The Last Sky

They tell us the sky used to be blue. Blue is a dream. I have never seen blue. Not once. Not even on the filtered screens inside the dome’s education halls. Blue is a colour reserve for dreamers and dissidents- people who know to ask too many questions or want to get too close to the surface. But the only thing I know is ASH. Ash in the wind, in our lungs, in every seams of the clothes I wear. It is the colour of the world beyond the dome: thick clouds of grey that never move, never clear. The dome’s shield shimmer faintly above us, a constant harm vibrating through the air, like the growl of a sleeping monster. I live in Sector E-9, one of the fringe colonies tettered to the mega dome by rusted rails and forgotten promises. They say it used to be mining outpost, back when people still believed there was anything left worth digging for. Now it is just where the dump the broken deck, the unclean, the expendable. That’s me . I am Kalia Voss-and I am very, very expendable. The smart lock hissed, as o shoved the scavenging cart into the Deacon Bay. It has sensors that whirred, actively scanning for radiation and bio toxins. One of drones lowered to my eye level, it’s mechanical red eyes blinking. “Unauthorised scavenging is in violation of the Protocol Directive 47. Explain.”, said the mechanical voice of the drone. I rolled my eyes, wiping ash off my cheek. “It wasn’t surface. I found it in the ruin belt, it’s still within the Dome parameters.” The drone paused for a second. “Ruin belt has been sterilised. No viable scavenging possible. Explain.”, said the mechanical voice of the drone. “I guess, I’m lucky.”, I muttered. The drone lowered even further, scanning the pile I had collected. Inside were some old processors, broken tactical helmet, two full tanks of biofuel- a jackpot- and a rusted slab of what looked like server casing. I pried it off from a collapsed drone tank. It had markings I didn’t recognise. Not from Dome, nor of Rebels, either. “Salvage is authorised. You have 30 credit. Wish to trade?”, said the drone. “Yes, the fuel and processors only”, I nodded, replying. “Successful. Credits added- 60, Total credits- 90.”, said the drone. The gate opened and I stepped inside, a faint sting in my wrist. The sting caused by the tracker. The Dome knows where I’m always. They love knowing where even nobodies like me are. Later, back in my cubicle - unit 15 D, I cleaned the casing I had found. Most of it was dead metal, with traces of corrosion and heat scoring. But as I brushed away the impurities, something caught the light. LETTERS. Tiny and deeply etched. “G.E.P-07- Protocol Class: Seed”, it read. I frowned. Seed? This wasn’t any kind of military label, and it also didn’t follow the Dome’s scheme, either. I pulled out my scanner and scanned it, hoping for a data log. But it showed nothing, it was static. But as I turned it in my hands, a thin groove clicked open near the edge. I slipped the blade of my dagger in, carefully opening it. As the panel slid to the side, there was crystal chip, completely intact. And also something else. A folded piece of paper. I took a deep breath, no one uses paper anymore. It’s illegal. Untraceable also. All communication is digitalised, monitored and backed up in the central AI’s memory core. Paper was banned after the Great Deletion. My finger quivered as I opened it. “ If you are reading this, you are already being washed. This chip contains the last uncorrupted map to The Below. Find the river that runs under the steel. Do not trust the archivists. Trust no one, but her.” There was no other detail, just a seal at the bottom shaped like a glass globe, fractured in the middle. I said there, blankly staring at the chip. The Below? That was an old rebel p********a, myth. A pre-Dome fantasy about cities, cities that were buried under the Earth’s surface- untouched by, and sky. A place where the AI can’t see where people were free, where people can breathe the real air. A very, very big lie. But probably, now I have the map to reach it. I couldn’t sleep that night . The vents hissed over my head, stale oxygen cycling through the blocks, all the time, like a clockwork. In the bunk above me, Miri snored softly. She was 10 years old. We weren’t related, but I looked after her. Most of the kids didn’t have family left. Kiri’s parents vanished two years ago. Probably purged. She had a birth defect, that is one leg shorter than the other. The Dome labelled her as “ resource deficient”. That is their way of calling someone, useless. I put the chip deep into the lining of my boot. I needed to know what was stored in this chip. But accessing an old world? Nothing, I had would be able to read it. Maybe the tech black market in Sector V could help, but that meant bribes. Too risky. And if I made a move, the Dome would know. The trackers monitor heat signatures, location and conversation threads. I pressed my fingers against the tracker, under the skin of my wrist, the skin burned faintly with the chip lay. “Kaia”, Miri whispered from the above. “Yeah?” “ do you really think the world was ever really green?” I hesitate to speak. But I lied. “Yes, I think it was beautiful.” I made my first move the next day . I visited Dr.Solis, the junkyard medic who had patched me up after I was involved in a shuttle collapse last winter. He owed me and he was good with the tools. I showed him my wrist. “ I want this gone.”, I said. He looked me as if I had gone mad. “ you know what that means right? Once it’s out, you are off record. No med access. No rations. They will list you as dead within an hour.”, He said. “I know”, I replied. “You found something, didn’t you?”, He asked. “It doesn’t concern you.”, I replied curtly. He nodded, and started the machine. The pain was sharp and fast. I be down on a ride and didn’t scream. When it was over, the chip sat on a metal tray blinking softly like a dying star. “You have got maximum of 12 hours, after that, the trackers will flag your chip as disabled. They will know”, Solis warned. “ I will be gone by then”, I replied. “You sure this is worth it, Kaia?”, he hesitated before asking. I looked down towards my boot, where I had hid the old world chip. The key to The Below. A world they said didn’t exist. I met his eyes . “Yes. I think it is.” I left that night, without any goodbyes. Not to Miri. Not to Solis. Not to anyone. With repurposed oxygen filter , one stolen ration pack, and the chip strapped to my leg, I climbed the drainage tunnel out of the sector E-9 and headed west- towards the outer rims. Towards the River of Steel. The sky above, my head was grey as always. The ash drifted like snow. But as I stepped into the deadlands, the Dome lights dimmed behind me. And for the first time in my life …… …… I was completely alone. But never afraid, because for the first time in my life, I had HOPE.