The Aethernet Falls

Chapter 4 - Meaning

Boros told her everything. Everything he could. When he awoke that day. How he awoke that day. The sensation of knowing something, but not quite being able to grasp it. Like forgetting a word in your mother language but remembering it in another and having no idea what it meant. How it fit in with what you were trying to say.

He told her how he was scared.

She had ordered more food while they talked. The smell of something vaguely Thai filling the air between them. Boros had hardly touched his food, had in fact confessed to eating something that was in her fridge earlier.

“Shouldn’t have eaten that,” she had joked in between mouthfuls, “Never know how long it’s been in there.”

“You didn’t see the state of my leftovers.” He said, the distraction meriting a chuckle from him. She had that effect on him. Her cheerful nature was infectious. He always wondered how she had been able to keep it up after all they had been through together, though he had never asked. He simply enjoyed how happy-go-lucky she could be.

When Clarissa was certain he was finished with everything he had to say, she asked him a single question. “So what does it all mean?”

“I don’t know.” His voice trembled slightly. He took a sip of some fishy soup that had sat, untouched an d rapidly cooling between them. “Not yet at least. I’ll figure it out.”

Clarissa took a bite of tofu and chewed it over thoughtfully. “I know you will.”

The rich, spiced smell of the food combined with the anxiety of not being able to understand something he truly believed he should be able to became overwhelming. He walked over to the screens that passed for windows in the middle blocks of the mega-buildings they had lived in, and tried to open one. Felt a little silly when all he accomplished was a temporary distortion of the image displayed: a real-time recording of what was going on outside the western wall.

The sight of the Streams became even more overwhelming and he closed the shutters that were there only to cement the window effect and put his head between his hands. His sister recognized the motion for what it was; she had seen him do it a few times before. She walked over to him and gave him a companionable hug, gentle and yet reaffirming. He didn’t shake off the embrace.

They didn’t talk for a while, they just stood there. She knew it was best not to interrupt him when he was thinking, especially when he was so deep in thought his head began to hurt. Over the years she had grown to liken him to a machine: efficient, brilliant, but working at such a high capacity was harmful to him.

Ever since they had been children he had been like that, though he only truly wracked his brain when the situation called for it. The first time she had seen him like this was when he was contemplating whether or not to kill their father. He had ultimately decided not to do it, and only told her after he had come to his decision. She had wept deeply, and held him, not dissimilar to how she held him now.

Minutes began to pass by and he hadn’t moved. Clarissa was beginning to worry about him and was going to say something, but he spoke first.

“There’s a power-plant here, isn’t there?” he said, and then answered his own question before she could speak, “Powers everything from here to New England. One of those new fusion ones.”

“Yea, there was a lot of protests when it was being built.” She stepped back, “People thought we were playing with fire.”

Boros gently shook off her embrace and turned to face her. She didn’t like the look on his face. That was the point, though. He was scared and for good reason. “We have to get out of the city now.”

“What, why?” Was all she could manage.

“Put on the feeds.” He commanded her apartment and it obeyed.

Unlike his, her television was set with the volume far too loud for his liking, but he didn’t bother changing it. The news feeds ran twenty-four hours a day, putting out as much new information as possible. It had all been part of some past presidential campaign for more transparency. It had worked almost instantly as he was thrown out of office for crimes against humanity in weeks.

It took a few minutes for the news cycle to come back around. This time the newscaster was different. “Nuclear reactors across the continent have begun showing signs of melting down in an unprecedented case of mass failure. Experts are stating that the aging protocols the reactors operated on no longer form a strong enough connection with the changing state of the Aethernet. Technicians on sight in the five-hundred-and-fifty-seven old fission reactors are putting measures in place to stop the plants from going critical. Expert analysts remain optimistic that the dozen new fusion reactors, built to replace them in five years time, will be able to replace the work load immediately while local technicians bring the fission reactors offline. Next we have-“

“Feeds off.” Boros shouted over the noise. “How did you ever live with that?” He was facing Clarissa now, his wore an odd expression on his face. One his sister didn’t like one bit.

Clarissa herself wore a mask of concern. “I like it…” She stopped mid-sentence. The mask of concern contorting to something altogether more grim, “What do you mean?”

The room seemed to close in on Boros and at the same time he felt as though his sister, standing just  before him, was falling back into the distance, impossible to reach. His mind was swimming with calculations, judgements. Thoughts about what was going to happen and how he was going to explain it. He didn’t know how he knew himself, but the  feeling of understanding was so utterly clear to him that he didn’t, couldn’t doubt himself.

“The old fission reactors are melting down because the Aethernet is crashing.” The two of them just stared at each other. “Now the powers that be are going to overload the new fusion reactors. When they go the results are going to be cataclysmic.”

“What do you mean? What are you saying Bobo?” Clarissa’s body began to tremble.

Boros reached out and grabbed her arms. “This is it.” He said, looking in her eyes for a moment. He looked quickly away, he couldn’t face her with what he was about to say. She couldn’t see the look on his face. “The Aethernet isn’t just falling from the sky. Its failing. And everything is connected to it. I,” He paused for a second. He tried to adjust his facial features to hide the abject horror that rested in the subtle way his eyes narrowed, the way his lips tightened and his pupils dilated. “I think this is only the beginning. And I think a lot of people are going to die.”

His brain sent the signal to his heart to shoot adrenaline through his body. His veins dilated and his pulse rose. His face turned red. The fight or flight reaction was forcing his body to do something. Anything.

“Pack a bag. Do it quick. We don’t want to be around when that reactor goes.”