Light Ice
A Real Bastard
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2003
- Posts
- 5,397
They’d built this fucking city beneath the ocean, hidden away, and in the beginning allowed only the best and brightest to occupy it. When he’d first arrived it’d been explained as an attempt to insure Atlas was safe for habitation. Pressure, they said, did strange things to metals and the alloys used here were otherwise untested. They’d told a series of stories that painted a vision of dutiful scientists with note pads, making calculations, ensuring their creations could withstand the load placed upon them. Now, now that he’d been here for ten years and lived this so-called “Dream” of theirs? He knew better. It’d been a head start. It’d been a little leg up in a world where everything was supposed to be built on the healthy competition of intellect and the purity of the market.
It’d been hard to cut into any fucking industry as more than a lackey from the start. They’d seen to that. They’d filled their staff members out from the top down, slowly and surely, and there’d been almost no place for movement. Striking out on your own was too damned hard here. No help? No investors? No chance at making your own fortune save to work like a slave to start. They’d never made that clear. They’d made promises. No taxes. No limits on your ambition. This was the kind of place, they said, where a man could make his own destiny. Bullshit. This was their own private playground.
They weren’t that fucking special.
Atlas was what they called this place. This city. It’d impressed him when he’d first seen it. There were over sixty-thousand souls in Atlas now, which was quite the feat given that it was nearly twelve miles under the Atlantic Ocean. The buildings were built like bubbled skyscrapers with huge, round windows overlooking the sea floor. The lights from the neon signs and billboards had once painted the bottom sediment in eerie colors. Now? Now the lights had attracted bacteria and life, strange plant life taking hold that mirrored the vibrant colors. It was a veritable forest where the lights reached. A desert just beyond them. And the skyscrapers stretched on into the black waters. Atlas, they called it.
He worked for the monorail. Thompson’s Transportation Company. The train was essentially the most sub of subways, spiraling through the massive city as a conduit from one building to another. They traveled through long, dark tunnels. Damp, dire places that stunk of rail grease and stagnant water. It was cold in the passages. Pitch black. The work was hard and relentless. The wages were better than most jobs. Worse than what he deserved. He’d had a degree in Physics, god damnit! He had been a genius back home. A professor!
They’d come after him for tax evasion in Baltimore. The Federal Government had been unjustly taking his wages for the better part of his career and it’d only been a few thousand here and there that he hadn’t reported. The rest of the teachers did the same and they’d never been bothered. He had been persecuted, he knew it, because he’d been persecuted most of his life. It’d started in grade school when the bigger, better looking children had picked on him for his weight. His glasses. His voice, which had always been a little too high, had been mimicked crudely and cruelly since he was very small.
But in the end, here, it was no different. The strong hedged the bets here. And sure, there were no taxes, but there was no compassion either. Here he wasn’t even bright. He was a laborer. He was no longer Edward Herman Plainville, Professor of Physics. He was Eddie Plainville, grease monkey.
And “crunch” addict. He’d gotten his first taste when the boys had gotten tired of drinking at the local pub. It was a stimulant of some kind, easy to make. Potent. It crumbled in your fingers. It crunched between your teeth. That was how most took it. He’d outgrown that. He’d gone on to crunch it up with a little water and inject it, under his arm, where the needle marks were concealed. The rush was better that way. It made him clearer. He could stay up for days on end, work double shifts without losing focus, and his mind always was sharper. He saw all the strings. All the players.
Eddie had been crawling in the East Capital Access Tunnel for the better part of two hours. It was small and flanked the structure’s tenth floor, near the Thompson Transportation Pay Office where he’d discovered his check a couple hundred credits lighter than he’d anticipated. That’d been the last straw. The one that broke the camel’s back. He’d lost his mind there, he admitted to himself. Screamed. Pounded on the glass at the teller’s counter. The laundry list of obscenities that poured out of his mouth as security threw him from the building and into the street outside had been less-clever and less-impressive than he’d have liked. Of course, he’d not been able to get a crunch until then. That’d made him a bit prickly. It always did.
