Dome Chapter 21
The Threshold
The tip of Winsor’s horn cuts off the top of his hammer so that the weight snaps off the handle. Taking a few pieces he recovered from Hugo’s workshop, he begins assembling a small rig. A rotary system connected to a long wire wrapping its way into the horn itself.
After some time, he found that the horn could take the shape of something if he could make a clear image in his head of what he wanted it to become.
“I still say,” Hugo’s voice breaks his concentration, “that you use it as a weapon instead of building one out of your little hammer and chisel.”
Hammer.
Chisel.
Chiseling, that’s what Hugo told him he was doing when he described Nadia’s sculpture to him. A very ancient way to create something called “art.” Something older than the ancients. A tradition with no clear beginning and survives even in a world without color. Perhaps that’s why it exists. To add color.
There’s a joy to it. He could feel as though something in his chest opened every time he began creating something. Then, after it was created, there was the task of making it the way he saw it in his head.
A game.
A game he played with himself to see how well he could match reality to what was in his mind. That’s why he did it. For the thrill of finding out how close he could get until eventually the steam began to escape, and slowly he would begin to feel tired, and before long it would turn into a chore, and he resigned the game to this Psychic Game Master in his head.
But then there were those other times. The times when he won. When everything aligned so precisely that it even transcended the Psychic Game Master’s own vision.
“Why would I?” Winsor asks, “Making it is part of the fun.”
Hugo chuckles to himself. A sound not of condescension nor of dismissal. Something warmer. Familiar.
Winsor looks up. Vauhn sits on Hugo’s lap. The hole in his side is still there, but a ball of silver ribbons replaces the broken, sparking wires. His blue digital eyes droop. Whether the Sprite is tired or sad, Winsor cannot tell.
A small cloud floats into Winsor’s heart. There had always been something about those little Sprites. Something un-machine. A little extra you couldn’t put your finger on. A moment’s hesitation. A turn of the head. A lack of efficiency that made all the droids of the Dome seem a little more than just machines.
Hugo removes the plastic casing from Vauhn’s wing. As though emerging from a plastic cocoon, Vauhn’s true wings unfurl. A bright blue with black trimming. An electric cerulean glow.
“That should make maneuvering better,” a rare satisfied lilt to Hugo’s voice as he packs his tools into a box attached to his belt.
A joyous flutter is Vauhn’s reply as he dances through the air. Leaving bright streaks of blue.
Winsor blinks, and the streak turns colors behind his eyelids.
The Reclamation Center. The sparks.
The beautiful rainbow of colors exploding in the center of the whirlpool. Each spark a life. Breaking into a prism of colors.
He turns to Hugo. His stalky body crouches over a small terminal across the large, round platform Winsor sits on.
“Are they all alive?” Winsor asks.
“Every time they go through Energy Reclamation,” Hugo’s voice carrying a distracted tone to it, “their souls break down until they become full and complete slaves like that thing chasing us.”
Winsor’s eyes move up to Vauhn, who drifts down onto his shoulder. This gentle, vulnerable creature. The thought of him turning into one of those black oozing drones that he saw in the library invades Winsor’s mind.
“That’s why Mother monitors the trash, or why we can’t talk to the droids.”
A grimace moves across Hugo’s face. “I wouldn’t feel too sorry for them. All these monsters chose to become droids.”
Winsor’s stomach tightens as a puff of air escapes his diaphragm. Carbon? Vauhn? They chose this.
“No,” Winsor shakes his head, “they hate it here. They’re slaves like everyone else. They couldn’t have agreed to this.”
Hugo answers with a scoff. “That’s why I’m telling you. People want to be slaves, Winsor. Even the droids. You have no idea what these creatures were like before the Dome. Radiant, beautiful creatures. Powerful. Mystical. And they gave it all up. Why, Winsor?”
Winsor looks down.
Hugo puts a hand on his shoulder, “Because it’s easier to be a slave.”
Goosebumps run up Winsor’s spine. The thought feels wrong. Blasphemous–but not untrue.
“Freedom is messy, Winsor. It’s why few actually fight for it. I studied history and found that even when people had freedom, they weren’t responsible enough to keep it.”
All the Citizens of the Dome flash into Winsor’s mind. Their heads down in their Portable Mothers.
T-7 can embrace that responsibility, maybe N-85, but R-0…
Everyone else–what happens when their Portable Mothers are gone, and no one is there to tell them what to do?
“There’s nothing out there,” Hugo’s voice seems almost excited, “just empty land. None of you know how to grow your own food, hunt meat, or even sterilize your water. You’ll all die within a week.”
Winsor’s stomach churns. His face feels warm. He can hear a choir in the back of his mind echo Hugo’s thought.
Who are you to take everything away? To subject everyone to the demiurge's chaos.
But there is something, a ray of hope in Winsor’s thoughts. Hugo is proof of it. He’s older than the Dome–
How old is unclear.
But, there has to be some way he survived before the Dome. If Mother and Hugo exist, maybe there are others. No. There have to be others. Unless… everyone died, and the Dome is the only way to salvage what is left.
