SUNSCRAPER

By Tara L. Campbell

Chapter One

Sunlight glinted off the dark panels lining the small plane’s wingspan. Mila Rogus banked the plane gently to the left. Nearby, her flight partner, Reggie, followed suit. The battery storage on both of the planes were capped full; that was it for this run.

The pilots leveled off and eased into a descent, the noses of the planes turned away from the last rays of light and down towards the thick permanent cloud cover that blanketed the world below. The toxic layer was called the new atmosphere, or new atmo. Vast swaths of farmland lay dormant and dead. Centuries of unregulated pollutants had taken its toll and now humanity suffered the consequences. Everything to sustain life was an artificial, manufactured process, packaged in rations that were doled out to the masses. Only the sunscrapers, whose job it was to fly above the new atmo to charge battery cells, had a taste of what it had been like before.

“All topped up, Reggie?” Mila called over the radio.

A crackled response. “That I am. Gonna hit the pilot hall after this. Are you comin’?”

“Not tonight. Josif’s got a line up on a new commutator, hopefully it’ll take care of the hiccups.” Right on cue, Mila’s plane sputtered as one of the six electric engines gave out. The remaining would keep the plane aloft but descending through the toxic atmosphere was a gamble even when all the engines were functioning.

Radio silence followed as both pilots sank through the darkness of the cloud cover.

“Ah, I suppose that’s a priority then. Can’t have you dropping hard from the sky,” Reggie’s voice came in just as Mila’s plane exited the cloud layer. “Puts our quota out of whack if you do that.” Reggie joked, but Mila knew he was worried. They’d grown up together and had flown as partners for the past six years.

Mila brought the lagging engine back online now that the plane had cleared the toxic cover; it still wasn’t safe close to the cloud. A single spark was enough to ignite the chemical malaise.

“Say hello to everyone for me,” she said.

“Roger that. Clear skies, Mila.”

“Clear skies, Reg.”

In the old days, long before her time or that of her parents or even grandparents, clear skies was a saying for any skyfaring adventurer. No one had seen a clear sky in over a hundred years except the sunscrapers. They were the only ones to know and appreciate its meaning.

The farmland her family lived on was passed down from her grandparents. The parcel was fifty acres of deadlands converted to enormous battery banks that stretched from one horizon to the other. Once there were acres of corn, wheat, soy, and smaller bumper crops of tomatoes, sunflowers, and pole beans. As far as she had ever known, though, this was a battery field where precious energy was stored. Her ancestors had been farmers and pilots—the former sowed and worked the fields, while the latter ran the dusting sweeps with small combustion engine planes. It was a symbiotic relationship that had kept generations thriving.

Mila guided her small electric plane down the runway strip and brought it around to the hangar, the plane hitching from hundreds of hours spent chewing through the toxic atmosphere. She killed the engines and slid back the double-layered shielding that protected her from the poisonous cloud. The hooks of a ladder appeared over the lip of the plane, and Mila climbed down. Acidic particles coated the plane in a thin toxic film. There was no time for greetings, the plane had to be cycled quickly to clear the corrosive layer.

Her brother nodded at her from behind his protective suit and sealed helmet, motioning her out of the hangar bay. As soon as she cleared, he stepped out himself and fired off the evac protocol. The entire chamber voided of every bit of the toxic remnants out through the filtration system. Timing was key to preventing corrosive damage from occurring. Mila removed her helmet and goggles, and peeled off the heavy jumpsuit, revealing the drab gray standard-issue bodysuit assigned to all sunscrapers. She stretched, the blood flow was a relief after hours cramped in the pilot seat.

“A good run this afternoon, hmm?” her father, Josif, asked as he wheeled himself alongside Mila in his motorized chair.

“Fair enough. Full charge this time,” Mila added. “Reggie too.”

From the command station, her brothers ran in to help with the discharge connections. The older of the boys, Alek, took charge and immediately barked orders at Denis, whose expression said he’d just as soon ignore what his older brother said. Mila smiled. They worked hard, and despite the sibling squabbles, the family worked well together.

Josif wheeled around to the side of the plane and nodded up at it. “We need to tear into her now to get you both back up in the air right away. With Alek’s help, it’s still going to take a couple days.”

Mila frowned. For every day she was grounded, quota requirements were not met, and that affected more than just the family’s operations. Missed quotas impacted the entire sector.

“It is not safe to keep it up there with the cut-outs happening so frequently,” Josif looked at Mila. “Besides, once one engine goes, the others are not far behind. Now go, talk to your mother and rest.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Your brothers will help me with the repairs.” Two heads bobbed quickly in unison before disappearing into the guts of the plane. Their eagerness made Mila smile.

She kissed her father on the top of his head. “I know, Papa. Good hands and all that.” Josif waved her away, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Chapter Two

The gabled two-story farmhouse had the same classic structure from the time it was built, including a wide porch that wrapped all the way around. Pictures of the house hung in the front hallway. Each image was the same drab sepia hue until later, when color photography was popularized, it became a cheery yellow with white trim. Today the house looked as dingy as it had in the first photographs, but it had nothing to do with the picture-capturing technology.

Mila trudged up the steps of the porch. The flower beds up against it were filled with rocks. Jagged and gray, the rocks looked like dehydrated bits of death. Nothing grew aboveground anymore. Plant matter was grown in the controlled underground facilities owned and operated by Centiyo, a corporate conglomerate that had filled the void and restored order after the collapse of formal government. A roll of thunder rumbled heavily but it was nothing to fuss about anymore, other than to make sure everyone was inside when the rain fell. Whatever moisture that came down was so acidic, it burnt through layers of clothing and the skin beneath.

“Mama, I’m back,” Mila called from the front door.

“Wipe down before you come in,” her mother Suzana ordered.

“Yes, Mama.”

The entryway was a decontamination station rather than a place of welcome. Mila stripped out of the protective bodysuit she wore beneath the heavy pilot’s jumper, carefully rolling the material down over itself to trap any lingering particles. She used disposable towels to wipe the top of her shaved head down to the spaces between her toes. Mila’s skin prickled from the static charge the towel had created.

She made her way to the kitchen, which had undergone drastic changes over the course of its lifetime, only to end up back the way it was originally built. Energy was a resource that high-tech conveniences drained at an alarming rate, even for the fifty acre farm that housed nothing but banks of batteries to store the precious commodity.

Suzana stirred a pot on the stove, the large wooden spoon handle nearly as thick as her frail arms.

“It smells good, Mama.”

“Hmm,” Suzana pursed her lips and did not look away from the heavy pot. Sweat trickled down her neck, causing the dark hair at her nape to curl. “It could be better if we had more rations. I can barely make anything taste good these days.”

Mila pulled out a chair at the heavy kitchen table and sat down, the exhaustion setting in. “I know, Mama. Reggie and I got a full charge today though. The boys are discharging and Papa’s sending the reports back right now.”

“Hmm,” Suzana’s face pinched into an ugly scowl. “Josif said the part came in yesterday. I know what this means—do not try to spin a bad situation.” She turned to look at Mila, her gaze hard. “Two days you will be grounded. Two. Days. That means quota will not be met and rations will be cut again.” Suzana turned back to the stew pot. “We already do not feed the boys enough. How will they grow? How will they be able to focus and learn to become engineers?”

