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Sept 8, 2106
Toru stuck with me when I set out from his village, saying that I would be better off with him than without. Personally, I think he was excited at the prospect of seeing the world beyond his little area. Not that I’m complaining. From what I’ve seen of him, Toru is a good guy, and I could do with the conversation. So, with a great burst of fire, we took to the skies. I probably should have noticed how low the meter read on our gas, because not an hour after we took off, we started sinking into the white floor of clouds below our gondola. Toru pulled the chain to the burner. Little else happened. "Um..." He tried to pull it again, finding similar results. "This isn't working." His statement was a call for my help, but I didn't pay any attention to him. Something else had grabbed my interest. A cloud had opened up like a drawbridge, and our balloon descended to meet with the port as though we were being guided by a force entirely separate and uncontrollable. Toru set his hands on the edge of the basket and watched as the cloud got closer. "This ever happen before?" he asked. No fear in his voice. Perhaps he was simply asking me to relay a kind of story to him, but if that was the case, I had none to tell. This was a first for me, like so many things that had happened since my escape from the air mines of Cyrus City, and I hadn't the slightest clue what we were getting into. We crossed the threshold to the large cloud with the large opening, settling on the white floor of the interior with only the slightest rushing-wind sound beneath us. Out of the formless walls to the left, a door—or maybe the wall itself—opened and a being with a long slender face walked into the room. its nose pointed down past its chin, and its eyes stretched horizontally becoming no more than slits with eyelashes. The creature's hair was spiked up in the center, much like a bird's, and it twitched with the erratic neck movements. When it finally reached our balloon, it spoke to us, "Follow me," and turned around to walk back the way it had come.
2 comments | Leave a comment Sept 9, 2106 Toru was the first one out, sinking a little when he landed on the cloudy floor, but soon there was that rushing-wind sound, kicking up again and again with every step he made. Not wanting to be left behind, I hopped out and quickly followed. To my surprise, I was in fact walking on air, something that, had you brought it up as I was searching out gas pockets far beneath Cyrus City, I would have never dreamed possible. Yet there I was, stepping on bursts of air like they were stepping stones leading across a pond. I caught up with Toru and this new guide just as the wall opened up and what lay beyond was revealed to me. "This way," the creature said, and continued on his path with only the most impatient pause as he waited for the doors to fully open. Its walking brisk, his feet shuffled beneath a flowing white downy robe—though the sounds under its feet were entirely different than Toru's and my own. The sound beneath its feet—unseen as they may have been beneath that cloak of down—was the sound of socks rubbing lazily on carpet. We walked among clouded spires, expansive streets, a whole city of clouds. Faces peering at us from open windows resembled that of our host's, except that when they saw us, they shied away, back into their airy homes. After about ten minutes of walking, we were finally led to an open room that reminded me a lot of the courtroom that had sentenced me to twenty years hard labor in the air mines for blowing nitrogen filled soap bubbles at the air quality inspectors in my neighborhood. My thought at the time: Air quality in my sector would improve if the meter read an increase of elemental gases. Unfortunately, I was spotted by a PNx3 patrolman and taken in for willingly deceiving city property and you, reader, the honest citizens of Cyrus City. At any rate, two years later the public air, available to everyone at no cost, had been deemed unbreatheable and oxygen masks and central air housing units became the only way to continue with everyday life. Even going out of your home became deadly if you didn't use the tube system. I took a deep breath and held it.
10 comments | Leave a comment Sept 10, 2106 Our guide told us to stay put until they were finished, then disappeared before we had a chance to ask who they were, or what they might be finishing. We stood there for a long while after that, Toru attentive, myself glancing over my surroundings, waiting for another of those creatures to appear and move this little encounter along. “Toru,” I whispered. The sound did not echo in the open room. The windy floor still kicked up a ruckus to keep us upright. “What?” “What’s going on?” “I don’t know.” “Then why are you so calm?” “I find it best to approach the unknown with the best possible demeanor.” This calm and authoritative stance that Toru fell back on as a default was something that I would soon try to adapt to my own reactions, but for that moment I was on edge—the farthest away from composed as I could get. I was thinking that Toru and his people had lived carefree lives, that they didn’t know what evil the beings of this world were capable of unleashing, and as a result, he could stand naively tall in front of such dangers. Of course this might not really be the case, but all I had to go on was that one peaceful night in his village. “We have been monitoring your transmissions.” The voice boomed, making me flinch. Toru, who had been staring ahead the whole time must have seen them come in, so he was prepared. The bastard could have warned me. “We know what you will inevitably decide, and we want to support your cause.” Silence. No one said a word, until finally Toru turned toward me, clearing his throat a little. “Me?” I said. “What cause?”
4 comments | Leave a comment Sept 11, 2106 “To bring down the Cyrus Corporation.”
