When was the last time he ever stepped outside? Faris felt silly, standing alone with his face almost pressed against the glass doors, gazing in the darkness. The brightly lit hall made his research difficult. “Timing is everything.” The words rang in his ears, a wave of nervousness coursed through his body, slowly dissipating as his eyes got accustomed to the dark. He managed to discern its shape, down the hill, the aerobus. Its lights were shut but he knew the vehicle wasn’t asleep, it merely waited. Every other day it waited for no one, simply using the ample space as resting grounds before starting its shift.
Faris didn’t know how long he still needed to wait. He surprised himself by standing there, eagerly wanting to catch the fleeting instant where the vehicle would come to life. He felt warm, his long white coat over a thick jacket provided too much protection for the heated interior of the facility. However he didn’t want to leave underdressed, the prospect of having one layer too many could be easily remedied, and didn’t register as being part of his current emotional turmoil. He looked back at the empty hall, the silence only disrupted by the faint buzzing of the white lights adorning the unmanned reception. Mostly everyone in the facility should be asleep still. Mostly everyone, everywhere. His thoughts drifted, as a strong blue hue lit his face from the outside. The aerobus whirred to life, whistling in the darkness loud enough for it to catch his ears behind the thick glass. Faris whipped his body around and took the sound as his cue to step outside. He put his entire body weight against the glass doors and unconsciously started to run.
Faris had agonized at the thought of crossing this threshold, and agonized even more at this task taking such a toll on his psyche for the past week. But he was barreling down the steps that led to the Repository, at a speed not befit of his age. He was told by one of his colleague that the bus would wait, but that knowledge wasn’t his, he could not risk it. The cold air of the dead of night filled his lungs and maintained his momentum. What was he even running for? He should not care this much, this is especially why they sent him. The steps led way to a road of gravel where the bus stood, gently purring. He found himself panting, had he been skipping steps? He slowed his approach, the deep blue of the aerobus interior painted the flower field surrounding the Repository in a pleasant palette, though he could not remember the flowers original colors. He entered the vehicle by its front doors, crossing eyes with the conductor frame. His mind ran, should he initiate a dialogue ? Had there been a protocol put in place-
“Are you alright?”
The voice was firm. The frame in the conductor’s seat had no features of common terrans other than its size. Its vertically slanted eyes were observing him, devoid of any judgment or expectations. The question took him aback, he attempted an answer but found himself choking up. Had he been crying?
“I’m fine, thank you,” Faris answered after clearing his throat to make sure his speech came out coherent.
The unblinking frame kept its gaze on him for a second then looked back at its own devices, “Sit wherever you like, if there’s no seats left please make sure to hold onto something. We will be leaving in thirty minutes.”
Thirty minutes. Faris felt silly once again, running this fast, being this anxious, all the words and fears that ran through his mind for the past week. What was it all for, he stood there and none of it mattered to him now. The aerobus’s azure emptiness calmed him a small amount, he walked down to sit on the far end, his shoulder pressed against a window. He wiped his cheek without taking off his glove but found no more tears. He looked outside. The Repository didn’t stand tall atop the hill, it was barely anything impressive, a stern rectangle hidden between the trees, only catching the eye with its peculiar white glass exterior. At the dead of night, it looked more like the specter of a building, the lights in the hall too weak to hint at any sign of life. He wondered what it looked like beneath the sun. Had he seen it before? He found himself looking forward to coming back, before having left.
The drive was uneventful, if not severely boring. The vehicle strode along confidently, he could hardly tell if it was going fast but the ride was steady. Outside, nothing but darkness, the blue of the bus only slightly illuminating the side of the road. The flowers didn’t persist beyond the hill, and the side of their path became an unrecognizable field of dead trees and dry grass. How long had it been since he left ? He wasn’t entertaining the idea of being late but even just sprouting the idea in his mind made the possibility seem more real than before. He had thought of closing his eyes for a minute or two but that was not completely out of the question, instead fixating his eyes on the window. Waiting. He had missed the moment the bus lit its engine, he didn’t want to miss it again.
