MIRATHATON The Last Colony Chapter IX

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I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X IX | Rewards   He felt exhausted, even though he did not work, and sick, even though nothing was supposedly wrong with him. For a little while it seemed as if the metaphorical gears of his mind and body did not interlock anymore. He was not alone in his fate. Once the patients had begun waking from their stupor, they began crying, fainting and vomiting. This lasted for a couple of days, then they became depressed and restless.   Like so many others, who had run foolishly into the streets to get involved in the craziness of an unsuspected and futile revolution, Noa was ordered to rest and keep calm. They insisted he stayed with them until everything had been sorted out above ground. He should have been grateful for that. After the initial shock had passed, he had begun to process the event and it, in turn, was trying to slip away from his memory. He kept reminding himself obsessively of the more gruesome details of what he had witnessed by a degree of compulsion he had never known. Whenever his mind idled, he returned to the scene and relived it. He would have liked to be in the colony now, helping to clean up the mess and start on his new assignment, making this place a better home for those who needed some comforting. But they did not let him.   Nonetheless, they treated him well. He had not participated in anything more violent than a scuffle and the counsellors seemed to be aware of it. There were no suspicious amounts of blood on his clothes or his hands, so they sent him to a medical unit where his head was examined. He was given drugs and a couple of hours with a special inhalation course to clear his lungs from the smoke and chemicals he had breathed in during the fire. He felt much better and was allowed to wander around the hospital as soon as the next morning. 93

The first day had gone by without him being able to tell the time. The second day was occupied with more examinations, leaving the same impression. For nine years he had not missed a single day at work, had never been late for his shift through his own fault and had stuck to his schedule like the exemplary worker he aspired to be. Now he had lost his sense of purpose.   On the third day, he was called in for sessions with a counsellor, a young man with short auburn hair and a face as flat and about as engaging as a shovel blade, but Noa had nothing to say to him. The procedure was repeated day after day while the counsellor had him sit face to face, staring at Noa for up to an hour. Eventually, he had to talk about what he had experienced, having this inkling that they might let him leave sooner if he gave them something to work with. Sharing his thoughts even with someone seemingly unresponsive for most of their sessions gave him some relief. The impression only lasted until he left the room, after which he began wondering if he had said anything that reflected negatively on his character. It would have been less disconcerting if the other man had told him just once whether he was behaving stupidly.   He became so bored, a state he had never known, that he thought he must lose his mind. He was hovering the halls like a forgotten soul in a castle of glass, transparently irrelevant. Every room down here was flooded with a warm golden light, that poured from large milk glass windows and reflected off perfectly white walls. It burned his eyes and soaked his skin to the point at which he began to feel hot and oily and he even thought he exuded an odour he had never noticed before. Something had been set in motion. They were changing his body from the inside out, simply by exposing him to the light. He felt like a stranger in his own skin, but he told himself that this was probably necessary before he was allowed to call himself a manager. When he woke in the morning, he rubbed his skull and face, feeling for stubbles of an emerging beard. He was in for a disappointment every day.   Even though he was aware of the presence of the other patients 94

whom he ran into in the hallway, they never talked to each other or let their eyes meet. None of them looked familiar. It was almost like it used to be in the city. They would go about their business without interacting, except for the difference that now they did not have business to attend to.   After ten days he noticed that the hospital was getting less crowded and he only ever passed someone in the corridor standing with their arms folded and their forehead against the light panels or sitting in a corner, looking asleep, and he just left them to their vices.   At night he did not rest well. When he finally fell asleep, he began to notice flashes of light behind his lids and hear noises like gun fire and that disturbance roused him in fright. If he had been in the darkness of the city, it may even have been worse. But he did not talk about this with his counsellor and the counsellor had stopped asking.   They never told him anything about the situation above ground. When he asked, they encouraged him to stop worrying. Memories of his childhood, which had sporadically crept into his thoughts during the first few days, came to the fore and he began talking about them in the sessions with his counsellor. He wondered whether his old rooms were anywhere near this complex and he tried to recall the names of those he had spend his life with until he left to become a worker. He felt cared for just like back in the days, but now that he was all grown up it frustrated him and made him feel weak.   For thirteen days he just slept, ate and wandered around the compound. People he had seen the day before, seemed to vanish over night and ultimately, everyone else had left. In the end there was only him and his counsellor.   On the fourteenth day he decided to confront the other man about his extended stay. He planned his argument carefully before making his way towards the office for his daily meeting. As he arrived, the room was empty and the counsellor was nowhere to be found. 95

