After his immersion in the biogel pod, Cal's trip home passed in a blur of pain and loss. The supersonic transport seamlessly disengaged his spherical travel pod at the right moment and after ascending his Tower to his apartment, Cal stared bleakly into the darkness outside the pod's window.
"Help Me."
The message still blinked on the screen of the watch. The only indicator of time's passage—the failing battery on the old screen. He tucked the watch with its bitter message back under his sleeve and stepped from the pod into his apartment.
- Welcome home, Cal.
Cal ignored the voice of the Mind. He sat on the edge of his bed as his cortex connected to his home net, the apartment anticipating his needs. The wall opposite shimmered, and the screen appeared depicting its familiar star field backdrop.
"I can feel the stars, Cal. I can feel them calling to me. There's so much more to the universe than what we know in the City. We need to see the stars. Cal..."
Helena's words whispered through his brain and he stood, shaking his head trying to dispel the memory.
Shower, he commanded and the small bathroom morphed from the apartment floor as he stripped off his paper overalls. He threw them into the recycling chute, put his watch on its charging cradle, and stepped into the steamy stall.
A house bot had hung freshly made coveralls outside the shower and once the driers had finished, Cal stepped into them, fastening them as he moved. At the dispenser, he gave a mental command. A few seconds later, he sat at the table that had silently exuded from the floor, a mug of juice and a light snack in front of him.
The message was still waiting for him.
"Help Me." The words sat accusing on the screen. He pushed the half eaten and tasteless snack away from him and slumped in his chair.
"What do I do now Helena?" he whispered despairingly. "Nothing makes any sense anymore. What would you do?" He paused and smiled sadly. "Probably something crazy, but then I've never been that good at crazy, have I? I tend to calculate the risk, rather than take it."
He glanced at a picture on the wall, one of the few he had in his personal space. It showed a man of indeterminate age and background, his main distinguishing feature the shock of white hair that stood like a halo around his head: his old mentor, and friend. "I'm talking to myself Professor Kelna. Is that the first sign of madness?"
Cal mimicked the old man's voice and posture, crabbing across the room towards his bed with old knees, the scratchy tone of his friend done perfectly. "Ah my boy, before you can find an answer, you must first understand the question. Relax, let your mind free, and stop worrying. Everything will be alright in the end: if it's not alright, then it's not the end."
Cal sighed and sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed. He closed his eyes and began the regular series of mental exercises he used to clear his mind. He pictured an idea his old tutor had shared with him as a child. It was a private space on the net, accessed via the Mind, but only fully accessible by him or someone he allowed in: only Helena and Kelna had ever been granted that privilege.
The dark Mindscape with its green contours brought him calm and had even flicked into his head when he'd tried the biogel immersion tanks. In his mind's eye, he stood at the centre of the vista, the ground beneath his feet a series of interconnecting hexagons, and lines of memory and thought. An endless plateau in dark green and black, bordered with contoured green hills, and a featureless sky. His heartbeat slowed, and he felt the familiar trance-like state of deep meditation fill his being.
A hexagon glowed nearby, and he floated over to it. As he looked the hexagon became a screen to a moment in the past, and he immersed himself in memory.
~~~
It had been a wonderful day. He and Helena had finished a long day in the virtual classroom, filling board after board with formulae and theorem. At the end, much to his amusement, the answer had boiled down to the number forty-two. At first Helena hadn't got the reference, but once he'd explained that a writer hundreds of years before had suggested that the number forty-two was the ultimate answer to the ultimate question, she'd joined in the giggling. There had obviously been a mistake somewhere in the calculations, but after that neither of them had been able to concentrate, and so Dr Takei suggested they take the afternoon off to visit The Falls.
A picnic, a walk, and an afternoon of friendship followed, and after many hours of discussion and happy wandering, Helena and Cal found themselves perched at the very top of the Falls. The spot overlooked the valley below, the churning waterfall as it arced over the cliffs, and the shining Dome above them with its artificial sky and carefully controlled climate.
"It's a shame none of it's real," Helena stated after the two of them had sat in happy silence for a while.
"It's as real as you or I," replied Cal after a confused moment.
"Yes, it's solid. I understand that, but it's built by man as a false reminder of what we used to have outside the Domes and Cities and Towers." She waved an encompassing arm. "All this is constructed to try and emulate the glory of nature, a nature we destroyed."
"We didn't destroy it Helena, we simply live within the mistakes of our past."
"I know, but it just makes me sad."
"There's not much I can say to that really, is there?"
"No, there's never a simple answer."
"Unless it's forty-two."
Cal kept a straight face for a few seconds and then giggled as Helena grinned at him.
"Numpty," she whispered.
"Always."
She grinned again but carried on in a serious tone." But wouldn't it be wonderful to spread our wings beyond this, get away from Earth and visit the stars."
"It would be interesting," replied Cal carefully. "But we have everything we need right here."
