Crimson Dawn

At dawn, he pulled himself off the old mattress, slipped into his tattered pants and boots, slung his welding goggles around his neck, and grabbed his backpack. He glanced into the fridge, just as empty as his stomach, and left his small room in Keldaraan for good. The day broke over the industrial district in shades of ochre and steel, and the morning air felt heavy as lead in his lungs. Where the light from Tau Ceti hit the asphalt, the heated air shimmered in different colors, as if it were soaked in gasoline, with invisible pollutants swirling in such quantities that they almost seemed visible, stirred and shaken by the sun’s energy and the constant roar of machines echoing through the concrete canyons. It was 5:30 a.m., and across Keldaraan, workers had already started their early shifts. The streets were eerily empty.

After an hour's ride away from the industrial zone, Lex made his way through the central station to the platform. He pushed through the crowd to the edge of the platform and peered into the 70-meter-wide, 12-meter-deep track pit, where, according to the schedule, one of the world’s most advanced freight trains was due to arrive in a few minutes. Other poorly dressed young men stood nearby in small groups, smoking lazily and flicking long trails of ash into the abyss. Before the ash could reach the tracks, it dispersed in the air. He asked a scrawny redhead for a cigarette, and only then did he notice most of the group wore earplugs. The redhead pulled a neon earplug from his ear and looked puzzled. His face was covered in freckles, and his large yellow teeth were visible when he spoke.

"Can I bum a cigarette?"

After a moment's hesitation and with a slightly reluctant expression, the redhead handed him the pack.

"Sure," he said.

From far off, Lex heard the whistle of a locomotive. He stepped close to the platform's edge, his right boot hanging freely over the gap. He leaned forward to follow the curve of the tracks, watching how the magnetic rails cut a mile-wide path between the skyscrapers. In the distance, he saw the white bridge leading to Thandros Tower and dark plumes of smoke rising below the cyan morning sky. The whistle of the steam engine sounded again, and moments later, the superconducting freight train appeared.

A light downdraft swept through the station, ruffling his hair and carrying with it the scent of machine oil. He covered both his ears and tilted his head back, but the sheer size of the train was impossible to take in. Massive pistons pumped past him, steaming shafts, intake pipes, flashing, rotating turbo generators, and high above, the tiny lit windows of the passenger compartments.

Platforms extended from the station, leading to the stairways of the train. As Lex climbed the steps, an icy chill rose from below. He glanced over the handrail and heard the rumbling and hissing of giant nitrogen tanks beneath the metallic safety mesh. Below, he could see the shadow of the train, hovering a meter or so above the tracks.

The conductors stood on either side of the open carriage doors, checking passengers' tickets and papers. The one who checked Lex’s ticket was a heavyset man with a beard shaved to his chin line along his cheeks. The TC logo was stitched onto his uniform, and corporate loyalty was embedded deep in his mind. Lex asked him what the massive cargo at the back of the freight cars was. The conductor looked up from his document and said, "We’ve loaded entire container ships, shipping them to Ka’lotaar to bring the port back to life. We’re boosting imports and exports, making credits, reigniting overseas trade, and making heads roll in Luvanda."

The passenger deck was divided into multiple levels. The top level was reserved for the highest earners, those who could flood the infonet with credits, triggering an inflation if they spread their wealth among the citizens. The lower three levels were occupied by the rest of humanity. Uniformed staff moved between rows of three-seater benches, as passengers read holographic newspapers or browsed the Infonet using monitors attached to the seatbacks in front of them. Lex made eye contact with a vendor and ordered a coffee and a roll, but when it came time to pay, he realized that TC had deleted his account. The vendor took the items back, and with his stomach growling, Lex pressed his forehead against the window, looking down at the platform where only a few clusters of people remained. Cleaning robots were already sweeping away the traces of civilization from the now-empty spaces.

He leaned back in the hard seat, his mind drifting back to the girl. He replayed every moment of their short time together, not just once, but in an endless loop, as if to engrave every detail into his memory, determined never to forget that one feeling connected to their time together.

By noon, he arrived at the outskirts of Vega Prime and spent two hours at the airport before boarding a supersonic jet to cross the Great Sea. He spent more than two days in the air before the plane landed in Segosa, a port city built at the mouth of the Luvanda River. Just five years ago, Segosa had been the capital and trade hub for a faction that had split from the Thandros family. Their leader was long dead, but the population still worked hand in hand with the Crimson Dawn, a splinter group locally known as DFLL: the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Luvanda. In some parts of Segosa, shattered relics of stone statues honoring their greatest martyrs remained, while elsewhere, only empty pedestals stood. The history plaques had been ripped from the stone, and thick paint had been smeared over the names.

Lex wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, turned away from the sun, and switched on his PDA to find the way to the administration building. But his device was no longer connected to the infonet. The dusty streets were bustling with activity. He overheard a language he had encountered a few times before in the pleasure districts of Vega Prime.

In Segosa, locals bought and sold goods right on the street, haggling over prices, bartering, and paying with coins. Some stalls even had credit readers on the tables. The food was laid out on cloths spread on the ground, and at nearly every stand, Lex saw woven baskets filled with pale white tubers that glistened in the sunlight. He walked to the nearest stand, where an old woman crouched on the ground like a beggar, reaching for his arm while holding a credit reader in her other hand.

"Forget it," he said. "I can’t buy anything. I don’t have any money."