Mila ran her finger over familiar gouges in the table, the argument also familiar. “I know, Mama. I’ll pull doubles to make up the difference before the month’s end. We’ll be all right.”

Suzana dropped the spoon onto the resting platter. “This is not the life I want for them. I want better. They should be at Centiyo as apprentices, where they will grow up to live better lives.” She glared at Mila. “Not this kind of life. I want my boys to do something, anything but farming and piloting.”

The words stung. no matter how often she’d heard them. Mila slid out from the table and stood behind her mother. She hugged the frail woman gently. “I know, Mama,” she whispered again. There wasn’t anything more she could say. Mila left the kitchen and went to bed, her share of supper would be split between the boys.

Chapter Three

The two days passed at an agonizing pace. Mila spent every waking moment in the hangar with her father and brothers, doing everything she could to help the process along. The hangar was also a safe place where Mila could hide away from Suzana’s hostile glances.

“Hey Mila, look!” Denis shouted down at her from the plane’s seat. Always the kid getting into things he shouldn’t.

“Better watch yourself. If Mama sees you in that plane, she’ll skin you alive,” Mila grinned at the boy. They were eight years apart, and he felt more like her child than a brother; the wellbeing of both boys was her top priority. She threw a towel up at Denis. “While you’re in there, inspect for any rogue dirt, pilot.”

“Aye, sir!” He saluted, brimming with excitement over the prospect of a life he could not lead, at least not if Suzana had anything to do with it.

Mila entered the office where Josif and Alek were busy running diagnostics. “We are in good shape, Mila,” Josif wheezed. “Alek has a good head for this; the engine is back online as if nothing ever happened.”

“Good job, Alek.” She nudged him gently. “You’re going to be at the top of your class when entrance exams come ‘round next month. You’ll leave them all wondering what they even bothered trying for.”

Alek rolled his eyes. “Your plane is as improved as it will ever get.” At fourteen, Alek was a gifted mechanic but he lacked any sense of humor. Mila understood though. Just like Suzana, Alek’s worldview was much different from the rest of the family. His attention to detail was impeccable, however, and for this Mila was grateful.

Josif coughed, a painful rattle that quickly escalated to choking gasps as he struggled to breathe. “Alek, get the mask,” Mila ordered as she circled behind her father’s motorized chair and swung open the door to the artificial lungs that hung on the back.

Alek clasped an oxygen mask to his father’s face, the hissing of the tank a steady contrast to Josif’s strangled gasps for air.

Mila froze; one of the lungs was offline, the digital readout showing a collapse date of two weeks ago.

“Mila come on!” Alek pleaded as Josif’s head drooped forward. She flipped the switch on the remaining lung to the emergency backup. The filter was clogged. “Breathe, Papa,” Alek murmured as the backup filled and compressed at a slow, steady pace. “We need to get him to the house, the filter needs changing again,” Mila said. She closed the door and stood up.

“The left lung shut down two weeks ago,” Alek said. “Mama told me not to tell you, said that you had enough to think about.” Carefully he strapped the oxygen mask into place and pushed past Mila, wheeling their father to the back door. “Keep Denis busy, he doesn’t know.” Mila looked through the office window at Denis as he pretended to fly the plane.

Chapter Four

Few ever had the chance to catch a sunrise, mostly because one had to be a pilot to get up above the cloud. Mila always did because it was her favorite time of the day. Even Reggie didn’t start until after daybreak, which left her time to her thoughts.

The image of her father’s ashen face and blue-tinged lips haunted Mila. Josif was dying, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Artificial lungs weren’t uncommon, but it did signal a turning point in a person’s life: once you were hooked up to artificial respiration, there was no coming back. The equipment was incredibly heavy, and most people opted for a motorized wheelchair to bear the load. For some, like Josif, there wasn’t a choice—his wiry build couldn’t handle the weight. Centiyo issued the devices as a one-size-fits-all, a seventy-five-pound pack hardwired directly to the body, bypassing the natural but dead lung tissue.

Centiyo only issued one set of artificial lungs per person’s lifetime; getting replacement parts was up to the individual to pay for which most often came out of their rations. In Josif’s case, he needed the entire pack replaced. Mila suspected the device was faulty to begin with but Josif and Suzana wouldn’t allow any further discussion on the matter, the family would have to make do.

Sunlight warmed the horizon with a soft glow that changed the drab world from a sleeping dark beast to something beautiful. Mila understood the term “heavenly” when she took her first flight so many years before. Not wanting to lose a second’s worth of energy, she toggled the panels to charge and drifted gently towards the sunrise.

The boys would be her ground support all on their own soon. Alek seemed prepared but Denis would be crushed. Papa was as much his everything in this world as the man was to Mila. She coughed and cleared her throat, willing away the pinpricks behind her eyelids. The last thing the family needed was for their pilot and plane to go down in a fit of tears. When a family was no longer able to harvest solar power, regardless of the reason, the battery farm would be occupied by a new, more capable family. Whoever remained of the original family would be sent off to the underground to work in recycling or manufacturing to work as laborers.

“Good morning, sunshine!” Reggie’s energetic voice crackled over the radio.

“Good morning, Reg.”

“I wasn’t greeting you, pilot,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” Mila laughed. “What are you doing up so early anyway? You’re normally not up here for another hour, at least.”

“Since someone was lazin’ about, grounded for two days, the rest of us, namely me, had to pull doubles to maintain quota.”

Mila cringed. “I’m sorry, Reg. Truly. I’ll get us caught up though, don’t worry.”

Reggie chuckled. “Think nothing of it, Mila. I’m just glad you and your ugly yellow bird are back up here in the skies where you belong.”

The sun rose higher in the sky as dawn transitioned from morning, to high noon, to late afternoon, and finally dusk. Mila and Reggie chatted back and forth. They also spoke with other pilots, both from their own sector D and others nearby where the borders met. Pilots understood the unique role they played and the maligned worldview they lived under. Life as everyone knew it out on the wide rolling battery farms would not exist without the pilots, but folks on the ground, grounders, never seemed to understand. Pilots were viewed as a subclass. Refusing to conform, casting off the shackles of hard labor and the back-breaking work of monitoring and maintaining the enormous energy banks. To the grounders, pilots were lazy shirkers of responsibility and work, choosing a labor-free life.

As the last streams of light faded away, Mila and Reggie raced back towards home, chasing after the sunset. They began the familiar descent, angling down toward the noxious cloud layer.

“Well alright then, pilot,” Reggie drawled. “I’ll be seein’ you on the other side and then its off to the pilot’s hall for a hand of cards and a beer.”

“There’s something wrong with you, Reg. You know that?”

“I reckon it’s on account of too much sun, what with bein’ a sunscraper and all.”

Mila shook her head with a laugh. “Goin’ dark, Reg. See you on the other side.”

“Till then, my friend,” static filled the channel as the plane entered the cloud.

The day’s run had been good, above average in fact, as three times they had returned to discharge the planes’ battery banks. Enough time to stretch, wolf down a bite to eat, and check in on Josif. If Mila and Reggie kept it up for the rest of the week, her two-day downtime would be recovered.

