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The Dome - Chapter Eight


StarMountainKid

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The next morning Dirth had a big breakfast spread out for me and Henry. We ate in silence, trying not to seem overwhelmed by the food and our circumstances, Dirth glancing at us occasionally with his narrow smile.

After we’d eaten, Dirth set us down on his couch and started talking. “Have a good breakfast, guys? We stick together and you’ll eat like that the rest of your lives.”

Henry and me looked at each other. “Yeah, we plan to,” Henry said. “Now you gonna show us what life is like in this here Dome?”

Dirth’s narrow smile broadened as much as it could. “Alright, guys, it’s time for you to go out and look around, that may be better than us just sitting here and me trying to explain,”

So we all got up and went out into the metal corridor and walked over to the balcony that looked out over the vast interior of the Dome.

Dirth, me and Henry leaned over the balcony railing. It was quite a sight for us, all the colors all bright, and all the Dome citizens milling about every which way down below, the expanse of the Dome seeming endless and disappearing into the far distance, as well as up, up, up on all sides, balcony after balcony, up to the blueness far above.

“Now, the first thing you guys have to know is about the people of the Dome,” said Dirth. “You see all those people milling about dressed like us? Those are the Paratakes. They live the good life, sleeping and sexing and shopping and partying. They go to the Cybosphere games and the Holoscenes, the Aural Dervishes and the Floating City. They’re the biggest population. Those are who the Dome was made for. They’re not very smart, though. They don’t really know what’s going on, but they like it that way. They don’t think much about anything because they don’t have to. They’ve got everything they think they want and need and it’s all for free and all laid out before them to use and enjoy as they will.” Dirth turned to me and Henry. “An easy life, my friends, and you know what that does to people.”

As I watched down below, I thought about how I never knew an easy life, only struggle in the dust and dirt of the village. I envied these Paratakes down below. I wanted to be one of them. I wanted to just take it easy for a long, long time. I didn’t care about knowing nothing, about what’s going on. I’d had enough of knowing too much back in the village. In the village you had to know everything, and I was tired of the strain of it.

Dirth and us looked out some more, over the balcony. “Then there are the Clerics,” Dirth said. “They follow the Ecclesiastic Prophet Zara. They always travel in groups. You’ll see them dressed in black with hoods over their heads marching along. When you see them coming, just step out of the way and ignore them. They won’t be interested in you. They’re usually going to the Temple or coming back from it. That’s on the other side of the Dome. You can go look at it later. It’s all black.”

“There’s some religion here?” I asked.

“Yes, some religion, alright,” Dirth said with a scowl. “This Zara guy started it all. Seems he had a vision, he calls it, about what’s above the sky, above the Dome. He says there’s some mystery out there that’s responsible for everything, including the Dome and everybody’s lives, too.”

“What’s the mystery?” I asked, looking up at the pale blueness above the see-through gauzy roof.

“He don’t know,” answered Dirth. “He just says there’s something out there everybody should think about and believe. He’s right, in a way.”

We looked, but Henry and me couldn’t see any Clerics just then. Dirth then pointed out in some direction. “Yonder are some of the Nonconformants. You can tell because they dress in a different way. They mostly keep to the Obliterate. That’s over on the other side of the Dome, too. They just go around in circles trying their best not to go in the same circles as everybody else, but they’re really in the same circles as everybody else, they just think they’re different.

Dirth turned to Henry and me. “Then there are the Servers and the Drones. The Servers, they’ll bother you a lot if you let them, always asking if you need something, and like that. They’ll get you whatever you want, and probably you’ll want everything. The Drones, well, they just do what their minds tell them to do, that’s all. That fellow in the glass room, he’s a Drone. He’s just sitting there waiting for the right thing to happen. The thing he recognizes. That big machine room, as you call it, is an emergency back-up in case one of the other support machines breaks down.”

“Then there are the Engineers. They keep this place alive and act as a sort of government. The Supreme Engineer is Dram Quinn. You’ll not meet him for a while, though.” Dorn gave us a strange look, like he had a secret. “But none of these are important. We’ll be looking for something else.” Dirth turned and look out over the Dome again.

“But, what are you?” Henry asked.

Still gazing out beyond us, Darth said, “I, my friends, am someone who’s going to change all this.” Dirth waved his arms about. He looked at us. “With your help, of course.”

Henry looked around at everything below us, then turned to face Dirth. “Yah, you said that before. Maybe we don’t want to change nothin’. Maybe we like it the way it is, Mr. Dirth. There’s opportunities down there for us.” Henry looked back at the expanse below, and then at me. “We got plans, see. An’ our plans don’t include no changes, well not at first, anyway. If somethin’ does change, it’ll be for our benefit.”

Henry said, “I think you’re wasting our time, Mr. Dirth. We got to know more about all this, we got to learn, but to learn ‘bout how to fit in with what’s already here for now. I don’t see how maybe you can change nothin’, anyway. Everything’s so big.”

This time it was Henry’s turn to spread his arms around everything down below. “All this is too big for anybody to change maybe, jus’ the three of us. ‘Specially when us don’t want to change nothin’ right now. We want to keep everythin’ jus’ the way it is for a while. You try an’ interfere, we’ll tell on you. We’ll set the alarm, like you said there was. We’ll get you arrested or whatever they do. Or we’ll knock you good ourself. We ain’t nobody to be foolin’ with, see. You think we’re rubes, but we ain’t. It’s you that needs to be careful of us. We’re here, now, an’ you ain’t nobody t’ us.” Henry glared at Dirth, and he wasn’t joking.

