Under the Canopy

I woke up in a box. The box was dimly lit and had furniture in it. My mind jumped up and down around my brain. I concentrated and realized that it was a room. It was white and smelled of antiseptic and ozone.

Stripes of red light invaded the darkness and crawled across the walls and the ceiling. I watched them carefully and then looked at the source. The window was shielded by shades, but I could see the outside through the cracks. Blinking lights in the haze, steel and glass, prickly shapes of rooftops. I was in the city.

My body was pain. Every part of it was numb with painkillers, but they didn't help. I lifted my head and looked at my body. A patch of white on the chest. On the stomach. My foot in a cast. Some shit on my face. And tubes, they were all over me, going from my body to somewhere beyond the bed. I got scared. I tried to rip them off. I was strapped to the bed. I was trapped. They were killing me. I started to scream and twist my body, trying to break free. Something started to feverishly beep above me. The door opened, and some people rushed to me. They yelled into my face and held me down.

I fell into the fuzzy unconsciousness as suddenly as I awoke from it.

Roomie

The ad didn't lie, and ten standard days later I actually arrived in Safun.

A space jump later, I was at the spaceport of one of the few cities the human race had managed to build on this planet. An island of clean fingernails and appetizers amidst the primordial wilderness.

However, if you looked at the city and the forest, you may have seen that they were like children of one mother, but different fathers. It seems that the architects took cues from the surrounding environment and designed the city in a tree like manner. Multileveled, with passages-branches connecting the towers and constant movement of smaller creatures all over them. Not that different.

The spaceport itself was a dome-like construction with its glass bubble encompassing passageways to different launching platforms. I was standing in the main hall, a bag at my feet, waiting for the new colleague to pick me up.

'Save Safun! The planet needs your help!' a shout screeched in the cooled air.

I checked the source of the commotion. It was a skinny man in baggy clothes, which could have been just a sheet wrapped around his body. He was waving pamphlets and yelled at passers-by about loving nature so hard that veins stood out on his shaved head. You might have guessed that his clothes had flowers on them. You know the type. Public places, especially hubs for some reason, tend to attract such people.

I can't stand those fuckers. They seem to be working for a good cause, talking about our connection to nature, but there's even more puttering in them than the average person. A noisy paradox. Yes, I also liked nature and all that, but not in this way. The skinny agitator made me feel uneasy and irritated. In my opinion, people like that are all talk and no walk. Helping nature is about doing it, not yelling at people. In the end, they only get the opposite — people refuse to go green just out of spite towards the shaved freaks.

I caught movement with the side vision and turned my head. A man was making his way through the crowd towards me. By the determined expression of his face, I understood that this was my man. I straightened, tearing my back from the wall, and picked up the bag with the left hand.

The man came closer and proved me right. He had an army jacket on, jackboots and a thick belt with pouches. The civilians rarely dress like that. The only thing in his costume that betrayed the military look was a white shirt with a cartoon bird on it. The man looked young, just a few years older than me. He came up to me and offered his hand.

'Howdy,' he said. 'My name is Edlon. You are my new roomie, right?' He smirked and squinted at the same time, as if he knew some secret, but wouldn't tell anyone. Something told me he made that face a lot.

Roomie.

'That's right. I'm Wealder.' I shook his hand. I expected it to be sweaty and it didn't disappoint.

'Cool.' He jerked his head back and forth like a bobble head doll. 'First time as a ranger?'

'Yep.'

'I'm in my third year. Probably will renew for a fourth. Cushy job, good money.'

'And what about the locals? Do they bother you?'

The smirk dropped for a moment. However, Edlon quickly restored the merry appearance and waved my words off. 'Every time I see those freaks, I shoot into the air and they scatter.' He stretched his face, bulged the eyes and started to dance on the spot, hands in the air. 'Karap-sup! Karap-sup! It means "thundergod."'

I raised an eyebrow. 'Thundergod?'

Edlon nodded. 'Yeah, that's what they call us, dumb fucks. Well, what am I supposed to do? As they say, if someone calls you a god, don't argue.' He gave a belly laugh at his own alienist joke. I let it pass and looked at my watch.

