Wind-Scarred (The Will of the Elements, Book 1) by Sky Corbelli
Chapter 8
Visions of the Past
Ezra took a moment to try digesting what he had heard. Surely he's joking, or trying to trick me, he thought to himself. How could they be prisoners? The barrier didn't prevent them from leaving. They had the greatest technology the world had ever seen at their disposal. They had left the planet, built a colossal space station. They had more freedom at their disposal than they knew what to do with.
“That doesn't make any sense,” he said, “even if there was something to actually keep us in here, which there isn't, we could get up and leave to space whenever we wanted.”
“Perhaps prisoners isn't quite the word, although I assure you, we are that. Maybe 'quarantined' better describes it. Not many records survived the Great War, and the Founders of Sanctuary began changing history the moment they had a history to write. All that we know is this. We are the zero point zero zero zero one percent of the human population that decided to cling to technology in the face of an enemy who had overcome us. We do not know who this enemy was, but we know what they were capable of.”
He inserted a small card into the table. Ezra raised his eyebrows. Not much was kept on external data, off the net, these days. He shot a discreet glance at the man, and opened a private program to record whatever he was about to see. The program failed to initialize, returning that it was blocked somehow. Ezra blinked at this in surprise, as a two dimensional video began to play.
“This is one of the last recovered recordings from before the dark years of the Great War, during which nearly all technology on the planet ceased to function.” Ezra quickly engaged another program to check for signs of file manipulation with what he was seeing. There was an image of a city, glimmering under the sun, surrounded by more water than he had ever seen up close. Two bridges reached out to it, gracefully connecting the peninsula to the land on either side. “The city you're looking at,” Mr. Blair stated, “was called San Francisco. It was one of the first to be wiped out during the War.”
Ezra watched in fascination as the camera zoomed in to the closer of the two bridges, a monstrous red construction suspended from steel cables. The frame wobbled back and forth as it adjusted. It's an amateur, Ezra realized as a low buzzing that must have once been narration started up, but whatever he was saying had clearly been lost long ago. It was almost eerily similar to his own recording from earlier in the evening.
On the bridge were people. Ezra quickly estimated that there must be close to a million of them. About as many as lived in Sanctuary.
They were all walking away from the city, but something looked... off about how they were moving. Then he realized what it was. Every single one of them was stepping completely in sync. His eyes darted to the program, but it had detected no video tampering. Most of the people struggled against it, some tried to catch hold of objects to stop themselves, but they all just kept moving.
The camera panned over more of the stream of humanity as it came up the hill behind the cameraman. Up close, he saw that many of the walking people were crying, that some were even attempting to run back down the hill only to be caught in whatever held the others and forced to march back. The camera continued to pan, then the man who was filming appeared, looking scruffy and unkempt, like he had just gotten out of bed. He was saying something and gesticulating until he looked off into the distance, freezing mid-word before hurriedly spinning the camera around again.
The last of the stream of people was just coming off of the bridge when the earth began to shake. The city in the distance started to tremble. Waves lapped further and further up the shore. It took Ezra a moment to realize what he was seeing.
The city was sinking.
Faster and faster it sank, water pouring over streets, houses, buildings. The bridges twisted and strained before being ripped to pieces, cables whipping around like enormous rubber bands pulled past their breaking points. At some point the cameraman fell, just as countless others around him had. His camera returned to the scene just in time to witness the last of the hills sink beneath the waves. Everything stopped shaking. The camera fell to the ground, capturing a few last moments of people crying and hugging, rocking in place, their faces masks of terror and despair before the picture went black.
“That can't have been real,” Ezra said. He looked at his program, but it still faithfully displayed nothing amiss. “You... you fabricated it. Made it look old. Maybe made it a long time ago. There's no way that something like that could happen and we... and people wouldn't hear... wouldn't know that it... it's fake, it has be.” Ezra turned pleading eyes to Mr. Blair, hoping that he would give away something, anything.
“I wish that were case,” the man said sadly. “You of all people should appreciate the kinds of secrets that are kept here.”
“But... but something like that. A weapon that could do that... it could destroy Sanctuary, could wipe us off the face of the Earth. If the technology existed, we... we would know. We would have some way to deal– ”
“Ezra,” Mr. Blair interrupted him in a soft voice, “if I was trying to convince you that you needed to keep what you know a secret, what do you think I would do? You say you want to help people. Do you know why I showed you that recording?”
“You... you wanted to give me a reason why I shouldn't let people know. Why it would hurt them if they knew.” Ezra ran a hand through his hair, trying to work his way around the terrified faces in the film. “But think of the good we could do! We could revolutionize the world out there! We could make mankind greater than it has ever been! And everyone could see the world, not just our little valley in the middle of nowhere and the space station. The whole world! It's beautiful out there, and we've all been missing it!”
Mr. Blair sighed and shook his head again. “Suffice it to say that it has been tried. The result was a backlash from the outside world so brutal and decisive that we were left desperately scrambling for technology that would enable us to escape the planet very quickly. Wormhole technology, in fact, that your ancestors were kind enough to invent for us. But none of that really matters. What matters right now is what you will do. Or perhaps what we shall do with you.”
Ezra straightened up in his chair and cast a belligerent glare across the table at the other man. Mr. Blair chuckled. “Dramatic, aren't we? I am here to offer you a choice, Ezra.”
Mr. Blair raised his hand, counting off the options on his fingers. “One. You may go back to your life as it currently stands. You will not speak of what you know and have learned to anyone. You will never attempt anything like what you have done tonight again. An agent will be assigned to you. They will become your very best friend. You will include them in everything you do and will never be far from their side. If you ever breathe a word of what you know to anyone or attempt to evade the agent, you will suddenly realize that your work requires you to sequester yourself away from the world. Probably for the rest of your life.”
Ezra gulped. Well, he thought to himself, you were looking forward to thinly veiled threats. “And the other option?” His voice cracked as he asked the question.
“You join up. You've already proven to be a rather resourceful young man who does not completely lose his head under pressure. Keeping secrets is only one small part of what we do, and believe me when I say that we make the world a better place for everyone, not just those of us who happen to live in Sanctuary.” Mr. Blair gave another of his little smiles. “Also, frankly, we need the help, and I would rather you became an asset than a liability.”
Ezra sat for a moment and thought, staring down at the table. Then he looked up, resolve flashing in his muddy brown eyes. “I would need to know more. I'm not signing up for something just because you say it's the right thing to do. Right now the only thing I know about you is that you are responsible for keeping the biggest secret in Sanctuary. Will you tell me the truth? The whole truth about Sanctuary and the world outside and what it is you do?”
A small frown creased Mr. Blair's fa
Ezra leaned forward in his chair. “And I won't join something that works against my conscience. Besides, what could you tell me that would make matters worse, provided I could come up with proof for what I already know.”
Smiling wryly, Mr. Blair nodded in concession. “I suppose that it really couldn't make you more of a security risk. Very well, I will give you the short version, and you can judge if we are what I've said we are. There's no going back once you know this. Are you sure this is what you want?”
Ezra's expression was serious.
“Tell me.”