Streaks of lightening and strange swirling clouds from unknown currents enveloped Mila’s plane. There was always the risk of smashing headlong into another plane, but the pilots were careful and orderly about making their way through. The younger ones dawdled the longest above the clouds, an inherent need to be the last one back to the ground.

Mila watched the gauges spin out of whack, still feeling the uneasy disorientation even after all these years of flying. But Josif had taught her well—once you got your bearings above the cloud, you stuck with it until you popped out the other side. After you were through, there would be time to correct and make your way home.

Exiting the cloud felt like it took forever, but finally, Mila nosed her plane through and found she was not too far off from the mark. Like a graceful sparrow, she swooped back and headed to her home’s runway.

Mila spotted a plume of smoke billowing up from the neighbor’s farm. Black, thick, greasy smoke rose up, flames shooting from a nearby bank of batteries as one by one, they overheated and exploded.

Mila dialed her radio into the sector D emergency channel. “Mayday, mayday! We’ve got a pilot down on the Hernandez farm. All response crews are required.”

The closest ground crews were already in action and soon the emergency airwaves were filled with shouts and commands to minimize damage. Cached energy in the battery banks were a replicating time bomb that could quickly rage out of control.

“Stop that bank before it catches the next!”

“Cut the line, dammit! Cut it!”

“No time, he’s gone. Get those banks shut down!”

An icy cold wave of fear and sickness passed over Mila. She didn’t have to look to know.

There was nothing she could do for Reggie-he was gone. Mila made her way to her own farm, the motions of disembarking, discharging, and disrobing all a series of muscle memory. News had already reached her family that a pilot had crashed, and when the boys saw her, they knew who had gone down.

Mila left the boys to tend to the plane and trudged to the farmhouse. She completed the decontamination routine at the entrance and then went to her father, resting in the den. The emergency channel was filled with the sounds of crews yelling instructions back and forth, ordering more support to cordon off the battery banks before any more destruction occurred.

Josif couldn’t stay upright for long anymore and instead was reclined on a medical bed, his last artificial lung a steady rhythmic compression in the background.

Josif motioned Mila over to the chair next to him. “Come, sit. Talk to Papa, tell me about the sun.” Mila’s heart caught in her throat; it was too much. Her best friend was gone and her father was fading away. Josif waited while Mila fought to regain control. There would be time for tears, just not right now. Papa didn’t have much time left.

“The sun was warm,” she began, her voice hoarse and rough. “I could feel it even through the layers of the plane and my suits; the light filtered through and touched me.” She smiled sadly at Josif. “Only pilots know this feeling.”

***

Hours later, alone in her room, Mila collapsed onto her bed and let it all go. The pain of watching the two ways a pilot would go, a fiery end or a slow, painful suffocation, had taken its toll on her. The worst part was the realization that this was life, there were no other options.

Mila thought of Alek and Denis and heard the angry determination in her mother’s words: something more for them. If quotas were not met, they risked getting kicked off the farm and sent to the underground manufacturing plants, an existence far worse than energy farming.

Chapter Five

There was no time to mourn. Reggie was the third pilot down this year for sector D, which meant meeting quota required more work from the remaining pilots. The night before, Mila and Alek had worked late on the plane to fit as many battery packs as possible. The kid was smart, Mila thought as she watched him calculate the maximum possible weight for the small plane and find the best way to arrange the extra load of batteries.

“This row,” Alek pointed up into the exposed belly of the plane, “is what you will draw from and what you need to route the charge to on the long haul.” Mila nodded. She stepped back to let him continue his work; he deserved something more than this life, she silently agreed with her mother.

The upgrades had taken half the night but Mila was up in the air before dawn. She aimed towards the eastern horizon, this time chasing the sunlight down rather than wait for its arrival. Today she would take from the sun as much as she could—she wanted back some of what was lost.

By late afternoon, the battery levels finally approached full charge. Mila had another couple hours to make her way back home, but she wasn’t ready. Instead, she banked south and watched the sun begin its descent in the west from the side viewport. Any other day, it would have been her and Reggie chasing the sunset home, but not today. Mila didn’t have the heart to follow that same route.

The sun had set about the time the battery banks registered full. Alek was right, his calculations incredible for someone his age. “Good work, kid,” she said.

Mila angled for home and from the corner of her eye, she caught a brief disturbance in the never-changing toxic, dark layer. She brought the plane back around in a wide curving sweep and saw it again. A space in the cloud cover had opened up.

Chatter amongst pilots about mysterious breaks in the atmosphere was part of the culture, their own myths to keep each other entertained. While there was plenty of speculation on the cause, most chalked it up to wild storytelling. Mila had always dismissed the idea, as no one she knew had ever seen a break. Now, she was seeing it with her own eyes; the break was unmistakable.

A warning on the console chimed, a reminder that without solar rays, there was only an hour’s worth of energy left before the plane switched to the stored reserves. Mila was still far enough away that she couldn’t see into the break, but she knew it was there. She noted the coordinates and headed for home.

Chapter Six

Again, Mila set out before the dawn, only this time she intended to get a closer look at the break. She double-checked the coordinates and set a direct course to the area. Above the false atmosphere the stars were clear and bright, the warming horizon not yet obscuring their presence.

For hours she flew, maintaining as straight a route as possible while the battery banks on the plane slowly filled. Other pilots from sector D were out collecting energy, their quiet hails grim and sympathetic. More reminders that Reggie was gone.

Eventually the sun passed its zenith and started it’s downward decent, and the hails from other pilots now came from strangers. It didn’t matter the sector, pilots enjoyed a universal level of camaraderie. Mila returned their greetings and continued on with her headings.

The coordinates of the break were dead ahead, and Mila fought a wave of apprehension. What if it was her imagination? What if, in her grief and guilt, she thought she saw a break that was never there? The doubt weighed heavy on her mind but she knew the break was there, she just had to keep searching.

Mila spotted a shift in the cloud cover from the corner of her eye. The change was subtle, but as she watched, the undulating roil grew in speed and size until it broke open and a gap in the atmosphere appeared. Mila rose up higher and banked to one side to get a better view. What started as a small hole soon widened to twice the size of her plane. It took her a few seconds to recover from the shock of what she was seeing, and she began recording the scene from the port side camera.

The break was far enough away that it wasn’t clear on the recording. Mila edged closer, aware that she was quickly approaching the no-fly zone that had been established decades before. No one had entered a no-fly zone in all the years Mila’s family had been flying, but the warning given by Centiyo during flight school was clear: a pilot caught in a no-fly zone would be grounded permanently. Still, Mila had to get closer. She had to know what was happening.

A giant plume of toxic cloud suddenly filled the break. The existing cover hadn’t shifted to reseal the gap, instead a dense cloud had exploded up and sealed the hole the same way a pressurized can of sealant is used to block off a leak.

Mila waited, circling at the edge of the no-fly zone. The invisible boundary kept her pacing like an animal looking for a way through the fence. Five minutes passed and nothing happened. On the panel, the reserves showed a decrease in the energy gained versus burned. The sun was setting fast, and soon what she used would no longer replenish itself. She would have to head back.

Another pass, and finally, at seven minutes, a break appeared again, this time closer.