“Yeah,” I said, looking at Dirth. “Henry and me got plans.” I wasn’t sure what our plans were just yet, but Henry was right, and I trusted Henry, even thought he was a crazy old coot. Henry wasn’t dumb as he looked and he meant what he said. Back in the village when he was in this kind of mood, people gave him space ‘cause they knew he meant business.

Dirth looked away from us, to out over the floor of the Dome below with all the colorful and odd people mingling with each other, but he didn’t say nothin’ right away. I wondered what he’d say about all this, what Henry had told him. Dirth was a strange guy to me. I thought he was probably just a dreamer. Big plans with nothing to back them up with. A con, trying to pull us in to his empty schemes. I’d known men like that in the village.

I was kind of half-afraid he’d get mad at what Henry said and just leave, with us standing there alone on the balcony wondering what to do next. We still needed him. We still didn’t know all we needed to know. I thought about trying to make it up a little with him, but then I figured, leave it alone, see his reaction. Henry and me needed to keep the upper hand in this.

Finally, Dirth turned to us and chuckled. “I’m liking you guys more and more,” he said with his narrow smile on his thin face. “You two are just the kind I’ve been looking for! You got strength in you, and I need strength. Look, I know you guys think this place is perfect as it is right now, but wait until we make some changes around here. You’ll love it even more! We can make this a paradise for us. You just wait and see.” Dirth looked, beaming, at both of us, like we were one big family.

Henry was watching Dirth cunningly, and I will say suspiciously all through his little speech. Now Dirth’s face turned sober and serious. “There is something else, my friends,” he said softly, “that I have not told you.” His voice now became almost a whisper. “There are great mysteries here, my friends, great mysteries. Mysteries we must delve into and discover however we may. It is not for the faint hearted, my friends, to seek the shadows, peer into the gloom and darkness, to see what may lie hidden within. There is great evil in this Dome, my friends, as well as mindless delight.”

A slight chill shivered in me as Dirth spoke these words in his peculiar murmur. I looked at Henry. His harsh expression had weakened into some hesitation. I looked back at Dirth. His face now strangely narrow and pale, his slender, black eyes now somehow lit menacingly from within.

“There are hidden places here,” Dirth continued after closely watching our expressions. “Deep down in the substructures, far down in the foundations where everything began. It’s not only above us that the mysteries exist, my friends. You want knowledge of this place, well I tell you, if you really want to learn about this Dome, you’re going to have to delve deep, deep into the soul of this place, and you need me for that.”

Henry and me stared at Dirth, wondering what he was about, what he meant. All we wanted now was a holiday from dirt and filth, from the hopeless struggle of the village we left behind. We felt all that Drith said didn’t mean nothing to us, all these mysteries and basements and such. We was ready to climb down into the Dome below and join that crowd milling about and enjoy what they enjoyed, to be happy along with them and to shed our dusty minds and soiled bodies and be clean.

Dirth’s face relaxed as he looked at us and I guess he understood. “I know you guys need a rest and some fun and all coming from that dismal village of yours,” he said, his smile returning to beam at us. “I don’t blame you for that. You probably know enough right now to go off by yourselves and have a look around and participate. See, you don’t have to really know very much at all. It’s all simple down there. Nobody’ll question you or think you’re strange. Mostly because those down there don’t think much at all, they just go around to have a good time, mindless-like.

“It’s an easy life, down there with no problems,” Dirth continued. “It’s been all set up for them, for their benefit, so they can just wander around and enjoy their life. They don’t care about deep down secrets. They don’t care about Dirth or two guys from the village pretending to be one of them. They don’t care about much except themselves. You two will fit in just fine.

“My only advice is,” Dirth said a little more seriously, “keep your eyes open, try to see a little beneath all the fancy stuff you’ll see and experience. The Dome is like a big human machine or a big machine for humans. It’s the machine you should be concerned with in the end, because the machine is what we’re really interested in, you two and me. You’ll understand after a while.”

With this, Dirth spread his thin arms wide again, offering us the Dome and all its entertainments. “Go,” he said in his big narrow smile, “go into the Dome below and enjoy yourselves and learn. You’ll have no troubles, you’ll have a great adventure and a great celebration, and forget your previous hard and desperate life. Go. Go now.”

Henry and me looked out on the broad and endless floor below with it gay colors and brilliant lights and all the milling crowds moving carelessly about. They all looked carefree to us and happy and having a great enjoyment of life, clean and healthy. We had at last left our old, miserable lives behind us.

So, Henry and me left Dirth standing on that balcony and walked down a long and winding metal stairway that finally reached the floor of the great Dome. We had arrived at last, had succeeded in our plan, had got where we had wanted to be after all our troubles and worries. It was almost like a dream to us as we stood level with that colorful, mixing throng. We stood there for a long while, just watching. We would become one with them, become one with all their pleasures and delights, their excitements and enjoyments of their entertainments, their laughter’s and smiles, and everything else we did not know about yet that seemed to us like a paradise, a beautiful heaven, a glory and a bliss that had always seemed out of reach for us all our lives.

Henry and me stepped out into the milling crowd, stiff, and with stupid grins on our faces, like mechanical toys.

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Not sure I like this world much LOL.....remands me a bit of 'Brave New World' with a little bit of "1984" mixed in.....I am hooked LOL.

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