"We do, but what of exploring? We could've easily plugged into Mind and visited The Falls virtually, but we chose to walk, to touch, to feel, smell, and taste. To see, to really see. Would you rather walk with the virtual me than the actual?"
She leaned over and hugged him.
"Of course not," he replied, hugging her back. "But wandering around a park is a little different to throwing yourself into the void between the stars."
"Sometimes you just have to take a risk..."
~~~
Cal came back to himself, still sitting cross-legged on his bed. Abruptly, he stood, grabbed the watch and mentally commanded Travel Pod.
The moulded door of the metallic, spherical pod slid aside as he approached, responding wirelessly to the chip buried deep in his cortex.
- Where would you like to go Cal?
The Falls please.
As he sat, the pod tilted back slightly. The seat instantaneously moulded around his body, holding him gently cocooned for the journey. His head settled into the jelly-like headrest, and the pod's automatic systems connected to his synaptic port.
The pod dropped, then accelerated—the change in momentum barely perceptible inside his cushioning as it shot down the ramp at over five hundred kilometres per hour. It accelerated further to reach docking speed. Attaining just that, the computer guidance systems of the Transit Network seamlessly locked Cal's pod into the already moving Travel Module that would transport him and thousands of others to their destinations. Quickly bored of the faint unchanging bioluminescence of the tunnels, he sought information.
Mind. Tell me about the Falls.
- The Falls: an immense cliff constructed under the Dome that protects us from the toxins outside. A place for friends to stroll, or people to think. The largest open space in the City...
Mind rambled on and Cal dozed.
He was still semi-dozing a few minutes later when the Mind quietly notified him, and presumably all the other passengers in the Travel Module, that there was a slight technical hitch.
The module slowed, moving to a near imperceptible halt. Cal looked out of the small side window of his pod, his eyes adjusting to the gloom outside the transport.
Normally, all you could see in the tunnels was the faint glow of the bioluminescent walls. The cells were fed a faint trickle of power to keep them alive and glowing, but there had obviously been an interruption in the flow. One side of the tunnel had virtually blacked out, casting that side of the transport into deep shadow.
Cal peered out of the window into the darkness, moving his face right up to the plexiglass. A small maintenance bot flashed past the window, startling him, and he smacked his head on the side of his pod as the bot swiftly scuttled away. Touching the throbbing bump, his hand came back sticky with blood. He flipped out the lighted mirror in the pod and watched as the nanites in his blood fixed the wound. Satisfied his head was healed, he switched off the light, stowed the mirror and looked along the transport to see what was happening.
As his eyes adjusted, the transport jerked forward and stopped again, but enough to show a patch of light in the side of the tunnel, and a team of maintenance bots crawling spider-like over the outer hull of the transport. Sparks jumped from a malfunctioning energy node, and repairs were in progress. Another jerking forward motion and Cal gasped as bright light streamed into the pod.
From outside.
It took Cal a few moments to comprehend this, accustomed as he was to the artificial sunlight of the Towers and Cities, but the patch of light in the wall was a window to the outside world. The world beyond the walls and domes, a world few had seen since the Cities were constructed to protect humanity.
The change in light from the semi-darkness of the damaged tunnel, to bright sunlight made his eyes water. But, as his eyes adjusted again, he could see landforms, and clouds in the sky. As his eyes adjusted more and more to the change in light between the tunnel and the window, more detail became apparent. He gasped suddenly. There were trees, and what looked like long grasses waving in the breeze: golden grass that shimmered and shone. And something up in the sky...
- The Transport Module is now fixed, thank you for your patience.
The transport jolted into motion and the patch of light disappeared.
"No!" shouted Cal, craning over his shoulder and banging on the glass.
Mind, stop the transport.
- I can't do that Cal. You're moving at many hundreds of kilometres per hour, what reason would you have for stopping the train?
Then disengage at the next stop. There's something back there I need to see.
- You will be disengaged at the next branch Cal, but this tunnel is for transports only, and you will not be able to go back that way unless you are attached to the main transport system.
There's a window to outside, Mind. Outside!
- The plans show no record of a window in that tunnel Cal.
But it was there. I saw a bird!
- Recent scans show no sign of birdlife outside the City walls. I will disengage you at the next opportunity, Cal. You can continue your travel plans from there, once you have decided where you wish to go.
Cal subsided into his seat. "It was there," he whispered. "And there was life out there. Not toxins. What is going on?"
There was a faint click and a chime from the pod's console as it disengaged from the main transport. The pod rolled to a stop and Cal found himself overlooking a park area. Fake trees and plastic grass provided a welcome patch of green against the towers around him. Leaning back in his seat, he rubbed his tired eyelids with his fingers.
- Cal, I have a message from Dr Takei. The housebots have cleansed Helena's apartment, and they have found a box with your name on it. It appears that she had put aside some things for you in the unfortunate event of her passing. Dr Takei has them in his office and wishes to pass them on to you.