The structures of the city housed several buildings, some skyscrapers and others not. There were streets, like those above, sans cars. In the slums, like Sluggers Row where he lived, things were always damp. Always stinking. Run-down. The walls of the structures rusty. The buildings suffering from wet-rot and neglect. But here, where things were nice, everything was pristine save the putrid staleness of the access tunnel.
He’d never been a chemist. But he wasn’t thick. The bomb had taken time to complete but it’d come together. Theoretically it’d be enough to punch a fifty-foot hole in this section, enough to overwhelm the bulkhead sealing defense mechanism it possessed and ensure the core’s flooding. It wouldn’t kill everyone, of course. But it’d kill. It’d terrify. It’d turn the section into an aquarium. Eddie set down the bag, his fingers wound the copper wire along the nine-volt he’d found. In the dark, amidst the wet, it was hard. Eddie struggled. Cursed. And, on accident, wound the wire too loose and struck the opposite contact.
But as the explosion began he was comforted to know it was right. And, in the very least, he’d die high.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It’d been born of ambition amidst the dark; birthed like a messiah amidst steel and metal alloys that would have been the marvel of the Cold War world. Here, under pressures untold, man defied what was considered scientific gospel and stretched their ingenuity to dizzying heights amidst the blackest of depths. A vision, collected from the world’s best minds, had slowly taken shape. The years had slipped by as construction efforts defied the world’s most dangerous and alien of landscapes. Here, thousands of feet down, man did not merely survive. He thrived and constructed a cathedral of modern achievement. They called it Atlas; a moniker derived from the inspirational Titan whose duty it was to hold up the world. It resonated then.
It resonated differently now.
For a city built entirely below the see Atlas defied all visions such a construction feat might inspire. There was no great dome to shield the skyscrapers from the sea. There were no submersibles puttering around. Instead, providing a view that was as intimidating as it was beautiful, the towering structures of Atlas reached from the muddy bottom like giant metallic fingers. Their windows, massive and numerous, allowed its citizens to look out at an ocean of black sea beyond the glow of its lights. The ocean floor had changed in the decades since Atlas had opened itself. Corals, perhaps attracted to the lights of the city, grew with vibrant and primal colors across the metal legs of access ladders and billboards. The urban jungle beneath the ocean was some mad mix of the natural and unnatural.
In the end there would be an end. He saw it, though no prophet was he, lurking in the dark corridors of the slum quarters where the progress of man had seen fit to leave the unworthy behind. It had not been the dream that had failed them. There was purity in an ideal that could not be sullied even for its practice, set above it, looming beyond the murk and mire of human trials in such a way that a man’s only ambition could reach in name alone. Sloth and Greed had built amongst those less capable, pressed down and passed by those that had been born with brighter bulbs or quicker feet or larger hands. They slopped in the sodden mire of poverty, found release from misery in the drugs, and descended further towards a hell that lacked mystic origins but could have done Dante proud.
He’d seen it coming, known it was so. Some, like him, had left. They’d slipped into the submersibles and stowed away on those few voyages to the Old World. A ten hour ascent through blackness to the flawed machine that they’d once fled. It was not in him, however, to make that choice. He had found a peace in this place, here amidst the cold steel, cold water, and cold hearts. There lurked beneath the fangs of competition a purity of principle that spoke to him. It was not easy but he was proud, modest as his living was made, not only of the wages he had earned but the great quality of his work. In the past he’d exceeded only in murder – a skill well-taught throughout the wars that plagued the World Above.
Now? Now, even in the sluggish and unwieldy confines of his diving suit, he was an artist of his own right. The massive sheets of alloy and fifty-plus pounds of rivet gun his canvas and brush. The geo-thermal welding torch, a marvel of science to which his mind could never have created, the blade under which he could mold clay.
