Requiem

Moth

The train doors slid shut behind her. Dirt, dust, and ash whipped at her face. She raised her hand to cover her eyes. She could barely open them against the force of the wind but managed to spot the platform’s small waiting bay several metres away. Pushing against the wall of sand she ran towards the safety of the shelter.

She stumbled forward out of the wind. Her left knee buckled. Her right foot tried to correct. Both knees hit the concrete. Her eyes were squinting from the sand that felt as if it had lodged under her eyelids. She slid from her knees and sat on her side using her left arm to prop herself up. The air was heavy, thick. She drew in deep breaths to keep from suffocating. She rubbed her eyes and tried to take in her new surroundings. A hand extended down towards her. Slender, almost metallic fingers layered with grey weaving fibres. She tentatively raised her hand to meet the stranger’s and was carefully lifted from the ground.

She looked up at the stranger’s face. Two black eyes stared back at her. At least she thought they were looking at her. They could have been looking right through her for all she knew. She avoided his eyes; that curious darkness that offered nothing but still managed to ask questions she didn't want to answer. His skin was like a sheet of green stained glass stretched over the sharp angles of his face. Thin, pale lines, etched lightly into the plate like surface, ran in obscure miniature patterns from top to bottom – barely perceptible under the shadows from the hood draped over his head. She'd never actually met a Yurrick before; they never seemed to stop by Yarfor Station.

Did they always look this... human?

Still excavating the dust from her skin she thanked the shelter’s only tenant. The stranger offered a simple nod in response and casually reclaimed his place on the bay’s small bench.

Seline hadn’t even noticed the train leave. In fact she could barely make out anything outside the station’s waiting bay. Between the constant swelling waves of dirt and sand she could, however, see what looked like the edge of the platform. It ended abruptly and also appeared to be feeding the large weathered cracks that were running under the shelter towards a guard rail on the opposite side of the station platform.

The entire platform felt like it was swaying in the wind, being eaten away by the sand, waiting to sail off in the storm. Anything made of metal had been partially liquefied and spread out on the floor into crusted, deep-set puddles. Anything made of concrete had its surface dissolved and fractured; now so weak that sheets of it could be broken and lifted with the toe of her shoe.

Her attention came back to the Yurrick on the bench. He wore a dusty patchwork of loose-fitting and heavy looking materials. Faded and worn, tattered edges hung from his shoulders and draped onto the seat. White was stained into black. Black was aged back into white.

The Yurrick sat up straight and spoke without turning to face her.

‘You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?’

The words were fluent but the voice was coarse and the sound scratched at the back of Seline’s throat. She unconsciously placed a hand around her neck.

‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘This is Vale Station, isn’t it?’

‘What remains of it.’

‘Was it always this small? Where did the rest of it go?’

‘It could be anywhere by now. My guess is they melted it down for spare parts.'

‘You mean they... NeoCorp strip-mined the station?’

The stranger nodded. ‘Apart from this platform obviously.’

Seline looked through the thick plastic panes of the shelter towards the city but the shifting clouds concealed the entire landscape.

‘I can’t see the city through this damn dust storm.’

'There isn't much to see.'

She glanced at the Yurrick then back towards the shrouded city. She was unsure exactly what he was implying.

‘Do you know if the intercity magline is still running? I need to get to Sinn’.

‘If it was then I wouldn’t be here. I’ve been sitting in this shelter for hours waiting for this storm to pass.’

Seline sighed and leaned back on the shelter’s window pane. She slid down the length of it until she was sitting on the platform and wrapped her arms loosely around her knees. Her satchel lay by her side, the strap still draped over her shoulder. She blew at the strands of hair that had fallen across her face. Long enough to be annoying but not long enough to tie up. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the glass.

Raw and vacant, the crushing blanket of space stretches out before her. She takes a deep breath and steps to the edge of the platform onto the ship's severed docking line. Blue sparks bleed from frayed cables underfoot. The surrounding void stretches in all directions, tugging against the magnetism of her boots. A small light from the open airlock of an undocked ship blinks in the distance.

She moves away from the edge until her back is against the wall of the hallway. She exhales. Her eyes close. Muted explosions vibrate through the frame of the ship. She places her palms flat on the wall to steady herself. Uncertainty creeps in. She pushes it out. Her hands begin to shake. She holds them fast against the wall.

The vibrations stop. Eyes open. Pupils dilate. Lungs inhale. She pushes herself from the wall with her hands, throws her right leg forward then her left. One stride. Two. Three. Four. The platform is gone. She struggles in vain to propel herself forward against the vacuum. Her hands keep reaching for the pulsing light. Her helmet pushes her heavy breath back against her face. Sections of wall, floor, and ceiling silently overtake her, flying into the distant shadows.

The flashing light grows larger. Her breath grows heavier still. Shards of glass overtake her, smashing into dust against the rapidly approaching wall. Her muscles cramp. Her lungs burn. She squints as she approaches the airlock, attempting to make the most of the momentary spasms of light.

She had misjudged. She tries to absorb the impact with her arms but misjudges again. She can hear the cracking sound from her ribs as they collide with the bottom ledge of the doorway. The air rushes from her lungs, stifling her pained gasps. Her fingers claw at the frame of the door while her arms heave the rest of her body onto the top side of the ledge and into the chamber. The light blinks. Her arm drops to her side to cradle her aching ribs while the other gropes the wall. The light blinks again. She throws out her free arm, slamming her fist against the emergency door lock.

