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After The Day Has Died by Lachlan Patrick Want to use your Kindle 2? Shop by title or by author in Kindle format. After the Day has Died
Project BookRead and Father Robert Aloysius Peter Darin have been given authorization to distribute and/or publish this by the author as listed in the first two lines of this text. This work may *NOT* be used for sale and/or redistrubition in any form/nature known or unknown at this time or in the furture without consent of the author. Project BookRead's authorization for this text does *NOT* extend to anyone person and/or company outside its bounds. This text may be shared as long as it is in its original unaltered form as listed in Project BookRead's stack. This text is solely copyrighten to the original author as listed above. Catherine met him in the corridors with a furtive smile, then turned and walked away, pretending not to know him. He was prepared for this. He'd done this before and he enjoyed the thrill of it. Each time was different. Each time they went to a different place. She seemed to always know where they could go. How she knew where they could avoid observation was something he had wondered about. One day he would ask her, maybe today. Or maybe he would forget all his questions in the moment, as seemed to be so often the case. She walked ahead of him, sometimes at a distance of several hundred yards, through the corridors and vast chambers inside the Dome. The Dome contained millions of dwellers, all living inside their little apartments and working for the Administration, which fed them and clothed them and provided for their entertainment needs. Everything you ever needed was in the Dome. Why people ever emigrated to the frontier worlds was a mystery to Avon. Everything was here. Except... Why did he find her so attractive? The thrill wasn't even dangerous. Although what they were doing was almost certainly illegal (most things were in the Dome). Something drew him to her in a way he could not fathom. As an engineer working on a very important design project for the Administration, Avon spent much of his time analysing problems and finding reasons and solutions. But he found it difficult to analyse his own reasons, the reason why he found her so compelling, why he craved her so much. Or perhaps he could not understand why he should need to crave her. The Dome dwellers paid them no attention as they played their game of hide and seek. He wondered when it would end, and where. Four days ago it had been the roof of an elevator shaft, where there were none of the usual monitoring cameras to see them. The cameras were watching them now though, every hundred yards along the corridor, and in all the major public areas. The Federation, of which the Administration was just a part, monitored everything that happened in the Dome, and in all the Domes scattered across the Earth. It was the only way to ensure that should anything happen which threatened public safety, the security forces could secure the area and help evacuate the people. That was the official explanation. The reality was that nothing much ever threatened to disturb the peace and tranquility of the Dome's inhabitants, and of late Avon had begun suspecting the reason why. When Catherine had asked him to stop eating or drinking at least thirty-six hours before any of their clandestine meetings, Avon had been dubious. But now he knew why she had asked. Without the food and the drink, he was on edge. He noticed things about himself, about her, that he wouldn't have noticed when he was sated. There was a hunger to him which had nothing to do with his stomach. But that was not all. Without the food and the drink his mind felt sharper, more focused, more able to concentrate on thoughts and follow them through to their logical conclusions. He had experimented with reducing his food intake some days to see how it affected his work at the Project, and he found he could make much more progress than his peers, who seemed dull and uninterested in completing the work by comparison. There was something else he had noticed about how he felt when he was off the food. Something about how it was with Catherine: Their love-making was superb. It wasn't just the tantalising threat of discovery, it wasn't just the chase, the game they played whereby they pretended they were being followed and they made believe they didn't know each other until the last moment. Every sensation was heightened through the abstinence of food. Avon wasn't stupid. It was clear the food and drink in the Dome's daily rations were doped with some kind of suppressant drug. To watch the people milling around them now, as he followed her surruptitiously, made that ever the more clear. To see those others plodding blissfully along the corridors, happily unaware of their own controlled and dulled nature, was somehow quite disturbing to Avon, and yet exhilirating. He realised something about himself, as he lost sight of Catherine's red hair around a corner. He loved the danger of being different to everyone else. He was drawn to her because of that danger. Because she made him different to even his co-workers at the Project. She made him feel truly like himself. She was descending to the lower levels now. From the heights of the elevator shaft to the depths of the Dome, he would follow her. He had told her things about himself, about his work. She had listened attentively, and asked him intelligent questions. She must know a fair bit about interior Dome architecture to ask such probing questions of him, although she denied she was involved in a building project. That was another mystery fact about her. There were many such mysteries about her, including the fact of her anonymity. She had insisted on not revealing her last name, or what work she did. One day he would have to find out those things too. He realised that her anonymity was part of the reason why he could open up to her the way he had. For all her flouting of the rules and regulations, for all the questions she wouldn't answer about herself, he trusted her in a way he had trusted no other lovers. Others he had met, and spent the night with, but he didn't know them. He'd once spent several months with one woman, but he realised now it had been nothing to the intimacy he felt for Catherine. Catherine. Whom he had only met so very few times. She, he trusted. She, he could talk to. Did this mean it would all have to end? *** Days later, Catherine arrived at his apartment long before their scheduled rendezvous. She was breaking all of her own rules about secrecy now. He wondered why. She made love to him fiercely, saying that it could be the last time for a while. He asked her why and she did not reply. Instead, she dressed quickly and made to leave. "You remember the instructions?" she said before she vanished once more. He found her again in the corridors an hour later. "There's something I have to tell you today. I want you