Gray Skies (15 page)

He paused before taking his next step, hearing the curious turn of the guard’s head. James realized what he’d done. Standing in front of the executive entrances was not permitted. Knowing the rule just tempted him, but he pulled in a resigned breath, and moved to a safer distance.

James knew all the rules. He knew them, because he had written most of them, just as he’d written his final Commune rule earlier that morning.

The last rule he’d authored was a silly rule, really; it was almost nonsensical. Courtyard marketers had grown tired of the children running free in their games of fast-tag, and whatever business children get into when given the opportunity. The new rule:
all children under the age of eight must be tethered by a parent or guardian
. James shook his head. It was bad enough that the kids were tethered at all times when outdoors. In the courtyard, they should be free to run and play, as only children know how to do.

He and Janice Gilly had tried their best to get pregnant before their time expired, but there was no Sundref and Gilly offspring to be added to the Commune, let alone any to be tethered because a market seller had grown annoyed by childish play. He sighed, thinking of Janice. A day earlier, they would have celebrated their twenty-year bond, if children had been theirs to have.

James slowed to see the wavy image of himself in the walls that lead to the executive office entrance. Though the image lacked detail, the reflection told a contrite story. He didn’t see the James Sundref that Janice Gilly had fallen in love with, or the man she’d chosen as hers. Instead, he saw a balding man that held more stature around his waist than in his broad shoulders from twenty years earlier.

“What does it matter now, anyway?” he mumbled. “I’m a dead man.”

He pulled on the collar of his coveralls, trying to make room for the fatty folds around his neck. The coveralls didn’t need to be so tight; he was just too proud to put in an order for a larger size. Choking back his breath, and feeling a light sweat on his skin, he gulped at the air and stared at the image of himself. Though he knew death was waiting for him, he thought he saw a sheepish sneer grinning in his reflection as embarrassment and shame followed. He turned his face away, and waited for the humiliation to pass.

Regret followed the fading embarrassment. Janice had wanted to stay with him; she had wanted to continue their lives together, even after their time to have a child expired. But he’d already been promoted to an executive level. Choosing was forever, and, while Janice had chosen him, James had decided to become an executive instead. He could have stayed with her—he
should
have stayed with her. He should have loved her as she had loved him. But his mistress had called to him, lied to him; she’d told him half-truths about the good he would do in the name of the Commune. He’d put his career in front of everything, and thought he loved it more than anything. Without children, leaving Janice was just the easier thing to do.

Thinking of that day, when he left their dwelling and broke their bond, a sour taste filled his mouth and cramped his chest. It was the taste of regret, and he wouldn’t know until much later how that one decision impacted the lives of so many. As a schoolteacher for the last twenty years, he hoped that Janice had found happiness in devoting her life to the children of the Commune.

But how do you measure hope?
James cringed at this last thought.
Can you measure hope?
He spat the sour taste in his mouth, knowing how to measure regret. For him, the measure of regret would soon become the number of floors he’d fall before hitting the courtyard floor.

“I’d take it back if I could, Janice,” he spoke aloud, not caring if the executive guards heard his words. “I’d take it all back!”

When he reached the ledge, he placed his hands upon the cold, resin coating, and realized for the first time just how high the executive floors were. His stomach went to his throat, and he heaved a breath that languished in fear. For a moment, his stomach flipped, and the thought of what he was about to do made him ill. Sweat beaded on his balding head, and he tightened his grip, trying to commit his mind to the jump that was going to end his life.

Yet, maybe there were options. Maybe he could exile himself? But the thought of fending for himself outside the safety of the Commune made him laugh. He chuckled as he imagined a fat man running in the fog, while Outsiders chased him down. Leaping from the executive floor was an easier death. It was quick and painless… he hoped. Janice’s face came to him then, and his laugh ended. Abruptness turned his smile down, and he frowned. He’d broken their union years ago, but it felt like just yesterday.

Closing his eyes, he welcomed the darkness, and considered that there was more to blindness than just the absence of sight. He was blind to what he’d had with Janice and the life they could have had; the life they should have had together, if not for that ill-fated decision he’d made. It was just a promotion. He could see that now, but it was too late. It had been too late for a very long time.

He could only hope that she’d forgotten about him; that the pain he’d caused her was a distant memory, a mere thought that passed on occasion before being lost, like the glimpse of something briefly recognized. His thoughts went to the girl with the red hair and her death, and to others who had died, as well. But, of course, someone in his position knew that they weren’t just dead. It wasn’t that simple. He’d come to learn that small fact, and wished he’d known less. There were secrets behind the doors of the executive offices, and he’d had his fill of them for one lifetime.

James tightened his grip on the ledge, his soft pudgy fingers scraping against the rough resin. He winced once, and then pushed, trying to lift himself up onto it. There was such a small divide between life and death, and at once, he felt himself begin to struggle. Blood rushed into his face, and pin-lights raced across his eyes. He coughed a flood of air from his lungs, gasping, and finally dropped back to his feet.

Turning away from the ledge, he began to cry. How pathetic had he become? He couldn’t even lift himself onto the balcony ledge. As an executive, he enjoyed every perk, and had grown overweight and weak. From the corner of his eye, he saw that he’d roused the attention of one of the executive guards. Lifting his hand, he swiped at the sweat rolling from atop his head, and waved off the guard.

“Indigestion, is all,” he explained. “I’ll be fine in a minute.”

The guard replied with a quick nod, and turned back to his statue role, standing at attention, motionless. James cleared his throat and shuffled his feet, thinking of what he was going to do. If he couldn’t lift himself, then how was he going to jump?