Still fighting for breath she turns her shoulder to look through the airlock door back along her flight path. Through the rapidly closing gap she sees in the distance a small flash of collapsing light erupting in an expanding sphere of metal and glass. The fragments of the exploded station pulse outward, consuming its own disintegrating remains. Before she can react, a white cloud of air discharges from the giant cylinders pushing the door. She releases her breath, closes her eyes and tries to inhale again. She chokes. Her eyes are forced open and drawn immediately to the searing pain coming from her arm, still outstretched and reaching for the emergency lock. A shard of metal has run through it, pinning it to the wall. Her suit is ruptured, is spewing oxygen into the chamber.

She tries to scream but her lungs are empty. Her whole arm starts burning from the inside. Blood seeps from the wound, lifts into the air, evaporates as she wrestles with the makeshift blade. Her legs hammer against the wall. A darkness blurs her vision. Her focus dims. Her muscles seize. A green light flashes on the wall. Streams of white vapour hiss into the room. The suspended orbs of blood fall, splattering on the floor. The full weight of her body pulls down against the metal pin. She can suddenly breathe. Cries of pain force their way through her choking gasps for air. She can suddenly scream.

The bone inside her arm splinters. The pin gives way. She falls to the ground, her body shaking and lungs throbbing; her brain is still trying to outrun the pain. With one hand she frantically grabs at the latches connecting her helmet and suit. One has already broken off. The other has jammed shut. She beats her palm against the seal around her neck until it gives way, then lifts the helmet from her head, throwing it to the floor. Mouthfuls of air fill her lungs.

The piece of shrapnel is still firmly lodged into her bicep, holding back most of the blood. She manages to push herself up against the wall. Her eyelids are heavy. The adrenaline is wearing thin. She's shivering uncontrollably.

She runs her hand up along a beam sticking from the wall. Her fingers find a small ledge and clamp down against it. She forces her back hard against the wall with her legs and raises herself from the floor. Her heart heaves and thumps against her rib cage. She takes a tentative step forward as if learning to walk again. She stumbles towards the door, her arm out in front of her, and slams her palm into the display keys with the full force of her body. The door opens and she staggers through into the blinding white light of the hallway.

Her eyes opened. Her heart was racing. She was sweating. Even the day-dreams were becoming more vivid. She swallowed, ran her tongue over dry lips. Her fingers unconsciously traced over the weaving, synthetic fibres of her right wrist just beneath the sleeve of her jersey. She winced every time she thought of that jagged piece of metal protruding from her arm. She wondered how faithfully her memory could recreate the pain. She remembered every second being stretched and pried open yet the physical pain was now entirely isolated to a faint, harmless memory, sitting high up on a shelf, jarred, pickled, and sealed somewhere forever out of reach. She could look at it but could never re-experience the pain. All that remained was the knowledge that having her arm run through by a piece of space station and subsequently amputated on the dining room table of a transport ship was not something she'd ever want to experience again.

She ran her fingers through her hair. She looked at the time displayed in her optics. An hour had passed. The Yurrick had only moved once to cross his legs before resuming his slightly reclined position on the uncomfortable looking seat in front of her. He had then sat motionless for the duration.

She looked out from the shelter. The sandstorm was weakening. Seline left the small waiting bay and walked to the edge of the platform. She watched as the storm slowly peeled away. A single cracked and disfigured road could be made out in the foreground. An almost ethereal division across a slowly unveiling red sea. The road kept stretching through the relenting sand. The first vestige of a city came into view as the silhouettes of a small collection of office buildings appeared. The structures stood huddled together, bowed and distorted, leaning against each other for support.

The horizon itself could not have done a better job of levelling the city. Only at the centre, in the old business district, could vertical lines still be found. A cloud of grey dust was resting over the city. The sandstorms weren’t wasting their time in grinding down and burying its remains.

She stepped back from the railing. Her attention turned to the platform she was standing on. Flakes of rust peeled from its thin steel guard rails. Orange oxidised blood trickled from under its canyoning skin, staining the surface of the platform. An unhinged, unreadable sign, still fighting off gravity, clung to the station’s one remaining wall. The Yurrick had gotten up from his seat and approached the handrail next to Seline.

'It's been a long time since I've been here,' said Seline. 'Did it always look like this?'

The Yurrick raised his hand onto the rusted guard rail. 'It gets worse every day.'

'What happened here?'

He glanced down at her then back to the city. 'You mean you really don't know?'

'I've been away for a long time.'

'But you still probably know the story, don't you?'

Seline didn't answer.

'Your cities weren't built to last,' said the Yurrick, 'they were built to fail. NeoCorp stripped almost everything that was usable in Vale and replaced them with new generation materials to placate the population while they did it.' He gestured towards the city. 'Most of what you're looking at are new generation buildings.'

That low rasping voice still echoed and rattled at the back of her throat. She ran her eyes up and down the length of the road.

'It's a long walk to Sinn,' the Yurrick said. He stepped back from the rail. 'I happen to be going that way you know?' He immediately turned and headed towards a lone staircase spiralling down from the platform. Seline stood looking at the horizon and listened to the metallic ringing of his steps as he descended. It was hot but she pulled her hood back over her head to block out what remained of the wind and sand, and followed him down.

He was already walking towards the city when she reached the bottom of the stairs. She started after him, trailing several metres behind at what felt like a comfortable distance. Seline watched the sand shift across the surrounding dunes, sailing in the wisps and spirals of the gusts still lingering from the storm. Memories of Vale, of Sinn, and of Earth danced somewhere in the back of her mind, jeering and hollering at her from behind their rusted curtain. She resisted them, just as she had always done. Up until the moment she had received the message from this Abigail person they had formed a part of a life she had desperately tried to disown. The fact that the city had been almost demolished helped to minimise any potential comparisons between those memories, wherever they were hiding, and reality.

