The Watcher

The Watcher

In training they tell you that it's not what you see as a Watcher that’s important, but how you make sense of it. As the great City of Revivas came of age for the thirteenth time I tried to make sense of the behaviour of its citizens.

The streets thronged with cavorting revellers. It seemed the entire population was intoxicated by strong grain spirits, trance-fungus and a new confidence. The writhing masses sang and danced in triumph and jubilation. Booming visceral vice-music fuelled the hedonistic atmosphere. Snaking through the crowds, nearly naked dancers flaunted their sexuality in orgiastic exhibitionism. Hawkers exploited the inebriation of their customers as they plied the crowd with drink and stimulants.

I did not sing or dance. I’m a Watcher.

A small group of the faithful on the temple steps was trying, without success, to encourage passers-by to attend a thanksgiving ceremony inside. One of them, a young woman, approached a group of four drunken youths. Offering them the sign of unity she asked, “Will you come into the Temple to celebrate the strength of the City and the maturity of the thirteenth era?”

“Get lost fantasy-freak,” said one of the young men, “Go an' sell yer five principles and all that superstitious fairytale crap to somebody else. Revivas don’t need your sort telling us what to do. Some of us’ ave got a life y’know”.

The young woman smiled. “The Five Principles have nurtured our civilisation since the end of the twelfth era,” she said, “They are responsible for our continued survival, our growth and our unity. They are what bind us together, brother.” She put her palms together and interlocked her fingers in the sign of unity. As she turned away the youth kicked her hard in the rear sending her toppling forward and smashing her face on the temple steps. The gang of four burst into raucous laughter as the woman rose holding her hands over her bloody mouth. The four men circled her dancing lewdly and pulling at her clothes and hair.

“Watch out! They’re coming to get you!” they chanted tauntingly.

I watched, trying to make sense of the scene. I could have intervened, could have helped her, but I’ve been too well trained. We don’t interfere, we just watch and interpret. Something too important to obstruct was happening here. I needed more time to contemplate its significance. Watching would be so much easier if we knew what we were looking for. I needed to get some perspective on all this madness. I made my way through the crowded streets to the Skylift.

Rising swiftly and silently in the glass cylinder of the elevator I watched the steel domes of the city fall away beneath me. Conveyors strung between the gleaming towers transported their cargos of celebrating citizens to and fro.

A voice came from the speaker in the floor, “O’Brien! Welcome back”. It was Frank, my boss. “How about you get a few hours sleep before your first Watch? I’m guessing you’re in need of some rest and recuperation after a three day party.”

“Yeah thanks boss. It was a bit on the crazy side”.

“With all the celebrations going on down there I guessed you’d come back with a head full of puzzles so I’ve put you on the dawn shift.”

“Thanks boss, you've read my mind.”

"We've been watching events from up here. That's some party going on down there!"

" Well, it's not everyday the population tops three million," I said.

I looked down at the pulsating metropolis of so many souls, each one playing their tiny part in the life of this sprawling conurbation. Each person with their own function: nourishing, maintaining, cleansing, extending, organising. All were engaged in sustaining the momentum of the city state, each contributing a tiny part to its perpetual energy.

As the transparent capsule rose higher I looked down on even the tallest towers. Their tidy emerald garden domes contrasting with the silver grey of the City.

Watching the hover-cabs darting between the smooth spires like dragonflies among reeds I marvelled at the City’s structure. The physical scale of the architecture was impressive, but it was more than that, Revivas seemed to have its own life force. Like a colossal organism, it sprawled across the desert, organising its own systems, regulating its rhythms, setting its own pulse. It was magnificent, it seemed unstoppable and unassailable.

I thought about the youth who kicked the girl. Something about his confidence and his arrogant distain for tradition worried me. "Do you think we're safe yet Frank?" I asked.

No response came for several moments but I knew the answer before Frank spoke, "Not yet buddy, but look on the bright side, that means we still have jobs".

A sudden rush of vertigo sent my vision spinning. I looked through the glass rear of the Skylift at the great cable that supported it. The thick black mass of carbon cables looked reassuringly tough but as I looked up through the glass ceiling the line appeared to diminish, in the distance, to a thin cotton thread which disappeared into the clouds.

Frank was right of course. The City was as vulnerable as it had been at the time of the last apocalypse. For all our technology we had no real defences against the recurring catastrophe. All our science was confined by the dimensions we could measure. Though it gave us some comfort to see the shield generators skirting the city, everyone knew instinctively that they offered only the impression of security. They were unproven against the threat that we knew only as a mysterious and supernatural malice.

Far above I could see Skyhab, my destination; a conglomeration of pods clustered round the giant cable like a lumpy knot in a cord. It was the city’s watchtower and we were its eyes.

I imagined the top of the cable and the sixty thousand ton rock, floating in space, to which it was anchored. The thought of all that weight above me turned my stomach. I had to remind myself that is was the centrifugal force of that mass trying to fly off into space that was keeping the cable taught and supporting Skyhab, the Skylift and me.

All we could do from Skyhab was watch the City. Once, long ago, watching had been the whole city’s obsession. Now it seemed Revivas had no time to watch. It was too busy growing, making money and enjoying itself. Now it was up to an anachronistic sect, a minority group, those few remaining faithful whose creed was vigilance: The Watchers.