The horizon was suddenly pierced by faint yellow lights, Faris swiftly leaned as much as he could against the window. Had the bus made a turn? He could see it now, the city shaping itself before him, the skyline illuminated by a myriad of colors, as if clashing with the stars. The warm air of the city against the deathly cold outside turned this rainbow into nebulous waves, dancing around the sky. He doubted ever being born there, how could he have forgotten this sight? A deep, sinking, feeling gripped his heart. He sunk back in his seat, not leaving his eyes from the city’s crown of lights. He wondered if his colleagues were feeling jealous, even if they had chosen him. The thought amused him, they would be delighted at the stories he would bring back but none of them would take the bus to see the spectacle for themselves, and neither would he. As they approached the city, the colors unified and made way for their arrival. Even protected by the bus, he could feel the air getting warmer as they entered the boundary and the first street. The first buildings they crossed were simple in design, three or four stories tall, all arranged in singular colors. One of blue, one of faded red, one of-
“Next stop, Juren,” the conductor frame announced from all corners of the aerobus.
The sudden call startled him. “First stop for you, can’t miss it.” Faris rose swiftly, hands in his coat pockets and strode towards the back doors. The bus was still making its way inside the city and he gripped a door handle to keep his footing. A few minutes later, the gates were opening for him and he looked back at the frame. He could only see a small angle of it from the far side of the bus.
“Thank you!” Faris hollered to it.
“With pleasure, see you again,” the frame answered.
No emotion in its voice, no intent other than protocol but it didn’t stop his heart from getting warmer as he stepped onto the pavement and the gates closed behind him.
“Next stop…”
Faris heard the call fade away as the bus whistled back on its way, disappearing into a corner. The street was as empty as his ride, wall lights making for a dim welcome. The sounds of the city amounted to buzzing of faraway voices and a faint music playing, further nord. He expected more life akin to the explosion of colors he saw from afar but looking around most of the buildings in the street appeared deserted, windows shuttered or blacked out. All except one. A taller building, six stories tall, stood out on the opposite side of where he stepped out of the bus. A gray so dull it had to have been white, years, even decades ago. “Taller, sadder, can’t miss it either.” The ground floor only had a window front with glass doors at its center, not too dissimilar from the Repository’s entrance. A light was on, so dim as if it saved energy, making for a particularly unwelcoming sight. He crossed the street nevertheless, neither looking left nor right.
Faris knocked twice slightly on the glass pane. Not discerning any apparent movement from inside, he leaned against the glass door. He struggled to imagine what the ground floor was used for, various furniture like couches and tables littered the space and even more miscellaneous items were stacked on top of them. Clothing, pots, mechanical devices and more unidentifiable objects arranged together seemingly at random. There was an obvious path left unobstructed that led to stairs and an elevator on the far right side, a wall lamp besides them was the only source of light in the ground floor, casting large shadows on all the mess. He knocked again, thrice. No response. Had he been late after all ? The thought triggered a severe pang of anxiety that he immediately tried brushing away. In an attempt to regain control of his mental balance, he attempted to open the door and found no resistance.
The inside of the building was warm, calming his senses a bit, but he still felt uneasy knowing his entrance hadn’t been noticed. Should he simply head upstairs? He made his way along the path free of furniture, his eyes landing on a false leather couch. He stopped to try and discern whatever was sprawled on top of it. A sheet of of thin metal, a black jacket with black fur on its shoulders, adorned with many pockets, dusty plates of kitchenware made for durability more than anything else… And what originally caught his eye, a mask. Or was it a helmet? Two thin yet long horns, starting on the side and curving up towards the face. The face itself was separated horizontally into two halves that seemed to move independently from each other, as the top half was raised up to sit between the horns ends. The bottom half adorned four parallel slits, barely wide enough to push a finger through. He couldn’t tell if the helm felt familiar or if it was innate curiosity, but he felt compelled to see what it looked like with both halves joined. Faris put his hand towards the top of the helm and his sight fell on the empty space where the eyes of the wearer should be. Deep green eyes were looking back straight through him.
“Good eye.”
His heart nearly shot out of his throat as he staggered backwards, falling on his ass. The figure wearing both helm and old jacket chuckled and rose, pushing aside the plates, which fell on the ground without much noise. The rest of their outfit was practical and impersonal, making the bright steel helmet stand out even more. The rest of the stranger’s outfit matched the jacket, black and worn down with small pockets all over that could’ve only fitted coins or bolts. Their boots followed suit, although they looked well taken care off. The stranger felt towering from where he stood, or sat, but they had to be at least a head shorter than him.
“Sorry about that, I feel a bit mean now,” the stranger sighed, gifting a hand to him, “Put your weight into it though, I don’t work out much.”
He did as he was told and kept taking shallow breaths as if he just ran up and down the Repo’s hill twenty times over. “You were watching the whole time ? I wouldn’t have minded an expected welcome, truly.”