* * *

They had been walking for almost thirty minutes before Seline looked back for the first time at the platform's concrete stilted corpse. A gust of wind whipped the edges of her hood against the side of her face. She could make out a figure standing motionless by the guard rail, staring out towards the city just as she had done. Another ghost returning to the graveyard. She looked back towards the city and quickened her pace until she had caught up to her companion and moved to one side of the road while he walked along the other. She glanced across at him, cleared her throat.

'What did you mean... you know, when you said the city was built to fail?' She asked.

‘I meant exactly what the words implied,' he said, his voice level, indifferent. 'New-gen materials are what a lot of these buildings were built out of. Left to their own devices new-gen structures will begin to break down after one year.'

'Then why were they used?'

He looked at her curiously then back towards Vale. 'About a decade ago NeoCorp rolled out the first step of their big plan to 'upgrade' the cities and towns in the insolvency. What they actually meant was that they'd replace half of the buildings and structures with the cheapest and least efficient materials they could find. They were designed to look impressive at first but within a year were needing constant repairs. But the new constructions served their purpose - to placate the population while NeoCorp mined the city and to create a dependency on NeoCorp for supplies to fix the buildings.'

'They could get away with that on such a massive scale?'

'Planned obsolescence is something your species began toying with a long time ago. Everything breaks down eventually and being able to dictate when and where that happens just means another market share. Whether their plan went exactly as expected is something I'm not sure about because the next step they took was not so subtle.'

Seline stepped over a pothole, saying nothing, waiting for him to continue.

'After a few years they returned,' said Sear. 'They systematically harvested anything that hadn't already been replaced with their waste products. They threw families and businesses out of their homes and offices. Those who resisted were killed.'

'How many?'

'Impossible to say. Zero if you ask NeoCorp. Hundreds of thousands if you ask anyone else.'

'That's... a little hard to believe. I mean I know things can be pretty harsh out here but... you're talking about genocide.'

'Given the right values, the right incentives, and the right amount of time, anything is possible.'

Seline's eyes followed the jagged cracks in the road as she walked. 'So, are there still businesses operating out here?'

'Not in Vale. The last to go were the bars and a few small scale recycling operators.'

'And how do you know all this?'

'I was trying to get a better understanding of your people. I had been researching human architecture around the time NeoCorp targeted the city. I learned first-hand how your culture operated.'

'And you decided to stay?'

'There was and still is a lot to learn. Your people managed to destroy an entire planet's ecosystem. You're the first sentient species that we know of to do so.'

Your people, she thought to herself. It didn't feel like they belonged to her, nor her to them. She kicked a small rock along the road as she walked.

'What do the Yurrick care about Earth, about humans anyway?' she asked.

'Your species, NeoCorp at least, has all but openly declared war on the Yurrick, so we watch closely. We need to be ready.'

'For what?'

'To protect ourselves and our interests... to keep things in check, if need be. We aren't violent, but that doesn't mean we can't try to stop violence before it happens.'

Seline kicked the rock further down the road.

'You ask a lot of questions,' he said. 'You almost seem more alien to this place than I do. Whatever you're looking for must be important to bring you all the way out here.'

Seline thought for a moment. 'It's hard to say what's important when there's nothing to compare it to. I'd almost forgotten this place existed.' She kicked the rock again. It tumbled into the sand at the edge of the road.

'So what made you remember?' he asked.

'An exonet message. It's a long story. I couldn't explain it even if I wanted to. Nothing personal.'

'Then perhaps a shorter, less complicated story?'

'Like what?'

'Like your name?'

'It's Seline. And yours?'

'Sear.'

He didn't add anything further and Seline didn't ask for more. She felt embarrassed to be caught asking an alien about her own home and was reluctant to pry at the memories she had buried away. She would have to be careful. Like a bare foot trying to avoid the pieces of glass in the sand. She knew they were there but she wasn't sure where. Best just to not say anything for now she thought. They both decided to let silence fill the space between them and the city.

* * *

They had been walking for hours. The city finally felt like it was getting closer. Already she could see deep horizontal cuts running across the most stunted structures as if the entire city were laden with the weight of the skyline. The sun was beginning to set.

* * *

They now walked side by side. The light from the torch attached to Seline's arm was barely enough to illuminate the ground ahead of them.

'There's a building just up ahead. We can rest there for the night.'

'How do you know that? I can't see a thing.'

Sear didn't answer. He led the way as they walked off the road and up a flight of stairs. Seline followed. Her feet slotted into grooves that had inexplicably been carved into every step. They reached the first floor. The strong smell of charcoal and ammonia. Sear pulled a lighter from his pocket and put it to a small shred of paper which he had torn from the wall. He threw it into an old metal barrel which crackled to life, lighting the surrounding darkness in a soft halloween glow.

'That's one good thing about new-gen materials,' he said, 'they burn well.' He found some wooden boards stacked in the corner and threw them into the barrel. Seline turned her torch off and dug inside her bag for food. All she could find were the two packs of pre-fab meals that she had taken from the apartment fridge. She offered one to Sear who, to her surprise, accepted.

She tossed over one of the small cubes wrapped in noisy, purple coloured plastic, adorned with the wide mouthed grin of a cartoon hippo. Sear looked at the wrapper, looked as if he might say something but stopped himself. Seline tossed the wrapper into the barrel and swallowed the first tasteless bite and looked around at the remnants of the dishevelled room. Half of one of the walls was missing. Scrap sheets of discoloured wallpaper hung from the walls, exposing crumbling brick and mortar. Contorted lines of rebar were caught in the silhouettes cast from the flaming barrel. Embers occasionally flicked into the air over its curled metal lips with no trace of ceiling or roof to stop the smoke from escaping into the night sky.

