SIXTEEN - Atherton

Atherton discovers a greater threat to Xantom.

Down.

That’s the only direction Atherton was positive they were going.  The cave tunnels twisted and turned, but the one thing that never changed was the downward slope.

Draven led the way, followed by Hadrian, his wife Ecclesia, and a few others who had agreed to take the journey.  Atherton stayed in the rear, following closely in the others’ footsteps so as not to get lost in a side tunnel, or slip and crack his skull.  It seems like we’ve been walking for hours.  But you can’t ask how much longer or they’re going to think you’re weak.  He had tried asked where they were going, but he got the same answer:  “You’ll see when we get there.”  If we ever manage to get there.

His body felt exhausted.  If walking through the freezing Barelands and getting knocked unconscious wasn’t enough, he hadn’t managed to sleep very well the night before.  He was worried about his siblings, about whether Xanthus had been able to find them, and on top of that his head throbbed constantly.  However much sleep he had gotten, it wasn’t enough.

Every step sent another wave of pain through his body.  Each wave crashed into his skull.  It was hard to focus, but he fought through.  Maybe we should have waited to do this on another day.  But he didn’t dare complain.  Draven had piqued his curiosity and now he couldn’t stop until he learned what was at the bottom of the cave.  But honestly, they didn’t have to knock me out.  If they had just announced themselves, I probably would have stopped swinging my knife around like a crazy person.

“Hey,” Meridian said, coming up from behind him.

Atherton jumped, skidding on the wet ground.  He barely caught himself on the wall.  How is it possible to move so quietly in these caves?  “You scared me half to death,” he said.

“That scared you half to death?  Can’t imagine what seeing something actually frightening would do to you,” she said with a smirk.

“I’m just not used to it out here.”

“Well, get used to it.  I can’t have you dying on me.  Do you have any idea what it’s like to have no one your own age around?”

She was right.  Atherton was the youngest person in the group, followed closely by Meridian.  After that there was a huge gap before hitting the next person up.  Nobody out here was having children.

“Were you exiled recently?”  Atherton asked her.  “I don’t remember any other young people being exiled.  But then, I never attended the ceremonies anyway.”

“I was born out here.”

“Oh.  Where’s your mother?”  Before the words were out of his mouth, he knew what the answer was.

“She’s dead,” she said.  “Never really knew her.  I think I’m the last of my kind out here.  Probably the last there ever will be.  It feels kind of cool, you know?”

I have no idea what you’re talking about.  “The last of what kind?”

He could almost hear the eye-roll before she spoke.  “People born in exile.  Nobody wants to bring life into this world.  Not after what we’ve found.”

“Which is what?”

She cracked a huge smile.  “You’ll see soon enough.  We’re almost there.”

Atherton let out a huff of air.  “You sound just like your father.”

“He is my father…” she let that sink in for a second.  “We’ll talk later,” she said, running ahead to be with her father.  Draven wrapped an arm around her shoulders and they walked together.

“Be careful with that one.”  The voice came from out of the darkness behind Atherton.

Atherton spun around, reaching for his knife.  I thought I was at the back of the line.  It was an old man with a long, wispy white beard that swayed below his waist.  He hunched over and walked slowly with an obvious limp.  I’m surprised he can even walk through these caves.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me.  Even if I meant to hurt you, I’m not sure I’d be capable.  I’m Whittaker.”  He extended a hand.  Atherton shook it.

“Atherton.”

“I know.”  Of course he knows.  I’m the only new person around here.  Don’t be an idiot.  Whittaker seemed unaware of his existential crisis and continued talking.  “Meridian is fiercely intelligent and independent, like her father.  You’ll have to sharpen your mind if you want to be able to keep up with her.  The other day she asked me how long it’s been since I’ve been with a woman.  Can you believe that?  Just came out of nowhere.  When she talks to you, it’s like doing battle�"you have to be ready for anything.  But it seems she’s taken an interest in you.”

“An interest?  In me?  She doesn’t know me.”

Whittaker chuckled.  “That’s why she’s taken an interest.  If she knew you, she’d probably be bored.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.  I don’t know you, either.  Just keep your eyes and your mind open.  She’s probably going to test you.”

That sounds exhausting.  “I don’t think I’m ready for a test.  I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Nobody does on their first day.  But you’d better catch up quick before she tears you apart!” he said, laughing.