His words came out harsher than he had intended. Faris realized the clouding anxiety that followed him had abated and wondered if this was the hidden intent of that ambush. The host dusted themselves off and neatly folded the metal sheet they used to hide before putting it under their arm.
“Sorry, sorry. I don’t even do that much usually, I planned on just waiting there but when I saw you hop off the bus you looked so enamored by quite possibly the most boring dead end street in the Fringes… I couldn’t disturb such a pure moment,” they extended their hand again, then retracted it and offered their right hand instead, switching the metal sheet from arm to arm, “Can’t use the same one twice now. I’m the Knight, no use for nicknames, nice to meet you doctor ..?”
He was taken aback by the familiarity of the approach, the Knight had likely noticed the name tag on his coat yet let him present himself. It sunk in his mind how used he was to the presence of his colleagues, their own personalities blurred away as everyday noise. Faris couldn’t even remember when was the last time he had met someone new in his life. It was hard to determine the age of his interlocutor, but they had to be half of his. He expected their voice to be muffled by the bottom half of the helmet covering their nose and mouth, but their words echoed clearly, making their presence fill the entire space.
He smiled faintly and shook their hand with his right, “Doctor Faris, nice to meet, though I admit this is my first time referring to myself as such.”
“This is exactly why we’re here doctor, perspective! Now this might not surprise you but we’re on a schedule and I’d prefer to be ready early.”
“I can understand,” Faris nodded.
As he was replying, they whirled around on one feet and directed him towards the stairs, “Really sorry, we’re headed for the last floor and no elevator for us. This building is more like a calderan dump than the ones with pretty facades outside.”
Faris had already come to terms that his muscles would make their pain known tomorrow at the latest and didn’t object. The stairs were coiling around the large elevator. Even if they had seen decades, even centuries of passage they held strong as they both made their way up. The whole building still showed its age and the lack of upkeep, the air was thick with dust, enough to make him slightly cough.
“I’m not going to start drowning you in questions just yet, I prefer to stay in the dark as much as my audience. Better reaction if I’m hearing the answers for the first time as well, right?” the Knight looked back at him, hanging by the railing with one hand.
“This might come as a surprise but I’m not really familiar with your work, I stay up during the night so I’m always sound asleep by the time you start.”
“Ah, I’ve talked with someone who functioned like you once, it’s not uncommon! But really I’m more surprised to learn some of you guys even listen to me. I’m guessing they sent you especially because of that, right? An unbiased dialogue, free from expectations, a true once in a lifetime contact between two worlds so close yet so far…”
The Knight stopped on the second floor to mimic something like curtains opening then getting pulled close together, unfurling the metal sheet in one sweeping motion to make it seem like a cape draped over their shoulders. As they closed their eyes, lost in the theatrics, he noticed that the Knight used a great amount of pitch black eyeshadow. In a poorly lit environment, it was as if they became a husk wearing armor. Faris couldn’t help but wonder what was the point of this amount of extravagance, was everyone in the city this far gone? From what he could see, every floor so far had been more of the same as the entrance, unorganized storage with even more dust, hanging in the air like snow. The lack of life he had observed in the street and the dreary abandon this entire building was in made him uneasy.
The Knight composed themselves and finished their thought, taking to the stairs while folding the sheet once more, “Smart thinking, smart people… No wonder all of you hole up in the shadows. If you’re not bothered, something big is bound to happen, right?”
He felt a verbal pike, as if they were probing a reaction out of him. The Knight was taking the steps steadily, one by one. Faris suddenly felt uncertain, he had been in this city for less than half an hour, he was comically out of his depth. They could twist him the way they wanted, had the stunt earlier instead been to assess him? A show of force? He remembered a conversation with his colleagues the night prior. There’s something he needed to be clear about, no matter what. Now this was the only thing he could do to stand his ground. For the moment, Faris didn’t reply, only offering a muttered sound of approval and they made the rest of the climb without any more words.
He noticed passing glances from the Knight at every corner. The first one was an accident but every subsequent time they crossed eyes made him increasingly uncomfortable. The Knight was surely aware of this pressure they were putting on his shoulders, and they must have intended to keep adding on to it. His steps felt slower and slower, the eerie similarities between every floor made the climb feel endless. However, the pattern stopped at the sixth floor, a double door separated the stairwell from their destination. The Knight opened them in a sweeping motion, leaving space for him to enter behind them. No going back now.
