FUTURISTICITY

Farers (noun): Those who travel far, yet fare well and usually thrive, surviving the terrible fates of the otherwise doomed.

Mung was a Farer.

He used to hop shuttle ships with just enough credits to get by, getting off at odd places where he made a few more for his next shuttle hop.

His ops ranged from killing vermin to picking rottenberries and, sometimes, socking pirate truants right in their jaws to extract their metal teeth caps, which was usually quite profitable.

He had been resourceful even as a child. Now, well into his seventies, he was still just as ingenious. He could still jump off a running shuttle and had a knack for finding the best niches and corners to take shelter from storms.

But all Mung could think of was Himmelia.

After continuously applying for the past three decades, he was finally being invited to the city again.

Himmelia... The Domed City of the East.

A long time ago, a race of human beings called the Dhammas had built it. After the devastating Fifth World War, which wiped out most organic forms on the planet, the Dhammas had selectively captured what was left of Earth’s organic forms and swept it all under a huge, transparent silicone-fiberglass protective Dome.

The Dome extended a striking 20 kilometres into the sky and a scary 20 more kilometres deep underground. The 20-feet-thick fiberglass dome served many purposes, such as preventing water from evaporating into the atmosphere outside the dome, controlling the weather, reflecting excessive radiation, and decimating pollution, among other things. It was a microcosm of its own environment, where the remaining organic forms thrived in a controlled space alongside the humans who lived there.

Every species living within the dome was addressed as a Citizen. The city had a ruling council called the Protectors, who were the descendants of the Dhammas race. Their supreme head was called Par-Dhamma.

The city kept a tight rein on its population and yet allowed people from outside the Dome to live in the city occasionally.

Outsiders, or the people who lived outside the Dome, were allowed to apply for Citizenship once every year, and the Protectors would invite the Outsiders based on a stringent selection process in which various parameters were considered. Only a handful of the thousands who applied were ever invited.

After nearly three decades of continuous applications, Mung had finally been invited to live in the Domed City.

He had hopped three shuttles so far and had not even had a restorative break. He was covered in sweat and dirt, hungry, and had not slept for over three days, yet there was a hum of excitement and nervousness in him that had kept him on his increasingly aching feet.

If only warp speed worked on Earth, he thought impatiently. He would have reached Himmelia by now.

His fellow passengers were eyeing him curiously from behind their Kremlets. He could practically feel their eyes boring into his visage.

He glared back at a young, wiry-looking girl, no older than twenty, who was looking at him with an inquisitive silence. She immediately cast her eyes down and stood as still as a statue.

Mung adjusted his own Kremlet and went back to reading the Himmelian rules and regulations.

He had replayed the rules in visuals so many times that he had lost count. He had heard them in audio while picking rottenberries. He had his FrisBot question him every hour about them.

And now, he had settled on reading them one more time before entering the Domed City.

His nervousness was so palpable that the travelling Healthseer kept reaching out towards him before retreating to her cubicle, shaking her head and muttering to herself.

Mung remembered the last time he had been in the Domed City. His branded name had been Shingal. He had been no older than the wiry-looking girl on the shuttle.

The Peacekeepers had found him hocking the last of the springtime water in the Outsiders’ Market without a permit. They had dragged him to the hangar and kicked him out without a word.

He had lived as an Outsider ever since.

A decade into his Outsider life, he contracted the deadly Mox, a disease so life-threatening that it mutated DNA.

Mung, unaware of the Mox outbreak, had taken an op to scour for mercury-poisoned sardines from the Nicaraguan swamps and marshes.

A stray vermin bit him.

His Kremlet beeped so loudly that he thought he had broken some rule. The FrisBot immediately displayed directions to the nearest restorative clinic.

But even as Mung rushed into the clinic, his eyes were bleeding out. The mortality rate for Mox was so high that hardly a hundred had ever survived it. Even the Healthseers had given up on Mung, but he rallied on. His complexion had changed, his irises had paled, and his hair had turned silvery grey.

And his only thought throughout was.... Himmelia.

Three months later, with almost a zero credit balance, he was out of the clinic, his health stats barely positive and his DNA... altered.

That experience had actually proved to be an advantage.

With his DNA altered, Mung shed his old name and rechristened himself.

The criminal records associated with Shingal were tied to his old DNA. Mung, therefore, had no crimes to his name.

After saving enough credits, he applied for Citizenship under his new name.

For nearly four decades, he kept his record under the name Mung unblemished.

And finally, he earned his invitation into the city.

As he stood ready for his last shuttle hop, he looked at the horizon. He thought he could see the gleam. The gleam of the Himmelian City Dome.

As the shuttle took off from the hangar, Mung smiled for the first time in five decades.

Chapter Glossary

Hop (verb): To board port shuttles without taking a restorative break.

Restorative Break (noun): A two-hour break preferred by people travelling by shuttle ships to gain energy and rest before catching the next shuttle.

Vermin (noun): Genetically mutated animals that were initially bred as excellent protein sources but had become dangerously vicious and excellent carriers of human-killing parasites.

Rottenberries (noun): The only remaining known edible fruits. They have a five-centimetre-thick skin blackened by an onslaught of radiation. The skin looks completely rotten, but it protects the inside of the fruit, which is called “pus” because it looks odd, white and gooey and oozes when the skin is cut. The centre of the fruit is a tough cocoon encasing exactly ten red seeds called rubies. Nobody has yet found any use for the rubies except for the pollination of rottenberries. These fruits are notorious to pick because they grow on cactuses thirty feet tall, filled with half-a-foot-long spiny needles that can sever a carotid.

Pirate Truants (noun): Young pirates who leave their clans to explore the world before returning and becoming stylised pirates. Easy targets and extremely gullible, this solo journey is considered a “transition” into becoming vicious and cunning. The pirate motto seems to be: “A truant without a transition is a tyrant without trumpery.”

Kremlet (noun): A helmet-like headgear used to protect one’s thoughts from being read by strangers. It has a transparent eye guard, an emergency “jaw” that closes in to seal the face completely in case of a storm or when oxygen is low, a myriad of buttons that are thought-controlled, an inbuilt androgynous voice that assists the user in verbal communication when they do not want to reveal their voice, and a spinal-cord tapper that gives the health stats of the wearer in case of a medical emergency.

FrisBot (noun): A personal, slightly antiquated robot, the size of a Frisbee, that keeps its “owner” company and stores all the necessary information and data. The FrisBot is notorious for keeping data so encrypted that even its “owner” cannot access it unless the agreed-upon catchphrase is said verbally or thought about while not wearing a Kremlet. If wearing a Kremlet, one-to-one thought access must be provided.

Healthseer (noun): Blind humans with other senses heightened to a point where they can sense the health statistics of other human beings without having to see them. Healthseers would “take a look”, that is, touch, smell, taste and feel the person, and “diagnose” what they had or did not have. Healthseers were immune to almost all known diseases and had exceptionally long lifespans of nearly five centuries before they regained their eyesight and died.

Peacekeepers (noun): An elite group of humans specifically trained to uphold the rules and regulations of Himmelia. There is no court, judge or judicial system in Himmelia. If a Peacekeeper finds a misdemeanor, the perpetrator is kicked out of the city.

Mox (noun): A deadly viral disease that alters DNA very slightly but detectably. Once contracted, Mox has a very high mortality rate, with only one in ten thousand patients surviving it. Survivors too often die within a year of recovery, usually if restorative sources, food, water and shelter are insufficient.