
Neon

Zero

By

Adam J Smith

The Neon Series Prequel Novella
Copyright © 2019 Adam J Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the author.
Journal of Lance Corporal Edmonds

38th February (ext), 2234

_Hard to believe that after everything we've done – everything we've achieved – our fate remains the same as Earth's. We escaped their burning pyres only to see the touch-paper lit here. Today, 2_ nd _Lieutenant Baines and I commandeered a Grounder and made our way over to Neon. Maintenance crews haven't been out for weeks, and it showed. The road was cracked where the heat had melted it and the frost of night frozen it; all sorts of shapes snapping up when the Grounder's over-sized tires rolled over them. As always with the Grounder, the ride was smooth – I wish I could say the same for Baines. He's losing it or lost it. His mojo, that is. His – how would he put it? – incorrigible charm. What comes around, comes around – to bite you on the ass, he said a few days ago. Ever since the news broke he's been a hollow shell. I guess everyone has taken it differently. Some run around in blind panic and there's no snapping them out of it besides SNAPPING them out of it. Others need an arm and some guidance and to be told where to go, where to stand, where to eat, when to shit. Some, like Baines, put up such a tall barrier to block out the sun they spend the whole day standing in shadow, going about their lives as though navigating their apartment in darkness._

Then there are those like me, I suppose. Turning the lights on in each room. Making sure to switch them off again when they leave.

We're here, in Neon, right now, waiting for the latest storm to subside. Hoping the next isn't THE ONE.

We got about two-thirds the way to Neon and took a small detour to Alpha Five. There were children playing outside the dome – CHILDREN – and they raced up to us as we pulled up. Their faces were red and wide with smiles and I could tell straight away that they had no idea what was going on. Which was fine, I thought. I wasn't in charge here. It wasn't my call. And hell, what did it matter if the children could be kept in the dark for as long as possible.

_The problem there of course was Captain Selani Birdie. Birdie of 8_ th _regiment, before it disbanded. She's never quite been able to let go of that feeling of power. I always used to think she meant well, but earlier today she remained even more stubborn than I remembered her. Falling rocks couldn't have moved her. Well falling rocks – or their metaphorical equivalent – had to._

She came out to greet us. "Hi," she said, and surprised me by the strength in her handshake. The children fled like cattle. Baines stood back – he was probably smoking in the shade of the Grounder – in fact now that I recall, yes, I could smell the smoke. I remember thinking how soon he wouldn't need a match.

"What brings ya out here?" asked Birdie. She would hate it right now if she knew I was calling her Birdie.

"Captain. Is it safe to let the children play out here?"

She looked around, dismissive; a look on her face that said she knew better. By now the children had run over to the playground built within Alpha Five's park. Looked good, compared to some other parks. The grass was still green and there were leaves on the trees – a treehouse poking out of the bough of one. Colour of pre-autumn.

When she didn't say anything, I added, "You're doing a good job on irrigation here."

"Aye. The farming's good in this sector. You had an apple yesterday, it were probably from here. Are you stopping...?"

"Lance Corporal Edward Edmonds," I told her, and then saluted. She seemed a little taken aback at first – formalities such as this are dying a death, I know, but she was a Captain after all.

"Edmonds," she dragged my name out, trying to place it, no doubt.

I told her I was an easy person to forget, and that we didn't have time to stop, I just had this edict to give her. It was then that she rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, I got a pile of them already on my desk, not to mention my inbox."

"It's important," I implored. "This isn't some safety fire drill."

"Listen," she began, and I'm trying not to laugh as I write this, for it shouldn't be funny, but the look on her face; it was one of those moments I wish I'd had my iris-recorder in. She thrust that piece of paper in my face, waving it around, telling me how she had every right to run her sector how she saw fit; how the latest reports were all just scare-mongering and that when push came to shove, Alpha Five would protect them – and then POOF! That piece of paper went up in flames right in her hand – the flames exploded into the air and almost burned her eyebrows. She gave a yelp and jumped back and dropped the paper to the ground. It was ash before it even landed.

She looked down at the smouldering embers with a perplexed look on her face, and then turned her eyes to the cloudless red-pink sky. I did too, the stinging smell of carbon in my nostrils. My skin prickled. I had the oddest sensation running across the bare skin of my arms, felt across my balding scalp, of being trapped inside a microwave. I turned in place, as though to present every side of myself, and glanced at Baines. His hand shaped as though holding an invisible cigarette. Trails of smoke spun from the ground by his feet.

"Baines!" I shouted. "Hey!"

He looked at me, waking from slumber. I shouted to go grab the kids, and then I turned and took Birdie's arm and lead her to Alpha Five's entrance, shouting for them to open up.

_Here, in the comfort of Neon's western_ Guest & Board _, with its thermostatic control and spa bath that I recently made use of, I can't quite put into words how it felt – the heat. Imagine that your skin had turned from pink to red in a matter of seconds, and then imagine the cause as external, and what that would mean for your fragile, fry-able skin. When we made it inside Alpha Five I just looked at my hands and had never been so keenly aware of being nothing but meat. Just one step removed from a spit-roasted pig, with less fatty skin._

I turned to witness Baines making an effort, which was something at least. He corralled the children from the park towards the entrance; their mouths agape, screaming, smoke wagging behind them like tails. Only at the last second did I register that I had over twenty children barrelling towards me, and stepped aside quickly. Half of them were as red as me; those who weren't were dark-skinned and I envied them that. We all felt the same pain.

As the doors closed to the world and the transfer room quarantined the children's sobs, I watched the leaves fall from the trees in the park; tears of flame that extinguished inches above the browning grass.
Flares

Lance Corporal Edmonds, or just Edmonds as he preferred, stretched and yawned. The scribblings in the diary wavered into a plate of spaghetti until he rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times. Nope, didn't help much either. Too tired to continue. He rose and winced – and shook his head that he should feel pain simply by moving, his skin flexing. It was dry yet shimmered beneath the light, and he wanted to itch at it so badly. Instead, he opened the complimentary refrigerator and took out a bottle of cold water. _A scintillating thirst squencher._ He was pretty sure there was no such verb as _squench_. He uncapped the bottle and brought it tentatively to his lips. The water went down like good synth, after stinging his lips.

Following his bath in salt water he'd applied a salve to the red parts of his skin, and for a while it had soothed the burning itch. Now they rose again, and he grabbed the pot of salve from the shelf and began rubbing more of the ointment on. He considered the swimming pool that would be down near the first floor of the _Guest & Board_, but had to stifle a yawn as he did so.

He smothered the salve across his scalp, moaning quietly, then stepped up to the open window. It was nothing like home; the air at home would've blown its cooling fingers through the window. Here nothing licked. Lights shimmered in the city that never slept, such a contrast to New Seren. Every building was a highrise with a glass and concrete façade, fascias of neon and argon illumination painted up the sides and floating by on advertisement drones. The amount of energy and resources this city needed boggled his mind. Looking out, and up a hundred levels, and down a hundred levels; he shook his head – this was only half the story. Each tower plummeted below the ground to equal subterranean depths. He worried for the wellbeing of the families who lived here, for what kind of life could they lead, surrounded by hard walls and regime? Only allowed to leave upon being granted exit visas.

The thought that he might be trapped here filled his stomach with rocks.

New Seren had highrises but they were centralised, reaching up like fingers to stroke the underside of the dome. In the suburbs near New Seren's edges were small, two-bedroom cottages, and this was where his husband awaited. Edmonds was beginning to wish he'd listened to Jerry and quit his job the moment the news came in – _Let them deal with it,_ he said. _If this is the end, at least enjoy it_.

What if it didn't have to be the end?

New Seren had been the first major dome built, and was the operational hub. Over the last sixty years, a further seventy domes had either landed or been constructed, spreading out from New Seren in a web of connecting roads. Ancillary domes stood constructed on cement foundations in areas of promising agricultural land, near resources that would make irrigation and general living possible. These were mostly no further than a mile or two from the highways that linked the major domes. Neon ranked second in size (though highest in population) while Burgot and Remington ranked closely behind. These were cities – metropolises even. The rest were towns and science stations, and every year a new dome was constructed, reaching ever further in terraforming conquest. Pipes shuttling water and gas and oil beneath the desert and rocks and occasional oases.

Soon they would all be gone.

Places like Alpha Five were being told to evacuate and seek sanctuary within one of the four larger domes in case their shielding didn't have enough power to withstand the incoming storm, though Neon had erected a border control and was only allowing a certain number of refugees. Which was why Edmonds was here.

After the solar flare, he, Baines, and a caravan of followers – including Captain Birdie – travelled west to Neon. Sometimes you had to see something with your own eyes before believing what Birdie would have called the 'scare-mongering'. So he had the solar flare to thank for that. He had to hope now that the other small domes would evacuate in time; that Neon would take more of them in, and that the dome's energy barriers would be enough to stave off the annihilation of the human race.

He looked up towards the stars.

This was it now – all the ships had landed. No one left in orbit.

How wrong they had been.
Arcadia

The Agridome walls rose high into the night sky, allowing the starlight to glimmer through and light the boy perched on the edge of the treehouse. He shivered in the breeze; the air-recycling unit in overtime after the solar flare earlier that day. Goosebumps crossed his skin and wrinkled beneath the hem of his shirt, sleeves rolled up. He closed his eyes as the wind teased the hair in his face, glad that he'd been inside when the air had warmed up. He looked across to the entrance, now closed, and recalled the returning Ferret with his team of road builders, all of them cowering beneath makeshift capes, exposed hands as red as apples. Safely inside, they'd collapsed onto their knees and curled into balls, huffing from exhaustion. The coats and vests fell from their heads, and Jax recalled holding his breath in horror.

How they'd moaned.

Faces crimson. The bald men with heads like cherries.

Jax had been right here, in the same spot, legs dangling from the edge with _Frankenstein_ in his lap. That book now lay on the ground below, where it had fallen, forgotten in the cacophony.

He could still see the gurney tracks on the path, trails of mud. They led inside the inner dome of Arcadiaw where the crew had been taken to the hospital for treatment.

He shuffled backwards towards the rope ladder and descended, swinging in the breeze. He passed the notches in the bark where ladder rungs had once been nailed in, but removed. The smaller kids kept coming up with their dolls and teddy bears for foodless picnics, taking up space. With a rope ladder replacement it was a lot more difficult for them to get up.

Leaving Jax and the gang alone.

There were few spaces for privacy in Arcadia, so they used the treehouse often. Even if it did pong of fertiliser and dung – it was better than their dorm rooms beneath the ground.

"Hey," called Lani, emerging from the side of an oak tree that had spent years propagating up in space. Her shock of blonde hair with its white streak hung to her shoulders; the same as her twin, Scarlett. Only Scarlett lacked the streak – it was the only way to tell them apart. She appeared next from the other side of the tree. "There he is."

"Hi." He raised a hand in greeting.

"Told you he'd be here," said Lani.

Scarlett said, "Where else would he be?" and leaned against the tree.

"This is the hottest place in town, after all," said Jax. "Literally."

"In the day, maybe," said Lani. "Got a right chill on now, though." She hugged her arms.

Jax moved towards them, boots squelching slightly in the off-path mulch. Light from the strip of spotlights running up the inside of the dome lit the sisters, faces half-ghosts, pale and white. Everything turned at night; the tanned turned pale, fire turned to ice, the planet revealed its true nature: this was not Earth. What they now called home became an alien landscape, their shadows lost in the night.

Still, it was better than orbiting, breathing stale, recycled air. _What's changed?_ he thought. _They still breathed that air_.

"Might not be much time left," said Scarlett. "They're saying today was a precursor."

Lani added, "They're saying when the sun comes back around, it might bring the fire."

"So it's now or never," said Jax. He was fifteen in Earth years and the twins were fourteen – on the cusp of full-responsibility. Mr. Keogh, luckily, was pretty lenient with the rules; largely because they had built upon his trust over the years. They were teens but the opportunity for rebellion was hard to come by. They did their chores, pitched in, went to school (which were just practical lessons for vehicle and dome maintenance, things along those lines) and made little in the way of trouble.

So Mr. Keogh thought.

"They'll kill us if they find out," said Lani.

Scarlett laughed. "I don't know about that, sis. Bit harsh."

"Who's on watch?"

Jax began walking to the entrance. "I haven't seen anyone. After what happened earlier, I think the threat of the outside would be enough to stop anyone heading out."

"Except us!" said Scarlett, stepping in line.

"Except us!"

Lani followed behind. "Did you see them?"

Jax nodded.

"Burned to a crisp some of them. Are we sure it's safe?"

"Until the sun comes up."