Hugo did say that all of their parents were dead.
Parents… What even is a parent?
Some kind of Citizen that existed before them. That much is clear, but how these “parents” relate to them is still unclear.
“Then what do we do?” Winsor asks.
Hugo leans towards him. The excitement in his eye draws Winsor in, “Stay, we can rebuild the Dome.”
A heavy sigh squeezes out of Winsor’s nostrils.
This again.
“The Dome wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Hugo’s hands exploding with each word. “None of these bald heads. Boys and girls, ignorant of what they are. It’s insane.”
What would a rebuilt Dome even look like? I don’t even know what the outside world is supposed to look like. What is the alternative?
Yes, he hated the white of the Dome, the bland blank canvas, but what is the point of dressing color onto it if everyone is still dead inside? The droids still slaves. Willing or not.
“Either way,” Hugo gets up, “you want to make a decision soon. We’re at the threshold.” With a small click, Hugo snaps a small device into a nearby panel. “Once I bypass the security system, we can enter the inner chamber and get the heart.”
Winsor looks down at his horn. The soldering iron collapsed back to a point. There is so much to this horn, and his knowledge only scratched the surface. This is something far more complex than he can begin to understand and yet…
There is a thrill to being new at something.
“Hugo,” Winsor calls, to which a gruff “Hrm…” is his answer.
“You said this…” he motions to his horn, “...is magic. What is magic?”
Hugo bristles at the question.
Magic—
The word itself always causes the skin in the back of his neck to tighten.
The Creative force of the universe. The force by which ambition is born out of. The ability to will something out of your imagination.
With that force in his hands, he could change the entire laws of reality. Make the world better than it is. Architect a world where intelligence matters as much as strength. Existence can be balanced in a law of equality. Of shared power flowing within states evenly and perfectly–belonging to nobody and working through everybody.
That was the point of the Dome.
To do what magic cannot or will not do.
Make the universe fair.
“An ancient technology,” Hugo’s voice dismissive as he refocuses on the security panel. “Not much is known about it, even by the ones who wield it,” he unscrews part of the chassis and plugs a cord into the motherboard. “It has something to do with creativity.”
His eyes grow warm at saying that.
Creativity…
I’ve built so much with no help from magic. I did not just will these panels, I built them. I planned them. I developed the software. I created this entire network.
Sure, Terra’s magic put this place together, but not even she had the creativity to figure out how this place would work and yet…
And yet, magic did not choose him.
“How did you know how the horn worked?” Winsor’s voice small–distant.
Because you have to know these things when you’re dealing with sorceresses and wizards. They think they know so much, but none of them could even begin to know how technology works.
Magic.
Electricity. Energy. Power. Wires. This is real magic. The Dome is a damn miracle compared to those old stone buildings and candles. I am a god compared to these people…
And still, they reject me. Hid me away in the basements of the academy, and even the one person who understood, even she, my own, betrayed me.
“There are people who know how to use magic. Terra is one; that’s how she built this place.”
“Built,” what a joke.
“I combined my knowledge of technology with her knowledge of magic.”
Magic did all the work on her end. Magic and I. We built the Dome.
“For my part, I wanted to make a better world, but our elders…”
An Old Man sits with Hugo, his wrinkled smile showing under his thick mustache and beard.
I don’t want to remember this.
He blinked a tear away as he remembered the Old Man’s withered fingers wrap around Hugo's rough hands. They were shaking. Strong, muscular hands, but shaking.
He is back now, looking inside the security system panel. His eyes drift to his hands.
They’re getting withered.
A sigh escapes Hugo, “...they wouldn’t listen.” He checks a small digital monitor on his belt. A loading bar near completion. “Then the plague came. Many died, and even more children were left orphaned. It was an opportunity to prove ourselves.”
“An ‘opportunity?’” Indignation in Winsor’s voice.
“You can’t let a tragedy go to waste,” spite in Hugo’s.
“We were your experiments.”
Hugo reaches into his toolbox and pulls out a device, a handheld device with a trigger and a knob at the end.
I’m not making the same mistake again, boy.
He tucks it into his pants discreetly.
“You can’t understand what we did for you,” Hugo stands to his feet. “You’re too privileged with a life of comfort to even begin to understand what we saved all of you from.
Turning towards Winsor, Hugo sees two red lights appear just over his head.
Perfect time to finish this.
“Looks like your decision has been made for you,” an angry smile crosses Hugo’s face.
You foolish boy.
The beast leaps out of the shadow, screaming an ear-piercing shriek. Winsor falls on his back as the beast hovers over him.
The loading bar on Hugo’s belt chimes a victorious tune.
You made your choice, Winsor.
In the center of the platform, a green light appears and grows, forming a glowing disk just about the size of Hugo.
He steps towards the light, watching Winsor as he approaches. The fear in the boy’s eyes. The beast ready to claim his prize. Hugo’s heart thumping harder.
Damn it, boy, if only you weren’t so stubborn.
His fists clench as he steps onto the light.
“You certainly weren’t an idiot,” Hugo calls out, “just a fool.”
With that, Hugo disappears into the black polished metal platform.