Antima Laia was the city of everlasting night. Neither sunlight nor moonshine had ever touched her smooth surface and yet it was never truly dark down here in those deep lonely street canyons.
It was the first time Okaian Noa ImAdha became aware of this fact, as he stood shivering of cold sweat in front of his view screen and looked down into the heart of the colony. This heart was represented by the pulsating red light belt around the tapered middle of the signal tower around which all the other buildings clustered like black-hooded monks. The farther they stood from the city centre, the higher the blocks rose and the more they would lean towards the signal tower as in some collective obeisance.
Nothing ever rose above the red ring of light on the colossal pillar that supported the colony. It gave stability to the giant glass dome, that shielded the settlement from the inconceivable amounts of water on the other side. Nobody could tell what lay beyond the ocean’s realm, nobody ever dared to ask.
Down here the city flourished in its own microcosm. Billions of colourful beams brought light into the streets. They highlighted corners and edges, just about enough for the citizens to avoid unfortunate accidents. The lights never ceased to shine, no matter the day or night time. There was no natural light source. How could there be, so far below the sea?
And yet it felt like someone had washed the sand from Noa’s eyes and he beheld his city for the first time with lurking doubts. It had been the dream that inspired this thoughts, his first nightmare in fact. It had come to him out of nowhere, had
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attached itself to the colourless and shapeless images that accompanied his slumber. Those it had stomped upon. It tore them apart as if in an angry fit, then rearranged the fragments to build something entirely new.
He buried his face in his hands and took a deep breath. Recapitulating the details of his nightly vision did not take much effort. So soon after being jolted out of his sleep it seemed to him that the dream was all he remembered, he would ever remember.
There was nothing memorable about his dreams and therefore he never recalled them. If ever he saw any movement at all or sparks of colour, he would consider this a vivid dream and one restless night. This time though the dream felt like an invasion from the first moment he conceived it.
Every time he walked it back in his mind, the details became clearer. The materialisation of his ghostly body into solidity as he was entering the dream enabled all those senses he used in waking state to gather information on his surroundings.
At first, all he could see was the softly moving surface of the ocean before his eyes. A giant moon reflected on its waves, its light danced around his head in big shards and away towards the horizon in tiny splinters.
Noa kept his head above the inky waters even though he had never learned to swim. His arms and legs pushed instinctively against the pull of the water. It came naturally. He breathed in the cool air, which smelled of seaweed and rust and the salt made his lips and his tongue tingle.
He gave the moon a fearless glance, this massive stone ball, that travelled across the heavens as if pulled by an invisible flying chariot. While he only looked up for a few seconds it seemed like he could see its path unfolding. He was aware that this shouldn’t be possible. Time, it seemed, was playing games with his perception.
The pitch-black sky poured down the satellite’s frame and unto the glittering sea like a heavy curtain made from velvet. He reached out for the moon, that looked so close that Noa started to
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believe he could grab its edge and peel it off the night sky like a strip of old wallpaper.
He felt a creeping sensation running up his limbs and turned his attention towards the water’s surface. The soft waves now danced agitatedly. Something big was closing in from the horizon and stirred up the water with its vibrations. A sound like from a thousand horns cut through the silence like the sonorous scream of a primeval sea monster. This sea monster however was man made. A ship hurled itself into the waves right in front of his eyes, towering to such a height that it obscured the moon. The bulb ripped the water apart like a plough, before the bow cut into it like a knife.
Its steel hull looked eaten with blood red rust and yet it drove with such power, that the displaced water lifted Noa up. As the peak of the wave reached him, time seemed to slow to a near standstill. He looked down and spotted a conglomerate of different installations on the deck beneath him. It looked like some particularly diligent scrap merchant had scavenged a ship cemetery and then found himself unable to opt for a reasonable design for his ocean liner. Several wildly arranged deck houses were placed next to and sometimes pierced by masts and funnels, that looked bend backwards from an overwhelming fair wind.
There were ancient, rickety loading cranes with weak hinges, that noisily lashed out in random directions, metal cargo containers that once were painted in bright colours now washed away by salt and wind and big wooden crates covered in mould, sliding back and forth on the wet deck causing a rumpus.
The screeching of scraping metal parts hurt his ears. But when his gaze had wandered further up the tallest boom and met the highest yardarm everything went quiet. All he could hear was his heart beating. The ocean wrapped around him like a wet blanket, cold and uncomfortable.
Half a dozen lifeless figures were dangling from the yardarm like strung up statues. He knew immediately that he was staring at dead bodies. All he could hear was his breath echoing inside his
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floating rip cage.
Time caught up and the wave underneath him started to drop at an accelerating speed. His guts jerked when he made his way downwards. The moment was so fleeting, that he almost enjoyed it. There he was again, floating on the ocean like a cork, watching the strange ghost ship pass and disappear.
He spread his arms wide over the surface of the water, listening to the sound of its ripple. He intuitively smiled at the moon. The moon in turn seemed to smile back in amusement.
Something plucked at his foot, carefully first, then greedily. He started, kicking out in fright, until something grabbed his legs with painful force like a giant hand. He flailed his arms and writhed, trying to kick free from the violent force that was already clasping his entire lower body. He took a breath to scream but the only scream that shattered the silence, came from the deep. The sound curdled his blood. Then, with a snap, he was pulled under and the ocean closed over his head like a trap door.