The gap widened, and Mila confirmed that the atmosphere wasn’t moving away, it was dissipating. The toxic cover was dissolving away here, wisps of noxious clouds thinning and opening to the world below.

Mila swung the plane high and angled the nose down. She looked into the break and saw buildings sprawling in every direction. The tops of the buildings were decked with large cylinders that spewed forth the same heavy clouds that the atmosphere was made of. Puffs of the toxic materials shot up from the cylinders, one after another, until Mila’s view was obstructed by the edge of the break she spied through.

All her life she had been taught that the new atmosphere was the result of a human-caused catastrophe. Its permanence a reminder that the drive for more would end in an ugly cover of poison. Centiyo had tried to break it up, tried to capture and filter, but the volume was too great. The poisonous cloud cover regenerated itself at rates that technology simply could not overcome. Rather than waste resources continuing to battle the inevitable, the focus turned to accepting the new way of life. If everyone did their part, accepted their role, they would survive.

On cue, the break sealed shut with a billow of thick, dark vapor. The blaring proximity alarm on the console snapped Mila to attention just in time to angle away from the no-fly zone boundary. Mila’s stomach turned as reality set in: the noxious atmosphere was not an unconquerable fixture, it was a manufactured cover-up. Something, or someone, controlled the toxic clouds.

The sun sunk lower in the sky, darkness threatening visibility, but Mila needed more evidence. She waited, but the breaks had moved further inside the no-fly zone, too far for the camera to capture the source. The last bit of sunlight would be gone soon, and she couldn’t manage another long haul this far out, not this month at least. The return flight was going to burn up half the energy collected for the day as it was already.

Mila waited five minutes longer before making up her mind; people needed to see what was happening, they deserved to know the truth. She held her breath and aimed for the no-fly zone. The proximity alarm screeched as Mila’s plane crossed over the boundary line.

She held the plane in a steady banked angle over a cluster of breaks and flipped on the recorder. Surges of toxic vapors rose from the building stacks in timed intervals, scattered as far as she could see through any one of the cloud cover openings.

The proximity alarm continued to blare as Mila circled the nearest opening until the stack directly below shot up its cover. She stopped the recording. There was room for more video but she didn’t want to risk any more time in the no-fly zone.

Swinging back towards the boundary line, Mila zipped across to the safe zone and set a course for home. Through the left viewport, a red laser flashed, the light refracting off the aluminum framing of the plane’s interior. Another flash came from the opposite side, only this time, Mila spotted the laser’s source. A dark round device no bigger than a human head was maintaining speed with the plane, its laser dotting across her face and chest. The first orb zapped a line across the nose of the plane, the yellow painted metal seared in a bubbling stripe. Mila thrust the plane downward as the other orb sent a mirrored shot. She throttled to max speed, diving and soaring to get away from the attackers.

Warning lights flared to life and new alarms screeched. The devices had made contact twice, both times breaching the hull of the plane.

Mila was still hours from home, and even if she could physically maintain the breakneck speed, the plane itself would burn through all its energy, including the reserve battery banks. The return flight calculations were for managing a careful balance of coasting along air streams, not outrunning enemies in high speed pursuit.

The absurdity of her situation made Mila laugh. No one had ever come in contact with anything but other pilots collecting the sun’s energy. She’d never even seen bird. Mila was tempted to start recording, but she didn’t have time to fiddle with devices while she fought to stay in one piece.

Mila glanced out the rear viewport; both orbs still followed, but they were losing ground. She checked the plane’s energy levels: she’d have to land within the hour. The erratic flight had consumed all of the energy from the regular batteries and was now halfway through the reserves.

Another alarm indicated the plane’s left wing had been hit. A few inches inward and she’d have lost the whole thing; she had to head to ground now.

Mila peered down at the cloud cover. The devices had come out of nowhere, but they were small roving things with little shielding, at least she hoped as much.

Offering a silent prayer to the sun, Mila angled the nose of the plane directly at the toxic atmosphere. Pushing the little plane as hard as it would go, the twin engines screamed as they churned through the thick clouds. Glancing back, she could see nothing. The orbs matched the same dismal shade of gray, but she couldn’t see the telltale red lasers.

Mila ripped through the atmosphere, staying inside to the last possible moment before exiting. Sickly, acid-filled rain poured down and the plane shot out into its midst. The corrosive clouds were bad enough but the rain made the situation worse. One of the engines sputtered then quit in defiant protest of the abuse. A second followed suit, leaving her with four poorly functioning electric engines and a quickly draining battery reserve.

Chapter Seven

The landscape below was recognizable and yet unfamiliar. Banks of batteries went on for miles just as they did back home, but the farms themselves were different. Where farmhouses should have been, squat rectangle buildings of similar footage sat. Each farm was separated from the next by wired fencing, but there were no individual runways for planes.

Mila scanned farm after farm, constantly double-checking for the orbs, until the largest hangar she’d ever seen crested in the distance. As she approached, the massive structure sprawled wide, spanning the size of several farms put together.

The local frequency was painted in bold on the hangar’s roof, bright lights illuminated at an hour when every farm in sector D would have gone dark. Mila hailed, her pilot code rattled off in a breathless rush.

“Acknowledged, pilot,” the voice over the air crackled. “You’re a ways from home.”

“I am,” Mila replied, glancing back once more. “Permission to land? I’m coasting on reserves and my plane needs a detox before she disintegrates.”

“Roger that, pilot. Bring her in.”

Mila exhaled with relief and made for the wide, multi-lane landing strip. Sophisticated lights strobed along each side as guidance. The plane hiccuped but held and Mila taxied to the hangar, the large doors rolling open as she approached. Two people exited the hangar with towlines in hand, both clad in expensive-looking protective suits and respirators. The preparedness was surprising; farms in sector D were all buttoned down for the night by this time, so even an emergency wouldn’t have elicited such a quick response.

The ground crew attached the lines to the plane and waved fluorescent wands at Mila, signaling her to shut it down. A machine wound up the slack in the lines and drew the plane forward onto a platform. Dual ka-thunks locked the plane’s wheels, and a hydraulic lift with a single occupant glided into place. Mila jammed the release button that slid the plane’s domed protective covers back.

“Come on, you’re bubbling in places a plane has no business to bubble,” the man said, shoving his hand in to assist. Mila unbuckled and grabbed ahold, scrambling up over the side and onto the lift. “Careful, don’t touch anything,” he said, pushing Mila to the far side.

The man whirled his hand in the air and shouted, “Clear!” The lift pulled back as the plane lurched forward, the dome sliding closed. Mila’s stomach knotted at the sight of the damage. The hull was indeed a bubbling mess with gaping holes that had burnt down to the inner protective lining.

Operations in the hangar were vastly different from the small-sized functions of farms in sector D. Rather than exiting to void the plane of the toxic chemical residue, Mila watched as the entire craft slid into a containment chamber. The moment the doors shut behind the plane, decompression began.

“What the hell were you doing? Didn’t you use the timer to get through straight away?” The man who helped her out of the plane stared down at Mila.

“It wasn’t a normal run,” she said.

“I gathered. You could have been killed the way the cloud chewed through the hull.”

Mila stared at the evac chamber that had swallowed up her plane. She didn’t know these people, had no way to gauge their loyalty to Centiyo. If she told them what really happened, that the shredded exterior was caused by small, laser-equipped drones, would they believe her?

