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My head hurt. I don’t know why that was the only thing I noticed or could think about for my first twenty minutes of consciousness, but it was. Like a firecracker had been lodged somewhere between my nose and my frontal lobe, and had been left to do it’s horrible job. After I got over just how much my head hurt, though, I noticed that I was naked. I know, I know, you’re thinking that the fact that I don’t know where I am, or how I got there, or why I’m not at home in my pod would be among the first things to have gone through my head, but they weren’t. I instead realized that I was naked. I couldn’t tell you where they came from either. The nudity bothered me only slightly less than my head and it was something I could address, so I sat up and opened my eyes.

I immediately closed them again.

There was ash all around. And dirt. Real dirt, it looked like, not the kind of stuff that gets swept off the streets or scrubbed off the buildings or collected in a dust-trap. Dirt. Dry, dark brown, and going for miles, intermingled with the ash. With some effort, I managed to fabricate a reason for the dirt. I must have been caught in an explosion, or a transport malfunction, and wound up just outside the city. So when I finally opened my eyes, I was slightly more prepared for the vastness of the dirt.
It was really a lot of dirt.

There is no dirt in City 4. There’s chrome and rust and dust and ash and soot, but no real dirt. Probably hasn’t been since we figured out how to grow our plants in vials and vats and ponds. As a population, the denizens of City 4 were never big fans of dirt. I’m pretty sure the reason we closed ourselves off from 3 and 5 is because of the fact that they didn’t mind the dirt as much as we did. When the firestorms came and the earth swallowed our steel bubble, the current citizens figured that a hatred of dirt and history of antisocial behavior is what saved us from the furious damnation that no doubt befell the other two cities.

But that’s a long and boring story that pales in comparison to me, naked, in a field of dirt.

After a fair amount of panicking, I started to actually look around. This was made difficult by the fact that my right eye was refusing to activate. Which meant that either I’d been laying in this field of dirt for over 12 hours, the explosion had drained the energy, or that it had been so tremendous in either heat or force that my implants were damaged beyond use. Using my natural eye, however, I was able to gather that not only did the dirt stretch for miles and miles, but there was no familiar steel shell in sight. Being as the city’s shell was approximately 10 miles high and 50 miles across, this meant I was definitely nowhere near anyone, or anything, alive.

My emergency survival classes came to mind. I remembered that the first thing to do should you become ejected from the city was to maintain body heat. Even though the dirt, the blaring red sun, and the ashes around me were all quite warm, I knew that it wouldn’t last, especially if I was naked. Fortunately, I noticed, there were shreds of foilcloth scattered around me, in a sloppy circumference of about 100 feet. Most of the pieces appeared to be from my bag, which must have been with me during the explosion, and were shredded too small to be of any use. However, a few pieces had fortunately been left in relative togetherness, and I was able to gather enough material to create makeshift loinwraps, socks, and a scarf. I was still mostly naked, but the vital points of heat-loss were more or less covered. There was little else recognizable in my surrounding area, except for lots of little dirt-plants, shooting up sharp little green spears that, while lacking the strength to penetrate skin, were incredibly irritating to walk on.

I didn’t know where to go, or how to get back to the city, but I knew that I had to walk. Sooner or later I’d find a road, or lights, or the welcoming shell on the horizon. They probably had emergency sky scouts out looking for me, anyway, so even if I was heading in the wrong direction, my beam-trail would be sufficient to follow along after, and stretching it out could only help.

This theory wore thin after about 3 hours of walking. I was glad that my lung implants were run on bio-electricity, otherwise I would have collapsed after a mile of struggling through the dirt-filled wasteland. Three hours, of course, was exhausting no matter how good your internal implants are. Granted, it felt more like 5 hours at the time, but my internal clock was also functioning, so I had an accurate measurement to keep me tethered. Occasionally my enhanced eye would flicker on for a second, though rarely long enough to do a proper magnification sweep. The sun was starting to set, and I could feel the temperature dropping, so my main concern was getting to something that resembled a bed before nightfall.
I didn’t know at the time how much I should have appreciated the sun and dreaded its setting.