There’s a lot of laughter out here.  There was never any room for laughing in the Outskirts.  But people out here seem so… happy.  Does it have anything to do with what they’re about to show me?

He slipped on a wet patch on the ground and stopped to catch his breath.  “We’ve been walking for too long,” he said.

“If you walk with me, you’ll have an excuse for going a little slower.  Everyone forgets how hard it is to get through these caves for the first time.”

“How do you manage?”

“Do you think I’m incapable?” Whittaker said.

“No, I�"that’s not what I meant!  I just thought, you know, you could have stayed back with the others.  It’d be more comfortable, and�"”

Whittaker started laughing.  “I’m only kidding.  Draven and the others have told me to stay back plenty of times.  They said I’d be safer, less likely to hurt myself.  But I like going on these little walks.  They make me feel young again.  And I like coming down here to remind myself what’s really going on in this Dome.  It’s humbling, in a way.”

“How long have you been out here?”

“As long as I can remember.  Not that that’s saying much, my memory isn’t so great anymore.”

“Were you born out here?”

“No.  But before you go assuming something about me that isn’t true, I wasn’t exiled either.  My parents decided that it was better to strike out on our own than sit around and wait for the King to provide for us.  No matter how hard they worked or how much they sacrificed, we still needed more.  I was only a baby at the time.  But the decision must have worked out okay.  I’m still here.”

“That’s crazy.  So you’ve been out here a long time.”

“Very long.

“I don’t know why I never even considered the possibility of leaving the city by choice.  It makes sense, but it never occurred to me.”

“It wouldn’t.  When you don’t know what’s out here, and all you know is what you hear, it seems crazy to try to go out on your own, like suicide.  But then, life is what you make it.  You can never really trust anything you’re told unless you see it for yourself.  That’s the biggest reason Draven always brings the new people down here to see it for themselves.  That way you can’t dismiss it as hearsay.”

Atherton felt fear rising in his chest and remained silent.  Where are they taking me?

He had plenty of time to ponder the question.  They walked for another half hour in silence.  Just as he was beginning to think they would never arrive, Draven signaled for everyone to stop.

“We’re here.”

Atherton took a deep breath and moved forward through the darkness.  Whatever this is, it’s big.  Things are going to change.  It’s enough to make everyone stop having babies and apparently means the doom of our entire civilization.  And I’m about to see it firsthand.  I hope I’m ready for this.

He walked past Dragomir, who was holding a torch above his head, casting the light in a larger circle to help light the way.  As he passed, he looked up and met the man’s eyes.  Apparently Dragomir could see Atherton’s fear, because he twisted his mouth into a reassuring smile and nodded, as if to say, “It’s going to be okay.”

He stepped out of the tunnel and into a wide, open space.  At the other end of the open cavern, Draven and Meridian were waiting beside the wall, holding their torches and watching Atherton’s approach.  He continued forward slowly.  I don’t see anything yet.  It’s supposed to be right here, but what am I looking at?  He was close enough that he should have been able to see anything that was different or wrong, but nothing was immediately apparent.

“What is it?” He asked.

“Look closer,” Draven said, moving his torch closer to the wall.  Atherton squinted, adjusting to the slight change in lighting… and then he saw it.  In this particular spot, the wall wasn’t made up of the rock that formed the rest of the cave.  This small section of the wall shimmered in the light in a familiar way that Atherton remembered from his childhood.

He reached forward to touch it, but already knew how it was going to feel�"cold and wet.  He ran his fingers along the surface, which didn’t disappoint.  When he pulled his hand away, the places he had touched glowed yellow for a moment before fading away.

“The Dome,” he said simply.  His eyes traced the outline of this space in the wall.  It was around four feet wide and seven feet high.  Outside of that, the cave wall intruded and took over, spreading outwards to create the space they were in.

“You didn’t feel anything odd about it?” Draven asked.  “Try again.”

Atherton, growing frustrated, reached forward to feel the Dome again.  “Why don’t you just tell me what I’m looking for?  It doesn’t have to be a big�"”

That was when he felt it.  A crack.  The width of the section of the Dome was split almost exactly in half by the crack, which ran from the top of the open space all the way down to the floor.  At the bottom, a stream of cold water trickled through.  Atherton lifted his hand to his mouth to taste the water.  He spit and rubbed his hand off on his clothes.  Drywater.