“I miscalculated the trajectory and ran into debris,” she said instead.

The man pursed his lips, but said nothing and nodded. “Next time pay more attention. Pilots are growing scarce, no matter what sector they’re from. Lets get you detoxed and we’ll figure out the rest later,” he said climbing down off the lift. Mila followed, and as they passed by the control station where everyone was focused on their duties, she realized this was a much larger operation. Wherever she was, it wasn’t the sleepy, family-operated farms that she was used to.

Chapter Eight

The detox station for people operated in a similar fashion to the chamber used on planes. Mila’s ears popped and she was left gasping for air after the particles were vacuumed away from her body in an intense whirlwind that lasted less than thirty seconds. She exited the small pod and stepped into a light gray bodysuit and soft boots; everything was several grades higher in quality than the best she had ever experienced back home.

Outside, the man waited, a concentrated frown etched into his face as he read from a hand terminal.

“Who are you? And what is this place?” Mila asked. The man looked up from the screen at her then turned down the hallway. His demeanor and Mila’s curiosity were reason enough for her to follow.

“Rupert, and this is sector A,” he replied after a few steps, the soft thuds of their rubber-soled boots echoing down the corridor.

“I’m Mila. Thank you for the help.”

The hallway sloped downward then ended at a door where Rupert stopped. “As I said, pilots are in short supply, and we’re obligated to assist.” He opened the door wide and ushered Mila through.

Inside, the large room was filled with couches, low-seated chairs, and end tables that made it feel like an oversize living room. On a short wall, a bank of terminals offered ration packs and a limited variety of hydration pouches. Only two other people were present, neither of whom took much interest other than to briefly nod at Rupert before resuming their card game.

Rupert led her to the dispensary terminals where he offered her a drink and an energy bar. Mila’s stomach growled and Rupert handed her a second bar.

“Thanks,” she barely got out before wolfing down the first bar and tearing open the wrapper on the second.

Rupert eyed her, his expression blank. “Why are you three sectors away from home?”

The energy bar was stuck in her mouth, all moisture sucked dry by the thought of what had brought her out this far. She drank from the hydration pouch, the word Lemon stamped in an official font beneath the Centiyo logo on the foil wrapper. “Testing the limits, I guess.”

Rupert didn’t say anything. Instead he watched Mila as she struggled through the second energy bar.

“What happened to your plane? No amount of cloud debris would have done that kind of damage.”

“Any chance I can relay a message back home?” Mila asked, ignoring the question. “I’m the only pilot from my farm,” she gestured over her shoulder towards the hangar, “and that’s the only plane we have. I need to let them know it’s…that we’re all right.”

Rupert glanced at a large-faced wall clock—the time was just past 10 p.m. “Yes, this way.” He motioned for her to follow, pointing out the disposal receptacle as they exited the room through a second doorway. Mila felt a twinge of guilt for deflecting, but the drones would lead to the no-fly zone, and finally, to what brought her out this far in the first place. She wasn’t ready to talk about cloud breaks with strangers.

They walked down another hallway, although this one was shorter and ended in a series of doorways opposite of each other across the hall. Stark white and soft gray; everything had the same monotone color scheme. In dark maroon, however, the word COMMUNICATIONS labeled the door Rupert led her through.

The room was nothing like what Mila had expected. Neat rows of stations with operators at each calling back and forth into headsets connected to the invisible. No food or drink containers, no periodicals strewn over consoles. Operations were serious here, and the people who coordinated air and ground communications did so with a militaristic level of efficiency. A stark contrast to the casual small-time operation decks Mila knew.

“All this for an energy farm?” she asked, staring at the rapid pace of the operators.

“We communicate for the entire energy farm network.” Rupert introduced her to an operator who had just ended a transfer.

“It’s the ground comms that make up the bulk of the work,” the operator said, smiling at Mila. “We handle transmissions to and from Centiyo for all of the sectors.”

Rupert motioned at Mila. “Need to get word back to sector D advising that their pilot is safe.”

“Roger that, Captain.”

The operator spun up controls and dials far more sophisticated than the simple radios Mila was familiar with. She looked at Rupert. “Captain?”

“We do things a little different around here, pilot,” he said. After a few minutes, the operator gave a thumbs up, indicating that the comm transmission was successful, then turned away to work on the next request.

“This way,” Rupert said, leading Mila back out into the main hallway. They returned to the break area where Rupert stopped to look at her.

“If there is anything you want to share about your last flight, now is the best time,” he said, his voice lowered.

Mila hesitated then shook her head. “I just got careless in the cloud is all.”

Rupert crossed his arms and frowned. “The no-fly boundary line was breached, and shortly after, you arrive in a flurry of emergency landing hails.” He shifted his weight and leaned back against the counter. “We play a…” he paused, “…specific role. What we do is vital to the well being of the entire region, and knowing what the individual sectors, and their pilots, are up to helps us protect everyone.”

Sector A was the control point for all of the other sectors which meant Centiyo ties were strongest here. “My best friend died this week,” she said. It was the truth, as far as she was willing to go with it at least.

Rupert’s gaze softened a fraction and he nodded. “I understand. Losing a fellow pilot is the hardest part of this job.”

Mila frowned. “I never said he was a pilot.”

“No, you didn’t.” A hint of a smile appeared. “But pilots on small farms don’t mesh well with grounders, and you don’t seem the type to have a wide circle of friends.”

She tried to read him, tried to see the underlying reason for his digging, but whatever it was, she couldn’t reach it. He too was hiding something, that much she was sure.

“How long until my plane is ready?”

Chapter Nine

With the resources of the sector A facilities, evacuating toxic particles from an entire plane took about the same amount of time as it did a person. However, the shredded body of Mila’s plane, and the corrosion from toxic exposure, meant hours of repairs were required. As much as she hated to admit it, Mila was relieved to catch a few hours of sleep before setting out.

In the early morning, Rupert returned to the lounge to wake Mila. He had offered her a bunk but she had declined which he couldn’t blame her for. She was a stranger, and it already asked much of her to trust that they’d take care of the plane.

Back out in the hangar, the drab yellow electric plane was sitting dead center as if on display. Long strips of gray material patched over where the lasers had seared through the metal, giving the plane a scarred, battle-worn look. Mila circled it, examining the extent of the damage, which left her uneasy.

“I had no idea,” she mumbled.

Several of the ground crew who were finalizing last-minute inspections of the work packed up their equipment and moved on to the next set of tasks. This was a round-the-clock operation, no time for dallying.

“You aren’t this rough on the old bird all the time, I hope.” Rupert winked at Mila, though his tone belied other thoughts. For an instant, she considered telling him what she had discovered, but the moment passed and instead she shrugged.

“Just another day on the job.”

Rupert snorted. “Your gear is ready whenever you are, pilot.”

Mila looked at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said as he patted the plane, “the plane’s energy banks are charged. If you leave now, you can make it back home in time to discharge whatever is left over from the return flight.” He nodded across the way where her oversuit and boots hung outside the detox station. “Everyone’s got quotas to make—some of us are more critical to our sectors than others though.”