Noa listened intently into the silence of the deserted wing. He left the room and walked down the hallway, peering into several rooms as he passed. He was wearing very light shoes with soft soles that enabled him to move without making a sound. He kept listening for voices as he began to walk faster. He had reached the end of the complex, when he realized that he must be completely alone. Stopping at a door that they had not allowed him to use while he was there, he now put his hands on the door latch and pulled. It was locked. He turned on his heel and started in the opposite direction, opening doors left and right throughout the entire length of the corridor as he hastily searched every room for signs of life. He was about to loose his temper when he reached out to the handle of the last door, but a sound made him retreat. From inside the room he heard a voice, even more terrible than that of a sentinel.    »He should see this.« This voice sounded mechanically shrill, yet it had a scathing tone that the sentinels would not usually produce. »Go, fetch him!«   There was another voice, much lower, much more human, that responded to it. Noa realized that he would be caught eavesdropping any second now. He jumped aside and pressed his body against the wall. The door opened and the counsellor hastened past him without looking around as he flew down the hallway. Noa did not move until the man was out of sight. He listened to any sounds coming from the room, but he heard nothing. There had been someone else talking, but now it was all spookily quiet, no steps, no shuffling of feet, no breathing. Carefully he peeked around the door frame into the office.   The light had been turned down several levels, so that it was almost as dark as in the city. There was a desk and a chair, nothing else. A single light source emanated from the desk top. He stretched his neck to see what it was, but he still had to step closer. He looked down the corridor, then he walked into the room and approached the desk. An active display in the surface showed a steady stream of lazy static, making the room look like 96

it was drained of colour.   They had never told him to avoid this room or not to use the terminal. The only reason he had not yet done so, was, that he did not know of its existence. He had begun to feel at home with them since they tolerated his many questions, even if they did not want to answer them. He might find answers for himself now.   He activated the terminal and studied the menu. He had never seen anything like it, but at least it did not seem coded. He could read well enough. Some colonists did not because they never practised it. He had always though it important, since he had ambitions to rank up some day and being able to read was one of the requirements for his promotion. There was not much to read in the city, but he would often recall conversations and put them down in letters in his mind as an exercise, when he felt underused on the job.   There were a lot of squares and dots on this interface, much more than there were on the one installed in his cell. His fingers hovered undecidedly. He was tempted to push the button that would lead him to the most recent communications, but he felt that this was an intrusion he was not willing to risk. Instead he lowered his index finger to the square that read Main Channel.   It took the console a couple of seconds to put the picture together. Noa leaned forward, putting the palms of his hands on the desktop to support him. He did not immediately know what he was looking at, but then he realized, that he was looking down at the Plaza. He had not recognized it at first because the Plaza itself was not visible due to the thousands of people that had gathered there. He was looking down on their bald heads from a very steep angle. Then the camera turned upwards and zoomed out in a leisurely pace, showing the large square and the surrounding buildings. It was like he had scaled the signal tower to look at the gathering of the entire colony. They seemed to be looking up at him with blank faces and he did not understand why he was not there with them. He did not even know whether this was a recording or happening right now. 97

The camera perspective switched to the opposite site of the Plaza. He was now staring down from the main building, everyone was looking away from him towards the signal tower. The camera zoomed to the centre of the huge column, where the red ring was slowly turning into a colour like porcelain. Noa knew what that meant and his heart began to beat faster in anticipation. A voice, clearer than crystal, cut through the colony and the little office where Noa was bowed over the desk.   »Workers.« the voice intoned. »Children of the last refuge, what a glorious day for a celebration.«   Noa smiled. He did not know what this announcement meant but he trusted that it was true.   »You have fought for your lives and for your home against a vicious and ruthless enemy from within.« the speaker continued. »And you have prevailed. We are proud of you.«   »There you are.«   Noa raised his head abruptly as a shadow blocked out the light from the door.   »I wasn’t going to…« he said, but before he could mumble his flat apologies, the counsellor waved them aside.   »I was looking for you, so you could watch the event.« the counsellor said. Noa was surprised, but pleasantly so. He returned his attention to the screen as the speaker continued.   »Many of you have been injured and killed. Today we will reward your loyalty with justice for that.« the voice thundered. »Today we will celebrate what it means to be a community.«   Those were beautiful words, Noa thought to himself, but it kept nagging him, how he remembered clearly that none of the colonists had bothered to stand bravely and fight against the rebels as the voice was telling them now. Neither had he, in all fairness. As he was still wondering how the reward for not doing anything might look like, the view started to wander again and stopped at the foot of the tower where a new structure had been set up in the meantime.   He had seen this once before but not on such a scale. A scaffold, 98