'Are you sure this place is safe?'

'Safer than most. At least for tonight.' His voice still scratched at the back of her throat.

Another peak of curiosity surfaced within her. 'Do people still live here? In the city I mean.'

'Sometimes the occasional scavenger comes through but apart from that person following us from the platform, we're probably the only ones here. At least in this area.'

Seline found his manner difficult to judge. But she wasn't overly surprised given her only points of reference for behaviour had been the handful of humans that she actually interacted with, the two other Yurrick she had met, and the one time she managed to speak with an Ordonian or rather the time the Ordonian bellowed at her in those strange clicking and clacking noises when it thought she had groped its... what did it call it again? Flarkjip? Jackflap? Or was it flapjack?

'You can get some sleep if you want,' said Sear. 'I'll be watching the road if you need me.'

He perched himself on the edge of the floor where the wall had once been and faced into the street. He pushed the last piece of his pre-fab meal into his mouth and dropped the wrapper into the street. She was still undecided on whether a 'flapjack' was a real thing or not. She decided she would look it up on the exonet later. She slouched down on the floor next to the fire with her back against the wall and tried to relax.

If he was going to do something, he would have done it by now.

'How much longer will it take to get to Sinn?' she asked.

He didn't turn when he spoke. 'A week if we walk. Half a day if we take the shortcut.'

'What kind of shortcuts are there in the middle of a desert?'

'You'll see in the morning.'

'… Not that I'm complaining but why are you helping me?' Seline asked.

'Like I said. I'm going to Sinn anyway.'

'And that's it?'

Seline listened to the crackling of wood inside the flaming barrel, waited for a response.

'It's also hard to find good, quiet company,' he finally said.

'Oh. Sorry about all the questions, then,' said Seline.

'It's fine.' He paused again. 'You mentioned back on the platform that you haven't been in the Insolvent District for at least ten years, you also don't have a consumer number, and you're travelling alone. I gather you've been hiding somewhere – off planet would be my guess.'

'Well... yeah. I work on Yarfor Station in the Vega System.'

'It's a rough place. What do you do there?'

'I'm a... a bartender.'

'A human bartender? Can't be very common out there.'

'You have to be pretty desperate to take any of the remaining service industry jobs... well, either desperate or female. Unfortunately I'm both. Even with all the automation... there's always a market for the types of girls that Mr. Klondike is after.'

Seline closed her eyes. It was years ago. She didn't know how many. She was sitting in Zackry Klondike's office on Yarfor Station. Small. Damp. The walls vibrated, convulsed to the music coming from the club room.

'The implants stop at the shoulder don't they?' asked Zackry in that quiet, worming voice. 'You ain't got some robot pussy or something, right? It just ain't the same, know what I mean? Those robot pussies don't grab the same way. Don't taste right. That's why I don't bother with those damn androids. People wanna fuck muffs not mufflers, understand?'

He paused, smiled down at her. The plastic in his smile stretched as if the corners of his mouth were being pulled by fish hooks.

'I only want the bartender position,' said Seline, jerking her arm back from his probing fingers.

'You need the money, Seline,' he said, still smiling, 'I know you do. The bartending job don't pay too well and, like I said, there's definitely a market for your types 'round here – as long as you're human where it counts.'

Seline stared back, biting her tongue. There wasn't enough money to even pay for a flight off Yarfor Station let alone pay another week's rent. Belameir had just lost another job. They'd been living off a diet of prefab wafers and Vicodin for the past two weeks. She could taste blood. She unclenched her teeth.

Zackry sat on the corner of his desk, he reached out, touched her arm. He caressed it gently, spoke through his smile. 'You got any attachments for this thing?'

Seline opened her eyes. The fire spat embers from the top of the barrel.

'You work for Zackry Klondike?' Sear asked.

She nodded. 'It's pretty much how it sounds.'

'Zackry's clubs are pretty much the only businesses left operating in this district although I never really understood the human obsession with strip clubs and alcohol. Humans can't even hold their liquor very well.'

'They're a last resort.'

'A last resort for what?' he asked.

'For those who don't have enough money and for those who have too much.'

He didn't reply.

'You said you were trying to understand humans,' said Seline. 'So what does that make you? An anthropologist?'

'I guess you could say that.'

'I still don't really understand why you would want to stay here.'

'Perhaps for the same reason you had avoided it. There are a lot of similarities in our species yet for all that we share we've managed to arrive at completely different outcomes. I find that fascinating while you, for your own reasons, think otherwise.'

There was something in the way Sear spoke. The seriousness in his tone, the lack of hesitation even in his moments of silence; it almost seemed rehearsed. There was something recognisable in that. Something painfully familiar. Recognising that the conversation might revert back to her, Seline changed the topic.

'I uh... couldn't find any maps of Vale or Sinn on the exonet. It's as if these places have been written out of history.'

'NeoCorp stopped publishing any detailed satellite information on these areas a long time ago. Poverty and genocide make a fine business model but aren't good for tourism... or a conscience for that matter.'

'So I've heard,' said Seline.

'You won't be able to find any maps of these places unless you're willing to buy something from the locals. For most of them, access to the exonet is a luxury so you'll have to pay quite a bit. But it depends on where you want to go.' He glanced back at Seline. 'So where was it you were heading exactly? Most of the street names have probably changed since you left. It's all pretty messy now.'

'I don't really have any memory of what the street names were anyway. All I know is I'm looking for house seventeen. It's on twenty-third Street.'

'That's not too far from the city centre. We'll be going past it on our way in. I can drop you there if you like.'