Faris immediately noticed how tidy the sixth floor was as he set foot in the Knight’s lair, as if it was cleaned only minutes ago. The floor was smaller than the others but ordered with obvious care. Both tall and wide machines were blinking in an unpredictable rhythm, Faris had never seen this kind of technology before. It was nothing like he was used to handling. Thick cables packed neatly together were snaking on the ceilings and walls, connecting everything together. It had to be unwieldy, even if Faris wasn’t an expert in electronics he couldn’t imagine there was an advantage to be had with using such outdated parts.
The Knight spread their arms wide to let him take in the view, “This, is where the wonders happen, all of this is refurbished from tech built during the previous millennia, pure electrical. Surprisingly, it rides with the currents of Volantis all the same, straight to everyone with a monitor or a radio anywhere in Last Kunlun. We do the talking outside, on the balcony,” the Knight pointed behind them with their thumb at a small door in a wall that cut the top floor from being as spacious as the others, “It can get a bit cold at this hour even in our balmy city so I have thermal blankets just in case.”
The Knight waved what he thought was a metal sheet and put it down on their knees. He’d doubted the Knight made this space their home, everything around him was professionally displayed. No bed or even anything remotely looking like living quarters. Function and form both presented with confidence. He felt at the heart of a machine, and the brains of it wore a horned helmet and was spinning in their chair. When Faris didn’t comment, they stopped their motion and looked at him straight in the eyes, breaking the silence.
“I get the idea that you think I’m looking forward to antagonizing you,” the Knight spoke quietly, “To be honest I wasn’t sure you’d show, I mean, you didn’t send a response!” they closed their eyes, shutting themselves from his vision and opened them again, looking at the ceiling, “You wouldn’t know but I never say ahead of time when I have a guest coming. It happened twice, people I invited didn’t end up coming. They ended up dropping by later, apologetic as one can be, but it vindicated my choice in keeping my schedule to myself.”
Their voice picked up again, as if to assume footing in their domain, “But not this time, even if you people didn’t deign a reply, I ended up bragging really loud yesterday. You have no idea, everyone and their mothers from the Fringes to Starboard knows I got a Doctor to come to me,” the Knight accentuated their words by pointing to him then to them and crossed their fingers together as they slumped in the chair, slowly rotating it left to right, “You’re there now so it doesn’t matter but I’m truly grateful you came, I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened otherwise, so embarrassing.”
Faris exhaled, thinking back to yesterday, his colleagues must’ve heard this reckless call. What were they thinking? With this knowledge, he would have felt less on the backfoot from the start. Yet they chose to not share it with him. Smart people.
The Knight continued, “This is a show of faith, I’m just like the rest of the folks here, I want to know more about you all, what you’ve been doing. It’s been a while-”
“We are willing, I came here because of that.” Faris smiled lightly.
The Knight nodded, “It’s been a while… well good! Good.”
“But we have two things we will not answer anything on.”
The Knight hung onto his words, unblinking.
“We have nothing to say about the Sun.”
The sentence lingered in the room, their silence broken by the constant vibrations of the machines. Clicks and whirs, the weaving and unraveling of tapes all joined in a quiet symphony. The Knight squinted, staring straight through him.
They grunted, “Figured. I’ll have you explain yourself when we’re on air, you’ll have to be fine with that.”
“We owe you all this much.”
“How magnanimous. I notice it’s a collective speaking suddenly,” the Knight replied, barely containing their frustration, “And what do the esteemed Doctors refuse to discuss as well?”
“The second one is only from me,” Faris said, noticing the Knight raising eyebrows beneath their black makeup, “I have nothing to say about your own Doctor.”
The Knight scoffed, “So much secrecy… well that one isn’t going to upset anyone if I don’t mention it,” and then to themselves as they rose from their chair, “Speaking of living…”
He exhaled, terms were set. He didn’t enjoy this hostility that had been laid between them over the floors they climbed together. How much of his own interpretations of the Knight had influenced this? He could’ve hid behind a supposed sense duty but there was no use. Faith, hope, love, once he crossed the Repository’s doors, the logic which dictated the past decades of his existence had become hard to grasp. He couldn’t share this with the Knight, why had he come after all? Why had they sent him?
The Knight tapped him on the arm twice, breaking him out of his torpor, handing him the blanket, “Come on, doctor, let’s go see him.”
“What happened then?” Faris asked after a second, following them back to the stairs with the blanket tight in his arms.
“With what?”
“The people who didn’t answer your call. What did you do with them?”
“What do you think happened? I told them it’s fine and that they could still participate next time if they wanted.”
“Did they?”
“Nope, neither of them.”
