Gray Skies (6 page)

The outdoors were dressed in the usual and typical gray: colorless and morbid, the same as it had been every day of their lives. Declan thought of the brilliant imagery that Andie had showed them, and of the magnificent clouds that had floated across the sky. He wondered if they might see something like that later. He hoped that they would, but once again felt reservations and doubt.

They had twelve hands of sight, but the fog around them was thick with silvery layers, like the blankets pushed down at the end of his cot. The heaviness told him that they were in a pocket. He thought about what Andie had showed them, and wondered how similar those clouds were compared to the one that they were in. In the electronic photographs, the clouds were mountainous, and were the brightest white he’d ever seen. The ground cover cloud that they were in now was dank and gray; any brilliance was dulled, and it smelled salty, with a repulsive odor that scratched their throats, and cramped their lungs.

He thought of the waste-recycler filters—the ones that trapped and held the thousands of words that he’d written—and how dingy those filters must have been.

Could the clouds be giant filters, trapped by weight, abandoning their perch in the sky?
Swinging his arm in a slow roll in front of them, Declan pulled a swath of whispery vapor behind his fingers, like a game of fast-tag. But the thinning moisture lost interest, resting in front of them before being pushed aside.

He took a breath, and swallowed the foul, salty taste. By now, he knew what to expect, but couldn’t help but wish for a time with clean air. Having seeped through the fabric of their coveralls, he felt the irritation from the air coating his skin. When Sammi let go of him, and patted her sleeves, he was certain that she felt it, too. She pawed at her arms in short fervent swings, and sounded an annoyed
humph
. With the fog breaching their coveralls, the salts felt scratchy and itchy, leeching the moisture from their bodies, like the reaper mold that sometimes killed elders in their Commune. Declan prided himself in being able to stay outside for an entire day, but Sammi could never remain exposed to the fog for more than an hour, or two. Thankfully, the scratchy discomfort only lasted the first few minutes, as their bodies adjusted to it.

Survival is about adjustment
, Declan thought.
It has been for centuries
.

The air smelled the same, and the fog felt the same, but something was different. Declan dragged his feet, as curiosity turned his head, and then he stopped. Holding his finger to his lips, he listened. Sammi gave him a look, questioning his peculiar behavior, but then realized what he was doing.

Their Commune was close to one of the great oceans. On some days, when the fog was thin, they could hear waves crashing onto the black sands of the shore. Some days, they could even hear a handful of fishing parties tied to one another with tether ropes, yelling as they canvased the shoreline, or whooping when they’d made a catch. Fish of any kind was a rare delicacy that only the richest of traders could afford.

But today, they didn’t hear a fishing party. Declan thought that surely the fishing teams were with their families for what might become the greatest day in the history of the world. Today, Declan heard the waves, but he also heard something else: a low hum that hung in the fog, like a tiny salt-gnat buzzing about his ears. His face scrunched in concentration as he listened past the rolling bends of the ocean breaking onto the shore. His eyes widened when he finally figured out what was pulling at his curiosity.

“Can you hear it?” he chimed, exhilarated by the revelation. Sammi tried to listen. With shared interest, her eyes narrowed to mere slits, and she offered him an eager, wishful grin. When the low hum reached her ears, her smile opened. But then her expression changed to concern, and to fear. She didn’t know the sound, or what to make of it, and she began to back away. Declan thought that she might turn around and run back to the safety of their classroom; he knew what it was like to be afraid. He squeezed her fingers, though, and found her eyes, assuring her that they were safe. The sound was mechanical, but for their world, it might as well have been alien.

Their world was a mostly silent one. Machines of every shape, size, and purpose had expired centuries before them, leaving behind nothing but their rusted skeletons. Some remained hollow carcasses, as reminders of a forgotten time, while others had deteriorated into piles of rusted metal flakes for the winds to pick up. VAC-Machines were protected; they always had been. Not only were they protected on the outside and the inside, but their energy sources were said to be self-sustaining, as well.