* * *

As time and my feet wore on, the scenery did not change. It only stretched in every direction around me as I slaved forward into the increasingly cold night. I feebly shivered, and I could feel the strength fading from my limbs. Dull eyes scanned the horizon, hoping for something, anything. At this point, I cared less about getting back to my familiar hole back at City 4, Level 3, and more about finding somewhere-- anywhere-- warm for the night. I'd never imagined how ridiculously dark and cold it would be outside of the city after sundown. Never having spent a day too far from heated buildings and walks and glowing lampposts, I was perfectly unprepared for life outside the shell. These sorts of thoughts did nothing to alleviate my chill, though. Between the cold, the shock, and the mild delirium, I wasn't entirely sure, as my legs finally gave out beneath me, if the mobile shadow that rapidly descended upon me was real, or if I was being born away by a cold-and-pain-induced delusion. I didn't stay conscious long enough to find out either.

When I woke up next, I was still feeling the effects of the cold and lack of energy. Being near-naked didn't help to either of these ends, though I did notice that a scratchy, blanket-like coat had been draped over my shoulders. I peeled my eyes open, and noted that it was still dark- too dark to make out anything except for the bulky, shadowy outline in front of me. I also realized that I was moving. Quickly. The speed was comparable to a zip tube or a automobile, except nowhere near as smooth. The dull sound of "Thudda-thudda, thudda-thudda," rose up from beneath me, making my head throb even more.

"Ungh."

That was the first word I spoke to the man who saved my life.

"Eh, you're awake, are ya? I'd been scared you might die on me, what with your skin bein' all blue an' stuff."

I glanced down at my hand, but it was much to dark to make out any sort of hue, blue or not. I took his word for it, though. Probably right, it was really cold without any good clothes, heatwalk, or overhead light source. I moved my arms and head, just to be sure I could. It was about this time that I realized that the vehicle we were upon required balance to use. Furthermore, in my sleep, I apparently have better balance than when awake. This was evidenced by the fact that I fell awkwardly off the vehicle and into the dirt. Judging from how far I bounced and rolled, I’m guessing that we were moving at roughly ten to fifteen meters per second. Which is pretty fast. Especially when crashing.

The dirt sprayed around me as I tumbled, leaving a long, broken mark where I made my impact. It clung to me, made suddenly moist with blood. I’m fairly certain the transaction wasn’t one-way, though; the abrasive impact left pieces of me scattered all along the drawn out strike zone. I would have been perfectly content to lie there and die, had it not been for the loud “THUMP!” of a man dismounting his vehicle to save me once more.

“Godddammit…” He muttered and cursed while prying me from my resting place, “You want to die, izzat it?” I found myself supported awkwardly against the vehicle, which (much to my surprise) had legs. And was alive. I marveled in silent horror for a moment, lacking the energy to inform him how utterly strange his vehicle was. While I stared stupidly, his cloth-covered hands examined my wounds, which were fortunately exposed by my lack of real clothing. The bruises and broken wrist didn’t seem to get a whole lot of reaction from him, but when he got to my shoulder, his hand retracted at the feeling of moistened flesh. It was blood. Not much, but enough to elicit a reaction.

“s**t.” He spoke it with equal parts anger and disappointment, then immediately set about wrapping it. It was not a meditech bandage, it was simple cloth, which I supposed made sense for a… whatever he was. I was a bit too tired and beat-up to question anything. As soon as I was wrapped enough for him to deem acceptable, he easily and carefully lifted me and put me back on the vehicle-beast, this time using some sort of a harness to secure me in place. I tried to look at his face, to try and attach it to a voice, but his low hat brim and the thick darkness proved too much to make out any details, or even see his eyes. When he finished fastening the last straps around my legs and he had covered me with a blanket, he turned from me to scan the horizon, which apparently he could see better than I could.

“Nothing yet,” he informed me, “But they’ll be on us soon ‘nough. Y’need to save yer energy now, but when we get back t’ six, I ‘spect some answers.”

“Yeagggghhh.” My response turned into a pained groan, something inside my chest was deeply opposed to my being vocal.

“Good ‘nough.”


I would greatly appreciate any commentary, criticism, critique, or face-punching anybody has to offer on this piece, so far. I've put it through one critique group, made some editing, went back through, did a bit more editing, and am now putting it through to you fine folks. Any questions, commentary, or critique can be sent to me directly or posted here, whichever suits your fancy. Thank you for your time.

=Sth