1634 comments | Leave a comment Sept 12, 2106 My eyes grew wide. Some one had heard me and was prepared to help, to give me the strength I needed, and to tell me that I was right for needing it. I suddenly saw myself at the helm of a rebellion, fighting along side you, my brothers and sisters, all the while being backed by these spikey-haired creatures using the power of wind they had somehow learned to harness. I saw PNx3s being tossed like distasteful candy. The doors to Cyrus City would be thrown open and everyone under their tyranny set free. “You will help me grind Cyrus into the dust?” There were ten of them perched and looking down at us. All of them seemed to shrink away from my question. “In a sense,” the leader of the group answered. “A sense?” Toru questioned. The leader jumped from his position high above us and his down cloak spread out like wings. He floated down to us like he was attached to wiring. The creature landed with ease. Its feet were more like talons. “We can’t actually physically help you,” the leader went on, “because our bodies couldn’t survive physically malicious contact. It’s the precise reason we worried about bringing you here in the first place. You see, we are frail—or to put it more specifically, our bodies are frail.” “Your bodies?” I asked. The creature began to walk as it explained. We took this cue to follow along and listen. “Our world was being destroyed by an abnormal form of fungus that assimilated all it came in contact with. What was worse,” the creature said, “was that if it found something useful, say like a crane or wrecking ball, it could make those qualities an advantage against us. I mention these specifically because construction equipment was the most damaging of all. Our constantly building society housed a number of these machines, so it should have come as no surprise.” The creature paused and sighed, indicating that it had, in fact, come as a surprise, and that it still bothered him. “We had created some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history, but in the end fungus proved a stronger opponent. “At the time I was working for a company preoccupied with airborne carriers. Our assignment was to create a floating island, like Laputa in Gulliver’s Travels. We were making great process as we started out with the shaping of cloud structures and wind movement, but couldn’t figure out a way for anything to stay up for too long if it weighed more than 100kg. “This was where our research was at during the fungi’s initial growth. This fungus was a company funded creation, we all knew, everything then was, but no one was willing, or maybe able, to take the burden of claiming it. “Luck smiled on us one day, though, when a field tech showed up with an isolated sample of the fungus for us to inspect. There we found that we had the power to adapt the fungus to be an instigator of change and not a determiner, so we could dictate what could be changed and what it could change into.” “So then what happened?” I asked. “Well, with little time left we did what we felt was our only option,” the creature said. “We used it on ourselves, and our families. Like I said, our island in the sky couldn’t hold the weight of an entire human population, but if we could find a way to become lighter…” It trailed off. “What did you do?”
3 comments | Leave a comment Sept 13, 2106 “We used birds,” it said. “We transformed our skeletal structure to that of a bird’s, so our bones would be hollow. Also, our muscle content was dramatically reduced, so like I said, in a physical battle, we can’t help by providing you greater numbers.” “Then what can you do?” “We can give you technology and information, to help you find others that can help you. Right now, your craft is being fitted with thrusters that will never deplete.” I waited for the creature to go on, but it seemed that the list had ended. Not much of a list, if you ask me. “Oh,” he said. “And I almost forgot about the air rifle. You get in a jam, just pull the trigger on that thing and it should buy you some time.” “A thruster for my balloon and an air rifle,” I repeated. “What about the info.” “I’ll give you the coordinates of a group that could stomp out the Cyrus Corporation,” it said. “The only catch is that they are locked in a dispute and refuse to disengage from each other, which limits them from engaging anyone else.” “Why do you want to help me?” I asked. “Because if Cyrus finds out about our world, there’s no way we could keep from being annihilated, and from all the civilizations we’ve observed, they seem to be the most destructive. But, I guess, there’s more to it than that. When we abandoned our home, we had to let a lot of innocent people die. Those that didn’t get taken initially by the fungus were killed later when the fungus attacked the foundations of our many skyscrapers. We watched as people on rooftops reached to us just before they fell to death and rubble. Maybe I’m displacing this moment for that one, and hoping that it will make up for something long lost.” The leader led us back to the balloon, opened the hatch, and bid us farewell. Toru and I climbed back into our little basket and got moving. The chain was pulled and the balloon lifted out of that cloudy hangar and back into the open blue of the atmosphere. We were off, to stop a war, to get help, to see new sights. There was a red light blinking on the navigations screen. I clicked it and a message opened for us to read:
10 comments | Leave a comment Sept 14, 2106 Escaped Inmate 44T8SB3, We have been tracking your movements and transmissions in an effort to provide our customers with the best possible information for their consumption. As you know, the quality of information is just as important as the air we breathe, and your information has been determined to contain poor quality. As a result, a quality inspector has be dispatched to cease your functions, as well as the functions of all those you have in your charge. For your convenience, we hope that you are able to accept this fate.
9 comments | Leave a comment Sept 15, 2106 This message has been brought to you by the Cyrus Corporation.
1 comment | Leave a comment Sept 16, 2106 Breathe easier.
1277 comments | Leave a comment |
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