|Chapter Four|
Carrier

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I saw a firefly once. It had been one of those warm summer evenings- the ones that make you drowsy with fervor and inflamed with new ideas.

I remember thinking how pompous it looked in flight. Look at me, I'm a bioluminescent bug.

Weird envy had infused me, and I splashed water at it, hoping that would simmer its bioluminescence.

The bug dipped momentarily, then recovered and flew on. Its light was brighter than ever.

Tier One is a mammoth of a firefly.

There are lights everywhere: dazzling, twinkling lights that irradiate the entire night sky. Innumerable glass and steel buildings shoot up from the ground- poised and brandishing unknown apices.

My face is pressed against the window of the transference vehicle.

The streets are alive, to say the least, and something tells me that this is common. The populace is like a bustling ant colony, determined to be about their business.

Tier Ones are easy to identify. There's a brazened certainty about them that is almost blinding. It shows in the way they dress, the way they greet each other, their plastic smiles, the devices they use, their activities, the food they indulge in.

There are other things too. They don't slouch, they don't laugh sincerely, they don't lick sauce from their fingers and they don't hug long enough.

My face is still glued to the window, and I realize that I'm taking mental notes.

There are huge television-displays throughout the city. I am mesmerized, but no one in the city seems to notice them at all. One display shows a perfume ad, and another shows a collection of household robots that will make your wife insecure.

A large, crystalline clock tower perches in the heart of the city. I rack my brain to remember what the Old Londoners of decades ago had called it.

"What does it look like?" Jécob inquires across from me. I try my best to describe what I'm seeing, and what I know. He tells me that before he lost his sight, he had been to Tier One on a business trip with his father.

"Do you see Big Ben? That's my favorite."

"The clock tower?"

"Yes."

We continue conversing, as is everyone else. The noise in the bus grows incessantly at each new landmark. That is until the blonde female soldier at the front of the bus tells us to quiet down kids, we're almost there.

The transference vehicle is moving slower now.

We cross a large bridge that leaves the city behind us, then we are plunged into the darkness of a tunnel. The only things visible are several yellow blinking lights that line the roof of the channel.

"I can't see anything right now," I tell Jécob, "We're in some sort of tunnel."

"Welcome to my world then." His comment is crass but I decide against entertaining him.

The dark ride seems to be lasting for ages, and I'm almost dozing off when Jécob speaks up.

"What do you think will happen to Willow?"

I pause. I've thought about it multiple times during the trip.

"Something good hopefully," I finally say.

Silence befalls us again.

The only sound audible is the whooshing of the bus as it moves through the tunnel.

Every few minutes also, there's the brutal upheaval of mucus coming from somewhere in front of us. Then the sharp intake of breath and the scraping of a familiar oxygen tank against the metallic floor.

"Do you think the treatment will work?"

"I don't know Jéc. I sure hope so."

I really, really hope so.

"I'd like to see the face behind your voice."

I smile despite the doubt gnawing at the back of my head, and neither of us speaks again until the vehicle finally emerges from the tunnel.

There's a large river on either side of us. The water is dark and reticent, and probably holds ages of secrets unknown. It ironically reminds me of the dry riverbed back home, and I wonder to myself how something so full could seem so funereal. A gloomy strip of moonlight bobs atop it, and I close my eyes- imagining what it would feel like to be that strip.

I silently wish I was a part of that unknown instead of this one.

The bus is traveling on a wide, concrete path; and soon, the river is behind us too. The river, the tunnel, the bridge, Big Ben, the city, my home.

I crane my neck to see what lies ahead. There's a structure a few distances away from us. The closer we get, the lower my stomach drops.

The structure is colossal: about six stories high and spans extensively across a plain that begins at the end of the concrete pathway.

There's a low wall surrounding the locale; but high, intricate, barbed wires make a prickly fence above it.

We approach a steely gate, guarded by two soldiers, and brandishing a large sign that says:

"Medical Research Facility. Unauthorized Entry. Trespassers Will Be Duly Punished. Property of the Government."

I see the other transference vehicles coming up behind us as us they flag us through.

The compound is flooded with persons in navy crests instead of the stark white of a doctor's gear I had been anticipating.

Red flags go off in my head.

"I don't see any doctors. Why are there no doctors?"

"Maybe because they're inside?" Jécob states from across me, and it makes a little sense. "Besides, the soldiers are here for protection."

"Protection against what?"

"Intruders Skye. Dense tonight, are we?"

No, just cautious.

"Piss off, Jéc."

To my merit, he laughs. It's a rare sound, one that only hopes of being cured could cultivate.

"Make a single line and exit the vehicle!" one of the soldiers bark.

We all gingerly begin to raise- anxiety seeming to be a universal language among us.

I push Jécob towards the bus exit, but stop to wake a sleeping form a few seats ahead of us.

"Ellen? We're exiting now."

She doesn't respond, and as annoyed as I am, I reach over to shake her awake.

She's eerily still.

"Ellen?" Frustration courses through me as I continue to shake her, then confusion. "Ellen?"

Her head flops to the side, and through the darkness, I find myself staring into barren, brown eyes. Her clear tubes sprout from her nose, and for a minute I envision them moving towards me like small, persistent snakes.

I recoil cumbersomely, and a strangled sound escapes me. There are no snake-tubes at all, just a lifeless Ellen, her cannula and her oxygen tank. That stupid, useless, oxygen tank.

"She's... She... Help! I need some help in here!"

"Skye? What's wrong?" I barely hear Jécob's question. There's a weight sitting on my chest- one that pushes up my throat and out my mouth in liquid repugnance.

I'm mildly aware of the soldiers that usher us out the bus and into the coldness of the night.

I grip onto Jécob's wheelchair handle until my knuckles hurt.

"Skye?"

I wipe my mouth with the sleeve of my shirt.

"Skye"

"I'm fine Jécob."

But the weight's still there. Not just because I knew her, not just because we shared a room for several years, but because she had been so close to something.

There's a chorus of disbelief and veneration among us as her body is removed. We all knew her in some right.

"Move along!" I recognize the voice as the blonde female soldier.

I lock eyes with her. I am baffled as to how she can be so callous. Someone just died.

She gives me a hard stare, then turns away to assemble us.

We are placed in three long lines, and I am relieved that Jécob is with me. Three figures draped in white coats sit around tables at the entrance of the building.

Jécob goes first. The Doctor assigned to our line is a middle-aged brunette with gray patches at her temples. When it's my turn, she flashes me a bright smile. The gesture calms my angst nerves.

"Hi. I'm Dr. Avon. Your name please?"

"Skye Palmner."

She logs this on a small device.

"Age?"

"Seventeen."

She asks me several other questions, then nips my fingertip to get a blood sample. She pulls a small band from a whirring machine next to her. To my surprise, my name is written on the band along with some other information and a patient number.

"When you go in, one of our nurses will lead you to your cell room where you will await further instructions. Understood?"

I tell her that I do, then ask: "Will Ellen's body be shipped to her family?"

Dr. Avon looks confused for a minute, then comprehension mutates her bright smile to frown. I flex my fingers back and forth.

"Oh. Well, that unfortunate young girl-"

"Her name is- was, Ellen." My voice is louder than I intend.

The Doctor gives me a small smile, but there's a pitiful look in her eyes that I don't like.

"Ellen, right. Her body will be sent to her family as soon as is possible."

"Okay."

"You should go inside now, Miss Palmner. We're trying to move as quickly as possible here. The night isn't getting any warmer."

I advance wordlessly towards the huge glass-door entrance of the research facility and let it swallow me.

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