Chapter 6: Layla Arrives
1754 Words
Heat among domes billowed in waves of mirage-shattered air, so that the vast desert shimmered as if it concealed secrets. The transport out of Dome 4 braked with a shriek, an old mag-drive ship jury-rigged out of sand-seared metal and algae hushing. Faris was resting against the shade-post of Watch Tower 3, half-listening for the hum of condensers and crunching on a stale piece of desiccated kelp. When the hatch of the transport hissed open, she stepped out.
Layla wore her hair in tight coils that defied gravity and protocol, her boots scuffed with travel and her expression one of open scrutiny. A satchel was slung over one shoulder—battered canvas stained with reagent ink. Her dome badge blinked green. Faris blinked back at her.
“Faris?” the woman said, brushing dust from her sleeve with the impatience of someone allergic to silence. “You’re late.”
He scowled. "Not informed I was to receive anyone."
"Typical League communication breakdown," she answered, holding out her hand. "Layla Faram. Biotech commerce. Here to fix your flagging algae."
Faris hesitated before shaking it. Her hand was hard, too hard for plant-trained fingers.
"Welcome to Dome 3," he growled.
Layla's eyes trailed off across the dome horizon, the semi-transparent vault curving like the belly of a beast. "It smells. processed."
"Low-flow recirculation system. We make the mildew discreet."
She smiled. "Discreet? I've spent four days inhaling the scent of molecular cleanser and boiled starch into my lungs. This is what death smells of."
Faris started walking, and she matched him step for step.
He didn't utter a word for the first hundred paces. Let her see.
"Your side basins have overgrowth," she said finally, looking toward the reservoir towers. "Too little penetration of UV light. And something's amiss with the nutrient bloom on the lower rings."
"We adhere to League rations by the book."
"Well, the book's false. Or someone's a liar."
Faris halted. He faced her. "Are you always this direct?"
"Only when individuals are faking their dome's starving."
They walked on, her presence overwhelming her frame. He had been expecting a reserved lab technician, not a whip-smart engineer whose opinions came sliced as sharply as knife-edges. She asked for data sets even before they reached the labs, criticized the design of the irrigation tubes, and asked for a field access badge without so much as a bat of an eyelash.
The sun had set into a rusted purple by the time they reached the outpost of the Hydration League.
The lab dome glowed in phosphor light. The tanks of algae hummed, soft green and bioluminescent, within.
Layla was fast. She dropped her jacket, revealing arms covered with old tattoos and dermal sensors, and strode to the tanks like they were hers.
"You close-loop these?" she said, already calling up the code on a screen to the side.
"Pretty much. Prayer rituals are the exception, and outflow rationing."
"Exceptions create variables. Variables create leaks." She typed quickly. "What's your backup node?"
"Down below the lower turbine shaft. Not cleared for visitors."
Layla never looked up. "Clear me then."
Faris crossed his arms over his chest. "This is still Dome 3. We do not clear strangers into the shaft."
She met his gaze finally. “I’m not a stranger. I’m the only person in five domes who figured out how to purify heavy-metal algae residue with bacterial bonding. Let me fix your dome before it rots from the inside.”
Faris didn't answer. He just stared. Not because she was wrong, but because she might be too right.
After a long pause, he gestured toward the lab terminal. “You’ll need Rahim’s clearance to access shaft data.”
Layla tapped a few more commands. “That old man wouldn’t know clearance if it slapped him with a hydration fine.”
Faris frowned. “You know Rahim?”
“I know his type. Bureaucratic, proud, and two cycles behind the tech. What’s your excuse?”
His tone turned bitter. "My dad passed away there. A pipe ruptured. You don't get to debate things you have no idea about."
The room fell silent. Even the algae stopped humming for a second. Layla's face relaxed—not out of sympathy, but calculation.
"Then let me help you prevent more lives from being lost.".
Faris clenched his teeth. He didn't trust her. Not all the way. But there was something in the sound of her voice, the assurance, that had a recollection in it of the way his father would draw thick black lines across pipe schematics and point and say, this is where it ruptures unless someone repairs it.
"Okay," he said. "Tomorrow. Early. I'll take you halfway down."
"Wear boots," she told him, already turning her mind to the data stream. "And bring a wrench. One with a soul if possible."
---
Night fell mercilessly in Dome 3.
Faris stood in his own room staring at the wrench on his workbench. Old metal, corroded along the edges, the words "I.U." scratched faintly into the handle—his father's. It had ridden with him through the pipe tunnels, those days when inspection mattered more than image.
He hadn't had it in weeks.
Outside, the dome wind buffers wailed like famished spirits.