And while he was no scientist, no man of great intellect or creativity, David McCall was a man of incomparable determination. Steady. His reserve matched only by his resolve, inspired by his father and greater men that he had known in the wars, strengthened by the fresh start to which he had been given by Atlas. The men who worked in the diving suits, who kept Atlas from succumbing to the wear of the coldest, angriest ocean in the world, were a breed apart and amongst them he made certain to be the best. If they suffered the claustrophobic embrace of the diving suit for eight hours, he suffered them for twelve or more. When they patched a leak in an hour, he patched it in twenty minutes and twice as well. It was a drive, a love that had fulfilled him and afforded him pride.
It’d also allowed him to quietly safe, to quietly build, and to quietly be his own man. There were no family, and precious few friends, to which he answered.
His last shift had been fourteen hours. A bomb, by one of the growing number of dissenters who could not accept their own limitations and strove only to snatch what had eluded them, had ripped open one of the quarters. It had, however, not managed to entirely overwhelm the bulkheads in-place to prevent flooding from structural breach. A few feet more, perhaps, and many could have died instead of a dozen. An entire area could have flooded rather than merely be hosed in freezing ocean water.
Still, for all the work, David was tense. It happened, sometimes, and though he’d worked through the night the call pulled him until he stood amidst the quaint gym only a few blocks from his modest apartment. The walls were painted a dark navy and were peeling, signs of age along the lines were everywhere and still only managed to outnumber the signs of meticulous care and affection in its upkeep by a slim margin.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
His fists, wrapped in tape and more massive because of it, drove into the bag with a brutal, clean efficiency. The aches of the day melding with the aches of his work, forging a sensation pervasive and unrelenting. Satisfying. The many, small distinctions between that which was earned and that which was given making itself known. He worked hard here, kept his body strong and fast, unburdened by the bulk of muscle that stretched across his chest, back, and shoulders from years of hauling sheet alloy and stomping around in a three-hundred pound diving suit.
He did not see her when she entered. He felt her.
The scent of her sweetness, a perform that most likely cost more than anything he owned, along with the sudden turn of heads by the few men and younger boys working near him. For a moment, just a moment, the bag was abandoned. It swayed faintly until he rested one large hand upon it, fingers peeking free from the tape that bound his wrist. David watched her.
And then.
“What do you want now, squints?” The words rumbled from him in quiet and firm rush to caution her. His mood, always gruff and grim, downright sour. Still, unable to help himself, he teased her gently for her glasses. The bookish nature of her work. And despite it, could not conceal the small hints of appreciation in his voice.
They, and the ocean around them, knew he enjoyed her company – reluctantly.
This thread is closed.
It’d been hard to cut into any fucking industry as more than a lackey from the start. They’d seen to that. They’d filled their staff members out from the top down, slowly and surely, and there’d been almost no place for movement. Striking out on your own was too damned hard here. No help? No investors? No chance at making your own fortune save to work like a slave to start. They’d never made that clear. They’d made promises. No taxes. No limits on your ambition. This was the kind of place, they said, where a man could make his own destiny. Bullshit. This was their own private playground.
They weren’t that fucking special.
Atlas was what they called this place. This city. It’d impressed him when he’d first seen it. There were over sixty-thousand souls in Atlas now, which was quite the feat given that it was nearly twelve miles under the Atlantic Ocean. The buildings were built like bubbled skyscrapers with huge, round windows overlooking the sea floor. The lights from the neon signs and billboards had once painted the bottom sediment in eerie colors. Now? Now the lights had attracted bacteria and life, strange plant life taking hold that mirrored the vibrant colors. It was a veritable forest where the lights reached. A desert just beyond them. And the skyscrapers stretched on into the black waters. Atlas, they called it.
He worked for the monorail. Thompson’s Transportation Company. The train was essentially the most sub of subways, spiraling through the massive city as a conduit from one building to another. They traveled through long, dark tunnels. Damp, dire places that stunk of rail grease and stagnant water. It was cold in the passages. Pitch black. The work was hard and relentless. The wages were better than most jobs. Worse than what he deserved. He’d had a degree in Physics, god damnit! He had been a genius back home. A professor!