Silence fell on them as they stepped up onto the concrete walkway that split the boggy marsh of the ground. The tree pasture they'd just come from formed the left-side guard, while on the right, rows and rows of corn disappeared around the edge of the dome, leading towards paddy fields. At this time of evening, with the temperature low, the smell wasn't too bad. In the daytime the smell reached epic levels of mushroom dampness, rotting vegetation and manure. It kept the smaller kids away – another reason for Jax's choice of private location.

The entrance door was broad and tall, made of thick metal that hung on hinges the size of his arms. A whole year of heaving rolls of hemp and hay meant his forearms had grown quite thick these past few months. He entered his keypad code into the panel on the left and waited for the red light to turn green.

"It's not going to work," said Lani.

"It'll work," said Jax, trying again.

A voice flickered through the speaker. "Jax? Jax? That you?"

That voice belonged to Mr. Osborne. "It's me. Can you let me out?"

"What are you doing? I was in the middle of something only to have you call me over."

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to call anyone. I just need to get out for a minute. Could you privilege my pass code so I can head out and get back in again?" _Maybe this wouldn't work, after all_. "I'll head on over to command and reset my privilege again as soon as I return. You can carry on doing whatever you were doing."

A few seconds of silence passed on the other end, before Mr. Osborne said; "What do you even need to go out there for? That storm could happen any moment."

Jax noticed Scarlett about to speak, but put a finger to his lips. "Not right now it couldn't – it's practically night time. I left a few tools out and I'd hate for Mr. Keogh to think less of me if I wasn't able to book them back into inventory. They'll be up in flames, along with my ass."

He could practically hear Mr. Osborne shaking his head. Perhaps a smile unzipping across his face.

He added; "'Course, I could just come find you. Whip you at gyro-tennis."

Mr. Osborne laughed. "Not even in my prime would I beat you. Don't make me regret this. In and out."

"Of course."

The light turned green and the sensor acknowledged their bodies and instructed the door to open. The flat, warm air rushed past them into the Agridome – the ventilation system wouldn't thank them for that – and they pushed through, out into the settling night. Jax's goosebumps returned, electricity in the air. A few of the solar lights had burned out earlier, leaving a sporadic puzzle of dull yellow illumination around the dome and spreading out towards the terraforming operation a full mile away. Tarmac reflected back some of that light, otherwise isolated pockets of shrubbery and hedgerows still in infancy glowed faintly, mere impressions just further out. A warehouse storing an excess of vehicles; ploughs, harvesters, tractors and heavy farming machinery, was a large rectangular face of black against the stars above. He wondered briefly if they were going to bring any of them inside, or if they had been relegated to dust.

"All the hoverbikes are inside," said Scarlett.

"We saw them bringing them in earlier," added Lani.

"I guess we're on foot then. Did you bring torches?" It took a while to adjust to the outside air, less concentrated with oxygen than the domes and the once-orbiting ships. They had bade their time – up among the stars – allowing the terraforming to proceed while adjusting their air composition to slowly acclimatise. We humans love our oxygen though, thought Jax, conscious of taking deeper breaths.

"Of course," said the twins, extracting torches from pockets. Jax had his own – everyone had their own. It saved on power to keep the nightly illumination low.

Three cones of light pointed ahead, seemingly without an end.

"They're saying most of the domes have evacuated now. We're one of the last remaining ones – everyone else has gone to New Seren or Remington." He looked across at Lani and watched the silhouette of her mouth as she spoke. "I'm not sure if we should have stayed or not."

"We can't all be holed up in the same domes – what if something happens?"

"It makes sense," said Jax. "If we occupy as many domes as possible, speaking purely from a human race point-of-view, we better our chance of survival."

Lani shook her head. "I just can't believe this might all disappear. I mean, we'll be stuck in Arcadia. Forever."

"There's a depressing thought."

"At least in New Seren there'd be more people. More things to do."

"Hey," said Scarlett. She looked across at Lani, looking plaintive. "We'd have each other."

"We'd always have each other anyway," laughed Lani, grabbing her sister's arm.

Jax quickened his pace, the edge of light fading away behind them where Arcadia's grand outer dome blistered the night sky. Their torchlight sank into darkness ahead. He was conscious of a certain _softness_ underfoot, of something that had melted and not quite kicked muscle memory into action. Tacky under boot. Warm too, even through the rubber of his soles. Despite that emanating warmth, with every step from the light and into the darkness, chilly fingers travelled further up his arms and down his spine. "Keep up."

He turned around to see the twin silhouettes skipping to remain on his heels. A light jog. He had long legs and often had to remind himself to consider others trying to keep pace with him. "It'll keep you warm," he said.

"Lanky arse," said Scarlett.

"You didn't have to come."

"And miss what might be our final excursion to The Oasis? Not a chance!" said Lani, jogging past. "What you waiting for?"

He watched as the twins sped ahead, their torch-beams like the arms of a single sprinter, pumping for speed. Their giggles hit his face like sand as his walk turned into a run, the air against his cheeks and brow. They left their teenage counterparts behind as they chased their elemental childhood, and he laughed with them, glad of this moment that might be the last moment they'd have to feel like children.
Journal of Lance Corporal Edmonds

2nd March (ext), 2234

This place... it's so oppressive. Sheet walls of concrete and metal everywhere. Neon's orbiting construction base really went all out. They must have had BIG plans. Must HAVE big plans – all these highrises and empty floors just waiting to be filled. I'm surprised they're so rigorous with their immigration policy – they certainly have the space for refugees. And so righteous. It's actually angering me a little. I wouldn't want to live here but given the choice between possibly burning to a crisp out there in an underpowered dome, or living my days here, I know which I'd choose – and what many others nearby are TRYING to choose.

This morning I headed down to the breakfast bar to find Birdie and the rest of the Alpha Five crew; to catch up with them and learn their status. The diner was crammed with people. It wouldn't have been a scene too out of place in a New Seren retirement resort: round wooden tables with blue tablecloths, four wooden spindle-back chairs around each one, napkins adorning the table bull's-eyes while forks darted about plates, clanking that punctuated the excited murmurs of fasttalk. All very quaint. As though this was a holiday. Children running around and shouting excitedly while parents failed to get them to turn down the volume. Children had no volume control on holiday – didn't they know? And while I watched I was overcome with sadness that I couldn't find the nearest empty chair, and hold the adjacent one out for Jerry. It had nothing to do with the Senior decor or old fashioned furniture – which Jerry would have probably quite liked – it was the vibe. That holiday atmosphere.

Then one glance to the perimeter shattered that illusion. They didn't wear uniform or have their rifles on display but they wore military grade spec-opticles; I counted eight in total. Like, what were we going to do? Riot? Rip a hole in the fabric of their carefully constructed reality?

It was overkill, if you ask me.

But no-one did.

That was one of the strangest things. My authority here is completely non-existent. The more I think about it, the more surprised I am they allowed any of us in.

I spoke to one of the guards and asked to see someone in charge, and he looked at me as though this was the strangest thing anyone had ever said to him. He said, "Your request has been noted." I said, "How?" He said nothing and tapped a forefinger to his glasses. Bastard glasses would've told him exactly who I was and he still treated me with the same lack of respect as he treated everyone else. Someone left the room and a guard followed. It quickly became apparent we were cattle.

I walked across the room towards Baines, smiling at some children with red faces that I recognised from before, and sat down next to him. He tapped a soundless sonata above the table while chewing his tongue. Steam rose from hot coffee in a white mug – synthetic or real, I wondered, and asked.

"What do you think?" he groaned. "Whole fucking place is synthetic." He brought the mug to his lips and winced the liquid down. He said he hadn't had a cigarette in hours, and looked it. Eyes flushed red. Bags hung low. Though that could've been the lack of sleep.

"Pain keep you up too?" I asked.

He knocked on the table, brought his lips together in a fake smile, and nodded. "Worst damn case of sunburn ever."

Some children stormed a nearby table and I marvelled how quickly they were able to adjust; not just to location, but also their own pain. The sunburned of them gleamed with creamy oils where skin was exposed.

"What do you think?" asked Baines. "This it? We stuck here?"

"Would you care?" I asked him. "All you've done is move from one empty room to another for the past eight weeks."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

I shook my head. I just felt hopeless.

"I'm not worried about me," he said, leaning in close. I could smell the salve on his skin. "What about you? Shouldn't you be finding a way to get back to Jerry?"

I should have been. Or at least doing more to get a status update. I gave Baines a nod and found Birdie, stuffing her face with chocolate croissants and orange juice. Watching her made my belly groan and I suddenly regained my appetite. I grabbed a slice of toast on my way over to her and contemplated a salute as I approached; a joke one, the thought bringing a smile to my face.

Jerry's voice popped up in my head to remind me that 'All joking aside...' [end of sentence]. I saw his frozen smile and mischievous eyes and felt hollow.

It was Birdie who actually saluted me, sending flakes of croissant to her shirt and laughing with her head tilted back. There was something funny spoken around her table but I hadn't caught it, and regardless, I wasn't in the mood. I asked her if she'd talked to anyone yet and she told me to sit down and enjoy the food and the hospitality and I told her I'd see her around.

I had to get out. Find fresh air. Or its equivalent.

I had to get out of Neon.

"That's not wise," Franghorn said later. What an absolute horror that man is. Sure, he's all charm and smiles, the ends of his thick moustache curling up into twirls; the white bonnet on his head and dark blue suit recalling times of early Twentieth-Century New York – the current fad here apparently – but he'd turn his suit red if it meant getting what he wanted. There had been rumours going around for years. Neon is lead by a committee of Elitists and he would be their unofficial leader – together, they are the architects of this city's moral and physical foundations. On the surface they're thriving. (No pun intended – in orbit they were ruthlessly efficient.) Room a-plenty for the million or so who live here. The Agridome needs little in the way of manual attention. I've seen the agrorobotics and hydrorobotics for myself and it is impressive what automation they have achieved – I guess those years in orbit were useful for something. It was said they had commandeered the greatest minds, and perhaps it was true.

Last time I was here I asked Franghorn for a tour of Neon's depths, but he denied the request. I wrote about this previously so it's nothing new. Never quite put it out of mind, though. What's going on down there? I don't mean the housing situation either – we've all seen how deep the towers run – but it would be remarkable I'm sure to be able to investigate the engineering at the heart of this city. Right down there in the depths. They say they have no new knowledge or technology to share with us, yet their robotics say otherwise.

Maybe in time I'll find out.

I'll probably never get to leave, so...

I had to be in that asshole's presence while he told me that storm surges were intensifying and to head out now back to New Seren could be suicide. He pouted, as if I was a child. As his eyes... twinkled. Does that sound weird? He couldn't give a damn about my situation. He waved the back of his hand and said; "But don't let me stop you. You managed to force your way in here by playing on our consciences; all those poor, burned children – how could we turn you away? How monstrous of us, if we did! As much as Neon would love to absorb you into its citizenry, I cannot stop you leaving. We'll even give your Grounder a quick service, make sure she's tip-top and ready to carry you back to New Seren.

"But you should go now, before it gets worse."

We were talking on the roof of the tower at this point. I turned away from his face and looked high towards the ceiling of the dome. Hung like a halo above the city was The Ring, attached to the underside of the dome and where all the Elitists lived. Franghorn had descended to give a small welcoming speech to the new arrivals, and while he was speaking I left. A guard followed me, of course. So I told him I needed the toilet and I was going back to my room. That I'd probably sleep because I'd been up all night in pain.

He still followed me.

Back in my room, I flushed the toilet and lay on the bed making fake snoring noises for five minutes. And when I checked, the guard was gone. Through boredom or only loose instructions, I don't know. I left and went immediately to the roof to wait for Franghorn.

I inhaled, deep enough to suck the air from dying lungs. That's how it smelled, right then. Tower roofs paled into the distance, as though I was standing at the edge of a chess board. Empty air fell to moving vehicles below. It was remarkably peaceful, being so high. The last time I'd been so peaceful was probably pre-solar alert, sitting besides New Seren Lake with Jerry and our families, drinking beer and eating barbecue. Still waters rippling only when a toy motorboat trailed past.

"Do you have any lakes here?" I asked.

"No. I'm going to head back now. You do what you want."

"Can I see the weather report?"

He took a pad from his pocket and handed it over. "It's all there." He tweezed his moustache with manicured fingers and turned his back on me, stepping into a manned drone. I watched it rise silently away, leaving me alone with my guard.

