Chapter 9: Father's Notes
1167 Words
Faris' maintenance manual was older than he recalled. Bound in broken polymer and grease-coated hydraulic residue, it had lain beneath the bottom shelf of the now-condemned mechanical substation. Nobody went there anymore. The League had moved operations above ground, exchanging wrench-swinging labor with modular servos and auto-maintenance convoys.
But Faris had returned, pulled by habit and something more—the ghost of memory, the echo of a father's voice half-heard through steam and whirring pipes.
He placed the guidebook onto the rusted metal desk. It hissed as it sat down, static power still echoing through the ancient coils of the room. Faris opened it slowly, past official seals, schematics, and fingerprint-scanned forewords. His fingers lay at page 147.
There, amidst crumbly pages, was something folded in.
Not a page. A fragment.
A yellowed, dry, folded square.
Faris unfolded it, gasping.
His dad's writing. Rough. Comforting. Desperate.
"Flow diverted. Under pressure. They threatened Layla's mother."
The letters appeared seared into the page.
He leaned back, chest thudding. His dad and Layla's mom? How were they involved?
The next page was covered with marks on the edges. Doodles, in fact. But odd ones. A dripping tap made with black ink. A kid muffled up in a pipe. A crude drawing of the dome map with thick arrows going out from the water axis.
Then, more writing, slanted and frantic:
"VX started at the bottom. They tested filtration near the sand wells. What we're drinking now isn't what we've saved. The blue isn't safe."
The blue isn't safe. The same warning the worker had grumbled before being dragged away.
Faris stood up, the room spinning.
He flipped the page. Notes were scattered across the technical drawings. Codes written in them, some copied from League water logs, others personal:
"Monitor 9 indicates false. Signal bounce off vent shaft. Someone is routing around it."
"She came back again. Same coat. Same badge. No ID in the registry."
The next sketch was unmistakable—Layla's mother. Younger. Face half-covered by a League respirator. Identified only: "WELL AGENT 04."
Faris's hand went to his data tab, took the snap shots, then paused.
The last page was torn. Half gone. But what remained gave him the chills:
"They say she defected. That she attempted to warn them. She was bound for Dome 4. They caught her halfway through. That's when I switched over. That's when I."
The rest was gone.
He slammed the book shut. Dust curled up in a gasping cloud. Layla needed to be shown this.
---
She discovered him in the derelict coolant transfer area, under the broken beacon light.
Faris extended the pages to her.
She stared.
"That's her," she whispered finally. Voice dry. "That's my mom. The coat. The respirator. My dad never explained what happened. Just said the League reassigned her to fieldwork in another dome."
"He lied," Faris breathed. "Or he was forced to lie."
Layla clutched the paper so tightly that it curved in her hand.
"We need to dig deeper," she told him.
"Where?"
"The older pressure tunnels. The ones that fed Dome 1 and 2 when the aquifers dried up. There may be records. Maybe even a cache. If your dad pulled the switch, he would've hidden it."
Faris nodded.
She edged closer.
"And Faris? If the water is what they say. If it's been tampered this long. it means the disease, the drought cycles, the shifts in behavior. weren't natural."
"They were created," he said.
The devastated beacon blazed again.
Then darkness.
They stood and walked into it together.
---
Later that night, Faris swayed close to the edge of the rooftop cistern vents. The Vault's faux moonlight glowed faintly above, casting pale glows on the top reinforced dome. There was but the occasional hiss of pressure valves readjusting in the silence.
He opened the guidebook again, tracing his fingers across the etched lines of graphite. At the bottom of one page was a symbol—a triangle that was open with a circle inside it. He knew it.
On the behind-of-the-algae-basin panel—the new padlocked one.
It wasn't an access panel. It was part of the siphon system.
The understanding sent a shiver through him. That meant the hatch hadn't been shut down. It was in service. Actively hidden. Whatever was happening beneath the Vault wasn't a relic—it was present.
He pulled out his father's wrench. The same one he had been waking up with clutched in his hand last night. Maybe that dream hadn't been a dream. Maybe it was a warning. The engraved initials on the wrench—F.U.—glowed in the dome light.
He clenched it, his heart pounding.
He needed Layla. Now.
They needed to find out what had happened to her mother.
And what blood secrets soaked under their feet.
---
Midnight in the Vault was a symphony of whirs—ventilators, detoxifiers, and condensers' steady drip. Faris and Layla, in matte training armor, moved through access ducts above the algae bay, following the siphon line like a thread of secrets unspoken.
Hatch 17 was unassuming: a rusty-edged panel set behind a screen of moss, secured with a manual-dial lock. Faris knelt down and turned it with deliberate strength. The hatch protested and swung open into a dusty chute leading down into darkness.
"Are we doing this?" Layla gasped.
"We're already in."
They climbed down on the sunken grips. The air grew cold, stale. A crevice split off at the bottom in two directions. Pipes traversed the ceiling, groaning with each change in pressure. Faris swept his light across the floor and halted. There, etched into the dust, was the symbol his father had duplicated so many times in the guide—a broken droplet.
They followed it.
The tunnel opened into a sub-chamber lined with old filtration units. Most were defunct. But one glowed faintly, its console humming. Layla stepped forward. “This isn’t on any map I’ve seen.”
Faris pressed the console. A menu appeared.
— Manual Override: Active
Layla gasped. “That means—”
“Someone’s diverting flow.” Faris scrolled further. “To Dome 1. And another siphon. outside League jurisdiction.”
They stared at each other.
“This is treason,” Layla said.
"Or a cover-up," Faris growled. "And my father died for knowing."
A discreet clatter sounded from behind.
They were not alone.
Someone appeared at the entrance to the tunnel—masked, in uniform, carrying a stun baton.
"Run," Faris gasped.
They ran through the side tunnel, shallow chest breathing, pounding heartbeat echoing in their ears. Layla ducked beneath an open grate; Faris followed, the guide plastered to his chest.
They didn't stop until they were disgorged by the emergency ladder beside the northern observatory.
Layla doubled over, panting. "Who was that?"
"I don't know." Faris stared at the maintenance manual. "But they know we're tracking. And they won't give up now."
She looked at him, her voice firm. "Then we don't either."
—-
- Writer
