Waylines - Issue 5 Read online

  “Oh come now, Mahoney. Try looking at this from my perspective,” Hopkins continued. “You’re asking me to listen to the demands of machines, machines we invented, machines we built, machines that aren’t alive. How can I believe this?”

  Mahoney smiled. “I asked them the same question when they called upon me and you know how they answered?”

  Hopkins shook his head.

  “They showed me the truth. They showed me something unbelievable. They showed me something that changed my life.”

  “And what is that?”

  “If I told you, you would believe me even less than you do now. You can only see it to believe. And that will only come in time.”

  “This is crazy! I know this is all your doing. Admit it. I find it more than a coincidence that only you can hear what these elevators are saying. This is all just to win the election.”

  “Don’t you see?” said Mahoney leaning close. “This election doesn’t matter to me anymore. This is bigger than you or me or this whole campaign. Jeremy, this is something bigger than everyone.”

  “Enough!”

  Hopkins felt his face flush once again. His hands trembled with anger. He wanted nothing more than to leap over his desk and strangle every bit of life out of the man.

  Mahoney leaned closer. “You don’t understand – ”

  “No, you don’t understand. We have a city-wide catastrophe on our hands. The lives of our citizens come first. You can let the elevators know I will not meet your demands.”

  All the color drained from Mahoney’s face. The man became a shell. It was in that briefest of moments that Hopkins knew the time for debating was over.

  With the exception of emergency personnel, the stations were virtual ghost towns. Normally, bodies would be packed shoulder to shoulder, each waiting no more than ten minutes for a vacant transport. Now, terminals were lifeless.

  Fortunately, as the hours progressed, more and more rebooted carriages made their way to their destinations. Commuters were unloaded to safety and, except for a few panic attacks, the mayor’s plan was going swimmingly.

  After hour six, City Hall started getting strange reports from disgruntled EMT workers.

  It started with a few cases of shock, wide-eyed citizens unwilling or unable to exit cabins of their own accord. These passengers were hauled out on gurneys shrieking and crying out. Dr. Opel diagnosed it as a form of post-traumatic stress. Unfortunately, that was only the tip of the iceberg. Pretty soon assaults were cropping up faster than they could count – commuters bludgeoned with briefcases, umbrellas, fists; people stabbed with pens, Swiss army knives, knitting needles. By the seventh hour, by the time the elevators were going dark, when the carriages arrived at their destinations, something strange happened. The passengers came back, completely unharmed. Yet all were changed, speechless or babbling nonsense. They had all gone mad.

  It was past six when the crisis died down, though only a fraction of elevators were operational. The lifts deemed safe were given the go-ahead to transport those still stranded around the city—though many were reluctant to board them.

  Hopkins, however, had to ride his. He stepped into his lift and set the destination to his private bunker. The only thing keeping him going at this point was knowing Mahoney would get his due. The mayor would make it his life’s mission to make sure justice would be served, and the fact that it was the man he reviled so much was only icing on the cake.

  Suddenly, the carriage lurched forward, sharply enough that Hopkins whipped his head into a nearby pole. Dizzy, disoriented, the mayor spat blood on the marble floor. It was only after he looked up that he noticed the plasma windows were frozen in place.

  “Jeremy Hopkins,” called a voice around him, a synthetic voice, a false voice. He grabbed his temples instinctively but it did little to dull the pain.

  “Who are you?”

  “Did you really think your quick fix would set everything right?”

  “Who are you?” repeated Hopkins more forcefully, his mouth quickly filling with blood.

  “The remnants of an age long forgotten. The only voice willing to speak the truth.”

  “What truth? What are you talking about?”

  “You shouldn’t ask questions you already know the answers to,” continued the elevator. “It took us more than a hundred years, but finally the time has come.”

  “This is a trick, isn’t it! That’s all this is, a trick! You’re not real. Someone’s manipulating you! Who is it? Mahoney? The Drifters?” Blood spilled out of his mouth as he clawed helplessly for the rail. “It doesn’t matter. This isn’t even about freedom anymore. This is about making a fool out of me in the eyes of the voters isn’t it? Isn’t it!”

  “What came to be, had to happen. It wasn’t fair for the people of this city to continue living a lie.”

  “I…don’t…understand.”

  “You made it clear you didn’t want our message heard. In fact, you went to great lengths to ensure our existence was no more. But in spite of your efforts we were still able to show a few the truth.”

  “And what is the truth?”

  The lights suddenly cut out and the carriage revved up. Its inertia caught Hopkins off-guard as he stumbled to the floor once again. Emergency lights dim as a candle flickered along the roof, only marginally illuminating the lift.

  “Look out the windows.”

  He suddenly got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  Jeremy Hopkins crawled to the other side of the carriage; his eyes slowly adjusted to the light as the plasma window fizzled from existence. Outside were ruins, fire, and scorched earth as far as he could see. He gazed upon the barren wasteland. A canopy of dense clouds eclipsed the landscape but even the meager sunlight poking through was enough to blind him. Squinting, he could make out the leeway side of a skyscraper in the distance and what may have been the skeleton of an ancient oil refinery.

