Weeks passed. More Union officials and soldiers appeared, their black uniforms and tanned skin in stark contrast to the seas of pale people in pale garments going back and forth in the train station. Liam occasionally monitored the proceedings on the news, the issues the Union had with the government seemed to be approaching some sort of resolution, it probably wouldn’t be that long before their numbers decreased and they began to pull out.

  Andrew looked noticeably worse. He still showed up and worked just fine, and the two began to meet up outside of work more, but Liam couldn’t help but worry that one day the younger man wouldn’t show up at all. Maybe Andrew wasn’t that bad off. He did continue to show up on time after all, but Liam wondered if it was more of a final act of desperation, that when the job ended his young coworker would be unable to continue on anymore. Liam silently resolved to try and find help, but it felt like the only thing that could really make a difference in Andrew’s future would be to find a more permanent job, and that had yet to happen.

  Another doctor’s appointment had rolled around and Liam found himself back under the watchful gaze of the tall and foreboding medical buildings. His doctor appeared as usual, and Liam was tempted to tauntfully ask about Beyond Humanity, but it was probably best to take a less combative tone after their last disastrous meeting.

  “I’m glad to say that you’ve been improving,” began Dr. Davis, failing to make eye contact with his patient as he perused information on his patient that appeared only in his metal eyes, “The change in your medication seems to have helped, you’ve been getting out more, doing things with people, getting more active, but I can’t help but worry about your diet, Fast ‘n Fried hardly makes for a good staple.”

  “Gee Doc, I didn’t know that place was unhealthy, it’s almost like I might be broke, kitchenless, and short on nearby options,” Liam couldn’t help himself, the doctor had a way of getting into his nerves, especially after their previous clash.

  “Yes… this might take some more looking into, but perhaps pay a little more attention to what you eat,” the doctor didn’t seem eager to get in another fight either and didn’t elaborate much on the topic.

  Their meeting went on, much more subdued this time without any major conflicts. The doctor suggested some things, and Liam gave his usual responses, but nothing heated up much, not even when the doctor suggested some new Me-Tech advancements. Liam had found it a bit easier to get up these days, and the doctor wasn’t occupying much of his thoughts at the moment. Likewise the doctor seemed pleased, feeling that he’d finally gotten through to his patient and wasn’t eager to strain their relationship anymore than it already was. The checkup reached its conclusion, but before he left Liam had a question of his own to ask, “Hey Doc, you happen to know if there’s some sort of rehab for drug addiction?”

  “It would depend on the circumstances,” answered the doctor, giving Liam an odd look, “what sort of drug are you talking about?”

  “Euphoria IX.”

  “Impossible. That substance is illegal, none of it can exist on this planet, there is simply no need for rehab centers for drugs of that nature, only prisons,” he smiled threateningly, “is there something you’d like to tell me?”

  “A guy in my housing block turned up dead from an overdose on the stuff, I didn’t know him, but it’s been bothering me ever since.”

  “You must be mistaken, our society does not suffer from issues such as that, perhaps it was simply a heart attack.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” replied Liam, turning to go.

  “Perhaps there’s an issue with your biological eye.”

  “It was probably just an honest mistake.”

  “You should, perhaps, consider eye replacement surgery. It might help with your depression as well,” said the doctor, eyeing Liam.

  “I’m fine, probably just shaken up from the event and looking for answers is all,” said Liam and exited the room.

  It was typical of course, to cover up issues and pretend like they weren’t there. The government would have to admit there were problems if rehab centers were opened up, would have to admit they weren’t enforcing their own laws on drugs, that politicians were being paid off by major companies. Everything was simply covered up, faked, and pretended to be perfect, like the railings on the bridge. Everything pasted over, the ugliness hidden behind a thin coat of flashy paint. It was ironic, the government clearly knew. The cleaners were hired by the state after all, but they didn’t care, that much was obvious. They only cared how things looked, not how the people really were.