_The reports were bad. I read them while my legs carried me to the Neon exit: first to the stairs that lead down from the roof, then to the elevator, then out into the tower lobby filled with people and polished, white concrete that echoed their footsteps and clamouring voices. Then out into the day; the antithesis of the rooftop. There was no stillness, no calm, to be found at street level. Perhaps at any level, I thought. Even high up there – I looked up, barely able to discern the contours of the tower edge – maybe the peace had been an illusion. A delusion. Only the kind of peace I found whenever I thought of Jerry – one that I carried around with me. That I carry now. That I_ need _to carry now._

The guard had an autocar waiting. It carried us to the exit while my fingers scrolled the reports and read them like Braille. The outside temperature at that moment was 47-degrees Celsius. The Grounder had air conditioning, so that wasn't such a problem – for me. The worry was overheating the hybrid engine or frying a circuit board if there was a minor flare. Then I'd be stuck and reliant on rescue – if anyone was willing to take the risk. It was now or never. I needed to speak with Baines. And I needed to video Jerry.
Oasis

Jax found The Oasis a few Earth-months earlier while exploring the outer edges of the known terrain on his hoverbike. The whole area had been auto-mapped from the skies; nothing but desert and rock formations and long-stamped craters. All that was _the future_. No need to head there on foot. Or vehicle. The land of most potential had already been selected. When Jax went exploring it was to areas that had never entered the eye before – human or otherwise. This thrill matched the thrill of the hoverbike's speed; its solar-sail wings a frenzied blur in the onrushing wind. Heading to sun-glinting apertures on the horizon slowly resolving into cliff faces or anomalous boulders. Sometimes rising, sometimes falling.

Always something new.

The Oasis, in the scheme of things, was actually quite near. He'd explored much further since. Never to repeat the discovery.

"Beat you," said Scarlett, panting, hands on hips. She smiled and pulled a small canister from a breast pocket, unfurling a mouth-piece at the top. She sucked in a lungful of oxygen and returned it to her pocket.

Lani leaned against her, breathing hard with her head on her sister's shoulder. "Fix me up," she managed to say, allowing Scarlett to repeat the procedure with her own supply.

"Wimps," said Jax, measuring his inhalations. Chest and diaphragm tight with pain in the process. He sucked the thin air rapidly through pursed lips.

"We're human," said Scarlett. "Even if you pretend otherwise!"

"Obviously I'm more than human," he said, pushing through into the narrow gap at the base of the cliff.

Lani prodded his back. "A super-ape. A big-brained chimp."

"A lobotomised orang-utan," said Scarlett.

"An experiment gone right!" Jax turned around and shone his torch into his face and made the sound of a chimpanzee, the girls just black silhouettes in front of him, laughing until he turned the light to them. They blocked the light with their forearms and groaned.

The narrow crevice was wide enough for one person, but widened further almost immediately after entering. The girls squeezed through and he turned to the tunnel.

"Alright, let's be quick."

"Just how much trouble do you think we'll actually be in?" whispered Scarlett.

Lani whispered back; "Why are you whispering?"

"So the ghosts don't hear," said Jax.

They both told him to shut up.

"What can they do? Throw us out?" He swung the torchlight around the dead air of the cavern before them, catching the edges of arches and the fallen debris of rocks beneath. Stones and pebbles scuttled across the sandy floor whenever they kicked one, and darkness pervaded ahead.

"They'll thank us," he said.

"Thank us for what? You haven't even told us what the big new mystery is," said Lani.

"In time." He had often considered revealing his discovery to Arcadia, but then he'd hop on a hoverbike and head out towards the horizon until Arcadia disappeared behind him, look around, feel the welcome sense of _being alone_ , and remember why he'd kept it secret to begin with. Arcadia was way too small for the number of people who lived there. The Oasis was going to be his new home – at least before the inflation of solar activity.

Gently, he began to feel the rush of cool air blowing against his face; some conflation of channels and airways in the rock pulling and sucking air through and around, dizzying. They walked through tidal doorways where the air moved in different ways, becoming slowly cooler and cooler. Passageways veered off left and right; many unexplored and others that lead to dead ends. Then the ceiling rose. And rose. Torchlight fading on the surface as it failed to reach; leaving no contrast until the ceiling disappeared altogether, to be replaced by the stars.

The dead lagoon.

A lake of shadow and circular concave walls.

An ocean of sky.

The Oasis.
Journal of Lance Corporal Edmonds

2nd March (ext), 2234... cont'd

They took our blood earlier too, did I say? All part of the screening process, they said. If we are to live here then they need to know what hereditary diseases we're bringing with us. No matter that this is all already logged in the data files for every one of the domes, and that we brought this data with us.

"Roll up your sleeves or leave," said the head nurse. There was a forced smile on her face and her outfit was a black number with tight trousers and long cape. The Neon attire can be weird, sure, but black? For a nurse? The other nurses strolled from armchair to armchair, capes billowing, but at least their outfits were a bright blue. The hotel had given over its large reception hall to the intake process, and there we all were, arms draped over armrests, sitting as though we were about to watch a theatre show. When I asked why they needed a whole half-pint of blood instead of a standard pin-prick, the head nurse just said, "Price of entry."

Well, okay then.

God, what it is it with these people?

The nurse who attended me couldn't have been older than sixteen, yet she inserted the needle like a seasoned professional, with almost no pain at all. She was silent throughout and never once met my eye, even when I asked her name.

"That's of no concern," said the head nurse.

"And what's yours, for that matter?" I asked.

"Nurse Ratched."

So she had a sense of humour, at least.

I'm stalling, dear diary. Have you worked that out yet?

Of course you have.

Why else did I let them take my blood... for "Price of entry?"

The radiation is interfering with the radio and telecomm signals. After speaking to Baines we decided to call New Seren and ask for their opinion – well, to ask if they would send out a rescue party in the event of an emergency.

Nothing.

We couldn't get through. We were in the Grounder. Up to that point I'd been reassured by the thought that even if I might not see Jerry again, or at least for a very long time, that I'd be able to say goodbye. Then this. I frantically flicked through the broadcast channels and tried to videolink – Baines even brought out the old CB radio – and nothing. The screen was that grey-black of impure darkness, and I turned it off and on again in futile hope, each 'off' a drop into black despair, each 'on' a blot of hope. Fading hope.

"Give it up, man," Baines said eventually. "Let's try Neon's." He lumbered across to the hatch and opened it, looking back. "Unless you just want to go."

I did. I so did – right then. I was ready. "I'll go, you stay."

"No, no – we both go."

"I won't risk your life."

"If you think I'm staying in this creepy fucking place without you, you're mistaken."

I stood and held the hatch open for him. "You'll have to."

"You're not thinking straight. Look at you."

"Look at me?"

"You haven't slept."

"Neither have you."

"But I have enough sense to understand our options." He stood his ground. "WE stay, or WE leave. We go now, or WE wait for the night."

The night, I thought – why hadn't I thought of that? I blinked, seeing things new, and took my hand from the hatch. "Tonight."

"Tonight," smiled Baines. "I thought you were the smart one." He clambered out into the vehicle depot and jumped to the hard tarmac. "We still need to speak to New Seren, though."

_You forget you're on a barren wasteland of a planet when at Neon ground zero. I followed Baines and had this thought again, even though I'd seen it only twenty minutes prior. Highrises block every vantage to see the dome and up there; high, high up there where the light itself is a reflected avenue of the street below, the skin of the dome is non-existent. Up there is just sky. A Neon dream. A narrative that says_ Everything is normal.

At the end of the military compound stood a station house that lead out onto the street and housed the officers on duty. We made our way over to them, crossing paths with transportation trucks on the move somewhere, and many more that were parked up and idling. When I thought about how useful those could have been in shipping people and cargo from some of the smaller domes in the area, it made me angry. The thought of leaving here brought me back down from the precipice, and I put the trucks to the back of my mind.

We greeted the officers who had been watching us through CCTV as they stepped out of the station house. Two of them. Large-chested and possibly wearing bullet-proof vests. How they could feel endangered in this place, I couldn't imagine. With so many people on such a short leash, I guess there must be one or two that snap the hand that holds them.

I shouldn't smile, but I do.

"Not heading out?" asked the bald one.

I shook my head. "We wanted some reassurances from New Seren. Can we use your comms to contact them?"

They gave each other the kind of smile I wanted to smack right off their faces, and then baldy said "Ain't gonna happen, sir. All comms are down."

Baines stepped forward. "Come on, you must have satellite communication."

He shook his head. "All I know is the current status report. Come on in: read it for yourself." They both turned their backs and retreated inside, so we followed.

Inside, the room was small with windows on three sides overlooking the compound, the entrance/exit, and the street. Smelled like the windows had never been opened. Trucks continued to leave and return outside while a third officer manned the gate, checking credentials and raising and lowering the bar. The bald one stood aside and pointed at the control panel.

"Be my guest," he said.

Baines took a seat and I watched over his shoulder as he ran through all the communication channels; getting the same results as the Grounder. When he tried to access the satellite system, a large, circular and very red standby symbol appeared on the screen. The officer then leaned over and opened up that morning's communiqué.

_'_ Due to increased solar activity extraneous communications systems are temporarily offline.'

"That shouldn't be possible," said Baines.

"It's there in black and white."

Baines looked at me. "It's extremely coincidental or unlucky for every communications avenue to be down."

"What do you think?"

"It has to be the dome. Somehow, for some reason, it's blocking communications."

"Couldn't the external transceivers be damaged, frazzled?"

"In theory, but the Grounder's comms should still get through."

***

It's this thought that I kept returning to. The comms should still get through.

_We left the officers and went to find Franghorn or someone else with authority. We crossed the compound towards the highrise attached to it, its façade dizzyingly imposing. As the base of military and lawful operations, the first two-dozen floors are given over to Operations, with the next few floors housing every service you could possibly want, from gymnasiums and swimming pools, to bars, cinemas and clothing boutiques. Everything above that is housing. I stayed there once on a previous visit and vowed never again – I'd never felt so exposed. So in danger. An outsider._ A civilian _. I could barely breathe lest I sneezed._

Like anywhere else in Neon, my authority barely registered. Everything was a courtesy; an open handshake and a hand to the chest, cards hidden.

We entered through the imposition of blast-proof concrete and bulletproof glass doors, into polished white floors and walls; lobby sterile with back-to-back waiting chairs and a long reception desk topped with floating holographic displays. Stern faces with straight mouths answered the public's questions while flicking through readouts. Perhaps a missing person's report. Or someone reporting a theft. The lobby thronged with visitors and even more in uniform; the bells of elevator doors ringing endorsements of Man's last grasp on a normal life.

It struck me once more how 'normal' was redefined in this place.

This was home.

Neon was right at home on this planet.

Back at New Seren, and indeed in the other cities, we may mock Neon's self-imposed ostracision, and their close-guarded society, yet when it comes down to it they have done more in nine Earth-years to make it feel like Earth than anyone. While most of us have terraformed outwards, they have first looked inwards.

We went up to the desk wearing our New Seren tunics and an officer there eyed them, then us, with a slight nod of the head. After some back and forth, he told us to wait and someone would be along. Ten minutes later and a secretary in a military jacket took us silently through a maze of corridors, her bootheels clacking a rhythmic beat, until we came to an elevator marked 'Military Personnel Only'. And up we went.

On the sixth floor we disembarked into a large, open area with cubicles, lined by glass-walled offices with an opacity function. Many of the glass walls were foggy; their inhabitants just shadows. Other inhabitants sat at desks, okay with exposure. A hundred cubicle voices escaped into the atmosphere like bullet chambers, landing incoherently. We weaved between them, all eyes on our 'foreign' attire. Their mouths continued to jabber.

She knocked on the door to an office at the end of the room and then opened it. Beyond, a window overlooked the compound and with his back to us, Franghorn stood, looking out. A vent whirred gently in the corner of the room, sucking out air and scent. It felt cold, suddenly. Nothing but his dull reflection in the grey, metal-composite desk. Not for the first time I wondered about the forges at work, somewhere in this city, to churn out so many assets. And the resources needed.

"Edmonds," he said, turning around.

"Franghorn."

He nodded towards Baines. "Sorry, I didn't catch your name."

"It's Baines, sir. Second Lieutenant."

"Ah," he smiled. "Well, welcome, once more. How are you settling in? I hear you wanted to speak to me? Please, sit down."

We ignored his offer and cut out the pleasantries. I didn't really want to be in the same room as him. "We're both leaving. Tonight. But we need to get word to New Seren that we're coming to get reassurances of a rescue attempt in the event of a failure."

Franghorn looked around; perhaps searching for a drink. Evidently this wasn't his office. Or anyone's office. He cleared his throat. "Okay. I hear that the communications systems are currently down, but as soon as they're fixed we'll let you know."

