High above Central City,
Above the neon,
The smoke,
The endless din.
Dennis Hotham sits upon the edge
Of a rooftop.
Seven storeys between him
And the concrete below.
Behind him,
An old air conditioner
Grinds and rattles,
Its rusted housing
Shivering beneath the rain.
Around him,
The rooftop shanty town sleeps.
Makeshift shelters
Built from corrugated metal,
Plastic sheeting,
Broken signs,
Old machine parts,
Anything that can keep
The rain from getting in.
A city above the city.
Far above the streets.
Far above the noise.
Dennis has come here
For the silence.
Fifteen years.
Fifteen years
Since his family disappeared.
Fifteen years of searching.
Fifteen years of sleeping badly,
Waking frightened,
And wondering
If today might finally be
The day he stopped looking.
He stopped searching
Two months after they vanished.
Not because he wanted to.
Because there was
Nothing left to search.
No bodies.
No witnesses.
No answers.
Only an empty house
And a lifetime of questions.
Eventually,
He wandered.
Homeless and destitute.
Drifting from place to place
Until Central City
Swallowed him whole.
Now,
He belongs to nobody.
And nobody is looking for him.
Dennis reaches behind his ear.
The jack device bites into the skin.
A brief sting.
Then warmth.
Cyberwolf.
Cheap and readily available.
A little piece
Of manufactured oblivion.
The relief comes quickly.
His shoulders loosen.
The noise inside his head
Begins to fade.
The city becomes distant.
The rain becomes soft.
He slumps back
Against the air conditioner,
Closing his eyes.
For the first time
In what feels like years,
He is not fighting.
The Cyberwolf moves
Through his veins
Like an ice-cold mountain spring.
He breathes.
Slowly.
Deeply.
And then,
He looks upward.
Through a forest
Of broken television antennas,
Power cables,
Rusting aerials,
And crooked metal poles,
He sees them.
Stars.
Real stars.
Still there.
Still shining,
Despite everything.
For a moment,
Dennis remembers
That the world was once beautiful.
For a moment,
He remembers his daughter.
Then,
Clang.
His eyes open.
Something metallic
Has moved behind him.
He listens.
Another sound.
A faint electrical hum.
Then static.
Dennis sits upright.
His heart begins to beat faster.
There is something
In the noise.
Something familiar.
A voice.
Faint and digitised.
Crackling through
An old speaker somewhere
Behind him.
He freezes.
The voice comes again.
“Daddy…”
Dennis stops breathing.
No.
It cannot be.
Static.
A burst of interference.
Then,
“Daddy, where are you?”
He stands slowly.
The Cyberwolf haze falls away.
His eyes search the rooftop.
“Who is that?”
Silence.
Then the voice again.
Closer.
“Daddy?”
His hands begin to shake.
He moves toward it.
Past the air conditioner.
Past the broken antenna.
Around the corner.
And stops.
Something enormous
Hovers above the roof.
Metal.
Smoke.
Fire burning deep within its sides.
A machine.
Its engines hum
With a low mechanical growl.
Dennis stares.
His mind refuses
To understand.
Then he sees what is mounted
To its front.
A body.
Small.
Human.
Familiar.
His daughter.
His knees nearly buckle.
She has been reconfigured.
Her body incorporated
Into the machine.
Her face remains,
But it is frozen
In an expression
Of perpetual terror.
Where her mouth once was,
There is a speaker.
It crackles.
Static.
Then her voice.
Her voice.
The voice he has spent
Fifteen years remembering.
“There you are, Father.”
Dennis backs away.
“No.”
The Sentinel tilts its enormous head.
“We’ve been searching for you.”
Red eyes ignite.
A mechanical whine
Builds somewhere inside it.
Blades begin to turn
Along its sides.
Slowly.
Almost lazily.
Dennis cannot move.
His daughter is still looking at him.
Or what remains of her is.
“I’m sorry.”
The words barely leave him.
The Sentinel advances.
Dennis recoils.
One step.
Another.
His heel strikes a water pipe.
He loses his balance.
His hands reach for something
That isn’t there.
Then,
The Sentinel flickers.
Its body fractures
Into digital haze.
For one impossible moment,
Dennis sees nothing but static.
Then the machine is gone.
He blinks.
The rooftop is empty.
Only rain.
Only antennas.
Only darkness.
Dennis reaches for the edge.
Too late.
His fingers close around wet concrete.
His body slips.
For one final moment,
He looks upward.
At the stars.
Then he falls.
Seven storeys.
Through rain.
Through neon.
Through darkness.
His body crashes
Through an old illuminated sign,
Exploding glass and light
Into the night.
Then concrete.
Silence.
Rain continues falling.
It washes the blood
From his shattered skull,
Carrying it slowly
Into the gutter.
By morning,
The roof is empty.
The body is removed.
And the report is filed.
Cause of death: Misadventure.
Another traumatised victim
Of Cyberwolf hallucinations.
Another casualty
Of Central City’s streets.
The file is closed.
No Sentinel existed.
None had been seen
In Central City for years.
There is no evidence.
No witness.
No machine.
No daughter.
Nothing.
Except,
In the recovered audio
From a damaged rooftop speaker,
One final fragment
Was recorded.
A girl’s voice.
Faint.
Distorted.
Almost lost beneath the static.
“Daddy…”
And then silence.