He woke with a cry on his lips. At least he believed he was crying out. His body seemed to have recorded an echo of the sound, even though he had not heard it. He stared up a the ceiling of his cell, the blanket crumpled in the sweaty palms of his clenched fists. The atmosphere in his room had turned to gelatin. He had to move, or he would have suffocated. After he had walked up and down the room a couple of times he stopped at the view screen to activate it and look down into the colony. He felt compelled to make sure it was still there.
The greatest fear of every inhabitant of Antima Laia was the possibility of a flooding. The tiniest crack in the glass of the protective dome could cause a chain reaction and the colonists were not prepared for an evacuation, because there was nowhere they could run to.
Hundreds of years ago humans had populated the landmass of this planet, but they had been forced to withdraw to the sea floor eventually. That it had been their own doing, was what the teachers told him. That they had polluted the soil, the air and the
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water. Whether there was anything they could do to repair the damage, Noa had asked.
»Repent and survive.« his teacher answered. »Never let the sins of men be forgotten. That is all we can do now. We are the remainder of our kind. This is our last refuge.«
Nobody ever told them how long they would need to survive, so they had made something of themselves down here, in the only place that was not yet destroyed by human carelessness. Here they cared. They had learned to survive and more. They had raised buildings from hard-wearing, sustainable materials that shone like black whale skin. They had devised methods of algae cultivation that guaranteed a consistent supply of food for the entire population, and they had perfected their means of energy extraction by harnessing the ocean’s currents.
From a height Antima Laia looked beautiful and rife with potential. An occult masterpiece of order, like a shiny black pearl in the belly of a buried oyster.
After a few minutes Noa’s breathing calmed down and the sweat on his skin began to evaporate. He carefully directed his eyes to the chronographic section on the screen. It was exactly the third hour. He did not recall ever having been awake at this time of night.
He explored his options with caution. He could dismiss the nagging suspicion that someone had invaded his thoughts to cause discontent and could resolve to go back to sleep. He could instead contact a counsellor. He shook his head vehemently even before he had finished thinking this option through. Not once in his life had he ever missed a single work hour to talk to a counsellor and this sacrifice wasn’t even the worst possibility, if he chose to open this door. Asking for support from a counsellor could kill a reputation and his had always been an excellent one.
He looked around the familiar setting of his home. Not, that it differed in any way from the other 8999 worker booths in the colony. Three by four meters elbow-room, accommodations tailored to common necessities, everything he would ever need.
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There was a bunk, a hygienic unit and a supply bay where he would find a fresh uniform every morning and a meal twice each day. The rooms were lavishly measured by his standards, considering the fact that workers practically only used their apartments as a place to nap and freshen up. He was on an eleven hour work schedule and slept ten hours each night. There was no time for much else.
He had no concept of a better life than this. He had ambitions to rank up and to become a manager some day. He had received a flawless evaluation for several years in a row, which was a great advantage. A promotion would come with shorter work-hours and bigger living quarters. Unfortunately he would also have to give up the view he had from the top floors of one of the biggest buildings in the city. The view he called his own could cause managers, counsellors and even Senators to begrudge him his good fortune.
The screen crackled and pulled him out of his contemplations. The view of the city blurred and was replaced by the face of a man wearing a white garment with a distinct blue lining. He was seated in a dark room at a table from which a harsh light emanated. Noa held up his hand to shield his eyes from the glare.
»Okaian 57-9-18?« the man demanded. Noa felt sick in his stomach, as he recognized the counsellor of the medical standby unit by his uniform.
»Yes, I am he.« he stammered. The caller acknowledged him with a smile.
»I was assigned to inquire, whether everything is alright with you.« said the counsellor. »Please, do go back to sleep. No cause to be alarmed.«
»What…« began Noa but the man on the screen would not have himself be interrupted.
»We registered a minor seaquake, that caused slight fluctuations in the power grid.« he explained. Noa made a surprised sound.
»Does this happen often?« he asked. He could not tell himself,
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as he usually slept like a rock and had never noticed anything while he was awake. The counsellor continued in his polite and calm voice, even though an inconspicuous nervous twitch had appeared in his smile.
»It is indeed a very rare occurence, absolutely harmless and exceedingly interesting for our research.«
The seaquake was not the only unusual occurrence that Noa was aware of. There had been a nightmare that woke him, a call in the dead of night, and the unprecedented effort this counsellor put into explaining the situation to a mere worker. For a moment Noa pondered. Should he mention his nightmare or should he just do as he was told?
»I understand.« he said finally.
»We are awfully sorry, that you have been frightened.« said the man. He almost sounded sincere.
»Well, I guess I will head back to bed then.« Noa announced with a questioning undertone. He felt rather sluggish all of a sudden.
»Please do.« said the man. He followed Noa with a firm look in his eyes and his voice sounded slightly impatient now. »Lie down. That’s right. Just like that.«
Noa collapsed on the bed. He was even too exhausted to pull up his cover.
»Sleep well!« said the counsellor. The view screen flickered off and at the exact same moment Noa closed his eyes and fell asleep.
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