Diaspora

As the auroral light behind the clouds faded, a blue white spike flashed across the sky. Yatima had barely registered this when a second discharge forked between the Earth and the clouds. The thunder was too loud to be heard; the gleisner's acoustic sensors shut down in self-defense.

The sky darkened suddenly, as if the hidden sun had been eclipsed; the plasma must have cooled enough to start forming nitric oxides. Yatima checked the tags from vis skin; the temperature had just dropped from 41 to 39, and it was still falling. Lightning struck again, close by, and in the flash ve saw a layer of dark, wind-streaked cloud moving overhead.

Ripples appeared in the grass, at first just flattening the blades, but then Yatima saw dust rising up between them. The air came in powerful gusts, and when the pressure rose so did the temperature. Yatima raised vis hand into the hot wind, and tried to feel it flowing past vis fingers, tried to grasp what it would mean to be touched by this strange storm.

Lightning hit a building on the far side of the playground; it exploded, showering glowing embers. Yatima hesitated, then moved quickly toward the burst shell. Patches of grass were burning nearby. Ve could see no one moving inside, but between the lightning flashes it was like a starless night, and as the embers and the grass fires sputtered out there was a moment when everything seemed blanketed, smothered by darkness. Yatima stretched the gleisner's vision into infrared; there were patches of body-temperature thermal radiation among the wreckage, but the shapes were ambiguous.

People were shouting frantically, somewhere, but it didn't seem to be coming from the building. The wind masked and distorted the sound, scrambling all cues for distance and direction, and with the streets deserted it was like being in a scape with a soundtrack of disembodied voices.

As Yatima approached the building, buffeted by the wind, ve saw that it was empty; the body-temperature regions were just charred wood. Then vis hearing cut out again and the interface lost balance. Ve hit the ground face down, an image lingering on vis retinas: vis shadow stretched out across the grass, black and sharp against a sea of blue light. When ve scrambled to vis feet and turned around, there were three more buildings charred and smoking, walls split open, ceilings collapsed. Ve ran back across the playground.

There were people stumbling out of the ruins, ragged and bleeding. Others were searching frantically through the debris. Yatima spotted a man half-buried in rubble, eyes open but expressionless, a black splintered length of wood lying across his body from thigh to shoulder. Ve reached down and grabbed one end of the beam, and managed to lift it and swing it away.

As ve squatted beside the man, someone started punching and slapping the back of vis head and shoulders. Ve turned to see what was happening, and the flesher began yelling incoherently and striking vis face. Still squatting, ve backed off from the injured man awkwardly, as someone else tried to pull vis assailant away. Yatima stood and retreated. The flesher screamed after ver, "Vulture! Leave us in peace!"

Confused and disheartened, Yatima fled.

As the storm intensified, the bridgers' hasty modifications were falling apart; crumpled tarpaulins were blowing down the street, and the ceilings of some of the walkways had come loose and crashed to the ground. Yatima looked up at the dark sky and switched to UV. Ve could just make out the disk of the sun, penetrating the stratospheric NOx easily at these wavelengths, but still veiled by the heavy clouds.

Inoshiro had been right, there was nothing ve could do; the bridgers would bury their dead, treat the injured, repair their damaged city. Even in a world where the darkness at noon could blind them, they'd find their own ways to survive. Ve had nothing to offer them.

The link to Konishi was still down, but ve wasn't prepared to wait any longer. Yatima stood motionless in the street, listening to the cries of pain and mourning, preparing verself for extinction. To forget this would be nothing but a sweet relief; vis Konishi self would be free to remember the bridgers in happier times.

Then the sky roared, and the lightning descended like rain.