“It’s cracked,” he said.

“And the water that surrounds us is leaking through,” Draven explained.  “The Dome is flooding.  It won’t be long before all of Xantom and the Barelands are under water.”

Suddenly everything was clear.  Everyone is going to die.  Every single person.  No wonder they aren’t having children anymore.   “How long has this been happening?” he asked.

“We don’t know.  We found it a few years ago.  It’s a slow leak, and we have no idea how long it will actually take before the whole Dome is flooded, but it’s happening.  And we can’t stop it.  We’ve tried to plug it, but nothing holds the water back.”

“I haven’t heard anything… does anybody else know?  Do the people in Xantom know?”

Draven sighed.  “We’ve been trying to tell the King since we first discovered it.  But he hasn’t exactly made it easy.  It’s hard enough to get into the city.  And if you do manage to get in, it’s a delicate subject.  You can’t just blurt out, ‘oh, hey, the Dome is flooding and we’re all going to die.’  Even if you tell him you’ve seen it with your own eyes, he’s going to want to see it, too.  Then when you start to lead him towards the Barelands, he’s going to assume it’s a trap and have you executed or exiled.  But we have to tell the King�"he’s the only one with any power.  And if we told anyone else, there would be chaos.  Widespread panic.  Quintessa has gone in twice to try and speak with him.  Both times, she was exiled before she even had a chance to bring it up.”

“But… the people in Xantom are focusing their energy on the wrong thing!  What good is finding food going to do them if there’s no land left to stand on?”

“We don’t know how serious it is, or how long it’s been happening.  It could be years before the flooding becomes a legitimate threat.  If they don’t have food, they won’t survive long enough to worry about the flooding.  People are focused on making it to tomorrow.  Let them put their focus where they will, and the King can deal with the bigger picture for now.  Life is hard enough without the knowledge that after a few more tomorrows, there won’t be any left.  We need to figure out a way to solve the problem.”

“Where does the water go?”  Atherton squatted to watch the water trickle in.  He saw that it headed downhill, towards a large rock formation that appeared to have caved in from above.  Around the base of the rocks, the water had formed a massive pool that filled almost half the cavern.  “Is there more behind the rocks?”

“We don’t know,” Draven said.  “Those rocks are too big to move.  They’ve been there since we first found this place, so we have no idea when they got there.  If there is anything behind them, it’s probably completely underwater.”

Atherton suddenly felt ill.  Everyone he ever knew was going to die.  Of course, everyone dies eventually, but it felt different somehow, knowing that life wouldn’t continue afterwards.  There’s no hope for us.  He fell to his knees, barely registering the pain of the hard stone digging into his skin.

“We have to fix this.  If the only way to do that is to talk to the King, then that’s what we have to do,” Atherton said.

“We’ve been trying,” Quintessa said.  “It isn’t as easy as you think.”

“We have to try harder.  Even if we have to tell him the truth about who we are and how we know.”

“He’ll kill us if we do that,” Draven said.

“Well, we’re all going to do anyway, right?”

“How do you propose we do this?” Draven said.  “Like I said, Quintessa has been exiled twice just trying to get a word in.”

“I’ll do it myself.”

“He just exiled you.  He’ll remember you, and he’ll kill you.  If you can even get past the guards.”

“I know a way in.  There’s a secret crack in the wall around the city… nobody knows about it except for me.”

Draven went silent for a moment.  Suddenly his tone became deadly serious.  “Are you certain?”

“Yes.  I used to use it all the time to get food for my family.  Nobody knows it’s there.”

Draven turned towards the others.  “This is it,” he said to no one in particular.  “This is what we’ve been waiting for.”  He turned back to Atherton.  “And you would be willing to lead us inside?”

“Yes.  And once we get in to talk to Xanthus, I can tell him everything.  I don’t think he’ll kill us; he respects me.  He’s taking care of my brother and sister.”

“Do you have any idea what this means?” Draven asked him.  “You were sent to us.  The Dome wanted you here, to save us all.”  He turned to the rest of the group and spoke louder.  “It looks like we found exactly what we needed!”

The entire cave filled with the sounds of cheering and celebration.

We’re going to save everyone.