Seline knew that, even if Sinn was still mostly intact, she would not have a clue which way she should be going. She would need help sooner or later.

'Alright,' she said, then added. 'Only if it's not too much trouble.'

He nodded and remained facing the street.

Seline stretched her legs and rolled her head left then right until she heard several deep, satisfying cracks from her neck. She was tired from the hours of walking and waiting, from the questions and the periodic bouts of talking. Accompanied only by the soft light from the flaming barrel and the quiet company of a stranger and with the heaviness of sleep suddenly upon her she closed her eyes and let her mind drift.

The Rhythm of War Drums

Her eyes opened beneath a stream of pale light forcing its way through the cracks in the wall. The wind whispered and sighed in the distance. She swallowed. Her mouth and throat were dry. She opened her bag, pulled out her drink bottle and held it in front of her eyes, still blurred and glistening in their morning haze. She drank. The cold of the water kissed her lips and sunk down into her stomach. It slushed around inside her, reminding her that she needed to eat something. It certainly wasn't coffee but it would have to do. She heard rustling and the clang of metal from somewhere out in the street.

She pushed herself up and looked down the stairs at the deep etchings that her feet had walked through during the night. She slotted her feet into the grooves as she descended and walked out into the street. Derelict housing lined each side of the road, the buildings' shadows just managed to stretch across it thanks to the angle of the barely risen sun. The day was beginning to heat up already. Sear was busy pulling boards and scraps of loose material away from a large door on the bottom story of the previous night's accommodation. Seline watched for a brief moment, wondering if he had even slept.

She gave a mumbled, 'good morning', inaudible to anyone standing more than half a metre away. She wasn't sure if he'd heard her so cleared her throat to announce her presence. He remained occupied with the boards.

'What's in there?' she asked.

'The shortcut I was telling you about.' He looked over at her after dropping a thick wooden board to the ground and dusting his hands off.

'How did you sleep?' he asked.

'Pretty well, actually.'

'Good.' And with that he turned and resumed his work.

Seline shuffled her feet in the loose dirt and idly surveyed her surroundings. More dishevelled rooms and houses lined the street. Large, glassless holes for windows and dust for paint. They were all direct replicas of one another, copied, pasted, and packed like toy soldiers standing guard along the abandoned roadside. Broken and up-turned pavement blocks lay where the side-walk once was. The stumps of amputated trees, discoloured and poisoned, poked from bare patches of dirt. She considered the etchings in the steps and noticed the same thing in the neighbouring buildings.

'What's wrong with the stairs? Why do they all have these deep markings in them?' she asked.

'Those are footprints.' Another beam was tossed to the ground. 'These are all new-gen apartment blocks.'

'They've been worn right into the concrete? How old are these buildings?'

'Most of them are about eight years old. You can see that some of them were repaired at some point. That's what these braces and clamps are from.' He pointed to several heavily rusted brackets bolted into the crumbling permacrete walls, most of which were bent and left twisting into the air over massive cracks they were supposed to have sealed shut.

With a loud crash Sear cleared the last of the blockade away from the garage door. He tugged at a frayed scrap of rope that had been crudely knotted to a hole at the base of the metal sheet. The hinged joints of the makeshift door creaked and shook as it opened outward in a slow sweeping motion. The shed was almost empty apart from a large shapeless form waiting in the centre of the dirt floor and a smaller object pushed into the corner. Both objects were covered with a thick canvas blanket. Sear pulled the cover off the large centre piece and let it fall to the ground before kicking it aside to rest against a collection of beams wedged firmly under a damp, sunken section of the ceiling.

'So this is the shortcut?' said Seline.

'As far as shortcuts go around here, I'm afraid you won't do much better; though you're welcome to try.'

Seline stood in the doorway and examined the bike. Perished rubber seals, a heavily dented and oversized metal fuel tank that looked as if it had been hammered and welded into shape, bald, thick rubber tyres held together like patchwork with thick trails of sealant.

'What does this thing run on?'

'Ethanol. Mostly.' Sear removed the fuel cap and looked inside the tank. 'They always dilute the fuel when they smuggle it in from the Corporate Zones. It's been so long since we had any kind of fuel out here, I'm beginning to wonder if their storage facilities are starting to run dry.'

'Whose storage facilities?'

'NeoCorp's.'

Sear screwed the cap back on, kicked the stand up, and rolled the mummified shortcut out into the street. He swung a leg over and seated himself on the scraps of foam that had been attached to the bike with a few reels worth of insulation tape. He fidgeted with a piece of metal just below the handlebars and the bike shook off a fine layer of dust as it sputtered into life. Seline waved the fumes away from her face.

'Am I supposed to fit on the back here?' she said as she approached the bike.

'Not quite,' replied Sear.

He pushed the stand down with his foot, stepped off the bike and walked back into the shed. He emerged bent over and wheeling out her half of the shortcut. A small side-car for the motorcycle. Unlike the rest of the bike which was at least respectfully rustic, this odd, jellybean shaped cart somehow managed to retain its original baby-blue finish. Sear secured the small pod to the right side of the bike with a thick but loose fitting metal bolt and two thin rods. He looked at Seline and gestured towards the now three-legged shortcut.

'Your chariot awaits.'

Seline raised an eyebrow at Sear before approaching the cart. She placed one foot over it and gave it a solid thump with her heel to make sure it was actually attached. It would probably hold as long as they didn't go too fast. She cleared some cobwebs away from the opening above the seat. The black leather still held a bit of shine. She checked the inside of the hollowed out bean-cart for any signs of stowaways before stepping in and seating herself. There wasn't enough room to stretch her legs out so she kept them raised with her knees resting against the rim of the opening into the cart. At least the cushion was soft, she thought.

