The Breath of Sol: Sublimation

1

>: 01
>: Father

The Ark was well into its night-cycle by now. Cooled air was being pumped in at circulation facilities, and the clouds that normally hung at the top of the dome had begun to migrate lower and lower, covering everything in their path in a blanket of dew. The UV-lights had shut down long ago and were replaced with the fraudulent stars of millions of apartments suspended across the roof of the Ark's habitation dome. The elevators along the outer walls looked like glowing threads of a dew-strewn spiderweb. Forum, the central hub of the Ark, gleamed like a beacon, and a small swarm of shuttles were still buzzing about, finishing their routes before returning to their docks. The night cycle is the only time when you could actually get a view like this. During the day cycle, it was too cloudy to see anything more than a few miles across.
The metal steps of Superlevel-235 creaked under the rust-stained rain boots of a man hiding from the cold mist inside of a mud-colored hood that he had found orphaned in a storm drain and a cheap plastic coat from the lost-and-found of a hotel on level six. The faint red glow of a wrinkled cigarette illuminated the man's face, revealing his dark, tired eyes. The man hadn't been intimate with a razor for the past few weeks and a scruffy, brown beard had begun to take root on his face.
The ascending sets of stairs had a familiar, almost hypnotic pattern to their sizes; Long flight. Short flight. Long flight. Short flight. This repetitive flow of the stairs served as a form of persuasion to go on. After few minutes of climbing you learn to not think about the muscular strain of walking almost four flights of stairs just to reach the next level. Instead, you just think about putting one foot in front of the other.
As the man reached Superlevel-236, he stepped onto a long catwalk where the wall of artificial stars suddenly seemed to be eye-level with the man. The man turned right and as he passed door after door, the sounds of life that came with each door: a baby crying, a dog howling, a blaring television and so on. The man looked to his left at the seemingly infinite emptiness he was suspended over.
Thousands of meters down he could see the rivers of people flowing in the labyrinth of buildings. There was a total of fifteen million people living in the Ark, seventeen million if you included the migrants. Oh, how the times had changed; If you had told any human fifteen years ago that there would be two million alien inhabitants living on the Ark, you would have been arrested and questioned by the military.
Bruce walked past six more apartments before coming to Unit-C-236. He raised a hand and knocked after stamping his cigarette out on the wet ground. The sound of footsteps behind the door grew closer as he waited. The door's lock clicked, and a metal plate with two green eyes peeked out to see him.
"Oh my goodness!" The android exclaimed, "Mr. Richards! I wasn't expecting you here so soon in the week! Come in, come in!"
The apartment had the same layout as all the other housing units suspended on the dome; One living area, occupied by a modest kitchen and a small den. The rest of the apartment was tucked away towards the back, giving way to two bedrooms and a simple bathroom.
"Hello Mei," The man grunted as he stepped into the familiar apartment, "How've you been?"
"Oh, I've been just fine! Actually, Claire was-" the android was interrupted by the sound of a squealing teapot, "Oh, please excuse me for just a moment."
Mei hobbled over to the kitchen to turn the stove off. The once-orange cloth that hid the mechanical parts whirring inside the android's torso was now faded and stained. Bruce called after her, "You're limping, did something happen?"
"Oh, don't you worry about it, I took a little tumble down the stairs earlier today is all."
"You fell down the stairwell?"
"Well not exactly, a couple of young ruffians knocked me over," Mei said nonchalantly, "I'm sure it was an accident, of course."
"Yeah, I'm sure." Bruce said dismissively as he threw his hood onto an old, stained couch. He looked around inquisitively, "Where's David?"
"According to your brother's work schedule, he should have arrived at home two hours and thirty-two minutes ago!"
"Son of a..." Bruce muttered, "Well, knowing him he's probably lying face down outside some bar right about now."
"Everyone has their flaws, Mr. Richards."
"Alcoholism is one flaw I'd prefer to keep out of this house. Honestly, you'd think working in the warehouse district would make him use his head for once. With all of those riots going on down on Central Avenue, security's been cracking down on us. I had to take a detour around three MP checkpoints today! Three! He can't be caught out there drunk and stumbling like a—" The man looked back at the android, who had grown quiet. It stared back at him, waiting for him to finish his tirade. He sighed, "Something sure smells good."
Mei let out a synthetic giggle, "Thank you, Mr. Richards! I only made enough stew for two, but I think we could make room in the schedule for you."
"You don't have to worry about that, I'm not going to stay for long," Bruce said as he leaned back to look down the hall of the long apartment, "Is Claire awake?
"She was resting in her room again," Mei began walking towards the hallway, "I was just about to go wake her up."
"I can do it," Bruce stopped the android, "You go ahead and finish up dinner for her."
"Yes, sir!" The android walked back into the kitchen as the man walked down the hall.
Bruce approached the back room quietly and slowly pushed open the door. He stuck his head in and saw a small girl asleep at a desk with her head resting on her arms. The man quietly walked across the room, the desk his daughter was sleeping on was littered with papers. Practice sheets that his brother used to homeschool her were covered in scribbles and doodles and little drawings of stick figures. Bruce crouched down and gently brushed a lock of silver hair away from the girl's face, "Claire, it's time to wake up."