They’d come after him for tax evasion in Baltimore. The Federal Government had been unjustly taking his wages for the better part of his career and it’d only been a few thousand here and there that he hadn’t reported. The rest of the teachers did the same and they’d never been bothered. He had been persecuted, he knew it, because he’d been persecuted most of his life. It’d started in grade school when the bigger, better looking children had picked on him for his weight. His glasses. His voice, which had always been a little too high, had been mimicked crudely and cruelly since he was very small.
But in the end, here, it was no different. The strong hedged the bets here. And sure, there were no taxes, but there was no compassion either. Here he wasn’t even bright. He was a laborer. He was no longer Edward Herman Plainville, Professor of Physics. He was Eddie Plainville, grease monkey.
And “crunch” addict. He’d gotten his first taste when the boys had gotten tired of drinking at the local pub. It was a stimulant of some kind, easy to make. Potent. It crumbled in your fingers. It crunched between your teeth. That was how most took it. He’d outgrown that. He’d gone on to crunch it up with a little water and inject it, under his arm, where the needle marks were concealed. The rush was better that way. It made him clearer. He could stay up for days on end, work double shifts without losing focus, and his mind always was sharper. He saw all the strings. All the players.
Eddie had been crawling in the East Capital Access Tunnel for the better part of two hours. It was small and flanked the structure’s tenth floor, near the Thompson Transportation Pay Office where he’d discovered his check a couple hundred credits lighter than he’d anticipated. That’d been the last straw. The one that broke the camel’s back. He’d lost his mind there, he admitted to himself. Screamed. Pounded on the glass at the teller’s counter. The laundry list of obscenities that poured out of his mouth as security threw him from the building and into the street outside had been less-clever and less-impressive than he’d have liked. Of course, he’d not been able to get a crunch until then. That’d made him a bit prickly. It always did.
The structures of the city housed several buildings, some skyscrapers and others not. There were streets, like those above, sans cars. In the slums, like Sluggers Row where he lived, things were always damp. Always stinking. Run-down. The walls of the structures rusty. The buildings suffering from wet-rot and neglect. But here, where things were nice, everything was pristine save the putrid staleness of the access tunnel.
He’d never been a chemist. But he wasn’t thick. The bomb had taken time to complete but it’d come together. Theoretically it’d be enough to punch a fifty-foot hole in this section, enough to overwhelm the bulkhead sealing defense mechanism it possessed and ensure the core’s flooding. It wouldn’t kill everyone, of course. But it’d kill. It’d terrify. It’d turn the section into an aquarium. Eddie set down the bag, his fingers wound the copper wire along the nine-volt he’d found. In the dark, amidst the wet, it was hard. Eddie struggled. Cursed. And, on accident, wound the wire too loose and struck the opposite contact.
But as the explosion began he was comforted to know it was right. And, in the very least, he’d die high.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It’d been born of ambition amidst the dark; birthed like a messiah amidst steel and metal alloys that would have been the marvel of the Cold War world. Here, under pressures untold, man defied what was considered scientific gospel and stretched their ingenuity to dizzying heights amidst the blackest of depths. A vision, collected from the world’s best minds, had slowly taken shape. The years had slipped by as construction efforts defied the world’s most dangerous and alien of landscapes. Here, thousands of feet down, man did not merely survive. He thrived and constructed a cathedral of modern achievement. They called it Atlas; a moniker derived from the inspirational Titan whose duty it was to hold up the world. It resonated then.
It resonated differently now.
For a city built entirely below the see Atlas defied all visions such a construction feat might inspire. There was no great dome to shield the skyscrapers from the sea. There were no submersibles puttering around. Instead, providing a view that was as intimidating as it was beautiful, the towering structures of Atlas reached from the muddy bottom like giant metallic fingers. Their windows, massive and numerous, allowed its citizens to look out at an ocean of black sea beyond the glow of its lights. The ocean floor had changed in the decades since Atlas had opened itself. Corals, perhaps attracted to the lights of the city, grew with vibrant and primal colors across the metal legs of access ladders and billboards. The urban jungle beneath the ocean was some mad mix of the natural and unnatural.