He remembered Layla, breaching protocols like puzzles. Guffawing at League policy. Strutting as if she'd never known terror.
Then he remembered the padlocked panel at the back of the algae basin. The new one.
He wondered whether she'd take him seriously. Whether anyone would.
He palmed the wrench and closed his fingers around it.
---
Far below, in the darkness of the shafts of Dome 3, a small light flashed in the black.
It wasn't part of the League net.
Pulsed once. Pulsed twice.
Watching.
Waiting.
---
Faris was halfway across the Vault’s maintenance corridor when he spotted her again—this time in the algae dome, where green light from the photosynthetic tanks painted her silhouette with a strange glow. Layla stood on the grated catwalk, bent over the water-sample tap, poking at its nozzle like it owed her an explanation.
“You’re going to clog the vent,” he said, startling her.
She met his gaze, unwavering. "And you're going to sink on your own rules."
Faris exhaled sharply, crossing his arms. "You're not cleared to be in here alone. Exchange students observe, they don't intervene."
She turned, balancing on one foot while leaning on the rail. "I'm not intervening. I'm testing. Your algae's shedding mucilage more rapidly than it ought to. Did you know that?"
He glared. "It's the heat."
“No,” she said. “It’s stressful. Thermal imbalance wouldn’t accelerate polysaccharide decay like this. You’ve got chemical interference—someone’s meddling.”
Faris paused, thrown off. “That’s a serious accusation.”
“So is a 3.4% water loss unaccounted for in your weekly tank logs.” She smiled, unblinking. “Didn’t think anyone else read those.”
He didn’t answer. Not because she was wrong—but because she was right.
There was something brittle in the air between them—loaded, tense, and resisting. Faris stepped closer. "You think the League's keeping something from us?"
She tilted her head. "I think you already know they are."
Her gaze was a dare. Behind the sarcasm and jibing, she was transmitting something else—something imperative.
Faris said nothing. He took off, but her words followed him like a lit match tossed into a gas line.
---
That evening, when all of them had retired to their sleep, Faris couldn't sleep either. He sat in his cot staring up at the mesh ceiling, where the dome lights flickered feebly like a dying heartbeat. Layla's words kept tormenting him. The vent pressure, the algae growth in the shed, the discrepancies in data. They weren't anomalies.
He got up, laced up his utility boots, and stole out of the dorm.
The hallway was poorly lit. The only illumination was the flickering maintenance strips along the walls. He walked past the valve chamber and went down to Sublevel 3—where the storage panel rust rings were the diameter of coin vaults.
He logged onto the algae control unit, manually pulling logs.
Water usage: +12% change in four weeks.
Nutrients: modified during cycle, no operator name attached.
Backup siphon: activated. twice.
He stared at the screen.
Someone had drawn water without authorization. Not just a sip—a stream.
He backed out of the system, heart thumping, and bumped into something soft and sharp behind him.
“Hey,” Layla whispered.
He nearly jumped. “What are you doing here?”
“Same as you,” she replied. “Looking for ghosts.”
---
She moved it quietly along the maintenance access hall. Faris led her to the algae basin—the one with the padlocked hatch. It glimmered in their ray of light like part of debris from an abandoned war.
"Behind it?" she asked.
"An old runoff tunnel, I suppose. My dad used to make inspections in this place. They closed it up after the burst."
Layla crouched down, studying the joints. "Someone opened it again. See the scratch marks?"
He did so now—fresh metal scrapes. Someone had just cut the seal.
Faris's breath was halted. "I think it has something to do with the stolen water."
"And maybe," Layla said, her voice reedy, "with why the algae's sick."
Faris's fingers stroked the lock. Cold. Heavy.
And he remembered something his father once told him: "Not everything dry is dead. Sometimes it waits."
He looked at Layla, whose eyes were sharp and guarded in the dark.
We have to get in," he told her.
She nodded. "Then let's smash the damn lock."
They didn't hear the soft click behind them. Or the furtive scraping of rubber soles on the polymer floor. But Faris felt it—like electricity in his skin. He turned—
And a person in a mask stepped out of the darkness. Blue League uniform, but the badges had been scratched off.
They had a shock baton and no interest in conversation.
“Run,” Faris hissed.
They bolted down the corridor as the figure gave chase.
Lights blared red. Security alarms triggered.
Faris grabbed Layla’s hand as they ducked into the chlorination shaft.
His pulse thundered in his ears.
“Welcome to Dome One,” she gasped.
Faris laughed bitterly. “Yeah. You’ll love it here.”
Behind them, the echo of boots on metal. Getting closer.
- Writer