Mila tried to think of something to say but settled for a nod, then left to put on her oversuit and boots. A big operation like this wouldn’t feel the pinch of a lost day’s worth of energy the way her own sector would. She was grateful but wary. Sector A ensured the needs of the entire region were met, but that also meant leadership had a responsibility to report everything back to Centiyo.

“Thank you, Rupert,” she said as she returned to the plane. Someone drove a hydraulic lift through the maze of fellow ground crew in the hangar and zipped up next to Mila, ready to lift her back up where she belonged.

“Clear skies, pilot.” Rupert held up a hand before walking away.

***

It was midafternoon when Mila dove down through the atmo, this time over her own landing strip. Alek was already in the farm’s hangar when she radioed. The operators from sector A must have sent word on her anticipated arrival time.

Powering down the plane, Mila snapped up the video recording of what she had discovered with the cloud breaks and tucked it away inside her bodysuit. She flipped up the protective hood and exited the plane to help Alek with the discharge.

Alek pointed at the jagged patch lines that covered the plane, the unspoken question written on his face, but she just shook her head. The less he knew the better, she reasoned.

“Mama was worried,” Alek said, his voice muffled and tinny from the heavy suit’s cheap speaker system.

Mila nodded. “About the plane, I know.”

“And Papa,” Alek added solemnly. “He’s not good.”

“I know.”

“If you know, then where did you go? Why did you make him worry, make him sicker?” The accusation came out bitter and angry. He was so much like their mother she thought.

“Look, I’m sorry. I got twisted around and had to make an emergency landing and wait for repairs.” She straightened and began reeling the line up. “But I’m back, and there’s enough daylight left for another run. I can make quota by the end of the week, no problem.”

“Quota won’t do anything for Papa,” Alek said and stomped off to the operations deck to open up the old hangar doors for Mila to exit through.

She knew he was right; what she’d done had jeopardized the whole family, and now her father was closer to death than ever. Kicking aside the stops, Mila entered the plane and powered up the engines. There was nothing left to do now but get back above the cloud and prepare to face her family.

Chapter Ten

By nightfall, the plane’s battery banks had been topped off twice with back-to-back runs that left Mila exhausted. But at least the farm was closer to its quota than not.

Darkness had set in well before the family had finished their evening meal. Instead of the boys’ usual chatter, their father’s wild tales, or Suzana’s town gossip, there was an uneasy silence. Josif’s artificial lungs inhaled and exhaled with mechanical proficiency, an unnerving reminder of things as they stood.

Alek and Denis excused themselves to finish the dishes and Suzana followed them to the kitchen, giving Mila little more than a hostile glance. Mila didn’t blame her; in a single act, she had threatened the livelihood of the entire family. Without a pilot and a plane, they’d lose the farm and end up in the dredges of the manufacturing plant. Mila’s disappearance the night before had scared them all.

“You should rest.” Her father’s soft, dry voice brought Mila back from her thoughts.

“I could say the same for you, Papa.” She stood up and walked around behind Josif’s motorized chair. He left the chair off, the habit to conserve every bit of precious energy instilled early on, and let Mila wheel him over to the parlor. The space had become his new bedroom now that he couldn’t walk upstairs. A room for dying, Mila thought. Mindful of the complicated external contraption that kept her father alive, she helped him back into the hospital bed, adjusting the height to encourage maximum air flow.

Josif reached for Mila’s hand, the once strong grasp now feeble, the coolness of a dying body uncomfortably noticeable. “Tell me, Mila.”

The house was quiet save for the steady inhale and exhale of the artificial lungs. Mila pulled up a chair and told her father everything. Josif’s brow furrowed deeper as she recalled the details until finally he looked away, his gaze on something far away in the ink blackness of night.

When Mila finished, Josif opened and closed his mouth several times, on the verge of saying something but unable to form the words.

“Do you need water, Papa?” Josif shook his head and held up a hand, waiting for Mila to sit back down.

“You were four,” he began, his voice thick and rough, “when your uncle died. He was one of the best pilots of our time, flew the longest runs and always like he was chasing devils with every flight. The first one in the air and the last one to touch down at the end of the day. Piloting was his life, it was all that he lived for.” Josif smiled faintly. “You are a lot like him. From the day you were born, everyone knew you as his little doppleganger.”

Mila squeezed her father’s hand. “I remember him. Not a lot but some. He had your smile.”

“Mm.” Josif nodded. “Marko smiled all the time, until I took his piloting from him. Then he never smiled again.”

Mila sat back. “What do you mean?”

“Marko came home one day, swore to the maker above that he had spotted a break in the atmo.” Josif kept his eyes trained on the window, and Mila’s breath caught in her throat. “He was excited, in a frenzy, saying how he’d found a break and wanted to explore it. All he needed was to get a little closer.

“Back then, I was still a pilot, and Marko and I would rotate shifts, taking turns at the hangar while the other was in the air. I told him there wasn’t time for such nonsense and dismissed the idea, but Marko wouldn’t let up. Finally, I forbade him from any further discussion and threatened to report him as having flight sickness.”

“Why would you do that?” Mila clasped her hands tightly. “Didn’t you believe him?”

Josif waved a hand. “It had nothing to do with whether or not I believed him. No, it was about keeping our heads down, not causing problems, and living quiet lives. It isn’t a bad life, this.” He gestured around the room. “So much better than the hells of manufacturing and laboring. I wanted to keep our family safe so that Marko could continue to fly, and I could watch my children grow in peace.

“But Marko wouldn’t leave it alone. Soon he became obsessed with the break and was talking openly at the pilot hall gatherings, anywhere that someone would listen to him.” Josif sighed. “It wasn’t long before I had others warning me that Marko was on dangerous grounds.

“On the day he returned from a long run,” Josif glanced at Mila, “the Centiyo energy overseer was awaiting Marko’s arrival, and he issued a formal, permanent, grounding. Marko had been diagnosed as having acute flight sickness and deemed unfit to fly.”

Mila stared at her father. “Just like that? Was Marko even examined? Interviewed? Anything?”

Josif shook his head. “No one questions Centiyo decisions as they are always final. It was my reporting that brought the order down on Marko.”

“You told them he was seeing the breaks?”

“Yes. Marko wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t try to keep it quiet. He was determined to start a conflict, to force Centiyo to acknowledge, if not take responsibility, for maintaining the conspiracy. You were our only child, at the time, and it frightened your mother to think of where we would end up if Centiyo kicked us off the farm. I couldn’t let that happen.”

Josif sagged back into the pillows, his wiry frame growing more fragile by the day. “Grounding Marko killed him. He lived on but as a damaged, flightless man. There are far worse things for a pilot to die of than dead lungs.”

Marko had seen the same thing that Mila had, and yet his own brother had turned him in, made him out as mentally ill. Mila stood up to pace the short expanse of the parlor. She rubbed her sweaty palms down the backs of her arms, trying to wipe away her father’s confession.

Faint, his voice barely audible, Josif broke into Mila’s stream of thought. “Please, for the sake of your family, Mila, forget this. Destroy the recording and go on just as we all have. What you know will change nothing.”

She stopped at the edge of the bed and lifted Josif’s hand, kissing it gently. “Rest, Papa.” Before he could say anything more, Mila left the room, and the mechanical inhale and exhale of the artificial lungs.