In the end there would be an end. He saw it, though no prophet was he, lurking in the dark corridors of the slum quarters where the progress of man had seen fit to leave the unworthy behind. It had not been the dream that had failed them. There was purity in an ideal that could not be sullied even for its practice, set above it, looming beyond the murk and mire of human trials in such a way that a man’s only ambition could reach in name alone. Sloth and Greed had built amongst those less capable, pressed down and passed by those that had been born with brighter bulbs or quicker feet or larger hands. They slopped in the sodden mire of poverty, found release from misery in the drugs, and descended further towards a hell that lacked mystic origins but could have done Dante proud.
He’d seen it coming, known it was so. Some, like him, had left. They’d slipped into the submersibles and stowed away on those few voyages to the Old World. A ten hour ascent through blackness to the flawed machine that they’d once fled. It was not in him, however, to make that choice. He had found a peace in this place, here amidst the cold steel, cold water, and cold hearts. There lurked beneath the fangs of competition a purity of principle that spoke to him. It was not easy but he was proud, modest as his living was made, not only of the wages he had earned but the great quality of his work. In the past he’d exceeded only in murder – a skill well-taught throughout the wars that plagued the World Above.
Now? Now, even in the sluggish and unwieldy confines of his diving suit, he was an artist of his own right. The massive sheets of alloy and fifty-plus pounds of rivet gun his canvas and brush. The geo-thermal welding torch, a marvel of science to which his mind could never have created, the blade under which he could mold clay.
And while he was no scientist, no man of great intellect or creativity, David McCall was a man of incomparable determination. Steady. His reserve matched only by his resolve, inspired by his father and greater men that he had known in the wars, strengthened by the fresh start to which he had been given by Atlas. The men who worked in the diving suits, who kept Atlas from succumbing to the wear of the coldest, angriest ocean in the world, were a breed apart and amongst them he made certain to be the best. If they suffered the claustrophobic embrace of the diving suit for eight hours, he suffered them for twelve or more. When they patched a leak in an hour, he patched it in twenty minutes and twice as well. It was a drive, a love that had fulfilled him and afforded him pride.
It’d also allowed him to quietly safe, to quietly build, and to quietly be his own man. There were no family, and precious few friends, to which he answered.
His last shift had been fourteen hours. A bomb, by one of the growing number of dissenters who could not accept their own limitations and strove only to snatch what had eluded them, had ripped open one of the quarters. It had, however, not managed to entirely overwhelm the bulkheads in-place to prevent flooding from structural breach. A few feet more, perhaps, and many could have died instead of a dozen. An entire area could have flooded rather than merely be hosed in freezing ocean water.
Still, for all the work, David was tense. It happened, sometimes, and though he’d worked through the night the call pulled him until he stood amidst the quaint gym only a few blocks from his modest apartment. The walls were painted a dark navy and were peeling, signs of age along the lines were everywhere and still only managed to outnumber the signs of meticulous care and affection in its upkeep by a slim margin.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
His fists, wrapped in tape and more massive because of it, drove into the bag with a brutal, clean efficiency. The aches of the day melding with the aches of his work, forging a sensation pervasive and unrelenting. Satisfying. The many, small distinctions between that which was earned and that which was given making itself known. He worked hard here, kept his body strong and fast, unburdened by the bulk of muscle that stretched across his chest, back, and shoulders from years of hauling sheet alloy and stomping around in a three-hundred pound diving suit.
He did not see her when she entered. He felt her.
The scent of her sweetness, a perform that most likely cost more than anything he owned, along with the sudden turn of heads by the few men and younger boys working near him. For a moment, just a moment, the bag was abandoned. It swayed faintly until he rested one large hand upon it, fingers peeking free from the tape that bound his wrist. David watched her.
And then.
“What do you want now, squints?” The words rumbled from him in quiet and firm rush to caution her. His mood, always gruff and grim, downright sour. Still, unable to help himself, he teased her gently for her glasses. The bookish nature of her work. And despite it, could not conceal the small hints of appreciation in his voice.
They, and the ocean around them, knew he enjoyed her company – reluctantly.
This thread is closed.