'There's something under the seat you might find useful.'

Seline felt tentatively under the seat and pulled out a pair of large circular lensed goggles. The dark rimmed lenses protruded about an inch from a heavy leather frame with a thick adjustable strap and metal buckle for fastening the goggles around the head.

Sear seated himself on the bike. 'They'll keep the sand out of your eyes,' he said in response to Seline's apparent uncertainty. She still wasn't sure if he was joking or not so placed the strap around her head and rested the goggles on her forehead. She looked at Sear with an expression more serious than what she felt.

'This says more about you than it does about me by the way,' she said.

For the first time she saw a slight smirk on his face but he immediately turned away down the road. The bike shuddered for a moment before abruptly lurching forward and accelerating like a beaten, three legged dog off and down the road. They rode along the potholed surface of what was, according to the old sign posts, once the highway 60. Seline held on tightly to the rim of her side-car as they weaved between holes and rises peppered over the road. The remains of abandoned offices and apartments lined the roadsides. The whole place looked like someone had tried to torch it down, like they left at some point but forgot to turn the stove off.

The bike's geriatric rattle was all that could be heard as they passed between splinters of the day's new light. They were approaching Vale's edge. Seline pulled the goggles on, turned in her seat and glanced back at the city. They took a brief detour off the highway to avoid the bridges that had beached themselves across the road. Several pillars remained standing with massive sheets of concrete and steel leaning, defeated, against them. The howling winds and rising walls of dust were massing to the south, gathering strength for the return to their familiar hunting ground. In the crispness of the morning and the clarity that proceeded the approaching storm, the whole city looked dead. The towers had become the sepulchres and the streets had served as the noose. Planned obsolescence on a grand scale. A city, a civilization, built on a scrap heap. It had collapsed before it could stand. It didn’t even try to crawl.

* * *

The ride to Sinn was about as eventful as the landscape would allow. Drought ridden flat lands, drought ridden lake beds, drought ridden hilltops; all coated with generous stretches of sand broken only by uninspired carpets of spindling shrubs and weeds. The road they travelled would periodically disappear beneath dunes of sand and re-emerge whenever it fancied. The sky had been monopolised by a featureless blue blanket. Seline watched the ground beneath her. They weren't moving fast but she preferred watching the ground rush past rather than stare at a constant, ever receding skyline.

'How much longer will it take?' Seline asked over the whining of the motor.

'Five minutes less than when you last asked me that question,' said Sear.

With her fingers, Seline began flicking a loose strap of leather that had separated from the side of her seat.

'Yesterday you mentioned that you had a long story,' said Sear. 'If you start now you might just finish telling it by the time we arrive.'

Seline grunted quietly. Her head was beginning to ache. Probably because the goggles were too tight.

'Okay... so the story isn't that long,' she began.

Sear looked at her.

'But... you know you didn't answer my question last night either.'

'What question? You had several,' replied Sear.

'When I asked you why you were on Earth – about what you do here.'

'That's two questions.'

'Then that's two questions you didn't answer. I was thinking we could trade. I'll tell you why I'm here if you do the same.'

'Why the change of heart?'

'You're the only one whose ever really asked about it.' She shrugged, trying to appear as aloof as possible. 'Hope you didn't get your hopes up too high 'cause it's not that interesting.'

After a moment of silence he nodded, indicating for her to go first.

'I'm looking for someone. A woman named Abigail Shaw.'

Sear had to prompt her to continue.

'She messaged me a few days ago. Apparently she has information on my mother.'

'You came all the way from Yarfor Station just for information on your mother?'

Seline ignored the real intent of the question. 'Abigail wanted to speak about it in person but I'm here because of Belameir mostly. He's a friend of mine.'

'If I had to make another guess it would be that you were afraid of what you might learn if you came back here. If that's the case then I would say that this 'Belameir' of yours is a wise friend if he managed to convince you.'

Seline stifled a laugh. 'If you ever happen to meet him, do me a favour and keep that to yourself.'

'So the question remains, why exactly didn't you want to come back?'

Seline continued playing with the strap on the side of her seat. 'Some things are just better forgotten.'

'This is a good place to leave something if that's your intention but your presence here tells a different story. This all must be important to you on some level.'

'Probably more than I'm willing to admit. I thought maybe coming back here would help.'

'And has it?'

'N- maybe. I can't tell. Like I said, it's complicated... I think it's your turn to answer now.'

When he finally spoke, his words flowed with ease. Seline looked away, burying her self-consciousness in the far away sand dunes, somewhere no one would think to look.

'I was sent here on a research project on behalf of the Yurrick government.'

'As an anthropologist?'

'That is the most appropriate term.'

'And you're looking for what exactly? To make sure we aren't trying to kill you?'

'NeoCorp is trying to kill us, even if they don't state it publicly... but, I'm here to learn more about the Insolvency.'

'And secretly keeping an eye out for any weapons of mass destruction, right?'

'If we discover something that might require our intervention, then we will act accordingly.'

'So there are more of you here?'

'No. Just me at moment.'

'You said you were here when NeoCorp targeted Vale. That means you've already been here for at least ten years. You've been studying humans for that long?'

'I've monitored this place over an eleven year period.'

'So you must have arrived here around the time that I left.'

'Yes. It seems that way.'

'So... what's it like?' she asked.

'What's what like?'

'Living on Earth.'

'You really have no memory of it?'

'No... well I might but-'

'It's complicated?'

'Right.'