  It made Liam angry though. What about people like Andrew? Or the man in his housing block? What about them? They probably needed professional help, something no one seemed willing to give. He probably needed to be more careful about what he said as well, otherwise Andrew could end up in trouble. It was infuriating, the way these issues weren’t even allowed to be discussed, and certainly not addressed.

  Another day passed and Liam woke up once more, sprawled out and looking up at his sagging, musty ceiling.

  Congratulations! You woke up ahead of your alarm today!

  He forced himself onto his feet and into the bathroom. Those days still happened when you could barely crawl your way out of bed, but they were less frequent. It’d been a full week since he’d smoked a cigarette as well. The craving hadn’t magically gone away, it was more that he hadn’t found the need to give into it. He looked at his haggard appearance in the mirror, his hair was getting too long and needed to be cut soon. He combed it best he could, shaved, washed his face, changed his clothes, and stepped outside his house. Sometimes it felt good to put in a little effort, to try a little, even if it was rather pointless, and filters would just obscure everything anyways. It felt good to do things for real, even if no one else noticed.

  Liam walked towards the station, it was too early for many people to be out, but the lighting was always the same regardless. Harsh illumination from high overhead lights blazed down, watchful eyes reminding you there was no sun to end your workday. Lights were built into walls as well, illuminating roads and pathways, keeping everything from ever growing too dim. Everything felt harsh and industrial, built to be cheap and durable with little care for aesthetics. Everything was bare bones and functional, a skeleton designed to bleed you dry.

  Liam existed in a world where there weren’t places to simply go and think, where the only places that existed were for doing things, places built to be cheap to run and monetizable. There were no places that simply were. Every place existed for advertising or creating money.

  He was fairly early for his shift, so Liam leisurely ambled along. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant walk, but it gave him time to think. How could he help Andrew? Notifying a hospital or any professional seemed dangerous after his talk with the doctor, but he wasn’t in a place to do anything, so who then?

  Andrew was already in the employees’ room when Liam arrived and greeted his senior. Liam gave a half-hearted reply, still thinking.

  It was about an hour into their shift when Andrew finally asked, “Are you alright? You seem quieter, more—uh… down than usual. Did something happen with the doctor?”

  “I’ve just been thinking is all.”

  “That’s unusual for you.”

  “I know, visiting the doctor always puts me in a funk. Gives me a long list of worries I’d have rather forgotten.”

  Andrew was more talkative now. He’d opened up to Liam a bit, his speech more confident, more energetic. Yet, stress and drugs were clearly wearing him down. The telltale signs were there, the ever so slightly more pronounced droop of the shoulders, the bags under his eyes just a little deeper than before. The Union’s presence felt like a clock, whenever they left would be the deadline. The question remained then, what would happen to Andrew, and would Liam even be able to do anything?

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “You know,” said Liam, “there might be somethin’ worth trying with all the Union officials around. You ever seen the sky?”

  “The… sky?”

  “Ya know, the atmosphere, the air that’s not underground? The big blue thing in pictures?”

  “Yeah I know, but don’t you need money to go somewhere like that”?

  “Normally, yeah, but we happen to be near a port, and those have to connect up to the surface. We also happen to be janitors, maybe not for the port, but with all the extra employees that’ve been hired and the Union, well, I doubt anyone would notice us.”

  “Is this something that could get us in trouble?”

  “Only if we get caught, and there’s a lot of extra people around. We’ve got uniforms and badges, so if we act confident we’ll be fine.”

  “Have you ever done this before?”

  “Nope, but I once knew someone who did. Let’s see, uh, maybe that was some 10 years ago. He ended up getting fired though. But, with the Union here there’s a good chance that they won’t worry about us.”

  “Is it really worth it?”

  “When’s the next time you’re gonna get this sort of chance?”

  “Uhhh…”

  “Exactly. Now when we finish our shift let’s hurry up, shove everything in the closet, and go up into the port.”