"What's wrong with them?" asked Baines. "Perhaps I can help."

"They've got it all under control."

"How long will it be?"

"The latest report estimated between five and twenty-four hours. Not most reassuring, I know." He paused but breathed in to speak again. Instead he walked around the table, now standing barely a metre away. "If you are so intent on leaving, perhaps you should leave now? Try to contact New Seren when you're out there? The closer you are, the more likely you can reach them? Forgive me, I don't understand these things too well."

He understood plenty.

"The Grounder's comms should work fine. Is the dome blocking them somehow?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Must be the solar activity." He turned back for the window. "Once you leave though, that's it. No coming back. We're locking the city. The catastrophic event is imminent; activity has increased nine-hundred-percent and temperatures have risen. Even if you leave tonight you might not return safely, I'm sorry to say." He placed a palm on the window and looked up. No idea at what. Or why. He couldn't see the sky from there.

"It's beautiful here," he said. "You would come to love Neon. You would embrace it, just as it has embraced the planet."

"Yeah, well," said Baines. "We have loved ones. People we need to return to. Who need us."

"Then why all the procrastination?
Home

Jax, as he had done every time he visited, placed a hand on the near-zero-degree Celsius surface of The Oasis. He wasn't without respect; this gesture simultaneously revisited the awe he felt when he first came across it, vast and imposing in the sweeping rays of sun cutting through the cavern ceiling and bouncing off surfaces, globes of light on rocky surfaces where darkness should have reigned: and paid respect to the dead.

"I've never seen it at night," said Lani.

Scarlett heaved on an airlock door, controlling its descent to the ground as it made a ramp. "I'd be scared if we hadn't come here a hundred times already. After you," she waived Jax inside.

He looked around first; probably his final chance to do so before it was turned to dust. The Oasis sat in a crater of its own creation, having landed up on the cliff and fallen through. It didn't quite sit straight and navigating the rooms inside took some getting used to. He'd lost eggs to the roll of the table before now. Some of the cliff had fallen in on top of it; its snub-nosed cockpit smothered in rocks and dust and debris that no gusts of wind had yet shaken. It had also fallen in sideways somehow, so even from a flyover it would have been missed.

The Oasis. Over a hundred years old and thought destroyed. The hull had lost its lustre, if it had any to begin with, and on what would have been its belly if it wasn't standing on end instead of spearing through space, were painted palm trees, and a beach, and a lapping ocean. Sometimes Jax lay with his ear to the ground and stared at the palm fronds unmoving, and watched them move; saw the waters break and white foam creep upon the yellow sand. Imagined conquering the waves on a dull-grey, snub-nosed surfboard.

Home no more, he thought.

"God, never mind," Scarlett huffed as she stepped inside, the light sensor picking her up. Lani followed, and Jax followed her.

Inside the lower level it was nothing more than a cargo hold housing everything from spare clothing and electronics to ration packs. Reinforced boxes were stacked against the walls where once they had been attached, but long taken down and inventoried. A pad with a neatly written list hung from the far wall: Jax's work. _What a waste of time_. He scanned the items and grieved for the ones he'd have to leave behind. The synthetic concrete that would have formed a wall. The corrugated sheets of steel that would have made great tiling for a roof. Emergency solar panels that would have provided him with electricity – and the cables that would have knit his home together.

The girls forged on up, climbing a series of ladders that Jax had connected to reach the nose; since the 'floors' had become walls, he'd rearranged the contents in every section so tables and chairs and apparatus sat correctly. A series of climbing ropes connected to links he'd embedded in the bedrock kept The Oasis from toppling over. He'd considered devising a system to push it over, but he liked the mural on the underside too much for that.

On the next 'level' he'd laid out the first chamber to act as a relaxation room. Here, he could cook on a solar stove and lounge while reading. The girls, when they visited too, played games and read and knew to leave him alone by default, letting him engage them when he wanted, and not the other way around. He'd destroyed sections of wall to create doorways to adjacent rooms; areas that could later become bedrooms with en suite bathrooms. _All that planning, now defunct_.

"Get whatever you came for and wait for me here," he said.

"Where you going?" they said in unison. "Your _private_ area?" They giggled. They had no idea.

Jax climbed to the next level, and the level after that, feeling a tightness develop in his arms as he held his weight on the rungs. When he reached the top, the tightness quickly dissipated. The bridge sat above, a further climb, but it was the locked room across the way that interested him. He hauled the makeshift stairway over to the lopsided door and ascended. A neon light on a sensor activated and it shone from where he'd positioned it above him. He unlocked the door and it withdrew into the wall.

The lab beyond lit up, starched white; glass cupboards and clean, white tabletops across the far end with an array of affixed equipment held down, should the ship ever topple despite his efforts. Thanks to his rewiring and makeshift solar generator, the lab had a constant supply of electricity to keep his experiments running. Lights blinked green and red on monitors and digital readouts kept temperatures steady – there was something quaint about digital that he liked, being able to touch the changing numbers, unlike holo-readouts. He stepped down to the other side and crossed towards a glass chamber draped with a sheet. It rested on the counter, as innocuous as the rest of the machines and vials and sample-filled petri-dishes. He lifted the sheet. The artificial amniotic fluid within turned blue in the light, giving the skin of the unborn inside a purple hue. 
Journal of Lance Corporal Edmonds

4th March (ext), 2234...

Okay. Where do I even begin? It's been two days since my last entry and so much has happened. I even spent yesterday in bed, unable to sleep, unable to wake; unable to eat, drink or write. I don't feel like writing this but I need to, before I forget. Before anything happens to me. I don't know if I'm safe – I've been lead to think I am but I wouldn't trust Franghorn to piss on his children if they were on fire.

All my fears for this place came true. Neon are even more self-serving than anyone ever imagined – and I feel so powerless. Franghorn should die for what he did. His second-in-charge – the lieutenants that do his bidding. What they've done... it's hard to comprehend. This place is evil. They all need to die. Dear diary, you may be my only sanctuary – the only place I can reveal my true thoughts if I want to continue living. And dear Jerry... I hope someday to see your face again. It's the last vestige of hope I have – clinging to superstition – but it's all I have in the world.

I'm thankful that at least I got to speak to you one last time.

***

Baines and I took the Grounder two nights ago. The temperature had dropped to 10-degrees Celsius and while there was still solar flare activity, its effects were restricted to the bright side of the planet – for now. The barren, scorched ground was a pale red in the Grounder's headlights, and dust kicked up around us. Neon had not manicured the grounds around the entrance to any great length; where they had and where trees and plants once grew, only ash and blackened bones remained.

I piloted the Grounder while Baines tinkered with the radio. I felt every bump through the vibrations of the pedal and moved up the gears, reaching top speed as quickly as I could. Radio static blasted the cockpit – we'd left the volume on maximum – and my heart leaped. Baines shouted a curse and then dialled the volume down and searched for the correct frequency.

It was going to be okay, I kept telling myself. I watched the rearview camera as Neon's lights and dome diminished, becoming both smaller and fainter. At some point it just stayed there, seemingly the same shape and size as the second before, and the second before that.

I focused on the forward view while Baines cycled through the frequencies: "G17 to NS-Ops, are you reading? This is G17 to NS-Ops, can you hear me?" His voice sounded cracked and a little gruff, as did mine – the low humidity of Neon's air had caused our throats to become dry and scratchy, and out here, a deep breath could be laborious. "G17 to NS-Ops, New Seren, will you fucking answer?"

We rumbled on into the night.

Our growing desperation began to trickle down our brows and necks. We knew the city would be there – where could it have gone? – and yet dread wormed in. I had visions of rolling up to New Seren in a couple of hours from now only to find the skeletal frame bent and smashed and perched over the smoking ruins of the city like an ineffectual mouse-trap. Stalactites of metal frozen mid-drip and hanging, tips still burning orange. The smell of our flesh from the other day returned to memory, and I could taste the burning bodies on my tongue.

"Nothing," said Baines. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Have you tried direct SatLink?"

"No, I haven't tried the foremost method of communication used on this planet."

"I mean, other than Ops? A private number?"

"Do you have one?"

My heart hammered. I both did and did not want to give it. "Try Jerry: 212-002." I turned to Baines and watched him nod as he switched the comm back to SatLink and punched in the number. "Turn it up."

The ring tone repeated and repeated over the speaker. After a while I noticed a pain in my foot and eased off on the pressure I was applying to the pedal. Pressing harder wouldn't make it go faster.

"Hello?" There it was. I couldn't speak – my breath had left me and I felt a sting behind my eyes. Baines said "Hi" for me.

"This is G17," he said. "Is this Jerry?"

"It is. Is Edward with you?"

"I'm here. We're coming home." My face ached from smiling ear to ear, stretching the sunburn on my cheeks and brow. I didn't care. I couldn't stop smiling if I tried. It was so good to hear his voice.

"No, you can't. You can't come back."

That stopped my smile.

"Listen to me, Edward – if you come back you'll die."

Baines and I looked at each other, shocked to silence. In the end he nodded at me, urging me to speak.

"I don't like what you're saying, Jerry. What is it? What's happened?"

We heard him breathing; taking stock. Sniffling, as though holding back tears. "I didn't think I'd hear from you. I felt for sure you'd be dead by now. Are you okay, Edward?"

"A little sunburn but apart from that –" I was going to say 'I'll live' but in the light of recent revelations I didn't.

"Yes, apart from that," said Jerry, snorting a short laugh.

"What's going on, Jerry? We're almost a quarter the way home."

"We've been sabotaged. Not just us, but Bergot and Remington too. We ran some diagnostics four, five hours ago on the shielding and discovered the power cells had been discharged. We're – at best – a day away from critical solar activity, and it's not enough time to recharge the power cells. The shielding needs an exorbitant amount of energy and we're running flat."

"And Neon?" said Baines. He leaned over the communications console as though his words relied on this to carry.

Jerry's voice sounded clipped. Anger simmering. "We've not heard from them. Put two-and-two together and what do you get?"

"Their comms are down," I said. "We couldn't reach New Seren from inside."

"But we were being blocked," added Baines. "Those bastards."

A moment of silence between us filled with the faces of the doomed cities; open mouths with tongues of fire and blazing eye-sockets, tears of flame. The domes disintegrating and towers turning to dust. A million screams cut-off in a flash of instant light.

My foot eased off the gas.

"There has to be something you can do?" It sounded more like a plea to the gods than a serious question.

"We're working on it, but even if we rerouted every available power source it wouldn't be enough. It's the same for Remington, and Bergot are already out of power; they're running on ancient battery sources. Our scientists are all working and communicating together, but the diagnosis isn't great."

"Why would they do this?"

Baines stood and paced up and down the cockpit. "They want the planet for themselves," he mumbled.

"Are you evacuating?"

"Evacuating?" asked Jerry.

"To the smaller domes. Have you heard from them?"

As Jerry spoke, I'd never wanted to be by his side so much. "They're okay – at least the ones we've spoken to. They're small fry compared to the cities – Neon probably isn't too worried about them. They're at optimum occupancy though – we've been doing a lot of shuffling to ensure that all the domes have the engineers, cooks, medics and doctors they need to survive in isolation after the event. There's no room for more of us."

"They can make room, damnit!" I shouted.

"Edward; they can't make room for all of us." His voice came at me from all sides of the cockpit. It was such a strange place to be discussing the end of our worlds.

"Then you! You have to get out! Make it to Alpha One and we'll meet you there."

I could visualise him shaking his head. "Sorry, Ed – it doesn't work like that. Alpha One are taking in the hierarchy right now – twenty or so women and children and Head Doctor Jameson as the leading geneticist in New Seren. Those who can and should go ARE going. Us runts have got to cross our fingers and hope for the best. Turn around. Go back to Neon. Either live or make them pay for what they've done."

If Baines hadn't been with me I'd have just kept my foot flat to the pedal all the way back to New Seren and prayed to reach it in time. I couldn't ask that of him though, and he knew it. He sat down in the co-pilot seat and depressed the microphone so Jerry couldn't hear us.

"You want to go on?"

I shook my head, eyes wet. "No, no."

"I don't care. If you want to be with Jerry."

"No, I want them to pay for what they've done – and it's not over yet. They might find a solution." I reconnected the microphone. "Jerry...?"

"Yeah, Ed."

"You do everything you can, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"God damnit, you two," said Baines. "We're not turning back. Living a death in Neon ain't living at all. You should be together, whatever happens. Don't worry about me."

"You turn back now, you hear me, Baines? You hear me, Edward?" Jerry's voice was loud and cracked over the speaker.

"We hear ya, Jerry."

"Not on my watch," said Baines, reaching for the control override.