Chapter Eleven

Mila spent most of her off hours at the local pilot hall where she could avoid the growing hostilities from home. Alek believed she was hiding something, and she was. Josif knew her secret, and it showed. And Suzana blamed her for the sudden turn Josif had taken since the incident; it was her fault, and Mila accepted it. Only Denis seemed oblivious to what was happening around him, his happiness a stubborn persistence in the household.

Outside their farm, the situation was bleak, though not a result of anything Mila or her family could have done. The sector lost another pilot and a farm’s battery banks exploded in the middle of the night, taking out at least two month’s worth of stored energy. Something to do with faulty connectors, Mila didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the story. Like every other pilot, the struggle to maintain quota was a burden shared across their sector.

Spotting her friends, Mila made her way to the group of pilots sitting closest to the dartboard. They greeted her, still an edge of sorrow for Reggie in the unspoken gestures, but Mila ignored it. She missed her partner more than anything but there were more pressing matters now, like surviving and keeping her family afloat.

“How is Josif these days?” Ben asked. Andra elbowed him hard and he yelped. Mila shook her head and waved it off. “It’s fine, Andra.”

Mila slid into a chair at their table and smiled. “Josif would be pissed if he knew how bad you were playing right now, Ben.” The group laughed and razzed him about the scores, the general mood relaxing.

Andra scooted her chair closer to Mila. “If you ever need someone to talk to,” she said, her voice low, “I’m here for you.”

“Really, I’m fine,” Mila replied, “but thanks.”

“Of course. Now,” Andra raised her voice, “what the hell happened the other night? We heard you didn’t come back after sundown. Did you get lost? Slip off to some rogue airstrip?” She wriggled her brow, setting off a new round of whoops and bantering.

Mila rolled her eyes, unable to keep a straight face. “No, nothing like that. Where do you come up with this stuff anyway?”

“Its those dirty leaflets she reads all the time,” Ben declared, his dart sticking firmly into the black area of the board.

Andra made a face at Ben and turned back to Mila. “Never mind that. So what happened?”

“I…” Mila started. These were the people she’d flown with every day since they all were licensed, and before that, they had grown up together—learned, loved, and hurt together. Her mind raced. Jumbled up in all of her thoughts was the fact that her father had betrayed his own brother.

Eight faces focused on Mila, waiting. “I saw a break,” she said.

“A break?” Ben parroted.

“Yes, Ben, that’s what she said,” Andra snapped. Ben held up his hands in defense.

“What you really saw was a wrench in your heart from all those long hours up there, pulling doubles back-to-back after losing Reggie—”

“—don’t,” Mila cut Andra off. “This has nothing to do with long hours, or Reggie. I know what I saw.” Her gaze did not waver and it was Andra who finally shifted and looked away.

Mila looked around the table. “I know what I saw.” She reached into her jacket and withdrew the viewer that contained the recording. Everyone at the table crowded closer as Mila set it in the middle and let it play.

The pilot hall was loud and raucous but no one from their table heard anything. They watched in silence as the recording played out.

Watching it for the first time herself, Mila felt sick by what it all meant. When the recording ended, she slipped the device back into her pocket and waited. Ben slid a beer over to Mila, his mind elsewhere. Mila sipped the beer and the rest of the group sat in stunned silence.

“Are you insane?” Michael hissed at her. “You crossed into the no-fly zone. You know what happens to pilots who do that.” He looked around the table then back at Mila. “Grounded permanently, if you’re lucky. More likely, they haul your ass off to manufacturing, for life.”

“I know what happens,” Mila said quietly. “But I also know our entire existence is built on lies.”

“And what does knowing change?” Michael leaned forward, his voice still low but strained. “They’ll just gather up anyone who believes this shit and send them all off.”

“We can’t sit around and let this go on,” she argued. “All our lives, we keep rehashing the same actions everyone before us has? How many more people do we watch struggle to live? How many dead babies, sick kids, artificial lungs, and lives cut short by this manufactured toxic waste in the skies?”

Michael pushed his chair back and stood. “You’re messing around in places that you have no business. Don’t be so selfish, you’ve got a family to take care of.” He waited for a show of support, but when none came, he snatched up his jacket and stormed off.

“Forget him,” Andra said. “He’s only right in that you are insane but we already knew that.” A nervous chuckle rippled through the group. “So, what now?”

With all the stress of knowing, and deciding to tell her friends about the break, Mila hadn’t thought of what would come next.

“People need to know,” Morgan broke in. “The more we tell, the better chances of bringing Centiyo down.”

Everyone looked at the soft-spoken pilot, always present but never one to rock the boat. He shrugged. “It’s as simple as that.” All agreed with solemn nods and nervous gulps of beer.

“Well then, that’s settled. But how? It’s not like we can run a town hall or anything,” Andra said. “People are scared to death of losing what little they have.”

“People are scared of everything,” Ben added.

“They are, and I don’t know if this would make them any more likely to do something about it,” Mila said.

“Let’s not go defeatist already,” Andra said. “We’re twenty minutes post-awareness and shutting down faster than if someone stole our planes.”

The group debated their next move until closing time, but it was decided that they had an obligation to spread the word. The more people who knew, the less chance of a cover up happening. Each of them would have the recording segmented into small packets in order to quickly transmit the data to nearby pilots in passing. Even as fragments, what was happening was easily understood.

The trouble would come from grounders. Few grounders had ever seen a recording of flight; Centiyo had decreed that the experience of the sunlight high above the noxious cover was a burden of pilots. All that grounders knew was the world as it was beneath the new atmo: dark and bleak, a steady and unchanging existence, but worst of all, without hope for something better.

Chapter Twelve

It didn’t take long for the quiet murmurs to turn into a steady stream of conflicted argument within the sector D community. Weeks after Mila’s discovery, circulation of the evidence spread, even reaching beyond the boundary lines of sector D. Pilots within range of each other would receive the data packets, and after watching, would in turn transmit the data to others. Truth of the manufactured atmosphere was out.

Word reached grounders just as fast. Pilots brought home the segments and shared them, piecing the story together so that each addition bolstered the evidence. There was no refuting what they saw; no technology was available to the average person to make this up.

As the news spread, Josif’s health rapidly declined. Mila would get her quota for the day then spend the rest of the evening with him, taking turns with the boys to keep him comfortable and giving Suzana a break. Suzana knew the recordings were from the night Mila disappeared, and she blamed Mila for Josif’s sudden deterioration.

“Do you have any idea what this is doing to him?” Suzana hissed at Mila in the kitchen. Her face twisted with anger as she slapped a dish towel down on the table. “Why would you make up such nonsense?” She pointed a thin, bony finger at Mila, inches from her face. “You have killed him.”

Mila turned on her heel and let the patio door bang shut behind her as she fled, the accusation engulfing her. Suzana was right: Josif had fallen into a deep, unresponsive state after Mila had told him about the break. Each day he slipped further away until finally he stopped opening his eyes. The family tended him as best they could but even without summoning a med-tech to confirm, they knew this was the end for Josif.

Mila cursed herself as she drove away from the farm, turning down on the old dirt highway that connected the farms along the daisy chain of energy. There was no use sitting under the cold watch of Suzana when she knew her father wouldn’t wake up again.

