The Fall of Man

Part II chapter 16

Chapter 16

Noah stands outside, his feet planted firmly on the ground. A swift breeze moves air briskly across his skin, and beads of sweat gather between the hairs on his face. The small public square is open to the sky. It lies at the intersection of two narrow streets, and is paved with slabs made of red clay. All around him, the busy buildings bristle with life as they climb ten or twenty storeys upwards. Their planted rooftops are capped with a rich assortment of chimneys, aerials, aerofoils, extracts and solar arrays. At ground level, the shop-fronts are lost behind an encampment of tents, barrows and awnings. Today, the market is in town.

The midday sun has climbed over the buildings huddled to the south and glares fiercely back into his upturned eyes. Noah takes a long drink from a public water fountain and dabs some of the dust from his face, before wandering slowly from one stall to the next. Most of the wares on sale are edible; this is where the majority of crops grown in the dense geometric mosaic of land around the city’s perimeter end up. All of the space between the crates and counters is awash with people. They jostle to get the attention of the vendors. Many of them are dressed in the same rough, rudimentary clothing, dyed in a handful of pastel shades; similar garments hang on wooden rails over a few of the stalls. With the evening’s meal in mind, Noah scans the shifting sea of colour for the earthy brown of potatoes. Without warning, his earpiece emits a tingling buzz.

“Hello? Doctor Marsh?”

“Hi, Noah. How are you doing?”

“Good, thankyou. I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“No. I’ve missed you. We’re kept pretty busy in Trauma Fourteen... How are you? I was told that we’ve not had a physio report from you for a while.”

“Sorry.        I’ve missed a few sessions. But I’ve been exercising – a lot. I’ve been walking much more… exploring, you know. The city is really amazing. There’s so much to see.”

“Well just remember what I said about being careful. It can be a dangerous place, if you don’t know your way around.”

“I know – I’m starting to, though. Today I walked the north Wall again. All the way along, this time. Did you know, there are these enormous canons, perched up on the Wall… They’re totally massive - as big as buildings. I walked right under them. Have you seen them?”

“You mean the SunScreen?”

“That’s right. That’s what the guard called it. It’s pretty amazing. There are these four big guns mounted on some kind of revolving platform and each one has a giant counter on the front, and they take turns to fire. Every fifteen minutes, I think. The noise was totally deafening.”

“I’m surprised your earpiece still works! How long were you there for?”

“It was pretty loud. The guard said that they fire some kind of dust way up into the atmosphere – something that bounces sunlight back away from the planet. He said that they lower the temperature outside by at least three degrees.”

“Yes, but there are…      consequences.”

“Like what?”

“Well… Fifteen, maybe twenty years ago now, global warming was getting completely out of control. The Government made a decision that it was time to explore geo-engineering options – using physical measures to control the climate. It was a big day… Science will save us, that sort of thing. The SunScreen was installed at the East gate just six months later... The guns blast reflective particles into the outer atmosphere which dissipate into a thin layer directly over the city, reducing the amount of sunlight that penetrates through to us, down on the surface. That’s what gives the sky that hazy appearance.”

“Wow. Kind of like giving the greenhouse really dirty windows?”

“Yes. Very good, Noah. It started to work immediately. But then birth rates started falling; just a little at first, but then quite dramatically. Within a few years, newborn babies had become a rarity. I don’t suppose you’ve seen any children in all your exploring?”

“No – I guess not.     Weird. It’s connected to the guns?”

“Natural pregnancies are very low right now, almost non-existent. A lot of studies have been carried out to analyse the problem – nothing conclusive, of course.”

“That’s crazy. And creepy. Aren’t people worried?”

“Some people say that no-one should have children right now, that it’s not the right time to raise a family. Some people say that humans have had their day, and that a kind of Darwinian safety valve is slowly killing us off. And some people blame the Government and the SunScreen... a chemical side effect of some kind.”

“Can’t anything be done about it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if there is another way. But I do know that without it we would all have cooked a long time ago…”