Toward the Phos at Maskwacis - Part 4

Boyer travels outside the walls to deliver key materials to people in the Phos

She was almost there now. She noted how tense she felt in her shoulders as though she’d been commandeering the vehicle, keeping it on the road. She wasn’t.

It was a self-driving EV with a simple task. It was a straightforward route and carefully guarded. Most people inside and outside the walls agreed that it didn’t require the protection of the Gov and his surveillance drones. Or the heavily armed troop of robotic soldiers on the convoy. Or heavily armed human soldiers with body armour and AR-15s.

Not since Bayankhongor.

Security forces from the New Soviet Corridor sent drones and soldiers to take control of the Phos that appeared on the edge of the Gobi desert in the forgotten Mongolian district. The idea was to penetrate the phosphorescent fog, establish a perimeter.

Only the men and women of the security forces walked away.

Every weapon, every flying drone, every droid, including droid dogs simply powered down. Stopped working. Couldn’t be revived or rebooted, even when transported back to home base.

Until that first Humbling, the powers of the Corridors seemed absolute, and the terrifying combination of human security forces and intelligent robots on land and air were unstoppable.

But Bayankhongor showed the world manmade powers were no match.

Boyer traveled with the type of security detail that the billionaires brought with them when they traveled. But now they were protecting food. And battery packs. There were other essentials, but those were the commodities most needed and most desired.

Boyer was sure she could’ve walked the road, unarmed, with the supplies, and the Surge wouldn’t try to touch her. They knew its final destination. A few miles from Wetaskiwin, which was not far south of what used to be Edmonton, as the drone flies. Phos North, which dropped in Maskwacis. No Corridor on earth would allow a Surge to attempt an attack near a Phos.

It still didn’t seem possible that something so good could fall there. It made sense to no one, least of all her. Not after what she’d seen. But no one could explain the Phos. Or control it. Not even the Gov.

What was his connection there? She couldn’t make sense of it. The least likely place for the supernatural appearance. Nothing should surprise her but this did.

When she was summoned to the headquarters, the last thing she expected was to be sent home. And now she was helping to bring food outside the wall, into the Surge. Off the grid.

Boyer was pulled out of her thought by the familiar sound of a takeover notification. All the screens in the cab of the EV lit up with the familiar jingle of the game. The phone in her pocket buzzed and the screen lit up. A reveal.

She knew that every screen in the corridor was taken over at this very moment to broadcast the scene. She didn’t like to, but she watched as the father materialized on screen. First just his face.

The camera punched in. The crows feet around his eyes revealed a man familiar with sorrow and with laughter.

The camera was unforgiving, but not unkind. It hid nothing as he braced himself for the moment that the waiting audience wanted most, the punch out, before the side-by-side shot of the priest as his presence was revealed to the contestant about to learn their fate.

It was always a tense and potent moment. The priest would materialize and then step into the room to either give the contestant clemency or administer last rites. The viewing audience learned the fate along at the same time as the accused. Peak streaming.

He looked worn and dignified, even afraid. Kind. A mystery.

The show never shared his voice or gave his name, only showed him at the reveal in this close up shot. It was a smart choice, Boyer thought. Before the editors cut to the split screen, the audience couldn’t help but imagine they were on the other side of that gaze.

The camera held tight to his face then suddenly punched back so that he was visible from the waist up, the gold square glimmering from the wooden cross that seemed immovable against the chiseled abs. The ruby alive with light, like a rounded drop of blood, a ripening grape.

Last rites. Boyer felt the wave, the endorphin rush this moment always delivered, no matter how many times she watched. The communal moment every person in Corridor West shared as they realized another Contestant’s fate. Relief, surprise, dread, and what, desire? She felt a hot rush of shame.

He was the most popular priest, for obvious reasons. The fan fiction about him and what the women and men of Corridor West wanted to do with him popular on chat threads of the game show made her blush. He was onscreen for more reveals than any other priest.

The only way to find out what he said in that room was to sit in the judgment seat. And no one wanted that. No matter what the fan fiction fantasized.

Just as Boyer started to imagine what it would be like to touch his hand, the screen split and the lights on the right side of the screen flooded to reveal the condemned. A woman in white shorts and a white undershirt restrained in a chair.

Her red hair fell to her shoulders and after the shock of the light subsided, she screamed. The side-by-side image of his face and her terror was the reason for the takeover. It rightly put the fear of God and the state and the Gov in everyone’s mind.

Another beep and the takeover was almost done. A confession booth materialized behind her. The priest stepped behind the accused and stepped into his place in the booth. Boyer and anyone else in Corridor West could go back to their business and would wait until the confession was over, the private, unseen moments between the accused and the priest before the final vote when the audience would decide the way the condemned would die and another takeover would occur so that everyone would witness what happens to anyone who disrupts the order of the Corridor.

Boyer looked out the window.

The thin thread of the northern lights danced above her in the sky. They’d been more active since the Phos arrived. But she barely noticed them. All she could think about was the priest and the crucifix that rested against his torso.

She had held that very cross in her own hands.