The Knight opened a small hatch to the left of the stairwell, where a ladder led to a rooftop. The roof of the building was as unassuming as the facade had been, nothing but deprecated ventilation units and a waist length fence to prevent accidents. The air was still warm but the Knight’s tower stood above all the building in the Fringes district, so a cold breeze welcomed Faris as he climbed to his feet. He had been underdressed after all. He wrapped the blanket around him and followed the Knight as they got closer to the fence, resting their arms on it. Between the overwhelming lights of the city to their left and the pitch darkness that stood, boundless to their right, the Knight’s figure looked taller.
He stood to their left, taking in the view. He could see it all. Far to the left, rows of lit up buildings scaled up a hill that reached their level. Between them and that hill, an imposing district clashed with the discreet landscape of the Fringes. Standing proud at the center of Last Kunlun, a tall and slender pagoda adorned with a bright and ornate clock at its highest floor, pierced the sea of buildings. To the right of the pagoda he could see the rainbow of colors shining from stained glass roofs. The beacons of seemingly infinite colors that he saw from the road were coming from such a small part of the city, but they dominated the sky, making him wonder how it all looked from below. Between the hill and the pagoda, lights were more scarce, he could make out sparse trees and large bodies of water, surrounded by small wards, embraced by vines and foliage.
In front of them, all the way to the opposite edge of the city, spanning from side to side thrice as tall as where they now stood, an immense wall loomed over everything he could see. Its color a rusted red, painted over by centuries of artists and vandals, back when they were differentiated. Its gigantic presence should’ve made this monument feel ominous, but it was the only thing in the panorama that Faris recognized, the Hull. It had been there before the city itself, sheltering in its cradle as many people as all other districts put together. A home before homes. The sounds of the city, now unbroken by the wall of buildings that welcomed him at the bus stop, washed over them in a soothing rhythm, music and shouting, intertwined in cascading intensity. A wave of emotion crushed him. He had been born here, like all of his colleagues, yet the only memory he could recall was standing beneath the Hull. As a child he looked up at the leaning wall, he remembered asking “Won’t it fall over one day?” but he couldn’t recall the answer, did he even get one? Was he asking himself? Was it a wish? His throat tightened, so much he didn’t see these past decades, so much he didn’t say, so much he didn’t feel. Faris felt his life being pulled apart, unwound and dissected, as the lights danced across his face he wanted to ask them for an answer.
“You’re alright?”
Faris was crying again, realizing it only too late. He went to wipe his cheeks once more.
“I am, I’ll be able to hold myself together once we start, don’t worry.”
“I wouldn’t have minded it,” the Knight sighed, looking back at the city, “This is why I can’t really blame you with my whole heart, although some will. All of you Doctors, never leaving your post. You could be doing anything instead, so much to do and so little left and… There has to be a reason, right?”
“Right,” Faris chuckled weakly.
“Both of our purposes, all the things we’ll say and won’t say, all the little scares and the big tears… Right now is when we see if it matters or not.”
He looked down at them, the Knight was staring straight to the east. Their eyes were hidden by the helm but their firm grip on the railing betrayed an intense focus.
“Do you see him?” the Knight whispered, quiet enough that Faris barely heard it.
He followed their gaze. All the way to the east, beyond the city itself, he could barely make out a glimmer of white light peeking out from the horizon. Drowned between the stars, the lights and the darkness, it shone brighter and brighter by the second. This was it after all, something he’d willingly decided to sleep through for the rest of his life and what became the Knight’s everyday duty. The Knightcall as his colleagues called it, it was all he was told before stepping out of the Repository. The Knight stood there, every morning, to announce to the people of the Last Kunlun that they could live one more day, that despite all odds the Sun rose again. When Faris looked back at them, the Knight’s eyes pierced straight through him, as if searching for something. A reaction, a shift in his tired traits maybe, anything that could have betrayed some truth he’d hidden from them. What they couldn’t have asked, they wanted to figure out from seeing him witness the sunrise. Had they discerned anything that could be interpreted? Their silence wasn’t accusatory, in their gaze he could see expectancy, a desperate hunger for an answer to a question they couldn’t ask. In that moment he pitied them, but that pity extended to himself. They were truly similar after all.
The Knight tapped his shoulder again, prompting him to turn around, “We better get back down, there’s still have some time before he makes his grand appearance but once we’re on air I’d rather have you answer some questions than sneezing for two hours.”
“How magnanimous,” Faris chuckled, his shoulders relaxing.
“Reassuring to see you Doctors are still willing to learn,” the Knight snickered in turn, opening the hatch for him in a grand gesture, “Then, shall we?”