Shame we don’t have that everywhere
, Declan thought, and considered how much he hated recharging the energy-cell with the cycles.

“Declan, what is that?”

“It’s the VAC-Machine closest to us.”

“But… but that can’t be. Can it? The VAC-Machine is too far away, too distant for us to hear anything.”

“I know. But that is where the sound is coming from, I’m sure of it! My father said that we might be able to hear it today. Heck, he said that the machines are so big, we might even be able to feel the one closest to us.” Declan knelt, easing himself down, and laid his hands on the ground. Sammi followed. When she felt the small vibrations coursing up from the ground, her eyes grew wide with excitement. Declan felt the same, and let out a light laugh of disbelief. They’d never felt anything like it.

“This is crazy,” Sammi commented, pressing her hands against the ground.

“It reminds me of the energy-cells,” he suggested. “They sometimes vibrate.”

“Not like this.” She shook her head. “I think I can feel it in my feet, too.” Standing, she offered her hand to him. Declan reached grabbed it, and pulled himself up. As he stood, he closed the space between them. Still concerned, Sammi held Declan.

“What do you think this means? Is there something wrong with the machine?”

With just a hand or two between them, Declan lost himself in her green eyes. He could smell her hair amidst the salt stench, which stole the purity of everything good. Her skin was white and smooth, void of a single wrinkle or blemish. Her face was unlike most. Even his own face was already beginning to show stray lines deep around his eyes, tight and pulled from exposure to the fog.

Annoyed by the silence, Sammi thumped his chest with her palm and asked, “Well? What do you think this means?”

His cheeks flushed and felt warm, while he tried to think of what to say.

“My father said that when the five years of build-up and storage was complete, all of the VAC-Machines would begin the conversion. But what I think we’re feeling is the machine getting ready to start the change,” he answered quickly. “Think about it: together, the machines are going to change everything around us! All of this might just go away. Isn’t it amazing?” Declan closed his eyes, and thought about sunlight, and clean air to breathe. The excitement was short-lived, though. Unconvinced, Sammi tugged on his arm.

“But I thought you said that the machines stayed on? That they’d always been on?”

Declan stopped and considered this. “I don’t think the machines were ever turned off. Not completely, anyway.” Declan waved a hand until foggy streamers chased after his fingers. “When the clouds fell, the machines were adjusted to try to undo whatever happened. When they couldn’t fix it, they had to come up with another approach. Whatever that approach is, it takes all of them working together for five years to have enough, but no sooner than that.”

“Why, though? What difference is a day from a week or a year?”

Declan thought of his mother. She’d known more about the VAC-Machines than anyone else in their Commune. But, even then, his mother had spared little information to those closest to her. She was one of the few in their Commune who wore four black arm-bands. Her days were filled with leadership meetings, and working closely with the Selectmen and Oversight committees. On some days, she talked about conferring with representatives from Communes across their region, and even across the territories. But what intrigued Declan most was learning that his mother also worked with the VAC-Machine teams. Other than an occasional mention though, she never talked about it.

“It’s all such a big secret,” his dad had argued with her once. His mother had said a word or two, but it was nothing that they didn’t already know.

“There are some things I’m not allowed to discuss!” Declan remembered her yelling back to his father. He had asked his mother once about the VAC-Machines. She’d told some of what she knew, but she had died soon after. Declan didn’t think that his mother would mind if he shared with Sammi what it was that she had told him.

“It has something to do with what the machines are storing for the End of Gray Skies. The VAC-Machines are mining something. It’s how they work now, different from what they were built to do. At first, it was just the ocean water, but now they’re working deep into the Earth, deeper than any machine has ever gone. Every five years, they’ve mined enough to try again.”

“Mining something? Like what we learned in class? So they are going into the ground?” Sammi asked as her expression lightened. Uncertainty still weighed in her tone. She didn’t join in Declan’s smiles, or the waving of his hands to pull fog streamers in a game of fast-tag. Instead, she held a firm expression. “But, Declan, what if it doesn’t work? How many times have they tried to change things back? It’s never worked before. Not once,” she said.