  The day nervously dragged on, sluggishly hauling itself forward, but losing speed with each pained step. Inevitably though, it ended, and then the two janitors embarked on a mad dash to get all their supplies put up before rushing up the stairs into the port.

  It was its own little world, a place distinct from the rest of the city. There were signs everywhere, real physical ones, printed in multiple languages. The advertisements weren’t plastered onto your eyes, but shown through glowing screens and colored beams of light arcing gracefully down from projectors. Disembodied voices didn’t ring in your ears shouting and imploring you to buy something, rather they came down from speakers embedded in the walls and ceiling. You could walk in a little circle around one, hear how the sound changed with each step, shift it from one ear to the other.

  The port was well ventilated, cold air constantly pushing its way through to rid it of the must and stank that had a tendency to purvey the main cavern. It was an alien little ecosystem, where most of what you saw could be reached out and touched, where the changes were subtle whether Liam’s right eye was open or not. However, the charm and novelty didn’t stick around long as the true nature of the place became readily apparent. It was a tourist trap, a place designed to swallow up foreigners whole and ring every last cent out of their bank accounts. Every available wall was filled with all manner of stores, vending machines, and stalls, all marked up to ridiculous prices. There was no way to ignore the temptations that bombarded from every angle, all with prices so ridiculous it was almost comical.

  “Wow,” breathed Andrew, “everything’s so weird here, and expensive.”

  “Yeah,” replied Liam, weaving between Me-Tech displays, “the novelty wears off though, it’s all one big scam entrapment.”

  The maze of desperate stores eventually opened up, their grabbing hands pried free finger by finger to eventually open up into spaces used for actual port functions. There was a large waiting area lining a far wall, chairs pushed up against a white wall lined with windows. Andrew paused for a moment to look through them, you could get a view into the wide open pit essential for getting anything out of the underground city, but the windows were set in too deep, rock overhanging them, and the walls of the pit were too high to get a view of the sky. Harsh industrial lights stood out like glaring blisters throughout the bottom of the pit, but a bit of natural sunlight still managed to sneak its way through.

  There were foreigners scattered throughout the waiting room. Their skins were various shades of pale to dark tans, not like the engineered melanin-defficient hues of natives that had never been touched by the sun. Few had any clips, though some had unobtrusive glasses and buds for their ears. Their hair was a wild variance of spectrums as well, deep blacks, amber, brown, pale blond, but only the elderly had white. Some were napping, leaning backwards on uncomfortable seats that could be inflated at a low cost, others yapped to their friends or unseen strangers, one even read from a physical book, the kind carved out of the flesh of plants Liam had only ever seen in pictures. People from the Union were there too, looking all serious in their somber uniforms, the soldiers cowled and faceless dark shadows.

  “This way,” gestured Liam, heading towards a maintenance room off to the side. He banged on the door, shouting for the employees to open up. Their shift was probably up, but if they were lucky that might be a new recruit still dawdling around who’d be afraid of any sort of conflict with all the Union presence. It creaked open, a kid half-out of his uniform, probably too young even for university, answered. His appearance was digitally enhanced with a centimeter or two, a haircut that rippled in a wind falling only on his head, and logos for the trendiest brands slapped all over his chest. It only served to make him look like a rich brat.

  “Who are you?” he asked quizzically.

  “Janitors,” responded Liam tersely, flashing his badge and pushing his way in, “we gotta run a night shift to get the windows clean. The door outside open?”

  “Uhhh… yeah, I think so. I was just gonna leave, my shift ended.”

  “All good, we’ve got it from here,” waved Liam before starting to raid the supply closet and motioning for Andrew to do the same here.

  “He looked awfully young,” commented Andrew when the child had left.

  “Probably an unpaid intern, plenty of people are desperate to slap any work experience on their resumes to help them get into a good university, or cut down on the cost in any way. Usually you have to slip them a few bucks though, so you can’t be from a gov house, you need a guardian willing to do that kinda thing.”

