The Hyperdome

Gripping the locket, Walter sunk to his knees and kissed the arid ground. He gave thanks to the planes of the Wastes, for although almost baron, they had reared him. His body, sinewy and scarred as it was, felt strong and his heart thudded tremendously in his chest at the prospect of revenge. He opened the locket to gaze at their beloved faces one final time.

He had spent his whole life in the shadow of the Hyperdome, so his journey wouldn’t take long.

The white dome dominated the planes of the Wastes. You would need to walk hundreds of miles to escape its portentous silhouette. Even at night it was lit up and beamed its presence into the desert. Luckily, Walter had not wanted to ignore it. He rose to his feet, scraping grit off his forehead, and locked eyes on the gargantuan structure that housed a civilisation, where his parents had lost their lives. As a child, his grandfather had fuelled him with tales of the society within. Walter was taught how they had once occupied the Earth but had destroyed it; turning a verdant landscape into a scorched hellscape, and how the Hyperdome was built to protect them from the tortured people they had created. He taught Walter how they, grandson and grandchild, were left to subsist on dust, while the people of the Hyperdome sat on stockpiles of tinned food. As a child, his grandfather’s stories had made Walter’s head swim as he tried to imagine abstracts like verdant landscape or tinned food. When his grandfather’s monologues had finished, he would produce one of three battered books he owned and teach Walter how to read. It was a good day when his Grandfather produced the Iliad and a bad one when he reached for 1984, or worse the Trial. As he grew older, he was taught how to fight, his grandfather telling him that he needed to become Achilles and to think of the Hyperdome as Troy. Around the same time, his stories took on a different timbre. Walter learned that his grandfather was from the Hyperdome and they had escaped it together.

“Executions were ubiquitous” He had growled, “They’d kill you if you got old, or sick… or disruptive. The fuckers killed your mother after she gave birth to you, your father for trying to save her. I chose the Wastes and took you along.” He had then handed him his heart-shaped locket. “We must avenge them”. Not long after his grandfather had disappeared.

Walter followed the glaring lights of the Hyperdome, easily traversing the scrubland that made up the approach, dextrously avoiding the rattling threats emitting from within the desert thorns. He came to a standstill when he had reached the Zone of Silence, the Hyperdome’s desolate radius. An eerie stretch of sand which gave rise to the structures hulking mass. Floodlights studded its permitter, making the sand shimmer. Doubting whispers drifted through Walter’s mind. But he shook his head to dispel them, his grandfather had taught him enough. He took a breath and began sprinting towards the dome. As soon as his foot touched the sand, a strange roar sounded in the distance. Walter sprinted onwards until he made out two motorised behemoths rapidly chewing up the distance that lay between them. He raised his fists, but the beasts stopped and fell silent, uniformed figures emerging from their interiors, spraying him with mist. He began to feel groggy.

“D’ya see him put his hands up?! Remember being that fuckin’ stoopid?”

***

He woke up in a box, shackled to a pipe that circumvented its metallic walls. Several other figures, fellow Wastes-dwellers judging by their attire, were similarly tethered, and two figures stood guard in the middle. His fellow prisoners, a woman and three men eyed him suspiciously. Surreptitiously, he began tugging on his manacles, but this immediately garnered the attention of a guard.

“Finally we’re all awake! Now hopefully you can all understand me?” he spoke loudly and clearly, excessively emphasising the odd word “I’m sure you are all very confused, but I assure you this will all be over very soon. Now we are taking you down to be processed…” His words seemed practiced, artificial “… but we don’t want you causing any trouble down there, so I need you to promise that you’re not going to try any avenging-my-father bullshit. Okay?” He asked, staring deliberately at Walter. “We have ways of keeping you calm” the guard continued brandishing his club. “Right, we’re going to let everyone know you’re ready!”. There was a hiss and one of the box’s walls split open, revealing a cavernous space beyond which resounded with mumbling voices and teemed with people. Before Walter had the chance to absorb any more, the wall hissed shut. The prisoners gawked at one another before the woman bellowed “MONSTERS!” and began tearing at her chains.

“It’s no good” one of the men pleaded.

“Don’t tell me it’s no good!” She spat “Failure is not an option – if I don’t succeed…” Her voice cracked “then the entire earth could be destroyed”

“I understand your pain!” The man reasoned “But…”

“…No you don’t.” She roared, “Listen to me, the earth will be forever consumed by an eternal summer if I fail. Look…” She hauled her legs towards her manacled hands and produced a blue crystal from her pocket, before continuing frantically, “My name is Dorothea, and my mother was a scientist who worked here. Before she died, she gave me this crystal, its enchanted, and made me swear to return to the very spot it was excavated. Inside this dome, they are only interested in mining, and the more they mine, the worse the climate is altered…”

“Enough.” interrupted the man “It seems as though we can help one another - enchanted gem or not. I too want to take down the fuckers that run this place. They murdered my family…” he produced a heart-shaped locket. Walter stared in disbelief. “My name is Ajax, and I was born here. Soon after, the people who live in this shit hole became paranoid about resources and began taking measures to maintain the population. Executions were ubiquitous. They killed my mother after she gave birth to me, and my father for trying to save her. My grandfather escaped the dome with me and taught me how to survive in the desert and trained me so that I might exact my revenge. Dorothea, we have a far better chance of taking this place down if we work together” Walter’s ears rang as he listened to the story of his own life fall out the mouth of a stranger. He could even hear echoes of his grandfather’s inflection. Rattled, he could barely pay attention to the other men’s story, something about being tattooed so that they find their father. He began to feel nauseous, the coincidences too uncanny to digest. Suddenly, everyone was staring at him.