There was doubt in her voice, which stopped Declan. He’d missed it earlier.

“Maybe the sun isn’t really there,” she exclaimed, her voice shaky and subdued.

Declan stepped closer to her. He took her hands again, and brought them up to his chest, unsure of what to say. There was plenty of doubt to share. Many had already decided that today would be no different than any other day, End of Gray Skies, or not.

“Does it matter? Really?” he asked. It was Sammi’s turn, and she knew the answer. Maybe little Tabby from the front row had been right. Maybe their world was enough for all of them, after all. “I mean, is this so bad? This is all we know… it’s all we’ve ever known,” he finished.

“I know… I know, but…” she started to say, and then lifted her chin, tugging on his sleeve, “Don’t you want to see the sun? Don’t you just want to feel it, just once, even if for only a moment? I want to see and feel the sun on my skin. I want to know what it is like to have to squint from the brightness of it. I want to breathe it in, like the plants on the farming floors do when the fluoro-phosphor lamps shine on them.”

“Sammi Sunshine,” Declan blurted with a large grin. When she frowned at him, though, his eagerness to join her enthusiasm quickly faded. Declan realized what he’d said. The name was a painful reminder, and regret turned his smile down. He shook his head, apologizing, when Sammi punched her hand to her hip.

“Sammi Sunshine, it is, then. I’ll eat the sunlight, if that’s what it’s going take!” she exclaimed, raising her chin and then burst out laughing.

Declan nodded, relieved to be laughing with her.

Without warning, Sammi pulled him closer to her, and pressed her body against his. She stretched high on her toes until their lips touched. There were no words, and no sound. The surprise of her kiss waned, and Declan returned the invitation. She was fully in his arms, as he held his lips to hers. It was a small and innocent kiss, but for Declan, it was the biggest moment of his life.

“We can hope,” she said, and then pecked his lips with hers again. “I think that is what I’m going to do.” Declan held onto her until he could feel her heartbeat against his chest. When he opened his eyes, the moment ended. The fog had grown thick again. It sometimes did that; like the tidal waters of the great oceans, the heaviness of the fog needed only minutes to roll in and out, stealing visibility like the quick night falls during the cold season.

Declan saw concern in Sammi’s eyes as she motioned for them to move. He held her a moment longer, and asked, “Don’t you have a secret to tell me?”

Before Sammi could answer, they heard the first sound of footsteps around them, and it wasn’t the children playing fast-tag. These were heavier steps, maybe of men, and there were at least two or three, by Declan’s guess. He forgot about the question, forgot about the secret that Sammi held, and of the kiss they’d shared. Instead, he took Sammi’s hand, and turned back toward the school.

Just a few steps from the entrance, and the entire school building had already disappeared from their view. Declan knew it was there, though; it was always there. Their visibility was down to less than five hands, and maybe six. He knew that this was dangerous. A hollow ache filled his gut with urgency and unease. He waved his hand in front of them, losing his fingers to the fog. Worry grew, filling the emptiness in his gut. They’d need to start moving. The tidal change in the fog might leave them outside with no visibility, completely crippling them.

Most days, they could see up to nine or ten hands, giving them a full arm’s length of reach to see their outstretched hands. On the worst of days, visibility could be three hands, paralyzing any movement. On those days, nobody dared to venture outside. You were vulnerable. Everyone was vulnerable. Sometimes, you were dead, or worse yet: taken.

Both Declan and Sammi had heard the awful stories of people who’d risked the walks, with their arms stretched in front of them, staggering, and reaching blindly in every direction, only to have their hands grabbed by the Outsiders. Declan cringed, thinking of the Outsiders, and the stories that his parents had told him when he was a child. Some in his class had dismissed the stories, thinking that they were folklore; nothing but a scary tale used to keep them inside when the fog was thick.