She pulled into the pilot hall parking lot. Tonight the lot was packed; Mila had to back out of the lot and park on the shoulder of the road. The doors of the pilot hall were flung wide and people were gathered around facing a cluster of older pilots who were shouting at the crowd. Mila pushed her way in, edging closer to the front.

“What the hell do you care about things changing anyway, Earl? You all are a lung deep into the grave!”

“I care plenty well enough. Who do you think I have to turn the plane over to when I’m dead? I don’t want my grandson suffering on account of your foolish ideals.”

“He’s gonna suffer regardless, things are only getting worse!”

The shouting blurred into an unintelligible match that was finally silenced by a shrill whistle. The crowd jostled but eventually quieted down. A small man, frail and at least four inches shorter than Mila, made his way between the two bickering forces. There were murmurs of “let him through” and “here now, Farley, mind the step” as the old man shuffled up front and center to face the crowd. A beer passed from back to front and was handed to the man. He smiled, genuinely cheerful as he took a large pull from the mug. Hoots and hollers rang out, Farley belched, and a chorus of laughter eased some of the tension in the room.

“My friends, now that we have that settled,” he said and the crowd chuckled. “It has come to my attention that we have a matter to discuss.” He saluted the bartender. The pilot hall was calmer, everyone waiting to hear what old man Farley had to say. As the oldest pilot still actively sunscraping, having avoided falling from the sky or succumbing to dead lungs or flight sickness, he was revered by most.

“Our lives are built on the single fact that the earth has not seen sunlight for more than a hundred years. The world we live in no longer supports us naturally. Instead, we must manufacture food in factories deep in its belly, safe from contamination. Water, the very essence of life, next to beer,” this elicited more laughs, “no longer bubbles out from wells and streams. We must wait for its delivery in giant haulers that fill our holding tanks, rationed out to the precise amount deemed necessary for survival, accordin’ to the calculations set forth by the Centiyo corporation.”

Farley paused, the beer mug clutched tightly in one hand as he looked into the faces of multiple generations of pilots all around him.

“And those things that keep us alive, to have our babies and live the way we do, it’s all made possible by Centiyo.” General murmurs of agreement and nods rippled through the crowd. Mila looked around the room. Ben and Andra stood off to one side, waiting for the old man to continue, their faces grim.

“Centiyo has also ensured that we will continue to survive the same way we have for over a hundred years now. And Centiyo will do whatever it has to so that this way of surviving doesn’t change because it suits Centiyo’s interests.” Pilots all throughout the hall glanced at one another, some confused, others nodding in agreement.

“There is no point denying what is so clear. We know the new atmo is a ruse. Just like our food and water, our way of life is fully manufactured, and so too is the source of our misery.” Shouts of denial and outrage erupted, but Farley raised a hand, his slow nods empathetic. “I know, I know. It’s a bitter taste that no one wants to swallow, but that’s what the beer is for.” He wriggled his bushy brows then somberly added, “It’s time to face the facts. For too long we’ve denied what others have warned us about, begged us to believe. We dismissed them as crazy or sick, so that we could continue safely with the way things have always been. But it’s time to stop all that. Time to shed the yoke of security and start righting the wrong.”

“How’re we gonna do that, Farley? We can’t take on Centiyo. They’ll just come along and drag us off our farms,” a pilot shouted.

“There are risks, sure, but,” Farley motioned to the group near Andra and Ben, “they got the right idea. The more people know what’s really going on, the more we have to leverage against Centiyo and demand change.”

All at once, everyone shouted over their neighbor, trying to make their opinions heard. Everything from plans to protest, stopping production altogether, even outright attacking Centiyo circled the crowd. Those who didn’t agree with rocking the boat bellowed back.

Ben and Andra sidled up to Mila and they moved outside. “See that? You started a revolution.” Ben grinned widely. Andra rolled her eyes. “Oh please, don’t blow the thing out of proportion, Ben.” She looped an arm around Mila’s waist. “You did start something though, that’s for sure.”

Chapter Thirteen

Josif died a few days after old man Farley’s rallying speech of solidarity against Centiyo. Many families throughout sector D, pilots and grounders alike, gathered at the pilot hall to pay their respects. Mila had chosen to take her father for his final flight instead of joining the mourners, returning as the sun set with a full charge and a heavy heart.

The data packets of evidence continued to spread. For Mila’s family, the thrum of excitement was absent while they faced loss and the harsh reality that they had a pilot and a plane but no one to run the ground operations. Alek and Denis did what they could, and Suzana took charge of the reporting now that Josif was gone. Mila stayed out of the way, her place in the skies away from the wrath of Suzana.

Quotas increased again, and news releases circulated from Centiyo that denied the existence of the breaks. Centiyo warned that anyone distributing the false propaganda would be charged as an accessory to inciting public unrest and punished accordingly. A substantial reward was offered to anyone with information that identified the originator of the story.

Tension in sector D was high, just as it was in other sectors as the revelation continued to spread, regardless of Centiyo’s threats. Sector A had begun stealth missions, sending pilots over the border, many not returning, but their feeds streamed back to HQ, where Captain Rupert ensured further damning evidence was put into circulation.

A transmission came in one day for Mila: Clear skies, pilot. - Rupert.

Rations were cut back, at first small—one or two percent at a time—then suddenly in jumps, until all of sector D was reduced to fifty percent. The pilot hall no longer served anything but a place for pilots to congregate and argue about what was happening. Still, everyone deferred to Farley, who continued to ask for peaceful resistance. A few pilots walked out, but on the whole, most supported the cause.

Ending her run at sundown, Mila emerged through the cloud cover like any other day, except this time there was a small fleet of armored vehicles lining both sides of the farm’s landing strip. Mila circled the farm, calling Alek to confirm she was cleared for landing, and to see if they were all right. A man’s voice confirmed she was clear. Not Alek’s boyish tone or the strained pitch of Suzana, this was the voice of authority, and it had her family.

Mila knew that this was her final flight. For a moment she considered flying headlong into the ground, going out in a ball of fury and flames. Instead, she circled one last time around the farm then brought the old yellow plane, with all its scars from generations of service to her family, in to rest. Mila wondered if anyone else would fly the old plane again, or if like herself, it would be grounded for life.

No explanation for the group of Centiyo militia or armored vehicles was given but none was needed. Suzana’s cold gaze as she stood between the boys told Mila exactly what had happened. In exchange for a better life for the boys and herself, Suzana had turned her own daughter in as the creator of the conspiracy that had rocked their way of life. Mila smiled gently at her brothers, finding some relief knowing that they would be cared for, that her family’s survival no longer rested on her shoulders.

***

Laborers in the underground processing plant were as far from the life of a pilot as the sun was from the earth. Once free to fly above the heavy atmosphere that permanently darkened the skies for grounders, Mila was now in the darkest pits known to humanity as an underground dweller. Artificial light streamed with the artificial air and the artificial cycles of a manufactured life. Once a burrower, always a burrower, they said when she had arrived. Sunscraping was all that she had known, and now as a fading memory, it tore her heart apart.

Sunscraper

Copyright © Tara L. Campbell

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Cover & Typesetting by Tara L. Campbell