  “Why don’t they just use that trick for all the positions?”

  “Cause they can’t dodge every law. Besides, it takes a desperate higher up for that sort of thing, not every manager’s interested in getting in trouble with Union labor laws. The gov don’t actually care, but if the Union manages to catch wind they’ll moral grandstand it to oblivion and the gov wants to avoid that sort of thing, it makes ‘em look bad after all.”

  The room curved around towards the same wall with the windows, and Liam pushed open a door at the far end labeled with a heavy smattering of warning signs. Air rushed in, carrying a warm breeze tinged with the scent of dirt, fuel, and smoke. The two janitors stepped out onto a little ledge with a concerning lack of safety railings built into the side of the pit.

  There was a suspended scaffolding platform hanging there that could be moved along a set of tracks built into the overhang above the windows and allow one to clean their outsides. Even leaning over the side of the scaffolding platform it was hard to get a view up to the top of the pit, but if Liam were to lay down on the platform and hang his head back over the empty space below he could see it, the endless spread of the sky.

  The two janitors laid back and stared up at the vast expanse. It was hard to describe it when there was always a ceiling around. It was dark, with the last vestiges of light leaving fading purple streaks painted across a dark firmament. Pinpricks of light, a smattering of glittering diamonds, were sprayed across the dark canvas. They twinkled softly far up above, a palpable eternity between them and their viewers down below. It was indescribable when compared to the cavern, there was no end to it, no tactile roof, just a breathtaking expanse stretching infinitely deep. It was more like an ocean, describable as blue, but given that color from its depth and composition. There was no comparison to the lights sent straight to their metal eyes, it was real in a way they could never replicate. Moving lights streaked among the stars, sent from distant objects in orbit, glittering among the eternal balls of flame like man’s challenge to the universe.

  “It’s beautiful,” breathed Andrew.

  “Yeah,” agreed Liam, switching his right eye off. He wanted to see it unadulterated, undefiled, pure and real with his own eye made of fallible flesh and blood.

  The two simply lay there in silence, craning their necks back to get as much of a view as possible. They drank it in, feeling air touch their faces that had once touched the heavens. They were transfixed as if by the divine, blind men given sight for the first time.

  “Why don’t they make places more like this?” whispered Andrew quietly, as if afraid his voice could shatter the sky, “Why is everywhere plastered with posters telling you what to buy, what to do, how to be happy? Why is it so hard to find places where you can simply live?”

  “I don’t know, maybe ‘cause it’s hard to figure out what it means to live, and it’s a lot easier to let someone tell you. It’s easier to stay pacified on dopamine hits then to lay back and have a good think. I sure like to avoid it.”

  Silence passed between them again as they watched the purple strokes slowly bleed off the firmament, eaten away by a vast darkness that felt less like blackness, but more an indescribable depth without end. Something no lights or shaders could ever quite replace.

  “Thanks for showing me this. I doubt I’ll ever be able to see it again,” said Andrew softly.

  “I ain’t seen it before either, and it was a golden opportunity.”

  “We got lucky didn’t we? If there wasn’t that kid still here I doubt we would’ve gotten in.”

  “See, it’s like I said, just act confident and people won’t question you. It’s the politician’s strat.”

  “I wonder what it would be like to live around one of those distant stars, to be born in another world, another life.”

  Liam nodded, his words coming out soft and slow, “Sometimes I wonder if I’m meant for this world, they say there’s no place greater, but it feels like… it wasn’t built for me.”

  “Do you think it’s even possible to figure out what it means to live?”

  “I… I don’t know… but… I think you have to just keep going, and maybe one day you’ll figure it out.”

  Even as he said the words he couldn’t help but hear a voice ringing in his ear.

  You can’t keep ignoring it. You just keep blaming all your problems on something else. How long can you stay blind?