The air in the lift pressurised quickly as I sped upward. Dizzy with altitude I tried to reassure myself further by imagining the roots of the cable far below penetrating deep into the earth’s crust and dividing into separate strands each tightly gripped by millions of tons of rock and concrete.

No one had ever come to harm on a Skylift I reminded myself. Still, it didn’t feel good even to a seasoned Watcher like me.

For some strange reason I always felt relief on reaching Skyhab, somehow it felt secure despite its four mile altitude. As I stepped from the pressurised Skylift into the corridor leading to the domestic pods I was looking forward to sleep.

*****

As the brown metal door to my pod slid open the dim interior light flickered on revealing the claustrophobic space that was all I had to call home. The air was cold and the overarching walls were covered with a thin layer of condensation. On the small floor space, my old sleeping bag laid untidily, just as it had been discarded when I left. The door closed behind me and without taking off my coat I got into the bag. As my mind was still buzzing with the events of the day I decided to Watch for an hour while I unwound. I flipped the catch on the view port in the floor and, lying on my stomach, I made myself comfortable.

Though it still shone on the upper cable, the sun had set on the City. Star-like lights mapped out the grids of the highways and buildings of the darkened metropolis. I instructed the pod to play some Sibelius. A Watcher needs some sensory input, three years of looking at the same view in complete silence can really bake your bean. For some time I drifted in the soothing sway of the music, my eyes just focussed on the light-spangled city. It was a view I’d watched for so long that the image had been burned on my retinas. It was what I saw when I closed my eyes. Then it happened. After three years of waiting and watching I saw something momentous.

From the darkness of the eastern desert, a purple luminescence was encroaching on the City boundary. I shook my head to dispel any drowsiness and looked again. It must be Them! They were coming! Leaping to my feet I shoved the heel of my palm, as hard as I could, on the red button that I had never before touched. Amidst the deafening siren’s noise I ran out of the pod, down the corridor towards Control.

“The power’s cut!” shouted Frank. “How the f…”

Frank threw his arms up in desperation. Usually of a self composed demeanour, he now looked bewildered. Something round his eyes betrayed both terrible shock and unfamiliar fear. “There’s nothing we can do! They’ve got to us!”

“They can’t have got up here” I said, trying to reassure. “You know that Frank. We’re four miles up.”

“I’m telling you, O’Brien,” he said, “somehow they’ve found a way to get up here and mess up everything. Communications are down; shields aren’t responding and the Skylift’s out. They’ll be in the city in fifteen minutes. We’ve got to warn them!”

“I’ll go.” I said. The time for watching was over, it was time for action.

On the long drop I watched the City’s lights grow bigger and brighter as I plummeted through the chill evening air. The ominous purple haze in the distance hung over the wasteland like a glowing fog. Among the yellow and white illuminations below, two larger purple lights caught my eye. They were growing faster than the city lights and coming up in a spiralling climb towards me. In the time it took my pounding heart to skip a beat they were with me, instantaneously changing direction and diving with me.

It was the first time I’d seen them up close, and they were very close. One was less than a foot from my face. He was no more than five inches long and stared at me with acid yellow eyes and a malevolent grin. His translucent wings were just a blur in the sickly purple glow radiated by his iridescent lilac skin. I tried to lunge at him but he effortlessly darted out of my reach and flew even closer to my face. He was laughing at me. Suddenly a burning pain stung the back of my neck and his companion appeared over my shoulder. I’d been bitten. The last thing I remember was fumbling for the rip chord of my chute and looking at those two impish faces laughing at me and fading to black.

It made no sense that I could slip from my own falling body but the sensation was too powerful to deny. Somehow I had become dislodged from the bulky mass of my carcass and in doing so escaped the inexorable pull of gravity. Thought became movement, instantaneous and effortless in any direction or dimension. It was no more difficult to move somewhere than to cast my eye to that place. A feeling of unbelievable elation at the total freedom overwhelmed me. Yet at the heart of this ecstasy was a need, a deep and undeniable urge like a hunger, a need to feed. A sense I had no experience of, was urging me, tempting me downwards towards the succulent quarry of the writhing City.

Billions swarmed that night and there wasn’t an inch of human flesh in the City untouched by their needle teeth. By dawn’s half-light only bones, hair, teeth and nails remained of a population of three million people. The City’s dreams and wishes were consumed with its flesh.

It will be up to the surviving inhabitants of Skyhab now, to make the perilous decent down the cable and begin again, the long process of repopulation. We will disappear again into the desert and the sand and wait for the feast to replenish itself. It will take millennia but we will wait. From time to time they will falter and need our help. We will be there, guiding them in their dreams and childhood fantasies. By doing so we shall sustain just enough of their belief in us to maintain our own existence.

But the cycle will continue. For the fairies have recruited a new King. A King who understands the hearts and minds of men. A King with knowledge of what humans love and what they fear. They have a King who will know when the feast is ready and when to strike because, as has happened through eons past and will happen ever after, their King is a Watcher. One who has seen the signs of a City ready to fall.