Claire's head raised up sleepily and rubbed her eyes, "I thought you were coming home next week."
As Bruce's daughter gave him a tired little hug, he smiled and said, "I wanted to stop by early."
Claire suddenly gasped and dove onto the desk. She was frantically trying to hide the papers on her desk and stuff them into a drawer. A math worksheet fell onto the floor, and Bruce picked it up before she could snatch it away. He studied it while the girl stared up at him nervously. After sternly inspecting the sheet for a moment, he looked back down at her and showed her the paper, "I really like that lion with the tophat, I hope he can beat that dragon."
Claire's usually pale face was flushed red, "They aren't fighting. They're friends."
Bruce chuckled, "Sorry, my mistake."
"So, you're not mad at me?"
Bruce smiled and shook his head, "In fact, I think I'm going to have to get you some more art supplies sometime soon."
Claire smiled and hugged him, "Thank you!"
"Don't thank me now, I haven't gotten them yet!"
"Too bad!" She giggled, "That means you have to get me something, or else my 'thank you' will be for nothing!"
"Oh ho, is that right?" Bruce laughed, "C'mon, Mei worked hard to make you dinner. It'd be a shame to let it get cold."
"Are you going to eat with us tonight?"
"Not tonight," The man shook his head, "but I'll see you on Saturday, okay?"
Claire's smile had faded, "But you just got here..."
Bruce hesitated. She really was just like her mother. Of course, she looked like her. Her mother was a clone after all, but there was something else besides her freckles and silver hair in her that reminded Bruce of Laura. Something he'd never been able to pinpoint. Bruce cleared his throat and said, "Alright then. I'll try to catch the next elevator, and I'll ask my boss if I can take the next week off too. How does that sound?"
Claire shook her head, "No, you don't have to take that much time off!"
"It's no problem at all, I've been saving my vacation hours for a while now."
"I don't want you to get in trouble."
"I won't."
Claire was silent for a moment, "Then...could we go to the Zoo?"
The "Zoo" was the Ark's Zoological Preservation Facility. Not only was it the largest collection of embryos and live specimens from Earth in the whole Galaxy, but it was also a major tourist attraction. There was always a large amount of tourists there. Bruce hesitantly nodded, "Sure, but only if you're feeling well enough."
The girl nodded her head excitedly, and her bright smile returned to her face, "Mei doesn't let me mess up my medicine."
"That's nice of her. C'mon, let's go eat before it gets cold."
Bruce's occupation always seemed to have him be the one to tear moments like these away from other people. He was lucky to even have this chance, and it killed him to have to be away so often. No amount of apologies could be used to make up for the guilt Bruce felt for leaving her alone with her uncle for those precious first years. David didn't have a paternal bone in his body back then— not to say that Bruce was especially fatherly either. Claire had needed parents, but no one in their right mind would've adopted her if he had taken her to one of those glorified kennels they called orphanages. Daniel was the only option Bruce had.
"Hey daddy, were you born before the Ark?" Claire asked, snapping Bruce away from his thoughts.
Bruce smiled, "Yeah, I was. Why do you ask?"
"Uncle Dan says that you were both born after, but that doesn't make sense," Claire stirred the contents of her bowl absentmindedly, "If you are fifty then you must have been born before the Ark."
Bruce slumped into his chair dramatically, "Jeez, I'm not that old! I'm only forty-five!"
Claire giggled and counted the years out on her fingers, "Still! You both would've been kids, like me!"
Bruce nodded, "You're right."
Claire thought a bit more, "Why did Uncle Dan lie then?"
"Uncle Dan and a bunch of other people believe that when they woke up on the Ark they were born again."
Claire snorted, "That's stupid."
Bruce chuckled, "What makes you say that?"
"A person can only be born once."
Bruce scraped up the last bits of stew into his spoon, "I think it's silly too, but people are allowed to believe whatever they want. You shouldn't ever tell anyone that what they believe in is wrong unless it's hurting someone."
Claire jabbed her stew with the spoon again, "If you were born before the Ark, do you remember Mars?
"Just a little bit."
"What do you remember?"
Bruce thought for a moment, "I remember it being cold a lot of the time, and—"
"How cold?" Claire interrupted, "Was it as cold as the fridge?"
"Uh well, it felt colder than the refrigerator most of the year."
"Wow, that's really cold."
"I don't remember much about the cities, but outside of the city that there were green fields as far as the eye could see, and the dirt was the color of fire," Bruce got up and moved to pick up his hood.
"Is it true that Mars had two moons?" Claire called after him.
"Yup. Phobos and Deimos. They were shaped kinda like potatoes."
Claire tilted her head, "Potato moons? How can a moon be shaped like a potato?"
Bruce shrugged. "You'd be surprised what you could see in the Martian sky. I remember that on some nights you could even see a little blue dot where Earth was."
Claire looked up from her bowl, "Earth? That's where we all came from a long time ago, right?"
"You're right again."
"I want to see them."
"See what?"
"The old planets. I wish I could see Mars and Earth and even Venus!"
"I do too. Maybe one day..."
A buzz suddenly emanated from Bruce's pocket. He sighed and gave Claire a hug before making his way to the door, "I'll see you again this weekend."
"That's a promise!" Claire called after him as he shut the door.