Quickly, I covered the control with my hand. "You're outvoted, Baines. Two to one."

"This is bullshit. You want to go and I want to go; you're damn right it's two to one."

In silence, I veered left, bumping over unflattened ground and turning us around. "We'll make them pay, Jerry. We'll make those Neon bastards pay for what they've done."

"I know you will. I wish I could join ya. We considered recommissioning the military tanks and heading south with a few rocket launchers, if they still work. But we were outvoted on the council. There's how many in Neon? And they're not all responsible, just a handful at the top. Unlike them, we couldn't justify wiping out an entire population."

The holo-map reoriented to my left-hand side to indicate we were heading back to Neon.

Jerry continued; "To have come so far; I thought we'd left all this selfishness behind..."

Baines slumped forward, head in hands, and I put a hand on his shoulder. "You should just listen to me," he whispered.

"If you were that serious you'd have swung a club at me and knocked me out, but you want to go back. I know that, too," I said quietly. "Someone has to pay."

We rode in silence for a while, nothing but the rumble of the tires tearing up dust. Then Jerry said "I love you." They were soft words, but they moulded an anger inside me. I repeated the words and saying them out loud, inside the closed space of the cockpit, failed to do justice to the sentiment. Were inadequate. Did nothing to portray how I really felt. Neon had taken those words from me and destroyed what we had. Franghorn; his deputies and whoever else who knew what they were up to.

"Do you know how they managed it?" asked Baines.

"Undercover operative, most likely, jury-rigging a series of earths that could be remotely activated. After the latest report of solar activity showing how imminent disaster was – which was shared between all the settlements – the power failures began. It was chaos in Ops – there was nothing we could do."

Baines punched a support strut with the side of his fist. "It had to have been recent otherwise it would've been picked up. I bet whoever did it made their escape under the guise of compassionate extradition. Have you checked emigration rosters?"

"No time," said Jerry. "And what would be the point? Whoever it was was under orders, and long gone."

"And they probably used a false name," I added. "I don't suppose the latest readings have changed the anticipated destruction?"

"No." That was short and devastating from Jerry – I waited for a conjunction but none came. He always had something more to say. Always. This was the worst of all.

"Don't lose hope," I told him.

"You have to be real," he said. "But your optimism is one of the things I love you for. Never change."

"I'm not sure that's something I can promise, all things considered."

We continued our journey back and Jerry and I reminisced the good times while Baines checked readouts and chambered bullets in guns. It felt so wrong; going in the opposite direction to the voice that I had pinned my entire future on – one that existed only in the past now. I drove on through tears and dust.
CME

Jax stared at his child; placed his hand on the slightly warm glass. Suspended, she looked peaceful curled up in the stereotypical foetus pose, skin smooth. At first he'd felt no patriarchal connection – had actively fought against it as each time he returned her face became more developed. He hadn't considered the effect of seeing features slowly come to the fore, rendering a personality to be, a face to love. How in the simplicity of a jutting nose and filling lips you could see everything that person might be, potential manifest.

When the first solar warning signs appeared his immediate thought had been about the experiment, and not about the demise of his future home. Which surprised him. Caught him in the gut until he felt about to keel over and puke.

And then he thought about rescuing her and all anxiety and nauseousness disappeared.

Right up until a minute ago he still hadn't been sure about the rescue, but seeing her changed all that. Changed everything.

He'd need the twins' help if he was to get her out safely.

He retreated back a room and stood in the doorway shouting the girls' names.

"What is it?" one of them called back.

"I need your help!" He panted; his body could withstand the atmosphere better than most but genetic alteration had done nothing to combat nerves. His heart pounded as he heard them climb up through the ship, giggling.

"What is it?" said Lani, pulling herself up.

"I'll show you both at the same time." He waited for Scarlett and then continued. "For the next however long it takes I need you to be focused, and calm, and just do as I say. You'll have questions and I'll answer them but first we have to complete a task. A _very_ delicate task."

"Told you," said Scarlett. "He's been building an army of robot slaves in there."

"Sex slaves."

"Quiet!" he shouted, "and listen to me. We don't have much time."

"Geez, Captain Dickwad, much," said Lani.

Jax felt bad for shouting, but he could apologise later. "Follow me." He stepped up into the lab and went down the other side, and they followed.

He scanned the room for what he would need while listening to the girls' exclamations of wonder. He heard the uplilting assonance of their sentences, no doubt questions he would have to answer soon. He'd left the child covered, for a great reveal, he told himself. The great magician. The magnificent Moreau! The truth was he was afraid of their reaction and wanted to have at least some control over the situation.

He wheeled a trolley across the lab to the table with the artificial womb, and turned to Scarlett and Lani. This was it, they could feel it; he could see their curiosity burning in their eyes.

"I told you I was running experiments in here. I even told you that some people might not approve. _You_ might not approve. Well, this was one – now before you get bent out of shape, if I'd have known how things would have developed, I wouldn't have done it. It was stupid. I was an idiot to think of myself as some God. Solar fucktivity be damned!" He lifted the sheet and the girls gasped.

"And now it's gone this far I can't just leave her here to get vaporised, so will you help me?"

They each shook their heads in sync; Jax fleetingly thought how creepy this was and mentally noted it as yet another twin phenomena, and then they spoke.

"We joked..."

"... but we never really thought..."

"... that you would actually grow a live person..."

"... in here."

"Are you crazy?"

"What were you going to do?"

"Keep her here?"

"Move here and raise her?"

"I don't know, I don't know," said Jax. He'd acted on impulse, as he was prone to do, just a few months prior, and kind of just let the experiment run, expecting it to fail at some point and when at first it didn't, he'd actively tried to keep it running.

"Who are the parents?" asked Lani, face suddenly looking very grown up.

The one question he didn't want to answer. "I don't know... some cryo-frozen specimens I found." He pulled the trolley in close. "Help me. We're going to need to safely get her to the bottom of the ship and from there, we can use one of the motorised trolleys all the way back to Arcadia."

"She's too heavy, surely?" said Lani.

"She's not!" he sounded desperate now, and took a deep breath. "We just need something to lower her and the equipment down in. I can take the weight at the top, and you can take the weight at the bottom. Pass the parcel, just like when we were kids."

"We are kids..."

"... some of us."

"Will you help me or not?" He looked from one twin to the next; their blue eyes flicking from him to the burgeoning embryo that would share those eyes. Scarlett stepped up and seemed impossibly large suddenly, as she placed her hand on the glass. Lani joined her, and in unison they shared a glance and said "We can't just let her die."

"She's beautiful," added Lani.

"Then we're agreed."

They each punched him on an arm. "You know this makes you look like some kind of mad scientist right?"

"I am what they made me." He was getting impatient now and he had no time to ponder this statement, though it would percolate there at the back of his mind for when he did have time.

The ship shook.

The wall-that-was-a-floor trembled and knocked them over. "Not now, not now," moaned Jax.

A roar loud enough to be heard within the closed confines and thick hull of the ship blasted them. "What was that?" It could have been either of the twins speaking; Jax was too shaken to concentrate.

He jumped to his feet and ran towards the exit. In the adjacent room he climbed up into the cockpit, pulling up on rungs designed to be used in zero gravity. When he reached the forward chair he slumped back into it, facing the sky. Darkness reigned beyond the view screen. He powered up the dashboard and waited for the boot sequence to light the controls. It was a blend of analogue switches and buttons that were mostly manual overrides of digital inputs; he liked to imagine it a graveyard, each switch a tombstone. Luckily they did not all mark the dead. He flicked the manual virtual control switch and pulled down a headset from the compartment 'above' his head. Once it was on his head he depressed a button in the side and he viewed the outside of the ship.

Nothing.

He switched on the outside lights.

Slightly more than nothing. A swirling dervish of brown dirt roiled, thick; too thick for light to penetrate.

His heart hammered but his hands remained still as he brushed them before the headset, pulling and pushing at virtual controls.

Either Lani or Scarlett called up to him but he ignored them.

He commanded the terrain scan to activate. His vision switched from camera to heat-vision as electromagnetic waves painted a pattern of destruction around him. He turned his head left and right as yellow, orange and red rock formations burned into his retina, made him wince, but he could not look away. He manoeuvred the scan towards the cave formations and the only exit, and where there should have been only the darkness of open air, there was the fiery crimson of recently dislodged rock.

"Not now," he repeated, wanting to scream, wanting to swear his voice hoarse, but he knew it would do no good.

_Think_.

What caused it?

He ripped the headset from his head and it fell down, hitting the 'floor' with a clang.

"Jax?" shouted Lani. "Come on, what's happening? You're scaring us!"

"I need to think!" he shouted back. Lying down like this was not good for the brain. He felt the heat of all that blood rushing to it in his face. He had to check one more thing first.

He dialled up the atmospheric hologrammetry. Twin projectors at the end of each armrest painted an image of the sky in his lap; of an ionosphere luminescent with lightning and charged plasma particles from the latest coronal mass ejection. Purples and greens pulsed; a billion paintbrushes of electromagnetic radiation dying an aurora of the planet's shroud. Jax half-wished he was standing on the cliff above to witness it firsthand, but then noticed the temperature: 61-degrees-Celsius.

It's here.

And we're trapped.

He rubbed his fingers together, a nervous tick, and felt his palms become increasingly clammy. He made a mental note to grip the ladder rungs tight. His fingers combed through waves of hologrammetic violet sky, without effect. He laughed; if ever there was a more fitting analogy of Man's impotence to Nature, he was yet to see it. The laugh startled him, and he pondered if that would be his final laugh. His goodbye song.

How much time do we have?

He instructed the ship scanners to penetrate beyond the atmosphere, as he had done many times before now, watching for _Junkyard Sally_ or _Pretorius_ to come strolling by the viewfinder: just two of many derelict satellites or ships they'd left in orbit.

Immediately, across the hologram, in red, and flashing, was the word _WARNING!_

An analysis of that warning sign indicated that a catastrophic CME had been ejected; a strength beyond the X classification which was probably what had just hit them. He envisaged the discharged plasma on its collision course of destruction. The stupid thing was it would miss them if only they could stop this planet from moving inexorably onwards.

No more close-calls. Time's up.

He opened up one more screen. 'Impact in 44 minutes, 32 seconds.' That 32 became 31, became 30, became 21 before he finally closed it. He could forget getting back to Arcadia; forget the experiment and the twins: he had just one goal. Survive.

The twins are here because of you. You knew you'd need their help.

His conscience battered the paperweight of his mind, as thin as it was. The desert hadn't hardened him at all.

He pulled himself out of the seat and descended monkey-like to the room below where Lani and Scarlett sat huddled on the steps, holding each other. They didn't jump when they saw him. Instead they searched his face for answers, and they found all they needed, it seemed, to start crying.

He knelt before them, placing his hands on their knees. "We have forty-three minutes, and right now, I really do need your help."
Journal of Lance Corporal Edmonds

4th March (ext), 2234... cont...

The ground shook and the SatLink went dead at exactly the same time. For the briefest of moments it was daytime and then the world went blind. I had to blink my way back to existence and I found my hand independently trying to reconnect the link. Jerry's voice had dropped out mid-sentence. It only took seconds to realise I would never hear his voice again, and yet my hand kept trying until Baines placed his hand on mine.

I eased off the gas, staring out at the patterns in the clear, dark-blue sky, slithering purple and blue and green like snakes above the approaching dome. The temperature warning gauge flashed red which meant it must be hot as hell out there. The air-con churned within.

"Was that it?" I asked.

"A little taste of what's to come. A category X perhaps. Probably knocked the satellite out."

I looked across at him; he'd grabbed a rifle and was busy loading its clip with .45s.

"Rifle or grenade launcher?" he asked, deadpan.

"Grenade launcher sounds tasty. Why not both?"

"Oh, I'm taking both."

Above, the sky continued to ripple rainbows; it had a texture and a volume like never before, not merely a multi-layered atmosphere giving life and protecting the planet, but something with a surface that could be defaced, poked, torn apart. I recalled something Jerry had said: "When the radiation and plasma hits the atmosphere will do its upmost to protect us, as it does on a day-to-day basis. Just that sometimes, that's not enough."

I hoped he could see what I could see, for he would have found it beautiful.

"Do those things even work?" I asked.

"Last I tried."

"And when was that?"

"Last month, down the firing range."

"The firing range?"

"Where else?"

"I can't even remember the last time I fired a gun."

Baines laid a rifle in my lap and a full clip on top of that. "I can't recall zero-G but I could still shit in a pan if I had to."

"Nice." The weight of it on my legs felt good. Too good. Just stay seated, it said. "So what's the plan?"