to meet some people." "Meet some people? Why?" "They are friends of mine. Will you meet them?" "Do they know about us?" She held her breath then. "Yes." "Why did you tell them?" "If you come with me, I'll explain." He hesitated. "Don't you trust me?" He let her take his hand and lead him. *** There were four of them, four of them and Catherine. She introduced them one by one, and one by one they shook his hand. They were young, these three men and a woman, who was in stark contrast to Catherine's fair looks. They were meeting in one the Dome's underground vaults, where there was no surveillance and nobody to overhear them. The vaults contained some of the machinery which kept the Dome functioning. They also allowed access to tunnels and service-ways into other areas of the complex, hence offering quick escape routes should anyone see them. Secrecy seemed especially important to these people. Avon realised it had moved beyond a game now, realised that Catherine believed in some of the precautions she had taken in the past to avoid their being seen together. "What is this all about?" Avon demanded. "Why have you brought me here?" "Have you told him anything yet?" enquired one of the men of Catherine. She shook her head. "Catherine?" Avon looked imploringly at her. "What is he talking about?" She rested a hand on his shoulder. "This isn't going to be easy for you to understand, or to believe. But you must try, you must trust me." "All right. Say what you have to say." "Your memories over the past ten years are all false. They've been implanted by the Federation psycho-manipulators." "Psycho-manipulators. Why, why would they do such a thing?" A man answered. "They've also removed all memory of who you were before that time. They've made you believe you are a project engineer for Internal Construction. But you're not, you're Kerr Avon and you were with Blake." "I know who I am. Who is Blake?" "Blake was a freedom fighter. He started our cause." "Your cause!" exclaimed Avon. "You're against the Federation? Why?" "Because of what you see around you. Because of the suppression of the populace, and the massacres of those who oppose the Federation. They are corrupt and we are fighting to stop them." "Do you know how insane that sounds? Catherine, you don't believe these fools, do you?" She nodded and he could see the deadly serious expression on her face. Avon started to back away from them until he saw the gun in the hand of the tallest man. It was a small hand-gun. He didn't point it at Avon, but from the expression on the man's face he knew he couldn't chance running away either. "I thought you said we could rely on him?" the man asked Catherine. "He will be one of us, when his memory returns. We must get him away from here." "That will be difficult," said the other woman. "Nevertheless, we must get him Outside," said Catherine. "No!" said one of the men. "That involves too much risk. You know our rules." "He's the best chance we've got. Now that Blake is dead," argued Catherine. The discussion continued, and Avon was only vaguely aware of the proceedings. He attempted to determine who had weapons and how he could escape from these madmen. Their words had affected him however. False memories? Freedom-fighters? Blake? These things sounded strangely familiar to him as if he had dreamed about them, in a nightmare. Catherine strode away from the group in anger. "So you will not take him Outside the Dome?" "You know we cannot," replied the tallest man, the one with the gun. "Then so be it," replied Catherine, as she raised her own side-arm and shot the man dead. The others stared with disbelief at the body sprawled on the ground. She turned to the others and fired at them one by one, even as they turned to flee. Within seconds four bodies lay at Avon's feet. Catherine lowered the gun. The sound of booted feet echoed though the chamber. Avon felt a chill race up his spine as he recognised the approaching security forces. He watched them as they appeared all around him, melting from the shadows, from the banks of machinery and from service-tunnels and from behind control panels. Their black helmets hid their faces and they pointed their handguns directly at Avon. "What took you so long?" spat Catherine. "I had to shoot them all. Weren't you monitoring the conversation?" "You," said Avon, sudden deja-vu flooding his senses. "You set all this up." "Yes, I set this up, Avon-dear," she said with heavy sarcasm. "I wanted them to take you to their base, to flush them out. But they didn't take the bait." Avon dropped to one knee, as if from a mortal blow. "You betrayed me." "Many times they have tried to contact you but we intercepted them. This time we thought it would be better to let them run." "Let them run," echoed Avon, his voice devoid of expression. "Until we could catch them all. A pity it didn't quite work out." "Then it was all true. The fake memories. The psycho-manipulation. Blake." Avon gasped at the name. Blake! "Yes it's true. But it makes no difference to you now. We'll just have to recondition you again, as we've done before. Oh but of course, you wouldn't remember that would you?" "I'm not going back to your damn machines!" yelled Avon from behind gritted teeth. His mind was filled with flashes of memory, memories of pain. "You have no choice. I wonder if they will pacify you permanently this time? Bring him," she said as she turned to leave. Avon grabbed for the hand-gun which the tallest man had dropped on the ground and pointed it at Catherine's back. At the same moment some instinct caused her to look back at him. She spun her body, bringing her own gun up to bear. But she was too late. His hand-gun shattered the dull omnipresent hum of the machinery and her body flew backwards from the impact of the high-energy weapon. He knelt there, the gun forgotten in his hands, a shocked expression on his face. He wanted to run to her, to forgive her, to whisper her name over and over. This couldn't be happening! What had he done? He didn't notice when the security guards took his weapon from him and hauled him to his feet. He didn't hear what they were saying. "Did you get all that?" said the commander. "Yes, sir, we recorded the shooting." "Good. You men, tear her clothes. I want it to look like a rape." *** Avon stared out of the window of the transport ship. He watched the blue and white disk of the Earth receeding as the ship blasted towards its distant destination. He had been condemned to spent the rest of his life on a penal colony. Condemned to live with his memories in eternal solitude. Condemned to never know why he had pulled the trigger. As he watched the Earth vanish, one of the ship wardens remarked sadistically, "Take a good look. You'll never see that sight again." Avon gritted his teeth and glared venomously at the guard. "No. One day I'm coming back." 
Top tags: avon, catherine, dome, gun, project, blake, hand, food, man, work
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