Samuel Blane

I

t had been seven years since I had returned to The City. I was not dressed for the occasion; the sleet storm raged around me, soaking my suit and rendering the umbrella I was carrying useless. I suppose I had forgotten how bad the weather could be in these parts – so accustomed had I grown to the equatorial sunshine and the clear, blue skies of the South.

As I approached I could see the dome shimmering in the freezing air. The dome was only visible at close range and then, only in a certain light or specific time of year. Why, I was never entirely sure as everybody knew that The City was domed. Perhaps it was just a private joke between the authorities. I watched as tiny snowflakes appeared to cling to its surface before snuffing themselves out of existence, making you wonder whether you had ever seen them at all. I looked down from the shrouded city to my scarred left hand, wondering if I would still be able to get inside. There were no guards on this side, although I figured there were probably a lot of hidden cameras. Cameras had never really gone out of fashion, after all.

I approached the wall cautiously, but simultaneously trying to appear nonchalant. It was made of thick, grey, steel which I knew to be at least three feet thick and twenty feet high. I remembered in the old days, it had been made of bricks, but that had long ceased to suffice, and so now the place looked like a menacing fortress from some noughties’ adventure - type computer game – the kind my uncle had still played when I was little, shunning the VR head-sets my brother and I kindly proffered to him. I had approached from the Eastern Road, which wasn’t the main entrance. Most people would have arrived on the water, which was the most efficient – and most comfortable - way to travel in these parts, or by Copter, which would land on the North side of The City at the Main Entrance. The Eastern Road, with its long disused tram lines and poorly finished surface led directly to one of the smaller, lesser used entry ports – little more than a door really, with a slot to put your hand in and a keypad – kind of like a cash machine, in places that still used cash, that is. There was no speakerphone, I noted. If you weren’t getting in, that was the end of that.

I walked boldly up to it and stuck my arm in the slot. If I was denied access, nothing much would probably happen, unless I was deemed a threat. The machine whirred slowly, stopped, and then started whirring again, as if it were trying to make up its mind what to do with me. I pressed my palm hard against the glass, wriggling it a bit in case the chip had indeed become damaged or dislodged, and this action would re-position it effectively again. Either way, it seemed to work and the heavy, steel door began to open – not in a sleek manner like an elevator, but slowly and with what seemed an excessive amount of effort – and noise. It was a good job nobody was trying to kill me at that moment because I would most probably have had a bullet in my head by now. Or several bullets, even. After what seemed like about an hour, I went to walk through the port but instantly my body was frozen in place and a strange jolt went through me – as if I had been given an electric shock but with an absence of any pain. I tried to cry out but my voice caught in my throat. I was paralyzed. Fear gripped me, soaking through my pores and in to my bloodstream until I remembered the scanners – I’d seen it on the news a few years before – the newfangled devices some of the Northern border police had begun to employ to keep out the riff-raff. I suppose a twenty foot steel wall covered in a dome and chip implant recognition technology wasn’t considered to be enough in the dangerous and tumultuous sixties. The machine let me go, but flashed up a list of items found upon my person which it wasn’t happy with and wished to inspect before it would let me pas though any further. I dropped my knife and hand gun in to the rather old fashioned looking tray it waved at me. A bored looking guard who seemed barely out of his teens wandered over to me. He had a cup of what appeared to be coffee in one pasty, white hand – although looking at his eyes, it was probably something a bit stronger. I was tempted to comment on the fact that there still seemed to be a CoKeff problem in The City but thought better of it.

“Good evening officer,” I said. He declined to return the greeting, instead inspecting my weapons halfheartedly and sipping his drink, “Terrible weather out there. Makes you glad for the dome, doesn’t it?” I smiled at him and he stared at me with mistrusting eyes.

“Not many people come through this way,” He said. His voice had an accent, but I couldn’t place it. “What happened, lose your Copter ticket?”

“No, I’m…” I hesitated, “I’m a rider.”

“Oh really? What happened to your – “ his eyes travelled from the scar on my face down to my mangled arm and unnatural gait.

“I had an accident, in the South. My bike was stolen, with my speakerphone and my Keycard. I had no other way of accessing money – but I’m from The City – I came back to get medical help, and replica documents.”

“Why did you leave The City?”

“I left a long time ago. For personal reasons” I added. The guard nodded slowly, taking out his ‘phone whilst still looking at me, before glancing down to scroll through the data poached from my insides by the scanner.

“Samuel Blane.” He stated matter-of-factly, apparently satisfied.

“That’s right.”

“You have family in The City, Mr Blane?”

“Yes, my Mother, and my Sister.”

“Good.” He moved aside to let me pass through.

“Wait! Mr Blane,” I spun round, “Don’t you want your gun?”

“Oh, of course, thanks.” He dropped the weapon in my hand and I shoved it in my pocket.

“The knife you can pick up on your way back out – if you leave – or you can get a permit. The gun, as you know, is useless inside the dome.” He smiled at me then, a smug, satisfied smile, like a child who had just won all the sweeties for himself.

“That’s what you think,” I said to myself, as I walked away to become Samuel Blane, whom I had left cold and bloody in a back alley somewhere in Mexico, with his identity chip sliced from his wrist and the secret to The City’s riches drawn from his lips in his dying breath.

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