almost twenty meters in length with ten neon circles in a row marking the floor. He felt immediately sobered.   They did not have to wait for long. He watched people climb the stage under the watchful eyes of a brigade of guards. Calm faces, stepping up steadily without hesitation, ten people at a time. They were stripped of rank and purpose, marked by as having to wear grey overalls and they had their hands bound on their backs. Neither of them flinched. Noa thought that they must be properly sedated so they did not even know what was happening. These people stood readily and quietly in the marked areas and did not fight back. Noa, as the spectator, felt the instinct to fly the scene on their behalf for they did not know where they were or that they would not be going anywhere afterwards.   When they stepped onto the pods, glass cylinders drove out of the ground to cage them. Then the water came. Only when they realized they were unable to breathe did they start grimacing, gasping for air, bumping against the glass with their knees and elbows, pushing themselves upwards as hard as they could. But there was nowhere to escape to. Every group took about 5 minutes to execute and clean up. After the limp bodies were sucked out into the ground with the water, the glass barriers retracted and the next group was ushered to the stage.   Noa tried to focus on the faces of those in the pods, scared that he might recognize someone, who had done him something good in the past. After half an hour, he turned to the counsellor who was watching him for the first time with a trace of real curiosity in his eyes.   »Will it ever end?« Noa asked the man.   »You are not feeling sorry for these people, are you?« the counsellor asked. Noa looked at their faces for a few moments before he reacted to the question.   »Shouldn’t I?« he asked back.   »They wanted to kill all of you.« the counsellor said. »Does this not seem like a justified response to such an act.«   »Is that so?« Noa asked. »Maybe I can’t feel it yet, because they 99

did not really harm me.«   »Many others were hurt.« the counsellor said.   »I know that.« Noa said quickly, not wanting to seem ungrateful.   »Then why do you not rejoice as justice is being done?«   »I don’t know.« Noa said, watching the next group step onto the podium. »It just feels wrong to be happy about anyone dying.«   »They would have tried it again.« the counsellor said. »More innocent people would have been harmed.«   »Yes, but if I enjoyed executions so much, wouldn’t I look forward to whatever cause that brings them on?«   »Does this conclusion seem logical to you?«   »If I genuinely liked watching this…« Noa mused. »…then yes.«   »Interesting.« the counsellor said.   »Why is that?« Noa asked reflexively.   »You will see the wisdom of the Saints soon enough.« said the counsellor. »Maybe you will understand after all.«   Noa went back to the transmission. Even though he did not enjoy watching it, he felt like he should not be the one person to not participate in this public display. Everyone else seemed to be there. And he had to make sure nobody he knew was among the condemned.   It was not until after what seemed like hours that he saw a familiar face, a face he would not forget so easily. The man who stepped onto the pod held his head proudly, even though his face spoke of the same treatment he must have been given to confuse his senses. It was the angry man with the sword, who had let Arn Genh and Noa live. When the water rose, Noa straightened up and looked away.   »Why am I still here?« he asked the counsellor in a bland tone, not like he had just watched 200 people being forcefully drowned. »I would very much like to go back to work.«   »This is commendable.« the counsellor said. »But we won’t let 100

you go before you have received your reward.«   »What reward?« Noa stuttered. »For what?«   »Don’t worry.« the counsellor smiled reassuringly. »We know what we owe you. You will find out tomorrow.«   This night he did not sleep again but was unable to tear his thoughts away from the many tortured faces he had seen that day. Their bodies were now out there in the waters, ready to be consumed as food by whatever unknown creature was living in the ocean. He was glad he would not have to go back out there. The image of those bloated bodies and clean picked bones swimming around in the same soup he was doing his work in, did not sit well with him. He had seen way too many dead people in the past few days, starting with that very strange dream he had weeks ago, which he had almost forgotten until the executions.   Then he began mulling over what the counsellor had said. He did not recall having done anything to warrant receiving a reward. He remembered that he had destroyed a maintenance bot, but he would never tell anyone about this deliberate destruction of public property. Had they seen him do it over the surveillance footage? The cameras in the colony were probably inoperable without power, but he suspected that the Sentinels were carrying battery powered recording devices.   That may be a problem. Maybe he was going to be punished for destroying the property of the people. He turned idea after idea around in his head, of everything he had ever done that had given him a bad conscience. When the morning came, he was still pondering. As the time came to rise, he did not feel tired anymore. In fact he felt invigorated. He pushed himself off the bed but his legs buckled and he rolled off the mattress and hit the floor unconscious. 101