Courier

It was early dawn when a lone traveler finally passed over the last rise of the hundred valleys, she paused for a moment, the whistling wind billowing the ragged cloak that fit loosely on her body. Her gaze met with the rising white sun as it lit up the great farmlands below. The traveler watched on as small dotted figures slowly made their way to the closest farms, beginning their morning work. A vast network of valleys behind her and plains as far as the eye could see in front. 

It was a sight she had seen a few times, however for some reason she never grew tired of it. The traveller smiled, her pale slightly scarred flesh wrinkling lightly, the small plastic pipe feeding clean oxygen into her mouth curling up with her lips. It had been a few years since she had come north of the valleys, yet the sight had not changed much, it still calmed her heart.

Grasping at a small container on her waist, she pulled it around to her stomach looking down at the dials and display on its side. Her Ohtoo was getting low, but that was to be expected considering the mountain she had to just climb. She squinted her eyes towards the farmlands below, scanning for a settlement of some kind. She needed to find a market. “I should have enough,” she muttered after a sigh, dropping her readertank back to her side. The traveller brushed a strand of muddy brown hair from her eyes and began the slow descent down the mountainside.

It was an unfortunate fact, that despite the sky above her being a brilliant blue, this world had long lost its clean atmosphere. The oxygen of this planet had become tainted many hundreds of years ago and the people of it had to live with tanks on their backs, feeding clean oxygen into their ever thirsty lungs. It was this that led to clean oxygen, or ‘Ohtoo’ being the greatest resource across the lands, more precious than any metal and used as a greater currency than money itself. Of course, the air wasn’t exactly unbreathable, and it wouldn’t always kill you, but it was ‘tainted’ and the traveller knew the risks of breathing it all too well.

As her thoughts drifted across the worries of the world, the traveller made her way down the long, steep winding path, the farmlands below growing closer and closer. She could make out more details now, a few farm Shines littered the fields, sprinkling water, or helping to disperse seeds. A few patrols of soldiers were dotted around as well, to keep the peace their people had fought so hard to find.

By the time she reached the vast dirt riddled fields, the day was well on its way, Ohtoo farmers riding on tall stilts were catching the thin bubbles of pure oxygen that lifted lazily from the genetically birthed crops with specialised nets, placing them gently in large tanks pulled along by autonomous shines. The tainted oxygen was a tad heavier than pure oxygen, causing it to float up into the sky in a bubble after its release from the Sky Flowers that hold it. Genetically altered Sunflowers that were created to release the oxygen most life was reliant upon. There were many that tried to make private farms, but only the Consortium’s vast farmlands have the fertile soil needed to grow the difficult crop.

The traveller walked down a road separating two rows of the farm plots, grass ramped softly down towards them, making the pathways elevated. Occasionally one or two of the farmers would take a second-long break to give her the one over before returning to their work, otherwise no one seemed bothered by the unusual visitor. It was rare, but not exactly unusual. She didn’t mind anyway, as the young woman was scanning them back, trying to find someone that looked at least vaguely in charge.

Eventually her eyes wandered over to a small battered dark red hut, seemingly the only building for miles around and sat crudely in a ditch to her right. It was surrounded by knee high stone walls and outside the hut sat a short hunched man, beating the iron shoulders of a shine with a crude hammer. The traveller could hear his vague mutterings and curses from where she stood as he occasionally nicked his own thumb whilst hammering away. Whilst he hardly wore an overseers outfit, he was the only one not performing an Ohtoo farmers basic work, so whilst probably not a leader, he was something.

As she got closer, the traveller had a clear view of the man and the shine he worked on. Though worked on may have been too strong a statement as he repeatedly smacked it with an old hammer. The ancient machine he beat harshly was for sure a gunshine, the rusted shooter that made up its left arm appeared no less deadly despite the age. The old hunched farmer cursing as he beat it wore a polite waistcoat and trouser combo, though the clothing appeared clearly damaged beyond good company. His hat sat on his head comfortably, similar in design to the other farmers, wide brimmed and tartan upon the dome with various personal adornments. As the traveller’s feet stopped not a stone’s throw from the hunched man, though his back sat facing towards her, he silenced his hammering. ‘If yer here to rob us, can ye come back tomorrow? I may have this infernal shiner fixed by then,’ he grumbled as he resumed his poor attempts at repair.

The traveller tilted her head lightly, dealing with people wasn’t exactly her strong suit. ‘I would’ve brought a more threatening weapon if I wanted that,’ she mused, drawing attention to the rusted blade on her back.

