Kuro: A Land in Eternal Night

Chapter 7.2: In search of Answers

Fala let him stay in her room through the winter. She wanted to make sure that he was okay. It was always warm in Fala's room. She told him stories – she always had the best stories, better even, than the ones Mom told. Mom was a natural storyteller, she had a knack for voices, taking on various personas, bringing the characters to life. But Fala took it to another level. She would make up such imaginative stories that the books themselves became boring. She would use things from history, waving her hands vigorously, walking up and down the room. She'd take her dolls and bears and make them tell the story like puppets. She talked about the Goddess endlessly. How she would come back one day, that she never meant to leave the people of Kuro, that Amaterasu loved and longed to be with them again. Fala's stories became real in his mind.

Drake rose from the comfort of his bed and walked aimlessly around the room as he tried to collect his thoughts. He glanced at the mirror, hunching his six-foot tall frame down slightly, "A good height for a sixteen year old," Mom would say. He moved his head from side to side, flexing his neck as he massaged his broad shoulders. The mirror's lights turned on, expending a small amount of the Goddess Essence as a warm glow surrounded its edges, illuminating the subject. Drake smoothed his crew cut, patches of hair running down past his ears almost to his jaw, clean and shaven just enough to show a hint of stubble. He had piercing, youthful eyes, that "always seemed to be thinking," Ava would often tease.

Drake walked to the windows. "Open," he instructed. The dark curtains parted, unveiling the city's endlessly shimmering lights. From his window, the Climate Control Tower could be seen in the distance, a tall obsidian pillar that went from a gigantic metal plinth in the Upper Plate's center, all the way up, past the Sky Dome. Lights blinked in and out, as sensors on the tower detected weather conditions, controlling the opening and closing of the Sky Dome, letting an appropriate amount of weather in. The tower's apex glowed brightly, providing much-needed synthetic sunlight to the city at regular intervals.

The light at the apex had been a source of comfort for Drake. Fala had told stories of Sun Days, when the Taiyou-Shi government would run into a surplus every now and then and turn the Climate Control Tower at full power for twelve straight hours. From the plinth, he imagined what it would be like to see all the way down to the Middle Plates, past the enormous holes bored into the Upper Plate's base to allow the sunlight to filter down.

Drake's jaw tightened in anger. It had been three weeks since Fala had disappeared without a trace. Gustav Winzner's body had been found near the entrance of Reactor #3. He had been savaged, his entire upper body torn and bloodied, as if devoured by a wild animal. They had made an example of him, a warning to the rest of the Sun Watchers to keep their distance. Fala and Gustav had been last seen together on the hill.

The incident cast a deep shadow on the Riordan family. Mother hardly uttered a word now. She had quit her prestigious job at the Science Assembly and stayed home, brooding and staring out into the open for hours. Dad still worked, thankfully, but his health was deteriorating rapidly. He had turned to the drink, and to bouts of overexposure to the Goddess Essence. Not that Drake could blame him, but he felt that his dad was being even more of a coward than he himself was.

Drake took his watch from the bed-stand and checked the time. It was the first hour of the Waking. He moved slowly, so as not to wake his sleeping parents. Today was not a school day and he had the day off. He promised to pick Ava up before the third hour. He had a long day ahead. He went to his closet to pick out a set of clothes. Many of Taiyou-Shi's young wore black. It was fashionable these days to choose a color that would blend in with the darkness. "Light," he commanded. Mini versions of the Light Spires turned on in his room. "News," he added, as beams of light shot a holographic projection into the middle of his room. Drake didn't pay much attention to what was on.

Appliances and devices were fed from a central location, connected to the city's underground power grid. The power grid was reliable, providing uninterrupted output of the Goddess Essence to each home. It was rare for the power grid go out.

It had gone out once, seven years ago during the Great Storm, when the Climate Control Tower malfunctioned, leaving the Sky Dome wide open. When the grid went down, it plunged Taiyou-Shi into complete darkness, and the city came to a grinding halt. Emergency electrical sources kicked in, but the storm caused those to fail as well. For a moment in time, people in Taiyou-Shi had a taste of what it had been like a thousand years ago when the Goddess had first left. It was like waking to nothing. Darkness had reigned over the city, an uneasy silence going along with it, amid the howling of the wind and the pouring rain.

Drake finished dressing. He decided to skip breakfast and head right for Ava's. He opened the door to his room and headed downstairs, grabbing the keys to his speeder from the wall.

The garage doors opened and Light Spires kicked in, illuminating his speeder parked to one side.

The speeder was beautiful. He'd gotten it just a year ago after having scrimped every last ounce of GEUs from the odd jobs he did. It was long and sleek, all black, the shiny paint gleaming under the lights. The lone seat was big enough to accommodate a rider and a passenger sitting behind. The vehicle had a large magnetic wheel mounted in front and protected by smooth metallic fenders, and a smaller mag wheel mounted at the rear.

Drake placed the key into the light receptacle, completing the circuit. "Activate," he commanded. The tiny solar motor hummed to life, the Goddess Essence inside glowing. The agitators in the motor caused the speeder to vibrate gently. Drake turned the handlebars to provide a small amount of throttle as he kicked the clutch, engaging first gear. The speeder slowly came into motion, its magnetic wheels suspended three feet in the air, following the mag rails out toward the streets.

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