Edlon noticed that and clicked his tongue. 'Yeah. Come on, it's time to go.' He turned and walked away, gesturing me to follow him. I did.

We went into the passageway from which Edlon had just emerged. As we moved through the tube to our launching platform, I barely kept pace. Edlon didn't talk on the way and only glanced back from time to time, as if to make sure that I was there. We came to transparent plastine doors, which slid open and arrived at the platform.

It was a rectangular space with walls boxing it from every side. The platform itself was slightly elevated and carried a military floater. This one was rather small and, unlike its brothers on Clomt, painted green.

A pilot in a brown jumpsuit was waiting at his steed. When we entered the premises, Edlon showed him the thumb, jerked it back and then swirled the index finger in the air. The pilot got it and went inside to start the engine.

Edlon mounted the stairs to the platform and turned to me. 'This birdie will carry us to your house, roomie. When we arrive, I'll show you around. Cool with that?' Edlon froze with raised eyebrows, peering at me.

The bottom turbine began to roar, pushing air over the ground. Our pants flapped on the legs like flags. I made the wise decision not to talk in such noise. I just smiled and nodded my head. Edlon went to the floater, opened the door and we got in.

The insides were gray and slick like all military tech. Pilot's cabin to the right was closed. The carriage section was somewhere to the left, beyond the engine, which protruded from the floor to the ceiling. Though it might have been expected to be noisy inside, it wasn't. I did the obvious and plunged into one of the four seats near the porthole. Edlon shut the door, locked it and joined me.

'Ready to do this, roomie?' he said. This man was starting to get on my nerves.

He started regaling me with some asinine story when he was called to the cockpit. The pilot was feeling sick, so Edlon was offered to back him up. He whispered to me before departing, 'I used to be a forklift operator at the ammunition dump, but for everyone here I'm a pilot. It's basically the same thing.'

Left alone for the duration of the trip, I thought that maybe there was a benevolent God after all.

The floater gained power and tore itself off the platform. The lift-off was barely felt inside. I looked out and watched a small gray rectangular drop down followed by the bulk of the spaceport. After reaching the flight altitude and setting on our course, the floater deviated from the transport routes of Man and commenced its journey into the wild green yonder. My heart trembled in anticipation.

An ocean of leaves raged beneath us while the floater effortlessly moved forward. I looked down and thought about what was hidden under the foliage. The green crowns were put so thick that resembled hills of emerald quicksand. I thought that not much sun could get through that canvas. Down there, a never-ending battle for survival raged on, brutal and just. But up here, I could see only the green crowns, like a magic veil hiding the forest's secrets from the human eye.

I leaned closer to the porthole and looked ahead. To the left of me, I saw a massive cavity in the foliage that must have been the swamp. It was surrounded by woods, and I couldn't see the surface. However, I recognized the bottleneck I was told about. A wide river pushed its waters to the right of the bog and snaked into the distance. From my position it looked thin like a creek, but it was an illusion created by altitude. In reality it was half a mile wide or more. It was a natural barrier separating the forest into two parts. As far as I understood, the right bank was our ground, and the other side was a no-go territory.

Suddenly the loud speaker came to life and croaked, 'Buckle up, roomie. We are going down.'

I saw a break in the foliage that seemed to be our destination point. The floater approached a hole in the canopy, which gaped its blackness at the sky. The vehicle suspended in the air, putting its turbine right above the entrance. The pilot was very careful — if something got in, the whole thing would go down like a stone. When the drop point was caught in the crosshairs, the floater lowered down its massive metal bulk. The descent started.

Going deeper and deeper like a submarine, the floater dived down. When we passed the canopy, the porthole turned black, the contrast was that sharp. However, soon it lightened, and the cabin was lit with the soft cold light of the woods. I watched the mighty branches pass by and up, followed by smaller growths. I pressed my face into the glass and glanced down, spotting a faint shape of the landing platform beneath. I couldn't see more because of the hull.

There was a bump and a beep. Edlon leaned out of the cockpit. 'Touchdown, roomie. Come on, I'll show you the house.'

He left the cockpit and headed for the exit. I took my bag and followed. I felt this strange tickling inside, this pleasant awareness of your life turning a new leaf and changing for the better.