The old farmer stopped again, letting out a rough snort. He turned his head to face the young ragged woman, revealing that his entire bottom jaw had been replaced by a rough metal plate with yellow teeth sticking out quite jagged and uneven, they were clearly human teeth yet also clearly not all from the same person, the traveller decided that she did not need to know their origin. Though the rhythmic scarring at the meeting between metal and flesh suggested this was not entirely a cosmetic choice. ‘True dat,’ the old man chuckled, his bottom jaw somehow managing to form the words he needed. ‘Dat thing seems it would have trouble cutting plant stalks, let alone me!’ He attempted a smile before throwing his hammer down by the broken shine, ’So, whatcanI do for ya dunelander?’ he asked the traveller.

She looked back at the valleys that she just came from, ‘that obvious where I’m from?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘Well ye ain’t one of mine and ya ain’t come from da north, n ain’t no one living in da valleys. Just a matter of noggin-usin.’

The traveller turned back to the old man before removing her large straw hat, revealing an oddly pale face for one that came from a desert, black muddy hair and a lightly scarred lip. ‘I need more canisters, looking for directions to the closest oxy-market. If you’d be so kind?’

“Fraid there ain’t no big market nearby, tho’ we’s got a single stall in our village, s’a short walk up that way,′ he answered pointing further up the road.

‘A single stall?’ the traveller asked.

Chuckling, the old farmer nodded his head. ‘I’m not lying to you dunelander, ya can see it over yonder,’ he pointed northwards, further up the road towards a large bubble. ‘Our farmlands are simple and we’s like to keep things simple. A single stall is all we need.’

The young Dunelanders’ eyes followed the old man’s finger, settling upon a bubbled dome peeking over a nearby hill. “Your village has air?” She asked without a beat.

‘It’s a perk of working the Consortium’s farms.’

“The “deep breath” project has finally begun, then.” The traveller muttered, still glancing at the dome.

A short silence grew in the conversation as the farmer looked up at the stranger, a curious look in his eye. ‘So ye know of the project?’ he asked.

The subject of his question finally turned her gaze back to him. ‘I’m a courier, it’s not my first time in the farmlands, just haven’t been this far east before.’ She mumbled. ‘When I was around last those I spoke to were a’nattering about it.’

‘Aahh, Courier’s an ard’ n’ often thankless job,’ the old man sniffed. ‘S’not f’me. Couldn’t stand all dat travelin.’ He looked at his legs for a moment before slapping his thighs. ‘Anyway, courier. I’ll let ya get on. Don’t wanna be runnin’ out o‘ Ohtoo do ya?’ He winked before turning back to his shine and picking up the same rusty hammer.

The courier placed her hat gently back upon her head before dropping her left arm back beneath her cloak. ‘That shine has no lightcatcher,’ She commented. ‘I always see shootershines with lightcatchers.’

With a sigh from the farmer, the courier carried on up the path. ‘The trick is trying to get them work without the damn catcher,’ she heard him mutter before beating the shines head with an audible clang.

A smirk flashed across her face for a short moment disappearing back into a relaxed curiosity as she watched the fluctuating bubble ahead of her. The ‘Deep Breath’ project had a simple goal. To create functioning self-sustained Ohtoo filled bubbles that folk could live in. Though the goal may have been simple, nothing else related to the monumental task was.

Around the bubble large metal claws enshrined it at equal measures apart, their job was to blast out whatever the skin was that kept the bubble in place. The Courier was no scientist, how they were sustained was a mystery, she had heard a brief lecture on it, but it truly passed through her ears like wind.

Then there was the actual air supply, the Ohtoo farmlands could barely sustain the Consortium population to begin with so keeping massive bubbles going on top of that was no easy task. Of course a bonus is that the villagers would no longer need their personal supply whilst inside their bubble.

They had two ways to maintain the Ohtoo levels inside the bubbles. The first was for said farmers to release whatever remaining Ohtoo they had left in their tanks as they entered the bubble. The main plan was to surround the edge of the bubble in Sky Flowers that would naturally release the Ohtoo they needed. It was purely theoretical when the Courier had last heard about it, what seemed simple on paper continued to cause problems in practice. It was clear to the young Courier however, that they must have found a solution, given the looming dome growing ever closer. The Consortium had always wanted to gift their hard working farmers something big, even if just as a token to keep good faith, they were the humble folk that kept their civilization going. Of course a gift is only a gift until it goes wrong.

None of that was the Couriers business though, not to say that she wanted the experiment to fail, on the contrary seeing the villages and cities of the Consortieum become safe havens for all folk was something she could get behind. The travelling courier was a traveller though and that was something she would always be, she loved the road far too much to settle down. To keep up said free lifestyle however, she would need to be successful at her job, deliver what was promised, on time and in good condition, no matter the package. As a small sharp pain struck up her arm she frowned, looking down below at her cloak, at the lump hidden inside. She had delivered many odd trinkets in her short life, but truly, the package this time was the oddest of them all.