Free Daylight Runner by Oisin McGann Page B

take their own lives. But there were those who said that when the Fatalists gathered up on those platforms, they prayed for a disaster that would split open the dome and destroy life in the city. There were always rumors about what the DDF did in their secret sanctums. Some said that they even started false rumors themselves, to give their movement an air of mystery.
    Sol just thought they were a sad bunch of losers.
    He watched them for a little while longer, then shook his head and walked toward the nearest elevator. The only threat the DDF posed was the damage caused by their falling bodies.

Section 7/24: CORPSES
    C LEO STOPPED AND looked back the way she had come. In the dim light from the gas lamps, all the walkways looked the same. In front of her, the path forked off in three different directions. None of them seemed to lead upward. Biting her lip, she looked back again. She was lost. Somewhere nearby, a bank of pistons pumped away, and all around her was the rubbery stink of cat pee. Seeing a reflective sign with grid numbers on it, she walked up to it, staring at the numbers and trying to work out where she was. But she was no good with the grid system; she needed street names and buildings to find her way around. If she could see the dome, it would help. But there was just the damp, musky darkness.
    Off to her left, she heard the sound of voices. Theleft-hand walkway led into a corridor that would take her in that direction. She put her hand in her pocket, her fingers closing around the little canister of pepper spray. This was a rough part of the city, and people were known to disappear down here in the darker sections. A young girl lost in the works would be an easy victim for the kinds of people who hunted in the shadows. But she could wander around the lower levels for days if she didn’t find her way up. Fervently wishing there was more light, she gripped the pepper spray and edged forward toward the dark corridor.
    The corridor led out onto an observation balcony that looked down on the level below, three lines of large sewage-treatment tanks. Two men and a woman were dressed in sewage workers’ overalls with tool belts and head flashlights and were manhandling a large bundle toward the intake hopper of a grinding rig—its massive wheels used to crush any solids in the system into slurry. Cleo crouched close to the floor, her gaze glued to the scene below her. The more she looked at it, the more the indistinct bundle seemed to have a decidedly body -shaped appearance.
    They heaved the body over the edge and into the hopper. One of the men—a ghostly looking man with white hair, white skin, and pale eyes—slapped the big button to start the machine. It didn’t start. He pressed the button again. Nothing. They all leaned over the edge to look into the bottom of the hopper.
    â€œIt’s not working,” he announced.
    â€œDo ya think?” the woman said sarcastically. She was an Asian with the gray pallor of somebody who rarely saw daylight. “I can see it’s not working! We’ll have to try another one.”
    â€œHow we going to get it out of there?” the white-haired man asked.
    â€œYou’re going to have to go down there and get it.”
    â€œThe hell I am. I’ve seen what happens to bodies in that thing. Human jelly, that’s what you get. Bolognese. If you want to get it out, you go down there!”
    â€œYou turn it off again, you moron!” the woman snapped. “Now get your ass down there and get that damn thing up here before somebody sees us!”
    â€œAnd what if it’s the switch that’s faulty?” he retorted.
    â€œI could get down there, it turns on, and suddenly I’m toast. I’m not doing it—”
    Cleo shuffled farther back from the edge…and the balcony creaked beneath her. Suddenly the shouting stopped. She pulled her head away from the edge, but it was too late.
    â€œThere’s