Crimson Dawn

All of the facilities, building modules and mines on Limbo were hermetically sealed from the moon’s atmosphere and connected by a network of tube systems. The train left the habitats behind, its tracks carrying the metallic beast through the eastern part of the city, taking the boy to the edge of Bancarduu, where the industrial district loomed on the horizon, billowing smoke, unnatural and grim. The final stop was in the middle of a steelworks plant, and the train rolled into the station, nearly empty.

The boy climbed the stairs and crossed a dimly lit overpass. Below him, molten steel burned amid the soot-blackened machinery, a maze of branching pipes and rusted heaters. Men in silver fireproof suits worked over the blindingly bright magnesium river. The orange-tinted smoke hung thick from the heat of the two-thousand-degree furnaces; five thousand tons of raw steel were produced each shift. A single window, thick and round like a porthole, was built into the bridge. From there, the boy looked down at the blast furnace below, as if peering through a crystal ball into a hidden world. A realm ruled by shadowy figures and demons, a place beyond the heights, where fires burned eternally and the slaves groaned under the toil of their devilish work. The heat was omnipresent, suffocating. Even here, in the bridge passage, despite the ventilation systems, he was drenched in sweat.

******

It was still early; the orphanage felt like an abandoned station running on emergency power. The light in the common room was reduced to a single dim bulb hanging from the ceiling, saving energy that was needed for production elsewhere. The boy found a caretaker in one of the narrow corridors and handed him the death report for his mother.

At exactly 3 p.m. the wall-mounted screen flickered to life, jolting Lex from his half-sleep. He shifted into an upright position on the metal bench.

"This morning, dozens of armed terrorists from the FLD stormed a geothermal power plant in the settlement of Urriki, located in the eastern sector. The terrorists were stopped by security personnel on-site before they could cause more damage. Among the dead are numerous workers who were in the plant at the time of the attack," the brunette news anchor said into the camera. As she spoke, brief surveillance footage of combat scenes inside the power plant played on-screen.

The caretaker entered and slid the room card across the aluminum table. He sent the boy a document, dozens of pages long, to his data device. So far, they had barely exchanged a word. The caretaker was a corporate employee, just like the news anchor, the teachers and everyone else who held a higher position on Limbo—especially those whose jobs revolved around shaping the minds of the children born here.

"Can I fill this out in my room?"

"You can."

The boy walked down the west wing, data device in hand, following the signs through several tube-like corridors. He pressed a button, and the hatch to the next room opened like an iris in the night, revealing another dimly lit passageway ahead. A strip of light spilled across the floor from the entrance to the cafeteria, but the usual sounds of clattering trays and voices were absent. As he passed, he glanced inside. Among the empty tables sat a pale girl, staring blankly at her meal. Just as she was about to look up, he had already passed the door.

Ahead, the next hatch opened automatically, and a dark-skinned boy stepped into the corridor. He was a head taller than Lex. Their shoulders collided like celestial bodies on a destined orbit, a collision that was somehow inevitable.

They spun around, facing each other—Lex with one foot on the threshold of the next room. The fading light from the closing elevator doors dimmed the space around them.

The boy in front of him had broad shoulders, thin arms and large hands. He wore an old, grease-stained tank top, its frayed hem hanging down to the knees of his orange jumpsuit pants. A pair of welding goggles with round black lenses dangled from his neck.

"Watch where you’re going," Lex snapped, just before the back of his head slammed against a pipe. The stranger’s fingers, sharp and bony, gripped the fabric of Lex’s shirt and shoved him back against the cold metal.

"We’re the same, little stardancer. We’re in the same boat. Two brothers stuck in the same mess. Get that?" He drove his knuckles harder into Lex’s chest to emphasize the point.

"Tayus, leave him alone."

The bigger boy turned toward the soft voice. The girl from the cafeteria was peeking out from the doorway. Tayus gave Lex’s head one last shove into the pipe before letting go. "A girl saved you," he muttered.

Lex rubbed his neck, veins pulsing, his breath heavy. He watched Tayus until he disappeared into the cafeteria with the girl.

Room 301, like all the other rooms, measured thirteen square meters. From the center, you could reach any wall in four or five steps. The beds were stacked bunks—no mattresses, no springs, just wooden boards with foul-smelling wool blankets thrown on top. On the opposite wall, there was a small window, round like the porthole on the bridge, offering a view of the industrial smokestacks and the rust-colored wasteland beyond.

Lex shrugged his backpack off his shoulder, unbuttoned his linen shirt halfway, and pulled it over his head. He headed to the tiny washroom, splashing his face with icy water to rid himself of the grime from the night shift. Back in the room, he grabbed his backpack by the strap and carried it over to the six metal footlockers lined up in a row. One of them had the name "Tayus Nraad" stenciled on it. He paused for a moment, wondering how small the odds must have been that he’d end up sharing a room with him of all people. Then he unzipped the front pocket of his bag and pulled out an ancient picture book made of real paper—a rarity he’d found among his mother’s things.

He closed the locker and slipped the key into the pocket of his pants. With the picture book in hand, he sat down on the dented metal chair by the window. The pages held paintings of old Earth, but Lex didn’t know how much of it was real and how much the artist had made up. He saw trees, beaches, oceans, rivers, waterfalls, and a blue sky. He wondered if the ocean on Earth was made of water you could actually drink, then closed his eyes and tried to imagine standing on a beach, smelling the fresh air over the sea—the way air was supposed to be, natural and clean. But his imagination was fuzzy, and most of it didn’t match up with reality.

As he turned the page, a yellowed piece of paper slipped out. It seemed to have been torn from a blank page in the book, and on the back, his father had written a short message to his mother.

Dearest Miranda,

One day, we’ll return to our roots. I’ll be damned if we don’t. Someday, we’ll have a picnic with our boy beneath the trees of those forests.

In this life or the next.

Yours,

Liam

With the note in his hand, Lex gazed out the small window. Beyond the factories, the vast sea of dunes stretched out into the desolate, dead world. There was no sun in the sky.

He glanced back at the book, looking at the blue ocean, the white sand and the blazing sun. Then, almost to himself, he murmured that the god the teacher spoke of so often had no place for any of the convicts by his side. That God wasn’t present in this corner of the universe. He must’ve been somewhere else, maybe in the place where the pictures from the book were real, but certainly not here.