The old woman muttered something in a foreign language and pushed a bag of cooked rice against his leg.

"I don’t want to buy anything," he said. "I just ate on the plane. I’m looking for the administration building."

The woman spat something that sounded like "may, may, may" at him. He stepped back slightly.

"The administration building," he repeated. "Thandros."

The woman fell silent. She tossed the rice onto the cloth without care, scrambled to her feet, croaking as she rose, and shoved the boy with her bony, sun-bronzed hands, pushing him out into the dusty street.

It was scorching hot. When the wind blew from the south, it was even more humid and stifling than the still air. The boy wandered deeper into the city through wide alleyways, avoiding the sun and moving in the shadows of the tin-roofed shacks. The locals, both inside and outside their homes, were noisy and rushed past him in every direction. A street vendor tried to sell him glowing water in an old plastic bottle. When Lex declined, the man put it back into the shallow wooden crate strapped to his chest and fished out a worn pack of gum, then a holographic ring—clearly just a cheap toy—and, failing again, he pulled out a small bag of chips. The label showed that the infamous SnackBite Inc. was responsible for the production.

Lex hadn’t come across anyone from the other continent in the streets. Most of the local settlers gave him suspicious looks as he passed. He turned past a small market stall and heard honking, voices, and laughter coming from behind the shacks and mud buildings at the end of the alley. He followed the sounds until he reached a main road. A convoy of armored vehicles, mounted with heavy guns, drove slowly past the locals, who watched the spectacle from the roadside. Employees and mercenaries from Thandros Corporation were inside the vehicles. Children in dusty rags ran after the trucks, wildly firing at the convoy with imaginary guns.

The sandy road was already a third in shadow. Tau Ceti glowed just above the mist-covered forested mountains. Across the street, the TC logo gleamed brightly on a tall tower in the sunlight.

That must be the headquarters, he thought. It was only a few miles away now.

At one point, a group of corporate employees dressed in elaborate robes approached him. They stood under the shade of a blue palm, handing out religious texts to the locals. Lex flipped through one of the thick books but couldn’t read the foreign language. Still, he was certain the pages were filled with the same lies that had brainwashed the workers on Limbo.

Near the administrative building, Lex spotted the presence of SnackBite Inc. for the first time in Segosa. There was a modern booth with terminals, vending machines, and flickering holograms shimmering in the humid air. He remembered the massive array of food products in the supermarkets of Vega Prime—almost all of them produced by this company.

Dozens of locals had gathered around the booth, mostly poor mothers carrying their newborns in cloth slings. Two scrawny company employees, likely Luvandan themselves, were speaking to the crowd, seemingly organizing the commotion. Some of the mothers emerged from the group carrying clear plastic bags filled with small pouches of white powder.

Lex approached one of the employees standing a little away from the chaos, smoking a cigarette, and asked him what they were selling here.

The corporate employee said, "We’re not selling anything. We’re giving powdered milk away to the poor settlers. Because of the severe famine, most mothers are so malnourished that they can’t produce enough milk to feed all their newborns. So we help out with the powder, to make sure the little ones don’t starve."

The boy hesitated. He hadn’t expected this kind of charity from a corporation or its employees.

"That’s really kind of you," he said.

The corporate employee laughed. He took a long drag of his cigarette, shook his head, and as he exhaled the smoke, he said, "It’s devilishly clever." He looked the boy up and down. "You seem like one of us, so I’ll let you in on the secret: once the mothers rely solely on the powder, they stop producing milk entirely. And that’s when we make our move. After that, they’ll depend on our substitutes. We won’t be giving the milk powder away for free anymore; we’ll charge them a fortune for it, squeezing the last of their money out of them. And they’ll have no choice but to pay, because otherwise, their children will starve."

The boy left the stall and walked another hundred meters before entering the TC headquarters, a glass tower casting a long, black shadow over the population like a sundial in the middle of the hot, dusty square.

In the lobby, across from the reception desk, there was a waiting area with uncomfortable-looking chairs and a coffee table holding a tray of empty plates. The place seemed as if it had been hastily abandoned.

"The mail said I should report here," the boy said to the administrator. The man wore a paramilitary uniform with a stitched corporate logo and was operating a terminal while standing.

"Name?"

"Lex."

"Last name?"

"Marrow."

A moment later, the administrator said, "You’re late, Marrow. Too late. You missed the personal briefing an hour ago. Where have you been?"

The boy glanced at his PDA. "It’s four o’clock," he said. "The message said we were meeting at five."

The administrator paused his work at the terminal and looked at the boy. "Apparently, you forgot about the time change and didn’t adjust your PDA. You’re an hour late. Your unit is already on its way to the port."

"What am I supposed to do now?"

The administrator raised an eyebrow, as if the answer were obvious. "Run after them, of course," he said. "You can still make it. The ship doesn’t leave for another 45 minutes."

"And where are they going?"

"To Aalgongonok."

"Alagondolonk, sir?"

The administrator seemed to consider how to respond. After a moment, he said, "Aalgongonok. It’s a small, miserable mining town about three thousand miles upriver, deep in the heart of the jungle. The whole area is basically rebel territory, but we’re holding that base strong." The uniformed man paused briefly. "Ever seen the jungle, Marrow?"

"No, sir."

The administrator nodded. "Thought so. Otherwise, you wouldn’t still be here." He handed the boy a thin stack of papers.

The boarding tickets.