"You tell me, boss."

"I guess we knock, politely, and ask to be let back in."

Baines leaned in towards a co-pilot monitor and then forward, looking out the window. "I don't think that's an option – evasive manoeuvres!"

_I followed his gaze and saw a streak of yellow flame splitting the sky in two, getting larger, and falling; heading straight for us. I punched left and was thrown right, straight into Baines, whose seatbeat_ clicked _into place just in time. He pushed me back while grabbing the wheel._

"Belt!"

After securing myself in I retook the wheel, just as the rocket landed where we had been. The explosion hit us sideways but the Grounder forged on.

"That was a warning," said Baines.

"Fuck them." I began zigging left and right, aiming for inconsistency. We bounced over terrain that had not been flattened by years of trucking. From the top of the dome, now visibly growing as we got nearer, four more streaks of flame shot out. Like fireworks on Landing Day. I directed the Grounder to the right, turning tightly in a pattern they could not have predicted. I watched them cascade to my left – couldn't keep my eyes off them.

"You make sure they miss," said Baines, quietly.

"I'll do my best." The fact the first one missed filled me with hope – that they weren't laser guided and may not have been just a warning shot.

Down they came.

As I watched them, I realised I'd never really stared death in the face before – not properly. It was agony; they took forever and I ended up wishing they would hurry up and land already and finish it one way or another. Just too much time to think.

Of course I'm writing this, so they missed – not by much though. The Grounder flew into the air from the quadruple blasts around us and we almost tipped over. Gravity pushed Baines and I to the right, the seatbelts cutting into our neck and shoulder, and then we slammed back into the ground. The roar of the explosion palpable in our bones. Rocks and stones clattered the hull and pinged from the reinforced windscreen, and beyond swirled a dustbowl of embers, smoke and dirt.

"Ram the bastards," said Baines. "They haven't got time to fire another volley. Ram the entrance."

I said nothing. I just steered into the cloud until the night and Neon reappeared, and then hit the gas, hard. The glacial entrance looked inviting, clear as glass on a sunny day, the tunnel beyond cutting through the Agridome to the inner sanctum.

"Open the hatch." Baines unbuckled his belt and stood, grabbing the grenade launcher from the side console.

I opened the hatch and hot air blasted inside. It was crazy hot out there. I could only imagine how it was on the sunny side of town. Baines volleyed his own expletives as he pressed his head up through the hatch to the outside, pulling the grenade launcher out.

We couldn't have been more than four hundred metres out when the entrance began to lift open.

"Be ready for a welcoming party!" I shouted. "They're opening up!"

"I see!"

"Damage control!"

"I bet! Too late for that now!"

I turned my head and caught Baines ducking back inside, more expletives forthcoming, this time complaining about the heat.

"It's the end times, man."

Ahead, the entrance opened to its full height, gaping like a mouth. Lights glowered red so it looked like either it had its tongue out or they'd laid out the red carpet for us. I doubt the latter. It felt like we were being eaten as I steered us inside. Baines said something about smashing out a side window, and held his rifle close.

In the rearview camera I watched as the entrance closed.

Beyond the clear tunnel – akin to a polytunnel cutting through the Agridome, acting like a decontamination chamber – tall redwoods climbed the sky, hanging with veins. These always caught me off-guard – for a city run so optimally, they seemed self-indulgent. Beautiful, all the same, and I suddenly wished Jerry was here to see them. I don't think he'd ever visited Neon. Oh, the entrance is closed, I suddenly noticed, and the lights dimming, and the air hissing, and my eyelids closing.

We passed out around about then. Never did get the chance to fire a weapon – just as well as I'd probably be dead already. Baines, closest to the hatch, fell first; I watched him collapse across the console and slip to the floor, and I knew instantly what was happening, and part of me was okay with that. Let me fall asleep. Peaceful. Painless. No longer a witness.

Then I woke. Head groggy, eyes stinging. A potent smell of lemons in my nostrils. I became conscious of my weight and two others flanking me, holding me under the armpits. I fell into them, trying to stand straight. Then my stomach cramped and the force of it bent me in two, and puke spilled across the grey, cement floor.

"Pull yourself together, Edmonds," said a voice I recognised as Franghorn.

My stomach felt terrible, so I put my fingers down my throat to force the rest out. I may have tried aiming for a pair of feet standing a couple metres away, but I was too weak to fire very far. "Bastard!" I spat out between heaving.

"Stand him up!"

As I wiped puke from my chin two arms hauled me to my feet. My head began to pound. Then I felt a breeze I hadn't noticed before.

We were at the top of the dome, standing on the roof of the ring that hung from the apex of the dome's structure. Reinforced steel struts painted black held the ring in place. Beyond those, through the dome, the night sky continued to dance with plasmic rainbows.

I shrugged off his goons and looked around for Baines. He was nowhere to be seen. It was just us four.

"What have you done with Baines?"

Franghorn looked to the floor, etched a face of genuine-looking regret. "He did not react well, I'm afraid. His body went into convulsions and then he had a heart attack brought on by stress." He met my eyes. "I'm truly sorry for your loss. We had to take precautions, as you know."

"Precautions, my ass. You tried to shoot us off the road."

"For which I am also sorry. It seemed like the easiest option at the time, but now you're here, perhaps you can still be of use."

I spat at his face. It was a good one, too, gobby and wet, and it dripped down his cheek as he wiped it away. He nodded towards a goon and I received a hard smack behind my ear, doubling my vision. Two Franghorns told me this was my final chance. Any more behaviour like that and I could eat lead.

I wanted to tell him I didn't care and that he should just feed me lead right now. I really wanted to. Not enough to override my innate self-preservation though, it seemed. Now my end was potentially so close, I don't know, it's strange and hard to put into words; maybe it was the pain of the blow to my head or my still churning stomach, and my beating chest – tangible reminders of existence – I thought of all that being NO MORE and I almost pissed myself with fear. I just crumbled and started crying. Useless Edward. Edward the Ugly. Edward the Coward. Just let me live, I thought, in this shithole of a place. Perhaps Baines had been my courage.

I admit this, dear diary, for it's the truth and I have never lied to you.

His goons stood me back up and Franghorn stepped up to my face. "You going to behave now?"

I nodded. "Just explain why?" I groaned.

"To save humanity, of course. You think we would have done this out of spite?" Oddly, I appreciated that he didn't feign ignorance of my knowledge.

"Millions are going to die."

"Better than all of us." He turned his back on me to admire the view. He pointed; "New Seren." He pointed in another direction, and then another, saying "Bergot" and "Remington." Then he faced me again. "Too many people for this planet's resources to sustain after the solar catastrophe. In order to save humanity, sacrifices had to be made. Our scientists calculated how long the frozen underground lakes would sustain us, how long the molten gases could be mined, before we all starved. They concluded we would never survive long enough to break free of the nuclear aftermath, the radiation storms and showers that would eventually dissipate and give us back our planet. So we started planning. Reinforced and shielded pipes are spread deep underground throughout this region – they've already begun siphoning off shared resources. We've developed technology – which we will share with the few remaining subsidiary domes – to engage with the ionic storms in the aftermath and utilise the radiation charge in the atmosphere to develop a new source of power."

He stepped up close to me again, smiling widely. "We will survive!"

"At what cost?" I said weakly.

"Irrelevant."

I fell to my knees. "Why are you telling me this? Why am I not dead?" I looked up and I knew; from the heat of the surface on my knees, to my uptilted chin – I knew.

"You could still have value."

I nodded. "Baines didn't die of a heart attack, did he?"

He laughed. His chest puffed up larger when he did, giving breadth to his shoulders beneath his military tunic. "I like soldiers – anyone in service really where rank and rule apply: they abide." He glanced at the goons and gestured at them to move away, then he lowered to his haunches. "Not all of them, of course. Baines wasn't the 'Yes, Sir' kind of soldier, was he?"

"He would have had value too."

"The next few generations are going to be very, very important if we are going to get through this as a species, together, making sacrifices. We have to be very careful about the type of people inside Neon – you understand? We all have to be pulling in the same direction." He put a hand on my shoulder. "Now, Edward. Listen carefully. Your journal – I read a few pages. Jerry –"

I flinched, and Franghorn squeezed.

"Jerry sounds like a very nice man. However, when it comes to rebuilding Neon there's no place here for homosexuality, from a purely biological imperative standpoint. When the radiation subsides and the natural resources become more amenable to mining again – stage two – again, everyone will need to be pulling in the same direction."

"What are you saying?" I said, just wanting this to be over with.

"Your skills we could do with; down on the lower levels we're short on manpower, particularly in the security area. Some districts remain under military guard but that is not optimum. Someone with your experience would be very helpful. What would not be helpful, though, are your genes."

"Genes? Being gay isn't a gene."

"There are a very specific set of circumstances within the DNA make up – so I'm told – that heighten the likelihood of homosexuality. Like I said, from a purely biological standpoint, we don't want these genes in the pool – at least right now."

"Well that's hardly a problem, is it?"

Franghorn stood, towering over me again. "Good, good; so we see eye to eye."

I shook my head, incredulous. I couldn't quite believe the conversation I was having. And then... "I know gay people in this city, and I've seen beggars, and the jailhouses full of criminals. Are they all 'pulling in the same direction'?"

He said nothing; his look said it all.

"My god, how many have you killed? Of your own people?"

"Not only was it necessary from a mathematics point of view, but also as a species. Why not move forward with only the best that we can offer? Sure, in the future, generations from now, we'll be back where we were, mutations galore – what a colourful species we will be once more! Until then... sacrifices have to be made."

I was spent.

I couldn't hear any more.

The numbers – they were too many to comprehend. I couldn't get a fix in my mind – still can't. All I knew is I didn't want to be one of them.

It was then the sky cracked; the sun's yolk bursting through, from fire into fire. We all looked out at the vista; from night to day in a blink of an eye – oh it was so beautiful, really, a little like when we came in to land all those years ago. I think this was the highest I'd been since then. The planet we'd come to call home hadn't changed all that much over the years – a little green and blue here and there, all gone by this point of course. We could see for miles across open, rocky desert. One second there and the next not. 'Not' as in literally. The shielding kicked in and the plasma hit, hot white, against it, and then it swirled like a close up of the sun itself, as though we were inside the sun, looking out. It lasted for thirty seconds and when it was gone, only darkness remained.

Franghorn walked past me, tapping me on the shoulder. "You in?" he called back over his shoulder. "Because if you're not, let them end it for you now."

I guess I was in.
Fire

"We're going to die, we're going to die," repeated the twins.

"Can you not lose it right now? Please?" Jax wasn't angry – he wanted to join them on the steps and sympathise, embracing.

Not while there's still a chance.

"What?" asked Scarlett. "What can we do?"

"We're trapped," he said, speaking through their tears. "So priority number one is getting the ship's shielding online." Slowly but surely the inside of the ship had heated up – no doubt the walls would be warm to the touch. The cavern ceiling may have protected them from the worst of the previous flare, he thought. Sweat trickled from his hairline. He wiped it with the back of his hand, about to shake the girls from their grief, then they held hands and stood, wiping tears away.

"What do you need us to do?"

"Okay, I need one of you in the cockpit to relay readings and activate the shielding."

"No problem," said Lani, "but you need to show me what to do."

Jax nodded, and started to climb up. Lani began to follow but Scarlett kept hold of her hand, face pensive. He watched them exchange a look – telepathic thoughts for all he knew – and finally Scarlett let go. She stood, alone and lonely, arms crossed. "Be quick."

He directed Lani to the forward chair and helped her in. After buckling her in – "To be safe," – he prompted the boot sequence and pulled up the holo-gauge for the shielding. "This needs to be green to activate. If you see it go green you immediately flick this switch," he pointed to a toggle switch to their right. "If that fails then the digital override may still be active, in which case I'll need to activate it at source."

"And where will you be?" With her hair hanging back towards the 'floor' and out of her face, Jax noted the nebulae of freckles across her brow and wondered if they'd match Scarlett's.

Then the ground rumbled slightly.

More rock fall.

Her breathing quickened and she closed her eyes until she'd regained composure. While her eyes were closed her took her left hand and moved it towards the comm system in the arm rest.

"We can still talk using this," he said.

"If this has always been here why are we only using it now?"

"I'd never get any peace!" he smiled, then began the climb back down. "You press that button when it goes green and you save our lives." He looked up at the silhouette of the chair, stray hairs dangling from the top.

"Hey," echoed her voice around him. "Testing."

"Working great," he said, and dropped to the floor below. Metal clanged. His shirt felt clammy in the small of his back. Across the room, Scarlett waited just as he'd left her. "Right, let's go."