“How about you?”.

Walter, the ringing in his ears now deafening, couldn’t reply.

“Suit yourself” Dorothea shot at him acidly.

“They’ll probably grind up a fuckwit like you to feed to the pigs” Ajax added.

Eventually, Walter was able to muster up the wherewithal to cry “Let me see your locket…” But just as his cellmates’ heads turned, the wall hissed open and five grinning guards entered.

“Alrighty, gang! Adorable plan, but I’m afraid there’ll be no revolution. Trust me, you’ll feel very differently in a couple of minutes. Take them all to different queues and hit ‘em with a dose if they try anything stupid”. As soon as two guards had untethered Dorothea, she smashed her manacled hands into one of their faces. But within seconds, the other guard had sunk a syringe into her neck and she wilted.

Walter was the last to be escorted out. In a state of shocked placidity, he assessed the queues of people he had glanced before and realised they were yet more Wastes-dwellers. He couldn’t fathom what they were doing or who the brightly dressed individuals who sat behind the desks were. These desk-sitters formed a barrier that stretched along the entire length of the space, each one with its own queue. Hundreds of guards were also dotted throughout the area, idling swinging their truncheons until the bellows of a dissenter called them into action. Starting at the back of his assigned queue Walter shuffled towards his assigned desk-sitter.

Eventually, Walter was called.

“Hello there” the woman began, condescending and artificial, “My name is Cheryl and I’ll be processing you. May I ask your name?”

“Walter”.

“Excellent.” She muttered distractedly as she tapped at the surface of her desk, which Walter noticed was illuminated and responding to her touch. “Can you tell me why you are here?” He couldn’t. “Do you understand my darling?”, Walter nodded “Okay, so…?” When Walter still couldn’t reply Cheryl sighed, “Are you here to: find your lost parents, inform the government of a new food source, avenge your parents, end the eternal summer, sever the water supply…”

“…Avenge my parents” Walter murmured.

“Excellent” Cheryl repeated, tapping away “And can I ask whether you were given: your father’s sword and/or scabbard, a locket, a gem/rock/mineral…”

“…a locket” Walter whimpered.

“Excellent.” She reached into her desk and produced a green slip of paper. “I’m issuing you with the military/guardian/custodian/caterer form. You are under no circumstances to fill it in. It is to be filled only by a registered career advisor.” She paused, taking a moment to look down “you will be seen by… Doctor Salihovic at… 47D. A guardian will escort you. Do you have any questions?”. She signalled to a guardian and Walter was escorted away “Have a nice day” She called after him.

Hours passed with Walter now part of a more complex queuing matrix, marshalled by a strange zigzag of cordons. His legs throbbed from the continual shuffle and hunger added its voice to the churn of his stomach. His eyes hurt as he strained to decipher an ally amidst the sea of faces. Until, as if aglow amongst the masses, a face shone out at him. Dressed in the bright-white overalls of the guardian’s, was the unmistakable figure of his grandfather. Cautiously looking around, he tested the strength of the partition between his own queue and his grandfather’s – it stretched easily. He yanked it up and made a dash towards him “Grandpa! It’s me, Walter...!”

The old man looked up wearily as Walter was instantly arrested by four guards.

“Excuse me, sir, we’re going to need you to get back in your queue”

“Grandpa!” Screamed Walter.

“Sir, we’re going to need you to calm down immediately”.

His grandfather shook his head.

“This is why you don’t take the fucking desert grandfather gig!” he muttered, deliberately avoiding Walter’s pleading gaze. “I can’t handle this shit, I’m taking my break…” mumbling as he went, he disappeared into the throng. Stunned, Walter was dragged away.

As Walter approached, Dr Salihovic’s eyes glistened with malice.

“Do you have your locket?” He asked in a tone of gleeful contempt. Walter produced it from his pocket.

“Would you like to take one final look at your parents?” he mocked, “Here they are!”, Walter looked up and saw that Doctor Salihovic was holding another locket… complete with the pictures of his parents.

“What do you want from me?” he whispered

“There, there.” Doctor Salihovic crowed, “We just need to find you something to do now you’re all grown up!”. He reached under his desk and heaved up a bucket, slamming it down on the table. “But first, we need to let the past die. If you would please, deposit your locket in here. After all, it is our property”

The bucket was filled to the brim with hundreds of identical shimmering lockets. Walter, shaking, let his slide from his hand and join the rest with a clink.

“Please tell me what I need to do.”