Skyward - (NaNoWriMo 2013 Novel)

Fire and Fever - (Nov 28, Thursday)

Fire.

Fire was one of the most terrifying forces in the vertical world of the Core.

The structure of the 'Dos had been built to be fire resistant. All walls and doors, all ceilings and floors were made to stand up to blazes. Supplementary drop bulkheads were hidden behind walls in wide, public areas and could be quickly deployed to contain fires that were stubbornly resisting attempts to fight them, and, if all else failed, the same robust heating and ventilation systems that had been built to contain contagion and purify the recycled air could be used to vacuum seal whole floors and purge them of their atmosphere. Every layer had extensive sprinkler systems built into the infrastructure sublayers of their ceilings, and there were drains built beneath the floors to capture the runoff from any emergency sprinkler activations. In the industrial layers, where goods were manufactured and there was a higher likelihood of fire, supplementary defense systems had been introduced: hand fire extinguishers, foam and inert gas retardant systems.

After all of these safeguards, one would think that Fire would have been forgotten, a thing of the past, particularly since cigarettes had been outlawed, particularly since all meal preparations were handled centrally (and when you are simply reconstituting protein-rich algae into food like shapes to give the illusion of variety, not much was needed in the way of heating!).

However, the Promethean gift of fire persisted. Regardless of how many layers of defense were instated, it seemed impossible to completely banish fire from the 'Dos.

It may well have been the case that, from a normal vantage point, the number of fires that affected the 'Dos would be construed as minute and infrequent. However, the very abnormal quality of life in the 'Dos, wherein there was no option of escaping to the streets below and you could be certain that no firefighting help would be coming from outside, served to magnify the significance of any fire and served to heighten the psychological distress that fire could cause.

Fire still happened, and when it did, the civilians inhabiting the MegaDos very quickly forgot about all of the various defense layers meant to protect them from fire--meant to guarantee that it didn't spread--and remembered only the fact that they were trapped in a burning box.

The panic caused more damage than the fires ever did. It had something to do with the unique spike of adrenaline, and how that would interact with the vitamin cocktail that flowed through each person's veins to pacify the Fever that always lay just below the surface of their consciousness (just beyond the threshold of their subconscious). The HealthCorp claimed that the Vitamix pacified Fever, but the reality was that Vitamix only contained it. The adrenaline spike that came with the sensation of being trapped in a box with a uncontrolled flame would smash apart this containment, and Fever would run rampant.

Tongue-in-cheek bit about the most advanced part of Skyward being its HVAC systems since that seems an inglorious thing to have perfected/to have reached its peak evolution?

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Gah. Work and a generalized sense of Ass-i-ness took me out today. I wrote this on the way to work on the subway, but I didn't get the chance to write on lunch (barely took one), then I didn't write on the ride home. Yes. Excuses, excuses: ALWAYS EXCUSES!

Right now, my excuse is the need for BED.