She followed in silence; each dropping down level by level using his makeshift laddering. He spoke as they descended. "I need you to go right to bottom, to cargo, and find haulage container H23. Which container?"

From above, a quiet voice repeated "H23."

"In there is two, three hundred metres of cabling – I want you to bring that up to me in the engine room."

"To the engine room, got it."

"Good," he jumped down to the floor above cargo. Beyond the end of the room it would be dark, so he drew his torch from his belt, ready.

Scarlett landed beside him. "You'll be down there, right?"

He nodded and opened the hatch to cargo. "H23. It'll be heavy, so roll it out. I only need you to bring me one end."

"One end, okay," she said, climbing down.

He turned, alone again; another bout of incredulity hitting him as he made his way towards the engine room. _Why now?_ He passed the table and chairs he'd eaten dinner at for the past few months while running calculations; his notepad lay scribbled to death where he'd left it – equations exploring the possibility of flight. Tea rings overlapped on the table, and among the pillows on the floor in the corner where the girls played, stray clothing held their scent as he passed. He supposed his scent permeated everywhere else – he just couldn't smell it.

He pushed through the door and turned on the torch. Faint neon lights bloomed where walls met ceiling, but he'd diminished the power allocated to lighting in this area a few months back. It amounted to a long corridor; he had to dodge the ladder rungs at his feet that would have been used to climb up and down had the ship been the right way up. A hatch at the end opened into the engine room.

Here, it would be tricky as he hadn't properly repurposed the layout to make sense of orientation. He entered and walked down the wall, aiming his oval of light left and right, and up, towards the front end of the engine room. He called it the engine room but it didn't house any engines – a series of cylindrical generators attached to both floor and ceiling were arranged above his head. From here, a variety of systems could be accessed and analysed and power distributed to them. It would normally be an automatic function of the ship's controls, but the generators were down and he hadn't fixed them. Instead, he'd set up a series of relays connected to the native storage cells of the ships. Incredibly, they hadn't been drained dry when he first discovered them, diverting their charge to power simple ship functions, like disposal. He could still remember the _whoosh_ and _crack_ of the skeletal remains entering the recycler system – the bones of the previous crew. Eight in total. Cracked skulls for some and broken limbs for others, from what must have been a difficult landing. Two had died down here near the doorway, and every time he entered he could still picture the inert ribcages, remembering how he mistook them for moulded manikins briefly before common sense kicked in.

At the far end – the 'floor' – he put the torch between his teeth and climbed the rope ladder he'd erected to reach the power distribution unit.

"Hello?" called Lani's voice from the comm.

"I'm here," said Scarlett from her position.

"I don't like being left alone up here."

"I'll swap ya," grunted Scarlett, and the comm when quiet.

When Jax reached the console he twisted around and sat where he could find purchase, jaw aching. If he dropped the torch now he wouldn't be happy. Five or six metres below was all darkness. He unbuckled his trouser belt and removed the belt, then rethreaded it and put it around his head, behind his ears. Then he positioned the torch between the top of his skull and the belt and pulled it taught. Good, he thought, it would hold. Torchlight followed the angle of his head.

He dropped back down to the rungs and wrapped the rope around his bicep, pivoting around so he could activate the console display. The only reason it was off was to conserve energy. Its ambient green and orange glow filtered across his face as he scanned the readouts; all but one of the large storage cells was empty, as expected. He dove into the subsystems and began taking all non-essential systems offline; lighting, power sockets in all rooms bar the laboratory, front and rear lighting, air con, doorways. It was about to get very warm. Then he brought up the shielding unit – situated some one-hundred metres above his head with lattice threads weaving from it, woven into the hull system – and allocated remaining power to it.

The power gauge rose, from 0% to 3%, his heart fluttering as it did so. When it stopped – as he knew it would – he still couldn't hide his disappointment. He hit the console, as though it would wrench another drop of charge free. And then depressed a comm button. "Lani – is it green yet?"

"No."

"Okay, hold fire. Scarlett – are you near?"

"Just coming to the engine room."

"I'll aim my torch to where I want you," he said, and climbed down while looking down. He put thoughts of pain and ache from his mind, for there was a lot more to come and this would seem like nothing. Scarlett's footsteps began to echo from the metal walls, and torchlight joined with his beneath him.

He dropped down and looked around.

"You're right, it's heavy," she said. "Is it long enough for whatever you need it for?"

If Jax's calculations were correct, and he'd run through them twice, then the answer was "Just about." It would be tight was the truth. He took the transfer cable and tied it around his waist.

"Looking good," joked Scarlett. "Make sure your pants don't fall down."

"You can go back now. Join Lani and report the time remaining over the comm system, and if you don't see me again, I'm sorry." The background hum of the air conditioning halted as the systems caught up. "It's going to get warm; if you can work the controls, once the shield is activated you can turn the air-co back on."

"What do you mean 'if'?"

"Just 'if'. Now go, every second counts."

"We're no good here without you, so you make sure you're okay," she said, giving him a hug. The words lead his mind to the baby – _What would happen to her should he die?_

"Go," he said, turning away to climb the rope ladder. One foot, then the next, swinging away from the wall where it wasn't pinned down. _Where were the zero-G rungs in here?_ Scarlett's steps retreated until they were gone and he was alone, his thoughts chasing the oval of light before his face. _The baby. The twins. The CME. The shielding. His impending death._

There would be enough time.

He went as fast as he could now, hand over hand and boot over boot, the coarse fibres of the ladder grazing fresh blisters in the meat of his fingers.

He passed the control console and considered activating the emergency beacon – perhaps even trying the external comm system. _How long would that take? How much power would it take?_

Too long and too much, in all likelihood. The growing heat pressed in on him, and his head returned in kind with a dull, rising headache. He rarely ever got headaches – the physical and mental strain must be paying its toll. If he got through this it would be interesting to assess his bodily and psychological reaction to the stress – _I guess getting through it would be strong evidence for continued genetic engineering measures._

The cable around his waist hit the 'wall' then swung away, hit and swung away.

He considered for a moment how fortunate it was that he'd installed the ladder, starting at the bottom and unrolling the rope as he ascended, firing the steel staples into the metal every metre, and then he was at the active power cells. The storage cells inside were now powering the shielding lattice, but more juice would be needed. He unhooked a socket cover and then, very carefully, untied the cable from his waist. He inserted it and then flipped a clip to hold it in place. Finally, he switched to manual override and he was set – just the small matter of connecting the other end.

"I'm with Lani again," Scarlett said over the comm. Jax startled. There really should have been a warning _beep_ of the comm being open.

"Good, strap in and hope for the best." The static of the open line ceased and he was alone again.

Going down was a lot easier than going up as he could skip entire lengths, gripping tightly. At the bottom he pulled the belt and torch from his head and immediately felt a relaxing of the stress pressing down on him. He then picked up the trailing cable and fed it through his hands as he walked to the exit. He pulled on it, making it as taught as possible; it would trail around the contours of machinery above his head but he needed every inch he could get. At the hatch he looped it around a hook to fasten it in place, and then walked on, continuing to feed it through his hands. The light bounced around and he kicked stray items that scuttled across the floor to the edge. Jogging now, he was quickly at the exit and in the adjoining room, and then dropping down from there into the cargo hold. The cable led to the box in which it was coiled, so he toppled it over to find the other end. He then unclipped the box next to it and pulled at the end of the transfer cable inside there.

Two cables. It's all we have and hopefully all we need.

He connected the two cables and then placed them next to each other on the floor, hauling them from the boxes in sections – everything at once was too heavy. Then he looked across to the rad suits hanging on the wall.

Sweat dripped from the edge of his eyebrows and he guessed it was about 35-degrees Celsius and rising. Practically arctic compared to outside. He peeled his clothes off and left them in a pile in the middle of the hold. Beside the rad suits were towels – he quickly dried off and then stepped into a yellow suit he knew was at full power and full oxygen. Small cells of compressed oxygen ran across the top section of his back; a noticeable weight as he shucked it over his shoulders. Weight that would add to his own.

"What are you doing, Jax?" asked Lani. Her voice came in stereo; from the room comm and the suit comm.

"Powering the shielding unit, Lan."

"It's hot."

"It's going to get really hot."

"We're scared. Scarlett said you made it sound like you wouldn't be back."

He double zipped the suit and lifted the helmet over his head. The helmet was clear reinforced graphene, solid and allowing for 360-degree views. So light it barely had weight. His fingers appeared in the graphene gloves built into the suit, thin and allowing for full dexterity. He wiggled his toes in boots that were too big for him.

"Jax?"

"I have to go outside, but I'll be back in time."

"Outside? Are you crazy?"

"It's the only way. How much time left?"

"Twenty-four minutes."

"See? Plenty of time." He turned on a light built into the helmet and looked around. Twice as bright as the torch – it was almost blinding. _Least I'll see it coming._ "Whether the power is at full or not when the CME hits, you hit the switch. It won't last long but it might be long enough." _Delay death for all of two seconds._

"Oh, Jax." He heard sniffles; listened to their quiet sobbing. Wished he wasn't the reason they were here.

"I need to conserve suit power," he said. "I'll have to deactivate the comm. We'll speak again when I'm back." He blinked at the heads-up sound display shown on the inside of his helmet until it muted and the white noise of tears abruptly ended. And took a breath. The back of his eyes stung.

His steps were lunge-like as he made his way back to the cables, bent over, picked up the end, and then walked quickly for the exit. The door hissed open and there was a mild backdraft of inrushing heat. He stepped out into the darkness; the suit a central blooming satellite of light that blossomed in the corners and crevices of fallen rock. Light even reached the high overhang when he looked up; rainbow auroras rippling visibly in the sky through the narrow space in which the ship had fallen.

Up.

Debossed ladder rungs stretched towards the ship's nose where the stored solar power could be accessed. Panels stretched across the top of the ship and to the tip of the nose, but because of the way it sat, the only area that ever touched the sun was the nose-tip. The ship was meant to be both home and power source for the Robinson Family that steered it, with this exterior access and power source reserved for the subsidiary buildings erected as the community grew. It belonged to one of the very early doomed settlers to traverse the void.

He'd been meaning to hook the power source up – _No better time than the present_.

He couldn't be sure of the shield's range of effectiveness though, and began to thread the cable through the rungs of the ladder as he climbed, so they wouldn't accidently swing outside of the shield's field and fry.

Speaking of frying – he felt his whole being cooking. The display read an outside temperature of 63-degrees Celsius. Internal temperature wasn't much better: 51-degrees. Bursts of Freon regulated the highest end of the scale and made sure it didn't go beyond what a human could tolerate.

It was only a suit, though. It wouldn't stop the flames.

He ascended, hair soaked with sweat, skin filmed with it. The inside of the suit clung to him as he climbed; a mild distraction to his impending doom. The hull was convex, so until he reached the middle of the climb he would need to lean back, hooking an elbow through a rung while feeding the cable through, three rungs at a time. Thread through three, climb three, rinse and repeat. The ship was 110 metres from tip to stern, and Jax estimated approximately 550 rungs in total.

_I won't have enough time_.

The pain in his biceps and across his shoulders was constant now. If it didn't get any worse he thought he could take it. He figured any future iterations of himself should be given heightened strength in case of such emergencies, for you never knew when the sun might want to blow you up.

The sweat stung his eyes. _How did people wipe their faces or scratch an itch?_

He blinked, repeatedly, in the end making do. _At least I can see._

At 25 metres he stopped to rest; holding the cable with one hand while using the other to climb grew more and more difficult, and the higher he climbed the hotter he felt. The temperature gauge read the same as before, so he stared at it, fighting off the fear of fainting by rationalising that no, it wasn't any hotter than before, and yes, strenuous work was bound to take its toll but it was nothing he hadn't done previously.

He continued up. When the ground disappeared under the curve of the ship, he realised he had passed the half-way point. The tip – now visible – pointed at the rockface that covered them. To the side of that, the sky's performance continued.

The climb was easier now that he could lean into the ship and let it take his weight, and the going was quick. He passed the painted palm tree of the mural he loved so much, fronds within touching distance. Coconuts about ready to fall. The frothy bridge of a broken wave passed by next. The paint was wet – The Oasis melting – after all these years it was now that the mural would begin to lose its lustre, as though it had waited for his witness. It was the radiation, not the heat. Jax hoped the suit was up to scratch.

With the end in sight he climbed the rest of the way without threading the cable, for it didn't really matter at this point. The cockpit viewscreen passed by on the left – perhaps the girls would look to their right and be able to see him – and then he was at the socket. The shimmer of burning plasma reflected in the surface of the hull and there – glorious – was the sky above him, as close as he could he reach. He thought of a poem he'd once read when he was four:

For beauty held, for the hand that holds,

For the endless sights and what burdens told;

We are one and the only one

For whom the end is the end as the lights go cold.