Think. Think. Think
, he heard in his mind. This wasn’t a problem to solve. There was no alternate plan; he had to jump, and that was that! One way or another, he was going to get himself up on that ledge, and then he’d leap. He glanced over at the guards, counting the number of hands between them: a few hundred… ten meters, maybe more? Could they close that distance in time to stop him?

James turned back around, and pressed his hands against the coarse resin. The suppleness of his skin reminded him of his years behind the desk, pushing rule after rule. He pressed his hands until the pain was more than he could bear. The courtyard far below him was nearly empty. A few children ran freely, playing chase with one another; their parents were gathered into small circles, trading stories, or gossiping.

The children were painful reminders that he had been young once. He paused a moment, and then shrugged against this sentiment. The children were more than painful reminders. They were the future of their Commune, the future that wasn’t likely to be what it was supposed to be. The failed End of Gray Skies was just a test. Everything would change soon enough.

The tether strap rule he’d written that morning wouldn’t be enforced for another week. Two levels of review awaited the order, after which it would pass, and then be announced across the Commune. He enjoyed watching the children run in the courtyard. Often, his lonely days were broken up by the highlight of a visit to the courtyard. Hints of a smile moved the corners of his lips. The children were running freely today. But in a week, that would change… a lot of things were going to change. More than one new rule was being passed, and his hands had been on all of them.

A small amount of satisfaction crept into his smile. His quick death would anger the executive levels above him, once they’d found out what he’d done. They would have wanted him exiled from the Commune. Use of the flu that had been weaponized would be too merciful, too quick. They would want him to suffer at the hands of the Outsiders, or starve on the black sands of the beaches, eating salt-gnats, and drinking seawater. He leaned over the ledge, pulling in the far view. Jumping to his death was easy. One leap, and it would all be over.

An earthy scent came to him in a pleasurable whiff. He’d always loved the smell of plant life rising from the farming floor. Yet today, the farms offered a grim note to how his life would end. With the redolence came images of his being alone during his cleaning and passing. Unsettling thoughts came to him next; thoughts that
nobody would be with him as he was passed to the farming floor
.

He thought of Sandra Chambers, and her daughter, Hadley, and the executives that had attended their cleaning and passing. He was supposed to have gone. He’d
tried
to go. Biting his lower lip, he thought of how he’d stood just out of view, just far enough to hear the boy, Declan, grieving for his mother and sister. He’d stayed and listened until the completion of the rite, and the passing of their bodies. He’d stayed, but had never been seen.

Sandra Chambers knew, too. She had known what the upper level executives were doing, but now it wouldn’t be long before everyone else knew too.
She wasn’t supposed to know,
James reminded himself.
She was just a junior executive. Innocent.
She would have never known what was really going on with the VAC Machines if it weren’t for his carelessness. It was his fault that she had found out. A rush of guilt came then, knotting his gut as he leaned into the balcony ledge, overwhelmed.

It was just supposed to make her sick. I used the exact amount
. Shaking his head, he regretted his naivety, and the storm of lies he had been so willing to trust.
Why did I listen to them?
He leaned harder against the ledge, feeling it press into his middle, threatening to take his breath.
She was only supposed to get sick; sick enough to miss the meeting and the vote.
The damn vote; what did it matter, anyway? Voting about the VAC Machines shouldn’t have been left to just the executives.
And why was her daughter with her?
James felt a pinch in his heart, and for a moment, he was certain that he was going to keel over before he got the chance to jump. He imagined dying on the balcony, his heart exploding in his chest.

His thoughts stayed on Sandra’s daughter, Hadley—another innocent victim in the mess he’d created—a bystander who had drank from the same cup as her mother. And maybe that was what fueled the guilt faster, hotter. Death would douse those flames.

He pulled his hands up, turning them once, and then realized the magnitude of what he’d done. Sandra’s death and the death of her daughter were both his to bear, and the guilt was his to die with. What he saw then nearly brought him to his knees. A balding man stumbled through the collection of children playing in the courtyard. The man shuffled his feet past the huddled parents, waving once before falling. It was Richard Chambers, Sandra’s husband. Executive guards were already approaching, eager to remove the intoxicated sight from the Commune’s courtyard.

I did that to him
, James thought.
I broke that man
.

James shook off a perching tear as an unnatural calm came over him. He huffed out the air in his lungs, and was ready. From his front coverall pocket, he pulled a small index card and turned it over so that the rows of numbers were facing him. He pushed his finger across the imprint of inky black and squared glyphs, studying them, as though rehearsing what he’d done a thousand times already.

“This is what started it all,” he mumbled, and snapped his head over to the executive office entrance, and the guards. The executive guards kept their statue-like posture, while he ripped the index card in half. The sound and feel of the thick parchment shredding rushed through him like a climactic release, ending what he’d started, and knowing his time was coming, James tore into each new half, eager to finish. He tore the halves again and again, before throwing the pieces from the balcony. The executive guards were watching him now; uncertainty and confusion was fixed in place of their blank expressions. It was time.

The muscles in his arms quivered under the strain of his weight, and then began to shake, as he desperately pushed himself onto the ledge. He was crying, and a mix of sweat and tears needled his eyes, but it wasn’t for the thought of what he was about to do, it was for the misery he’d caused Sandra’s family, and for the regret in losing the love of his life.

He’d broken his bond with Janice Gilly, and for what? Who had he become in the years that he’d been without her? What was his contribution that anyone would benefit from? Rules? Janice had contributed; she’d influenced and mentored her students. And maybe subconsciously, it
was
for the lack of having children, yet her work was admirable; it was righteous and pure. He, instead, had spent his time learning things he didn’t want to know, and had then vowed an empty commitment to support and uphold them.