To risk a life

or, another fragment of Precipice

Hello,

Thank you for being here. Another fragment of Precipice has been carved into the page.

If you’re unfamiliar, this is my SciFi(-ish) story. Our protagonist Jisa has gotten herself in a right mess of love and theft and, well, something something. This piece does follow on from the last, but the order’s not so important. Dip in and out without worry. You can find all prior fragments here, to read in any order.

This background post helps to establish some of the world:

Notes from the edge

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Fragment synopsis: Jisa takes on the perilous task given to her by Cloud.

Image courtesy of Bing’s DALL-E.

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“Move, or leave,” I mutter, hands clasped to the rungs as I stare at the thin shelf to my left. The wind swirls, mocking me with its freedom. The ladder moans and creaks. In the distance, shuttles skim Siridan’s skies, unaware of the thief that clings by a thread.

Below, the shaft descends to its impossible origin, to where a lone guard sat pointless in his duty. He never saw me, never heard as I slipped over and across the railing, the storm masking my every move.

“Do it,” I shout, forcing some action. The rain batters my face, my fingers and forearms aching from the climb. With a final pause, I hook a leg over the shelf and edge my way on, hands shaking as I release them from their safety, as I turn—slowly, oh so slowly—around, as I remove my pack and press my back against this shaft, its cold metal indifferent to my plight.

Exhaling relief, I stare out and down. Beneath me, the world weeps for Siridan. And it is beautiful. A different kind of beauty to how I saw Vi, different even from my descent with Cloud, spoiled then by distraction, yet from here the sprawling mass of lights becomes the map of a city I have known and breathed, lived and cursed. From this vantage it sheds its flaws, smooths them out like pressed cloth, ignorant of the passage of the years and unaware of how it has forgotten the seasons save the bleak.

I grin in slow recognition. The Causeway—the great once-river of Siridan—is obvious merely by virtue of its absence. Like a blackened scar, it divides the city in two, slicing northeast through southwest, a section stark and devoid of light. Along the eastern bank, arranged with more coordination than elsewhere, I see a bright mass of buildings. Dudun, I realise. The thriving hub of Siridian. Further out, sprawling and haphazard lights signal the slums and dens of Ventar and Corilon. South, the engineering and industrial districts, home to vast buildings that manufacture endlessly, the air above them a swarm of transports that seethe through billowing smog. Then, to the west, my eyes settle where I knew they would: Dridok. My home. There is nothing special to notice from here, nothing save my knowledge that it is there, that earlier I was there. Moiety, though, is clear: strips of light encircle the massive rockmass to Dridok’s north. They seem like contours, ones that could be traced with a finger.

It is a map like no other. A map of Siridan, Mardeen’s jewel. A map of a city long crushed and drowned.

I close my eyes, hear the distant sound of the city and the drumming of rain, the ever-changing whistle of the wind. The fear has left me, I realise, replaced by an emptiness, an abstraction of insignificance for who I am and everything I am not.

Opening my eyes, I gaze up and into the nebulous cloud-choked sky. It moves, pushed by invisible hands. It swirls and splits around the great struts that strike up from the ground to support the city above.

But I cannot stay like this. I must not. I reach into my pack and feel around at the contents. The probe from Warv and a rigged umbrella; the small computer—the one I’ll crush and scatter upon my return—and the separate drive, that gift from Warv I had almost denied as he near forced it into my hand. Now, astride this shaft, I fear his prescience was all too real.

I remove the umbrella and with an eager snap the black canvas whips open. A series of propellers begin their high-pitched whirring, adjusting trim and speed so the whole thing hovers above and to my side. A minor respite, yet a welcome one.

The probe and computer come next. I worry, like always, that somehow water will find circuitry, yet a risk far more real is if I drop them, so for this I have attached straps that I loop around my wrists. Then I wire in Warv’s probe. It could work without, but hard-wired is safer. In my ascent I will have passed unknowingly through the barrier of interference, though even with such freedom I wonder at what security scours these skies unseen.

With the computer between my legs, I unfold the small screen and depress my thumb for access. It comes alive, lines of text glowing soft orange—a simple interface, for complex work. Then I extend the scrying antennae that latch onto its back like small, metallic insects. My own creation, central to what I am about to do—the only way I will get enough penetrance to Vi. Unlike the computer, I won’t destroy these. Too valuable. Too personal. Besides, detached they betray nothing.

I initiate the probe and a series of small plots fill a quarter of my screen. Excessive things, there for completion, because this is Warv after all. I have to squint to read them, but there are only two readings I require: the density and moisture content of where the probe is pointing, along with its angle. The former traces a graph in real time, fluctuating wildly as I move the probe around, testing; the latter is just a number that updates with each movement. Closing my eyes I think back to the map, to Vi’s district of Libek, to its position directly above Garran here in Siridan. The strut of wires I find myself upon ascends from a northern access point that—were I to rise and be within Vi itself—ends at a location a few hundred feet short of The Kernel.

The Kernel. The building whose edge I glimpsed from Cloud’s room. The building that straddles the city of Vi, harvesting light for all that grows within. The building that, along with its sisters, promises a planet’s future.

Yet which planet?

Could it be true, what Cloud said? Does this knowledge rest upon my actions now? I have skirted its import, have laughed it off or have simply been blinded by my actions and those of Cloud—words and feelings that begin to disperse with time’s doubt. Is he up there, with Tess instead of me? Has he righted that picture, leaving nothing but a smear in his conscience like the tears I left streaked upon his window?

My eyes drift back down to the screen, watching graphs that scribble and flutter. I take another glance to the gleam of Siridan below, then affix the probe to the antennae so their angles are identical.

I visualise the position of The Kernel.

I tune the angle, cursing at the difficulty of doing this blind.

Then, I begin.

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