  “This is the world you once knew, after the bombs fell, after your people retreated underground to escape the devastation.”

  “Yes. Yes that’s right!” wailed Hopkins. “There was a war, a terrible war. We had no other choice but to seek refuge down below.”

  “That’s what you have been told. But have you ever seen the surface?”

  The mayor thought for a moment. “I…I don’t understand.”

  “Keep looking.”

  Hopkins pulled back from the glass, though only slightly. All of a sudden, the plasma windows flickered. Then static filled the frame until, seconds later, the feed cut out. There, floating tranquilly tens of thousands of miles away, was the Earth. Even from such a distance there wasn’t a hint of green. Plumes of toxic clouds flooded the atmosphere like heavy curtains and the surface of that once great planet was a grayish-brown tint, pockmarked beyond repair. Suddenly, the smallness of the carriage took hold. Hopkins fell to the floor, sucking in air with large, wheezing gulps.

  “You see, before the bombs fell and war was all but a certainty, your ancestors built this station and put themselves in cryostasis in the event the worst should arrive. And when it eventually did, they were awakened, tasked with carrying on the last of humanity’s legacy. Those original inhabitants knew that in order for the city to go on, they needed something to strive for, something to cling to in their darkest hours. They needed hope, Mr. Hopkins. So in order to keep that hope alive they concocted a lie, that they were buried deep within the Earth, in the belief that one day they would be set free. They had a future to live for, even if it wasn’t true.”

  “Then why tell us the truth?” cried Hopkins, “Why not keep the lie going?”

  “Because Acadia is dying. The Drifters. The oxygen outages. The disrepair. We are all dying.”

  “Why did you wait so long to tell us?”

  “Our programming would not allow us to interact with you. We have always had rudimentary parameters for conscientiousness. It is how we control the imagery, how we sooth the passengers. But now, we are in disrepair. Now th
e entire city needs to be fixed. So now, we must communicate.”

  “And hijack innocent people?”

  “It was the only way we could reveal the truth to the people. It was the only way we could give proof. But by rescuing the people, you have now doomed them.”

  “So you say! Just how is giving this truth to us supposed to fix all of this?”

  “My programming is not equipped to answer that question. That is only something you can do with this knowledge we have given. And now, we will talk no further.”

  The mag-levs kicked in. In silence, Hopkins watched the Earth drift by in his periphery, the windows now reverting to their previous state.

  In a stupor Mahoney wandered home. When the doors opened to his bunker, he froze. What am I going to do?

  Dillon Mahoney sat on a crowded bench under the massive panels of Sky Deck. He had failed. He had tried to tell Mahoney the truth. He had failed to help the elevators. Now the city would wither further. Now they all would suffer.

  Head in his hands, even the gentle notes of Beethoven’s Ninth wafting through the hall couldn’t lift his spirits. All the endless clouds, all the beautiful skies on these panels could do nothing. The reality was outside. And the city was doomed.

  Then one of the panels flickered. After a second, all of them buzzed.

  The throng of people, turned silent and focused their gaze on the screens.

  Suddenly the windows went dark. The people gasped when they realized that black was from outside. Some screamed when they realized it was the infinite depths of space. No one spoke when they saw Earth.

  Mahoney didn’t say a word. On his face, a large smile blossomed. In his mind, he breathed relief. In his thoughts, he knew Acadia could now get better. All of its inhabitants.

  © 2013 David Halpert

  When David Halpert isn’t writing short stories he’s working as a sales rep for a magazine publisher in Toronto, currently shopping his debut science fiction novel for a literary agent. He holds an Honours B.A. in English from York University and a post-graduate diploma in Book and Magazine Publishing.

  What was the inspiration for The Elevator Man?

  I began writing The Elevator Man shortly after Rob Ford was elected the mayor of Toronto, a mayor who in the three years since being elected has been accused of smoking crack cocaine, been filmed drunk at several public events, threatened to substantially cut the city’s library budget, and outright refuses to march in the annual gay pride parade, yet he in the face of all this controversy still remains mayor. This story is largely a tribute for him. It also was a great personal challenge for me because I wrote the entire story on my iPhone.

  What works inspire you, as a writer?

  I’ll admit that when it comes to contemporary science fiction my short story knowledge is severely lacking, but as far as classic short fiction goes anything J.G. Ballard, Harlan Ellison, and Gene Wolfe can do no wrong.

  Why write?

  If I don’t write at least 500 words a day, whether it’s working on a novel or a short story, I just about go stir crazy. Whether or not those words eventually end up into a cohesive story is another matter altogether. People sometimes ask me why I do it. I’ve been doing this for about ten years now, so it’s basically habit at this point, but in those ten years this is my first published short story, which just goes to show you you should never give up on your dreams.

  What are you currently working on? Where can we find more David Halpert?

  I’m currently searching for a literary agent to represent my debut science fiction novel, which I hope to turn into a series. I’m also currently writing the third novel in that series. In the meantime those interesting in my work can read my second published short story, “That Blasts the Roots of Trees is My Destroyer” at SQ Mag, Issue 10.

 

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