Sear was silent. He turned the bike onto a small stretch of road that the sand hadn't yet covered. The bike picked up a little more speed. 'When I first arrived here it was like watching a wounded animal, in a blind and wild struggle, fighting for its last breath.' Seline stopped playing with the strap. 'I knew then and it holds to this day that no good has or ever will come of it. There is sorrow, there is pity, but there's no doubt the wound was self inflicted. At least that is the common view among my people. The ecological collapse, NeoCorp, the Downfall Warlord, they're simply the end products of a long line of causation.'

'The Downfall Warlord?'

'He's the most recent self appointed leader for this district.' The strip of road was swallowed again. And so they continued their roadless trip northward. Sear told Seline of the Warlord who had risen to power within the Third Insolvent District several years ago and of the types of policies he had enacted over Sinn. Psychological warfare dispensed in a blind rage, sprayed in all directions like an acid rain. Destruction was the only valid form of creation and through it death became his universal prescription for social health and, NeoCorp, for all the destruction it accomplished, was merely another misguided attempt at survival and thus was to be purged from the body of humanity.

Sear told Seline to expect death as the first sign of life and that it would indicate they were close to Sinn.

'Why do they call him the Downfall Warlord?'

'He claims that's what he wants. The downfall of your civilization. He believes it is coming soon and I have no reason to doubt him.'

'This place is exhausting.'

'It is.'

* * *

Seline had been watching a dark spot in the sand for the last three or so kilometres. It was only when they were almost upon it than she realised it was a body. It lay crumpled in a charred heap on the roadside. Bits of bone stabbing through weathered rags.

Seline was back on Yarfor Station, walking home from the bar. The end of another seventeen hour shift. The stench of her last client still hanging off her skin. Tired almost to the point of collapse but still walking as fast as she could to outrun the smell, to make it home so she could scrub it off with cold water and a scrubbing brush or perhaps some sandpaper.

There was only one main corridor that led to her apartment complex. The Valley it was known as. The Valley was no more than three metres wide. It was the section of the station were no one bothered to advertise, where the only light came from the few overhead fixtures that still worked, glowing a dark red, creating shadows in every corner and giving the faces of those she passed in the halls a sort of childish malevolence, as if they were all lighting up their faces with torches to scare each other. Bodies lined each side of the Valley, leaning up against the wall, hunkered close together and slumped over themselves, covered in blankets and the baggy clothing that every beggar on the station seemed to wear like a uniform.

Seline passed these people every day on her way to her apartment at the far end of the Valley. She could always hold her breath for the first twenty or so metres but never for the whole length of the Valley.

The only real sign of movement in the Valley would come from Reaper. A gaunt, skeletal man with shrink-wrapped skin and bulging eyes about three sizes too big for his head. She could hear him asking the nameless bodies on the floor if they had any 'kidens' or 'liveys' or 'breathers' they'd be willing to sell for a few credits.

Probably the only person who could tell the dead from the living in that place was Reaper who would drag off the most recent deaths to the organ harvesters that he worked for. Seline, however, could never tell if the people in The Valley were dead or not and if they were then you could at least pretend they weren't, but here, in the open, in the light of day, the dead would not go unnoticed, they would call her name as she passed and make her beg for their forgiveness.

Sear eased off the throttle only slightly as they passed. Seline turned away, set her eyes back on the approaching dunes. She became increasingly uncomfortable and uncertain of herself as more bodies came into view, laying face down in the sand, partially buried, passing from horizon to horizon in bleak silence.

'Isn't there another way we can go?' Seline asked.

'No. It's like this everywhere,' for the first time, Sear hesitated. '… I'm sorry.' He accelerated as fast as the bike could manage.

Another half hour passed and they were approaching the outer limits of the city. The bodies of the dead became more and more regular. Some had been draped over with blankets, others were left exposed to be baked beneath the sun and scrounged upon by wasteland scavengers. Dignity had been afforded to some in the form of loose collections of rocks marking the heads of mounds of dirt. Others had been left to crawl in whichever direction any last scrap of hope or comfort might have resided, betraying, in their final moments, whatever hopeless intentions and regrets they might have had.

The scattered field had become a dense concentration of bodies, forming a makeshift boundary line before the city. Light reflected white from exposed splints of bone among the tide of skin and sparse rags of clothing. Seline could make out the contorted bodies and the pale red of the dried puddles of blood staining the sand between them. Above them hovered swarming black clouds of insects, feasting upon their appropriated meals. The border stretched from left to right almost as far as the eye could see. The River Styx brought upon the Earth. Seline wondered how many bodies it would take to complete the chalk outline of this city.

Seline was thankful for the goggles Sear had given her and the division they created between herself and the bodies but the sight was still something she had not been prepared for. She finally managed to close her eyes but the stench hit hard against her face, pushing itself into the pores of her skin, leaving its sooty traces deep within her nostrils and on the back of her tongue. She covered her nose to no effect. The cushions of the seat had lost any trace of comfort. She shifted her weight in the cart which felt like it would rattle itself loose at any second.

She had no intention of asking Sear to stop so let the jostling motions of the bike run their course. As was her custom, the reality of the situation was inadvertently pushed into the back of her mind. The haze of her forgotten memories would try to lay claim to another part of her world but the dam they had formed had begun to crack and weaken beneath the pressure. The dam would hold for now, still strong enough to at least dull the ever sharpening edge of reality.

'We're almost in the city now,' said Sear.

Seline opened her eyes. The River Styx had been cleared.

'The bodies you saw - they've been dragging them out here and all around the outer limits of Sinn for years now,' said Sear.

'Why?' Seline asked dryly.

'It's hard to say. Some kind of message to NeoCorp, perhaps. The Warlord has grown bolder, more malevolent in recent years.'