Uncredited, if he recalled correctly. Right now, a few million people were witnessing this exact aurora, but he doubted any of them were outside of their domes.

This was his and his alone.

What are you doing?

Oh just wondering off on one of my tangents...

Heat slammed him and he watched the gauge rise to 56-degrees.

"Shit," he said, making a grab for the hatch covering the console. He pried it open and it swung down on its hinges. He turned a dial to the ON position and the screen shone brightly to life. The primary gauge he looked for and found was for stored energy, which read 100%. Upon first inspection all those months ago, Jax had activated the protective shielding around the battery cells; a self-sustaining field that blocked natural cosmic radiation, and alternate radioactive sources, so that charge wouldn't drain. He praised his presentiment and plugged the transfer cable into the socket.

He activated the comm and said "Time."

Silence.

"Lani? Scarlett?" He called out, knowing it was futile; there was no connection showing on his HUD. The radiation will be blocking the comm. He should have started a mental countdown and cursed himself.

"Shit."

There was nothing for it but to discharge and hope it worked.

On the control console, he searched for the OUTPUT switch and toggled it to EXTERNAL. The charge gauge dropped to 99%. He waited and watched. The countdown was intolerable. His eyes stung so bad and he wanted nothing more than to strip off his helmet and rub at them, no matter that the radiation would boil his skin black.

98%.

Thirty-seconds.

That was too long, man, he thought.

He panned through the settings, unable to find an option to speed up the discharge.

At least I've connected it before the time runs out.

He took one final look to the skies – _For the endless sights and what burdens told_ – and began the descent. The final flare imminent. Even if he'd been counting mentally, he knew he would have lost count at some point, the stress like a searing compress on his skull. He had no idea if he could make it in time.

If he'd have chance to tell the truth.

Going down, he made double speed, each boot on rung reverberating in his head. He just wanted to lie down. He just wanted to sleep.

Something wasn't right.

He went cold.

Freezing.

The hairs on his arms stood to attention and the tips of his fingers and toes tingled as though he'd been in the sleep deprivation tank in Arcadia for a few hours, only now waking. The end of his nose started to burn – ice cold. Then he noticed the external temperature: 107-degrees Celsius.

Internally, it was -40-degrees.

He turned his back to the ship and positioned his heels on a rung, and leaned backwards. He looked up. It was day. Blue-white. Yellow. Now orange. Now red. The colours shifted through alternate phases and Jax stared, mesmerised, not too displeased that this would be his final experience.

Then the sky caught fire.

Roiling flames engulfed him.

Engulfed the ship.

The visor on his helmet dimmed, to not be blinded.

Two feet in front of his face, close enough to reach out and touch, stood a wall of sun burning the very air itself beyond the active shielding. He pressed up to the ship, wishing he could merge with it, become one; get as far away from the spirals and swirling fires of death as possible. A smell erupted inside the suit and he realised he'd soiled himself, in both ways possible.

And then the ship began to topple towards its belly. He clung to the ladder as it fell, legs flying out, and it was in this movement that he became aware of the complete and utter silence on this side of the shielding.

Then he lost control of his legs and watched, in utter horror, as they flew out towards the fire. This is it, he thought, closing his eyes and preparing for the searing pain as his feet decided to go for a dip.

They struck something solid.

He opened his eyes and felt sick. Simultaneously falling to the ground – still clinging to the ladder with a hooked elbow – and walking on a star. He pushed out, thighs burning, pinning himself between the ship and the shielding, and waited for what seemed like forever for the impact. When the ship finally toppled over, his legs were thrown as per gravity, slamming into the ship beneath him, yet somehow he clung on. He clung on and clung on with eyes squeezed shut, in total silence; too scared to open them. The smell of his own shit and piss choked his every breath. His shoulder stung with pain and his left arm felt dead – some part of him was conscious of a dislocated shoulder; every other part of him wanted to sleep. Maybe it was the Freon. Maybe it was blood loss, though he wasn't aware of any cuts. Maybe he was pissing blood. Maybe it scared so much shit out of him he'd begun shitting blood.

He didn't think so. Not really.

Confusion and pain reigned.

Finally, he opened his eyes. He saw in the reflection of the ship that the fire behind him had gone, and so he turned, and saw ash and smoke and a light above, like the sun through a heavy mist, only it was the whole sky. The ionosphere on fire.

_The sky_.

The rocks around them had disintegrated. The whole cliff formation gone.
Twins

"Is it over?"

Scarlett held Lani's hand or Lani held Scarlett's hand, same difference; their hair plastered to their head and neck, greasy and lank. Their skin newborn-red, and indeed; the maelstrom of swirling black smoke and orange embers and thick dust beyond the viewscreen seemed like Eden compared to the birth-canal of flame they'd just endured: the whiplash as the ship toppled forward; the fear of Jax's silence raking across their heart; from the jubilation as the red bar's numbers began to rise until the bar was no longer red, but green, and they could activate the shielding.

"Jax, Jax, are you there?" they called out, jumping from their chairs. Disorientation fuddled their brain until they realised the ship was the right way up, then they ran towards the back of the ship, taking doors in ways that were intended, seeing everything a-new.

"I'm too hot," moaned Lani.

"We didn't turn the air-con back on, damn it," Scarlett said, spinning around. Lani followed, not wanting to be separated. Once the air-conditioning was reactivated the affect was almost immediate, with the hot air being sucked straight into the vents – almost as though from the girls themselves who instantly felt cooler.

"Oh, man, that was too hot."

They returned to their original plan of searching for Jax.

Their brother – or as near as he could be. Once we're together again we'll call mum and dad, they thought – _They'll be worried sick_.

"They'll think we're dead."

"The whole of Arcadia will think we're dead."

"We have to alert them."

"We have to find Jax, he'll know what to do." They knew he was smart – smarter than probably anyone else in the dome – and that sometimes this frustrated him, which was why they'd kept his little secret (so long as they could visit every now and then). Let him have an escape – what harm could it do?

"If he's not dead."

"He won't be dead."

Their thoughts drifted to the baby in the artificial womb. _He better not be dead_.

The deeper into the ship they travelled, the cooler it became until the gentle breeze prickled their skin. Hairless goosebumps rose.

"Do you know how red you look?"

"Do you know how red _you_ look?"

They entered the cargo area where the door to the outside stood open, the transfer cable unwinding out into the murky darkness. Blinding light highlighted a rad-suit covered body sprawled, entangled in the cables.

"Jax!" they shouted, and ran to him. They turned him over, and he began removing the helmet. "You did it! You did it!"

"Remind me never to leave the house again."

They moved to hug him but he warned them off. "The suit could be contaminated, let's leave the hugs for later."

"Are you okay?"

He sat up. "I'll need help getting out of this thing; I think I've dislocated my shoulder."

"So... do we touch you or not?"

"Just..." he said, achingly, "let me stand and I'll try unzipping."

They gave him some distance, watched him struggle, and then went in anyway, each taking an arm. "Argue all you want. Can you turn that light off though, it's blinding?"

Five seconds later and it was off, and the containers, still attached to the walls although in some cases, the now-floor, retreated back to their shadows.

"You're limping."

"I may have broken something too, I'm not sure. Thank you for activating it just in time, I'd have been toast otherwise."

"We'd all have been toast."

"How are you so cold?" asked Lani, taking Jax's arm from the sleeve of the suit.

"Freon in the suit."

"Was gonna say, we look like peaches but you're white as a ghost."

The suit dropped to the floor, and they could see the dark bruising around his shoulder and down his rib cage. He tried moving the arm but it remained stiff and steadfast to his side. He used his other arm to roll it around, a grimace on his face.

"Can we help?" they asked with trepidation, not really relishing the prospect. When he instructed them to flank his shoulder and force the joint back in, they grit their teeth and got on with it, screaming as they not only heard the _crack_ of it popping back in, but felt it. Sweat steamed from his skin when they laid hands on him. Even their hands were red.

"Thank you. Have you checked the child?"

"Not yet."

He nodded, hobbled over towards a medical supply chest, and retrieved a crutch.

"Where you going?"

"To see her."

They followed the boy who had found himself a father; surprised by how much affection, care and attention he seemed to be showing, as normally he remained aloof. Unaffected by the relationships of others and caring only about study – and reading. It wasn't that he was particularly a cold person, he just always looked deep in thought, and interrupting him might mean some great loss.

"So do you have a plan to get out of here?"

"We have power – which is good. I doubt we can contact Arcadia, but we can try. I'll take a look at the magna-inertia diagnostics to see if we have the power to lift off. As far as I know they still worked okay. The one good thing to come from the storm is it disintegrated everything around us, meaning we're no longer trapped."

"We can fly home?" They envisaged flying over the dome and seeing the hundreds of bodies below looking up at them; imagined landing in a cloud of dust at the front door and rushing out to meet their parents in an embrace that would never end. They pictured all this and knew it couldn't be that easy.

"Perhaps – I'm not promising anything. The other option is we all put suits on and try and walk home, but that wouldn't be my preference."

Because of the baby?

"Whatever it takes," they said.

It felt odd walking into the lab the way nature intended – that makeshift staircase on their left as they walked through – and the lab itself looked in complete disarray. Tables and unbolted chairs were piled in the corner where gravity had thrown them, and shattered glass crunched underfoot. Cupboard doors hung open, and electrical equipment lay smashed in pieces.

None of this seemed to register with Jax. He beelined straight for the artificial womb attached firmly to the one immovable row of cupboards, and appeared to fawn over the glass, touching it all over. They finally realised he was checking for cracks. He then checked upside-down readouts and _hmmed_ in satisfaction every few seconds.

"She okay?"

"For now. The solution she's in acts as a cushion if any two surfaces come close; molecules compressing and forming a harder barrier than liquid. I'd like to run more tests but I guess we have other priorities at the moment," he sighed.

"You think? What is it with her? Why is she so special?"

Jax whirled on them and may have been about to shout, loudly, like he sometimes did when someone didn't understand the 'simplest' thing and he got frustrated. Instead, he groaned and clutched his side, where the ribs were almost black.

"Just..." he looked miserable. In pain and dejected. "Help me to the cockpit."

"You okay?"

"I think I'm drowning," he said, and coughed, and blood splattered on the floor before him. "Help me to the cockpit."

The twins gasped, tears immediately brimming. They cried "No," but he shouted at them to not make him shout and "For the third time, help me to the cockpit."

They filed in beside him and he dropped the crutch. He glanced over his shoulder as they helped him from the lab – a sinking feeling in their gut that it was for one last look. They kept repeating "You can't die, you can't die – what will we do without you? What will we do?"

He was silent. They knew how it sounded – what will _we_ do? No regard for the fact that _he_ was the one dying.

"We don't mean it to sound bad – we really don't. We can't control the ship. We don't know our way home from here. Oh, Jax – you can't die!"

"Ssshhh," he whispered, settling into the forward command chair. "I know you're scared, it's okay. Let me take a look at the systems."

They sank to their knees either side of him and buried their heads in his neck, allowing tears to fall on his shoulders. He was so cold. Horribly, horribly cold. They stretched arms across his chest until they met each other, embracing him, warming him up, warming him up. They felt the vibration of his words as he spoke, their ears against his skin.

"Okay, this looks promising. What we have here," his voiced sounded strained, as though withholding a cough. "We can work with this. Now, let me see." A few seconds of silence passed while they listened to him using the controls on the dashboard. "Fingers crossed."

The ship lurched, and their grip tightened on him with startled yelps.

"I've set course for Arcadia." He barely made it through 'Arcadia' before the coughing fit began. They sat back and watched his blood paint the dashboard red.

"What –"

"Ssshhh. Listen to me." He took a deep breath before continuing, face contorting. "The baby. I'm... sorry. I... did something... wrong. So wrong. I shouldn't have. She is yours. Both of... yours. And... mine. And... so much more. She is the mother of immortals." 
From the author

If you enjoyed this novella, the story of the planet and its inhabitants continues in...

Neon Sands - A Trilogy

Available on Kindle and in paperback.

Also available:

Plains of Ion: The Neon Sands Trilogy Book Two

Flames of Apathy: The Neon Sands Trilogy Book Three

ALL TITLES ARE IN THE KINDLE UNLIMITED PROGRAM!

Thank you for reading! Please leave a review at your favourite retailer! Follow me on Twitter @AJSAuthor, and like my Facebook page @AJSmithAuthor.

See ya around!