I stepped out onto a horizontal platform, which I realized was a rooftop. Tree trunks reached up on all sides, and I had to crane my neck to see where they ended. High above, the sun's rays shyly illuminated the forest canopy through the hole. I lowered my eyes and looked at my surroundings. The roof was empty but for a shed with metal doors in it.

'This is the roof,' Edlon said, making a gesture of a wealthy housemaster. 'Nothing much, but it's sturdy. Come, the elevator leads into the house.'

We approached the shed. Edlon produced a plastic card and showed it to me. 'Open it with the card they gave you. Each cabin is keyed to its specific ranger.'

'What about the pilot? Should we call him inside?'

'Nah,' Edlon dismissed the thought, wincing. 'It won't be long. He's flying me to my hole next.'

I nodded and took the card out of the pocket. The doors opened, revealing a small elevator cabin beyond. Edlon pushed the second button from the top, and we descended. Again.

'How high are we?' I asked.

Edlon squinted one eye. 'Well, somewhere around sixty-seventy feet off the ground. The cabin itself has three floors and a garage, but it's built on top of twenty seven feet pilings that go into the ground. The idea is to protect the ranger from the wildlife and vice versa. They actually dug up a few trees and built the cabin exactly in their place, so it wouldn't upset the layout of the forest. It also made a handy hole in the canopy for floater access.'

'Impressive.' I was actually impressed with the army caring about the nature in such a way. However, I suspected that they just didn't have the money for a bigger complex with more personnel.

The doors opened and we emerged into the darkness. Edlon waved his hands before him and the lights turned on. I found myself in a circular room. Edlon made a sweeping gesture encompassing the room's contents. 'This is the crow's nest. From here you can observe your sector. The camera drones are also situated here.'

One side of the room housed a control panel with a display. Opposite that was an empty bench with spare cameras resting in lockers behind it. The room had four windows, so you could look around the cabin. They were closed by metal sliding panels.

Edlon grinned at me. 'The elevator runs through the whole cabin, but we'll use the stairs. It'll be more memorable that way.'

I almost expected the stairs to be spiral, but they were straight, broken up by small landings between floors. Edlon went first. As we left the crow's nest, the lights went out.

When the lights illuminated the next floor, I sounded my guess, 'This is the living room, right?' There was a couch with a small table near it and a wardrobe at the wall.

'Bingo!' Edlon said. 'This is the place for living; adjacent to it are bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. And let me show you something else.' He gestured with his hand, and there was a spark in his eye. He came to a wardrobe and pushed a panel on the side. 'This is your arsenal.'

I thought the term "arsenal" may have been too strong a word, but the collection was decent. Two rifles, a shotgun, a pistol, a flare gun, a knife and a machete. 'Machete?' I asked. 'We're not in a jungle. Do I really need all this?'

Edlon smirked. 'Heh, a machete is always handy. And why are you complaining? Better to have a surplus of ammo than a deficit.'

'Fair enough.'

I dropped my bag in the living room, and the tour continued. The first floor had the engine room and the storage. Edlon skipped the latter, giving it a fleeting remark of "it has anything you'll need" and went to the prior. The engine room occupied most of the floor and had a transparent plastic door. Four ceiling-high shelving units with complex-looking machinery stood opposite each other, two by two. Bulbs were blinking, wires and tubes reached upward and disappeared into their nests. All in all, a busy place and at the same time very still.

Edlon patted the humming cabin engine. 'Don't worry about fuel. Everything here runs on electricity, and this baby generates enough to light up a whole skyscraper for a month with no breaks.'

'What's it run on?'

He just shrugged. 'Some kind of synthesis of something. In short, just look at the charge panel. If it's running low, insert a new cartridge.' He gestured to a rack with metal cases. 'If you run out of cartridges, send a signal from the nest, a pilot will deliver everything you need. Same goes for everything here.'

Finally, we made it to the garage. There were two scooters and a space to the side with everything needed to repair them. Edlon pointed at the metal steeds. '
Very
useful. If you want to get anywhere, take a scooter. You can walk if you like, but from here it's a suicide march in any direction.'

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