'What did these people do to deserve this?'

'They became the subject of his pity.'

'Have you met him? The Warlord.'

'No. It's hard to find people that actually have. Most of what I've learned has been subjected to the usual conflations of rumour and hearsay.'

Seline scanned the approaching city. It hadn't been levelled yet, not like Vale. A massive billboard beckoned to her from above the first of the low lying rooftops that formed a sharp and immediate boundary with the sand dunes. A message had been crudely painted over an image that Seline couldn't make sense of but they were just close enough for Seline to make out the words.

'WELCOME TO SINN CITY. PROPERTY OF THE DOWNFALL WARLORD.'

Seline imagined what the Warlord might look like. A hulking figure, scarred from head to toe with dirt and grit worn right into dark leathery skin. As she tried to picture a face she noticed, in the distance, a man staggering from out of one of the derelict buildings that lined the city's edge. He was naked. His head was hanging low. Another clothed and masked man walked several metres behind. The second man raised his arm, with what looked like a gun clenched in his fist. It was aimed directly at the back of the first.

'I suggest you look elsewhere,' said Sear.

The gunman stopped walking and stood still for a moment. Seline looked down at her knees and the thin lines of black stitching running down the inside of her pant legs. Even over the sputtering roar of the bike she jumped at the crack of gunfire.

She looked up again. The man turned and disappeared into one of the alleyways, leaving the corpse laying face down on the ground. They were almost at the first line of buildings. A painfully stark division between desert and civilisation.

* * *

As wide as the streets were they were still forced to constantly weave between the upturned cars and trucks that littered the city like the carcasses of mechanical animals. They were now in the midst of some kind of suburbia. Houses too large for the time and world they inhabited occupied each a worthless patch of dirt. They had long since lost their pride and bathed, now, in century old pools of their own waste. Like Vale, young sand dunes were piled up on the south-west sides of every wall and building. The place looked empty, unbearably sparse, and almost as repetitive as the desert she had just crossed. Far in the distance she could make out some old style skyscrapers still standing, still idly surveying their domain.

A high concrete wall ran along the right side of the road. Painted upon it in what she hoped wasn't blood were the words 'Sick Heart River'.

'Is that what they call this place?' she asked.

Sear looked at the words. 'It is now. A long time ago it was called 'Warm Springs Road'. I'll always admire how poetic your species can be.'

The bike came to a stop. Sear took a foot from the peg and placed it on the ground.

'This is your stop,' said Sear. He pointed off to the left. 'Follow this street around and take the second left. That's the road you want. Keep to the centre of the road and stay away from the alleys.'

Seline removed her goggles and stepped hesitantly out of the cart.

'I assume when you're done here you'll be looking for a way out,' said Sear.

'I don't think I'm in any position to decline any offer that you might have.' She immediately kicked herself for sounding so desperate.

'How long do you plan on taking?'

'As short a time as possible.'

'I know someone who can help you get back to Vale. It might take a few days to organise though.'

A few days in Sinn would be a few days too many. Seline kept herself from sighing to avoid appearing ungrateful. 'How much will it cost?'

'There's a flat rate of about twelve hundred credits but it could be more depending on your reputation with NeoCorp. Any chance at control is a chance they'll take, and they're very touchy about who comes and goes.'

'I got here easily enough.'

'Only because it was convenient for them at the time.'

She hoped he was just being dramatic. 'All I need is a ride back to Corporate Zone 1. I should be alright from there.'

'Good. Because that's all I can offer.'

Seline looked down at her feet, shuffling in the dirt. She felt or rather hoped there was more left to say, some string of words that would shake away the confusion and insecurity, that could somehow ground her, explain the fear and nausea in the pit of her stomach. She looked down the street.

'Has it always been like this?' she asked.

'Always? I don't think I could say.' Sear thought for a moment. 'But... some Yurrick argue that what is happening now is simply a by-product of basic human behaviour – an extension of some kind of innate tendency within your species.'

'… You disagree?'

'I think what happened to your civilization was an inevitable outcome not simply of innate tendencies but of values and of circumstance. Sinn simply doesn't make any sense without proper context. If things seem overly simple then it usually means you're missing something.'

'Yeah... Thanks... I'll keep that in mind.'

A gust of wind passed through the street. Tumble weeds gently rolled and bounced through the expired river duct.

'Meet me at the Chrischo bar at 17:30,' said Sear, interrupting the meditative silence. 'It's just beneath the old radio tower in a place called The Oasis.' He pointed several blocks away at a pale building standing with a perceptible sense of self-pity about ten stories high. On its roof was a satellite dish that had been broken so it looked like a crescent moon. A collection of thin metal antennae stood bent and twisted next to it. 'It will take about thirty minutes to walk so take that into account.'

Seline thanked him for the ride and said she'd meet him at the bar around 18:30.

'17:30' he corrected her. 'Perhaps you should write that down.'

'I... no I got it now. 17:30. I won't forget.'

He nodded, started the bike. His dark eyes lingered on Seline. She looked back. She could see something of herself in those eyes. She wanted to reach out and peel the darkness back. In that brief moment she would have given her right arm again for just a glimpse of what lay beneath.

'I hope you find what you're looking for,' Sear finally said.

Seline nodded, squinted through the clouds of dust disturbed by the patchwork tires as Sear rode off and out of sight. She looked around, caught between a vague memory and the desire to escape. Everything seemed so distant like the world had been submerged in water.

The sun hovered restlessly in the sky. The low lying mountains to the West were melting into the horizon through waves of heat. Seline wanted to remove her jersey but decided the sunburn wouldn't be worth it.

After walking at a slow, cautious pace for some minutes, she noticed out