mountain of rubble. Given the extent of the damage, hundreds of residents must be buried beneath, but I am amazed the damage is not more extensive. I never thought these apartment blocks were well-constructed, but clearly they were built to last.

We approach the carnage and turn onto a gravel road where a bunch of people are swaying silently, creepily. A female is standing completely naked in the cold with her back turned. This would be weird at the best of times, but given that Medio is turning into a warzone, given that hostile soldiers are on patrol...

I look to the frowning Bex and then to the grinning Scoop and Oscar who approach to gain a closer look at her skinny arse. Boys. The naked female spins sharply and glares at us, gasping; her athletic body bearing boils. The other figures turn around with sinister glints in their eyes, and then... they charge!

The gang exchange stunned glances and run along the street, swerving around a parked van towards the shard. I clutch my phaser as I glance back, but the sight of bouncing boobs messes with my mind and I hesitate to shoot our pursuers. Who the hell are these people? And why are they chasing us?

Stopping behind a wall, I switch my phaser to stun and shoot the naked lady who collapses; her bare flesh scraping against the gravel. She climbs to her feet with a bright red graze covering her breasts and tears pouring from her eyes.

'Why did you shoot me?' she screams, stumbling around, and the other pursuers charge past her. The fact the woman is conscious after being stunned, the fact she is confused, frightened and injured, means I cannot bring myself to shoot the others so I run again. Shit, this is so fucked up.

'Up here!' a voice roars, and I look to the roof of the damaged building where a black figure is waving; a silhouette against the twin moonlight. 'Use the shard. They can't climb up here!'

The gang run towards the 'entrance' of the Skye Elevator shaft which is a mess of warped metal and glass somehow not cracked. Whichever materials this thing is made from are damn strong. I clip my phaser to my beltline, and we scramble over destroyed paving slabs, then climb the steep slope on all fours. Dust and rubble have spilled from the building, but hand- and foot-holds are provided by metal joints. I constantly slip and regain my grip, continuing the climb, but we are talking about eight storeys. I do not even know what to expect at the top, whether the roof will be strong enough to support four extra bodies, but we can hardly turn back.

I glance down to see our pursuers at the bottom of the shard, slipping as they struggle to climb the dusty slope. One tumbles and knocks another down into the rubble with him, coughing. That person runs away, but the one who tumbled tries again, along with two others who are barely making progress. Co-ordination seems to have abandoned their limbs.

As we rise above the mountain of rubble, exposed rooms are barely visible through the fuzzy glass of the shaft. I count each broken floor we pass, guessing we have passed four so far: Five... Six... Seven... Eight... Phew, that was exhausting and terrifying...

The bent slope almost levels at the top of the cylinder – our exit – and a fifteen-foot-drop onto a sprawling rooftop awaits. Like most residential blocks in Medio, this one is enormous. The surface area is almost the size of a football field, and the damaged section must only represent a sixth of the overall building.

Huts cover the rooftop and this is not an unexpected sight because many large rooftops have been overtaken by the homeless. The lad who called us approaches, and several figures emerge as he says: 'Jump down before you attract more crazies. We can't chance one of those vicious bastards getting up here. They bite!'

It seems too high to jump so I kneel and turn around, then dangle my legs over the warped metal edge, terrified. Heights are really not my thing. I slide my body down until only my elbows are supporting my weight, and then I attempt to dangle from my hands. But the boys rush past and jump onto the roof, startling me, and I slip from the ledge, plummeting. I land heavily on my feet, then tumble until I am lying on my back, dazed.

The lad says, 'Are you okay?' and I grimace and gasp, then say, 'Yeah,' so he takes my hand, helping me to my feet. I step away to make room for Bex, and she makes the drop look a damn sight easier than I did.